diff options
| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:29:50 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:29:50 -0700 |
| commit | 5932d3a5a748cabce0afafa68625a8d9853ee2a7 (patch) | |
| tree | 08ad67c8ab1e099bc0c1bd4e6058b7c4c6321ba2 | |
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 7516-0.txt | 6146 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 7516-0.zip | bin | 0 -> 124826 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 7516-8.txt | 6145 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 7516-8.zip | bin | 0 -> 124239 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 7516-h.zip | bin | 0 -> 162277 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 7516-h/7516-h.htm | 6173 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 7516-h/images/cover.jpg | bin | 0 -> 35549 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 7516.txt | 6145 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 7516.zip | bin | 0 -> 124189 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | images/cover.jpg | bin | 0 -> 35549 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/7crci10.txt | 6102 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/7crci10.zip | bin | 0 -> 123472 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/8crci10.txt | 6102 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/8crci10.zip | bin | 0 -> 123505 bytes |
17 files changed, 36829 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/7516-0.txt b/7516-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8f2d687 --- /dev/null +++ b/7516-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6146 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Crucial Instances, by Edith Wharton + +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/license + + +Title: Crucial Instances + +Author: Edith Wharton + +Posting Date: October 20, 2017 [EBook #7516] +Release Date: February, 2005 +First Posted: May 13, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CRUCIAL INSTANCES *** + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Tiffany Vergon, William +Flis, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + CRUCIAL INSTANCES + + BY + + EDITH WHARTON + + + + +TABLE OF CONTENTS + + +I _The Duchess at Prayer_ + +II _The Angel at the Grave_ + +III _The Recovery_ + +IV _“Copy”: A Dialogue_ + +V _The Rembrandt_ + +VI _The Moving Finger_ + +VII _The Confessional_ + + + + +THE DUCHESS AT PRAYER + + +Have you ever questioned the long shuttered front of an old Italian house, +that motionless mask, smooth, mute, equivocal as the face of a priest +behind which buzz the secrets of the confessional? Other houses declare the +activities they shelter; they are the clear expressive cuticle of a life +flowing close to the surface; but the old palace in its narrow street, the +villa on its cypress-hooded hill, are as impenetrable as death. The tall +windows are like blind eyes, the great door is a shut mouth. Inside there +may be sunshine, the scent of myrtles, and a pulse of life through all the +arteries of the huge frame; or a mortal solitude, where bats lodge in the +disjointed stones and the keys rust in unused doors.... + + +II + +From the loggia, with its vanishing frescoes, I looked down an avenue +barred by a ladder of cypress-shadows to the ducal escutcheon and mutilated +vases of the gate. Flat noon lay on the gardens, on fountains, porticoes +and grottoes. Below the terrace, where a chrome-colored lichen had sheeted +the balustrade as with fine _laminae_ of gold, vineyards stooped to +the rich valley clasped in hills. The lower slopes were strewn with white +villages like stars spangling a summer dusk; and beyond these, fold on +fold of blue mountain, clear as gauze against the sky. The August air was +lifeless, but it seemed light and vivifying after the atmosphere of the +shrouded rooms through which I had been led. Their chill was on me and I +hugged the sunshine. + +“The Duchess’s apartments are beyond,” said the old man. + +He was the oldest man I had ever seen; so sucked back into the past that he +seemed more like a memory than a living being. The one trait linking him +with the actual was the fixity with which his small saurian eye held the +pocket that, as I entered, had yielded a _lira_ to the gate-keeper’s +child. He went on, without removing his eye: + +“For two hundred years nothing has been changed in the apartments of the +Duchess.” + +“And no one lives here now?” + +“No one, sir. The Duke, goes to Como for the summer season.” + +I had moved to the other end of the loggia. Below me, through hanging +groves, white roofs and domes flashed like a smile. + +“And that’s Vicenza?” + +“_Proprio_!” The old man extended fingers as lean as the hands fading +from the walls behind us. “You see the palace roof over there, just to the +left of the Basilica? The one with the row of statues like birds taking +flight? That’s the Duke’s town palace, built by Palladio.” + +“And does the Duke come there?” + +“Never. In winter he goes to Rome.” + +“And the palace and the villa are always closed?” + +“As you see--always.” + +“How long has this been?” + +“Since I can remember.” + +I looked into his eyes: they were like tarnished metal mirrors reflecting +nothing. “That must be a long time,” I said involuntarily. + +“A long time,” he assented. + +I looked down on the gardens. An opulence of dahlias overran the +box-borders, between cypresses that cut the sunshine like basalt shafts. +Bees hung above the lavender; lizards sunned themselves on the benches and +slipped through the cracks of the dry basins. Everywhere were vanishing +traces of that fantastic horticulture of which our dull age has lost the +art. Down the alleys maimed statues stretched their arms like rows of +whining beggars; faun-eared terms grinned in the thickets, and above the +laurustinus walls rose the mock ruin of a temple, falling into real ruin +in the bright disintegrating air. The glare was blinding. + +“Let us go in,” I said. + +The old man pushed open a heavy door, behind which the cold lurked like a +knife. + +“The Duchess’s apartments,” he said. + +Overhead and around us the same evanescent frescoes, under foot the same +scagliola volutes, unrolled themselves interminably. Ebony cabinets, with +inlay of precious marbles in cunning perspective, alternated down the +room with the tarnished efflorescence of gilt consoles supporting Chinese +monsters; and from the chimney-panel a gentleman in the Spanish habit +haughtily ignored us. + +“Duke Ercole II.,” the old man explained, “by the Genoese Priest.” + +It was a narrow-browed face, sallow as a wax effigy, high-nosed and +cautious-lidded, as though modelled by priestly hands; the lips weak and +vain rather than cruel; a quibbling mouth that would have snapped at verbal +errors like a lizard catching flies, but had never learned the shape of a +round yes or no. One of the Duke’s hands rested on the head of a dwarf, a +simian creature with pearl ear-rings and fantastic dress; the other turned +the pages of a folio propped on a skull. + +“Beyond is the Duchess’s bedroom,” the old man reminded me. + +Here the shutters admitted but two narrow shafts of light, gold bars +deepening the subaqueous gloom. On a dais the bedstead, grim, nuptial, +official, lifted its baldachin; a yellow Christ agonized between the +curtains, and across the room a lady smiled at us from the chimney-breast. + +The old man unbarred a shutter and the light touched her face. Such a face +it was, with a flicker of laughter over it like the wind on a June meadow, +and a singular tender pliancy of mien, as though one of Tiepolo’s lenient +goddesses had been busked into the stiff sheath of a seventeenth century +dress! + +“No one has slept here,” said the old man, “since the Duchess Violante.” + +“And she was--?” + +“The lady there--first Duchess of Duke Ercole II.” + +He drew a key from his pocket and unlocked a door at the farther end of the +room. “The chapel,” he said. “This is the Duchess’s balcony.” As I turned +to follow him the Duchess tossed me a sidelong smile. + +I stepped into a grated tribune above a chapel festooned with stucco. +Pictures of bituminous saints mouldered between the pilasters; the +artificial roses in the altar-vases were gray with dust and age, and under +the cobwebby rosettes of the vaulting a bird’s nest clung. Before the altar +stood a row of tattered arm-chairs, and I drew back at sight of a figure +kneeling near them. + +“The Duchess,” the old man whispered. “By the Cavaliere Bernini.” + +It was the image of a woman in furred robes and spreading fraise, her hand +lifted, her face addressed to the tabernacle. There was a strangeness in +the sight of that immovable presence locked in prayer before an abandoned +shrine. Her face was hidden, and I wondered whether it were grief or +gratitude that raised her hands and drew her eyes to the altar, where no +living prayer joined her marble invocation. I followed my guide down the +tribune steps, impatient to see what mystic version of such terrestrial +graces the ingenious artist had found--the Cavaliere was master of such +arts. The Duchess’s attitude was one of transport, as though heavenly airs +fluttered her laces and the love-locks escaping from her coif. I saw how +admirably the sculptor had caught the poise of her head, the tender slope +of the shoulder; then I crossed over and looked into her face--it was a +frozen horror. Never have hate, revolt and agony so possessed a human +countenance.... + +The old man crossed himself and shuffled his feet on the marble. + +“The Duchess Violante,” he repeated. + +“The same as in the picture?” + +“Eh--the same.” + +“But the face--what does it mean?” + +He shrugged his shoulders and turned deaf eyes on me. Then he shot a glance +round the sepulchral place, clutched my sleeve and said, close to my ear: +“It was not always so.” + +“What was not?” + +“The face--so terrible.” + +“The Duchess’s face?” + +“The statue’s. It changed after--“ + +“After?” + +“It was put here.” + +“The statue’s face _changed_--?” + +He mistook my bewilderment for incredulity and his confidential finger +dropped from my sleeve. “Eh, that’s the story. I tell what I’ve heard. What +do I know?” He resumed his senile shuffle across the marble. “This is a bad +place to stay in--no one comes here. It’s too cold. But the gentleman said, +_I must see everything_!” + +I let the _lire_ sound. “So I must--and hear everything. This story, +now--from whom did you have it?” + +His hand stole back. “One that saw it, by God!” + +“That saw it?” + +“My grandmother, then. I’m a very old man.” + +“Your grandmother? Your grandmother was--?” + +“The Duchess’s serving girl, with respect to you.” + +“Your grandmother? Two hundred years ago?” + +“Is it too long ago? That’s as God pleases. I am a very old man and she +was a very old woman when I was born. When she died she was as black as a +miraculous Virgin and her breath whistled like the wind in a keyhole. She +told me the story when I was a little boy. She told it to me out there in +the garden, on a bench by the fish-pond, one summer night of the year she +died. It must be true, for I can show you the very bench we sat on....” + + +III + +Noon lay heavier on the gardens; not our live humming warmth but the stale +exhalation of dead summers. The very statues seemed to drowse like watchers +by a death-bed. Lizards shot out of the cracked soil like flames and the +bench in the laurustinus-niche was strewn with the blue varnished bodies of +dead flies. Before us lay the fish-pond, a yellow marble slab above rotting +secrets. The villa looked across it, composed as a dead face, with the +cypresses flanking it for candles.... + + +IV + +“Impossible, you say, that my mother’s mother should have been the +Duchess’s maid? What do I know? It is so long since anything has happened +here that the old things seem nearer, perhaps, than to those who live in +cities.... But how else did she know about the statue then? Answer me that, +sir! That she saw with her eyes, I can swear to, and never smiled again, +so she told me, till they put her first child in her arms ... for she was +taken to wife by the steward’s son, Antonio, the same who had carried +the letters.... But where am I? Ah, well ... she was a mere slip, you +understand, my grandmother, when the Duchess died, a niece of the upper +maid, Nencia, and suffered about the Duchess because of her pranks and the +funny songs she knew. It’s possible, you think, she may have heard from +others what she afterward fancied she had seen herself? How that is, it’s +not for an unlettered man to say; though indeed I myself seem to have seen +many of the things she told me. This is a strange place. No one comes here, +nothing changes, and the old memories stand up as distinct as the statues +in the garden.... + +“It began the summer after they came back from the Brenta. Duke Ercole had +married the lady from Venice, you must know; it was a gay city, then, I’m +told, with laughter and music on the water, and the days slipped by like +boats running with the tide. Well, to humor her he took her back the first +autumn to the Brenta. Her father, it appears, had a grand palace there, +with such gardens, bowling-alleys, grottoes and casinos as never were; +gondolas bobbing at the water-gates, a stable full of gilt coaches, a +theatre full of players, and kitchens and offices full of cooks and +lackeys to serve up chocolate all day long to the fine ladies in masks +and furbelows, with their pet dogs and their blackamoors and their +_abates_. Eh! I know it all as if I’d been there, for Nencia, you see, +my grandmother’s aunt, travelled with the Duchess, and came back with her +eyes round as platters, and not a word to say for the rest of the year to +any of the lads who’d courted her here in Vicenza. + +“What happened there I don’t know--my grandmother could never get at +the rights of it, for Nencia was mute as a fish where her lady was +concerned--but when they came back to Vicenza the Duke ordered the villa +set in order; and in the spring he brought the Duchess here and left her. +She looked happy enough, my grandmother said, and seemed no object for +pity. Perhaps, after all, it was better than being shut up in Vicenza, +in the tall painted rooms where priests came and went as softly as cats +prowling for birds, and the Duke was forever closeted in his library, +talking with learned men. The Duke was a scholar; you noticed he was +painted with a book? Well, those that can read ’em make out that they’re +full of wonderful things; as a man that’s been to a fair across the +mountains will always tell his people at home it was beyond anything +_they’ll_ ever see. As for the Duchess, she was all for music, +play-acting and young company. The Duke was a silent man, stepping quietly, +with his eyes down, as though he’d just come from confession; when the +Duchess’s lap-dog yapped at his heels he danced like a man in a swarm of +hornets; when the Duchess laughed he winced as if you’d drawn a diamond +across a window-pane. And the Duchess was always laughing. + +“When she first came to the villa she was very busy laying out the gardens, +designing grottoes, planting groves and planning all manner of agreeable +surprises in the way of water-jets that drenched you unexpectedly, and +hermits in caves, and wild men that jumped at you out of thickets. She had +a very pretty taste in such matters, but after a while she tired of it, and +there being no one for her to talk to but her maids and the chaplain--a +clumsy man deep in his books--why, she would have strolling players out +from Vicenza, mountebanks and fortune-tellers from the market-place, +travelling doctors and astrologers, and all manner of trained animals. +Still it could be seen that the poor lady pined for company, and her +waiting women, who loved her, were glad when the Cavaliere Ascanio, the +Duke’s cousin, came to live at the vineyard across the valley--you see +the pinkish house over there in the mulberries, with a red roof and a +pigeon-cote? + +“The Cavaliere Ascanio was a cadet of one of the great Venetian houses, +_pezzi grossi_ of the Golden Book. He had been meant for the Church, +I believe, but what! he set fighting above praying and cast in his lot with +the captain of the Duke of Mantua’s _bravi_, himself a Venetian of +good standing, but a little at odds with the law. Well, the next I know, +the Cavaliere was in Venice again, perhaps not in good odor on account of +his connection with the gentleman I speak of. Some say he tried to carry +off a nun from the convent of Santa Croce; how that may be I can’t say; but +my grandmother declared he had enemies there, and the end of it was that on +some pretext or other the Ten banished him to Vicenza. There, of course, +the Duke, being his kinsman, had to show him a civil face; and that was how +he first came to the villa. + +“He was a fine young man, beautiful as a Saint Sebastian, a rare musician, +who sang his own songs to the lute in a way that used to make my +grandmother’s heart melt and run through her body like mulled wine. He +had a good word for everybody, too, and was always dressed in the French +fashion, and smelt as sweet as a bean-field; and every soul about the place +welcomed the sight of him. + +“Well, the Duchess, it seemed, welcomed it too; youth will have youth, +and laughter turns to laughter; and the two matched each other like the +candlesticks on an altar. The Duchess--you’ve seen her portrait--but to +hear my grandmother, sir, it no more approached her than a weed comes up to +a rose. The Cavaliere, indeed, as became a poet, paragoned her in his song +to all the pagan goddesses of antiquity; and doubtless these were finer +to look at than mere women; but so, it seemed, was she; for, to believe +my grandmother, she made other women look no more than the big French +fashion-doll that used to be shown on Ascension days in the Piazza. She +was one, at any rate, that needed no outlandish finery to beautify her; +whatever dress she wore became her as feathers fit the bird; and her hair +didn’t get its color by bleaching on the housetop. It glittered of itself +like the threads in an Easter chasuble, and her skin was whiter than fine +wheaten bread and her mouth as sweet as a ripe fig.... + +“Well, sir, you could no more keep them apart than the bees and the +lavender. They were always together, singing, bowling, playing cup and +ball, walking in the gardens, visiting the aviaries and petting her grace’s +trick-dogs and monkeys. The Duchess was as gay as a foal, always playing +pranks and laughing, tricking out her animals like comedians, disguising +herself as a peasant or a nun (you should have seen her one day pass +herself off to the chaplain as a mendicant sister), or teaching the lads +and girls of the vineyards to dance and sing madrigals together. The +Cavaliere had a singular ingenuity in planning such entertainments and the +days were hardly long enough for their diversions. But toward the end of +the summer the Duchess fell quiet and would hear only sad music, and the +two sat much together in the gazebo at the end of the garden. It was there +the Duke found them one day when he drove out from Vicenza in his gilt +coach. He came but once or twice a year to the villa, and it was, as my +grandmother said, just a part of her poor lady’s ill-luck to be wearing +that day the Venetian habit, which uncovered the shoulders in a way the +Duke always scowled at, and her curls loose and powdered with gold. Well, +the three drank chocolate in the gazebo, and what happened no one knew, +except that the Duke, on taking leave, gave his cousin a seat in his +carriage; but the Cavaliere never returned. + +“Winter approaching, and the poor lady thus finding herself once more +alone, it was surmised among her women that she must fall into a deeper +depression of spirits. But far from this being the case, she displayed such +cheerfulness and equanimity of humor that my grandmother, for one, was +half-vexed with her for giving no more thought to the poor young man who, +all this time, was eating his heart out in the house across the valley. It +is true she quitted her gold-laced gowns and wore a veil over her head; but +Nencia would have it she looked the lovelier for the change and so gave the +Duke greater displeasure. Certain it is that the Duke drove out oftener to +the villa, and though he found his lady always engaged in some innocent +pursuit, such as embroidery or music, or playing games with her young +women, yet he always went away with a sour look and a whispered word to +the chaplain. Now as to the chaplain, my grandmother owned there had been +a time when her grace had not handled him over-wisely. For, according to +Nencia, it seems that his reverence, who seldom approached the Duchess, +being buried in his library like a mouse in a cheese--well, one day he made +bold to appeal to her for a sum of money, a large sum, Nencia said, to buy +certain tall books, a chest full of them, that a foreign pedlar had brought +him; whereupon the Duchess, who could never abide a book, breaks out at +him with a laugh and a flash of her old spirit--‘Holy Mother of God, must +I have more books about me? I was nearly smothered with them in the first +year of my marriage;’ and the chaplain turning red at the affront, she +added: ‘You may buy them and welcome, my good chaplain, if you can find +the money; but as for me, I am yet seeking a way to pay for my turquoise +necklace, and the statue of Daphne at the end of the bowling-green, and +the Indian parrot that my black boy brought me last Michaelmas from the +Bohemians--so you see I’ve no money to waste on trifles;’ and as he backs +out awkwardly she tosses at him over her shoulder: ‘You should pray to +Saint Blandina to open the Duke’s pocket!’ to which he returned, very +quietly, ‘Your excellency’s suggestion is an admirable one, and I have +already entreated that blessed martyr to open the Duke’s understanding.’ + +“Thereat, Nencia said (who was standing by), the Duchess flushed +wonderfully red and waved him out of the room; and then ‘Quick!’ she cried +to my grandmother (who was too glad to run on such errands), ‘Call me +Antonio, the gardener’s boy, to the box-garden; I’ve a word to say to him +about the new clove-carnations....’ + +“Now I may not have told you, sir, that in the crypt under the chapel there +has stood, for more generations than a man can count, a stone coffin +containing a thighbone of the blessed Saint Blandina of Lyons, a relic +offered, I’ve been told, by some great Duke of France to one of our own +dukes when they fought the Turk together; and the object, ever since, of +particular veneration in this illustrious family. Now, since the Duchess +had been left to herself, it was observed she affected a fervent devotion +to this relic, praying often in the chapel and even causing the stone slab +that covered the entrance to the crypt to be replaced by a wooden one, +that she might at will descend and kneel by the coffin. This was matter of +edification to all the household and should have been peculiarly pleasing +to the chaplain; but, with respect to you, he was the kind of man who +brings a sour mouth to the eating of the sweetest apple. + +“However that may be, the Duchess, when she dismissed him, was seen running +to the garden, where she talked earnestly with the boy Antonio about the +new clove-carnations; and the rest of the day she sat indoors and played +sweetly on the virginal. Now Nencia always had it in mind that her grace +had made a mistake in refusing that request of the chaplain’s; but she said +nothing, for to talk reason to the Duchess was of no more use than praying +for rain in a drought. + +“Winter came early that year, there was snow on the hills by All Souls, +the wind stripped the gardens, and the lemon-trees were nipped in the +lemon-house. The Duchess kept her room in this black season, sitting over +the fire, embroidering, reading books of devotion (which was a thing she +had never done) and praying frequently in the chapel. As for the chaplain, +it was a place he never set foot in but to say mass in the morning, +with the Duchess overhead in the tribune, and the servants aching with +rheumatism on the marble floor. The chaplain himself hated the cold, and +galloped through the mass like a man with witches after him. The rest of +the day he spent in his library, over a brazier, with his eternal books.... + +“You’ll wonder, sir, if I’m ever to get to the gist of the story; and I’ve +gone slowly, I own, for fear of what’s coming. Well, the winter was long +and hard. When it fell cold the Duke ceased to come out from Vicenza, +and not a soul had the Duchess to speak to but her maid-servants and the +gardeners about the place. Yet it was wonderful, my grandmother said, how +she kept her brave colors and her spirits; only it was remarked that she +prayed longer in the chapel, where a brazier was kept burning for her all +day. When the young are denied their natural pleasures they turn often +enough to religion; and it was a mercy, as my grandmother said, that she, +who had scarce a live sinner to speak to, should take such comfort in a +dead saint. + +“My grandmother seldom saw her that winter, for though she showed a brave +front to all she kept more and more to herself, choosing to have only +Nencia about her and dismissing even her when she went to pray. For +her devotion had that mark of true piety, that she wished it not to be +observed; so that Nencia had strict orders, on the chaplain’s approach, to +warn her mistress if she happened to be in prayer. + +“Well, the winter passed, and spring was well forward, when my grandmother +one evening had a bad fright. That it was her own fault I won’t deny, for +she’d been down the lime-walk with Antonio when her aunt fancied her to be +stitching in her chamber; and seeing a sudden light in Nencia’s window, she +took fright lest her disobedience be found out, and ran up quickly through +the laurel-grove to the house. Her way lay by the chapel, and as she crept +past it, meaning to slip in through the scullery, and groping her way, for +the dark had fallen and the moon was scarce up, she heard a crash close +behind her, as though someone had dropped from a window of the chapel. The +young fool’s heart turned over, but she looked round as she ran, and there, +sure enough, was a man scuttling across the terrace; and as he doubled +the corner of the house my grandmother swore she caught the whisk of the +chaplain’s skirts. Now that was a strange thing, certainly; for why should +the chaplain be getting out of the chapel window when he might have passed +through the door? For you may have noticed, sir, there’s a door leads from +the chapel into the saloon on the ground floor; the only other way out +being through the Duchess’s tribune. + +“Well, my grandmother turned the matter over, and next time she met Antonio +in the lime-walk (which, by reason of her fright, was not for some days) +she laid before him what had happened; but to her surprise he only laughed +and said, ‘You little simpleton, he wasn’t getting out of the window, he +was trying to look in’; and not another word could she get from him. + +“So the season moved on to Easter, and news came the Duke had gone to Rome +for that holy festivity. His comings and goings made no change at the +villa, and yet there was no one there but felt easier to think his yellow +face was on the far side of the Apennines, unless perhaps it was the +chaplain. + +“Well, it was one day in May that the Duchess, who had walked long with +Nencia on the terrace, rejoicing at the sweetness of the prospect and the +pleasant scent of the gilly-flowers in the stone vases, the Duchess toward +midday withdrew to her rooms, giving orders that her dinner should be +served in her bed-chamber. My grandmother helped to carry in the dishes, +and observed, she said, the singular beauty of the Duchess, who in honor +of the fine weather had put on a gown of shot-silver and hung her bare +shoulders with pearls, so that she looked fit to dance at court with an +emperor. She had ordered, too, a rare repast for a lady that heeded so +little what she ate--jellies, game-pasties, fruits in syrup, spiced cakes +and a flagon of Greek wine; and she nodded and clapped her hands as the +women set it before her, saying again and again, ‘I shall eat well to-day.’ + +“But presently another mood seized her; she turned from the table, called +for her rosary, and said to Nencia: ‘The fine weather has made me neglect +my devotions. I must say a litany before I dine.’ + +“She ordered the women out and barred the door, as her custom was; and +Nencia and my grandmother went down-stairs to work in the linen-room. + +“Now the linen-room gives on the court-yard, and suddenly my grandmother +saw a strange sight approaching. First up the avenue came the Duke’s +carriage (whom all thought to be in Rome), and after it, drawn by a long +string of mules and oxen, a cart carrying what looked like a kneeling +figure wrapped in death-clothes. The strangeness of it struck the girl dumb +and the Duke’s coach was at the door before she had the wit to cry out that +it was coming. Nencia, when she saw it, went white and ran out of the room. +My grandmother followed, scared by her face, and the two fled along the +corridor to the chapel. On the way they met the chaplain, deep in a book, +who asked in surprise where they were running, and when they said, to +announce the Duke’s arrival, he fell into such astonishment and asked them +so many questions and uttered such ohs and ahs, that by the time he let +them by the Duke was at their heels. Nencia reached the chapel-door first +and cried out that the Duke was coming; and before she had a reply he was +at her side, with the chaplain following. + +“A moment later the door opened and there stood the Duchess. She held her +rosary in one hand and had drawn a scarf over her shoulders; but they shone +through it like the moon in a mist, and her countenance sparkled with +beauty. + +“The Duke took her hand with a bow. ‘Madam,’ he said, ‘I could have had no +greater happiness than thus to surprise you at your devotions.’ + +“‘My own happiness,’ she replied, ‘would have been greater had your +excellency prolonged it by giving me notice of your arrival.’ + +“‘Had you expected me, Madam,’ said he, ‘your appearance could scarcely +have been more fitted to the occasion. Few ladies of your youth and beauty +array themselves to venerate a saint as they would to welcome a lover.’ + +“‘Sir,’ she answered, ‘having never enjoyed the latter opportunity, I am +constrained to make the most of the former.--What’s that?’ she cried, +falling back, and the rosary dropped from her hand. + +“There was a loud noise at the other end of the saloon, as of a heavy +object being dragged down the passage; and presently a dozen men were seen +haling across the threshold the shrouded thing from the oxcart. The Duke +waved his hand toward it. ‘That,’ said he, ‘Madam, is a tribute to your +extraordinary piety. I have heard with peculiar satisfaction of your +devotion to the blessed relics in this chapel, and to commemorate a zeal +which neither the rigors of winter nor the sultriness of summer could abate +I have ordered a sculptured image of you, marvellously executed by the +Cavaliere Bernini, to be placed before the altar over the entrance to the +crypt.’ + +“The Duchess, who had grown pale, nevertheless smiled playfully at this. +‘As to commemorating my piety,” she said, ‘I recognize there one of your +excellency’s pleasantries--’ + +“‘A pleasantry?’ the Duke interrupted; and he made a sign to the men, who +had now reached the threshold of the chapel. In an instant the wrappings +fell from the figure, and there knelt the Duchess to the life. A cry of +wonder rose from all, but the Duchess herself stood whiter than the marble. + +“‘You will see,’ says the Duke, ‘this is no pleasantry, but a triumph +of the incomparable Bernini’s chisel. The likeness was done from your +miniature portrait by the divine Elisabetta Sirani, which I sent to the +master some six months ago, with what results all must admire.’ + +“‘Six months!’ cried the Duchess, and seemed about to fall; but his +excellency caught her by the hand. + +“‘Nothing,’ he said, ‘could better please me than the excessive emotion you +display, for true piety is ever modest, and your thanks could not take a +form that better became you. And now,’ says he to the men, ‘let the image +be put in place.’ + +“By this, life seemed to have returned to the Duchess, and she answered him +with a deep reverence. ‘That I should be overcome by so unexpected a grace, +your excellency admits to be natural; but what honors you accord it is my +privilege to accept, and I entreat only that in mercy to my modesty the +image be placed in the remotest part of the chapel.’ + +“At that the Duke darkened. ‘What! You would have this masterpiece of a +renowned chisel, which, I disguise not, cost me the price of a good +vineyard in gold pieces, you would have it thrust out of sight like the +work of a village stonecutter?’ + +“‘It is my semblance, not the sculptor’s work, I desire to conceal.’ + +“‘It you are fit for my house, Madam, you are fit for God’s, and entitled +to the place of honor in both. Bring the statue forward, you dawdlers!’ he +called out to the men. + +“The Duchess fell back submissively. ‘You are right, sir, as always; but I +would at least have the image stand on the left of the altar, that, looking +up, it may behold your excellency’s seat in the tribune.’ + +“‘A pretty thought, Madam, for which I thank you; but I design before long +to put my companion image on the other side of the altar; and the wife’s +place, as you know, is at her husband’s right hand.’ + +“‘True, my lord--but, again, if my poor presentment is to have the +unmerited honor of kneeling beside yours, why not place both before the +altar, where it is our habit to pray in life?’ + +“‘And where, Madam, should we kneel if they took our places? Besides,’ says +the Duke, still speaking very blandly, ‘I have a more particular purpose +in placing your image over the entrance to the crypt; for not only would I +thereby mark your special devotion to the blessed saint who rests there, +but, by sealing up the opening in the pavement, would assure the perpetual +preservation of that holy martyr’s bones, which hitherto have been too +thoughtlessly exposed to sacrilegious attempts.’ + +“‘What attempts, my lord?’ cries the Duchess. ‘No one enters this chapel +without my leave.’ + +“‘So I have understood, and can well believe from what I have learned of +your piety; yet at night a malefactor might break in through a window, +Madam, and your excellency not know it.’ + +“‘I’m a light sleeper,’ said the Duchess. + +“The Duke looked at her gravely. ‘Indeed?’ said he. ‘A bad sign at your +age. I must see that you are provided with a sleeping-draught.’ + +“The Duchess’s eyes filled. ‘You would deprive me, then, of the consolation +of visiting those venerable relics?’ + +“‘I would have you keep eternal guard over them, knowing no one to whose +care they may more fittingly be entrusted.’ + +“By this the image was brought close to the wooden slab that covered the +entrance to the crypt, when the Duchess, springing forward, placed herself +in the way. + +“‘Sir, let the statue be put in place to-morrow, and suffer me, to-night, +to say a last prayer beside those holy bones.’ + +“The Duke stepped instantly to her side. ‘Well thought, Madam; I will go +down with you now, and we will pray together.’ + +“‘Sir, your long absences have, alas! given me the habit of solitary +devotion, and I confess that any presence is distracting.’ + +“‘Madam, I accept your rebuke. Hitherto, it is true, the duties of my +station have constrained me to long absences; but henceforward I remain +with you while you live. Shall we go down into the crypt together?” + +“‘No; for I fear for your excellency’s ague. The air there is excessively +damp.’ + +“‘The more reason you should no longer be exposed to it; and to prevent the +intemperance of your zeal I will at once make the place inaccessible.’ + +“The Duchess at this fell on her knees on the slab, weeping excessively and +lifting her hands to heaven. + +“‘Oh,’ she cried, ‘you are cruel, sir, to deprive me of access to the +sacred relics that have enabled me to support with resignation the solitude +to which your excellency’s duties have condemned me; and if prayer and +meditation give me any authority to pronounce on such matters, suffer me to +warn you, sir, that I fear the blessed Saint Blandina will punish us for +thus abandoning her venerable remains!’ + +“The Duke at this seemed to pause, for he was a pious man, and my +grandmother thought she saw him exchange a glance with the chaplain; who, +stepping timidly forward, with his eyes on the ground, said, ‘There is +indeed much wisdom in her excellency’s words, but I would suggest, sir, +that her pious wish might be met, and the saint more conspicuously honored, +by transferring the relics from the crypt to a place beneath the altar.’ + +“‘True!’ cried the Duke, ‘and it shall be done at once.’ + +“But thereat the Duchess rose to her feet with a terrible look. + +“‘No,’ she cried, ‘by the body of God! For it shall not be said that, after +your excellency has chosen to deny every request I addressed to him, I owe +his consent to the solicitation of another!’ + +“The chaplain turned red and the Duke yellow, and for a moment neither +spoke. + +“Then the Duke said, ‘Here are words enough, Madam. Do you wish the relics +brought up from the crypt?’ + +“‘I wish nothing that I owe to another’s intervention!’ + +“‘Put the image in place then,’ says the Duke furiously; and handed her +grace to a chair. + +“She sat there, my grandmother said, straight as an arrow, her hands +locked, her head high, her eyes on the Duke, while the statue was dragged +to its place; then she stood up and turned away. As she passed by Nencia, +‘Call me Antonio,’ she whispered; but before the words were out of her +mouth the Duke stepped between them. + +“‘Madam,’ says he, all smiles now, ‘I have travelled straight from Rome to +bring you the sooner this proof of my esteem. I lay last night at Monselice +and have been on the road since daybreak. Will you not invite me to +supper?’ + +“‘Surely, my lord,’ said the Duchess. ‘It shall be laid in the +dining-parlor within the hour.’ + +“‘Why not in your chamber and at once, Madam? Since I believe it is your +custom to sup there.’ + +“‘In my chamber?’ says the Duchess, in disorder. + +“‘Have you anything against it?’ he asked. + +“‘Assuredly not, sir, if you will give me time to prepare myself.’ + +“‘I will wait in your cabinet,’ said the Duke. + +“At that, said my grandmother, the Duchess gave one look, as the souls in +hell may have looked when the gates closed on our Lord; then she called +Nencia and passed to her chamber. + +“What happened there my grandmother could never learn, but that the +Duchess, in great haste, dressed herself with extraordinary splendor, +powdering her hair with gold, painting her face and bosom, and covering +herself with jewels till she shone like our Lady of Loreto; and hardly +were these preparations complete when the Duke entered from the cabinet, +followed by the servants carrying supper. Thereupon the Duchess dismissed +Nencia, and what follows my grandmother learned from a pantry-lad who +brought up the dishes and waited in the cabinet; for only the Duke’s +body-servant entered the bed-chamber. + +“Well, according to this boy, sir, who was looking and listening with his +whole body, as it were, because he had never before been suffered so near +the Duchess, it appears that the noble couple sat down in great good humor, +the Duchess playfully reproving her husband for his long absence, while the +Duke swore that to look so beautiful was the best way of punishing him. +In this tone the talk continued, with such gay sallies on the part of the +Duchess, such tender advances on the Duke’s, that the lad declared they +were for all the world like a pair of lovers courting on a summer’s night +in the vineyard; and so it went till the servant brought in the mulled +wine. + +“‘Ah,’ the Duke was saying at that moment, ‘this agreeable evening repays +me for the many dull ones I have spent away from you; nor do I remember +to have enjoyed such laughter since the afternoon last year when we drank +chocolate in the gazebo with my cousin Ascanio. And that reminds me,’ he +said, ‘is my cousin in good health?’ + +“‘I have no reports of it,’ says the Duchess. ‘But your excellency should +taste these figs stewed in malmsey--’ + +“‘I am in the mood to taste whatever you offer,’ said he; and as she helped +him to the figs he added, ‘If my enjoyment were not complete as it is, +I could almost wish my cousin Ascanio were with us. The fellow is rare +good company at supper. What do you say, Madam? I hear he’s still in the +country; shall we send for him to join us?’ + +“‘Ah,’ said the Duchess, with a sigh and a languishing look, ‘I see your +excellency wearies of me already.’ + +“‘I, Madam? Ascanio is a capital good fellow, but to my mind his chief +merit at this moment is his absence. It inclines me so tenderly to him +that, by God, I could empty a glass to his good health.’ + +“With that the Duke caught up his goblet and signed to the servant to fill +the Duchess’s. + +“‘Here’s to the cousin,’ he cried, standing, ‘who has the good taste to +stay away when he’s not wanted. I drink to his very long life--and you, +Madam?’ + +“At this the Duchess, who had sat staring at him with a changed face, rose +also and lifted her glass to her lips. + +“‘And I to his happy death,’ says she in a wild voice; and as she spoke the +empty goblet dropped from her hand and she fell face down on the floor. + +“The Duke shouted to her women that she had swooned, and they came and +lifted her to the bed.... She suffered horribly all night, Nencia said, +twisting herself like a heretic at the stake, but without a word escaping +her. The Duke watched by her, and toward daylight sent for the chaplain; +but by this she was unconscious and, her teeth being locked, our Lord’s +body could not be passed through them. + + * * * * * + +“The Duke announced to his relations that his lady had died after partaking +too freely of spiced wine and an omelet of carp’s roe, at a supper she had +prepared in honor of his return; and the next year he brought home a new +Duchess, who gave him a son and five daughters....” + + +V + +The sky had turned to a steel gray, against which the villa stood out +sallow and inscrutable. A wind strayed through the gardens, loosening here +and there a yellow leaf from the sycamores; and the hills across the valley +were purple as thunder-clouds. + + * * * * * + +“And the statue--?” I asked. + +“Ah, the statue. Well, sir, this is what my grandmother told me, here on +this very bench where we’re sitting. The poor child, who worshipped the +Duchess as a girl of her years will worship a beautiful kind mistress, +spent a night of horror, you may fancy, shut out from her lady’s room, +hearing the cries that came from it, and seeing, as she crouched in her +corner, the women rush to and fro with wild looks, the Duke’s lean face in +the door, and the chaplain skulking in the antechamber with his eyes on +his breviary. No one minded her that night or the next morning; and toward +dusk, when it became known the Duchess was no more, the poor girl felt the +pious wish to say a prayer for her dead mistress. She crept to the chapel +and stole in unobserved. The place was empty and dim, but as she advanced +she heard a low moaning, and coming in front of the statue she saw that +its face, the day before so sweet and smiling, had the look on it that you +know--and the moaning seemed to come from its lips. My grandmother turned +cold, but something, she said afterward, kept her from calling or shrieking +out, and she turned and ran from the place. In the passage she fell in a +swoon; and when she came to her senses, in her own chamber, she heard that +the Duke had locked the chapel door and forbidden any to set foot there.... +The place was never opened again till the Duke died, some ten years later; +and then it was that the other servants, going in with the new heir, +saw for the first time the horror that my grandmother had kept in her +bosom....” + +“And the crypt?” I asked. “Has it never been opened?” + +“Heaven forbid, sir!” cried the old man, crossing himself. “Was it not the +Duchess’s express wish that the relics should not be disturbed?” + + + + +THE ANGEL AT THE GRAVE + + +The House stood a few yards back from the elm-shaded village street, +in that semi-publicity sometimes cited as a democratic protest against +old-world standards of domestic exclusiveness. This candid exposure to +the public eye is more probably a result of the gregariousness which, in +the New England bosom, oddly coexists with a shrinking from direct social +contact; most of the inmates of such houses preferring that furtive +intercourse which is the result of observations through shuttered windows +and a categorical acquaintance with the neighboring clothes-lines. The +House, however, faced its public with a difference. For sixty years it had +written itself with a capital letter, had self-consciously squared itself +in the eye of an admiring nation. The most searching inroads of village +intimacy hardly counted in a household that opened on the universe; and a +lady whose door-bell was at any moment liable to be rung by visitors from +London or Vienna was not likely to flutter up-stairs when she observed a +neighbor “stepping over.” + +The solitary inmate of the Anson House owed this induration of the social +texture to the most conspicuous accident in her annals: the fact that she +was the only granddaughter of the great Orestes Anson. She had been born, +as it were, into a museum, and cradled in a glass case with a label; +the first foundations of her consciousness being built on the rock of +her grandfather’s celebrity. To a little girl who acquires her earliest +knowledge of literature through a _Reader_ embellished with fragments +of her ancestor’s prose, that personage necessarily fills an heroic space +in the foreground of life. To communicate with one’s past through the +impressive medium of print, to have, as it were, a footing in every library +in the country, and an acknowledged kinship with that world-diffused clan, +the descendants of the great, was to be pledged to a standard of manners +that amazingly simplified the lesser relations of life. The village street +on which Paulina Anson’s youth looked out led to all the capitals of +Europe; and over the roads of intercommunication unseen caravans bore back +to the elm-shaded House the tribute of an admiring world. + +Fate seemed to have taken a direct share in fitting Paulina for her part as +the custodian of this historic dwelling. It had long been secretly regarded +as a “visitation” by the great man’s family that he had left no son and +that his daughters were not “intellectual.” The ladies themselves were the +first to lament their deficiency, to own that nature had denied them the +gift of making the most of their opportunities. A profound veneration for +their parent and an unswerving faith in his doctrines had not amended their +congenital incapacity to understand what he had written. Laura, who had her +moments of mute rebellion against destiny, had sometimes thought how much +easier it would have been if their progenitor had been a poet; for she +could recite, with feeling, portions of _The Culprit Fay_ and of the +poems of Mrs. Hemans; and Phoebe, who was more conspicuous for memory than +imagination, kept an album filled with “selections.” But the great man +was a philosopher; and to both daughters respiration was difficult on the +cloudy heights of metaphysic. The situation would have been intolerable +but for the fact that, while Phoebe and Laura were still at school, +their father’s fame had passed from the open ground of conjecture to the +chill privacy of certitude. Dr. Anson had in fact achieved one of those +anticipated immortalities not uncommon at a time when people were apt to +base their literary judgments on their emotions, and when to affect plain +food and despise England went a long way toward establishing a man’s +intellectual pre-eminence. Thus, when the daughters were called on to +strike a filial attitude about their parent’s pedestal, there was little +to do but to pose gracefully and point upward; and there are spines to +which the immobility of worship is not a strain. A legend had by this time +crystallized about the great Orestes, and it was of more immediate interest +to the public to hear what brand of tea he drank, and whether he took off +his boots in the hall, than to rouse the drowsy echo of his dialectic. A +great man never draws so near his public as when it has become unnecessary +to read his books and is still interesting to know what he eats for +breakfast. + +As recorders of their parent’s domestic habits, as pious scavengers of his +waste-paper basket, the Misses Anson were unexcelled. They always had an +interesting anecdote to impart to the literary pilgrim, and the tact with +which, in later years, they intervened between the public and the growing +inaccessibility of its idol, sent away many an enthusiast satisfied to have +touched the veil before the sanctuary. Still it was felt, especially by old +Mrs. Anson, who survived her husband for some years, that Phoebe and Laura +were not worthy of their privileges. There had been a third daughter so +unworthy of hers that she had married a distant cousin, who had taken her +to live in a new Western community where the _Works of Orestes Anson_ +had not yet become a part of the civic consciousness; but of this daughter +little was said, and she was tacitly understood to be excluded from the +family heritage of fame. In time, however, it appeared that the traditional +penny with which she had been cut off had been invested to unexpected +advantage; and the interest on it, when she died, returned to the Anson +House in the shape of a granddaughter who was at once felt to be what Mrs. +Anson called a “compensation.” It was Mrs. Anson’s firm belief that the +remotest operations of nature were governed by the centripetal force of her +husband’s greatness and that Paulina’s exceptional intelligence could be +explained only on the ground that she was designed to act as the guardian +of the family temple. + +The House, by the time Paulina came to live in it, had already acquired +the publicity of a place of worship; not the perfumed chapel of a romantic +idolatry but the cold clean empty meeting-house of ethical enthusiasms. The +ladies lived on its outskirts, as it were, in cells that left the central +fane undisturbed. The very position of the furniture had come to have a +ritual significance: the sparse ornaments were the offerings of kindred +intellects, the steel engravings by Raphael Morghen marked the Via Sacra +of a European tour, and the black-walnut desk with its bronze inkstand +modelled on the Pantheon was the altar of this bleak temple of thought. + +To a child compact of enthusiasms, and accustomed to pasture them on the +scanty herbage of a new social soil, the atmosphere of the old house was +full of floating nourishment. In the compressed perspective of Paulina’s +outlook it stood for a monument of ruined civilizations, and its white +portico opened on legendary distances. Its very aspect was impressive +to eyes that had first surveyed life from the jig-saw “residence” of a +raw-edged Western town. The high-ceilinged rooms, with their panelled +walls, their polished mahogany, their portraits of triple-stocked ancestors +and of ringleted “females” in crayon, furnished the child with the historic +scenery against which a young imagination constructs its vision of the +past. To other eyes the cold spotless thinly-furnished interior might have +suggested the shuttered mind of a maiden-lady who associates fresh air and +sunlight with dust and discoloration; but it is the eye which supplies the +coloring-matter, and Paulina’s brimmed with the richest hues. + +Nevertheless, the House did not immediately dominate her. She had her +confused out-reachings toward other centres of sensation, her vague +intuition of a heliocentric system; but the attraction of habit, the steady +pressure of example, gradually fixed her roving allegiance and she bent her +neck to the yoke. Vanity had a share in her subjugation; for it had early +been discovered that she was the only person in the family who could read +her grandfather’s works. The fact that she had perused them with delight at +an age when (even presupposing a metaphysical bias) it was impossible for +her to understand them, seemed to her aunts and grandmother sure evidence +of predestination. Paulina was to be the interpreter of the oracle, and the +philosophic fumes so vertiginous to meaner minds would throw her into the +needed condition of clairvoyance. Nothing could have been more genuine than +the emotion on which this theory was based. Paulina, in fact, delighted in +her grandfather’s writings. His sonorous periods, his mystic vocabulary, +his bold flights into the rarefied air of the abstract, were thrilling to +a fancy unhampered by the need of definitions. This purely verbal pleasure +was supplemented later by the excitement of gathering up crumbs of meaning +from the rhetorical board. What could have been more stimulating than +to construct the theory of a girlish world out of the fragments of this +Titanic cosmogony? Before Paulina’s opinions had reached the stage when +ossification sets in their form was fatally predetermined. + +The fact that Dr. Anson had died and that his apotheosis had taken +place before his young priestess’s induction to the temple, made her +ministrations easier and more inspiring. There were no little personal +traits--such as the great man’s manner of helping himself to salt, or the +guttural cluck that started the wheels of speech--to distract the eye +of young veneration from the central fact of his divinity. A man whom +one knows only through a crayon portrait and a dozen yellowing, tomes on +free-will and intuition is at least secure from the belittling effects of +intimacy. + +Paulina thus grew up in a world readjusted to the fact of her grandfather’s +greatness; and as each organism draws from its surroundings the kind of +nourishment most needful to its growth, so from this somewhat colorless +conception she absorbed warmth, brightness and variety. Paulina was the +type of woman who transmutes thought into sensation and nurses a theory in +her bosom like a child. + +In due course Mrs. Anson “passed away”--no one died in the Anson +vocabulary--and Paulina became more than ever the foremost figure of the +commemorative group. Laura and Phoebe, content to leave their father’s +glory in more competent hands, placidly lapsed into needlework and fiction, +and their niece stepped into immediate prominence as the chief “authority” +on the great man. Historians who were “getting up” the period wrote to +consult her and to borrow documents; ladies with inexplicable yearnings +begged for an interpretation of phrases which had “influenced” them, but +which they had not quite understood; critics applied to her to verify some +doubtful citation or to decide some disputed point in chronology; and the +great tide of thought and investigation kept up a continuous murmur on the +quiet shores of her life. + +An explorer of another kind disembarked there one day in the shape +of a young man to whom Paulina was primarily a kissable girl, with an +after-thought in the shape of a grandfather. From the outset it had been +impossible to fix Hewlett Winsloe’s attention on Dr. Anson. The young man +behaved with the innocent profanity of infants sporting on a tomb. His +excuse was that he came from New York, a Cimmerian outskirt which survived +in Paulina’s geography only because Dr. Anson had gone there once or twice +to lecture. The curious thing was that she should have thought it worth +while to find excuses for young Winsloe. The fact that she did so had not +escaped the attention of the village; but people, after a gasp of awe, said +it was the most natural thing in the world that a girl like Paulina Anson +should think of marrying. It would certainly seem a little odd to see a +man in the House, but young Winsloe would of course understand that the +Doctor’s books were not to be disturbed, and that he must go down to the +orchard to smoke--. The village had barely framed this _modus vivendi_ +when it was convulsed by the announcement that young Winsloe declined to +live in the House on any terms. Hang going down to the orchard to smoke! +He meant to take his wife to New York. The village drew its breath and +watched. + +Did Persephone, snatched from the warm fields of Enna, peer +half-consentingly down the abyss that opened at her feet? Paulina, it must +be owned, hung a moment over the black gulf of temptation. She would have +found it easy to cope with a deliberate disregard of her grandfather’s +rights; but young Winsloe’s unconsciousness of that shadowy claim was as +much a natural function as the falling of leaves on a grave. His love was +an embodiment of the perpetual renewal which to some tender spirits seems a +crueller process than decay. + +On women of Paulina’s mould this piety toward implicit demands, toward +the ghosts of dead duties walking unappeased among usurping passions, +has a stronger hold than any tangible bond. People said that she gave up +young Winsloe because her aunts disapproved of her leaving them; but such +disapproval as reached her was an emanation from the walls of the House, +from the bare desk, the faded portraits, the dozen yellowing tomes that no +hand but hers ever lifted from the shelf. + + +II + +After that the House possessed her. As if conscious of its victory, it +imposed a conqueror’s claims. It had once been suggested that she should +write a life of her grandfather, and the task from which she had shrunk as +from a too-oppressive privilege now shaped itself into a justification of +her course. In a burst of filial pantheism she tried to lose herself in the +vast ancestral consciousness. Her one refuge from scepticism was a blind +faith in the magnitude and the endurance of the idea to which she had +sacrificed her life, and with a passionate instinct of self-preservation +she labored to fortify her position. + +The preparations for the _Life_ led her through by-ways that the most +scrupulous of the previous biographers had left unexplored. She accumulated +her material with a blind animal patience unconscious of fortuitous risks. +The years stretched before her like some vast blank page spread out to +receive the record of her toil; and she had a mystic conviction that she +would not die till her work was accomplished. + +The aunts, sustained by no such high purpose, withdrew in turn to their +respective divisions of the Anson “plot,” and Paulina remained alone with +her task. She was forty when the book was completed. She had travelled +little in her life, and it had become more and more difficult to her to +leave the House even for a day; but the dread of entrusting her document to +a strange hand made her decide to carry it herself to the publisher. On the +way to Boston she had a sudden vision of the loneliness to which this last +parting condemned her. All her youth, all her dreams, all her renunciations +lay in that neat bundle on her knee. It was not so much her grandfather’s +life as her own that she had written; and the knowledge that it would come +back to her in all the glorification of print was of no more help than, to +a mother’s grief, the assurance that the lad she must part with will return +with epaulets. + +She had naturally addressed herself to the firm which had published her +grandfather’s works. Its founder, a personal friend of the philosopher’s, +had survived the Olympian group of which he had been a subordinate member, +long enough to bestow his octogenarian approval on Paulina’s pious +undertaking. But he had died soon afterward; and Miss Anson found herself +confronted by his grandson, a person with a brisk commercial view of his +trade, who was said to have put “new blood” into the firm. + +This gentleman listened attentively, fingering her manuscript as though +literature were a tactile substance; then, with a confidential twist of his +revolving chair, he emitted the verdict: “We ought to have had this ten +years sooner.” + +Miss Anson took the words as an allusion to the repressed avidity of her +readers. “It has been a long time for the public to wait,” she solemnly +assented. + +The publisher smiled. “They haven’t waited,” he said. + +She looked at him strangely. “Haven’t waited?” + +“No--they’ve gone off; taken another train. Literature’s like a big +railway-station now, you know: there’s a train starting every minute. +People are not going to hang round the waiting-room. If they can’t get +to a place when they want to they go somewhere else.” + +The application of this parable cost Miss Anson several minutes of +throbbing silence. At length she said: “Then I am to understand that the +public is no longer interested in--in my grandfather?” She felt as though +heaven must blast the lips that risked such a conjecture. + +“Well, it’s this way. He’s a name still, of course. People don’t exactly +want to be caught not knowing who he is; but they don’t want to spend +two dollars finding out, when they can look him up for nothing in any +biographical dictionary.” + +Miss Anson’s world reeled. She felt herself adrift among mysterious forces, +and no more thought of prolonging the discussion than of opposing an +earthquake with argument. She went home carrying the manuscript like a +wounded thing. On the return journey she found herself travelling straight +toward a fact that had lurked for months in the background of her life, +and that now seemed to await her on the very threshold: the fact that +fewer visitors came to the House. She owned to herself that for the last +four or five years the number had steadily diminished. Engrossed in her +work, she had noted the change only to feel thankful that she had fewer +interruptions. There had been a time when, at the travelling season, the +bell rang continuously, and the ladies of the House lived in a chronic +state of “best silks” and expectancy. It would have been impossible then to +carry on any consecutive work; and she now saw that the silence which had +gathered round her task had been the hush of death. + +Not of _his_ death! The very walls cried out against the implication. +It was the world’s enthusiasm, the world’s faith, the world’s loyalty that +had died. A corrupt generation that had turned aside to worship the brazen +serpent. Her heart yearned with a prophetic passion over the lost sheep +straying in the wilderness. But all great glories had their interlunar +period; and in due time her grandfather would once more flash full-orbed +upon a darkling world. + +The few friends to whom she confided her adventure reminded her with +tender indignation that there were other publishers less subject to the +fluctuations of the market; but much as she had braved for her grandfather +she could not again brave that particular probation. She found herself, +in fact, incapable of any immediate effort. She had lost her way in a +labyrinth of conjecture where her worst dread was that she might put her +hand upon the clue. + +She locked up the manuscript and sat down to wait. If a pilgrim had come +just then the priestess would have fallen on his neck; but she continued +to celebrate her rites alone. It was a double solitude; for she had always +thought a great deal more of the people who came to see the House than of +the people who came to see her. She fancied that the neighbors kept a keen +eye on the path to the House; and there were days when the figure of a +stranger strolling past the gate seemed to focus upon her the scorching +sympathies of the village. For a time she thought of travelling; of going +to Europe, or even to Boston; but to leave the House now would have +seemed like deserting her post. Gradually her scattered energies centred +themselves in the fierce resolve to understand what had happened. She was +not the woman to live long in an unmapped country or to accept as final +her private interpretation of phenomena. Like a traveller in unfamiliar +regions she began to store for future guidance the minutest natural signs. +Unflinchingly she noted the accumulating symptoms of indifference that +marked her grandfather’s descent toward posterity. She passed from the +heights on which he had been grouped with the sages of his day to the lower +level where he had come to be “the friend of Emerson,” “the correspondent +of Hawthorne,” or (later still) “the Dr. Anson” mentioned in their letters. +The change had taken place as slowly and imperceptibly as a natural +process. She could not say that any ruthless hand had stripped the leaves +from the tree: it was simply that, among the evergreen glories of his +group, her grandfather’s had proved deciduous. + +She had still to ask herself why. If the decay had been a natural process, +was it not the very pledge of renewal? It was easier to find such arguments +than to be convinced by them. Again and again she tried to drug her +solicitude with analogies; but at last she saw that such expedients were +but the expression of a growing incredulity. The best way of proving her +faith in her grandfather was not to be afraid of his critics. She had no +notion where these shadowy antagonists lurked; for she had never heard of +the great man’s doctrine being directly combated. Oblique assaults there +must have been, however, Parthian shots at the giant that none dared face; +and she thirsted to close with such assailants. The difficulty was to +find them. She began by re-reading the _Works_; thence she passed to +the writers of the same school, those whose rhetoric bloomed perennial +in _First Readers_ from which her grandfather’s prose had long +since faded. Amid that clamor of far-off enthusiasms she detected no +controversial note. The little knot of Olympians held their views in common +with an early-Christian promiscuity. They were continually proclaiming +their admiration for each other, the public joining as chorus in this +guileless antiphon of praise; and she discovered no traitor in their midst. + +What then had happened? Was it simply that the main current of thought +had set another way? Then why did the others survive? Why were they still +marked down as tributaries to the philosophic stream? This question carried +her still farther afield, and she pressed on with the passion of a champion +whose reluctance to know the worst might be construed into a doubt of his +cause. At length--slowly but inevitably--an explanation shaped itself. +Death had overtaken the doctrines about which her grandfather had draped +his cloudy rhetoric. They had disintegrated and been re-absorbed, adding +their little pile to the dust drifted about the mute lips of the Sphinx. +The great man’s contemporaries had survived not by reason of what they +taught, but of what they were; and he, who had been the mere mask through +which they mouthed their lesson, the instrument on which their tune was +played, lay buried deep among the obsolete tools of thought. + +The discovery came to Paulina suddenly. She looked up one evening from her +reading and it stood before her like a ghost. It had entered her life with +stealthy steps, creeping close before she was aware of it. She sat in the +library, among the carefully-tended books and portraits; and it seemed to +her that she had been walled alive into a tomb hung with the effigies of +dead ideas. She felt a desperate longing to escape into the outer air, +where people toiled and loved, and living sympathies went hand in hand. It +was the sense of wasted labor that oppressed her; of two lives consumed in +that ruthless process that uses generations of effort to build a single +cell. There was a dreary parallel between her grandfather’s fruitless +toil and her own unprofitable sacrifice. Each in turn had kept vigil by a +corpse. + + +III + +The bell rang--she remembered it afterward--with a loud thrilling note. It +was what they used to call the “visitor’s ring”; not the tentative tinkle +of a neighbor dropping in to borrow a sauce-pan or discuss parochial +incidents, but a decisive summons from the outer world. + +Miss Anson put down her knitting and listened. She sat up-stairs now, +making her rheumatism an excuse for avoiding the rooms below. Her interests +had insensibly adjusted themselves to the perspective of her neighbors’ +lives, and she wondered--as the bell re-echoed--if it could mean that Mrs. +Heminway’s baby had come. Conjecture had time to ripen into certainty, and +she was limping toward the closet where her cloak and bonnet hung, when her +little maid fluttered in with the announcement: “A gentleman to see the +house.” + +“The _House_?” + +“Yes, m’m. I don’t know what he means,” faltered the messenger, whose +memory did not embrace the period when such announcements were a daily part +of the domestic routine. + +Miss Anson glanced at the proffered card. The name it bore--_Mr. George +Corby_--was unknown to her, but the blood rose to her languid cheek. +“Hand me my Mechlin cap, Katy,” she said, trembling a little, as she laid +aside her walking stick. She put her cap on before the mirror, with rapid +unsteady touches. “Did you draw up the library blinds?” she breathlessly +asked. + +She had gradually built up a wall of commonplace between herself and her +illusions, but at the first summons of the past filial passion swept away +the frail barriers of expediency. + +She walked down-stairs so hurriedly that her stick clicked like a girlish +heel; but in the hall she paused, wondering nervously if Katy had put a +match to the fire. The autumn air was cold and she had the reproachful +vision of a visitor with elderly ailments shivering by her inhospitable +hearth. She thought instinctively of the stranger as a survivor of the days +when such a visit was a part of the young enthusiast’s itinerary. + +The fire was unlit and the room forbiddingly cold; but the figure which, as +Miss Anson entered, turned from a lingering scrutiny of the book-shelves, +was that of a fresh-eyed sanguine youth clearly independent of any +artificial caloric. She stood still a moment, feeling herself the victim of +some anterior impression that made this robust presence an insubstantial +thing; but the young man advanced with an air of genial assurance which +rendered him at once more real and more reminiscent. + +“Why this, you know,” he exclaimed, “is simply immense!” + +The words, which did not immediately present themselves as slang to Miss +Anson’s unaccustomed ear, echoed with an odd familiarity through the +academic silence. + +“The room, you know, I mean,” he explained with a comprehensive gesture. +“These jolly portraits, and the books--that’s the old gentleman himself +over the mantelpiece, I suppose?--and the elms outside, and--and the whole +business. I do like a congruous background--don’t you?” + +His hostess was silent. No one but Hewlett Winsloe had ever spoken of her +grandfather as “the old gentleman.” + +“It’s a hundred times better than I could have hoped,” her visitor +continued, with a cheerful disregard of her silence. “The seclusion, the +remoteness, the philosophic atmosphere--there’s so little of that kind +of flavor left! I should have simply hated to find that he lived over +a grocery, you know.--I had the deuce of a time finding out where he +_did_ live,” he began again, after another glance of parenthetical +enjoyment. “But finally I got on the trail through some old book on Brook +Farm. I was bound I’d get the environment right before I did my article.” + +Miss Anson, by this time, had recovered sufficient self-possession to seat +herself and assign a chair to her visitor. + +“Do I understand,” she asked slowly, following his rapid eye about the +room, “that you intend to write an article about my grandfather?” + +“That’s what I’m here for,” Mr. Corby genially responded; “that is, if +you’re willing to help me; for I can’t get on without your help,” he added +with a confident smile. + +There was another pause, during which Miss Anson noticed a fleck of dust on +the faded leather of the writing-table and a fresh spot of discoloration in +the right-hand upper corner of Raphael Morghen’s “Parnassus.” + +“Then you believe in him?” she said, looking up. She could not tell what +had prompted her; the words rushed out irresistibly. + +“Believe in him?” Corby cried, springing to his feet. “Believe in Orestes +Anson? Why, I believe he’s simply the greatest--the most stupendous--the +most phenomenal figure we’ve got!” + +The color rose to Miss Anson’s brow. Her heart was beating passionately. +She kept her eyes fixed on the young man’s face, as though it might vanish +if she looked away. + +“You--you mean to say this in your article?” she asked. + +“Say it? Why, the facts will say it,” he exulted. “The baldest kind of a +statement would make it clear. When a man is as big as that he doesn’t need +a pedestal!” + +Miss Anson sighed. “People used to say that when I was young,” she +murmured. “But now--“ + +Her visitor stared. “When you were young? But how did they know--when the +thing hung fire as it did? When the whole edition was thrown back on his +hands?” + +“The whole edition--what edition?” It was Miss Anson’s turn to stare. + +“Why, of his pamphlet--_the_ pamphlet--the one thing that counts, that +survives, that makes him what he is! For heaven’s sake,” he tragically +adjured her, “don’t tell me there isn’t a copy of it left!” + +Miss Anson was trembling slightly. “I don’t think I understand what you +mean,” she faltered, less bewildered by his vehemence than by the strange +sense of coming on an unexplored region in the very heart of her dominion. + +“Why, his account of the _amphioxus_, of course! You can’t mean that +his family didn’t know about it--that _you_ don’t know about it? I came +across it by the merest accident myself, in a letter of vindication that +he wrote in 1830 to an old scientific paper; but I understood there were +journals--early journals; there must be references to it somewhere in the +‘twenties. He must have been at least ten or twelve years ahead of Yarrell; +and he saw the whole significance of it, too--he saw where it led to. As +I understand it, he actually anticipated in his pamphlet Saint Hilaire’s +theory of the universal type, and supported the hypothesis by describing +the notochord of the _amphioxus_ as a cartilaginous vertebral column. +The specialists of the day jeered at him, of course, as the specialists in +Goethe’s time jeered at the plant-metamorphosis. As far as I can make out, +the anatomists and zoologists were down on Dr. Anson to a man; that was why +his cowardly publishers went back on their bargain. But the pamphlet must +be here somewhere--he writes as though, in his first disappointment, he had +destroyed the whole edition; but surely there must be at least one copy +left?” + +His scientific jargon was as bewildering as his slang; and there were even +moments in his discourse when Miss Anson ceased to distinguish between +them; but the suspense with which he continued to gaze on her acted as a +challenge to her scattered thoughts. + +“The _amphioxus_,” she murmured, half-rising. “It’s an animal, isn’t +it--a fish? Yes, I think I remember.” She sank back with the inward look of +one who retraces some lost line of association. + +Gradually the distance cleared, the details started into life. In her +researches for the biography she had patiently followed every ramification +of her subject, and one of these overgrown paths now led her back to +the episode in question. The great Orestes’s title of “Doctor” had in +fact not been merely the spontaneous tribute of a national admiration; +he had actually studied medicine in his youth, and his diaries, as his +granddaughter now recalled, showed that he had passed through a brief phase +of anatomical ardor before his attention was diverted to super-sensual +problems. It had indeed seemed to Paulina, as she scanned those early +pages, that they revealed a spontaneity, a freshness of feeling somehow +absent from his later lucubrations--as though this one emotion had reached +him directly, the others through some intervening medium. In the excess of +her commemorative zeal she had even struggled through the unintelligible +pamphlet to which a few lines in the journal had bitterly directed her. But +the subject and the phraseology were alien to her and unconnected with her +conception of the great man’s genius; and after a hurried perusal she had +averted her thoughts from the episode as from a revelation of failure. +At length she rose a little unsteadily, supporting herself against the +writing-table. She looked hesitatingly about the room; then she drew a key +from her old-fashioned reticule and unlocked a drawer beneath one of the +book-cases. Young Corby watched her breathlessly. With a tremulous hand she +turned over the dusty documents that seemed to fill the drawer. “Is this +it?” she said, holding out a thin discolored volume. + +He seized it with a gasp. “Oh, by George,” he said, dropping into the +nearest chair. + +She stood observing him strangely as his eye devoured the mouldy pages. + +“Is this the only copy left?” he asked at length, looking up for a moment +as a thirsty man lifts his head from his glass. + +“I think it must be. I found it long ago, among some old papers that my +aunts were burning up after my grandmother’s death. They said it was of no +use--that he’d always meant to destroy the whole edition and that I ought +to respect his wishes. But it was something he had written; to burn it was +like shutting the door against his voice--against something he had once +wished to say, and that nobody had listened to. I wanted him to feel that I +was always here, ready to listen, even when others hadn’t thought it worth +while; and so I kept the pamphlet, meaning to carry out his wish and +destroy it before my death.” + +Her visitor gave a groan of retrospective anguish. “And but for me--but for +to-day--you would have?” + +“I should have thought it my duty.” + +“Oh, by George--by George,” he repeated, subdued afresh by the inadequacy +of speech. + +She continued to watch him in silence. At length he jumped up and +impulsively caught her by both hands. + +“He’s bigger and bigger!” he almost shouted. “He simply leads the field! +You’ll help me go to the bottom of this, won’t you? We must turn out all +the papers--letters, journals, memoranda. He must have made notes. He +must have left some record of what led up to this. We must leave nothing +unexplored. By Jove,” he cried, looking up at her with his bright +convincing smile, “do you know you’re the granddaughter of a Great Man?” + +Her color flickered like a girl’s. “Are you--sure of him?” she whispered, +as though putting him on his guard against a possible betrayal of trust. + +“Sure! Sure! My dear lady--“ he measured her again with his quick confident +glance. “Don’t _you_ believe in him?” + +She drew back with a confused murmur. “I--used to.” She had left her +hands in his: their pressure seemed to send a warm current to her heart. +“It ruined my life!” she cried with sudden passion. He looked at her +perplexedly. + +“I gave up everything,” she went on wildly, “to keep him alive. I +sacrificed myself--others--I nursed his glory in my bosom and it died--and +left me--left me here alone.” She paused and gathered her courage with a +gasp. “Don’t make the same mistake!” she warned him. + +He shook his head, still smiling. “No danger of that! You’re not alone, my +dear lady. He’s here with you--he’s come back to you to-day. Don’t you see +what’s happened? Don’t you see that it’s your love that has kept him alive? +If you’d abandoned your post for an instant--let things pass into other +hands--if your wonderful tenderness hadn’t perpetually kept guard--this +might have been--must have been--irretrievably lost.” He laid his hand on +the pamphlet. “And then--then he _would_ have been dead!” + +“Oh,” she said, “don’t tell me too suddenly!” And she turned away and sank +into a chair. + +The young man stood watching her in an awed silence. For a long time she +sat motionless, with her face hidden, and he thought she must be weeping. + +At length he said, almost shyly: “You’ll let me come back, then? You’ll +help me work this thing out?” + +She rose calmly and held out her hand. “I’ll help you,” she declared. + +“I’ll come to-morrow, then. Can we get to work early?” + +“As early as you please.” + +“At eight o’clock, then,” he said briskly. “You’ll have the papers ready?” + +“I’ll have everything ready.” She added with a half-playful hesitancy: “And +the fire shall be lit for you.” + +He went out with his bright nod. She walked to the window and watched his +buoyant figure hastening down the elm-shaded street. When she turned back +into the empty room she looked as though youth had touched her on the lips. + + + + +THE RECOVERY + + +To the visiting stranger Hillbridge’s first question was, “Have you seen +Keniston’s things?” Keniston took precedence of the colonial State House, +the Gilbert Stuart Washington and the Ethnological Museum; nay, he ran neck +and neck with the President of the University, a prehistoric relic who had +known Emerson, and who was still sent about the country in cotton-wool to +open educational institutions with a toothless oration on Brook Farm. + +Keniston was sent about the country too: he opened art exhibitions, laid +the foundation of academies, and acted in a general sense as the spokesman +and apologist of art. Hillbridge was proud of him in his peripatetic +character, but his fellow-townsmen let it be understood that to “know” +Keniston one must come to Hillbridge. Never was work more dependent for its +effect on “atmosphere,” on _milieu_. Hillbridge was Keniston’s milieu, +and there was one lady, a devotee of his art, who went so far as to assert +that once, at an exhibition in New York, she had passed a Keniston without +recognizing it. “It simply didn’t want to be seen in such surroundings; it +was hiding itself under an incognito,” she declared. + +It was a source of special pride to Hillbridge that it contained all the +artist’s best works. Strangers were told that Hillbridge had discovered +him. The discovery had come about in the simplest manner. Professor +Driffert, who had a reputation for “collecting,” had one day hung a sketch +on his drawing-room wall, and thereafter Mrs. Driffert’s visitors (always +a little flurried by the sense that it was the kind of house in which one +might be suddenly called upon to distinguish between a dry-point and an +etching, or between Raphael Mengs and Raphael Sanzio) were not infrequently +subjected to the Professor’s off-hand inquiry, “By-the-way, have you seen +my Keniston?” The visitors, perceptibly awed, would retreat to a critical +distance and murmur the usual guarded generalities, while they tried to +keep the name in mind long enough to look it up in the Encyclopædia. The +name was not in the Encyclopædia; but, as a compensating fact, it became +known that the man himself was in Hillbridge. Hillbridge, then, owned an +artist whose celebrity it was the proper thing to take for granted! Some +one else, emboldened by the thought, bought a Keniston; and the next +year, on the occasion of the President’s golden jubilee, the Faculty, by +unanimous consent, presented him with a Keniston. Two years later there +was a Keniston exhibition, to which the art-critics came from New York +and Boston; and not long afterward a well-known Chicago collector vainly +attempted to buy Professor Driffert’s sketch, which the art journals cited +as a rare example of the painter’s first or silvery manner. Thus there +gradually grew up a small circle of connoisseurs known in artistic, circles +as men who collected Kenistons. + +Professor Wildmarsh, of the chair of Fine Arts and Archaeology, was the +first critic to publish a detailed analysis of the master’s methods and +purpose. The article was illustrated by engravings which (though they had +cost the magazine a fortune) were declared by Professor Wildmarsh to give +but an imperfect suggestion of the esoteric significance of the originals. +The Professor, with a tact that contrived to make each reader feel himself +included among the exceptions, went on to say that Keniston’s work would +never appeal to any but exceptional natures; and he closed with the usual +assertion that to apprehend the full meaning of the master’s “message” it +was necessary to see him in the surroundings of his own home at Hillbridge. + +Professor Wildmarsh’s article was read one spring afternoon by a young +lady just speeding eastward on her first visit to Hillbridge, and already +flushed with anticipation of the intellectual opportunities awaiting her. +In East Onondaigua, where she lived, Hillbridge was looked on as an Oxford. +Magazine writers, with the easy American use of the superlative, designated +it as “the venerable Alma Mater,” the “antique seat of learning,” and +Claudia Day had been brought up to regard it as the fountain-head of +knowledge, and of that mental distinction which is so much rarer than +knowledge. An innate passion for all that was thus distinguished and +exceptional made her revere Hillbridge as the native soil of those +intellectual amenities that were of such difficult growth in the +thin air of East Onondaigua. At the first suggestion of a visit to +Hillbridge--whither she went at the invitation of a girl friend +who (incredible apotheosis!) had married one of the University +professors--Claudia’s spirit dilated with the sense of new possibilities. +The vision of herself walking under the “historic elms” toward the Memorial +Library, standing rapt before the Stuart Washington, or drinking in, +from some obscure corner of an academic drawing-room, the President’s +reminiscences of the Concord group--this vividness of self-projection into +the emotions awaiting her made her glad of any delay that prolonged so +exquisite a moment. + +It was in this mood that she opened the article on Keniston. She knew about +him, of course; she was wonderfully “well up,” even for East Onondaigua. +She had read of him in the magazines; she had met, on a visit to New York, +a man who collected Kenistons, and a photogravure of a Keniston in an +“artistic” frame hung above her writing-table at home. But Professor +Wildmarsh’s article made her feel how little she really knew of the master; +and she trembled to think of the state of relative ignorance in which, but +for the timely purchase of the magazine, she might have entered Hillbridge. +She had, for instance, been densely unaware that Keniston had already had +three “manners,” and was showing symptoms of a fourth. She was equally +ignorant of the fact that he had founded a school and “created a formula”; +and she learned with a thrill that no one could hope to understand him who +had not seen him in his studio at Hillbridge, surrounded by his own works. +“The man and the art interpret each other,” their exponent declared; and +Claudia Day, bending a brilliant eye on the future, wondered if she were +ever to be admitted to the privilege of that double initiation. + +Keniston, to his other claims to distinction, added that of being hard to +know. His friends always hastened to announce the fact to strangers--adding +after a pause of suspense that they “would see what they could do.” +Visitors in whose favor he was induced to make an exception were further +warned that he never spoke unless he was interested--so that they mustn’t +mind if he remained silent. It was under these reassuring conditions that, +some ten days after her arrival at Hillbridge, Miss Day was introduced +to the master’s studio. She found him a tall listless-looking man, who +appeared middle-aged to her youth, and who stood before his own pictures +with a vaguely interrogative gaze, leaving the task of their interpretation +to the lady who had courageously contrived the visit. The studio, to +Claudia’s surprise, was bare and shabby. It formed a rambling addition to +the small cheerless house in which the artist lived with his mother and +a widowed sister. For Claudia it added the last touch to his distinction +to learn that he was poor, and that what he earned was devoted to the +maintenance of the two limp women who formed a neutral-tinted background to +his impressive outline. His pictures of course fetched high prices; but he +worked slowly--“painfully,” as his devotees preferred to phrase it--with +frequent intervals of ill health and inactivity, and the circle of Keniston +connoisseurs was still as small as it was distinguished. The girl’s fancy +instantly hailed in him that favorite figure of imaginative youth, the +artist who would rather starve than paint a pot-boiler. It is known to +comparatively few that the production of successful pot-boilers is an art +in itself, and that such heroic abstentions as Keniston’s are not always +purely voluntary. On the occasion of her first visit the artist said so +little that Claudia was able to indulge to the full the harrowing sense of +her inadequacy. No wonder she had not been one of the few that he cared +to talk to; every word she uttered must so obviously have diminished the +inducement! She had been cheap, trivial, conventional; at once gushing +and inexpressive, eager and constrained. She could feel him counting the +minutes till the visit was over, and as the door finally closed on the +scene of her discomfiture she almost shared the hope with which she +confidently credited him--that they might never meet again. + + +II + +Mrs. Davant glanced reverentially about the studio. “I have always said,” +she murmured, “that they ought to be seen in Europe.” + +Mrs. Davant was young, credulous and emotionally extravagant: she reminded +Claudia of her earlier self--the self that, ten years before, had first set +an awestruck foot on that very threshold. + +“Not for _his_ sake,” Mrs. Davant continued, “but for Europe’s.” + +Claudia smiled. She was glad that her husband’s pictures were to be +exhibited in Paris. She concurred in Mrs. Davant’s view of the importance +of the event; but she thought her visitor’s way of putting the case a +little overcharged. Ten years spent in an atmosphere of Keniston-worship +had insensibly developed in Claudia a preference for moderation of speech. +She believed in her husband, of course; to believe in him, with an +increasing abandonment and tenacity, had become one of the necessary laws +of being; but she did not believe in his admirers. Their faith in him was +perhaps as genuine as her own; but it seemed to her less able to give an +account of itself. Some few of his appreciators doubtless measured him +by their own standards; but it was difficult not to feel that in the +Hillbridge circle, where rapture ran the highest, he was accepted on +what was at best but an indirect valuation; and now and then she had a +frightened doubt as to the independence of her own convictions. That +innate sense of relativity which even East Onondaigua had not been able to +check in Claudia Day had been fostered in Mrs. Keniston by the artistic +absolutism of Hillbridge, and she often wondered that her husband remained +so uncritical of the quality of admiration accorded him. Her husband’s +uncritical attitude toward himself and his admirers had in fact been one of +the surprises of her marriage. That an artist should believe in his +potential powers seemed to her at once the incentive and the pledge of +excellence: she knew there was no future for a hesitating talent. What +perplexed her was Keniston’s satisfaction in his achievement. She had +always imagined that the true artist must regard himself as the imperfect +vehicle of the cosmic emotion--that beneath every difficulty overcome a new +one lurked, the vision widening as the scope enlarged. To be initiated into +these creative struggles, to shed on the toiler’s path the consolatory ray +of faith and encouragement, had seemed the chief privilege of her marriage. +But there is something supererogatory in believing in a man obviously +disposed to perform that service for himself; and Claudia’s ardor gradually +spent itself against the dense surface of her husband’s complacency. She +could smile now at her vision of an intellectual communion which should +admit her to the inmost precincts of his inspiration. She had learned +that the creative processes are seldom self-explanatory, and Keniston’s +inarticulateness no longer discouraged her; but she could not reconcile +her sense of the continuity of all high effort to his unperturbed air +of finishing each picture as though he had despatched a masterpiece to +posterity. In the first recoil from her disillusionment she even allowed +herself to perceive that, if he worked slowly, it was not because he +mistrusted his powers of expression, but because he had really so little to +express. + +“It’s for Europe,” Mrs. Davant vaguely repeated; and Claudia noticed that +she was blushingly intent on tracing with the tip of her elaborate sunshade +the pattern of the shabby carpet. + +“It will be a revelation to them,” she went on provisionally, as though +Claudia had missed her cue and left an awkward interval to fill. + +Claudia had in fact a sudden sense of deficient intuition. She felt that +her visitor had something to communicate which required, on her own part, +an intelligent co-operation; but what it was her insight failed to suggest. +She was, in truth, a little tired of Mrs. Davant, who was Keniston’s latest +worshipper, who ordered pictures recklessly, who paid for them regally +in advance, and whose gallery was, figuratively speaking, crowded with +the artist’s unpainted masterpieces. Claudia’s impatience was perhaps +complicated by the uneasy sense that Mrs. Davant was too young, too rich, +too inexperienced; that somehow she ought to be warned.--Warned of what? +That some of the pictures might never be painted? Scarcely that, since +Keniston, who was scrupulous in business transactions, might be trusted not +to take any material advantage of such evidence of faith. Claudia’s impulse +remained undefined. She merely felt that she would have liked to help Mrs. +Davant, and that she did not know how. + +“You’ll be there to see them?” she asked, as her visitor lingered. + +“In Paris?” Mrs. Davant’s blush deepened. “We must all be there together.” + +Claudia smiled. “My husband and I mean to go abroad some day--but I don’t +see any chance of it at present.” + +“But he _ought_ to go--you ought both to go this summer!” Mrs. Davant +persisted. “I know Professor Wildmarsh and Professor Driffert and all the +other critics think that Mr. Keniston’s never having been to Europe has +given his work much of its wonderful individuality, its peculiar flavor +and meaning--but now that his talent is formed, that he has full command +of his means of expression,” (Claudia recognized one of Professor +Driffert’s favorite formulas) “they all think he ought to see the work of +the _other_ great masters--that he ought to visit the home of his +ancestors, as Professor Wildmarsh says!” She stretched an impulsive hand to +Claudia. “You ought to let him go, Mrs. Keniston!” + +Claudia accepted the admonition with the philosophy of the wife who is used +to being advised on the management of her husband. “I sha’n’t interfere +with him,” she declared; and Mrs. Davant instantly caught her up with a cry +of, “Oh, it’s too lovely of you to say that!” With this exclamation she +left Claudia to a silent renewal of wonder. + +A moment later Keniston entered: to a mind curious in combinations it +might have occurred that he had met Mrs. Davant on the door-step. In one +sense he might, for all his wife cared, have met fifty Mrs. Davants on the +door-step: it was long since Claudia had enjoyed the solace of resenting +such coincidences. Her only thought now was that her husband’s first words +might not improbably explain Mrs. Davant’s last; and she waited for him to +speak. + +He paused with his hands in his pockets before an unfinished picture on the +easel; then, as his habit was, he began to stroll touristlike from canvas +to canvas, standing before each in a musing ecstasy of contemplation that +no readjustment of view ever seemed to disturb. Her eye instinctively +joined his in its inspection; it was the one point where their natures +merged. Thank God, there, was no doubt about the pictures! She was what she +had always dreamed of being--the wife of a great artist. Keniston dropped +into an armchair and filled his pipe. “How should you like to go to +Europe?” he asked. + +His wife looked up quickly. “When?” + +“Now--this spring, I mean.” He paused to light the pipe. “I should like to +be over there while these things are being exhibited.” + +Claudia was silent. + +“Well?” he repeated after a moment. + +“How can we afford it?” she asked. + +Keniston had always scrupulously fulfilled his duty to the mother and +sister whom his marriage had dislodged; and Claudia, who had the atoning +temperament which seeks to pay for every happiness by making it a source +of fresh obligations, had from the outset accepted his ties with an +exaggerated devotion. Any disregard of such a claim would have vulgarized +her most delicate pleasures; and her husband’s sensitiveness to it in great +measure extenuated the artistic obtuseness that often seemed to her like a +failure of the moral sense. His loyalty to the dull women who depended on +him was, after all, compounded of finer tissues than any mere sensibility +to ideal demands. + +“Oh, I don’t see why we shouldn’t,” he rejoined. “I think we might manage +it.” + +“At Mrs. Davant’s expense?” leaped from Claudia. She could not tell why she +had said it; some inner barrier seemed to have given way under a confused +pressure of emotions. + +He looked up at her with frank surprise. “Well, she has been very jolly +about it--why not? She has a tremendous feeling for art--the keenest I +ever knew in a woman.” Claudia imperceptibly smiled. “She wants me to let +her pay in advance for the four panels she has ordered for the Memorial +Library. That would give us plenty of money for the trip, and my having the +panels to do is another reason for my wanting to go abroad just now.” + +“Another reason?” + +“Yes; I’ve never worked on such a big scale. I want to see how those old +chaps did the trick; I want to measure myself with the big fellows over +there. An artist ought to, once in his life.” + +She gave him a wondering look. For the first time his words implied a sense +of possible limitation; but his easy tone seemed to retract what they +conceded. What he really wanted was fresh food for his self-satisfaction: +he was like an army that moves on after exhausting the resources of the +country. + +Womanlike, she abandoned the general survey of the case for the +consideration of a minor point. + +“Are you sure you can do that kind of thing?” she asked. + +“What kind of thing?” + +“The panels.” + +He glanced at her indulgently: his self-confidence was too impenetrable to +feel the pin-prick of such a doubt. + +“Immensely sure,” he said with a smile. + +“And you don’t mind taking so much money from her in advance?” + +He stared. “Why should I? She’ll get it back--with interest!” He laughed +and drew at his pipe. “It will be an uncommonly interesting experience. I +shouldn’t wonder if it freshened me up a bit.” + +She looked at him again. This second hint of self-distrust struck her as +the sign of a quickened sensibility. What if, after all, he was beginning +to be dissatisfied with his work? The thought filled her with a renovating +sense of his sufficiency. + + +III + +They stopped in London to see the National Gallery. + +It was thus that, in their inexperience, they had narrowly put it; but in +reality every stone of the streets, every trick of the atmosphere, had +its message of surprise for their virgin sensibilities. The pictures were +simply the summing up, the final interpretation, of the cumulative pressure +of an unimagined world; and it seemed to Claudia that long before they +reached the doors of the gallery she had some intuitive revelation of what +awaited them within. + +They moved about from room to room without exchanging a word. The vast +noiseless spaces seemed full of sound, like the roar of a distant multitude +heard only by the inner ear. Had their speech been articulate their +language would have been incomprehensible; and even that far-off murmur +of meaning pressed intolerably on Claudia’s nerves. Keniston took the +onset without outward sign of disturbance. Now and then he paused before a +canvas, or prolonged from one of the benches his silent communion with some +miracle of line or color; but he neither looked at his wife nor spoke to +her. He seemed to have forgotten her presence. + +Claudia was conscious of keeping a furtive watch on him; but the sum total +of her impressions was negative. She remembered thinking when she first +met him that his face was rather expressionless; and he had the habit of +self-engrossed silences. + +All that evening, at the hotel, they talked about London, and he surprised +her by an acuteness of observation that she had sometimes inwardly accused +him of lacking. He seemed to have seen everything, to have examined, felt, +compared, with nerves as finely adjusted as her own; but he said nothing +of the pictures. The next day they returned to the National Gallery, and +he began to study the paintings in detail, pointing out differences of +technique, analyzing and criticising, but still without summing up his +conclusions. He seemed to have a sort of provincial dread of showing +himself too much impressed. Claudia’s own sensations were too complex, too +overwhelming, to be readily classified. Lacking the craftsman’s instinct to +steady her, she felt herself carried off her feet by the rush of incoherent +impressions. One point she consciously avoided, and that was the comparison +of her husband’s work with what they were daily seeing. Art, she inwardly +argued, was too various, too complex, dependent on too many inter-relations +of feeling and environment, to allow of its being judged by any provisional +standard. Even the subtleties of technique must be modified by the artist’s +changing purpose, as this in turn is acted on by influences of which +he is himself unconscious. How, then, was an unprepared imagination to +distinguish between such varied reflections of the elusive vision? She took +refuge in a passionate exaggeration of her own ignorance and insufficiency. + +After a week in London they went to Paris. The exhibition of Keniston’s +pictures had been opened a few days earlier; and as they drove through the +streets on the way to the station an “impressionist” poster here and there +invited them to the display of the American artist’s work. Mrs. Davant, who +had been in Paris for the opening, had already written rapturously of the +impression produced, enclosing commendatory notices from one or two papers. +She reported that there had been a great crowd on the first day, and that +the critics had been “immensely struck.” + +The Kenistons arrived in the evening, and the next morning Claudia, as a +matter of course, asked her husband at what time he meant to go and see the +pictures. + +He looked up absently from his guide-book. + +“What pictures?” + +“Why--yours,” she said, surprised. + +“Oh, they’ll keep,” he answered; adding with a slightly embarrassed laugh, +“We’ll give the other chaps a show first.” Presently he laid down his book +and proposed that they should go to the Louvre. + +They spent the morning there, lunched at a restaurant near by, and returned +to the gallery in the afternoon. Keniston had passed from inarticulateness +to an eager volubility. It was clear that he was beginning to co-ordinate +his impressions, to find his way about in a corner of the great imaginative +universe. He seemed extraordinarily ready to impart his discoveries; and +Claudia felt that her ignorance served him as a convenient buffer against +the terrific impact of new sensations. + +On the way home she asked when he meant to see Mrs. Davant. + +His answer surprised her. “Does she know we’re here?” + +“Not unless you’ve sent her word,” said Claudia, with a touch of harmless +irony. + +“That’s all right, then,” he returned simply. “I want to wait and look +about a day or two longer. She’d want us to go sight-seeing with her; and +I’d rather get my impressions alone.” + +The next two days were hampered by the necessity of eluding Mrs. Davant. +Claudia, under different circumstances, would have scrupled to share in +this somewhat shabby conspiracy; but she found herself in a state of +suspended judgment, wherein her husband’s treatment of Mrs. Davant became +for the moment merely a clue to larger meanings. + +They had been four days in Paris when Claudia, returning one afternoon from +a parenthetical excursion to the Rue de la Paix, was confronted on her +threshold by the reproachful figure of their benefactress. It was not to +her, however, that Mrs. Davant’s reproaches were addressed. Keniston, it +appeared, had borne the brunt of them; for he stood leaning against the +mantelpiece of their modest _salon_ in that attitude of convicted +negligence when, if ever, a man is glad to take refuge behind his wife. + +Claudia had however no immediate intention of affording him such shelter. +She wanted to observe and wait. + +“He’s too impossible!” cried Mrs. Davant, sweeping her at once into the +central current of her grievance. + +Claudia looked from one to the other. + +“For not going to see you?” + +“For not going to see his pictures!” cried the other nobly. + +Claudia colored and Keniston shifted his position uneasily. + +“I can’t make her understand,” he said, turning to his wife. + +“I don’t care about myself!” Mrs. Davant interjected. + +“_I_ do, then; it’s the only thing I do care about,” he hurriedly +protested. “I meant to go at once--to write--Claudia wanted to go, but I +wouldn’t let her.” He looked helplessly about the pleasant red-curtained +room, which was rapidly burning itself into Claudia’s consciousness as a +visible extension of Mrs. Davant’s claims. + +“I can’t explain,” he broke off. + +Mrs. Davant in turn addressed herself to Claudia. + +“People think it’s so odd,” she complained. “So many of the artists +here are anxious to meet him; they’ve all been so charming about the +pictures; and several of our American friends have come over from London +expressly for the exhibition. I told every one that he would be here +for the opening--there was a private view, you know--and they were so +disappointed--they wanted to give him an ovation; and I didn’t know what +to say. What _am_ I to say?” she abruptly ended. + +“There’s nothing to say,” said Keniston slowly. + +“But the exhibition closes the day after to-morrow.” + +“Well, _I_ sha’n’t close--I shall be here,” he declared with an effort +at playfulness. “If they want to see me--all these people you’re kind +enough to mention--won’t there be other chances?” + +“But I wanted them to see you _among_ your pictures--to hear you talk +about them, explain them in that wonderful way. I wanted you to interpret +each other, as Professor Wildmarsh says!” + +“Oh, hang Professor Wildmarsh!” said Keniston, softening the commination +with a smile. “If my pictures are good for anything they oughtn’t to need +explaining.” + +Mrs. Davant stared. “But I thought that was what made them so interesting!” +she exclaimed. + +Keniston looked down. “Perhaps it was,” he murmured. + +There was an awkward silence, which Claudia broke by saying, with a glance +at her husband: “But if the exhibition is to remain open to-morrow, could +we not meet you there? And perhaps you could send word to some of our +friends.” + +Mrs. Davant brightened like a child whose broken toy is glued together. +“Oh, _do_ make him!” she implored. “I’ll ask them to come in the +afternoon--we’ll make it into a little tea--a _five o’clock_. I’ll +send word at once to everybody!” She gathered up her beruffled boa and +sunshade, settling her plumage like a reassured bird. “It will be too +lovely!” she ended in a self-consoling murmur. + +But in the doorway a new doubt assailed her. “You won’t fail me?” she said, +turning plaintively to Keniston. “You’ll make him come, Mrs. Keniston?” + +“I’ll bring him!” Claudia promised. + + +IV + +When, the next morning, she appeared equipped for their customary ramble, +her husband surprised her by announcing that he meant to stay at home. + +“The fact is I’m rather surfeited,” he said, smiling. “I suppose my +appetite isn’t equal to such a plethora. I think I’ll write some letters +and join you somewhere later.” + +She detected the wish to be alone and responded to it with her usual +readiness. + +“I shall sink to my proper level and buy a bonnet, then,” she said. “I +haven’t had time to take the edge off that appetite.” + +They agreed to meet at the Hotel Cluny at mid-day, and she set out alone +with a vague sense of relief. Neither she nor Keniston had made any direct +reference to Mrs. Davant’s visit; but its effect was implicit in their +eagerness to avoid each other. + +Claudia accomplished some shopping in the spirit of perfunctoriness that +robs even new bonnets of their bloom; and this business despatched, she +turned aimlessly into the wide inviting brightness of the streets. Never +had she felt more isolated amid that ordered beauty which gives a social +quality to the very stones and mortar of Paris. All about her were +evidences of an artistic sensibility pervading every form of life like the +nervous structure of the huge frame--a sensibility so delicate, alert and +universal that it seemed to leave no room for obtuseness or error. In such +a medium the faculty of plastic expression must develop as unconsciously +as any organ in its normal surroundings; to be “artistic” must cease to be +an attitude and become a natural function. To Claudia the significance of +the whole vast revelation was centred in the light it shed on one tiny +spot of consciousness--the value of her husband’s work. There are moments +when to the groping soul the world’s accumulated experiences are but +stepping-stones across a private difficulty. + +She stood hesitating on a street corner. It was barely eleven, and she had +an hour to spare before going to the Hotel Cluny. She seemed to be letting +her inclination float as it would on the cross-currents of suggestion +emanating from the brilliant complex scene before her; but suddenly, in +obedience to an impulse that she became aware of only in acting on it, she +called a cab and drove to the gallery where her husband’s pictures were +exhibited. + +A magnificent official in gold braid sold her a ticket and pointed the way +up the empty crimson-carpeted stairs. His duplicate, on the upper landing, +held out a catalogue with an air of recognizing the futility of the offer; +and a moment later she found herself in the long noiseless impressive room +full of velvet-covered ottomans and exotic plants. It was clear that the +public ardor on which Mrs. Davant had expatiated had spent itself earlier +in the week; for Claudia had this luxurious apartment to herself. Something +about its air of rich privacy, its diffusion of that sympathetic quality in +other countries so conspicuously absent from the public show-room, seemed +to emphasize its present emptiness. It was as though the flowers, the +carpet, the lounges, surrounded their visitor’s solitary advance with +the mute assurance that they had done all they could toward making the +thing “go off,” and that if they had failed it was simply for lack of +co-operation. She stood still and looked about her. The pictures struck her +instantly as odd gaps in the general harmony; it was self-evident that they +had not co-operated. They had not been pushing, aggressive, discordant: +they had merely effaced themselves. She swept a startled eye from one +familiar painting to another. The canvases were all there--and the +frames--but the miracle, the mirage of life and meaning, had vanished +like some atmospheric illusion. What was it that had happened? And had +it happened to _her_ or to the pictures? She tried to rally her +frightened thoughts; to push or coax them into a semblance of resistance; +but argument was swept off its feet by the huge rush of a single +conviction--the conviction that the pictures were bad. There was no +standing up against that: she felt herself submerged. + +The stealthy fear that had been following her all these days had her by the +throat now. The great vision of beauty through which she had been moving +as one enchanted was turned to a phantasmagoria of evil mocking shapes. +She hated the past; she hated its splendor, its power, its wicked magical +vitality.... She dropped into a seat and continued to stare at the wall +before her. Gradually, as she stared, there stole out to her from the +dimmed humbled canvases a reminder of what she had once seen in them, a +spectral appeal to her faith to call them back to life. What proof had she +that her present estimate of them was less subjective than the other? The +confused impressions of the last few days were hardly to be pleaded as a +valid theory of art. How, after all, did she know that the pictures were +bad? On what suddenly acquired technical standard had she thus decided +the case against them? It seemed as though it were a standard outside of +herself, as though some unheeded inner sense were gradually making her +aware of the presence, in that empty room, of a critical intelligence that +was giving out a subtle effluence of disapproval. The fancy was so vivid +that, to shake it off, she rose and began to move about again. In the +middle of the room stood a monumental divan surmounted by a _massif_ +of palms and azaleas. As Claudia’s muffled wanderings carried her around +the angle of this seat, she saw that its farther side was occupied by the +figure of a man, who sat with his hands resting on his stick and his head +bowed upon them. She gave a little cry and her husband rose and faced her. + +Instantly the live point of consciousness was shifted, and she became aware +that the quality of the pictures no longer mattered. It was what _he_ +thought of them that counted: her life hung on that. + +They looked at each other a moment in silence; such concussions are not apt +to flash into immediate speech. At length he said simply, “I didn’t know +you were coming here.” + +She colored as though he had charged her with something underhand. + +“I didn’t mean to,” she stammered; “but I was too early for our +appointment--“ + +Her word’s cast a revealing glare on the situation. Neither of them looked +at the pictures; but to Claudia those unobtruding presences seemed suddenly +to press upon them and force them apart. + +Keniston glanced at his watch. “It’s twelve o’clock,” he said. “Shall we go +on?” + + +V + +At the door he called a cab and put her in it; then, drawing out his watch +again, he said abruptly: “I believe I’ll let you go alone. I’ll join you at +the hotel in time for luncheon.” She wondered for a moment if he meant to +return to the gallery; but, looking back as she drove off, she saw him walk +rapidly away in the opposite direction. + +The cabman had carried her half-way to the Hotel Cluny before she realized +where she was going, and cried out to him to turn home. There was an acute +irony in this mechanical prolongation of the quest of beauty. She had +had enough of it, too much of it; her one longing was to escape, to hide +herself away from its all-suffusing implacable light. + +At the hotel, alone in her room, a few tears came to soften her seared +vision; but her mood was too tense to be eased by weeping. Her whole being +was centred in the longing to know what her husband thought. Their short +exchange of words had, after all, told her nothing. She had guessed a faint +resentment at her unexpected appearance; but that might merely imply a +dawning sense, on his part, of being furtively watched and criticised. She +had sometimes wondered if he was never conscious of her observation; there +were moments when it seemed to radiate from her in visible waves. Perhaps, +after all, he was aware of it, on his guard against it, as a lurking knife +behind the thick curtain of his complacency; and to-day he must have caught +the gleam of the blade. + +Claudia had not reached the age when pity is the first chord to vibrate in +contact with any revelation of failure. Her one hope had been that Keniston +should be clear-eyed enough to face the truth. Whatever it turned out to +be, she wanted him to measure himself with it. But as his image rose before +her she felt a sudden half-maternal longing to thrust herself between him +and disaster. Her eagerness to see him tested by circumstances seemed now +like a cruel scientific curiosity. She saw in a flash of sympathy that he +would need her most if he fell beneath his fate. + +He did not, after all, return for luncheon; and when she came up-stairs +from her solitary meal their _salon_ was still untenanted. She +permitted herself no sensational fears; for she could not, at the height of +apprehension, figure Keniston as yielding to any tragic impulse; but the +lengthening hours brought an uneasiness that was fuel to her pity. Suddenly +she heard the clock strike five. It was the hour at which they had promised +to meet Mrs. Davant at the gallery--the hour of the “ovation.” Claudia +rose and went to the window, straining for a glimpse of her husband in the +crowded street. Could it be that he had forgotten her, had gone to the +gallery without her? Or had something happened--that veiled “something” +which, for the last hour, had grimly hovered on the outskirts of her mind? + +She heard a hand on the door and Keniston entered. As she turned to meet +him her whole being was swept forward on a great wave of pity: she was so +sure, now, that he must know. + +But he confronted her with a glance of preoccupied brightness; her first +impression was that she had never seen him so vividly, so expressively +pleased. If he needed her, it was not to bind up his wounds. + +He gave her a smile which was clearly the lingering reflection of some +inner light. “I didn’t mean to be so late,” he said, tossing aside his hat +and the little red volume that served as a clue to his explorations. “I +turned in to the Louvre for a minute after I left you this morning, and the +place fairly swallowed me up--I couldn’t get away from it. I’ve been there +ever since.” He threw himself into a chair and glanced about for his pipe. + +“It takes time,” he continued musingly, “to get at them, to make out what +they’re saying--the big fellows, I mean. They’re not a communicative lot. +At first I couldn’t make much out of their lingo--it was too different from +mine! But gradually, by picking up a hint here and there, and piecing them +together, I’ve begun to understand; and to-day, by Jove, I got one or two +of the old chaps by the throat and fairly turned them inside out--made them +deliver up their last drop.” He lifted a brilliant eye to her. “Lord, it +was tremendous!” he declared. + +He had found his pipe and was musingly filling it. Claudia waited in +silence. + +“At first,” he began again, “I was afraid their language was too hard for +me--that I should never quite know what they were driving at; they seemed +to cold-shoulder me, to be bent on shutting me out. But I was bound I +wouldn’t be beaten, and now, to-day”--he paused a moment to strike a +match--“when I went to look at those things of mine it all came over me +in a flash. By Jove! it was as if I’d made them all into a big bonfire to +light me on my road!” + +His wife was trembling with a kind of sacred terror. She had been afraid +to pray for light for him, and here he was joyfully casting his whole past +upon the pyre! + +“Is there nothing left?” she faltered. + +“Nothing left? There’s everything!” he exulted. “Why, here I am, not much +over forty, and I’ve found out already--already!” He stood up and began to +move excitedly about the room. “My God! Suppose I’d never known! Suppose +I’d gone on painting things like that forever! Why, I feel like those +chaps at revivalist meetings when they get up and say they’re saved! Won’t +somebody please start a hymn?” + +Claudia, with a tremulous joy, was letting herself go on the strong +current of his emotion; but it had not yet carried her beyond her depth, +and suddenly she felt hard ground underfoot. + +“Mrs. Davant--“ she exclaimed. + +He stared, as though suddenly recalled from a long distance. “Mrs. Davant?” + +“We were to have met her--this afternoon--now--“ + +“At the gallery? Oh, that’s all right. I put a stop to that; I went to see +her after I left you; I explained it all to her.” + +“All?” + +“I told her I was going to begin all over again.” + +Claudia’s heart gave a forward bound and then sank back hopelessly. + +“But the panels--?” + +“That’s all right too. I told her about the panels,” he reassured her. + +“You told her--?” + +“That I can’t paint them now. She doesn’t understand, of course; but she’s +the best little woman and she trusts me.” + +She could have wept for joy at his exquisite obtuseness. “But that isn’t +all,” she wailed. “It doesn’t matter how much you’ve explained to her. It +doesn’t do away with the fact that we’re living on those panels!” + +“Living on them?” + +“On the money that she paid you to paint them. Isn’t that what brought us +here? And--if you mean to do as you say--to begin all over again--how in +the world are we ever to pay her back?” + +Her husband turned on her an inspired eye. “There’s only one way that I +know of,” he imperturbably declared, “and that’s to stay out here till I +learn how to paint them.” + + + + +“COPY” + +A DIALOGUE + + +_Mrs. Ambrose Dale--forty, slender, still young--sits in her drawing-room +at the tea-table. The winter twilight is falling, a lamp has been lit, +there is a fire on the hearth, and the room is pleasantly dim and +flower-scented. Books are scattered everywhere--mostly with autograph +inscriptions “From the Author”--and a large portrait of_ Mrs. Dale, +_at her desk, with papers strewn about her, takes up one of the +wall-panels. Before_ Mrs. Dale _stands_ Hilda, _fair and twenty, +her hands full of letters_. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Ten more applications for autographs? Isn’t it strange +that people who’d blush to borrow twenty dollars don’t scruple to beg for +an autograph? + +_Hilda (reproachfully)_. Oh-- + +_Mrs. Dale_. What’s the difference, pray? + +_Hilda_. Only that your last autograph sold for fifty-- + +_Mrs. Dale (not displeased)_. Ah?--I sent for you, Hilda, because I’m +dining out to-night, and if there’s nothing important to attend to among +these letters you needn’t sit up for me. + +_Hilda_. You don’t mean to work? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Perhaps; but I sha’n’t need you. You’ll see that my +cigarettes and coffee-machine are in place, and that I don’t have to crawl +about the floor in search of my pen-wiper? That’s all. Now about these +letters-- + +_Hilda (impulsively)_. Oh, Mrs. Dale-- + +_Mrs. Dale_. Well? + +_Hilda_. I’d rather sit up for you. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Child, I’ve nothing for you to do. I shall be blocking +out the tenth chapter of _Winged Purposes_ and it won’t be ready for +you till next week. + +_Hilda_. It isn’t that--but it’s so beautiful to sit here, watching +and listening, all alone in the night, and to feel that you’re in there +_(she points to the study-door)_ _creating_--._(Impulsively.)_ +What do I care for sleep? + +_Mrs. Dale (indulgently)_. Child--silly child!--Yes, I should have +felt so at your age--it would have been an inspiration-- + +_Hilda (rapt)_. It is! + +_Mrs. Dale_. But you must go to bed; I must have you fresh in the +morning; for you’re still at the age when one is fresh in the morning! +_(She sighs.)_ The letters? _(Abruptly.)_ Do you take notes of +what you feel, Hilda--here, all alone in the night, as you say? + +_Hilda (shyly)_. I have-- + +_Mrs. Dale (smiling)_. For the diary? + +_Hilda (nods and blushes)_. + +_Mrs. Dale (caressingly)_. Goose!--Well, to business. What is there? + +_Hilda_. Nothing important, except a letter from Stroud & Fayerweather +to say that the question of the royalty on _Pomegranate Seed_ has been +settled in your favor. The English publishers of _Immolation_ write +to consult you about a six-shilling edition; Olafson, the Copenhagen +publisher, applies for permission to bring out a Danish translation of +_The Idol’s Feet_; and the editor of the _Semaphore_ wants a new +serial--I think that’s all; except that _Woman’s Sphere_ and _The +Droplight_ ask for interviews--with photographs-- + +_Mrs. Dale_. The same old story! I’m so tired of it all. _(To +herself, in an undertone.)_ But how should I feel if it all stopped? +_(The servant brings in a card.)_ + +_Mrs. Dale (reading it)_. Is it possible? Paul Ventnor? _(To the +servant.)_ Show Mr. Ventnor up. _(To herself.)_ Paul Ventnor! + +_Hilda (breathless)_. Oh, Mrs. Dale--_the_ Mr. Ventnor? + +_Mrs. Dale (smiling)_. I fancy there’s only one. + +_Hilda_. The great, great poet? _(Irresolute.)_ No, I don’t +dare-- + +_Mrs. Dale (with a tinge of impatience)_. What? + +_Hilda (fervently)_. Ask you--if I might--oh, here in this corner, +where he can’t possibly notice me--stay just a moment? Just to see him come +in? To see the meeting between you--the greatest novelist and the greatest +poet of the age? Oh, it’s too much to ask! It’s an historic moment. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Why, I suppose it is. I hadn’t thought of it in that +light. Well _(smiling)_, for the diary-- + +_Hilda_. Oh, thank you, _thank you_! I’ll be off the very instant +I’ve heard him speak. + +_Mrs. Dale_. The very instant, mind. _(She rises, looks at herself +in the glass, smooths her hair, sits down again, and rattles the +tea-caddy.)_ Isn’t the room very warm?--_(She looks over at her +portrait.)_ I’ve grown stouter since that was painted--. You’ll make a +fortune out of that diary, Hilda-- + +_Hilda (modestly)_. Four publishers have applied to me already-- + +_The Servant (announces)_. Mr. Paul Ventnor. + +_(Tall, nearing fifty, with an incipient stoutness buttoned into a +masterly frock-coat, Ventnor drops his glass and advances vaguely, with a +short-sighted stare.)_ + +_Ventnor_. Mrs. Dale? + +_Mrs. Dale_. My dear friend! This is kind. _(She looks over her +shoulder at Hilda, who vanishes through the door to the left.)_ The +papers announced your arrival, but I hardly hoped-- + +_Ventnor (whose short-sighted stare is seen to conceal a deeper +embarrassment)_. You hadn’t forgotten me, then? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Delicious! Do _you_ forget that you’re public +property? + +_Ventnor_. Forgotten, I mean, that we were old friends? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Such old friends! May I remind you that it’s nearly +twenty years since we’ve met? Or do you find cold reminiscences +indigestible? + +_Ventnor_. On the contrary, I’ve come to ask you for a dish of +them--we’ll warm them up together. You’re my first visit. + +_Mrs. Dale_. How perfect of you! So few men visit their women friends +in chronological order; or at least they generally do it the other way +round, beginning with the present day and working back--if there’s time--to +prehistoric woman. + +_Ventnor_. But when prehistoric woman has become historic woman--? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Oh, it’s the reflection of my glory that has guided you +here, then? + +_Ventnor_. It’s a spirit in my feet that has led me, at the first +opportunity, to the most delightful spot I know. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Oh, the first opportunity--! + +_Ventnor_. I might have seen you very often before; but never just in +the right way. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Is this the right way? + +_Ventnor_. It depends on you to make it so. + +_Mrs. Dale_. What a responsibility! What shall I do? + +_Ventnor_. Talk to me--make me think you’re a little glad to see me; +give me some tea and a cigarette; and say you’re out to everyone else. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Is that all? _(She hands him a cup of tea.)_ The +cigarettes are at your elbow--. And do you think I shouldn’t have been glad +to see you before? + +_Ventnor_. No; I think I should have been too glad to see you. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Dear me, what precautions! I hope you always wear +goloshes when it looks like rain and never by any chance expose yourself +to a draught. But I had an idea that poets courted the emotions-- + +_Ventnor_. Do novelists? + +_Mrs. Dale_. If you ask _me_--on paper! + +_Ventnor_. Just so; that’s safest. My best things about the sea have +been written on shore. _(He looks at her thoughtfully.)_ But it +wouldn’t have suited us in the old days, would it? + +_Mrs. Dale (sighing)_. When we were real people! + +_Ventnor_. Real people? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Are _you_, now? I died years ago. What you see +before you is a figment of the reporter’s brain--a monster manufactured out +of newspaper paragraphs, with ink in its veins. A keen sense of copyright +is _my_ nearest approach to an emotion. + +_Ventnor (sighing)_. Ah, well, yes--as you say, we’re public property. + +_Mrs. Dale_. If one shared equally with the public! But the last shred +of my identity is gone. + +_Ventnor_. Most people would be glad to part with theirs on such +terms. I have followed your work with immense interest. _Immolation_ +is a masterpiece. I read it last summer when it first came out. + +_Mrs. Dale (with a shade less warmth)_. _Immolation_ has been out +three years. + +_Ventnor_. Oh, by Jove--no? Surely not--But one is so overwhelmed--one +loses count. (_Reproachfully_.) Why have you never sent me your books? + +_Mrs. Dale_. For that very reason. + +_Ventnor (deprecatingly)_. You know I didn’t mean it for you! And +_my_ first book--do you remember--was dedicated to you. + +_Mrs. Dale_. _Silver Trumpets_-- + +_Ventnor (much interested)_. Have you a copy still, by any chance? The +first edition, I mean? Mine was stolen years ago. Do you think you could +put your hand on it? + +_Mrs. Dale (taking a small shabby book from the table at her side)_. +It’s here. + +_Ventnor (eagerly)_. May I have it? Ah, thanks. This is _very_ +interesting. The last copy sold in London for £40, and they tell me the +next will fetch twice as much. It’s quite _introuvable_. + +_Mrs. Dale_. I know that. _(A pause. She takes the book from him, +opens it, and reads, half to herself--)_ + + _How much we two have seen together, + Of other eyes unwist, + Dear as in days of leafless weather + The willow’s saffron mist, + + Strange as the hour when Hesper swings + A-sea in beryl green, + While overhead on dalliant wings + The daylight hangs serene, + + And thrilling as a meteor’s fall + Through depths of lonely sky, + When each to each two watchers call: + I saw it!--So did I._ + +_Ventnor_. Thin, thin--the troubadour tinkle. Odd how little promise +there is in first volumes! + +_Mrs. Dale (with irresistible emphasis)_. I thought there was a +distinct promise in this! + +_Ventnor (seeing his mistake)_. Ah--the one you would never let me +fulfil? _(Sentimentally.)_ How inexorable you were! You never +dedicated a book to _me_. + +_Mrs. Dale_. I hadn’t begun to write when we were--dedicating things +to each other. + +_Ventnor_. Not for the public--but you wrote for me; and, wonderful as +you are, you’ve never written anything since that I care for half as much +as-- + +_Mrs. Dale (interested)_. Well? + +_Ventnor_. Your letters. + +_Mrs. Dale (in a changed voice)_. My letters--do you remember them? + +_Ventnor_. When I don’t, I reread them. + +_Mrs. Dale (incredulous)_. You have them still? + +_Ventnor (unguardedly)_. You haven’t mine, then? + +_Mrs. Dale (playfully)_. Oh, you were a celebrity already. Of course I +kept them! _(Smiling.)_ Think what they are worth now! I always keep +them locked up in my safe over there. _(She indicates a cabinet.)_ + +_Ventnor (after a pause)_. I always carry yours with me. + +_Mrs. Dale (laughing)_. You-- + +_Ventnor_. Wherever I go. _(A longer pause. She looks at him +fixedly.)_ I have them with me now. + +_Mrs. Dale (agitated)_. You--have them with you--now? + +_Ventnor (embarrassed)_. Why not? One never knows-- + +_Mrs. Dale_. Never knows--? + +_Ventnor (humorously)_. Gad--when the bank-examiner may come round. +You forget I’m a married man. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Ah--yes. + +_Ventnor (sits down beside her)_. I speak to you as I couldn’t to +anyone else--without deserving a kicking. You know how it all came about. +_(A pause.)_ You’ll bear witness that it wasn’t till you denied me all +hope-- + +_Mrs. Dale (a little breathless)_. Yes, yes-- + +_Ventnor_. Till you sent me from you-- + +_Mrs. Dale_. It’s so easy to be heroic when one is young! One doesn’t +realize how long life is going to last afterward. _(Musing.)_ Nor what +weary work it is gathering up the fragments. + +_Ventnor_. But the time comes when one sends for the china-mender, and +has the bits riveted together, and turns the cracked side to the wall-- + +_Mrs. Dale_. And denies that the article was ever damaged? + +_Ventnor_. Eh? Well, the great thing, you see, is to keep one’s self +out of reach of the housemaid’s brush. _(A pause.)_ If you’re married +you can’t--always. _(Smiling.)_ Don’t you hate to be taken down and +dusted? + +_Mrs. Dale (with intention)_. You forget how long ago my husband died. +It’s fifteen years since I’ve been an object of interest to anybody but the +public. + +_Ventnor (smiling)_. The only one of your admirers to whom you’ve ever +given the least encouragement! + +_Mrs. Dale_. Say rather the most easily pleased! + +_Ventnor_. Or the only one you cared to please? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Ah, you _haven’t_ kept my letters! + +_Ventnor (gravely)_. Is that a challenge? Look here, then! _(He +drams a packet from his pocket and holds it out to her.)_ + +_Mrs. Dale (taking the packet and looking at him earnestly)_. Why have +you brought me these? + +_Ventnor_. I didn’t bring them; they came because I came--that’s all. +_(Tentatively.)_ Are we unwelcome? + +_Mrs. Dale (who has undone the packet and does not appear to hear +him)_. The very first I ever wrote you--the day after we met at the +concert. How on earth did you happen to keep it? _(She glances over +it.)_ How perfectly absurd! Well, it’s not a compromising document. + +_Ventnor_. I’m afraid none of them are. + +_Mrs. Dale (quickly)_. Is it to that they owe their immunity? Because +one could leave them about like safety matches?--Ah, here’s another I +remember--I wrote that the day after we went skating together for the first +time. _(She reads it slowly.)_ How odd! How very odd! + +_Ventnor_. What? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Why, it’s the most curious thing--I had a letter of this +kind to do the other day, in the novel I’m at work on now--the letter of a +woman who is just--just beginning-- + +_Ventnor_. Yes--just beginning--? + +_Mrs. Dale_. And, do you know, I find the best phrase in it, the +phrase I somehow regarded as the fruit of--well, of all my subsequent +discoveries--is simply plagiarized, word for word, from this! + +_Ventnor (eagerly)_. I told you so! You were all there! + +_Mrs. Dale (critically)_. But the rest of it’s poorly done--very +poorly. _(Reads the letter over.)_ H’m--I didn’t know how to leave +off. It takes me forever to get out of the door. + +_Ventnor (gayly)_. Perhaps I was there to prevent you! _(After a +pause.)_ I wonder what I said in return? + +_Mrs. Dale (interested)_. Shall we look? _(She rises.)_ Shall +we--really? I have them all here, you know. _(She goes toward the +cabinet.)_ + +_Ventnor (following her with repressed eagerness)_. Oh--all! + +_Mrs. Dale (throws open the door of the cabinet, revealing a number of +packets)_. Don’t you believe me now? + +_Ventnor_. Good heavens! How I must have repeated myself! But then you +were so very deaf. + +_Mrs. Dale (takes out a packet and returns to her seat. Ventnor extends +an impatient hand for the letters)_. No--no; wait! I want to find your +answer to the one I was just reading. _(After a pause.)_ Here it +is--yes, I thought so! + +_Ventnor_. What did you think? + +_Mrs. Dale (triumphantly)_. I thought it was the one in which you +quoted _Epipsychidion_-- + +_Ventnor_. Mercy! Did I _quote_ things? I don’t wonder you were +cruel. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Ah, and here’s the other--the one I--the one I didn’t +answer--for a long time. Do you remember? + +_Ventnor (with emotion)_. Do I remember? I wrote it the morning after +we heard _Isolde_-- + +_Mrs. Dale (disappointed)_. No--no. _That_ wasn’t the one I +didn’t answer! Here--this is the one I mean. + +_Ventnor (takes it curiously)_. Ah--h’m--this is very like unrolling a +mummy--_(he glances at her)_--with a live grain of wheat in it, +perhaps?--Oh, by Jove! + +_Mrs. Dale_. What? + +_Ventnor_. Why, this is the one I made a sonnet out of afterward! By +Jove, I’d forgotten where that idea came from. You may know the lines +perhaps? They’re in the fourth volume of my Complete Edition--It’s the +thing beginning + + _Love came to me with unrelenting eyes--_ + +one of my best, I rather fancy. Of course, here it’s very crudely put--the +values aren’t brought out--ah! this touch is good though--very good. H’m, I +daresay there might be other material. _(He glances toward the +cabinet.)_ + +_Mrs. Dale (drily)_. The live grain of wheat, as you said! + +_Ventnor_. Ah, well--my first harvest was sown on rocky +ground--_now_ I plant for the fowls of the air. _(Rising and walking +toward the cabinet.)_ When can I come and carry off all this rubbish? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Carry it off? + +_Ventnor (embarrassed)_. My dear lady, surely between you and me +explicitness is a burden. You must see that these letters of ours can’t be +left to take their chance like an ordinary correspondence--you said +yourself we were public property. + +_Mrs. Dale_. To take their chance? Do you suppose that, in my keeping, +your letters take any chances? _(Suddenly.)_ Do mine--in yours? + +_Ventnor (still more embarrassed)_. Helen--! _(He takes a turn +through the room.)_ You force me to remind you that you and I are +differently situated--that in a moment of madness I sacrificed the only +right you ever gave me--the right to love you better than any other +woman in the world. _(A pause. She says nothing and he continues, with +increasing difficulty--)_ You asked me just now why I carried your +letters about with me--kept them, literally, in my own hands. Well, suppose +it’s to be sure of their not falling into some one else’s? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Oh! + +_Ventnor (throws himself into a chair)_. For God’s sake don’t pity me! + +_Mrs. Dale (after a long pause)_. Am I dull--or are you trying to say +that you want to give me back my letters? + +_Ventnor (starting up)_. I? Give you back--? God forbid! Your letters? +Not for the world! The only thing I have left! But you can’t dream that in +_my_ hands-- + +_Mrs. Dale (suddenly)_. You want yours, then? + +_Ventnor (repressing his eagerness)_. My dear friend, if I’d ever +dreamed that you’d kept them--? + +_Mrs. Dale (accusingly)_. You _do_ want them. _(A pause. He +makes a deprecatory gesture.)_ Why should they be less safe with me than +mine with you? _I_ never forfeited the right to keep them. + +_Ventnor (after another pause)_. It’s compensation enough, almost, +to have you reproach me! _(He moves nearer to her, but she makes no +response.)_ You forget that I’ve forfeited _all_ my rights--even +that of letting you keep my letters. + +_Mrs. Dale_. You _do_ want them! _(She rises, throws all the +letters into the cabinet, locks the door and puts the key in her +pocket.)_ There’s my answer. + +_Ventnor_. Helen--! + +_Mrs. Dale_. Ah, I paid dearly enough for the right to keep them, and +I mean to! _(She turns to him passionately.)_ Have you ever asked +yourself how I paid for it? With what months and years of solitude, what +indifference to flattery, what resistance to affection?--Oh, don’t smile +because I said affection, and not love. Affection’s a warm cloak in cold +weather; and I _have_ been cold; and I shall keep on growing colder! +Don’t talk to me about living in the hearts of my readers! We both know +what kind of a domicile that is. Why, before long I shall become a classic! +Bound in sets and kept on the top book-shelf--brr, doesn’t that sound +freezing? I foresee the day when I shall be as lonely as an Etruscan +museum! _(She breaks into a laugh.)_ That’s what I’ve paid for the +right to keep your letters. _(She holds out her hand.)_ And now give +me mine. + +_Ventnor_. Yours? + +_Mrs. Dale (haughtily)_. Yes; I claim them. + +_Ventnor (in the same tone)_. On what ground? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Hear the man!--Because I wrote them, of course. + +_Ventnor_. But it seems to me that--under your inspiration, I admit--I +also wrote mine. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Oh, I don’t dispute their authenticity--it’s yours I +deny! + +_Ventnor_. Mine? + +_Mrs. Dale_. You voluntarily ceased to be the man who wrote me those +letters--you’ve admitted as much. You traded paper for flesh and blood. I +don’t dispute your wisdom--only you must hold to your bargain! The letters +are all mine. + +_Ventnor (groping between two tones)_. Your arguments are as +convincing as ever. _(He hazards a faint laugh.)_ You’re a marvellous +dialectician--but, if we’re going to settle the matter in the spirit of an +arbitration treaty, why, there are accepted conventions in such cases. It’s +an odious way to put it, but since you won’t help me, one of them is-- + +_Mrs. Dale_. One of them is--? + +_Ventnor_. That it is usual--that technically, I mean, the +letter--belongs to its writer-- + +_Mrs. Dale (after a pause)_. Such letters as _these_? + +_Ventnor_. Such letters especially-- + +_Mrs. Dale_. But you couldn’t have written them if I hadn’t--been +willing to read them. Surely there’s more of myself in them than of you. + +_Ventnor_. Surely there’s nothing in which a man puts more of himself +than in his love-letters! + +_Mrs. Dale (with emotion)_. But a woman’s love-letters are like her child. +They belong to her more than to anybody else-- + +_Ventnor_. And a man’s? + +_Mrs. Dale (with sudden violence)_. Are all he risks!--There, take +them. _(She flings the key of the cabinet at his feet and sinks into a +chair.)_ + +_Ventnor (starts as though to pick up the key; then approaches and bends +over her)_. Helen--oh, Helen! + +_Mrs. Dale (she yields her hands to him, murmuring:)_ Paul! +_(Suddenly she straightens herself and draws back illuminated.)_ What +a fool I am! I see it all now. You want them for your memoirs! + +_Ventnor (disconcerted)_. Helen-- + +_Mrs. Dale (agitated)_. Come, come--the rule is to unmask when the +signal’s given! You want them for your memoirs. + +_Ventnor (with a forced laugh)_. What makes you think so? + +_Mrs. Dale (triumphantly)_. Because _I_ want them for mine! + +_Ventnor (in a changed tone)_. Ah--. _(He moves away from her and +leans against the mantelpiece. She remains seated, with her eyes fixed on +him.)_ + +_Mrs. Dale_. I wonder I didn’t see it sooner. Your reasons were lame +enough. + +_Ventnor (ironically)_. Yours were masterly. You’re the more +accomplished actor of the two. I was completely deceived. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Oh, I’m a novelist. I can keep up that sort of thing for +five hundred pages! + +_Ventnor_. I congratulate you. _(A pause.)_ + +_Mrs. Dale (moving to her seat behind the tea-table)_. I’ve never +offered you any tea. _(She bends over the kettle.)_ Why don’t you take +your letters? + +_Ventnor_. Because you’ve been clever enough to make it impossible for +me. _(He picks up the key and hands it to her. Then abruptly)_--Was it +all acting--just now? + +_Mrs. Dale_. By what right do you ask? + +_Ventnor_. By right of renouncing my claim to my letters. Keep +them--and tell me. + +_Mrs. Dale_. I give you back your claim--and I refuse to tell you. + +_Ventnor (sadly)_. Ah, Helen, if you deceived me, you deceived +yourself also. + +_Mrs. Dale_. What does it matter, now that we’re both undeceived? I +played a losing game, that’s all. + +_Ventnor_. Why losing--since all the letters are yours? + +_Mrs. Dale_. The letters? _(Slowly.)_ I’d forgotten the letters-- + +_Ventnor (exultant)_. Ah, I knew you’d end by telling me the truth! + +_Mrs. Dale_. The truth? Where _is_ the truth? _(Half to +herself.)_ I thought I was lying when I began--but the lies turned into +truth as I uttered them! _(She looks at Ventnor.)_ I _did_ want +your letters for my memoirs--I _did_ think I’d kept them for that +purpose--and I wanted to get mine back for the same reason--but now _(she +puts out her hand and picks up some of her letters, which are lying +scattered on the table near her)_--how fresh they seem, and how they +take me back to the time when we lived instead of writing about life! + +_Ventnor (smiling)_. The time when we didn’t prepare our impromptu +effects beforehand and copyright our remarks about the weather! + +_Mrs. Dale_. Or keep our epigrams in cold storage and our adjectives +under lock and key! + +_Ventnor_. When our emotions weren’t worth ten cents a word, and a +signature wasn’t an autograph. Ah, Helen, after all, there’s nothing like +the exhilaration of spending one’s capital! + +_Mrs. Dale_. Of wasting it, you mean. _(She points to the +letters.)_ Do you suppose we could have written a word of these if we’d +known we were putting our dreams out at interest? _(She sits musing, with +her eyes on the fire, and he watches her in silence.)_ Paul, do you +remember the deserted garden we sometimes used to walk in? + +_Ventnor_. The old garden with the high wall at the end of the village +street? The garden with the ruined box-borders and the broken-down arbor? +Why, I remember every weed in the paths and every patch of moss on the +walls! + +_Mrs. Dale._ Well--I went back there the other day. The village is +immensely improved. There’s a new hotel with gas-fires, and a trolley in +the main street; and the garden has been turned into a public park, where +excursionists sit on cast-iron benches admiring the statue of an +Abolitionist. + +_Ventnor_. An Abolitionist--how appropriate! + +_Mrs. Dale_. And the man who sold the garden has made a fortune that +he doesn’t know how to spend-- + +_Ventnor (rising impulsively)_. Helen, _(he approaches and lays his +hand on her letters)_, let’s sacrifice our fortune and keep the +excursionists out! + +_Mrs. Dale (with a responsive movement)_. Paul, do you really mean it? + +_Ventnor (gayly)_. Mean it? Why, I feel like a landed proprietor +already! It’s more than a garden--it’s a park. + +_Mrs. Dale_. It’s more than a park, it’s a world--as long as we keep +it to ourselves! + +_Ventnor_. Ah, yes--even the pyramids look small when one sees a +Cook’s tourist on top of them! _(He takes the key from the table, unlocks +the cabinet and brings out his letters, which he lays beside hers.)_ +Shall we burn the key to our garden? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Ah, then it will indeed be boundless! _(Watching him +while he throws the letters into the fire.)_ + +_Ventnor (turning back to her with a half-sad smile)_. But not too big +for us to find each other in? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Since we shall be the only people there! _(He takes +both her hands and they look at each other a moment in silence. Then he +goes out by the door to the right. As he reaches the door she takes a step +toward him, impulsively; then turning back she leans against the +chimney-piece, quietly watching the letters burn.)_ + + + + +THE REMBRANDT + + +“You’re _so_ artistic,” my cousin Eleanor Copt began. + +Of all Eleanor’s exordiums it is the one I most dread. When she tells me +I’m so clever I know this is merely the preamble to inviting me to meet the +last literary obscurity of the moment: a trial to be evaded or endured, as +circumstances dictate; whereas her calling me artistic fatally connotes +the request to visit, in her company, some distressed gentlewoman whose +future hangs on my valuation of her old Saxe or of her grandfather’s +Marc Antonios. Time was when I attempted to resist these compulsions of +Eleanor’s; but I soon learned that, short of actual flight, there was +no refuge from her beneficent despotism. It is not always easy for the +curator of a museum to abandon his post on the plea of escaping a pretty +cousin’s importunities; and Eleanor, aware of my predicament, is none +too magnanimous to take advantage of it. Magnanimity is, in fact, not in +Eleanor’s line. The virtues, she once explained to me, are like bonnets: +the very ones that look best on other people may not happen to suit one’s +own particular style; and she added, with a slight deflection of metaphor, +that none of the ready-made virtues ever _had_ fitted her: they all +pinched somewhere, and she’d given up trying to wear them. + +Therefore when she said to me, “You’re _so_ artistic.” emphasizing the +conjunction with a tap of her dripping umbrella (Eleanor is out in all +weathers: the elements are as powerless against her as man), I merely +stipulated, “It’s not old Saxe again?” + +She shook her head reassuringly. “A picture--a Rembrandt!” + +“Good Lord! Why not a Leonardo?” + +“Well”--she smiled--“that, of course, depends on _you_.” + +“On me?” + +“On your attribution. I dare say Mrs. Fontage would consent to the +change--though she’s very conservative.” + +A gleam of hope came to me and I pronounced: “One can’t judge of a picture +in this weather.” + +“Of course not. I’m coming for you to-morrow.” + +“I’ve an engagement to-morrow.” + +“I’ll come before or after your engagement.” + +The afternoon paper lay at my elbow and I contrived a furtive consultation +of the weather-report. It said “Rain to-morrow,” and I answered briskly: +“All right, then; come at ten”--rapidly calculating that the clouds on +which I counted might lift by noon. + +My ingenuity failed of its due reward; for the heavens, as if in league +with my cousin, emptied themselves before morning, and punctually at ten +Eleanor and the sun appeared together in my office. + +I hardly listened, as we descended the Museum steps and got into Eleanor’s +hansom, to her vivid summing-up of the case. I guessed beforehand that the +lady we were about to visit had lapsed by the most distressful degrees from +opulence to a “hall-bedroom”; that her grandfather, if he had not been +Minister to France, had signed the Declaration of Independence; that the +Rembrandt was an heirloom, sole remnant of disbanded treasures; that for +years its possessor had been unwilling to part with it, and that even now +the question of its disposal must be approached with the most diplomatic +obliquity. + +Previous experience had taught me that all Eleanor’s “cases” presented a +harrowing similarity of detail. No circumstance tending to excite the +spectator’s sympathy and involve his action was omitted from the history of +her beneficiaries; the lights and shades were indeed so skilfully adjusted +that any impartial expression of opinion took on the hue of cruelty. I +could have produced closetfuls of “heirlooms” in attestation of this fact; +for it is one more mark of Eleanor’s competence that her friends usually +pay the interest on her philanthropy. My one hope was that in this case the +object, being a picture, might reasonably be rated beyond my means; and +as our cab drew up before a blistered brown-stone door-step I formed the +self-defensive resolve to place an extreme valuation on Mrs. Fontage’s +Rembrandt. It is Eleanor’s fault if she is sometimes fought with her own +weapons. + +The house stood in one of those shabby provisional-looking New York streets +that seem resignedly awaiting demolition. It was the kind of house that, +in its high days, must have had a bow-window with a bronze in it. The +bow-window had been replaced by a plumber’s _devanture_, and one might +conceive the bronze to have gravitated to the limbo where Mexican onyx +tables and bric-a-brac in buffalo-horn await the first signs of our next +aesthetic reaction. + +Eleanor swept me through a hall that smelled of poverty, up unlit stairs to +a bare slit of a room. “And she must leave this in a month!” she whispered +across her knock. + +I had prepared myself for the limp widow’s weed of a woman that one figures +in such a setting; and confronted abruptly with Mrs. Fontage’s white-haired +erectness I had the disconcerting sense that I was somehow in her presence +at my own solicitation. I instinctively charged Eleanor with this reversal +of the situation; but a moment later I saw it must be ascribed to a +something about Mrs. Fontage that precluded the possibility of her asking +any one a favor. It was not that she was of forbidding, or even majestic, +demeanor; but that one guessed, under her aquiline prettiness, a dignity +nervously on guard against the petty betrayal of her surroundings. The +room was unconcealably poor: the little faded “relics,” the high-stocked +ancestral silhouettes, the steel-engravings after Raphael and Correggio, +grouped in a vain attempt to hide the most obvious stains on the +wall-paper, served only to accentuate the contrast of a past evidently +diversified by foreign travel and the enjoyment of the arts. Even Mrs. +Fontage’s dress had the air of being a last expedient, the ultimate outcome +of a much-taxed ingenuity in darning and turning. One felt that all the +poor lady’s barriers were falling save that of her impregnable manner. + +To this manner I found myself conveying my appreciation of being admitted +to a view of the Rembrandt. + +Mrs. Fontage’s smile took my homage for granted. “It is always,” she +conceded, “a privilege to be in the presence of the great masters.” Her +slim wrinkled hand waved me to a dusky canvas near the window. + +“It’s _so_ interesting, dear Mrs. Fontage,” I heard Eleanor +exclaiming, “and my cousin will be able to tell you exactly--“ Eleanor, in +my presence, always admits that she knows nothing about art; but she gives +the impression that this is merely because she hasn’t had time to look into +the matter--and has had me to do it for her. + +Mrs. Fontage seated herself without speaking, as though fearful that a +breath might disturb my communion with the masterpiece. I felt that she +thought Eleanor’s reassuring ejaculations ill-timed; and in this I was of +one mind with her; for the impossibility of telling her exactly what I +thought of her Rembrandt had become clear to me at a glance. + +My cousin’s vivacities began to languish and the silence seemed to shape +itself into a receptacle for my verdict. I stepped back, affecting a more +distant scrutiny; and as I did so my eye caught Mrs. Fontage’s profile. Her +lids trembled slightly. I took refuge in the familiar expedient of asking +the history of the picture, and she waved me brightly to a seat. + +This was indeed a topic on which she could dilate. The Rembrandt, it +appeared, had come into Mr. Fontage’s possession many years ago, while +the young couple were on their wedding-tour, and under circumstances so +romantic that she made no excuse for relating them in all their parenthetic +fulness. The picture belonged to an old Belgian Countess of redundant +quarterings, whom the extravagances of an ungovernable nephew had compelled +to part with her possessions (in the most private manner) about the time of +the Fontages’ arrival. By a really remarkable coincidence, it happened that +their courier (an exceptionally intelligent and superior man) was an old +servant of the Countess’s, and had thus been able to put them in the way of +securing the Rembrandt under the very nose of an English Duke, whose agent +had been sent to Brussels to negotiate for its purchase. Mrs. Fontage could +not recall the Duke’s name, but he was a great collector and had a famous +Highland castle, where somebody had been murdered, and which she herself +had visited (by moonlight) when she had travelled in Scotland as a girl. +The episode had in short been one of the most interesting “experiences” of +a tour almost chromo-lithographic in vivacity of impression; and they had +always meant to go back to Brussels for the sake of reliving so picturesque +a moment. Circumstances (of which the narrator’s surroundings declared the +nature) had persistently interfered with the projected return to Europe, +and the picture had grown doubly valuable as representing the high-water +mark of their artistic emotions. Mrs. Fontage’s moist eye caressed the +canvas. “There is only,” she added with a perceptible effort, “one slight +drawback: the picture is not signed. But for that the Countess, of course, +would have sold it to a museum. All the connoisseurs who have seen it +pronounce it an undoubted Rembrandt, in the artist’s best manner; but the +museums”--she arched her brows in smiling recognition of a well-known +weakness--“give the preference to signed examples--“ + +Mrs. Fontage’s words evoked so touching a vision of the young tourists of +fifty years ago, entrusting to an accomplished and versatile courier the +direction of their helpless zeal for art, that I lost sight for a moment +of the point at issue. The old Belgian Countess, the wealthy Duke with a +feudal castle in Scotland, Mrs. Fontage’s own maiden pilgrimage to Arthur’s +Seat and Holyrood, all the accessories of the naïf transaction, seemed +a part of that vanished Europe to which our young race carried its +indiscriminate ardors, its tender romantic credulity: the legendary +castellated Europe of keepsakes, brigands and old masters, that +compensated, by one such “experience” as Mrs. Fontage’s, for an after-life +of aesthetic privation. + +I was restored to the present by Eleanor’s looking at her watch. The action +mutely conveyed that something was expected of me. I risked the temporizing +statement that the picture was very interesting; but Mrs. Fontage’s polite +assent revealed the poverty of the expedient. Eleanor’s impatience +overflowed. + +“You would like my cousin to give you an idea of its value?” she suggested. + +Mrs. Fontage grew more erect. “No one,” she corrected with great +gentleness, “can know its value quite as well as I, who live with it--“ + +We murmured our hasty concurrence. + +“But it might be interesting to hear”--she addressed herself to me--“as a +mere matter of curiosity--what estimate would be put on it from the purely +commercial point of view--if such a term may be used in speaking of a work +of art.” + +I sounded a note of deprecation. + +“Oh, I understand, of course,” she delicately anticipated me, “that that +could never be _your_ view, your personal view; but since occasions +_may_ arise--do arise--when it becomes necessary to--to put a price on +the priceless, as it were--I have thought--Miss Copt has suggested--“ + +“Some day,” Eleanor encouraged her, “you might feel that the picture ought +to belong to some one who has more--more opportunity of showing it--letting +it be seen by the public--for educational reasons--“ + +“I have tried,” Mrs. Fontage admitted, “to see it in that light.” + +The crucial moment was upon me. To escape the challenge of Mrs. Fontage’s +brilliant composure I turned once more to the picture. If my courage needed +reinforcement, the picture amply furnished it. Looking at that lamentable +canvas seemed the surest way of gathering strength to denounce it; but +behind me, all the while, I felt Mrs. Fontage’s shuddering pride drawn +up in a final effort of self-defense. I hated myself for my sentimental +perversion of the situation. Reason argued that it was more cruel to +deceive Mrs. Fontage than to tell her the truth; but that merely proved the +inferiority of reason to instinct in situations involving any concession to +the emotions. Along with her faith in the Rembrandt I must destroy not only +the whole fabric of Mrs. Fontage’s past, but even that lifelong habit of +acquiescence in untested formulas that makes the best part of the average +feminine strength. I guessed the episode of the picture to be inextricably +interwoven with the traditions and convictions which served to veil Mrs. +Fontage’s destitution not only from others but from herself. Viewed in +that light the Rembrandt had perhaps been worth its purchase-money; and I +regretted that works of art do not commonly sell on the merit of the moral +support they may have rendered. + +From this unavailing flight I was recalled by the sense that something +must be done. To place a fictitious value on the picture was at best a +provisional measure; while the brutal alternative of advising Mrs. Fontage +to sell it for a hundred dollars at least afforded an opening to the +charitably disposed purchaser. I intended, if other resources failed, +to put myself forward in that light; but delicacy of course forbade my +coupling my unflattering estimate of the Rembrandt with an immediate offer +to buy it. All I could do was to inflict the wound: the healing unguent +must be withheld for later application. + +I turned to Mrs. Fontage, who sat motionless, her finely-lined cheeks +touched with an expectant color, her eyes averted from the picture which +was so evidently the one object they beheld. + +“My dear madam--“ I began. Her vivid smile was like a light held up to +dazzle me. It shrouded every alternative in darkness and I had the flurried +sense of having lost my way among the intricacies of my contention. Of +a sudden I felt the hopelessness of finding a crack in her impenetrable +conviction. My words slipped from me like broken weapons. “The picture,” +I faltered, “would of course be worth more if it were signed. As it is, +I--I hardly think--on a conservative estimate--it can be valued at--at +more--than--a thousand dollars, say--“ + +My deflected argument ran on somewhat aimlessly till it found itself +plunging full tilt against the barrier of Mrs. Fontage’s silence. She sat +as impassive as though I had not spoken. Eleanor loosed a few fluttering +words of congratulation and encouragement, but their flight was suddenly +cut short. Mrs. Fontage had risen with a certain solemnity. + +“I could never,” she said gently--her gentleness was adamantine--“under any +circumstances whatever, consider, for a moment even, the possibility of +parting with the picture at such a price.” + + +II + +Within three weeks a tremulous note from Mrs. Fontage requested the favor +of another visit. If the writing was tremulous, however, the writer’s tone +was firm. She named her own day and hour, without the conventional +reference to her visitor’s convenience. + +My first impulse was to turn the note over to Eleanor. I had acquitted +myself of my share in the ungrateful business of coming to Mrs. Fontage’s +aid, and if, as her letter denoted, she had now yielded to the closer +pressure of need, the business of finding a purchaser for the Rembrandt +might well be left to my cousin’s ingenuity. But here conscience put in +the uncomfortable reminder that it was I who, in putting a price on the +picture, had raised the real obstacle in the way of Mrs. Fontage’s rescue. +No one would give a thousand dollars for the Rembrandt; but to tell +Mrs. Fontage so had become as unthinkable as murder. I had, in fact, on +returning from my first inspection of the picture, refrained from imparting +to Eleanor my opinion of its value. Eleanor is porous, and I knew that +sooner or later the unnecessary truth would exude through the loose texture +of her dissimulation. Not infrequently she thus creates the misery she +alleviates; and I have sometimes suspected her of paining people in order +that she might be sorry for them. I had, at all events, cut off retreat in +Eleanor’s direction; and the remaining alternative carried me straight to +Mrs. Fontage. + +She received me with the same commanding sweetness. The room was even barer +than before--I believe the carpet was gone--but her manner built up about +her a palace to which I was welcomed with high state; and it was as a mere +incident of the ceremony that I was presently made aware of her decision to +sell the Rembrandt. My previous unsuccess in planning how to deal with Mrs. +Fontage had warned me to leave my farther course to chance; and I listened +to her explanation with complete detachment. She had resolved to travel for +her health; her doctor advised it, and as her absence might be indefinitely +prolonged she had reluctantly decided to part with the picture in order +to avoid the expense of storage and insurance. Her voice drooped at the +admission, and she hurried on, detailing the vague itinerary of a journey +that was to combine long-promised visits to impatient friends with various +“interesting opportunities” less definitely specified. The poor lady’s +skill in rearing a screen of verbiage about her enforced avowal had +distracted me from my own share in the situation, and it was with dismay +that I suddenly caught the drift of her assumptions. She expected me to +buy the Rembrandt for the Museum; she had taken my previous valuation as a +tentative bid, and when I came to my senses she was in the act of accepting +my offer. + +Had I had a thousand dollars of my own to dispose of, the bargain would +have been concluded on the spot; but I was in the impossible position of +being materially unable to buy the picture and morally unable to tell her +that it was not worth acquiring for the Museum. + +I dashed into the first evasion in sight. I had no authority, I explained, +to purchase pictures for the Museum without the consent of the committee. + +Mrs. Fontage coped for a moment in silence with the incredible fact +that I had rejected her offer; then she ventured, with a kind of pale +precipitation: “But I understood--Miss Copt tells me that you practically +decide such matters for the committee.” I could guess what the effort had +cost her. + +“My cousin is given to generalizations. My opinion may have some weight +with the committee--“ + +“Well, then--“ she timidly prompted. + +“For that very reason I can’t buy the picture.” + +She said, with a drooping note, “I don’t understand.” + +“Yet you told me,” I reminded her, “that you knew museums didn’t buy +unsigned pictures.” + +“Not for what they are worth! Every one knows that. But I--I +understood--the price you named--“ Her pride shuddered back from the +abasement. “It’s a misunderstanding then,” she faltered. + +To avoid looking at her, I glanced desperately at the Rembrandt. Could +I--? But reason rejected the possibility. Even if the committee had been +blind--and they all _were_ but Crozier--I simply shouldn’t have dared +to do it. I stood up, feeling that to cut the matter short was the only +alleviation within reach. + +Mrs. Fontage had summoned her indomitable smile; but its brilliancy +dropped, as I opened the door, like a candle blown out by a draught. + +“If there’s any one else--if you knew any one who would care to see the +picture, I should be most happy--“ She kept her eyes on me, and I saw that, +in her case, it hurt less than to look at the Rembrandt. “I shall have to +leave here, you know,” she panted, “if nobody cares to have it--“ + + +III + +That evening at my club I had just succeeded in losing sight of Mrs. +Fontage in the fumes of an excellent cigar, when a voice at my elbow evoked +her harassing image. + +“I want to talk to you,” the speaker said, “about Mrs. Fontage’s +Rembrandt.” + +“There isn’t any,” I was about to growl; but looking up I recognized the +confiding countenance of Mr. Jefferson Rose. + +Mr. Rose was known to me chiefly as a young man suffused with a vague +enthusiasm for Virtue and my cousin Eleanor. + +One glance at his glossy exterior conveyed the assurance that his morals +were as immaculate as his complexion and his linen. Goodness exuded from +his moist eye, his liquid voice, the warm damp pressure of his trustful +hand. He had always struck me as one of the most uncomplicated organisms +I had ever met. His ideas were as simple and inconsecutive as the +propositions in a primer, and he spoke slowly, with a kind of uniformity +of emphasis that made his words stand out like the raised type for the +blind. An obvious incapacity for abstract conceptions made him peculiarly +susceptible to the magic of generalization, and one felt he would have been +at the mercy of any Cause that spelled itself with a capital letter. It was +hard to explain how, with such a superabundance of merit, he managed to be +a good fellow: I can only say that he performed the astonishing feat as +naturally as he supported an invalid mother and two sisters on the slender +salary of a banker’s clerk. He sat down beside me with an air of bright +expectancy. + +“It’s a remarkable picture, isn’t it?” he said. + +“You’ve seen it?” + +“I’ve been so fortunate. Miss Copt was kind enough to get Mrs. Fontage’s +permission; we went this afternoon.” I inwardly wished that Eleanor +had selected another victim; unless indeed the visit were part of a +plan whereby some third person, better equipped for the cultivation of +delusions, was to be made to think the Rembrandt remarkable. Knowing the +limitations of Mr. Rose’s resources I began to wonder if he had any rich +aunts. + +“And her buying it in that way, too,” he went on with his limpid smile, +“from that old Countess in Brussels, makes it all the more interesting, +doesn’t it? Miss Copt tells me it’s very seldom old pictures can be traced +back for more than a generation. I suppose the fact of Mrs. Fontage’s +knowing its history must add a good deal to its value?” + +Uncertain as to his drift, I said: “In her eyes it certainly appears to.” + +Implications are lost on Mr. Rose, who glowingly continued: “That’s the +reason why I wanted to talk to you about it--to consult you. Miss Copt +tells me you value it at a thousand dollars.” + +There was no denying this, and I grunted a reluctant assent. + +“Of course,” he went on earnestly, “your valuation is based on the fact +that the picture isn’t signed--Mrs. Fontage explained that; and it does +make a difference, certainly. But the thing is--if the picture’s really +good--ought one to take advantage--? I mean--one can see that Mrs. Fontage +is in a tight place, and I wouldn’t for the world--“ + +My astonished stare arrested him. + +“_You_ wouldn’t--?” + +“I mean--you see, it’s just this way”; he coughed and blushed: “I can’t +give more than a thousand dollars myself--it’s as big a sum as I can manage +to scrape together--but before I make the offer I want to be sure I’m not +standing in the way of her getting more money.” + +My astonishment lapsed to dismay. “You’re going to buy the picture for a +thousand dollars?” + +His blush deepened. “Why, yes. It sounds rather absurd, I suppose. It isn’t +much in my line, of course. I can see the picture’s very beautiful, but I’m +no judge--it isn’t the kind of thing, naturally, that I could afford to go +in for; but in this case I’m very glad to do what I can; the circumstances +are so distressing; and knowing what you think of the picture I feel it’s a +pretty safe investment--“ + +“I don’t think!” I blurted out. + +“You--?” + +“I don’t think the picture’s worth a thousand dollars; I don’t think it’s +worth ten cents; I simply lied about it, that’s all.” + +Mr. Rose looked as frightened as though I had charged him with the offense. + +“Hang it, man, can’t you see how it happened? I saw the poor woman’s pride +and happiness hung on her faith in that picture. I tried to make her +understand that it was worthless--but she wouldn’t; I tried to tell her +so--but I couldn’t. I behaved like a maudlin ass, but you shan’t pay for my +infernal bungling--you mustn’t buy the picture!” + +Mr. Rose sat silent, tapping one glossy boot-tip with another. Suddenly he +turned on me a glance of stored intelligence. “But you know,” he said +good-humoredly, “I rather think I must.” + +“You haven’t--already?” + +“Oh, no; the offer’s not made.” + +“Well, then--“ + +His look gathered a brighter significance. + +“But if the picture’s worth nothing, nobody will buy it--“ + +I groaned. + +“Except,” he continued, “some fellow like me, who doesn’t know anything. +_I_ think it’s lovely, you know; I mean to hang it in my mother’s +sitting-room.” He rose and clasped my hand in his adhesive pressure. “I’m +awfully obliged to you for telling me this; but perhaps you won’t mind my +asking you not to mention our talk to Miss Copt? It might bother her, you +know, to think the picture isn’t exactly up to the mark; and it won’t make +a rap of difference to me.” + + +IV + +Mr. Rose left me to a sleepless night. The next morning my resolve was +formed, and it carried me straight to Mrs. Fontage’s. She answered my knock +by stepping out on the landing, and as she shut the door behind her I +caught a glimpse of her devastated interior. She mentioned, with a careful +avoidance of the note of pathos on which our last conversation had closed, +that she was preparing to leave that afternoon; and the trunks obstructing +the threshold showed that her preparations were nearly complete. They were, +I felt certain, the same trunks that, strapped behind a rattling vettura, +had accompanied the bride and groom on that memorable voyage of discovery +of which the booty had till recently adorned her walls; and there was a +dim consolation in the thought that those early “finds” in coral and Swiss +wood-carving, in lava and alabaster, still lay behind the worn locks, in +the security of worthlessness. + +Mrs. Fontage, on the landing, among her strapped and corded treasures, +maintained the same air of stability that made it impossible, even under +such conditions, to regard her flight as anything less dignified than +a departure. It was the moral support of what she tacitly assumed that +enabled me to set forth with proper deliberation the object of my visit; +and she received my announcement with an absence of surprise that struck +me as the very flower of tact. Under cover of these mutual assumptions the +transaction was rapidly concluded; and it was not till the canvas passed +into my hands that, as though the physical contact had unnerved her, +Mrs. Fontage suddenly faltered. “It’s the giving it up--“ she stammered, +disguising herself to the last; and I hastened away from the collapse of +her splendid effrontery. + +I need hardly point out that I had acted impulsively, and that reaction +from the most honorable impulses is sometimes attended by moral +perturbation. My motives had indeed been mixed enough to justify some +uneasiness, but this was allayed by the instinctive feeling that it is more +venial to defraud an institution than a man. Since Mrs. Fontage had to be +kept from starving by means not wholly defensible, it was better that the +obligation should be borne by a rich institution than an impecunious youth. +I doubt, in fact, if my scruples would have survived a night’s sleep, had +they not been complicated by some uncertainty as to my own future. It was +true that, subject to the purely formal assent of the committee, I had +full power to buy for the Museum, and that the one member of the committee +likely to dispute my decision was opportunely travelling in Europe; but the +picture once in place I must face the risk of any expert criticism to which +chance might expose it. I dismissed this contingency for future study, +stored the Rembrandt in the cellar of the Museum, and thanked heaven that +Crozier was abroad. + +Six months later he strolled into my office. I had just concluded, under +conditions of exceptional difficulty, and on terms unexpectedly benign, +the purchase of the great Bartley Reynolds; and this circumstance, by +relegating the matter of the Rembrandt to a lower stratum of consciousness, +enabled me to welcome Crozier with unmixed pleasure. My security +was enhanced by his appearance. His smile was charged with amiable +reminiscences, and I inferred that his trip had put him in the humor +to approve of everything, or at least to ignore what fell short of his +approval. I had therefore no uneasiness in accepting his invitation to dine +that evening. It is always pleasant to dine with Crozier and never more so +than when he is just back from Europe. His conversation gives even the food +a flavor of the Café Anglais. + +The repast was delightful, and it was not till we had finished a Camembert +which he must have brought over with him, that my host said, in a tone of +after-dinner perfunctoriness: “I see you’ve picked up a picture or two +since I left.” + +I assented. “The Bartley Reynolds seemed too good an opportunity to miss, +especially as the French government was after it. I think we got it +cheap--“ + +“_Connu, connu_” said Crozier pleasantly. “I know all about the +Reynolds. It was the biggest kind of a haul and I congratulate you. Best +stroke of business we’ve done yet. But tell me about the other picture--the +Rembrandt.” + +“I never said it was a Rembrandt.” I could hardly have said why, but I felt +distinctly annoyed with Crozier. + +“Of course not. There’s ‘Rembrandt’ on the frame, but I saw you’d +modified it to ‘Dutch School‘; I apologize.” He paused, but I offered no +explanation. “What about it?” he went on. “Where did you pick it up?” As +he leaned to the flame of the cigar-lighter his face seemed ruddy with +enjoyment. + +“I got it for a song,” I said. + +“A thousand, I think?” + +“Have you seen it?” I asked abruptly. + +“Went over the place this afternoon and found it in the cellar. Why hasn’t +it been hung, by the way?” + +I paused a moment. “I’m waiting--“ + +“To--?” + +“To have it varnished.” + +“Ah!” He leaned back and poured himself a second glass of Chartreuse. The +smile he confided to its golden depths provoked me to challenge him with-- + +“What do you think of it?” + +“The Rembrandt?” He lifted his eyes from the glass. “Just what you do.” + +“It isn’t a Rembrandt.” + +“I apologize again. You call it, I believe, a picture of the same period?” + +“I’m uncertain of the period.” + +“H’m.” He glanced appreciatively along his cigar. “What are you certain +of?” + +“That it’s a damned bad picture,” I said savagely. + +He nodded. “Just so. That’s all we wanted to know.” + +“_We_?” + +“We--I--the committee, in short. You see, my dear fellow, if you hadn’t +been certain it was a damned bad picture our position would have been a +little awkward. As it is, my remaining duty--I ought to explain that in +this matter I’m acting for the committee--is as simple as it’s agreeable.” + +“I’ll be hanged,” I burst out, “if I understand one word you’re saying!” + +He fixed me with a kind of cruel joyousness. “You will--you will,” he +assured me; “at least you’ll begin to, when you hear that I’ve seen Miss +Copt.” + +“Miss Copt?” + +“And that she has told me under what conditions the picture was bought.” + +“She doesn’t know anything about the conditions! That is,” I added, +hastening to restrict the assertion, “she doesn’t know my opinion of the +picture.” I thirsted for five minutes with Eleanor. + +“Are you quite sure?” Crozier took me up. “Mr. Jefferson Rose does.” + +“Ah--I see.” + +“I thought you would,” he reminded me. “As soon as I’d laid eyes on +the Rembrandt--I beg your pardon!--I saw that it--well, required some +explanation.” + +“You might have come to me.” + +“I meant to; but I happened to meet Miss Copt, whose encyclopædic +information has often before been of service to me. I always go to Miss +Copt when I want to look up anything; and I found she knew all about the +Rembrandt.” + +“_All_?” + +“Precisely. The knowledge was in fact causing her sleepless nights. Mr. +Rose, who was suffering from the same form of insomnia, had taken her into +his confidence, and she--ultimately--took me into hers.” + +“Of course!” + +“I must ask you to do your cousin justice. She didn’t speak till it became +evident to her uncommonly quick perceptions that your buying the picture on +its merits would have been infinitely worse for--for everybody--than your +diverting a small portion of the Museum’s funds to philanthropic uses. Then +she told me the moving incident of Mr. Rose. Good fellow, Rose. And the +old lady’s case was desperate. Somebody had to buy that picture.” I moved +uneasily in my seat “Wait a moment, will you? I haven’t finished my cigar. +There’s a little head of Il Fiammingo’s that you haven’t seen, by the way; +I picked it up the other day in Parma. We’ll go in and have a look at it +presently. But meanwhile what I want to say is that I’ve been charged--in +the most informal way--to express to you the committee’s appreciation of +your admirable promptness and energy in capturing the Bartley Reynolds. We +shouldn’t have got it at all if you hadn’t been uncommonly wide-awake, and +to get it at such a price is a double triumph. We’d have thought nothing of +a few more thousands--“ + +“I don’t see,” I impatiently interposed, “that, as far as I’m concerned, +that alters the case.” + +“The case--?” + +“Of Mrs. Fontage’s Rembrandt. I bought the picture because, as you say, the +situation was desperate, and I couldn’t raise a thousand myself. What I did +was of course indefensible; but the money shall be refunded tomorrow--“ + +Crozier raised a protesting hand. “Don’t interrupt me when I’m talking ex +cathedra. The money’s been refunded already. The fact is, the Museum has +sold the Rembrandt.” + +I stared at him wildly. “Sold it? To whom?” + +“Why--to the committee.--Hold on a bit, please.--Won’t you take another +cigar? Then perhaps I can finish what I’ve got to say.--Why, my dear +fellow, the committee’s under an obligation to you--that’s the way we look +at it. I’ve investigated Mrs. Fontage’s case, and--well, the picture had to +be bought. She’s eating meat now, I believe, for the first time in a year. +And they’d have turned her out into the street that very day, your cousin +tells me. Something had to be done at once, and you’ve simply given a +number of well-to-do and self-indulgent gentlemen the opportunity of +performing, at very small individual expense, a meritorious action in +the nick of time. That’s the first thing I’ve got to thank you for. And +then--you’ll remember, please, that I have the floor--that I’m still +speaking for the committee--and secondly, as a slight recognition of your +services in securing the Bartley Reynolds at a very much lower figure than +we were prepared to pay, we beg you--the committee begs you--to accept the +gift of Mrs. Fontage’s Rembrandt. Now we’ll go in and look at that little +head....” + + + + +THE MOVING FINGER + + +The news of Mrs. Grancy’s death came to me with the shock of an immense +blunder--one of fate’s most irretrievable acts of vandalism. It was as +though all sorts of renovating forces had been checked by the clogging of +that one wheel. Not that Mrs. Grancy contributed any perceptible momentum +to the social machine: her unique distinction was that of filling to +perfection her special place in the world. So many people are like +badly-composed statues, over-lapping their niches at one point and leaving +them vacant at another. Mrs. Grancy’s niche was her husband’s life; and if +it be argued that the space was not large enough for its vacancy to leave a +very big gap, I can only say that, at the last resort, such dimensions must +be determined by finer instruments than any ready-made standard of utility. +Ralph Grancy’s was in short a kind of disembodied usefulness: one of those +constructive influences that, instead of crystallizing into definite forms, +remain as it were a medium for the development of clear thinking and fine +feeling. He faithfully irrigated his own dusty patch of life, and the +fruitful moisture stole far beyond his boundaries. If, to carry on the +metaphor, Grancy’s life was a sedulously-cultivated enclosure, his wife was +the flower he had planted in its midst--the embowering tree, rather, which +gave him rest and shade at its foot and the wind of dreams in its upper +branches. + +We had all--his small but devoted band of followers--known a moment when it +seemed likely that Grancy would fail us. We had watched him pitted against +one stupid obstacle after another--ill-health, poverty, misunderstanding +and, worst of all for a man of his texture, his first wife’s soft insidious +egotism. We had seen him sinking under the leaden embrace of her affection +like a swimmer in a drowning clutch; but just as we despaired he had always +come to the surface again, blinded, panting, but striking out fiercely for +the shore. When at last her death released him it became a question as to +how much of the man she had carried with her. Left alone, he revealed numb +withered patches, like a tree from which a parasite has been stripped. But +gradually he began to put out new leaves; and when he met the lady who +was to become his second wife--his one _real_ wife, as his friends +reckoned--the whole man burst into flower. + +The second Mrs. Grancy was past thirty when he married her, and it was +clear that she had harvested that crop of middle joy which is rooted in +young despair. But if she had lost the surface of eighteen she had kept +its inner light; if her cheek lacked the gloss of immaturity her eyes were +young with the stored youth of half a life-time. Grancy had first known her +somewhere in the East--I believe she was the sister of one of our consuls +out there--and when he brought her home to New York she came among us as +a stranger. The idea of Grancy’s remarriage had been a shock to us all. +After one such calcining most men would have kept out of the fire; but we +agreed that he was predestined to sentimental blunders, and we awaited +with resignation the embodiment of his latest mistake. Then Mrs. Grancy +came--and we understood. She was the most beautiful and the most complete +of explanations. We shuffled our defeated omniscience out of sight and gave +it hasty burial under a prodigality of welcome. For the first time in years +we had Grancy off our minds. “He’ll do something great now!” the least +sanguine of us prophesied; and our sentimentalist emended: “He _has_ +done it--in marrying her!” + +It was Claydon, the portrait-painter, who risked this hyperbole; and who +soon afterward, at the happy husband’s request, prepared to defend it in a +portrait of Mrs. Grancy. We were all--even Claydon--ready to concede that +Mrs. Grancy’s unwontedness was in some degree a matter of environment. Her +graces were complementary and it needed the mate’s call to reveal the flash +of color beneath her neutral-tinted wings. But if she needed Grancy to +interpret her, how much greater was the service she rendered him! Claydon +professionally described her as the right frame for him; but if she defined +she also enlarged, if she threw the whole into perspective she also cleared +new ground, opened fresh vistas, reclaimed whole areas of activity that had +run to waste under the harsh husbandry of privation. This interaction of +sympathies was not without its visible expression. Claydon was not alone +in maintaining that Grancy’s presence--or indeed the mere mention of his +name--had a perceptible effect on his wife’s appearance. It was as though a +light were shifted, a curtain drawn back, as though, to borrow another of +Claydon’s metaphors, Love the indefatigable artist were perpetually seeking +a happier “pose” for his model. In this interpretative light Mrs. Grancy +acquired the charm which makes some women’s faces like a book of which +the last page is never turned. There was always something new to read in +her eyes. What Claydon read there--or at least such scattered hints of +the ritual as reached him through the sanctuary doors--his portrait in +due course declared to us. When the picture was exhibited it was at once +acclaimed as his masterpiece; but the people who knew Mrs. Grancy smiled +and said it was flattered. Claydon, however, had not set out to paint +_their_ Mrs. Grancy--or ours even--but Ralph’s; and Ralph knew his own +at a glance. At the first confrontation he saw that Claydon had understood. +As for Mrs. Grancy, when the finished picture was shown to her she turned +to the painter and said simply: “Ah, you’ve done me facing the east!” + +The picture, then, for all its value, seemed a mere incident in the +unfolding of their double destiny, a foot-note to the illuminated text of +their lives. It was not till afterward that it acquired the significance +of last words spoken on a threshold never to be recrossed. Grancy, a year +after his marriage, had given up his town house and carried his bliss an +hour’s journey away, to a little place among the hills. His various duties +and interests brought him frequently to New York but we necessarily saw him +less often than when his house had served as the rallying-point of kindred +enthusiasms. It seemed a pity that such an influence should be withdrawn, +but we all felt that his long arrears of happiness should be paid in +whatever coin he chose. The distance from which the fortunate couple +radiated warmth on us was not too great for friendship to traverse; and our +conception of a glorified leisure took the form of Sundays spent in the +Grancys’ library, with its sedative rural outlook, and the portrait of Mrs. +Grancy illuminating its studious walls. The picture was at its best in that +setting; and we used to accuse Claydon of visiting Mrs. Grancy in order to +see her portrait. He met this by declaring that the portrait _was_ +Mrs. Grancy; and there were moments when the statement seemed unanswerable. +One of us, indeed--I think it must have been the novelist--said that +Clayton had been saved from falling in love with Mrs. Grancy only by +falling in love with his picture of her; and it was noticeable that he, to +whom his finished work was no more than the shed husk of future effort, +showed a perennial tenderness for this one achievement. We smiled afterward +to think how often, when Mrs. Grancy was in the room, her presence +reflecting itself in our talk like a gleam of sky in a hurrying current, +Claydon, averted from the real woman, would sit as it were listening to the +picture. His attitude, at the time, seemed only a part of the unusualness +of those picturesque afternoons, when the most familiar combinations of +life underwent a magical change. Some human happiness is a landlocked lake; +but the Grancys’ was an open sea, stretching a buoyant and illimitable +surface to the voyaging interests of life. There was room and to spare on +those waters for all our separate ventures; and always beyond the sunset, +a mirage of the fortunate isles toward which our prows bent. + + +II + +It was in Rome that, three years later, I heard of her death. The notice +said “suddenly”; I was glad of that. I was glad too--basely perhaps--to be +away from Grancy at a time when silence must have seemed obtuse and speech +derisive. + +I was still in Rome when, a few months afterward, he suddenly arrived +there. He had been appointed secretary of legation at Constantinople and +was on the way to his post. He had taken the place, he said frankly, “to +get away.” Our relations with the Porte held out a prospect of hard work, +and that, he explained, was what he needed. He could never be satisfied to +sit down among the ruins. I saw that, like most of us in moments of extreme +moral tension, he was playing a part, behaving as he thought it became a +man to behave in the eye of disaster. The instinctive posture of grief is +a shuffling compromise between defiance and prostration; and pride feels +the need of striking a worthier attitude in face of such a foe. Grancy, by +nature musing and retrospective, had chosen the rôle of the man of action, +who answers blow for blow and opposes a mailed front to the thrusts of +destiny; and the completeness of the equipment testified to his inner +weakness. We talked only of what we were not thinking of, and parted, after +a few days, with a sense of relief that proved the inadequacy of friendship +to perform, in such cases, the office assigned to it by tradition. + +Soon afterward my own work called me home, but Grancy remained several +years in Europe. International diplomacy kept its promise of giving +him work to do, and during the year in which he acted as _chargé +d’affaires_ he acquitted himself, under trying conditions, with +conspicuous zeal and discretion. A political redistribution of matter +removed him from office just as he had proved his usefulness to the +government; and the following summer I heard that he had come home and +was down at his place in the country. + +On my return to town I wrote him and his reply came by the next post. He +answered as it were in his natural voice, urging me to spend the following +Sunday with him, and suggesting that I should bring down any of the old +set who could be persuaded to join me. I thought this a good sign, and +yet--shall I own it?--I was vaguely disappointed. Perhaps we are apt to +feel that our friends’ sorrows should be kept like those historic monuments +from which the encroaching ivy is periodically removed. + +That very evening at the club I ran across Claydon. I told him of Grancy’s +invitation and proposed that we should go down together; but he pleaded an +engagement. I was sorry, for I had always felt that he and I stood nearer +Ralph than the others, and if the old Sundays were to be renewed I should +have preferred that we two should spend the first alone with him. I said as +much to Claydon and offered to fit my time to his; but he met this by a +general refusal. + +“I don’t want to go to Grancy’s,” he said bluntly. I waited a moment, but +he appended no qualifying clause. + +“You’ve seen him since he came back?” I finally ventured. + +Claydon nodded. + +“And is he so awfully bad?” + +“Bad? No: he’s all right.” + +“All right? How can he be, unless he’s changed beyond all recognition?” + +“Oh, you’ll recognize _him_,” said Claydon, with a puzzling deflection +of emphasis. + +His ambiguity was beginning to exasperate me, and I felt myself shut out +from some knowledge to which I had as good a right as he. + +“You’ve been down there already, I suppose?” + +“Yes; I’ve been down there.” + +“And you’ve done with each other--the partnership is dissolved?” + +“Done with each other? I wish to God we had!” He rose nervously and tossed +aside the review from which my approach had diverted him. “Look here,” +he said, standing before me, “Ralph’s the best fellow going and there’s +nothing under heaven I wouldn’t do for him--short of going down there +again.” And with that he walked out of the room. + +Claydon was incalculable enough for me to read a dozen different meanings +into his words; but none of my interpretations satisfied me. I determined, +at any rate, to seek no farther for a companion; and the next Sunday I +travelled down to Grancy’s alone. He met me at the station and I saw at +once that he had changed since our last meeting. Then he had been in +fighting array, but now if he and grief still housed together it was +no longer as enemies. Physically the transformation was as marked but +less reassuring. If the spirit triumphed the body showed its scars. At +five-and-forty he was gray and stooping, with the tired gait of an old man. +His serenity, however, was not the resignation of age. I saw that he did +not mean to drop out of the game. Almost immediately he began to speak of +our old interests; not with an effort, as at our former meeting, but simply +and naturally, in the tone of a man whose life has flowed back into its +normal channels. I remembered, with a touch of self-reproach, how I had +distrusted his reconstructive powers; but my admiration for his reserved +force was now tinged by the sense that, after all, such happiness as his +ought to have been paid with his last coin. The feeling grew as we neared +the house and I found how inextricably his wife was interwoven with my +remembrance of the place: how the whole scene was but an extension of that +vivid presence. + +Within doors nothing was changed, and my hand would have dropped without +surprise into her welcoming clasp. It was luncheon-time, and Grancy led me +at once to the dining-room, where the walls, the furniture, the very plate +and porcelain, seemed a mirror in which a moment since her face had been +reflected. I wondered whether Grancy, under the recovered tranquillity +of his smile, concealed the same sense of her nearness, saw perpetually +between himself and the actual her bright unappeasable ghost. He spoke of +her once or twice, in an easy incidental way, and her name seemed to hang +in the air after he had uttered it, like a chord that continues to vibrate. +If he felt her presence it was evidently as an enveloping medium, the moral +atmosphere in which he breathed. I had never before known how completely +the dead may survive. + +After luncheon we went for a long walk through the autumnal fields and +woods, and dusk was falling when we re-entered the house. Grancy led the +way to the library, where, at this hour, his wife had always welcomed +us back to a bright fire and a cup of tea. The room faced the west, and +held a clear light of its own after the rest of the house had grown dark. +I remembered how young she had looked in this pale gold light, which +irradiated her eyes and hair, or silhouetted her girlish outline as she +passed before the windows. Of all the rooms the library was most peculiarly +hers; and here I felt that her nearness might take visible shape. Then, all +in a moment, as Grancy opened the door, the feeling vanished and a kind +of resistance met me on the threshold. I looked about me. Was the room +changed? Had some desecrating hand effaced the traces of her presence? No; +here too the setting was undisturbed. My feet sank into the same deep-piled +Daghestan; the bookshelves took the firelight on the same rows of rich +subdued bindings; her armchair stood in its old place near the tea-table; +and from the opposite wall her face confronted me. + +Her face--but _was_ it hers? I moved nearer and stood looking up at +the portrait. Grancy’s glance had followed mine and I heard him move to my +side. + +“You see a change in it?” he said. + +“What does it mean?” I asked. + +“It means--that five years have passed.” + +“Over _her_?” + +“Why not?--Look at me!” He pointed to his gray hair and furrowed temples. +“What do you think kept _her_ so young? It was happiness! But now--“ +he looked up at her with infinite tenderness. “I like her better so,” he +said. “It’s what she would have wished.” + +“Have wished?” + +“That we should grow old together. Do you think she would have wanted to be +left behind?” + +I stood speechless, my gaze travelling from his worn grief-beaten features +to the painted face above. It was not furrowed like his; but a veil +of years seemed to have descended on it. The bright hair had lost its +elasticity, the cheek its clearness, the brow its light: the whole woman +had waned. + +Grancy laid his hand on my arm. “You don’t like it?” he said sadly. + +“Like it? I--I’ve lost her!” I burst out. + +“And I’ve found her,” he answered. + +“In _that_?” I cried with a reproachful gesture. + +“Yes; in that.” He swung round on me almost defiantly. “The other had +become a sham, a lie! This is the way she would have looked--does look, I +mean. Claydon ought to know, oughtn’t he?” + +I turned suddenly. “Did Claydon do this for you?” + +Grancy nodded. + +“Since your return?” + +“Yes. I sent for him after I’d been back a week--.” He turned away and gave +a thrust to the smouldering fire. I followed, glad to leave the picture +behind me. Grancy threw himself into a chair near the hearth, so that the +light fell on his sensitive variable face. He leaned his head back, shading +his eyes with his hand, and began to speak. + + +III + +“You fellows knew enough of my early history to A guess what my second +marriage meant to me. I say guess, because no one could understand--really. +I’ve always had a feminine streak in me, I suppose: the need of a pair of +eyes that should see with me, of a pulse that should keep time with mine. +Life is a big thing, of course; a magnificent spectacle; but I got so tired +of looking at it alone! Still, it’s always good to live, and I had plenty +of happiness--of the evolved kind. What I’d never had a taste of was the +simple inconscient sort that one breathes in like the air.... + +“Well--I met her. It was like finding the climate in which I was meant to +live. You know what she was--how indefinitely she multiplied one’s points +of contact with life, how she lit up the caverns and bridged the abysses! +Well, I swear to you (though I suppose the sense of all that was latent in +me) that what I used to think of on my way home at the end of the day, was +simply that when I opened this door she’d be sitting over there, with the +lamp-light falling in a particular way on one little curl in her neck.... +When Claydon painted her he caught just the look she used to lift to mine +when I came in--I’ve wondered, sometimes, at his knowing how she looked +when she and I were alone.--How I rejoiced in that picture! I used to say +to her, ‘You’re my prisoner now--I shall never lose you. If you grew tired +of me and left me you’d leave your real self there on the wall!’ It was +always one of our jokes that she was going to grow tired of me-- + +“Three years of it--and then she died. It was so sudden that there was +no change, no diminution. It was as if she had suddenly become fixed, +immovable, like her own portrait: as if Time had ceased at its happiest +hour, just as Claydon had thrown down his brush one day and said, ‘I can’t +do better than that.’ + +“I went away, as you know, and stayed over there five years. I worked as +hard as I knew how, and after the first black months a little light stole +in on me. From thinking that she would have been interested in what I was +doing I came to feel that she _was_ interested--that she was there and +that she knew. I’m not talking any psychical jargon--I’m simply trying to +express the sense I had that an influence so full, so abounding as hers +couldn’t pass like a spring shower. We had so lived into each other’s +hearts and minds that the consciousness of what she would have thought +and felt illuminated all I did. At first she used to come back shyly, +tentatively, as though not sure of finding me; then she stayed longer and +longer, till at last she became again the very air I breathed.... There +were bad moments, of course, when her nearness mocked me with the loss of +the real woman; but gradually the distinction between the two was effaced +and the mere thought of her grew warm as flesh and blood. + +“Then I came home. I landed in the morning and came straight down here. The +thought of seeing her portrait possessed me and my heart beat like a +lover’s as I opened the library door. It was in the afternoon and the room +was full of light. It fell on her picture--the picture of a young and +radiant woman. She smiled at me coldly across the distance that divided us. +I had the feeling that she didn’t even recognize me. And then I caught +sight of myself in the mirror over there--a gray-haired broken man whom she +had never known! + +“For a week we two lived together--the strange woman and the strange man. +I used to sit night after night and question her smiling face; but no +answer ever came. What did she know of me, after all? We were irrevocably +separated by the five years of life that lay between us. At times, as I +sat here, I almost grew to hate her; for her presence had driven away my +gentle ghost, the real wife who had wept, aged, struggled with me during +those awful years.... It was the worst loneliness I’ve ever known. Then, +gradually, I began to notice a look of sadness in the picture’s eyes; a +look that seemed to say: ‘Don’t you see that _I_ am lonely too?’ And +all at once it came over me how she would have hated to be left behind! I +remembered her comparing life to a heavy book that could not be read with +ease unless two people held it together; and I thought how impatiently her +hand would have turned the pages that divided us!--So the idea came to me: +‘It’s the picture that stands between us; the picture that is dead, and not +my wife. To sit in this room is to keep watch beside a corpse.’ As this +feeling grew on me the portrait became like a beautiful mausoleum in which +she had been buried alive: I could hear her beating against the painted +walls and crying to me faintly for help.... + +“One day I found I couldn’t stand it any longer and I sent for Claydon. He +came down and I told him what I’d been through and what I wanted him to do. +At first he refused point-blank to touch the picture. The next morning I +went off for a long tramp, and when I came home I found him sitting here +alone. He looked at me sharply for a moment and then he said: ‘I’ve changed +my mind; I’ll do it.’ I arranged one of the north rooms as a studio and he +shut himself up there for a day; then he sent for me. The picture stood +there as you see it now--it was as though she’d met me on the threshold and +taken me in her arms! I tried to thank him, to tell him what it meant to +me, but he cut me short. + +“‘There’s an up train at five, isn’t there?’ he asked. ‘I’m booked for a +dinner to-night. I shall just have time to make a bolt for the station and +you can send my traps after me.’ I haven’t seen him since. + +“I can guess what it cost him to lay hands on his masterpiece; but, after +all, to him it was only a picture lost, to me it was my wife regained!” + + +IV + +After that, for ten years or more, I watched the strange spectacle of a +life of hopeful and productive effort based on the structure of a dream. +There could be no doubt to those who saw Grancy during this period that +he drew his strength and courage from the sense of his wife’s mystic +participation in his task. When I went back to see him a few months later I +found the portrait had been removed from the library and placed in a small +study up-stairs, to which he had transferred his desk and a few books. He +told me he always sat there when he was alone, keeping the library for his +Sunday visitors. Those who missed the portrait of course made no comment on +its absence, and the few who were in his secret respected it. Gradually all +his old friends had gathered about him and our Sunday afternoons regained +something of their former character; but Claydon never reappeared among us. + +As I look back now I see that Grancy must have been failing from the time +of his return home. His invincible spirit belied and disguised the signs of +weakness that afterward asserted themselves in my remembrance of him. He +seemed to have an inexhaustible fund of life to draw on, and more than one +of us was a pensioner on his superfluity. + +Nevertheless, when I came back one summer from my European holiday and +heard that he had been at the point of death, I understood at once that we +had believed him well only because he wished us to. + +I hastened down to the country and found him midway in a slow +convalescence. I felt then that he was lost to us and he read my thought at +a glance. + +“Ah,” he said, “I’m an old man now and no mistake. I suppose we shall have +to go half-speed after this; but we shan’t need towing just yet!” + +The plural pronoun struck me, and involuntarily I looked up at Mrs. +Grancy’s portrait. Line by line I saw my fear reflected in it. It was the +face of a woman who knows that her husband is dying. My heart stood still +at the thought of what Claydon had done. + +Grancy had followed my glance. “Yes, it’s changed her,” he said quietly. +“For months, you know, it was touch and go with me--we had a long fight of +it, and it was worse for her than for me.” After a pause he added: “Claydon +has been very kind; he’s so busy nowadays that I seldom see him, but when I +sent for him the other day he came down at once.” + +I was silent and we spoke no more of Grancy’s illness; but when I took +leave it seemed like shutting him in alone with his death-warrant. + +The next time I went down to see him he looked much better. It was a Sunday +and he received me in the library, so that I did not see the portrait +again. He continued to improve and toward spring we began to feel that, as +he had said, he might yet travel a long way without being towed. + +One evening, on returning to town after a visit which had confirmed my +sense of reassurance, I found Claydon dining alone at the club. He asked me +to join him and over the coffee our talk turned to his work. + +“If you’re not too busy,” I said at length, “you ought to make time to go +down to Grancy’s again.” + +He looked up quickly. “Why?” he asked. + +“Because he’s quite well again,” I returned with a touch of cruelty. “His +wife’s prognostications were mistaken.” + +Claydon stared at me a moment. “Oh, _she_ knows,” he affirmed with a +smile that chilled me. + +“You mean to leave the portrait as it is then?” I persisted. + +He shrugged his shoulders. “He hasn’t sent for me yet!” + +A waiter came up with the cigars and Claydon rose and joined another group. + +It was just a fortnight later that Grancy’s housekeeper telegraphed for me. +She met me at the station with the news that he had been “taken bad” and +that the doctors were with him. I had to wait for some time in the deserted +library before the medical men appeared. They had the baffled manner of +empirics who have been superseded by the great Healer; and I lingered only +long enough to hear that Grancy was not suffering and that my presence +could do him no harm. + +I found him seated in his arm-chair in the little study. He held out his +hand with a smile. + +“You see she was right after all,” he said. + +“She?” I repeated, perplexed for the moment. + +“My wife.” He indicated the picture. “Of course I knew she had no hope from +the first. I saw that”--he lowered his voice--“after Claydon had been here. +But I wouldn’t believe it at first!” + +I caught his hands in mine. “For God’s sake don’t believe it now!” I +adjured him. + +He shook his head gently. “It’s too late,” he said. “I might have known +that she knew.” + +“But, Grancy, listen to me,” I began; and then I stopped. What could I say +that would convince him? There was no common ground of argument on which we +could meet; and after all it would be easier for him to die feeling that +she _had_ known. Strangely enough, I saw that Claydon had missed his +mark.... + + +V + +Grancy’s will named me as one of his executors; and my associate, having +other duties on his hands, begged me to assume the task of carrying out our +friend’s wishes. This placed me under the necessity of informing Claydon +that the portrait of Mrs. Grancy had been bequeathed to him; and he replied +by the next post that he would send for the picture at once. I was staying +in the deserted house when the portrait was taken away; and as the door +closed on it I felt that Grancy’s presence had vanished too. Was it his +turn to follow her now, and could one ghost haunt another? + +After that, for a year or two, I heard nothing more of the picture, and +though I met Claydon from time to time we had little to say to each other. +I had no definable grievance against the man and I tried to remember that +he had done a fine thing in sacrificing his best picture to a friend; but +my resentment had all the tenacity of unreason. + +One day, however, a lady whose portrait he had just finished begged me +to go with her to see it. To refuse was impossible, and I went with the +less reluctance that I knew I was not the only friend she had invited. +The others were all grouped around the easel when I entered, and after +contributing my share to the chorus of approval I turned away and began +to stroll about the studio. Claydon was something of a collector and his +things were generally worth looking at. The studio was a long tapestried +room with a curtained archway at one end. The curtains were looped back, +showing a smaller apartment, with books and flowers and a few fine bits of +bronze and porcelain. The tea-table standing in this inner room proclaimed +that it was open to inspection, and I wandered in. A _bleu poudré_ +vase first attracted me; then I turned to examine a slender bronze +Ganymede, and in so doing found myself face to face with Mrs. Grancy’s +portrait. I stared up at her blankly and she smiled back at me in all +the recovered radiance of youth. The artist had effaced every trace of +his later touches and the original picture had reappeared. It throned +alone on the panelled wall, asserting a brilliant supremacy over its +carefully-chosen surroundings. I felt in an instant that the whole room was +tributary to it: that Claydon had heaped his treasures at the feet of the +woman he loved. Yes--it was the woman he had loved and not the picture; and +my instinctive resentment was explained. + +Suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder. + +“Ah, how could you?” I cried, turning on him. + +“How could I?” he retorted. “How could I _not_? Doesn’t she belong to +me now?” + +I moved away impatiently. + +“Wait a moment,” he said with a detaining gesture. “The others have gone +and I want to say a word to you.--Oh, I know what you’ve thought of me--I +can guess! You think I killed Grancy, I suppose?” + +I was startled by his sudden vehemence. “I think you tried to do a cruel +thing,” I said. + +“Ah--what a little way you others see into life!” he murmured. “Sit down a +moment--here, where we can look at her--and I’ll tell you.” + +He threw himself on the ottoman beside me and sat gazing up at the picture, +with his hands clasped about his knee. + +“Pygmalion,” he began slowly, “turned his statue into a real woman; +_I_ turned my real woman into a picture. Small compensation, you +think--but you don’t know how much of a woman belongs to you after you’ve +painted her!--Well, I made the best of it, at any rate--I gave her the best +I had in me; and she gave me in return what such a woman gives by merely +being. And after all she rewarded me enough by making me paint as I shall +never paint again! There was one side of her, though, that was mine alone, +and that was her beauty; for no one else understood it. To Grancy even +it was the mere expression of herself--what language is to thought. Even +when he saw the picture he didn’t guess my secret--he was so sure she was +all his! As though a man should think he owned the moon because it was +reflected in the pool at his door-- + +“Well--when he came home and sent for me to change the picture it was like +asking me to commit murder. He wanted me to make an old woman of her--of +her who had been so divinely, unchangeably young! As if any man who really +loved a woman would ask her to sacrifice her youth and beauty for his sake! +At first I told him I couldn’t do it--but afterward, when he left me alone +with the picture, something queer happened. I suppose it was because I was +always so confoundedly fond of Grancy that it went against me to refuse +what he asked. Anyhow, as I sat looking up at her, she seemed to say, ‘I’m +not yours but his, and I want you to make me what he wishes.” And so I did +it. I could have cut my hand off when the work was done--I daresay he told +you I never would go back and look at it. He thought I was too busy--he +never understood.... + +“Well--and then last year he sent for me again--you remember. It was after +his illness, and he told me he’d grown twenty years older and that he +wanted her to grow older too--he didn’t want her to be left behind. The +doctors all thought he was going to get well at that time, and he thought +so too; and so did I when I first looked at him. But when I turned to +the picture--ah, now I don’t ask you to believe me; but I swear it was +_her_ face that told me he was dying, and that she wanted him to know +it! She had a message for him and she made me deliver it.” + +He rose abruptly and walked toward the portrait; then he sat down beside me +again. + +“Cruel? Yes, it seemed so to me at first; and this time, if I resisted, +it was for _his_ sake and not for mine. But all the while I felt her +eyes drawing me, and gradually she made me understand. If she’d been there +in the flesh (she seemed to say) wouldn’t she have seen before any of us +that he was dying? Wouldn’t he have read the news first in her face? And +wouldn’t it be horrible if now he should discover it instead in strange +eyes?--Well--that was what she wanted of me and I did it--I kept them +together to the last!” He looked up at the picture again. “But now she +belongs to me,” he repeated.... + + + + +THE CONFESSIONAL + + +When I was a young man I thought a great deal of local color. At that +time it was still a pigment of recent discovery, and supposed to have +a peculiarly stimulating effect on the mental eye. As an aid to the +imagination its value was perhaps overrated; but as an object of pursuit +to that vagrant faculty, it had all the merits claimed for it. I certainly +never hunted any game better worth my powder; and to a young man with rare +holidays and long working hours, its value was enhanced by the fact that +one might bring it down at any turn, if only one kept one’s eye alert and +one’s hand on the trigger. + +Even the large manufacturing city where, for some years, my young +enthusiasms were chained to an accountant’s desk, was not without its +romantic opportunities. Many of the mill-hands at Dunstable were Italians, +and a foreign settlement had formed itself in that unsavory and unsanitary +portion of the town known as the Point. The Point, like more aristocratic +communities, had its residential and commercial districts, its church, its +theatre and its restaurant. When the craving for local color was on me it +was my habit to resort to the restaurant, a low-browed wooden building with +the appetizing announcement: + +“_Aristiù di montone_” + +pasted in one of its fly-blown window-panes. Here the consumption of tough +macaroni or of an ambiguous _frittura_ sufficed to transport me to the +Cappello d’Oro in Venice, while my cup of coffee and a wasp-waisted cigar +with a straw in it turned my greasy table-cloth into the marble top of +one of the little round tables under the arcade of the Caffè Pedrotti at +Padua. This feat of the imagination was materially aided by Agostino, the +hollow-eyed and low-collared waiter, whose slimy napkin never lost its +Latin flourish and whose zeal for my comfort was not infrequently displayed +by his testing the warmth of my soup with his finger. Through Agostino I +became acquainted with the inner history of the colony, heard the details +of its feuds and vendettas, and learned to know by sight the leading +characters in these domestic dramas. + +The restaurant was frequented by the chief personages of the community: +the overseer of the Italian hands at the Meriton Mills, the doctor, his +wife the _levatrice_ (a plump Neapolitan with greasy ringlets, a plush +picture-hat, and a charm against the evil-eye hanging in a crease of her +neck) and lastly by Don Egidio, the _parocco_ of the little church +across the street. The doctor and his wife came only on feast days, but +the overseer and Don Egidio were regular patrons. The former was a quiet +saturnine-looking man, of accomplished manners but reluctant speech, and I +depended for my diversion chiefly on Don Egidio, whose large loosely-hung +lips were always ajar for conversation. The remarks issuing from them +were richly tinged by the gutturals of the Bergamasque dialect, and it +needed but a slight acquaintance with Italian types to detect the Lombard +peasant under the priest’s rusty cassock. This inference was confirmed +by Don Egidio’s telling me that he came from a village of Val Camonica, +the radiant valley which extends northward from the lake of Iseo to +the Adamello glaciers. His step-father had been a laborer on one of +the fruit-farms of a Milanese count who owned large estates in the Val +Camonica; and that gentleman, taking a fancy to the lad, whom he had seen +at work in his orchards, had removed him to his villa on the lake of Iseo +and had subsequently educated him for the Church. + +It was doubtless to this picturesque accident that Don Egidio owed the +mingling of ease and simplicity that gave an inimitable charm to his +stout shabby presence. It was as though some wild mountain-fruit had been +transplanted to the Count’s orchards and had mellowed under cultivation +without losing its sylvan flavor. I have never seen the social art carried +farther without suggestion of artifice. The fact that Don Egidio’s +amenities were mainly exercised on the mill-hands composing his parish +proved the genuineness of his gift. It is easier to simulate gentility +among gentlemen than among navvies; and the plain man is a touchstone who +draws out all the alloy in the gold. + +Among his parishioners Don Egidio ruled with the cheerful despotism of the +good priest. On cardinal points he was inflexible, but in minor matters he +had that elasticity of judgment which enables the Catholic discipline to +fit itself to every inequality of the human conscience. There was no appeal +from his verdict; but his judgment-seat was a revolving chair from which he +could view the same act at various angles. His influence was acknowledged +not only by his flock, but by the policeman at the corner, the “bar-keep’” +in the dive, the ward politician in the corner grocery. The general verdict +of Dunstable was that the Point would have been hell without the priest. +It was perhaps not precisely heaven with him; but such light of the upper +sky as pierced its murky atmosphere was reflected from Don Egidio’s +countenance. It is hardly possible for any one to exercise such influence +without taking pleasure in it; and on the whole the priest was probably +a contented man; though it does not follow that he was a happy one. On +this point the first stages of our acquaintance yielded much food for +conjecture. At first sight Don Egidio was the image of cheerfulness. He had +all the physical indications of a mind at ease: the leisurely rolling gait, +the ready laugh, the hospitable eye of the man whose sympathies are always +on the latch. It took me some time to discover under his surface garrulity +the impenetrable reticence of his profession, and under his enjoyment of +trifles a levelling melancholy which made all enjoyment trifling. Don +Egidio’s aspect and conversation were so unsuggestive of psychological +complexities that I set down this trait to poverty or home-sickness. There +are few classes of men more frugal in tastes and habit than the village +priest in Italy; but Don Egidio, by his own account, had been introduced, +at an impressionable age, to a way of living that must have surpassed his +wildest dreams of self-indulgence. To whatever privations his parochial +work had since accustomed him, the influences of that earlier life were +too perceptible in his talk not to have made a profound impression on his +tastes; and he remained, for all his apostolic simplicity, the image of the +family priest who has his seat at the rich man’s table. + +It chanced that I had used one of my short European holidays to explore +afoot the romantic passes connecting the Valtelline with the lake of Iseo; +and my remembrance of that enchanting region made it seem impossible +that Don Egidio should ever look without a reminiscent pang on the grimy +perspective of his parochial streets. The transition was too complete, too +ironical, from those rich glades and Titianesque acclivities to the brick +hovels and fissured sidewalks of the Point. + +This impression was confirmed when Don Egidio, in response to my urgent +invitation, paid his first visit to my modest lodgings. He called one +winter evening, when a wood-fire in its happiest humor was giving a +factitious lustre to my book-shelves and bringing out the values of the one +or two old prints and Chinese porcelains that accounted for the perennial +shabbiness of my wardrobe. + +“Ah,” said he with a murmur of satisfaction, as he laid aside his shiny hat +and bulging umbrella, “it is a long time since I have been in a _casa +signorile_.” + +My remembrance of his own room (he lodged with the doctor and the +_levatrice_) saved this epithet from the suggestion of irony and kept +me silent while he sank into my arm-chair with the deliberation of a tired +traveller lowering himself gently into a warm bath. + +“Good! good!” he repeated, looking about him. “Books, porcelains, objects +of _virtù_--I am glad to see that there are still such things in the +world!” And he turned a genial eye on the glass of Marsala that I had +poured out for him. + +Don Egidio was the most temperate of men and never exceeded his one glass; +but he liked to sit by the hour puffing at my Cabañas, which I suspected +him of preferring to the black weed of his native country. Under the +influence of my tobacco he became even more blandly garrulous, and I +sometimes fancied that of all the obligations of his calling none could +have placed such a strain on him as that of preserving the secrets of the +confessional. He often talked of his early life at the Count’s villa, where +he had been educated with his patron’s two sons till he was of age to be +sent to the seminary; and I could see that the years spent in simple and +familiar intercourse with his benefactors had been the most vivid chapter +in his experience. The Italian peasant’s inarticulate tenderness for the +beauty of his birthplace had been specialized in him by contact with +cultivated tastes, and he could tell me not only that the Count had a +“stupendous” collection of pictures, but that the chapel of the villa +contained a sepulchral monument by Bambaja, and that the art-critics were +divided as to the authenticity of the Leonardo in the family palace at +Milan. + +On all these subjects he was inexhaustibly voluble; but there was one point +which he always avoided, and that was his reason for coming to America. I +remember the round turn with which he brought me up when I questioned him. + +“A priest,” said he, “is a soldier and must obey orders like a soldier.” +He set down his glass of Marsala and strolled across the room. “I had not +observed,” he went on, “that you have here a photograph of the Sposalizio +of the Brera. What a picture! _È stupendo_!” and he turned back to his +seat and smilingly lit a fresh cigar. + +I saw at once that I had hit on a point where his native garrulity was +protected by the chain-mail of religious discipline that every Catholic +priest wears beneath his cassock. I had too much respect for my friend +to wish to penetrate his armor, and now and then I almost fancied he was +grateful to me for not putting his reticence to the test. + +Don Egidio must have been past sixty when I made his acquaintance; but it +was not till the close of an exceptionally harsh winter, some five or six +years after our first meeting, that I began to think of him as an old man. +It was as though the long-continued cold had cracked and shrivelled him. He +had grown bent and hollow-chested and his lower lip shook like an unhinged +door. The summer heat did little to revive him, and in September, when I +came home from my vacation, I found him just recovering from an attack of +pneumonia. That autumn he did not care to venture often into the night air, +and now and then I used to go and sit with him in his little room, to which +I had contributed the unheard-of luxuries of an easy-chair and a gas-stove. + +My engagements, however, made these visits infrequent, and several weeks +had elapsed without my seeing the _parocco_ when, one snowy November +morning, I ran across him in the railway-station. I was on my way to New +York for the day and had just time to wave a greeting to him as I jumped +into the railway-carriage; but a moment later, to my surprise, I saw him +stiffly clambering into the same train. I found him seated in the common +car, with his umbrella between his knees and a bundle done up in a red +cotton handkerchief on the seat at his side. The caution with which, at my +approach, he transferred this bundle to his arms caused me to glance at it +in surprise; and he answered my look by saying with a smile: + +“They are flowers for the dead--the most exquisite flowers--from the +greenhouses of Mr. Meriton--_si figuri_!” And he waved a descriptive +hand. “One of my lads, Gianpietro, is employed by the gardener there, and +every year on this day he brings me a beautiful bunch of flowers--for such +a purpose it is no sin,” he added, with the charming Italian pliancy of +judgment. + +“And why are you travelling in this snowy weather, _signor parocco_?” +I asked, as he ended with a cough. + +He fixed me gravely with his simple shallow eye. “Because it is the day of +the dead, my son,” he said, “and I go to place these on the grave of the +noblest man that ever lived.” + +“You are going to New York?” + +“To Brooklyn--“ + +I hesitated a moment, wishing to question him, yet uncertain whether his +replies were curtailed by the persistency of his cough or by the desire to +avoid interrogation. + +“This is no weather to be travelling with such a cough,” I said at length. + +He made a deprecating gesture. + +“I have never missed the day--not once in eighteen years. But for me he +would have no one!” He folded his hands on his umbrella and looked away +from me to hide the trembling of his lip. + +I resolved on a last attempt to storm his confidence. “Your friend is +buried in Calvary cemetery?” + +He signed an assent. + +“That is a long way for you to go alone, _signor parocco_. The streets +are sure to be slippery and there is an icy wind blowing. Give me your +flowers and let me send them to the cemetery by a messenger. I give you my +word they shall reach their destination safely.” + +He turned a quiet look on me. “My son, you are young,” he said, “and you +don’t know how the dead need us.” He drew his breviary from his pocket and +opened it with a smile. “_Mi scusi?_” he murmured. + +The business which had called me to town obliged me to part from him as +soon as the train entered the station, and in my dash for the street I +left his unwieldy figure laboring far behind me through the crowd on the +platform. Before we separated, however, I had learned that he was returning +to Dunstable by the four o’clock train, and had resolved to despatch my +business in time to travel home with him. When I reached Wall Street I was +received with the news that the man I had appointed to meet was ill and +detained in the country. My business was “off” and I found myself with +the rest of the day at my disposal. I had no difficulty in deciding how +to employ my time. I was at an age when, in such contingencies, there is +always a feminine alternative; and even now I don’t know how it was that, +on my way to a certain hospitable luncheon-table, I suddenly found myself +in a cab which was carrying me at full-speed to the Twenty-third Street +ferry. It was not till I had bought my ticket and seated myself in the +varnished tunnel of the ferry-boat that I was aware of having been diverted +from my purpose by an overmastering anxiety for Don Egidio. I rapidly +calculated that he had not more than an hour’s advance on me, and that, +allowing for my greater agility and for the fact that I had a cab at my +call, I was likely to reach the cemetery in time to see him under shelter +before the gusts of sleet that were already sweeping across the river had +thickened to a snow-storm. + +At the gates of the cemetery I began to take a less sanguine view of my +attempt. The commemorative anniversary had filled the silent avenues +with visitors, and I felt the futility of my quest as I tried to fix the +gatekeeper’s attention on my delineation of a stout Italian priest with a +bad cough and a bunch of flowers tied up in a red cotton handkerchief. The +gate-keeper showed that delusive desire to oblige that is certain to send +its victims in the wrong direction; but I had the presence of mind to go +exactly contrary to his indication, and thanks to this precaution I came, +after half an hour’s search, on the figure of my poor _parocco_, +kneeling on the wet ground in one of the humblest by-ways of the great +necropolis. The mound before which he knelt was strewn with the spoils of +Mr. Meriton’s conservatories, and on the weather-worn tablet at its head I +read the inscription: + +IL CONTE SIVIANO +DA MILANO. + +_Super flumina Babylonis, illic sedimus et flevimus._ + +So engrossed was Don Egidio that for some moments I stood behind him +unobserved; and when he rose and faced me, grief had left so little room +for any minor emotion that he looked at me almost without surprise. + +“Don Egidio,” I said, “I have a carriage waiting for you at the gate. You +must come home with me.” + +He nodded quietly and I drew his hand through my arm. + +He turned back to the grave. “One moment, my son,” he said. “It may be for +the last time.” He stood motionless, his eyes on the heaped-up flowers +which were already bruised and blackened by the cold. “To leave him +alone--after sixty years! But God is everywhere--“ he murmured as I led him +away. + +On the journey home he did not care to talk, and my chief concern was to +keep him wrapped in my greatcoat and to see that his bed was made ready as +soon as I had restored him to his lodgings. The _levatrice_ brought a +quilted coverlet from her own room and hovered over him as gently as though +he had been of the sex to require her services; while Agostino, at my +summons, appeared with a bowl of hot soup that was heralded down the +street by a reviving waft of garlic. To these ministrations I left the +_parocco_, intending to call for news of him the next evening; but an +unexpected pressure of work kept me late at my desk, and the following day +some fresh obstacle delayed me. + +On the third afternoon, as I was leaving the office, an agate-eyed infant +from the Point hailed me with a message from the doctor. The _parocco_ +was worse and had asked for me. I jumped into the nearest car and ten +minutes later was running up the doctor’s greasy stairs. + +To my dismay I found Don Egidio’s room cold and untenanted; but I was +reassured a moment later by the appearance of the _levatrice_, who +announced that she had transferred the blessed man to her own apartment, +where he could have the sunlight and a good bed to lie in. There in fact +he lay, weak but smiling, in a setting which contrasted oddly enough with +his own monastic surroundings: a cheerful grimy room, hung with anecdotic +chromos, photographs of lady-patients proudly presenting their offspring +to the camera, and innumerable Neapolitan _santolini_ decked out with +shrivelled palm-leaves. + +The _levatrice_ whispered that the good man had the pleurisy, and +that, as she phrased it, he was nearing his last mile-stone. I saw that he +was in fact in a bad way, but his condition did not indicate any pressing +danger, and I had the presentiment that he would still, as the saying is, +put up a good fight. It was clear, however, that he knew what turn the +conflict must take, and the solemnity with which he welcomed me showed that +my summons was a part of that spiritual strategy with which the Catholic +opposes the surprise of death. + +“My son,” he said, when the _levatrice_ had left us, “I have a favor +to ask you. You found me yesterday bidding good-bye to my best friend.” +His cough interrupted him. “I have never told you,” he went on, “the name +of the family in which I was brought up. It was Siviano, and that was +the grave of the Count’s eldest son, with whom I grew up as a brother. +For eighteen years he has lain in that strange ground--_in terra +aliena_--and when I die, there will be no one to care for his grave.” + +I saw what he waited for. “I will care for it, _signor parocco_.” + +“I knew I should have your promise, my child; and what you promise you +keep. But my friend is a stranger to you--you are young and at your age +life is a mistress who kisses away sad memories. Why should you remember +the grave of a stranger? I cannot lay such a claim on you. But I will tell +you his story--and then I think that neither joy nor grief will let you +forget him; for when you rejoice you will remember how he sorrowed; and +when you sorrow the thought of him will be like a friend’s hand in yours.” + + +II + +You tell me (Don Egidio began) that you know our little lake; and if you +have seen it you will understand why it always used to remind me of the +“garden enclosed” of the Canticles. + +_Hortus inclusus; columba mea in foraminibus petræ_: the words used +to come back to me whenever I returned from a day’s journey across the +mountains, and looking down saw the blue lake far below, hidden in its +hills like a happy secret in a stern heart. We were never envious of +the glory of the great lakes. They are like the show pictures that some +nobleman hangs in his public gallery; but our Iseo is the treasure that +he hides in his inner chamber. + +You tell me you saw it in summer, when it looks up like a saint’s eye, +reflecting the whole of heaven. It was then too that I first saw it. +My future friend, the old Count, had found me at work on one of his +fruit-farms up the valley, and hearing that I was ill-treated by my +step-father--a drunken pedlar from the Val Mastellone, whom my poor mother +a year or two earlier had come across at the fair of Lovere--he had taken +me home with him to Iseo. I used to serve mass in our hill-village of +Cerveno, and the village children called me “the little priest” because +when my work was done I often crept back to the church to get away from +my step-father’s blows and curses. “I will make a real priest of him,” +the Count declared; and that afternoon, perched on the box of his +travelling-carriage, I was whirled away from the dark scenes of my +childhood into a world, where, as it seemed to me, every one was as happy +as an angel on a _presepio_. + +I wonder if you remember the Count’s villa? It lies on the shore of the +lake, facing the green knoll of Monte Isola, and overlooked by the village +of Siviano and by the old parish-church where I said mass for fifteen happy +years. The village hangs on a ledge of the mountain; but the villa dips its +foot in the lake, smiling at its reflection like a bather lingering on the +brink. What Paradise it seemed to me that day! In our church up the valley +there hung an old brown picture, with a Saint Sabastian in the foreground; +and behind him the most wonderful palace, with terraced gardens adorned +with statues and fountains, where fine folk in resplendent dresses walked +up and down without heeding the blessed martyr’s pangs. The Count’s villa, +with its terraces, its roses, its marble steps descending to the lake, +reminded me of that palace; only instead of being inhabited by wicked +people engrossed in their selfish pleasures it was the home of the kindest +friends that ever took a poor lad by the hand. + +The old Count was a widower when I first knew him. He had been twice +married, and his first wife had left him two children, a son and a +daughter. The eldest, Donna Marianna, was then a girl of twenty, who +kept her father’s house and was a mother to the two lads. She was not +handsome or learned, and had no taste for the world; but she was like the +lavender-plant in a poor man’s window--just a little gray flower, but a +sweetness that fills the whole house. Her brother, Count Roberto, had been +ailing from his birth, and was a studious lad with a melancholy musing face +such as you may see in some of Titian’s portraits of young men. He looked +like an exiled prince dressed in mourning. There was one child by the +second marriage, Count Andrea, a boy of my own age, handsome as a Saint +George, but not as kind as the others. No doubt, being younger, he was less +able to understand why an uncouth peasant lad should have been brought to +his father’s table; and the others were so fearful of hurting my feelings +that, but for his teasing, I might never have mended my clumsy manners or +learned how to behave in the presence of my betters. Count Andrea was not +sparing in such lessons, and Count Roberto, in spite of his weak arms, +chastised his brother roundly when he thought the discipline had been too +severe; but for my part it seemed to me natural enough that such a godlike +being should lord it over a poor clodhopper like myself. + +Well--I will not linger over the beginning of my new life for my story has +to do with its close. Only I should like to make you understand what the +change meant to me--an ignorant peasant lad, coming from hard words and +blows and a smoke-blackened hut in the hills to that great house full of +rare and beautiful things, and of beings who seemed to me even more rare +and beautiful. Do you wonder I was ready to kiss the ground they trod, and +would have given the last drop of my blood to serve them? + +In due course I was sent to the seminary at Lodi; and on holidays I used +to visit the family in Milan. Count Andrea was growing up to be one of +the handsomest young men imaginable, but a trifle wild; and the old Count +married him in haste to the daughter of a Venetian noble, who brought as +her dower a great estate in Istria. The Countess Gemma, as this lady was +called, was as light as thistledown and had an eye like a baby’s; but while +she was cooing for the moon her pretty white hands were always stealing +toward something within reach that she had not been meant to have. The old +Count was not alert enough to follow these manoeuvres; and the Countess hid +her designs under a torrent of guileless chatter, as pick-pockets wear long +sleeves to conceal their movements. Her only fault, he used to say, was +that one of her aunts had married an Austrian; and this event having taken +place before she was born he laughingly acquitted her of any direct share +in it. She confirmed his good opinion of her by giving her husband two +sons; and Roberto showing no inclination to marry, these boys naturally +came to be looked on as the heirs of the house. + +Meanwhile I had finished my course of studies, and the old Count, on my +twenty-first birthday, had appointed me priest of the parish of Siviano. It +was the year of Count Andrea’s marriage and there were great festivities at +the villa. Three years later the old Count died, to the sorrow of his two +eldest children. Donna Marianna and Count Roberto closed their apartments +in the palace at Milan and withdrew for a year to Siviano. It was then +that I first began to know my friend. Before that I had loved him without +understanding him; now I learned of what metal he was made. His bookish +tastes inclined him to a secluded way of living; and his younger brother +perhaps fancied that he would not care to assume the charge of the estate. +But if Andrea thought this he was disappointed. Roberto resolutely took up +the tradition of his father’s rule, and, as if conscious of lacking the +old Count’s easy way with the peasants, made up for it by a redoubled zeal +for their welfare. I have seen him toil for days to adjust some trifling +difficulty that his father would have set right with a ready word; like the +sainted bishop who, when a beggar asked him for a penny, cried out: “Alas, +my brother, I have not a penny in my purse; but here are two gold pieces, +if they can be made to serve you instead!” We had many conferences over +the condition of his people, and he often sent me up the valley to look +into the needs of the peasantry on the fruit-farms. No grievance was too +trifling for him to consider it, no abuse too deep-seated for him to root +it out; and many an hour that other men of his rank would have given to +books or pleasure was devoted to adjusting a quarrel about boundary-lines +or to weighing the merits of a complaint against the tax-collector. I +often said that he was as much his people’s priest as I; and he smiled and +answered that every landowner was a king and that in old days the king was +always a priest. + +Donna Marianna was urgent with him to marry, but he always declared that +he had a family in his tenantry, and that, as for a wife, she had never +let him feel the want of one. He had that musing temper which gives a man +a name for coldness; though in fact he may all the while be storing fuel +for a great conflagration. But to me he whispered another reason for not +marrying. A man, he said, does not take wife and rejoice while his mother +is on her death-bed; and Italy, his mother, lay dying, with the foreign +vultures waiting to tear her apart. + +You are too young to know anything of those days, my son; and how can any +one understand them who did not live through them? Italy lay dying indeed; +but Lombardy was her heart, and the heart still beat, and sent the faint +blood creeping to her cold extremities. Her torturers, weary of their +work, had allowed her to fall into a painless stupor; but just as she was +sinking from sleep to death, heaven sent Radetsky to scourge her back to +consciousness; and at the first sting of his lash she sprang maimed and +bleeding to her feet. + +Ah, those days, those days, my son! Italy--Italy--was the word on our +lips; but the thought in our hearts was just _Austria_. We clamored +for liberty, unity, the franchise; but under our breath we prayed only to +smite the white-coats. Remove the beam from our eye, we cried, and we shall +see our salvation clearly enough! We priests in the north were all liberals +and worked with the nobles and the men of letters. Gioberti was our +breviary and his Holiness the new Pope was soon to be the Tancred of our +crusade. But meanwhile, mind you, all this went on in silence, underground +as it were, while on the surface Lombardy still danced, feasted, married, +and took office under the Austrian. In the iron-mines up our valley there +used to be certain miners who stayed below ground for months at a time; +and, like one of these, Roberto remained buried in his purpose, while life +went its way overhead. Though I was not in his confidence I knew well +enough where his thoughts were, for he went among us with the eye of a +lover, the visionary look of one who hears a Voice. We all heard that +Voice, to be sure, mingling faintly with the other noises of life; but to +Roberto it was already as the roar of mighty waters, drowning every other +sound with its thunder. + +On the surface, as I have said, things looked smooth enough. An Austrian +cardinal throned in Milan and an Austrian-hearted Pope ruled in Rome. In +Lombardy, Austria couched like a beast of prey, ready to spring at our +throats if we stirred or struggled. The Moderates, to whose party Count +Roberto belonged, talked of prudence, compromise, the education of the +masses; but if their words were a velvet sheath their thought was a dagger. +For many years, as you know, the Milanese had maintained an outward show of +friendliness with their rulers. The nobles had accepted office under the +vice-roy, and in the past there had been frequent intermarriage between +the two aristocracies. But now, one by one, the great houses had closed +their doors against official society. Though some of the younger and more +careless, those who must dance and dine at any cost, still went to the +palace and sat beside the enemy at the opera, fashion was gradually taking +sides against them, and those who had once been laughed at as old fogeys +were now applauded as patriots. Among these, of course, was Count Roberto, +who for several years had refused to associate with the Austrians, and +had silently resented his easy-going brother’s disregard of political +distinctions. Andrea and Gemma belonged to the moth tribe, who flock to +the brightest light; and Gemma’s Istrian possessions, and her family’s +connection with the Austrian nobility, gave them a pretext for fluttering +about the vice-regal candle. Roberto let them go their way, but his own +course was a tacit protest against their conduct. They were always welcome +at the palazzo Siviano; but he and Donna Marianna withdrew from society in +order to have an excuse for not showing themselves at the Countess Gemma’s +entertainments. If Andrea and Gemma were aware of his disapproval they were +clever enough to ignore it; for the rich elder brother who paid their debts +and never meant to marry was too important a person to be quarrelled with +on political grounds. They seemed to think that if he married it would be +only to spite them; and they were persuaded that their future depended on +their giving him no cause to take such reprisals. I shall never be more +than a plain peasant at heart and I have little natural skill in discerning +hidden motives; but the experience of the confessional gives every priest +a certain insight into the secret springs of action, and I often wondered +that the worldly wisdom of Andrea and Gemma did not help them to a clearer +reading of their brother’s character. For my part I knew that, in Roberto’s +heart, no great passion could spring from a mean motive; and I had always +thought that if he ever loved any woman as he loved Italy, it must be from +his country’s hand that he received his bride. And so it came about. + +Have you ever noticed, on one of those still autumn days before a storm, +how here and there a yellow leaf will suddenly detach itself from the bough +and whirl through the air as though some warning of the gale had reached +it? So it was then in Lombardy. All round was the silence of decay; but now +and then a word, a look, a trivial incident, fluttered ominously through +the stillness. It was in ’45. Only a year earlier the glorious death of the +Bandiera brothers had sent a long shudder through Italy. In the Romagna, +Renzi and his comrades had tried to uphold by action the protest set forth +in the “Manifesto of Rimini”; and their failure had sowed the seed which +d’Azeglio and Cavour were to harvest. Everywhere the forces were silently +gathering; and nowhere was the hush more profound, the least reverberation +more audible, than in the streets of Milan. + +It was Count Roberto’s habit to attend early mass in the Cathedral; and one +morning, as he was standing in the aisle, a young girl passed him with her +father. Roberto knew the father, a beggarly Milanese of the noble family of +Intelvi, who had cut himself off from his class by accepting an appointment +in one of the government offices. As the two went by he saw a group of +Austrian officers looking after the girl, and heard one of them say: “Such +a choice morsel as that is too good for slaves;” and another answer with a +laugh: “Yes, it’s a dish for the master’s table!” + +The girl heard too. She was as white as a wind-flower and he saw the words +come out on her cheek like the red mark from a blow. She whispered to +her father, but he shook his head and drew her away without so much as +a glance at the Austrians. Roberto heard mass and then hastened out and +placed himself in the porch of the Cathedral. A moment later the officers +appeared, and they too stationed themselves near the doorway. Presently the +girl came out on her father’s arm. Her admirers stepped forward to greet +Intelvi; and the cringing wretch stood there exchanging compliments with +them, while their insolent stare devoured his daughter’s beauty. She, +poor thing, shook like a leaf, and her eyes, in avoiding theirs, suddenly +encountered Roberto’s. Her look was a wounded bird that flew to him for +shelter. He carried it away in his breast and its live warmth beat against +his heart. He thought that Italy had looked at him through those eyes; for +love is the wiliest of masqueraders and has a thousand disguises at his +command. + +Within a month Faustina Intelvi was his wife. Donna Marianna and I +rejoiced; for we knew he had chosen her because he loved her, and she +seemed to us almost worthy of such a choice. As for Count Andrea and his +wife, I leave you to guess what ingredients were mingled in the kiss with +which they welcomed the bride. They were all smiles at Roberto’s marriage, +and had only words of praise for his wife. Donna Marianna, who had +sometimes taxed me with suspecting their motives, rejoiced in this fresh +proof of their magnanimity; but for my part I could have wished to see them +a little less kind. All such twilight fears, however, vanished in the flush +of my friend’s happiness. Over some natures love steals gradually, as the +morning light widens across a valley; but it had flashed on Roberto like +the leap of dawn to a snow-peak. He walked the world with the wondering +step of a blind man suddenly restored to sight; and once he said to me with +a laugh: “Love makes a Columbus of every one of us!” + +And the Countess--? The Countess, my son, was eighteen, and her husband was +forty. Count Roberto had the heart of a poet, but he walked with a limp and +his skin was sallow. Youth plucks the fruit for its color rather than its +flavor; and first love does not serenade its mistress on a church-organ. In +Italy girls are married as land is sold; if two estates adjoin two lives +are united. As for the portionless girl, she is a knick-knack that goes to +the highest bidder. Faustina was handed over to her purchaser as if she +had been a picture for his gallery; and the transaction doubtless seemed +as natural to her as to her parents. She walked to the altar like an +Iphigenia; but pallor becomes a bride, and it looks well for a daughter to +weep on leaving her mother. Perhaps it would have been different if she had +guessed that the threshold of her new home was carpeted with love and its +four corners hung with tender thoughts of her; but her husband was a silent +man, who never called attention to his treasures. + +The great palace in Milan was a gloomy house for a girl to enter. Roberto +and his sister lived in it as if it had been a monastery, going nowhere and +receiving only those who labored for the Cause. To Faustina, accustomed to +the easy Austrian society, the Sunday evening receptions at the palazzo +Siviano must have seemed as dreary as a scientific congress. It pleased +Roberto to regard her as a victim of barbarian insolence, an embodiment of +his country desecrated by the desire of the enemy; but though, like any +handsome penniless girl, Faustina had now and then been exposed to a free +look or a familiar word, I doubt if she connected such incidents with the +political condition of Italy. She knew, of course, that in marrying Siviano +she was entering a house closed against the Austrian. One of Siviano’s +first cares had been to pension his father-in-law, with the stipulation +that Intelvi should resign his appointment and give up all relations with +the government; and the old hypocrite, only too glad to purchase idleness +on such terms, embraced the liberal cause with a zeal which left his +daughter no excuse for half-heartedness. But he found it less easy than he +had expected to recover a footing among his own people. In spite of his +patriotic bluster the Milanese held aloof from him; and being the kind of +man who must always take his glass in company he gradually drifted back +to his old associates. It was impossible to forbid Faustina to visit her +parents; and in their house she breathed an air that was at least tolerant +of Austria. + +But I must not let you think that the young Countess appeared ungrateful or +unhappy. She was silent and shy, and it needed a more enterprising temper +than Roberto’s to break down the barrier between them. They seemed to talk +to one another through a convent-grating, rather than across a hearth; but +if Roberto had asked more of her than she could give, outwardly she was +a model wife. She chose me at once as her confessor and I watched over +the first steps of her new life. Never was younger sister tenderer to her +elder than she to Donna Marianna; never was young wife more mindful of her +religious duties, kinder to her dependents, more charitable to the poor; +yet to be with her was like living in a room with shuttered windows. She +was always the caged bird, the transplanted flower: for all Roberto’s care +she never bloomed or sang. + +Donna Marianna was the first to speak of it. “The child needs more light +and air,” she said. + +“Light? Air?” Roberto repeated. “Does she not go to mass every morning? +Does she not drive on the Corso every evening?” + +Donna Marianna was not called clever, but her heart was wiser than most +women’s heads. + +“At our age, brother,” said she, “the windows of the mind face north and +look out on a landscape full of lengthening shadows. Faustina needs another +outlook. She is as pale as a hyacinth grown in a cellar.” + +Roberto himself turned pale and I saw that she had uttered his own thought. + +“You want me to let her go to Gemma’s!” he exclaimed. + +“Let her go wherever there is a little careless laughter.” + +“Laughter--now!” he cried, with a gesture toward the sombre line of +portraits above his head. + +“Let her laugh while she can, my brother.” + +That evening after dinner he called Faustina to him. + +“My child,” he said, “go and put on your jewels. Your sister Gemma gives a +ball to-night and the carriage waits to take you there. I am too much of a +recluse to be at ease in such scenes, but I have sent word to your father +to go with you.” + +Andrea and Gemma welcomed their young sister-in-law with effusion, and from +that time she was often in their company. Gemma forbade any mention of +politics in her drawing-room, and it was natural that Faustina should be +glad to escape from the solemn conclaves of the palazzo Siviano to a house +where life went as gaily as in that villa above Florence where Boccaccio’s +careless story-tellers took refuge from the plague. But meanwhile the +political distemper was rapidly spreading, and in spite of Gemma’s Austrian +affiliations it was no longer possible for her to receive the enemy openly. +It was whispered that her door was still ajar to her old friends; but +the rumor may have risen from the fact that one of the Austrian cavalry +officers stationed at Milan was her own cousin, the son of the aunt on +whose misalliance the old Count had so often bantered her. No one could +blame the Countess Gemma for not turning her own flesh and blood out of +doors; and the social famine to which the officers of the garrison were +reduced made it natural that young Welkenstern should press the claims of +consanguinity. + +All this must have reached Roberto’s ears; but he made no sign and his wife +came and went as she pleased. When they returned the following year to the +old dusky villa at Siviano she was like the voice of a brook in a twilight +wood: one could not look at her without ransacking the spring for new +similes to paint her freshness. With Roberto it was different. I found him +older, more preoccupied and silent; but I guessed that his preoccupations +were political, for when his eye rested on his wife it cleared like the +lake when a cloud-shadow lifts from it. + +Count Andrea and his wife occupied an adjoining villa; and during the +_villeggiatura_ the two households lived almost as one family. +Roberto, however, was often absent in Milan, called thither on business of +which the nature was not hard to guess. Sometimes he brought back guests to +the villa; and on these occasions Faustina and Donna Marianna went to Count +Andrea’s for the day. I have said that I was not in his confidence; but +he knew my sympathies were with the liberals and now and then he let fall +a word of the work going on underground. Meanwhile the new Pope had been +elected, and from Piedmont to Calabria we hailed in him the Banner that was +to lead our hosts to war. + +So time passed and we reached the last months of ’47. The villa on Iseo had +been closed since the end of August. Roberto had no great liking for his +gloomy palace in Milan, and it had been his habit to spend nine months +of the year at Siviano; but he was now too much engrossed in his work to +remain away from Milan, and his wife and sister had joined him there as +soon as the midsummer heat was over. During the autumn he had called me +once or twice to the city to consult me on business connected with his +fruit-farms; and in the course of our talks he had sometimes let fall a +hint of graver matters. It was in July of that year that a troop of Croats +had marched into Ferrara, with muskets and cannon loaded. The lighted +matches of their cannon had fired the sleeping hate of Austria, and the +whole country now echoed the Lombard cry: “Out with the barbarian!” All +talk of adjustment, compromise, reorganization, shrivelled on lips that +the live coal of patriotism had touched. Italy for the Italians, and +then--monarchy, federation, republic, it mattered not what! + +The oppressor’s grip had tightened on our throats and the clear-sighted +saw well enough that Metternich’s policy was to provoke a rebellion and +then crush it under the Croat heel. But it was too late to cry prudence in +Lombardy. With the first days of the new year the tobacco riots had drawn +blood in Milan. Soon afterward the Lions’ Club was closed, and edicts were +issued forbidding the singing of Pio Nono’s hymn, the wearing of white and +blue, the collecting of subscriptions for the victims of the riots. To each +prohibition Milan returned a fresh defiance. The ladies of the nobility put +on mourning for the rioters who had been shot down by the soldiery. Half +the members of the Guardia Nobile resigned and Count Borromeo sent back +his Golden Fleece to the Emperor. Fresh regiments were continually pouring +into Milan and it was no secret that Radetsky was strengthening the +fortifications. Late in January several leading liberals were arrested and +sent into exile, and two weeks later martial law was proclaimed in Milan. +At the first arrests several members of the liberal party had hastily left +Milan, and I was not surprised to hear, a few days later, that orders had +been given to reopen the villa at Siviano. The Count and Countess arrived +there early in February. + +It was seven months since I had seen the Countess, and I was struck with +the change in her appearance. + +She was paler than ever, and her step had lost its lightness. Yet she +did not seem to share her husband’s political anxieties; one would have +said that she was hardly aware of them. She seemed wrapped in a veil of +lassitude, like Iseo on a still gray morning, when dawn is blood-red on the +mountains but a mist blurs its reflection in the lake. I felt as though her +soul were slipping away from me, and longed to win her back to my care; but +she made her ill-health a pretext for not coming to confession, and for the +present I could only wait and carry the thought of her to the altar. She +had not been long at Siviano before I discovered that this drooping mood +was only one phase of her humor. Now and then she flung back the cowl of +melancholy and laughed life in the eye; but next moment she was in shadow +again, and her muffled thoughts had given us the slip. She was like the +lake on one of those days when the wind blows twenty ways and every +promontory holds a gust in ambush. + +Meanwhile there was a continual coming and going of messengers between +Siviano and the city. They came mostly at night, when the household slept, +and were away again with the last shadows; but the news they brought stayed +and widened, shining through every cranny of the old house. The whole of +Lombardy was up. From Pavia to Mantua, from Como to Brescia, the streets +ran blood like the arteries of one great body. At Pavia and Padua the +universities were closed. The frightened vice-roy was preparing to withdraw +from Milan to Verona, and Radetsky continued to pour his men across the +Alps, till a hundred thousand were massed between the Piave and the Ticino. +And now every eye was turned to Turin. Ah, how we watched for the blue +banner of Piedmont on the mountains! Charles Albert was pledged to our +cause; his whole people had armed to rescue us, the streets echoed with +_avanti, Savoia!_ and yet Savoy was silent and hung back. Each day was +a life-time strained to the cracking-point with hopes and disappointments. +We reckoned the hours by rumors, the very minutes by hearsay. Then +suddenly--ah, it was worth living through!--word came to us that Vienna +was in revolt. The points of the compass had shifted and our sun had risen +in the north. I shall never forget that day at the villa. Roberto sent for +me early, and I found him smiling and resolute, as becomes a soldier on +the eve of action. He had made all his preparations to leave for Milan and +was awaiting a summons from his party. The whole household felt that great +events impended, and Donna Marianna, awed and tearful, had pleaded with +her brother that they should all receive the sacrament together the next +morning. Roberto and his sister had been to confession the previous day, +but the Countess Faustina had again excused herself. I did not see her +while I was with the Count, but as I left the house she met me in the +laurel-walk. The morning was damp and cold, and she had drawn a black scarf +over her hair, and walked with a listless dragging step; but at my approach +she lifted her head quickly and signed to me to follow her into one of the +recesses of clipped laurel that bordered the path. + +“Don Egidio,” she said, “you have heard the news?” + +I assented. + +“The Count goes to Milan to-morrow?” + +“It seems probable, your excellency.” + +“There will be fighting--we are on the eve of war, I mean?” + +“We are in God’s hands, your excellency.” + +“In God’s hands!” she murmured. Her eyes wandered and for a moment we stood +silent; then she drew a purse from her pocket. “I was forgetting,” she +exclaimed. “This is for that poor girl you spoke to me about the other +day--what was her name? The girl who met the Austrian soldier at the fair +at Peschiera--“ + +“Ah, Vannina,” I said; “but she is dead, your excellency.” + +“Dead!” She turned white and the purse dropped from her hand. I picked it +up and held it out to her, but she put back my hand. “That is for masses, +then,” she said; and with that she moved away toward the house. + +I walked on to the gate; but before I had reached it I heard her step +behind me. + +“Don Egidio!” she called; and I turned back. + +“You are coming to say mass in the chapel to-morrow morning?” + +“That is the Count’s wish.” + +She wavered a moment. “I am not well enough to walk up to the village this +afternoon,” she said at length. “Will you come back later and hear my +confession here?” + +“Willingly, your excellency.” + +“Come at sunset then.” She looked at me gravely. “It is a long time since I +have been to confession,” she added. + +“My child, the door of heaven is always unlatched.” + +She made no answer and I went my way. + +I returned to the villa a little before sunset, hoping for a few words +with Roberto. I felt with Faustina that we were on the eve of war, and the +uncertainty of the outlook made me treasure every moment of my friend’s +company. I knew he had been busy all day, but hoped to find that his +preparations were ended and that he could spare me a half hour. I was not +disappointed; for the servant who met me asked me to follow him to the +Count’s apartment. Roberto was sitting alone, with his back to the door, at +a table spread with maps and papers. He stood up and turned an ashen face +on me. + +“Roberto!” I cried, as if we had been boys together. + +He signed to me to be seated. + +“Egidio,” he said suddenly, “my wife has sent for you to confess her?” + +“The Countess met me on my way home this morning and expressed a wish to +receive the sacrament to-morrow morning with you and Donna Marianna, and I +promised to return this afternoon to hear her confession.” + +Roberto sat silent, staring before him as though he hardly heard. At length +he raised his head and began to speak. + +“You have noticed lately that my wife has been ailing?” he asked. + +“Every one must have seen that the Countess is not in her usual health. She +has seemed nervous, out of spirits--I have fancied that she might be +anxious about your excellency.” + +He leaned across the table and laid his wasted hand on mine. “Call me +Roberto,” he said. + +There was another pause before he went on. “Since I saw you this morning,” +he said slowly, “something horrible has happened. After you left I sent for +Andrea and Gemma to tell them the news from Vienna and the probability of +my being summoned to Milan before night. You know as well as I that we have +reached a crisis. There will be fighting within twenty-four hours, if I +know my people; and war may follow sooner than we think. I felt it my duty +to leave my affairs in Andrea’s hands, and to entrust my wife to his care. +Don’t look startled,” he added with a faint smile. “No reasonable man goes +on a journey without setting his house in order; and if things take the +turn I expect it may be some months before you see me back at Siviano.--But +it was not to hear this that I sent for you.” He pushed his chair aside and +walked up and down the room with his short limping step. “My God!” he broke +out wildly, “how can I say it?--When Andrea had heard me, I saw him +exchange a glance with his wife, and she said with that infernal sweet +voice of hers, ‘Yes, Andrea, it is our duty.’ + +“‘Your duty?’ I asked. ‘What is your duty?’ + +“Andrea wetted his lips with his tongue and looked at her again; and her +look was like a blade in his hand. + +“‘Your wife has a lover,’ he said. + +“She caught my arm as I flung myself on him. He is ten times stronger than +I, but you remember how I made him howl for mercy in the old days when he +used to bully you. + +“‘Let me go,’ I said to his wife. ‘He must live to unsay it.’ + +“Andrea began to whimper. ‘Oh, my poor brother, I would give my heart’s +blood to unsay it!’ + +“‘The secret has been killing us,’ she chimed in. + +“‘The secret? Whose secret? How dare you--?’ + +“Gemma fell on her knees like a tragedy actress. ‘Strike me--kill me--it is +I who am the offender! It was at my house that she met him--’ + +“‘Him?’ + +“‘Franz Welkenstern--my cousin,’ she wailed. + +“I suppose I stood before them like a stunned ox, for they repeated the +name again and again, as if they were not sure of my having heard it.--Not +hear it!” he cried suddenly, dropping into a chair and hiding his face in +his hands. “Shall I ever on earth hear anything else again?” + +He sat a long time with his face hidden and I waited. My head was like a +great bronze bell with one thought for the clapper. + +After a while he went on in a low deliberate voice, as though his words +were balancing themselves on the brink of madness. With strange composure +he repeated each detail of his brother’s charges: the meetings in the +Countess Gemma’s drawing-room, the innocent friendliness of the two +young people, the talk of mysterious visits to a villa outside the Porta +Ticinese, the ever-widening circle of scandal that had spread about their +names. At first, Andrea said, he and his wife had refused to listen to the +reports which reached them. Then, when the talk became too loud, they had +sent for Welkenstern, remonstrated with him, implored him to exchange into +another regiment; but in vain. The young officer indignantly denied the +reports and declared that to leave his post at such a moment would be +desertion. + +With a laborious accuracy Roberto went on, detailing one by one each +incident of the hateful story, till suddenly he cried out, springing from +his chair--“And now to leave her with this lie unburied!” + +His cry was like the lifting of a grave-stone from my breast. “You must not +leave her!” I exclaimed. + +He shook his head. “I am pledged.” + +“This is your first duty.” + +“It would be any other man’s; not an Italian’s.” + +I was silent: in those days the argument seemed unanswerable. + +At length I said: “No harm can come to her while you are away. Donna +Marianna and I are here to watch over her. And when you come back--“ + +He looked at me gravely. “_If_ I come back--“ + +“Roberto!” + +“We are men, Egidio; we both know what is coming. Milan is up already; and +there is a rumor that Charles Albert is moving. This year the spring rains +will be red in Italy.” + +“In your absence not a breath shall touch her!” + +“And if I never come back to defend her? They hate her as hell hates, +Egidio!--They kept repeating, ‘He is of her own age and youth draws +youth--.’ She is in their way, Egidio!” + +“Consider, my son. They do not love her, perhaps; but why should they hate +her at such cost? She has given you no child.” + +“No child!” He paused. “But what if--? She has ailed lately!” he cried, and +broke off to grapple with the stabbing thought. + +“Roberto! Roberto!” I adjured him. + +He jumped up and gripped my arm. + +“Egidio! You believe in her?” + +“She’s as pure as a lily on the altar!” + +“Those eyes are wells of truth--and she has been like a daughter to +Marianna.--Egidio! do I look like an old man?” + +“Quiet yourself, Roberto,” I entreated. + +“Quiet myself? With this sting in my blood? A lover--and an Austrian lover! +Oh, Italy, Italy, my bride!” + +“I stake my life on her truth,” I cried, “and who knows better than I? Has +her soul not lain before me like the bed of a clear stream?” + +“And if what you saw there was only the reflection of your faith in her?” + +“My son, I am a priest, and the priest penetrates to the soul as the angel +passed through the walls of Peter’s prison. I see the truth in her heart as +I see Christ in the host!” + +“No, no, she is false!” he cried. + +I sprang up terrified. “Roberto, be silent!” + +He looked at me with a wild incredulous smile. “Poor simple man of God!” he +said. + +“I would not exchange my simplicity for yours--the dupe of envy’s first +malicious whisper!” + +“Envy--you think that?” + +“Is it questionable?” + +“You would stake your life on it?” + +“My life!” + +“Your faith?” + +“My faith!” + +“Your vows as a priest?” + +“My vows--“ I stopped and stared at him. He had risen and laid his hand on +my shoulder. + +“You see now what I would be at,” he said quietly. “I must take your place +presently--“ + +“My place--?” + +“When my wife comes down. You understand me.” + +“Ah, now you are quite mad!” I cried breaking away from him. + +“Am I?” he returned, maintaining his strange composure. “Consider a moment. +She has not confessed to you before since our return from Milan--“ + +“Her ill-health--“ + +He cut me short with a gesture. “Yet to-day she sends for you--“ + +“In order that she may receive the sacrament with you on the eve of your +first separation.” + +“If that is her only reason her first words will clear her. I must hear +those words, Egidio!” + +“You are quite mad,” I repeated. + +“Strange,” he said slowly. “You stake your life on my wife’s innocence, yet +you refuse me the only means of vindicating it!” + +“I would give my life for any one of you--but what you ask is not mine to +give.” + +“The priest first--the man afterward?” he sneered. + +“Long afterward!” + +He measured me with a contemptuous eye. “We laymen are ready to give the +last shred of flesh from our bones, but you priests intend to keep your +cassocks whole.” + +“I tell you my cassock is not mine,” I repeated. + +“And, by God,” he cried, “you are right; for it’s mine! Who put it on your +back but my father? What kept it there but my charity? Peasant! beggar! +Hear his holiness pontificate!” “Yes,” I said, “I was a peasant and a +beggar when your father found me; and if he had left me one I might have +been excused for putting my hand to any ugly job that my betters required +of me; but he made me a priest, and so set me above all of you, and laid on +me the charge of your souls as well as mine.” + +He sat down shaken with dreadful tears. “Ah,” he broke out, “would you have +answered me thus when we were boys together, and I stood between you and +Andrea?” + +“If God had given me the strength.” + +“You call it strength to make a woman’s soul your stepping-stone to +heaven?” + +“Her soul is in my care, not yours, my son. She is safe with me.” + +“She? But I? I go out to meet death, and leave a worse death behind me!” +He leaned over and clutched my arm. “It is not for myself I plead but for +her--for her, Egidio! Don’t you see to what a hell you condemn her if I +don’t come back? What chance has she against that slow unsleeping hate? +Their lies will fasten themselves to her and suck out her life. You and +Marianna are powerless against such enemies.” + +“You leave her in God’s hands, my son.” + +“Easily said--but, ah, priest, if you were a man! What if their poison +works in me and I go to battle thinking that every Austrian bullet may be +sent by her lover’s hand? What if I die not only to free Italy but to free +my wife as well?” + +I laid my hand on his shoulder. “My son, I answer for her. Leave your faith +in her in my hands and I will keep it whole.” + +He stared at me strangely. “And what if your own fail you?” + +“In her? Never. I call every saint to witness!” + +“And yet--and yet--ah, this is a blind,” he shouted; “you know all and +perjure yourself to spare me!” + +At that, my son, I felt a knife in my breast. I looked at him in anguish +and his gaze was a wall of metal. Mine seemed to slip away from it, like a +clawless thing struggling up the sheer side of a precipice. + +“You know all,” he repeated, “and you dare not let me hear her!” + +“I dare not betray my trust.” + +He waved the answer aside. + +“Is this a time to quibble over church discipline? If you believed in her +you would save her at any cost!” + +I said to myself, “Eternity can hold nothing worse than this for me--“ and +clutched my resolve again like a cross to my bosom. + +Just then there was a hand on the door and we heard Donna Marianna. + +“Faustina has sent to know if the _signar parocco_ is here.” + +“He is here. Bid her come down to the chapel.” Roberto spoke quietly, and +closed the door on her so that she should not see his face. We heard her +patter away across the brick floor of the _salone_. + +Roberto turned to me. “Egidio!” he said; and all at once I was no more than +a straw on the torrent of his will. + +The chapel adjoined the room in which we sat. He opened the door, and in +the twilight I saw the light glimmering before the Virgin’s shrine and the +old carved confessional standing like a cowled watcher in its corner. But +I saw it all in a dream; for nothing in heaven or earth was real to me but +the iron grip on my shoulder. + +“Quick!” he said and drove me forward. I heard him shoot back the bolt of +the outer door and a moment later I stood alone in the garden. The sun had +set and the cold spring dusk was falling. Lights shone here and there in +the long front of the villa; the statues glimmered gray among the thickets. +Through the window-pane of the chapel I caught the faint red gleam of the +Virgin’s lamp; but I turned my back on it and walked away. + + * * * * * + +All night I lay like a heretic on the fire. Before dawn there came a call +from the villa. The Count had received a second summons from Milan and was +to set out in an hour. I hurried down the cold dewy path to the lake. All +was new and hushed and strange as on the day of resurrection; and in the +dark twilight of the garden alleys the statues stared at me like the +shrouded dead. + +In the _salone_, where the old Count’s portrait hung, I found the +family assembled. Andrea and Gemma sat together, a little pinched, I +thought, but decent and self-contained, like mourners who expect to +inherit. Donna Marianna drooped near them, with something black over her +head and her face dim with weeping. Roberto received me calmly and then +turned to his sister. + +“Go fetch my wife,” he said. + +While she was gone there was silence. We could hear the cold drip of the +garden-fountain and the patter of rats in the wall. Andrea and his wife +stared out of window and Roberto sat in his father’s carved seat at the +head of the long table. Then the door opened and Faustina entered. + +When I saw her I stopped breathing. She seemed no more than the shell of +herself, a hollow thing that grief has voided. Her eyes returned our images +like polished agate, but conveyed to her no sense of our presence. Marianna +led her to a seat, and she crossed her hands and nailed her dull gaze on +Roberto. I looked from one to another, and in that spectral light it seemed +to me that we were all souls come to judgment and naked to each other as to +God. As to my own wrongdoing, it weighed on me no more than dust. The only +feeling I had room for was fear--a fear that seemed to fill my throat and +lungs and bubble coldly over my drowning head. + +Suddenly Roberto began to speak. His voice was clear and steady, and I +clutched at his words to drag myself above the surface of my terror. He +touched on the charge that had been made against his wife--he did not say +by whom--the foul rumor that had made itself heard on the eve of their +first parting. Duty, he said, had sent him a double summons; to fight for +his country and for his wife. He must clear his wife’s name before he was +worthy to draw sword for Italy. There was no time to tame the slander +before throttling it; he had to take the shortest way to its throat. At +this point he looked at me and my soul shook. Then he turned to Andrea and +Gemma. + +“When you came to me with this rumor,” he said quietly, “you agreed to +consider the family honor satisfied if I could induce Don Egidio to let me +take his place and overhear my wife’s confession, and if that confession +convinced me of her innocence. Was this the understanding?” + +Andrea muttered something and Gemma tapped a sullen foot. + +“After you had left,” Roberto continued, “I laid the case before Don Egidio +and threw myself on his mercy.” He looked at me fixedly. “So strong was his +faith in my wife’s innocence that for her sake he agreed to violate the +sanctity of the confessional. I took his place.” + +Marianna sobbed and crossed herself and a strange look flitted over +Faustina’s face. + +There was a moment’s pause; then Roberto, rising, walked across the room to +his wife and took her by the hand. + +“Your seat is beside me, Countess Siviano,” he said, and led her to the +empty chair by his own. + +Gemma started to her feet, but her husband pulled her down again. + +“Jesus! Mary!” We heard Donna Marianna moan. + +Roberto raised his wife’s hand to his lips. “You forgive me,” he said, “the +means I took to defend you?” And turning to Andrea he added slowly: “I +declare my wife innocent and my honor satisfied. You swear to stand by my +decision?” + +What Andrea stammered out, what hissing serpents of speech Gemma’s clinched +teeth bit back, I never knew--for my eyes were on Faustina, and her face +was a wonder to behold. + +She had let herself be led across the room like a blind woman, and had +listened without change of feature to her husband’s first words; but as +he ceased her frozen gaze broke and her whole body seemed to melt against +his breast. He put his arm out, but she slipped to his feet and Marianna +hastened forward to raise her up. At that moment we heard the stroke +of oars across the quiet water and saw the Count’s boat touch the +landing-steps. Four strong oarsmen from Monte Isola were to row him down +to Iseo, to take horse for Milan, and his servant, knapsack on shoulder, +knocked warningly at the terrace window. + +“No time to lose, excellency!” he cried. + +Roberto turned and gripped my hand. “Pray for me,” he said low; and with a +brief gesture to the others ran down the terrace to the boat. + +Marianna was bathing Faustina with happy tears. + +“Look up, dear! Think how soon he will come back! And there is the +sunrise--see!” + +Andrea and Gemma had slunk away like ghosts at cock-crow, and a red dawn +stood over Milan. + + * * * * * + +If that sun rose red it set scarlet. It was the first of the Five Days in +Milan--the Five Glorious Days, as they are called. Roberto reached the city +just before the gates closed. So much we knew--little more. We heard of him +in the Broletto (whence he must have escaped when the Austrians blew in +the door) and in the Casa Vidiserti, with Casati, Cattaneo and the rest; +but after the barricading began we could trace him only as having been +seen here and there in the thick of the fighting, or tending the wounded +under Bertani’s orders. His place, one would have said, was in the +council-chamber, with the soberer heads; but that was an hour when every +man gave his blood where it was most needed, and Cernuschi, Dandolo, +Anfossi, della Porta fought shoulder to shoulder with students, artisans +and peasants. Certain it is that he was seen on the fifth day; for among +the volunteers who swarmed after Manara in his assault on the Porta Tosa +was a servant of palazzo Siviano; and this fellow swore he had seen his +master charge with Manara in the last assault--had watched him, sword +in hand, press close to the gates, and then, as they swung open before +the victorious dash of our men, had seen him drop and disappear in the +inrushing tide of peasants that almost swept the little company off its +feet. After that we heard nothing. There was savage work in Milan in those +days, and more than one well-known figure lay lost among the heaps of dead +hacked and disfeatured by Croat blades. + +At the villa, we waited breathless. News came to us hour by hour: the very +wind seemed to carry it, and it was swept to us on the incessant rush of +the rain. On the twenty-third Radetsky had fled from Milan, to face Venice +rising in his path. On the twenty-fourth the first Piedmontese had crossed +the Ticino, and Charles Albert himself was in Pavia on the twenty-ninth. +The bells of Milan had carried the word from Turin to Naples, from Genoa to +Ancona, and the whole country was pouring like a flood-tide into Lombardy. +Heroes sprang up from the bloody soil as thick as wheat after rain, and +every day carried some new name to us; but never the one for which we +prayed and waited. Weeks passed. We heard of Pastrengo, Goito, Rivoli; of +Radetsky hemmed into the Quadrilateral, and our troops closing in on him +from Rome, Tuscany and Venetia. Months passed--and we heard of Custozza. We +saw Charles Albert’s broken forces flung back from the Mincio to the Oglio, +from the Oglio to the Adda. We followed the dreadful retreat from Milan, +and saw our rescuers dispersed like dust before the wind. But all the while +no word came to us of Roberto. + +These were dark days in Lombardy; and nowhere darker than in the old villa +on Iseo. In September Donna Marianna and the young Countess put on black, +and Count Andrea and his wife followed their example. In October the +Countess gave birth to a daughter. Count Andrea then took possession of the +palazzo Siviano, and the two women remained at the villa. I have no heart +to tell you of the days that followed. Donna Marianna wept and prayed +incessantly, and it was long before the baby could snatch a smile from her. +As for the Countess Faustina, she went among us like one of the statues in +the garden. The child had a wet-nurse from the village, and it was small +wonder there was no milk for it in that marble breast. I spent much of +my time at the villa, comforting Donna Marianna as best I could; but +sometimes, in the long winter evenings, when we three sat in the dimly-lit +_salone_, with the old Count’s portrait overhead, and I looked up and +saw the Countess Faustina in the tall carved seat beside her husband’s +empty chair, my spine grew chill and I felt a cold wind in my hair. + +The end of it was that in the spring I went to see my bishop and laid my +sin before him. He was a saintly and merciful old man, and gave me a +patient hearing. + +“You believed the lady innocent?” he asked when I had ended. + +“Monsignore, on my soul!” + +“You thought to avert a great calamity from the house to which you owed +more than your life?” + +“It was my only thought.” + +He laid his hand on my shoulder. + +“Go home, my son. You shall learn my decision.” + +Three months later I was ordered to resign my living and go to America, +where a priest was needed for the Italian mission church in New York. I +packed my possessions and set sail from Genoa. I knew no more of America +than any peasant up in the hills. I fully expected to be speared by naked +savages on landing; and for the first few months after my arrival I wished +at least once a day that such a blessed fate had befallen me. But it is +no part of my story to tell you what I suffered in those early days. The +Church had dealt with me mercifully, as is her wont, and her punishment +fell far below my deserts.... + +I had been some four years in New York, and no longer thought of looking +back from the plough, when one day word was brought me that an Italian +professor lay ill and had asked for a priest. There were many Italian +refugees in New York at that time, and the greater number, being +well-educated men, earned a living by teaching their language, which was +then included among the accomplishments of fashionable New York. The +messenger led me to a poor boarding-house and up to a small bare room on +the top floor. On the visiting-card nailed to the door I read the name “De +Roberti, Professor of Italian.” Inside, a gray-haired haggard man tossed on +the narrow bed. He turned a glazed eye on me as I entered, and I recognized +Roberto Siviano. + +I steadied myself against the door-post and stood staring at him without a +word. + +“What’s the matter?” asked the doctor who was bending over the bed. I +stammered that the sick man was an old friend. + +“He wouldn’t know his oldest friend just now,” said the doctor. “The +fever’s on him; but it will go down toward sunset.” + +I sat down at the head of the bed and took Roberto’s hand in mine. + +“Is he going to die?” I asked. + +“I don’t believe so; but he wants nursing.” + +“I will nurse him.” + +The doctor nodded and went out. I sat in the little room, with Roberto’s +burning hand in mine. Gradually his skin cooled, the fingers grew quiet, +and the flush faded from his sallow cheek-bones. Toward dusk he looked up +at me and smiled. + +“Egidio,” he said quietly. + +I administered the sacrament, which he received with the most fervent +devotion; then he fell into a deep sleep. + +During the weeks that followed I had no time to ask myself the meaning of +it all. My one business was to keep him alive if I could. I fought the +fever day and night, and at length it yielded. For the most part he raved +or lay unconscious; but now and then he knew me for a moment, and whispered +“Egidio” with a look of peace. + +I had stolen many hours from my duties to nurse him; and as soon as the +danger was past I had to go back to my parish work. Then it was that I +began to ask myself what had brought him to America; but I dared not face +the answer. + +On the fourth day I snatched a moment from my work and climbed to his +room. I found him sitting propped against his pillows, weak as a child but +clear-eyed and quiet. I ran forward, but his look stopped me. + +“_Signor parocco_,” he said, “the doctor tells me that I owe my life +to your nursing, and I have to thank you for the kindness you have shown to +a friendless stranger.” + +“A stranger?” I gasped. + +He looked at me steadily. “I am not aware that we have met before,” he +said. + +For a moment I thought the fever was on him; but a second glance convinced +me that he was master of himself. + +“Roberto!” I cried, trembling. + +“You have the advantage of me,” he said civilly. “But my name is Roberti, +not Roberto.” + +The floor swam under me and I had to lean against the wall. + +“You are not Count Roberto Siviano of Milan?” + +“I am Tommaso de Roberti, professor of Italian, from Modena.” + +“And you have never seen me before?” + +“Never that I know of.” + +“Were you never at Siviano, on the lake of Iseo?” I faltered. + +He said calmly: “I am unacquainted with that part of Italy.” + +My heart grew cold and I was silent. + +“You mistook me for a friend, I suppose?” he added. + +“Yes,” I cried, “I mistook you for a friend;” and with that I fell on my +knees by his bed and cried like a child. + +Suddenly I felt a touch on my shoulder. “Egidio,” said he in a broken +voice, “look up.” + +I raised my eyes, and there was his old smile above me, and we clung to +each other without a word. Presently, however, he drew back, and put me +quietly aside. + +“Sit over there, Egidio. My bones are like water and I am not good for much +talking yet.” + +“Let us wait, Roberto. Sleep now--we can talk tomorrow.” + +“No. What I have to say must be said at once.” He examined me thoughtfully. +“You have a parish here in New York?” + +I assented. + +“And my work keeps me here. I have pupils. It is too late to make a +change.” + +“A change?” + +He continued to look at me calmly. “It would be difficult for me,” he +explained, “to find employment in a new place.” + +“But why should you leave here?” + +“I shall have to,” he returned deliberately, “if you persist in recognizing +in me your former friend Count Siviano.” + +“Roberto!” + +He lifted his hand. “Egidio,” he said, “I am alone here, and without +friends. The companionship, the sympathy of my parish priest would be a +consolation in this strange city; but it must not be the companionship of +the _parocco_ of Siviano. You understand?” + +“Roberto,” I cried, “it is too dreadful to understand!” + +“Be a man, Egidio,” said he with a touch of impatience. “The choice lies +with you, and you must make it now. If you are willing to ask no questions, +to name no names, to make no allusions to the past, let us live as friends +together, in God’s name! If not, as soon as my legs can carry me I must be +off again. The world is wide, luckily--but why should we be parted?” + +I was on my knees at his side in an instant. “We must never be parted!” I +cried. “Do as you will with me. Give me your orders and I obey--have I not +always obeyed you?” + +I felt his hand close sharply on mine. “Egidio!” he admonished me. + +“No--no--I shall remember. I shall say nothing--“ + +“Think nothing?” + +“Think nothing,” I said with a last effort. + +“God bless you!” he answered. + +My son, for eight years I kept my word to him. We met daily almost, we ate +and walked and talked together, we lived like David and Jonathan--but +without so much as a glance at the past. How he had escaped from Milan--how +he had reached New York--I never knew. We talked often of Italy’s +liberation--as what Italians would not?--but never touched on his share in +the work. Once only a word slipped from him; and that was when one day he +asked me how it was that I had been sent to America. The blood rushed to my +face, and before I could answer he had raised a silencing hand. + +“I see,” he said; “it was _your_ penance too.” + +During the first years he had plenty of work to do, but he lived so +frugally that I guessed he had some secret use for his earnings. It was +easy to conjecture what it was. All over the world Italian exiles were +toiling and saving to further the great cause. He had political friends in +New York, and sometimes he went to other cities to attend meetings and make +addresses. His zeal never slackened; and but for me he would often have +gone hungry that some shivering patriot might dine. I was with him heart +and soul, but I had the parish on my shoulders, and perhaps my long +experience of men had made me a little less credulous than Christian +charity requires; for I could have sworn that some of the heroes who hung +on him had never had a whiff of Austrian blood, and would have fed out of +the same trough with the white-coats if there had been polenta enough to go +round. Happily my friend had no such doubts. He believed in the patriots as +devoutly as in the cause; and if some of his hard-earned dollars travelled +no farther than the nearest wine-cellar or cigar-shop, he never suspected +the course they took. + +His health was never the same after the fever; and by and by he began to +lose his pupils, and the patriots cooled off as his pockets fell in. Toward +the end I took him to live in my shabby attic. He had grown weak and had a +troublesome cough, and he spent the greater part of his days indoors. Cruel +days they must have been to him, but he made no sign, and always welcomed +me with a cheerful word. When his pupils dropped off, and his health made +it difficult for him to pick up work outside, he set up a letter-writer’s +sign, and used to earn a few pennies by serving as amanuensis to my poor +parishioners; but it went against him to take their money, and half the +time he did the work for nothing. I knew it was hard for him to live on +charity, as he called it, and I used to find what jobs I could for him +among my friends the _negozianti_, who would send him letters to copy, +accounts to make up and what not; but we were all poor together, and the +master had licked the platter before the dog got it. + +So lived that just man, my son; and so, after eight years of exile, he died +one day in my arms. God had let him live long enough to see Solferino and +Villa-franca; and was perhaps never more merciful than in sparing him Monte +Rotondo and Mentana. But these are things of which it does not become me to +speak. The new Italy does not wear the face of our visions; but it is +written that God shall know His own, and it cannot be that He shall misread +the hearts of those who dreamed of fashioning her in His image. + +As for my friend, he is at peace, I doubt not; and his just life and holy +death intercede for me, who sinned for his sake alone. + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Crucial Instances, by Edith Wharton + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CRUCIAL INSTANCES *** + +***** This file should be named 7516-0.txt or 7516-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/7/5/1/7516/ + + + +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 +http://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/license + +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 web page at http://www.pglaf.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. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. 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 +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +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 http://pglaf.org + +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: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty 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: + + http://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. diff --git a/7516-0.zip b/7516-0.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..127ebf2 --- /dev/null +++ b/7516-0.zip diff --git a/7516-8.txt b/7516-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5840942 --- /dev/null +++ b/7516-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6145 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Crucial Instances, by Edith Wharton + +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: Crucial Instances + +Author: Edith Wharton + +Posting Date: January 28, 2011 [EBook #7516] +Release Date: February, 2005 +First Posted: May 13, 2003 +[Last updated: October 20, 2017] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CRUCIAL INSTANCES *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Tiffany Vergon, William +Flis, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + + + + + + + CRUCIAL INSTANCES + + BY + + EDITH WHARTON + + + + +TABLE OF CONTENTS + + +I _The Duchess at Prayer_ + +II _The Angel at the Grave_ + +III _The Recovery_ + +IV _"Copy": A Dialogue_ + +V _The Rembrandt_ + +VI _The Moving Finger_ + +VII _The Confessional_ + + + + +THE DUCHESS AT PRAYER + + +Have you ever questioned the long shuttered front of an old Italian house, +that motionless mask, smooth, mute, equivocal as the face of a priest +behind which buzz the secrets of the confessional? Other houses declare the +activities they shelter; they are the clear expressive cuticle of a life +flowing close to the surface; but the old palace in its narrow street, the +villa on its cypress-hooded hill, are as impenetrable as death. The tall +windows are like blind eyes, the great door is a shut mouth. Inside there +may be sunshine, the scent of myrtles, and a pulse of life through all the +arteries of the huge frame; or a mortal solitude, where bats lodge in the +disjointed stones and the keys rust in unused doors.... + + +II + +From the loggia, with its vanishing frescoes, I looked down an avenue +barred by a ladder of cypress-shadows to the ducal escutcheon and mutilated +vases of the gate. Flat noon lay on the gardens, on fountains, porticoes +and grottoes. Below the terrace, where a chrome-colored lichen had sheeted +the balustrade as with fine _laminae_ of gold, vineyards stooped to +the rich valley clasped in hills. The lower slopes were strewn with white +villages like stars spangling a summer dusk; and beyond these, fold on +fold of blue mountain, clear as gauze against the sky. The August air was +lifeless, but it seemed light and vivifying after the atmosphere of the +shrouded rooms through which I had been led. Their chill was on me and I +hugged the sunshine. + +"The Duchess's apartments are beyond," said the old man. + +He was the oldest man I had ever seen; so sucked back into the past that he +seemed more like a memory than a living being. The one trait linking him +with the actual was the fixity with which his small saurian eye held the +pocket that, as I entered, had yielded a _lira_ to the gate-keeper's +child. He went on, without removing his eye: + +"For two hundred years nothing has been changed in the apartments of the +Duchess." + +"And no one lives here now?" + +"No one, sir. The Duke, goes to Como for the summer season." + +I had moved to the other end of the loggia. Below me, through hanging +groves, white roofs and domes flashed like a smile. + +"And that's Vicenza?" + +"_Proprio_!" The old man extended fingers as lean as the hands fading +from the walls behind us. "You see the palace roof over there, just to the +left of the Basilica? The one with the row of statues like birds taking +flight? That's the Duke's town palace, built by Palladio." + +"And does the Duke come there?" + +"Never. In winter he goes to Rome." + +"And the palace and the villa are always closed?" + +"As you see--always." + +"How long has this been?" + +"Since I can remember." + +I looked into his eyes: they were like tarnished metal mirrors reflecting +nothing. "That must be a long time," I said involuntarily. + +"A long time," he assented. + +I looked down on the gardens. An opulence of dahlias overran the +box-borders, between cypresses that cut the sunshine like basalt shafts. +Bees hung above the lavender; lizards sunned themselves on the benches and +slipped through the cracks of the dry basins. Everywhere were vanishing +traces of that fantastic horticulture of which our dull age has lost the +art. Down the alleys maimed statues stretched their arms like rows of +whining beggars; faun-eared terms grinned in the thickets, and above the +laurustinus walls rose the mock ruin of a temple, falling into real ruin +in the bright disintegrating air. The glare was blinding. + +"Let us go in," I said. + +The old man pushed open a heavy door, behind which the cold lurked like a +knife. + +"The Duchess's apartments," he said. + +Overhead and around us the same evanescent frescoes, under foot the same +scagliola volutes, unrolled themselves interminably. Ebony cabinets, with +inlay of precious marbles in cunning perspective, alternated down the +room with the tarnished efflorescence of gilt consoles supporting Chinese +monsters; and from the chimney-panel a gentleman in the Spanish habit +haughtily ignored us. + +"Duke Ercole II.," the old man explained, "by the Genoese Priest." + +It was a narrow-browed face, sallow as a wax effigy, high-nosed and +cautious-lidded, as though modelled by priestly hands; the lips weak and +vain rather than cruel; a quibbling mouth that would have snapped at verbal +errors like a lizard catching flies, but had never learned the shape of a +round yes or no. One of the Duke's hands rested on the head of a dwarf, a +simian creature with pearl ear-rings and fantastic dress; the other turned +the pages of a folio propped on a skull. + +"Beyond is the Duchess's bedroom," the old man reminded me. + +Here the shutters admitted but two narrow shafts of light, gold bars +deepening the subaqueous gloom. On a dais the bedstead, grim, nuptial, +official, lifted its baldachin; a yellow Christ agonized between the +curtains, and across the room a lady smiled at us from the chimney-breast. + +The old man unbarred a shutter and the light touched her face. Such a face +it was, with a flicker of laughter over it like the wind on a June meadow, +and a singular tender pliancy of mien, as though one of Tiepolo's lenient +goddesses had been busked into the stiff sheath of a seventeenth century +dress! + +"No one has slept here," said the old man, "since the Duchess Violante." + +"And she was--?" + +"The lady there--first Duchess of Duke Ercole II." + +He drew a key from his pocket and unlocked a door at the farther end of the +room. "The chapel," he said. "This is the Duchess's balcony." As I turned +to follow him the Duchess tossed me a sidelong smile. + +I stepped into a grated tribune above a chapel festooned with stucco. +Pictures of bituminous saints mouldered between the pilasters; the +artificial roses in the altar-vases were gray with dust and age, and under +the cobwebby rosettes of the vaulting a bird's nest clung. Before the altar +stood a row of tattered arm-chairs, and I drew back at sight of a figure +kneeling near them. + +"The Duchess," the old man whispered. "By the Cavaliere Bernini." + +It was the image of a woman in furred robes and spreading fraise, her hand +lifted, her face addressed to the tabernacle. There was a strangeness in +the sight of that immovable presence locked in prayer before an abandoned +shrine. Her face was hidden, and I wondered whether it were grief or +gratitude that raised her hands and drew her eyes to the altar, where no +living prayer joined her marble invocation. I followed my guide down the +tribune steps, impatient to see what mystic version of such terrestrial +graces the ingenious artist had found--the Cavaliere was master of such +arts. The Duchess's attitude was one of transport, as though heavenly airs +fluttered her laces and the love-locks escaping from her coif. I saw how +admirably the sculptor had caught the poise of her head, the tender slope +of the shoulder; then I crossed over and looked into her face--it was a +frozen horror. Never have hate, revolt and agony so possessed a human +countenance.... + +The old man crossed himself and shuffled his feet on the marble. + +"The Duchess Violante," he repeated. + +"The same as in the picture?" + +"Eh--the same." + +"But the face--what does it mean?" + +He shrugged his shoulders and turned deaf eyes on me. Then he shot a glance +round the sepulchral place, clutched my sleeve and said, close to my ear: +"It was not always so." + +"What was not?" + +"The face--so terrible." + +"The Duchess's face?" + +"The statue's. It changed after--" + +"After?" + +"It was put here." + +"The statue's face _changed_--?" + +He mistook my bewilderment for incredulity and his confidential finger +dropped from my sleeve. "Eh, that's the story. I tell what I've heard. What +do I know?" He resumed his senile shuffle across the marble. "This is a bad +place to stay in--no one comes here. It's too cold. But the gentleman said, +_I must see everything_!" + +I let the _lire_ sound. "So I must--and hear everything. This story, +now--from whom did you have it?" + +His hand stole back. "One that saw it, by God!" + +"That saw it?" + +"My grandmother, then. I'm a very old man." + +"Your grandmother? Your grandmother was--?" + +"The Duchess's serving girl, with respect to you." + +"Your grandmother? Two hundred years ago?" + +"Is it too long ago? That's as God pleases. I am a very old man and she +was a very old woman when I was born. When she died she was as black as a +miraculous Virgin and her breath whistled like the wind in a keyhole. She +told me the story when I was a little boy. She told it to me out there in +the garden, on a bench by the fish-pond, one summer night of the year she +died. It must be true, for I can show you the very bench we sat on...." + + +III + +Noon lay heavier on the gardens; not our live humming warmth but the stale +exhalation of dead summers. The very statues seemed to drowse like watchers +by a death-bed. Lizards shot out of the cracked soil like flames and the +bench in the laurustinus-niche was strewn with the blue varnished bodies of +dead flies. Before us lay the fish-pond, a yellow marble slab above rotting +secrets. The villa looked across it, composed as a dead face, with the +cypresses flanking it for candles.... + + +IV + +"Impossible, you say, that my mother's mother should have been the +Duchess's maid? What do I know? It is so long since anything has happened +here that the old things seem nearer, perhaps, than to those who live in +cities.... But how else did she know about the statue then? Answer me that, +sir! That she saw with her eyes, I can swear to, and never smiled again, +so she told me, till they put her first child in her arms ... for she was +taken to wife by the steward's son, Antonio, the same who had carried +the letters.... But where am I? Ah, well ... she was a mere slip, you +understand, my grandmother, when the Duchess died, a niece of the upper +maid, Nencia, and suffered about the Duchess because of her pranks and the +funny songs she knew. It's possible, you think, she may have heard from +others what she afterward fancied she had seen herself? How that is, it's +not for an unlettered man to say; though indeed I myself seem to have seen +many of the things she told me. This is a strange place. No one comes here, +nothing changes, and the old memories stand up as distinct as the statues +in the garden.... + +"It began the summer after they came back from the Brenta. Duke Ercole had +married the lady from Venice, you must know; it was a gay city, then, I'm +told, with laughter and music on the water, and the days slipped by like +boats running with the tide. Well, to humor her he took her back the first +autumn to the Brenta. Her father, it appears, had a grand palace there, +with such gardens, bowling-alleys, grottoes and casinos as never were; +gondolas bobbing at the water-gates, a stable full of gilt coaches, a +theatre full of players, and kitchens and offices full of cooks and +lackeys to serve up chocolate all day long to the fine ladies in masks +and furbelows, with their pet dogs and their blackamoors and their +_abates_. Eh! I know it all as if I'd been there, for Nencia, you see, +my grandmother's aunt, travelled with the Duchess, and came back with her +eyes round as platters, and not a word to say for the rest of the year to +any of the lads who'd courted her here in Vicenza. + +"What happened there I don't know--my grandmother could never get at +the rights of it, for Nencia was mute as a fish where her lady was +concerned--but when they came back to Vicenza the Duke ordered the villa +set in order; and in the spring he brought the Duchess here and left her. +She looked happy enough, my grandmother said, and seemed no object for +pity. Perhaps, after all, it was better than being shut up in Vicenza, +in the tall painted rooms where priests came and went as softly as cats +prowling for birds, and the Duke was forever closeted in his library, +talking with learned men. The Duke was a scholar; you noticed he was +painted with a book? Well, those that can read 'em make out that they're +full of wonderful things; as a man that's been to a fair across the +mountains will always tell his people at home it was beyond anything +_they'll_ ever see. As for the Duchess, she was all for music, +play-acting and young company. The Duke was a silent man, stepping quietly, +with his eyes down, as though he'd just come from confession; when the +Duchess's lap-dog yapped at his heels he danced like a man in a swarm of +hornets; when the Duchess laughed he winced as if you'd drawn a diamond +across a window-pane. And the Duchess was always laughing. + +"When she first came to the villa she was very busy laying out the gardens, +designing grottoes, planting groves and planning all manner of agreeable +surprises in the way of water-jets that drenched you unexpectedly, and +hermits in caves, and wild men that jumped at you out of thickets. She had +a very pretty taste in such matters, but after a while she tired of it, and +there being no one for her to talk to but her maids and the chaplain--a +clumsy man deep in his books--why, she would have strolling players out +from Vicenza, mountebanks and fortune-tellers from the market-place, +travelling doctors and astrologers, and all manner of trained animals. +Still it could be seen that the poor lady pined for company, and her +waiting women, who loved her, were glad when the Cavaliere Ascanio, the +Duke's cousin, came to live at the vineyard across the valley--you see +the pinkish house over there in the mulberries, with a red roof and a +pigeon-cote? + +"The Cavaliere Ascanio was a cadet of one of the great Venetian houses, +_pezzi grossi_ of the Golden Book. He had been meant for the Church, +I believe, but what! he set fighting above praying and cast in his lot with +the captain of the Duke of Mantua's _bravi_, himself a Venetian of +good standing, but a little at odds with the law. Well, the next I know, +the Cavaliere was in Venice again, perhaps not in good odor on account of +his connection with the gentleman I speak of. Some say he tried to carry +off a nun from the convent of Santa Croce; how that may be I can't say; but +my grandmother declared he had enemies there, and the end of it was that on +some pretext or other the Ten banished him to Vicenza. There, of course, +the Duke, being his kinsman, had to show him a civil face; and that was how +he first came to the villa. + +"He was a fine young man, beautiful as a Saint Sebastian, a rare musician, +who sang his own songs to the lute in a way that used to make my +grandmother's heart melt and run through her body like mulled wine. He +had a good word for everybody, too, and was always dressed in the French +fashion, and smelt as sweet as a bean-field; and every soul about the place +welcomed the sight of him. + +"Well, the Duchess, it seemed, welcomed it too; youth will have youth, +and laughter turns to laughter; and the two matched each other like the +candlesticks on an altar. The Duchess--you've seen her portrait--but to +hear my grandmother, sir, it no more approached her than a weed comes up to +a rose. The Cavaliere, indeed, as became a poet, paragoned her in his song +to all the pagan goddesses of antiquity; and doubtless these were finer +to look at than mere women; but so, it seemed, was she; for, to believe +my grandmother, she made other women look no more than the big French +fashion-doll that used to be shown on Ascension days in the Piazza. She +was one, at any rate, that needed no outlandish finery to beautify her; +whatever dress she wore became her as feathers fit the bird; and her hair +didn't get its color by bleaching on the housetop. It glittered of itself +like the threads in an Easter chasuble, and her skin was whiter than fine +wheaten bread and her mouth as sweet as a ripe fig.... + +"Well, sir, you could no more keep them apart than the bees and the +lavender. They were always together, singing, bowling, playing cup and +ball, walking in the gardens, visiting the aviaries and petting her grace's +trick-dogs and monkeys. The Duchess was as gay as a foal, always playing +pranks and laughing, tricking out her animals like comedians, disguising +herself as a peasant or a nun (you should have seen her one day pass +herself off to the chaplain as a mendicant sister), or teaching the lads +and girls of the vineyards to dance and sing madrigals together. The +Cavaliere had a singular ingenuity in planning such entertainments and the +days were hardly long enough for their diversions. But toward the end of +the summer the Duchess fell quiet and would hear only sad music, and the +two sat much together in the gazebo at the end of the garden. It was there +the Duke found them one day when he drove out from Vicenza in his gilt +coach. He came but once or twice a year to the villa, and it was, as my +grandmother said, just a part of her poor lady's ill-luck to be wearing +that day the Venetian habit, which uncovered the shoulders in a way the +Duke always scowled at, and her curls loose and powdered with gold. Well, +the three drank chocolate in the gazebo, and what happened no one knew, +except that the Duke, on taking leave, gave his cousin a seat in his +carriage; but the Cavaliere never returned. + +"Winter approaching, and the poor lady thus finding herself once more +alone, it was surmised among her women that she must fall into a deeper +depression of spirits. But far from this being the case, she displayed such +cheerfulness and equanimity of humor that my grandmother, for one, was +half-vexed with her for giving no more thought to the poor young man who, +all this time, was eating his heart out in the house across the valley. It +is true she quitted her gold-laced gowns and wore a veil over her head; but +Nencia would have it she looked the lovelier for the change and so gave the +Duke greater displeasure. Certain it is that the Duke drove out oftener to +the villa, and though he found his lady always engaged in some innocent +pursuit, such as embroidery or music, or playing games with her young +women, yet he always went away with a sour look and a whispered word to +the chaplain. Now as to the chaplain, my grandmother owned there had been +a time when her grace had not handled him over-wisely. For, according to +Nencia, it seems that his reverence, who seldom approached the Duchess, +being buried in his library like a mouse in a cheese--well, one day he made +bold to appeal to her for a sum of money, a large sum, Nencia said, to buy +certain tall books, a chest full of them, that a foreign pedlar had brought +him; whereupon the Duchess, who could never abide a book, breaks out at +him with a laugh and a flash of her old spirit--'Holy Mother of God, must +I have more books about me? I was nearly smothered with them in the first +year of my marriage;' and the chaplain turning red at the affront, she +added: 'You may buy them and welcome, my good chaplain, if you can find +the money; but as for me, I am yet seeking a way to pay for my turquoise +necklace, and the statue of Daphne at the end of the bowling-green, and +the Indian parrot that my black boy brought me last Michaelmas from the +Bohemians--so you see I've no money to waste on trifles;' and as he backs +out awkwardly she tosses at him over her shoulder: 'You should pray to +Saint Blandina to open the Duke's pocket!' to which he returned, very +quietly, 'Your excellency's suggestion is an admirable one, and I have +already entreated that blessed martyr to open the Duke's understanding.' + +"Thereat, Nencia said (who was standing by), the Duchess flushed +wonderfully red and waved him out of the room; and then 'Quick!' she cried +to my grandmother (who was too glad to run on such errands), 'Call me +Antonio, the gardener's boy, to the box-garden; I've a word to say to him +about the new clove-carnations....' + +"Now I may not have told you, sir, that in the crypt under the chapel there +has stood, for more generations than a man can count, a stone coffin +containing a thighbone of the blessed Saint Blandina of Lyons, a relic +offered, I've been told, by some great Duke of France to one of our own +dukes when they fought the Turk together; and the object, ever since, of +particular veneration in this illustrious family. Now, since the Duchess +had been left to herself, it was observed she affected a fervent devotion +to this relic, praying often in the chapel and even causing the stone slab +that covered the entrance to the crypt to be replaced by a wooden one, +that she might at will descend and kneel by the coffin. This was matter of +edification to all the household and should have been peculiarly pleasing +to the chaplain; but, with respect to you, he was the kind of man who +brings a sour mouth to the eating of the sweetest apple. + +"However that may be, the Duchess, when she dismissed him, was seen running +to the garden, where she talked earnestly with the boy Antonio about the +new clove-carnations; and the rest of the day she sat indoors and played +sweetly on the virginal. Now Nencia always had it in mind that her grace +had made a mistake in refusing that request of the chaplain's; but she said +nothing, for to talk reason to the Duchess was of no more use than praying +for rain in a drought. + +"Winter came early that year, there was snow on the hills by All Souls, +the wind stripped the gardens, and the lemon-trees were nipped in the +lemon-house. The Duchess kept her room in this black season, sitting over +the fire, embroidering, reading books of devotion (which was a thing she +had never done) and praying frequently in the chapel. As for the chaplain, +it was a place he never set foot in but to say mass in the morning, +with the Duchess overhead in the tribune, and the servants aching with +rheumatism on the marble floor. The chaplain himself hated the cold, and +galloped through the mass like a man with witches after him. The rest of +the day he spent in his library, over a brazier, with his eternal books.... + +"You'll wonder, sir, if I'm ever to get to the gist of the story; and I've +gone slowly, I own, for fear of what's coming. Well, the winter was long +and hard. When it fell cold the Duke ceased to come out from Vicenza, +and not a soul had the Duchess to speak to but her maid-servants and the +gardeners about the place. Yet it was wonderful, my grandmother said, how +she kept her brave colors and her spirits; only it was remarked that she +prayed longer in the chapel, where a brazier was kept burning for her all +day. When the young are denied their natural pleasures they turn often +enough to religion; and it was a mercy, as my grandmother said, that she, +who had scarce a live sinner to speak to, should take such comfort in a +dead saint. + +"My grandmother seldom saw her that winter, for though she showed a brave +front to all she kept more and more to herself, choosing to have only +Nencia about her and dismissing even her when she went to pray. For +her devotion had that mark of true piety, that she wished it not to be +observed; so that Nencia had strict orders, on the chaplain's approach, to +warn her mistress if she happened to be in prayer. + +"Well, the winter passed, and spring was well forward, when my grandmother +one evening had a bad fright. That it was her own fault I won't deny, for +she'd been down the lime-walk with Antonio when her aunt fancied her to be +stitching in her chamber; and seeing a sudden light in Nencia's window, she +took fright lest her disobedience be found out, and ran up quickly through +the laurel-grove to the house. Her way lay by the chapel, and as she crept +past it, meaning to slip in through the scullery, and groping her way, for +the dark had fallen and the moon was scarce up, she heard a crash close +behind her, as though someone had dropped from a window of the chapel. The +young fool's heart turned over, but she looked round as she ran, and there, +sure enough, was a man scuttling across the terrace; and as he doubled +the corner of the house my grandmother swore she caught the whisk of the +chaplain's skirts. Now that was a strange thing, certainly; for why should +the chaplain be getting out of the chapel window when he might have passed +through the door? For you may have noticed, sir, there's a door leads from +the chapel into the saloon on the ground floor; the only other way out +being through the Duchess's tribune. + +"Well, my grandmother turned the matter over, and next time she met Antonio +in the lime-walk (which, by reason of her fright, was not for some days) +she laid before him what had happened; but to her surprise he only laughed +and said, 'You little simpleton, he wasn't getting out of the window, he +was trying to look in'; and not another word could she get from him. + +"So the season moved on to Easter, and news came the Duke had gone to Rome +for that holy festivity. His comings and goings made no change at the +villa, and yet there was no one there but felt easier to think his yellow +face was on the far side of the Apennines, unless perhaps it was the +chaplain. + +"Well, it was one day in May that the Duchess, who had walked long with +Nencia on the terrace, rejoicing at the sweetness of the prospect and the +pleasant scent of the gilly-flowers in the stone vases, the Duchess toward +midday withdrew to her rooms, giving orders that her dinner should be +served in her bed-chamber. My grandmother helped to carry in the dishes, +and observed, she said, the singular beauty of the Duchess, who in honor +of the fine weather had put on a gown of shot-silver and hung her bare +shoulders with pearls, so that she looked fit to dance at court with an +emperor. She had ordered, too, a rare repast for a lady that heeded so +little what she ate--jellies, game-pasties, fruits in syrup, spiced cakes +and a flagon of Greek wine; and she nodded and clapped her hands as the +women set it before her, saying again and again, 'I shall eat well to-day.' + +"But presently another mood seized her; she turned from the table, called +for her rosary, and said to Nencia: 'The fine weather has made me neglect +my devotions. I must say a litany before I dine.' + +"She ordered the women out and barred the door, as her custom was; and +Nencia and my grandmother went down-stairs to work in the linen-room. + +"Now the linen-room gives on the court-yard, and suddenly my grandmother +saw a strange sight approaching. First up the avenue came the Duke's +carriage (whom all thought to be in Rome), and after it, drawn by a long +string of mules and oxen, a cart carrying what looked like a kneeling +figure wrapped in death-clothes. The strangeness of it struck the girl dumb +and the Duke's coach was at the door before she had the wit to cry out that +it was coming. Nencia, when she saw it, went white and ran out of the room. +My grandmother followed, scared by her face, and the two fled along the +corridor to the chapel. On the way they met the chaplain, deep in a book, +who asked in surprise where they were running, and when they said, to +announce the Duke's arrival, he fell into such astonishment and asked them +so many questions and uttered such ohs and ahs, that by the time he let +them by the Duke was at their heels. Nencia reached the chapel-door first +and cried out that the Duke was coming; and before she had a reply he was +at her side, with the chaplain following. + +"A moment later the door opened and there stood the Duchess. She held her +rosary in one hand and had drawn a scarf over her shoulders; but they shone +through it like the moon in a mist, and her countenance sparkled with +beauty. + +"The Duke took her hand with a bow. 'Madam,' he said, 'I could have had no +greater happiness than thus to surprise you at your devotions.' + +"'My own happiness,' she replied, 'would have been greater had your +excellency prolonged it by giving me notice of your arrival.' + +"'Had you expected me, Madam,' said he, 'your appearance could scarcely +have been more fitted to the occasion. Few ladies of your youth and beauty +array themselves to venerate a saint as they would to welcome a lover.' + +"'Sir,' she answered, 'having never enjoyed the latter opportunity, I am +constrained to make the most of the former.--What's that?' she cried, +falling back, and the rosary dropped from her hand. + +"There was a loud noise at the other end of the saloon, as of a heavy +object being dragged down the passage; and presently a dozen men were seen +haling across the threshold the shrouded thing from the oxcart. The Duke +waved his hand toward it. 'That,' said he, 'Madam, is a tribute to your +extraordinary piety. I have heard with peculiar satisfaction of your +devotion to the blessed relics in this chapel, and to commemorate a zeal +which neither the rigors of winter nor the sultriness of summer could abate +I have ordered a sculptured image of you, marvellously executed by the +Cavaliere Bernini, to be placed before the altar over the entrance to the +crypt.' + +"The Duchess, who had grown pale, nevertheless smiled playfully at this. +'As to commemorating my piety," she said, 'I recognize there one of your +excellency's pleasantries--' + +"'A pleasantry?' the Duke interrupted; and he made a sign to the men, who +had now reached the threshold of the chapel. In an instant the wrappings +fell from the figure, and there knelt the Duchess to the life. A cry of +wonder rose from all, but the Duchess herself stood whiter than the marble. + +"'You will see,' says the Duke, 'this is no pleasantry, but a triumph +of the incomparable Bernini's chisel. The likeness was done from your +miniature portrait by the divine Elisabetta Sirani, which I sent to the +master some six months ago, with what results all must admire.' + +"'Six months!' cried the Duchess, and seemed about to fall; but his +excellency caught her by the hand. + +"'Nothing,' he said, 'could better please me than the excessive emotion you +display, for true piety is ever modest, and your thanks could not take a +form that better became you. And now,' says he to the men, 'let the image +be put in place.' + +"By this, life seemed to have returned to the Duchess, and she answered him +with a deep reverence. 'That I should be overcome by so unexpected a grace, +your excellency admits to be natural; but what honors you accord it is my +privilege to accept, and I entreat only that in mercy to my modesty the +image be placed in the remotest part of the chapel.' + +"At that the Duke darkened. 'What! You would have this masterpiece of a +renowned chisel, which, I disguise not, cost me the price of a good +vineyard in gold pieces, you would have it thrust out of sight like the +work of a village stonecutter?' + +"'It is my semblance, not the sculptor's work, I desire to conceal.' + +"'It you are fit for my house, Madam, you are fit for God's, and entitled +to the place of honor in both. Bring the statue forward, you dawdlers!' he +called out to the men. + +"The Duchess fell back submissively. 'You are right, sir, as always; but I +would at least have the image stand on the left of the altar, that, looking +up, it may behold your excellency's seat in the tribune.' + +"'A pretty thought, Madam, for which I thank you; but I design before long +to put my companion image on the other side of the altar; and the wife's +place, as you know, is at her husband's right hand.' + +"'True, my lord--but, again, if my poor presentment is to have the +unmerited honor of kneeling beside yours, why not place both before the +altar, where it is our habit to pray in life?' + +"'And where, Madam, should we kneel if they took our places? Besides,' says +the Duke, still speaking very blandly, 'I have a more particular purpose +in placing your image over the entrance to the crypt; for not only would I +thereby mark your special devotion to the blessed saint who rests there, +but, by sealing up the opening in the pavement, would assure the perpetual +preservation of that holy martyr's bones, which hitherto have been too +thoughtlessly exposed to sacrilegious attempts.' + +"'What attempts, my lord?' cries the Duchess. 'No one enters this chapel +without my leave.' + +"'So I have understood, and can well believe from what I have learned of +your piety; yet at night a malefactor might break in through a window, +Madam, and your excellency not know it.' + +"'I'm a light sleeper,' said the Duchess. + +"The Duke looked at her gravely. 'Indeed?' said he. 'A bad sign at your +age. I must see that you are provided with a sleeping-draught.' + +"The Duchess's eyes filled. 'You would deprive me, then, of the consolation +of visiting those venerable relics?' + +"'I would have you keep eternal guard over them, knowing no one to whose +care they may more fittingly be entrusted.' + +"By this the image was brought close to the wooden slab that covered the +entrance to the crypt, when the Duchess, springing forward, placed herself +in the way. + +"'Sir, let the statue be put in place to-morrow, and suffer me, to-night, +to say a last prayer beside those holy bones.' + +"The Duke stepped instantly to her side. 'Well thought, Madam; I will go +down with you now, and we will pray together.' + +"'Sir, your long absences have, alas! given me the habit of solitary +devotion, and I confess that any presence is distracting.' + +"'Madam, I accept your rebuke. Hitherto, it is true, the duties of my +station have constrained me to long absences; but henceforward I remain +with you while you live. Shall we go down into the crypt together?" + +"'No; for I fear for your excellency's ague. The air there is excessively +damp.' + +"'The more reason you should no longer be exposed to it; and to prevent the +intemperance of your zeal I will at once make the place inaccessible.' + +"The Duchess at this fell on her knees on the slab, weeping excessively and +lifting her hands to heaven. + +"'Oh,' she cried, 'you are cruel, sir, to deprive me of access to the +sacred relics that have enabled me to support with resignation the solitude +to which your excellency's duties have condemned me; and if prayer and +meditation give me any authority to pronounce on such matters, suffer me to +warn you, sir, that I fear the blessed Saint Blandina will punish us for +thus abandoning her venerable remains!' + +"The Duke at this seemed to pause, for he was a pious man, and my +grandmother thought she saw him exchange a glance with the chaplain; who, +stepping timidly forward, with his eyes on the ground, said, 'There is +indeed much wisdom in her excellency's words, but I would suggest, sir, +that her pious wish might be met, and the saint more conspicuously honored, +by transferring the relics from the crypt to a place beneath the altar.' + +"'True!' cried the Duke, 'and it shall be done at once.' + +"But thereat the Duchess rose to her feet with a terrible look. + +"'No,' she cried, 'by the body of God! For it shall not be said that, after +your excellency has chosen to deny every request I addressed to him, I owe +his consent to the solicitation of another!' + +"The chaplain turned red and the Duke yellow, and for a moment neither +spoke. + +"Then the Duke said, 'Here are words enough, Madam. Do you wish the relics +brought up from the crypt?' + +"'I wish nothing that I owe to another's intervention!' + +"'Put the image in place then,' says the Duke furiously; and handed her +grace to a chair. + +"She sat there, my grandmother said, straight as an arrow, her hands +locked, her head high, her eyes on the Duke, while the statue was dragged +to its place; then she stood up and turned away. As she passed by Nencia, +'Call me Antonio,' she whispered; but before the words were out of her +mouth the Duke stepped between them. + +"'Madam,' says he, all smiles now, 'I have travelled straight from Rome to +bring you the sooner this proof of my esteem. I lay last night at Monselice +and have been on the road since daybreak. Will you not invite me to +supper?' + +"'Surely, my lord,' said the Duchess. 'It shall be laid in the +dining-parlor within the hour.' + +"'Why not in your chamber and at once, Madam? Since I believe it is your +custom to sup there.' + +"'In my chamber?' says the Duchess, in disorder. + +"'Have you anything against it?' he asked. + +"'Assuredly not, sir, if you will give me time to prepare myself.' + +"'I will wait in your cabinet,' said the Duke. + +"At that, said my grandmother, the Duchess gave one look, as the souls in +hell may have looked when the gates closed on our Lord; then she called +Nencia and passed to her chamber. + +"What happened there my grandmother could never learn, but that the +Duchess, in great haste, dressed herself with extraordinary splendor, +powdering her hair with gold, painting her face and bosom, and covering +herself with jewels till she shone like our Lady of Loreto; and hardly +were these preparations complete when the Duke entered from the cabinet, +followed by the servants carrying supper. Thereupon the Duchess dismissed +Nencia, and what follows my grandmother learned from a pantry-lad who +brought up the dishes and waited in the cabinet; for only the Duke's +body-servant entered the bed-chamber. + +"Well, according to this boy, sir, who was looking and listening with his +whole body, as it were, because he had never before been suffered so near +the Duchess, it appears that the noble couple sat down in great good humor, +the Duchess playfully reproving her husband for his long absence, while the +Duke swore that to look so beautiful was the best way of punishing him. +In this tone the talk continued, with such gay sallies on the part of the +Duchess, such tender advances on the Duke's, that the lad declared they +were for all the world like a pair of lovers courting on a summer's night +in the vineyard; and so it went till the servant brought in the mulled +wine. + +"'Ah,' the Duke was saying at that moment, 'this agreeable evening repays +me for the many dull ones I have spent away from you; nor do I remember +to have enjoyed such laughter since the afternoon last year when we drank +chocolate in the gazebo with my cousin Ascanio. And that reminds me,' he +said, 'is my cousin in good health?' + +"'I have no reports of it,' says the Duchess. 'But your excellency should +taste these figs stewed in malmsey--' + +"'I am in the mood to taste whatever you offer,' said he; and as she helped +him to the figs he added, 'If my enjoyment were not complete as it is, +I could almost wish my cousin Ascanio were with us. The fellow is rare +good company at supper. What do you say, Madam? I hear he's still in the +country; shall we send for him to join us?' + +"'Ah,' said the Duchess, with a sigh and a languishing look, 'I see your +excellency wearies of me already.' + +"'I, Madam? Ascanio is a capital good fellow, but to my mind his chief +merit at this moment is his absence. It inclines me so tenderly to him +that, by God, I could empty a glass to his good health.' + +"With that the Duke caught up his goblet and signed to the servant to fill +the Duchess's. + +"'Here's to the cousin,' he cried, standing, 'who has the good taste to +stay away when he's not wanted. I drink to his very long life--and you, +Madam?' + +"At this the Duchess, who had sat staring at him with a changed face, rose +also and lifted her glass to her lips. + +"'And I to his happy death,' says she in a wild voice; and as she spoke the +empty goblet dropped from her hand and she fell face down on the floor. + +"The Duke shouted to her women that she had swooned, and they came and +lifted her to the bed.... She suffered horribly all night, Nencia said, +twisting herself like a heretic at the stake, but without a word escaping +her. The Duke watched by her, and toward daylight sent for the chaplain; +but by this she was unconscious and, her teeth being locked, our Lord's +body could not be passed through them. + + * * * * * + +"The Duke announced to his relations that his lady had died after partaking +too freely of spiced wine and an omelet of carp's roe, at a supper she had +prepared in honor of his return; and the next year he brought home a new +Duchess, who gave him a son and five daughters...." + + +V + +The sky had turned to a steel gray, against which the villa stood out +sallow and inscrutable. A wind strayed through the gardens, loosening here +and there a yellow leaf from the sycamores; and the hills across the valley +were purple as thunder-clouds. + + * * * * * + +"And the statue--?" I asked. + +"Ah, the statue. Well, sir, this is what my grandmother told me, here on +this very bench where we're sitting. The poor child, who worshipped the +Duchess as a girl of her years will worship a beautiful kind mistress, +spent a night of horror, you may fancy, shut out from her lady's room, +hearing the cries that came from it, and seeing, as she crouched in her +corner, the women rush to and fro with wild looks, the Duke's lean face in +the door, and the chaplain skulking in the antechamber with his eyes on +his breviary. No one minded her that night or the next morning; and toward +dusk, when it became known the Duchess was no more, the poor girl felt the +pious wish to say a prayer for her dead mistress. She crept to the chapel +and stole in unobserved. The place was empty and dim, but as she advanced +she heard a low moaning, and coming in front of the statue she saw that +its face, the day before so sweet and smiling, had the look on it that you +know--and the moaning seemed to come from its lips. My grandmother turned +cold, but something, she said afterward, kept her from calling or shrieking +out, and she turned and ran from the place. In the passage she fell in a +swoon; and when she came to her senses, in her own chamber, she heard that +the Duke had locked the chapel door and forbidden any to set foot there.... +The place was never opened again till the Duke died, some ten years later; +and then it was that the other servants, going in with the new heir, +saw for the first time the horror that my grandmother had kept in her +bosom...." + +"And the crypt?" I asked. "Has it never been opened?" + +"Heaven forbid, sir!" cried the old man, crossing himself. "Was it not the +Duchess's express wish that the relics should not be disturbed?" + + + + +THE ANGEL AT THE GRAVE + + +The House stood a few yards back from the elm-shaded village street, +in that semi-publicity sometimes cited as a democratic protest against +old-world standards of domestic exclusiveness. This candid exposure to +the public eye is more probably a result of the gregariousness which, in +the New England bosom, oddly coexists with a shrinking from direct social +contact; most of the inmates of such houses preferring that furtive +intercourse which is the result of observations through shuttered windows +and a categorical acquaintance with the neighboring clothes-lines. The +House, however, faced its public with a difference. For sixty years it had +written itself with a capital letter, had self-consciously squared itself +in the eye of an admiring nation. The most searching inroads of village +intimacy hardly counted in a household that opened on the universe; and a +lady whose door-bell was at any moment liable to be rung by visitors from +London or Vienna was not likely to flutter up-stairs when she observed a +neighbor "stepping over." + +The solitary inmate of the Anson House owed this induration of the social +texture to the most conspicuous accident in her annals: the fact that she +was the only granddaughter of the great Orestes Anson. She had been born, +as it were, into a museum, and cradled in a glass case with a label; +the first foundations of her consciousness being built on the rock of +her grandfather's celebrity. To a little girl who acquires her earliest +knowledge of literature through a _Reader_ embellished with fragments +of her ancestor's prose, that personage necessarily fills an heroic space +in the foreground of life. To communicate with one's past through the +impressive medium of print, to have, as it were, a footing in every library +in the country, and an acknowledged kinship with that world-diffused clan, +the descendants of the great, was to be pledged to a standard of manners +that amazingly simplified the lesser relations of life. The village street +on which Paulina Anson's youth looked out led to all the capitals of +Europe; and over the roads of intercommunication unseen caravans bore back +to the elm-shaded House the tribute of an admiring world. + +Fate seemed to have taken a direct share in fitting Paulina for her part as +the custodian of this historic dwelling. It had long been secretly regarded +as a "visitation" by the great man's family that he had left no son and +that his daughters were not "intellectual." The ladies themselves were the +first to lament their deficiency, to own that nature had denied them the +gift of making the most of their opportunities. A profound veneration for +their parent and an unswerving faith in his doctrines had not amended their +congenital incapacity to understand what he had written. Laura, who had her +moments of mute rebellion against destiny, had sometimes thought how much +easier it would have been if their progenitor had been a poet; for she +could recite, with feeling, portions of _The Culprit Fay_ and of the +poems of Mrs. Hemans; and Phoebe, who was more conspicuous for memory than +imagination, kept an album filled with "selections." But the great man +was a philosopher; and to both daughters respiration was difficult on the +cloudy heights of metaphysic. The situation would have been intolerable +but for the fact that, while Phoebe and Laura were still at school, +their father's fame had passed from the open ground of conjecture to the +chill privacy of certitude. Dr. Anson had in fact achieved one of those +anticipated immortalities not uncommon at a time when people were apt to +base their literary judgments on their emotions, and when to affect plain +food and despise England went a long way toward establishing a man's +intellectual pre-eminence. Thus, when the daughters were called on to +strike a filial attitude about their parent's pedestal, there was little +to do but to pose gracefully and point upward; and there are spines to +which the immobility of worship is not a strain. A legend had by this time +crystallized about the great Orestes, and it was of more immediate interest +to the public to hear what brand of tea he drank, and whether he took off +his boots in the hall, than to rouse the drowsy echo of his dialectic. A +great man never draws so near his public as when it has become unnecessary +to read his books and is still interesting to know what he eats for +breakfast. + +As recorders of their parent's domestic habits, as pious scavengers of his +waste-paper basket, the Misses Anson were unexcelled. They always had an +interesting anecdote to impart to the literary pilgrim, and the tact with +which, in later years, they intervened between the public and the growing +inaccessibility of its idol, sent away many an enthusiast satisfied to have +touched the veil before the sanctuary. Still it was felt, especially by old +Mrs. Anson, who survived her husband for some years, that Phoebe and Laura +were not worthy of their privileges. There had been a third daughter so +unworthy of hers that she had married a distant cousin, who had taken her +to live in a new Western community where the _Works of Orestes Anson_ +had not yet become a part of the civic consciousness; but of this daughter +little was said, and she was tacitly understood to be excluded from the +family heritage of fame. In time, however, it appeared that the traditional +penny with which she had been cut off had been invested to unexpected +advantage; and the interest on it, when she died, returned to the Anson +House in the shape of a granddaughter who was at once felt to be what Mrs. +Anson called a "compensation." It was Mrs. Anson's firm belief that the +remotest operations of nature were governed by the centripetal force of her +husband's greatness and that Paulina's exceptional intelligence could be +explained only on the ground that she was designed to act as the guardian +of the family temple. + +The House, by the time Paulina came to live in it, had already acquired +the publicity of a place of worship; not the perfumed chapel of a romantic +idolatry but the cold clean empty meeting-house of ethical enthusiasms. The +ladies lived on its outskirts, as it were, in cells that left the central +fane undisturbed. The very position of the furniture had come to have a +ritual significance: the sparse ornaments were the offerings of kindred +intellects, the steel engravings by Raphael Morghen marked the Via Sacra +of a European tour, and the black-walnut desk with its bronze inkstand +modelled on the Pantheon was the altar of this bleak temple of thought. + +To a child compact of enthusiasms, and accustomed to pasture them on the +scanty herbage of a new social soil, the atmosphere of the old house was +full of floating nourishment. In the compressed perspective of Paulina's +outlook it stood for a monument of ruined civilizations, and its white +portico opened on legendary distances. Its very aspect was impressive +to eyes that had first surveyed life from the jig-saw "residence" of a +raw-edged Western town. The high-ceilinged rooms, with their panelled +walls, their polished mahogany, their portraits of triple-stocked ancestors +and of ringleted "females" in crayon, furnished the child with the historic +scenery against which a young imagination constructs its vision of the +past. To other eyes the cold spotless thinly-furnished interior might have +suggested the shuttered mind of a maiden-lady who associates fresh air and +sunlight with dust and discoloration; but it is the eye which supplies the +coloring-matter, and Paulina's brimmed with the richest hues. + +Nevertheless, the House did not immediately dominate her. She had her +confused out-reachings toward other centres of sensation, her vague +intuition of a heliocentric system; but the attraction of habit, the steady +pressure of example, gradually fixed her roving allegiance and she bent her +neck to the yoke. Vanity had a share in her subjugation; for it had early +been discovered that she was the only person in the family who could read +her grandfather's works. The fact that she had perused them with delight at +an age when (even presupposing a metaphysical bias) it was impossible for +her to understand them, seemed to her aunts and grandmother sure evidence +of predestination. Paulina was to be the interpreter of the oracle, and the +philosophic fumes so vertiginous to meaner minds would throw her into the +needed condition of clairvoyance. Nothing could have been more genuine than +the emotion on which this theory was based. Paulina, in fact, delighted in +her grandfather's writings. His sonorous periods, his mystic vocabulary, +his bold flights into the rarefied air of the abstract, were thrilling to +a fancy unhampered by the need of definitions. This purely verbal pleasure +was supplemented later by the excitement of gathering up crumbs of meaning +from the rhetorical board. What could have been more stimulating than +to construct the theory of a girlish world out of the fragments of this +Titanic cosmogony? Before Paulina's opinions had reached the stage when +ossification sets in their form was fatally predetermined. + +The fact that Dr. Anson had died and that his apotheosis had taken +place before his young priestess's induction to the temple, made her +ministrations easier and more inspiring. There were no little personal +traits--such as the great man's manner of helping himself to salt, or the +guttural cluck that started the wheels of speech--to distract the eye +of young veneration from the central fact of his divinity. A man whom +one knows only through a crayon portrait and a dozen yellowing, tomes on +free-will and intuition is at least secure from the belittling effects of +intimacy. + +Paulina thus grew up in a world readjusted to the fact of her grandfather's +greatness; and as each organism draws from its surroundings the kind of +nourishment most needful to its growth, so from this somewhat colorless +conception she absorbed warmth, brightness and variety. Paulina was the +type of woman who transmutes thought into sensation and nurses a theory in +her bosom like a child. + +In due course Mrs. Anson "passed away"--no one died in the Anson +vocabulary--and Paulina became more than ever the foremost figure of the +commemorative group. Laura and Phoebe, content to leave their father's +glory in more competent hands, placidly lapsed into needlework and fiction, +and their niece stepped into immediate prominence as the chief "authority" +on the great man. Historians who were "getting up" the period wrote to +consult her and to borrow documents; ladies with inexplicable yearnings +begged for an interpretation of phrases which had "influenced" them, but +which they had not quite understood; critics applied to her to verify some +doubtful citation or to decide some disputed point in chronology; and the +great tide of thought and investigation kept up a continuous murmur on the +quiet shores of her life. + +An explorer of another kind disembarked there one day in the shape +of a young man to whom Paulina was primarily a kissable girl, with an +after-thought in the shape of a grandfather. From the outset it had been +impossible to fix Hewlett Winsloe's attention on Dr. Anson. The young man +behaved with the innocent profanity of infants sporting on a tomb. His +excuse was that he came from New York, a Cimmerian outskirt which survived +in Paulina's geography only because Dr. Anson had gone there once or twice +to lecture. The curious thing was that she should have thought it worth +while to find excuses for young Winsloe. The fact that she did so had not +escaped the attention of the village; but people, after a gasp of awe, said +it was the most natural thing in the world that a girl like Paulina Anson +should think of marrying. It would certainly seem a little odd to see a +man in the House, but young Winsloe would of course understand that the +Doctor's books were not to be disturbed, and that he must go down to the +orchard to smoke--. The village had barely framed this _modus vivendi_ +when it was convulsed by the announcement that young Winsloe declined to +live in the House on any terms. Hang going down to the orchard to smoke! +He meant to take his wife to New York. The village drew its breath and +watched. + +Did Persephone, snatched from the warm fields of Enna, peer +half-consentingly down the abyss that opened at her feet? Paulina, it must +be owned, hung a moment over the black gulf of temptation. She would have +found it easy to cope with a deliberate disregard of her grandfather's +rights; but young Winsloe's unconsciousness of that shadowy claim was as +much a natural function as the falling of leaves on a grave. His love was +an embodiment of the perpetual renewal which to some tender spirits seems a +crueller process than decay. + +On women of Paulina's mould this piety toward implicit demands, toward +the ghosts of dead duties walking unappeased among usurping passions, +has a stronger hold than any tangible bond. People said that she gave up +young Winsloe because her aunts disapproved of her leaving them; but such +disapproval as reached her was an emanation from the walls of the House, +from the bare desk, the faded portraits, the dozen yellowing tomes that no +hand but hers ever lifted from the shelf. + + +II + +After that the House possessed her. As if conscious of its victory, it +imposed a conqueror's claims. It had once been suggested that she should +write a life of her grandfather, and the task from which she had shrunk as +from a too-oppressive privilege now shaped itself into a justification of +her course. In a burst of filial pantheism she tried to lose herself in the +vast ancestral consciousness. Her one refuge from scepticism was a blind +faith in the magnitude and the endurance of the idea to which she had +sacrificed her life, and with a passionate instinct of self-preservation +she labored to fortify her position. + +The preparations for the _Life_ led her through by-ways that the most +scrupulous of the previous biographers had left unexplored. She accumulated +her material with a blind animal patience unconscious of fortuitous risks. +The years stretched before her like some vast blank page spread out to +receive the record of her toil; and she had a mystic conviction that she +would not die till her work was accomplished. + +The aunts, sustained by no such high purpose, withdrew in turn to their +respective divisions of the Anson "plot," and Paulina remained alone with +her task. She was forty when the book was completed. She had travelled +little in her life, and it had become more and more difficult to her to +leave the House even for a day; but the dread of entrusting her document to +a strange hand made her decide to carry it herself to the publisher. On the +way to Boston she had a sudden vision of the loneliness to which this last +parting condemned her. All her youth, all her dreams, all her renunciations +lay in that neat bundle on her knee. It was not so much her grandfather's +life as her own that she had written; and the knowledge that it would come +back to her in all the glorification of print was of no more help than, to +a mother's grief, the assurance that the lad she must part with will return +with epaulets. + +She had naturally addressed herself to the firm which had published her +grandfather's works. Its founder, a personal friend of the philosopher's, +had survived the Olympian group of which he had been a subordinate member, +long enough to bestow his octogenarian approval on Paulina's pious +undertaking. But he had died soon afterward; and Miss Anson found herself +confronted by his grandson, a person with a brisk commercial view of his +trade, who was said to have put "new blood" into the firm. + +This gentleman listened attentively, fingering her manuscript as though +literature were a tactile substance; then, with a confidential twist of his +revolving chair, he emitted the verdict: "We ought to have had this ten +years sooner." + +Miss Anson took the words as an allusion to the repressed avidity of her +readers. "It has been a long time for the public to wait," she solemnly +assented. + +The publisher smiled. "They haven't waited," he said. + +She looked at him strangely. "Haven't waited?" + +"No--they've gone off; taken another train. Literature's like a big +railway-station now, you know: there's a train starting every minute. +People are not going to hang round the waiting-room. If they can't get +to a place when they want to they go somewhere else." + +The application of this parable cost Miss Anson several minutes of +throbbing silence. At length she said: "Then I am to understand that the +public is no longer interested in--in my grandfather?" She felt as though +heaven must blast the lips that risked such a conjecture. + +"Well, it's this way. He's a name still, of course. People don't exactly +want to be caught not knowing who he is; but they don't want to spend +two dollars finding out, when they can look him up for nothing in any +biographical dictionary." + +Miss Anson's world reeled. She felt herself adrift among mysterious forces, +and no more thought of prolonging the discussion than of opposing an +earthquake with argument. She went home carrying the manuscript like a +wounded thing. On the return journey she found herself travelling straight +toward a fact that had lurked for months in the background of her life, +and that now seemed to await her on the very threshold: the fact that +fewer visitors came to the House. She owned to herself that for the last +four or five years the number had steadily diminished. Engrossed in her +work, she had noted the change only to feel thankful that she had fewer +interruptions. There had been a time when, at the travelling season, the +bell rang continuously, and the ladies of the House lived in a chronic +state of "best silks" and expectancy. It would have been impossible then to +carry on any consecutive work; and she now saw that the silence which had +gathered round her task had been the hush of death. + +Not of _his_ death! The very walls cried out against the implication. +It was the world's enthusiasm, the world's faith, the world's loyalty that +had died. A corrupt generation that had turned aside to worship the brazen +serpent. Her heart yearned with a prophetic passion over the lost sheep +straying in the wilderness. But all great glories had their interlunar +period; and in due time her grandfather would once more flash full-orbed +upon a darkling world. + +The few friends to whom she confided her adventure reminded her with +tender indignation that there were other publishers less subject to the +fluctuations of the market; but much as she had braved for her grandfather +she could not again brave that particular probation. She found herself, +in fact, incapable of any immediate effort. She had lost her way in a +labyrinth of conjecture where her worst dread was that she might put her +hand upon the clue. + +She locked up the manuscript and sat down to wait. If a pilgrim had come +just then the priestess would have fallen on his neck; but she continued +to celebrate her rites alone. It was a double solitude; for she had always +thought a great deal more of the people who came to see the House than of +the people who came to see her. She fancied that the neighbors kept a keen +eye on the path to the House; and there were days when the figure of a +stranger strolling past the gate seemed to focus upon her the scorching +sympathies of the village. For a time she thought of travelling; of going +to Europe, or even to Boston; but to leave the House now would have +seemed like deserting her post. Gradually her scattered energies centred +themselves in the fierce resolve to understand what had happened. She was +not the woman to live long in an unmapped country or to accept as final +her private interpretation of phenomena. Like a traveller in unfamiliar +regions she began to store for future guidance the minutest natural signs. +Unflinchingly she noted the accumulating symptoms of indifference that +marked her grandfather's descent toward posterity. She passed from the +heights on which he had been grouped with the sages of his day to the lower +level where he had come to be "the friend of Emerson," "the correspondent +of Hawthorne," or (later still) "the Dr. Anson" mentioned in their letters. +The change had taken place as slowly and imperceptibly as a natural +process. She could not say that any ruthless hand had stripped the leaves +from the tree: it was simply that, among the evergreen glories of his +group, her grandfather's had proved deciduous. + +She had still to ask herself why. If the decay had been a natural process, +was it not the very pledge of renewal? It was easier to find such arguments +than to be convinced by them. Again and again she tried to drug her +solicitude with analogies; but at last she saw that such expedients were +but the expression of a growing incredulity. The best way of proving her +faith in her grandfather was not to be afraid of his critics. She had no +notion where these shadowy antagonists lurked; for she had never heard of +the great man's doctrine being directly combated. Oblique assaults there +must have been, however, Parthian shots at the giant that none dared face; +and she thirsted to close with such assailants. The difficulty was to +find them. She began by re-reading the _Works_; thence she passed to +the writers of the same school, those whose rhetoric bloomed perennial +in _First Readers_ from which her grandfather's prose had long +since faded. Amid that clamor of far-off enthusiasms she detected no +controversial note. The little knot of Olympians held their views in common +with an early-Christian promiscuity. They were continually proclaiming +their admiration for each other, the public joining as chorus in this +guileless antiphon of praise; and she discovered no traitor in their midst. + +What then had happened? Was it simply that the main current of thought +had set another way? Then why did the others survive? Why were they still +marked down as tributaries to the philosophic stream? This question carried +her still farther afield, and she pressed on with the passion of a champion +whose reluctance to know the worst might be construed into a doubt of his +cause. At length--slowly but inevitably--an explanation shaped itself. +Death had overtaken the doctrines about which her grandfather had draped +his cloudy rhetoric. They had disintegrated and been re-absorbed, adding +their little pile to the dust drifted about the mute lips of the Sphinx. +The great man's contemporaries had survived not by reason of what they +taught, but of what they were; and he, who had been the mere mask through +which they mouthed their lesson, the instrument on which their tune was +played, lay buried deep among the obsolete tools of thought. + +The discovery came to Paulina suddenly. She looked up one evening from her +reading and it stood before her like a ghost. It had entered her life with +stealthy steps, creeping close before she was aware of it. She sat in the +library, among the carefully-tended books and portraits; and it seemed to +her that she had been walled alive into a tomb hung with the effigies of +dead ideas. She felt a desperate longing to escape into the outer air, +where people toiled and loved, and living sympathies went hand in hand. It +was the sense of wasted labor that oppressed her; of two lives consumed in +that ruthless process that uses generations of effort to build a single +cell. There was a dreary parallel between her grandfather's fruitless +toil and her own unprofitable sacrifice. Each in turn had kept vigil by a +corpse. + + +III + +The bell rang--she remembered it afterward--with a loud thrilling note. It +was what they used to call the "visitor's ring"; not the tentative tinkle +of a neighbor dropping in to borrow a sauce-pan or discuss parochial +incidents, but a decisive summons from the outer world. + +Miss Anson put down her knitting and listened. She sat up-stairs now, +making her rheumatism an excuse for avoiding the rooms below. Her interests +had insensibly adjusted themselves to the perspective of her neighbors' +lives, and she wondered--as the bell re-echoed--if it could mean that Mrs. +Heminway's baby had come. Conjecture had time to ripen into certainty, and +she was limping toward the closet where her cloak and bonnet hung, when her +little maid fluttered in with the announcement: "A gentleman to see the +house." + +"The _House_?" + +"Yes, m'm. I don't know what he means," faltered the messenger, whose +memory did not embrace the period when such announcements were a daily part +of the domestic routine. + +Miss Anson glanced at the proffered card. The name it bore--_Mr. George +Corby_--was unknown to her, but the blood rose to her languid cheek. +"Hand me my Mechlin cap, Katy," she said, trembling a little, as she laid +aside her walking stick. She put her cap on before the mirror, with rapid +unsteady touches. "Did you draw up the library blinds?" she breathlessly +asked. + +She had gradually built up a wall of commonplace between herself and her +illusions, but at the first summons of the past filial passion swept away +the frail barriers of expediency. + +She walked down-stairs so hurriedly that her stick clicked like a girlish +heel; but in the hall she paused, wondering nervously if Katy had put a +match to the fire. The autumn air was cold and she had the reproachful +vision of a visitor with elderly ailments shivering by her inhospitable +hearth. She thought instinctively of the stranger as a survivor of the days +when such a visit was a part of the young enthusiast's itinerary. + +The fire was unlit and the room forbiddingly cold; but the figure which, as +Miss Anson entered, turned from a lingering scrutiny of the book-shelves, +was that of a fresh-eyed sanguine youth clearly independent of any +artificial caloric. She stood still a moment, feeling herself the victim of +some anterior impression that made this robust presence an insubstantial +thing; but the young man advanced with an air of genial assurance which +rendered him at once more real and more reminiscent. + +"Why this, you know," he exclaimed, "is simply immense!" + +The words, which did not immediately present themselves as slang to Miss +Anson's unaccustomed ear, echoed with an odd familiarity through the +academic silence. + +"The room, you know, I mean," he explained with a comprehensive gesture. +"These jolly portraits, and the books--that's the old gentleman himself +over the mantelpiece, I suppose?--and the elms outside, and--and the whole +business. I do like a congruous background--don't you?" + +His hostess was silent. No one but Hewlett Winsloe had ever spoken of her +grandfather as "the old gentleman." + +"It's a hundred times better than I could have hoped," her visitor +continued, with a cheerful disregard of her silence. "The seclusion, the +remoteness, the philosophic atmosphere--there's so little of that kind +of flavor left! I should have simply hated to find that he lived over +a grocery, you know.--I had the deuce of a time finding out where he +_did_ live," he began again, after another glance of parenthetical +enjoyment. "But finally I got on the trail through some old book on Brook +Farm. I was bound I'd get the environment right before I did my article." + +Miss Anson, by this time, had recovered sufficient self-possession to seat +herself and assign a chair to her visitor. + +"Do I understand," she asked slowly, following his rapid eye about the +room, "that you intend to write an article about my grandfather?" + +"That's what I'm here for," Mr. Corby genially responded; "that is, if +you're willing to help me; for I can't get on without your help," he added +with a confident smile. + +There was another pause, during which Miss Anson noticed a fleck of dust on +the faded leather of the writing-table and a fresh spot of discoloration in +the right-hand upper corner of Raphael Morghen's "Parnassus." + +"Then you believe in him?" she said, looking up. She could not tell what +had prompted her; the words rushed out irresistibly. + +"Believe in him?" Corby cried, springing to his feet. "Believe in Orestes +Anson? Why, I believe he's simply the greatest--the most stupendous--the +most phenomenal figure we've got!" + +The color rose to Miss Anson's brow. Her heart was beating passionately. +She kept her eyes fixed on the young man's face, as though it might vanish +if she looked away. + +"You--you mean to say this in your article?" she asked. + +"Say it? Why, the facts will say it," he exulted. "The baldest kind of a +statement would make it clear. When a man is as big as that he doesn't need +a pedestal!" + +Miss Anson sighed. "People used to say that when I was young," she +murmured. "But now--" + +Her visitor stared. "When you were young? But how did they know--when the +thing hung fire as it did? When the whole edition was thrown back on his +hands?" + +"The whole edition--what edition?" It was Miss Anson's turn to stare. + +"Why, of his pamphlet--_the_ pamphlet--the one thing that counts, that +survives, that makes him what he is! For heaven's sake," he tragically +adjured her, "don't tell me there isn't a copy of it left!" + +Miss Anson was trembling slightly. "I don't think I understand what you +mean," she faltered, less bewildered by his vehemence than by the strange +sense of coming on an unexplored region in the very heart of her dominion. + +"Why, his account of the _amphioxus_, of course! You can't mean that +his family didn't know about it--that _you_ don't know about it? I came +across it by the merest accident myself, in a letter of vindication that +he wrote in 1830 to an old scientific paper; but I understood there were +journals--early journals; there must be references to it somewhere in the +'twenties. He must have been at least ten or twelve years ahead of Yarrell; +and he saw the whole significance of it, too--he saw where it led to. As +I understand it, he actually anticipated in his pamphlet Saint Hilaire's +theory of the universal type, and supported the hypothesis by describing +the notochord of the _amphioxus_ as a cartilaginous vertebral column. +The specialists of the day jeered at him, of course, as the specialists in +Goethe's time jeered at the plant-metamorphosis. As far as I can make out, +the anatomists and zoologists were down on Dr. Anson to a man; that was why +his cowardly publishers went back on their bargain. But the pamphlet must +be here somewhere--he writes as though, in his first disappointment, he had +destroyed the whole edition; but surely there must be at least one copy +left?" + +His scientific jargon was as bewildering as his slang; and there were even +moments in his discourse when Miss Anson ceased to distinguish between +them; but the suspense with which he continued to gaze on her acted as a +challenge to her scattered thoughts. + +"The _amphioxus_," she murmured, half-rising. "It's an animal, isn't +it--a fish? Yes, I think I remember." She sank back with the inward look of +one who retraces some lost line of association. + +Gradually the distance cleared, the details started into life. In her +researches for the biography she had patiently followed every ramification +of her subject, and one of these overgrown paths now led her back to +the episode in question. The great Orestes's title of "Doctor" had in +fact not been merely the spontaneous tribute of a national admiration; +he had actually studied medicine in his youth, and his diaries, as his +granddaughter now recalled, showed that he had passed through a brief phase +of anatomical ardor before his attention was diverted to super-sensual +problems. It had indeed seemed to Paulina, as she scanned those early +pages, that they revealed a spontaneity, a freshness of feeling somehow +absent from his later lucubrations--as though this one emotion had reached +him directly, the others through some intervening medium. In the excess of +her commemorative zeal she had even struggled through the unintelligible +pamphlet to which a few lines in the journal had bitterly directed her. But +the subject and the phraseology were alien to her and unconnected with her +conception of the great man's genius; and after a hurried perusal she had +averted her thoughts from the episode as from a revelation of failure. +At length she rose a little unsteadily, supporting herself against the +writing-table. She looked hesitatingly about the room; then she drew a key +from her old-fashioned reticule and unlocked a drawer beneath one of the +book-cases. Young Corby watched her breathlessly. With a tremulous hand she +turned over the dusty documents that seemed to fill the drawer. "Is this +it?" she said, holding out a thin discolored volume. + +He seized it with a gasp. "Oh, by George," he said, dropping into the +nearest chair. + +She stood observing him strangely as his eye devoured the mouldy pages. + +"Is this the only copy left?" he asked at length, looking up for a moment +as a thirsty man lifts his head from his glass. + +"I think it must be. I found it long ago, among some old papers that my +aunts were burning up after my grandmother's death. They said it was of no +use--that he'd always meant to destroy the whole edition and that I ought +to respect his wishes. But it was something he had written; to burn it was +like shutting the door against his voice--against something he had once +wished to say, and that nobody had listened to. I wanted him to feel that I +was always here, ready to listen, even when others hadn't thought it worth +while; and so I kept the pamphlet, meaning to carry out his wish and +destroy it before my death." + +Her visitor gave a groan of retrospective anguish. "And but for me--but for +to-day--you would have?" + +"I should have thought it my duty." + +"Oh, by George--by George," he repeated, subdued afresh by the inadequacy +of speech. + +She continued to watch him in silence. At length he jumped up and +impulsively caught her by both hands. + +"He's bigger and bigger!" he almost shouted. "He simply leads the field! +You'll help me go to the bottom of this, won't you? We must turn out all +the papers--letters, journals, memoranda. He must have made notes. He +must have left some record of what led up to this. We must leave nothing +unexplored. By Jove," he cried, looking up at her with his bright +convincing smile, "do you know you're the granddaughter of a Great Man?" + +Her color flickered like a girl's. "Are you--sure of him?" she whispered, +as though putting him on his guard against a possible betrayal of trust. + +"Sure! Sure! My dear lady--" he measured her again with his quick confident +glance. "Don't _you_ believe in him?" + +She drew back with a confused murmur. "I--used to." She had left her +hands in his: their pressure seemed to send a warm current to her heart. +"It ruined my life!" she cried with sudden passion. He looked at her +perplexedly. + +"I gave up everything," she went on wildly, "to keep him alive. I +sacrificed myself--others--I nursed his glory in my bosom and it died--and +left me--left me here alone." She paused and gathered her courage with a +gasp. "Don't make the same mistake!" she warned him. + +He shook his head, still smiling. "No danger of that! You're not alone, my +dear lady. He's here with you--he's come back to you to-day. Don't you see +what's happened? Don't you see that it's your love that has kept him alive? +If you'd abandoned your post for an instant--let things pass into other +hands--if your wonderful tenderness hadn't perpetually kept guard--this +might have been--must have been--irretrievably lost." He laid his hand on +the pamphlet. "And then--then he _would_ have been dead!" + +"Oh," she said, "don't tell me too suddenly!" And she turned away and sank +into a chair. + +The young man stood watching her in an awed silence. For a long time she +sat motionless, with her face hidden, and he thought she must be weeping. + +At length he said, almost shyly: "You'll let me come back, then? You'll +help me work this thing out?" + +She rose calmly and held out her hand. "I'll help you," she declared. + +"I'll come to-morrow, then. Can we get to work early?" + +"As early as you please." + +"At eight o'clock, then," he said briskly. "You'll have the papers ready?" + +"I'll have everything ready." She added with a half-playful hesitancy: "And +the fire shall be lit for you." + +He went out with his bright nod. She walked to the window and watched his +buoyant figure hastening down the elm-shaded street. When she turned back +into the empty room she looked as though youth had touched her on the lips. + + + + +THE RECOVERY + + +To the visiting stranger Hillbridge's first question was, "Have you seen +Keniston's things?" Keniston took precedence of the colonial State House, +the Gilbert Stuart Washington and the Ethnological Museum; nay, he ran neck +and neck with the President of the University, a prehistoric relic who had +known Emerson, and who was still sent about the country in cotton-wool to +open educational institutions with a toothless oration on Brook Farm. + +Keniston was sent about the country too: he opened art exhibitions, laid +the foundation of academies, and acted in a general sense as the spokesman +and apologist of art. Hillbridge was proud of him in his peripatetic +character, but his fellow-townsmen let it be understood that to "know" +Keniston one must come to Hillbridge. Never was work more dependent for its +effect on "atmosphere," on _milieu_. Hillbridge was Keniston's milieu, +and there was one lady, a devotee of his art, who went so far as to assert +that once, at an exhibition in New York, she had passed a Keniston without +recognizing it. "It simply didn't want to be seen in such surroundings; it +was hiding itself under an incognito," she declared. + +It was a source of special pride to Hillbridge that it contained all the +artist's best works. Strangers were told that Hillbridge had discovered +him. The discovery had come about in the simplest manner. Professor +Driffert, who had a reputation for "collecting," had one day hung a sketch +on his drawing-room wall, and thereafter Mrs. Driffert's visitors (always +a little flurried by the sense that it was the kind of house in which one +might be suddenly called upon to distinguish between a dry-point and an +etching, or between Raphael Mengs and Raphael Sanzio) were not infrequently +subjected to the Professor's off-hand inquiry, "By-the-way, have you seen +my Keniston?" The visitors, perceptibly awed, would retreat to a critical +distance and murmur the usual guarded generalities, while they tried to +keep the name in mind long enough to look it up in the Encyclopdia. The +name was not in the Encyclopdia; but, as a compensating fact, it became +known that the man himself was in Hillbridge. Hillbridge, then, owned an +artist whose celebrity it was the proper thing to take for granted! Some +one else, emboldened by the thought, bought a Keniston; and the next +year, on the occasion of the President's golden jubilee, the Faculty, by +unanimous consent, presented him with a Keniston. Two years later there +was a Keniston exhibition, to which the art-critics came from New York +and Boston; and not long afterward a well-known Chicago collector vainly +attempted to buy Professor Driffert's sketch, which the art journals cited +as a rare example of the painter's first or silvery manner. Thus there +gradually grew up a small circle of connoisseurs known in artistic, circles +as men who collected Kenistons. + +Professor Wildmarsh, of the chair of Fine Arts and Archaeology, was the +first critic to publish a detailed analysis of the master's methods and +purpose. The article was illustrated by engravings which (though they had +cost the magazine a fortune) were declared by Professor Wildmarsh to give +but an imperfect suggestion of the esoteric significance of the originals. +The Professor, with a tact that contrived to make each reader feel himself +included among the exceptions, went on to say that Keniston's work would +never appeal to any but exceptional natures; and he closed with the usual +assertion that to apprehend the full meaning of the master's "message" it +was necessary to see him in the surroundings of his own home at Hillbridge. + +Professor Wildmarsh's article was read one spring afternoon by a young +lady just speeding eastward on her first visit to Hillbridge, and already +flushed with anticipation of the intellectual opportunities awaiting her. +In East Onondaigua, where she lived, Hillbridge was looked on as an Oxford. +Magazine writers, with the easy American use of the superlative, designated +it as "the venerable Alma Mater," the "antique seat of learning," and +Claudia Day had been brought up to regard it as the fountain-head of +knowledge, and of that mental distinction which is so much rarer than +knowledge. An innate passion for all that was thus distinguished and +exceptional made her revere Hillbridge as the native soil of those +intellectual amenities that were of such difficult growth in the +thin air of East Onondaigua. At the first suggestion of a visit to +Hillbridge--whither she went at the invitation of a girl friend +who (incredible apotheosis!) had married one of the University +professors--Claudia's spirit dilated with the sense of new possibilities. +The vision of herself walking under the "historic elms" toward the Memorial +Library, standing rapt before the Stuart Washington, or drinking in, +from some obscure corner of an academic drawing-room, the President's +reminiscences of the Concord group--this vividness of self-projection into +the emotions awaiting her made her glad of any delay that prolonged so +exquisite a moment. + +It was in this mood that she opened the article on Keniston. She knew about +him, of course; she was wonderfully "well up," even for East Onondaigua. +She had read of him in the magazines; she had met, on a visit to New York, +a man who collected Kenistons, and a photogravure of a Keniston in an +"artistic" frame hung above her writing-table at home. But Professor +Wildmarsh's article made her feel how little she really knew of the master; +and she trembled to think of the state of relative ignorance in which, but +for the timely purchase of the magazine, she might have entered Hillbridge. +She had, for instance, been densely unaware that Keniston had already had +three "manners," and was showing symptoms of a fourth. She was equally +ignorant of the fact that he had founded a school and "created a formula"; +and she learned with a thrill that no one could hope to understand him who +had not seen him in his studio at Hillbridge, surrounded by his own works. +"The man and the art interpret each other," their exponent declared; and +Claudia Day, bending a brilliant eye on the future, wondered if she were +ever to be admitted to the privilege of that double initiation. + +Keniston, to his other claims to distinction, added that of being hard to +know. His friends always hastened to announce the fact to strangers--adding +after a pause of suspense that they "would see what they could do." +Visitors in whose favor he was induced to make an exception were further +warned that he never spoke unless he was interested--so that they mustn't +mind if he remained silent. It was under these reassuring conditions that, +some ten days after her arrival at Hillbridge, Miss Day was introduced +to the master's studio. She found him a tall listless-looking man, who +appeared middle-aged to her youth, and who stood before his own pictures +with a vaguely interrogative gaze, leaving the task of their interpretation +to the lady who had courageously contrived the visit. The studio, to +Claudia's surprise, was bare and shabby. It formed a rambling addition to +the small cheerless house in which the artist lived with his mother and +a widowed sister. For Claudia it added the last touch to his distinction +to learn that he was poor, and that what he earned was devoted to the +maintenance of the two limp women who formed a neutral-tinted background to +his impressive outline. His pictures of course fetched high prices; but he +worked slowly--"painfully," as his devotees preferred to phrase it--with +frequent intervals of ill health and inactivity, and the circle of Keniston +connoisseurs was still as small as it was distinguished. The girl's fancy +instantly hailed in him that favorite figure of imaginative youth, the +artist who would rather starve than paint a pot-boiler. It is known to +comparatively few that the production of successful pot-boilers is an art +in itself, and that such heroic abstentions as Keniston's are not always +purely voluntary. On the occasion of her first visit the artist said so +little that Claudia was able to indulge to the full the harrowing sense of +her inadequacy. No wonder she had not been one of the few that he cared +to talk to; every word she uttered must so obviously have diminished the +inducement! She had been cheap, trivial, conventional; at once gushing +and inexpressive, eager and constrained. She could feel him counting the +minutes till the visit was over, and as the door finally closed on the +scene of her discomfiture she almost shared the hope with which she +confidently credited him--that they might never meet again. + + +II + +Mrs. Davant glanced reverentially about the studio. "I have always said," +she murmured, "that they ought to be seen in Europe." + +Mrs. Davant was young, credulous and emotionally extravagant: she reminded +Claudia of her earlier self--the self that, ten years before, had first set +an awestruck foot on that very threshold. + +"Not for _his_ sake," Mrs. Davant continued, "but for Europe's." + +Claudia smiled. She was glad that her husband's pictures were to be +exhibited in Paris. She concurred in Mrs. Davant's view of the importance +of the event; but she thought her visitor's way of putting the case a +little overcharged. Ten years spent in an atmosphere of Keniston-worship +had insensibly developed in Claudia a preference for moderation of speech. +She believed in her husband, of course; to believe in him, with an +increasing abandonment and tenacity, had become one of the necessary laws +of being; but she did not believe in his admirers. Their faith in him was +perhaps as genuine as her own; but it seemed to her less able to give an +account of itself. Some few of his appreciators doubtless measured him +by their own standards; but it was difficult not to feel that in the +Hillbridge circle, where rapture ran the highest, he was accepted on +what was at best but an indirect valuation; and now and then she had a +frightened doubt as to the independence of her own convictions. That +innate sense of relativity which even East Onondaigua had not been able to +check in Claudia Day had been fostered in Mrs. Keniston by the artistic +absolutism of Hillbridge, and she often wondered that her husband remained +so uncritical of the quality of admiration accorded him. Her husband's +uncritical attitude toward himself and his admirers had in fact been one of +the surprises of her marriage. That an artist should believe in his +potential powers seemed to her at once the incentive and the pledge of +excellence: she knew there was no future for a hesitating talent. What +perplexed her was Keniston's satisfaction in his achievement. She had +always imagined that the true artist must regard himself as the imperfect +vehicle of the cosmic emotion--that beneath every difficulty overcome a new +one lurked, the vision widening as the scope enlarged. To be initiated into +these creative struggles, to shed on the toiler's path the consolatory ray +of faith and encouragement, had seemed the chief privilege of her marriage. +But there is something supererogatory in believing in a man obviously +disposed to perform that service for himself; and Claudia's ardor gradually +spent itself against the dense surface of her husband's complacency. She +could smile now at her vision of an intellectual communion which should +admit her to the inmost precincts of his inspiration. She had learned +that the creative processes are seldom self-explanatory, and Keniston's +inarticulateness no longer discouraged her; but she could not reconcile +her sense of the continuity of all high effort to his unperturbed air +of finishing each picture as though he had despatched a masterpiece to +posterity. In the first recoil from her disillusionment she even allowed +herself to perceive that, if he worked slowly, it was not because he +mistrusted his powers of expression, but because he had really so little to +express. + +"It's for Europe," Mrs. Davant vaguely repeated; and Claudia noticed that +she was blushingly intent on tracing with the tip of her elaborate sunshade +the pattern of the shabby carpet. + +"It will be a revelation to them," she went on provisionally, as though +Claudia had missed her cue and left an awkward interval to fill. + +Claudia had in fact a sudden sense of deficient intuition. She felt that +her visitor had something to communicate which required, on her own part, +an intelligent co-operation; but what it was her insight failed to suggest. +She was, in truth, a little tired of Mrs. Davant, who was Keniston's latest +worshipper, who ordered pictures recklessly, who paid for them regally +in advance, and whose gallery was, figuratively speaking, crowded with +the artist's unpainted masterpieces. Claudia's impatience was perhaps +complicated by the uneasy sense that Mrs. Davant was too young, too rich, +too inexperienced; that somehow she ought to be warned.--Warned of what? +That some of the pictures might never be painted? Scarcely that, since +Keniston, who was scrupulous in business transactions, might be trusted not +to take any material advantage of such evidence of faith. Claudia's impulse +remained undefined. She merely felt that she would have liked to help Mrs. +Davant, and that she did not know how. + +"You'll be there to see them?" she asked, as her visitor lingered. + +"In Paris?" Mrs. Davant's blush deepened. "We must all be there together." + +Claudia smiled. "My husband and I mean to go abroad some day--but I don't +see any chance of it at present." + +"But he _ought_ to go--you ought both to go this summer!" Mrs. Davant +persisted. "I know Professor Wildmarsh and Professor Driffert and all the +other critics think that Mr. Keniston's never having been to Europe has +given his work much of its wonderful individuality, its peculiar flavor +and meaning--but now that his talent is formed, that he has full command +of his means of expression," (Claudia recognized one of Professor +Driffert's favorite formulas) "they all think he ought to see the work of +the _other_ great masters--that he ought to visit the home of his +ancestors, as Professor Wildmarsh says!" She stretched an impulsive hand to +Claudia. "You ought to let him go, Mrs. Keniston!" + +Claudia accepted the admonition with the philosophy of the wife who is used +to being advised on the management of her husband. "I sha'n't interfere +with him," she declared; and Mrs. Davant instantly caught her up with a cry +of, "Oh, it's too lovely of you to say that!" With this exclamation she +left Claudia to a silent renewal of wonder. + +A moment later Keniston entered: to a mind curious in combinations it +might have occurred that he had met Mrs. Davant on the door-step. In one +sense he might, for all his wife cared, have met fifty Mrs. Davants on the +door-step: it was long since Claudia had enjoyed the solace of resenting +such coincidences. Her only thought now was that her husband's first words +might not improbably explain Mrs. Davant's last; and she waited for him to +speak. + +He paused with his hands in his pockets before an unfinished picture on the +easel; then, as his habit was, he began to stroll touristlike from canvas +to canvas, standing before each in a musing ecstasy of contemplation that +no readjustment of view ever seemed to disturb. Her eye instinctively +joined his in its inspection; it was the one point where their natures +merged. Thank God, there, was no doubt about the pictures! She was what she +had always dreamed of being--the wife of a great artist. Keniston dropped +into an armchair and filled his pipe. "How should you like to go to +Europe?" he asked. + +His wife looked up quickly. "When?" + +"Now--this spring, I mean." He paused to light the pipe. "I should like to +be over there while these things are being exhibited." + +Claudia was silent. + +"Well?" he repeated after a moment. + +"How can we afford it?" she asked. + +Keniston had always scrupulously fulfilled his duty to the mother and +sister whom his marriage had dislodged; and Claudia, who had the atoning +temperament which seeks to pay for every happiness by making it a source +of fresh obligations, had from the outset accepted his ties with an +exaggerated devotion. Any disregard of such a claim would have vulgarized +her most delicate pleasures; and her husband's sensitiveness to it in great +measure extenuated the artistic obtuseness that often seemed to her like a +failure of the moral sense. His loyalty to the dull women who depended on +him was, after all, compounded of finer tissues than any mere sensibility +to ideal demands. + +"Oh, I don't see why we shouldn't," he rejoined. "I think we might manage +it." + +"At Mrs. Davant's expense?" leaped from Claudia. She could not tell why she +had said it; some inner barrier seemed to have given way under a confused +pressure of emotions. + +He looked up at her with frank surprise. "Well, she has been very jolly +about it--why not? She has a tremendous feeling for art--the keenest I +ever knew in a woman." Claudia imperceptibly smiled. "She wants me to let +her pay in advance for the four panels she has ordered for the Memorial +Library. That would give us plenty of money for the trip, and my having the +panels to do is another reason for my wanting to go abroad just now." + +"Another reason?" + +"Yes; I've never worked on such a big scale. I want to see how those old +chaps did the trick; I want to measure myself with the big fellows over +there. An artist ought to, once in his life." + +She gave him a wondering look. For the first time his words implied a sense +of possible limitation; but his easy tone seemed to retract what they +conceded. What he really wanted was fresh food for his self-satisfaction: +he was like an army that moves on after exhausting the resources of the +country. + +Womanlike, she abandoned the general survey of the case for the +consideration of a minor point. + +"Are you sure you can do that kind of thing?" she asked. + +"What kind of thing?" + +"The panels." + +He glanced at her indulgently: his self-confidence was too impenetrable to +feel the pin-prick of such a doubt. + +"Immensely sure," he said with a smile. + +"And you don't mind taking so much money from her in advance?" + +He stared. "Why should I? She'll get it back--with interest!" He laughed +and drew at his pipe. "It will be an uncommonly interesting experience. I +shouldn't wonder if it freshened me up a bit." + +She looked at him again. This second hint of self-distrust struck her as +the sign of a quickened sensibility. What if, after all, he was beginning +to be dissatisfied with his work? The thought filled her with a renovating +sense of his sufficiency. + + +III + +They stopped in London to see the National Gallery. + +It was thus that, in their inexperience, they had narrowly put it; but in +reality every stone of the streets, every trick of the atmosphere, had +its message of surprise for their virgin sensibilities. The pictures were +simply the summing up, the final interpretation, of the cumulative pressure +of an unimagined world; and it seemed to Claudia that long before they +reached the doors of the gallery she had some intuitive revelation of what +awaited them within. + +They moved about from room to room without exchanging a word. The vast +noiseless spaces seemed full of sound, like the roar of a distant multitude +heard only by the inner ear. Had their speech been articulate their +language would have been incomprehensible; and even that far-off murmur +of meaning pressed intolerably on Claudia's nerves. Keniston took the +onset without outward sign of disturbance. Now and then he paused before a +canvas, or prolonged from one of the benches his silent communion with some +miracle of line or color; but he neither looked at his wife nor spoke to +her. He seemed to have forgotten her presence. + +Claudia was conscious of keeping a furtive watch on him; but the sum total +of her impressions was negative. She remembered thinking when she first +met him that his face was rather expressionless; and he had the habit of +self-engrossed silences. + +All that evening, at the hotel, they talked about London, and he surprised +her by an acuteness of observation that she had sometimes inwardly accused +him of lacking. He seemed to have seen everything, to have examined, felt, +compared, with nerves as finely adjusted as her own; but he said nothing +of the pictures. The next day they returned to the National Gallery, and +he began to study the paintings in detail, pointing out differences of +technique, analyzing and criticising, but still without summing up his +conclusions. He seemed to have a sort of provincial dread of showing +himself too much impressed. Claudia's own sensations were too complex, too +overwhelming, to be readily classified. Lacking the craftsman's instinct to +steady her, she felt herself carried off her feet by the rush of incoherent +impressions. One point she consciously avoided, and that was the comparison +of her husband's work with what they were daily seeing. Art, she inwardly +argued, was too various, too complex, dependent on too many inter-relations +of feeling and environment, to allow of its being judged by any provisional +standard. Even the subtleties of technique must be modified by the artist's +changing purpose, as this in turn is acted on by influences of which +he is himself unconscious. How, then, was an unprepared imagination to +distinguish between such varied reflections of the elusive vision? She took +refuge in a passionate exaggeration of her own ignorance and insufficiency. + +After a week in London they went to Paris. The exhibition of Keniston's +pictures had been opened a few days earlier; and as they drove through the +streets on the way to the station an "impressionist" poster here and there +invited them to the display of the American artist's work. Mrs. Davant, who +had been in Paris for the opening, had already written rapturously of the +impression produced, enclosing commendatory notices from one or two papers. +She reported that there had been a great crowd on the first day, and that +the critics had been "immensely struck." + +The Kenistons arrived in the evening, and the next morning Claudia, as a +matter of course, asked her husband at what time he meant to go and see the +pictures. + +He looked up absently from his guide-book. + +"What pictures?" + +"Why--yours," she said, surprised. + +"Oh, they'll keep," he answered; adding with a slightly embarrassed laugh, +"We'll give the other chaps a show first." Presently he laid down his book +and proposed that they should go to the Louvre. + +They spent the morning there, lunched at a restaurant near by, and returned +to the gallery in the afternoon. Keniston had passed from inarticulateness +to an eager volubility. It was clear that he was beginning to co-ordinate +his impressions, to find his way about in a corner of the great imaginative +universe. He seemed extraordinarily ready to impart his discoveries; and +Claudia felt that her ignorance served him as a convenient buffer against +the terrific impact of new sensations. + +On the way home she asked when he meant to see Mrs. Davant. + +His answer surprised her. "Does she know we're here?" + +"Not unless you've sent her word," said Claudia, with a touch of harmless +irony. + +"That's all right, then," he returned simply. "I want to wait and look +about a day or two longer. She'd want us to go sight-seeing with her; and +I'd rather get my impressions alone." + +The next two days were hampered by the necessity of eluding Mrs. Davant. +Claudia, under different circumstances, would have scrupled to share in +this somewhat shabby conspiracy; but she found herself in a state of +suspended judgment, wherein her husband's treatment of Mrs. Davant became +for the moment merely a clue to larger meanings. + +They had been four days in Paris when Claudia, returning one afternoon from +a parenthetical excursion to the Rue de la Paix, was confronted on her +threshold by the reproachful figure of their benefactress. It was not to +her, however, that Mrs. Davant's reproaches were addressed. Keniston, it +appeared, had borne the brunt of them; for he stood leaning against the +mantelpiece of their modest _salon_ in that attitude of convicted +negligence when, if ever, a man is glad to take refuge behind his wife. + +Claudia had however no immediate intention of affording him such shelter. +She wanted to observe and wait. + +"He's too impossible!" cried Mrs. Davant, sweeping her at once into the +central current of her grievance. + +Claudia looked from one to the other. + +"For not going to see you?" + +"For not going to see his pictures!" cried the other nobly. + +Claudia colored and Keniston shifted his position uneasily. + +"I can't make her understand," he said, turning to his wife. + +"I don't care about myself!" Mrs. Davant interjected. + +"_I_ do, then; it's the only thing I do care about," he hurriedly +protested. "I meant to go at once--to write--Claudia wanted to go, but I +wouldn't let her." He looked helplessly about the pleasant red-curtained +room, which was rapidly burning itself into Claudia's consciousness as a +visible extension of Mrs. Davant's claims. + +"I can't explain," he broke off. + +Mrs. Davant in turn addressed herself to Claudia. + +"People think it's so odd," she complained. "So many of the artists +here are anxious to meet him; they've all been so charming about the +pictures; and several of our American friends have come over from London +expressly for the exhibition. I told every one that he would be here +for the opening--there was a private view, you know--and they were so +disappointed--they wanted to give him an ovation; and I didn't know what +to say. What _am_ I to say?" she abruptly ended. + +"There's nothing to say," said Keniston slowly. + +"But the exhibition closes the day after to-morrow." + +"Well, _I_ sha'n't close--I shall be here," he declared with an effort +at playfulness. "If they want to see me--all these people you're kind +enough to mention--won't there be other chances?" + +"But I wanted them to see you _among_ your pictures--to hear you talk +about them, explain them in that wonderful way. I wanted you to interpret +each other, as Professor Wildmarsh says!" + +"Oh, hang Professor Wildmarsh!" said Keniston, softening the commination +with a smile. "If my pictures are good for anything they oughtn't to need +explaining." + +Mrs. Davant stared. "But I thought that was what made them so interesting!" +she exclaimed. + +Keniston looked down. "Perhaps it was," he murmured. + +There was an awkward silence, which Claudia broke by saying, with a glance +at her husband: "But if the exhibition is to remain open to-morrow, could +we not meet you there? And perhaps you could send word to some of our +friends." + +Mrs. Davant brightened like a child whose broken toy is glued together. +"Oh, _do_ make him!" she implored. "I'll ask them to come in the +afternoon--we'll make it into a little tea--a _five o'clock_. I'll +send word at once to everybody!" She gathered up her beruffled boa and +sunshade, settling her plumage like a reassured bird. "It will be too +lovely!" she ended in a self-consoling murmur. + +But in the doorway a new doubt assailed her. "You won't fail me?" she said, +turning plaintively to Keniston. "You'll make him come, Mrs. Keniston?" + +"I'll bring him!" Claudia promised. + + +IV + +When, the next morning, she appeared equipped for their customary ramble, +her husband surprised her by announcing that he meant to stay at home. + +"The fact is I'm rather surfeited," he said, smiling. "I suppose my +appetite isn't equal to such a plethora. I think I'll write some letters +and join you somewhere later." + +She detected the wish to be alone and responded to it with her usual +readiness. + +"I shall sink to my proper level and buy a bonnet, then," she said. "I +haven't had time to take the edge off that appetite." + +They agreed to meet at the Hotel Cluny at mid-day, and she set out alone +with a vague sense of relief. Neither she nor Keniston had made any direct +reference to Mrs. Davant's visit; but its effect was implicit in their +eagerness to avoid each other. + +Claudia accomplished some shopping in the spirit of perfunctoriness that +robs even new bonnets of their bloom; and this business despatched, she +turned aimlessly into the wide inviting brightness of the streets. Never +had she felt more isolated amid that ordered beauty which gives a social +quality to the very stones and mortar of Paris. All about her were +evidences of an artistic sensibility pervading every form of life like the +nervous structure of the huge frame--a sensibility so delicate, alert and +universal that it seemed to leave no room for obtuseness or error. In such +a medium the faculty of plastic expression must develop as unconsciously +as any organ in its normal surroundings; to be "artistic" must cease to be +an attitude and become a natural function. To Claudia the significance of +the whole vast revelation was centred in the light it shed on one tiny +spot of consciousness--the value of her husband's work. There are moments +when to the groping soul the world's accumulated experiences are but +stepping-stones across a private difficulty. + +She stood hesitating on a street corner. It was barely eleven, and she had +an hour to spare before going to the Hotel Cluny. She seemed to be letting +her inclination float as it would on the cross-currents of suggestion +emanating from the brilliant complex scene before her; but suddenly, in +obedience to an impulse that she became aware of only in acting on it, she +called a cab and drove to the gallery where her husband's pictures were +exhibited. + +A magnificent official in gold braid sold her a ticket and pointed the way +up the empty crimson-carpeted stairs. His duplicate, on the upper landing, +held out a catalogue with an air of recognizing the futility of the offer; +and a moment later she found herself in the long noiseless impressive room +full of velvet-covered ottomans and exotic plants. It was clear that the +public ardor on which Mrs. Davant had expatiated had spent itself earlier +in the week; for Claudia had this luxurious apartment to herself. Something +about its air of rich privacy, its diffusion of that sympathetic quality in +other countries so conspicuously absent from the public show-room, seemed +to emphasize its present emptiness. It was as though the flowers, the +carpet, the lounges, surrounded their visitor's solitary advance with +the mute assurance that they had done all they could toward making the +thing "go off," and that if they had failed it was simply for lack of +co-operation. She stood still and looked about her. The pictures struck her +instantly as odd gaps in the general harmony; it was self-evident that they +had not co-operated. They had not been pushing, aggressive, discordant: +they had merely effaced themselves. She swept a startled eye from one +familiar painting to another. The canvases were all there--and the +frames--but the miracle, the mirage of life and meaning, had vanished +like some atmospheric illusion. What was it that had happened? And had +it happened to _her_ or to the pictures? She tried to rally her +frightened thoughts; to push or coax them into a semblance of resistance; +but argument was swept off its feet by the huge rush of a single +conviction--the conviction that the pictures were bad. There was no +standing up against that: she felt herself submerged. + +The stealthy fear that had been following her all these days had her by the +throat now. The great vision of beauty through which she had been moving +as one enchanted was turned to a phantasmagoria of evil mocking shapes. +She hated the past; she hated its splendor, its power, its wicked magical +vitality.... She dropped into a seat and continued to stare at the wall +before her. Gradually, as she stared, there stole out to her from the +dimmed humbled canvases a reminder of what she had once seen in them, a +spectral appeal to her faith to call them back to life. What proof had she +that her present estimate of them was less subjective than the other? The +confused impressions of the last few days were hardly to be pleaded as a +valid theory of art. How, after all, did she know that the pictures were +bad? On what suddenly acquired technical standard had she thus decided +the case against them? It seemed as though it were a standard outside of +herself, as though some unheeded inner sense were gradually making her +aware of the presence, in that empty room, of a critical intelligence that +was giving out a subtle effluence of disapproval. The fancy was so vivid +that, to shake it off, she rose and began to move about again. In the +middle of the room stood a monumental divan surmounted by a _massif_ +of palms and azaleas. As Claudia's muffled wanderings carried her around +the angle of this seat, she saw that its farther side was occupied by the +figure of a man, who sat with his hands resting on his stick and his head +bowed upon them. She gave a little cry and her husband rose and faced her. + +Instantly the live point of consciousness was shifted, and she became aware +that the quality of the pictures no longer mattered. It was what _he_ +thought of them that counted: her life hung on that. + +They looked at each other a moment in silence; such concussions are not apt +to flash into immediate speech. At length he said simply, "I didn't know +you were coming here." + +She colored as though he had charged her with something underhand. + +"I didn't mean to," she stammered; "but I was too early for our +appointment--" + +Her word's cast a revealing glare on the situation. Neither of them looked +at the pictures; but to Claudia those unobtruding presences seemed suddenly +to press upon them and force them apart. + +Keniston glanced at his watch. "It's twelve o'clock," he said. "Shall we go +on?" + + +V + +At the door he called a cab and put her in it; then, drawing out his watch +again, he said abruptly: "I believe I'll let you go alone. I'll join you at +the hotel in time for luncheon." She wondered for a moment if he meant to +return to the gallery; but, looking back as she drove off, she saw him walk +rapidly away in the opposite direction. + +The cabman had carried her half-way to the Hotel Cluny before she realized +where she was going, and cried out to him to turn home. There was an acute +irony in this mechanical prolongation of the quest of beauty. She had +had enough of it, too much of it; her one longing was to escape, to hide +herself away from its all-suffusing implacable light. + +At the hotel, alone in her room, a few tears came to soften her seared +vision; but her mood was too tense to be eased by weeping. Her whole being +was centred in the longing to know what her husband thought. Their short +exchange of words had, after all, told her nothing. She had guessed a faint +resentment at her unexpected appearance; but that might merely imply a +dawning sense, on his part, of being furtively watched and criticised. She +had sometimes wondered if he was never conscious of her observation; there +were moments when it seemed to radiate from her in visible waves. Perhaps, +after all, he was aware of it, on his guard against it, as a lurking knife +behind the thick curtain of his complacency; and to-day he must have caught +the gleam of the blade. + +Claudia had not reached the age when pity is the first chord to vibrate in +contact with any revelation of failure. Her one hope had been that Keniston +should be clear-eyed enough to face the truth. Whatever it turned out to +be, she wanted him to measure himself with it. But as his image rose before +her she felt a sudden half-maternal longing to thrust herself between him +and disaster. Her eagerness to see him tested by circumstances seemed now +like a cruel scientific curiosity. She saw in a flash of sympathy that he +would need her most if he fell beneath his fate. + +He did not, after all, return for luncheon; and when she came up-stairs +from her solitary meal their _salon_ was still untenanted. She +permitted herself no sensational fears; for she could not, at the height of +apprehension, figure Keniston as yielding to any tragic impulse; but the +lengthening hours brought an uneasiness that was fuel to her pity. Suddenly +she heard the clock strike five. It was the hour at which they had promised +to meet Mrs. Davant at the gallery--the hour of the "ovation." Claudia +rose and went to the window, straining for a glimpse of her husband in the +crowded street. Could it be that he had forgotten her, had gone to the +gallery without her? Or had something happened--that veiled "something" +which, for the last hour, had grimly hovered on the outskirts of her mind? + +She heard a hand on the door and Keniston entered. As she turned to meet +him her whole being was swept forward on a great wave of pity: she was so +sure, now, that he must know. + +But he confronted her with a glance of preoccupied brightness; her first +impression was that she had never seen him so vividly, so expressively +pleased. If he needed her, it was not to bind up his wounds. + +He gave her a smile which was clearly the lingering reflection of some +inner light. "I didn't mean to be so late," he said, tossing aside his hat +and the little red volume that served as a clue to his explorations. "I +turned in to the Louvre for a minute after I left you this morning, and the +place fairly swallowed me up--I couldn't get away from it. I've been there +ever since." He threw himself into a chair and glanced about for his pipe. + +"It takes time," he continued musingly, "to get at them, to make out what +they're saying--the big fellows, I mean. They're not a communicative lot. +At first I couldn't make much out of their lingo--it was too different from +mine! But gradually, by picking up a hint here and there, and piecing them +together, I've begun to understand; and to-day, by Jove, I got one or two +of the old chaps by the throat and fairly turned them inside out--made them +deliver up their last drop." He lifted a brilliant eye to her. "Lord, it +was tremendous!" he declared. + +He had found his pipe and was musingly filling it. Claudia waited in +silence. + +"At first," he began again, "I was afraid their language was too hard for +me--that I should never quite know what they were driving at; they seemed +to cold-shoulder me, to be bent on shutting me out. But I was bound I +wouldn't be beaten, and now, to-day"--he paused a moment to strike a +match--"when I went to look at those things of mine it all came over me +in a flash. By Jove! it was as if I'd made them all into a big bonfire to +light me on my road!" + +His wife was trembling with a kind of sacred terror. She had been afraid +to pray for light for him, and here he was joyfully casting his whole past +upon the pyre! + +"Is there nothing left?" she faltered. + +"Nothing left? There's everything!" he exulted. "Why, here I am, not much +over forty, and I've found out already--already!" He stood up and began to +move excitedly about the room. "My God! Suppose I'd never known! Suppose +I'd gone on painting things like that forever! Why, I feel like those +chaps at revivalist meetings when they get up and say they're saved! Won't +somebody please start a hymn?" + +Claudia, with a tremulous joy, was letting herself go on the strong +current of his emotion; but it had not yet carried her beyond her depth, +and suddenly she felt hard ground underfoot. + +"Mrs. Davant--" she exclaimed. + +He stared, as though suddenly recalled from a long distance. "Mrs. Davant?" + +"We were to have met her--this afternoon--now--" + +"At the gallery? Oh, that's all right. I put a stop to that; I went to see +her after I left you; I explained it all to her." + +"All?" + +"I told her I was going to begin all over again." + +Claudia's heart gave a forward bound and then sank back hopelessly. + +"But the panels--?" + +"That's all right too. I told her about the panels," he reassured her. + +"You told her--?" + +"That I can't paint them now. She doesn't understand, of course; but she's +the best little woman and she trusts me." + +She could have wept for joy at his exquisite obtuseness. "But that isn't +all," she wailed. "It doesn't matter how much you've explained to her. It +doesn't do away with the fact that we're living on those panels!" + +"Living on them?" + +"On the money that she paid you to paint them. Isn't that what brought us +here? And--if you mean to do as you say--to begin all over again--how in +the world are we ever to pay her back?" + +Her husband turned on her an inspired eye. "There's only one way that I +know of," he imperturbably declared, "and that's to stay out here till I +learn how to paint them." + + + + +"COPY" + +A DIALOGUE + + +_Mrs. Ambrose Dale--forty, slender, still young--sits in her drawing-room +at the tea-table. The winter twilight is falling, a lamp has been lit, +there is a fire on the hearth, and the room is pleasantly dim and +flower-scented. Books are scattered everywhere--mostly with autograph +inscriptions "From the Author"--and a large portrait of_ Mrs. Dale, +_at her desk, with papers strewn about her, takes up one of the +wall-panels. Before_ Mrs. Dale _stands_ Hilda, _fair and twenty, +her hands full of letters_. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Ten more applications for autographs? Isn't it strange +that people who'd blush to borrow twenty dollars don't scruple to beg for +an autograph? + +_Hilda (reproachfully)_. Oh-- + +_Mrs. Dale_. What's the difference, pray? + +_Hilda_. Only that your last autograph sold for fifty-- + +_Mrs. Dale (not displeased)_. Ah?--I sent for you, Hilda, because I'm +dining out to-night, and if there's nothing important to attend to among +these letters you needn't sit up for me. + +_Hilda_. You don't mean to work? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Perhaps; but I sha'n't need you. You'll see that my +cigarettes and coffee-machine are in place, and that I don't have to crawl +about the floor in search of my pen-wiper? That's all. Now about these +letters-- + +_Hilda (impulsively)_. Oh, Mrs. Dale-- + +_Mrs. Dale_. Well? + +_Hilda_. I'd rather sit up for you. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Child, I've nothing for you to do. I shall be blocking +out the tenth chapter of _Winged Purposes_ and it won't be ready for +you till next week. + +_Hilda_. It isn't that--but it's so beautiful to sit here, watching +and listening, all alone in the night, and to feel that you're in there +_(she points to the study-door)_ _creating_--._(Impulsively.)_ +What do I care for sleep? + +_Mrs. Dale (indulgently)_. Child--silly child!--Yes, I should have +felt so at your age--it would have been an inspiration-- + +_Hilda (rapt)_. It is! + +_Mrs. Dale_. But you must go to bed; I must have you fresh in the +morning; for you're still at the age when one is fresh in the morning! +_(She sighs.)_ The letters? _(Abruptly.)_ Do you take notes of +what you feel, Hilda--here, all alone in the night, as you say? + +_Hilda (shyly)_. I have-- + +_Mrs. Dale (smiling)_. For the diary? + +_Hilda (nods and blushes)_. + +_Mrs. Dale (caressingly)_. Goose!--Well, to business. What is there? + +_Hilda_. Nothing important, except a letter from Stroud & Fayerweather +to say that the question of the royalty on _Pomegranate Seed_ has been +settled in your favor. The English publishers of _Immolation_ write +to consult you about a six-shilling edition; Olafson, the Copenhagen +publisher, applies for permission to bring out a Danish translation of +_The Idol's Feet_; and the editor of the _Semaphore_ wants a new +serial--I think that's all; except that _Woman's Sphere_ and _The +Droplight_ ask for interviews--with photographs-- + +_Mrs. Dale_. The same old story! I'm so tired of it all. _(To +herself, in an undertone.)_ But how should I feel if it all stopped? +_(The servant brings in a card.)_ + +_Mrs. Dale (reading it)_. Is it possible? Paul Ventnor? _(To the +servant.)_ Show Mr. Ventnor up. _(To herself.)_ Paul Ventnor! + +_Hilda (breathless)_. Oh, Mrs. Dale--_the_ Mr. Ventnor? + +_Mrs. Dale (smiling)_. I fancy there's only one. + +_Hilda_. The great, great poet? _(Irresolute.)_ No, I don't +dare-- + +_Mrs. Dale (with a tinge of impatience)_. What? + +_Hilda (fervently)_. Ask you--if I might--oh, here in this corner, +where he can't possibly notice me--stay just a moment? Just to see him come +in? To see the meeting between you--the greatest novelist and the greatest +poet of the age? Oh, it's too much to ask! It's an historic moment. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Why, I suppose it is. I hadn't thought of it in that +light. Well _(smiling)_, for the diary-- + +_Hilda_. Oh, thank you, _thank you_! I'll be off the very instant +I've heard him speak. + +_Mrs. Dale_. The very instant, mind. _(She rises, looks at herself +in the glass, smooths her hair, sits down again, and rattles the +tea-caddy.)_ Isn't the room very warm?--_(She looks over at her +portrait.)_ I've grown stouter since that was painted--. You'll make a +fortune out of that diary, Hilda-- + +_Hilda (modestly)_. Four publishers have applied to me already-- + +_The Servant (announces)_. Mr. Paul Ventnor. + +_(Tall, nearing fifty, with an incipient stoutness buttoned into a +masterly frock-coat, Ventnor drops his glass and advances vaguely, with a +short-sighted stare.)_ + +_Ventnor_. Mrs. Dale? + +_Mrs. Dale_. My dear friend! This is kind. _(She looks over her +shoulder at Hilda, who vanishes through the door to the left.)_ The +papers announced your arrival, but I hardly hoped-- + +_Ventnor (whose short-sighted stare is seen to conceal a deeper +embarrassment)_. You hadn't forgotten me, then? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Delicious! Do _you_ forget that you're public +property? + +_Ventnor_. Forgotten, I mean, that we were old friends? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Such old friends! May I remind you that it's nearly +twenty years since we've met? Or do you find cold reminiscences +indigestible? + +_Ventnor_. On the contrary, I've come to ask you for a dish of +them--we'll warm them up together. You're my first visit. + +_Mrs. Dale_. How perfect of you! So few men visit their women friends +in chronological order; or at least they generally do it the other way +round, beginning with the present day and working back--if there's time--to +prehistoric woman. + +_Ventnor_. But when prehistoric woman has become historic woman--? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Oh, it's the reflection of my glory that has guided you +here, then? + +_Ventnor_. It's a spirit in my feet that has led me, at the first +opportunity, to the most delightful spot I know. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Oh, the first opportunity--! + +_Ventnor_. I might have seen you very often before; but never just in +the right way. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Is this the right way? + +_Ventnor_. It depends on you to make it so. + +_Mrs. Dale_. What a responsibility! What shall I do? + +_Ventnor_. Talk to me--make me think you're a little glad to see me; +give me some tea and a cigarette; and say you're out to everyone else. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Is that all? _(She hands him a cup of tea.)_ The +cigarettes are at your elbow--. And do you think I shouldn't have been glad +to see you before? + +_Ventnor_. No; I think I should have been too glad to see you. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Dear me, what precautions! I hope you always wear +goloshes when it looks like rain and never by any chance expose yourself +to a draught. But I had an idea that poets courted the emotions-- + +_Ventnor_. Do novelists? + +_Mrs. Dale_. If you ask _me_--on paper! + +_Ventnor_. Just so; that's safest. My best things about the sea have +been written on shore. _(He looks at her thoughtfully.)_ But it +wouldn't have suited us in the old days, would it? + +_Mrs. Dale (sighing)_. When we were real people! + +_Ventnor_. Real people? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Are _you_, now? I died years ago. What you see +before you is a figment of the reporter's brain--a monster manufactured out +of newspaper paragraphs, with ink in its veins. A keen sense of copyright +is _my_ nearest approach to an emotion. + +_Ventnor (sighing)_. Ah, well, yes--as you say, we're public property. + +_Mrs. Dale_. If one shared equally with the public! But the last shred +of my identity is gone. + +_Ventnor_. Most people would be glad to part with theirs on such +terms. I have followed your work with immense interest. _Immolation_ +is a masterpiece. I read it last summer when it first came out. + +_Mrs. Dale (with a shade less warmth)_. _Immolation_ has been out +three years. + +_Ventnor_. Oh, by Jove--no? Surely not--But one is so overwhelmed--one +loses count. (_Reproachfully_.) Why have you never sent me your books? + +_Mrs. Dale_. For that very reason. + +_Ventnor (deprecatingly)_. You know I didn't mean it for you! And +_my_ first book--do you remember--was dedicated to you. + +_Mrs. Dale_. _Silver Trumpets_-- + +_Ventnor (much interested)_. Have you a copy still, by any chance? The +first edition, I mean? Mine was stolen years ago. Do you think you could +put your hand on it? + +_Mrs. Dale (taking a small shabby book from the table at her side)_. +It's here. + +_Ventnor (eagerly)_. May I have it? Ah, thanks. This is _very_ +interesting. The last copy sold in London for 40, and they tell me the +next will fetch twice as much. It's quite _introuvable_. + +_Mrs. Dale_. I know that. _(A pause. She takes the book from him, +opens it, and reads, half to herself--)_ + + _How much we two have seen together, + Of other eyes unwist, + Dear as in days of leafless weather + The willow's saffron mist, + + Strange as the hour when Hesper swings + A-sea in beryl green, + While overhead on dalliant wings + The daylight hangs serene, + + And thrilling as a meteor's fall + Through depths of lonely sky, + When each to each two watchers call: + I saw it!--So did I._ + +_Ventnor_. Thin, thin--the troubadour tinkle. Odd how little promise +there is in first volumes! + +_Mrs. Dale (with irresistible emphasis)_. I thought there was a +distinct promise in this! + +_Ventnor (seeing his mistake)_. Ah--the one you would never let me +fulfil? _(Sentimentally.)_ How inexorable you were! You never +dedicated a book to _me_. + +_Mrs. Dale_. I hadn't begun to write when we were--dedicating things +to each other. + +_Ventnor_. Not for the public--but you wrote for me; and, wonderful as +you are, you've never written anything since that I care for half as much +as-- + +_Mrs. Dale (interested)_. Well? + +_Ventnor_. Your letters. + +_Mrs. Dale (in a changed voice)_. My letters--do you remember them? + +_Ventnor_. When I don't, I reread them. + +_Mrs. Dale (incredulous)_. You have them still? + +_Ventnor (unguardedly)_. You haven't mine, then? + +_Mrs. Dale (playfully)_. Oh, you were a celebrity already. Of course I +kept them! _(Smiling.)_ Think what they are worth now! I always keep +them locked up in my safe over there. _(She indicates a cabinet.)_ + +_Ventnor (after a pause)_. I always carry yours with me. + +_Mrs. Dale (laughing)_. You-- + +_Ventnor_. Wherever I go. _(A longer pause. She looks at him +fixedly.)_ I have them with me now. + +_Mrs. Dale (agitated)_. You--have them with you--now? + +_Ventnor (embarrassed)_. Why not? One never knows-- + +_Mrs. Dale_. Never knows--? + +_Ventnor (humorously)_. Gad--when the bank-examiner may come round. +You forget I'm a married man. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Ah--yes. + +_Ventnor (sits down beside her)_. I speak to you as I couldn't to +anyone else--without deserving a kicking. You know how it all came about. +_(A pause.)_ You'll bear witness that it wasn't till you denied me all +hope-- + +_Mrs. Dale (a little breathless)_. Yes, yes-- + +_Ventnor_. Till you sent me from you-- + +_Mrs. Dale_. It's so easy to be heroic when one is young! One doesn't +realize how long life is going to last afterward. _(Musing.)_ Nor what +weary work it is gathering up the fragments. + +_Ventnor_. But the time comes when one sends for the china-mender, and +has the bits riveted together, and turns the cracked side to the wall-- + +_Mrs. Dale_. And denies that the article was ever damaged? + +_Ventnor_. Eh? Well, the great thing, you see, is to keep one's self +out of reach of the housemaid's brush. _(A pause.)_ If you're married +you can't--always. _(Smiling.)_ Don't you hate to be taken down and +dusted? + +_Mrs. Dale (with intention)_. You forget how long ago my husband died. +It's fifteen years since I've been an object of interest to anybody but the +public. + +_Ventnor (smiling)_. The only one of your admirers to whom you've ever +given the least encouragement! + +_Mrs. Dale_. Say rather the most easily pleased! + +_Ventnor_. Or the only one you cared to please? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Ah, you _haven't_ kept my letters! + +_Ventnor (gravely)_. Is that a challenge? Look here, then! _(He +drams a packet from his pocket and holds it out to her.)_ + +_Mrs. Dale (taking the packet and looking at him earnestly)_. Why have +you brought me these? + +_Ventnor_. I didn't bring them; they came because I came--that's all. +_(Tentatively.)_ Are we unwelcome? + +_Mrs. Dale (who has undone the packet and does not appear to hear +him)_. The very first I ever wrote you--the day after we met at the +concert. How on earth did you happen to keep it? _(She glances over +it.)_ How perfectly absurd! Well, it's not a compromising document. + +_Ventnor_. I'm afraid none of them are. + +_Mrs. Dale (quickly)_. Is it to that they owe their immunity? Because +one could leave them about like safety matches?--Ah, here's another I +remember--I wrote that the day after we went skating together for the first +time. _(She reads it slowly.)_ How odd! How very odd! + +_Ventnor_. What? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Why, it's the most curious thing--I had a letter of this +kind to do the other day, in the novel I'm at work on now--the letter of a +woman who is just--just beginning-- + +_Ventnor_. Yes--just beginning--? + +_Mrs. Dale_. And, do you know, I find the best phrase in it, the +phrase I somehow regarded as the fruit of--well, of all my subsequent +discoveries--is simply plagiarized, word for word, from this! + +_Ventnor (eagerly)_. I told you so! You were all there! + +_Mrs. Dale (critically)_. But the rest of it's poorly done--very +poorly. _(Reads the letter over.)_ H'm--I didn't know how to leave +off. It takes me forever to get out of the door. + +_Ventnor (gayly)_. Perhaps I was there to prevent you! _(After a +pause.)_ I wonder what I said in return? + +_Mrs. Dale (interested)_. Shall we look? _(She rises.)_ Shall +we--really? I have them all here, you know. _(She goes toward the +cabinet.)_ + +_Ventnor (following her with repressed eagerness)_. Oh--all! + +_Mrs. Dale (throws open the door of the cabinet, revealing a number of +packets)_. Don't you believe me now? + +_Ventnor_. Good heavens! How I must have repeated myself! But then you +were so very deaf. + +_Mrs. Dale (takes out a packet and returns to her seat. Ventnor extends +an impatient hand for the letters)_. No--no; wait! I want to find your +answer to the one I was just reading. _(After a pause.)_ Here it +is--yes, I thought so! + +_Ventnor_. What did you think? + +_Mrs. Dale (triumphantly)_. I thought it was the one in which you +quoted _Epipsychidion_-- + +_Ventnor_. Mercy! Did I _quote_ things? I don't wonder you were +cruel. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Ah, and here's the other--the one I--the one I didn't +answer--for a long time. Do you remember? + +_Ventnor (with emotion)_. Do I remember? I wrote it the morning after +we heard _Isolde_-- + +_Mrs. Dale (disappointed)_. No--no. _That_ wasn't the one I +didn't answer! Here--this is the one I mean. + +_Ventnor (takes it curiously)_. Ah--h'm--this is very like unrolling a +mummy--_(he glances at her)_--with a live grain of wheat in it, +perhaps?--Oh, by Jove! + +_Mrs. Dale_. What? + +_Ventnor_. Why, this is the one I made a sonnet out of afterward! By +Jove, I'd forgotten where that idea came from. You may know the lines +perhaps? They're in the fourth volume of my Complete Edition--It's the +thing beginning + + _Love came to me with unrelenting eyes--_ + +one of my best, I rather fancy. Of course, here it's very crudely put--the +values aren't brought out--ah! this touch is good though--very good. H'm, I +daresay there might be other material. _(He glances toward the +cabinet.)_ + +_Mrs. Dale (drily)_. The live grain of wheat, as you said! + +_Ventnor_. Ah, well--my first harvest was sown on rocky +ground--_now_ I plant for the fowls of the air. _(Rising and walking +toward the cabinet.)_ When can I come and carry off all this rubbish? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Carry it off? + +_Ventnor (embarrassed)_. My dear lady, surely between you and me +explicitness is a burden. You must see that these letters of ours can't be +left to take their chance like an ordinary correspondence--you said +yourself we were public property. + +_Mrs. Dale_. To take their chance? Do you suppose that, in my keeping, +your letters take any chances? _(Suddenly.)_ Do mine--in yours? + +_Ventnor (still more embarrassed)_. Helen--! _(He takes a turn +through the room.)_ You force me to remind you that you and I are +differently situated--that in a moment of madness I sacrificed the only +right you ever gave me--the right to love you better than any other +woman in the world. _(A pause. She says nothing and he continues, with +increasing difficulty--)_ You asked me just now why I carried your +letters about with me--kept them, literally, in my own hands. Well, suppose +it's to be sure of their not falling into some one else's? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Oh! + +_Ventnor (throws himself into a chair)_. For God's sake don't pity me! + +_Mrs. Dale (after a long pause)_. Am I dull--or are you trying to say +that you want to give me back my letters? + +_Ventnor (starting up)_. I? Give you back--? God forbid! Your letters? +Not for the world! The only thing I have left! But you can't dream that in +_my_ hands-- + +_Mrs. Dale (suddenly)_. You want yours, then? + +_Ventnor (repressing his eagerness)_. My dear friend, if I'd ever +dreamed that you'd kept them--? + +_Mrs. Dale (accusingly)_. You _do_ want them. _(A pause. He +makes a deprecatory gesture.)_ Why should they be less safe with me than +mine with you? _I_ never forfeited the right to keep them. + +_Ventnor (after another pause)_. It's compensation enough, almost, +to have you reproach me! _(He moves nearer to her, but she makes no +response.)_ You forget that I've forfeited _all_ my rights--even +that of letting you keep my letters. + +_Mrs. Dale_. You _do_ want them! _(She rises, throws all the +letters into the cabinet, locks the door and puts the key in her +pocket.)_ There's my answer. + +_Ventnor_. Helen--! + +_Mrs. Dale_. Ah, I paid dearly enough for the right to keep them, and +I mean to! _(She turns to him passionately.)_ Have you ever asked +yourself how I paid for it? With what months and years of solitude, what +indifference to flattery, what resistance to affection?--Oh, don't smile +because I said affection, and not love. Affection's a warm cloak in cold +weather; and I _have_ been cold; and I shall keep on growing colder! +Don't talk to me about living in the hearts of my readers! We both know +what kind of a domicile that is. Why, before long I shall become a classic! +Bound in sets and kept on the top book-shelf--brr, doesn't that sound +freezing? I foresee the day when I shall be as lonely as an Etruscan +museum! _(She breaks into a laugh.)_ That's what I've paid for the +right to keep your letters. _(She holds out her hand.)_ And now give +me mine. + +_Ventnor_. Yours? + +_Mrs. Dale (haughtily)_. Yes; I claim them. + +_Ventnor (in the same tone)_. On what ground? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Hear the man!--Because I wrote them, of course. + +_Ventnor_. But it seems to me that--under your inspiration, I admit--I +also wrote mine. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Oh, I don't dispute their authenticity--it's yours I +deny! + +_Ventnor_. Mine? + +_Mrs. Dale_. You voluntarily ceased to be the man who wrote me those +letters--you've admitted as much. You traded paper for flesh and blood. I +don't dispute your wisdom--only you must hold to your bargain! The letters +are all mine. + +_Ventnor (groping between two tones)_. Your arguments are as +convincing as ever. _(He hazards a faint laugh.)_ You're a marvellous +dialectician--but, if we're going to settle the matter in the spirit of an +arbitration treaty, why, there are accepted conventions in such cases. It's +an odious way to put it, but since you won't help me, one of them is-- + +_Mrs. Dale_. One of them is--? + +_Ventnor_. That it is usual--that technically, I mean, the +letter--belongs to its writer-- + +_Mrs. Dale (after a pause)_. Such letters as _these_? + +_Ventnor_. Such letters especially-- + +_Mrs. Dale_. But you couldn't have written them if I hadn't--been +willing to read them. Surely there's more of myself in them than of you. + +_Ventnor_. Surely there's nothing in which a man puts more of himself +than in his love-letters! + +_Mrs. Dale (with emotion)_. But a woman's love-letters are like her child. +They belong to her more than to anybody else-- + +_Ventnor_. And a man's? + +_Mrs. Dale (with sudden violence)_. Are all he risks!--There, take +them. _(She flings the key of the cabinet at his feet and sinks into a +chair.)_ + +_Ventnor (starts as though to pick up the key; then approaches and bends +over her)_. Helen--oh, Helen! + +_Mrs. Dale (she yields her hands to him, murmuring:)_ Paul! +_(Suddenly she straightens herself and draws back illuminated.)_ What +a fool I am! I see it all now. You want them for your memoirs! + +_Ventnor (disconcerted)_. Helen-- + +_Mrs. Dale (agitated)_. Come, come--the rule is to unmask when the +signal's given! You want them for your memoirs. + +_Ventnor (with a forced laugh)_. What makes you think so? + +_Mrs. Dale (triumphantly)_. Because _I_ want them for mine! + +_Ventnor (in a changed tone)_. Ah--. _(He moves away from her and +leans against the mantelpiece. She remains seated, with her eyes fixed on +him.)_ + +_Mrs. Dale_. I wonder I didn't see it sooner. Your reasons were lame +enough. + +_Ventnor (ironically)_. Yours were masterly. You're the more +accomplished actor of the two. I was completely deceived. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Oh, I'm a novelist. I can keep up that sort of thing for +five hundred pages! + +_Ventnor_. I congratulate you. _(A pause.)_ + +_Mrs. Dale (moving to her seat behind the tea-table)_. I've never +offered you any tea. _(She bends over the kettle.)_ Why don't you take +your letters? + +_Ventnor_. Because you've been clever enough to make it impossible for +me. _(He picks up the key and hands it to her. Then abruptly)_--Was it +all acting--just now? + +_Mrs. Dale_. By what right do you ask? + +_Ventnor_. By right of renouncing my claim to my letters. Keep +them--and tell me. + +_Mrs. Dale_. I give you back your claim--and I refuse to tell you. + +_Ventnor (sadly)_. Ah, Helen, if you deceived me, you deceived +yourself also. + +_Mrs. Dale_. What does it matter, now that we're both undeceived? I +played a losing game, that's all. + +_Ventnor_. Why losing--since all the letters are yours? + +_Mrs. Dale_. The letters? _(Slowly.)_ I'd forgotten the letters-- + +_Ventnor (exultant)_. Ah, I knew you'd end by telling me the truth! + +_Mrs. Dale_. The truth? Where _is_ the truth? _(Half to +herself.)_ I thought I was lying when I began--but the lies turned into +truth as I uttered them! _(She looks at Ventnor.)_ I _did_ want +your letters for my memoirs--I _did_ think I'd kept them for that +purpose--and I wanted to get mine back for the same reason--but now _(she +puts out her hand and picks up some of her letters, which are lying +scattered on the table near her)_--how fresh they seem, and how they +take me back to the time when we lived instead of writing about life! + +_Ventnor (smiling)_. The time when we didn't prepare our impromptu +effects beforehand and copyright our remarks about the weather! + +_Mrs. Dale_. Or keep our epigrams in cold storage and our adjectives +under lock and key! + +_Ventnor_. When our emotions weren't worth ten cents a word, and a +signature wasn't an autograph. Ah, Helen, after all, there's nothing like +the exhilaration of spending one's capital! + +_Mrs. Dale_. Of wasting it, you mean. _(She points to the +letters.)_ Do you suppose we could have written a word of these if we'd +known we were putting our dreams out at interest? _(She sits musing, with +her eyes on the fire, and he watches her in silence.)_ Paul, do you +remember the deserted garden we sometimes used to walk in? + +_Ventnor_. The old garden with the high wall at the end of the village +street? The garden with the ruined box-borders and the broken-down arbor? +Why, I remember every weed in the paths and every patch of moss on the +walls! + +_Mrs. Dale._ Well--I went back there the other day. The village is +immensely improved. There's a new hotel with gas-fires, and a trolley in +the main street; and the garden has been turned into a public park, where +excursionists sit on cast-iron benches admiring the statue of an +Abolitionist. + +_Ventnor_. An Abolitionist--how appropriate! + +_Mrs. Dale_. And the man who sold the garden has made a fortune that +he doesn't know how to spend-- + +_Ventnor (rising impulsively)_. Helen, _(he approaches and lays his +hand on her letters)_, let's sacrifice our fortune and keep the +excursionists out! + +_Mrs. Dale (with a responsive movement)_. Paul, do you really mean it? + +_Ventnor (gayly)_. Mean it? Why, I feel like a landed proprietor +already! It's more than a garden--it's a park. + +_Mrs. Dale_. It's more than a park, it's a world--as long as we keep +it to ourselves! + +_Ventnor_. Ah, yes--even the pyramids look small when one sees a +Cook's tourist on top of them! _(He takes the key from the table, unlocks +the cabinet and brings out his letters, which he lays beside hers.)_ +Shall we burn the key to our garden? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Ah, then it will indeed be boundless! _(Watching him +while he throws the letters into the fire.)_ + +_Ventnor (turning back to her with a half-sad smile)_. But not too big +for us to find each other in? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Since we shall be the only people there! _(He takes +both her hands and they look at each other a moment in silence. Then he +goes out by the door to the right. As he reaches the door she takes a step +toward him, impulsively; then turning back she leans against the +chimney-piece, quietly watching the letters burn.)_ + + + + +THE REMBRANDT + + +"You're _so_ artistic," my cousin Eleanor Copt began. + +Of all Eleanor's exordiums it is the one I most dread. When she tells me +I'm so clever I know this is merely the preamble to inviting me to meet the +last literary obscurity of the moment: a trial to be evaded or endured, as +circumstances dictate; whereas her calling me artistic fatally connotes +the request to visit, in her company, some distressed gentlewoman whose +future hangs on my valuation of her old Saxe or of her grandfather's +Marc Antonios. Time was when I attempted to resist these compulsions of +Eleanor's; but I soon learned that, short of actual flight, there was +no refuge from her beneficent despotism. It is not always easy for the +curator of a museum to abandon his post on the plea of escaping a pretty +cousin's importunities; and Eleanor, aware of my predicament, is none +too magnanimous to take advantage of it. Magnanimity is, in fact, not in +Eleanor's line. The virtues, she once explained to me, are like bonnets: +the very ones that look best on other people may not happen to suit one's +own particular style; and she added, with a slight deflection of metaphor, +that none of the ready-made virtues ever _had_ fitted her: they all +pinched somewhere, and she'd given up trying to wear them. + +Therefore when she said to me, "You're _so_ artistic." emphasizing the +conjunction with a tap of her dripping umbrella (Eleanor is out in all +weathers: the elements are as powerless against her as man), I merely +stipulated, "It's not old Saxe again?" + +She shook her head reassuringly. "A picture--a Rembrandt!" + +"Good Lord! Why not a Leonardo?" + +"Well"--she smiled--"that, of course, depends on _you_." + +"On me?" + +"On your attribution. I dare say Mrs. Fontage would consent to the +change--though she's very conservative." + +A gleam of hope came to me and I pronounced: "One can't judge of a picture +in this weather." + +"Of course not. I'm coming for you to-morrow." + +"I've an engagement to-morrow." + +"I'll come before or after your engagement." + +The afternoon paper lay at my elbow and I contrived a furtive consultation +of the weather-report. It said "Rain to-morrow," and I answered briskly: +"All right, then; come at ten"--rapidly calculating that the clouds on +which I counted might lift by noon. + +My ingenuity failed of its due reward; for the heavens, as if in league +with my cousin, emptied themselves before morning, and punctually at ten +Eleanor and the sun appeared together in my office. + +I hardly listened, as we descended the Museum steps and got into Eleanor's +hansom, to her vivid summing-up of the case. I guessed beforehand that the +lady we were about to visit had lapsed by the most distressful degrees from +opulence to a "hall-bedroom"; that her grandfather, if he had not been +Minister to France, had signed the Declaration of Independence; that the +Rembrandt was an heirloom, sole remnant of disbanded treasures; that for +years its possessor had been unwilling to part with it, and that even now +the question of its disposal must be approached with the most diplomatic +obliquity. + +Previous experience had taught me that all Eleanor's "cases" presented a +harrowing similarity of detail. No circumstance tending to excite the +spectator's sympathy and involve his action was omitted from the history of +her beneficiaries; the lights and shades were indeed so skilfully adjusted +that any impartial expression of opinion took on the hue of cruelty. I +could have produced closetfuls of "heirlooms" in attestation of this fact; +for it is one more mark of Eleanor's competence that her friends usually +pay the interest on her philanthropy. My one hope was that in this case the +object, being a picture, might reasonably be rated beyond my means; and +as our cab drew up before a blistered brown-stone door-step I formed the +self-defensive resolve to place an extreme valuation on Mrs. Fontage's +Rembrandt. It is Eleanor's fault if she is sometimes fought with her own +weapons. + +The house stood in one of those shabby provisional-looking New York streets +that seem resignedly awaiting demolition. It was the kind of house that, +in its high days, must have had a bow-window with a bronze in it. The +bow-window had been replaced by a plumber's _devanture_, and one might +conceive the bronze to have gravitated to the limbo where Mexican onyx +tables and bric-a-brac in buffalo-horn await the first signs of our next +aesthetic reaction. + +Eleanor swept me through a hall that smelled of poverty, up unlit stairs to +a bare slit of a room. "And she must leave this in a month!" she whispered +across her knock. + +I had prepared myself for the limp widow's weed of a woman that one figures +in such a setting; and confronted abruptly with Mrs. Fontage's white-haired +erectness I had the disconcerting sense that I was somehow in her presence +at my own solicitation. I instinctively charged Eleanor with this reversal +of the situation; but a moment later I saw it must be ascribed to a +something about Mrs. Fontage that precluded the possibility of her asking +any one a favor. It was not that she was of forbidding, or even majestic, +demeanor; but that one guessed, under her aquiline prettiness, a dignity +nervously on guard against the petty betrayal of her surroundings. The +room was unconcealably poor: the little faded "relics," the high-stocked +ancestral silhouettes, the steel-engravings after Raphael and Correggio, +grouped in a vain attempt to hide the most obvious stains on the +wall-paper, served only to accentuate the contrast of a past evidently +diversified by foreign travel and the enjoyment of the arts. Even Mrs. +Fontage's dress had the air of being a last expedient, the ultimate outcome +of a much-taxed ingenuity in darning and turning. One felt that all the +poor lady's barriers were falling save that of her impregnable manner. + +To this manner I found myself conveying my appreciation of being admitted +to a view of the Rembrandt. + +Mrs. Fontage's smile took my homage for granted. "It is always," she +conceded, "a privilege to be in the presence of the great masters." Her +slim wrinkled hand waved me to a dusky canvas near the window. + +"It's _so_ interesting, dear Mrs. Fontage," I heard Eleanor +exclaiming, "and my cousin will be able to tell you exactly--" Eleanor, in +my presence, always admits that she knows nothing about art; but she gives +the impression that this is merely because she hasn't had time to look into +the matter--and has had me to do it for her. + +Mrs. Fontage seated herself without speaking, as though fearful that a +breath might disturb my communion with the masterpiece. I felt that she +thought Eleanor's reassuring ejaculations ill-timed; and in this I was of +one mind with her; for the impossibility of telling her exactly what I +thought of her Rembrandt had become clear to me at a glance. + +My cousin's vivacities began to languish and the silence seemed to shape +itself into a receptacle for my verdict. I stepped back, affecting a more +distant scrutiny; and as I did so my eye caught Mrs. Fontage's profile. Her +lids trembled slightly. I took refuge in the familiar expedient of asking +the history of the picture, and she waved me brightly to a seat. + +This was indeed a topic on which she could dilate. The Rembrandt, it +appeared, had come into Mr. Fontage's possession many years ago, while +the young couple were on their wedding-tour, and under circumstances so +romantic that she made no excuse for relating them in all their parenthetic +fulness. The picture belonged to an old Belgian Countess of redundant +quarterings, whom the extravagances of an ungovernable nephew had compelled +to part with her possessions (in the most private manner) about the time of +the Fontages' arrival. By a really remarkable coincidence, it happened that +their courier (an exceptionally intelligent and superior man) was an old +servant of the Countess's, and had thus been able to put them in the way of +securing the Rembrandt under the very nose of an English Duke, whose agent +had been sent to Brussels to negotiate for its purchase. Mrs. Fontage could +not recall the Duke's name, but he was a great collector and had a famous +Highland castle, where somebody had been murdered, and which she herself +had visited (by moonlight) when she had travelled in Scotland as a girl. +The episode had in short been one of the most interesting "experiences" of +a tour almost chromo-lithographic in vivacity of impression; and they had +always meant to go back to Brussels for the sake of reliving so picturesque +a moment. Circumstances (of which the narrator's surroundings declared the +nature) had persistently interfered with the projected return to Europe, +and the picture had grown doubly valuable as representing the high-water +mark of their artistic emotions. Mrs. Fontage's moist eye caressed the +canvas. "There is only," she added with a perceptible effort, "one slight +drawback: the picture is not signed. But for that the Countess, of course, +would have sold it to a museum. All the connoisseurs who have seen it +pronounce it an undoubted Rembrandt, in the artist's best manner; but the +museums"--she arched her brows in smiling recognition of a well-known +weakness--"give the preference to signed examples--" + +Mrs. Fontage's words evoked so touching a vision of the young tourists of +fifty years ago, entrusting to an accomplished and versatile courier the +direction of their helpless zeal for art, that I lost sight for a moment +of the point at issue. The old Belgian Countess, the wealthy Duke with a +feudal castle in Scotland, Mrs. Fontage's own maiden pilgrimage to Arthur's +Seat and Holyrood, all the accessories of the naf transaction, seemed +a part of that vanished Europe to which our young race carried its +indiscriminate ardors, its tender romantic credulity: the legendary +castellated Europe of keepsakes, brigands and old masters, that +compensated, by one such "experience" as Mrs. Fontage's, for an after-life +of aesthetic privation. + +I was restored to the present by Eleanor's looking at her watch. The action +mutely conveyed that something was expected of me. I risked the temporizing +statement that the picture was very interesting; but Mrs. Fontage's polite +assent revealed the poverty of the expedient. Eleanor's impatience +overflowed. + +"You would like my cousin to give you an idea of its value?" she suggested. + +Mrs. Fontage grew more erect. "No one," she corrected with great +gentleness, "can know its value quite as well as I, who live with it--" + +We murmured our hasty concurrence. + +"But it might be interesting to hear"--she addressed herself to me--"as a +mere matter of curiosity--what estimate would be put on it from the purely +commercial point of view--if such a term may be used in speaking of a work +of art." + +I sounded a note of deprecation. + +"Oh, I understand, of course," she delicately anticipated me, "that that +could never be _your_ view, your personal view; but since occasions +_may_ arise--do arise--when it becomes necessary to--to put a price on +the priceless, as it were--I have thought--Miss Copt has suggested--" + +"Some day," Eleanor encouraged her, "you might feel that the picture ought +to belong to some one who has more--more opportunity of showing it--letting +it be seen by the public--for educational reasons--" + +"I have tried," Mrs. Fontage admitted, "to see it in that light." + +The crucial moment was upon me. To escape the challenge of Mrs. Fontage's +brilliant composure I turned once more to the picture. If my courage needed +reinforcement, the picture amply furnished it. Looking at that lamentable +canvas seemed the surest way of gathering strength to denounce it; but +behind me, all the while, I felt Mrs. Fontage's shuddering pride drawn +up in a final effort of self-defense. I hated myself for my sentimental +perversion of the situation. Reason argued that it was more cruel to +deceive Mrs. Fontage than to tell her the truth; but that merely proved the +inferiority of reason to instinct in situations involving any concession to +the emotions. Along with her faith in the Rembrandt I must destroy not only +the whole fabric of Mrs. Fontage's past, but even that lifelong habit of +acquiescence in untested formulas that makes the best part of the average +feminine strength. I guessed the episode of the picture to be inextricably +interwoven with the traditions and convictions which served to veil Mrs. +Fontage's destitution not only from others but from herself. Viewed in +that light the Rembrandt had perhaps been worth its purchase-money; and I +regretted that works of art do not commonly sell on the merit of the moral +support they may have rendered. + +From this unavailing flight I was recalled by the sense that something +must be done. To place a fictitious value on the picture was at best a +provisional measure; while the brutal alternative of advising Mrs. Fontage +to sell it for a hundred dollars at least afforded an opening to the +charitably disposed purchaser. I intended, if other resources failed, +to put myself forward in that light; but delicacy of course forbade my +coupling my unflattering estimate of the Rembrandt with an immediate offer +to buy it. All I could do was to inflict the wound: the healing unguent +must be withheld for later application. + +I turned to Mrs. Fontage, who sat motionless, her finely-lined cheeks +touched with an expectant color, her eyes averted from the picture which +was so evidently the one object they beheld. + +"My dear madam--" I began. Her vivid smile was like a light held up to +dazzle me. It shrouded every alternative in darkness and I had the flurried +sense of having lost my way among the intricacies of my contention. Of +a sudden I felt the hopelessness of finding a crack in her impenetrable +conviction. My words slipped from me like broken weapons. "The picture," +I faltered, "would of course be worth more if it were signed. As it is, +I--I hardly think--on a conservative estimate--it can be valued at--at +more--than--a thousand dollars, say--" + +My deflected argument ran on somewhat aimlessly till it found itself +plunging full tilt against the barrier of Mrs. Fontage's silence. She sat +as impassive as though I had not spoken. Eleanor loosed a few fluttering +words of congratulation and encouragement, but their flight was suddenly +cut short. Mrs. Fontage had risen with a certain solemnity. + +"I could never," she said gently--her gentleness was adamantine--"under any +circumstances whatever, consider, for a moment even, the possibility of +parting with the picture at such a price." + + +II + +Within three weeks a tremulous note from Mrs. Fontage requested the favor +of another visit. If the writing was tremulous, however, the writer's tone +was firm. She named her own day and hour, without the conventional +reference to her visitor's convenience. + +My first impulse was to turn the note over to Eleanor. I had acquitted +myself of my share in the ungrateful business of coming to Mrs. Fontage's +aid, and if, as her letter denoted, she had now yielded to the closer +pressure of need, the business of finding a purchaser for the Rembrandt +might well be left to my cousin's ingenuity. But here conscience put in +the uncomfortable reminder that it was I who, in putting a price on the +picture, had raised the real obstacle in the way of Mrs. Fontage's rescue. +No one would give a thousand dollars for the Rembrandt; but to tell +Mrs. Fontage so had become as unthinkable as murder. I had, in fact, on +returning from my first inspection of the picture, refrained from imparting +to Eleanor my opinion of its value. Eleanor is porous, and I knew that +sooner or later the unnecessary truth would exude through the loose texture +of her dissimulation. Not infrequently she thus creates the misery she +alleviates; and I have sometimes suspected her of paining people in order +that she might be sorry for them. I had, at all events, cut off retreat in +Eleanor's direction; and the remaining alternative carried me straight to +Mrs. Fontage. + +She received me with the same commanding sweetness. The room was even barer +than before--I believe the carpet was gone--but her manner built up about +her a palace to which I was welcomed with high state; and it was as a mere +incident of the ceremony that I was presently made aware of her decision to +sell the Rembrandt. My previous unsuccess in planning how to deal with Mrs. +Fontage had warned me to leave my farther course to chance; and I listened +to her explanation with complete detachment. She had resolved to travel for +her health; her doctor advised it, and as her absence might be indefinitely +prolonged she had reluctantly decided to part with the picture in order +to avoid the expense of storage and insurance. Her voice drooped at the +admission, and she hurried on, detailing the vague itinerary of a journey +that was to combine long-promised visits to impatient friends with various +"interesting opportunities" less definitely specified. The poor lady's +skill in rearing a screen of verbiage about her enforced avowal had +distracted me from my own share in the situation, and it was with dismay +that I suddenly caught the drift of her assumptions. She expected me to +buy the Rembrandt for the Museum; she had taken my previous valuation as a +tentative bid, and when I came to my senses she was in the act of accepting +my offer. + +Had I had a thousand dollars of my own to dispose of, the bargain would +have been concluded on the spot; but I was in the impossible position of +being materially unable to buy the picture and morally unable to tell her +that it was not worth acquiring for the Museum. + +I dashed into the first evasion in sight. I had no authority, I explained, +to purchase pictures for the Museum without the consent of the committee. + +Mrs. Fontage coped for a moment in silence with the incredible fact +that I had rejected her offer; then she ventured, with a kind of pale +precipitation: "But I understood--Miss Copt tells me that you practically +decide such matters for the committee." I could guess what the effort had +cost her. + +"My cousin is given to generalizations. My opinion may have some weight +with the committee--" + +"Well, then--" she timidly prompted. + +"For that very reason I can't buy the picture." + +She said, with a drooping note, "I don't understand." + +"Yet you told me," I reminded her, "that you knew museums didn't buy +unsigned pictures." + +"Not for what they are worth! Every one knows that. But I--I +understood--the price you named--" Her pride shuddered back from the +abasement. "It's a misunderstanding then," she faltered. + +To avoid looking at her, I glanced desperately at the Rembrandt. Could +I--? But reason rejected the possibility. Even if the committee had been +blind--and they all _were_ but Crozier--I simply shouldn't have dared +to do it. I stood up, feeling that to cut the matter short was the only +alleviation within reach. + +Mrs. Fontage had summoned her indomitable smile; but its brilliancy +dropped, as I opened the door, like a candle blown out by a draught. + +"If there's any one else--if you knew any one who would care to see the +picture, I should be most happy--" She kept her eyes on me, and I saw that, +in her case, it hurt less than to look at the Rembrandt. "I shall have to +leave here, you know," she panted, "if nobody cares to have it--" + + +III + +That evening at my club I had just succeeded in losing sight of Mrs. +Fontage in the fumes of an excellent cigar, when a voice at my elbow evoked +her harassing image. + +"I want to talk to you," the speaker said, "about Mrs. Fontage's +Rembrandt." + +"There isn't any," I was about to growl; but looking up I recognized the +confiding countenance of Mr. Jefferson Rose. + +Mr. Rose was known to me chiefly as a young man suffused with a vague +enthusiasm for Virtue and my cousin Eleanor. + +One glance at his glossy exterior conveyed the assurance that his morals +were as immaculate as his complexion and his linen. Goodness exuded from +his moist eye, his liquid voice, the warm damp pressure of his trustful +hand. He had always struck me as one of the most uncomplicated organisms +I had ever met. His ideas were as simple and inconsecutive as the +propositions in a primer, and he spoke slowly, with a kind of uniformity +of emphasis that made his words stand out like the raised type for the +blind. An obvious incapacity for abstract conceptions made him peculiarly +susceptible to the magic of generalization, and one felt he would have been +at the mercy of any Cause that spelled itself with a capital letter. It was +hard to explain how, with such a superabundance of merit, he managed to be +a good fellow: I can only say that he performed the astonishing feat as +naturally as he supported an invalid mother and two sisters on the slender +salary of a banker's clerk. He sat down beside me with an air of bright +expectancy. + +"It's a remarkable picture, isn't it?" he said. + +"You've seen it?" + +"I've been so fortunate. Miss Copt was kind enough to get Mrs. Fontage's +permission; we went this afternoon." I inwardly wished that Eleanor +had selected another victim; unless indeed the visit were part of a +plan whereby some third person, better equipped for the cultivation of +delusions, was to be made to think the Rembrandt remarkable. Knowing the +limitations of Mr. Rose's resources I began to wonder if he had any rich +aunts. + +"And her buying it in that way, too," he went on with his limpid smile, +"from that old Countess in Brussels, makes it all the more interesting, +doesn't it? Miss Copt tells me it's very seldom old pictures can be traced +back for more than a generation. I suppose the fact of Mrs. Fontage's +knowing its history must add a good deal to its value?" + +Uncertain as to his drift, I said: "In her eyes it certainly appears to." + +Implications are lost on Mr. Rose, who glowingly continued: "That's the +reason why I wanted to talk to you about it--to consult you. Miss Copt +tells me you value it at a thousand dollars." + +There was no denying this, and I grunted a reluctant assent. + +"Of course," he went on earnestly, "your valuation is based on the fact +that the picture isn't signed--Mrs. Fontage explained that; and it does +make a difference, certainly. But the thing is--if the picture's really +good--ought one to take advantage--? I mean--one can see that Mrs. Fontage +is in a tight place, and I wouldn't for the world--" + +My astonished stare arrested him. + +"_You_ wouldn't--?" + +"I mean--you see, it's just this way"; he coughed and blushed: "I can't +give more than a thousand dollars myself--it's as big a sum as I can manage +to scrape together--but before I make the offer I want to be sure I'm not +standing in the way of her getting more money." + +My astonishment lapsed to dismay. "You're going to buy the picture for a +thousand dollars?" + +His blush deepened. "Why, yes. It sounds rather absurd, I suppose. It isn't +much in my line, of course. I can see the picture's very beautiful, but I'm +no judge--it isn't the kind of thing, naturally, that I could afford to go +in for; but in this case I'm very glad to do what I can; the circumstances +are so distressing; and knowing what you think of the picture I feel it's a +pretty safe investment--" + +"I don't think!" I blurted out. + +"You--?" + +"I don't think the picture's worth a thousand dollars; I don't think it's +worth ten cents; I simply lied about it, that's all." + +Mr. Rose looked as frightened as though I had charged him with the offense. + +"Hang it, man, can't you see how it happened? I saw the poor woman's pride +and happiness hung on her faith in that picture. I tried to make her +understand that it was worthless--but she wouldn't; I tried to tell her +so--but I couldn't. I behaved like a maudlin ass, but you shan't pay for my +infernal bungling--you mustn't buy the picture!" + +Mr. Rose sat silent, tapping one glossy boot-tip with another. Suddenly he +turned on me a glance of stored intelligence. "But you know," he said +good-humoredly, "I rather think I must." + +"You haven't--already?" + +"Oh, no; the offer's not made." + +"Well, then--" + +His look gathered a brighter significance. + +"But if the picture's worth nothing, nobody will buy it--" + +I groaned. + +"Except," he continued, "some fellow like me, who doesn't know anything. +_I_ think it's lovely, you know; I mean to hang it in my mother's +sitting-room." He rose and clasped my hand in his adhesive pressure. "I'm +awfully obliged to you for telling me this; but perhaps you won't mind my +asking you not to mention our talk to Miss Copt? It might bother her, you +know, to think the picture isn't exactly up to the mark; and it won't make +a rap of difference to me." + + +IV + +Mr. Rose left me to a sleepless night. The next morning my resolve was +formed, and it carried me straight to Mrs. Fontage's. She answered my knock +by stepping out on the landing, and as she shut the door behind her I +caught a glimpse of her devastated interior. She mentioned, with a careful +avoidance of the note of pathos on which our last conversation had closed, +that she was preparing to leave that afternoon; and the trunks obstructing +the threshold showed that her preparations were nearly complete. They were, +I felt certain, the same trunks that, strapped behind a rattling vettura, +had accompanied the bride and groom on that memorable voyage of discovery +of which the booty had till recently adorned her walls; and there was a +dim consolation in the thought that those early "finds" in coral and Swiss +wood-carving, in lava and alabaster, still lay behind the worn locks, in +the security of worthlessness. + +Mrs. Fontage, on the landing, among her strapped and corded treasures, +maintained the same air of stability that made it impossible, even under +such conditions, to regard her flight as anything less dignified than +a departure. It was the moral support of what she tacitly assumed that +enabled me to set forth with proper deliberation the object of my visit; +and she received my announcement with an absence of surprise that struck +me as the very flower of tact. Under cover of these mutual assumptions the +transaction was rapidly concluded; and it was not till the canvas passed +into my hands that, as though the physical contact had unnerved her, +Mrs. Fontage suddenly faltered. "It's the giving it up--" she stammered, +disguising herself to the last; and I hastened away from the collapse of +her splendid effrontery. + +I need hardly point out that I had acted impulsively, and that reaction +from the most honorable impulses is sometimes attended by moral +perturbation. My motives had indeed been mixed enough to justify some +uneasiness, but this was allayed by the instinctive feeling that it is more +venial to defraud an institution than a man. Since Mrs. Fontage had to be +kept from starving by means not wholly defensible, it was better that the +obligation should be borne by a rich institution than an impecunious youth. +I doubt, in fact, if my scruples would have survived a night's sleep, had +they not been complicated by some uncertainty as to my own future. It was +true that, subject to the purely formal assent of the committee, I had +full power to buy for the Museum, and that the one member of the committee +likely to dispute my decision was opportunely travelling in Europe; but the +picture once in place I must face the risk of any expert criticism to which +chance might expose it. I dismissed this contingency for future study, +stored the Rembrandt in the cellar of the Museum, and thanked heaven that +Crozier was abroad. + +Six months later he strolled into my office. I had just concluded, under +conditions of exceptional difficulty, and on terms unexpectedly benign, +the purchase of the great Bartley Reynolds; and this circumstance, by +relegating the matter of the Rembrandt to a lower stratum of consciousness, +enabled me to welcome Crozier with unmixed pleasure. My security +was enhanced by his appearance. His smile was charged with amiable +reminiscences, and I inferred that his trip had put him in the humor +to approve of everything, or at least to ignore what fell short of his +approval. I had therefore no uneasiness in accepting his invitation to dine +that evening. It is always pleasant to dine with Crozier and never more so +than when he is just back from Europe. His conversation gives even the food +a flavor of the Caf Anglais. + +The repast was delightful, and it was not till we had finished a Camembert +which he must have brought over with him, that my host said, in a tone of +after-dinner perfunctoriness: "I see you've picked up a picture or two +since I left." + +I assented. "The Bartley Reynolds seemed too good an opportunity to miss, +especially as the French government was after it. I think we got it +cheap--" + +"_Connu, connu_" said Crozier pleasantly. "I know all about the +Reynolds. It was the biggest kind of a haul and I congratulate you. Best +stroke of business we've done yet. But tell me about the other picture--the +Rembrandt." + +"I never said it was a Rembrandt." I could hardly have said why, but I felt +distinctly annoyed with Crozier. + +"Of course not. There's 'Rembrandt' on the frame, but I saw you'd +modified it to 'Dutch School'; I apologize." He paused, but I offered no +explanation. "What about it?" he went on. "Where did you pick it up?" As +he leaned to the flame of the cigar-lighter his face seemed ruddy with +enjoyment. + +"I got it for a song," I said. + +"A thousand, I think?" + +"Have you seen it?" I asked abruptly. + +"Went over the place this afternoon and found it in the cellar. Why hasn't +it been hung, by the way?" + +I paused a moment. "I'm waiting--" + +"To--?" + +"To have it varnished." + +"Ah!" He leaned back and poured himself a second glass of Chartreuse. The +smile he confided to its golden depths provoked me to challenge him with-- + +"What do you think of it?" + +"The Rembrandt?" He lifted his eyes from the glass. "Just what you do." + +"It isn't a Rembrandt." + +"I apologize again. You call it, I believe, a picture of the same period?" + +"I'm uncertain of the period." + +"H'm." He glanced appreciatively along his cigar. "What are you certain +of?" + +"That it's a damned bad picture," I said savagely. + +He nodded. "Just so. That's all we wanted to know." + +"_We_?" + +"We--I--the committee, in short. You see, my dear fellow, if you hadn't +been certain it was a damned bad picture our position would have been a +little awkward. As it is, my remaining duty--I ought to explain that in +this matter I'm acting for the committee--is as simple as it's agreeable." + +"I'll be hanged," I burst out, "if I understand one word you're saying!" + +He fixed me with a kind of cruel joyousness. "You will--you will," he +assured me; "at least you'll begin to, when you hear that I've seen Miss +Copt." + +"Miss Copt?" + +"And that she has told me under what conditions the picture was bought." + +"She doesn't know anything about the conditions! That is," I added, +hastening to restrict the assertion, "she doesn't know my opinion of the +picture." I thirsted for five minutes with Eleanor. + +"Are you quite sure?" Crozier took me up. "Mr. Jefferson Rose does." + +"Ah--I see." + +"I thought you would," he reminded me. "As soon as I'd laid eyes on +the Rembrandt--I beg your pardon!--I saw that it--well, required some +explanation." + +"You might have come to me." + +"I meant to; but I happened to meet Miss Copt, whose encyclopdic +information has often before been of service to me. I always go to Miss +Copt when I want to look up anything; and I found she knew all about the +Rembrandt." + +"_All_?" + +"Precisely. The knowledge was in fact causing her sleepless nights. Mr. +Rose, who was suffering from the same form of insomnia, had taken her into +his confidence, and she--ultimately--took me into hers." + +"Of course!" + +"I must ask you to do your cousin justice. She didn't speak till it became +evident to her uncommonly quick perceptions that your buying the picture on +its merits would have been infinitely worse for--for everybody--than your +diverting a small portion of the Museum's funds to philanthropic uses. Then +she told me the moving incident of Mr. Rose. Good fellow, Rose. And the +old lady's case was desperate. Somebody had to buy that picture." I moved +uneasily in my seat "Wait a moment, will you? I haven't finished my cigar. +There's a little head of Il Fiammingo's that you haven't seen, by the way; +I picked it up the other day in Parma. We'll go in and have a look at it +presently. But meanwhile what I want to say is that I've been charged--in +the most informal way--to express to you the committee's appreciation of +your admirable promptness and energy in capturing the Bartley Reynolds. We +shouldn't have got it at all if you hadn't been uncommonly wide-awake, and +to get it at such a price is a double triumph. We'd have thought nothing of +a few more thousands--" + +"I don't see," I impatiently interposed, "that, as far as I'm concerned, +that alters the case." + +"The case--?" + +"Of Mrs. Fontage's Rembrandt. I bought the picture because, as you say, the +situation was desperate, and I couldn't raise a thousand myself. What I did +was of course indefensible; but the money shall be refunded tomorrow--" + +Crozier raised a protesting hand. "Don't interrupt me when I'm talking ex +cathedra. The money's been refunded already. The fact is, the Museum has +sold the Rembrandt." + +I stared at him wildly. "Sold it? To whom?" + +"Why--to the committee.--Hold on a bit, please.--Won't you take another +cigar? Then perhaps I can finish what I've got to say.--Why, my dear +fellow, the committee's under an obligation to you--that's the way we look +at it. I've investigated Mrs. Fontage's case, and--well, the picture had to +be bought. She's eating meat now, I believe, for the first time in a year. +And they'd have turned her out into the street that very day, your cousin +tells me. Something had to be done at once, and you've simply given a +number of well-to-do and self-indulgent gentlemen the opportunity of +performing, at very small individual expense, a meritorious action in +the nick of time. That's the first thing I've got to thank you for. And +then--you'll remember, please, that I have the floor--that I'm still +speaking for the committee--and secondly, as a slight recognition of your +services in securing the Bartley Reynolds at a very much lower figure than +we were prepared to pay, we beg you--the committee begs you--to accept the +gift of Mrs. Fontage's Rembrandt. Now we'll go in and look at that little +head...." + + + + +THE MOVING FINGER + + +The news of Mrs. Grancy's death came to me with the shock of an immense +blunder--one of fate's most irretrievable acts of vandalism. It was as +though all sorts of renovating forces had been checked by the clogging of +that one wheel. Not that Mrs. Grancy contributed any perceptible momentum +to the social machine: her unique distinction was that of filling to +perfection her special place in the world. So many people are like +badly-composed statues, over-lapping their niches at one point and leaving +them vacant at another. Mrs. Grancy's niche was her husband's life; and if +it be argued that the space was not large enough for its vacancy to leave a +very big gap, I can only say that, at the last resort, such dimensions must +be determined by finer instruments than any ready-made standard of utility. +Ralph Grancy's was in short a kind of disembodied usefulness: one of those +constructive influences that, instead of crystallizing into definite forms, +remain as it were a medium for the development of clear thinking and fine +feeling. He faithfully irrigated his own dusty patch of life, and the +fruitful moisture stole far beyond his boundaries. If, to carry on the +metaphor, Grancy's life was a sedulously-cultivated enclosure, his wife was +the flower he had planted in its midst--the embowering tree, rather, which +gave him rest and shade at its foot and the wind of dreams in its upper +branches. + +We had all--his small but devoted band of followers--known a moment when it +seemed likely that Grancy would fail us. We had watched him pitted against +one stupid obstacle after another--ill-health, poverty, misunderstanding +and, worst of all for a man of his texture, his first wife's soft insidious +egotism. We had seen him sinking under the leaden embrace of her affection +like a swimmer in a drowning clutch; but just as we despaired he had always +come to the surface again, blinded, panting, but striking out fiercely for +the shore. When at last her death released him it became a question as to +how much of the man she had carried with her. Left alone, he revealed numb +withered patches, like a tree from which a parasite has been stripped. But +gradually he began to put out new leaves; and when he met the lady who +was to become his second wife--his one _real_ wife, as his friends +reckoned--the whole man burst into flower. + +The second Mrs. Grancy was past thirty when he married her, and it was +clear that she had harvested that crop of middle joy which is rooted in +young despair. But if she had lost the surface of eighteen she had kept +its inner light; if her cheek lacked the gloss of immaturity her eyes were +young with the stored youth of half a life-time. Grancy had first known her +somewhere in the East--I believe she was the sister of one of our consuls +out there--and when he brought her home to New York she came among us as +a stranger. The idea of Grancy's remarriage had been a shock to us all. +After one such calcining most men would have kept out of the fire; but we +agreed that he was predestined to sentimental blunders, and we awaited +with resignation the embodiment of his latest mistake. Then Mrs. Grancy +came--and we understood. She was the most beautiful and the most complete +of explanations. We shuffled our defeated omniscience out of sight and gave +it hasty burial under a prodigality of welcome. For the first time in years +we had Grancy off our minds. "He'll do something great now!" the least +sanguine of us prophesied; and our sentimentalist emended: "He _has_ +done it--in marrying her!" + +It was Claydon, the portrait-painter, who risked this hyperbole; and who +soon afterward, at the happy husband's request, prepared to defend it in a +portrait of Mrs. Grancy. We were all--even Claydon--ready to concede that +Mrs. Grancy's unwontedness was in some degree a matter of environment. Her +graces were complementary and it needed the mate's call to reveal the flash +of color beneath her neutral-tinted wings. But if she needed Grancy to +interpret her, how much greater was the service she rendered him! Claydon +professionally described her as the right frame for him; but if she defined +she also enlarged, if she threw the whole into perspective she also cleared +new ground, opened fresh vistas, reclaimed whole areas of activity that had +run to waste under the harsh husbandry of privation. This interaction of +sympathies was not without its visible expression. Claydon was not alone +in maintaining that Grancy's presence--or indeed the mere mention of his +name--had a perceptible effect on his wife's appearance. It was as though a +light were shifted, a curtain drawn back, as though, to borrow another of +Claydon's metaphors, Love the indefatigable artist were perpetually seeking +a happier "pose" for his model. In this interpretative light Mrs. Grancy +acquired the charm which makes some women's faces like a book of which +the last page is never turned. There was always something new to read in +her eyes. What Claydon read there--or at least such scattered hints of +the ritual as reached him through the sanctuary doors--his portrait in +due course declared to us. When the picture was exhibited it was at once +acclaimed as his masterpiece; but the people who knew Mrs. Grancy smiled +and said it was flattered. Claydon, however, had not set out to paint +_their_ Mrs. Grancy--or ours even--but Ralph's; and Ralph knew his own +at a glance. At the first confrontation he saw that Claydon had understood. +As for Mrs. Grancy, when the finished picture was shown to her she turned +to the painter and said simply: "Ah, you've done me facing the east!" + +The picture, then, for all its value, seemed a mere incident in the +unfolding of their double destiny, a foot-note to the illuminated text of +their lives. It was not till afterward that it acquired the significance +of last words spoken on a threshold never to be recrossed. Grancy, a year +after his marriage, had given up his town house and carried his bliss an +hour's journey away, to a little place among the hills. His various duties +and interests brought him frequently to New York but we necessarily saw him +less often than when his house had served as the rallying-point of kindred +enthusiasms. It seemed a pity that such an influence should be withdrawn, +but we all felt that his long arrears of happiness should be paid in +whatever coin he chose. The distance from which the fortunate couple +radiated warmth on us was not too great for friendship to traverse; and our +conception of a glorified leisure took the form of Sundays spent in the +Grancys' library, with its sedative rural outlook, and the portrait of Mrs. +Grancy illuminating its studious walls. The picture was at its best in that +setting; and we used to accuse Claydon of visiting Mrs. Grancy in order to +see her portrait. He met this by declaring that the portrait _was_ +Mrs. Grancy; and there were moments when the statement seemed unanswerable. +One of us, indeed--I think it must have been the novelist--said that +Clayton had been saved from falling in love with Mrs. Grancy only by +falling in love with his picture of her; and it was noticeable that he, to +whom his finished work was no more than the shed husk of future effort, +showed a perennial tenderness for this one achievement. We smiled afterward +to think how often, when Mrs. Grancy was in the room, her presence +reflecting itself in our talk like a gleam of sky in a hurrying current, +Claydon, averted from the real woman, would sit as it were listening to the +picture. His attitude, at the time, seemed only a part of the unusualness +of those picturesque afternoons, when the most familiar combinations of +life underwent a magical change. Some human happiness is a landlocked lake; +but the Grancys' was an open sea, stretching a buoyant and illimitable +surface to the voyaging interests of life. There was room and to spare on +those waters for all our separate ventures; and always beyond the sunset, +a mirage of the fortunate isles toward which our prows bent. + + +II + +It was in Rome that, three years later, I heard of her death. The notice +said "suddenly"; I was glad of that. I was glad too--basely perhaps--to be +away from Grancy at a time when silence must have seemed obtuse and speech +derisive. + +I was still in Rome when, a few months afterward, he suddenly arrived +there. He had been appointed secretary of legation at Constantinople and +was on the way to his post. He had taken the place, he said frankly, "to +get away." Our relations with the Porte held out a prospect of hard work, +and that, he explained, was what he needed. He could never be satisfied to +sit down among the ruins. I saw that, like most of us in moments of extreme +moral tension, he was playing a part, behaving as he thought it became a +man to behave in the eye of disaster. The instinctive posture of grief is +a shuffling compromise between defiance and prostration; and pride feels +the need of striking a worthier attitude in face of such a foe. Grancy, by +nature musing and retrospective, had chosen the rle of the man of action, +who answers blow for blow and opposes a mailed front to the thrusts of +destiny; and the completeness of the equipment testified to his inner +weakness. We talked only of what we were not thinking of, and parted, after +a few days, with a sense of relief that proved the inadequacy of friendship +to perform, in such cases, the office assigned to it by tradition. + +Soon afterward my own work called me home, but Grancy remained several +years in Europe. International diplomacy kept its promise of giving +him work to do, and during the year in which he acted as _charg +d'affaires_ he acquitted himself, under trying conditions, with +conspicuous zeal and discretion. A political redistribution of matter +removed him from office just as he had proved his usefulness to the +government; and the following summer I heard that he had come home and +was down at his place in the country. + +On my return to town I wrote him and his reply came by the next post. He +answered as it were in his natural voice, urging me to spend the following +Sunday with him, and suggesting that I should bring down any of the old +set who could be persuaded to join me. I thought this a good sign, and +yet--shall I own it?--I was vaguely disappointed. Perhaps we are apt to +feel that our friends' sorrows should be kept like those historic monuments +from which the encroaching ivy is periodically removed. + +That very evening at the club I ran across Claydon. I told him of Grancy's +invitation and proposed that we should go down together; but he pleaded an +engagement. I was sorry, for I had always felt that he and I stood nearer +Ralph than the others, and if the old Sundays were to be renewed I should +have preferred that we two should spend the first alone with him. I said as +much to Claydon and offered to fit my time to his; but he met this by a +general refusal. + +"I don't want to go to Grancy's," he said bluntly. I waited a moment, but +he appended no qualifying clause. + +"You've seen him since he came back?" I finally ventured. + +Claydon nodded. + +"And is he so awfully bad?" + +"Bad? No: he's all right." + +"All right? How can he be, unless he's changed beyond all recognition?" + +"Oh, you'll recognize _him_," said Claydon, with a puzzling deflection +of emphasis. + +His ambiguity was beginning to exasperate me, and I felt myself shut out +from some knowledge to which I had as good a right as he. + +"You've been down there already, I suppose?" + +"Yes; I've been down there." + +"And you've done with each other--the partnership is dissolved?" + +"Done with each other? I wish to God we had!" He rose nervously and tossed +aside the review from which my approach had diverted him. "Look here," +he said, standing before me, "Ralph's the best fellow going and there's +nothing under heaven I wouldn't do for him--short of going down there +again." And with that he walked out of the room. + +Claydon was incalculable enough for me to read a dozen different meanings +into his words; but none of my interpretations satisfied me. I determined, +at any rate, to seek no farther for a companion; and the next Sunday I +travelled down to Grancy's alone. He met me at the station and I saw at +once that he had changed since our last meeting. Then he had been in +fighting array, but now if he and grief still housed together it was +no longer as enemies. Physically the transformation was as marked but +less reassuring. If the spirit triumphed the body showed its scars. At +five-and-forty he was gray and stooping, with the tired gait of an old man. +His serenity, however, was not the resignation of age. I saw that he did +not mean to drop out of the game. Almost immediately he began to speak of +our old interests; not with an effort, as at our former meeting, but simply +and naturally, in the tone of a man whose life has flowed back into its +normal channels. I remembered, with a touch of self-reproach, how I had +distrusted his reconstructive powers; but my admiration for his reserved +force was now tinged by the sense that, after all, such happiness as his +ought to have been paid with his last coin. The feeling grew as we neared +the house and I found how inextricably his wife was interwoven with my +remembrance of the place: how the whole scene was but an extension of that +vivid presence. + +Within doors nothing was changed, and my hand would have dropped without +surprise into her welcoming clasp. It was luncheon-time, and Grancy led me +at once to the dining-room, where the walls, the furniture, the very plate +and porcelain, seemed a mirror in which a moment since her face had been +reflected. I wondered whether Grancy, under the recovered tranquillity +of his smile, concealed the same sense of her nearness, saw perpetually +between himself and the actual her bright unappeasable ghost. He spoke of +her once or twice, in an easy incidental way, and her name seemed to hang +in the air after he had uttered it, like a chord that continues to vibrate. +If he felt her presence it was evidently as an enveloping medium, the moral +atmosphere in which he breathed. I had never before known how completely +the dead may survive. + +After luncheon we went for a long walk through the autumnal fields and +woods, and dusk was falling when we re-entered the house. Grancy led the +way to the library, where, at this hour, his wife had always welcomed +us back to a bright fire and a cup of tea. The room faced the west, and +held a clear light of its own after the rest of the house had grown dark. +I remembered how young she had looked in this pale gold light, which +irradiated her eyes and hair, or silhouetted her girlish outline as she +passed before the windows. Of all the rooms the library was most peculiarly +hers; and here I felt that her nearness might take visible shape. Then, all +in a moment, as Grancy opened the door, the feeling vanished and a kind +of resistance met me on the threshold. I looked about me. Was the room +changed? Had some desecrating hand effaced the traces of her presence? No; +here too the setting was undisturbed. My feet sank into the same deep-piled +Daghestan; the bookshelves took the firelight on the same rows of rich +subdued bindings; her armchair stood in its old place near the tea-table; +and from the opposite wall her face confronted me. + +Her face--but _was_ it hers? I moved nearer and stood looking up at +the portrait. Grancy's glance had followed mine and I heard him move to my +side. + +"You see a change in it?" he said. + +"What does it mean?" I asked. + +"It means--that five years have passed." + +"Over _her_?" + +"Why not?--Look at me!" He pointed to his gray hair and furrowed temples. +"What do you think kept _her_ so young? It was happiness! But now--" +he looked up at her with infinite tenderness. "I like her better so," he +said. "It's what she would have wished." + +"Have wished?" + +"That we should grow old together. Do you think she would have wanted to be +left behind?" + +I stood speechless, my gaze travelling from his worn grief-beaten features +to the painted face above. It was not furrowed like his; but a veil +of years seemed to have descended on it. The bright hair had lost its +elasticity, the cheek its clearness, the brow its light: the whole woman +had waned. + +Grancy laid his hand on my arm. "You don't like it?" he said sadly. + +"Like it? I--I've lost her!" I burst out. + +"And I've found her," he answered. + +"In _that_?" I cried with a reproachful gesture. + +"Yes; in that." He swung round on me almost defiantly. "The other had +become a sham, a lie! This is the way she would have looked--does look, I +mean. Claydon ought to know, oughtn't he?" + +I turned suddenly. "Did Claydon do this for you?" + +Grancy nodded. + +"Since your return?" + +"Yes. I sent for him after I'd been back a week--." He turned away and gave +a thrust to the smouldering fire. I followed, glad to leave the picture +behind me. Grancy threw himself into a chair near the hearth, so that the +light fell on his sensitive variable face. He leaned his head back, shading +his eyes with his hand, and began to speak. + + +III + +"You fellows knew enough of my early history to A guess what my second +marriage meant to me. I say guess, because no one could understand--really. +I've always had a feminine streak in me, I suppose: the need of a pair of +eyes that should see with me, of a pulse that should keep time with mine. +Life is a big thing, of course; a magnificent spectacle; but I got so tired +of looking at it alone! Still, it's always good to live, and I had plenty +of happiness--of the evolved kind. What I'd never had a taste of was the +simple inconscient sort that one breathes in like the air.... + +"Well--I met her. It was like finding the climate in which I was meant to +live. You know what she was--how indefinitely she multiplied one's points +of contact with life, how she lit up the caverns and bridged the abysses! +Well, I swear to you (though I suppose the sense of all that was latent in +me) that what I used to think of on my way home at the end of the day, was +simply that when I opened this door she'd be sitting over there, with the +lamp-light falling in a particular way on one little curl in her neck.... +When Claydon painted her he caught just the look she used to lift to mine +when I came in--I've wondered, sometimes, at his knowing how she looked +when she and I were alone.--How I rejoiced in that picture! I used to say +to her, 'You're my prisoner now--I shall never lose you. If you grew tired +of me and left me you'd leave your real self there on the wall!' It was +always one of our jokes that she was going to grow tired of me-- + +"Three years of it--and then she died. It was so sudden that there was +no change, no diminution. It was as if she had suddenly become fixed, +immovable, like her own portrait: as if Time had ceased at its happiest +hour, just as Claydon had thrown down his brush one day and said, 'I can't +do better than that.' + +"I went away, as you know, and stayed over there five years. I worked as +hard as I knew how, and after the first black months a little light stole +in on me. From thinking that she would have been interested in what I was +doing I came to feel that she _was_ interested--that she was there and +that she knew. I'm not talking any psychical jargon--I'm simply trying to +express the sense I had that an influence so full, so abounding as hers +couldn't pass like a spring shower. We had so lived into each other's +hearts and minds that the consciousness of what she would have thought +and felt illuminated all I did. At first she used to come back shyly, +tentatively, as though not sure of finding me; then she stayed longer and +longer, till at last she became again the very air I breathed.... There +were bad moments, of course, when her nearness mocked me with the loss of +the real woman; but gradually the distinction between the two was effaced +and the mere thought of her grew warm as flesh and blood. + +"Then I came home. I landed in the morning and came straight down here. The +thought of seeing her portrait possessed me and my heart beat like a +lover's as I opened the library door. It was in the afternoon and the room +was full of light. It fell on her picture--the picture of a young and +radiant woman. She smiled at me coldly across the distance that divided us. +I had the feeling that she didn't even recognize me. And then I caught +sight of myself in the mirror over there--a gray-haired broken man whom she +had never known! + +"For a week we two lived together--the strange woman and the strange man. +I used to sit night after night and question her smiling face; but no +answer ever came. What did she know of me, after all? We were irrevocably +separated by the five years of life that lay between us. At times, as I +sat here, I almost grew to hate her; for her presence had driven away my +gentle ghost, the real wife who had wept, aged, struggled with me during +those awful years.... It was the worst loneliness I've ever known. Then, +gradually, I began to notice a look of sadness in the picture's eyes; a +look that seemed to say: 'Don't you see that _I_ am lonely too?' And +all at once it came over me how she would have hated to be left behind! I +remembered her comparing life to a heavy book that could not be read with +ease unless two people held it together; and I thought how impatiently her +hand would have turned the pages that divided us!--So the idea came to me: +'It's the picture that stands between us; the picture that is dead, and not +my wife. To sit in this room is to keep watch beside a corpse.' As this +feeling grew on me the portrait became like a beautiful mausoleum in which +she had been buried alive: I could hear her beating against the painted +walls and crying to me faintly for help.... + +"One day I found I couldn't stand it any longer and I sent for Claydon. He +came down and I told him what I'd been through and what I wanted him to do. +At first he refused point-blank to touch the picture. The next morning I +went off for a long tramp, and when I came home I found him sitting here +alone. He looked at me sharply for a moment and then he said: 'I've changed +my mind; I'll do it.' I arranged one of the north rooms as a studio and he +shut himself up there for a day; then he sent for me. The picture stood +there as you see it now--it was as though she'd met me on the threshold and +taken me in her arms! I tried to thank him, to tell him what it meant to +me, but he cut me short. + +"'There's an up train at five, isn't there?' he asked. 'I'm booked for a +dinner to-night. I shall just have time to make a bolt for the station and +you can send my traps after me.' I haven't seen him since. + +"I can guess what it cost him to lay hands on his masterpiece; but, after +all, to him it was only a picture lost, to me it was my wife regained!" + + +IV + +After that, for ten years or more, I watched the strange spectacle of a +life of hopeful and productive effort based on the structure of a dream. +There could be no doubt to those who saw Grancy during this period that +he drew his strength and courage from the sense of his wife's mystic +participation in his task. When I went back to see him a few months later I +found the portrait had been removed from the library and placed in a small +study up-stairs, to which he had transferred his desk and a few books. He +told me he always sat there when he was alone, keeping the library for his +Sunday visitors. Those who missed the portrait of course made no comment on +its absence, and the few who were in his secret respected it. Gradually all +his old friends had gathered about him and our Sunday afternoons regained +something of their former character; but Claydon never reappeared among us. + +As I look back now I see that Grancy must have been failing from the time +of his return home. His invincible spirit belied and disguised the signs of +weakness that afterward asserted themselves in my remembrance of him. He +seemed to have an inexhaustible fund of life to draw on, and more than one +of us was a pensioner on his superfluity. + +Nevertheless, when I came back one summer from my European holiday and +heard that he had been at the point of death, I understood at once that we +had believed him well only because he wished us to. + +I hastened down to the country and found him midway in a slow +convalescence. I felt then that he was lost to us and he read my thought at +a glance. + +"Ah," he said, "I'm an old man now and no mistake. I suppose we shall have +to go half-speed after this; but we shan't need towing just yet!" + +The plural pronoun struck me, and involuntarily I looked up at Mrs. +Grancy's portrait. Line by line I saw my fear reflected in it. It was the +face of a woman who knows that her husband is dying. My heart stood still +at the thought of what Claydon had done. + +Grancy had followed my glance. "Yes, it's changed her," he said quietly. +"For months, you know, it was touch and go with me--we had a long fight of +it, and it was worse for her than for me." After a pause he added: "Claydon +has been very kind; he's so busy nowadays that I seldom see him, but when I +sent for him the other day he came down at once." + +I was silent and we spoke no more of Grancy's illness; but when I took +leave it seemed like shutting him in alone with his death-warrant. + +The next time I went down to see him he looked much better. It was a Sunday +and he received me in the library, so that I did not see the portrait +again. He continued to improve and toward spring we began to feel that, as +he had said, he might yet travel a long way without being towed. + +One evening, on returning to town after a visit which had confirmed my +sense of reassurance, I found Claydon dining alone at the club. He asked me +to join him and over the coffee our talk turned to his work. + +"If you're not too busy," I said at length, "you ought to make time to go +down to Grancy's again." + +He looked up quickly. "Why?" he asked. + +"Because he's quite well again," I returned with a touch of cruelty. "His +wife's prognostications were mistaken." + +Claydon stared at me a moment. "Oh, _she_ knows," he affirmed with a +smile that chilled me. + +"You mean to leave the portrait as it is then?" I persisted. + +He shrugged his shoulders. "He hasn't sent for me yet!" + +A waiter came up with the cigars and Claydon rose and joined another group. + +It was just a fortnight later that Grancy's housekeeper telegraphed for me. +She met me at the station with the news that he had been "taken bad" and +that the doctors were with him. I had to wait for some time in the deserted +library before the medical men appeared. They had the baffled manner of +empirics who have been superseded by the great Healer; and I lingered only +long enough to hear that Grancy was not suffering and that my presence +could do him no harm. + +I found him seated in his arm-chair in the little study. He held out his +hand with a smile. + +"You see she was right after all," he said. + +"She?" I repeated, perplexed for the moment. + +"My wife." He indicated the picture. "Of course I knew she had no hope from +the first. I saw that"--he lowered his voice--"after Claydon had been here. +But I wouldn't believe it at first!" + +I caught his hands in mine. "For God's sake don't believe it now!" I +adjured him. + +He shook his head gently. "It's too late," he said. "I might have known +that she knew." + +"But, Grancy, listen to me," I began; and then I stopped. What could I say +that would convince him? There was no common ground of argument on which we +could meet; and after all it would be easier for him to die feeling that +she _had_ known. Strangely enough, I saw that Claydon had missed his +mark.... + + +V + +Grancy's will named me as one of his executors; and my associate, having +other duties on his hands, begged me to assume the task of carrying out our +friend's wishes. This placed me under the necessity of informing Claydon +that the portrait of Mrs. Grancy had been bequeathed to him; and he replied +by the next post that he would send for the picture at once. I was staying +in the deserted house when the portrait was taken away; and as the door +closed on it I felt that Grancy's presence had vanished too. Was it his +turn to follow her now, and could one ghost haunt another? + +After that, for a year or two, I heard nothing more of the picture, and +though I met Claydon from time to time we had little to say to each other. +I had no definable grievance against the man and I tried to remember that +he had done a fine thing in sacrificing his best picture to a friend; but +my resentment had all the tenacity of unreason. + +One day, however, a lady whose portrait he had just finished begged me +to go with her to see it. To refuse was impossible, and I went with the +less reluctance that I knew I was not the only friend she had invited. +The others were all grouped around the easel when I entered, and after +contributing my share to the chorus of approval I turned away and began +to stroll about the studio. Claydon was something of a collector and his +things were generally worth looking at. The studio was a long tapestried +room with a curtained archway at one end. The curtains were looped back, +showing a smaller apartment, with books and flowers and a few fine bits of +bronze and porcelain. The tea-table standing in this inner room proclaimed +that it was open to inspection, and I wandered in. A _bleu poudr_ +vase first attracted me; then I turned to examine a slender bronze +Ganymede, and in so doing found myself face to face with Mrs. Grancy's +portrait. I stared up at her blankly and she smiled back at me in all +the recovered radiance of youth. The artist had effaced every trace of +his later touches and the original picture had reappeared. It throned +alone on the panelled wall, asserting a brilliant supremacy over its +carefully-chosen surroundings. I felt in an instant that the whole room was +tributary to it: that Claydon had heaped his treasures at the feet of the +woman he loved. Yes--it was the woman he had loved and not the picture; and +my instinctive resentment was explained. + +Suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder. + +"Ah, how could you?" I cried, turning on him. + +"How could I?" he retorted. "How could I _not_? Doesn't she belong to +me now?" + +I moved away impatiently. + +"Wait a moment," he said with a detaining gesture. "The others have gone +and I want to say a word to you.--Oh, I know what you've thought of me--I +can guess! You think I killed Grancy, I suppose?" + +I was startled by his sudden vehemence. "I think you tried to do a cruel +thing," I said. + +"Ah--what a little way you others see into life!" he murmured. "Sit down a +moment--here, where we can look at her--and I'll tell you." + +He threw himself on the ottoman beside me and sat gazing up at the picture, +with his hands clasped about his knee. + +"Pygmalion," he began slowly, "turned his statue into a real woman; +_I_ turned my real woman into a picture. Small compensation, you +think--but you don't know how much of a woman belongs to you after you've +painted her!--Well, I made the best of it, at any rate--I gave her the best +I had in me; and she gave me in return what such a woman gives by merely +being. And after all she rewarded me enough by making me paint as I shall +never paint again! There was one side of her, though, that was mine alone, +and that was her beauty; for no one else understood it. To Grancy even +it was the mere expression of herself--what language is to thought. Even +when he saw the picture he didn't guess my secret--he was so sure she was +all his! As though a man should think he owned the moon because it was +reflected in the pool at his door-- + +"Well--when he came home and sent for me to change the picture it was like +asking me to commit murder. He wanted me to make an old woman of her--of +her who had been so divinely, unchangeably young! As if any man who really +loved a woman would ask her to sacrifice her youth and beauty for his sake! +At first I told him I couldn't do it--but afterward, when he left me alone +with the picture, something queer happened. I suppose it was because I was +always so confoundedly fond of Grancy that it went against me to refuse +what he asked. Anyhow, as I sat looking up at her, she seemed to say, 'I'm +not yours but his, and I want you to make me what he wishes." And so I did +it. I could have cut my hand off when the work was done--I daresay he told +you I never would go back and look at it. He thought I was too busy--he +never understood.... + +"Well--and then last year he sent for me again--you remember. It was after +his illness, and he told me he'd grown twenty years older and that he +wanted her to grow older too--he didn't want her to be left behind. The +doctors all thought he was going to get well at that time, and he thought +so too; and so did I when I first looked at him. But when I turned to +the picture--ah, now I don't ask you to believe me; but I swear it was +_her_ face that told me he was dying, and that she wanted him to know +it! She had a message for him and she made me deliver it." + +He rose abruptly and walked toward the portrait; then he sat down beside me +again. + +"Cruel? Yes, it seemed so to me at first; and this time, if I resisted, +it was for _his_ sake and not for mine. But all the while I felt her +eyes drawing me, and gradually she made me understand. If she'd been there +in the flesh (she seemed to say) wouldn't she have seen before any of us +that he was dying? Wouldn't he have read the news first in her face? And +wouldn't it be horrible if now he should discover it instead in strange +eyes?--Well--that was what she wanted of me and I did it--I kept them +together to the last!" He looked up at the picture again. "But now she +belongs to me," he repeated.... + + + + +THE CONFESSIONAL + + +When I was a young man I thought a great deal of local color. At that +time it was still a pigment of recent discovery, and supposed to have +a peculiarly stimulating effect on the mental eye. As an aid to the +imagination its value was perhaps overrated; but as an object of pursuit +to that vagrant faculty, it had all the merits claimed for it. I certainly +never hunted any game better worth my powder; and to a young man with rare +holidays and long working hours, its value was enhanced by the fact that +one might bring it down at any turn, if only one kept one's eye alert and +one's hand on the trigger. + +Even the large manufacturing city where, for some years, my young +enthusiasms were chained to an accountant's desk, was not without its +romantic opportunities. Many of the mill-hands at Dunstable were Italians, +and a foreign settlement had formed itself in that unsavory and unsanitary +portion of the town known as the Point. The Point, like more aristocratic +communities, had its residential and commercial districts, its church, its +theatre and its restaurant. When the craving for local color was on me it +was my habit to resort to the restaurant, a low-browed wooden building with +the appetizing announcement: + +"_Aristi di montone_" + +pasted in one of its fly-blown window-panes. Here the consumption of tough +macaroni or of an ambiguous _frittura_ sufficed to transport me to the +Cappello d'Oro in Venice, while my cup of coffee and a wasp-waisted cigar +with a straw in it turned my greasy table-cloth into the marble top of +one of the little round tables under the arcade of the Caff Pedrotti at +Padua. This feat of the imagination was materially aided by Agostino, the +hollow-eyed and low-collared waiter, whose slimy napkin never lost its +Latin flourish and whose zeal for my comfort was not infrequently displayed +by his testing the warmth of my soup with his finger. Through Agostino I +became acquainted with the inner history of the colony, heard the details +of its feuds and vendettas, and learned to know by sight the leading +characters in these domestic dramas. + +The restaurant was frequented by the chief personages of the community: +the overseer of the Italian hands at the Meriton Mills, the doctor, his +wife the _levatrice_ (a plump Neapolitan with greasy ringlets, a plush +picture-hat, and a charm against the evil-eye hanging in a crease of her +neck) and lastly by Don Egidio, the _parocco_ of the little church +across the street. The doctor and his wife came only on feast days, but +the overseer and Don Egidio were regular patrons. The former was a quiet +saturnine-looking man, of accomplished manners but reluctant speech, and I +depended for my diversion chiefly on Don Egidio, whose large loosely-hung +lips were always ajar for conversation. The remarks issuing from them +were richly tinged by the gutturals of the Bergamasque dialect, and it +needed but a slight acquaintance with Italian types to detect the Lombard +peasant under the priest's rusty cassock. This inference was confirmed +by Don Egidio's telling me that he came from a village of Val Camonica, +the radiant valley which extends northward from the lake of Iseo to +the Adamello glaciers. His step-father had been a laborer on one of +the fruit-farms of a Milanese count who owned large estates in the Val +Camonica; and that gentleman, taking a fancy to the lad, whom he had seen +at work in his orchards, had removed him to his villa on the lake of Iseo +and had subsequently educated him for the Church. + +It was doubtless to this picturesque accident that Don Egidio owed the +mingling of ease and simplicity that gave an inimitable charm to his +stout shabby presence. It was as though some wild mountain-fruit had been +transplanted to the Count's orchards and had mellowed under cultivation +without losing its sylvan flavor. I have never seen the social art carried +farther without suggestion of artifice. The fact that Don Egidio's +amenities were mainly exercised on the mill-hands composing his parish +proved the genuineness of his gift. It is easier to simulate gentility +among gentlemen than among navvies; and the plain man is a touchstone who +draws out all the alloy in the gold. + +Among his parishioners Don Egidio ruled with the cheerful despotism of the +good priest. On cardinal points he was inflexible, but in minor matters he +had that elasticity of judgment which enables the Catholic discipline to +fit itself to every inequality of the human conscience. There was no appeal +from his verdict; but his judgment-seat was a revolving chair from which he +could view the same act at various angles. His influence was acknowledged +not only by his flock, but by the policeman at the corner, the "bar-keep'" +in the dive, the ward politician in the corner grocery. The general verdict +of Dunstable was that the Point would have been hell without the priest. +It was perhaps not precisely heaven with him; but such light of the upper +sky as pierced its murky atmosphere was reflected from Don Egidio's +countenance. It is hardly possible for any one to exercise such influence +without taking pleasure in it; and on the whole the priest was probably +a contented man; though it does not follow that he was a happy one. On +this point the first stages of our acquaintance yielded much food for +conjecture. At first sight Don Egidio was the image of cheerfulness. He had +all the physical indications of a mind at ease: the leisurely rolling gait, +the ready laugh, the hospitable eye of the man whose sympathies are always +on the latch. It took me some time to discover under his surface garrulity +the impenetrable reticence of his profession, and under his enjoyment of +trifles a levelling melancholy which made all enjoyment trifling. Don +Egidio's aspect and conversation were so unsuggestive of psychological +complexities that I set down this trait to poverty or home-sickness. There +are few classes of men more frugal in tastes and habit than the village +priest in Italy; but Don Egidio, by his own account, had been introduced, +at an impressionable age, to a way of living that must have surpassed his +wildest dreams of self-indulgence. To whatever privations his parochial +work had since accustomed him, the influences of that earlier life were +too perceptible in his talk not to have made a profound impression on his +tastes; and he remained, for all his apostolic simplicity, the image of the +family priest who has his seat at the rich man's table. + +It chanced that I had used one of my short European holidays to explore +afoot the romantic passes connecting the Valtelline with the lake of Iseo; +and my remembrance of that enchanting region made it seem impossible +that Don Egidio should ever look without a reminiscent pang on the grimy +perspective of his parochial streets. The transition was too complete, too +ironical, from those rich glades and Titianesque acclivities to the brick +hovels and fissured sidewalks of the Point. + +This impression was confirmed when Don Egidio, in response to my urgent +invitation, paid his first visit to my modest lodgings. He called one +winter evening, when a wood-fire in its happiest humor was giving a +factitious lustre to my book-shelves and bringing out the values of the one +or two old prints and Chinese porcelains that accounted for the perennial +shabbiness of my wardrobe. + +"Ah," said he with a murmur of satisfaction, as he laid aside his shiny hat +and bulging umbrella, "it is a long time since I have been in a _casa +signorile_." + +My remembrance of his own room (he lodged with the doctor and the +_levatrice_) saved this epithet from the suggestion of irony and kept +me silent while he sank into my arm-chair with the deliberation of a tired +traveller lowering himself gently into a warm bath. + +"Good! good!" he repeated, looking about him. "Books, porcelains, objects +of _virt_--I am glad to see that there are still such things in the +world!" And he turned a genial eye on the glass of Marsala that I had +poured out for him. + +Don Egidio was the most temperate of men and never exceeded his one glass; +but he liked to sit by the hour puffing at my Cabaas, which I suspected +him of preferring to the black weed of his native country. Under the +influence of my tobacco he became even more blandly garrulous, and I +sometimes fancied that of all the obligations of his calling none could +have placed such a strain on him as that of preserving the secrets of the +confessional. He often talked of his early life at the Count's villa, where +he had been educated with his patron's two sons till he was of age to be +sent to the seminary; and I could see that the years spent in simple and +familiar intercourse with his benefactors had been the most vivid chapter +in his experience. The Italian peasant's inarticulate tenderness for the +beauty of his birthplace had been specialized in him by contact with +cultivated tastes, and he could tell me not only that the Count had a +"stupendous" collection of pictures, but that the chapel of the villa +contained a sepulchral monument by Bambaja, and that the art-critics were +divided as to the authenticity of the Leonardo in the family palace at +Milan. + +On all these subjects he was inexhaustibly voluble; but there was one point +which he always avoided, and that was his reason for coming to America. I +remember the round turn with which he brought me up when I questioned him. + +"A priest," said he, "is a soldier and must obey orders like a soldier." +He set down his glass of Marsala and strolled across the room. "I had not +observed," he went on, "that you have here a photograph of the Sposalizio +of the Brera. What a picture! _ stupendo_!" and he turned back to his +seat and smilingly lit a fresh cigar. + +I saw at once that I had hit on a point where his native garrulity was +protected by the chain-mail of religious discipline that every Catholic +priest wears beneath his cassock. I had too much respect for my friend +to wish to penetrate his armor, and now and then I almost fancied he was +grateful to me for not putting his reticence to the test. + +Don Egidio must have been past sixty when I made his acquaintance; but it +was not till the close of an exceptionally harsh winter, some five or six +years after our first meeting, that I began to think of him as an old man. +It was as though the long-continued cold had cracked and shrivelled him. He +had grown bent and hollow-chested and his lower lip shook like an unhinged +door. The summer heat did little to revive him, and in September, when I +came home from my vacation, I found him just recovering from an attack of +pneumonia. That autumn he did not care to venture often into the night air, +and now and then I used to go and sit with him in his little room, to which +I had contributed the unheard-of luxuries of an easy-chair and a gas-stove. + +My engagements, however, made these visits infrequent, and several weeks +had elapsed without my seeing the _parocco_ when, one snowy November +morning, I ran across him in the railway-station. I was on my way to New +York for the day and had just time to wave a greeting to him as I jumped +into the railway-carriage; but a moment later, to my surprise, I saw him +stiffly clambering into the same train. I found him seated in the common +car, with his umbrella between his knees and a bundle done up in a red +cotton handkerchief on the seat at his side. The caution with which, at my +approach, he transferred this bundle to his arms caused me to glance at it +in surprise; and he answered my look by saying with a smile: + +"They are flowers for the dead--the most exquisite flowers--from the +greenhouses of Mr. Meriton--_si figuri_!" And he waved a descriptive +hand. "One of my lads, Gianpietro, is employed by the gardener there, and +every year on this day he brings me a beautiful bunch of flowers--for such +a purpose it is no sin," he added, with the charming Italian pliancy of +judgment. + +"And why are you travelling in this snowy weather, _signor parocco_?" +I asked, as he ended with a cough. + +He fixed me gravely with his simple shallow eye. "Because it is the day of +the dead, my son," he said, "and I go to place these on the grave of the +noblest man that ever lived." + +"You are going to New York?" + +"To Brooklyn--" + +I hesitated a moment, wishing to question him, yet uncertain whether his +replies were curtailed by the persistency of his cough or by the desire to +avoid interrogation. + +"This is no weather to be travelling with such a cough," I said at length. + +He made a deprecating gesture. + +"I have never missed the day--not once in eighteen years. But for me he +would have no one!" He folded his hands on his umbrella and looked away +from me to hide the trembling of his lip. + +I resolved on a last attempt to storm his confidence. "Your friend is +buried in Calvary cemetery?" + +He signed an assent. + +"That is a long way for you to go alone, _signor parocco_. The streets +are sure to be slippery and there is an icy wind blowing. Give me your +flowers and let me send them to the cemetery by a messenger. I give you my +word they shall reach their destination safely." + +He turned a quiet look on me. "My son, you are young," he said, "and you +don't know how the dead need us." He drew his breviary from his pocket and +opened it with a smile. "_Mi scusi?_" he murmured. + +The business which had called me to town obliged me to part from him as +soon as the train entered the station, and in my dash for the street I +left his unwieldy figure laboring far behind me through the crowd on the +platform. Before we separated, however, I had learned that he was returning +to Dunstable by the four o'clock train, and had resolved to despatch my +business in time to travel home with him. When I reached Wall Street I was +received with the news that the man I had appointed to meet was ill and +detained in the country. My business was "off" and I found myself with +the rest of the day at my disposal. I had no difficulty in deciding how +to employ my time. I was at an age when, in such contingencies, there is +always a feminine alternative; and even now I don't know how it was that, +on my way to a certain hospitable luncheon-table, I suddenly found myself +in a cab which was carrying me at full-speed to the Twenty-third Street +ferry. It was not till I had bought my ticket and seated myself in the +varnished tunnel of the ferry-boat that I was aware of having been diverted +from my purpose by an overmastering anxiety for Don Egidio. I rapidly +calculated that he had not more than an hour's advance on me, and that, +allowing for my greater agility and for the fact that I had a cab at my +call, I was likely to reach the cemetery in time to see him under shelter +before the gusts of sleet that were already sweeping across the river had +thickened to a snow-storm. + +At the gates of the cemetery I began to take a less sanguine view of my +attempt. The commemorative anniversary had filled the silent avenues +with visitors, and I felt the futility of my quest as I tried to fix the +gatekeeper's attention on my delineation of a stout Italian priest with a +bad cough and a bunch of flowers tied up in a red cotton handkerchief. The +gate-keeper showed that delusive desire to oblige that is certain to send +its victims in the wrong direction; but I had the presence of mind to go +exactly contrary to his indication, and thanks to this precaution I came, +after half an hour's search, on the figure of my poor _parocco_, +kneeling on the wet ground in one of the humblest by-ways of the great +necropolis. The mound before which he knelt was strewn with the spoils of +Mr. Meriton's conservatories, and on the weather-worn tablet at its head I +read the inscription: + +IL CONTE SIVIANO +DA MILANO. + +_Super flumina Babylonis, illic sedimus et flevimus._ + +So engrossed was Don Egidio that for some moments I stood behind him +unobserved; and when he rose and faced me, grief had left so little room +for any minor emotion that he looked at me almost without surprise. + +"Don Egidio," I said, "I have a carriage waiting for you at the gate. You +must come home with me." + +He nodded quietly and I drew his hand through my arm. + +He turned back to the grave. "One moment, my son," he said. "It may be for +the last time." He stood motionless, his eyes on the heaped-up flowers +which were already bruised and blackened by the cold. "To leave him +alone--after sixty years! But God is everywhere--" he murmured as I led him +away. + +On the journey home he did not care to talk, and my chief concern was to +keep him wrapped in my greatcoat and to see that his bed was made ready as +soon as I had restored him to his lodgings. The _levatrice_ brought a +quilted coverlet from her own room and hovered over him as gently as though +he had been of the sex to require her services; while Agostino, at my +summons, appeared with a bowl of hot soup that was heralded down the +street by a reviving waft of garlic. To these ministrations I left the +_parocco_, intending to call for news of him the next evening; but an +unexpected pressure of work kept me late at my desk, and the following day +some fresh obstacle delayed me. + +On the third afternoon, as I was leaving the office, an agate-eyed infant +from the Point hailed me with a message from the doctor. The _parocco_ +was worse and had asked for me. I jumped into the nearest car and ten +minutes later was running up the doctor's greasy stairs. + +To my dismay I found Don Egidio's room cold and untenanted; but I was +reassured a moment later by the appearance of the _levatrice_, who +announced that she had transferred the blessed man to her own apartment, +where he could have the sunlight and a good bed to lie in. There in fact +he lay, weak but smiling, in a setting which contrasted oddly enough with +his own monastic surroundings: a cheerful grimy room, hung with anecdotic +chromos, photographs of lady-patients proudly presenting their offspring +to the camera, and innumerable Neapolitan _santolini_ decked out with +shrivelled palm-leaves. + +The _levatrice_ whispered that the good man had the pleurisy, and +that, as she phrased it, he was nearing his last mile-stone. I saw that he +was in fact in a bad way, but his condition did not indicate any pressing +danger, and I had the presentiment that he would still, as the saying is, +put up a good fight. It was clear, however, that he knew what turn the +conflict must take, and the solemnity with which he welcomed me showed that +my summons was a part of that spiritual strategy with which the Catholic +opposes the surprise of death. + +"My son," he said, when the _levatrice_ had left us, "I have a favor +to ask you. You found me yesterday bidding good-bye to my best friend." +His cough interrupted him. "I have never told you," he went on, "the name +of the family in which I was brought up. It was Siviano, and that was +the grave of the Count's eldest son, with whom I grew up as a brother. +For eighteen years he has lain in that strange ground--_in terra +aliena_--and when I die, there will be no one to care for his grave." + +I saw what he waited for. "I will care for it, _signor parocco_." + +"I knew I should have your promise, my child; and what you promise you +keep. But my friend is a stranger to you--you are young and at your age +life is a mistress who kisses away sad memories. Why should you remember +the grave of a stranger? I cannot lay such a claim on you. But I will tell +you his story--and then I think that neither joy nor grief will let you +forget him; for when you rejoice you will remember how he sorrowed; and +when you sorrow the thought of him will be like a friend's hand in yours." + + +II + +You tell me (Don Egidio began) that you know our little lake; and if you +have seen it you will understand why it always used to remind me of the +"garden enclosed" of the Canticles. + +_Hortus inclusus; columba mea in foraminibus petr_: the words used +to come back to me whenever I returned from a day's journey across the +mountains, and looking down saw the blue lake far below, hidden in its +hills like a happy secret in a stern heart. We were never envious of +the glory of the great lakes. They are like the show pictures that some +nobleman hangs in his public gallery; but our Iseo is the treasure that +he hides in his inner chamber. + +You tell me you saw it in summer, when it looks up like a saint's eye, +reflecting the whole of heaven. It was then too that I first saw it. +My future friend, the old Count, had found me at work on one of his +fruit-farms up the valley, and hearing that I was ill-treated by my +step-father--a drunken pedlar from the Val Mastellone, whom my poor mother +a year or two earlier had come across at the fair of Lovere--he had taken +me home with him to Iseo. I used to serve mass in our hill-village of +Cerveno, and the village children called me "the little priest" because +when my work was done I often crept back to the church to get away from +my step-father's blows and curses. "I will make a real priest of him," +the Count declared; and that afternoon, perched on the box of his +travelling-carriage, I was whirled away from the dark scenes of my +childhood into a world, where, as it seemed to me, every one was as happy +as an angel on a _presepio_. + +I wonder if you remember the Count's villa? It lies on the shore of the +lake, facing the green knoll of Monte Isola, and overlooked by the village +of Siviano and by the old parish-church where I said mass for fifteen happy +years. The village hangs on a ledge of the mountain; but the villa dips its +foot in the lake, smiling at its reflection like a bather lingering on the +brink. What Paradise it seemed to me that day! In our church up the valley +there hung an old brown picture, with a Saint Sabastian in the foreground; +and behind him the most wonderful palace, with terraced gardens adorned +with statues and fountains, where fine folk in resplendent dresses walked +up and down without heeding the blessed martyr's pangs. The Count's villa, +with its terraces, its roses, its marble steps descending to the lake, +reminded me of that palace; only instead of being inhabited by wicked +people engrossed in their selfish pleasures it was the home of the kindest +friends that ever took a poor lad by the hand. + +The old Count was a widower when I first knew him. He had been twice +married, and his first wife had left him two children, a son and a +daughter. The eldest, Donna Marianna, was then a girl of twenty, who +kept her father's house and was a mother to the two lads. She was not +handsome or learned, and had no taste for the world; but she was like the +lavender-plant in a poor man's window--just a little gray flower, but a +sweetness that fills the whole house. Her brother, Count Roberto, had been +ailing from his birth, and was a studious lad with a melancholy musing face +such as you may see in some of Titian's portraits of young men. He looked +like an exiled prince dressed in mourning. There was one child by the +second marriage, Count Andrea, a boy of my own age, handsome as a Saint +George, but not as kind as the others. No doubt, being younger, he was less +able to understand why an uncouth peasant lad should have been brought to +his father's table; and the others were so fearful of hurting my feelings +that, but for his teasing, I might never have mended my clumsy manners or +learned how to behave in the presence of my betters. Count Andrea was not +sparing in such lessons, and Count Roberto, in spite of his weak arms, +chastised his brother roundly when he thought the discipline had been too +severe; but for my part it seemed to me natural enough that such a godlike +being should lord it over a poor clodhopper like myself. + +Well--I will not linger over the beginning of my new life for my story has +to do with its close. Only I should like to make you understand what the +change meant to me--an ignorant peasant lad, coming from hard words and +blows and a smoke-blackened hut in the hills to that great house full of +rare and beautiful things, and of beings who seemed to me even more rare +and beautiful. Do you wonder I was ready to kiss the ground they trod, and +would have given the last drop of my blood to serve them? + +In due course I was sent to the seminary at Lodi; and on holidays I used +to visit the family in Milan. Count Andrea was growing up to be one of +the handsomest young men imaginable, but a trifle wild; and the old Count +married him in haste to the daughter of a Venetian noble, who brought as +her dower a great estate in Istria. The Countess Gemma, as this lady was +called, was as light as thistledown and had an eye like a baby's; but while +she was cooing for the moon her pretty white hands were always stealing +toward something within reach that she had not been meant to have. The old +Count was not alert enough to follow these manoeuvres; and the Countess hid +her designs under a torrent of guileless chatter, as pick-pockets wear long +sleeves to conceal their movements. Her only fault, he used to say, was +that one of her aunts had married an Austrian; and this event having taken +place before she was born he laughingly acquitted her of any direct share +in it. She confirmed his good opinion of her by giving her husband two +sons; and Roberto showing no inclination to marry, these boys naturally +came to be looked on as the heirs of the house. + +Meanwhile I had finished my course of studies, and the old Count, on my +twenty-first birthday, had appointed me priest of the parish of Siviano. It +was the year of Count Andrea's marriage and there were great festivities at +the villa. Three years later the old Count died, to the sorrow of his two +eldest children. Donna Marianna and Count Roberto closed their apartments +in the palace at Milan and withdrew for a year to Siviano. It was then +that I first began to know my friend. Before that I had loved him without +understanding him; now I learned of what metal he was made. His bookish +tastes inclined him to a secluded way of living; and his younger brother +perhaps fancied that he would not care to assume the charge of the estate. +But if Andrea thought this he was disappointed. Roberto resolutely took up +the tradition of his father's rule, and, as if conscious of lacking the +old Count's easy way with the peasants, made up for it by a redoubled zeal +for their welfare. I have seen him toil for days to adjust some trifling +difficulty that his father would have set right with a ready word; like the +sainted bishop who, when a beggar asked him for a penny, cried out: "Alas, +my brother, I have not a penny in my purse; but here are two gold pieces, +if they can be made to serve you instead!" We had many conferences over +the condition of his people, and he often sent me up the valley to look +into the needs of the peasantry on the fruit-farms. No grievance was too +trifling for him to consider it, no abuse too deep-seated for him to root +it out; and many an hour that other men of his rank would have given to +books or pleasure was devoted to adjusting a quarrel about boundary-lines +or to weighing the merits of a complaint against the tax-collector. I +often said that he was as much his people's priest as I; and he smiled and +answered that every landowner was a king and that in old days the king was +always a priest. + +Donna Marianna was urgent with him to marry, but he always declared that +he had a family in his tenantry, and that, as for a wife, she had never +let him feel the want of one. He had that musing temper which gives a man +a name for coldness; though in fact he may all the while be storing fuel +for a great conflagration. But to me he whispered another reason for not +marrying. A man, he said, does not take wife and rejoice while his mother +is on her death-bed; and Italy, his mother, lay dying, with the foreign +vultures waiting to tear her apart. + +You are too young to know anything of those days, my son; and how can any +one understand them who did not live through them? Italy lay dying indeed; +but Lombardy was her heart, and the heart still beat, and sent the faint +blood creeping to her cold extremities. Her torturers, weary of their +work, had allowed her to fall into a painless stupor; but just as she was +sinking from sleep to death, heaven sent Radetsky to scourge her back to +consciousness; and at the first sting of his lash she sprang maimed and +bleeding to her feet. + +Ah, those days, those days, my son! Italy--Italy--was the word on our +lips; but the thought in our hearts was just _Austria_. We clamored +for liberty, unity, the franchise; but under our breath we prayed only to +smite the white-coats. Remove the beam from our eye, we cried, and we shall +see our salvation clearly enough! We priests in the north were all liberals +and worked with the nobles and the men of letters. Gioberti was our +breviary and his Holiness the new Pope was soon to be the Tancred of our +crusade. But meanwhile, mind you, all this went on in silence, underground +as it were, while on the surface Lombardy still danced, feasted, married, +and took office under the Austrian. In the iron-mines up our valley there +used to be certain miners who stayed below ground for months at a time; +and, like one of these, Roberto remained buried in his purpose, while life +went its way overhead. Though I was not in his confidence I knew well +enough where his thoughts were, for he went among us with the eye of a +lover, the visionary look of one who hears a Voice. We all heard that +Voice, to be sure, mingling faintly with the other noises of life; but to +Roberto it was already as the roar of mighty waters, drowning every other +sound with its thunder. + +On the surface, as I have said, things looked smooth enough. An Austrian +cardinal throned in Milan and an Austrian-hearted Pope ruled in Rome. In +Lombardy, Austria couched like a beast of prey, ready to spring at our +throats if we stirred or struggled. The Moderates, to whose party Count +Roberto belonged, talked of prudence, compromise, the education of the +masses; but if their words were a velvet sheath their thought was a dagger. +For many years, as you know, the Milanese had maintained an outward show of +friendliness with their rulers. The nobles had accepted office under the +vice-roy, and in the past there had been frequent intermarriage between +the two aristocracies. But now, one by one, the great houses had closed +their doors against official society. Though some of the younger and more +careless, those who must dance and dine at any cost, still went to the +palace and sat beside the enemy at the opera, fashion was gradually taking +sides against them, and those who had once been laughed at as old fogeys +were now applauded as patriots. Among these, of course, was Count Roberto, +who for several years had refused to associate with the Austrians, and +had silently resented his easy-going brother's disregard of political +distinctions. Andrea and Gemma belonged to the moth tribe, who flock to +the brightest light; and Gemma's Istrian possessions, and her family's +connection with the Austrian nobility, gave them a pretext for fluttering +about the vice-regal candle. Roberto let them go their way, but his own +course was a tacit protest against their conduct. They were always welcome +at the palazzo Siviano; but he and Donna Marianna withdrew from society in +order to have an excuse for not showing themselves at the Countess Gemma's +entertainments. If Andrea and Gemma were aware of his disapproval they were +clever enough to ignore it; for the rich elder brother who paid their debts +and never meant to marry was too important a person to be quarrelled with +on political grounds. They seemed to think that if he married it would be +only to spite them; and they were persuaded that their future depended on +their giving him no cause to take such reprisals. I shall never be more +than a plain peasant at heart and I have little natural skill in discerning +hidden motives; but the experience of the confessional gives every priest +a certain insight into the secret springs of action, and I often wondered +that the worldly wisdom of Andrea and Gemma did not help them to a clearer +reading of their brother's character. For my part I knew that, in Roberto's +heart, no great passion could spring from a mean motive; and I had always +thought that if he ever loved any woman as he loved Italy, it must be from +his country's hand that he received his bride. And so it came about. + +Have you ever noticed, on one of those still autumn days before a storm, +how here and there a yellow leaf will suddenly detach itself from the bough +and whirl through the air as though some warning of the gale had reached +it? So it was then in Lombardy. All round was the silence of decay; but now +and then a word, a look, a trivial incident, fluttered ominously through +the stillness. It was in '45. Only a year earlier the glorious death of the +Bandiera brothers had sent a long shudder through Italy. In the Romagna, +Renzi and his comrades had tried to uphold by action the protest set forth +in the "Manifesto of Rimini"; and their failure had sowed the seed which +d'Azeglio and Cavour were to harvest. Everywhere the forces were silently +gathering; and nowhere was the hush more profound, the least reverberation +more audible, than in the streets of Milan. + +It was Count Roberto's habit to attend early mass in the Cathedral; and one +morning, as he was standing in the aisle, a young girl passed him with her +father. Roberto knew the father, a beggarly Milanese of the noble family of +Intelvi, who had cut himself off from his class by accepting an appointment +in one of the government offices. As the two went by he saw a group of +Austrian officers looking after the girl, and heard one of them say: "Such +a choice morsel as that is too good for slaves;" and another answer with a +laugh: "Yes, it's a dish for the master's table!" + +The girl heard too. She was as white as a wind-flower and he saw the words +come out on her cheek like the red mark from a blow. She whispered to +her father, but he shook his head and drew her away without so much as +a glance at the Austrians. Roberto heard mass and then hastened out and +placed himself in the porch of the Cathedral. A moment later the officers +appeared, and they too stationed themselves near the doorway. Presently the +girl came out on her father's arm. Her admirers stepped forward to greet +Intelvi; and the cringing wretch stood there exchanging compliments with +them, while their insolent stare devoured his daughter's beauty. She, +poor thing, shook like a leaf, and her eyes, in avoiding theirs, suddenly +encountered Roberto's. Her look was a wounded bird that flew to him for +shelter. He carried it away in his breast and its live warmth beat against +his heart. He thought that Italy had looked at him through those eyes; for +love is the wiliest of masqueraders and has a thousand disguises at his +command. + +Within a month Faustina Intelvi was his wife. Donna Marianna and I +rejoiced; for we knew he had chosen her because he loved her, and she +seemed to us almost worthy of such a choice. As for Count Andrea and his +wife, I leave you to guess what ingredients were mingled in the kiss with +which they welcomed the bride. They were all smiles at Roberto's marriage, +and had only words of praise for his wife. Donna Marianna, who had +sometimes taxed me with suspecting their motives, rejoiced in this fresh +proof of their magnanimity; but for my part I could have wished to see them +a little less kind. All such twilight fears, however, vanished in the flush +of my friend's happiness. Over some natures love steals gradually, as the +morning light widens across a valley; but it had flashed on Roberto like +the leap of dawn to a snow-peak. He walked the world with the wondering +step of a blind man suddenly restored to sight; and once he said to me with +a laugh: "Love makes a Columbus of every one of us!" + +And the Countess--? The Countess, my son, was eighteen, and her husband was +forty. Count Roberto had the heart of a poet, but he walked with a limp and +his skin was sallow. Youth plucks the fruit for its color rather than its +flavor; and first love does not serenade its mistress on a church-organ. In +Italy girls are married as land is sold; if two estates adjoin two lives +are united. As for the portionless girl, she is a knick-knack that goes to +the highest bidder. Faustina was handed over to her purchaser as if she +had been a picture for his gallery; and the transaction doubtless seemed +as natural to her as to her parents. She walked to the altar like an +Iphigenia; but pallor becomes a bride, and it looks well for a daughter to +weep on leaving her mother. Perhaps it would have been different if she had +guessed that the threshold of her new home was carpeted with love and its +four corners hung with tender thoughts of her; but her husband was a silent +man, who never called attention to his treasures. + +The great palace in Milan was a gloomy house for a girl to enter. Roberto +and his sister lived in it as if it had been a monastery, going nowhere and +receiving only those who labored for the Cause. To Faustina, accustomed to +the easy Austrian society, the Sunday evening receptions at the palazzo +Siviano must have seemed as dreary as a scientific congress. It pleased +Roberto to regard her as a victim of barbarian insolence, an embodiment of +his country desecrated by the desire of the enemy; but though, like any +handsome penniless girl, Faustina had now and then been exposed to a free +look or a familiar word, I doubt if she connected such incidents with the +political condition of Italy. She knew, of course, that in marrying Siviano +she was entering a house closed against the Austrian. One of Siviano's +first cares had been to pension his father-in-law, with the stipulation +that Intelvi should resign his appointment and give up all relations with +the government; and the old hypocrite, only too glad to purchase idleness +on such terms, embraced the liberal cause with a zeal which left his +daughter no excuse for half-heartedness. But he found it less easy than he +had expected to recover a footing among his own people. In spite of his +patriotic bluster the Milanese held aloof from him; and being the kind of +man who must always take his glass in company he gradually drifted back +to his old associates. It was impossible to forbid Faustina to visit her +parents; and in their house she breathed an air that was at least tolerant +of Austria. + +But I must not let you think that the young Countess appeared ungrateful or +unhappy. She was silent and shy, and it needed a more enterprising temper +than Roberto's to break down the barrier between them. They seemed to talk +to one another through a convent-grating, rather than across a hearth; but +if Roberto had asked more of her than she could give, outwardly she was +a model wife. She chose me at once as her confessor and I watched over +the first steps of her new life. Never was younger sister tenderer to her +elder than she to Donna Marianna; never was young wife more mindful of her +religious duties, kinder to her dependents, more charitable to the poor; +yet to be with her was like living in a room with shuttered windows. She +was always the caged bird, the transplanted flower: for all Roberto's care +she never bloomed or sang. + +Donna Marianna was the first to speak of it. "The child needs more light +and air," she said. + +"Light? Air?" Roberto repeated. "Does she not go to mass every morning? +Does she not drive on the Corso every evening?" + +Donna Marianna was not called clever, but her heart was wiser than most +women's heads. + +"At our age, brother," said she, "the windows of the mind face north and +look out on a landscape full of lengthening shadows. Faustina needs another +outlook. She is as pale as a hyacinth grown in a cellar." + +Roberto himself turned pale and I saw that she had uttered his own thought. + +"You want me to let her go to Gemma's!" he exclaimed. + +"Let her go wherever there is a little careless laughter." + +"Laughter--now!" he cried, with a gesture toward the sombre line of +portraits above his head. + +"Let her laugh while she can, my brother." + +That evening after dinner he called Faustina to him. + +"My child," he said, "go and put on your jewels. Your sister Gemma gives a +ball to-night and the carriage waits to take you there. I am too much of a +recluse to be at ease in such scenes, but I have sent word to your father +to go with you." + +Andrea and Gemma welcomed their young sister-in-law with effusion, and from +that time she was often in their company. Gemma forbade any mention of +politics in her drawing-room, and it was natural that Faustina should be +glad to escape from the solemn conclaves of the palazzo Siviano to a house +where life went as gaily as in that villa above Florence where Boccaccio's +careless story-tellers took refuge from the plague. But meanwhile the +political distemper was rapidly spreading, and in spite of Gemma's Austrian +affiliations it was no longer possible for her to receive the enemy openly. +It was whispered that her door was still ajar to her old friends; but +the rumor may have risen from the fact that one of the Austrian cavalry +officers stationed at Milan was her own cousin, the son of the aunt on +whose misalliance the old Count had so often bantered her. No one could +blame the Countess Gemma for not turning her own flesh and blood out of +doors; and the social famine to which the officers of the garrison were +reduced made it natural that young Welkenstern should press the claims of +consanguinity. + +All this must have reached Roberto's ears; but he made no sign and his wife +came and went as she pleased. When they returned the following year to the +old dusky villa at Siviano she was like the voice of a brook in a twilight +wood: one could not look at her without ransacking the spring for new +similes to paint her freshness. With Roberto it was different. I found him +older, more preoccupied and silent; but I guessed that his preoccupations +were political, for when his eye rested on his wife it cleared like the +lake when a cloud-shadow lifts from it. + +Count Andrea and his wife occupied an adjoining villa; and during the +_villeggiatura_ the two households lived almost as one family. +Roberto, however, was often absent in Milan, called thither on business of +which the nature was not hard to guess. Sometimes he brought back guests to +the villa; and on these occasions Faustina and Donna Marianna went to Count +Andrea's for the day. I have said that I was not in his confidence; but +he knew my sympathies were with the liberals and now and then he let fall +a word of the work going on underground. Meanwhile the new Pope had been +elected, and from Piedmont to Calabria we hailed in him the Banner that was +to lead our hosts to war. + +So time passed and we reached the last months of '47. The villa on Iseo had +been closed since the end of August. Roberto had no great liking for his +gloomy palace in Milan, and it had been his habit to spend nine months +of the year at Siviano; but he was now too much engrossed in his work to +remain away from Milan, and his wife and sister had joined him there as +soon as the midsummer heat was over. During the autumn he had called me +once or twice to the city to consult me on business connected with his +fruit-farms; and in the course of our talks he had sometimes let fall a +hint of graver matters. It was in July of that year that a troop of Croats +had marched into Ferrara, with muskets and cannon loaded. The lighted +matches of their cannon had fired the sleeping hate of Austria, and the +whole country now echoed the Lombard cry: "Out with the barbarian!" All +talk of adjustment, compromise, reorganization, shrivelled on lips that +the live coal of patriotism had touched. Italy for the Italians, and +then--monarchy, federation, republic, it mattered not what! + +The oppressor's grip had tightened on our throats and the clear-sighted +saw well enough that Metternich's policy was to provoke a rebellion and +then crush it under the Croat heel. But it was too late to cry prudence in +Lombardy. With the first days of the new year the tobacco riots had drawn +blood in Milan. Soon afterward the Lions' Club was closed, and edicts were +issued forbidding the singing of Pio Nono's hymn, the wearing of white and +blue, the collecting of subscriptions for the victims of the riots. To each +prohibition Milan returned a fresh defiance. The ladies of the nobility put +on mourning for the rioters who had been shot down by the soldiery. Half +the members of the Guardia Nobile resigned and Count Borromeo sent back +his Golden Fleece to the Emperor. Fresh regiments were continually pouring +into Milan and it was no secret that Radetsky was strengthening the +fortifications. Late in January several leading liberals were arrested and +sent into exile, and two weeks later martial law was proclaimed in Milan. +At the first arrests several members of the liberal party had hastily left +Milan, and I was not surprised to hear, a few days later, that orders had +been given to reopen the villa at Siviano. The Count and Countess arrived +there early in February. + +It was seven months since I had seen the Countess, and I was struck with +the change in her appearance. + +She was paler than ever, and her step had lost its lightness. Yet she +did not seem to share her husband's political anxieties; one would have +said that she was hardly aware of them. She seemed wrapped in a veil of +lassitude, like Iseo on a still gray morning, when dawn is blood-red on the +mountains but a mist blurs its reflection in the lake. I felt as though her +soul were slipping away from me, and longed to win her back to my care; but +she made her ill-health a pretext for not coming to confession, and for the +present I could only wait and carry the thought of her to the altar. She +had not been long at Siviano before I discovered that this drooping mood +was only one phase of her humor. Now and then she flung back the cowl of +melancholy and laughed life in the eye; but next moment she was in shadow +again, and her muffled thoughts had given us the slip. She was like the +lake on one of those days when the wind blows twenty ways and every +promontory holds a gust in ambush. + +Meanwhile there was a continual coming and going of messengers between +Siviano and the city. They came mostly at night, when the household slept, +and were away again with the last shadows; but the news they brought stayed +and widened, shining through every cranny of the old house. The whole of +Lombardy was up. From Pavia to Mantua, from Como to Brescia, the streets +ran blood like the arteries of one great body. At Pavia and Padua the +universities were closed. The frightened vice-roy was preparing to withdraw +from Milan to Verona, and Radetsky continued to pour his men across the +Alps, till a hundred thousand were massed between the Piave and the Ticino. +And now every eye was turned to Turin. Ah, how we watched for the blue +banner of Piedmont on the mountains! Charles Albert was pledged to our +cause; his whole people had armed to rescue us, the streets echoed with +_avanti, Savoia!_ and yet Savoy was silent and hung back. Each day was +a life-time strained to the cracking-point with hopes and disappointments. +We reckoned the hours by rumors, the very minutes by hearsay. Then +suddenly--ah, it was worth living through!--word came to us that Vienna +was in revolt. The points of the compass had shifted and our sun had risen +in the north. I shall never forget that day at the villa. Roberto sent for +me early, and I found him smiling and resolute, as becomes a soldier on +the eve of action. He had made all his preparations to leave for Milan and +was awaiting a summons from his party. The whole household felt that great +events impended, and Donna Marianna, awed and tearful, had pleaded with +her brother that they should all receive the sacrament together the next +morning. Roberto and his sister had been to confession the previous day, +but the Countess Faustina had again excused herself. I did not see her +while I was with the Count, but as I left the house she met me in the +laurel-walk. The morning was damp and cold, and she had drawn a black scarf +over her hair, and walked with a listless dragging step; but at my approach +she lifted her head quickly and signed to me to follow her into one of the +recesses of clipped laurel that bordered the path. + +"Don Egidio," she said, "you have heard the news?" + +I assented. + +"The Count goes to Milan to-morrow?" + +"It seems probable, your excellency." + +"There will be fighting--we are on the eve of war, I mean?" + +"We are in God's hands, your excellency." + +"In God's hands!" she murmured. Her eyes wandered and for a moment we stood +silent; then she drew a purse from her pocket. "I was forgetting," she +exclaimed. "This is for that poor girl you spoke to me about the other +day--what was her name? The girl who met the Austrian soldier at the fair +at Peschiera--" + +"Ah, Vannina," I said; "but she is dead, your excellency." + +"Dead!" She turned white and the purse dropped from her hand. I picked it +up and held it out to her, but she put back my hand. "That is for masses, +then," she said; and with that she moved away toward the house. + +I walked on to the gate; but before I had reached it I heard her step +behind me. + +"Don Egidio!" she called; and I turned back. + +"You are coming to say mass in the chapel to-morrow morning?" + +"That is the Count's wish." + +She wavered a moment. "I am not well enough to walk up to the village this +afternoon," she said at length. "Will you come back later and hear my +confession here?" + +"Willingly, your excellency." + +"Come at sunset then." She looked at me gravely. "It is a long time since I +have been to confession," she added. + +"My child, the door of heaven is always unlatched." + +She made no answer and I went my way. + +I returned to the villa a little before sunset, hoping for a few words +with Roberto. I felt with Faustina that we were on the eve of war, and the +uncertainty of the outlook made me treasure every moment of my friend's +company. I knew he had been busy all day, but hoped to find that his +preparations were ended and that he could spare me a half hour. I was not +disappointed; for the servant who met me asked me to follow him to the +Count's apartment. Roberto was sitting alone, with his back to the door, at +a table spread with maps and papers. He stood up and turned an ashen face +on me. + +"Roberto!" I cried, as if we had been boys together. + +He signed to me to be seated. + +"Egidio," he said suddenly, "my wife has sent for you to confess her?" + +"The Countess met me on my way home this morning and expressed a wish to +receive the sacrament to-morrow morning with you and Donna Marianna, and I +promised to return this afternoon to hear her confession." + +Roberto sat silent, staring before him as though he hardly heard. At length +he raised his head and began to speak. + +"You have noticed lately that my wife has been ailing?" he asked. + +"Every one must have seen that the Countess is not in her usual health. She +has seemed nervous, out of spirits--I have fancied that she might be +anxious about your excellency." + +He leaned across the table and laid his wasted hand on mine. "Call me +Roberto," he said. + +There was another pause before he went on. "Since I saw you this morning," +he said slowly, "something horrible has happened. After you left I sent for +Andrea and Gemma to tell them the news from Vienna and the probability of +my being summoned to Milan before night. You know as well as I that we have +reached a crisis. There will be fighting within twenty-four hours, if I +know my people; and war may follow sooner than we think. I felt it my duty +to leave my affairs in Andrea's hands, and to entrust my wife to his care. +Don't look startled," he added with a faint smile. "No reasonable man goes +on a journey without setting his house in order; and if things take the +turn I expect it may be some months before you see me back at Siviano.--But +it was not to hear this that I sent for you." He pushed his chair aside and +walked up and down the room with his short limping step. "My God!" he broke +out wildly, "how can I say it?--When Andrea had heard me, I saw him +exchange a glance with his wife, and she said with that infernal sweet +voice of hers, 'Yes, Andrea, it is our duty.' + +"'Your duty?' I asked. 'What is your duty?' + +"Andrea wetted his lips with his tongue and looked at her again; and her +look was like a blade in his hand. + +"'Your wife has a lover,' he said. + +"She caught my arm as I flung myself on him. He is ten times stronger than +I, but you remember how I made him howl for mercy in the old days when he +used to bully you. + +"'Let me go,' I said to his wife. 'He must live to unsay it.' + +"Andrea began to whimper. 'Oh, my poor brother, I would give my heart's +blood to unsay it!' + +"'The secret has been killing us,' she chimed in. + +"'The secret? Whose secret? How dare you--?' + +"Gemma fell on her knees like a tragedy actress. 'Strike me--kill me--it is +I who am the offender! It was at my house that she met him--' + +"'Him?' + +"'Franz Welkenstern--my cousin,' she wailed. + +"I suppose I stood before them like a stunned ox, for they repeated the +name again and again, as if they were not sure of my having heard it.--Not +hear it!" he cried suddenly, dropping into a chair and hiding his face in +his hands. "Shall I ever on earth hear anything else again?" + +He sat a long time with his face hidden and I waited. My head was like a +great bronze bell with one thought for the clapper. + +After a while he went on in a low deliberate voice, as though his words +were balancing themselves on the brink of madness. With strange composure +he repeated each detail of his brother's charges: the meetings in the +Countess Gemma's drawing-room, the innocent friendliness of the two +young people, the talk of mysterious visits to a villa outside the Porta +Ticinese, the ever-widening circle of scandal that had spread about their +names. At first, Andrea said, he and his wife had refused to listen to the +reports which reached them. Then, when the talk became too loud, they had +sent for Welkenstern, remonstrated with him, implored him to exchange into +another regiment; but in vain. The young officer indignantly denied the +reports and declared that to leave his post at such a moment would be +desertion. + +With a laborious accuracy Roberto went on, detailing one by one each +incident of the hateful story, till suddenly he cried out, springing from +his chair--"And now to leave her with this lie unburied!" + +His cry was like the lifting of a grave-stone from my breast. "You must not +leave her!" I exclaimed. + +He shook his head. "I am pledged." + +"This is your first duty." + +"It would be any other man's; not an Italian's." + +I was silent: in those days the argument seemed unanswerable. + +At length I said: "No harm can come to her while you are away. Donna +Marianna and I are here to watch over her. And when you come back--" + +He looked at me gravely. "_If_ I come back--" + +"Roberto!" + +"We are men, Egidio; we both know what is coming. Milan is up already; and +there is a rumor that Charles Albert is moving. This year the spring rains +will be red in Italy." + +"In your absence not a breath shall touch her!" + +"And if I never come back to defend her? They hate her as hell hates, +Egidio!--They kept repeating, 'He is of her own age and youth draws +youth--.' She is in their way, Egidio!" + +"Consider, my son. They do not love her, perhaps; but why should they hate +her at such cost? She has given you no child." + +"No child!" He paused. "But what if--? She has ailed lately!" he cried, and +broke off to grapple with the stabbing thought. + +"Roberto! Roberto!" I adjured him. + +He jumped up and gripped my arm. + +"Egidio! You believe in her?" + +"She's as pure as a lily on the altar!" + +"Those eyes are wells of truth--and she has been like a daughter to +Marianna.--Egidio! do I look like an old man?" + +"Quiet yourself, Roberto," I entreated. + +"Quiet myself? With this sting in my blood? A lover--and an Austrian lover! +Oh, Italy, Italy, my bride!" + +"I stake my life on her truth," I cried, "and who knows better than I? Has +her soul not lain before me like the bed of a clear stream?" + +"And if what you saw there was only the reflection of your faith in her?" + +"My son, I am a priest, and the priest penetrates to the soul as the angel +passed through the walls of Peter's prison. I see the truth in her heart as +I see Christ in the host!" + +"No, no, she is false!" he cried. + +I sprang up terrified. "Roberto, be silent!" + +He looked at me with a wild incredulous smile. "Poor simple man of God!" he +said. + +"I would not exchange my simplicity for yours--the dupe of envy's first +malicious whisper!" + +"Envy--you think that?" + +"Is it questionable?" + +"You would stake your life on it?" + +"My life!" + +"Your faith?" + +"My faith!" + +"Your vows as a priest?" + +"My vows--" I stopped and stared at him. He had risen and laid his hand on +my shoulder. + +"You see now what I would be at," he said quietly. "I must take your place +presently--" + +"My place--?" + +"When my wife comes down. You understand me." + +"Ah, now you are quite mad!" I cried breaking away from him. + +"Am I?" he returned, maintaining his strange composure. "Consider a moment. +She has not confessed to you before since our return from Milan--" + +"Her ill-health--" + +He cut me short with a gesture. "Yet to-day she sends for you--" + +"In order that she may receive the sacrament with you on the eve of your +first separation." + +"If that is her only reason her first words will clear her. I must hear +those words, Egidio!" + +"You are quite mad," I repeated. + +"Strange," he said slowly. "You stake your life on my wife's innocence, yet +you refuse me the only means of vindicating it!" + +"I would give my life for any one of you--but what you ask is not mine to +give." + +"The priest first--the man afterward?" he sneered. + +"Long afterward!" + +He measured me with a contemptuous eye. "We laymen are ready to give the +last shred of flesh from our bones, but you priests intend to keep your +cassocks whole." + +"I tell you my cassock is not mine," I repeated. + +"And, by God," he cried, "you are right; for it's mine! Who put it on your +back but my father? What kept it there but my charity? Peasant! beggar! +Hear his holiness pontificate!" "Yes," I said, "I was a peasant and a +beggar when your father found me; and if he had left me one I might have +been excused for putting my hand to any ugly job that my betters required +of me; but he made me a priest, and so set me above all of you, and laid on +me the charge of your souls as well as mine." + +He sat down shaken with dreadful tears. "Ah," he broke out, "would you have +answered me thus when we were boys together, and I stood between you and +Andrea?" + +"If God had given me the strength." + +"You call it strength to make a woman's soul your stepping-stone to +heaven?" + +"Her soul is in my care, not yours, my son. She is safe with me." + +"She? But I? I go out to meet death, and leave a worse death behind me!" +He leaned over and clutched my arm. "It is not for myself I plead but for +her--for her, Egidio! Don't you see to what a hell you condemn her if I +don't come back? What chance has she against that slow unsleeping hate? +Their lies will fasten themselves to her and suck out her life. You and +Marianna are powerless against such enemies." + +"You leave her in God's hands, my son." + +"Easily said--but, ah, priest, if you were a man! What if their poison +works in me and I go to battle thinking that every Austrian bullet may be +sent by her lover's hand? What if I die not only to free Italy but to free +my wife as well?" + +I laid my hand on his shoulder. "My son, I answer for her. Leave your faith +in her in my hands and I will keep it whole." + +He stared at me strangely. "And what if your own fail you?" + +"In her? Never. I call every saint to witness!" + +"And yet--and yet--ah, this is a blind," he shouted; "you know all and +perjure yourself to spare me!" + +At that, my son, I felt a knife in my breast. I looked at him in anguish +and his gaze was a wall of metal. Mine seemed to slip away from it, like a +clawless thing struggling up the sheer side of a precipice. + +"You know all," he repeated, "and you dare not let me hear her!" + +"I dare not betray my trust." + +He waved the answer aside. + +"Is this a time to quibble over church discipline? If you believed in her +you would save her at any cost!" + +I said to myself, "Eternity can hold nothing worse than this for me--" and +clutched my resolve again like a cross to my bosom. + +Just then there was a hand on the door and we heard Donna Marianna. + +"Faustina has sent to know if the _signar parocco_ is here." + +"He is here. Bid her come down to the chapel." Roberto spoke quietly, and +closed the door on her so that she should not see his face. We heard her +patter away across the brick floor of the _salone_. + +Roberto turned to me. "Egidio!" he said; and all at once I was no more than +a straw on the torrent of his will. + +The chapel adjoined the room in which we sat. He opened the door, and in +the twilight I saw the light glimmering before the Virgin's shrine and the +old carved confessional standing like a cowled watcher in its corner. But +I saw it all in a dream; for nothing in heaven or earth was real to me but +the iron grip on my shoulder. + +"Quick!" he said and drove me forward. I heard him shoot back the bolt of +the outer door and a moment later I stood alone in the garden. The sun had +set and the cold spring dusk was falling. Lights shone here and there in +the long front of the villa; the statues glimmered gray among the thickets. +Through the window-pane of the chapel I caught the faint red gleam of the +Virgin's lamp; but I turned my back on it and walked away. + + * * * * * + +All night I lay like a heretic on the fire. Before dawn there came a call +from the villa. The Count had received a second summons from Milan and was +to set out in an hour. I hurried down the cold dewy path to the lake. All +was new and hushed and strange as on the day of resurrection; and in the +dark twilight of the garden alleys the statues stared at me like the +shrouded dead. + +In the _salone_, where the old Count's portrait hung, I found the +family assembled. Andrea and Gemma sat together, a little pinched, I +thought, but decent and self-contained, like mourners who expect to +inherit. Donna Marianna drooped near them, with something black over her +head and her face dim with weeping. Roberto received me calmly and then +turned to his sister. + +"Go fetch my wife," he said. + +While she was gone there was silence. We could hear the cold drip of the +garden-fountain and the patter of rats in the wall. Andrea and his wife +stared out of window and Roberto sat in his father's carved seat at the +head of the long table. Then the door opened and Faustina entered. + +When I saw her I stopped breathing. She seemed no more than the shell of +herself, a hollow thing that grief has voided. Her eyes returned our images +like polished agate, but conveyed to her no sense of our presence. Marianna +led her to a seat, and she crossed her hands and nailed her dull gaze on +Roberto. I looked from one to another, and in that spectral light it seemed +to me that we were all souls come to judgment and naked to each other as to +God. As to my own wrongdoing, it weighed on me no more than dust. The only +feeling I had room for was fear--a fear that seemed to fill my throat and +lungs and bubble coldly over my drowning head. + +Suddenly Roberto began to speak. His voice was clear and steady, and I +clutched at his words to drag myself above the surface of my terror. He +touched on the charge that had been made against his wife--he did not say +by whom--the foul rumor that had made itself heard on the eve of their +first parting. Duty, he said, had sent him a double summons; to fight for +his country and for his wife. He must clear his wife's name before he was +worthy to draw sword for Italy. There was no time to tame the slander +before throttling it; he had to take the shortest way to its throat. At +this point he looked at me and my soul shook. Then he turned to Andrea and +Gemma. + +"When you came to me with this rumor," he said quietly, "you agreed to +consider the family honor satisfied if I could induce Don Egidio to let me +take his place and overhear my wife's confession, and if that confession +convinced me of her innocence. Was this the understanding?" + +Andrea muttered something and Gemma tapped a sullen foot. + +"After you had left," Roberto continued, "I laid the case before Don Egidio +and threw myself on his mercy." He looked at me fixedly. "So strong was his +faith in my wife's innocence that for her sake he agreed to violate the +sanctity of the confessional. I took his place." + +Marianna sobbed and crossed herself and a strange look flitted over +Faustina's face. + +There was a moment's pause; then Roberto, rising, walked across the room to +his wife and took her by the hand. + +"Your seat is beside me, Countess Siviano," he said, and led her to the +empty chair by his own. + +Gemma started to her feet, but her husband pulled her down again. + +"Jesus! Mary!" We heard Donna Marianna moan. + +Roberto raised his wife's hand to his lips. "You forgive me," he said, "the +means I took to defend you?" And turning to Andrea he added slowly: "I +declare my wife innocent and my honor satisfied. You swear to stand by my +decision?" + +What Andrea stammered out, what hissing serpents of speech Gemma's clinched +teeth bit back, I never knew--for my eyes were on Faustina, and her face +was a wonder to behold. + +She had let herself be led across the room like a blind woman, and had +listened without change of feature to her husband's first words; but as +he ceased her frozen gaze broke and her whole body seemed to melt against +his breast. He put his arm out, but she slipped to his feet and Marianna +hastened forward to raise her up. At that moment we heard the stroke +of oars across the quiet water and saw the Count's boat touch the +landing-steps. Four strong oarsmen from Monte Isola were to row him down +to Iseo, to take horse for Milan, and his servant, knapsack on shoulder, +knocked warningly at the terrace window. + +"No time to lose, excellency!" he cried. + +Roberto turned and gripped my hand. "Pray for me," he said low; and with a +brief gesture to the others ran down the terrace to the boat. + +Marianna was bathing Faustina with happy tears. + +"Look up, dear! Think how soon he will come back! And there is the +sunrise--see!" + +Andrea and Gemma had slunk away like ghosts at cock-crow, and a red dawn +stood over Milan. + + * * * * * + +If that sun rose red it set scarlet. It was the first of the Five Days in +Milan--the Five Glorious Days, as they are called. Roberto reached the city +just before the gates closed. So much we knew--little more. We heard of him +in the Broletto (whence he must have escaped when the Austrians blew in +the door) and in the Casa Vidiserti, with Casati, Cattaneo and the rest; +but after the barricading began we could trace him only as having been +seen here and there in the thick of the fighting, or tending the wounded +under Bertani's orders. His place, one would have said, was in the +council-chamber, with the soberer heads; but that was an hour when every +man gave his blood where it was most needed, and Cernuschi, Dandolo, +Anfossi, della Porta fought shoulder to shoulder with students, artisans +and peasants. Certain it is that he was seen on the fifth day; for among +the volunteers who swarmed after Manara in his assault on the Porta Tosa +was a servant of palazzo Siviano; and this fellow swore he had seen his +master charge with Manara in the last assault--had watched him, sword +in hand, press close to the gates, and then, as they swung open before +the victorious dash of our men, had seen him drop and disappear in the +inrushing tide of peasants that almost swept the little company off its +feet. After that we heard nothing. There was savage work in Milan in those +days, and more than one well-known figure lay lost among the heaps of dead +hacked and disfeatured by Croat blades. + +At the villa, we waited breathless. News came to us hour by hour: the very +wind seemed to carry it, and it was swept to us on the incessant rush of +the rain. On the twenty-third Radetsky had fled from Milan, to face Venice +rising in his path. On the twenty-fourth the first Piedmontese had crossed +the Ticino, and Charles Albert himself was in Pavia on the twenty-ninth. +The bells of Milan had carried the word from Turin to Naples, from Genoa to +Ancona, and the whole country was pouring like a flood-tide into Lombardy. +Heroes sprang up from the bloody soil as thick as wheat after rain, and +every day carried some new name to us; but never the one for which we +prayed and waited. Weeks passed. We heard of Pastrengo, Goito, Rivoli; of +Radetsky hemmed into the Quadrilateral, and our troops closing in on him +from Rome, Tuscany and Venetia. Months passed--and we heard of Custozza. We +saw Charles Albert's broken forces flung back from the Mincio to the Oglio, +from the Oglio to the Adda. We followed the dreadful retreat from Milan, +and saw our rescuers dispersed like dust before the wind. But all the while +no word came to us of Roberto. + +These were dark days in Lombardy; and nowhere darker than in the old villa +on Iseo. In September Donna Marianna and the young Countess put on black, +and Count Andrea and his wife followed their example. In October the +Countess gave birth to a daughter. Count Andrea then took possession of the +palazzo Siviano, and the two women remained at the villa. I have no heart +to tell you of the days that followed. Donna Marianna wept and prayed +incessantly, and it was long before the baby could snatch a smile from her. +As for the Countess Faustina, she went among us like one of the statues in +the garden. The child had a wet-nurse from the village, and it was small +wonder there was no milk for it in that marble breast. I spent much of +my time at the villa, comforting Donna Marianna as best I could; but +sometimes, in the long winter evenings, when we three sat in the dimly-lit +_salone_, with the old Count's portrait overhead, and I looked up and +saw the Countess Faustina in the tall carved seat beside her husband's +empty chair, my spine grew chill and I felt a cold wind in my hair. + +The end of it was that in the spring I went to see my bishop and laid my +sin before him. He was a saintly and merciful old man, and gave me a +patient hearing. + +"You believed the lady innocent?" he asked when I had ended. + +"Monsignore, on my soul!" + +"You thought to avert a great calamity from the house to which you owed +more than your life?" + +"It was my only thought." + +He laid his hand on my shoulder. + +"Go home, my son. You shall learn my decision." + +Three months later I was ordered to resign my living and go to America, +where a priest was needed for the Italian mission church in New York. I +packed my possessions and set sail from Genoa. I knew no more of America +than any peasant up in the hills. I fully expected to be speared by naked +savages on landing; and for the first few months after my arrival I wished +at least once a day that such a blessed fate had befallen me. But it is +no part of my story to tell you what I suffered in those early days. The +Church had dealt with me mercifully, as is her wont, and her punishment +fell far below my deserts.... + +I had been some four years in New York, and no longer thought of looking +back from the plough, when one day word was brought me that an Italian +professor lay ill and had asked for a priest. There were many Italian +refugees in New York at that time, and the greater number, being +well-educated men, earned a living by teaching their language, which was +then included among the accomplishments of fashionable New York. The +messenger led me to a poor boarding-house and up to a small bare room on +the top floor. On the visiting-card nailed to the door I read the name "De +Roberti, Professor of Italian." Inside, a gray-haired haggard man tossed on +the narrow bed. He turned a glazed eye on me as I entered, and I recognized +Roberto Siviano. + +I steadied myself against the door-post and stood staring at him without a +word. + +"What's the matter?" asked the doctor who was bending over the bed. I +stammered that the sick man was an old friend. + +"He wouldn't know his oldest friend just now," said the doctor. "The +fever's on him; but it will go down toward sunset." + +I sat down at the head of the bed and took Roberto's hand in mine. + +"Is he going to die?" I asked. + +"I don't believe so; but he wants nursing." + +"I will nurse him." + +The doctor nodded and went out. I sat in the little room, with Roberto's +burning hand in mine. Gradually his skin cooled, the fingers grew quiet, +and the flush faded from his sallow cheek-bones. Toward dusk he looked up +at me and smiled. + +"Egidio," he said quietly. + +I administered the sacrament, which he received with the most fervent +devotion; then he fell into a deep sleep. + +During the weeks that followed I had no time to ask myself the meaning of +it all. My one business was to keep him alive if I could. I fought the +fever day and night, and at length it yielded. For the most part he raved +or lay unconscious; but now and then he knew me for a moment, and whispered +"Egidio" with a look of peace. + +I had stolen many hours from my duties to nurse him; and as soon as the +danger was past I had to go back to my parish work. Then it was that I +began to ask myself what had brought him to America; but I dared not face +the answer. + +On the fourth day I snatched a moment from my work and climbed to his +room. I found him sitting propped against his pillows, weak as a child but +clear-eyed and quiet. I ran forward, but his look stopped me. + +"_Signor parocco_," he said, "the doctor tells me that I owe my life +to your nursing, and I have to thank you for the kindness you have shown to +a friendless stranger." + +"A stranger?" I gasped. + +He looked at me steadily. "I am not aware that we have met before," he +said. + +For a moment I thought the fever was on him; but a second glance convinced +me that he was master of himself. + +"Roberto!" I cried, trembling. + +"You have the advantage of me," he said civilly. "But my name is Roberti, +not Roberto." + +The floor swam under me and I had to lean against the wall. + +"You are not Count Roberto Siviano of Milan?" + +"I am Tommaso de Roberti, professor of Italian, from Modena." + +"And you have never seen me before?" + +"Never that I know of." + +"Were you never at Siviano, on the lake of Iseo?" I faltered. + +He said calmly: "I am unacquainted with that part of Italy." + +My heart grew cold and I was silent. + +"You mistook me for a friend, I suppose?" he added. + +"Yes," I cried, "I mistook you for a friend;" and with that I fell on my +knees by his bed and cried like a child. + +Suddenly I felt a touch on my shoulder. "Egidio," said he in a broken +voice, "look up." + +I raised my eyes, and there was his old smile above me, and we clung to +each other without a word. Presently, however, he drew back, and put me +quietly aside. + +"Sit over there, Egidio. My bones are like water and I am not good for much +talking yet." + +"Let us wait, Roberto. Sleep now--we can talk tomorrow." + +"No. What I have to say must be said at once." He examined me thoughtfully. +"You have a parish here in New York?" + +I assented. + +"And my work keeps me here. I have pupils. It is too late to make a +change." + +"A change?" + +He continued to look at me calmly. "It would be difficult for me," he +explained, "to find employment in a new place." + +"But why should you leave here?" + +"I shall have to," he returned deliberately, "if you persist in recognizing +in me your former friend Count Siviano." + +"Roberto!" + +He lifted his hand. "Egidio," he said, "I am alone here, and without +friends. The companionship, the sympathy of my parish priest would be a +consolation in this strange city; but it must not be the companionship of +the _parocco_ of Siviano. You understand?" + +"Roberto," I cried, "it is too dreadful to understand!" + +"Be a man, Egidio," said he with a touch of impatience. "The choice lies +with you, and you must make it now. If you are willing to ask no questions, +to name no names, to make no allusions to the past, let us live as friends +together, in God's name! If not, as soon as my legs can carry me I must be +off again. The world is wide, luckily--but why should we be parted?" + +I was on my knees at his side in an instant. "We must never be parted!" I +cried. "Do as you will with me. Give me your orders and I obey--have I not +always obeyed you?" + +I felt his hand close sharply on mine. "Egidio!" he admonished me. + +"No--no--I shall remember. I shall say nothing--" + +"Think nothing?" + +"Think nothing," I said with a last effort. + +"God bless you!" he answered. + +My son, for eight years I kept my word to him. We met daily almost, we ate +and walked and talked together, we lived like David and Jonathan--but +without so much as a glance at the past. How he had escaped from Milan--how +he had reached New York--I never knew. We talked often of Italy's +liberation--as what Italians would not?--but never touched on his share in +the work. Once only a word slipped from him; and that was when one day he +asked me how it was that I had been sent to America. The blood rushed to my +face, and before I could answer he had raised a silencing hand. + +"I see," he said; "it was _your_ penance too." + +During the first years he had plenty of work to do, but he lived so +frugally that I guessed he had some secret use for his earnings. It was +easy to conjecture what it was. All over the world Italian exiles were +toiling and saving to further the great cause. He had political friends in +New York, and sometimes he went to other cities to attend meetings and make +addresses. His zeal never slackened; and but for me he would often have +gone hungry that some shivering patriot might dine. I was with him heart +and soul, but I had the parish on my shoulders, and perhaps my long +experience of men had made me a little less credulous than Christian +charity requires; for I could have sworn that some of the heroes who hung +on him had never had a whiff of Austrian blood, and would have fed out of +the same trough with the white-coats if there had been polenta enough to go +round. Happily my friend had no such doubts. He believed in the patriots as +devoutly as in the cause; and if some of his hard-earned dollars travelled +no farther than the nearest wine-cellar or cigar-shop, he never suspected +the course they took. + +His health was never the same after the fever; and by and by he began to +lose his pupils, and the patriots cooled off as his pockets fell in. Toward +the end I took him to live in my shabby attic. He had grown weak and had a +troublesome cough, and he spent the greater part of his days indoors. Cruel +days they must have been to him, but he made no sign, and always welcomed +me with a cheerful word. When his pupils dropped off, and his health made +it difficult for him to pick up work outside, he set up a letter-writer's +sign, and used to earn a few pennies by serving as amanuensis to my poor +parishioners; but it went against him to take their money, and half the +time he did the work for nothing. I knew it was hard for him to live on +charity, as he called it, and I used to find what jobs I could for him +among my friends the _negozianti_, who would send him letters to copy, +accounts to make up and what not; but we were all poor together, and the +master had licked the platter before the dog got it. + +So lived that just man, my son; and so, after eight years of exile, he died +one day in my arms. God had let him live long enough to see Solferino and +Villa-franca; and was perhaps never more merciful than in sparing him Monte +Rotondo and Mentana. But these are things of which it does not become me to +speak. The new Italy does not wear the face of our visions; but it is +written that God shall know His own, and it cannot be that He shall misread +the hearts of those who dreamed of fashioning her in His image. + +As for my friend, he is at peace, I doubt not; and his just life and holy +death intercede for me, who sinned for his sake alone. + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Crucial Instances, by Edith Wharton + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CRUCIAL INSTANCES *** + +***** This file should be named 7516-8.txt or 7516-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/7/5/1/7516/ + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Tiffany Vergon, William +Flis, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + +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 +https://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 MERCHANTIBILITY 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 web page at https://www.pglaf.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. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. 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 +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +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 https://pglaf.org + +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 including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.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 thirty 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: + + https://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. diff --git a/7516-8.zip b/7516-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d5553f5 --- /dev/null +++ b/7516-8.zip diff --git a/7516-h.zip b/7516-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..87eb0fb --- /dev/null +++ b/7516-h.zip diff --git a/7516-h/7516-h.htm b/7516-h/7516-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..16aba85 --- /dev/null +++ b/7516-h/7516-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6173 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" xml:lang="en"> + <head> <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Crucial Instances, by Edith Wharton. +</title> +<style type="text/css"> + p {margin-top:.2em;text-align:justify;margin-bottom:.2em;text-indent:4%;} + +.c {text-align:center;text-indent:0%;} + +.lftspc {margin-left:.25em;} + + h1 {margin-top:5%;text-align:center;clear:both;} + + h2 {margin-top:4%;margin-bottom:2%;text-align:center;clear:both; + font-size:120%;} + + h3 {margin-top:2%;margin-bottom:1%;text-align:center;clear:both; + font-size:100%;} + + hr {width:90%;margin:2em auto 2em auto;clear:both;color:black;} + + hr.full {width: 60%;margin:2% auto 2% auto;border-top:1px solid black; +padding:.1em;border-bottom:1px solid black;border-left:none;border-right:none;} + + table {margin-top:2%;margin-bottom:2%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;border:none;} + + body{margin-left:4%;margin-right:6%;background:#ffffff;color:black;font-family:"Times New Roman", serif;font-size:medium;} + +.nind {text-indent:0%;} + +a:link {background-color:#ffffff;color:blue;text-decoration:none;} + + link {background-color:#ffffff;color:blue;text-decoration:none;} + +a:visited {background-color:#ffffff;color:purple;text-decoration:none;} + +a:hover {background-color:#ffffff;color:#FF0000;text-decoration:underline;} + +.smcap {font-variant:small-caps;font-size:100%;} + + img {border:none;} + +div.poetry {text-align:center;} +div.poem {font-size:100%;margin:auto auto;text-indent:0%; +display: inline-block; text-align: left;font-style:italic;} +.poem .stanza {margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom:1em;} +.poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} +.poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 1em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} +</style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Crucial Instances, by Edith Wharton + +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/license + + +Title: Crucial Instances + +Author: Edith Wharton + +Posting Date: October 20, 2017 [EBook #7516] +Release Date: February, 2005 +First Posted: May 13, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CRUCIAL INSTANCES *** + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Tiffany Vergon, William +Flis, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team +HTM version by Chuck Greif + + + + + + + + + + +</pre> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<p class="c"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="318" height="500" alt="" title="" /> +</p> + +<h1>CRUCIAL INSTANCES</h1> + +<p class="c">BY</p> + +<p class="c">EDITH WHARTON</p> + +<h2><a name="TABLE_OF_CONTENTS" id="TABLE_OF_CONTENTS"></a>TABLE OF CONTENTS</h2> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td> +<a href="#THE_DUCHESS_AT_PRAYER"><b>The Duchess At Prayer</b></a><br /> +<a href="#THE_ANGEL_AT_THE_GRAVE"><b>The Angel At The Grave</b></a><br /> +<a href="#THE_RECOVERY"><b>The Recovery</b></a><br /> +<a href="#COPY"><b>“Copy”</b></a><br /> +<a href="#THE_REMBRANDT"><b>The Rembrandt</b></a><br /> +<a href="#THE_MOVING_FINGER"><b>The Moving Finger</b></a><br /> +<a href="#THE_CONFESSIONAL"><b>The Confessional</b></a></td></tr> +</table> + +<h2><a name="THE_DUCHESS_AT_PRAYER" id="THE_DUCHESS_AT_PRAYER"></a>THE DUCHESS AT PRAYER</h2> + +<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">Have</span> you ever questioned the long shuttered front of an old Italian house, +that motionless mask, smooth, mute, equivocal as the face of a priest +behind which buzz the secrets of the confessional? Other houses declare the +activities they shelter; they are the clear expressive cuticle of a life +flowing close to the surface; but the old palace in its narrow street, the +villa on its cypress-hooded hill, are as impenetrable as death. The tall +windows are like blind eyes, the great door is a shut mouth. Inside there +may be sunshine, the scent of myrtles, and a pulse of life through all the +arteries of the huge frame; or a mortal solitude, where bats lodge in the +disjointed stones and the keys rust in unused doors....</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>From the loggia, with its vanishing frescoes, I looked down an avenue +barred by a ladder of cypress-shadows to the ducal escutcheon and mutilated +vases of the gate. Flat noon lay on the gardens, on fountains, porticoes +and grottoes. Below the terrace, where a chrome-colored lichen had sheeted +the balustrade as with fine <i>laminae</i> of gold, vineyards stooped to +the rich valley clasped in hills. The lower slopes were strewn with white +villages like stars spangling a summer dusk; and beyond these, fold on +fold of blue mountain, clear as gauze against the sky. The August air was +lifeless, but it seemed light and vivifying after the atmosphere of the +shrouded rooms through which I had been led. Their chill was on me and I +hugged the sunshine.</p> + +<p>“The Duchess’s apartments are beyond,” said the old man.</p> + +<p>He was the oldest man I had ever seen; so sucked back into the past that he +seemed more like a memory than a living being. The one trait linking him +with the actual was the fixity with which his small saurian eye held the +pocket that, as I entered, had yielded a <i>lira</i> to the gate-keeper’s +child. He went on, without removing his eye:</p> + +<p>“For two hundred years nothing has been changed in the apartments of the +Duchess.”</p> + +<p>“And no one lives here now?”</p> + +<p>“No one, sir. The Duke, goes to Como for the summer season.”</p> + +<p>I had moved to the other end of the loggia. Below me, through hanging +groves, white roofs and domes flashed like a smile.</p> + +<p>“And that’s Vicenza?”</p> + +<p>“<i>Proprio</i>!” The old man extended fingers as lean as the hands fading +from the walls behind us. “You see the palace roof over there, just to the +left of the Basilica? The one with the row of statues like birds taking +flight? That’s the Duke’s town palace, built by Palladio.”</p> + +<p>“And does the Duke come there?”</p> + +<p>“Never. In winter he goes to Rome.”</p> + +<p>“And the palace and the villa are always closed?”</p> + +<p>“As you see—always.”</p> + +<p>“How long has this been?”</p> + +<p>“Since I can remember.”</p> + +<p>I looked into his eyes: they were like tarnished metal mirrors reflecting +nothing. “That must be a long time,” I said involuntarily.</p> + +<p>“A long time,” he assented.</p> + +<p>I looked down on the gardens. An opulence of dahlias overran the +box-borders, between cypresses that cut the sunshine like basalt shafts. +Bees hung above the lavender; lizards sunned themselves on the benches and +slipped through the cracks of the dry basins. Everywhere were vanishing +traces of that fantastic horticulture of which our dull age has lost the +art. Down the alleys maimed statues stretched their arms like rows of +whining beggars; faun-eared terms grinned in the thickets, and above the +laurustinus walls rose the mock ruin of a temple, falling into real ruin +in the bright disintegrating air. The glare was blinding.</p> + +<p>“Let us go in,” I said.</p> + +<p>The old man pushed open a heavy door, behind which the cold lurked like a +knife.</p> + +<p>“The Duchess’s apartments,” he said.</p> + +<p>Overhead and around us the same evanescent frescoes, under foot the same +scagliola volutes, unrolled themselves interminably. Ebony cabinets, with +inlay of precious marbles in cunning perspective, alternated down the +room with the tarnished efflorescence of gilt consoles supporting Chinese +monsters; and from the chimney-panel a gentleman in the Spanish habit +haughtily ignored us.</p> + +<p>“Duke Ercole II.,” the old man explained, “by the Genoese Priest.”</p> + +<p>It was a narrow-browed face, sallow as a wax effigy, high-nosed and +cautious-lidded, as though modelled by priestly hands; the lips weak and +vain rather than cruel; a quibbling mouth that would have snapped at verbal +errors like a lizard catching flies, but had never learned the shape of a +round yes or no. One of the Duke’s hands rested on the head of a dwarf, a +simian creature with pearl ear-rings and fantastic dress; the other turned +the pages of a folio propped on a skull.</p> + +<p>“Beyond is the Duchess’s bedroom,” the old man reminded me.</p> + +<p>Here the shutters admitted but two narrow shafts of light, gold bars +deepening the subaqueous gloom. On a dais the bedstead, grim, nuptial, +official, lifted its baldachin; a yellow Christ agonized between the +curtains, and across the room a lady smiled at us from the chimney-breast.</p> + +<p>The old man unbarred a shutter and the light touched her face. Such a face +it was, with a flicker of laughter over it like the wind on a June meadow, +and a singular tender pliancy of mien, as though one of Tiepolo’s lenient +goddesses had been busked into the stiff sheath of a seventeenth century +dress!</p> + +<p>“No one has slept here,” said the old man, “since the Duchess Violante.”</p> + +<p>“And she was—?”</p> + +<p>“The lady there—first Duchess of Duke Ercole II.”</p> + +<p>He drew a key from his pocket and unlocked a door at the farther end of the +room. “The chapel,” he said. “This is the Duchess’s balcony.” As I turned +to follow him the Duchess tossed me a sidelong smile.</p> + +<p>I stepped into a grated tribune above a chapel festooned with stucco. +Pictures of bituminous saints mouldered between the pilasters; the +artificial roses in the altar-vases were gray with dust and age, and under +the cobwebby rosettes of the vaulting a bird’s nest clung. Before the altar +stood a row of tattered arm-chairs, and I drew back at sight of a figure +kneeling near them.</p> + +<p>“The Duchess,” the old man whispered. “By the Cavaliere Bernini.”</p> + +<p>It was the image of a woman in furred robes and spreading fraise, her hand +lifted, her face addressed to the tabernacle. There was a strangeness in +the sight of that immovable presence locked in prayer before an abandoned +shrine. Her face was hidden, and I wondered whether it were grief or +gratitude that raised her hands and drew her eyes to the altar, where no +living prayer joined her marble invocation. I followed my guide down the +tribune steps, impatient to see what mystic version of such terrestrial +graces the ingenious artist had found—the Cavaliere was master of such +arts. The Duchess’s attitude was one of transport, as though heavenly airs +fluttered her laces and the love-locks escaping from her coif. I saw how +admirably the sculptor had caught the poise of her head, the tender slope +of the shoulder; then I crossed over and looked into her face—it was a +frozen horror. Never have hate, revolt and agony so possessed a human +countenance....</p> + +<p>The old man crossed himself and shuffled his feet on the marble.</p> + +<p>“The Duchess Violante,” he repeated.</p> + +<p>“The same as in the picture?”</p> + +<p>“Eh—the same.”</p> + +<p>“But the face—what does it mean?”</p> + +<p>He shrugged his shoulders and turned deaf eyes on me. Then he shot a glance +round the sepulchral place, clutched my sleeve and said, close to my ear: +“It was not always so.”</p> + +<p>“What was not?”</p> + +<p>“The face—so terrible.”</p> + +<p>“The Duchess’s face?”</p> + +<p>“The statue’s. It changed after—“</p> + +<p>“After?”</p> + +<p>“It was put here.”</p> + +<p>“The statue’s face <i>changed</i>—?”</p> + +<p>He mistook my bewilderment for incredulity and his confidential finger +dropped from my sleeve. “Eh, that’s the story. I tell what I’ve heard. What +do I know?” He resumed his senile shuffle across the marble. “This is a bad +place to stay in—no one comes here. It’s too cold. But the gentleman said, +<i>I must see everything</i>!”</p> + +<p>I let the <i>lire</i> sound. “So I must—and hear everything. This story, +now—from whom did you have it?”</p> + +<p>His hand stole back. “One that saw it, by God!”</p> + +<p>“That saw it?”</p> + +<p>“My grandmother, then. I’m a very old man.”</p> + +<p>“Your grandmother? Your grandmother was—?”</p> + +<p>“The Duchess’s serving girl, with respect to you.”</p> + +<p>“Your grandmother? Two hundred years ago?”</p> + +<p>“Is it too long ago? That’s as God pleases. I am a very old man and she +was a very old woman when I was born. When she died she was as black as a +miraculous Virgin and her breath whistled like the wind in a keyhole. She +told me the story when I was a little boy. She told it to me out there in +the garden, on a bench by the fish-pond, one summer night of the year she +died. It must be true, for I can show you the very bench we sat on....”</p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>Noon lay heavier on the gardens; not our live humming warmth but the stale +exhalation of dead summers. The very statues seemed to drowse like watchers +by a death-bed. Lizards shot out of the cracked soil like flames and the +bench in the laurustinus-niche was strewn with the blue varnished bodies of +dead flies. Before us lay the fish-pond, a yellow marble slab above rotting +secrets. The villa looked across it, composed as a dead face, with the +cypresses flanking it for candles....</p> + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>“Impossible, you say, that my mother’s mother should have been the +Duchess’s maid? What do I know? It is so long since anything has happened +here that the old things seem nearer, perhaps, than to those who live in +cities.... But how else did she know about the statue then? Answer me that, +sir! That she saw with her eyes, I can swear to, and never smiled again, +so she told me, till they put her first child in her arms ... for she was +taken to wife by the steward’s son, Antonio, the same who had carried +the letters.... But where am I? Ah, well ... she was a mere slip, you +understand, my grandmother, when the Duchess died, a niece of the upper +maid, Nencia, and suffered about the Duchess because of her pranks and the +funny songs she knew. It’s possible, you think, she may have heard from +others what she afterward fancied she had seen herself? How that is, it’s +not for an unlettered man to say; though indeed I myself seem to have seen +many of the things she told me. This is a strange place. No one comes here, +nothing changes, and the old memories stand up as distinct as the statues +in the garden....</p> + +<p>“It began the summer after they came back from the Brenta. Duke Ercole had +married the lady from Venice, you must know; it was a gay city, then, I’m +told, with laughter and music on the water, and the days slipped by like +boats running with the tide. Well, to humor her he took her back the first +autumn to the Brenta. Her father, it appears, had a grand palace there, +with such gardens, bowling-alleys, grottoes and casinos as never were; +gondolas bobbing at the water-gates, a stable full of gilt coaches, a +theatre full of players, and kitchens and offices full of cooks and +lackeys to serve up chocolate all day long to the fine ladies in masks +and furbelows, with their pet dogs and their blackamoors and their +<i>abates</i>. Eh! I know it all as if I’d been there, for Nencia, you see, +my grandmother’s aunt, travelled with the Duchess, and came back with her +eyes round as platters, and not a word to say for the rest of the year to +any of the lads who’d courted her here in Vicenza.</p> + +<p>“What happened there I don’t know—my grandmother could never get at +the rights of it, for Nencia was mute as a fish where her lady was +concerned—but when they came back to Vicenza the Duke ordered the villa +set in order; and in the spring he brought the Duchess here and left her. +She looked happy enough, my grandmother said, and seemed no object for +pity. Perhaps, after all, it was better than being shut up in Vicenza, +in the tall painted rooms where priests came and went as softly as cats +prowling for birds, and the Duke was forever closeted in his library, +talking with learned men. The Duke was a scholar; you noticed he was +painted with a book? Well, those that can read ’em make out that they’re +full of wonderful things; as a man that’s been to a fair across the +mountains will always tell his people at home it was beyond anything +<i>they’ll</i> ever see. As for the Duchess, she was all for music, +play-acting and young company. The Duke was a silent man, stepping quietly, +with his eyes down, as though he’d just come from confession; when the +Duchess’s lap-dog yapped at his heels he danced like a man in a swarm of +hornets; when the Duchess laughed he winced as if you’d drawn a diamond +across a window-pane. And the Duchess was always laughing.</p> + +<p>“When she first came to the villa she was very busy laying out the gardens, +designing grottoes, planting groves and planning all manner of agreeable +surprises in the way of water-jets that drenched you unexpectedly, and +hermits in caves, and wild men that jumped at you out of thickets. She had +a very pretty taste in such matters, but after a while she tired of it, and +there being no one for her to talk to but her maids and the chaplain—a +clumsy man deep in his books—why, she would have strolling players out +from Vicenza, mountebanks and fortune-tellers from the market-place, +travelling doctors and astrologers, and all manner of trained animals. +Still it could be seen that the poor lady pined for company, and her +waiting women, who loved her, were glad when the Cavaliere Ascanio, the +Duke’s cousin, came to live at the vineyard across the valley—you see +the pinkish house over there in the mulberries, with a red roof and a +pigeon-cote?</p> + +<p>“The Cavaliere Ascanio was a cadet of one of the great Venetian houses, +<i>pezzi grossi</i> of the Golden Book. He had been meant for the Church, +I believe, but what! he set fighting above praying and cast in his lot with +the captain of the Duke of Mantua’s <i>bravi</i>, himself a Venetian of +good standing, but a little at odds with the law. Well, the next I know, +the Cavaliere was in Venice again, perhaps not in good odor on account of +his connection with the gentleman I speak of. Some say he tried to carry +off a nun from the convent of Santa Croce; how that may be I can’t say; but +my grandmother declared he had enemies there, and the end of it was that on +some pretext or other the Ten banished him to Vicenza. There, of course, +the Duke, being his kinsman, had to show him a civil face; and that was how +he first came to the villa.</p> + +<p>“He was a fine young man, beautiful as a Saint Sebastian, a rare musician, +who sang his own songs to the lute in a way that used to make my +grandmother’s heart melt and run through her body like mulled wine. He +had a good word for everybody, too, and was always dressed in the French +fashion, and smelt as sweet as a bean-field; and every soul about the place +welcomed the sight of him.</p> + +<p>“Well, the Duchess, it seemed, welcomed it too; youth will have youth, +and laughter turns to laughter; and the two matched each other like the +candlesticks on an altar. The Duchess—you’ve seen her portrait—but to +hear my grandmother, sir, it no more approached her than a weed comes up to +a rose. The Cavaliere, indeed, as became a poet, paragoned her in his song +to all the pagan goddesses of antiquity; and doubtless these were finer +to look at than mere women; but so, it seemed, was she; for, to believe +my grandmother, she made other women look no more than the big French +fashion-doll that used to be shown on Ascension days in the Piazza. She +was one, at any rate, that needed no outlandish finery to beautify her; +whatever dress she wore became her as feathers fit the bird; and her hair +didn’t get its color by bleaching on the housetop. It glittered of itself +like the threads in an Easter chasuble, and her skin was whiter than fine +wheaten bread and her mouth as sweet as a ripe fig....</p> + +<p>“Well, sir, you could no more keep them apart than the bees and the +lavender. They were always together, singing, bowling, playing cup and +ball, walking in the gardens, visiting the aviaries and petting her grace’s +trick-dogs and monkeys. The Duchess was as gay as a foal, always playing +pranks and laughing, tricking out her animals like comedians, disguising +herself as a peasant or a nun (you should have seen her one day pass +herself off to the chaplain as a mendicant sister), or teaching the lads +and girls of the vineyards to dance and sing madrigals together. The +Cavaliere had a singular ingenuity in planning such entertainments and the +days were hardly long enough for their diversions. But toward the end of +the summer the Duchess fell quiet and would hear only sad music, and the +two sat much together in the gazebo at the end of the garden. It was there +the Duke found them one day when he drove out from Vicenza in his gilt +coach. He came but once or twice a year to the villa, and it was, as my +grandmother said, just a part of her poor lady’s ill-luck to be wearing +that day the Venetian habit, which uncovered the shoulders in a way the +Duke always scowled at, and her curls loose and powdered with gold. Well, +the three drank chocolate in the gazebo, and what happened no one knew, +except that the Duke, on taking leave, gave his cousin a seat in his +carriage; but the Cavaliere never returned.</p> + +<p>“Winter approaching, and the poor lady thus finding herself once more +alone, it was surmised among her women that she must fall into a deeper +depression of spirits. But far from this being the case, she displayed such +cheerfulness and equanimity of humor that my grandmother, for one, was +half-vexed with her for giving no more thought to the poor young man who, +all this time, was eating his heart out in the house across the valley. It +is true she quitted her gold-laced gowns and wore a veil over her head; but +Nencia would have it she looked the lovelier for the change and so gave the +Duke greater displeasure. Certain it is that the Duke drove out oftener to +the villa, and though he found his lady always engaged in some innocent +pursuit, such as embroidery or music, or playing games with her young +women, yet he always went away with a sour look and a whispered word to +the chaplain. Now as to the chaplain, my grandmother owned there had been +a time when her grace had not handled him over-wisely. For, according to +Nencia, it seems that his reverence, who seldom approached the Duchess, +being buried in his library like a mouse in a cheese—well, one day he made +bold to appeal to her for a sum of money, a large sum, Nencia said, to buy +certain tall books, a chest full of them, that a foreign pedlar had brought +him; whereupon the Duchess, who could never abide a book, breaks out at +him with a laugh and a flash of her old spirit—‘Holy Mother of God, must +I have more books about me? I was nearly smothered with them in the first +year of my marriage;’ and the chaplain turning red at the affront, she +added: ‘You may buy them and welcome, my good chaplain, if you can find +the money; but as for me, I am yet seeking a way to pay for my turquoise +necklace, and the statue of Daphne at the end of the bowling-green, and +the Indian parrot that my black boy brought me last Michaelmas from the +Bohemians—so you see I’ve no money to waste on trifles;’ and as he backs +out awkwardly she tosses at him over her shoulder: ‘You should pray to +Saint Blandina to open the Duke’s pocket!’ to which he returned, very +quietly, ‘Your excellency’s suggestion is an admirable one, and I have +already entreated that blessed martyr to open the Duke’s understanding.’</p> + +<p>“Thereat, Nencia said (who was standing by), the Duchess flushed +wonderfully red and waved him out of the room; and then ‘Quick!’ she cried +to my grandmother (who was too glad to run on such errands), ‘Call me +Antonio, the gardener’s boy, to the box-garden; I’ve a word to say to him +about the new clove-carnations....’</p> + +<p>“Now I may not have told you, sir, that in the crypt under the chapel there +has stood, for more generations than a man can count, a stone coffin +containing a thighbone of the blessed Saint Blandina of Lyons, a relic +offered, I’ve been told, by some great Duke of France to one of our own +dukes when they fought the Turk together; and the object, ever since, of +particular veneration in this illustrious family. Now, since the Duchess +had been left to herself, it was observed she affected a fervent devotion +to this relic, praying often in the chapel and even causing the stone slab +that covered the entrance to the crypt to be replaced by a wooden one, +that she might at will descend and kneel by the coffin. This was matter of +edification to all the household and should have been peculiarly pleasing +to the chaplain; but, with respect to you, he was the kind of man who +brings a sour mouth to the eating of the sweetest apple.</p> + +<p>“However that may be, the Duchess, when she dismissed him, was seen running +to the garden, where she talked earnestly with the boy Antonio about the +new clove-carnations; and the rest of the day she sat indoors and played +sweetly on the virginal. Now Nencia always had it in mind that her grace +had made a mistake in refusing that request of the chaplain’s; but she said +nothing, for to talk reason to the Duchess was of no more use than praying +for rain in a drought.</p> + +<p>“Winter came early that year, there was snow on the hills by All Souls, +the wind stripped the gardens, and the lemon-trees were nipped in the +lemon-house. The Duchess kept her room in this black season, sitting over +the fire, embroidering, reading books of devotion (which was a thing she +had never done) and praying frequently in the chapel. As for the chaplain, +it was a place he never set foot in but to say mass in the morning, +with the Duchess overhead in the tribune, and the servants aching with +rheumatism on the marble floor. The chaplain himself hated the cold, and +galloped through the mass like a man with witches after him. The rest of +the day he spent in his library, over a brazier, with his eternal books....</p> + +<p>“You’ll wonder, sir, if I’m ever to get to the gist of the story; and I’ve +gone slowly, I own, for fear of what’s coming. Well, the winter was long +and hard. When it fell cold the Duke ceased to come out from Vicenza, +and not a soul had the Duchess to speak to but her maid-servants and the +gardeners about the place. Yet it was wonderful, my grandmother said, how +she kept her brave colors and her spirits; only it was remarked that she +prayed longer in the chapel, where a brazier was kept burning for her all +day. When the young are denied their natural pleasures they turn often +enough to religion; and it was a mercy, as my grandmother said, that she, +who had scarce a live sinner to speak to, should take such comfort in a +dead saint.</p> + +<p>“My grandmother seldom saw her that winter, for though she showed a brave +front to all she kept more and more to herself, choosing to have only +Nencia about her and dismissing even her when she went to pray. For +her devotion had that mark of true piety, that she wished it not to be +observed; so that Nencia had strict orders, on the chaplain’s approach, to +warn her mistress if she happened to be in prayer.</p> + +<p>“Well, the winter passed, and spring was well forward, when my grandmother +one evening had a bad fright. That it was her own fault I won’t deny, for +she’d been down the lime-walk with Antonio when her aunt fancied her to be +stitching in her chamber; and seeing a sudden light in Nencia’s window, she +took fright lest her disobedience be found out, and ran up quickly through +the laurel-grove to the house. Her way lay by the chapel, and as she crept +past it, meaning to slip in through the scullery, and groping her way, for +the dark had fallen and the moon was scarce up, she heard a crash close +behind her, as though someone had dropped from a window of the chapel. The +young fool’s heart turned over, but she looked round as she ran, and there, +sure enough, was a man scuttling across the terrace; and as he doubled +the corner of the house my grandmother swore she caught the whisk of the +chaplain’s skirts. Now that was a strange thing, certainly; for why should +the chaplain be getting out of the chapel window when he might have passed +through the door? For you may have noticed, sir, there’s a door leads from +the chapel into the saloon on the ground floor; the only other way out +being through the Duchess’s tribune.</p> + +<p>“Well, my grandmother turned the matter over, and next time she met Antonio +in the lime-walk (which, by reason of her fright, was not for some days) +she laid before him what had happened; but to her surprise he only laughed +and said, ‘You little simpleton, he wasn’t getting out of the window, he +was trying to look in’; and not another word could she get from him.</p> + +<p>“So the season moved on to Easter, and news came the Duke had gone to Rome +for that holy festivity. His comings and goings made no change at the +villa, and yet there was no one there but felt easier to think his yellow +face was on the far side of the Apennines, unless perhaps it was the +chaplain.</p> + +<p>“Well, it was one day in May that the Duchess, who had walked long with +Nencia on the terrace, rejoicing at the sweetness of the prospect and the +pleasant scent of the gilly-flowers in the stone vases, the Duchess toward +midday withdrew to her rooms, giving orders that her dinner should be +served in her bed-chamber. My grandmother helped to carry in the dishes, +and observed, she said, the singular beauty of the Duchess, who in honor +of the fine weather had put on a gown of shot-silver and hung her bare +shoulders with pearls, so that she looked fit to dance at court with an +emperor. She had ordered, too, a rare repast for a lady that heeded so +little what she ate—jellies, game-pasties, fruits in syrup, spiced cakes +and a flagon of Greek wine; and she nodded and clapped her hands as the +women set it before her, saying again and again, ‘I shall eat well to-day.’</p> + +<p>“But presently another mood seized her; she turned from the table, called +for her rosary, and said to Nencia: ‘The fine weather has made me neglect +my devotions. I must say a litany before I dine.’</p> + +<p>“She ordered the women out and barred the door, as her custom was; and +Nencia and my grandmother went down-stairs to work in the linen-room.</p> + +<p>“Now the linen-room gives on the court-yard, and suddenly my grandmother +saw a strange sight approaching. First up the avenue came the Duke’s +carriage (whom all thought to be in Rome), and after it, drawn by a long +string of mules and oxen, a cart carrying what looked like a kneeling +figure wrapped in death-clothes. The strangeness of it struck the girl dumb +and the Duke’s coach was at the door before she had the wit to cry out that +it was coming. Nencia, when she saw it, went white and ran out of the room. +My grandmother followed, scared by her face, and the two fled along the +corridor to the chapel. On the way they met the chaplain, deep in a book, +who asked in surprise where they were running, and when they said, to +announce the Duke’s arrival, he fell into such astonishment and asked them +so many questions and uttered such ohs and ahs, that by the time he let +them by the Duke was at their heels. Nencia reached the chapel-door first +and cried out that the Duke was coming; and before she had a reply he was +at her side, with the chaplain following.</p> + +<p>“A moment later the door opened and there stood the Duchess. She held her +rosary in one hand and had drawn a scarf over her shoulders; but they shone +through it like the moon in a mist, and her countenance sparkled with +beauty.</p> + +<p>“The Duke took her hand with a bow. ‘Madam,’ he said, ‘I could have had no +greater happiness than thus to surprise you at your devotions.’</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>My own happiness,’ she replied, ‘would have been greater had your +excellency prolonged it by giving me notice of your arrival.’</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Had you expected me, Madam,’ said he, ‘your appearance could scarcely +have been more fitted to the occasion. Few ladies of your youth and beauty +array themselves to venerate a saint as they would to welcome a lover.’</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Sir,’ she answered, ‘having never enjoyed the latter opportunity, I am +constrained to make the most of the former.—What’s that?’ she cried, +falling back, and the rosary dropped from her hand.</p> + +<p>“There was a loud noise at the other end of the saloon, as of a heavy +object being dragged down the passage; and presently a dozen men were seen +haling across the threshold the shrouded thing from the oxcart. The Duke +waved his hand toward it. ‘That,’ said he, ‘Madam, is a tribute to your +extraordinary piety. I have heard with peculiar satisfaction of your +devotion to the blessed relics in this chapel, and to commemorate a zeal +which neither the rigors of winter nor the sultriness of summer could abate +I have ordered a sculptured image of you, marvellously executed by the +Cavaliere Bernini, to be placed before the altar over the entrance to the +crypt.’</p> + +<p>“The Duchess, who had grown pale, nevertheless smiled playfully at this. +‘As to commemorating my piety,” she said, ‘I recognize there one of your +excellency’s pleasantries—’</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>A pleasantry?’ the Duke interrupted; and he made a sign to the men, who +had now reached the threshold of the chapel. In an instant the wrappings +fell from the figure, and there knelt the Duchess to the life. A cry of +wonder rose from all, but the Duchess herself stood whiter than the marble.</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>You will see,’ says the Duke, ‘this is no pleasantry, but a triumph +of the incomparable Bernini’s chisel. The likeness was done from your +miniature portrait by the divine Elisabetta Sirani, which I sent to the +master some six months ago, with what results all must admire.’</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Six months!’ cried the Duchess, and seemed about to fall; but his +excellency caught her by the hand.</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Nothing,’ he said, ‘could better please me than the excessive emotion you +display, for true piety is ever modest, and your thanks could not take a +form that better became you. And now,’ says he to the men, ‘let the image +be put in place.’</p> + +<p>“By this, life seemed to have returned to the Duchess, and she answered him +with a deep reverence. ‘That I should be overcome by so unexpected a grace, +your excellency admits to be natural; but what honors you accord it is my +privilege to accept, and I entreat only that in mercy to my modesty the +image be placed in the remotest part of the chapel.’</p> + +<p>“At that the Duke darkened. ‘What! You would have this masterpiece of a +renowned chisel, which, I disguise not, cost me the price of a good +vineyard in gold pieces, you would have it thrust out of sight like the +work of a village stonecutter?’</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>It is my semblance, not the sculptor’s work, I desire to conceal.’</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>It you are fit for my house, Madam, you are fit for God’s, and entitled +to the place of honor in both. Bring the statue forward, you dawdlers!’ he +called out to the men.</p> + +<p>“The Duchess fell back submissively. ‘You are right, sir, as always; but I +would at least have the image stand on the left of the altar, that, looking +up, it may behold your excellency’s seat in the tribune.’</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>A pretty thought, Madam, for which I thank you; but I design before long +to put my companion image on the other side of the altar; and the wife’s +place, as you know, is at her husband’s right hand.’</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>True, my lord—but, again, if my poor presentment is to have the +unmerited honor of kneeling beside yours, why not place both before the +altar, where it is our habit to pray in life?’</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>And where, Madam, should we kneel if they took our places? Besides,’ says +the Duke, still speaking very blandly, ‘I have a more particular purpose +in placing your image over the entrance to the crypt; for not only would I +thereby mark your special devotion to the blessed saint who rests there, +but, by sealing up the opening in the pavement, would assure the perpetual +preservation of that holy martyr’s bones, which hitherto have been too +thoughtlessly exposed to sacrilegious attempts.’</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>What attempts, my lord?’ cries the Duchess. ‘No one enters this chapel +without my leave.’</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>So I have understood, and can well believe from what I have learned of +your piety; yet at night a malefactor might break in through a window, +Madam, and your excellency not know it.’</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>I’m a light sleeper,’ said the Duchess.</p> + +<p>“The Duke looked at her gravely. ‘Indeed?’ said he. ‘A bad sign at your +age. I must see that you are provided with a sleeping-draught.’</p> + +<p>“The Duchess’s eyes filled. ‘You would deprive me, then, of the consolation +of visiting those venerable relics?’</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>I would have you keep eternal guard over them, knowing no one to whose +care they may more fittingly be entrusted.’</p> + +<p>“By this the image was brought close to the wooden slab that covered the +entrance to the crypt, when the Duchess, springing forward, placed herself +in the way.</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Sir, let the statue be put in place to-morrow, and suffer me, to-night, +to say a last prayer beside those holy bones.’</p> + +<p>“The Duke stepped instantly to her side. ‘Well thought, Madam; I will go +down with you now, and we will pray together.’</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Sir, your long absences have, alas! given me the habit of solitary +devotion, and I confess that any presence is distracting.’</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Madam, I accept your rebuke. Hitherto, it is true, the duties of my +station have constrained me to long absences; but henceforward I remain +with you while you live. Shall we go down into the crypt together?”</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>No; for I fear for your excellency’s ague. The air there is excessively +damp.’</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>The more reason you should no longer be exposed to it; and to prevent the +intemperance of your zeal I will at once make the place inaccessible.’</p> + +<p>“The Duchess at this fell on her knees on the slab, weeping excessively and +lifting her hands to heaven.</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Oh,’ she cried, ‘you are cruel, sir, to deprive me of access to the +sacred relics that have enabled me to support with resignation the solitude +to which your excellency’s duties have condemned me; and if prayer and +meditation give me any authority to pronounce on such matters, suffer me to +warn you, sir, that I fear the blessed Saint Blandina will punish us for +thus abandoning her venerable remains!’</p> + +<p>“The Duke at this seemed to pause, for he was a pious man, and my +grandmother thought she saw him exchange a glance with the chaplain; who, +stepping timidly forward, with his eyes on the ground, said, ‘There is +indeed much wisdom in her excellency’s words, but I would suggest, sir, +that her pious wish might be met, and the saint more conspicuously honored, +by transferring the relics from the crypt to a place beneath the altar.’</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>True!’ cried the Duke, ‘and it shall be done at once.’</p> + +<p>“But thereat the Duchess rose to her feet with a terrible look.</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>No,’ she cried, ‘by the body of God! For it shall not be said that, after +your excellency has chosen to deny every request I addressed to him, I owe +his consent to the solicitation of another!’</p> + +<p>“The chaplain turned red and the Duke yellow, and for a moment neither +spoke.</p> + +<p>“Then the Duke said, ‘Here are words enough, Madam. Do you wish the relics +brought up from the crypt?’</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>I wish nothing that I owe to another’s intervention!’</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Put the image in place then,’ says the Duke furiously; and handed her +grace to a chair.</p> + +<p>“She sat there, my grandmother said, straight as an arrow, her hands +locked, her head high, her eyes on the Duke, while the statue was dragged +to its place; then she stood up and turned away. As she passed by Nencia, +‘Call me Antonio,’ she whispered; but before the words were out of her +mouth the Duke stepped between them.</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Madam,’ says he, all smiles now, ‘I have travelled straight from Rome to +bring you the sooner this proof of my esteem. I lay last night at Monselice +and have been on the road since daybreak. Will you not invite me to +supper?’</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Surely, my lord,’ said the Duchess. ‘It shall be laid in the +dining-parlor within the hour.’</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Why not in your chamber and at once, Madam? Since I believe it is your +custom to sup there.’</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>In my chamber?’ says the Duchess, in disorder.</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Have you anything against it?’ he asked.</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Assuredly not, sir, if you will give me time to prepare myself.’</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>I will wait in your cabinet,’ said the Duke.</p> + +<p>“At that, said my grandmother, the Duchess gave one look, as the souls in +hell may have looked when the gates closed on our Lord; then she called +Nencia and passed to her chamber.</p> + +<p>“What happened there my grandmother could never learn, but that the +Duchess, in great haste, dressed herself with extraordinary splendor, +powdering her hair with gold, painting her face and bosom, and covering +herself with jewels till she shone like our Lady of Loreto; and hardly +were these preparations complete when the Duke entered from the cabinet, +followed by the servants carrying supper. Thereupon the Duchess dismissed +Nencia, and what follows my grandmother learned from a pantry-lad who +brought up the dishes and waited in the cabinet; for only the Duke’s +body-servant entered the bed-chamber.</p> + +<p>“Well, according to this boy, sir, who was looking and listening with his +whole body, as it were, because he had never before been suffered so near +the Duchess, it appears that the noble couple sat down in great good humor, +the Duchess playfully reproving her husband for his long absence, while the +Duke swore that to look so beautiful was the best way of punishing him. +In this tone the talk continued, with such gay sallies on the part of the +Duchess, such tender advances on the Duke’s, that the lad declared they +were for all the world like a pair of lovers courting on a summer’s night +in the vineyard; and so it went till the servant brought in the mulled +wine.</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Ah,’ the Duke was saying at that moment, ‘this agreeable evening repays +me for the many dull ones I have spent away from you; nor do I remember +to have enjoyed such laughter since the afternoon last year when we drank +chocolate in the gazebo with my cousin Ascanio. And that reminds me,’ he +said, ‘is my cousin in good health?’</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>I have no reports of it,’ says the Duchess. ‘But your excellency should +taste these figs stewed in malmsey—’</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>I am in the mood to taste whatever you offer,’ said he; and as she helped +him to the figs he added, ‘If my enjoyment were not complete as it is, +I could almost wish my cousin Ascanio were with us. The fellow is rare +good company at supper. What do you say, Madam? I hear he’s still in the +country; shall we send for him to join us?’</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Ah,’ said the Duchess, with a sigh and a languishing look, ‘I see your +excellency wearies of me already.’</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>I, Madam? Ascanio is a capital good fellow, but to my mind his chief +merit at this moment is his absence. It inclines me so tenderly to him +that, by God, I could empty a glass to his good health.’</p> + +<p>“With that the Duke caught up his goblet and signed to the servant to fill +the Duchess’s.</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Here’s to the cousin,’ he cried, standing, ‘who has the good taste to +stay away when he’s not wanted. I drink to his very long life—and you, +Madam?’</p> + +<p>“At this the Duchess, who had sat staring at him with a changed face, rose +also and lifted her glass to her lips.</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>And I to his happy death,’ says she in a wild voice; and as she spoke the +empty goblet dropped from her hand and she fell face down on the floor.</p> + +<p>“The Duke shouted to her women that she had swooned, and they came and +lifted her to the bed.... She suffered horribly all night, Nencia said, +twisting herself like a heretic at the stake, but without a word escaping +her. The Duke watched by her, and toward daylight sent for the chaplain; +but by this she was unconscious and, her teeth being locked, our Lord’s +body could not be passed through them.</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p>“The Duke announced to his relations that his lady had died after partaking +too freely of spiced wine and an omelet of carp’s roe, at a supper she had +prepared in honor of his return; and the next year he brought home a new +Duchess, who gave him a son and five daughters....”</p> + +<h3>V</h3> + +<p>The sky had turned to a steel gray, against which the villa stood out +sallow and inscrutable. A wind strayed through the gardens, loosening here +and there a yellow leaf from the sycamores; and the hills across the valley +were purple as thunder-clouds.</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p>“And the statue—?” I asked.</p> + +<p>“Ah, the statue. Well, sir, this is what my grandmother told me, here on +this very bench where we’re sitting. The poor child, who worshipped the +Duchess as a girl of her years will worship a beautiful kind mistress, +spent a night of horror, you may fancy, shut out from her lady’s room, +hearing the cries that came from it, and seeing, as she crouched in her +corner, the women rush to and fro with wild looks, the Duke’s lean face in +the door, and the chaplain skulking in the antechamber with his eyes on +his breviary. No one minded her that night or the next morning; and toward +dusk, when it became known the Duchess was no more, the poor girl felt the +pious wish to say a prayer for her dead mistress. She crept to the chapel +and stole in unobserved. The place was empty and dim, but as she advanced +she heard a low moaning, and coming in front of the statue she saw that +its face, the day before so sweet and smiling, had the look on it that you +know—and the moaning seemed to come from its lips. My grandmother turned +cold, but something, she said afterward, kept her from calling or shrieking +out, and she turned and ran from the place. In the passage she fell in a +swoon; and when she came to her senses, in her own chamber, she heard that +the Duke had locked the chapel door and forbidden any to set foot there.... +The place was never opened again till the Duke died, some ten years later; +and then it was that the other servants, going in with the new heir, +saw for the first time the horror that my grandmother had kept in her +bosom....”</p> + +<p>“And the crypt?” I asked. “Has it never been opened?”</p> + +<p>“Heaven forbid, sir!” cried the old man, crossing himself. “Was it not the +Duchess’s express wish that the relics should not be disturbed?”</p> + +<h2><a name="THE_ANGEL_AT_THE_GRAVE" id="THE_ANGEL_AT_THE_GRAVE"></a>THE ANGEL AT THE GRAVE</h2> + +<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">The</span> House stood a few yards back from the elm-shaded village street, +in that semi-publicity sometimes cited as a democratic protest against +old-world standards of domestic exclusiveness. This candid exposure to +the public eye is more probably a result of the gregariousness which, in +the New England bosom, oddly coexists with a shrinking from direct social +contact; most of the inmates of such houses preferring that furtive +intercourse which is the result of observations through shuttered windows +and a categorical acquaintance with the neighboring clothes-lines. The +House, however, faced its public with a difference. For sixty years it had +written itself with a capital letter, had self-consciously squared itself +in the eye of an admiring nation. The most searching inroads of village +intimacy hardly counted in a household that opened on the universe; and a +lady whose door-bell was at any moment liable to be rung by visitors from +London or Vienna was not likely to flutter up-stairs when she observed a +neighbor “stepping over.”</p> + +<p>The solitary inmate of the Anson House owed this induration of the social +texture to the most conspicuous accident in her annals: the fact that she +was the only granddaughter of the great Orestes Anson. She had been born, +as it were, into a museum, and cradled in a glass case with a label; +the first foundations of her consciousness being built on the rock of +her grandfather’s celebrity. To a little girl who acquires her earliest +knowledge of literature through a <i>Reader</i> embellished with fragments +of her ancestor’s prose, that personage necessarily fills an heroic space +in the foreground of life. To communicate with one’s past through the +impressive medium of print, to have, as it were, a footing in every library +in the country, and an acknowledged kinship with that world-diffused clan, +the descendants of the great, was to be pledged to a standard of manners +that amazingly simplified the lesser relations of life. The village street +on which Paulina Anson’s youth looked out led to all the capitals of +Europe; and over the roads of intercommunication unseen caravans bore back +to the elm-shaded House the tribute of an admiring world.</p> + +<p>Fate seemed to have taken a direct share in fitting Paulina for her part as +the custodian of this historic dwelling. It had long been secretly regarded +as a “visitation” by the great man’s family that he had left no son and +that his daughters were not “intellectual.” The ladies themselves were the +first to lament their deficiency, to own that nature had denied them the +gift of making the most of their opportunities. A profound veneration for +their parent and an unswerving faith in his doctrines had not amended their +congenital incapacity to understand what he had written. Laura, who had her +moments of mute rebellion against destiny, had sometimes thought how much +easier it would have been if their progenitor had been a poet; for she +could recite, with feeling, portions of <i>The Culprit Fay</i> and of the +poems of Mrs. Hemans; and Phoebe, who was more conspicuous for memory than +imagination, kept an album filled with “selections.” But the great man +was a philosopher; and to both daughters respiration was difficult on the +cloudy heights of metaphysic. The situation would have been intolerable +but for the fact that, while Phoebe and Laura were still at school, +their father’s fame had passed from the open ground of conjecture to the +chill privacy of certitude. Dr. Anson had in fact achieved one of those +anticipated immortalities not uncommon at a time when people were apt to +base their literary judgments on their emotions, and when to affect plain +food and despise England went a long way toward establishing a man’s +intellectual pre-eminence. Thus, when the daughters were called on to +strike a filial attitude about their parent’s pedestal, there was little +to do but to pose gracefully and point upward; and there are spines to +which the immobility of worship is not a strain. A legend had by this time +crystallized about the great Orestes, and it was of more immediate interest +to the public to hear what brand of tea he drank, and whether he took off +his boots in the hall, than to rouse the drowsy echo of his dialectic. A +great man never draws so near his public as when it has become unnecessary +to read his books and is still interesting to know what he eats for +breakfast.</p> + +<p>As recorders of their parent’s domestic habits, as pious scavengers of his +waste-paper basket, the Misses Anson were unexcelled. They always had an +interesting anecdote to impart to the literary pilgrim, and the tact with +which, in later years, they intervened between the public and the growing +inaccessibility of its idol, sent away many an enthusiast satisfied to have +touched the veil before the sanctuary. Still it was felt, especially by old +Mrs. Anson, who survived her husband for some years, that Phoebe and Laura +were not worthy of their privileges. There had been a third daughter so +unworthy of hers that she had married a distant cousin, who had taken her +to live in a new Western community where the <i>Works of Orestes Anson</i> +had not yet become a part of the civic consciousness; but of this daughter +little was said, and she was tacitly understood to be excluded from the +family heritage of fame. In time, however, it appeared that the traditional +penny with which she had been cut off had been invested to unexpected +advantage; and the interest on it, when she died, returned to the Anson +House in the shape of a granddaughter who was at once felt to be what Mrs. +Anson called a “compensation.” It was Mrs. Anson’s firm belief that the +remotest operations of nature were governed by the centripetal force of her +husband’s greatness and that Paulina’s exceptional intelligence could be +explained only on the ground that she was designed to act as the guardian +of the family temple.</p> + +<p>The House, by the time Paulina came to live in it, had already acquired +the publicity of a place of worship; not the perfumed chapel of a romantic +idolatry but the cold clean empty meeting-house of ethical enthusiasms. The +ladies lived on its outskirts, as it were, in cells that left the central +fane undisturbed. The very position of the furniture had come to have a +ritual significance: the sparse ornaments were the offerings of kindred +intellects, the steel engravings by Raphael Morghen marked the Via Sacra +of a European tour, and the black-walnut desk with its bronze inkstand +modelled on the Pantheon was the altar of this bleak temple of thought.</p> + +<p>To a child compact of enthusiasms, and accustomed to pasture them on the +scanty herbage of a new social soil, the atmosphere of the old house was +full of floating nourishment. In the compressed perspective of Paulina’s +outlook it stood for a monument of ruined civilizations, and its white +portico opened on legendary distances. Its very aspect was impressive +to eyes that had first surveyed life from the jig-saw “residence” of a +raw-edged Western town. The high-ceilinged rooms, with their panelled +walls, their polished mahogany, their portraits of triple-stocked ancestors +and of ringleted “females” in crayon, furnished the child with the historic +scenery against which a young imagination constructs its vision of the +past. To other eyes the cold spotless thinly-furnished interior might have +suggested the shuttered mind of a maiden-lady who associates fresh air and +sunlight with dust and discoloration; but it is the eye which supplies the +coloring-matter, and Paulina’s brimmed with the richest hues.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, the House did not immediately dominate her. She had her +confused out-reachings toward other centres of sensation, her vague +intuition of a heliocentric system; but the attraction of habit, the steady +pressure of example, gradually fixed her roving allegiance and she bent her +neck to the yoke. Vanity had a share in her subjugation; for it had early +been discovered that she was the only person in the family who could read +her grandfather’s works. The fact that she had perused them with delight at +an age when (even presupposing a metaphysical bias) it was impossible for +her to understand them, seemed to her aunts and grandmother sure evidence +of predestination. Paulina was to be the interpreter of the oracle, and the +philosophic fumes so vertiginous to meaner minds would throw her into the +needed condition of clairvoyance. Nothing could have been more genuine than +the emotion on which this theory was based. Paulina, in fact, delighted in +her grandfather’s writings. His sonorous periods, his mystic vocabulary, +his bold flights into the rarefied air of the abstract, were thrilling to +a fancy unhampered by the need of definitions. This purely verbal pleasure +was supplemented later by the excitement of gathering up crumbs of meaning +from the rhetorical board. What could have been more stimulating than +to construct the theory of a girlish world out of the fragments of this +Titanic cosmogony? Before Paulina’s opinions had reached the stage when +ossification sets in their form was fatally predetermined.</p> + +<p>The fact that Dr. Anson had died and that his apotheosis had taken +place before his young priestess’s induction to the temple, made her +ministrations easier and more inspiring. There were no little personal +traits—such as the great man’s manner of helping himself to salt, or the +guttural cluck that started the wheels of speech—to distract the eye +of young veneration from the central fact of his divinity. A man whom +one knows only through a crayon portrait and a dozen yellowing, tomes on +free-will and intuition is at least secure from the belittling effects of +intimacy.</p> + +<p>Paulina thus grew up in a world readjusted to the fact of her grandfather’s +greatness; and as each organism draws from its surroundings the kind of +nourishment most needful to its growth, so from this somewhat colorless +conception she absorbed warmth, brightness and variety. Paulina was the +type of woman who transmutes thought into sensation and nurses a theory in +her bosom like a child.</p> + +<p>In due course Mrs. Anson “passed away”—no one died in the Anson +vocabulary—and Paulina became more than ever the foremost figure of the +commemorative group. Laura and Phoebe, content to leave their father’s +glory in more competent hands, placidly lapsed into needlework and fiction, +and their niece stepped into immediate prominence as the chief “authority” +on the great man. Historians who were “getting up” the period wrote to +consult her and to borrow documents; ladies with inexplicable yearnings +begged for an interpretation of phrases which had “influenced” them, but +which they had not quite understood; critics applied to her to verify some +doubtful citation or to decide some disputed point in chronology; and the +great tide of thought and investigation kept up a continuous murmur on the +quiet shores of her life.</p> + +<p>An explorer of another kind disembarked there one day in the shape +of a young man to whom Paulina was primarily a kissable girl, with an +after-thought in the shape of a grandfather. From the outset it had been +impossible to fix Hewlett Winsloe’s attention on Dr. Anson. The young man +behaved with the innocent profanity of infants sporting on a tomb. His +excuse was that he came from New York, a Cimmerian outskirt which survived +in Paulina’s geography only because Dr. Anson had gone there once or twice +to lecture. The curious thing was that she should have thought it worth +while to find excuses for young Winsloe. The fact that she did so had not +escaped the attention of the village; but people, after a gasp of awe, said +it was the most natural thing in the world that a girl like Paulina Anson +should think of marrying. It would certainly seem a little odd to see a +man in the House, but young Winsloe would of course understand that the +Doctor’s books were not to be disturbed, and that he must go down to the +orchard to smoke—. The village had barely framed this <i>modus vivendi</i> +when it was convulsed by the announcement that young Winsloe declined to +live in the House on any terms. Hang going down to the orchard to smoke! +He meant to take his wife to New York. The village drew its breath and +watched.</p> + +<p>Did Persephone, snatched from the warm fields of Enna, peer +half-consentingly down the abyss that opened at her feet? Paulina, it must +be owned, hung a moment over the black gulf of temptation. She would have +found it easy to cope with a deliberate disregard of her grandfather’s +rights; but young Winsloe’s unconsciousness of that shadowy claim was as +much a natural function as the falling of leaves on a grave. His love was +an embodiment of the perpetual renewal which to some tender spirits seems a +crueller process than decay.</p> + +<p>On women of Paulina’s mould this piety toward implicit demands, toward +the ghosts of dead duties walking unappeased among usurping passions, +has a stronger hold than any tangible bond. People said that she gave up +young Winsloe because her aunts disapproved of her leaving them; but such +disapproval as reached her was an emanation from the walls of the House, +from the bare desk, the faded portraits, the dozen yellowing tomes that no +hand but hers ever lifted from the shelf.</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>After that the House possessed her. As if conscious of its victory, it +imposed a conqueror’s claims. It had once been suggested that she should +write a life of her grandfather, and the task from which she had shrunk as +from a too-oppressive privilege now shaped itself into a justification of +her course. In a burst of filial pantheism she tried to lose herself in the +vast ancestral consciousness. Her one refuge from scepticism was a blind +faith in the magnitude and the endurance of the idea to which she had +sacrificed her life, and with a passionate instinct of self-preservation +she labored to fortify her position.</p> + +<p>The preparations for the <i>Life</i> led her through by-ways that the most +scrupulous of the previous biographers had left unexplored. She accumulated +her material with a blind animal patience unconscious of fortuitous risks. +The years stretched before her like some vast blank page spread out to +receive the record of her toil; and she had a mystic conviction that she +would not die till her work was accomplished.</p> + +<p>The aunts, sustained by no such high purpose, withdrew in turn to their +respective divisions of the Anson “plot,” and Paulina remained alone with +her task. She was forty when the book was completed. She had travelled +little in her life, and it had become more and more difficult to her to +leave the House even for a day; but the dread of entrusting her document to +a strange hand made her decide to carry it herself to the publisher. On the +way to Boston she had a sudden vision of the loneliness to which this last +parting condemned her. All her youth, all her dreams, all her renunciations +lay in that neat bundle on her knee. It was not so much her grandfather’s +life as her own that she had written; and the knowledge that it would come +back to her in all the glorification of print was of no more help than, to +a mother’s grief, the assurance that the lad she must part with will return +with epaulets.</p> + +<p>She had naturally addressed herself to the firm which had published her +grandfather’s works. Its founder, a personal friend of the philosopher’s, +had survived the Olympian group of which he had been a subordinate member, +long enough to bestow his octogenarian approval on Paulina’s pious +undertaking. But he had died soon afterward; and Miss Anson found herself +confronted by his grandson, a person with a brisk commercial view of his +trade, who was said to have put “new blood” into the firm.</p> + +<p>This gentleman listened attentively, fingering her manuscript as though +literature were a tactile substance; then, with a confidential twist of his +revolving chair, he emitted the verdict: “We ought to have had this ten +years sooner.”</p> + +<p>Miss Anson took the words as an allusion to the repressed avidity of her +readers. “It has been a long time for the public to wait,” she solemnly +assented.</p> + +<p>The publisher smiled. “They haven’t waited,” he said.</p> + +<p>She looked at him strangely. “Haven’t waited?”</p> + +<p>“No—they’ve gone off; taken another train. Literature’s like a big +railway-station now, you know: there’s a train starting every minute. +People are not going to hang round the waiting-room. If they can’t get +to a place when they want to they go somewhere else.”</p> + +<p>The application of this parable cost Miss Anson several minutes of +throbbing silence. At length she said: “Then I am to understand that the +public is no longer interested in—in my grandfather?” She felt as though +heaven must blast the lips that risked such a conjecture.</p> + +<p>“Well, it’s this way. He’s a name still, of course. People don’t exactly +want to be caught not knowing who he is; but they don’t want to spend +two dollars finding out, when they can look him up for nothing in any +biographical dictionary.”</p> + +<p>Miss Anson’s world reeled. She felt herself adrift among mysterious forces, +and no more thought of prolonging the discussion than of opposing an +earthquake with argument. She went home carrying the manuscript like a +wounded thing. On the return journey she found herself travelling straight +toward a fact that had lurked for months in the background of her life, +and that now seemed to await her on the very threshold: the fact that +fewer visitors came to the House. She owned to herself that for the last +four or five years the number had steadily diminished. Engrossed in her +work, she had noted the change only to feel thankful that she had fewer +interruptions. There had been a time when, at the travelling season, the +bell rang continuously, and the ladies of the House lived in a chronic +state of “best silks” and expectancy. It would have been impossible then to +carry on any consecutive work; and she now saw that the silence which had +gathered round her task had been the hush of death.</p> + +<p>Not of <i>his</i> death! The very walls cried out against the implication. +It was the world’s enthusiasm, the world’s faith, the world’s loyalty that +had died. A corrupt generation that had turned aside to worship the brazen +serpent. Her heart yearned with a prophetic passion over the lost sheep +straying in the wilderness. But all great glories had their interlunar +period; and in due time her grandfather would once more flash full-orbed +upon a darkling world.</p> + +<p>The few friends to whom she confided her adventure reminded her with +tender indignation that there were other publishers less subject to the +fluctuations of the market; but much as she had braved for her grandfather +she could not again brave that particular probation. She found herself, +in fact, incapable of any immediate effort. She had lost her way in a +labyrinth of conjecture where her worst dread was that she might put her +hand upon the clue.</p> + +<p>She locked up the manuscript and sat down to wait. If a pilgrim had come +just then the priestess would have fallen on his neck; but she continued +to celebrate her rites alone. It was a double solitude; for she had always +thought a great deal more of the people who came to see the House than of +the people who came to see her. She fancied that the neighbors kept a keen +eye on the path to the House; and there were days when the figure of a +stranger strolling past the gate seemed to focus upon her the scorching +sympathies of the village. For a time she thought of travelling; of going +to Europe, or even to Boston; but to leave the House now would have +seemed like deserting her post. Gradually her scattered energies centred +themselves in the fierce resolve to understand what had happened. She was +not the woman to live long in an unmapped country or to accept as final +her private interpretation of phenomena. Like a traveller in unfamiliar +regions she began to store for future guidance the minutest natural signs. +Unflinchingly she noted the accumulating symptoms of indifference that +marked her grandfather’s descent toward posterity. She passed from the +heights on which he had been grouped with the sages of his day to the lower +level where he had come to be “the friend of Emerson,” “the correspondent +of Hawthorne,” or (later still) “the Dr. Anson” mentioned in their letters. +The change had taken place as slowly and imperceptibly as a natural +process. She could not say that any ruthless hand had stripped the leaves +from the tree: it was simply that, among the evergreen glories of his +group, her grandfather’s had proved deciduous.</p> + +<p>She had still to ask herself why. If the decay had been a natural process, +was it not the very pledge of renewal? It was easier to find such arguments +than to be convinced by them. Again and again she tried to drug her +solicitude with analogies; but at last she saw that such expedients were +but the expression of a growing incredulity. The best way of proving her +faith in her grandfather was not to be afraid of his critics. She had no +notion where these shadowy antagonists lurked; for she had never heard of +the great man’s doctrine being directly combated. Oblique assaults there +must have been, however, Parthian shots at the giant that none dared face; +and she thirsted to close with such assailants. The difficulty was to +find them. She began by re-reading the <i>Works</i>; thence she passed to +the writers of the same school, those whose rhetoric bloomed perennial +in <i>First Readers</i> from which her grandfather’s prose had long +since faded. Amid that clamor of far-off enthusiasms she detected no +controversial note. The little knot of Olympians held their views in common +with an early-Christian promiscuity. They were continually proclaiming +their admiration for each other, the public joining as chorus in this +guileless antiphon of praise; and she discovered no traitor in their midst.</p> + +<p>What then had happened? Was it simply that the main current of thought +had set another way? Then why did the others survive? Why were they still +marked down as tributaries to the philosophic stream? This question carried +her still farther afield, and she pressed on with the passion of a champion +whose reluctance to know the worst might be construed into a doubt of his +cause. At length—slowly but inevitably—an explanation shaped itself. +Death had overtaken the doctrines about which her grandfather had draped +his cloudy rhetoric. They had disintegrated and been re-absorbed, adding +their little pile to the dust drifted about the mute lips of the Sphinx. +The great man’s contemporaries had survived not by reason of what they +taught, but of what they were; and he, who had been the mere mask through +which they mouthed their lesson, the instrument on which their tune was +played, lay buried deep among the obsolete tools of thought.</p> + +<p>The discovery came to Paulina suddenly. She looked up one evening from her +reading and it stood before her like a ghost. It had entered her life with +stealthy steps, creeping close before she was aware of it. She sat in the +library, among the carefully-tended books and portraits; and it seemed to +her that she had been walled alive into a tomb hung with the effigies of +dead ideas. She felt a desperate longing to escape into the outer air, +where people toiled and loved, and living sympathies went hand in hand. It +was the sense of wasted labor that oppressed her; of two lives consumed in +that ruthless process that uses generations of effort to build a single +cell. There was a dreary parallel between her grandfather’s fruitless +toil and her own unprofitable sacrifice. Each in turn had kept vigil by a +corpse.</p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>The bell rang—she remembered it afterward—with a loud thrilling note. It +was what they used to call the “visitor’s ring”; not the tentative tinkle +of a neighbor dropping in to borrow a sauce-pan or discuss parochial +incidents, but a decisive summons from the outer world.</p> + +<p>Miss Anson put down her knitting and listened. She sat up-stairs now, +making her rheumatism an excuse for avoiding the rooms below. Her interests +had insensibly adjusted themselves to the perspective of her neighbors’ +lives, and she wondered—as the bell re-echoed—if it could mean that Mrs. +Heminway’s baby had come. Conjecture had time to ripen into certainty, and +she was limping toward the closet where her cloak and bonnet hung, when her +little maid fluttered in with the announcement: “A gentleman to see the +house.”</p> + +<p>“The <i>House</i>?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, m’m. I don’t know what he means,” faltered the messenger, whose +memory did not embrace the period when such announcements were a daily part +of the domestic routine.</p> + +<p>Miss Anson glanced at the proffered card. The name it bore—<i>Mr. George +Corby</i>—was unknown to her, but the blood rose to her languid cheek. +“Hand me my Mechlin cap, Katy,” she said, trembling a little, as she laid +aside her walking stick. She put her cap on before the mirror, with rapid +unsteady touches. “Did you draw up the library blinds?” she breathlessly +asked.</p> + +<p>She had gradually built up a wall of commonplace between herself and her +illusions, but at the first summons of the past filial passion swept away +the frail barriers of expediency.</p> + +<p>She walked down-stairs so hurriedly that her stick clicked like a girlish +heel; but in the hall she paused, wondering nervously if Katy had put a +match to the fire. The autumn air was cold and she had the reproachful +vision of a visitor with elderly ailments shivering by her inhospitable +hearth. She thought instinctively of the stranger as a survivor of the days +when such a visit was a part of the young enthusiast’s itinerary.</p> + +<p>The fire was unlit and the room forbiddingly cold; but the figure which, as +Miss Anson entered, turned from a lingering scrutiny of the book-shelves, +was that of a fresh-eyed sanguine youth clearly independent of any +artificial caloric. She stood still a moment, feeling herself the victim of +some anterior impression that made this robust presence an insubstantial +thing; but the young man advanced with an air of genial assurance which +rendered him at once more real and more reminiscent.</p> + +<p>“Why this, you know,” he exclaimed, “is simply immense!”</p> + +<p>The words, which did not immediately present themselves as slang to Miss +Anson’s unaccustomed ear, echoed with an odd familiarity through the +academic silence.</p> + +<p>“The room, you know, I mean,” he explained with a comprehensive gesture. +“These jolly portraits, and the books—that’s the old gentleman himself +over the mantelpiece, I suppose?—and the elms outside, and—and the whole +business. I do like a congruous background—don’t you?”</p> + +<p>His hostess was silent. No one but Hewlett Winsloe had ever spoken of her +grandfather as “the old gentleman.”</p> + +<p>“It’s a hundred times better than I could have hoped,” her visitor +continued, with a cheerful disregard of her silence. “The seclusion, the +remoteness, the philosophic atmosphere—there’s so little of that kind +of flavor left! I should have simply hated to find that he lived over +a grocery, you know.—I had the deuce of a time finding out where he +<i>did</i> live,” he began again, after another glance of parenthetical +enjoyment. “But finally I got on the trail through some old book on Brook +Farm. I was bound I’d get the environment right before I did my article.”</p> + +<p>Miss Anson, by this time, had recovered sufficient self-possession to seat +herself and assign a chair to her visitor.</p> + +<p>“Do I understand,” she asked slowly, following his rapid eye about the +room, “that you intend to write an article about my grandfather?”</p> + +<p>“That’s what I’m here for,” Mr. Corby genially responded; “that is, if +you’re willing to help me; for I can’t get on without your help,” he added +with a confident smile.</p> + +<p>There was another pause, during which Miss Anson noticed a fleck of dust on +the faded leather of the writing-table and a fresh spot of discoloration in +the right-hand upper corner of Raphael Morghen’s “Parnassus.”</p> + +<p>“Then you believe in him?” she said, looking up. She could not tell what +had prompted her; the words rushed out irresistibly.</p> + +<p>“Believe in him?” Corby cried, springing to his feet. “Believe in Orestes +Anson? Why, I believe he’s simply the greatest—the most stupendous—the +most phenomenal figure we’ve got!”</p> + +<p>The color rose to Miss Anson’s brow. Her heart was beating passionately. +She kept her eyes fixed on the young man’s face, as though it might vanish +if she looked away.</p> + +<p>“You—you mean to say this in your article?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“Say it? Why, the facts will say it,” he exulted. “The baldest kind of a +statement would make it clear. When a man is as big as that he doesn’t need +a pedestal!”</p> + +<p>Miss Anson sighed. “People used to say that when I was young,” she +murmured. “But now—“</p> + +<p>Her visitor stared. “When you were young? But how did they know—when the +thing hung fire as it did? When the whole edition was thrown back on his +hands?”</p> + +<p>“The whole edition—what edition?” It was Miss Anson’s turn to stare.</p> + +<p>“Why, of his pamphlet—<i>the</i> pamphlet—the one thing that counts, that +survives, that makes him what he is! For heaven’s sake,” he tragically +adjured her, “don’t tell me there isn’t a copy of it left!”</p> + +<p>Miss Anson was trembling slightly. “I don’t think I understand what you +mean,” she faltered, less bewildered by his vehemence than by the strange +sense of coming on an unexplored region in the very heart of her dominion.</p> + +<p>“Why, his account of the <i>amphioxus</i>, of course! You can’t mean that +his family didn’t know about it—that <i>you</i> don’t know about it? I came +across it by the merest accident myself, in a letter of vindication that +he wrote in 1830 to an old scientific paper; but I understood there were +journals—early journals; there must be references to it somewhere in the +‘twenties. He must have been at least ten or twelve years ahead of Yarrell; +and he saw the whole significance of it, too—he saw where it led to. As +I understand it, he actually anticipated in his pamphlet Saint Hilaire’s +theory of the universal type, and supported the hypothesis by describing +the notochord of the <i>amphioxus</i> as a cartilaginous vertebral column. +The specialists of the day jeered at him, of course, as the specialists in +Goethe’s time jeered at the plant-metamorphosis. As far as I can make out, +the anatomists and zoologists were down on Dr. Anson to a man; that was why +his cowardly publishers went back on their bargain. But the pamphlet must +be here somewhere—he writes as though, in his first disappointment, he had +destroyed the whole edition; but surely there must be at least one copy +left?”</p> + +<p>His scientific jargon was as bewildering as his slang; and there were even +moments in his discourse when Miss Anson ceased to distinguish between +them; but the suspense with which he continued to gaze on her acted as a +challenge to her scattered thoughts.</p> + +<p>“The <i>amphioxus</i>,” she murmured, half-rising. “It’s an animal, isn’t +it—a fish? Yes, I think I remember.” She sank back with the inward look of +one who retraces some lost line of association.</p> + +<p>Gradually the distance cleared, the details started into life. In her +researches for the biography she had patiently followed every ramification +of her subject, and one of these overgrown paths now led her back to +the episode in question. The great Orestes’s title of “Doctor” had in +fact not been merely the spontaneous tribute of a national admiration; +he had actually studied medicine in his youth, and his diaries, as his +granddaughter now recalled, showed that he had passed through a brief phase +of anatomical ardor before his attention was diverted to super-sensual +problems. It had indeed seemed to Paulina, as she scanned those early +pages, that they revealed a spontaneity, a freshness of feeling somehow +absent from his later lucubrations—as though this one emotion had reached +him directly, the others through some intervening medium. In the excess of +her commemorative zeal she had even struggled through the unintelligible +pamphlet to which a few lines in the journal had bitterly directed her. But +the subject and the phraseology were alien to her and unconnected with her +conception of the great man’s genius; and after a hurried perusal she had +averted her thoughts from the episode as from a revelation of failure. +At length she rose a little unsteadily, supporting herself against the +writing-table. She looked hesitatingly about the room; then she drew a key +from her old-fashioned reticule and unlocked a drawer beneath one of the +book-cases. Young Corby watched her breathlessly. With a tremulous hand she +turned over the dusty documents that seemed to fill the drawer. “Is this +it?” she said, holding out a thin discolored volume.</p> + +<p>He seized it with a gasp. “Oh, by George,” he said, dropping into the +nearest chair.</p> + +<p>She stood observing him strangely as his eye devoured the mouldy pages.</p> + +<p>“Is this the only copy left?” he asked at length, looking up for a moment +as a thirsty man lifts his head from his glass.</p> + +<p>“I think it must be. I found it long ago, among some old papers that my +aunts were burning up after my grandmother’s death. They said it was of no +use—that he’d always meant to destroy the whole edition and that I ought +to respect his wishes. But it was something he had written; to burn it was +like shutting the door against his voice—against something he had once +wished to say, and that nobody had listened to. I wanted him to feel that I +was always here, ready to listen, even when others hadn’t thought it worth +while; and so I kept the pamphlet, meaning to carry out his wish and +destroy it before my death.”</p> + +<p>Her visitor gave a groan of retrospective anguish. “And but for me—but for +to-day—you would have?”</p> + +<p>“I should have thought it my duty.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, by George—by George,” he repeated, subdued afresh by the inadequacy +of speech.</p> + +<p>She continued to watch him in silence. At length he jumped up and +impulsively caught her by both hands.</p> + +<p>“He’s bigger and bigger!” he almost shouted. “He simply leads the field! +You’ll help me go to the bottom of this, won’t you? We must turn out all +the papers—letters, journals, memoranda. He must have made notes. He +must have left some record of what led up to this. We must leave nothing +unexplored. By Jove,” he cried, looking up at her with his bright +convincing smile, “do you know you’re the granddaughter of a Great Man?”</p> + +<p>Her color flickered like a girl’s. “Are you—sure of him?” she whispered, +as though putting him on his guard against a possible betrayal of trust.</p> + +<p>“Sure! Sure! My dear lady—“ he measured her again with his quick confident +glance. “Don’t <i>you</i> believe in him?”</p> + +<p>She drew back with a confused murmur. “I—used to.” She had left her +hands in his: their pressure seemed to send a warm current to her heart. +“It ruined my life!” she cried with sudden passion. He looked at her +perplexedly.</p> + +<p>“I gave up everything,” she went on wildly, “to keep him alive. I +sacrificed myself—others—I nursed his glory in my bosom and it died—and +left me—left me here alone.” She paused and gathered her courage with a +gasp. “Don’t make the same mistake!” she warned him.</p> + +<p>He shook his head, still smiling. “No danger of that! You’re not alone, my +dear lady. He’s here with you—he’s come back to you to-day. Don’t you see +what’s happened? Don’t you see that it’s your love that has kept him alive? +If you’d abandoned your post for an instant—let things pass into other +hands—if your wonderful tenderness hadn’t perpetually kept guard—this +might have been—must have been—irretrievably lost.” He laid his hand on +the pamphlet. “And then—then he <i>would</i> have been dead!”</p> + +<p>“Oh,” she said, “don’t tell me too suddenly!” And she turned away and sank +into a chair.</p> + +<p>The young man stood watching her in an awed silence. For a long time she +sat motionless, with her face hidden, and he thought she must be weeping.</p> + +<p>At length he said, almost shyly: “You’ll let me come back, then? You’ll +help me work this thing out?”</p> + +<p>She rose calmly and held out her hand. “I’ll help you,” she declared.</p> + +<p>“I’ll come to-morrow, then. Can we get to work early?”</p> + +<p>“As early as you please.”</p> + +<p>“At eight o’clock, then,” he said briskly. “You’ll have the papers ready?”</p> + +<p>“I’ll have everything ready.” She added with a half-playful hesitancy: “And +the fire shall be lit for you.”</p> + +<p>He went out with his bright nod. She walked to the window and watched his +buoyant figure hastening down the elm-shaded street. When she turned back +into the empty room she looked as though youth had touched her on the lips.</p> + +<h2><a name="THE_RECOVERY" id="THE_RECOVERY"></a>THE RECOVERY</h2> + +<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">To</span> the visiting stranger Hillbridge’s first question was, “Have you seen +Keniston’s things?” Keniston took precedence of the colonial State House, +the Gilbert Stuart Washington and the Ethnological Museum; nay, he ran neck +and neck with the President of the University, a prehistoric relic who had +known Emerson, and who was still sent about the country in cotton-wool to +open educational institutions with a toothless oration on Brook Farm.</p> + +<p>Keniston was sent about the country too: he opened art exhibitions, laid +the foundation of academies, and acted in a general sense as the spokesman +and apologist of art. Hillbridge was proud of him in his peripatetic +character, but his fellow-townsmen let it be understood that to “know” +Keniston one must come to Hillbridge. Never was work more dependent for its +effect on “atmosphere,” on <i>milieu</i>. Hillbridge was Keniston’s milieu, +and there was one lady, a devotee of his art, who went so far as to assert +that once, at an exhibition in New York, she had passed a Keniston without +recognizing it. “It simply didn’t want to be seen in such surroundings; it +was hiding itself under an incognito,” she declared.</p> + +<p>It was a source of special pride to Hillbridge that it contained all the +artist’s best works. Strangers were told that Hillbridge had discovered +him. The discovery had come about in the simplest manner. Professor +Driffert, who had a reputation for “collecting,” had one day hung a sketch +on his drawing-room wall, and thereafter Mrs. Driffert’s visitors (always +a little flurried by the sense that it was the kind of house in which one +might be suddenly called upon to distinguish between a dry-point and an +etching, or between Raphael Mengs and Raphael Sanzio) were not infrequently +subjected to the Professor’s off-hand inquiry, “By-the-way, have you seen +my Keniston?” The visitors, perceptibly awed, would retreat to a critical +distance and murmur the usual guarded generalities, while they tried to +keep the name in mind long enough to look it up in the Encyclopædia. The +name was not in the Encyclopædia; but, as a compensating fact, it became +known that the man himself was in Hillbridge. Hillbridge, then, owned an +artist whose celebrity it was the proper thing to take for granted! Some +one else, emboldened by the thought, bought a Keniston; and the next +year, on the occasion of the President’s golden jubilee, the Faculty, by +unanimous consent, presented him with a Keniston. Two years later there +was a Keniston exhibition, to which the art-critics came from New York +and Boston; and not long afterward a well-known Chicago collector vainly +attempted to buy Professor Driffert’s sketch, which the art journals cited +as a rare example of the painter’s first or silvery manner. Thus there +gradually grew up a small circle of connoisseurs known in artistic, circles +as men who collected Kenistons.</p> + +<p>Professor Wildmarsh, of the chair of Fine Arts and Archaeology, was the +first critic to publish a detailed analysis of the master’s methods and +purpose. The article was illustrated by engravings which (though they had +cost the magazine a fortune) were declared by Professor Wildmarsh to give +but an imperfect suggestion of the esoteric significance of the originals. +The Professor, with a tact that contrived to make each reader feel himself +included among the exceptions, went on to say that Keniston’s work would +never appeal to any but exceptional natures; and he closed with the usual +assertion that to apprehend the full meaning of the master’s “message” it +was necessary to see him in the surroundings of his own home at Hillbridge.</p> + +<p>Professor Wildmarsh’s article was read one spring afternoon by a young +lady just speeding eastward on her first visit to Hillbridge, and already +flushed with anticipation of the intellectual opportunities awaiting her. +In East Onondaigua, where she lived, Hillbridge was looked on as an Oxford. +Magazine writers, with the easy American use of the superlative, designated +it as “the venerable Alma Mater,” the “antique seat of learning,” and +Claudia Day had been brought up to regard it as the fountain-head of +knowledge, and of that mental distinction which is so much rarer than +knowledge. An innate passion for all that was thus distinguished and +exceptional made her revere Hillbridge as the native soil of those +intellectual amenities that were of such difficult growth in the +thin air of East Onondaigua. At the first suggestion of a visit to +Hillbridge—whither she went at the invitation of a girl friend +who (incredible apotheosis!) had married one of the University +professors—Claudia’s spirit dilated with the sense of new possibilities. +The vision of herself walking under the “historic elms” toward the Memorial +Library, standing rapt before the Stuart Washington, or drinking in, +from some obscure corner of an academic drawing-room, the President’s +reminiscences of the Concord group—this vividness of self-projection into +the emotions awaiting her made her glad of any delay that prolonged so +exquisite a moment.</p> + +<p>It was in this mood that she opened the article on Keniston. She knew about +him, of course; she was wonderfully “well up,” even for East Onondaigua. +She had read of him in the magazines; she had met, on a visit to New York, +a man who collected Kenistons, and a photogravure of a Keniston in an +“artistic” frame hung above her writing-table at home. But Professor +Wildmarsh’s article made her feel how little she really knew of the master; +and she trembled to think of the state of relative ignorance in which, but +for the timely purchase of the magazine, she might have entered Hillbridge. +She had, for instance, been densely unaware that Keniston had already had +three “manners,” and was showing symptoms of a fourth. She was equally +ignorant of the fact that he had founded a school and “created a formula”; +and she learned with a thrill that no one could hope to understand him who +had not seen him in his studio at Hillbridge, surrounded by his own works. +“The man and the art interpret each other,” their exponent declared; and +Claudia Day, bending a brilliant eye on the future, wondered if she were +ever to be admitted to the privilege of that double initiation.</p> + +<p>Keniston, to his other claims to distinction, added that of being hard to +know. His friends always hastened to announce the fact to strangers—adding +after a pause of suspense that they “would see what they could do.” +Visitors in whose favor he was induced to make an exception were further +warned that he never spoke unless he was interested—so that they mustn’t +mind if he remained silent. It was under these reassuring conditions that, +some ten days after her arrival at Hillbridge, Miss Day was introduced +to the master’s studio. She found him a tall listless-looking man, who +appeared middle-aged to her youth, and who stood before his own pictures +with a vaguely interrogative gaze, leaving the task of their interpretation +to the lady who had courageously contrived the visit. The studio, to +Claudia’s surprise, was bare and shabby. It formed a rambling addition to +the small cheerless house in which the artist lived with his mother and +a widowed sister. For Claudia it added the last touch to his distinction +to learn that he was poor, and that what he earned was devoted to the +maintenance of the two limp women who formed a neutral-tinted background to +his impressive outline. His pictures of course fetched high prices; but he +worked slowly—“painfully,” as his devotees preferred to phrase it—with +frequent intervals of ill health and inactivity, and the circle of Keniston +connoisseurs was still as small as it was distinguished. The girl’s fancy +instantly hailed in him that favorite figure of imaginative youth, the +artist who would rather starve than paint a pot-boiler. It is known to +comparatively few that the production of successful pot-boilers is an art +in itself, and that such heroic abstentions as Keniston’s are not always +purely voluntary. On the occasion of her first visit the artist said so +little that Claudia was able to indulge to the full the harrowing sense of +her inadequacy. No wonder she had not been one of the few that he cared +to talk to; every word she uttered must so obviously have diminished the +inducement! She had been cheap, trivial, conventional; at once gushing +and inexpressive, eager and constrained. She could feel him counting the +minutes till the visit was over, and as the door finally closed on the +scene of her discomfiture she almost shared the hope with which she +confidently credited him—that they might never meet again.</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>Mrs. Davant glanced reverentially about the studio. “I have always said,” +she murmured, “that they ought to be seen in Europe.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davant was young, credulous and emotionally extravagant: she reminded +Claudia of her earlier self—the self that, ten years before, had first set +an awestruck foot on that very threshold.</p> + +<p>“Not for <i>his</i> sake,” Mrs. Davant continued, “but for Europe’s.”</p> + +<p>Claudia smiled. She was glad that her husband’s pictures were to be +exhibited in Paris. She concurred in Mrs. Davant’s view of the importance +of the event; but she thought her visitor’s way of putting the case a +little overcharged. Ten years spent in an atmosphere of Keniston-worship +had insensibly developed in Claudia a preference for moderation of speech. +She believed in her husband, of course; to believe in him, with an +increasing abandonment and tenacity, had become one of the necessary laws +of being; but she did not believe in his admirers. Their faith in him was +perhaps as genuine as her own; but it seemed to her less able to give an +account of itself. Some few of his appreciators doubtless measured him +by their own standards; but it was difficult not to feel that in the +Hillbridge circle, where rapture ran the highest, he was accepted on +what was at best but an indirect valuation; and now and then she had a +frightened doubt as to the independence of her own convictions. That +innate sense of relativity which even East Onondaigua had not been able to +check in Claudia Day had been fostered in Mrs. Keniston by the artistic +absolutism of Hillbridge, and she often wondered that her husband remained +so uncritical of the quality of admiration accorded him. Her husband’s +uncritical attitude toward himself and his admirers had in fact been one of +the surprises of her marriage. That an artist should believe in his +potential powers seemed to her at once the incentive and the pledge of +excellence: she knew there was no future for a hesitating talent. What +perplexed her was Keniston’s satisfaction in his achievement. She had +always imagined that the true artist must regard himself as the imperfect +vehicle of the cosmic emotion—that beneath every difficulty overcome a new +one lurked, the vision widening as the scope enlarged. To be initiated into +these creative struggles, to shed on the toiler’s path the consolatory ray +of faith and encouragement, had seemed the chief privilege of her marriage. +But there is something supererogatory in believing in a man obviously +disposed to perform that service for himself; and Claudia’s ardor gradually +spent itself against the dense surface of her husband’s complacency. She +could smile now at her vision of an intellectual communion which should +admit her to the inmost precincts of his inspiration. She had learned +that the creative processes are seldom self-explanatory, and Keniston’s +inarticulateness no longer discouraged her; but she could not reconcile +her sense of the continuity of all high effort to his unperturbed air +of finishing each picture as though he had despatched a masterpiece to +posterity. In the first recoil from her disillusionment she even allowed +herself to perceive that, if he worked slowly, it was not because he +mistrusted his powers of expression, but because he had really so little to +express.</p> + +<p>“It’s for Europe,” Mrs. Davant vaguely repeated; and Claudia noticed that +she was blushingly intent on tracing with the tip of her elaborate sunshade +the pattern of the shabby carpet.</p> + +<p>“It will be a revelation to them,” she went on provisionally, as though +Claudia had missed her cue and left an awkward interval to fill.</p> + +<p>Claudia had in fact a sudden sense of deficient intuition. She felt that +her visitor had something to communicate which required, on her own part, +an intelligent co-operation; but what it was her insight failed to suggest. +She was, in truth, a little tired of Mrs. Davant, who was Keniston’s latest +worshipper, who ordered pictures recklessly, who paid for them regally +in advance, and whose gallery was, figuratively speaking, crowded with +the artist’s unpainted masterpieces. Claudia’s impatience was perhaps +complicated by the uneasy sense that Mrs. Davant was too young, too rich, +too inexperienced; that somehow she ought to be warned.—Warned of what? +That some of the pictures might never be painted? Scarcely that, since +Keniston, who was scrupulous in business transactions, might be trusted not +to take any material advantage of such evidence of faith. Claudia’s impulse +remained undefined. She merely felt that she would have liked to help Mrs. +Davant, and that she did not know how.</p> + +<p>“You’ll be there to see them?” she asked, as her visitor lingered.</p> + +<p>“In Paris?” Mrs. Davant’s blush deepened. “We must all be there together.”</p> + +<p>Claudia smiled. “My husband and I mean to go abroad some day—but I don’t +see any chance of it at present.”</p> + +<p>“But he <i>ought</i> to go—you ought both to go this summer!” Mrs. Davant +persisted. “I know Professor Wildmarsh and Professor Driffert and all the +other critics think that Mr. Keniston’s never having been to Europe has +given his work much of its wonderful individuality, its peculiar flavor +and meaning—but now that his talent is formed, that he has full command +of his means of expression,” (Claudia recognized one of Professor +Driffert’s favorite formulas) “they all think he ought to see the work of +the <i>other</i> great masters—that he ought to visit the home of his +ancestors, as Professor Wildmarsh says!” She stretched an impulsive hand to +Claudia. “You ought to let him go, Mrs. Keniston!”</p> + +<p>Claudia accepted the admonition with the philosophy of the wife who is used +to being advised on the management of her husband. “I sha’n’t interfere +with him,” she declared; and Mrs. Davant instantly caught her up with a cry +of, “Oh, it’s too lovely of you to say that!” With this exclamation she +left Claudia to a silent renewal of wonder.</p> + +<p>A moment later Keniston entered: to a mind curious in combinations it +might have occurred that he had met Mrs. Davant on the door-step. In one +sense he might, for all his wife cared, have met fifty Mrs. Davants on the +door-step: it was long since Claudia had enjoyed the solace of resenting +such coincidences. Her only thought now was that her husband’s first words +might not improbably explain Mrs. Davant’s last; and she waited for him to +speak.</p> + +<p>He paused with his hands in his pockets before an unfinished picture on the +easel; then, as his habit was, he began to stroll touristlike from canvas +to canvas, standing before each in a musing ecstasy of contemplation that +no readjustment of view ever seemed to disturb. Her eye instinctively +joined his in its inspection; it was the one point where their natures +merged. Thank God, there, was no doubt about the pictures! She was what she +had always dreamed of being—the wife of a great artist. Keniston dropped +into an armchair and filled his pipe. “How should you like to go to +Europe?” he asked.</p> + +<p>His wife looked up quickly. “When?”</p> + +<p>“Now—this spring, I mean.” He paused to light the pipe. “I should like to +be over there while these things are being exhibited.”</p> + +<p>Claudia was silent.</p> + +<p>“Well?” he repeated after a moment.</p> + +<p>“How can we afford it?” she asked.</p> + +<p>Keniston had always scrupulously fulfilled his duty to the mother and +sister whom his marriage had dislodged; and Claudia, who had the atoning +temperament which seeks to pay for every happiness by making it a source +of fresh obligations, had from the outset accepted his ties with an +exaggerated devotion. Any disregard of such a claim would have vulgarized +her most delicate pleasures; and her husband’s sensitiveness to it in great +measure extenuated the artistic obtuseness that often seemed to her like a +failure of the moral sense. His loyalty to the dull women who depended on +him was, after all, compounded of finer tissues than any mere sensibility +to ideal demands.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I don’t see why we shouldn’t,” he rejoined. “I think we might manage +it.”</p> + +<p>“At Mrs. Davant’s expense?” leaped from Claudia. She could not tell why she +had said it; some inner barrier seemed to have given way under a confused +pressure of emotions.</p> + +<p>He looked up at her with frank surprise. “Well, she has been very jolly +about it—why not? She has a tremendous feeling for art—the keenest I +ever knew in a woman.” Claudia imperceptibly smiled. “She wants me to let +her pay in advance for the four panels she has ordered for the Memorial +Library. That would give us plenty of money for the trip, and my having the +panels to do is another reason for my wanting to go abroad just now.”</p> + +<p>“Another reason?”</p> + +<p>“Yes; I’ve never worked on such a big scale. I want to see how those old +chaps did the trick; I want to measure myself with the big fellows over +there. An artist ought to, once in his life.”</p> + +<p>She gave him a wondering look. For the first time his words implied a sense +of possible limitation; but his easy tone seemed to retract what they +conceded. What he really wanted was fresh food for his self-satisfaction: +he was like an army that moves on after exhausting the resources of the +country.</p> + +<p>Womanlike, she abandoned the general survey of the case for the +consideration of a minor point.</p> + +<p>“Are you sure you can do that kind of thing?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“What kind of thing?”</p> + +<p>“The panels.”</p> + +<p>He glanced at her indulgently: his self-confidence was too impenetrable to +feel the pin-prick of such a doubt.</p> + +<p>“Immensely sure,” he said with a smile.</p> + +<p>“And you don’t mind taking so much money from her in advance?”</p> + +<p>He stared. “Why should I? She’ll get it back—with interest!” He laughed +and drew at his pipe. “It will be an uncommonly interesting experience. I +shouldn’t wonder if it freshened me up a bit.”</p> + +<p>She looked at him again. This second hint of self-distrust struck her as +the sign of a quickened sensibility. What if, after all, he was beginning +to be dissatisfied with his work? The thought filled her with a renovating +sense of his sufficiency.</p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>They stopped in London to see the National Gallery.</p> + +<p>It was thus that, in their inexperience, they had narrowly put it; but in +reality every stone of the streets, every trick of the atmosphere, had +its message of surprise for their virgin sensibilities. The pictures were +simply the summing up, the final interpretation, of the cumulative pressure +of an unimagined world; and it seemed to Claudia that long before they +reached the doors of the gallery she had some intuitive revelation of what +awaited them within.</p> + +<p>They moved about from room to room without exchanging a word. The vast +noiseless spaces seemed full of sound, like the roar of a distant multitude +heard only by the inner ear. Had their speech been articulate their +language would have been incomprehensible; and even that far-off murmur +of meaning pressed intolerably on Claudia’s nerves. Keniston took the +onset without outward sign of disturbance. Now and then he paused before a +canvas, or prolonged from one of the benches his silent communion with some +miracle of line or color; but he neither looked at his wife nor spoke to +her. He seemed to have forgotten her presence.</p> + +<p>Claudia was conscious of keeping a furtive watch on him; but the sum total +of her impressions was negative. She remembered thinking when she first +met him that his face was rather expressionless; and he had the habit of +self-engrossed silences.</p> + +<p>All that evening, at the hotel, they talked about London, and he surprised +her by an acuteness of observation that she had sometimes inwardly accused +him of lacking. He seemed to have seen everything, to have examined, felt, +compared, with nerves as finely adjusted as her own; but he said nothing +of the pictures. The next day they returned to the National Gallery, and +he began to study the paintings in detail, pointing out differences of +technique, analyzing and criticising, but still without summing up his +conclusions. He seemed to have a sort of provincial dread of showing +himself too much impressed. Claudia’s own sensations were too complex, too +overwhelming, to be readily classified. Lacking the craftsman’s instinct to +steady her, she felt herself carried off her feet by the rush of incoherent +impressions. One point she consciously avoided, and that was the comparison +of her husband’s work with what they were daily seeing. Art, she inwardly +argued, was too various, too complex, dependent on too many inter-relations +of feeling and environment, to allow of its being judged by any provisional +standard. Even the subtleties of technique must be modified by the artist’s +changing purpose, as this in turn is acted on by influences of which +he is himself unconscious. How, then, was an unprepared imagination to +distinguish between such varied reflections of the elusive vision? She took +refuge in a passionate exaggeration of her own ignorance and insufficiency.</p> + +<p>After a week in London they went to Paris. The exhibition of Keniston’s +pictures had been opened a few days earlier; and as they drove through the +streets on the way to the station an “impressionist” poster here and there +invited them to the display of the American artist’s work. Mrs. Davant, who +had been in Paris for the opening, had already written rapturously of the +impression produced, enclosing commendatory notices from one or two papers. +She reported that there had been a great crowd on the first day, and that +the critics had been “immensely struck.”</p> + +<p>The Kenistons arrived in the evening, and the next morning Claudia, as a +matter of course, asked her husband at what time he meant to go and see the +pictures.</p> + +<p>He looked up absently from his guide-book.</p> + +<p>“What pictures?”</p> + +<p>“Why—yours,” she said, surprised.</p> + +<p>“Oh, they’ll keep,” he answered; adding with a slightly embarrassed laugh, +“We’ll give the other chaps a show first.” Presently he laid down his book +and proposed that they should go to the Louvre.</p> + +<p>They spent the morning there, lunched at a restaurant near by, and returned +to the gallery in the afternoon. Keniston had passed from inarticulateness +to an eager volubility. It was clear that he was beginning to co-ordinate +his impressions, to find his way about in a corner of the great imaginative +universe. He seemed extraordinarily ready to impart his discoveries; and +Claudia felt that her ignorance served him as a convenient buffer against +the terrific impact of new sensations.</p> + +<p>On the way home she asked when he meant to see Mrs. Davant.</p> + +<p>His answer surprised her. “Does she know we’re here?”</p> + +<p>“Not unless you’ve sent her word,” said Claudia, with a touch of harmless +irony.</p> + +<p>“That’s all right, then,” he returned simply. “I want to wait and look +about a day or two longer. She’d want us to go sight-seeing with her; and +I’d rather get my impressions alone.”</p> + +<p>The next two days were hampered by the necessity of eluding Mrs. Davant. +Claudia, under different circumstances, would have scrupled to share in +this somewhat shabby conspiracy; but she found herself in a state of +suspended judgment, wherein her husband’s treatment of Mrs. Davant became +for the moment merely a clue to larger meanings.</p> + +<p>They had been four days in Paris when Claudia, returning one afternoon from +a parenthetical excursion to the Rue de la Paix, was confronted on her +threshold by the reproachful figure of their benefactress. It was not to +her, however, that Mrs. Davant’s reproaches were addressed. Keniston, it +appeared, had borne the brunt of them; for he stood leaning against the +mantelpiece of their modest <i>salon</i> in that attitude of convicted +negligence when, if ever, a man is glad to take refuge behind his wife.</p> + +<p>Claudia had however no immediate intention of affording him such shelter. +She wanted to observe and wait.</p> + +<p>“He’s too impossible!” cried Mrs. Davant, sweeping her at once into the +central current of her grievance.</p> + +<p>Claudia looked from one to the other.</p> + +<p>“For not going to see you?”</p> + +<p>“For not going to see his pictures!” cried the other nobly.</p> + +<p>Claudia colored and Keniston shifted his position uneasily.</p> + +<p>“I can’t make her understand,” he said, turning to his wife.</p> + +<p>“I don’t care about myself!” Mrs. Davant interjected.</p> + +<p>“<i>I</i> do, then; it’s the only thing I do care about,” he hurriedly +protested. “I meant to go at once—to write—Claudia wanted to go, but I +wouldn’t let her.” He looked helplessly about the pleasant red-curtained +room, which was rapidly burning itself into Claudia’s consciousness as a +visible extension of Mrs. Davant’s claims.</p> + +<p>“I can’t explain,” he broke off.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davant in turn addressed herself to Claudia.</p> + +<p>“People think it’s so odd,” she complained. “So many of the artists +here are anxious to meet him; they’ve all been so charming about the +pictures; and several of our American friends have come over from London +expressly for the exhibition. I told every one that he would be here +for the opening—there was a private view, you know—and they were so +disappointed—they wanted to give him an ovation; and I didn’t know what +to say. What <i>am</i> I to say?” she abruptly ended.</p> + +<p>“There’s nothing to say,” said Keniston slowly.</p> + +<p>“But the exhibition closes the day after to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>“Well, <i>I</i> sha’n’t close—I shall be here,” he declared with an effort +at playfulness. “If they want to see me—all these people you’re kind +enough to mention—won’t there be other chances?”</p> + +<p>“But I wanted them to see you <i>among</i> your pictures—to hear you talk +about them, explain them in that wonderful way. I wanted you to interpret +each other, as Professor Wildmarsh says!”</p> + +<p>“Oh, hang Professor Wildmarsh!” said Keniston, softening the commination +with a smile. “If my pictures are good for anything they oughtn’t to need +explaining.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davant stared. “But I thought that was what made them so interesting!” +she exclaimed.</p> + +<p>Keniston looked down. “Perhaps it was,” he murmured.</p> + +<p>There was an awkward silence, which Claudia broke by saying, with a glance +at her husband: “But if the exhibition is to remain open to-morrow, could +we not meet you there? And perhaps you could send word to some of our +friends.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davant brightened like a child whose broken toy is glued together. +“Oh, <i>do</i> make him!” she implored. “I’ll ask them to come in the +afternoon—we’ll make it into a little tea—a <i>five o’clock</i>. I’ll +send word at once to everybody!” She gathered up her beruffled boa and +sunshade, settling her plumage like a reassured bird. “It will be too +lovely!” she ended in a self-consoling murmur.</p> + +<p>But in the doorway a new doubt assailed her. “You won’t fail me?” she said, +turning plaintively to Keniston. “You’ll make him come, Mrs. Keniston?”</p> + +<p>“I’ll bring him!” Claudia promised.</p> + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>When, the next morning, she appeared equipped for their customary ramble, +her husband surprised her by announcing that he meant to stay at home.</p> + +<p>“The fact is I’m rather surfeited,” he said, smiling. “I suppose my +appetite isn’t equal to such a plethora. I think I’ll write some letters +and join you somewhere later.”</p> + +<p>She detected the wish to be alone and responded to it with her usual +readiness.</p> + +<p>“I shall sink to my proper level and buy a bonnet, then,” she said. “I +haven’t had time to take the edge off that appetite.”</p> + +<p>They agreed to meet at the Hotel Cluny at mid-day, and she set out alone +with a vague sense of relief. Neither she nor Keniston had made any direct +reference to Mrs. Davant’s visit; but its effect was implicit in their +eagerness to avoid each other.</p> + +<p>Claudia accomplished some shopping in the spirit of perfunctoriness that +robs even new bonnets of their bloom; and this business despatched, she +turned aimlessly into the wide inviting brightness of the streets. Never +had she felt more isolated amid that ordered beauty which gives a social +quality to the very stones and mortar of Paris. All about her were +evidences of an artistic sensibility pervading every form of life like the +nervous structure of the huge frame—a sensibility so delicate, alert and +universal that it seemed to leave no room for obtuseness or error. In such +a medium the faculty of plastic expression must develop as unconsciously +as any organ in its normal surroundings; to be “artistic” must cease to be +an attitude and become a natural function. To Claudia the significance of +the whole vast revelation was centred in the light it shed on one tiny +spot of consciousness—the value of her husband’s work. There are moments +when to the groping soul the world’s accumulated experiences are but +stepping-stones across a private difficulty.</p> + +<p>She stood hesitating on a street corner. It was barely eleven, and she had +an hour to spare before going to the Hotel Cluny. She seemed to be letting +her inclination float as it would on the cross-currents of suggestion +emanating from the brilliant complex scene before her; but suddenly, in +obedience to an impulse that she became aware of only in acting on it, she +called a cab and drove to the gallery where her husband’s pictures were +exhibited.</p> + +<p>A magnificent official in gold braid sold her a ticket and pointed the way +up the empty crimson-carpeted stairs. His duplicate, on the upper landing, +held out a catalogue with an air of recognizing the futility of the offer; +and a moment later she found herself in the long noiseless impressive room +full of velvet-covered ottomans and exotic plants. It was clear that the +public ardor on which Mrs. Davant had expatiated had spent itself earlier +in the week; for Claudia had this luxurious apartment to herself. Something +about its air of rich privacy, its diffusion of that sympathetic quality in +other countries so conspicuously absent from the public show-room, seemed +to emphasize its present emptiness. It was as though the flowers, the +carpet, the lounges, surrounded their visitor’s solitary advance with +the mute assurance that they had done all they could toward making the +thing “go off,” and that if they had failed it was simply for lack of +co-operation. She stood still and looked about her. The pictures struck her +instantly as odd gaps in the general harmony; it was self-evident that they +had not co-operated. They had not been pushing, aggressive, discordant: +they had merely effaced themselves. She swept a startled eye from one +familiar painting to another. The canvases were all there—and the +frames—but the miracle, the mirage of life and meaning, had vanished +like some atmospheric illusion. What was it that had happened? And had +it happened to <i>her</i> or to the pictures? She tried to rally her +frightened thoughts; to push or coax them into a semblance of resistance; +but argument was swept off its feet by the huge rush of a single +conviction—the conviction that the pictures were bad. There was no +standing up against that: she felt herself submerged.</p> + +<p>The stealthy fear that had been following her all these days had her by the +throat now. The great vision of beauty through which she had been moving +as one enchanted was turned to a phantasmagoria of evil mocking shapes. +She hated the past; she hated its splendor, its power, its wicked magical +vitality.... She dropped into a seat and continued to stare at the wall +before her. Gradually, as she stared, there stole out to her from the +dimmed humbled canvases a reminder of what she had once seen in them, a +spectral appeal to her faith to call them back to life. What proof had she +that her present estimate of them was less subjective than the other? The +confused impressions of the last few days were hardly to be pleaded as a +valid theory of art. How, after all, did she know that the pictures were +bad? On what suddenly acquired technical standard had she thus decided +the case against them? It seemed as though it were a standard outside of +herself, as though some unheeded inner sense were gradually making her +aware of the presence, in that empty room, of a critical intelligence that +was giving out a subtle effluence of disapproval. The fancy was so vivid +that, to shake it off, she rose and began to move about again. In the +middle of the room stood a monumental divan surmounted by a <i>massif</i> +of palms and azaleas. As Claudia’s muffled wanderings carried her around +the angle of this seat, she saw that its farther side was occupied by the +figure of a man, who sat with his hands resting on his stick and his head +bowed upon them. She gave a little cry and her husband rose and faced her.</p> + +<p>Instantly the live point of consciousness was shifted, and she became aware +that the quality of the pictures no longer mattered. It was what <i>he</i> +thought of them that counted: her life hung on that.</p> + +<p>They looked at each other a moment in silence; such concussions are not apt +to flash into immediate speech. At length he said simply, “I didn’t know +you were coming here.”</p> + +<p>She colored as though he had charged her with something underhand.</p> + +<p>“I didn’t mean to,” she stammered; “but I was too early for our +appointment—“</p> + +<p>Her word’s cast a revealing glare on the situation. Neither of them looked +at the pictures; but to Claudia those unobtruding presences seemed suddenly +to press upon them and force them apart.</p> + +<p>Keniston glanced at his watch. “It’s twelve o’clock,” he said. “Shall we go +on?”</p> + +<h3>V</h3> + +<p>At the door he called a cab and put her in it; then, drawing out his watch +again, he said abruptly: “I believe I’ll let you go alone. I’ll join you at +the hotel in time for luncheon.” She wondered for a moment if he meant to +return to the gallery; but, looking back as she drove off, she saw him walk +rapidly away in the opposite direction.</p> + +<p>The cabman had carried her half-way to the Hotel Cluny before she realized +where she was going, and cried out to him to turn home. There was an acute +irony in this mechanical prolongation of the quest of beauty. She had +had enough of it, too much of it; her one longing was to escape, to hide +herself away from its all-suffusing implacable light.</p> + +<p>At the hotel, alone in her room, a few tears came to soften her seared +vision; but her mood was too tense to be eased by weeping. Her whole being +was centred in the longing to know what her husband thought. Their short +exchange of words had, after all, told her nothing. She had guessed a faint +resentment at her unexpected appearance; but that might merely imply a +dawning sense, on his part, of being furtively watched and criticised. She +had sometimes wondered if he was never conscious of her observation; there +were moments when it seemed to radiate from her in visible waves. Perhaps, +after all, he was aware of it, on his guard against it, as a lurking knife +behind the thick curtain of his complacency; and to-day he must have caught +the gleam of the blade.</p> + +<p>Claudia had not reached the age when pity is the first chord to vibrate in +contact with any revelation of failure. Her one hope had been that Keniston +should be clear-eyed enough to face the truth. Whatever it turned out to +be, she wanted him to measure himself with it. But as his image rose before +her she felt a sudden half-maternal longing to thrust herself between him +and disaster. Her eagerness to see him tested by circumstances seemed now +like a cruel scientific curiosity. She saw in a flash of sympathy that he +would need her most if he fell beneath his fate.</p> + +<p>He did not, after all, return for luncheon; and when she came up-stairs +from her solitary meal their <i>salon</i> was still untenanted. She +permitted herself no sensational fears; for she could not, at the height of +apprehension, figure Keniston as yielding to any tragic impulse; but the +lengthening hours brought an uneasiness that was fuel to her pity. Suddenly +she heard the clock strike five. It was the hour at which they had promised +to meet Mrs. Davant at the gallery—the hour of the “ovation.” Claudia +rose and went to the window, straining for a glimpse of her husband in the +crowded street. Could it be that he had forgotten her, had gone to the +gallery without her? Or had something happened—that veiled “something” +which, for the last hour, had grimly hovered on the outskirts of her mind?</p> + +<p>She heard a hand on the door and Keniston entered. As she turned to meet +him her whole being was swept forward on a great wave of pity: she was so +sure, now, that he must know.</p> + +<p>But he confronted her with a glance of preoccupied brightness; her first +impression was that she had never seen him so vividly, so expressively +pleased. If he needed her, it was not to bind up his wounds.</p> + +<p>He gave her a smile which was clearly the lingering reflection of some +inner light. “I didn’t mean to be so late,” he said, tossing aside his hat +and the little red volume that served as a clue to his explorations. “I +turned in to the Louvre for a minute after I left you this morning, and the +place fairly swallowed me up—I couldn’t get away from it. I’ve been there +ever since.” He threw himself into a chair and glanced about for his pipe.</p> + +<p>“It takes time,” he continued musingly, “to get at them, to make out what +they’re saying—the big fellows, I mean. They’re not a communicative lot. +At first I couldn’t make much out of their lingo—it was too different from +mine! But gradually, by picking up a hint here and there, and piecing them +together, I’ve begun to understand; and to-day, by Jove, I got one or two +of the old chaps by the throat and fairly turned them inside out—made them +deliver up their last drop.” He lifted a brilliant eye to her. “Lord, it +was tremendous!” he declared.</p> + +<p>He had found his pipe and was musingly filling it. Claudia waited in +silence.</p> + +<p>“At first,” he began again, “I was afraid their language was too hard for +me—that I should never quite know what they were driving at; they seemed +to cold-shoulder me, to be bent on shutting me out. But I was bound I +wouldn’t be beaten, and now, to-day”—he paused a moment to strike a +match—“when I went to look at those things of mine it all came over me +in a flash. By Jove! it was as if I’d made them all into a big bonfire to +light me on my road!”</p> + +<p>His wife was trembling with a kind of sacred terror. She had been afraid +to pray for light for him, and here he was joyfully casting his whole past +upon the pyre!</p> + +<p>“Is there nothing left?” she faltered.</p> + +<p>“Nothing left? There’s everything!” he exulted. “Why, here I am, not much +over forty, and I’ve found out already—already!” He stood up and began to +move excitedly about the room. “My God! Suppose I’d never known! Suppose +I’d gone on painting things like that forever! Why, I feel like those +chaps at revivalist meetings when they get up and say they’re saved! Won’t +somebody please start a hymn?”</p> + +<p>Claudia, with a tremulous joy, was letting herself go on the strong +current of his emotion; but it had not yet carried her beyond her depth, +and suddenly she felt hard ground underfoot.</p> + +<p>“Mrs. Davant—“ she exclaimed.</p> + +<p>He stared, as though suddenly recalled from a long distance. “Mrs. Davant?”</p> + +<p>“We were to have met her—this afternoon—now—“</p> + +<p>“At the gallery? Oh, that’s all right. I put a stop to that; I went to see +her after I left you; I explained it all to her.”</p> + +<p>“All?”</p> + +<p>“I told her I was going to begin all over again.”</p> + +<p>Claudia’s heart gave a forward bound and then sank back hopelessly.</p> + +<p>“But the panels—?”</p> + +<p>“That’s all right too. I told her about the panels,” he reassured her.</p> + +<p>“You told her—?”</p> + +<p>“That I can’t paint them now. She doesn’t understand, of course; but she’s +the best little woman and she trusts me.”</p> + +<p>She could have wept for joy at his exquisite obtuseness. “But that isn’t +all,” she wailed. “It doesn’t matter how much you’ve explained to her. It +doesn’t do away with the fact that we’re living on those panels!”</p> + +<p>“Living on them?”</p> + +<p>“On the money that she paid you to paint them. Isn’t that what brought us +here? And—if you mean to do as you say—to begin all over again—how in +the world are we ever to pay her back?”</p> + +<p>Her husband turned on her an inspired eye. “There’s only one way that I +know of,” he imperturbably declared, “and that’s to stay out here till I +learn how to paint them.”</p> + +<h2><a name="COPY" id="COPY"></a>“COPY”<br /><br /> +<small>A DIALOGUE</small></h2> + +<p><i>Mrs. Ambrose Dale—forty, slender, still young—sits in her drawing-room +at the tea-table. The winter twilight is falling, a lamp has been lit, +there is a fire on the hearth, and the room is pleasantly dim and +flower-scented. Books are scattered everywhere—mostly with autograph +inscriptions “From the Author”—and a large portrait of</i> Mrs. Dale, +<i>at her desk, with papers strewn about her, takes up one of the +wall-panels. Before</i> Mrs. Dale <i>stands</i> Hilda, <i>fair and twenty, +her hands full of letters</i>.</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. Ten more applications for autographs? Isn’t it strange +that people who’d blush to borrow twenty dollars don’t scruple to beg for +an autograph?</p> + +<p><i>Hilda (reproachfully)</i>. Oh—</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. What’s the difference, pray?</p> + +<p><i>Hilda</i>. Only that your last autograph sold for fifty—</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale (not displeased)</i>. Ah?—I sent for you, Hilda, because I’m +dining out to-night, and if there’s nothing important to attend to among +these letters you needn’t sit up for me.</p> + +<p><i>Hilda</i>. You don’t mean to work?</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. Perhaps; but I sha’n’t need you. You’ll see that my +cigarettes and coffee-machine are in place, and that I don’t have to crawl +about the floor in search of my pen-wiper? That’s all. Now about these +letters—</p> + +<p><i>Hilda (impulsively)</i>. Oh, Mrs. Dale—</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. Well?</p> + +<p><i>Hilda</i>. I’d rather sit up for you.</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. Child, I’ve nothing for you to do. I shall be blocking +out the tenth chapter of <i>Winged Purposes</i> and it won’t be ready for +you till next week.</p> + +<p><i>Hilda</i>. It isn’t that—but it’s so beautiful to sit here, watching +and listening, all alone in the night, and to feel that you’re in there +<i>(she points to the study-door)</i> <i>creating</i>—.<i>(Impulsively.)</i> +What do I care for sleep?</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale (indulgently)</i>. Child—silly child!—Yes, I should have +felt so at your age—it would have been an inspiration—</p> + +<p><i>Hilda (rapt)</i>. It is!</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. But you must go to bed; I must have you fresh in the +morning; for you’re still at the age when one is fresh in the morning! +<i>(She sighs.)</i> The letters? <i>(Abruptly.)</i> Do you take notes of +what you feel, Hilda—here, all alone in the night, as you say?</p> + +<p><i>Hilda (shyly)</i>. I have—</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale (smiling)</i>. For the diary?</p> + +<p><i>Hilda (nods and blushes)</i>.</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale (caressingly)</i>. Goose!—Well, to business. What is there?</p> + +<p><i>Hilda</i>. Nothing important, except a letter from Stroud & Fayerweather +to say that the question of the royalty on <i>Pomegranate Seed</i> has been +settled in your favor. The English publishers of <i>Immolation</i> write +to consult you about a six-shilling edition; Olafson, the Copenhagen +publisher, applies for permission to bring out a Danish translation of +<i>The Idol’s Feet</i>; and the editor of the <i>Semaphore</i> wants a new +serial—I think that’s all; except that <i>Woman’s Sphere</i> and <i>The +Droplight</i> ask for interviews—with photographs—</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. The same old story! I’m so tired of it all. <i>(To +herself, in an undertone.)</i> But how should I feel if it all stopped? +<i>(The servant brings in a card.)</i></p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale (reading it)</i>. Is it possible? Paul Ventnor? <i>(To the +servant.)</i> Show Mr. Ventnor up. <i>(To herself.)</i> Paul Ventnor!</p> + +<p><i>Hilda (breathless)</i>. Oh, Mrs. Dale—<i>the</i> Mr. Ventnor?</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale (smiling)</i>. I fancy there’s only one.</p> + +<p><i>Hilda</i>. The great, great poet? <i>(Irresolute.)</i> No, I don’t +dare—</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale (with a tinge of impatience)</i>. What?</p> + +<p><i>Hilda (fervently)</i>. Ask you—if I might—oh, here in this corner, +where he can’t possibly notice me—stay just a moment? Just to see him come +in? To see the meeting between you—the greatest novelist and the greatest +poet of the age? Oh, it’s too much to ask! It’s an historic moment.</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. Why, I suppose it is. I hadn’t thought of it in that +light. Well <i>(smiling)</i>, for the diary—</p> + +<p><i>Hilda</i>. Oh, thank you, <i>thank you</i>! I’ll be off the very instant +I’ve heard him speak.</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. The very instant, mind. <i>(She rises, looks at herself +in the glass, smooths her hair, sits down again, and rattles the +tea-caddy.)</i> Isn’t the room very warm?—<i>(She looks over at her +portrait.)</i> I’ve grown stouter since that was painted—. You’ll make a +fortune out of that diary, Hilda—</p> + +<p><i>Hilda (modestly)</i>. Four publishers have applied to me already—</p> + +<p><i>The Servant (announces)</i>. Mr. Paul Ventnor.</p> + +<p><i>(Tall, nearing fifty, with an incipient stoutness buttoned into a +masterly frock-coat, Ventnor drops his glass and advances vaguely, with a +short-sighted stare.)</i></p> + +<p><i>Ventnor</i>. Mrs. Dale?</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. My dear friend! This is kind. <i>(She looks over her +shoulder at Hilda, who vanishes through the door to the left.)</i> The +papers announced your arrival, but I hardly hoped—</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor (whose short-sighted stare is seen to conceal a deeper +embarrassment)</i>. You hadn’t forgotten me, then?</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. Delicious! Do <i>you</i> forget that you’re public +property?</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor</i>. Forgotten, I mean, that we were old friends?</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. Such old friends! May I remind you that it’s nearly +twenty years since we’ve met? Or do you find cold reminiscences +indigestible?</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor</i>. On the contrary, I’ve come to ask you for a dish of +them—we’ll warm them up together. You’re my first visit.</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. How perfect of you! So few men visit their women friends +in chronological order; or at least they generally do it the other way +round, beginning with the present day and working back—if there’s time—to +prehistoric woman.</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor</i>. But when prehistoric woman has become historic woman—?</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. Oh, it’s the reflection of my glory that has guided you +here, then?</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor</i>. It’s a spirit in my feet that has led me, at the first +opportunity, to the most delightful spot I know.</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. Oh, the first opportunity—!</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor</i>. I might have seen you very often before; but never just in +the right way.</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. Is this the right way?</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor</i>. It depends on you to make it so.</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. What a responsibility! What shall I do?</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor</i>. Talk to me—make me think you’re a little glad to see me; +give me some tea and a cigarette; and say you’re out to everyone else.</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. Is that all? <i>(She hands him a cup of tea.)</i> The +cigarettes are at your elbow—. And do you think I shouldn’t have been glad +to see you before?</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor</i>. No; I think I should have been too glad to see you.</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. Dear me, what precautions! I hope you always wear +goloshes when it looks like rain and never by any chance expose yourself +to a draught. But I had an idea that poets courted the emotions—</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor</i>. Do novelists?</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. If you ask <i>me</i>—on paper!</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor</i>. Just so; that’s safest. My best things about the sea have +been written on shore. <i>(He looks at her thoughtfully.)</i> But it +wouldn’t have suited us in the old days, would it?</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale (sighing)</i>. When we were real people!</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor</i>. Real people?</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. Are <i>you</i>, now? I died years ago. What you see +before you is a figment of the reporter’s brain—a monster manufactured out +of newspaper paragraphs, with ink in its veins. A keen sense of copyright +is <i>my</i> nearest approach to an emotion.</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor (sighing)</i>. Ah, well, yes—as you say, we’re public property.</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. If one shared equally with the public! But the last shred +of my identity is gone.</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor</i>. Most people would be glad to part with theirs on such +terms. I have followed your work with immense interest. <i>Immolation</i> +is a masterpiece. I read it last summer when it first came out.</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale (with a shade less warmth)</i>. <i>Immolation</i> has been out +three years.</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor</i>. Oh, by Jove—no? Surely not—But one is so overwhelmed—one +loses count. (<i>Reproachfully</i>.) Why have you never sent me your books?</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. For that very reason.</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor (deprecatingly)</i>. You know I didn’t mean it for you! And +<i>my</i> first book—do you remember—was dedicated to you.</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. <i>Silver Trumpets</i>—</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor (much interested)</i>. Have you a copy still, by any chance? The +first edition, I mean? Mine was stolen years ago. Do you think you could +put your hand on it?</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale (taking a small shabby book from the table at her side)</i>. +It’s here.</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor (eagerly)</i>. May I have it? Ah, thanks. This is <i>very</i> +interesting. The last copy sold in London for £40, and they tell me the +next will fetch twice as much. It’s quite <i>introuvable</i>.</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. I know that. <i>(A pause. She takes the book from him, +opens it, and reads, half to herself—)</i></p> + +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">How much we two have seen together,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of other eyes unwist,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dear as in days of leafless weather<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The willow’s saffron mist,<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Strange as the hour when Hesper swings<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A-sea in beryl green,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While overhead on dalliant wings<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The daylight hangs serene,<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And thrilling as a meteor’s fall<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Through depths of lonely sky,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When each to each two watchers call:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I saw it!—So did I.<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<p><i>Ventnor</i>. Thin, thin—the troubadour tinkle. Odd how little promise +there is in first volumes!</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale (with irresistible emphasis)</i>. I thought there was a +distinct promise in this!</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor (seeing his mistake)</i>. Ah—the one you would never let me +fulfil? <i>(Sentimentally.)</i> How inexorable you were! You never +dedicated a book to <i>me</i>.</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. I hadn’t begun to write when we were—dedicating things +to each other.</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor</i>. Not for the public—but you wrote for me; and, wonderful as +you are, you’ve never written anything since that I care for half as much +as—</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale (interested)</i>. Well?</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor</i>. Your letters.</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale (in a changed voice)</i>. My letters—do you remember them?</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor</i>. When I don’t, I reread them.</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale (incredulous)</i>. You have them still?</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor (unguardedly)</i>. You haven’t mine, then?</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale (playfully)</i>. Oh, you were a celebrity already. Of course I +kept them! <i>(Smiling.)</i> Think what they are worth now! I always keep +them locked up in my safe over there. <i>(She indicates a cabinet.)</i></p> + +<p><i>Ventnor (after a pause)</i>. I always carry yours with me.</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale (laughing)</i>. You—</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor</i>. Wherever I go. <i>(A longer pause. She looks at him +fixedly.)</i> I have them with me now.</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale (agitated)</i>. You—have them with you—now?</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor (embarrassed)</i>. Why not? One never knows—</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. Never knows—?</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor (humorously)</i>. Gad—when the bank-examiner may come round. +You forget I’m a married man.</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. Ah—yes.</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor (sits down beside her)</i>. I speak to you as I couldn’t to +anyone else—without deserving a kicking. You know how it all came about. +<i>(A pause.)</i> You’ll bear witness that it wasn’t till you denied me all +hope—</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale (a little breathless)</i>. Yes, yes—</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor</i>. Till you sent me from you—</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. It’s so easy to be heroic when one is young! One doesn’t +realize how long life is going to last afterward. <i>(Musing.)</i> Nor what +weary work it is gathering up the fragments.</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor</i>. But the time comes when one sends for the china-mender, and +has the bits riveted together, and turns the cracked side to the wall—</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. And denies that the article was ever damaged?</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor</i>. Eh? Well, the great thing, you see, is to keep one’s self +out of reach of the housemaid’s brush. <i>(A pause.)</i> If you’re married +you can’t—always. <i>(Smiling.)</i> Don’t you hate to be taken down and +dusted?</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale (with intention)</i>. You forget how long ago my husband died. +It’s fifteen years since I’ve been an object of interest to anybody but the +public.</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor (smiling)</i>. The only one of your admirers to whom you’ve ever +given the least encouragement!</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. Say rather the most easily pleased!</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor</i>. Or the only one you cared to please?</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. Ah, you <i>haven’t</i> kept my letters!</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor (gravely)</i>. Is that a challenge? Look here, then! <i>(He +drams a packet from his pocket and holds it out to her.)</i></p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale (taking the packet and looking at him earnestly)</i>. Why have +you brought me these?</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor</i>. I didn’t bring them; they came because I came—that’s all. +<i>(Tentatively.)</i> Are we unwelcome?</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale (who has undone the packet and does not appear to hear +him)</i>. The very first I ever wrote you—the day after we met at the +concert. How on earth did you happen to keep it? <i>(She glances over +it.)</i> How perfectly absurd! Well, it’s not a compromising document.</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor</i>. I’m afraid none of them are.</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale (quickly)</i>. Is it to that they owe their immunity? Because +one could leave them about like safety matches?—Ah, here’s another I +remember—I wrote that the day after we went skating together for the first +time. <i>(She reads it slowly.)</i> How odd! How very odd!</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor</i>. What?</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. Why, it’s the most curious thing—I had a letter of this +kind to do the other day, in the novel I’m at work on now—the letter of a +woman who is just—just beginning—</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor</i>. Yes—just beginning—?</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. And, do you know, I find the best phrase in it, the +phrase I somehow regarded as the fruit of—well, of all my subsequent +discoveries—is simply plagiarized, word for word, from this!</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor (eagerly)</i>. I told you so! You were all there!</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale (critically)</i>. But the rest of it’s poorly done—very +poorly. <i>(Reads the letter over.)</i> H’m—I didn’t know how to leave +off. It takes me forever to get out of the door.</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor (gayly)</i>. Perhaps I was there to prevent you! <i>(After a +pause.)</i> I wonder what I said in return?</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale (interested)</i>. Shall we look? <i>(She rises.)</i> Shall +we—really? I have them all here, you know. <i>(She goes toward the +cabinet.)</i></p> + +<p><i>Ventnor (following her with repressed eagerness)</i>. Oh—all!</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale (throws open the door of the cabinet, revealing a number of +packets)</i>. Don’t you believe me now?</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor</i>. Good heavens! How I must have repeated myself! But then you +were so very deaf.</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale (takes out a packet and returns to her seat. Ventnor extends +an impatient hand for the letters)</i>. No—no; wait! I want to find your +answer to the one I was just reading. <i>(After a pause.)</i> Here it +is—yes, I thought so!</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor</i>. What did you think?</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale (triumphantly)</i>. I thought it was the one in which you +quoted <i>Epipsychidion</i>—</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor</i>. Mercy! Did I <i>quote</i> things? I don’t wonder you were +cruel.</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. Ah, and here’s the other—the one I—the one I didn’t +answer—for a long time. Do you remember?</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor (with emotion)</i>. Do I remember? I wrote it the morning after +we heard <i>Isolde</i>—</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale (disappointed)</i>. No—no. <i>That</i> wasn’t the one I +didn’t answer! Here—this is the one I mean.</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor (takes it curiously)</i>. Ah—h’m—this is very like unrolling a +mummy—<i>(he glances at her)</i>—with a live grain of wheat in it, +perhaps?—Oh, by Jove!</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. What?</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor</i>. Why, this is the one I made a sonnet out of afterward! By +Jove, I’d forgotten where that idea came from. You may know the lines +perhaps? They’re in the fourth volume of my Complete Edition—It’s the +thing beginning</p> + +<div class="poetry"><div class="poem"> +<i>Love came to me with unrelenting eyes—</i> +</div></div> + +<p class="nind">one of my best, I rather fancy. Of course, here it’s very crudely put—the +values aren’t brought out—ah! this touch is good though—very good. H’m, I +daresay there might be other material. <i>(He glances toward the +cabinet.)</i></p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale (drily)</i>. The live grain of wheat, as you said!</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor</i>. Ah, well—my first harvest was sown on rocky +ground—<i>now</i> I plant for the fowls of the air. <i>(Rising and walking +toward the cabinet.)</i> When can I come and carry off all this rubbish?</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. Carry it off?</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor (embarrassed)</i>. My dear lady, surely between you and me +explicitness is a burden. You must see that these letters of ours can’t be +left to take their chance like an ordinary correspondence—you said +yourself we were public property.</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. To take their chance? Do you suppose that, in my keeping, +your letters take any chances? <i>(Suddenly.)</i> Do mine—in yours?</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor (still more embarrassed)</i>. Helen—! <i>(He takes a turn +through the room.)</i> You force me to remind you that you and I are +differently situated—that in a moment of madness I sacrificed the only +right you ever gave me—the right to love you better than any other +woman in the world. <i>(A pause. She says nothing and he continues, with +increasing difficulty—)</i> You asked me just now why I carried your +letters about with me—kept them, literally, in my own hands. Well, suppose +it’s to be sure of their not falling into some one else’s?</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. Oh!</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor (throws himself into a chair)</i>. For God’s sake don’t pity me!</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale (after a long pause)</i>. Am I dull—or are you trying to say +that you want to give me back my letters?</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor (starting up)</i>. I? Give you back—? God forbid! Your letters? +Not for the world! The only thing I have left! But you can’t dream that in +<i>my</i> hands—</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale (suddenly)</i>. You want yours, then?</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor (repressing his eagerness)</i>. My dear friend, if I’d ever +dreamed that you’d kept them—?</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale (accusingly)</i>. You <i>do</i> want them. <i>(A pause. He +makes a deprecatory gesture.)</i> Why should they be less safe with me than +mine with you? <i>I</i> never forfeited the right to keep them.</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor (after another pause)</i>. It’s compensation enough, almost, +to have you reproach me! <i>(He moves nearer to her, but she makes no +response.)</i> You forget that I’ve forfeited <i>all</i> my rights—even +that of letting you keep my letters.</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. You <i>do</i> want them! <i>(She rises, throws all the +letters into the cabinet, locks the door and puts the key in her +pocket.)</i> There’s my answer.</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor</i>. Helen—!</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. Ah, I paid dearly enough for the right to keep them, and +I mean to! <i>(She turns to him passionately.)</i> Have you ever asked +yourself how I paid for it? With what months and years of solitude, what +indifference to flattery, what resistance to affection?—Oh, don’t smile +because I said affection, and not love. Affection’s a warm cloak in cold +weather; and I <i>have</i> been cold; and I shall keep on growing colder! +Don’t talk to me about living in the hearts of my readers! We both know +what kind of a domicile that is. Why, before long I shall become a classic! +Bound in sets and kept on the top book-shelf—brr, doesn’t that sound +freezing? I foresee the day when I shall be as lonely as an Etruscan +museum! <i>(She breaks into a laugh.)</i> That’s what I’ve paid for the +right to keep your letters. <i>(She holds out her hand.)</i> And now give +me mine.</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor</i>. Yours?</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale (haughtily)</i>. Yes; I claim them.</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor (in the same tone)</i>. On what ground?</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. Hear the man!—Because I wrote them, of course.</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor</i>. But it seems to me that—under your inspiration, I admit—I +also wrote mine.</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. Oh, I don’t dispute their authenticity—it’s yours I +deny!</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor</i>. Mine?</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. You voluntarily ceased to be the man who wrote me those +letters—you’ve admitted as much. You traded paper for flesh and blood. I +don’t dispute your wisdom—only you must hold to your bargain! The letters +are all mine.</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor (groping between two tones)</i>. Your arguments are as +convincing as ever. <i>(He hazards a faint laugh.)</i> You’re a marvellous +dialectician—but, if we’re going to settle the matter in the spirit of an +arbitration treaty, why, there are accepted conventions in such cases. It’s +an odious way to put it, but since you won’t help me, one of them is—</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. One of them is—?</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor</i>. That it is usual—that technically, I mean, the +letter—belongs to its writer—</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale (after a pause)</i>. Such letters as <i>these</i>?</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor</i>. Such letters especially—</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. But you couldn’t have written them if I hadn’t—been +willing to read them. Surely there’s more of myself in them than of you.</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor</i>. Surely there’s nothing in which a man puts more of himself +than in his love-letters!</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale (with emotion)</i>. But a woman’s love-letters are like her child. +They belong to her more than to anybody else—</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor</i>. And a man’s?</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale (with sudden violence)</i>. Are all he risks!—There, take +them. <i>(She flings the key of the cabinet at his feet and sinks into a +chair.)</i></p> + +<p><i>Ventnor (starts as though to pick up the key; then approaches and bends +over her)</i>. Helen—oh, Helen!</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale (she yields her hands to him, murmuring:)</i> Paul! +<i>(Suddenly she straightens herself and draws back illuminated.)</i> What +a fool I am! I see it all now. You want them for your memoirs!</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor (disconcerted)</i>. Helen—</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale (agitated)</i>. Come, come—the rule is to unmask when the +signal’s given! You want them for your memoirs.</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor (with a forced laugh)</i>. What makes you think so?</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale (triumphantly)</i>. Because <i>I</i> want them for mine!</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor (in a changed tone)</i>. Ah—. <i>(He moves away from her and +leans against the mantelpiece. She remains seated, with her eyes fixed on +him.)</i></p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. I wonder I didn’t see it sooner. Your reasons were lame +enough.</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor (ironically)</i>. Yours were masterly. You’re the more +accomplished actor of the two. I was completely deceived.</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. Oh, I’m a novelist. I can keep up that sort of thing for +five hundred pages!</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor</i>. I congratulate you. <i>(A pause.)</i></p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale (moving to her seat behind the tea-table)</i>. I’ve never +offered you any tea. <i>(She bends over the kettle.)</i> Why don’t you take +your letters?</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor</i>. Because you’ve been clever enough to make it impossible for +me. <i>(He picks up the key and hands it to her. Then abruptly)</i>—Was it +all acting—just now?</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. By what right do you ask?</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor</i>. By right of renouncing my claim to my letters. Keep +them—and tell me.</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. I give you back your claim—and I refuse to tell you.</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor (sadly)</i>. Ah, Helen, if you deceived me, you deceived +yourself also.</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. What does it matter, now that we’re both undeceived? I +played a losing game, that’s all.</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor</i>. Why losing—since all the letters are yours?</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. The letters? <i>(Slowly.)</i> I’d forgotten the letters—</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor (exultant)</i>. Ah, I knew you’d end by telling me the truth!</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. The truth? Where <i>is</i> the truth? <i>(Half to +herself.)</i> I thought I was lying when I began—but the lies turned into +truth as I uttered them! <i>(She looks at Ventnor.)</i> I <i>did</i> want +your letters for my memoirs—I <i>did</i> think I’d kept them for that +purpose—and I wanted to get mine back for the same reason—but now <i>(she +puts out her hand and picks up some of her letters, which are lying +scattered on the table near her)</i>—how fresh they seem, and how they +take me back to the time when we lived instead of writing about life!</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor (smiling)</i>. The time when we didn’t prepare our impromptu +effects beforehand and copyright our remarks about the weather!</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. Or keep our epigrams in cold storage and our adjectives +under lock and key!</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor</i>. When our emotions weren’t worth ten cents a word, and a +signature wasn’t an autograph. Ah, Helen, after all, there’s nothing like +the exhilaration of spending one’s capital!</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. Of wasting it, you mean. <i>(She points to the +letters.)</i> Do you suppose we could have written a word of these if we’d +known we were putting our dreams out at interest? <i>(She sits musing, with +her eyes on the fire, and he watches her in silence.)</i> Paul, do you +remember the deserted garden we sometimes used to walk in?</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor</i>. The old garden with the high wall at the end of the village +street? The garden with the ruined box-borders and the broken-down arbor? +Why, I remember every weed in the paths and every patch of moss on the +walls!</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale.</i> Well—I went back there the other day. The village is +immensely improved. There’s a new hotel with gas-fires, and a trolley in +the main street; and the garden has been turned into a public park, where +excursionists sit on cast-iron benches admiring the statue of an +Abolitionist.</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor</i>. An Abolitionist—how appropriate!</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. And the man who sold the garden has made a fortune that +he doesn’t know how to spend—</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor (rising impulsively)</i>. Helen, <i>(he approaches and lays his +hand on her letters)</i>, let’s sacrifice our fortune and keep the +excursionists out!</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale (with a responsive movement)</i>. Paul, do you really mean it?</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor (gayly)</i>. Mean it? Why, I feel like a landed proprietor +already! It’s more than a garden—it’s a park.</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. It’s more than a park, it’s a world—as long as we keep +it to ourselves!</p> + +<p><i>Ventnor</i>. Ah, yes—even the pyramids look small when one sees a +Cook’s tourist on top of them! <i>(He takes the key from the table, unlocks +the cabinet and brings out his letters, which he lays beside hers.)</i> +Shall we burn the key to our garden?</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. Ah, then it will indeed be boundless! <i>(Watching him +while he throws the letters into the fire.)</i></p> + +<p><i>Ventnor (turning back to her with a half-sad smile)</i>. But not too big +for us to find each other in?</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Dale</i>. Since we shall be the only people there! <i>(He takes +both her hands and they look at each other a moment in silence. Then he +goes out by the door to the right. As he reaches the door she takes a step +toward him, impulsively; then turning back she leans against the +chimney-piece, quietly watching the letters burn.)</i></p> + +<h2><a name="THE_REMBRANDT" id="THE_REMBRANDT"></a>THE REMBRANDT</h2> + +<p class="nind">“<span class="smcap">You’re</span> <i>so</i> artistic,” my cousin Eleanor Copt began.</p> + +<p>Of all Eleanor’s exordiums it is the one I most dread. When she tells me +I’m so clever I know this is merely the preamble to inviting me to meet the +last literary obscurity of the moment: a trial to be evaded or endured, as +circumstances dictate; whereas her calling me artistic fatally connotes +the request to visit, in her company, some distressed gentlewoman whose +future hangs on my valuation of her old Saxe or of her grandfather’s +Marc Antonios. Time was when I attempted to resist these compulsions of +Eleanor’s; but I soon learned that, short of actual flight, there was +no refuge from her beneficent despotism. It is not always easy for the +curator of a museum to abandon his post on the plea of escaping a pretty +cousin’s importunities; and Eleanor, aware of my predicament, is none +too magnanimous to take advantage of it. Magnanimity is, in fact, not in +Eleanor’s line. The virtues, she once explained to me, are like bonnets: +the very ones that look best on other people may not happen to suit one’s +own particular style; and she added, with a slight deflection of metaphor, +that none of the ready-made virtues ever <i>had</i> fitted her: they all +pinched somewhere, and she’d given up trying to wear them.</p> + +<p>Therefore when she said to me, “You’re <i>so</i> artistic.” emphasizing the +conjunction with a tap of her dripping umbrella (Eleanor is out in all +weathers: the elements are as powerless against her as man), I merely +stipulated, “It’s not old Saxe again?”</p> + +<p>She shook her head reassuringly. “A picture—a Rembrandt!”</p> + +<p>“Good Lord! Why not a Leonardo?”</p> + +<p>“Well”—she smiled—“that, of course, depends on <i>you</i>.”</p> + +<p>“On me?”</p> + +<p>“On your attribution. I dare say Mrs. Fontage would consent to the +change—though she’s very conservative.”</p> + +<p>A gleam of hope came to me and I pronounced: “One can’t judge of a picture +in this weather.”</p> + +<p>“Of course not. I’m coming for you to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>“I’ve an engagement to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll come before or after your engagement.”</p> + +<p>The afternoon paper lay at my elbow and I contrived a furtive consultation +of the weather-report. It said “Rain to-morrow,” and I answered briskly: +“All right, then; come at ten”—rapidly calculating that the clouds on +which I counted might lift by noon.</p> + +<p>My ingenuity failed of its due reward; for the heavens, as if in league +with my cousin, emptied themselves before morning, and punctually at ten +Eleanor and the sun appeared together in my office.</p> + +<p>I hardly listened, as we descended the Museum steps and got into Eleanor’s +hansom, to her vivid summing-up of the case. I guessed beforehand that the +lady we were about to visit had lapsed by the most distressful degrees from +opulence to a “hall-bedroom”; that her grandfather, if he had not been +Minister to France, had signed the Declaration of Independence; that the +Rembrandt was an heirloom, sole remnant of disbanded treasures; that for +years its possessor had been unwilling to part with it, and that even now +the question of its disposal must be approached with the most diplomatic +obliquity.</p> + +<p>Previous experience had taught me that all Eleanor’s “cases” presented a +harrowing similarity of detail. No circumstance tending to excite the +spectator’s sympathy and involve his action was omitted from the history of +her beneficiaries; the lights and shades were indeed so skilfully adjusted +that any impartial expression of opinion took on the hue of cruelty. I +could have produced closetfuls of “heirlooms” in attestation of this fact; +for it is one more mark of Eleanor’s competence that her friends usually +pay the interest on her philanthropy. My one hope was that in this case the +object, being a picture, might reasonably be rated beyond my means; and +as our cab drew up before a blistered brown-stone door-step I formed the +self-defensive resolve to place an extreme valuation on Mrs. Fontage’s +Rembrandt. It is Eleanor’s fault if she is sometimes fought with her own +weapons.</p> + +<p>The house stood in one of those shabby provisional-looking New York streets +that seem resignedly awaiting demolition. It was the kind of house that, +in its high days, must have had a bow-window with a bronze in it. The +bow-window had been replaced by a plumber’s <i>devanture</i>, and one might +conceive the bronze to have gravitated to the limbo where Mexican onyx +tables and bric-a-brac in buffalo-horn await the first signs of our next +aesthetic reaction.</p> + +<p>Eleanor swept me through a hall that smelled of poverty, up unlit stairs to +a bare slit of a room. “And she must leave this in a month!” she whispered +across her knock.</p> + +<p>I had prepared myself for the limp widow’s weed of a woman that one figures +in such a setting; and confronted abruptly with Mrs. Fontage’s white-haired +erectness I had the disconcerting sense that I was somehow in her presence +at my own solicitation. I instinctively charged Eleanor with this reversal +of the situation; but a moment later I saw it must be ascribed to a +something about Mrs. Fontage that precluded the possibility of her asking +any one a favor. It was not that she was of forbidding, or even majestic, +demeanor; but that one guessed, under her aquiline prettiness, a dignity +nervously on guard against the petty betrayal of her surroundings. The +room was unconcealably poor: the little faded “relics,” the high-stocked +ancestral silhouettes, the steel-engravings after Raphael and Correggio, +grouped in a vain attempt to hide the most obvious stains on the +wall-paper, served only to accentuate the contrast of a past evidently +diversified by foreign travel and the enjoyment of the arts. Even Mrs. +Fontage’s dress had the air of being a last expedient, the ultimate outcome +of a much-taxed ingenuity in darning and turning. One felt that all the +poor lady’s barriers were falling save that of her impregnable manner.</p> + +<p>To this manner I found myself conveying my appreciation of being admitted +to a view of the Rembrandt.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Fontage’s smile took my homage for granted. “It is always,” she +conceded, “a privilege to be in the presence of the great masters.” Her +slim wrinkled hand waved me to a dusky canvas near the window.</p> + +<p>“It’s <i>so</i> interesting, dear Mrs. Fontage,” I heard Eleanor +exclaiming, “and my cousin will be able to tell you exactly—“ Eleanor, in +my presence, always admits that she knows nothing about art; but she gives +the impression that this is merely because she hasn’t had time to look into +the matter—and has had me to do it for her.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Fontage seated herself without speaking, as though fearful that a +breath might disturb my communion with the masterpiece. I felt that she +thought Eleanor’s reassuring ejaculations ill-timed; and in this I was of +one mind with her; for the impossibility of telling her exactly what I +thought of her Rembrandt had become clear to me at a glance.</p> + +<p>My cousin’s vivacities began to languish and the silence seemed to shape +itself into a receptacle for my verdict. I stepped back, affecting a more +distant scrutiny; and as I did so my eye caught Mrs. Fontage’s profile. Her +lids trembled slightly. I took refuge in the familiar expedient of asking +the history of the picture, and she waved me brightly to a seat.</p> + +<p>This was indeed a topic on which she could dilate. The Rembrandt, it +appeared, had come into Mr. Fontage’s possession many years ago, while +the young couple were on their wedding-tour, and under circumstances so +romantic that she made no excuse for relating them in all their parenthetic +fulness. The picture belonged to an old Belgian Countess of redundant +quarterings, whom the extravagances of an ungovernable nephew had compelled +to part with her possessions (in the most private manner) about the time of +the Fontages’ arrival. By a really remarkable coincidence, it happened that +their courier (an exceptionally intelligent and superior man) was an old +servant of the Countess’s, and had thus been able to put them in the way of +securing the Rembrandt under the very nose of an English Duke, whose agent +had been sent to Brussels to negotiate for its purchase. Mrs. Fontage could +not recall the Duke’s name, but he was a great collector and had a famous +Highland castle, where somebody had been murdered, and which she herself +had visited (by moonlight) when she had travelled in Scotland as a girl. +The episode had in short been one of the most interesting “experiences” of +a tour almost chromo-lithographic in vivacity of impression; and they had +always meant to go back to Brussels for the sake of reliving so picturesque +a moment. Circumstances (of which the narrator’s surroundings declared the +nature) had persistently interfered with the projected return to Europe, +and the picture had grown doubly valuable as representing the high-water +mark of their artistic emotions. Mrs. Fontage’s moist eye caressed the +canvas. “There is only,” she added with a perceptible effort, “one slight +drawback: the picture is not signed. But for that the Countess, of course, +would have sold it to a museum. All the connoisseurs who have seen it +pronounce it an undoubted Rembrandt, in the artist’s best manner; but the +museums”—she arched her brows in smiling recognition of a well-known +weakness—“give the preference to signed examples—“</p> + +<p>Mrs. Fontage’s words evoked so touching a vision of the young tourists of +fifty years ago, entrusting to an accomplished and versatile courier the +direction of their helpless zeal for art, that I lost sight for a moment +of the point at issue. The old Belgian Countess, the wealthy Duke with a +feudal castle in Scotland, Mrs. Fontage’s own maiden pilgrimage to Arthur’s +Seat and Holyrood, all the accessories of the naïf transaction, seemed +a part of that vanished Europe to which our young race carried its +indiscriminate ardors, its tender romantic credulity: the legendary +castellated Europe of keepsakes, brigands and old masters, that +compensated, by one such “experience” as Mrs. Fontage’s, for an after-life +of aesthetic privation.</p> + +<p>I was restored to the present by Eleanor’s looking at her watch. The action +mutely conveyed that something was expected of me. I risked the temporizing +statement that the picture was very interesting; but Mrs. Fontage’s polite +assent revealed the poverty of the expedient. Eleanor’s impatience +overflowed.</p> + +<p>“You would like my cousin to give you an idea of its value?” she suggested.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Fontage grew more erect. “No one,” she corrected with great +gentleness, “can know its value quite as well as I, who live with it—“</p> + +<p>We murmured our hasty concurrence.</p> + +<p>“But it might be interesting to hear”—she addressed herself to me—“as a +mere matter of curiosity—what estimate would be put on it from the purely +commercial point of view—if such a term may be used in speaking of a work +of art.”</p> + +<p>I sounded a note of deprecation.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I understand, of course,” she delicately anticipated me, “that that +could never be <i>your</i> view, your personal view; but since occasions +<i>may</i> arise—do arise—when it becomes necessary to—to put a price on +the priceless, as it were—I have thought—Miss Copt has suggested—“</p> + +<p>“Some day,” Eleanor encouraged her, “you might feel that the picture ought +to belong to some one who has more—more opportunity of showing it—letting +it be seen by the public—for educational reasons—“</p> + +<p>“I have tried,” Mrs. Fontage admitted, “to see it in that light.”</p> + +<p>The crucial moment was upon me. To escape the challenge of Mrs. Fontage’s +brilliant composure I turned once more to the picture. If my courage needed +reinforcement, the picture amply furnished it. Looking at that lamentable +canvas seemed the surest way of gathering strength to denounce it; but +behind me, all the while, I felt Mrs. Fontage’s shuddering pride drawn +up in a final effort of self-defense. I hated myself for my sentimental +perversion of the situation. Reason argued that it was more cruel to +deceive Mrs. Fontage than to tell her the truth; but that merely proved the +inferiority of reason to instinct in situations involving any concession to +the emotions. Along with her faith in the Rembrandt I must destroy not only +the whole fabric of Mrs. Fontage’s past, but even that lifelong habit of +acquiescence in untested formulas that makes the best part of the average +feminine strength. I guessed the episode of the picture to be inextricably +interwoven with the traditions and convictions which served to veil Mrs. +Fontage’s destitution not only from others but from herself. Viewed in +that light the Rembrandt had perhaps been worth its purchase-money; and I +regretted that works of art do not commonly sell on the merit of the moral +support they may have rendered.</p> + +<p>From this unavailing flight I was recalled by the sense that something +must be done. To place a fictitious value on the picture was at best a +provisional measure; while the brutal alternative of advising Mrs. Fontage +to sell it for a hundred dollars at least afforded an opening to the +charitably disposed purchaser. I intended, if other resources failed, +to put myself forward in that light; but delicacy of course forbade my +coupling my unflattering estimate of the Rembrandt with an immediate offer +to buy it. All I could do was to inflict the wound: the healing unguent +must be withheld for later application.</p> + +<p>I turned to Mrs. Fontage, who sat motionless, her finely-lined cheeks +touched with an expectant color, her eyes averted from the picture which +was so evidently the one object they beheld.</p> + +<p>“My dear madam—“ I began. Her vivid smile was like a light held up to +dazzle me. It shrouded every alternative in darkness and I had the flurried +sense of having lost my way among the intricacies of my contention. Of +a sudden I felt the hopelessness of finding a crack in her impenetrable +conviction. My words slipped from me like broken weapons. “The picture,” +I faltered, “would of course be worth more if it were signed. As it is, +I—I hardly think—on a conservative estimate—it can be valued at—at +more—than—a thousand dollars, say—“</p> + +<p>My deflected argument ran on somewhat aimlessly till it found itself +plunging full tilt against the barrier of Mrs. Fontage’s silence. She sat +as impassive as though I had not spoken. Eleanor loosed a few fluttering +words of congratulation and encouragement, but their flight was suddenly +cut short. Mrs. Fontage had risen with a certain solemnity.</p> + +<p>“I could never,” she said gently—her gentleness was adamantine—“under any +circumstances whatever, consider, for a moment even, the possibility of +parting with the picture at such a price.”</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>Within three weeks a tremulous note from Mrs. Fontage requested the favor +of another visit. If the writing was tremulous, however, the writer’s tone +was firm. She named her own day and hour, without the conventional +reference to her visitor’s convenience.</p> + +<p>My first impulse was to turn the note over to Eleanor. I had acquitted +myself of my share in the ungrateful business of coming to Mrs. Fontage’s +aid, and if, as her letter denoted, she had now yielded to the closer +pressure of need, the business of finding a purchaser for the Rembrandt +might well be left to my cousin’s ingenuity. But here conscience put in +the uncomfortable reminder that it was I who, in putting a price on the +picture, had raised the real obstacle in the way of Mrs. Fontage’s rescue. +No one would give a thousand dollars for the Rembrandt; but to tell +Mrs. Fontage so had become as unthinkable as murder. I had, in fact, on +returning from my first inspection of the picture, refrained from imparting +to Eleanor my opinion of its value. Eleanor is porous, and I knew that +sooner or later the unnecessary truth would exude through the loose texture +of her dissimulation. Not infrequently she thus creates the misery she +alleviates; and I have sometimes suspected her of paining people in order +that she might be sorry for them. I had, at all events, cut off retreat in +Eleanor’s direction; and the remaining alternative carried me straight to +Mrs. Fontage.</p> + +<p>She received me with the same commanding sweetness. The room was even barer +than before—I believe the carpet was gone—but her manner built up about +her a palace to which I was welcomed with high state; and it was as a mere +incident of the ceremony that I was presently made aware of her decision to +sell the Rembrandt. My previous unsuccess in planning how to deal with Mrs. +Fontage had warned me to leave my farther course to chance; and I listened +to her explanation with complete detachment. She had resolved to travel for +her health; her doctor advised it, and as her absence might be indefinitely +prolonged she had reluctantly decided to part with the picture in order +to avoid the expense of storage and insurance. Her voice drooped at the +admission, and she hurried on, detailing the vague itinerary of a journey +that was to combine long-promised visits to impatient friends with various +“interesting opportunities” less definitely specified. The poor lady’s +skill in rearing a screen of verbiage about her enforced avowal had +distracted me from my own share in the situation, and it was with dismay +that I suddenly caught the drift of her assumptions. She expected me to +buy the Rembrandt for the Museum; she had taken my previous valuation as a +tentative bid, and when I came to my senses she was in the act of accepting +my offer.</p> + +<p>Had I had a thousand dollars of my own to dispose of, the bargain would +have been concluded on the spot; but I was in the impossible position of +being materially unable to buy the picture and morally unable to tell her +that it was not worth acquiring for the Museum.</p> + +<p>I dashed into the first evasion in sight. I had no authority, I explained, +to purchase pictures for the Museum without the consent of the committee.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Fontage coped for a moment in silence with the incredible fact +that I had rejected her offer; then she ventured, with a kind of pale +precipitation: “But I understood—Miss Copt tells me that you practically +decide such matters for the committee.” I could guess what the effort had +cost her.</p> + +<p>“My cousin is given to generalizations. My opinion may have some weight +with the committee—“</p> + +<p>“Well, then—“ she timidly prompted.</p> + +<p>“For that very reason I can’t buy the picture.”</p> + +<p>She said, with a drooping note, “I don’t understand.”</p> + +<p>“Yet you told me,” I reminded her, “that you knew museums didn’t buy +unsigned pictures.”</p> + +<p>“Not for what they are worth! Every one knows that. But I—I +understood—the price you named—“ Her pride shuddered back from the +abasement. “It’s a misunderstanding then,” she faltered.</p> + +<p>To avoid looking at her, I glanced desperately at the Rembrandt. Could +I—? But reason rejected the possibility. Even if the committee had been +blind—and they all <i>were</i> but Crozier—I simply shouldn’t have dared +to do it. I stood up, feeling that to cut the matter short was the only +alleviation within reach.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Fontage had summoned her indomitable smile; but its brilliancy +dropped, as I opened the door, like a candle blown out by a draught.</p> + +<p>“If there’s any one else—if you knew any one who would care to see the +picture, I should be most happy—“ She kept her eyes on me, and I saw that, +in her case, it hurt less than to look at the Rembrandt. “I shall have to +leave here, you know,” she panted, “if nobody cares to have it—“</p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>That evening at my club I had just succeeded in losing sight of Mrs. +Fontage in the fumes of an excellent cigar, when a voice at my elbow evoked +her harassing image.</p> + +<p>“I want to talk to you,” the speaker said, “about Mrs. Fontage’s +Rembrandt.”</p> + +<p>“There isn’t any,” I was about to growl; but looking up I recognized the +confiding countenance of Mr. Jefferson Rose.</p> + +<p>Mr. Rose was known to me chiefly as a young man suffused with a vague +enthusiasm for Virtue and my cousin Eleanor.</p> + +<p>One glance at his glossy exterior conveyed the assurance that his morals +were as immaculate as his complexion and his linen. Goodness exuded from +his moist eye, his liquid voice, the warm damp pressure of his trustful +hand. He had always struck me as one of the most uncomplicated organisms +I had ever met. His ideas were as simple and inconsecutive as the +propositions in a primer, and he spoke slowly, with a kind of uniformity +of emphasis that made his words stand out like the raised type for the +blind. An obvious incapacity for abstract conceptions made him peculiarly +susceptible to the magic of generalization, and one felt he would have been +at the mercy of any Cause that spelled itself with a capital letter. It was +hard to explain how, with such a superabundance of merit, he managed to be +a good fellow: I can only say that he performed the astonishing feat as +naturally as he supported an invalid mother and two sisters on the slender +salary of a banker’s clerk. He sat down beside me with an air of bright +expectancy.</p> + +<p>“It’s a remarkable picture, isn’t it?” he said.</p> + +<p>“You’ve seen it?”</p> + +<p>“I’ve been so fortunate. Miss Copt was kind enough to get Mrs. Fontage’s +permission; we went this afternoon.” I inwardly wished that Eleanor +had selected another victim; unless indeed the visit were part of a +plan whereby some third person, better equipped for the cultivation of +delusions, was to be made to think the Rembrandt remarkable. Knowing the +limitations of Mr. Rose’s resources I began to wonder if he had any rich +aunts.</p> + +<p>“And her buying it in that way, too,” he went on with his limpid smile, +“from that old Countess in Brussels, makes it all the more interesting, +doesn’t it? Miss Copt tells me it’s very seldom old pictures can be traced +back for more than a generation. I suppose the fact of Mrs. Fontage’s +knowing its history must add a good deal to its value?”</p> + +<p>Uncertain as to his drift, I said: “In her eyes it certainly appears to.”</p> + +<p>Implications are lost on Mr. Rose, who glowingly continued: “That’s the +reason why I wanted to talk to you about it—to consult you. Miss Copt +tells me you value it at a thousand dollars.”</p> + +<p>There was no denying this, and I grunted a reluctant assent.</p> + +<p>“Of course,” he went on earnestly, “your valuation is based on the fact +that the picture isn’t signed—Mrs. Fontage explained that; and it does +make a difference, certainly. But the thing is—if the picture’s really +good—ought one to take advantage—? I mean—one can see that Mrs. Fontage +is in a tight place, and I wouldn’t for the world—“</p> + +<p>My astonished stare arrested him.</p> + +<p>“<i>You</i> wouldn’t—?”</p> + +<p>“I mean—you see, it’s just this way”; he coughed and blushed: “I can’t +give more than a thousand dollars myself—it’s as big a sum as I can manage +to scrape together—but before I make the offer I want to be sure I’m not +standing in the way of her getting more money.”</p> + +<p>My astonishment lapsed to dismay. “You’re going to buy the picture for a +thousand dollars?”</p> + +<p>His blush deepened. “Why, yes. It sounds rather absurd, I suppose. It isn’t +much in my line, of course. I can see the picture’s very beautiful, but I’m +no judge—it isn’t the kind of thing, naturally, that I could afford to go +in for; but in this case I’m very glad to do what I can; the circumstances +are so distressing; and knowing what you think of the picture I feel it’s a +pretty safe investment—“</p> + +<p>“I don’t think!” I blurted out.</p> + +<p>“You—?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t think the picture’s worth a thousand dollars; I don’t think it’s +worth ten cents; I simply lied about it, that’s all.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Rose looked as frightened as though I had charged him with the offense.</p> + +<p>“Hang it, man, can’t you see how it happened? I saw the poor woman’s pride +and happiness hung on her faith in that picture. I tried to make her +understand that it was worthless—but she wouldn’t; I tried to tell her +so—but I couldn’t. I behaved like a maudlin ass, but you shan’t pay for my +infernal bungling—you mustn’t buy the picture!”</p> + +<p>Mr. Rose sat silent, tapping one glossy boot-tip with another. Suddenly he +turned on me a glance of stored intelligence. “But you know,” he said +good-humoredly, “I rather think I must.”</p> + +<p>“You haven’t—already?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no; the offer’s not made.”</p> + +<p>“Well, then—“</p> + +<p>His look gathered a brighter significance.</p> + +<p>“But if the picture’s worth nothing, nobody will buy it—“</p> + +<p>I groaned.</p> + +<p>“Except,” he continued, “some fellow like me, who doesn’t know anything. +<i>I</i> think it’s lovely, you know; I mean to hang it in my mother’s +sitting-room.” He rose and clasped my hand in his adhesive pressure. “I’m +awfully obliged to you for telling me this; but perhaps you won’t mind my +asking you not to mention our talk to Miss Copt? It might bother her, you +know, to think the picture isn’t exactly up to the mark; and it won’t make +a rap of difference to me.”</p> + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>Mr. Rose left me to a sleepless night. The next morning my resolve was +formed, and it carried me straight to Mrs. Fontage’s. She answered my knock +by stepping out on the landing, and as she shut the door behind her I +caught a glimpse of her devastated interior. She mentioned, with a careful +avoidance of the note of pathos on which our last conversation had closed, +that she was preparing to leave that afternoon; and the trunks obstructing +the threshold showed that her preparations were nearly complete. They were, +I felt certain, the same trunks that, strapped behind a rattling vettura, +had accompanied the bride and groom on that memorable voyage of discovery +of which the booty had till recently adorned her walls; and there was a +dim consolation in the thought that those early “finds” in coral and Swiss +wood-carving, in lava and alabaster, still lay behind the worn locks, in +the security of worthlessness.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Fontage, on the landing, among her strapped and corded treasures, +maintained the same air of stability that made it impossible, even under +such conditions, to regard her flight as anything less dignified than +a departure. It was the moral support of what she tacitly assumed that +enabled me to set forth with proper deliberation the object of my visit; +and she received my announcement with an absence of surprise that struck +me as the very flower of tact. Under cover of these mutual assumptions the +transaction was rapidly concluded; and it was not till the canvas passed +into my hands that, as though the physical contact had unnerved her, +Mrs. Fontage suddenly faltered. “It’s the giving it up—“ she stammered, +disguising herself to the last; and I hastened away from the collapse of +her splendid effrontery.</p> + +<p>I need hardly point out that I had acted impulsively, and that reaction +from the most honorable impulses is sometimes attended by moral +perturbation. My motives had indeed been mixed enough to justify some +uneasiness, but this was allayed by the instinctive feeling that it is more +venial to defraud an institution than a man. Since Mrs. Fontage had to be +kept from starving by means not wholly defensible, it was better that the +obligation should be borne by a rich institution than an impecunious youth. +I doubt, in fact, if my scruples would have survived a night’s sleep, had +they not been complicated by some uncertainty as to my own future. It was +true that, subject to the purely formal assent of the committee, I had +full power to buy for the Museum, and that the one member of the committee +likely to dispute my decision was opportunely travelling in Europe; but the +picture once in place I must face the risk of any expert criticism to which +chance might expose it. I dismissed this contingency for future study, +stored the Rembrandt in the cellar of the Museum, and thanked heaven that +Crozier was abroad.</p> + +<p>Six months later he strolled into my office. I had just concluded, under +conditions of exceptional difficulty, and on terms unexpectedly benign, +the purchase of the great Bartley Reynolds; and this circumstance, by +relegating the matter of the Rembrandt to a lower stratum of consciousness, +enabled me to welcome Crozier with unmixed pleasure. My security +was enhanced by his appearance. His smile was charged with amiable +reminiscences, and I inferred that his trip had put him in the humor +to approve of everything, or at least to ignore what fell short of his +approval. I had therefore no uneasiness in accepting his invitation to dine +that evening. It is always pleasant to dine with Crozier and never more so +than when he is just back from Europe. His conversation gives even the food +a flavor of the Café Anglais.</p> + +<p>The repast was delightful, and it was not till we had finished a Camembert +which he must have brought over with him, that my host said, in a tone of +after-dinner perfunctoriness: “I see you’ve picked up a picture or two +since I left.”</p> + +<p>I assented. “The Bartley Reynolds seemed too good an opportunity to miss, +especially as the French government was after it. I think we got it +cheap—“</p> + +<p>“<i>Connu, connu</i>” said Crozier pleasantly. “I know all about the +Reynolds. It was the biggest kind of a haul and I congratulate you. Best +stroke of business we’ve done yet. But tell me about the other picture—the +Rembrandt.”</p> + +<p>“I never said it was a Rembrandt.” I could hardly have said why, but I felt +distinctly annoyed with Crozier.</p> + +<p>“Of course not. There’s ‘Rembrandt’ on the frame, but I saw you’d +modified it to ‘Dutch School‘; I apologize.” He paused, but I offered no +explanation. “What about it?” he went on. “Where did you pick it up?” As +he leaned to the flame of the cigar-lighter his face seemed ruddy with +enjoyment.</p> + +<p>“I got it for a song,” I said.</p> + +<p>“A thousand, I think?”</p> + +<p>“Have you seen it?” I asked abruptly.</p> + +<p>“Went over the place this afternoon and found it in the cellar. Why hasn’t +it been hung, by the way?”</p> + +<p>I paused a moment. “I’m waiting—“</p> + +<p>“To—?”</p> + +<p>“To have it varnished.”</p> + +<p>“Ah!” He leaned back and poured himself a second glass of Chartreuse. The +smile he confided to its golden depths provoked me to challenge him with—</p> + +<p>“What do you think of it?”</p> + +<p>“The Rembrandt?” He lifted his eyes from the glass. “Just what you do.”</p> + +<p>“It isn’t a Rembrandt.”</p> + +<p>“I apologize again. You call it, I believe, a picture of the same period?”</p> + +<p>“I’m uncertain of the period.”</p> + +<p>“H’m.” He glanced appreciatively along his cigar. “What are you certain +of?”</p> + +<p>“That it’s a damned bad picture,” I said savagely.</p> + +<p>He nodded. “Just so. That’s all we wanted to know.”</p> + +<p>“<i>We</i>?”</p> + +<p>“We—I—the committee, in short. You see, my dear fellow, if you hadn’t +been certain it was a damned bad picture our position would have been a +little awkward. As it is, my remaining duty—I ought to explain that in +this matter I’m acting for the committee—is as simple as it’s agreeable.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll be hanged,” I burst out, “if I understand one word you’re saying!”</p> + +<p>He fixed me with a kind of cruel joyousness. “You will—you will,” he +assured me; “at least you’ll begin to, when you hear that I’ve seen Miss +Copt.”</p> + +<p>“Miss Copt?”</p> + +<p>“And that she has told me under what conditions the picture was bought.”</p> + +<p>“She doesn’t know anything about the conditions! That is,” I added, +hastening to restrict the assertion, “she doesn’t know my opinion of the +picture.” I thirsted for five minutes with Eleanor.</p> + +<p>“Are you quite sure?” Crozier took me up. “Mr. Jefferson Rose does.”</p> + +<p>“Ah—I see.”</p> + +<p>“I thought you would,” he reminded me. “As soon as I’d laid eyes on +the Rembrandt—I beg your pardon!—I saw that it—well, required some +explanation.”</p> + +<p>“You might have come to me.”</p> + +<p>“I meant to; but I happened to meet Miss Copt, whose encyclopædic +information has often before been of service to me. I always go to Miss +Copt when I want to look up anything; and I found she knew all about the +Rembrandt.”</p> + +<p>“<i>All</i>?”</p> + +<p>“Precisely. The knowledge was in fact causing her sleepless nights. Mr. +Rose, who was suffering from the same form of insomnia, had taken her into +his confidence, and she—ultimately—took me into hers.”</p> + +<p>“Of course!”</p> + +<p>“I must ask you to do your cousin justice. She didn’t speak till it became +evident to her uncommonly quick perceptions that your buying the picture on +its merits would have been infinitely worse for—for everybody—than your +diverting a small portion of the Museum’s funds to philanthropic uses. Then +she told me the moving incident of Mr. Rose. Good fellow, Rose. And the +old lady’s case was desperate. Somebody had to buy that picture.” I moved +uneasily in my seat “Wait a moment, will you? I haven’t finished my cigar. +There’s a little head of Il Fiammingo’s that you haven’t seen, by the way; +I picked it up the other day in Parma. We’ll go in and have a look at it +presently. But meanwhile what I want to say is that I’ve been charged—in +the most informal way—to express to you the committee’s appreciation of +your admirable promptness and energy in capturing the Bartley Reynolds. We +shouldn’t have got it at all if you hadn’t been uncommonly wide-awake, and +to get it at such a price is a double triumph. We’d have thought nothing of +a few more thousands—“</p> + +<p>“I don’t see,” I impatiently interposed, “that, as far as I’m concerned, +that alters the case.”</p> + +<p>“The case—?”</p> + +<p>“Of Mrs. Fontage’s Rembrandt. I bought the picture because, as you say, the +situation was desperate, and I couldn’t raise a thousand myself. What I did +was of course indefensible; but the money shall be refunded tomorrow—“</p> + +<p>Crozier raised a protesting hand. “Don’t interrupt me when I’m talking ex +cathedra. The money’s been refunded already. The fact is, the Museum has +sold the Rembrandt.”</p> + +<p>I stared at him wildly. “Sold it? To whom?”</p> + +<p>“Why—to the committee.—Hold on a bit, please.—Won’t you take another +cigar? Then perhaps I can finish what I’ve got to say.—Why, my dear +fellow, the committee’s under an obligation to you—that’s the way we look +at it. I’ve investigated Mrs. Fontage’s case, and—well, the picture had to +be bought. She’s eating meat now, I believe, for the first time in a year. +And they’d have turned her out into the street that very day, your cousin +tells me. Something had to be done at once, and you’ve simply given a +number of well-to-do and self-indulgent gentlemen the opportunity of +performing, at very small individual expense, a meritorious action in +the nick of time. That’s the first thing I’ve got to thank you for. And +then—you’ll remember, please, that I have the floor—that I’m still +speaking for the committee—and secondly, as a slight recognition of your +services in securing the Bartley Reynolds at a very much lower figure than +we were prepared to pay, we beg you—the committee begs you—to accept the +gift of Mrs. Fontage’s Rembrandt. Now we’ll go in and look at that little +head....”</p> + +<h2><a name="THE_MOVING_FINGER" id="THE_MOVING_FINGER"></a>THE MOVING FINGER</h2> + +<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">The</span> news of Mrs. Grancy’s death came to me with the shock of an immense +blunder—one of fate’s most irretrievable acts of vandalism. It was as +though all sorts of renovating forces had been checked by the clogging of +that one wheel. Not that Mrs. Grancy contributed any perceptible momentum +to the social machine: her unique distinction was that of filling to +perfection her special place in the world. So many people are like +badly-composed statues, over-lapping their niches at one point and leaving +them vacant at another. Mrs. Grancy’s niche was her husband’s life; and if +it be argued that the space was not large enough for its vacancy to leave a +very big gap, I can only say that, at the last resort, such dimensions must +be determined by finer instruments than any ready-made standard of utility. +Ralph Grancy’s was in short a kind of disembodied usefulness: one of those +constructive influences that, instead of crystallizing into definite forms, +remain as it were a medium for the development of clear thinking and fine +feeling. He faithfully irrigated his own dusty patch of life, and the +fruitful moisture stole far beyond his boundaries. If, to carry on the +metaphor, Grancy’s life was a sedulously-cultivated enclosure, his wife was +the flower he had planted in its midst—the embowering tree, rather, which +gave him rest and shade at its foot and the wind of dreams in its upper +branches.</p> + +<p>We had all—his small but devoted band of followers—known a moment when it +seemed likely that Grancy would fail us. We had watched him pitted against +one stupid obstacle after another—ill-health, poverty, misunderstanding +and, worst of all for a man of his texture, his first wife’s soft insidious +egotism. We had seen him sinking under the leaden embrace of her affection +like a swimmer in a drowning clutch; but just as we despaired he had always +come to the surface again, blinded, panting, but striking out fiercely for +the shore. When at last her death released him it became a question as to +how much of the man she had carried with her. Left alone, he revealed numb +withered patches, like a tree from which a parasite has been stripped. But +gradually he began to put out new leaves; and when he met the lady who +was to become his second wife—his one <i>real</i> wife, as his friends +reckoned—the whole man burst into flower.</p> + +<p>The second Mrs. Grancy was past thirty when he married her, and it was +clear that she had harvested that crop of middle joy which is rooted in +young despair. But if she had lost the surface of eighteen she had kept +its inner light; if her cheek lacked the gloss of immaturity her eyes were +young with the stored youth of half a life-time. Grancy had first known her +somewhere in the East—I believe she was the sister of one of our consuls +out there—and when he brought her home to New York she came among us as +a stranger. The idea of Grancy’s remarriage had been a shock to us all. +After one such calcining most men would have kept out of the fire; but we +agreed that he was predestined to sentimental blunders, and we awaited +with resignation the embodiment of his latest mistake. Then Mrs. Grancy +came—and we understood. She was the most beautiful and the most complete +of explanations. We shuffled our defeated omniscience out of sight and gave +it hasty burial under a prodigality of welcome. For the first time in years +we had Grancy off our minds. “He’ll do something great now!” the least +sanguine of us prophesied; and our sentimentalist emended: “He <i>has</i> +done it—in marrying her!”</p> + +<p>It was Claydon, the portrait-painter, who risked this hyperbole; and who +soon afterward, at the happy husband’s request, prepared to defend it in a +portrait of Mrs. Grancy. We were all—even Claydon—ready to concede that +Mrs. Grancy’s unwontedness was in some degree a matter of environment. Her +graces were complementary and it needed the mate’s call to reveal the flash +of color beneath her neutral-tinted wings. But if she needed Grancy to +interpret her, how much greater was the service she rendered him! Claydon +professionally described her as the right frame for him; but if she defined +she also enlarged, if she threw the whole into perspective she also cleared +new ground, opened fresh vistas, reclaimed whole areas of activity that had +run to waste under the harsh husbandry of privation. This interaction of +sympathies was not without its visible expression. Claydon was not alone +in maintaining that Grancy’s presence—or indeed the mere mention of his +name—had a perceptible effect on his wife’s appearance. It was as though a +light were shifted, a curtain drawn back, as though, to borrow another of +Claydon’s metaphors, Love the indefatigable artist were perpetually seeking +a happier “pose” for his model. In this interpretative light Mrs. Grancy +acquired the charm which makes some women’s faces like a book of which +the last page is never turned. There was always something new to read in +her eyes. What Claydon read there—or at least such scattered hints of +the ritual as reached him through the sanctuary doors—his portrait in +due course declared to us. When the picture was exhibited it was at once +acclaimed as his masterpiece; but the people who knew Mrs. Grancy smiled +and said it was flattered. Claydon, however, had not set out to paint +<i>their</i> Mrs. Grancy—or ours even—but Ralph’s; and Ralph knew his own +at a glance. At the first confrontation he saw that Claydon had understood. +As for Mrs. Grancy, when the finished picture was shown to her she turned +to the painter and said simply: “Ah, you’ve done me facing the east!”</p> + +<p>The picture, then, for all its value, seemed a mere incident in the +unfolding of their double destiny, a foot-note to the illuminated text of +their lives. It was not till afterward that it acquired the significance +of last words spoken on a threshold never to be recrossed. Grancy, a year +after his marriage, had given up his town house and carried his bliss an +hour’s journey away, to a little place among the hills. His various duties +and interests brought him frequently to New York but we necessarily saw him +less often than when his house had served as the rallying-point of kindred +enthusiasms. It seemed a pity that such an influence should be withdrawn, +but we all felt that his long arrears of happiness should be paid in +whatever coin he chose. The distance from which the fortunate couple +radiated warmth on us was not too great for friendship to traverse; and our +conception of a glorified leisure took the form of Sundays spent in the +Grancys’ library, with its sedative rural outlook, and the portrait of Mrs. +Grancy illuminating its studious walls. The picture was at its best in that +setting; and we used to accuse Claydon of visiting Mrs. Grancy in order to +see her portrait. He met this by declaring that the portrait <i>was</i> +Mrs. Grancy; and there were moments when the statement seemed unanswerable. +One of us, indeed—I think it must have been the novelist—said that +Clayton had been saved from falling in love with Mrs. Grancy only by +falling in love with his picture of her; and it was noticeable that he, to +whom his finished work was no more than the shed husk of future effort, +showed a perennial tenderness for this one achievement. We smiled afterward +to think how often, when Mrs. Grancy was in the room, her presence +reflecting itself in our talk like a gleam of sky in a hurrying current, +Claydon, averted from the real woman, would sit as it were listening to the +picture. His attitude, at the time, seemed only a part of the unusualness +of those picturesque afternoons, when the most familiar combinations of +life underwent a magical change. Some human happiness is a landlocked lake; +but the Grancys’ was an open sea, stretching a buoyant and illimitable +surface to the voyaging interests of life. There was room and to spare on +those waters for all our separate ventures; and always beyond the sunset, +a mirage of the fortunate isles toward which our prows bent.</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>It was in Rome that, three years later, I heard of her death. The notice +said “suddenly”; I was glad of that. I was glad too—basely perhaps—to be +away from Grancy at a time when silence must have seemed obtuse and speech +derisive.</p> + +<p>I was still in Rome when, a few months afterward, he suddenly arrived +there. He had been appointed secretary of legation at Constantinople and +was on the way to his post. He had taken the place, he said frankly, “to +get away.” Our relations with the Porte held out a prospect of hard work, +and that, he explained, was what he needed. He could never be satisfied to +sit down among the ruins. I saw that, like most of us in moments of extreme +moral tension, he was playing a part, behaving as he thought it became a +man to behave in the eye of disaster. The instinctive posture of grief is +a shuffling compromise between defiance and prostration; and pride feels +the need of striking a worthier attitude in face of such a foe. Grancy, by +nature musing and retrospective, had chosen the rôle of the man of action, +who answers blow for blow and opposes a mailed front to the thrusts of +destiny; and the completeness of the equipment testified to his inner +weakness. We talked only of what we were not thinking of, and parted, after +a few days, with a sense of relief that proved the inadequacy of friendship +to perform, in such cases, the office assigned to it by tradition.</p> + +<p>Soon afterward my own work called me home, but Grancy remained several +years in Europe. International diplomacy kept its promise of giving +him work to do, and during the year in which he acted as <i>chargé +d’affaires</i> he acquitted himself, under trying conditions, with +conspicuous zeal and discretion. A political redistribution of matter +removed him from office just as he had proved his usefulness to the +government; and the following summer I heard that he had come home and +was down at his place in the country.</p> + +<p>On my return to town I wrote him and his reply came by the next post. He +answered as it were in his natural voice, urging me to spend the following +Sunday with him, and suggesting that I should bring down any of the old +set who could be persuaded to join me. I thought this a good sign, and +yet—shall I own it?—I was vaguely disappointed. Perhaps we are apt to +feel that our friends’ sorrows should be kept like those historic monuments +from which the encroaching ivy is periodically removed.</p> + +<p>That very evening at the club I ran across Claydon. I told him of Grancy’s +invitation and proposed that we should go down together; but he pleaded an +engagement. I was sorry, for I had always felt that he and I stood nearer +Ralph than the others, and if the old Sundays were to be renewed I should +have preferred that we two should spend the first alone with him. I said as +much to Claydon and offered to fit my time to his; but he met this by a +general refusal.</p> + +<p>“I don’t want to go to Grancy’s,” he said bluntly. I waited a moment, but +he appended no qualifying clause.</p> + +<p>“You’ve seen him since he came back?” I finally ventured.</p> + +<p>Claydon nodded.</p> + +<p>“And is he so awfully bad?”</p> + +<p>“Bad? No: he’s all right.”</p> + +<p>“All right? How can he be, unless he’s changed beyond all recognition?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, you’ll recognize <i>him</i>,” said Claydon, with a puzzling deflection +of emphasis.</p> + +<p>His ambiguity was beginning to exasperate me, and I felt myself shut out +from some knowledge to which I had as good a right as he.</p> + +<p>“You’ve been down there already, I suppose?”</p> + +<p>“Yes; I’ve been down there.”</p> + +<p>“And you’ve done with each other—the partnership is dissolved?”</p> + +<p>“Done with each other? I wish to God we had!” He rose nervously and tossed +aside the review from which my approach had diverted him. “Look here,” +he said, standing before me, “Ralph’s the best fellow going and there’s +nothing under heaven I wouldn’t do for him—short of going down there +again.” And with that he walked out of the room.</p> + +<p>Claydon was incalculable enough for me to read a dozen different meanings +into his words; but none of my interpretations satisfied me. I determined, +at any rate, to seek no farther for a companion; and the next Sunday I +travelled down to Grancy’s alone. He met me at the station and I saw at +once that he had changed since our last meeting. Then he had been in +fighting array, but now if he and grief still housed together it was +no longer as enemies. Physically the transformation was as marked but +less reassuring. If the spirit triumphed the body showed its scars. At +five-and-forty he was gray and stooping, with the tired gait of an old man. +His serenity, however, was not the resignation of age. I saw that he did +not mean to drop out of the game. Almost immediately he began to speak of +our old interests; not with an effort, as at our former meeting, but simply +and naturally, in the tone of a man whose life has flowed back into its +normal channels. I remembered, with a touch of self-reproach, how I had +distrusted his reconstructive powers; but my admiration for his reserved +force was now tinged by the sense that, after all, such happiness as his +ought to have been paid with his last coin. The feeling grew as we neared +the house and I found how inextricably his wife was interwoven with my +remembrance of the place: how the whole scene was but an extension of that +vivid presence.</p> + +<p>Within doors nothing was changed, and my hand would have dropped without +surprise into her welcoming clasp. It was luncheon-time, and Grancy led me +at once to the dining-room, where the walls, the furniture, the very plate +and porcelain, seemed a mirror in which a moment since her face had been +reflected. I wondered whether Grancy, under the recovered tranquillity +of his smile, concealed the same sense of her nearness, saw perpetually +between himself and the actual her bright unappeasable ghost. He spoke of +her once or twice, in an easy incidental way, and her name seemed to hang +in the air after he had uttered it, like a chord that continues to vibrate. +If he felt her presence it was evidently as an enveloping medium, the moral +atmosphere in which he breathed. I had never before known how completely +the dead may survive.</p> + +<p>After luncheon we went for a long walk through the autumnal fields and +woods, and dusk was falling when we re-entered the house. Grancy led the +way to the library, where, at this hour, his wife had always welcomed +us back to a bright fire and a cup of tea. The room faced the west, and +held a clear light of its own after the rest of the house had grown dark. +I remembered how young she had looked in this pale gold light, which +irradiated her eyes and hair, or silhouetted her girlish outline as she +passed before the windows. Of all the rooms the library was most peculiarly +hers; and here I felt that her nearness might take visible shape. Then, all +in a moment, as Grancy opened the door, the feeling vanished and a kind +of resistance met me on the threshold. I looked about me. Was the room +changed? Had some desecrating hand effaced the traces of her presence? No; +here too the setting was undisturbed. My feet sank into the same deep-piled +Daghestan; the bookshelves took the firelight on the same rows of rich +subdued bindings; her armchair stood in its old place near the tea-table; +and from the opposite wall her face confronted me.</p> + +<p>Her face—but <i>was</i> it hers? I moved nearer and stood looking up at +the portrait. Grancy’s glance had followed mine and I heard him move to my +side.</p> + +<p>“You see a change in it?” he said.</p> + +<p>“What does it mean?” I asked.</p> + +<p>“It means—that five years have passed.”</p> + +<p>“Over <i>her</i>?”</p> + +<p>“Why not?—Look at me!” He pointed to his gray hair and furrowed temples. +“What do you think kept <i>her</i> so young? It was happiness! But now—“ +he looked up at her with infinite tenderness. “I like her better so,” he +said. “It’s what she would have wished.”</p> + +<p>“Have wished?”</p> + +<p>“That we should grow old together. Do you think she would have wanted to be +left behind?”</p> + +<p>I stood speechless, my gaze travelling from his worn grief-beaten features +to the painted face above. It was not furrowed like his; but a veil +of years seemed to have descended on it. The bright hair had lost its +elasticity, the cheek its clearness, the brow its light: the whole woman +had waned.</p> + +<p>Grancy laid his hand on my arm. “You don’t like it?” he said sadly.</p> + +<p>“Like it? I—I’ve lost her!” I burst out.</p> + +<p>“And I’ve found her,” he answered.</p> + +<p>“In <i>that</i>?” I cried with a reproachful gesture.</p> + +<p>“Yes; in that.” He swung round on me almost defiantly. “The other had +become a sham, a lie! This is the way she would have looked—does look, I +mean. Claydon ought to know, oughtn’t he?”</p> + +<p>I turned suddenly. “Did Claydon do this for you?”</p> + +<p>Grancy nodded.</p> + +<p>“Since your return?”</p> + +<p>“Yes. I sent for him after I’d been back a week—.” He turned away and gave +a thrust to the smouldering fire. I followed, glad to leave the picture +behind me. Grancy threw himself into a chair near the hearth, so that the +light fell on his sensitive variable face. He leaned his head back, shading +his eyes with his hand, and began to speak.</p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>“You fellows knew enough of my early history to A guess what my second +marriage meant to me. I say guess, because no one could understand—really. +I’ve always had a feminine streak in me, I suppose: the need of a pair of +eyes that should see with me, of a pulse that should keep time with mine. +Life is a big thing, of course; a magnificent spectacle; but I got so tired +of looking at it alone! Still, it’s always good to live, and I had plenty +of happiness—of the evolved kind. What I’d never had a taste of was the +simple inconscient sort that one breathes in like the air....</p> + +<p>“Well—I met her. It was like finding the climate in which I was meant to +live. You know what she was—how indefinitely she multiplied one’s points +of contact with life, how she lit up the caverns and bridged the abysses! +Well, I swear to you (though I suppose the sense of all that was latent in +me) that what I used to think of on my way home at the end of the day, was +simply that when I opened this door she’d be sitting over there, with the +lamp-light falling in a particular way on one little curl in her neck.... +When Claydon painted her he caught just the look she used to lift to mine +when I came in—I’ve wondered, sometimes, at his knowing how she looked +when she and I were alone.—How I rejoiced in that picture! I used to say +to her, ‘You’re my prisoner now—I shall never lose you. If you grew tired +of me and left me you’d leave your real self there on the wall!’ It was +always one of our jokes that she was going to grow tired of me—</p> + +<p>“Three years of it—and then she died. It was so sudden that there was +no change, no diminution. It was as if she had suddenly become fixed, +immovable, like her own portrait: as if Time had ceased at its happiest +hour, just as Claydon had thrown down his brush one day and said, ‘I can’t +do better than that.’</p> + +<p>“I went away, as you know, and stayed over there five years. I worked as +hard as I knew how, and after the first black months a little light stole +in on me. From thinking that she would have been interested in what I was +doing I came to feel that she <i>was</i> interested—that she was there and +that she knew. I’m not talking any psychical jargon—I’m simply trying to +express the sense I had that an influence so full, so abounding as hers +couldn’t pass like a spring shower. We had so lived into each other’s +hearts and minds that the consciousness of what she would have thought +and felt illuminated all I did. At first she used to come back shyly, +tentatively, as though not sure of finding me; then she stayed longer and +longer, till at last she became again the very air I breathed.... There +were bad moments, of course, when her nearness mocked me with the loss of +the real woman; but gradually the distinction between the two was effaced +and the mere thought of her grew warm as flesh and blood.</p> + +<p>“Then I came home. I landed in the morning and came straight down here. The +thought of seeing her portrait possessed me and my heart beat like a +lover’s as I opened the library door. It was in the afternoon and the room +was full of light. It fell on her picture—the picture of a young and +radiant woman. She smiled at me coldly across the distance that divided us. +I had the feeling that she didn’t even recognize me. And then I caught +sight of myself in the mirror over there—a gray-haired broken man whom she +had never known!</p> + +<p>“For a week we two lived together—the strange woman and the strange man. +I used to sit night after night and question her smiling face; but no +answer ever came. What did she know of me, after all? We were irrevocably +separated by the five years of life that lay between us. At times, as I +sat here, I almost grew to hate her; for her presence had driven away my +gentle ghost, the real wife who had wept, aged, struggled with me during +those awful years.... It was the worst loneliness I’ve ever known. Then, +gradually, I began to notice a look of sadness in the picture’s eyes; a +look that seemed to say: ‘Don’t you see that <i>I</i> am lonely too?’ And +all at once it came over me how she would have hated to be left behind! I +remembered her comparing life to a heavy book that could not be read with +ease unless two people held it together; and I thought how impatiently her +hand would have turned the pages that divided us!—So the idea came to me: +‘It’s the picture that stands between us; the picture that is dead, and not +my wife. To sit in this room is to keep watch beside a corpse.’ As this +feeling grew on me the portrait became like a beautiful mausoleum in which +she had been buried alive: I could hear her beating against the painted +walls and crying to me faintly for help....</p> + +<p>“One day I found I couldn’t stand it any longer and I sent for Claydon. He +came down and I told him what I’d been through and what I wanted him to do. +At first he refused point-blank to touch the picture. The next morning I +went off for a long tramp, and when I came home I found him sitting here +alone. He looked at me sharply for a moment and then he said: ‘I’ve changed +my mind; I’ll do it.’ I arranged one of the north rooms as a studio and he +shut himself up there for a day; then he sent for me. The picture stood +there as you see it now—it was as though she’d met me on the threshold and +taken me in her arms! I tried to thank him, to tell him what it meant to +me, but he cut me short.</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>There’s an up train at five, isn’t there?’ he asked. ‘I’m booked for a +dinner to-night. I shall just have time to make a bolt for the station and +you can send my traps after me.’ I haven’t seen him since.</p> + +<p>“I can guess what it cost him to lay hands on his masterpiece; but, after +all, to him it was only a picture lost, to me it was my wife regained!”</p> + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>After that, for ten years or more, I watched the strange spectacle of a +life of hopeful and productive effort based on the structure of a dream. +There could be no doubt to those who saw Grancy during this period that +he drew his strength and courage from the sense of his wife’s mystic +participation in his task. When I went back to see him a few months later I +found the portrait had been removed from the library and placed in a small +study up-stairs, to which he had transferred his desk and a few books. He +told me he always sat there when he was alone, keeping the library for his +Sunday visitors. Those who missed the portrait of course made no comment on +its absence, and the few who were in his secret respected it. Gradually all +his old friends had gathered about him and our Sunday afternoons regained +something of their former character; but Claydon never reappeared among us.</p> + +<p>As I look back now I see that Grancy must have been failing from the time +of his return home. His invincible spirit belied and disguised the signs of +weakness that afterward asserted themselves in my remembrance of him. He +seemed to have an inexhaustible fund of life to draw on, and more than one +of us was a pensioner on his superfluity.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, when I came back one summer from my European holiday and +heard that he had been at the point of death, I understood at once that we +had believed him well only because he wished us to.</p> + +<p>I hastened down to the country and found him midway in a slow +convalescence. I felt then that he was lost to us and he read my thought at +a glance.</p> + +<p>“Ah,” he said, “I’m an old man now and no mistake. I suppose we shall have +to go half-speed after this; but we shan’t need towing just yet!”</p> + +<p>The plural pronoun struck me, and involuntarily I looked up at Mrs. +Grancy’s portrait. Line by line I saw my fear reflected in it. It was the +face of a woman who knows that her husband is dying. My heart stood still +at the thought of what Claydon had done.</p> + +<p>Grancy had followed my glance. “Yes, it’s changed her,” he said quietly. +“For months, you know, it was touch and go with me—we had a long fight of +it, and it was worse for her than for me.” After a pause he added: “Claydon +has been very kind; he’s so busy nowadays that I seldom see him, but when I +sent for him the other day he came down at once.”</p> + +<p>I was silent and we spoke no more of Grancy’s illness; but when I took +leave it seemed like shutting him in alone with his death-warrant.</p> + +<p>The next time I went down to see him he looked much better. It was a Sunday +and he received me in the library, so that I did not see the portrait +again. He continued to improve and toward spring we began to feel that, as +he had said, he might yet travel a long way without being towed.</p> + +<p>One evening, on returning to town after a visit which had confirmed my +sense of reassurance, I found Claydon dining alone at the club. He asked me +to join him and over the coffee our talk turned to his work.</p> + +<p>“If you’re not too busy,” I said at length, “you ought to make time to go +down to Grancy’s again.”</p> + +<p>He looked up quickly. “Why?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Because he’s quite well again,” I returned with a touch of cruelty. “His +wife’s prognostications were mistaken.”</p> + +<p>Claydon stared at me a moment. “Oh, <i>she</i> knows,” he affirmed with a +smile that chilled me.</p> + +<p>“You mean to leave the portrait as it is then?” I persisted.</p> + +<p>He shrugged his shoulders. “He hasn’t sent for me yet!”</p> + +<p>A waiter came up with the cigars and Claydon rose and joined another group.</p> + +<p>It was just a fortnight later that Grancy’s housekeeper telegraphed for me. +She met me at the station with the news that he had been “taken bad” and +that the doctors were with him. I had to wait for some time in the deserted +library before the medical men appeared. They had the baffled manner of +empirics who have been superseded by the great Healer; and I lingered only +long enough to hear that Grancy was not suffering and that my presence +could do him no harm.</p> + +<p>I found him seated in his arm-chair in the little study. He held out his +hand with a smile.</p> + +<p>“You see she was right after all,” he said.</p> + +<p>“She?” I repeated, perplexed for the moment.</p> + +<p>“My wife.” He indicated the picture. “Of course I knew she had no hope from +the first. I saw that”—he lowered his voice—“after Claydon had been here. +But I wouldn’t believe it at first!”</p> + +<p>I caught his hands in mine. “For God’s sake don’t believe it now!” I +adjured him.</p> + +<p>He shook his head gently. “It’s too late,” he said. “I might have known +that she knew.”</p> + +<p>“But, Grancy, listen to me,” I began; and then I stopped. What could I say +that would convince him? There was no common ground of argument on which we +could meet; and after all it would be easier for him to die feeling that +she <i>had</i> known. Strangely enough, I saw that Claydon had missed his +mark....</p> + +<h3>V</h3> + +<p>Grancy’s will named me as one of his executors; and my associate, having +other duties on his hands, begged me to assume the task of carrying out our +friend’s wishes. This placed me under the necessity of informing Claydon +that the portrait of Mrs. Grancy had been bequeathed to him; and he replied +by the next post that he would send for the picture at once. I was staying +in the deserted house when the portrait was taken away; and as the door +closed on it I felt that Grancy’s presence had vanished too. Was it his +turn to follow her now, and could one ghost haunt another?</p> + +<p>After that, for a year or two, I heard nothing more of the picture, and +though I met Claydon from time to time we had little to say to each other. +I had no definable grievance against the man and I tried to remember that +he had done a fine thing in sacrificing his best picture to a friend; but +my resentment had all the tenacity of unreason.</p> + +<p>One day, however, a lady whose portrait he had just finished begged me +to go with her to see it. To refuse was impossible, and I went with the +less reluctance that I knew I was not the only friend she had invited. +The others were all grouped around the easel when I entered, and after +contributing my share to the chorus of approval I turned away and began +to stroll about the studio. Claydon was something of a collector and his +things were generally worth looking at. The studio was a long tapestried +room with a curtained archway at one end. The curtains were looped back, +showing a smaller apartment, with books and flowers and a few fine bits of +bronze and porcelain. The tea-table standing in this inner room proclaimed +that it was open to inspection, and I wandered in. A <i>bleu poudré</i> +vase first attracted me; then I turned to examine a slender bronze +Ganymede, and in so doing found myself face to face with Mrs. Grancy’s +portrait. I stared up at her blankly and she smiled back at me in all +the recovered radiance of youth. The artist had effaced every trace of +his later touches and the original picture had reappeared. It throned +alone on the panelled wall, asserting a brilliant supremacy over its +carefully-chosen surroundings. I felt in an instant that the whole room was +tributary to it: that Claydon had heaped his treasures at the feet of the +woman he loved. Yes—it was the woman he had loved and not the picture; and +my instinctive resentment was explained.</p> + +<p>Suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder.</p> + +<p>“Ah, how could you?” I cried, turning on him.</p> + +<p>“How could I?” he retorted. “How could I <i>not</i>? Doesn’t she belong to +me now?”</p> + +<p>I moved away impatiently.</p> + +<p>“Wait a moment,” he said with a detaining gesture. “The others have gone +and I want to say a word to you.—Oh, I know what you’ve thought of me—I +can guess! You think I killed Grancy, I suppose?”</p> + +<p>I was startled by his sudden vehemence. “I think you tried to do a cruel +thing,” I said.</p> + +<p>“Ah—what a little way you others see into life!” he murmured. “Sit down a +moment—here, where we can look at her—and I’ll tell you.”</p> + +<p>He threw himself on the ottoman beside me and sat gazing up at the picture, +with his hands clasped about his knee.</p> + +<p>“Pygmalion,” he began slowly, “turned his statue into a real woman; +<i>I</i> turned my real woman into a picture. Small compensation, you +think—but you don’t know how much of a woman belongs to you after you’ve +painted her!—Well, I made the best of it, at any rate—I gave her the best +I had in me; and she gave me in return what such a woman gives by merely +being. And after all she rewarded me enough by making me paint as I shall +never paint again! There was one side of her, though, that was mine alone, +and that was her beauty; for no one else understood it. To Grancy even +it was the mere expression of herself—what language is to thought. Even +when he saw the picture he didn’t guess my secret—he was so sure she was +all his! As though a man should think he owned the moon because it was +reflected in the pool at his door—</p> + +<p>“Well—when he came home and sent for me to change the picture it was like +asking me to commit murder. He wanted me to make an old woman of her—of +her who had been so divinely, unchangeably young! As if any man who really +loved a woman would ask her to sacrifice her youth and beauty for his sake! +At first I told him I couldn’t do it—but afterward, when he left me alone +with the picture, something queer happened. I suppose it was because I was +always so confoundedly fond of Grancy that it went against me to refuse +what he asked. Anyhow, as I sat looking up at her, she seemed to say, ‘I’m +not yours but his, and I want you to make me what he wishes.” And so I did +it. I could have cut my hand off when the work was done—I daresay he told +you I never would go back and look at it. He thought I was too busy—he +never understood....</p> + +<p>“Well—and then last year he sent for me again—you remember. It was after +his illness, and he told me he’d grown twenty years older and that he +wanted her to grow older too—he didn’t want her to be left behind. The +doctors all thought he was going to get well at that time, and he thought +so too; and so did I when I first looked at him. But when I turned to +the picture—ah, now I don’t ask you to believe me; but I swear it was +<i>her</i> face that told me he was dying, and that she wanted him to know +it! She had a message for him and she made me deliver it.”</p> + +<p>He rose abruptly and walked toward the portrait; then he sat down beside me +again.</p> + +<p>“Cruel? Yes, it seemed so to me at first; and this time, if I resisted, +it was for <i>his</i> sake and not for mine. But all the while I felt her +eyes drawing me, and gradually she made me understand. If she’d been there +in the flesh (she seemed to say) wouldn’t she have seen before any of us +that he was dying? Wouldn’t he have read the news first in her face? And +wouldn’t it be horrible if now he should discover it instead in strange +eyes?—Well—that was what she wanted of me and I did it—I kept them +together to the last!” He looked up at the picture again. “But now she +belongs to me,” he repeated....</p> + +<h2><a name="THE_CONFESSIONAL" id="THE_CONFESSIONAL"></a>THE CONFESSIONAL</h2> + +<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">When</span> I was a young man I thought a great deal of local color. At that +time it was still a pigment of recent discovery, and supposed to have +a peculiarly stimulating effect on the mental eye. As an aid to the +imagination its value was perhaps overrated; but as an object of pursuit +to that vagrant faculty, it had all the merits claimed for it. I certainly +never hunted any game better worth my powder; and to a young man with rare +holidays and long working hours, its value was enhanced by the fact that +one might bring it down at any turn, if only one kept one’s eye alert and +one’s hand on the trigger.</p> + +<p>Even the large manufacturing city where, for some years, my young +enthusiasms were chained to an accountant’s desk, was not without its +romantic opportunities. Many of the mill-hands at Dunstable were Italians, +and a foreign settlement had formed itself in that unsavory and unsanitary +portion of the town known as the Point. The Point, like more aristocratic +communities, had its residential and commercial districts, its church, its +theatre and its restaurant. When the craving for local color was on me it +was my habit to resort to the restaurant, a low-browed wooden building with +the appetizing announcement:</p> + +<p class="c">“<i>Aristiù di montone</i>”</p> + +<p class="nind">pasted in one of its fly-blown window-panes. Here the consumption of tough +macaroni or of an ambiguous <i>frittura</i> sufficed to transport me to the +Cappello d’Oro in Venice, while my cup of coffee and a wasp-waisted cigar +with a straw in it turned my greasy table-cloth into the marble top of +one of the little round tables under the arcade of the Caffè Pedrotti at +Padua. This feat of the imagination was materially aided by Agostino, the +hollow-eyed and low-collared waiter, whose slimy napkin never lost its +Latin flourish and whose zeal for my comfort was not infrequently displayed +by his testing the warmth of my soup with his finger. Through Agostino I +became acquainted with the inner history of the colony, heard the details +of its feuds and vendettas, and learned to know by sight the leading +characters in these domestic dramas.</p> + +<p>The restaurant was frequented by the chief personages of the community: +the overseer of the Italian hands at the Meriton Mills, the doctor, his +wife the <i>levatrice</i> (a plump Neapolitan with greasy ringlets, a plush +picture-hat, and a charm against the evil-eye hanging in a crease of her +neck) and lastly by Don Egidio, the <i>parocco</i> of the little church +across the street. The doctor and his wife came only on feast days, but +the overseer and Don Egidio were regular patrons. The former was a quiet +saturnine-looking man, of accomplished manners but reluctant speech, and I +depended for my diversion chiefly on Don Egidio, whose large loosely-hung +lips were always ajar for conversation. The remarks issuing from them +were richly tinged by the gutturals of the Bergamasque dialect, and it +needed but a slight acquaintance with Italian types to detect the Lombard +peasant under the priest’s rusty cassock. This inference was confirmed +by Don Egidio’s telling me that he came from a village of Val Camonica, +the radiant valley which extends northward from the lake of Iseo to +the Adamello glaciers. His step-father had been a laborer on one of +the fruit-farms of a Milanese count who owned large estates in the Val +Camonica; and that gentleman, taking a fancy to the lad, whom he had seen +at work in his orchards, had removed him to his villa on the lake of Iseo +and had subsequently educated him for the Church.</p> + +<p>It was doubtless to this picturesque accident that Don Egidio owed the +mingling of ease and simplicity that gave an inimitable charm to his +stout shabby presence. It was as though some wild mountain-fruit had been +transplanted to the Count’s orchards and had mellowed under cultivation +without losing its sylvan flavor. I have never seen the social art carried +farther without suggestion of artifice. The fact that Don Egidio’s +amenities were mainly exercised on the mill-hands composing his parish +proved the genuineness of his gift. It is easier to simulate gentility +among gentlemen than among navvies; and the plain man is a touchstone who +draws out all the alloy in the gold.</p> + +<p>Among his parishioners Don Egidio ruled with the cheerful despotism of the +good priest. On cardinal points he was inflexible, but in minor matters he +had that elasticity of judgment which enables the Catholic discipline to +fit itself to every inequality of the human conscience. There was no appeal +from his verdict; but his judgment-seat was a revolving chair from which he +could view the same act at various angles. His influence was acknowledged +not only by his flock, but by the policeman at the corner, the “bar-keep’<span class="lftspc">”</span> +in the dive, the ward politician in the corner grocery. The general verdict +of Dunstable was that the Point would have been hell without the priest. +It was perhaps not precisely heaven with him; but such light of the upper +sky as pierced its murky atmosphere was reflected from Don Egidio’s +countenance. It is hardly possible for any one to exercise such influence +without taking pleasure in it; and on the whole the priest was probably +a contented man; though it does not follow that he was a happy one. On +this point the first stages of our acquaintance yielded much food for +conjecture. At first sight Don Egidio was the image of cheerfulness. He had +all the physical indications of a mind at ease: the leisurely rolling gait, +the ready laugh, the hospitable eye of the man whose sympathies are always +on the latch. It took me some time to discover under his surface garrulity +the impenetrable reticence of his profession, and under his enjoyment of +trifles a levelling melancholy which made all enjoyment trifling. Don +Egidio’s aspect and conversation were so unsuggestive of psychological +complexities that I set down this trait to poverty or home-sickness. There +are few classes of men more frugal in tastes and habit than the village +priest in Italy; but Don Egidio, by his own account, had been introduced, +at an impressionable age, to a way of living that must have surpassed his +wildest dreams of self-indulgence. To whatever privations his parochial +work had since accustomed him, the influences of that earlier life were +too perceptible in his talk not to have made a profound impression on his +tastes; and he remained, for all his apostolic simplicity, the image of the +family priest who has his seat at the rich man’s table.</p> + +<p>It chanced that I had used one of my short European holidays to explore +afoot the romantic passes connecting the Valtelline with the lake of Iseo; +and my remembrance of that enchanting region made it seem impossible +that Don Egidio should ever look without a reminiscent pang on the grimy +perspective of his parochial streets. The transition was too complete, too +ironical, from those rich glades and Titianesque acclivities to the brick +hovels and fissured sidewalks of the Point.</p> + +<p>This impression was confirmed when Don Egidio, in response to my urgent +invitation, paid his first visit to my modest lodgings. He called one +winter evening, when a wood-fire in its happiest humor was giving a +factitious lustre to my book-shelves and bringing out the values of the one +or two old prints and Chinese porcelains that accounted for the perennial +shabbiness of my wardrobe.</p> + +<p>“Ah,” said he with a murmur of satisfaction, as he laid aside his shiny hat +and bulging umbrella, “it is a long time since I have been in a <i>casa +signorile</i>.”</p> + +<p>My remembrance of his own room (he lodged with the doctor and the +<i>levatrice</i>) saved this epithet from the suggestion of irony and kept +me silent while he sank into my arm-chair with the deliberation of a tired +traveller lowering himself gently into a warm bath.</p> + +<p>“Good! good!” he repeated, looking about him. “Books, porcelains, objects +of <i>virtù</i>—I am glad to see that there are still such things in the +world!” And he turned a genial eye on the glass of Marsala that I had +poured out for him.</p> + +<p>Don Egidio was the most temperate of men and never exceeded his one glass; +but he liked to sit by the hour puffing at my Cabañas, which I suspected +him of preferring to the black weed of his native country. Under the +influence of my tobacco he became even more blandly garrulous, and I +sometimes fancied that of all the obligations of his calling none could +have placed such a strain on him as that of preserving the secrets of the +confessional. He often talked of his early life at the Count’s villa, where +he had been educated with his patron’s two sons till he was of age to be +sent to the seminary; and I could see that the years spent in simple and +familiar intercourse with his benefactors had been the most vivid chapter +in his experience. The Italian peasant’s inarticulate tenderness for the +beauty of his birthplace had been specialized in him by contact with +cultivated tastes, and he could tell me not only that the Count had a +“stupendous” collection of pictures, but that the chapel of the villa +contained a sepulchral monument by Bambaja, and that the art-critics were +divided as to the authenticity of the Leonardo in the family palace at +Milan.</p> + +<p>On all these subjects he was inexhaustibly voluble; but there was one point +which he always avoided, and that was his reason for coming to America. I +remember the round turn with which he brought me up when I questioned him.</p> + +<p>“A priest,” said he, “is a soldier and must obey orders like a soldier.” +He set down his glass of Marsala and strolled across the room. “I had not +observed,” he went on, “that you have here a photograph of the Sposalizio +of the Brera. What a picture! <i>È stupendo</i>!” and he turned back to his +seat and smilingly lit a fresh cigar.</p> + +<p>I saw at once that I had hit on a point where his native garrulity was +protected by the chain-mail of religious discipline that every Catholic +priest wears beneath his cassock. I had too much respect for my friend +to wish to penetrate his armor, and now and then I almost fancied he was +grateful to me for not putting his reticence to the test.</p> + +<p>Don Egidio must have been past sixty when I made his acquaintance; but it +was not till the close of an exceptionally harsh winter, some five or six +years after our first meeting, that I began to think of him as an old man. +It was as though the long-continued cold had cracked and shrivelled him. He +had grown bent and hollow-chested and his lower lip shook like an unhinged +door. The summer heat did little to revive him, and in September, when I +came home from my vacation, I found him just recovering from an attack of +pneumonia. That autumn he did not care to venture often into the night air, +and now and then I used to go and sit with him in his little room, to which +I had contributed the unheard-of luxuries of an easy-chair and a gas-stove.</p> + +<p>My engagements, however, made these visits infrequent, and several weeks +had elapsed without my seeing the <i>parocco</i> when, one snowy November +morning, I ran across him in the railway-station. I was on my way to New +York for the day and had just time to wave a greeting to him as I jumped +into the railway-carriage; but a moment later, to my surprise, I saw him +stiffly clambering into the same train. I found him seated in the common +car, with his umbrella between his knees and a bundle done up in a red +cotton handkerchief on the seat at his side. The caution with which, at my +approach, he transferred this bundle to his arms caused me to glance at it +in surprise; and he answered my look by saying with a smile:</p> + +<p>“They are flowers for the dead—the most exquisite flowers—from the +greenhouses of Mr. Meriton—<i>si figuri</i>!” And he waved a descriptive +hand. “One of my lads, Gianpietro, is employed by the gardener there, and +every year on this day he brings me a beautiful bunch of flowers—for such +a purpose it is no sin,” he added, with the charming Italian pliancy of +judgment.</p> + +<p>“And why are you travelling in this snowy weather, <i>signor parocco</i>?” +I asked, as he ended with a cough.</p> + +<p>He fixed me gravely with his simple shallow eye. “Because it is the day of +the dead, my son,” he said, “and I go to place these on the grave of the +noblest man that ever lived.”</p> + +<p>“You are going to New York?”</p> + +<p>“To Brooklyn—“</p> + +<p>I hesitated a moment, wishing to question him, yet uncertain whether his +replies were curtailed by the persistency of his cough or by the desire to +avoid interrogation.</p> + +<p>“This is no weather to be travelling with such a cough,” I said at length.</p> + +<p>He made a deprecating gesture.</p> + +<p>“I have never missed the day—not once in eighteen years. But for me he +would have no one!” He folded his hands on his umbrella and looked away +from me to hide the trembling of his lip.</p> + +<p>I resolved on a last attempt to storm his confidence. “Your friend is +buried in Calvary cemetery?”</p> + +<p>He signed an assent.</p> + +<p>“That is a long way for you to go alone, <i>signor parocco</i>. The streets +are sure to be slippery and there is an icy wind blowing. Give me your +flowers and let me send them to the cemetery by a messenger. I give you my +word they shall reach their destination safely.”</p> + +<p>He turned a quiet look on me. “My son, you are young,” he said, “and you +don’t know how the dead need us.” He drew his breviary from his pocket and +opened it with a smile. “<i>Mi scusi?</i>” he murmured.</p> + +<p>The business which had called me to town obliged me to part from him as +soon as the train entered the station, and in my dash for the street I +left his unwieldy figure laboring far behind me through the crowd on the +platform. Before we separated, however, I had learned that he was returning +to Dunstable by the four o’clock train, and had resolved to despatch my +business in time to travel home with him. When I reached Wall Street I was +received with the news that the man I had appointed to meet was ill and +detained in the country. My business was “off” and I found myself with +the rest of the day at my disposal. I had no difficulty in deciding how +to employ my time. I was at an age when, in such contingencies, there is +always a feminine alternative; and even now I don’t know how it was that, +on my way to a certain hospitable luncheon-table, I suddenly found myself +in a cab which was carrying me at full-speed to the Twenty-third Street +ferry. It was not till I had bought my ticket and seated myself in the +varnished tunnel of the ferry-boat that I was aware of having been diverted +from my purpose by an overmastering anxiety for Don Egidio. I rapidly +calculated that he had not more than an hour’s advance on me, and that, +allowing for my greater agility and for the fact that I had a cab at my +call, I was likely to reach the cemetery in time to see him under shelter +before the gusts of sleet that were already sweeping across the river had +thickened to a snow-storm.</p> + +<p>At the gates of the cemetery I began to take a less sanguine view of my +attempt. The commemorative anniversary had filled the silent avenues +with visitors, and I felt the futility of my quest as I tried to fix the +gatekeeper’s attention on my delineation of a stout Italian priest with a +bad cough and a bunch of flowers tied up in a red cotton handkerchief. The +gate-keeper showed that delusive desire to oblige that is certain to send +its victims in the wrong direction; but I had the presence of mind to go +exactly contrary to his indication, and thanks to this precaution I came, +after half an hour’s search, on the figure of my poor <i>parocco</i>, +kneeling on the wet ground in one of the humblest by-ways of the great +necropolis. The mound before which he knelt was strewn with the spoils of +Mr. Meriton’s conservatories, and on the weather-worn tablet at its head I +read the inscription:</p> + +<p>IL CONTE SIVIANO +DA MILANO.</p> + +<p><i>Super flumina Babylonis, illic sedimus et flevimus.</i></p> + +<p>So engrossed was Don Egidio that for some moments I stood behind him +unobserved; and when he rose and faced me, grief had left so little room +for any minor emotion that he looked at me almost without surprise.</p> + +<p>“Don Egidio,” I said, “I have a carriage waiting for you at the gate. You +must come home with me.”</p> + +<p>He nodded quietly and I drew his hand through my arm.</p> + +<p>He turned back to the grave. “One moment, my son,” he said. “It may be for +the last time.” He stood motionless, his eyes on the heaped-up flowers +which were already bruised and blackened by the cold. “To leave him +alone—after sixty years! But God is everywhere—“ he murmured as I led him +away.</p> + +<p>On the journey home he did not care to talk, and my chief concern was to +keep him wrapped in my greatcoat and to see that his bed was made ready as +soon as I had restored him to his lodgings. The <i>levatrice</i> brought a +quilted coverlet from her own room and hovered over him as gently as though +he had been of the sex to require her services; while Agostino, at my +summons, appeared with a bowl of hot soup that was heralded down the +street by a reviving waft of garlic. To these ministrations I left the +<i>parocco</i>, intending to call for news of him the next evening; but an +unexpected pressure of work kept me late at my desk, and the following day +some fresh obstacle delayed me.</p> + +<p>On the third afternoon, as I was leaving the office, an agate-eyed infant +from the Point hailed me with a message from the doctor. The <i>parocco</i> +was worse and had asked for me. I jumped into the nearest car and ten +minutes later was running up the doctor’s greasy stairs.</p> + +<p>To my dismay I found Don Egidio’s room cold and untenanted; but I was +reassured a moment later by the appearance of the <i>levatrice</i>, who +announced that she had transferred the blessed man to her own apartment, +where he could have the sunlight and a good bed to lie in. There in fact +he lay, weak but smiling, in a setting which contrasted oddly enough with +his own monastic surroundings: a cheerful grimy room, hung with anecdotic +chromos, photographs of lady-patients proudly presenting their offspring +to the camera, and innumerable Neapolitan <i>santolini</i> decked out with +shrivelled palm-leaves.</p> + +<p>The <i>levatrice</i> whispered that the good man had the pleurisy, and +that, as she phrased it, he was nearing his last mile-stone. I saw that he +was in fact in a bad way, but his condition did not indicate any pressing +danger, and I had the presentiment that he would still, as the saying is, +put up a good fight. It was clear, however, that he knew what turn the +conflict must take, and the solemnity with which he welcomed me showed that +my summons was a part of that spiritual strategy with which the Catholic +opposes the surprise of death.</p> + +<p>“My son,” he said, when the <i>levatrice</i> had left us, “I have a favor +to ask you. You found me yesterday bidding good-bye to my best friend.” +His cough interrupted him. “I have never told you,” he went on, “the name +of the family in which I was brought up. It was Siviano, and that was +the grave of the Count’s eldest son, with whom I grew up as a brother. +For eighteen years he has lain in that strange ground—<i>in terra +aliena</i>—and when I die, there will be no one to care for his grave.”</p> + +<p>I saw what he waited for. “I will care for it, <i>signor parocco</i>.”</p> + +<p>“I knew I should have your promise, my child; and what you promise you +keep. But my friend is a stranger to you—you are young and at your age +life is a mistress who kisses away sad memories. Why should you remember +the grave of a stranger? I cannot lay such a claim on you. But I will tell +you his story—and then I think that neither joy nor grief will let you +forget him; for when you rejoice you will remember how he sorrowed; and +when you sorrow the thought of him will be like a friend’s hand in yours.”</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>You tell me (Don Egidio began) that you know our little lake; and if you +have seen it you will understand why it always used to remind me of the +“garden enclosed” of the Canticles.</p> + +<p><i>Hortus inclusus; columba mea in foraminibus petræ</i>: the words used +to come back to me whenever I returned from a day’s journey across the +mountains, and looking down saw the blue lake far below, hidden in its +hills like a happy secret in a stern heart. We were never envious of +the glory of the great lakes. They are like the show pictures that some +nobleman hangs in his public gallery; but our Iseo is the treasure that +he hides in his inner chamber.</p> + +<p>You tell me you saw it in summer, when it looks up like a saint’s eye, +reflecting the whole of heaven. It was then too that I first saw it. +My future friend, the old Count, had found me at work on one of his +fruit-farms up the valley, and hearing that I was ill-treated by my +step-father—a drunken pedlar from the Val Mastellone, whom my poor mother +a year or two earlier had come across at the fair of Lovere—he had taken +me home with him to Iseo. I used to serve mass in our hill-village of +Cerveno, and the village children called me “the little priest” because +when my work was done I often crept back to the church to get away from +my step-father’s blows and curses. “I will make a real priest of him,” +the Count declared; and that afternoon, perched on the box of his +travelling-carriage, I was whirled away from the dark scenes of my +childhood into a world, where, as it seemed to me, every one was as happy +as an angel on a <i>presepio</i>.</p> + +<p>I wonder if you remember the Count’s villa? It lies on the shore of the +lake, facing the green knoll of Monte Isola, and overlooked by the village +of Siviano and by the old parish-church where I said mass for fifteen happy +years. The village hangs on a ledge of the mountain; but the villa dips its +foot in the lake, smiling at its reflection like a bather lingering on the +brink. What Paradise it seemed to me that day! In our church up the valley +there hung an old brown picture, with a Saint Sabastian in the foreground; +and behind him the most wonderful palace, with terraced gardens adorned +with statues and fountains, where fine folk in resplendent dresses walked +up and down without heeding the blessed martyr’s pangs. The Count’s villa, +with its terraces, its roses, its marble steps descending to the lake, +reminded me of that palace; only instead of being inhabited by wicked +people engrossed in their selfish pleasures it was the home of the kindest +friends that ever took a poor lad by the hand.</p> + +<p>The old Count was a widower when I first knew him. He had been twice +married, and his first wife had left him two children, a son and a +daughter. The eldest, Donna Marianna, was then a girl of twenty, who +kept her father’s house and was a mother to the two lads. She was not +handsome or learned, and had no taste for the world; but she was like the +lavender-plant in a poor man’s window—just a little gray flower, but a +sweetness that fills the whole house. Her brother, Count Roberto, had been +ailing from his birth, and was a studious lad with a melancholy musing face +such as you may see in some of Titian’s portraits of young men. He looked +like an exiled prince dressed in mourning. There was one child by the +second marriage, Count Andrea, a boy of my own age, handsome as a Saint +George, but not as kind as the others. No doubt, being younger, he was less +able to understand why an uncouth peasant lad should have been brought to +his father’s table; and the others were so fearful of hurting my feelings +that, but for his teasing, I might never have mended my clumsy manners or +learned how to behave in the presence of my betters. Count Andrea was not +sparing in such lessons, and Count Roberto, in spite of his weak arms, +chastised his brother roundly when he thought the discipline had been too +severe; but for my part it seemed to me natural enough that such a godlike +being should lord it over a poor clodhopper like myself.</p> + +<p>Well—I will not linger over the beginning of my new life for my story has +to do with its close. Only I should like to make you understand what the +change meant to me—an ignorant peasant lad, coming from hard words and +blows and a smoke-blackened hut in the hills to that great house full of +rare and beautiful things, and of beings who seemed to me even more rare +and beautiful. Do you wonder I was ready to kiss the ground they trod, and +would have given the last drop of my blood to serve them?</p> + +<p>In due course I was sent to the seminary at Lodi; and on holidays I used +to visit the family in Milan. Count Andrea was growing up to be one of +the handsomest young men imaginable, but a trifle wild; and the old Count +married him in haste to the daughter of a Venetian noble, who brought as +her dower a great estate in Istria. The Countess Gemma, as this lady was +called, was as light as thistledown and had an eye like a baby’s; but while +she was cooing for the moon her pretty white hands were always stealing +toward something within reach that she had not been meant to have. The old +Count was not alert enough to follow these manoeuvres; and the Countess hid +her designs under a torrent of guileless chatter, as pick-pockets wear long +sleeves to conceal their movements. Her only fault, he used to say, was +that one of her aunts had married an Austrian; and this event having taken +place before she was born he laughingly acquitted her of any direct share +in it. She confirmed his good opinion of her by giving her husband two +sons; and Roberto showing no inclination to marry, these boys naturally +came to be looked on as the heirs of the house.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile I had finished my course of studies, and the old Count, on my +twenty-first birthday, had appointed me priest of the parish of Siviano. It +was the year of Count Andrea’s marriage and there were great festivities at +the villa. Three years later the old Count died, to the sorrow of his two +eldest children. Donna Marianna and Count Roberto closed their apartments +in the palace at Milan and withdrew for a year to Siviano. It was then +that I first began to know my friend. Before that I had loved him without +understanding him; now I learned of what metal he was made. His bookish +tastes inclined him to a secluded way of living; and his younger brother +perhaps fancied that he would not care to assume the charge of the estate. +But if Andrea thought this he was disappointed. Roberto resolutely took up +the tradition of his father’s rule, and, as if conscious of lacking the +old Count’s easy way with the peasants, made up for it by a redoubled zeal +for their welfare. I have seen him toil for days to adjust some trifling +difficulty that his father would have set right with a ready word; like the +sainted bishop who, when a beggar asked him for a penny, cried out: “Alas, +my brother, I have not a penny in my purse; but here are two gold pieces, +if they can be made to serve you instead!” We had many conferences over +the condition of his people, and he often sent me up the valley to look +into the needs of the peasantry on the fruit-farms. No grievance was too +trifling for him to consider it, no abuse too deep-seated for him to root +it out; and many an hour that other men of his rank would have given to +books or pleasure was devoted to adjusting a quarrel about boundary-lines +or to weighing the merits of a complaint against the tax-collector. I +often said that he was as much his people’s priest as I; and he smiled and +answered that every landowner was a king and that in old days the king was +always a priest.</p> + +<p>Donna Marianna was urgent with him to marry, but he always declared that +he had a family in his tenantry, and that, as for a wife, she had never +let him feel the want of one. He had that musing temper which gives a man +a name for coldness; though in fact he may all the while be storing fuel +for a great conflagration. But to me he whispered another reason for not +marrying. A man, he said, does not take wife and rejoice while his mother +is on her death-bed; and Italy, his mother, lay dying, with the foreign +vultures waiting to tear her apart.</p> + +<p>You are too young to know anything of those days, my son; and how can any +one understand them who did not live through them? Italy lay dying indeed; +but Lombardy was her heart, and the heart still beat, and sent the faint +blood creeping to her cold extremities. Her torturers, weary of their +work, had allowed her to fall into a painless stupor; but just as she was +sinking from sleep to death, heaven sent Radetsky to scourge her back to +consciousness; and at the first sting of his lash she sprang maimed and +bleeding to her feet.</p> + +<p>Ah, those days, those days, my son! Italy—Italy—was the word on our +lips; but the thought in our hearts was just <i>Austria</i>. We clamored +for liberty, unity, the franchise; but under our breath we prayed only to +smite the white-coats. Remove the beam from our eye, we cried, and we shall +see our salvation clearly enough! We priests in the north were all liberals +and worked with the nobles and the men of letters. Gioberti was our +breviary and his Holiness the new Pope was soon to be the Tancred of our +crusade. But meanwhile, mind you, all this went on in silence, underground +as it were, while on the surface Lombardy still danced, feasted, married, +and took office under the Austrian. In the iron-mines up our valley there +used to be certain miners who stayed below ground for months at a time; +and, like one of these, Roberto remained buried in his purpose, while life +went its way overhead. Though I was not in his confidence I knew well +enough where his thoughts were, for he went among us with the eye of a +lover, the visionary look of one who hears a Voice. We all heard that +Voice, to be sure, mingling faintly with the other noises of life; but to +Roberto it was already as the roar of mighty waters, drowning every other +sound with its thunder.</p> + +<p>On the surface, as I have said, things looked smooth enough. An Austrian +cardinal throned in Milan and an Austrian-hearted Pope ruled in Rome. In +Lombardy, Austria couched like a beast of prey, ready to spring at our +throats if we stirred or struggled. The Moderates, to whose party Count +Roberto belonged, talked of prudence, compromise, the education of the +masses; but if their words were a velvet sheath their thought was a dagger. +For many years, as you know, the Milanese had maintained an outward show of +friendliness with their rulers. The nobles had accepted office under the +vice-roy, and in the past there had been frequent intermarriage between +the two aristocracies. But now, one by one, the great houses had closed +their doors against official society. Though some of the younger and more +careless, those who must dance and dine at any cost, still went to the +palace and sat beside the enemy at the opera, fashion was gradually taking +sides against them, and those who had once been laughed at as old fogeys +were now applauded as patriots. Among these, of course, was Count Roberto, +who for several years had refused to associate with the Austrians, and +had silently resented his easy-going brother’s disregard of political +distinctions. Andrea and Gemma belonged to the moth tribe, who flock to +the brightest light; and Gemma’s Istrian possessions, and her family’s +connection with the Austrian nobility, gave them a pretext for fluttering +about the vice-regal candle. Roberto let them go their way, but his own +course was a tacit protest against their conduct. They were always welcome +at the palazzo Siviano; but he and Donna Marianna withdrew from society in +order to have an excuse for not showing themselves at the Countess Gemma’s +entertainments. If Andrea and Gemma were aware of his disapproval they were +clever enough to ignore it; for the rich elder brother who paid their debts +and never meant to marry was too important a person to be quarrelled with +on political grounds. They seemed to think that if he married it would be +only to spite them; and they were persuaded that their future depended on +their giving him no cause to take such reprisals. I shall never be more +than a plain peasant at heart and I have little natural skill in discerning +hidden motives; but the experience of the confessional gives every priest +a certain insight into the secret springs of action, and I often wondered +that the worldly wisdom of Andrea and Gemma did not help them to a clearer +reading of their brother’s character. For my part I knew that, in Roberto’s +heart, no great passion could spring from a mean motive; and I had always +thought that if he ever loved any woman as he loved Italy, it must be from +his country’s hand that he received his bride. And so it came about.</p> + +<p>Have you ever noticed, on one of those still autumn days before a storm, +how here and there a yellow leaf will suddenly detach itself from the bough +and whirl through the air as though some warning of the gale had reached +it? So it was then in Lombardy. All round was the silence of decay; but now +and then a word, a look, a trivial incident, fluttered ominously through +the stillness. It was in ’45. Only a year earlier the glorious death of the +Bandiera brothers had sent a long shudder through Italy. In the Romagna, +Renzi and his comrades had tried to uphold by action the protest set forth +in the “Manifesto of Rimini”; and their failure had sowed the seed which +d’Azeglio and Cavour were to harvest. Everywhere the forces were silently +gathering; and nowhere was the hush more profound, the least reverberation +more audible, than in the streets of Milan.</p> + +<p>It was Count Roberto’s habit to attend early mass in the Cathedral; and one +morning, as he was standing in the aisle, a young girl passed him with her +father. Roberto knew the father, a beggarly Milanese of the noble family of +Intelvi, who had cut himself off from his class by accepting an appointment +in one of the government offices. As the two went by he saw a group of +Austrian officers looking after the girl, and heard one of them say: “Such +a choice morsel as that is too good for slaves;” and another answer with a +laugh: “Yes, it’s a dish for the master’s table!”</p> + +<p>The girl heard too. She was as white as a wind-flower and he saw the words +come out on her cheek like the red mark from a blow. She whispered to +her father, but he shook his head and drew her away without so much as +a glance at the Austrians. Roberto heard mass and then hastened out and +placed himself in the porch of the Cathedral. A moment later the officers +appeared, and they too stationed themselves near the doorway. Presently the +girl came out on her father’s arm. Her admirers stepped forward to greet +Intelvi; and the cringing wretch stood there exchanging compliments with +them, while their insolent stare devoured his daughter’s beauty. She, +poor thing, shook like a leaf, and her eyes, in avoiding theirs, suddenly +encountered Roberto’s. Her look was a wounded bird that flew to him for +shelter. He carried it away in his breast and its live warmth beat against +his heart. He thought that Italy had looked at him through those eyes; for +love is the wiliest of masqueraders and has a thousand disguises at his +command.</p> + +<p>Within a month Faustina Intelvi was his wife. Donna Marianna and I +rejoiced; for we knew he had chosen her because he loved her, and she +seemed to us almost worthy of such a choice. As for Count Andrea and his +wife, I leave you to guess what ingredients were mingled in the kiss with +which they welcomed the bride. They were all smiles at Roberto’s marriage, +and had only words of praise for his wife. Donna Marianna, who had +sometimes taxed me with suspecting their motives, rejoiced in this fresh +proof of their magnanimity; but for my part I could have wished to see them +a little less kind. All such twilight fears, however, vanished in the flush +of my friend’s happiness. Over some natures love steals gradually, as the +morning light widens across a valley; but it had flashed on Roberto like +the leap of dawn to a snow-peak. He walked the world with the wondering +step of a blind man suddenly restored to sight; and once he said to me with +a laugh: “Love makes a Columbus of every one of us!”</p> + +<p>And the Countess—? The Countess, my son, was eighteen, and her husband was +forty. Count Roberto had the heart of a poet, but he walked with a limp and +his skin was sallow. Youth plucks the fruit for its color rather than its +flavor; and first love does not serenade its mistress on a church-organ. In +Italy girls are married as land is sold; if two estates adjoin two lives +are united. As for the portionless girl, she is a knick-knack that goes to +the highest bidder. Faustina was handed over to her purchaser as if she +had been a picture for his gallery; and the transaction doubtless seemed +as natural to her as to her parents. She walked to the altar like an +Iphigenia; but pallor becomes a bride, and it looks well for a daughter to +weep on leaving her mother. Perhaps it would have been different if she had +guessed that the threshold of her new home was carpeted with love and its +four corners hung with tender thoughts of her; but her husband was a silent +man, who never called attention to his treasures.</p> + +<p>The great palace in Milan was a gloomy house for a girl to enter. Roberto +and his sister lived in it as if it had been a monastery, going nowhere and +receiving only those who labored for the Cause. To Faustina, accustomed to +the easy Austrian society, the Sunday evening receptions at the palazzo +Siviano must have seemed as dreary as a scientific congress. It pleased +Roberto to regard her as a victim of barbarian insolence, an embodiment of +his country desecrated by the desire of the enemy; but though, like any +handsome penniless girl, Faustina had now and then been exposed to a free +look or a familiar word, I doubt if she connected such incidents with the +political condition of Italy. She knew, of course, that in marrying Siviano +she was entering a house closed against the Austrian. One of Siviano’s +first cares had been to pension his father-in-law, with the stipulation +that Intelvi should resign his appointment and give up all relations with +the government; and the old hypocrite, only too glad to purchase idleness +on such terms, embraced the liberal cause with a zeal which left his +daughter no excuse for half-heartedness. But he found it less easy than he +had expected to recover a footing among his own people. In spite of his +patriotic bluster the Milanese held aloof from him; and being the kind of +man who must always take his glass in company he gradually drifted back +to his old associates. It was impossible to forbid Faustina to visit her +parents; and in their house she breathed an air that was at least tolerant +of Austria.</p> + +<p>But I must not let you think that the young Countess appeared ungrateful or +unhappy. She was silent and shy, and it needed a more enterprising temper +than Roberto’s to break down the barrier between them. They seemed to talk +to one another through a convent-grating, rather than across a hearth; but +if Roberto had asked more of her than she could give, outwardly she was +a model wife. She chose me at once as her confessor and I watched over +the first steps of her new life. Never was younger sister tenderer to her +elder than she to Donna Marianna; never was young wife more mindful of her +religious duties, kinder to her dependents, more charitable to the poor; +yet to be with her was like living in a room with shuttered windows. She +was always the caged bird, the transplanted flower: for all Roberto’s care +she never bloomed or sang.</p> + +<p>Donna Marianna was the first to speak of it. “The child needs more light +and air,” she said.</p> + +<p>“Light? Air?” Roberto repeated. “Does she not go to mass every morning? +Does she not drive on the Corso every evening?”</p> + +<p>Donna Marianna was not called clever, but her heart was wiser than most +women’s heads.</p> + +<p>“At our age, brother,” said she, “the windows of the mind face north and +look out on a landscape full of lengthening shadows. Faustina needs another +outlook. She is as pale as a hyacinth grown in a cellar.”</p> + +<p>Roberto himself turned pale and I saw that she had uttered his own thought.</p> + +<p>“You want me to let her go to Gemma’s!” he exclaimed.</p> + +<p>“Let her go wherever there is a little careless laughter.”</p> + +<p>“Laughter—now!” he cried, with a gesture toward the sombre line of +portraits above his head.</p> + +<p>“Let her laugh while she can, my brother.”</p> + +<p>That evening after dinner he called Faustina to him.</p> + +<p>“My child,” he said, “go and put on your jewels. Your sister Gemma gives a +ball to-night and the carriage waits to take you there. I am too much of a +recluse to be at ease in such scenes, but I have sent word to your father +to go with you.”</p> + +<p>Andrea and Gemma welcomed their young sister-in-law with effusion, and from +that time she was often in their company. Gemma forbade any mention of +politics in her drawing-room, and it was natural that Faustina should be +glad to escape from the solemn conclaves of the palazzo Siviano to a house +where life went as gaily as in that villa above Florence where Boccaccio’s +careless story-tellers took refuge from the plague. But meanwhile the +political distemper was rapidly spreading, and in spite of Gemma’s Austrian +affiliations it was no longer possible for her to receive the enemy openly. +It was whispered that her door was still ajar to her old friends; but +the rumor may have risen from the fact that one of the Austrian cavalry +officers stationed at Milan was her own cousin, the son of the aunt on +whose misalliance the old Count had so often bantered her. No one could +blame the Countess Gemma for not turning her own flesh and blood out of +doors; and the social famine to which the officers of the garrison were +reduced made it natural that young Welkenstern should press the claims of +consanguinity.</p> + +<p>All this must have reached Roberto’s ears; but he made no sign and his wife +came and went as she pleased. When they returned the following year to the +old dusky villa at Siviano she was like the voice of a brook in a twilight +wood: one could not look at her without ransacking the spring for new +similes to paint her freshness. With Roberto it was different. I found him +older, more preoccupied and silent; but I guessed that his preoccupations +were political, for when his eye rested on his wife it cleared like the +lake when a cloud-shadow lifts from it.</p> + +<p>Count Andrea and his wife occupied an adjoining villa; and during the +<i>villeggiatura</i> the two households lived almost as one family. +Roberto, however, was often absent in Milan, called thither on business of +which the nature was not hard to guess. Sometimes he brought back guests to +the villa; and on these occasions Faustina and Donna Marianna went to Count +Andrea’s for the day. I have said that I was not in his confidence; but +he knew my sympathies were with the liberals and now and then he let fall +a word of the work going on underground. Meanwhile the new Pope had been +elected, and from Piedmont to Calabria we hailed in him the Banner that was +to lead our hosts to war.</p> + +<p>So time passed and we reached the last months of ’47. The villa on Iseo had +been closed since the end of August. Roberto had no great liking for his +gloomy palace in Milan, and it had been his habit to spend nine months +of the year at Siviano; but he was now too much engrossed in his work to +remain away from Milan, and his wife and sister had joined him there as +soon as the midsummer heat was over. During the autumn he had called me +once or twice to the city to consult me on business connected with his +fruit-farms; and in the course of our talks he had sometimes let fall a +hint of graver matters. It was in July of that year that a troop of Croats +had marched into Ferrara, with muskets and cannon loaded. The lighted +matches of their cannon had fired the sleeping hate of Austria, and the +whole country now echoed the Lombard cry: “Out with the barbarian!” All +talk of adjustment, compromise, reorganization, shrivelled on lips that +the live coal of patriotism had touched. Italy for the Italians, and +then—monarchy, federation, republic, it mattered not what!</p> + +<p>The oppressor’s grip had tightened on our throats and the clear-sighted +saw well enough that Metternich’s policy was to provoke a rebellion and +then crush it under the Croat heel. But it was too late to cry prudence in +Lombardy. With the first days of the new year the tobacco riots had drawn +blood in Milan. Soon afterward the Lions’ Club was closed, and edicts were +issued forbidding the singing of Pio Nono’s hymn, the wearing of white and +blue, the collecting of subscriptions for the victims of the riots. To each +prohibition Milan returned a fresh defiance. The ladies of the nobility put +on mourning for the rioters who had been shot down by the soldiery. Half +the members of the Guardia Nobile resigned and Count Borromeo sent back +his Golden Fleece to the Emperor. Fresh regiments were continually pouring +into Milan and it was no secret that Radetsky was strengthening the +fortifications. Late in January several leading liberals were arrested and +sent into exile, and two weeks later martial law was proclaimed in Milan. +At the first arrests several members of the liberal party had hastily left +Milan, and I was not surprised to hear, a few days later, that orders had +been given to reopen the villa at Siviano. The Count and Countess arrived +there early in February.</p> + +<p>It was seven months since I had seen the Countess, and I was struck with +the change in her appearance.</p> + +<p>She was paler than ever, and her step had lost its lightness. Yet she +did not seem to share her husband’s political anxieties; one would have +said that she was hardly aware of them. She seemed wrapped in a veil of +lassitude, like Iseo on a still gray morning, when dawn is blood-red on the +mountains but a mist blurs its reflection in the lake. I felt as though her +soul were slipping away from me, and longed to win her back to my care; but +she made her ill-health a pretext for not coming to confession, and for the +present I could only wait and carry the thought of her to the altar. She +had not been long at Siviano before I discovered that this drooping mood +was only one phase of her humor. Now and then she flung back the cowl of +melancholy and laughed life in the eye; but next moment she was in shadow +again, and her muffled thoughts had given us the slip. She was like the +lake on one of those days when the wind blows twenty ways and every +promontory holds a gust in ambush.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile there was a continual coming and going of messengers between +Siviano and the city. They came mostly at night, when the household slept, +and were away again with the last shadows; but the news they brought stayed +and widened, shining through every cranny of the old house. The whole of +Lombardy was up. From Pavia to Mantua, from Como to Brescia, the streets +ran blood like the arteries of one great body. At Pavia and Padua the +universities were closed. The frightened vice-roy was preparing to withdraw +from Milan to Verona, and Radetsky continued to pour his men across the +Alps, till a hundred thousand were massed between the Piave and the Ticino. +And now every eye was turned to Turin. Ah, how we watched for the blue +banner of Piedmont on the mountains! Charles Albert was pledged to our +cause; his whole people had armed to rescue us, the streets echoed with +<i>avanti, Savoia!</i> and yet Savoy was silent and hung back. Each day was +a life-time strained to the cracking-point with hopes and disappointments. +We reckoned the hours by rumors, the very minutes by hearsay. Then +suddenly—ah, it was worth living through!—word came to us that Vienna +was in revolt. The points of the compass had shifted and our sun had risen +in the north. I shall never forget that day at the villa. Roberto sent for +me early, and I found him smiling and resolute, as becomes a soldier on +the eve of action. He had made all his preparations to leave for Milan and +was awaiting a summons from his party. The whole household felt that great +events impended, and Donna Marianna, awed and tearful, had pleaded with +her brother that they should all receive the sacrament together the next +morning. Roberto and his sister had been to confession the previous day, +but the Countess Faustina had again excused herself. I did not see her +while I was with the Count, but as I left the house she met me in the +laurel-walk. The morning was damp and cold, and she had drawn a black scarf +over her hair, and walked with a listless dragging step; but at my approach +she lifted her head quickly and signed to me to follow her into one of the +recesses of clipped laurel that bordered the path.</p> + +<p>“Don Egidio,” she said, “you have heard the news?”</p> + +<p>I assented.</p> + +<p>“The Count goes to Milan to-morrow?”</p> + +<p>“It seems probable, your excellency.”</p> + +<p>“There will be fighting—we are on the eve of war, I mean?”</p> + +<p>“We are in God’s hands, your excellency.”</p> + +<p>“In God’s hands!” she murmured. Her eyes wandered and for a moment we stood +silent; then she drew a purse from her pocket. “I was forgetting,” she +exclaimed. “This is for that poor girl you spoke to me about the other +day—what was her name? The girl who met the Austrian soldier at the fair +at Peschiera—“</p> + +<p>“Ah, Vannina,” I said; “but she is dead, your excellency.”</p> + +<p>“Dead!” She turned white and the purse dropped from her hand. I picked it +up and held it out to her, but she put back my hand. “That is for masses, +then,” she said; and with that she moved away toward the house.</p> + +<p>I walked on to the gate; but before I had reached it I heard her step +behind me.</p> + +<p>“Don Egidio!” she called; and I turned back.</p> + +<p>“You are coming to say mass in the chapel to-morrow morning?”</p> + +<p>“That is the Count’s wish.”</p> + +<p>She wavered a moment. “I am not well enough to walk up to the village this +afternoon,” she said at length. “Will you come back later and hear my +confession here?”</p> + +<p>“Willingly, your excellency.”</p> + +<p>“Come at sunset then.” She looked at me gravely. “It is a long time since I +have been to confession,” she added.</p> + +<p>“My child, the door of heaven is always unlatched.”</p> + +<p>She made no answer and I went my way.</p> + +<p>I returned to the villa a little before sunset, hoping for a few words +with Roberto. I felt with Faustina that we were on the eve of war, and the +uncertainty of the outlook made me treasure every moment of my friend’s +company. I knew he had been busy all day, but hoped to find that his +preparations were ended and that he could spare me a half hour. I was not +disappointed; for the servant who met me asked me to follow him to the +Count’s apartment. Roberto was sitting alone, with his back to the door, at +a table spread with maps and papers. He stood up and turned an ashen face +on me.</p> + +<p>“Roberto!” I cried, as if we had been boys together.</p> + +<p>He signed to me to be seated.</p> + +<p>“Egidio,” he said suddenly, “my wife has sent for you to confess her?”</p> + +<p>“The Countess met me on my way home this morning and expressed a wish to +receive the sacrament to-morrow morning with you and Donna Marianna, and I +promised to return this afternoon to hear her confession.”</p> + +<p>Roberto sat silent, staring before him as though he hardly heard. At length +he raised his head and began to speak.</p> + +<p>“You have noticed lately that my wife has been ailing?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Every one must have seen that the Countess is not in her usual health. She +has seemed nervous, out of spirits—I have fancied that she might be +anxious about your excellency.”</p> + +<p>He leaned across the table and laid his wasted hand on mine. “Call me +Roberto,” he said.</p> + +<p>There was another pause before he went on. “Since I saw you this morning,” +he said slowly, “something horrible has happened. After you left I sent for +Andrea and Gemma to tell them the news from Vienna and the probability of +my being summoned to Milan before night. You know as well as I that we have +reached a crisis. There will be fighting within twenty-four hours, if I +know my people; and war may follow sooner than we think. I felt it my duty +to leave my affairs in Andrea’s hands, and to entrust my wife to his care. +Don’t look startled,” he added with a faint smile. “No reasonable man goes +on a journey without setting his house in order; and if things take the +turn I expect it may be some months before you see me back at Siviano.—But +it was not to hear this that I sent for you.” He pushed his chair aside and +walked up and down the room with his short limping step. “My God!” he broke +out wildly, “how can I say it?—When Andrea had heard me, I saw him +exchange a glance with his wife, and she said with that infernal sweet +voice of hers, ‘Yes, Andrea, it is our duty.’</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Your duty?’ I asked. ‘What is your duty?’</p> + +<p>“Andrea wetted his lips with his tongue and looked at her again; and her +look was like a blade in his hand.</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Your wife has a lover,’ he said.</p> + +<p>“She caught my arm as I flung myself on him. He is ten times stronger than +I, but you remember how I made him howl for mercy in the old days when he +used to bully you.</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Let me go,’ I said to his wife. ‘He must live to unsay it.’</p> + +<p>“Andrea began to whimper. ‘Oh, my poor brother, I would give my heart’s +blood to unsay it!’</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>The secret has been killing us,’ she chimed in.</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>The secret? Whose secret? How dare you—?’</p> + +<p>“Gemma fell on her knees like a tragedy actress. ‘Strike me—kill me—it is +I who am the offender! It was at my house that she met him—’</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Him?’</p> + +<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Franz Welkenstern—my cousin,’ she wailed.</p> + +<p>“I suppose I stood before them like a stunned ox, for they repeated the +name again and again, as if they were not sure of my having heard it.—Not +hear it!” he cried suddenly, dropping into a chair and hiding his face in +his hands. “Shall I ever on earth hear anything else again?”</p> + +<p>He sat a long time with his face hidden and I waited. My head was like a +great bronze bell with one thought for the clapper.</p> + +<p>After a while he went on in a low deliberate voice, as though his words +were balancing themselves on the brink of madness. With strange composure +he repeated each detail of his brother’s charges: the meetings in the +Countess Gemma’s drawing-room, the innocent friendliness of the two +young people, the talk of mysterious visits to a villa outside the Porta +Ticinese, the ever-widening circle of scandal that had spread about their +names. At first, Andrea said, he and his wife had refused to listen to the +reports which reached them. Then, when the talk became too loud, they had +sent for Welkenstern, remonstrated with him, implored him to exchange into +another regiment; but in vain. The young officer indignantly denied the +reports and declared that to leave his post at such a moment would be +desertion.</p> + +<p>With a laborious accuracy Roberto went on, detailing one by one each +incident of the hateful story, till suddenly he cried out, springing from +his chair—“And now to leave her with this lie unburied!”</p> + +<p>His cry was like the lifting of a grave-stone from my breast. “You must not +leave her!” I exclaimed.</p> + +<p>He shook his head. “I am pledged.”</p> + +<p>“This is your first duty.”</p> + +<p>“It would be any other man’s; not an Italian’s.”</p> + +<p>I was silent: in those days the argument seemed unanswerable.</p> + +<p>At length I said: “No harm can come to her while you are away. Donna +Marianna and I are here to watch over her. And when you come back—“</p> + +<p>He looked at me gravely. “<i>If</i> I come back—“</p> + +<p>“Roberto!”</p> + +<p>“We are men, Egidio; we both know what is coming. Milan is up already; and +there is a rumor that Charles Albert is moving. This year the spring rains +will be red in Italy.”</p> + +<p>“In your absence not a breath shall touch her!”</p> + +<p>“And if I never come back to defend her? They hate her as hell hates, +Egidio!—They kept repeating, ‘He is of her own age and youth draws +youth—.’ She is in their way, Egidio!”</p> + +<p>“Consider, my son. They do not love her, perhaps; but why should they hate +her at such cost? She has given you no child.”</p> + +<p>“No child!” He paused. “But what if—? She has ailed lately!” he cried, and +broke off to grapple with the stabbing thought.</p> + +<p>“Roberto! Roberto!” I adjured him.</p> + +<p>He jumped up and gripped my arm.</p> + +<p>“Egidio! You believe in her?”</p> + +<p>“She’s as pure as a lily on the altar!”</p> + +<p>“Those eyes are wells of truth—and she has been like a daughter to +Marianna.—Egidio! do I look like an old man?”</p> + +<p>“Quiet yourself, Roberto,” I entreated.</p> + +<p>“Quiet myself? With this sting in my blood? A lover—and an Austrian lover! +Oh, Italy, Italy, my bride!”</p> + +<p>“I stake my life on her truth,” I cried, “and who knows better than I? Has +her soul not lain before me like the bed of a clear stream?”</p> + +<p>“And if what you saw there was only the reflection of your faith in her?”</p> + +<p>“My son, I am a priest, and the priest penetrates to the soul as the angel +passed through the walls of Peter’s prison. I see the truth in her heart as +I see Christ in the host!”</p> + +<p>“No, no, she is false!” he cried.</p> + +<p>I sprang up terrified. “Roberto, be silent!”</p> + +<p>He looked at me with a wild incredulous smile. “Poor simple man of God!” he +said.</p> + +<p>“I would not exchange my simplicity for yours—the dupe of envy’s first +malicious whisper!”</p> + +<p>“Envy—you think that?”</p> + +<p>“Is it questionable?”</p> + +<p>“You would stake your life on it?”</p> + +<p>“My life!”</p> + +<p>“Your faith?”</p> + +<p>“My faith!”</p> + +<p>“Your vows as a priest?”</p> + +<p>“My vows—“ I stopped and stared at him. He had risen and laid his hand on +my shoulder.</p> + +<p>“You see now what I would be at,” he said quietly. “I must take your place +presently—“</p> + +<p>“My place—?”</p> + +<p>“When my wife comes down. You understand me.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, now you are quite mad!” I cried breaking away from him.</p> + +<p>“Am I?” he returned, maintaining his strange composure. “Consider a moment. +She has not confessed to you before since our return from Milan—“</p> + +<p>“Her ill-health—“</p> + +<p>He cut me short with a gesture. “Yet to-day she sends for you—“</p> + +<p>“In order that she may receive the sacrament with you on the eve of your +first separation.”</p> + +<p>“If that is her only reason her first words will clear her. I must hear +those words, Egidio!”</p> + +<p>“You are quite mad,” I repeated.</p> + +<p>“Strange,” he said slowly. “You stake your life on my wife’s innocence, yet +you refuse me the only means of vindicating it!”</p> + +<p>“I would give my life for any one of you—but what you ask is not mine to +give.”</p> + +<p>“The priest first—the man afterward?” he sneered.</p> + +<p>“Long afterward!”</p> + +<p>He measured me with a contemptuous eye. “We laymen are ready to give the +last shred of flesh from our bones, but you priests intend to keep your +cassocks whole.”</p> + +<p>“I tell you my cassock is not mine,” I repeated.</p> + +<p>“And, by God,” he cried, “you are right; for it’s mine! Who put it on your +back but my father? What kept it there but my charity? Peasant! beggar! +Hear his holiness pontificate!” “Yes,” I said, “I was a peasant and a +beggar when your father found me; and if he had left me one I might have +been excused for putting my hand to any ugly job that my betters required +of me; but he made me a priest, and so set me above all of you, and laid on +me the charge of your souls as well as mine.”</p> + +<p>He sat down shaken with dreadful tears. “Ah,” he broke out, “would you have +answered me thus when we were boys together, and I stood between you and +Andrea?”</p> + +<p>“If God had given me the strength.”</p> + +<p>“You call it strength to make a woman’s soul your stepping-stone to +heaven?”</p> + +<p>“Her soul is in my care, not yours, my son. She is safe with me.”</p> + +<p>“She? But I? I go out to meet death, and leave a worse death behind me!” +He leaned over and clutched my arm. “It is not for myself I plead but for +her—for her, Egidio! Don’t you see to what a hell you condemn her if I +don’t come back? What chance has she against that slow unsleeping hate? +Their lies will fasten themselves to her and suck out her life. You and +Marianna are powerless against such enemies.”</p> + +<p>“You leave her in God’s hands, my son.”</p> + +<p>“Easily said—but, ah, priest, if you were a man! What if their poison +works in me and I go to battle thinking that every Austrian bullet may be +sent by her lover’s hand? What if I die not only to free Italy but to free +my wife as well?”</p> + +<p>I laid my hand on his shoulder. “My son, I answer for her. Leave your faith +in her in my hands and I will keep it whole.”</p> + +<p>He stared at me strangely. “And what if your own fail you?”</p> + +<p>“In her? Never. I call every saint to witness!”</p> + +<p>“And yet—and yet—ah, this is a blind,” he shouted; “you know all and +perjure yourself to spare me!”</p> + +<p>At that, my son, I felt a knife in my breast. I looked at him in anguish +and his gaze was a wall of metal. Mine seemed to slip away from it, like a +clawless thing struggling up the sheer side of a precipice.</p> + +<p>“You know all,” he repeated, “and you dare not let me hear her!”</p> + +<p>“I dare not betray my trust.”</p> + +<p>He waved the answer aside.</p> + +<p>“Is this a time to quibble over church discipline? If you believed in her +you would save her at any cost!”</p> + +<p>I said to myself, “Eternity can hold nothing worse than this for me—“ and +clutched my resolve again like a cross to my bosom.</p> + +<p>Just then there was a hand on the door and we heard Donna Marianna.</p> + +<p>“Faustina has sent to know if the <i>signar parocco</i> is here.”</p> + +<p>“He is here. Bid her come down to the chapel.” Roberto spoke quietly, and +closed the door on her so that she should not see his face. We heard her +patter away across the brick floor of the <i>salone</i>.</p> + +<p>Roberto turned to me. “Egidio!” he said; and all at once I was no more than +a straw on the torrent of his will.</p> + +<p>The chapel adjoined the room in which we sat. He opened the door, and in +the twilight I saw the light glimmering before the Virgin’s shrine and the +old carved confessional standing like a cowled watcher in its corner. But +I saw it all in a dream; for nothing in heaven or earth was real to me but +the iron grip on my shoulder.</p> + +<p>“Quick!” he said and drove me forward. I heard him shoot back the bolt of +the outer door and a moment later I stood alone in the garden. The sun had +set and the cold spring dusk was falling. Lights shone here and there in +the long front of the villa; the statues glimmered gray among the thickets. +Through the window-pane of the chapel I caught the faint red gleam of the +Virgin’s lamp; but I turned my back on it and walked away.</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p>All night I lay like a heretic on the fire. Before dawn there came a call +from the villa. The Count had received a second summons from Milan and was +to set out in an hour. I hurried down the cold dewy path to the lake. All +was new and hushed and strange as on the day of resurrection; and in the +dark twilight of the garden alleys the statues stared at me like the +shrouded dead.</p> + +<p>In the <i>salone</i>, where the old Count’s portrait hung, I found the +family assembled. Andrea and Gemma sat together, a little pinched, I +thought, but decent and self-contained, like mourners who expect to +inherit. Donna Marianna drooped near them, with something black over her +head and her face dim with weeping. Roberto received me calmly and then +turned to his sister.</p> + +<p>“Go fetch my wife,” he said.</p> + +<p>While she was gone there was silence. We could hear the cold drip of the +garden-fountain and the patter of rats in the wall. Andrea and his wife +stared out of window and Roberto sat in his father’s carved seat at the +head of the long table. Then the door opened and Faustina entered.</p> + +<p>When I saw her I stopped breathing. She seemed no more than the shell of +herself, a hollow thing that grief has voided. Her eyes returned our images +like polished agate, but conveyed to her no sense of our presence. Marianna +led her to a seat, and she crossed her hands and nailed her dull gaze on +Roberto. I looked from one to another, and in that spectral light it seemed +to me that we were all souls come to judgment and naked to each other as to +God. As to my own wrongdoing, it weighed on me no more than dust. The only +feeling I had room for was fear—a fear that seemed to fill my throat and +lungs and bubble coldly over my drowning head.</p> + +<p>Suddenly Roberto began to speak. His voice was clear and steady, and I +clutched at his words to drag myself above the surface of my terror. He +touched on the charge that had been made against his wife—he did not say +by whom—the foul rumor that had made itself heard on the eve of their +first parting. Duty, he said, had sent him a double summons; to fight for +his country and for his wife. He must clear his wife’s name before he was +worthy to draw sword for Italy. There was no time to tame the slander +before throttling it; he had to take the shortest way to its throat. At +this point he looked at me and my soul shook. Then he turned to Andrea and +Gemma.</p> + +<p>“When you came to me with this rumor,” he said quietly, “you agreed to +consider the family honor satisfied if I could induce Don Egidio to let me +take his place and overhear my wife’s confession, and if that confession +convinced me of her innocence. Was this the understanding?”</p> + +<p>Andrea muttered something and Gemma tapped a sullen foot.</p> + +<p>“After you had left,” Roberto continued, “I laid the case before Don Egidio +and threw myself on his mercy.” He looked at me fixedly. “So strong was his +faith in my wife’s innocence that for her sake he agreed to violate the +sanctity of the confessional. I took his place.”</p> + +<p>Marianna sobbed and crossed herself and a strange look flitted over +Faustina’s face.</p> + +<p>There was a moment’s pause; then Roberto, rising, walked across the room to +his wife and took her by the hand.</p> + +<p>“Your seat is beside me, Countess Siviano,” he said, and led her to the +empty chair by his own.</p> + +<p>Gemma started to her feet, but her husband pulled her down again.</p> + +<p>“Jesus! Mary!” We heard Donna Marianna moan.</p> + +<p>Roberto raised his wife’s hand to his lips. “You forgive me,” he said, “the +means I took to defend you?” And turning to Andrea he added slowly: “I +declare my wife innocent and my honor satisfied. You swear to stand by my +decision?”</p> + +<p>What Andrea stammered out, what hissing serpents of speech Gemma’s clinched +teeth bit back, I never knew—for my eyes were on Faustina, and her face +was a wonder to behold.</p> + +<p>She had let herself be led across the room like a blind woman, and had +listened without change of feature to her husband’s first words; but as +he ceased her frozen gaze broke and her whole body seemed to melt against +his breast. He put his arm out, but she slipped to his feet and Marianna +hastened forward to raise her up. At that moment we heard the stroke +of oars across the quiet water and saw the Count’s boat touch the +landing-steps. Four strong oarsmen from Monte Isola were to row him down +to Iseo, to take horse for Milan, and his servant, knapsack on shoulder, +knocked warningly at the terrace window.</p> + +<p>“No time to lose, excellency!” he cried.</p> + +<p>Roberto turned and gripped my hand. “Pray for me,” he said low; and with a +brief gesture to the others ran down the terrace to the boat.</p> + +<p>Marianna was bathing Faustina with happy tears.</p> + +<p>“Look up, dear! Think how soon he will come back! And there is the +sunrise—see!”</p> + +<p>Andrea and Gemma had slunk away like ghosts at cock-crow, and a red dawn +stood over Milan.</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p>If that sun rose red it set scarlet. It was the first of the Five Days in +Milan—the Five Glorious Days, as they are called. Roberto reached the city +just before the gates closed. So much we knew—little more. We heard of him +in the Broletto (whence he must have escaped when the Austrians blew in +the door) and in the Casa Vidiserti, with Casati, Cattaneo and the rest; +but after the barricading began we could trace him only as having been +seen here and there in the thick of the fighting, or tending the wounded +under Bertani’s orders. His place, one would have said, was in the +council-chamber, with the soberer heads; but that was an hour when every +man gave his blood where it was most needed, and Cernuschi, Dandolo, +Anfossi, della Porta fought shoulder to shoulder with students, artisans +and peasants. Certain it is that he was seen on the fifth day; for among +the volunteers who swarmed after Manara in his assault on the Porta Tosa +was a servant of palazzo Siviano; and this fellow swore he had seen his +master charge with Manara in the last assault—had watched him, sword +in hand, press close to the gates, and then, as they swung open before +the victorious dash of our men, had seen him drop and disappear in the +inrushing tide of peasants that almost swept the little company off its +feet. After that we heard nothing. There was savage work in Milan in those +days, and more than one well-known figure lay lost among the heaps of dead +hacked and disfeatured by Croat blades.</p> + +<p>At the villa, we waited breathless. News came to us hour by hour: the very +wind seemed to carry it, and it was swept to us on the incessant rush of +the rain. On the twenty-third Radetsky had fled from Milan, to face Venice +rising in his path. On the twenty-fourth the first Piedmontese had crossed +the Ticino, and Charles Albert himself was in Pavia on the twenty-ninth. +The bells of Milan had carried the word from Turin to Naples, from Genoa to +Ancona, and the whole country was pouring like a flood-tide into Lombardy. +Heroes sprang up from the bloody soil as thick as wheat after rain, and +every day carried some new name to us; but never the one for which we +prayed and waited. Weeks passed. We heard of Pastrengo, Goito, Rivoli; of +Radetsky hemmed into the Quadrilateral, and our troops closing in on him +from Rome, Tuscany and Venetia. Months passed—and we heard of Custozza. We +saw Charles Albert’s broken forces flung back from the Mincio to the Oglio, +from the Oglio to the Adda. We followed the dreadful retreat from Milan, +and saw our rescuers dispersed like dust before the wind. But all the while +no word came to us of Roberto.</p> + +<p>These were dark days in Lombardy; and nowhere darker than in the old villa +on Iseo. In September Donna Marianna and the young Countess put on black, +and Count Andrea and his wife followed their example. In October the +Countess gave birth to a daughter. Count Andrea then took possession of the +palazzo Siviano, and the two women remained at the villa. I have no heart +to tell you of the days that followed. Donna Marianna wept and prayed +incessantly, and it was long before the baby could snatch a smile from her. +As for the Countess Faustina, she went among us like one of the statues in +the garden. The child had a wet-nurse from the village, and it was small +wonder there was no milk for it in that marble breast. I spent much of +my time at the villa, comforting Donna Marianna as best I could; but +sometimes, in the long winter evenings, when we three sat in the dimly-lit +<i>salone</i>, with the old Count’s portrait overhead, and I looked up and +saw the Countess Faustina in the tall carved seat beside her husband’s +empty chair, my spine grew chill and I felt a cold wind in my hair.</p> + +<p>The end of it was that in the spring I went to see my bishop and laid my +sin before him. He was a saintly and merciful old man, and gave me a +patient hearing.</p> + +<p>“You believed the lady innocent?” he asked when I had ended.</p> + +<p>“Monsignore, on my soul!”</p> + +<p>“You thought to avert a great calamity from the house to which you owed +more than your life?”</p> + +<p>“It was my only thought.”</p> + +<p>He laid his hand on my shoulder.</p> + +<p>“Go home, my son. You shall learn my decision.”</p> + +<p>Three months later I was ordered to resign my living and go to America, +where a priest was needed for the Italian mission church in New York. I +packed my possessions and set sail from Genoa. I knew no more of America +than any peasant up in the hills. I fully expected to be speared by naked +savages on landing; and for the first few months after my arrival I wished +at least once a day that such a blessed fate had befallen me. But it is +no part of my story to tell you what I suffered in those early days. The +Church had dealt with me mercifully, as is her wont, and her punishment +fell far below my deserts....</p> + +<p>I had been some four years in New York, and no longer thought of looking +back from the plough, when one day word was brought me that an Italian +professor lay ill and had asked for a priest. There were many Italian +refugees in New York at that time, and the greater number, being +well-educated men, earned a living by teaching their language, which was +then included among the accomplishments of fashionable New York. The +messenger led me to a poor boarding-house and up to a small bare room on +the top floor. On the visiting-card nailed to the door I read the name “De +Roberti, Professor of Italian.” Inside, a gray-haired haggard man tossed on +the narrow bed. He turned a glazed eye on me as I entered, and I recognized +Roberto Siviano.</p> + +<p>I steadied myself against the door-post and stood staring at him without a +word.</p> + +<p>“What’s the matter?” asked the doctor who was bending over the bed. I +stammered that the sick man was an old friend.</p> + +<p>“He wouldn’t know his oldest friend just now,” said the doctor. “The +fever’s on him; but it will go down toward sunset.”</p> + +<p>I sat down at the head of the bed and took Roberto’s hand in mine.</p> + +<p>“Is he going to die?” I asked.</p> + +<p>“I don’t believe so; but he wants nursing.”</p> + +<p>“I will nurse him.”</p> + +<p>The doctor nodded and went out. I sat in the little room, with Roberto’s +burning hand in mine. Gradually his skin cooled, the fingers grew quiet, +and the flush faded from his sallow cheek-bones. Toward dusk he looked up +at me and smiled.</p> + +<p>“Egidio,” he said quietly.</p> + +<p>I administered the sacrament, which he received with the most fervent +devotion; then he fell into a deep sleep.</p> + +<p>During the weeks that followed I had no time to ask myself the meaning of +it all. My one business was to keep him alive if I could. I fought the +fever day and night, and at length it yielded. For the most part he raved +or lay unconscious; but now and then he knew me for a moment, and whispered +“Egidio” with a look of peace.</p> + +<p>I had stolen many hours from my duties to nurse him; and as soon as the +danger was past I had to go back to my parish work. Then it was that I +began to ask myself what had brought him to America; but I dared not face +the answer.</p> + +<p>On the fourth day I snatched a moment from my work and climbed to his +room. I found him sitting propped against his pillows, weak as a child but +clear-eyed and quiet. I ran forward, but his look stopped me.</p> + +<p>“<i>Signor parocco</i>,” he said, “the doctor tells me that I owe my life +to your nursing, and I have to thank you for the kindness you have shown to +a friendless stranger.”</p> + +<p>“A stranger?” I gasped.</p> + +<p>He looked at me steadily. “I am not aware that we have met before,” he +said.</p> + +<p>For a moment I thought the fever was on him; but a second glance convinced +me that he was master of himself.</p> + +<p>“Roberto!” I cried, trembling.</p> + +<p>“You have the advantage of me,” he said civilly. “But my name is Roberti, +not Roberto.”</p> + +<p>The floor swam under me and I had to lean against the wall.</p> + +<p>“You are not Count Roberto Siviano of Milan?”</p> + +<p>“I am Tommaso de Roberti, professor of Italian, from Modena.”</p> + +<p>“And you have never seen me before?”</p> + +<p>“Never that I know of.”</p> + +<p>“Were you never at Siviano, on the lake of Iseo?” I faltered.</p> + +<p>He said calmly: “I am unacquainted with that part of Italy.”</p> + +<p>My heart grew cold and I was silent.</p> + +<p>“You mistook me for a friend, I suppose?” he added.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” I cried, “I mistook you for a friend;” and with that I fell on my +knees by his bed and cried like a child.</p> + +<p>Suddenly I felt a touch on my shoulder. “Egidio,” said he in a broken +voice, “look up.”</p> + +<p>I raised my eyes, and there was his old smile above me, and we clung to +each other without a word. Presently, however, he drew back, and put me +quietly aside.</p> + +<p>“Sit over there, Egidio. My bones are like water and I am not good for much +talking yet.”</p> + +<p>“Let us wait, Roberto. Sleep now—we can talk tomorrow.”</p> + +<p>“No. What I have to say must be said at once.” He examined me thoughtfully. +“You have a parish here in New York?”</p> + +<p>I assented.</p> + +<p>“And my work keeps me here. I have pupils. It is too late to make a +change.”</p> + +<p>“A change?”</p> + +<p>He continued to look at me calmly. “It would be difficult for me,” he +explained, “to find employment in a new place.”</p> + +<p>“But why should you leave here?”</p> + +<p>“I shall have to,” he returned deliberately, “if you persist in recognizing +in me your former friend Count Siviano.”</p> + +<p>“Roberto!”</p> + +<p>He lifted his hand. “Egidio,” he said, “I am alone here, and without +friends. The companionship, the sympathy of my parish priest would be a +consolation in this strange city; but it must not be the companionship of +the <i>parocco</i> of Siviano. You understand?”</p> + +<p>“Roberto,” I cried, “it is too dreadful to understand!”</p> + +<p>“Be a man, Egidio,” said he with a touch of impatience. “The choice lies +with you, and you must make it now. If you are willing to ask no questions, +to name no names, to make no allusions to the past, let us live as friends +together, in God’s name! If not, as soon as my legs can carry me I must be +off again. The world is wide, luckily—but why should we be parted?”</p> + +<p>I was on my knees at his side in an instant. “We must never be parted!” I +cried. “Do as you will with me. Give me your orders and I obey—have I not +always obeyed you?”</p> + +<p>I felt his hand close sharply on mine. “Egidio!” he admonished me.</p> + +<p>“No—no—I shall remember. I shall say nothing—“</p> + +<p>“Think nothing?”</p> + +<p>“Think nothing,” I said with a last effort.</p> + +<p>“God bless you!” he answered.</p> + +<p>My son, for eight years I kept my word to him. We met daily almost, we ate +and walked and talked together, we lived like David and Jonathan—but +without so much as a glance at the past. How he had escaped from Milan—how +he had reached New York—I never knew. We talked often of Italy’s +liberation—as what Italians would not?—but never touched on his share in +the work. Once only a word slipped from him; and that was when one day he +asked me how it was that I had been sent to America. The blood rushed to my +face, and before I could answer he had raised a silencing hand.</p> + +<p>“I see,” he said; “it was <i>your</i> penance too.”</p> + +<p>During the first years he had plenty of work to do, but he lived so +frugally that I guessed he had some secret use for his earnings. It was +easy to conjecture what it was. All over the world Italian exiles were +toiling and saving to further the great cause. He had political friends in +New York, and sometimes he went to other cities to attend meetings and make +addresses. His zeal never slackened; and but for me he would often have +gone hungry that some shivering patriot might dine. I was with him heart +and soul, but I had the parish on my shoulders, and perhaps my long +experience of men had made me a little less credulous than Christian +charity requires; for I could have sworn that some of the heroes who hung +on him had never had a whiff of Austrian blood, and would have fed out of +the same trough with the white-coats if there had been polenta enough to go +round. Happily my friend had no such doubts. He believed in the patriots as +devoutly as in the cause; and if some of his hard-earned dollars travelled +no farther than the nearest wine-cellar or cigar-shop, he never suspected +the course they took.</p> + +<p>His health was never the same after the fever; and by and by he began to +lose his pupils, and the patriots cooled off as his pockets fell in. Toward +the end I took him to live in my shabby attic. He had grown weak and had a +troublesome cough, and he spent the greater part of his days indoors. Cruel +days they must have been to him, but he made no sign, and always welcomed +me with a cheerful word. When his pupils dropped off, and his health made +it difficult for him to pick up work outside, he set up a letter-writer’s +sign, and used to earn a few pennies by serving as amanuensis to my poor +parishioners; but it went against him to take their money, and half the +time he did the work for nothing. I knew it was hard for him to live on +charity, as he called it, and I used to find what jobs I could for him +among my friends the <i>negozianti</i>, who would send him letters to copy, +accounts to make up and what not; but we were all poor together, and the +master had licked the platter before the dog got it.</p> + +<p>So lived that just man, my son; and so, after eight years of exile, he died +one day in my arms. God had let him live long enough to see Solferino and +Villa-franca; and was perhaps never more merciful than in sparing him Monte +Rotondo and Mentana. But these are things of which it does not become me to +speak. The new Italy does not wear the face of our visions; but it is +written that God shall know His own, and it cannot be that He shall misread +the hearts of those who dreamed of fashioning her in His image.</p> + +<p>As for my friend, he is at peace, I doubt not; and his just life and holy +death intercede for me, who sinned for his sake alone.</p> + +<hr class="full" /> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Crucial Instances, by Edith Wharton + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CRUCIAL INSTANCES *** + +***** This file should be named 7516-h.htm or 7516-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/7/5/1/7516/ + + + +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 +http://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/license + +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 web page at http://www.pglaf.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. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. 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 +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +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 http://pglaf.org + +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: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty 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: + + http://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. + + +</pre> + +</body> +</html> diff --git a/7516-h/images/cover.jpg b/7516-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0bde175 --- /dev/null +++ b/7516-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/7516.txt b/7516.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..90199a4 --- /dev/null +++ b/7516.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6145 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Crucial Instances, by Edith Wharton + +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: Crucial Instances + +Author: Edith Wharton + +Posting Date: January 28, 2011 [EBook #7516] +Release Date: February, 2005 +First Posted: May 13, 2003 +[Last updated: October 20, 2017] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CRUCIAL INSTANCES *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Tiffany Vergon, William +Flis, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + + + + + + + CRUCIAL INSTANCES + + BY + + EDITH WHARTON + + + + +TABLE OF CONTENTS + + +I _The Duchess at Prayer_ + +II _The Angel at the Grave_ + +III _The Recovery_ + +IV _"Copy": A Dialogue_ + +V _The Rembrandt_ + +VI _The Moving Finger_ + +VII _The Confessional_ + + + + +THE DUCHESS AT PRAYER + + +Have you ever questioned the long shuttered front of an old Italian house, +that motionless mask, smooth, mute, equivocal as the face of a priest +behind which buzz the secrets of the confessional? Other houses declare the +activities they shelter; they are the clear expressive cuticle of a life +flowing close to the surface; but the old palace in its narrow street, the +villa on its cypress-hooded hill, are as impenetrable as death. The tall +windows are like blind eyes, the great door is a shut mouth. Inside there +may be sunshine, the scent of myrtles, and a pulse of life through all the +arteries of the huge frame; or a mortal solitude, where bats lodge in the +disjointed stones and the keys rust in unused doors.... + + +II + +From the loggia, with its vanishing frescoes, I looked down an avenue +barred by a ladder of cypress-shadows to the ducal escutcheon and mutilated +vases of the gate. Flat noon lay on the gardens, on fountains, porticoes +and grottoes. Below the terrace, where a chrome-colored lichen had sheeted +the balustrade as with fine _laminae_ of gold, vineyards stooped to +the rich valley clasped in hills. The lower slopes were strewn with white +villages like stars spangling a summer dusk; and beyond these, fold on +fold of blue mountain, clear as gauze against the sky. The August air was +lifeless, but it seemed light and vivifying after the atmosphere of the +shrouded rooms through which I had been led. Their chill was on me and I +hugged the sunshine. + +"The Duchess's apartments are beyond," said the old man. + +He was the oldest man I had ever seen; so sucked back into the past that he +seemed more like a memory than a living being. The one trait linking him +with the actual was the fixity with which his small saurian eye held the +pocket that, as I entered, had yielded a _lira_ to the gate-keeper's +child. He went on, without removing his eye: + +"For two hundred years nothing has been changed in the apartments of the +Duchess." + +"And no one lives here now?" + +"No one, sir. The Duke, goes to Como for the summer season." + +I had moved to the other end of the loggia. Below me, through hanging +groves, white roofs and domes flashed like a smile. + +"And that's Vicenza?" + +"_Proprio_!" The old man extended fingers as lean as the hands fading +from the walls behind us. "You see the palace roof over there, just to the +left of the Basilica? The one with the row of statues like birds taking +flight? That's the Duke's town palace, built by Palladio." + +"And does the Duke come there?" + +"Never. In winter he goes to Rome." + +"And the palace and the villa are always closed?" + +"As you see--always." + +"How long has this been?" + +"Since I can remember." + +I looked into his eyes: they were like tarnished metal mirrors reflecting +nothing. "That must be a long time," I said involuntarily. + +"A long time," he assented. + +I looked down on the gardens. An opulence of dahlias overran the +box-borders, between cypresses that cut the sunshine like basalt shafts. +Bees hung above the lavender; lizards sunned themselves on the benches and +slipped through the cracks of the dry basins. Everywhere were vanishing +traces of that fantastic horticulture of which our dull age has lost the +art. Down the alleys maimed statues stretched their arms like rows of +whining beggars; faun-eared terms grinned in the thickets, and above the +laurustinus walls rose the mock ruin of a temple, falling into real ruin +in the bright disintegrating air. The glare was blinding. + +"Let us go in," I said. + +The old man pushed open a heavy door, behind which the cold lurked like a +knife. + +"The Duchess's apartments," he said. + +Overhead and around us the same evanescent frescoes, under foot the same +scagliola volutes, unrolled themselves interminably. Ebony cabinets, with +inlay of precious marbles in cunning perspective, alternated down the +room with the tarnished efflorescence of gilt consoles supporting Chinese +monsters; and from the chimney-panel a gentleman in the Spanish habit +haughtily ignored us. + +"Duke Ercole II.," the old man explained, "by the Genoese Priest." + +It was a narrow-browed face, sallow as a wax effigy, high-nosed and +cautious-lidded, as though modelled by priestly hands; the lips weak and +vain rather than cruel; a quibbling mouth that would have snapped at verbal +errors like a lizard catching flies, but had never learned the shape of a +round yes or no. One of the Duke's hands rested on the head of a dwarf, a +simian creature with pearl ear-rings and fantastic dress; the other turned +the pages of a folio propped on a skull. + +"Beyond is the Duchess's bedroom," the old man reminded me. + +Here the shutters admitted but two narrow shafts of light, gold bars +deepening the subaqueous gloom. On a dais the bedstead, grim, nuptial, +official, lifted its baldachin; a yellow Christ agonized between the +curtains, and across the room a lady smiled at us from the chimney-breast. + +The old man unbarred a shutter and the light touched her face. Such a face +it was, with a flicker of laughter over it like the wind on a June meadow, +and a singular tender pliancy of mien, as though one of Tiepolo's lenient +goddesses had been busked into the stiff sheath of a seventeenth century +dress! + +"No one has slept here," said the old man, "since the Duchess Violante." + +"And she was--?" + +"The lady there--first Duchess of Duke Ercole II." + +He drew a key from his pocket and unlocked a door at the farther end of the +room. "The chapel," he said. "This is the Duchess's balcony." As I turned +to follow him the Duchess tossed me a sidelong smile. + +I stepped into a grated tribune above a chapel festooned with stucco. +Pictures of bituminous saints mouldered between the pilasters; the +artificial roses in the altar-vases were gray with dust and age, and under +the cobwebby rosettes of the vaulting a bird's nest clung. Before the altar +stood a row of tattered arm-chairs, and I drew back at sight of a figure +kneeling near them. + +"The Duchess," the old man whispered. "By the Cavaliere Bernini." + +It was the image of a woman in furred robes and spreading fraise, her hand +lifted, her face addressed to the tabernacle. There was a strangeness in +the sight of that immovable presence locked in prayer before an abandoned +shrine. Her face was hidden, and I wondered whether it were grief or +gratitude that raised her hands and drew her eyes to the altar, where no +living prayer joined her marble invocation. I followed my guide down the +tribune steps, impatient to see what mystic version of such terrestrial +graces the ingenious artist had found--the Cavaliere was master of such +arts. The Duchess's attitude was one of transport, as though heavenly airs +fluttered her laces and the love-locks escaping from her coif. I saw how +admirably the sculptor had caught the poise of her head, the tender slope +of the shoulder; then I crossed over and looked into her face--it was a +frozen horror. Never have hate, revolt and agony so possessed a human +countenance.... + +The old man crossed himself and shuffled his feet on the marble. + +"The Duchess Violante," he repeated. + +"The same as in the picture?" + +"Eh--the same." + +"But the face--what does it mean?" + +He shrugged his shoulders and turned deaf eyes on me. Then he shot a glance +round the sepulchral place, clutched my sleeve and said, close to my ear: +"It was not always so." + +"What was not?" + +"The face--so terrible." + +"The Duchess's face?" + +"The statue's. It changed after--" + +"After?" + +"It was put here." + +"The statue's face _changed_--?" + +He mistook my bewilderment for incredulity and his confidential finger +dropped from my sleeve. "Eh, that's the story. I tell what I've heard. What +do I know?" He resumed his senile shuffle across the marble. "This is a bad +place to stay in--no one comes here. It's too cold. But the gentleman said, +_I must see everything_!" + +I let the _lire_ sound. "So I must--and hear everything. This story, +now--from whom did you have it?" + +His hand stole back. "One that saw it, by God!" + +"That saw it?" + +"My grandmother, then. I'm a very old man." + +"Your grandmother? Your grandmother was--?" + +"The Duchess's serving girl, with respect to you." + +"Your grandmother? Two hundred years ago?" + +"Is it too long ago? That's as God pleases. I am a very old man and she +was a very old woman when I was born. When she died she was as black as a +miraculous Virgin and her breath whistled like the wind in a keyhole. She +told me the story when I was a little boy. She told it to me out there in +the garden, on a bench by the fish-pond, one summer night of the year she +died. It must be true, for I can show you the very bench we sat on...." + + +III + +Noon lay heavier on the gardens; not our live humming warmth but the stale +exhalation of dead summers. The very statues seemed to drowse like watchers +by a death-bed. Lizards shot out of the cracked soil like flames and the +bench in the laurustinus-niche was strewn with the blue varnished bodies of +dead flies. Before us lay the fish-pond, a yellow marble slab above rotting +secrets. The villa looked across it, composed as a dead face, with the +cypresses flanking it for candles.... + + +IV + +"Impossible, you say, that my mother's mother should have been the +Duchess's maid? What do I know? It is so long since anything has happened +here that the old things seem nearer, perhaps, than to those who live in +cities.... But how else did she know about the statue then? Answer me that, +sir! That she saw with her eyes, I can swear to, and never smiled again, +so she told me, till they put her first child in her arms ... for she was +taken to wife by the steward's son, Antonio, the same who had carried +the letters.... But where am I? Ah, well ... she was a mere slip, you +understand, my grandmother, when the Duchess died, a niece of the upper +maid, Nencia, and suffered about the Duchess because of her pranks and the +funny songs she knew. It's possible, you think, she may have heard from +others what she afterward fancied she had seen herself? How that is, it's +not for an unlettered man to say; though indeed I myself seem to have seen +many of the things she told me. This is a strange place. No one comes here, +nothing changes, and the old memories stand up as distinct as the statues +in the garden.... + +"It began the summer after they came back from the Brenta. Duke Ercole had +married the lady from Venice, you must know; it was a gay city, then, I'm +told, with laughter and music on the water, and the days slipped by like +boats running with the tide. Well, to humor her he took her back the first +autumn to the Brenta. Her father, it appears, had a grand palace there, +with such gardens, bowling-alleys, grottoes and casinos as never were; +gondolas bobbing at the water-gates, a stable full of gilt coaches, a +theatre full of players, and kitchens and offices full of cooks and +lackeys to serve up chocolate all day long to the fine ladies in masks +and furbelows, with their pet dogs and their blackamoors and their +_abates_. Eh! I know it all as if I'd been there, for Nencia, you see, +my grandmother's aunt, travelled with the Duchess, and came back with her +eyes round as platters, and not a word to say for the rest of the year to +any of the lads who'd courted her here in Vicenza. + +"What happened there I don't know--my grandmother could never get at +the rights of it, for Nencia was mute as a fish where her lady was +concerned--but when they came back to Vicenza the Duke ordered the villa +set in order; and in the spring he brought the Duchess here and left her. +She looked happy enough, my grandmother said, and seemed no object for +pity. Perhaps, after all, it was better than being shut up in Vicenza, +in the tall painted rooms where priests came and went as softly as cats +prowling for birds, and the Duke was forever closeted in his library, +talking with learned men. The Duke was a scholar; you noticed he was +painted with a book? Well, those that can read 'em make out that they're +full of wonderful things; as a man that's been to a fair across the +mountains will always tell his people at home it was beyond anything +_they'll_ ever see. As for the Duchess, she was all for music, +play-acting and young company. The Duke was a silent man, stepping quietly, +with his eyes down, as though he'd just come from confession; when the +Duchess's lap-dog yapped at his heels he danced like a man in a swarm of +hornets; when the Duchess laughed he winced as if you'd drawn a diamond +across a window-pane. And the Duchess was always laughing. + +"When she first came to the villa she was very busy laying out the gardens, +designing grottoes, planting groves and planning all manner of agreeable +surprises in the way of water-jets that drenched you unexpectedly, and +hermits in caves, and wild men that jumped at you out of thickets. She had +a very pretty taste in such matters, but after a while she tired of it, and +there being no one for her to talk to but her maids and the chaplain--a +clumsy man deep in his books--why, she would have strolling players out +from Vicenza, mountebanks and fortune-tellers from the market-place, +travelling doctors and astrologers, and all manner of trained animals. +Still it could be seen that the poor lady pined for company, and her +waiting women, who loved her, were glad when the Cavaliere Ascanio, the +Duke's cousin, came to live at the vineyard across the valley--you see +the pinkish house over there in the mulberries, with a red roof and a +pigeon-cote? + +"The Cavaliere Ascanio was a cadet of one of the great Venetian houses, +_pezzi grossi_ of the Golden Book. He had been meant for the Church, +I believe, but what! he set fighting above praying and cast in his lot with +the captain of the Duke of Mantua's _bravi_, himself a Venetian of +good standing, but a little at odds with the law. Well, the next I know, +the Cavaliere was in Venice again, perhaps not in good odor on account of +his connection with the gentleman I speak of. Some say he tried to carry +off a nun from the convent of Santa Croce; how that may be I can't say; but +my grandmother declared he had enemies there, and the end of it was that on +some pretext or other the Ten banished him to Vicenza. There, of course, +the Duke, being his kinsman, had to show him a civil face; and that was how +he first came to the villa. + +"He was a fine young man, beautiful as a Saint Sebastian, a rare musician, +who sang his own songs to the lute in a way that used to make my +grandmother's heart melt and run through her body like mulled wine. He +had a good word for everybody, too, and was always dressed in the French +fashion, and smelt as sweet as a bean-field; and every soul about the place +welcomed the sight of him. + +"Well, the Duchess, it seemed, welcomed it too; youth will have youth, +and laughter turns to laughter; and the two matched each other like the +candlesticks on an altar. The Duchess--you've seen her portrait--but to +hear my grandmother, sir, it no more approached her than a weed comes up to +a rose. The Cavaliere, indeed, as became a poet, paragoned her in his song +to all the pagan goddesses of antiquity; and doubtless these were finer +to look at than mere women; but so, it seemed, was she; for, to believe +my grandmother, she made other women look no more than the big French +fashion-doll that used to be shown on Ascension days in the Piazza. She +was one, at any rate, that needed no outlandish finery to beautify her; +whatever dress she wore became her as feathers fit the bird; and her hair +didn't get its color by bleaching on the housetop. It glittered of itself +like the threads in an Easter chasuble, and her skin was whiter than fine +wheaten bread and her mouth as sweet as a ripe fig.... + +"Well, sir, you could no more keep them apart than the bees and the +lavender. They were always together, singing, bowling, playing cup and +ball, walking in the gardens, visiting the aviaries and petting her grace's +trick-dogs and monkeys. The Duchess was as gay as a foal, always playing +pranks and laughing, tricking out her animals like comedians, disguising +herself as a peasant or a nun (you should have seen her one day pass +herself off to the chaplain as a mendicant sister), or teaching the lads +and girls of the vineyards to dance and sing madrigals together. The +Cavaliere had a singular ingenuity in planning such entertainments and the +days were hardly long enough for their diversions. But toward the end of +the summer the Duchess fell quiet and would hear only sad music, and the +two sat much together in the gazebo at the end of the garden. It was there +the Duke found them one day when he drove out from Vicenza in his gilt +coach. He came but once or twice a year to the villa, and it was, as my +grandmother said, just a part of her poor lady's ill-luck to be wearing +that day the Venetian habit, which uncovered the shoulders in a way the +Duke always scowled at, and her curls loose and powdered with gold. Well, +the three drank chocolate in the gazebo, and what happened no one knew, +except that the Duke, on taking leave, gave his cousin a seat in his +carriage; but the Cavaliere never returned. + +"Winter approaching, and the poor lady thus finding herself once more +alone, it was surmised among her women that she must fall into a deeper +depression of spirits. But far from this being the case, she displayed such +cheerfulness and equanimity of humor that my grandmother, for one, was +half-vexed with her for giving no more thought to the poor young man who, +all this time, was eating his heart out in the house across the valley. It +is true she quitted her gold-laced gowns and wore a veil over her head; but +Nencia would have it she looked the lovelier for the change and so gave the +Duke greater displeasure. Certain it is that the Duke drove out oftener to +the villa, and though he found his lady always engaged in some innocent +pursuit, such as embroidery or music, or playing games with her young +women, yet he always went away with a sour look and a whispered word to +the chaplain. Now as to the chaplain, my grandmother owned there had been +a time when her grace had not handled him over-wisely. For, according to +Nencia, it seems that his reverence, who seldom approached the Duchess, +being buried in his library like a mouse in a cheese--well, one day he made +bold to appeal to her for a sum of money, a large sum, Nencia said, to buy +certain tall books, a chest full of them, that a foreign pedlar had brought +him; whereupon the Duchess, who could never abide a book, breaks out at +him with a laugh and a flash of her old spirit--'Holy Mother of God, must +I have more books about me? I was nearly smothered with them in the first +year of my marriage;' and the chaplain turning red at the affront, she +added: 'You may buy them and welcome, my good chaplain, if you can find +the money; but as for me, I am yet seeking a way to pay for my turquoise +necklace, and the statue of Daphne at the end of the bowling-green, and +the Indian parrot that my black boy brought me last Michaelmas from the +Bohemians--so you see I've no money to waste on trifles;' and as he backs +out awkwardly she tosses at him over her shoulder: 'You should pray to +Saint Blandina to open the Duke's pocket!' to which he returned, very +quietly, 'Your excellency's suggestion is an admirable one, and I have +already entreated that blessed martyr to open the Duke's understanding.' + +"Thereat, Nencia said (who was standing by), the Duchess flushed +wonderfully red and waved him out of the room; and then 'Quick!' she cried +to my grandmother (who was too glad to run on such errands), 'Call me +Antonio, the gardener's boy, to the box-garden; I've a word to say to him +about the new clove-carnations....' + +"Now I may not have told you, sir, that in the crypt under the chapel there +has stood, for more generations than a man can count, a stone coffin +containing a thighbone of the blessed Saint Blandina of Lyons, a relic +offered, I've been told, by some great Duke of France to one of our own +dukes when they fought the Turk together; and the object, ever since, of +particular veneration in this illustrious family. Now, since the Duchess +had been left to herself, it was observed she affected a fervent devotion +to this relic, praying often in the chapel and even causing the stone slab +that covered the entrance to the crypt to be replaced by a wooden one, +that she might at will descend and kneel by the coffin. This was matter of +edification to all the household and should have been peculiarly pleasing +to the chaplain; but, with respect to you, he was the kind of man who +brings a sour mouth to the eating of the sweetest apple. + +"However that may be, the Duchess, when she dismissed him, was seen running +to the garden, where she talked earnestly with the boy Antonio about the +new clove-carnations; and the rest of the day she sat indoors and played +sweetly on the virginal. Now Nencia always had it in mind that her grace +had made a mistake in refusing that request of the chaplain's; but she said +nothing, for to talk reason to the Duchess was of no more use than praying +for rain in a drought. + +"Winter came early that year, there was snow on the hills by All Souls, +the wind stripped the gardens, and the lemon-trees were nipped in the +lemon-house. The Duchess kept her room in this black season, sitting over +the fire, embroidering, reading books of devotion (which was a thing she +had never done) and praying frequently in the chapel. As for the chaplain, +it was a place he never set foot in but to say mass in the morning, +with the Duchess overhead in the tribune, and the servants aching with +rheumatism on the marble floor. The chaplain himself hated the cold, and +galloped through the mass like a man with witches after him. The rest of +the day he spent in his library, over a brazier, with his eternal books.... + +"You'll wonder, sir, if I'm ever to get to the gist of the story; and I've +gone slowly, I own, for fear of what's coming. Well, the winter was long +and hard. When it fell cold the Duke ceased to come out from Vicenza, +and not a soul had the Duchess to speak to but her maid-servants and the +gardeners about the place. Yet it was wonderful, my grandmother said, how +she kept her brave colors and her spirits; only it was remarked that she +prayed longer in the chapel, where a brazier was kept burning for her all +day. When the young are denied their natural pleasures they turn often +enough to religion; and it was a mercy, as my grandmother said, that she, +who had scarce a live sinner to speak to, should take such comfort in a +dead saint. + +"My grandmother seldom saw her that winter, for though she showed a brave +front to all she kept more and more to herself, choosing to have only +Nencia about her and dismissing even her when she went to pray. For +her devotion had that mark of true piety, that she wished it not to be +observed; so that Nencia had strict orders, on the chaplain's approach, to +warn her mistress if she happened to be in prayer. + +"Well, the winter passed, and spring was well forward, when my grandmother +one evening had a bad fright. That it was her own fault I won't deny, for +she'd been down the lime-walk with Antonio when her aunt fancied her to be +stitching in her chamber; and seeing a sudden light in Nencia's window, she +took fright lest her disobedience be found out, and ran up quickly through +the laurel-grove to the house. Her way lay by the chapel, and as she crept +past it, meaning to slip in through the scullery, and groping her way, for +the dark had fallen and the moon was scarce up, she heard a crash close +behind her, as though someone had dropped from a window of the chapel. The +young fool's heart turned over, but she looked round as she ran, and there, +sure enough, was a man scuttling across the terrace; and as he doubled +the corner of the house my grandmother swore she caught the whisk of the +chaplain's skirts. Now that was a strange thing, certainly; for why should +the chaplain be getting out of the chapel window when he might have passed +through the door? For you may have noticed, sir, there's a door leads from +the chapel into the saloon on the ground floor; the only other way out +being through the Duchess's tribune. + +"Well, my grandmother turned the matter over, and next time she met Antonio +in the lime-walk (which, by reason of her fright, was not for some days) +she laid before him what had happened; but to her surprise he only laughed +and said, 'You little simpleton, he wasn't getting out of the window, he +was trying to look in'; and not another word could she get from him. + +"So the season moved on to Easter, and news came the Duke had gone to Rome +for that holy festivity. His comings and goings made no change at the +villa, and yet there was no one there but felt easier to think his yellow +face was on the far side of the Apennines, unless perhaps it was the +chaplain. + +"Well, it was one day in May that the Duchess, who had walked long with +Nencia on the terrace, rejoicing at the sweetness of the prospect and the +pleasant scent of the gilly-flowers in the stone vases, the Duchess toward +midday withdrew to her rooms, giving orders that her dinner should be +served in her bed-chamber. My grandmother helped to carry in the dishes, +and observed, she said, the singular beauty of the Duchess, who in honor +of the fine weather had put on a gown of shot-silver and hung her bare +shoulders with pearls, so that she looked fit to dance at court with an +emperor. She had ordered, too, a rare repast for a lady that heeded so +little what she ate--jellies, game-pasties, fruits in syrup, spiced cakes +and a flagon of Greek wine; and she nodded and clapped her hands as the +women set it before her, saying again and again, 'I shall eat well to-day.' + +"But presently another mood seized her; she turned from the table, called +for her rosary, and said to Nencia: 'The fine weather has made me neglect +my devotions. I must say a litany before I dine.' + +"She ordered the women out and barred the door, as her custom was; and +Nencia and my grandmother went down-stairs to work in the linen-room. + +"Now the linen-room gives on the court-yard, and suddenly my grandmother +saw a strange sight approaching. First up the avenue came the Duke's +carriage (whom all thought to be in Rome), and after it, drawn by a long +string of mules and oxen, a cart carrying what looked like a kneeling +figure wrapped in death-clothes. The strangeness of it struck the girl dumb +and the Duke's coach was at the door before she had the wit to cry out that +it was coming. Nencia, when she saw it, went white and ran out of the room. +My grandmother followed, scared by her face, and the two fled along the +corridor to the chapel. On the way they met the chaplain, deep in a book, +who asked in surprise where they were running, and when they said, to +announce the Duke's arrival, he fell into such astonishment and asked them +so many questions and uttered such ohs and ahs, that by the time he let +them by the Duke was at their heels. Nencia reached the chapel-door first +and cried out that the Duke was coming; and before she had a reply he was +at her side, with the chaplain following. + +"A moment later the door opened and there stood the Duchess. She held her +rosary in one hand and had drawn a scarf over her shoulders; but they shone +through it like the moon in a mist, and her countenance sparkled with +beauty. + +"The Duke took her hand with a bow. 'Madam,' he said, 'I could have had no +greater happiness than thus to surprise you at your devotions.' + +"'My own happiness,' she replied, 'would have been greater had your +excellency prolonged it by giving me notice of your arrival.' + +"'Had you expected me, Madam,' said he, 'your appearance could scarcely +have been more fitted to the occasion. Few ladies of your youth and beauty +array themselves to venerate a saint as they would to welcome a lover.' + +"'Sir,' she answered, 'having never enjoyed the latter opportunity, I am +constrained to make the most of the former.--What's that?' she cried, +falling back, and the rosary dropped from her hand. + +"There was a loud noise at the other end of the saloon, as of a heavy +object being dragged down the passage; and presently a dozen men were seen +haling across the threshold the shrouded thing from the oxcart. The Duke +waved his hand toward it. 'That,' said he, 'Madam, is a tribute to your +extraordinary piety. I have heard with peculiar satisfaction of your +devotion to the blessed relics in this chapel, and to commemorate a zeal +which neither the rigors of winter nor the sultriness of summer could abate +I have ordered a sculptured image of you, marvellously executed by the +Cavaliere Bernini, to be placed before the altar over the entrance to the +crypt.' + +"The Duchess, who had grown pale, nevertheless smiled playfully at this. +'As to commemorating my piety," she said, 'I recognize there one of your +excellency's pleasantries--' + +"'A pleasantry?' the Duke interrupted; and he made a sign to the men, who +had now reached the threshold of the chapel. In an instant the wrappings +fell from the figure, and there knelt the Duchess to the life. A cry of +wonder rose from all, but the Duchess herself stood whiter than the marble. + +"'You will see,' says the Duke, 'this is no pleasantry, but a triumph +of the incomparable Bernini's chisel. The likeness was done from your +miniature portrait by the divine Elisabetta Sirani, which I sent to the +master some six months ago, with what results all must admire.' + +"'Six months!' cried the Duchess, and seemed about to fall; but his +excellency caught her by the hand. + +"'Nothing,' he said, 'could better please me than the excessive emotion you +display, for true piety is ever modest, and your thanks could not take a +form that better became you. And now,' says he to the men, 'let the image +be put in place.' + +"By this, life seemed to have returned to the Duchess, and she answered him +with a deep reverence. 'That I should be overcome by so unexpected a grace, +your excellency admits to be natural; but what honors you accord it is my +privilege to accept, and I entreat only that in mercy to my modesty the +image be placed in the remotest part of the chapel.' + +"At that the Duke darkened. 'What! You would have this masterpiece of a +renowned chisel, which, I disguise not, cost me the price of a good +vineyard in gold pieces, you would have it thrust out of sight like the +work of a village stonecutter?' + +"'It is my semblance, not the sculptor's work, I desire to conceal.' + +"'It you are fit for my house, Madam, you are fit for God's, and entitled +to the place of honor in both. Bring the statue forward, you dawdlers!' he +called out to the men. + +"The Duchess fell back submissively. 'You are right, sir, as always; but I +would at least have the image stand on the left of the altar, that, looking +up, it may behold your excellency's seat in the tribune.' + +"'A pretty thought, Madam, for which I thank you; but I design before long +to put my companion image on the other side of the altar; and the wife's +place, as you know, is at her husband's right hand.' + +"'True, my lord--but, again, if my poor presentment is to have the +unmerited honor of kneeling beside yours, why not place both before the +altar, where it is our habit to pray in life?' + +"'And where, Madam, should we kneel if they took our places? Besides,' says +the Duke, still speaking very blandly, 'I have a more particular purpose +in placing your image over the entrance to the crypt; for not only would I +thereby mark your special devotion to the blessed saint who rests there, +but, by sealing up the opening in the pavement, would assure the perpetual +preservation of that holy martyr's bones, which hitherto have been too +thoughtlessly exposed to sacrilegious attempts.' + +"'What attempts, my lord?' cries the Duchess. 'No one enters this chapel +without my leave.' + +"'So I have understood, and can well believe from what I have learned of +your piety; yet at night a malefactor might break in through a window, +Madam, and your excellency not know it.' + +"'I'm a light sleeper,' said the Duchess. + +"The Duke looked at her gravely. 'Indeed?' said he. 'A bad sign at your +age. I must see that you are provided with a sleeping-draught.' + +"The Duchess's eyes filled. 'You would deprive me, then, of the consolation +of visiting those venerable relics?' + +"'I would have you keep eternal guard over them, knowing no one to whose +care they may more fittingly be entrusted.' + +"By this the image was brought close to the wooden slab that covered the +entrance to the crypt, when the Duchess, springing forward, placed herself +in the way. + +"'Sir, let the statue be put in place to-morrow, and suffer me, to-night, +to say a last prayer beside those holy bones.' + +"The Duke stepped instantly to her side. 'Well thought, Madam; I will go +down with you now, and we will pray together.' + +"'Sir, your long absences have, alas! given me the habit of solitary +devotion, and I confess that any presence is distracting.' + +"'Madam, I accept your rebuke. Hitherto, it is true, the duties of my +station have constrained me to long absences; but henceforward I remain +with you while you live. Shall we go down into the crypt together?" + +"'No; for I fear for your excellency's ague. The air there is excessively +damp.' + +"'The more reason you should no longer be exposed to it; and to prevent the +intemperance of your zeal I will at once make the place inaccessible.' + +"The Duchess at this fell on her knees on the slab, weeping excessively and +lifting her hands to heaven. + +"'Oh,' she cried, 'you are cruel, sir, to deprive me of access to the +sacred relics that have enabled me to support with resignation the solitude +to which your excellency's duties have condemned me; and if prayer and +meditation give me any authority to pronounce on such matters, suffer me to +warn you, sir, that I fear the blessed Saint Blandina will punish us for +thus abandoning her venerable remains!' + +"The Duke at this seemed to pause, for he was a pious man, and my +grandmother thought she saw him exchange a glance with the chaplain; who, +stepping timidly forward, with his eyes on the ground, said, 'There is +indeed much wisdom in her excellency's words, but I would suggest, sir, +that her pious wish might be met, and the saint more conspicuously honored, +by transferring the relics from the crypt to a place beneath the altar.' + +"'True!' cried the Duke, 'and it shall be done at once.' + +"But thereat the Duchess rose to her feet with a terrible look. + +"'No,' she cried, 'by the body of God! For it shall not be said that, after +your excellency has chosen to deny every request I addressed to him, I owe +his consent to the solicitation of another!' + +"The chaplain turned red and the Duke yellow, and for a moment neither +spoke. + +"Then the Duke said, 'Here are words enough, Madam. Do you wish the relics +brought up from the crypt?' + +"'I wish nothing that I owe to another's intervention!' + +"'Put the image in place then,' says the Duke furiously; and handed her +grace to a chair. + +"She sat there, my grandmother said, straight as an arrow, her hands +locked, her head high, her eyes on the Duke, while the statue was dragged +to its place; then she stood up and turned away. As she passed by Nencia, +'Call me Antonio,' she whispered; but before the words were out of her +mouth the Duke stepped between them. + +"'Madam,' says he, all smiles now, 'I have travelled straight from Rome to +bring you the sooner this proof of my esteem. I lay last night at Monselice +and have been on the road since daybreak. Will you not invite me to +supper?' + +"'Surely, my lord,' said the Duchess. 'It shall be laid in the +dining-parlor within the hour.' + +"'Why not in your chamber and at once, Madam? Since I believe it is your +custom to sup there.' + +"'In my chamber?' says the Duchess, in disorder. + +"'Have you anything against it?' he asked. + +"'Assuredly not, sir, if you will give me time to prepare myself.' + +"'I will wait in your cabinet,' said the Duke. + +"At that, said my grandmother, the Duchess gave one look, as the souls in +hell may have looked when the gates closed on our Lord; then she called +Nencia and passed to her chamber. + +"What happened there my grandmother could never learn, but that the +Duchess, in great haste, dressed herself with extraordinary splendor, +powdering her hair with gold, painting her face and bosom, and covering +herself with jewels till she shone like our Lady of Loreto; and hardly +were these preparations complete when the Duke entered from the cabinet, +followed by the servants carrying supper. Thereupon the Duchess dismissed +Nencia, and what follows my grandmother learned from a pantry-lad who +brought up the dishes and waited in the cabinet; for only the Duke's +body-servant entered the bed-chamber. + +"Well, according to this boy, sir, who was looking and listening with his +whole body, as it were, because he had never before been suffered so near +the Duchess, it appears that the noble couple sat down in great good humor, +the Duchess playfully reproving her husband for his long absence, while the +Duke swore that to look so beautiful was the best way of punishing him. +In this tone the talk continued, with such gay sallies on the part of the +Duchess, such tender advances on the Duke's, that the lad declared they +were for all the world like a pair of lovers courting on a summer's night +in the vineyard; and so it went till the servant brought in the mulled +wine. + +"'Ah,' the Duke was saying at that moment, 'this agreeable evening repays +me for the many dull ones I have spent away from you; nor do I remember +to have enjoyed such laughter since the afternoon last year when we drank +chocolate in the gazebo with my cousin Ascanio. And that reminds me,' he +said, 'is my cousin in good health?' + +"'I have no reports of it,' says the Duchess. 'But your excellency should +taste these figs stewed in malmsey--' + +"'I am in the mood to taste whatever you offer,' said he; and as she helped +him to the figs he added, 'If my enjoyment were not complete as it is, +I could almost wish my cousin Ascanio were with us. The fellow is rare +good company at supper. What do you say, Madam? I hear he's still in the +country; shall we send for him to join us?' + +"'Ah,' said the Duchess, with a sigh and a languishing look, 'I see your +excellency wearies of me already.' + +"'I, Madam? Ascanio is a capital good fellow, but to my mind his chief +merit at this moment is his absence. It inclines me so tenderly to him +that, by God, I could empty a glass to his good health.' + +"With that the Duke caught up his goblet and signed to the servant to fill +the Duchess's. + +"'Here's to the cousin,' he cried, standing, 'who has the good taste to +stay away when he's not wanted. I drink to his very long life--and you, +Madam?' + +"At this the Duchess, who had sat staring at him with a changed face, rose +also and lifted her glass to her lips. + +"'And I to his happy death,' says she in a wild voice; and as she spoke the +empty goblet dropped from her hand and she fell face down on the floor. + +"The Duke shouted to her women that she had swooned, and they came and +lifted her to the bed.... She suffered horribly all night, Nencia said, +twisting herself like a heretic at the stake, but without a word escaping +her. The Duke watched by her, and toward daylight sent for the chaplain; +but by this she was unconscious and, her teeth being locked, our Lord's +body could not be passed through them. + + * * * * * + +"The Duke announced to his relations that his lady had died after partaking +too freely of spiced wine and an omelet of carp's roe, at a supper she had +prepared in honor of his return; and the next year he brought home a new +Duchess, who gave him a son and five daughters...." + + +V + +The sky had turned to a steel gray, against which the villa stood out +sallow and inscrutable. A wind strayed through the gardens, loosening here +and there a yellow leaf from the sycamores; and the hills across the valley +were purple as thunder-clouds. + + * * * * * + +"And the statue--?" I asked. + +"Ah, the statue. Well, sir, this is what my grandmother told me, here on +this very bench where we're sitting. The poor child, who worshipped the +Duchess as a girl of her years will worship a beautiful kind mistress, +spent a night of horror, you may fancy, shut out from her lady's room, +hearing the cries that came from it, and seeing, as she crouched in her +corner, the women rush to and fro with wild looks, the Duke's lean face in +the door, and the chaplain skulking in the antechamber with his eyes on +his breviary. No one minded her that night or the next morning; and toward +dusk, when it became known the Duchess was no more, the poor girl felt the +pious wish to say a prayer for her dead mistress. She crept to the chapel +and stole in unobserved. The place was empty and dim, but as she advanced +she heard a low moaning, and coming in front of the statue she saw that +its face, the day before so sweet and smiling, had the look on it that you +know--and the moaning seemed to come from its lips. My grandmother turned +cold, but something, she said afterward, kept her from calling or shrieking +out, and she turned and ran from the place. In the passage she fell in a +swoon; and when she came to her senses, in her own chamber, she heard that +the Duke had locked the chapel door and forbidden any to set foot there.... +The place was never opened again till the Duke died, some ten years later; +and then it was that the other servants, going in with the new heir, +saw for the first time the horror that my grandmother had kept in her +bosom...." + +"And the crypt?" I asked. "Has it never been opened?" + +"Heaven forbid, sir!" cried the old man, crossing himself. "Was it not the +Duchess's express wish that the relics should not be disturbed?" + + + + +THE ANGEL AT THE GRAVE + + +The House stood a few yards back from the elm-shaded village street, +in that semi-publicity sometimes cited as a democratic protest against +old-world standards of domestic exclusiveness. This candid exposure to +the public eye is more probably a result of the gregariousness which, in +the New England bosom, oddly coexists with a shrinking from direct social +contact; most of the inmates of such houses preferring that furtive +intercourse which is the result of observations through shuttered windows +and a categorical acquaintance with the neighboring clothes-lines. The +House, however, faced its public with a difference. For sixty years it had +written itself with a capital letter, had self-consciously squared itself +in the eye of an admiring nation. The most searching inroads of village +intimacy hardly counted in a household that opened on the universe; and a +lady whose door-bell was at any moment liable to be rung by visitors from +London or Vienna was not likely to flutter up-stairs when she observed a +neighbor "stepping over." + +The solitary inmate of the Anson House owed this induration of the social +texture to the most conspicuous accident in her annals: the fact that she +was the only granddaughter of the great Orestes Anson. She had been born, +as it were, into a museum, and cradled in a glass case with a label; +the first foundations of her consciousness being built on the rock of +her grandfather's celebrity. To a little girl who acquires her earliest +knowledge of literature through a _Reader_ embellished with fragments +of her ancestor's prose, that personage necessarily fills an heroic space +in the foreground of life. To communicate with one's past through the +impressive medium of print, to have, as it were, a footing in every library +in the country, and an acknowledged kinship with that world-diffused clan, +the descendants of the great, was to be pledged to a standard of manners +that amazingly simplified the lesser relations of life. The village street +on which Paulina Anson's youth looked out led to all the capitals of +Europe; and over the roads of intercommunication unseen caravans bore back +to the elm-shaded House the tribute of an admiring world. + +Fate seemed to have taken a direct share in fitting Paulina for her part as +the custodian of this historic dwelling. It had long been secretly regarded +as a "visitation" by the great man's family that he had left no son and +that his daughters were not "intellectual." The ladies themselves were the +first to lament their deficiency, to own that nature had denied them the +gift of making the most of their opportunities. A profound veneration for +their parent and an unswerving faith in his doctrines had not amended their +congenital incapacity to understand what he had written. Laura, who had her +moments of mute rebellion against destiny, had sometimes thought how much +easier it would have been if their progenitor had been a poet; for she +could recite, with feeling, portions of _The Culprit Fay_ and of the +poems of Mrs. Hemans; and Phoebe, who was more conspicuous for memory than +imagination, kept an album filled with "selections." But the great man +was a philosopher; and to both daughters respiration was difficult on the +cloudy heights of metaphysic. The situation would have been intolerable +but for the fact that, while Phoebe and Laura were still at school, +their father's fame had passed from the open ground of conjecture to the +chill privacy of certitude. Dr. Anson had in fact achieved one of those +anticipated immortalities not uncommon at a time when people were apt to +base their literary judgments on their emotions, and when to affect plain +food and despise England went a long way toward establishing a man's +intellectual pre-eminence. Thus, when the daughters were called on to +strike a filial attitude about their parent's pedestal, there was little +to do but to pose gracefully and point upward; and there are spines to +which the immobility of worship is not a strain. A legend had by this time +crystallized about the great Orestes, and it was of more immediate interest +to the public to hear what brand of tea he drank, and whether he took off +his boots in the hall, than to rouse the drowsy echo of his dialectic. A +great man never draws so near his public as when it has become unnecessary +to read his books and is still interesting to know what he eats for +breakfast. + +As recorders of their parent's domestic habits, as pious scavengers of his +waste-paper basket, the Misses Anson were unexcelled. They always had an +interesting anecdote to impart to the literary pilgrim, and the tact with +which, in later years, they intervened between the public and the growing +inaccessibility of its idol, sent away many an enthusiast satisfied to have +touched the veil before the sanctuary. Still it was felt, especially by old +Mrs. Anson, who survived her husband for some years, that Phoebe and Laura +were not worthy of their privileges. There had been a third daughter so +unworthy of hers that she had married a distant cousin, who had taken her +to live in a new Western community where the _Works of Orestes Anson_ +had not yet become a part of the civic consciousness; but of this daughter +little was said, and she was tacitly understood to be excluded from the +family heritage of fame. In time, however, it appeared that the traditional +penny with which she had been cut off had been invested to unexpected +advantage; and the interest on it, when she died, returned to the Anson +House in the shape of a granddaughter who was at once felt to be what Mrs. +Anson called a "compensation." It was Mrs. Anson's firm belief that the +remotest operations of nature were governed by the centripetal force of her +husband's greatness and that Paulina's exceptional intelligence could be +explained only on the ground that she was designed to act as the guardian +of the family temple. + +The House, by the time Paulina came to live in it, had already acquired +the publicity of a place of worship; not the perfumed chapel of a romantic +idolatry but the cold clean empty meeting-house of ethical enthusiasms. The +ladies lived on its outskirts, as it were, in cells that left the central +fane undisturbed. The very position of the furniture had come to have a +ritual significance: the sparse ornaments were the offerings of kindred +intellects, the steel engravings by Raphael Morghen marked the Via Sacra +of a European tour, and the black-walnut desk with its bronze inkstand +modelled on the Pantheon was the altar of this bleak temple of thought. + +To a child compact of enthusiasms, and accustomed to pasture them on the +scanty herbage of a new social soil, the atmosphere of the old house was +full of floating nourishment. In the compressed perspective of Paulina's +outlook it stood for a monument of ruined civilizations, and its white +portico opened on legendary distances. Its very aspect was impressive +to eyes that had first surveyed life from the jig-saw "residence" of a +raw-edged Western town. The high-ceilinged rooms, with their panelled +walls, their polished mahogany, their portraits of triple-stocked ancestors +and of ringleted "females" in crayon, furnished the child with the historic +scenery against which a young imagination constructs its vision of the +past. To other eyes the cold spotless thinly-furnished interior might have +suggested the shuttered mind of a maiden-lady who associates fresh air and +sunlight with dust and discoloration; but it is the eye which supplies the +coloring-matter, and Paulina's brimmed with the richest hues. + +Nevertheless, the House did not immediately dominate her. She had her +confused out-reachings toward other centres of sensation, her vague +intuition of a heliocentric system; but the attraction of habit, the steady +pressure of example, gradually fixed her roving allegiance and she bent her +neck to the yoke. Vanity had a share in her subjugation; for it had early +been discovered that she was the only person in the family who could read +her grandfather's works. The fact that she had perused them with delight at +an age when (even presupposing a metaphysical bias) it was impossible for +her to understand them, seemed to her aunts and grandmother sure evidence +of predestination. Paulina was to be the interpreter of the oracle, and the +philosophic fumes so vertiginous to meaner minds would throw her into the +needed condition of clairvoyance. Nothing could have been more genuine than +the emotion on which this theory was based. Paulina, in fact, delighted in +her grandfather's writings. His sonorous periods, his mystic vocabulary, +his bold flights into the rarefied air of the abstract, were thrilling to +a fancy unhampered by the need of definitions. This purely verbal pleasure +was supplemented later by the excitement of gathering up crumbs of meaning +from the rhetorical board. What could have been more stimulating than +to construct the theory of a girlish world out of the fragments of this +Titanic cosmogony? Before Paulina's opinions had reached the stage when +ossification sets in their form was fatally predetermined. + +The fact that Dr. Anson had died and that his apotheosis had taken +place before his young priestess's induction to the temple, made her +ministrations easier and more inspiring. There were no little personal +traits--such as the great man's manner of helping himself to salt, or the +guttural cluck that started the wheels of speech--to distract the eye +of young veneration from the central fact of his divinity. A man whom +one knows only through a crayon portrait and a dozen yellowing, tomes on +free-will and intuition is at least secure from the belittling effects of +intimacy. + +Paulina thus grew up in a world readjusted to the fact of her grandfather's +greatness; and as each organism draws from its surroundings the kind of +nourishment most needful to its growth, so from this somewhat colorless +conception she absorbed warmth, brightness and variety. Paulina was the +type of woman who transmutes thought into sensation and nurses a theory in +her bosom like a child. + +In due course Mrs. Anson "passed away"--no one died in the Anson +vocabulary--and Paulina became more than ever the foremost figure of the +commemorative group. Laura and Phoebe, content to leave their father's +glory in more competent hands, placidly lapsed into needlework and fiction, +and their niece stepped into immediate prominence as the chief "authority" +on the great man. Historians who were "getting up" the period wrote to +consult her and to borrow documents; ladies with inexplicable yearnings +begged for an interpretation of phrases which had "influenced" them, but +which they had not quite understood; critics applied to her to verify some +doubtful citation or to decide some disputed point in chronology; and the +great tide of thought and investigation kept up a continuous murmur on the +quiet shores of her life. + +An explorer of another kind disembarked there one day in the shape +of a young man to whom Paulina was primarily a kissable girl, with an +after-thought in the shape of a grandfather. From the outset it had been +impossible to fix Hewlett Winsloe's attention on Dr. Anson. The young man +behaved with the innocent profanity of infants sporting on a tomb. His +excuse was that he came from New York, a Cimmerian outskirt which survived +in Paulina's geography only because Dr. Anson had gone there once or twice +to lecture. The curious thing was that she should have thought it worth +while to find excuses for young Winsloe. The fact that she did so had not +escaped the attention of the village; but people, after a gasp of awe, said +it was the most natural thing in the world that a girl like Paulina Anson +should think of marrying. It would certainly seem a little odd to see a +man in the House, but young Winsloe would of course understand that the +Doctor's books were not to be disturbed, and that he must go down to the +orchard to smoke--. The village had barely framed this _modus vivendi_ +when it was convulsed by the announcement that young Winsloe declined to +live in the House on any terms. Hang going down to the orchard to smoke! +He meant to take his wife to New York. The village drew its breath and +watched. + +Did Persephone, snatched from the warm fields of Enna, peer +half-consentingly down the abyss that opened at her feet? Paulina, it must +be owned, hung a moment over the black gulf of temptation. She would have +found it easy to cope with a deliberate disregard of her grandfather's +rights; but young Winsloe's unconsciousness of that shadowy claim was as +much a natural function as the falling of leaves on a grave. His love was +an embodiment of the perpetual renewal which to some tender spirits seems a +crueller process than decay. + +On women of Paulina's mould this piety toward implicit demands, toward +the ghosts of dead duties walking unappeased among usurping passions, +has a stronger hold than any tangible bond. People said that she gave up +young Winsloe because her aunts disapproved of her leaving them; but such +disapproval as reached her was an emanation from the walls of the House, +from the bare desk, the faded portraits, the dozen yellowing tomes that no +hand but hers ever lifted from the shelf. + + +II + +After that the House possessed her. As if conscious of its victory, it +imposed a conqueror's claims. It had once been suggested that she should +write a life of her grandfather, and the task from which she had shrunk as +from a too-oppressive privilege now shaped itself into a justification of +her course. In a burst of filial pantheism she tried to lose herself in the +vast ancestral consciousness. Her one refuge from scepticism was a blind +faith in the magnitude and the endurance of the idea to which she had +sacrificed her life, and with a passionate instinct of self-preservation +she labored to fortify her position. + +The preparations for the _Life_ led her through by-ways that the most +scrupulous of the previous biographers had left unexplored. She accumulated +her material with a blind animal patience unconscious of fortuitous risks. +The years stretched before her like some vast blank page spread out to +receive the record of her toil; and she had a mystic conviction that she +would not die till her work was accomplished. + +The aunts, sustained by no such high purpose, withdrew in turn to their +respective divisions of the Anson "plot," and Paulina remained alone with +her task. She was forty when the book was completed. She had travelled +little in her life, and it had become more and more difficult to her to +leave the House even for a day; but the dread of entrusting her document to +a strange hand made her decide to carry it herself to the publisher. On the +way to Boston she had a sudden vision of the loneliness to which this last +parting condemned her. All her youth, all her dreams, all her renunciations +lay in that neat bundle on her knee. It was not so much her grandfather's +life as her own that she had written; and the knowledge that it would come +back to her in all the glorification of print was of no more help than, to +a mother's grief, the assurance that the lad she must part with will return +with epaulets. + +She had naturally addressed herself to the firm which had published her +grandfather's works. Its founder, a personal friend of the philosopher's, +had survived the Olympian group of which he had been a subordinate member, +long enough to bestow his octogenarian approval on Paulina's pious +undertaking. But he had died soon afterward; and Miss Anson found herself +confronted by his grandson, a person with a brisk commercial view of his +trade, who was said to have put "new blood" into the firm. + +This gentleman listened attentively, fingering her manuscript as though +literature were a tactile substance; then, with a confidential twist of his +revolving chair, he emitted the verdict: "We ought to have had this ten +years sooner." + +Miss Anson took the words as an allusion to the repressed avidity of her +readers. "It has been a long time for the public to wait," she solemnly +assented. + +The publisher smiled. "They haven't waited," he said. + +She looked at him strangely. "Haven't waited?" + +"No--they've gone off; taken another train. Literature's like a big +railway-station now, you know: there's a train starting every minute. +People are not going to hang round the waiting-room. If they can't get +to a place when they want to they go somewhere else." + +The application of this parable cost Miss Anson several minutes of +throbbing silence. At length she said: "Then I am to understand that the +public is no longer interested in--in my grandfather?" She felt as though +heaven must blast the lips that risked such a conjecture. + +"Well, it's this way. He's a name still, of course. People don't exactly +want to be caught not knowing who he is; but they don't want to spend +two dollars finding out, when they can look him up for nothing in any +biographical dictionary." + +Miss Anson's world reeled. She felt herself adrift among mysterious forces, +and no more thought of prolonging the discussion than of opposing an +earthquake with argument. She went home carrying the manuscript like a +wounded thing. On the return journey she found herself travelling straight +toward a fact that had lurked for months in the background of her life, +and that now seemed to await her on the very threshold: the fact that +fewer visitors came to the House. She owned to herself that for the last +four or five years the number had steadily diminished. Engrossed in her +work, she had noted the change only to feel thankful that she had fewer +interruptions. There had been a time when, at the travelling season, the +bell rang continuously, and the ladies of the House lived in a chronic +state of "best silks" and expectancy. It would have been impossible then to +carry on any consecutive work; and she now saw that the silence which had +gathered round her task had been the hush of death. + +Not of _his_ death! The very walls cried out against the implication. +It was the world's enthusiasm, the world's faith, the world's loyalty that +had died. A corrupt generation that had turned aside to worship the brazen +serpent. Her heart yearned with a prophetic passion over the lost sheep +straying in the wilderness. But all great glories had their interlunar +period; and in due time her grandfather would once more flash full-orbed +upon a darkling world. + +The few friends to whom she confided her adventure reminded her with +tender indignation that there were other publishers less subject to the +fluctuations of the market; but much as she had braved for her grandfather +she could not again brave that particular probation. She found herself, +in fact, incapable of any immediate effort. She had lost her way in a +labyrinth of conjecture where her worst dread was that she might put her +hand upon the clue. + +She locked up the manuscript and sat down to wait. If a pilgrim had come +just then the priestess would have fallen on his neck; but she continued +to celebrate her rites alone. It was a double solitude; for she had always +thought a great deal more of the people who came to see the House than of +the people who came to see her. She fancied that the neighbors kept a keen +eye on the path to the House; and there were days when the figure of a +stranger strolling past the gate seemed to focus upon her the scorching +sympathies of the village. For a time she thought of travelling; of going +to Europe, or even to Boston; but to leave the House now would have +seemed like deserting her post. Gradually her scattered energies centred +themselves in the fierce resolve to understand what had happened. She was +not the woman to live long in an unmapped country or to accept as final +her private interpretation of phenomena. Like a traveller in unfamiliar +regions she began to store for future guidance the minutest natural signs. +Unflinchingly she noted the accumulating symptoms of indifference that +marked her grandfather's descent toward posterity. She passed from the +heights on which he had been grouped with the sages of his day to the lower +level where he had come to be "the friend of Emerson," "the correspondent +of Hawthorne," or (later still) "the Dr. Anson" mentioned in their letters. +The change had taken place as slowly and imperceptibly as a natural +process. She could not say that any ruthless hand had stripped the leaves +from the tree: it was simply that, among the evergreen glories of his +group, her grandfather's had proved deciduous. + +She had still to ask herself why. If the decay had been a natural process, +was it not the very pledge of renewal? It was easier to find such arguments +than to be convinced by them. Again and again she tried to drug her +solicitude with analogies; but at last she saw that such expedients were +but the expression of a growing incredulity. The best way of proving her +faith in her grandfather was not to be afraid of his critics. She had no +notion where these shadowy antagonists lurked; for she had never heard of +the great man's doctrine being directly combated. Oblique assaults there +must have been, however, Parthian shots at the giant that none dared face; +and she thirsted to close with such assailants. The difficulty was to +find them. She began by re-reading the _Works_; thence she passed to +the writers of the same school, those whose rhetoric bloomed perennial +in _First Readers_ from which her grandfather's prose had long +since faded. Amid that clamor of far-off enthusiasms she detected no +controversial note. The little knot of Olympians held their views in common +with an early-Christian promiscuity. They were continually proclaiming +their admiration for each other, the public joining as chorus in this +guileless antiphon of praise; and she discovered no traitor in their midst. + +What then had happened? Was it simply that the main current of thought +had set another way? Then why did the others survive? Why were they still +marked down as tributaries to the philosophic stream? This question carried +her still farther afield, and she pressed on with the passion of a champion +whose reluctance to know the worst might be construed into a doubt of his +cause. At length--slowly but inevitably--an explanation shaped itself. +Death had overtaken the doctrines about which her grandfather had draped +his cloudy rhetoric. They had disintegrated and been re-absorbed, adding +their little pile to the dust drifted about the mute lips of the Sphinx. +The great man's contemporaries had survived not by reason of what they +taught, but of what they were; and he, who had been the mere mask through +which they mouthed their lesson, the instrument on which their tune was +played, lay buried deep among the obsolete tools of thought. + +The discovery came to Paulina suddenly. She looked up one evening from her +reading and it stood before her like a ghost. It had entered her life with +stealthy steps, creeping close before she was aware of it. She sat in the +library, among the carefully-tended books and portraits; and it seemed to +her that she had been walled alive into a tomb hung with the effigies of +dead ideas. She felt a desperate longing to escape into the outer air, +where people toiled and loved, and living sympathies went hand in hand. It +was the sense of wasted labor that oppressed her; of two lives consumed in +that ruthless process that uses generations of effort to build a single +cell. There was a dreary parallel between her grandfather's fruitless +toil and her own unprofitable sacrifice. Each in turn had kept vigil by a +corpse. + + +III + +The bell rang--she remembered it afterward--with a loud thrilling note. It +was what they used to call the "visitor's ring"; not the tentative tinkle +of a neighbor dropping in to borrow a sauce-pan or discuss parochial +incidents, but a decisive summons from the outer world. + +Miss Anson put down her knitting and listened. She sat up-stairs now, +making her rheumatism an excuse for avoiding the rooms below. Her interests +had insensibly adjusted themselves to the perspective of her neighbors' +lives, and she wondered--as the bell re-echoed--if it could mean that Mrs. +Heminway's baby had come. Conjecture had time to ripen into certainty, and +she was limping toward the closet where her cloak and bonnet hung, when her +little maid fluttered in with the announcement: "A gentleman to see the +house." + +"The _House_?" + +"Yes, m'm. I don't know what he means," faltered the messenger, whose +memory did not embrace the period when such announcements were a daily part +of the domestic routine. + +Miss Anson glanced at the proffered card. The name it bore--_Mr. George +Corby_--was unknown to her, but the blood rose to her languid cheek. +"Hand me my Mechlin cap, Katy," she said, trembling a little, as she laid +aside her walking stick. She put her cap on before the mirror, with rapid +unsteady touches. "Did you draw up the library blinds?" she breathlessly +asked. + +She had gradually built up a wall of commonplace between herself and her +illusions, but at the first summons of the past filial passion swept away +the frail barriers of expediency. + +She walked down-stairs so hurriedly that her stick clicked like a girlish +heel; but in the hall she paused, wondering nervously if Katy had put a +match to the fire. The autumn air was cold and she had the reproachful +vision of a visitor with elderly ailments shivering by her inhospitable +hearth. She thought instinctively of the stranger as a survivor of the days +when such a visit was a part of the young enthusiast's itinerary. + +The fire was unlit and the room forbiddingly cold; but the figure which, as +Miss Anson entered, turned from a lingering scrutiny of the book-shelves, +was that of a fresh-eyed sanguine youth clearly independent of any +artificial caloric. She stood still a moment, feeling herself the victim of +some anterior impression that made this robust presence an insubstantial +thing; but the young man advanced with an air of genial assurance which +rendered him at once more real and more reminiscent. + +"Why this, you know," he exclaimed, "is simply immense!" + +The words, which did not immediately present themselves as slang to Miss +Anson's unaccustomed ear, echoed with an odd familiarity through the +academic silence. + +"The room, you know, I mean," he explained with a comprehensive gesture. +"These jolly portraits, and the books--that's the old gentleman himself +over the mantelpiece, I suppose?--and the elms outside, and--and the whole +business. I do like a congruous background--don't you?" + +His hostess was silent. No one but Hewlett Winsloe had ever spoken of her +grandfather as "the old gentleman." + +"It's a hundred times better than I could have hoped," her visitor +continued, with a cheerful disregard of her silence. "The seclusion, the +remoteness, the philosophic atmosphere--there's so little of that kind +of flavor left! I should have simply hated to find that he lived over +a grocery, you know.--I had the deuce of a time finding out where he +_did_ live," he began again, after another glance of parenthetical +enjoyment. "But finally I got on the trail through some old book on Brook +Farm. I was bound I'd get the environment right before I did my article." + +Miss Anson, by this time, had recovered sufficient self-possession to seat +herself and assign a chair to her visitor. + +"Do I understand," she asked slowly, following his rapid eye about the +room, "that you intend to write an article about my grandfather?" + +"That's what I'm here for," Mr. Corby genially responded; "that is, if +you're willing to help me; for I can't get on without your help," he added +with a confident smile. + +There was another pause, during which Miss Anson noticed a fleck of dust on +the faded leather of the writing-table and a fresh spot of discoloration in +the right-hand upper corner of Raphael Morghen's "Parnassus." + +"Then you believe in him?" she said, looking up. She could not tell what +had prompted her; the words rushed out irresistibly. + +"Believe in him?" Corby cried, springing to his feet. "Believe in Orestes +Anson? Why, I believe he's simply the greatest--the most stupendous--the +most phenomenal figure we've got!" + +The color rose to Miss Anson's brow. Her heart was beating passionately. +She kept her eyes fixed on the young man's face, as though it might vanish +if she looked away. + +"You--you mean to say this in your article?" she asked. + +"Say it? Why, the facts will say it," he exulted. "The baldest kind of a +statement would make it clear. When a man is as big as that he doesn't need +a pedestal!" + +Miss Anson sighed. "People used to say that when I was young," she +murmured. "But now--" + +Her visitor stared. "When you were young? But how did they know--when the +thing hung fire as it did? When the whole edition was thrown back on his +hands?" + +"The whole edition--what edition?" It was Miss Anson's turn to stare. + +"Why, of his pamphlet--_the_ pamphlet--the one thing that counts, that +survives, that makes him what he is! For heaven's sake," he tragically +adjured her, "don't tell me there isn't a copy of it left!" + +Miss Anson was trembling slightly. "I don't think I understand what you +mean," she faltered, less bewildered by his vehemence than by the strange +sense of coming on an unexplored region in the very heart of her dominion. + +"Why, his account of the _amphioxus_, of course! You can't mean that +his family didn't know about it--that _you_ don't know about it? I came +across it by the merest accident myself, in a letter of vindication that +he wrote in 1830 to an old scientific paper; but I understood there were +journals--early journals; there must be references to it somewhere in the +'twenties. He must have been at least ten or twelve years ahead of Yarrell; +and he saw the whole significance of it, too--he saw where it led to. As +I understand it, he actually anticipated in his pamphlet Saint Hilaire's +theory of the universal type, and supported the hypothesis by describing +the notochord of the _amphioxus_ as a cartilaginous vertebral column. +The specialists of the day jeered at him, of course, as the specialists in +Goethe's time jeered at the plant-metamorphosis. As far as I can make out, +the anatomists and zoologists were down on Dr. Anson to a man; that was why +his cowardly publishers went back on their bargain. But the pamphlet must +be here somewhere--he writes as though, in his first disappointment, he had +destroyed the whole edition; but surely there must be at least one copy +left?" + +His scientific jargon was as bewildering as his slang; and there were even +moments in his discourse when Miss Anson ceased to distinguish between +them; but the suspense with which he continued to gaze on her acted as a +challenge to her scattered thoughts. + +"The _amphioxus_," she murmured, half-rising. "It's an animal, isn't +it--a fish? Yes, I think I remember." She sank back with the inward look of +one who retraces some lost line of association. + +Gradually the distance cleared, the details started into life. In her +researches for the biography she had patiently followed every ramification +of her subject, and one of these overgrown paths now led her back to +the episode in question. The great Orestes's title of "Doctor" had in +fact not been merely the spontaneous tribute of a national admiration; +he had actually studied medicine in his youth, and his diaries, as his +granddaughter now recalled, showed that he had passed through a brief phase +of anatomical ardor before his attention was diverted to super-sensual +problems. It had indeed seemed to Paulina, as she scanned those early +pages, that they revealed a spontaneity, a freshness of feeling somehow +absent from his later lucubrations--as though this one emotion had reached +him directly, the others through some intervening medium. In the excess of +her commemorative zeal she had even struggled through the unintelligible +pamphlet to which a few lines in the journal had bitterly directed her. But +the subject and the phraseology were alien to her and unconnected with her +conception of the great man's genius; and after a hurried perusal she had +averted her thoughts from the episode as from a revelation of failure. +At length she rose a little unsteadily, supporting herself against the +writing-table. She looked hesitatingly about the room; then she drew a key +from her old-fashioned reticule and unlocked a drawer beneath one of the +book-cases. Young Corby watched her breathlessly. With a tremulous hand she +turned over the dusty documents that seemed to fill the drawer. "Is this +it?" she said, holding out a thin discolored volume. + +He seized it with a gasp. "Oh, by George," he said, dropping into the +nearest chair. + +She stood observing him strangely as his eye devoured the mouldy pages. + +"Is this the only copy left?" he asked at length, looking up for a moment +as a thirsty man lifts his head from his glass. + +"I think it must be. I found it long ago, among some old papers that my +aunts were burning up after my grandmother's death. They said it was of no +use--that he'd always meant to destroy the whole edition and that I ought +to respect his wishes. But it was something he had written; to burn it was +like shutting the door against his voice--against something he had once +wished to say, and that nobody had listened to. I wanted him to feel that I +was always here, ready to listen, even when others hadn't thought it worth +while; and so I kept the pamphlet, meaning to carry out his wish and +destroy it before my death." + +Her visitor gave a groan of retrospective anguish. "And but for me--but for +to-day--you would have?" + +"I should have thought it my duty." + +"Oh, by George--by George," he repeated, subdued afresh by the inadequacy +of speech. + +She continued to watch him in silence. At length he jumped up and +impulsively caught her by both hands. + +"He's bigger and bigger!" he almost shouted. "He simply leads the field! +You'll help me go to the bottom of this, won't you? We must turn out all +the papers--letters, journals, memoranda. He must have made notes. He +must have left some record of what led up to this. We must leave nothing +unexplored. By Jove," he cried, looking up at her with his bright +convincing smile, "do you know you're the granddaughter of a Great Man?" + +Her color flickered like a girl's. "Are you--sure of him?" she whispered, +as though putting him on his guard against a possible betrayal of trust. + +"Sure! Sure! My dear lady--" he measured her again with his quick confident +glance. "Don't _you_ believe in him?" + +She drew back with a confused murmur. "I--used to." She had left her +hands in his: their pressure seemed to send a warm current to her heart. +"It ruined my life!" she cried with sudden passion. He looked at her +perplexedly. + +"I gave up everything," she went on wildly, "to keep him alive. I +sacrificed myself--others--I nursed his glory in my bosom and it died--and +left me--left me here alone." She paused and gathered her courage with a +gasp. "Don't make the same mistake!" she warned him. + +He shook his head, still smiling. "No danger of that! You're not alone, my +dear lady. He's here with you--he's come back to you to-day. Don't you see +what's happened? Don't you see that it's your love that has kept him alive? +If you'd abandoned your post for an instant--let things pass into other +hands--if your wonderful tenderness hadn't perpetually kept guard--this +might have been--must have been--irretrievably lost." He laid his hand on +the pamphlet. "And then--then he _would_ have been dead!" + +"Oh," she said, "don't tell me too suddenly!" And she turned away and sank +into a chair. + +The young man stood watching her in an awed silence. For a long time she +sat motionless, with her face hidden, and he thought she must be weeping. + +At length he said, almost shyly: "You'll let me come back, then? You'll +help me work this thing out?" + +She rose calmly and held out her hand. "I'll help you," she declared. + +"I'll come to-morrow, then. Can we get to work early?" + +"As early as you please." + +"At eight o'clock, then," he said briskly. "You'll have the papers ready?" + +"I'll have everything ready." She added with a half-playful hesitancy: "And +the fire shall be lit for you." + +He went out with his bright nod. She walked to the window and watched his +buoyant figure hastening down the elm-shaded street. When she turned back +into the empty room she looked as though youth had touched her on the lips. + + + + +THE RECOVERY + + +To the visiting stranger Hillbridge's first question was, "Have you seen +Keniston's things?" Keniston took precedence of the colonial State House, +the Gilbert Stuart Washington and the Ethnological Museum; nay, he ran neck +and neck with the President of the University, a prehistoric relic who had +known Emerson, and who was still sent about the country in cotton-wool to +open educational institutions with a toothless oration on Brook Farm. + +Keniston was sent about the country too: he opened art exhibitions, laid +the foundation of academies, and acted in a general sense as the spokesman +and apologist of art. Hillbridge was proud of him in his peripatetic +character, but his fellow-townsmen let it be understood that to "know" +Keniston one must come to Hillbridge. Never was work more dependent for its +effect on "atmosphere," on _milieu_. Hillbridge was Keniston's milieu, +and there was one lady, a devotee of his art, who went so far as to assert +that once, at an exhibition in New York, she had passed a Keniston without +recognizing it. "It simply didn't want to be seen in such surroundings; it +was hiding itself under an incognito," she declared. + +It was a source of special pride to Hillbridge that it contained all the +artist's best works. Strangers were told that Hillbridge had discovered +him. The discovery had come about in the simplest manner. Professor +Driffert, who had a reputation for "collecting," had one day hung a sketch +on his drawing-room wall, and thereafter Mrs. Driffert's visitors (always +a little flurried by the sense that it was the kind of house in which one +might be suddenly called upon to distinguish between a dry-point and an +etching, or between Raphael Mengs and Raphael Sanzio) were not infrequently +subjected to the Professor's off-hand inquiry, "By-the-way, have you seen +my Keniston?" The visitors, perceptibly awed, would retreat to a critical +distance and murmur the usual guarded generalities, while they tried to +keep the name in mind long enough to look it up in the Encyclopaedia. The +name was not in the Encyclopaedia; but, as a compensating fact, it became +known that the man himself was in Hillbridge. Hillbridge, then, owned an +artist whose celebrity it was the proper thing to take for granted! Some +one else, emboldened by the thought, bought a Keniston; and the next +year, on the occasion of the President's golden jubilee, the Faculty, by +unanimous consent, presented him with a Keniston. Two years later there +was a Keniston exhibition, to which the art-critics came from New York +and Boston; and not long afterward a well-known Chicago collector vainly +attempted to buy Professor Driffert's sketch, which the art journals cited +as a rare example of the painter's first or silvery manner. Thus there +gradually grew up a small circle of connoisseurs known in artistic, circles +as men who collected Kenistons. + +Professor Wildmarsh, of the chair of Fine Arts and Archaeology, was the +first critic to publish a detailed analysis of the master's methods and +purpose. The article was illustrated by engravings which (though they had +cost the magazine a fortune) were declared by Professor Wildmarsh to give +but an imperfect suggestion of the esoteric significance of the originals. +The Professor, with a tact that contrived to make each reader feel himself +included among the exceptions, went on to say that Keniston's work would +never appeal to any but exceptional natures; and he closed with the usual +assertion that to apprehend the full meaning of the master's "message" it +was necessary to see him in the surroundings of his own home at Hillbridge. + +Professor Wildmarsh's article was read one spring afternoon by a young +lady just speeding eastward on her first visit to Hillbridge, and already +flushed with anticipation of the intellectual opportunities awaiting her. +In East Onondaigua, where she lived, Hillbridge was looked on as an Oxford. +Magazine writers, with the easy American use of the superlative, designated +it as "the venerable Alma Mater," the "antique seat of learning," and +Claudia Day had been brought up to regard it as the fountain-head of +knowledge, and of that mental distinction which is so much rarer than +knowledge. An innate passion for all that was thus distinguished and +exceptional made her revere Hillbridge as the native soil of those +intellectual amenities that were of such difficult growth in the +thin air of East Onondaigua. At the first suggestion of a visit to +Hillbridge--whither she went at the invitation of a girl friend +who (incredible apotheosis!) had married one of the University +professors--Claudia's spirit dilated with the sense of new possibilities. +The vision of herself walking under the "historic elms" toward the Memorial +Library, standing rapt before the Stuart Washington, or drinking in, +from some obscure corner of an academic drawing-room, the President's +reminiscences of the Concord group--this vividness of self-projection into +the emotions awaiting her made her glad of any delay that prolonged so +exquisite a moment. + +It was in this mood that she opened the article on Keniston. She knew about +him, of course; she was wonderfully "well up," even for East Onondaigua. +She had read of him in the magazines; she had met, on a visit to New York, +a man who collected Kenistons, and a photogravure of a Keniston in an +"artistic" frame hung above her writing-table at home. But Professor +Wildmarsh's article made her feel how little she really knew of the master; +and she trembled to think of the state of relative ignorance in which, but +for the timely purchase of the magazine, she might have entered Hillbridge. +She had, for instance, been densely unaware that Keniston had already had +three "manners," and was showing symptoms of a fourth. She was equally +ignorant of the fact that he had founded a school and "created a formula"; +and she learned with a thrill that no one could hope to understand him who +had not seen him in his studio at Hillbridge, surrounded by his own works. +"The man and the art interpret each other," their exponent declared; and +Claudia Day, bending a brilliant eye on the future, wondered if she were +ever to be admitted to the privilege of that double initiation. + +Keniston, to his other claims to distinction, added that of being hard to +know. His friends always hastened to announce the fact to strangers--adding +after a pause of suspense that they "would see what they could do." +Visitors in whose favor he was induced to make an exception were further +warned that he never spoke unless he was interested--so that they mustn't +mind if he remained silent. It was under these reassuring conditions that, +some ten days after her arrival at Hillbridge, Miss Day was introduced +to the master's studio. She found him a tall listless-looking man, who +appeared middle-aged to her youth, and who stood before his own pictures +with a vaguely interrogative gaze, leaving the task of their interpretation +to the lady who had courageously contrived the visit. The studio, to +Claudia's surprise, was bare and shabby. It formed a rambling addition to +the small cheerless house in which the artist lived with his mother and +a widowed sister. For Claudia it added the last touch to his distinction +to learn that he was poor, and that what he earned was devoted to the +maintenance of the two limp women who formed a neutral-tinted background to +his impressive outline. His pictures of course fetched high prices; but he +worked slowly--"painfully," as his devotees preferred to phrase it--with +frequent intervals of ill health and inactivity, and the circle of Keniston +connoisseurs was still as small as it was distinguished. The girl's fancy +instantly hailed in him that favorite figure of imaginative youth, the +artist who would rather starve than paint a pot-boiler. It is known to +comparatively few that the production of successful pot-boilers is an art +in itself, and that such heroic abstentions as Keniston's are not always +purely voluntary. On the occasion of her first visit the artist said so +little that Claudia was able to indulge to the full the harrowing sense of +her inadequacy. No wonder she had not been one of the few that he cared +to talk to; every word she uttered must so obviously have diminished the +inducement! She had been cheap, trivial, conventional; at once gushing +and inexpressive, eager and constrained. She could feel him counting the +minutes till the visit was over, and as the door finally closed on the +scene of her discomfiture she almost shared the hope with which she +confidently credited him--that they might never meet again. + + +II + +Mrs. Davant glanced reverentially about the studio. "I have always said," +she murmured, "that they ought to be seen in Europe." + +Mrs. Davant was young, credulous and emotionally extravagant: she reminded +Claudia of her earlier self--the self that, ten years before, had first set +an awestruck foot on that very threshold. + +"Not for _his_ sake," Mrs. Davant continued, "but for Europe's." + +Claudia smiled. She was glad that her husband's pictures were to be +exhibited in Paris. She concurred in Mrs. Davant's view of the importance +of the event; but she thought her visitor's way of putting the case a +little overcharged. Ten years spent in an atmosphere of Keniston-worship +had insensibly developed in Claudia a preference for moderation of speech. +She believed in her husband, of course; to believe in him, with an +increasing abandonment and tenacity, had become one of the necessary laws +of being; but she did not believe in his admirers. Their faith in him was +perhaps as genuine as her own; but it seemed to her less able to give an +account of itself. Some few of his appreciators doubtless measured him +by their own standards; but it was difficult not to feel that in the +Hillbridge circle, where rapture ran the highest, he was accepted on +what was at best but an indirect valuation; and now and then she had a +frightened doubt as to the independence of her own convictions. That +innate sense of relativity which even East Onondaigua had not been able to +check in Claudia Day had been fostered in Mrs. Keniston by the artistic +absolutism of Hillbridge, and she often wondered that her husband remained +so uncritical of the quality of admiration accorded him. Her husband's +uncritical attitude toward himself and his admirers had in fact been one of +the surprises of her marriage. That an artist should believe in his +potential powers seemed to her at once the incentive and the pledge of +excellence: she knew there was no future for a hesitating talent. What +perplexed her was Keniston's satisfaction in his achievement. She had +always imagined that the true artist must regard himself as the imperfect +vehicle of the cosmic emotion--that beneath every difficulty overcome a new +one lurked, the vision widening as the scope enlarged. To be initiated into +these creative struggles, to shed on the toiler's path the consolatory ray +of faith and encouragement, had seemed the chief privilege of her marriage. +But there is something supererogatory in believing in a man obviously +disposed to perform that service for himself; and Claudia's ardor gradually +spent itself against the dense surface of her husband's complacency. She +could smile now at her vision of an intellectual communion which should +admit her to the inmost precincts of his inspiration. She had learned +that the creative processes are seldom self-explanatory, and Keniston's +inarticulateness no longer discouraged her; but she could not reconcile +her sense of the continuity of all high effort to his unperturbed air +of finishing each picture as though he had despatched a masterpiece to +posterity. In the first recoil from her disillusionment she even allowed +herself to perceive that, if he worked slowly, it was not because he +mistrusted his powers of expression, but because he had really so little to +express. + +"It's for Europe," Mrs. Davant vaguely repeated; and Claudia noticed that +she was blushingly intent on tracing with the tip of her elaborate sunshade +the pattern of the shabby carpet. + +"It will be a revelation to them," she went on provisionally, as though +Claudia had missed her cue and left an awkward interval to fill. + +Claudia had in fact a sudden sense of deficient intuition. She felt that +her visitor had something to communicate which required, on her own part, +an intelligent co-operation; but what it was her insight failed to suggest. +She was, in truth, a little tired of Mrs. Davant, who was Keniston's latest +worshipper, who ordered pictures recklessly, who paid for them regally +in advance, and whose gallery was, figuratively speaking, crowded with +the artist's unpainted masterpieces. Claudia's impatience was perhaps +complicated by the uneasy sense that Mrs. Davant was too young, too rich, +too inexperienced; that somehow she ought to be warned.--Warned of what? +That some of the pictures might never be painted? Scarcely that, since +Keniston, who was scrupulous in business transactions, might be trusted not +to take any material advantage of such evidence of faith. Claudia's impulse +remained undefined. She merely felt that she would have liked to help Mrs. +Davant, and that she did not know how. + +"You'll be there to see them?" she asked, as her visitor lingered. + +"In Paris?" Mrs. Davant's blush deepened. "We must all be there together." + +Claudia smiled. "My husband and I mean to go abroad some day--but I don't +see any chance of it at present." + +"But he _ought_ to go--you ought both to go this summer!" Mrs. Davant +persisted. "I know Professor Wildmarsh and Professor Driffert and all the +other critics think that Mr. Keniston's never having been to Europe has +given his work much of its wonderful individuality, its peculiar flavor +and meaning--but now that his talent is formed, that he has full command +of his means of expression," (Claudia recognized one of Professor +Driffert's favorite formulas) "they all think he ought to see the work of +the _other_ great masters--that he ought to visit the home of his +ancestors, as Professor Wildmarsh says!" She stretched an impulsive hand to +Claudia. "You ought to let him go, Mrs. Keniston!" + +Claudia accepted the admonition with the philosophy of the wife who is used +to being advised on the management of her husband. "I sha'n't interfere +with him," she declared; and Mrs. Davant instantly caught her up with a cry +of, "Oh, it's too lovely of you to say that!" With this exclamation she +left Claudia to a silent renewal of wonder. + +A moment later Keniston entered: to a mind curious in combinations it +might have occurred that he had met Mrs. Davant on the door-step. In one +sense he might, for all his wife cared, have met fifty Mrs. Davants on the +door-step: it was long since Claudia had enjoyed the solace of resenting +such coincidences. Her only thought now was that her husband's first words +might not improbably explain Mrs. Davant's last; and she waited for him to +speak. + +He paused with his hands in his pockets before an unfinished picture on the +easel; then, as his habit was, he began to stroll touristlike from canvas +to canvas, standing before each in a musing ecstasy of contemplation that +no readjustment of view ever seemed to disturb. Her eye instinctively +joined his in its inspection; it was the one point where their natures +merged. Thank God, there, was no doubt about the pictures! She was what she +had always dreamed of being--the wife of a great artist. Keniston dropped +into an armchair and filled his pipe. "How should you like to go to +Europe?" he asked. + +His wife looked up quickly. "When?" + +"Now--this spring, I mean." He paused to light the pipe. "I should like to +be over there while these things are being exhibited." + +Claudia was silent. + +"Well?" he repeated after a moment. + +"How can we afford it?" she asked. + +Keniston had always scrupulously fulfilled his duty to the mother and +sister whom his marriage had dislodged; and Claudia, who had the atoning +temperament which seeks to pay for every happiness by making it a source +of fresh obligations, had from the outset accepted his ties with an +exaggerated devotion. Any disregard of such a claim would have vulgarized +her most delicate pleasures; and her husband's sensitiveness to it in great +measure extenuated the artistic obtuseness that often seemed to her like a +failure of the moral sense. His loyalty to the dull women who depended on +him was, after all, compounded of finer tissues than any mere sensibility +to ideal demands. + +"Oh, I don't see why we shouldn't," he rejoined. "I think we might manage +it." + +"At Mrs. Davant's expense?" leaped from Claudia. She could not tell why she +had said it; some inner barrier seemed to have given way under a confused +pressure of emotions. + +He looked up at her with frank surprise. "Well, she has been very jolly +about it--why not? She has a tremendous feeling for art--the keenest I +ever knew in a woman." Claudia imperceptibly smiled. "She wants me to let +her pay in advance for the four panels she has ordered for the Memorial +Library. That would give us plenty of money for the trip, and my having the +panels to do is another reason for my wanting to go abroad just now." + +"Another reason?" + +"Yes; I've never worked on such a big scale. I want to see how those old +chaps did the trick; I want to measure myself with the big fellows over +there. An artist ought to, once in his life." + +She gave him a wondering look. For the first time his words implied a sense +of possible limitation; but his easy tone seemed to retract what they +conceded. What he really wanted was fresh food for his self-satisfaction: +he was like an army that moves on after exhausting the resources of the +country. + +Womanlike, she abandoned the general survey of the case for the +consideration of a minor point. + +"Are you sure you can do that kind of thing?" she asked. + +"What kind of thing?" + +"The panels." + +He glanced at her indulgently: his self-confidence was too impenetrable to +feel the pin-prick of such a doubt. + +"Immensely sure," he said with a smile. + +"And you don't mind taking so much money from her in advance?" + +He stared. "Why should I? She'll get it back--with interest!" He laughed +and drew at his pipe. "It will be an uncommonly interesting experience. I +shouldn't wonder if it freshened me up a bit." + +She looked at him again. This second hint of self-distrust struck her as +the sign of a quickened sensibility. What if, after all, he was beginning +to be dissatisfied with his work? The thought filled her with a renovating +sense of his sufficiency. + + +III + +They stopped in London to see the National Gallery. + +It was thus that, in their inexperience, they had narrowly put it; but in +reality every stone of the streets, every trick of the atmosphere, had +its message of surprise for their virgin sensibilities. The pictures were +simply the summing up, the final interpretation, of the cumulative pressure +of an unimagined world; and it seemed to Claudia that long before they +reached the doors of the gallery she had some intuitive revelation of what +awaited them within. + +They moved about from room to room without exchanging a word. The vast +noiseless spaces seemed full of sound, like the roar of a distant multitude +heard only by the inner ear. Had their speech been articulate their +language would have been incomprehensible; and even that far-off murmur +of meaning pressed intolerably on Claudia's nerves. Keniston took the +onset without outward sign of disturbance. Now and then he paused before a +canvas, or prolonged from one of the benches his silent communion with some +miracle of line or color; but he neither looked at his wife nor spoke to +her. He seemed to have forgotten her presence. + +Claudia was conscious of keeping a furtive watch on him; but the sum total +of her impressions was negative. She remembered thinking when she first +met him that his face was rather expressionless; and he had the habit of +self-engrossed silences. + +All that evening, at the hotel, they talked about London, and he surprised +her by an acuteness of observation that she had sometimes inwardly accused +him of lacking. He seemed to have seen everything, to have examined, felt, +compared, with nerves as finely adjusted as her own; but he said nothing +of the pictures. The next day they returned to the National Gallery, and +he began to study the paintings in detail, pointing out differences of +technique, analyzing and criticising, but still without summing up his +conclusions. He seemed to have a sort of provincial dread of showing +himself too much impressed. Claudia's own sensations were too complex, too +overwhelming, to be readily classified. Lacking the craftsman's instinct to +steady her, she felt herself carried off her feet by the rush of incoherent +impressions. One point she consciously avoided, and that was the comparison +of her husband's work with what they were daily seeing. Art, she inwardly +argued, was too various, too complex, dependent on too many inter-relations +of feeling and environment, to allow of its being judged by any provisional +standard. Even the subtleties of technique must be modified by the artist's +changing purpose, as this in turn is acted on by influences of which +he is himself unconscious. How, then, was an unprepared imagination to +distinguish between such varied reflections of the elusive vision? She took +refuge in a passionate exaggeration of her own ignorance and insufficiency. + +After a week in London they went to Paris. The exhibition of Keniston's +pictures had been opened a few days earlier; and as they drove through the +streets on the way to the station an "impressionist" poster here and there +invited them to the display of the American artist's work. Mrs. Davant, who +had been in Paris for the opening, had already written rapturously of the +impression produced, enclosing commendatory notices from one or two papers. +She reported that there had been a great crowd on the first day, and that +the critics had been "immensely struck." + +The Kenistons arrived in the evening, and the next morning Claudia, as a +matter of course, asked her husband at what time he meant to go and see the +pictures. + +He looked up absently from his guide-book. + +"What pictures?" + +"Why--yours," she said, surprised. + +"Oh, they'll keep," he answered; adding with a slightly embarrassed laugh, +"We'll give the other chaps a show first." Presently he laid down his book +and proposed that they should go to the Louvre. + +They spent the morning there, lunched at a restaurant near by, and returned +to the gallery in the afternoon. Keniston had passed from inarticulateness +to an eager volubility. It was clear that he was beginning to co-ordinate +his impressions, to find his way about in a corner of the great imaginative +universe. He seemed extraordinarily ready to impart his discoveries; and +Claudia felt that her ignorance served him as a convenient buffer against +the terrific impact of new sensations. + +On the way home she asked when he meant to see Mrs. Davant. + +His answer surprised her. "Does she know we're here?" + +"Not unless you've sent her word," said Claudia, with a touch of harmless +irony. + +"That's all right, then," he returned simply. "I want to wait and look +about a day or two longer. She'd want us to go sight-seeing with her; and +I'd rather get my impressions alone." + +The next two days were hampered by the necessity of eluding Mrs. Davant. +Claudia, under different circumstances, would have scrupled to share in +this somewhat shabby conspiracy; but she found herself in a state of +suspended judgment, wherein her husband's treatment of Mrs. Davant became +for the moment merely a clue to larger meanings. + +They had been four days in Paris when Claudia, returning one afternoon from +a parenthetical excursion to the Rue de la Paix, was confronted on her +threshold by the reproachful figure of their benefactress. It was not to +her, however, that Mrs. Davant's reproaches were addressed. Keniston, it +appeared, had borne the brunt of them; for he stood leaning against the +mantelpiece of their modest _salon_ in that attitude of convicted +negligence when, if ever, a man is glad to take refuge behind his wife. + +Claudia had however no immediate intention of affording him such shelter. +She wanted to observe and wait. + +"He's too impossible!" cried Mrs. Davant, sweeping her at once into the +central current of her grievance. + +Claudia looked from one to the other. + +"For not going to see you?" + +"For not going to see his pictures!" cried the other nobly. + +Claudia colored and Keniston shifted his position uneasily. + +"I can't make her understand," he said, turning to his wife. + +"I don't care about myself!" Mrs. Davant interjected. + +"_I_ do, then; it's the only thing I do care about," he hurriedly +protested. "I meant to go at once--to write--Claudia wanted to go, but I +wouldn't let her." He looked helplessly about the pleasant red-curtained +room, which was rapidly burning itself into Claudia's consciousness as a +visible extension of Mrs. Davant's claims. + +"I can't explain," he broke off. + +Mrs. Davant in turn addressed herself to Claudia. + +"People think it's so odd," she complained. "So many of the artists +here are anxious to meet him; they've all been so charming about the +pictures; and several of our American friends have come over from London +expressly for the exhibition. I told every one that he would be here +for the opening--there was a private view, you know--and they were so +disappointed--they wanted to give him an ovation; and I didn't know what +to say. What _am_ I to say?" she abruptly ended. + +"There's nothing to say," said Keniston slowly. + +"But the exhibition closes the day after to-morrow." + +"Well, _I_ sha'n't close--I shall be here," he declared with an effort +at playfulness. "If they want to see me--all these people you're kind +enough to mention--won't there be other chances?" + +"But I wanted them to see you _among_ your pictures--to hear you talk +about them, explain them in that wonderful way. I wanted you to interpret +each other, as Professor Wildmarsh says!" + +"Oh, hang Professor Wildmarsh!" said Keniston, softening the commination +with a smile. "If my pictures are good for anything they oughtn't to need +explaining." + +Mrs. Davant stared. "But I thought that was what made them so interesting!" +she exclaimed. + +Keniston looked down. "Perhaps it was," he murmured. + +There was an awkward silence, which Claudia broke by saying, with a glance +at her husband: "But if the exhibition is to remain open to-morrow, could +we not meet you there? And perhaps you could send word to some of our +friends." + +Mrs. Davant brightened like a child whose broken toy is glued together. +"Oh, _do_ make him!" she implored. "I'll ask them to come in the +afternoon--we'll make it into a little tea--a _five o'clock_. I'll +send word at once to everybody!" She gathered up her beruffled boa and +sunshade, settling her plumage like a reassured bird. "It will be too +lovely!" she ended in a self-consoling murmur. + +But in the doorway a new doubt assailed her. "You won't fail me?" she said, +turning plaintively to Keniston. "You'll make him come, Mrs. Keniston?" + +"I'll bring him!" Claudia promised. + + +IV + +When, the next morning, she appeared equipped for their customary ramble, +her husband surprised her by announcing that he meant to stay at home. + +"The fact is I'm rather surfeited," he said, smiling. "I suppose my +appetite isn't equal to such a plethora. I think I'll write some letters +and join you somewhere later." + +She detected the wish to be alone and responded to it with her usual +readiness. + +"I shall sink to my proper level and buy a bonnet, then," she said. "I +haven't had time to take the edge off that appetite." + +They agreed to meet at the Hotel Cluny at mid-day, and she set out alone +with a vague sense of relief. Neither she nor Keniston had made any direct +reference to Mrs. Davant's visit; but its effect was implicit in their +eagerness to avoid each other. + +Claudia accomplished some shopping in the spirit of perfunctoriness that +robs even new bonnets of their bloom; and this business despatched, she +turned aimlessly into the wide inviting brightness of the streets. Never +had she felt more isolated amid that ordered beauty which gives a social +quality to the very stones and mortar of Paris. All about her were +evidences of an artistic sensibility pervading every form of life like the +nervous structure of the huge frame--a sensibility so delicate, alert and +universal that it seemed to leave no room for obtuseness or error. In such +a medium the faculty of plastic expression must develop as unconsciously +as any organ in its normal surroundings; to be "artistic" must cease to be +an attitude and become a natural function. To Claudia the significance of +the whole vast revelation was centred in the light it shed on one tiny +spot of consciousness--the value of her husband's work. There are moments +when to the groping soul the world's accumulated experiences are but +stepping-stones across a private difficulty. + +She stood hesitating on a street corner. It was barely eleven, and she had +an hour to spare before going to the Hotel Cluny. She seemed to be letting +her inclination float as it would on the cross-currents of suggestion +emanating from the brilliant complex scene before her; but suddenly, in +obedience to an impulse that she became aware of only in acting on it, she +called a cab and drove to the gallery where her husband's pictures were +exhibited. + +A magnificent official in gold braid sold her a ticket and pointed the way +up the empty crimson-carpeted stairs. His duplicate, on the upper landing, +held out a catalogue with an air of recognizing the futility of the offer; +and a moment later she found herself in the long noiseless impressive room +full of velvet-covered ottomans and exotic plants. It was clear that the +public ardor on which Mrs. Davant had expatiated had spent itself earlier +in the week; for Claudia had this luxurious apartment to herself. Something +about its air of rich privacy, its diffusion of that sympathetic quality in +other countries so conspicuously absent from the public show-room, seemed +to emphasize its present emptiness. It was as though the flowers, the +carpet, the lounges, surrounded their visitor's solitary advance with +the mute assurance that they had done all they could toward making the +thing "go off," and that if they had failed it was simply for lack of +co-operation. She stood still and looked about her. The pictures struck her +instantly as odd gaps in the general harmony; it was self-evident that they +had not co-operated. They had not been pushing, aggressive, discordant: +they had merely effaced themselves. She swept a startled eye from one +familiar painting to another. The canvases were all there--and the +frames--but the miracle, the mirage of life and meaning, had vanished +like some atmospheric illusion. What was it that had happened? And had +it happened to _her_ or to the pictures? She tried to rally her +frightened thoughts; to push or coax them into a semblance of resistance; +but argument was swept off its feet by the huge rush of a single +conviction--the conviction that the pictures were bad. There was no +standing up against that: she felt herself submerged. + +The stealthy fear that had been following her all these days had her by the +throat now. The great vision of beauty through which she had been moving +as one enchanted was turned to a phantasmagoria of evil mocking shapes. +She hated the past; she hated its splendor, its power, its wicked magical +vitality.... She dropped into a seat and continued to stare at the wall +before her. Gradually, as she stared, there stole out to her from the +dimmed humbled canvases a reminder of what she had once seen in them, a +spectral appeal to her faith to call them back to life. What proof had she +that her present estimate of them was less subjective than the other? The +confused impressions of the last few days were hardly to be pleaded as a +valid theory of art. How, after all, did she know that the pictures were +bad? On what suddenly acquired technical standard had she thus decided +the case against them? It seemed as though it were a standard outside of +herself, as though some unheeded inner sense were gradually making her +aware of the presence, in that empty room, of a critical intelligence that +was giving out a subtle effluence of disapproval. The fancy was so vivid +that, to shake it off, she rose and began to move about again. In the +middle of the room stood a monumental divan surmounted by a _massif_ +of palms and azaleas. As Claudia's muffled wanderings carried her around +the angle of this seat, she saw that its farther side was occupied by the +figure of a man, who sat with his hands resting on his stick and his head +bowed upon them. She gave a little cry and her husband rose and faced her. + +Instantly the live point of consciousness was shifted, and she became aware +that the quality of the pictures no longer mattered. It was what _he_ +thought of them that counted: her life hung on that. + +They looked at each other a moment in silence; such concussions are not apt +to flash into immediate speech. At length he said simply, "I didn't know +you were coming here." + +She colored as though he had charged her with something underhand. + +"I didn't mean to," she stammered; "but I was too early for our +appointment--" + +Her word's cast a revealing glare on the situation. Neither of them looked +at the pictures; but to Claudia those unobtruding presences seemed suddenly +to press upon them and force them apart. + +Keniston glanced at his watch. "It's twelve o'clock," he said. "Shall we go +on?" + + +V + +At the door he called a cab and put her in it; then, drawing out his watch +again, he said abruptly: "I believe I'll let you go alone. I'll join you at +the hotel in time for luncheon." She wondered for a moment if he meant to +return to the gallery; but, looking back as she drove off, she saw him walk +rapidly away in the opposite direction. + +The cabman had carried her half-way to the Hotel Cluny before she realized +where she was going, and cried out to him to turn home. There was an acute +irony in this mechanical prolongation of the quest of beauty. She had +had enough of it, too much of it; her one longing was to escape, to hide +herself away from its all-suffusing implacable light. + +At the hotel, alone in her room, a few tears came to soften her seared +vision; but her mood was too tense to be eased by weeping. Her whole being +was centred in the longing to know what her husband thought. Their short +exchange of words had, after all, told her nothing. She had guessed a faint +resentment at her unexpected appearance; but that might merely imply a +dawning sense, on his part, of being furtively watched and criticised. She +had sometimes wondered if he was never conscious of her observation; there +were moments when it seemed to radiate from her in visible waves. Perhaps, +after all, he was aware of it, on his guard against it, as a lurking knife +behind the thick curtain of his complacency; and to-day he must have caught +the gleam of the blade. + +Claudia had not reached the age when pity is the first chord to vibrate in +contact with any revelation of failure. Her one hope had been that Keniston +should be clear-eyed enough to face the truth. Whatever it turned out to +be, she wanted him to measure himself with it. But as his image rose before +her she felt a sudden half-maternal longing to thrust herself between him +and disaster. Her eagerness to see him tested by circumstances seemed now +like a cruel scientific curiosity. She saw in a flash of sympathy that he +would need her most if he fell beneath his fate. + +He did not, after all, return for luncheon; and when she came up-stairs +from her solitary meal their _salon_ was still untenanted. She +permitted herself no sensational fears; for she could not, at the height of +apprehension, figure Keniston as yielding to any tragic impulse; but the +lengthening hours brought an uneasiness that was fuel to her pity. Suddenly +she heard the clock strike five. It was the hour at which they had promised +to meet Mrs. Davant at the gallery--the hour of the "ovation." Claudia +rose and went to the window, straining for a glimpse of her husband in the +crowded street. Could it be that he had forgotten her, had gone to the +gallery without her? Or had something happened--that veiled "something" +which, for the last hour, had grimly hovered on the outskirts of her mind? + +She heard a hand on the door and Keniston entered. As she turned to meet +him her whole being was swept forward on a great wave of pity: she was so +sure, now, that he must know. + +But he confronted her with a glance of preoccupied brightness; her first +impression was that she had never seen him so vividly, so expressively +pleased. If he needed her, it was not to bind up his wounds. + +He gave her a smile which was clearly the lingering reflection of some +inner light. "I didn't mean to be so late," he said, tossing aside his hat +and the little red volume that served as a clue to his explorations. "I +turned in to the Louvre for a minute after I left you this morning, and the +place fairly swallowed me up--I couldn't get away from it. I've been there +ever since." He threw himself into a chair and glanced about for his pipe. + +"It takes time," he continued musingly, "to get at them, to make out what +they're saying--the big fellows, I mean. They're not a communicative lot. +At first I couldn't make much out of their lingo--it was too different from +mine! But gradually, by picking up a hint here and there, and piecing them +together, I've begun to understand; and to-day, by Jove, I got one or two +of the old chaps by the throat and fairly turned them inside out--made them +deliver up their last drop." He lifted a brilliant eye to her. "Lord, it +was tremendous!" he declared. + +He had found his pipe and was musingly filling it. Claudia waited in +silence. + +"At first," he began again, "I was afraid their language was too hard for +me--that I should never quite know what they were driving at; they seemed +to cold-shoulder me, to be bent on shutting me out. But I was bound I +wouldn't be beaten, and now, to-day"--he paused a moment to strike a +match--"when I went to look at those things of mine it all came over me +in a flash. By Jove! it was as if I'd made them all into a big bonfire to +light me on my road!" + +His wife was trembling with a kind of sacred terror. She had been afraid +to pray for light for him, and here he was joyfully casting his whole past +upon the pyre! + +"Is there nothing left?" she faltered. + +"Nothing left? There's everything!" he exulted. "Why, here I am, not much +over forty, and I've found out already--already!" He stood up and began to +move excitedly about the room. "My God! Suppose I'd never known! Suppose +I'd gone on painting things like that forever! Why, I feel like those +chaps at revivalist meetings when they get up and say they're saved! Won't +somebody please start a hymn?" + +Claudia, with a tremulous joy, was letting herself go on the strong +current of his emotion; but it had not yet carried her beyond her depth, +and suddenly she felt hard ground underfoot. + +"Mrs. Davant--" she exclaimed. + +He stared, as though suddenly recalled from a long distance. "Mrs. Davant?" + +"We were to have met her--this afternoon--now--" + +"At the gallery? Oh, that's all right. I put a stop to that; I went to see +her after I left you; I explained it all to her." + +"All?" + +"I told her I was going to begin all over again." + +Claudia's heart gave a forward bound and then sank back hopelessly. + +"But the panels--?" + +"That's all right too. I told her about the panels," he reassured her. + +"You told her--?" + +"That I can't paint them now. She doesn't understand, of course; but she's +the best little woman and she trusts me." + +She could have wept for joy at his exquisite obtuseness. "But that isn't +all," she wailed. "It doesn't matter how much you've explained to her. It +doesn't do away with the fact that we're living on those panels!" + +"Living on them?" + +"On the money that she paid you to paint them. Isn't that what brought us +here? And--if you mean to do as you say--to begin all over again--how in +the world are we ever to pay her back?" + +Her husband turned on her an inspired eye. "There's only one way that I +know of," he imperturbably declared, "and that's to stay out here till I +learn how to paint them." + + + + +"COPY" + +A DIALOGUE + + +_Mrs. Ambrose Dale--forty, slender, still young--sits in her drawing-room +at the tea-table. The winter twilight is falling, a lamp has been lit, +there is a fire on the hearth, and the room is pleasantly dim and +flower-scented. Books are scattered everywhere--mostly with autograph +inscriptions "From the Author"--and a large portrait of_ Mrs. Dale, +_at her desk, with papers strewn about her, takes up one of the +wall-panels. Before_ Mrs. Dale _stands_ Hilda, _fair and twenty, +her hands full of letters_. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Ten more applications for autographs? Isn't it strange +that people who'd blush to borrow twenty dollars don't scruple to beg for +an autograph? + +_Hilda (reproachfully)_. Oh-- + +_Mrs. Dale_. What's the difference, pray? + +_Hilda_. Only that your last autograph sold for fifty-- + +_Mrs. Dale (not displeased)_. Ah?--I sent for you, Hilda, because I'm +dining out to-night, and if there's nothing important to attend to among +these letters you needn't sit up for me. + +_Hilda_. You don't mean to work? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Perhaps; but I sha'n't need you. You'll see that my +cigarettes and coffee-machine are in place, and that I don't have to crawl +about the floor in search of my pen-wiper? That's all. Now about these +letters-- + +_Hilda (impulsively)_. Oh, Mrs. Dale-- + +_Mrs. Dale_. Well? + +_Hilda_. I'd rather sit up for you. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Child, I've nothing for you to do. I shall be blocking +out the tenth chapter of _Winged Purposes_ and it won't be ready for +you till next week. + +_Hilda_. It isn't that--but it's so beautiful to sit here, watching +and listening, all alone in the night, and to feel that you're in there +_(she points to the study-door)_ _creating_--._(Impulsively.)_ +What do I care for sleep? + +_Mrs. Dale (indulgently)_. Child--silly child!--Yes, I should have +felt so at your age--it would have been an inspiration-- + +_Hilda (rapt)_. It is! + +_Mrs. Dale_. But you must go to bed; I must have you fresh in the +morning; for you're still at the age when one is fresh in the morning! +_(She sighs.)_ The letters? _(Abruptly.)_ Do you take notes of +what you feel, Hilda--here, all alone in the night, as you say? + +_Hilda (shyly)_. I have-- + +_Mrs. Dale (smiling)_. For the diary? + +_Hilda (nods and blushes)_. + +_Mrs. Dale (caressingly)_. Goose!--Well, to business. What is there? + +_Hilda_. Nothing important, except a letter from Stroud & Fayerweather +to say that the question of the royalty on _Pomegranate Seed_ has been +settled in your favor. The English publishers of _Immolation_ write +to consult you about a six-shilling edition; Olafson, the Copenhagen +publisher, applies for permission to bring out a Danish translation of +_The Idol's Feet_; and the editor of the _Semaphore_ wants a new +serial--I think that's all; except that _Woman's Sphere_ and _The +Droplight_ ask for interviews--with photographs-- + +_Mrs. Dale_. The same old story! I'm so tired of it all. _(To +herself, in an undertone.)_ But how should I feel if it all stopped? +_(The servant brings in a card.)_ + +_Mrs. Dale (reading it)_. Is it possible? Paul Ventnor? _(To the +servant.)_ Show Mr. Ventnor up. _(To herself.)_ Paul Ventnor! + +_Hilda (breathless)_. Oh, Mrs. Dale--_the_ Mr. Ventnor? + +_Mrs. Dale (smiling)_. I fancy there's only one. + +_Hilda_. The great, great poet? _(Irresolute.)_ No, I don't +dare-- + +_Mrs. Dale (with a tinge of impatience)_. What? + +_Hilda (fervently)_. Ask you--if I might--oh, here in this corner, +where he can't possibly notice me--stay just a moment? Just to see him come +in? To see the meeting between you--the greatest novelist and the greatest +poet of the age? Oh, it's too much to ask! It's an historic moment. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Why, I suppose it is. I hadn't thought of it in that +light. Well _(smiling)_, for the diary-- + +_Hilda_. Oh, thank you, _thank you_! I'll be off the very instant +I've heard him speak. + +_Mrs. Dale_. The very instant, mind. _(She rises, looks at herself +in the glass, smooths her hair, sits down again, and rattles the +tea-caddy.)_ Isn't the room very warm?--_(She looks over at her +portrait.)_ I've grown stouter since that was painted--. You'll make a +fortune out of that diary, Hilda-- + +_Hilda (modestly)_. Four publishers have applied to me already-- + +_The Servant (announces)_. Mr. Paul Ventnor. + +_(Tall, nearing fifty, with an incipient stoutness buttoned into a +masterly frock-coat, Ventnor drops his glass and advances vaguely, with a +short-sighted stare.)_ + +_Ventnor_. Mrs. Dale? + +_Mrs. Dale_. My dear friend! This is kind. _(She looks over her +shoulder at Hilda, who vanishes through the door to the left.)_ The +papers announced your arrival, but I hardly hoped-- + +_Ventnor (whose short-sighted stare is seen to conceal a deeper +embarrassment)_. You hadn't forgotten me, then? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Delicious! Do _you_ forget that you're public +property? + +_Ventnor_. Forgotten, I mean, that we were old friends? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Such old friends! May I remind you that it's nearly +twenty years since we've met? Or do you find cold reminiscences +indigestible? + +_Ventnor_. On the contrary, I've come to ask you for a dish of +them--we'll warm them up together. You're my first visit. + +_Mrs. Dale_. How perfect of you! So few men visit their women friends +in chronological order; or at least they generally do it the other way +round, beginning with the present day and working back--if there's time--to +prehistoric woman. + +_Ventnor_. But when prehistoric woman has become historic woman--? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Oh, it's the reflection of my glory that has guided you +here, then? + +_Ventnor_. It's a spirit in my feet that has led me, at the first +opportunity, to the most delightful spot I know. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Oh, the first opportunity--! + +_Ventnor_. I might have seen you very often before; but never just in +the right way. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Is this the right way? + +_Ventnor_. It depends on you to make it so. + +_Mrs. Dale_. What a responsibility! What shall I do? + +_Ventnor_. Talk to me--make me think you're a little glad to see me; +give me some tea and a cigarette; and say you're out to everyone else. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Is that all? _(She hands him a cup of tea.)_ The +cigarettes are at your elbow--. And do you think I shouldn't have been glad +to see you before? + +_Ventnor_. No; I think I should have been too glad to see you. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Dear me, what precautions! I hope you always wear +goloshes when it looks like rain and never by any chance expose yourself +to a draught. But I had an idea that poets courted the emotions-- + +_Ventnor_. Do novelists? + +_Mrs. Dale_. If you ask _me_--on paper! + +_Ventnor_. Just so; that's safest. My best things about the sea have +been written on shore. _(He looks at her thoughtfully.)_ But it +wouldn't have suited us in the old days, would it? + +_Mrs. Dale (sighing)_. When we were real people! + +_Ventnor_. Real people? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Are _you_, now? I died years ago. What you see +before you is a figment of the reporter's brain--a monster manufactured out +of newspaper paragraphs, with ink in its veins. A keen sense of copyright +is _my_ nearest approach to an emotion. + +_Ventnor (sighing)_. Ah, well, yes--as you say, we're public property. + +_Mrs. Dale_. If one shared equally with the public! But the last shred +of my identity is gone. + +_Ventnor_. Most people would be glad to part with theirs on such +terms. I have followed your work with immense interest. _Immolation_ +is a masterpiece. I read it last summer when it first came out. + +_Mrs. Dale (with a shade less warmth)_. _Immolation_ has been out +three years. + +_Ventnor_. Oh, by Jove--no? Surely not--But one is so overwhelmed--one +loses count. (_Reproachfully_.) Why have you never sent me your books? + +_Mrs. Dale_. For that very reason. + +_Ventnor (deprecatingly)_. You know I didn't mean it for you! And +_my_ first book--do you remember--was dedicated to you. + +_Mrs. Dale_. _Silver Trumpets_-- + +_Ventnor (much interested)_. Have you a copy still, by any chance? The +first edition, I mean? Mine was stolen years ago. Do you think you could +put your hand on it? + +_Mrs. Dale (taking a small shabby book from the table at her side)_. +It's here. + +_Ventnor (eagerly)_. May I have it? Ah, thanks. This is _very_ +interesting. The last copy sold in London for L40, and they tell me the +next will fetch twice as much. It's quite _introuvable_. + +_Mrs. Dale_. I know that. _(A pause. She takes the book from him, +opens it, and reads, half to herself--)_ + + _How much we two have seen together, + Of other eyes unwist, + Dear as in days of leafless weather + The willow's saffron mist, + + Strange as the hour when Hesper swings + A-sea in beryl green, + While overhead on dalliant wings + The daylight hangs serene, + + And thrilling as a meteor's fall + Through depths of lonely sky, + When each to each two watchers call: + I saw it!--So did I._ + +_Ventnor_. Thin, thin--the troubadour tinkle. Odd how little promise +there is in first volumes! + +_Mrs. Dale (with irresistible emphasis)_. I thought there was a +distinct promise in this! + +_Ventnor (seeing his mistake)_. Ah--the one you would never let me +fulfil? _(Sentimentally.)_ How inexorable you were! You never +dedicated a book to _me_. + +_Mrs. Dale_. I hadn't begun to write when we were--dedicating things +to each other. + +_Ventnor_. Not for the public--but you wrote for me; and, wonderful as +you are, you've never written anything since that I care for half as much +as-- + +_Mrs. Dale (interested)_. Well? + +_Ventnor_. Your letters. + +_Mrs. Dale (in a changed voice)_. My letters--do you remember them? + +_Ventnor_. When I don't, I reread them. + +_Mrs. Dale (incredulous)_. You have them still? + +_Ventnor (unguardedly)_. You haven't mine, then? + +_Mrs. Dale (playfully)_. Oh, you were a celebrity already. Of course I +kept them! _(Smiling.)_ Think what they are worth now! I always keep +them locked up in my safe over there. _(She indicates a cabinet.)_ + +_Ventnor (after a pause)_. I always carry yours with me. + +_Mrs. Dale (laughing)_. You-- + +_Ventnor_. Wherever I go. _(A longer pause. She looks at him +fixedly.)_ I have them with me now. + +_Mrs. Dale (agitated)_. You--have them with you--now? + +_Ventnor (embarrassed)_. Why not? One never knows-- + +_Mrs. Dale_. Never knows--? + +_Ventnor (humorously)_. Gad--when the bank-examiner may come round. +You forget I'm a married man. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Ah--yes. + +_Ventnor (sits down beside her)_. I speak to you as I couldn't to +anyone else--without deserving a kicking. You know how it all came about. +_(A pause.)_ You'll bear witness that it wasn't till you denied me all +hope-- + +_Mrs. Dale (a little breathless)_. Yes, yes-- + +_Ventnor_. Till you sent me from you-- + +_Mrs. Dale_. It's so easy to be heroic when one is young! One doesn't +realize how long life is going to last afterward. _(Musing.)_ Nor what +weary work it is gathering up the fragments. + +_Ventnor_. But the time comes when one sends for the china-mender, and +has the bits riveted together, and turns the cracked side to the wall-- + +_Mrs. Dale_. And denies that the article was ever damaged? + +_Ventnor_. Eh? Well, the great thing, you see, is to keep one's self +out of reach of the housemaid's brush. _(A pause.)_ If you're married +you can't--always. _(Smiling.)_ Don't you hate to be taken down and +dusted? + +_Mrs. Dale (with intention)_. You forget how long ago my husband died. +It's fifteen years since I've been an object of interest to anybody but the +public. + +_Ventnor (smiling)_. The only one of your admirers to whom you've ever +given the least encouragement! + +_Mrs. Dale_. Say rather the most easily pleased! + +_Ventnor_. Or the only one you cared to please? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Ah, you _haven't_ kept my letters! + +_Ventnor (gravely)_. Is that a challenge? Look here, then! _(He +drams a packet from his pocket and holds it out to her.)_ + +_Mrs. Dale (taking the packet and looking at him earnestly)_. Why have +you brought me these? + +_Ventnor_. I didn't bring them; they came because I came--that's all. +_(Tentatively.)_ Are we unwelcome? + +_Mrs. Dale (who has undone the packet and does not appear to hear +him)_. The very first I ever wrote you--the day after we met at the +concert. How on earth did you happen to keep it? _(She glances over +it.)_ How perfectly absurd! Well, it's not a compromising document. + +_Ventnor_. I'm afraid none of them are. + +_Mrs. Dale (quickly)_. Is it to that they owe their immunity? Because +one could leave them about like safety matches?--Ah, here's another I +remember--I wrote that the day after we went skating together for the first +time. _(She reads it slowly.)_ How odd! How very odd! + +_Ventnor_. What? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Why, it's the most curious thing--I had a letter of this +kind to do the other day, in the novel I'm at work on now--the letter of a +woman who is just--just beginning-- + +_Ventnor_. Yes--just beginning--? + +_Mrs. Dale_. And, do you know, I find the best phrase in it, the +phrase I somehow regarded as the fruit of--well, of all my subsequent +discoveries--is simply plagiarized, word for word, from this! + +_Ventnor (eagerly)_. I told you so! You were all there! + +_Mrs. Dale (critically)_. But the rest of it's poorly done--very +poorly. _(Reads the letter over.)_ H'm--I didn't know how to leave +off. It takes me forever to get out of the door. + +_Ventnor (gayly)_. Perhaps I was there to prevent you! _(After a +pause.)_ I wonder what I said in return? + +_Mrs. Dale (interested)_. Shall we look? _(She rises.)_ Shall +we--really? I have them all here, you know. _(She goes toward the +cabinet.)_ + +_Ventnor (following her with repressed eagerness)_. Oh--all! + +_Mrs. Dale (throws open the door of the cabinet, revealing a number of +packets)_. Don't you believe me now? + +_Ventnor_. Good heavens! How I must have repeated myself! But then you +were so very deaf. + +_Mrs. Dale (takes out a packet and returns to her seat. Ventnor extends +an impatient hand for the letters)_. No--no; wait! I want to find your +answer to the one I was just reading. _(After a pause.)_ Here it +is--yes, I thought so! + +_Ventnor_. What did you think? + +_Mrs. Dale (triumphantly)_. I thought it was the one in which you +quoted _Epipsychidion_-- + +_Ventnor_. Mercy! Did I _quote_ things? I don't wonder you were +cruel. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Ah, and here's the other--the one I--the one I didn't +answer--for a long time. Do you remember? + +_Ventnor (with emotion)_. Do I remember? I wrote it the morning after +we heard _Isolde_-- + +_Mrs. Dale (disappointed)_. No--no. _That_ wasn't the one I +didn't answer! Here--this is the one I mean. + +_Ventnor (takes it curiously)_. Ah--h'm--this is very like unrolling a +mummy--_(he glances at her)_--with a live grain of wheat in it, +perhaps?--Oh, by Jove! + +_Mrs. Dale_. What? + +_Ventnor_. Why, this is the one I made a sonnet out of afterward! By +Jove, I'd forgotten where that idea came from. You may know the lines +perhaps? They're in the fourth volume of my Complete Edition--It's the +thing beginning + + _Love came to me with unrelenting eyes--_ + +one of my best, I rather fancy. Of course, here it's very crudely put--the +values aren't brought out--ah! this touch is good though--very good. H'm, I +daresay there might be other material. _(He glances toward the +cabinet.)_ + +_Mrs. Dale (drily)_. The live grain of wheat, as you said! + +_Ventnor_. Ah, well--my first harvest was sown on rocky +ground--_now_ I plant for the fowls of the air. _(Rising and walking +toward the cabinet.)_ When can I come and carry off all this rubbish? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Carry it off? + +_Ventnor (embarrassed)_. My dear lady, surely between you and me +explicitness is a burden. You must see that these letters of ours can't be +left to take their chance like an ordinary correspondence--you said +yourself we were public property. + +_Mrs. Dale_. To take their chance? Do you suppose that, in my keeping, +your letters take any chances? _(Suddenly.)_ Do mine--in yours? + +_Ventnor (still more embarrassed)_. Helen--! _(He takes a turn +through the room.)_ You force me to remind you that you and I are +differently situated--that in a moment of madness I sacrificed the only +right you ever gave me--the right to love you better than any other +woman in the world. _(A pause. She says nothing and he continues, with +increasing difficulty--)_ You asked me just now why I carried your +letters about with me--kept them, literally, in my own hands. Well, suppose +it's to be sure of their not falling into some one else's? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Oh! + +_Ventnor (throws himself into a chair)_. For God's sake don't pity me! + +_Mrs. Dale (after a long pause)_. Am I dull--or are you trying to say +that you want to give me back my letters? + +_Ventnor (starting up)_. I? Give you back--? God forbid! Your letters? +Not for the world! The only thing I have left! But you can't dream that in +_my_ hands-- + +_Mrs. Dale (suddenly)_. You want yours, then? + +_Ventnor (repressing his eagerness)_. My dear friend, if I'd ever +dreamed that you'd kept them--? + +_Mrs. Dale (accusingly)_. You _do_ want them. _(A pause. He +makes a deprecatory gesture.)_ Why should they be less safe with me than +mine with you? _I_ never forfeited the right to keep them. + +_Ventnor (after another pause)_. It's compensation enough, almost, +to have you reproach me! _(He moves nearer to her, but she makes no +response.)_ You forget that I've forfeited _all_ my rights--even +that of letting you keep my letters. + +_Mrs. Dale_. You _do_ want them! _(She rises, throws all the +letters into the cabinet, locks the door and puts the key in her +pocket.)_ There's my answer. + +_Ventnor_. Helen--! + +_Mrs. Dale_. Ah, I paid dearly enough for the right to keep them, and +I mean to! _(She turns to him passionately.)_ Have you ever asked +yourself how I paid for it? With what months and years of solitude, what +indifference to flattery, what resistance to affection?--Oh, don't smile +because I said affection, and not love. Affection's a warm cloak in cold +weather; and I _have_ been cold; and I shall keep on growing colder! +Don't talk to me about living in the hearts of my readers! We both know +what kind of a domicile that is. Why, before long I shall become a classic! +Bound in sets and kept on the top book-shelf--brr, doesn't that sound +freezing? I foresee the day when I shall be as lonely as an Etruscan +museum! _(She breaks into a laugh.)_ That's what I've paid for the +right to keep your letters. _(She holds out her hand.)_ And now give +me mine. + +_Ventnor_. Yours? + +_Mrs. Dale (haughtily)_. Yes; I claim them. + +_Ventnor (in the same tone)_. On what ground? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Hear the man!--Because I wrote them, of course. + +_Ventnor_. But it seems to me that--under your inspiration, I admit--I +also wrote mine. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Oh, I don't dispute their authenticity--it's yours I +deny! + +_Ventnor_. Mine? + +_Mrs. Dale_. You voluntarily ceased to be the man who wrote me those +letters--you've admitted as much. You traded paper for flesh and blood. I +don't dispute your wisdom--only you must hold to your bargain! The letters +are all mine. + +_Ventnor (groping between two tones)_. Your arguments are as +convincing as ever. _(He hazards a faint laugh.)_ You're a marvellous +dialectician--but, if we're going to settle the matter in the spirit of an +arbitration treaty, why, there are accepted conventions in such cases. It's +an odious way to put it, but since you won't help me, one of them is-- + +_Mrs. Dale_. One of them is--? + +_Ventnor_. That it is usual--that technically, I mean, the +letter--belongs to its writer-- + +_Mrs. Dale (after a pause)_. Such letters as _these_? + +_Ventnor_. Such letters especially-- + +_Mrs. Dale_. But you couldn't have written them if I hadn't--been +willing to read them. Surely there's more of myself in them than of you. + +_Ventnor_. Surely there's nothing in which a man puts more of himself +than in his love-letters! + +_Mrs. Dale (with emotion)_. But a woman's love-letters are like her child. +They belong to her more than to anybody else-- + +_Ventnor_. And a man's? + +_Mrs. Dale (with sudden violence)_. Are all he risks!--There, take +them. _(She flings the key of the cabinet at his feet and sinks into a +chair.)_ + +_Ventnor (starts as though to pick up the key; then approaches and bends +over her)_. Helen--oh, Helen! + +_Mrs. Dale (she yields her hands to him, murmuring:)_ Paul! +_(Suddenly she straightens herself and draws back illuminated.)_ What +a fool I am! I see it all now. You want them for your memoirs! + +_Ventnor (disconcerted)_. Helen-- + +_Mrs. Dale (agitated)_. Come, come--the rule is to unmask when the +signal's given! You want them for your memoirs. + +_Ventnor (with a forced laugh)_. What makes you think so? + +_Mrs. Dale (triumphantly)_. Because _I_ want them for mine! + +_Ventnor (in a changed tone)_. Ah--. _(He moves away from her and +leans against the mantelpiece. She remains seated, with her eyes fixed on +him.)_ + +_Mrs. Dale_. I wonder I didn't see it sooner. Your reasons were lame +enough. + +_Ventnor (ironically)_. Yours were masterly. You're the more +accomplished actor of the two. I was completely deceived. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Oh, I'm a novelist. I can keep up that sort of thing for +five hundred pages! + +_Ventnor_. I congratulate you. _(A pause.)_ + +_Mrs. Dale (moving to her seat behind the tea-table)_. I've never +offered you any tea. _(She bends over the kettle.)_ Why don't you take +your letters? + +_Ventnor_. Because you've been clever enough to make it impossible for +me. _(He picks up the key and hands it to her. Then abruptly)_--Was it +all acting--just now? + +_Mrs. Dale_. By what right do you ask? + +_Ventnor_. By right of renouncing my claim to my letters. Keep +them--and tell me. + +_Mrs. Dale_. I give you back your claim--and I refuse to tell you. + +_Ventnor (sadly)_. Ah, Helen, if you deceived me, you deceived +yourself also. + +_Mrs. Dale_. What does it matter, now that we're both undeceived? I +played a losing game, that's all. + +_Ventnor_. Why losing--since all the letters are yours? + +_Mrs. Dale_. The letters? _(Slowly.)_ I'd forgotten the letters-- + +_Ventnor (exultant)_. Ah, I knew you'd end by telling me the truth! + +_Mrs. Dale_. The truth? Where _is_ the truth? _(Half to +herself.)_ I thought I was lying when I began--but the lies turned into +truth as I uttered them! _(She looks at Ventnor.)_ I _did_ want +your letters for my memoirs--I _did_ think I'd kept them for that +purpose--and I wanted to get mine back for the same reason--but now _(she +puts out her hand and picks up some of her letters, which are lying +scattered on the table near her)_--how fresh they seem, and how they +take me back to the time when we lived instead of writing about life! + +_Ventnor (smiling)_. The time when we didn't prepare our impromptu +effects beforehand and copyright our remarks about the weather! + +_Mrs. Dale_. Or keep our epigrams in cold storage and our adjectives +under lock and key! + +_Ventnor_. When our emotions weren't worth ten cents a word, and a +signature wasn't an autograph. Ah, Helen, after all, there's nothing like +the exhilaration of spending one's capital! + +_Mrs. Dale_. Of wasting it, you mean. _(She points to the +letters.)_ Do you suppose we could have written a word of these if we'd +known we were putting our dreams out at interest? _(She sits musing, with +her eyes on the fire, and he watches her in silence.)_ Paul, do you +remember the deserted garden we sometimes used to walk in? + +_Ventnor_. The old garden with the high wall at the end of the village +street? The garden with the ruined box-borders and the broken-down arbor? +Why, I remember every weed in the paths and every patch of moss on the +walls! + +_Mrs. Dale._ Well--I went back there the other day. The village is +immensely improved. There's a new hotel with gas-fires, and a trolley in +the main street; and the garden has been turned into a public park, where +excursionists sit on cast-iron benches admiring the statue of an +Abolitionist. + +_Ventnor_. An Abolitionist--how appropriate! + +_Mrs. Dale_. And the man who sold the garden has made a fortune that +he doesn't know how to spend-- + +_Ventnor (rising impulsively)_. Helen, _(he approaches and lays his +hand on her letters)_, let's sacrifice our fortune and keep the +excursionists out! + +_Mrs. Dale (with a responsive movement)_. Paul, do you really mean it? + +_Ventnor (gayly)_. Mean it? Why, I feel like a landed proprietor +already! It's more than a garden--it's a park. + +_Mrs. Dale_. It's more than a park, it's a world--as long as we keep +it to ourselves! + +_Ventnor_. Ah, yes--even the pyramids look small when one sees a +Cook's tourist on top of them! _(He takes the key from the table, unlocks +the cabinet and brings out his letters, which he lays beside hers.)_ +Shall we burn the key to our garden? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Ah, then it will indeed be boundless! _(Watching him +while he throws the letters into the fire.)_ + +_Ventnor (turning back to her with a half-sad smile)_. But not too big +for us to find each other in? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Since we shall be the only people there! _(He takes +both her hands and they look at each other a moment in silence. Then he +goes out by the door to the right. As he reaches the door she takes a step +toward him, impulsively; then turning back she leans against the +chimney-piece, quietly watching the letters burn.)_ + + + + +THE REMBRANDT + + +"You're _so_ artistic," my cousin Eleanor Copt began. + +Of all Eleanor's exordiums it is the one I most dread. When she tells me +I'm so clever I know this is merely the preamble to inviting me to meet the +last literary obscurity of the moment: a trial to be evaded or endured, as +circumstances dictate; whereas her calling me artistic fatally connotes +the request to visit, in her company, some distressed gentlewoman whose +future hangs on my valuation of her old Saxe or of her grandfather's +Marc Antonios. Time was when I attempted to resist these compulsions of +Eleanor's; but I soon learned that, short of actual flight, there was +no refuge from her beneficent despotism. It is not always easy for the +curator of a museum to abandon his post on the plea of escaping a pretty +cousin's importunities; and Eleanor, aware of my predicament, is none +too magnanimous to take advantage of it. Magnanimity is, in fact, not in +Eleanor's line. The virtues, she once explained to me, are like bonnets: +the very ones that look best on other people may not happen to suit one's +own particular style; and she added, with a slight deflection of metaphor, +that none of the ready-made virtues ever _had_ fitted her: they all +pinched somewhere, and she'd given up trying to wear them. + +Therefore when she said to me, "You're _so_ artistic." emphasizing the +conjunction with a tap of her dripping umbrella (Eleanor is out in all +weathers: the elements are as powerless against her as man), I merely +stipulated, "It's not old Saxe again?" + +She shook her head reassuringly. "A picture--a Rembrandt!" + +"Good Lord! Why not a Leonardo?" + +"Well"--she smiled--"that, of course, depends on _you_." + +"On me?" + +"On your attribution. I dare say Mrs. Fontage would consent to the +change--though she's very conservative." + +A gleam of hope came to me and I pronounced: "One can't judge of a picture +in this weather." + +"Of course not. I'm coming for you to-morrow." + +"I've an engagement to-morrow." + +"I'll come before or after your engagement." + +The afternoon paper lay at my elbow and I contrived a furtive consultation +of the weather-report. It said "Rain to-morrow," and I answered briskly: +"All right, then; come at ten"--rapidly calculating that the clouds on +which I counted might lift by noon. + +My ingenuity failed of its due reward; for the heavens, as if in league +with my cousin, emptied themselves before morning, and punctually at ten +Eleanor and the sun appeared together in my office. + +I hardly listened, as we descended the Museum steps and got into Eleanor's +hansom, to her vivid summing-up of the case. I guessed beforehand that the +lady we were about to visit had lapsed by the most distressful degrees from +opulence to a "hall-bedroom"; that her grandfather, if he had not been +Minister to France, had signed the Declaration of Independence; that the +Rembrandt was an heirloom, sole remnant of disbanded treasures; that for +years its possessor had been unwilling to part with it, and that even now +the question of its disposal must be approached with the most diplomatic +obliquity. + +Previous experience had taught me that all Eleanor's "cases" presented a +harrowing similarity of detail. No circumstance tending to excite the +spectator's sympathy and involve his action was omitted from the history of +her beneficiaries; the lights and shades were indeed so skilfully adjusted +that any impartial expression of opinion took on the hue of cruelty. I +could have produced closetfuls of "heirlooms" in attestation of this fact; +for it is one more mark of Eleanor's competence that her friends usually +pay the interest on her philanthropy. My one hope was that in this case the +object, being a picture, might reasonably be rated beyond my means; and +as our cab drew up before a blistered brown-stone door-step I formed the +self-defensive resolve to place an extreme valuation on Mrs. Fontage's +Rembrandt. It is Eleanor's fault if she is sometimes fought with her own +weapons. + +The house stood in one of those shabby provisional-looking New York streets +that seem resignedly awaiting demolition. It was the kind of house that, +in its high days, must have had a bow-window with a bronze in it. The +bow-window had been replaced by a plumber's _devanture_, and one might +conceive the bronze to have gravitated to the limbo where Mexican onyx +tables and bric-a-brac in buffalo-horn await the first signs of our next +aesthetic reaction. + +Eleanor swept me through a hall that smelled of poverty, up unlit stairs to +a bare slit of a room. "And she must leave this in a month!" she whispered +across her knock. + +I had prepared myself for the limp widow's weed of a woman that one figures +in such a setting; and confronted abruptly with Mrs. Fontage's white-haired +erectness I had the disconcerting sense that I was somehow in her presence +at my own solicitation. I instinctively charged Eleanor with this reversal +of the situation; but a moment later I saw it must be ascribed to a +something about Mrs. Fontage that precluded the possibility of her asking +any one a favor. It was not that she was of forbidding, or even majestic, +demeanor; but that one guessed, under her aquiline prettiness, a dignity +nervously on guard against the petty betrayal of her surroundings. The +room was unconcealably poor: the little faded "relics," the high-stocked +ancestral silhouettes, the steel-engravings after Raphael and Correggio, +grouped in a vain attempt to hide the most obvious stains on the +wall-paper, served only to accentuate the contrast of a past evidently +diversified by foreign travel and the enjoyment of the arts. Even Mrs. +Fontage's dress had the air of being a last expedient, the ultimate outcome +of a much-taxed ingenuity in darning and turning. One felt that all the +poor lady's barriers were falling save that of her impregnable manner. + +To this manner I found myself conveying my appreciation of being admitted +to a view of the Rembrandt. + +Mrs. Fontage's smile took my homage for granted. "It is always," she +conceded, "a privilege to be in the presence of the great masters." Her +slim wrinkled hand waved me to a dusky canvas near the window. + +"It's _so_ interesting, dear Mrs. Fontage," I heard Eleanor +exclaiming, "and my cousin will be able to tell you exactly--" Eleanor, in +my presence, always admits that she knows nothing about art; but she gives +the impression that this is merely because she hasn't had time to look into +the matter--and has had me to do it for her. + +Mrs. Fontage seated herself without speaking, as though fearful that a +breath might disturb my communion with the masterpiece. I felt that she +thought Eleanor's reassuring ejaculations ill-timed; and in this I was of +one mind with her; for the impossibility of telling her exactly what I +thought of her Rembrandt had become clear to me at a glance. + +My cousin's vivacities began to languish and the silence seemed to shape +itself into a receptacle for my verdict. I stepped back, affecting a more +distant scrutiny; and as I did so my eye caught Mrs. Fontage's profile. Her +lids trembled slightly. I took refuge in the familiar expedient of asking +the history of the picture, and she waved me brightly to a seat. + +This was indeed a topic on which she could dilate. The Rembrandt, it +appeared, had come into Mr. Fontage's possession many years ago, while +the young couple were on their wedding-tour, and under circumstances so +romantic that she made no excuse for relating them in all their parenthetic +fulness. The picture belonged to an old Belgian Countess of redundant +quarterings, whom the extravagances of an ungovernable nephew had compelled +to part with her possessions (in the most private manner) about the time of +the Fontages' arrival. By a really remarkable coincidence, it happened that +their courier (an exceptionally intelligent and superior man) was an old +servant of the Countess's, and had thus been able to put them in the way of +securing the Rembrandt under the very nose of an English Duke, whose agent +had been sent to Brussels to negotiate for its purchase. Mrs. Fontage could +not recall the Duke's name, but he was a great collector and had a famous +Highland castle, where somebody had been murdered, and which she herself +had visited (by moonlight) when she had travelled in Scotland as a girl. +The episode had in short been one of the most interesting "experiences" of +a tour almost chromo-lithographic in vivacity of impression; and they had +always meant to go back to Brussels for the sake of reliving so picturesque +a moment. Circumstances (of which the narrator's surroundings declared the +nature) had persistently interfered with the projected return to Europe, +and the picture had grown doubly valuable as representing the high-water +mark of their artistic emotions. Mrs. Fontage's moist eye caressed the +canvas. "There is only," she added with a perceptible effort, "one slight +drawback: the picture is not signed. But for that the Countess, of course, +would have sold it to a museum. All the connoisseurs who have seen it +pronounce it an undoubted Rembrandt, in the artist's best manner; but the +museums"--she arched her brows in smiling recognition of a well-known +weakness--"give the preference to signed examples--" + +Mrs. Fontage's words evoked so touching a vision of the young tourists of +fifty years ago, entrusting to an accomplished and versatile courier the +direction of their helpless zeal for art, that I lost sight for a moment +of the point at issue. The old Belgian Countess, the wealthy Duke with a +feudal castle in Scotland, Mrs. Fontage's own maiden pilgrimage to Arthur's +Seat and Holyrood, all the accessories of the naif transaction, seemed +a part of that vanished Europe to which our young race carried its +indiscriminate ardors, its tender romantic credulity: the legendary +castellated Europe of keepsakes, brigands and old masters, that +compensated, by one such "experience" as Mrs. Fontage's, for an after-life +of aesthetic privation. + +I was restored to the present by Eleanor's looking at her watch. The action +mutely conveyed that something was expected of me. I risked the temporizing +statement that the picture was very interesting; but Mrs. Fontage's polite +assent revealed the poverty of the expedient. Eleanor's impatience +overflowed. + +"You would like my cousin to give you an idea of its value?" she suggested. + +Mrs. Fontage grew more erect. "No one," she corrected with great +gentleness, "can know its value quite as well as I, who live with it--" + +We murmured our hasty concurrence. + +"But it might be interesting to hear"--she addressed herself to me--"as a +mere matter of curiosity--what estimate would be put on it from the purely +commercial point of view--if such a term may be used in speaking of a work +of art." + +I sounded a note of deprecation. + +"Oh, I understand, of course," she delicately anticipated me, "that that +could never be _your_ view, your personal view; but since occasions +_may_ arise--do arise--when it becomes necessary to--to put a price on +the priceless, as it were--I have thought--Miss Copt has suggested--" + +"Some day," Eleanor encouraged her, "you might feel that the picture ought +to belong to some one who has more--more opportunity of showing it--letting +it be seen by the public--for educational reasons--" + +"I have tried," Mrs. Fontage admitted, "to see it in that light." + +The crucial moment was upon me. To escape the challenge of Mrs. Fontage's +brilliant composure I turned once more to the picture. If my courage needed +reinforcement, the picture amply furnished it. Looking at that lamentable +canvas seemed the surest way of gathering strength to denounce it; but +behind me, all the while, I felt Mrs. Fontage's shuddering pride drawn +up in a final effort of self-defense. I hated myself for my sentimental +perversion of the situation. Reason argued that it was more cruel to +deceive Mrs. Fontage than to tell her the truth; but that merely proved the +inferiority of reason to instinct in situations involving any concession to +the emotions. Along with her faith in the Rembrandt I must destroy not only +the whole fabric of Mrs. Fontage's past, but even that lifelong habit of +acquiescence in untested formulas that makes the best part of the average +feminine strength. I guessed the episode of the picture to be inextricably +interwoven with the traditions and convictions which served to veil Mrs. +Fontage's destitution not only from others but from herself. Viewed in +that light the Rembrandt had perhaps been worth its purchase-money; and I +regretted that works of art do not commonly sell on the merit of the moral +support they may have rendered. + +From this unavailing flight I was recalled by the sense that something +must be done. To place a fictitious value on the picture was at best a +provisional measure; while the brutal alternative of advising Mrs. Fontage +to sell it for a hundred dollars at least afforded an opening to the +charitably disposed purchaser. I intended, if other resources failed, +to put myself forward in that light; but delicacy of course forbade my +coupling my unflattering estimate of the Rembrandt with an immediate offer +to buy it. All I could do was to inflict the wound: the healing unguent +must be withheld for later application. + +I turned to Mrs. Fontage, who sat motionless, her finely-lined cheeks +touched with an expectant color, her eyes averted from the picture which +was so evidently the one object they beheld. + +"My dear madam--" I began. Her vivid smile was like a light held up to +dazzle me. It shrouded every alternative in darkness and I had the flurried +sense of having lost my way among the intricacies of my contention. Of +a sudden I felt the hopelessness of finding a crack in her impenetrable +conviction. My words slipped from me like broken weapons. "The picture," +I faltered, "would of course be worth more if it were signed. As it is, +I--I hardly think--on a conservative estimate--it can be valued at--at +more--than--a thousand dollars, say--" + +My deflected argument ran on somewhat aimlessly till it found itself +plunging full tilt against the barrier of Mrs. Fontage's silence. She sat +as impassive as though I had not spoken. Eleanor loosed a few fluttering +words of congratulation and encouragement, but their flight was suddenly +cut short. Mrs. Fontage had risen with a certain solemnity. + +"I could never," she said gently--her gentleness was adamantine--"under any +circumstances whatever, consider, for a moment even, the possibility of +parting with the picture at such a price." + + +II + +Within three weeks a tremulous note from Mrs. Fontage requested the favor +of another visit. If the writing was tremulous, however, the writer's tone +was firm. She named her own day and hour, without the conventional +reference to her visitor's convenience. + +My first impulse was to turn the note over to Eleanor. I had acquitted +myself of my share in the ungrateful business of coming to Mrs. Fontage's +aid, and if, as her letter denoted, she had now yielded to the closer +pressure of need, the business of finding a purchaser for the Rembrandt +might well be left to my cousin's ingenuity. But here conscience put in +the uncomfortable reminder that it was I who, in putting a price on the +picture, had raised the real obstacle in the way of Mrs. Fontage's rescue. +No one would give a thousand dollars for the Rembrandt; but to tell +Mrs. Fontage so had become as unthinkable as murder. I had, in fact, on +returning from my first inspection of the picture, refrained from imparting +to Eleanor my opinion of its value. Eleanor is porous, and I knew that +sooner or later the unnecessary truth would exude through the loose texture +of her dissimulation. Not infrequently she thus creates the misery she +alleviates; and I have sometimes suspected her of paining people in order +that she might be sorry for them. I had, at all events, cut off retreat in +Eleanor's direction; and the remaining alternative carried me straight to +Mrs. Fontage. + +She received me with the same commanding sweetness. The room was even barer +than before--I believe the carpet was gone--but her manner built up about +her a palace to which I was welcomed with high state; and it was as a mere +incident of the ceremony that I was presently made aware of her decision to +sell the Rembrandt. My previous unsuccess in planning how to deal with Mrs. +Fontage had warned me to leave my farther course to chance; and I listened +to her explanation with complete detachment. She had resolved to travel for +her health; her doctor advised it, and as her absence might be indefinitely +prolonged she had reluctantly decided to part with the picture in order +to avoid the expense of storage and insurance. Her voice drooped at the +admission, and she hurried on, detailing the vague itinerary of a journey +that was to combine long-promised visits to impatient friends with various +"interesting opportunities" less definitely specified. The poor lady's +skill in rearing a screen of verbiage about her enforced avowal had +distracted me from my own share in the situation, and it was with dismay +that I suddenly caught the drift of her assumptions. She expected me to +buy the Rembrandt for the Museum; she had taken my previous valuation as a +tentative bid, and when I came to my senses she was in the act of accepting +my offer. + +Had I had a thousand dollars of my own to dispose of, the bargain would +have been concluded on the spot; but I was in the impossible position of +being materially unable to buy the picture and morally unable to tell her +that it was not worth acquiring for the Museum. + +I dashed into the first evasion in sight. I had no authority, I explained, +to purchase pictures for the Museum without the consent of the committee. + +Mrs. Fontage coped for a moment in silence with the incredible fact +that I had rejected her offer; then she ventured, with a kind of pale +precipitation: "But I understood--Miss Copt tells me that you practically +decide such matters for the committee." I could guess what the effort had +cost her. + +"My cousin is given to generalizations. My opinion may have some weight +with the committee--" + +"Well, then--" she timidly prompted. + +"For that very reason I can't buy the picture." + +She said, with a drooping note, "I don't understand." + +"Yet you told me," I reminded her, "that you knew museums didn't buy +unsigned pictures." + +"Not for what they are worth! Every one knows that. But I--I +understood--the price you named--" Her pride shuddered back from the +abasement. "It's a misunderstanding then," she faltered. + +To avoid looking at her, I glanced desperately at the Rembrandt. Could +I--? But reason rejected the possibility. Even if the committee had been +blind--and they all _were_ but Crozier--I simply shouldn't have dared +to do it. I stood up, feeling that to cut the matter short was the only +alleviation within reach. + +Mrs. Fontage had summoned her indomitable smile; but its brilliancy +dropped, as I opened the door, like a candle blown out by a draught. + +"If there's any one else--if you knew any one who would care to see the +picture, I should be most happy--" She kept her eyes on me, and I saw that, +in her case, it hurt less than to look at the Rembrandt. "I shall have to +leave here, you know," she panted, "if nobody cares to have it--" + + +III + +That evening at my club I had just succeeded in losing sight of Mrs. +Fontage in the fumes of an excellent cigar, when a voice at my elbow evoked +her harassing image. + +"I want to talk to you," the speaker said, "about Mrs. Fontage's +Rembrandt." + +"There isn't any," I was about to growl; but looking up I recognized the +confiding countenance of Mr. Jefferson Rose. + +Mr. Rose was known to me chiefly as a young man suffused with a vague +enthusiasm for Virtue and my cousin Eleanor. + +One glance at his glossy exterior conveyed the assurance that his morals +were as immaculate as his complexion and his linen. Goodness exuded from +his moist eye, his liquid voice, the warm damp pressure of his trustful +hand. He had always struck me as one of the most uncomplicated organisms +I had ever met. His ideas were as simple and inconsecutive as the +propositions in a primer, and he spoke slowly, with a kind of uniformity +of emphasis that made his words stand out like the raised type for the +blind. An obvious incapacity for abstract conceptions made him peculiarly +susceptible to the magic of generalization, and one felt he would have been +at the mercy of any Cause that spelled itself with a capital letter. It was +hard to explain how, with such a superabundance of merit, he managed to be +a good fellow: I can only say that he performed the astonishing feat as +naturally as he supported an invalid mother and two sisters on the slender +salary of a banker's clerk. He sat down beside me with an air of bright +expectancy. + +"It's a remarkable picture, isn't it?" he said. + +"You've seen it?" + +"I've been so fortunate. Miss Copt was kind enough to get Mrs. Fontage's +permission; we went this afternoon." I inwardly wished that Eleanor +had selected another victim; unless indeed the visit were part of a +plan whereby some third person, better equipped for the cultivation of +delusions, was to be made to think the Rembrandt remarkable. Knowing the +limitations of Mr. Rose's resources I began to wonder if he had any rich +aunts. + +"And her buying it in that way, too," he went on with his limpid smile, +"from that old Countess in Brussels, makes it all the more interesting, +doesn't it? Miss Copt tells me it's very seldom old pictures can be traced +back for more than a generation. I suppose the fact of Mrs. Fontage's +knowing its history must add a good deal to its value?" + +Uncertain as to his drift, I said: "In her eyes it certainly appears to." + +Implications are lost on Mr. Rose, who glowingly continued: "That's the +reason why I wanted to talk to you about it--to consult you. Miss Copt +tells me you value it at a thousand dollars." + +There was no denying this, and I grunted a reluctant assent. + +"Of course," he went on earnestly, "your valuation is based on the fact +that the picture isn't signed--Mrs. Fontage explained that; and it does +make a difference, certainly. But the thing is--if the picture's really +good--ought one to take advantage--? I mean--one can see that Mrs. Fontage +is in a tight place, and I wouldn't for the world--" + +My astonished stare arrested him. + +"_You_ wouldn't--?" + +"I mean--you see, it's just this way"; he coughed and blushed: "I can't +give more than a thousand dollars myself--it's as big a sum as I can manage +to scrape together--but before I make the offer I want to be sure I'm not +standing in the way of her getting more money." + +My astonishment lapsed to dismay. "You're going to buy the picture for a +thousand dollars?" + +His blush deepened. "Why, yes. It sounds rather absurd, I suppose. It isn't +much in my line, of course. I can see the picture's very beautiful, but I'm +no judge--it isn't the kind of thing, naturally, that I could afford to go +in for; but in this case I'm very glad to do what I can; the circumstances +are so distressing; and knowing what you think of the picture I feel it's a +pretty safe investment--" + +"I don't think!" I blurted out. + +"You--?" + +"I don't think the picture's worth a thousand dollars; I don't think it's +worth ten cents; I simply lied about it, that's all." + +Mr. Rose looked as frightened as though I had charged him with the offense. + +"Hang it, man, can't you see how it happened? I saw the poor woman's pride +and happiness hung on her faith in that picture. I tried to make her +understand that it was worthless--but she wouldn't; I tried to tell her +so--but I couldn't. I behaved like a maudlin ass, but you shan't pay for my +infernal bungling--you mustn't buy the picture!" + +Mr. Rose sat silent, tapping one glossy boot-tip with another. Suddenly he +turned on me a glance of stored intelligence. "But you know," he said +good-humoredly, "I rather think I must." + +"You haven't--already?" + +"Oh, no; the offer's not made." + +"Well, then--" + +His look gathered a brighter significance. + +"But if the picture's worth nothing, nobody will buy it--" + +I groaned. + +"Except," he continued, "some fellow like me, who doesn't know anything. +_I_ think it's lovely, you know; I mean to hang it in my mother's +sitting-room." He rose and clasped my hand in his adhesive pressure. "I'm +awfully obliged to you for telling me this; but perhaps you won't mind my +asking you not to mention our talk to Miss Copt? It might bother her, you +know, to think the picture isn't exactly up to the mark; and it won't make +a rap of difference to me." + + +IV + +Mr. Rose left me to a sleepless night. The next morning my resolve was +formed, and it carried me straight to Mrs. Fontage's. She answered my knock +by stepping out on the landing, and as she shut the door behind her I +caught a glimpse of her devastated interior. She mentioned, with a careful +avoidance of the note of pathos on which our last conversation had closed, +that she was preparing to leave that afternoon; and the trunks obstructing +the threshold showed that her preparations were nearly complete. They were, +I felt certain, the same trunks that, strapped behind a rattling vettura, +had accompanied the bride and groom on that memorable voyage of discovery +of which the booty had till recently adorned her walls; and there was a +dim consolation in the thought that those early "finds" in coral and Swiss +wood-carving, in lava and alabaster, still lay behind the worn locks, in +the security of worthlessness. + +Mrs. Fontage, on the landing, among her strapped and corded treasures, +maintained the same air of stability that made it impossible, even under +such conditions, to regard her flight as anything less dignified than +a departure. It was the moral support of what she tacitly assumed that +enabled me to set forth with proper deliberation the object of my visit; +and she received my announcement with an absence of surprise that struck +me as the very flower of tact. Under cover of these mutual assumptions the +transaction was rapidly concluded; and it was not till the canvas passed +into my hands that, as though the physical contact had unnerved her, +Mrs. Fontage suddenly faltered. "It's the giving it up--" she stammered, +disguising herself to the last; and I hastened away from the collapse of +her splendid effrontery. + +I need hardly point out that I had acted impulsively, and that reaction +from the most honorable impulses is sometimes attended by moral +perturbation. My motives had indeed been mixed enough to justify some +uneasiness, but this was allayed by the instinctive feeling that it is more +venial to defraud an institution than a man. Since Mrs. Fontage had to be +kept from starving by means not wholly defensible, it was better that the +obligation should be borne by a rich institution than an impecunious youth. +I doubt, in fact, if my scruples would have survived a night's sleep, had +they not been complicated by some uncertainty as to my own future. It was +true that, subject to the purely formal assent of the committee, I had +full power to buy for the Museum, and that the one member of the committee +likely to dispute my decision was opportunely travelling in Europe; but the +picture once in place I must face the risk of any expert criticism to which +chance might expose it. I dismissed this contingency for future study, +stored the Rembrandt in the cellar of the Museum, and thanked heaven that +Crozier was abroad. + +Six months later he strolled into my office. I had just concluded, under +conditions of exceptional difficulty, and on terms unexpectedly benign, +the purchase of the great Bartley Reynolds; and this circumstance, by +relegating the matter of the Rembrandt to a lower stratum of consciousness, +enabled me to welcome Crozier with unmixed pleasure. My security +was enhanced by his appearance. His smile was charged with amiable +reminiscences, and I inferred that his trip had put him in the humor +to approve of everything, or at least to ignore what fell short of his +approval. I had therefore no uneasiness in accepting his invitation to dine +that evening. It is always pleasant to dine with Crozier and never more so +than when he is just back from Europe. His conversation gives even the food +a flavor of the Cafe Anglais. + +The repast was delightful, and it was not till we had finished a Camembert +which he must have brought over with him, that my host said, in a tone of +after-dinner perfunctoriness: "I see you've picked up a picture or two +since I left." + +I assented. "The Bartley Reynolds seemed too good an opportunity to miss, +especially as the French government was after it. I think we got it +cheap--" + +"_Connu, connu_" said Crozier pleasantly. "I know all about the +Reynolds. It was the biggest kind of a haul and I congratulate you. Best +stroke of business we've done yet. But tell me about the other picture--the +Rembrandt." + +"I never said it was a Rembrandt." I could hardly have said why, but I felt +distinctly annoyed with Crozier. + +"Of course not. There's 'Rembrandt' on the frame, but I saw you'd +modified it to 'Dutch School'; I apologize." He paused, but I offered no +explanation. "What about it?" he went on. "Where did you pick it up?" As +he leaned to the flame of the cigar-lighter his face seemed ruddy with +enjoyment. + +"I got it for a song," I said. + +"A thousand, I think?" + +"Have you seen it?" I asked abruptly. + +"Went over the place this afternoon and found it in the cellar. Why hasn't +it been hung, by the way?" + +I paused a moment. "I'm waiting--" + +"To--?" + +"To have it varnished." + +"Ah!" He leaned back and poured himself a second glass of Chartreuse. The +smile he confided to its golden depths provoked me to challenge him with-- + +"What do you think of it?" + +"The Rembrandt?" He lifted his eyes from the glass. "Just what you do." + +"It isn't a Rembrandt." + +"I apologize again. You call it, I believe, a picture of the same period?" + +"I'm uncertain of the period." + +"H'm." He glanced appreciatively along his cigar. "What are you certain +of?" + +"That it's a damned bad picture," I said savagely. + +He nodded. "Just so. That's all we wanted to know." + +"_We_?" + +"We--I--the committee, in short. You see, my dear fellow, if you hadn't +been certain it was a damned bad picture our position would have been a +little awkward. As it is, my remaining duty--I ought to explain that in +this matter I'm acting for the committee--is as simple as it's agreeable." + +"I'll be hanged," I burst out, "if I understand one word you're saying!" + +He fixed me with a kind of cruel joyousness. "You will--you will," he +assured me; "at least you'll begin to, when you hear that I've seen Miss +Copt." + +"Miss Copt?" + +"And that she has told me under what conditions the picture was bought." + +"She doesn't know anything about the conditions! That is," I added, +hastening to restrict the assertion, "she doesn't know my opinion of the +picture." I thirsted for five minutes with Eleanor. + +"Are you quite sure?" Crozier took me up. "Mr. Jefferson Rose does." + +"Ah--I see." + +"I thought you would," he reminded me. "As soon as I'd laid eyes on +the Rembrandt--I beg your pardon!--I saw that it--well, required some +explanation." + +"You might have come to me." + +"I meant to; but I happened to meet Miss Copt, whose encyclopaedic +information has often before been of service to me. I always go to Miss +Copt when I want to look up anything; and I found she knew all about the +Rembrandt." + +"_All_?" + +"Precisely. The knowledge was in fact causing her sleepless nights. Mr. +Rose, who was suffering from the same form of insomnia, had taken her into +his confidence, and she--ultimately--took me into hers." + +"Of course!" + +"I must ask you to do your cousin justice. She didn't speak till it became +evident to her uncommonly quick perceptions that your buying the picture on +its merits would have been infinitely worse for--for everybody--than your +diverting a small portion of the Museum's funds to philanthropic uses. Then +she told me the moving incident of Mr. Rose. Good fellow, Rose. And the +old lady's case was desperate. Somebody had to buy that picture." I moved +uneasily in my seat "Wait a moment, will you? I haven't finished my cigar. +There's a little head of Il Fiammingo's that you haven't seen, by the way; +I picked it up the other day in Parma. We'll go in and have a look at it +presently. But meanwhile what I want to say is that I've been charged--in +the most informal way--to express to you the committee's appreciation of +your admirable promptness and energy in capturing the Bartley Reynolds. We +shouldn't have got it at all if you hadn't been uncommonly wide-awake, and +to get it at such a price is a double triumph. We'd have thought nothing of +a few more thousands--" + +"I don't see," I impatiently interposed, "that, as far as I'm concerned, +that alters the case." + +"The case--?" + +"Of Mrs. Fontage's Rembrandt. I bought the picture because, as you say, the +situation was desperate, and I couldn't raise a thousand myself. What I did +was of course indefensible; but the money shall be refunded tomorrow--" + +Crozier raised a protesting hand. "Don't interrupt me when I'm talking ex +cathedra. The money's been refunded already. The fact is, the Museum has +sold the Rembrandt." + +I stared at him wildly. "Sold it? To whom?" + +"Why--to the committee.--Hold on a bit, please.--Won't you take another +cigar? Then perhaps I can finish what I've got to say.--Why, my dear +fellow, the committee's under an obligation to you--that's the way we look +at it. I've investigated Mrs. Fontage's case, and--well, the picture had to +be bought. She's eating meat now, I believe, for the first time in a year. +And they'd have turned her out into the street that very day, your cousin +tells me. Something had to be done at once, and you've simply given a +number of well-to-do and self-indulgent gentlemen the opportunity of +performing, at very small individual expense, a meritorious action in +the nick of time. That's the first thing I've got to thank you for. And +then--you'll remember, please, that I have the floor--that I'm still +speaking for the committee--and secondly, as a slight recognition of your +services in securing the Bartley Reynolds at a very much lower figure than +we were prepared to pay, we beg you--the committee begs you--to accept the +gift of Mrs. Fontage's Rembrandt. Now we'll go in and look at that little +head...." + + + + +THE MOVING FINGER + + +The news of Mrs. Grancy's death came to me with the shock of an immense +blunder--one of fate's most irretrievable acts of vandalism. It was as +though all sorts of renovating forces had been checked by the clogging of +that one wheel. Not that Mrs. Grancy contributed any perceptible momentum +to the social machine: her unique distinction was that of filling to +perfection her special place in the world. So many people are like +badly-composed statues, over-lapping their niches at one point and leaving +them vacant at another. Mrs. Grancy's niche was her husband's life; and if +it be argued that the space was not large enough for its vacancy to leave a +very big gap, I can only say that, at the last resort, such dimensions must +be determined by finer instruments than any ready-made standard of utility. +Ralph Grancy's was in short a kind of disembodied usefulness: one of those +constructive influences that, instead of crystallizing into definite forms, +remain as it were a medium for the development of clear thinking and fine +feeling. He faithfully irrigated his own dusty patch of life, and the +fruitful moisture stole far beyond his boundaries. If, to carry on the +metaphor, Grancy's life was a sedulously-cultivated enclosure, his wife was +the flower he had planted in its midst--the embowering tree, rather, which +gave him rest and shade at its foot and the wind of dreams in its upper +branches. + +We had all--his small but devoted band of followers--known a moment when it +seemed likely that Grancy would fail us. We had watched him pitted against +one stupid obstacle after another--ill-health, poverty, misunderstanding +and, worst of all for a man of his texture, his first wife's soft insidious +egotism. We had seen him sinking under the leaden embrace of her affection +like a swimmer in a drowning clutch; but just as we despaired he had always +come to the surface again, blinded, panting, but striking out fiercely for +the shore. When at last her death released him it became a question as to +how much of the man she had carried with her. Left alone, he revealed numb +withered patches, like a tree from which a parasite has been stripped. But +gradually he began to put out new leaves; and when he met the lady who +was to become his second wife--his one _real_ wife, as his friends +reckoned--the whole man burst into flower. + +The second Mrs. Grancy was past thirty when he married her, and it was +clear that she had harvested that crop of middle joy which is rooted in +young despair. But if she had lost the surface of eighteen she had kept +its inner light; if her cheek lacked the gloss of immaturity her eyes were +young with the stored youth of half a life-time. Grancy had first known her +somewhere in the East--I believe she was the sister of one of our consuls +out there--and when he brought her home to New York she came among us as +a stranger. The idea of Grancy's remarriage had been a shock to us all. +After one such calcining most men would have kept out of the fire; but we +agreed that he was predestined to sentimental blunders, and we awaited +with resignation the embodiment of his latest mistake. Then Mrs. Grancy +came--and we understood. She was the most beautiful and the most complete +of explanations. We shuffled our defeated omniscience out of sight and gave +it hasty burial under a prodigality of welcome. For the first time in years +we had Grancy off our minds. "He'll do something great now!" the least +sanguine of us prophesied; and our sentimentalist emended: "He _has_ +done it--in marrying her!" + +It was Claydon, the portrait-painter, who risked this hyperbole; and who +soon afterward, at the happy husband's request, prepared to defend it in a +portrait of Mrs. Grancy. We were all--even Claydon--ready to concede that +Mrs. Grancy's unwontedness was in some degree a matter of environment. Her +graces were complementary and it needed the mate's call to reveal the flash +of color beneath her neutral-tinted wings. But if she needed Grancy to +interpret her, how much greater was the service she rendered him! Claydon +professionally described her as the right frame for him; but if she defined +she also enlarged, if she threw the whole into perspective she also cleared +new ground, opened fresh vistas, reclaimed whole areas of activity that had +run to waste under the harsh husbandry of privation. This interaction of +sympathies was not without its visible expression. Claydon was not alone +in maintaining that Grancy's presence--or indeed the mere mention of his +name--had a perceptible effect on his wife's appearance. It was as though a +light were shifted, a curtain drawn back, as though, to borrow another of +Claydon's metaphors, Love the indefatigable artist were perpetually seeking +a happier "pose" for his model. In this interpretative light Mrs. Grancy +acquired the charm which makes some women's faces like a book of which +the last page is never turned. There was always something new to read in +her eyes. What Claydon read there--or at least such scattered hints of +the ritual as reached him through the sanctuary doors--his portrait in +due course declared to us. When the picture was exhibited it was at once +acclaimed as his masterpiece; but the people who knew Mrs. Grancy smiled +and said it was flattered. Claydon, however, had not set out to paint +_their_ Mrs. Grancy--or ours even--but Ralph's; and Ralph knew his own +at a glance. At the first confrontation he saw that Claydon had understood. +As for Mrs. Grancy, when the finished picture was shown to her she turned +to the painter and said simply: "Ah, you've done me facing the east!" + +The picture, then, for all its value, seemed a mere incident in the +unfolding of their double destiny, a foot-note to the illuminated text of +their lives. It was not till afterward that it acquired the significance +of last words spoken on a threshold never to be recrossed. Grancy, a year +after his marriage, had given up his town house and carried his bliss an +hour's journey away, to a little place among the hills. His various duties +and interests brought him frequently to New York but we necessarily saw him +less often than when his house had served as the rallying-point of kindred +enthusiasms. It seemed a pity that such an influence should be withdrawn, +but we all felt that his long arrears of happiness should be paid in +whatever coin he chose. The distance from which the fortunate couple +radiated warmth on us was not too great for friendship to traverse; and our +conception of a glorified leisure took the form of Sundays spent in the +Grancys' library, with its sedative rural outlook, and the portrait of Mrs. +Grancy illuminating its studious walls. The picture was at its best in that +setting; and we used to accuse Claydon of visiting Mrs. Grancy in order to +see her portrait. He met this by declaring that the portrait _was_ +Mrs. Grancy; and there were moments when the statement seemed unanswerable. +One of us, indeed--I think it must have been the novelist--said that +Clayton had been saved from falling in love with Mrs. Grancy only by +falling in love with his picture of her; and it was noticeable that he, to +whom his finished work was no more than the shed husk of future effort, +showed a perennial tenderness for this one achievement. We smiled afterward +to think how often, when Mrs. Grancy was in the room, her presence +reflecting itself in our talk like a gleam of sky in a hurrying current, +Claydon, averted from the real woman, would sit as it were listening to the +picture. His attitude, at the time, seemed only a part of the unusualness +of those picturesque afternoons, when the most familiar combinations of +life underwent a magical change. Some human happiness is a landlocked lake; +but the Grancys' was an open sea, stretching a buoyant and illimitable +surface to the voyaging interests of life. There was room and to spare on +those waters for all our separate ventures; and always beyond the sunset, +a mirage of the fortunate isles toward which our prows bent. + + +II + +It was in Rome that, three years later, I heard of her death. The notice +said "suddenly"; I was glad of that. I was glad too--basely perhaps--to be +away from Grancy at a time when silence must have seemed obtuse and speech +derisive. + +I was still in Rome when, a few months afterward, he suddenly arrived +there. He had been appointed secretary of legation at Constantinople and +was on the way to his post. He had taken the place, he said frankly, "to +get away." Our relations with the Porte held out a prospect of hard work, +and that, he explained, was what he needed. He could never be satisfied to +sit down among the ruins. I saw that, like most of us in moments of extreme +moral tension, he was playing a part, behaving as he thought it became a +man to behave in the eye of disaster. The instinctive posture of grief is +a shuffling compromise between defiance and prostration; and pride feels +the need of striking a worthier attitude in face of such a foe. Grancy, by +nature musing and retrospective, had chosen the role of the man of action, +who answers blow for blow and opposes a mailed front to the thrusts of +destiny; and the completeness of the equipment testified to his inner +weakness. We talked only of what we were not thinking of, and parted, after +a few days, with a sense of relief that proved the inadequacy of friendship +to perform, in such cases, the office assigned to it by tradition. + +Soon afterward my own work called me home, but Grancy remained several +years in Europe. International diplomacy kept its promise of giving +him work to do, and during the year in which he acted as _charge +d'affaires_ he acquitted himself, under trying conditions, with +conspicuous zeal and discretion. A political redistribution of matter +removed him from office just as he had proved his usefulness to the +government; and the following summer I heard that he had come home and +was down at his place in the country. + +On my return to town I wrote him and his reply came by the next post. He +answered as it were in his natural voice, urging me to spend the following +Sunday with him, and suggesting that I should bring down any of the old +set who could be persuaded to join me. I thought this a good sign, and +yet--shall I own it?--I was vaguely disappointed. Perhaps we are apt to +feel that our friends' sorrows should be kept like those historic monuments +from which the encroaching ivy is periodically removed. + +That very evening at the club I ran across Claydon. I told him of Grancy's +invitation and proposed that we should go down together; but he pleaded an +engagement. I was sorry, for I had always felt that he and I stood nearer +Ralph than the others, and if the old Sundays were to be renewed I should +have preferred that we two should spend the first alone with him. I said as +much to Claydon and offered to fit my time to his; but he met this by a +general refusal. + +"I don't want to go to Grancy's," he said bluntly. I waited a moment, but +he appended no qualifying clause. + +"You've seen him since he came back?" I finally ventured. + +Claydon nodded. + +"And is he so awfully bad?" + +"Bad? No: he's all right." + +"All right? How can he be, unless he's changed beyond all recognition?" + +"Oh, you'll recognize _him_," said Claydon, with a puzzling deflection +of emphasis. + +His ambiguity was beginning to exasperate me, and I felt myself shut out +from some knowledge to which I had as good a right as he. + +"You've been down there already, I suppose?" + +"Yes; I've been down there." + +"And you've done with each other--the partnership is dissolved?" + +"Done with each other? I wish to God we had!" He rose nervously and tossed +aside the review from which my approach had diverted him. "Look here," +he said, standing before me, "Ralph's the best fellow going and there's +nothing under heaven I wouldn't do for him--short of going down there +again." And with that he walked out of the room. + +Claydon was incalculable enough for me to read a dozen different meanings +into his words; but none of my interpretations satisfied me. I determined, +at any rate, to seek no farther for a companion; and the next Sunday I +travelled down to Grancy's alone. He met me at the station and I saw at +once that he had changed since our last meeting. Then he had been in +fighting array, but now if he and grief still housed together it was +no longer as enemies. Physically the transformation was as marked but +less reassuring. If the spirit triumphed the body showed its scars. At +five-and-forty he was gray and stooping, with the tired gait of an old man. +His serenity, however, was not the resignation of age. I saw that he did +not mean to drop out of the game. Almost immediately he began to speak of +our old interests; not with an effort, as at our former meeting, but simply +and naturally, in the tone of a man whose life has flowed back into its +normal channels. I remembered, with a touch of self-reproach, how I had +distrusted his reconstructive powers; but my admiration for his reserved +force was now tinged by the sense that, after all, such happiness as his +ought to have been paid with his last coin. The feeling grew as we neared +the house and I found how inextricably his wife was interwoven with my +remembrance of the place: how the whole scene was but an extension of that +vivid presence. + +Within doors nothing was changed, and my hand would have dropped without +surprise into her welcoming clasp. It was luncheon-time, and Grancy led me +at once to the dining-room, where the walls, the furniture, the very plate +and porcelain, seemed a mirror in which a moment since her face had been +reflected. I wondered whether Grancy, under the recovered tranquillity +of his smile, concealed the same sense of her nearness, saw perpetually +between himself and the actual her bright unappeasable ghost. He spoke of +her once or twice, in an easy incidental way, and her name seemed to hang +in the air after he had uttered it, like a chord that continues to vibrate. +If he felt her presence it was evidently as an enveloping medium, the moral +atmosphere in which he breathed. I had never before known how completely +the dead may survive. + +After luncheon we went for a long walk through the autumnal fields and +woods, and dusk was falling when we re-entered the house. Grancy led the +way to the library, where, at this hour, his wife had always welcomed +us back to a bright fire and a cup of tea. The room faced the west, and +held a clear light of its own after the rest of the house had grown dark. +I remembered how young she had looked in this pale gold light, which +irradiated her eyes and hair, or silhouetted her girlish outline as she +passed before the windows. Of all the rooms the library was most peculiarly +hers; and here I felt that her nearness might take visible shape. Then, all +in a moment, as Grancy opened the door, the feeling vanished and a kind +of resistance met me on the threshold. I looked about me. Was the room +changed? Had some desecrating hand effaced the traces of her presence? No; +here too the setting was undisturbed. My feet sank into the same deep-piled +Daghestan; the bookshelves took the firelight on the same rows of rich +subdued bindings; her armchair stood in its old place near the tea-table; +and from the opposite wall her face confronted me. + +Her face--but _was_ it hers? I moved nearer and stood looking up at +the portrait. Grancy's glance had followed mine and I heard him move to my +side. + +"You see a change in it?" he said. + +"What does it mean?" I asked. + +"It means--that five years have passed." + +"Over _her_?" + +"Why not?--Look at me!" He pointed to his gray hair and furrowed temples. +"What do you think kept _her_ so young? It was happiness! But now--" +he looked up at her with infinite tenderness. "I like her better so," he +said. "It's what she would have wished." + +"Have wished?" + +"That we should grow old together. Do you think she would have wanted to be +left behind?" + +I stood speechless, my gaze travelling from his worn grief-beaten features +to the painted face above. It was not furrowed like his; but a veil +of years seemed to have descended on it. The bright hair had lost its +elasticity, the cheek its clearness, the brow its light: the whole woman +had waned. + +Grancy laid his hand on my arm. "You don't like it?" he said sadly. + +"Like it? I--I've lost her!" I burst out. + +"And I've found her," he answered. + +"In _that_?" I cried with a reproachful gesture. + +"Yes; in that." He swung round on me almost defiantly. "The other had +become a sham, a lie! This is the way she would have looked--does look, I +mean. Claydon ought to know, oughtn't he?" + +I turned suddenly. "Did Claydon do this for you?" + +Grancy nodded. + +"Since your return?" + +"Yes. I sent for him after I'd been back a week--." He turned away and gave +a thrust to the smouldering fire. I followed, glad to leave the picture +behind me. Grancy threw himself into a chair near the hearth, so that the +light fell on his sensitive variable face. He leaned his head back, shading +his eyes with his hand, and began to speak. + + +III + +"You fellows knew enough of my early history to A guess what my second +marriage meant to me. I say guess, because no one could understand--really. +I've always had a feminine streak in me, I suppose: the need of a pair of +eyes that should see with me, of a pulse that should keep time with mine. +Life is a big thing, of course; a magnificent spectacle; but I got so tired +of looking at it alone! Still, it's always good to live, and I had plenty +of happiness--of the evolved kind. What I'd never had a taste of was the +simple inconscient sort that one breathes in like the air.... + +"Well--I met her. It was like finding the climate in which I was meant to +live. You know what she was--how indefinitely she multiplied one's points +of contact with life, how she lit up the caverns and bridged the abysses! +Well, I swear to you (though I suppose the sense of all that was latent in +me) that what I used to think of on my way home at the end of the day, was +simply that when I opened this door she'd be sitting over there, with the +lamp-light falling in a particular way on one little curl in her neck.... +When Claydon painted her he caught just the look she used to lift to mine +when I came in--I've wondered, sometimes, at his knowing how she looked +when she and I were alone.--How I rejoiced in that picture! I used to say +to her, 'You're my prisoner now--I shall never lose you. If you grew tired +of me and left me you'd leave your real self there on the wall!' It was +always one of our jokes that she was going to grow tired of me-- + +"Three years of it--and then she died. It was so sudden that there was +no change, no diminution. It was as if she had suddenly become fixed, +immovable, like her own portrait: as if Time had ceased at its happiest +hour, just as Claydon had thrown down his brush one day and said, 'I can't +do better than that.' + +"I went away, as you know, and stayed over there five years. I worked as +hard as I knew how, and after the first black months a little light stole +in on me. From thinking that she would have been interested in what I was +doing I came to feel that she _was_ interested--that she was there and +that she knew. I'm not talking any psychical jargon--I'm simply trying to +express the sense I had that an influence so full, so abounding as hers +couldn't pass like a spring shower. We had so lived into each other's +hearts and minds that the consciousness of what she would have thought +and felt illuminated all I did. At first she used to come back shyly, +tentatively, as though not sure of finding me; then she stayed longer and +longer, till at last she became again the very air I breathed.... There +were bad moments, of course, when her nearness mocked me with the loss of +the real woman; but gradually the distinction between the two was effaced +and the mere thought of her grew warm as flesh and blood. + +"Then I came home. I landed in the morning and came straight down here. The +thought of seeing her portrait possessed me and my heart beat like a +lover's as I opened the library door. It was in the afternoon and the room +was full of light. It fell on her picture--the picture of a young and +radiant woman. She smiled at me coldly across the distance that divided us. +I had the feeling that she didn't even recognize me. And then I caught +sight of myself in the mirror over there--a gray-haired broken man whom she +had never known! + +"For a week we two lived together--the strange woman and the strange man. +I used to sit night after night and question her smiling face; but no +answer ever came. What did she know of me, after all? We were irrevocably +separated by the five years of life that lay between us. At times, as I +sat here, I almost grew to hate her; for her presence had driven away my +gentle ghost, the real wife who had wept, aged, struggled with me during +those awful years.... It was the worst loneliness I've ever known. Then, +gradually, I began to notice a look of sadness in the picture's eyes; a +look that seemed to say: 'Don't you see that _I_ am lonely too?' And +all at once it came over me how she would have hated to be left behind! I +remembered her comparing life to a heavy book that could not be read with +ease unless two people held it together; and I thought how impatiently her +hand would have turned the pages that divided us!--So the idea came to me: +'It's the picture that stands between us; the picture that is dead, and not +my wife. To sit in this room is to keep watch beside a corpse.' As this +feeling grew on me the portrait became like a beautiful mausoleum in which +she had been buried alive: I could hear her beating against the painted +walls and crying to me faintly for help.... + +"One day I found I couldn't stand it any longer and I sent for Claydon. He +came down and I told him what I'd been through and what I wanted him to do. +At first he refused point-blank to touch the picture. The next morning I +went off for a long tramp, and when I came home I found him sitting here +alone. He looked at me sharply for a moment and then he said: 'I've changed +my mind; I'll do it.' I arranged one of the north rooms as a studio and he +shut himself up there for a day; then he sent for me. The picture stood +there as you see it now--it was as though she'd met me on the threshold and +taken me in her arms! I tried to thank him, to tell him what it meant to +me, but he cut me short. + +"'There's an up train at five, isn't there?' he asked. 'I'm booked for a +dinner to-night. I shall just have time to make a bolt for the station and +you can send my traps after me.' I haven't seen him since. + +"I can guess what it cost him to lay hands on his masterpiece; but, after +all, to him it was only a picture lost, to me it was my wife regained!" + + +IV + +After that, for ten years or more, I watched the strange spectacle of a +life of hopeful and productive effort based on the structure of a dream. +There could be no doubt to those who saw Grancy during this period that +he drew his strength and courage from the sense of his wife's mystic +participation in his task. When I went back to see him a few months later I +found the portrait had been removed from the library and placed in a small +study up-stairs, to which he had transferred his desk and a few books. He +told me he always sat there when he was alone, keeping the library for his +Sunday visitors. Those who missed the portrait of course made no comment on +its absence, and the few who were in his secret respected it. Gradually all +his old friends had gathered about him and our Sunday afternoons regained +something of their former character; but Claydon never reappeared among us. + +As I look back now I see that Grancy must have been failing from the time +of his return home. His invincible spirit belied and disguised the signs of +weakness that afterward asserted themselves in my remembrance of him. He +seemed to have an inexhaustible fund of life to draw on, and more than one +of us was a pensioner on his superfluity. + +Nevertheless, when I came back one summer from my European holiday and +heard that he had been at the point of death, I understood at once that we +had believed him well only because he wished us to. + +I hastened down to the country and found him midway in a slow +convalescence. I felt then that he was lost to us and he read my thought at +a glance. + +"Ah," he said, "I'm an old man now and no mistake. I suppose we shall have +to go half-speed after this; but we shan't need towing just yet!" + +The plural pronoun struck me, and involuntarily I looked up at Mrs. +Grancy's portrait. Line by line I saw my fear reflected in it. It was the +face of a woman who knows that her husband is dying. My heart stood still +at the thought of what Claydon had done. + +Grancy had followed my glance. "Yes, it's changed her," he said quietly. +"For months, you know, it was touch and go with me--we had a long fight of +it, and it was worse for her than for me." After a pause he added: "Claydon +has been very kind; he's so busy nowadays that I seldom see him, but when I +sent for him the other day he came down at once." + +I was silent and we spoke no more of Grancy's illness; but when I took +leave it seemed like shutting him in alone with his death-warrant. + +The next time I went down to see him he looked much better. It was a Sunday +and he received me in the library, so that I did not see the portrait +again. He continued to improve and toward spring we began to feel that, as +he had said, he might yet travel a long way without being towed. + +One evening, on returning to town after a visit which had confirmed my +sense of reassurance, I found Claydon dining alone at the club. He asked me +to join him and over the coffee our talk turned to his work. + +"If you're not too busy," I said at length, "you ought to make time to go +down to Grancy's again." + +He looked up quickly. "Why?" he asked. + +"Because he's quite well again," I returned with a touch of cruelty. "His +wife's prognostications were mistaken." + +Claydon stared at me a moment. "Oh, _she_ knows," he affirmed with a +smile that chilled me. + +"You mean to leave the portrait as it is then?" I persisted. + +He shrugged his shoulders. "He hasn't sent for me yet!" + +A waiter came up with the cigars and Claydon rose and joined another group. + +It was just a fortnight later that Grancy's housekeeper telegraphed for me. +She met me at the station with the news that he had been "taken bad" and +that the doctors were with him. I had to wait for some time in the deserted +library before the medical men appeared. They had the baffled manner of +empirics who have been superseded by the great Healer; and I lingered only +long enough to hear that Grancy was not suffering and that my presence +could do him no harm. + +I found him seated in his arm-chair in the little study. He held out his +hand with a smile. + +"You see she was right after all," he said. + +"She?" I repeated, perplexed for the moment. + +"My wife." He indicated the picture. "Of course I knew she had no hope from +the first. I saw that"--he lowered his voice--"after Claydon had been here. +But I wouldn't believe it at first!" + +I caught his hands in mine. "For God's sake don't believe it now!" I +adjured him. + +He shook his head gently. "It's too late," he said. "I might have known +that she knew." + +"But, Grancy, listen to me," I began; and then I stopped. What could I say +that would convince him? There was no common ground of argument on which we +could meet; and after all it would be easier for him to die feeling that +she _had_ known. Strangely enough, I saw that Claydon had missed his +mark.... + + +V + +Grancy's will named me as one of his executors; and my associate, having +other duties on his hands, begged me to assume the task of carrying out our +friend's wishes. This placed me under the necessity of informing Claydon +that the portrait of Mrs. Grancy had been bequeathed to him; and he replied +by the next post that he would send for the picture at once. I was staying +in the deserted house when the portrait was taken away; and as the door +closed on it I felt that Grancy's presence had vanished too. Was it his +turn to follow her now, and could one ghost haunt another? + +After that, for a year or two, I heard nothing more of the picture, and +though I met Claydon from time to time we had little to say to each other. +I had no definable grievance against the man and I tried to remember that +he had done a fine thing in sacrificing his best picture to a friend; but +my resentment had all the tenacity of unreason. + +One day, however, a lady whose portrait he had just finished begged me +to go with her to see it. To refuse was impossible, and I went with the +less reluctance that I knew I was not the only friend she had invited. +The others were all grouped around the easel when I entered, and after +contributing my share to the chorus of approval I turned away and began +to stroll about the studio. Claydon was something of a collector and his +things were generally worth looking at. The studio was a long tapestried +room with a curtained archway at one end. The curtains were looped back, +showing a smaller apartment, with books and flowers and a few fine bits of +bronze and porcelain. The tea-table standing in this inner room proclaimed +that it was open to inspection, and I wandered in. A _bleu poudre_ +vase first attracted me; then I turned to examine a slender bronze +Ganymede, and in so doing found myself face to face with Mrs. Grancy's +portrait. I stared up at her blankly and she smiled back at me in all +the recovered radiance of youth. The artist had effaced every trace of +his later touches and the original picture had reappeared. It throned +alone on the panelled wall, asserting a brilliant supremacy over its +carefully-chosen surroundings. I felt in an instant that the whole room was +tributary to it: that Claydon had heaped his treasures at the feet of the +woman he loved. Yes--it was the woman he had loved and not the picture; and +my instinctive resentment was explained. + +Suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder. + +"Ah, how could you?" I cried, turning on him. + +"How could I?" he retorted. "How could I _not_? Doesn't she belong to +me now?" + +I moved away impatiently. + +"Wait a moment," he said with a detaining gesture. "The others have gone +and I want to say a word to you.--Oh, I know what you've thought of me--I +can guess! You think I killed Grancy, I suppose?" + +I was startled by his sudden vehemence. "I think you tried to do a cruel +thing," I said. + +"Ah--what a little way you others see into life!" he murmured. "Sit down a +moment--here, where we can look at her--and I'll tell you." + +He threw himself on the ottoman beside me and sat gazing up at the picture, +with his hands clasped about his knee. + +"Pygmalion," he began slowly, "turned his statue into a real woman; +_I_ turned my real woman into a picture. Small compensation, you +think--but you don't know how much of a woman belongs to you after you've +painted her!--Well, I made the best of it, at any rate--I gave her the best +I had in me; and she gave me in return what such a woman gives by merely +being. And after all she rewarded me enough by making me paint as I shall +never paint again! There was one side of her, though, that was mine alone, +and that was her beauty; for no one else understood it. To Grancy even +it was the mere expression of herself--what language is to thought. Even +when he saw the picture he didn't guess my secret--he was so sure she was +all his! As though a man should think he owned the moon because it was +reflected in the pool at his door-- + +"Well--when he came home and sent for me to change the picture it was like +asking me to commit murder. He wanted me to make an old woman of her--of +her who had been so divinely, unchangeably young! As if any man who really +loved a woman would ask her to sacrifice her youth and beauty for his sake! +At first I told him I couldn't do it--but afterward, when he left me alone +with the picture, something queer happened. I suppose it was because I was +always so confoundedly fond of Grancy that it went against me to refuse +what he asked. Anyhow, as I sat looking up at her, she seemed to say, 'I'm +not yours but his, and I want you to make me what he wishes." And so I did +it. I could have cut my hand off when the work was done--I daresay he told +you I never would go back and look at it. He thought I was too busy--he +never understood.... + +"Well--and then last year he sent for me again--you remember. It was after +his illness, and he told me he'd grown twenty years older and that he +wanted her to grow older too--he didn't want her to be left behind. The +doctors all thought he was going to get well at that time, and he thought +so too; and so did I when I first looked at him. But when I turned to +the picture--ah, now I don't ask you to believe me; but I swear it was +_her_ face that told me he was dying, and that she wanted him to know +it! She had a message for him and she made me deliver it." + +He rose abruptly and walked toward the portrait; then he sat down beside me +again. + +"Cruel? Yes, it seemed so to me at first; and this time, if I resisted, +it was for _his_ sake and not for mine. But all the while I felt her +eyes drawing me, and gradually she made me understand. If she'd been there +in the flesh (she seemed to say) wouldn't she have seen before any of us +that he was dying? Wouldn't he have read the news first in her face? And +wouldn't it be horrible if now he should discover it instead in strange +eyes?--Well--that was what she wanted of me and I did it--I kept them +together to the last!" He looked up at the picture again. "But now she +belongs to me," he repeated.... + + + + +THE CONFESSIONAL + + +When I was a young man I thought a great deal of local color. At that +time it was still a pigment of recent discovery, and supposed to have +a peculiarly stimulating effect on the mental eye. As an aid to the +imagination its value was perhaps overrated; but as an object of pursuit +to that vagrant faculty, it had all the merits claimed for it. I certainly +never hunted any game better worth my powder; and to a young man with rare +holidays and long working hours, its value was enhanced by the fact that +one might bring it down at any turn, if only one kept one's eye alert and +one's hand on the trigger. + +Even the large manufacturing city where, for some years, my young +enthusiasms were chained to an accountant's desk, was not without its +romantic opportunities. Many of the mill-hands at Dunstable were Italians, +and a foreign settlement had formed itself in that unsavory and unsanitary +portion of the town known as the Point. The Point, like more aristocratic +communities, had its residential and commercial districts, its church, its +theatre and its restaurant. When the craving for local color was on me it +was my habit to resort to the restaurant, a low-browed wooden building with +the appetizing announcement: + +"_Aristiu di montone_" + +pasted in one of its fly-blown window-panes. Here the consumption of tough +macaroni or of an ambiguous _frittura_ sufficed to transport me to the +Cappello d'Oro in Venice, while my cup of coffee and a wasp-waisted cigar +with a straw in it turned my greasy table-cloth into the marble top of +one of the little round tables under the arcade of the Caffe Pedrotti at +Padua. This feat of the imagination was materially aided by Agostino, the +hollow-eyed and low-collared waiter, whose slimy napkin never lost its +Latin flourish and whose zeal for my comfort was not infrequently displayed +by his testing the warmth of my soup with his finger. Through Agostino I +became acquainted with the inner history of the colony, heard the details +of its feuds and vendettas, and learned to know by sight the leading +characters in these domestic dramas. + +The restaurant was frequented by the chief personages of the community: +the overseer of the Italian hands at the Meriton Mills, the doctor, his +wife the _levatrice_ (a plump Neapolitan with greasy ringlets, a plush +picture-hat, and a charm against the evil-eye hanging in a crease of her +neck) and lastly by Don Egidio, the _parocco_ of the little church +across the street. The doctor and his wife came only on feast days, but +the overseer and Don Egidio were regular patrons. The former was a quiet +saturnine-looking man, of accomplished manners but reluctant speech, and I +depended for my diversion chiefly on Don Egidio, whose large loosely-hung +lips were always ajar for conversation. The remarks issuing from them +were richly tinged by the gutturals of the Bergamasque dialect, and it +needed but a slight acquaintance with Italian types to detect the Lombard +peasant under the priest's rusty cassock. This inference was confirmed +by Don Egidio's telling me that he came from a village of Val Camonica, +the radiant valley which extends northward from the lake of Iseo to +the Adamello glaciers. His step-father had been a laborer on one of +the fruit-farms of a Milanese count who owned large estates in the Val +Camonica; and that gentleman, taking a fancy to the lad, whom he had seen +at work in his orchards, had removed him to his villa on the lake of Iseo +and had subsequently educated him for the Church. + +It was doubtless to this picturesque accident that Don Egidio owed the +mingling of ease and simplicity that gave an inimitable charm to his +stout shabby presence. It was as though some wild mountain-fruit had been +transplanted to the Count's orchards and had mellowed under cultivation +without losing its sylvan flavor. I have never seen the social art carried +farther without suggestion of artifice. The fact that Don Egidio's +amenities were mainly exercised on the mill-hands composing his parish +proved the genuineness of his gift. It is easier to simulate gentility +among gentlemen than among navvies; and the plain man is a touchstone who +draws out all the alloy in the gold. + +Among his parishioners Don Egidio ruled with the cheerful despotism of the +good priest. On cardinal points he was inflexible, but in minor matters he +had that elasticity of judgment which enables the Catholic discipline to +fit itself to every inequality of the human conscience. There was no appeal +from his verdict; but his judgment-seat was a revolving chair from which he +could view the same act at various angles. His influence was acknowledged +not only by his flock, but by the policeman at the corner, the "bar-keep'" +in the dive, the ward politician in the corner grocery. The general verdict +of Dunstable was that the Point would have been hell without the priest. +It was perhaps not precisely heaven with him; but such light of the upper +sky as pierced its murky atmosphere was reflected from Don Egidio's +countenance. It is hardly possible for any one to exercise such influence +without taking pleasure in it; and on the whole the priest was probably +a contented man; though it does not follow that he was a happy one. On +this point the first stages of our acquaintance yielded much food for +conjecture. At first sight Don Egidio was the image of cheerfulness. He had +all the physical indications of a mind at ease: the leisurely rolling gait, +the ready laugh, the hospitable eye of the man whose sympathies are always +on the latch. It took me some time to discover under his surface garrulity +the impenetrable reticence of his profession, and under his enjoyment of +trifles a levelling melancholy which made all enjoyment trifling. Don +Egidio's aspect and conversation were so unsuggestive of psychological +complexities that I set down this trait to poverty or home-sickness. There +are few classes of men more frugal in tastes and habit than the village +priest in Italy; but Don Egidio, by his own account, had been introduced, +at an impressionable age, to a way of living that must have surpassed his +wildest dreams of self-indulgence. To whatever privations his parochial +work had since accustomed him, the influences of that earlier life were +too perceptible in his talk not to have made a profound impression on his +tastes; and he remained, for all his apostolic simplicity, the image of the +family priest who has his seat at the rich man's table. + +It chanced that I had used one of my short European holidays to explore +afoot the romantic passes connecting the Valtelline with the lake of Iseo; +and my remembrance of that enchanting region made it seem impossible +that Don Egidio should ever look without a reminiscent pang on the grimy +perspective of his parochial streets. The transition was too complete, too +ironical, from those rich glades and Titianesque acclivities to the brick +hovels and fissured sidewalks of the Point. + +This impression was confirmed when Don Egidio, in response to my urgent +invitation, paid his first visit to my modest lodgings. He called one +winter evening, when a wood-fire in its happiest humor was giving a +factitious lustre to my book-shelves and bringing out the values of the one +or two old prints and Chinese porcelains that accounted for the perennial +shabbiness of my wardrobe. + +"Ah," said he with a murmur of satisfaction, as he laid aside his shiny hat +and bulging umbrella, "it is a long time since I have been in a _casa +signorile_." + +My remembrance of his own room (he lodged with the doctor and the +_levatrice_) saved this epithet from the suggestion of irony and kept +me silent while he sank into my arm-chair with the deliberation of a tired +traveller lowering himself gently into a warm bath. + +"Good! good!" he repeated, looking about him. "Books, porcelains, objects +of _virtu_--I am glad to see that there are still such things in the +world!" And he turned a genial eye on the glass of Marsala that I had +poured out for him. + +Don Egidio was the most temperate of men and never exceeded his one glass; +but he liked to sit by the hour puffing at my Cabanas, which I suspected +him of preferring to the black weed of his native country. Under the +influence of my tobacco he became even more blandly garrulous, and I +sometimes fancied that of all the obligations of his calling none could +have placed such a strain on him as that of preserving the secrets of the +confessional. He often talked of his early life at the Count's villa, where +he had been educated with his patron's two sons till he was of age to be +sent to the seminary; and I could see that the years spent in simple and +familiar intercourse with his benefactors had been the most vivid chapter +in his experience. The Italian peasant's inarticulate tenderness for the +beauty of his birthplace had been specialized in him by contact with +cultivated tastes, and he could tell me not only that the Count had a +"stupendous" collection of pictures, but that the chapel of the villa +contained a sepulchral monument by Bambaja, and that the art-critics were +divided as to the authenticity of the Leonardo in the family palace at +Milan. + +On all these subjects he was inexhaustibly voluble; but there was one point +which he always avoided, and that was his reason for coming to America. I +remember the round turn with which he brought me up when I questioned him. + +"A priest," said he, "is a soldier and must obey orders like a soldier." +He set down his glass of Marsala and strolled across the room. "I had not +observed," he went on, "that you have here a photograph of the Sposalizio +of the Brera. What a picture! _E stupendo_!" and he turned back to his +seat and smilingly lit a fresh cigar. + +I saw at once that I had hit on a point where his native garrulity was +protected by the chain-mail of religious discipline that every Catholic +priest wears beneath his cassock. I had too much respect for my friend +to wish to penetrate his armor, and now and then I almost fancied he was +grateful to me for not putting his reticence to the test. + +Don Egidio must have been past sixty when I made his acquaintance; but it +was not till the close of an exceptionally harsh winter, some five or six +years after our first meeting, that I began to think of him as an old man. +It was as though the long-continued cold had cracked and shrivelled him. He +had grown bent and hollow-chested and his lower lip shook like an unhinged +door. The summer heat did little to revive him, and in September, when I +came home from my vacation, I found him just recovering from an attack of +pneumonia. That autumn he did not care to venture often into the night air, +and now and then I used to go and sit with him in his little room, to which +I had contributed the unheard-of luxuries of an easy-chair and a gas-stove. + +My engagements, however, made these visits infrequent, and several weeks +had elapsed without my seeing the _parocco_ when, one snowy November +morning, I ran across him in the railway-station. I was on my way to New +York for the day and had just time to wave a greeting to him as I jumped +into the railway-carriage; but a moment later, to my surprise, I saw him +stiffly clambering into the same train. I found him seated in the common +car, with his umbrella between his knees and a bundle done up in a red +cotton handkerchief on the seat at his side. The caution with which, at my +approach, he transferred this bundle to his arms caused me to glance at it +in surprise; and he answered my look by saying with a smile: + +"They are flowers for the dead--the most exquisite flowers--from the +greenhouses of Mr. Meriton--_si figuri_!" And he waved a descriptive +hand. "One of my lads, Gianpietro, is employed by the gardener there, and +every year on this day he brings me a beautiful bunch of flowers--for such +a purpose it is no sin," he added, with the charming Italian pliancy of +judgment. + +"And why are you travelling in this snowy weather, _signor parocco_?" +I asked, as he ended with a cough. + +He fixed me gravely with his simple shallow eye. "Because it is the day of +the dead, my son," he said, "and I go to place these on the grave of the +noblest man that ever lived." + +"You are going to New York?" + +"To Brooklyn--" + +I hesitated a moment, wishing to question him, yet uncertain whether his +replies were curtailed by the persistency of his cough or by the desire to +avoid interrogation. + +"This is no weather to be travelling with such a cough," I said at length. + +He made a deprecating gesture. + +"I have never missed the day--not once in eighteen years. But for me he +would have no one!" He folded his hands on his umbrella and looked away +from me to hide the trembling of his lip. + +I resolved on a last attempt to storm his confidence. "Your friend is +buried in Calvary cemetery?" + +He signed an assent. + +"That is a long way for you to go alone, _signor parocco_. The streets +are sure to be slippery and there is an icy wind blowing. Give me your +flowers and let me send them to the cemetery by a messenger. I give you my +word they shall reach their destination safely." + +He turned a quiet look on me. "My son, you are young," he said, "and you +don't know how the dead need us." He drew his breviary from his pocket and +opened it with a smile. "_Mi scusi?_" he murmured. + +The business which had called me to town obliged me to part from him as +soon as the train entered the station, and in my dash for the street I +left his unwieldy figure laboring far behind me through the crowd on the +platform. Before we separated, however, I had learned that he was returning +to Dunstable by the four o'clock train, and had resolved to despatch my +business in time to travel home with him. When I reached Wall Street I was +received with the news that the man I had appointed to meet was ill and +detained in the country. My business was "off" and I found myself with +the rest of the day at my disposal. I had no difficulty in deciding how +to employ my time. I was at an age when, in such contingencies, there is +always a feminine alternative; and even now I don't know how it was that, +on my way to a certain hospitable luncheon-table, I suddenly found myself +in a cab which was carrying me at full-speed to the Twenty-third Street +ferry. It was not till I had bought my ticket and seated myself in the +varnished tunnel of the ferry-boat that I was aware of having been diverted +from my purpose by an overmastering anxiety for Don Egidio. I rapidly +calculated that he had not more than an hour's advance on me, and that, +allowing for my greater agility and for the fact that I had a cab at my +call, I was likely to reach the cemetery in time to see him under shelter +before the gusts of sleet that were already sweeping across the river had +thickened to a snow-storm. + +At the gates of the cemetery I began to take a less sanguine view of my +attempt. The commemorative anniversary had filled the silent avenues +with visitors, and I felt the futility of my quest as I tried to fix the +gatekeeper's attention on my delineation of a stout Italian priest with a +bad cough and a bunch of flowers tied up in a red cotton handkerchief. The +gate-keeper showed that delusive desire to oblige that is certain to send +its victims in the wrong direction; but I had the presence of mind to go +exactly contrary to his indication, and thanks to this precaution I came, +after half an hour's search, on the figure of my poor _parocco_, +kneeling on the wet ground in one of the humblest by-ways of the great +necropolis. The mound before which he knelt was strewn with the spoils of +Mr. Meriton's conservatories, and on the weather-worn tablet at its head I +read the inscription: + +IL CONTE SIVIANO +DA MILANO. + +_Super flumina Babylonis, illic sedimus et flevimus._ + +So engrossed was Don Egidio that for some moments I stood behind him +unobserved; and when he rose and faced me, grief had left so little room +for any minor emotion that he looked at me almost without surprise. + +"Don Egidio," I said, "I have a carriage waiting for you at the gate. You +must come home with me." + +He nodded quietly and I drew his hand through my arm. + +He turned back to the grave. "One moment, my son," he said. "It may be for +the last time." He stood motionless, his eyes on the heaped-up flowers +which were already bruised and blackened by the cold. "To leave him +alone--after sixty years! But God is everywhere--" he murmured as I led him +away. + +On the journey home he did not care to talk, and my chief concern was to +keep him wrapped in my greatcoat and to see that his bed was made ready as +soon as I had restored him to his lodgings. The _levatrice_ brought a +quilted coverlet from her own room and hovered over him as gently as though +he had been of the sex to require her services; while Agostino, at my +summons, appeared with a bowl of hot soup that was heralded down the +street by a reviving waft of garlic. To these ministrations I left the +_parocco_, intending to call for news of him the next evening; but an +unexpected pressure of work kept me late at my desk, and the following day +some fresh obstacle delayed me. + +On the third afternoon, as I was leaving the office, an agate-eyed infant +from the Point hailed me with a message from the doctor. The _parocco_ +was worse and had asked for me. I jumped into the nearest car and ten +minutes later was running up the doctor's greasy stairs. + +To my dismay I found Don Egidio's room cold and untenanted; but I was +reassured a moment later by the appearance of the _levatrice_, who +announced that she had transferred the blessed man to her own apartment, +where he could have the sunlight and a good bed to lie in. There in fact +he lay, weak but smiling, in a setting which contrasted oddly enough with +his own monastic surroundings: a cheerful grimy room, hung with anecdotic +chromos, photographs of lady-patients proudly presenting their offspring +to the camera, and innumerable Neapolitan _santolini_ decked out with +shrivelled palm-leaves. + +The _levatrice_ whispered that the good man had the pleurisy, and +that, as she phrased it, he was nearing his last mile-stone. I saw that he +was in fact in a bad way, but his condition did not indicate any pressing +danger, and I had the presentiment that he would still, as the saying is, +put up a good fight. It was clear, however, that he knew what turn the +conflict must take, and the solemnity with which he welcomed me showed that +my summons was a part of that spiritual strategy with which the Catholic +opposes the surprise of death. + +"My son," he said, when the _levatrice_ had left us, "I have a favor +to ask you. You found me yesterday bidding good-bye to my best friend." +His cough interrupted him. "I have never told you," he went on, "the name +of the family in which I was brought up. It was Siviano, and that was +the grave of the Count's eldest son, with whom I grew up as a brother. +For eighteen years he has lain in that strange ground--_in terra +aliena_--and when I die, there will be no one to care for his grave." + +I saw what he waited for. "I will care for it, _signor parocco_." + +"I knew I should have your promise, my child; and what you promise you +keep. But my friend is a stranger to you--you are young and at your age +life is a mistress who kisses away sad memories. Why should you remember +the grave of a stranger? I cannot lay such a claim on you. But I will tell +you his story--and then I think that neither joy nor grief will let you +forget him; for when you rejoice you will remember how he sorrowed; and +when you sorrow the thought of him will be like a friend's hand in yours." + + +II + +You tell me (Don Egidio began) that you know our little lake; and if you +have seen it you will understand why it always used to remind me of the +"garden enclosed" of the Canticles. + +_Hortus inclusus; columba mea in foraminibus petrae_: the words used +to come back to me whenever I returned from a day's journey across the +mountains, and looking down saw the blue lake far below, hidden in its +hills like a happy secret in a stern heart. We were never envious of +the glory of the great lakes. They are like the show pictures that some +nobleman hangs in his public gallery; but our Iseo is the treasure that +he hides in his inner chamber. + +You tell me you saw it in summer, when it looks up like a saint's eye, +reflecting the whole of heaven. It was then too that I first saw it. +My future friend, the old Count, had found me at work on one of his +fruit-farms up the valley, and hearing that I was ill-treated by my +step-father--a drunken pedlar from the Val Mastellone, whom my poor mother +a year or two earlier had come across at the fair of Lovere--he had taken +me home with him to Iseo. I used to serve mass in our hill-village of +Cerveno, and the village children called me "the little priest" because +when my work was done I often crept back to the church to get away from +my step-father's blows and curses. "I will make a real priest of him," +the Count declared; and that afternoon, perched on the box of his +travelling-carriage, I was whirled away from the dark scenes of my +childhood into a world, where, as it seemed to me, every one was as happy +as an angel on a _presepio_. + +I wonder if you remember the Count's villa? It lies on the shore of the +lake, facing the green knoll of Monte Isola, and overlooked by the village +of Siviano and by the old parish-church where I said mass for fifteen happy +years. The village hangs on a ledge of the mountain; but the villa dips its +foot in the lake, smiling at its reflection like a bather lingering on the +brink. What Paradise it seemed to me that day! In our church up the valley +there hung an old brown picture, with a Saint Sabastian in the foreground; +and behind him the most wonderful palace, with terraced gardens adorned +with statues and fountains, where fine folk in resplendent dresses walked +up and down without heeding the blessed martyr's pangs. The Count's villa, +with its terraces, its roses, its marble steps descending to the lake, +reminded me of that palace; only instead of being inhabited by wicked +people engrossed in their selfish pleasures it was the home of the kindest +friends that ever took a poor lad by the hand. + +The old Count was a widower when I first knew him. He had been twice +married, and his first wife had left him two children, a son and a +daughter. The eldest, Donna Marianna, was then a girl of twenty, who +kept her father's house and was a mother to the two lads. She was not +handsome or learned, and had no taste for the world; but she was like the +lavender-plant in a poor man's window--just a little gray flower, but a +sweetness that fills the whole house. Her brother, Count Roberto, had been +ailing from his birth, and was a studious lad with a melancholy musing face +such as you may see in some of Titian's portraits of young men. He looked +like an exiled prince dressed in mourning. There was one child by the +second marriage, Count Andrea, a boy of my own age, handsome as a Saint +George, but not as kind as the others. No doubt, being younger, he was less +able to understand why an uncouth peasant lad should have been brought to +his father's table; and the others were so fearful of hurting my feelings +that, but for his teasing, I might never have mended my clumsy manners or +learned how to behave in the presence of my betters. Count Andrea was not +sparing in such lessons, and Count Roberto, in spite of his weak arms, +chastised his brother roundly when he thought the discipline had been too +severe; but for my part it seemed to me natural enough that such a godlike +being should lord it over a poor clodhopper like myself. + +Well--I will not linger over the beginning of my new life for my story has +to do with its close. Only I should like to make you understand what the +change meant to me--an ignorant peasant lad, coming from hard words and +blows and a smoke-blackened hut in the hills to that great house full of +rare and beautiful things, and of beings who seemed to me even more rare +and beautiful. Do you wonder I was ready to kiss the ground they trod, and +would have given the last drop of my blood to serve them? + +In due course I was sent to the seminary at Lodi; and on holidays I used +to visit the family in Milan. Count Andrea was growing up to be one of +the handsomest young men imaginable, but a trifle wild; and the old Count +married him in haste to the daughter of a Venetian noble, who brought as +her dower a great estate in Istria. The Countess Gemma, as this lady was +called, was as light as thistledown and had an eye like a baby's; but while +she was cooing for the moon her pretty white hands were always stealing +toward something within reach that she had not been meant to have. The old +Count was not alert enough to follow these manoeuvres; and the Countess hid +her designs under a torrent of guileless chatter, as pick-pockets wear long +sleeves to conceal their movements. Her only fault, he used to say, was +that one of her aunts had married an Austrian; and this event having taken +place before she was born he laughingly acquitted her of any direct share +in it. She confirmed his good opinion of her by giving her husband two +sons; and Roberto showing no inclination to marry, these boys naturally +came to be looked on as the heirs of the house. + +Meanwhile I had finished my course of studies, and the old Count, on my +twenty-first birthday, had appointed me priest of the parish of Siviano. It +was the year of Count Andrea's marriage and there were great festivities at +the villa. Three years later the old Count died, to the sorrow of his two +eldest children. Donna Marianna and Count Roberto closed their apartments +in the palace at Milan and withdrew for a year to Siviano. It was then +that I first began to know my friend. Before that I had loved him without +understanding him; now I learned of what metal he was made. His bookish +tastes inclined him to a secluded way of living; and his younger brother +perhaps fancied that he would not care to assume the charge of the estate. +But if Andrea thought this he was disappointed. Roberto resolutely took up +the tradition of his father's rule, and, as if conscious of lacking the +old Count's easy way with the peasants, made up for it by a redoubled zeal +for their welfare. I have seen him toil for days to adjust some trifling +difficulty that his father would have set right with a ready word; like the +sainted bishop who, when a beggar asked him for a penny, cried out: "Alas, +my brother, I have not a penny in my purse; but here are two gold pieces, +if they can be made to serve you instead!" We had many conferences over +the condition of his people, and he often sent me up the valley to look +into the needs of the peasantry on the fruit-farms. No grievance was too +trifling for him to consider it, no abuse too deep-seated for him to root +it out; and many an hour that other men of his rank would have given to +books or pleasure was devoted to adjusting a quarrel about boundary-lines +or to weighing the merits of a complaint against the tax-collector. I +often said that he was as much his people's priest as I; and he smiled and +answered that every landowner was a king and that in old days the king was +always a priest. + +Donna Marianna was urgent with him to marry, but he always declared that +he had a family in his tenantry, and that, as for a wife, she had never +let him feel the want of one. He had that musing temper which gives a man +a name for coldness; though in fact he may all the while be storing fuel +for a great conflagration. But to me he whispered another reason for not +marrying. A man, he said, does not take wife and rejoice while his mother +is on her death-bed; and Italy, his mother, lay dying, with the foreign +vultures waiting to tear her apart. + +You are too young to know anything of those days, my son; and how can any +one understand them who did not live through them? Italy lay dying indeed; +but Lombardy was her heart, and the heart still beat, and sent the faint +blood creeping to her cold extremities. Her torturers, weary of their +work, had allowed her to fall into a painless stupor; but just as she was +sinking from sleep to death, heaven sent Radetsky to scourge her back to +consciousness; and at the first sting of his lash she sprang maimed and +bleeding to her feet. + +Ah, those days, those days, my son! Italy--Italy--was the word on our +lips; but the thought in our hearts was just _Austria_. We clamored +for liberty, unity, the franchise; but under our breath we prayed only to +smite the white-coats. Remove the beam from our eye, we cried, and we shall +see our salvation clearly enough! We priests in the north were all liberals +and worked with the nobles and the men of letters. Gioberti was our +breviary and his Holiness the new Pope was soon to be the Tancred of our +crusade. But meanwhile, mind you, all this went on in silence, underground +as it were, while on the surface Lombardy still danced, feasted, married, +and took office under the Austrian. In the iron-mines up our valley there +used to be certain miners who stayed below ground for months at a time; +and, like one of these, Roberto remained buried in his purpose, while life +went its way overhead. Though I was not in his confidence I knew well +enough where his thoughts were, for he went among us with the eye of a +lover, the visionary look of one who hears a Voice. We all heard that +Voice, to be sure, mingling faintly with the other noises of life; but to +Roberto it was already as the roar of mighty waters, drowning every other +sound with its thunder. + +On the surface, as I have said, things looked smooth enough. An Austrian +cardinal throned in Milan and an Austrian-hearted Pope ruled in Rome. In +Lombardy, Austria couched like a beast of prey, ready to spring at our +throats if we stirred or struggled. The Moderates, to whose party Count +Roberto belonged, talked of prudence, compromise, the education of the +masses; but if their words were a velvet sheath their thought was a dagger. +For many years, as you know, the Milanese had maintained an outward show of +friendliness with their rulers. The nobles had accepted office under the +vice-roy, and in the past there had been frequent intermarriage between +the two aristocracies. But now, one by one, the great houses had closed +their doors against official society. Though some of the younger and more +careless, those who must dance and dine at any cost, still went to the +palace and sat beside the enemy at the opera, fashion was gradually taking +sides against them, and those who had once been laughed at as old fogeys +were now applauded as patriots. Among these, of course, was Count Roberto, +who for several years had refused to associate with the Austrians, and +had silently resented his easy-going brother's disregard of political +distinctions. Andrea and Gemma belonged to the moth tribe, who flock to +the brightest light; and Gemma's Istrian possessions, and her family's +connection with the Austrian nobility, gave them a pretext for fluttering +about the vice-regal candle. Roberto let them go their way, but his own +course was a tacit protest against their conduct. They were always welcome +at the palazzo Siviano; but he and Donna Marianna withdrew from society in +order to have an excuse for not showing themselves at the Countess Gemma's +entertainments. If Andrea and Gemma were aware of his disapproval they were +clever enough to ignore it; for the rich elder brother who paid their debts +and never meant to marry was too important a person to be quarrelled with +on political grounds. They seemed to think that if he married it would be +only to spite them; and they were persuaded that their future depended on +their giving him no cause to take such reprisals. I shall never be more +than a plain peasant at heart and I have little natural skill in discerning +hidden motives; but the experience of the confessional gives every priest +a certain insight into the secret springs of action, and I often wondered +that the worldly wisdom of Andrea and Gemma did not help them to a clearer +reading of their brother's character. For my part I knew that, in Roberto's +heart, no great passion could spring from a mean motive; and I had always +thought that if he ever loved any woman as he loved Italy, it must be from +his country's hand that he received his bride. And so it came about. + +Have you ever noticed, on one of those still autumn days before a storm, +how here and there a yellow leaf will suddenly detach itself from the bough +and whirl through the air as though some warning of the gale had reached +it? So it was then in Lombardy. All round was the silence of decay; but now +and then a word, a look, a trivial incident, fluttered ominously through +the stillness. It was in '45. Only a year earlier the glorious death of the +Bandiera brothers had sent a long shudder through Italy. In the Romagna, +Renzi and his comrades had tried to uphold by action the protest set forth +in the "Manifesto of Rimini"; and their failure had sowed the seed which +d'Azeglio and Cavour were to harvest. Everywhere the forces were silently +gathering; and nowhere was the hush more profound, the least reverberation +more audible, than in the streets of Milan. + +It was Count Roberto's habit to attend early mass in the Cathedral; and one +morning, as he was standing in the aisle, a young girl passed him with her +father. Roberto knew the father, a beggarly Milanese of the noble family of +Intelvi, who had cut himself off from his class by accepting an appointment +in one of the government offices. As the two went by he saw a group of +Austrian officers looking after the girl, and heard one of them say: "Such +a choice morsel as that is too good for slaves;" and another answer with a +laugh: "Yes, it's a dish for the master's table!" + +The girl heard too. She was as white as a wind-flower and he saw the words +come out on her cheek like the red mark from a blow. She whispered to +her father, but he shook his head and drew her away without so much as +a glance at the Austrians. Roberto heard mass and then hastened out and +placed himself in the porch of the Cathedral. A moment later the officers +appeared, and they too stationed themselves near the doorway. Presently the +girl came out on her father's arm. Her admirers stepped forward to greet +Intelvi; and the cringing wretch stood there exchanging compliments with +them, while their insolent stare devoured his daughter's beauty. She, +poor thing, shook like a leaf, and her eyes, in avoiding theirs, suddenly +encountered Roberto's. Her look was a wounded bird that flew to him for +shelter. He carried it away in his breast and its live warmth beat against +his heart. He thought that Italy had looked at him through those eyes; for +love is the wiliest of masqueraders and has a thousand disguises at his +command. + +Within a month Faustina Intelvi was his wife. Donna Marianna and I +rejoiced; for we knew he had chosen her because he loved her, and she +seemed to us almost worthy of such a choice. As for Count Andrea and his +wife, I leave you to guess what ingredients were mingled in the kiss with +which they welcomed the bride. They were all smiles at Roberto's marriage, +and had only words of praise for his wife. Donna Marianna, who had +sometimes taxed me with suspecting their motives, rejoiced in this fresh +proof of their magnanimity; but for my part I could have wished to see them +a little less kind. All such twilight fears, however, vanished in the flush +of my friend's happiness. Over some natures love steals gradually, as the +morning light widens across a valley; but it had flashed on Roberto like +the leap of dawn to a snow-peak. He walked the world with the wondering +step of a blind man suddenly restored to sight; and once he said to me with +a laugh: "Love makes a Columbus of every one of us!" + +And the Countess--? The Countess, my son, was eighteen, and her husband was +forty. Count Roberto had the heart of a poet, but he walked with a limp and +his skin was sallow. Youth plucks the fruit for its color rather than its +flavor; and first love does not serenade its mistress on a church-organ. In +Italy girls are married as land is sold; if two estates adjoin two lives +are united. As for the portionless girl, she is a knick-knack that goes to +the highest bidder. Faustina was handed over to her purchaser as if she +had been a picture for his gallery; and the transaction doubtless seemed +as natural to her as to her parents. She walked to the altar like an +Iphigenia; but pallor becomes a bride, and it looks well for a daughter to +weep on leaving her mother. Perhaps it would have been different if she had +guessed that the threshold of her new home was carpeted with love and its +four corners hung with tender thoughts of her; but her husband was a silent +man, who never called attention to his treasures. + +The great palace in Milan was a gloomy house for a girl to enter. Roberto +and his sister lived in it as if it had been a monastery, going nowhere and +receiving only those who labored for the Cause. To Faustina, accustomed to +the easy Austrian society, the Sunday evening receptions at the palazzo +Siviano must have seemed as dreary as a scientific congress. It pleased +Roberto to regard her as a victim of barbarian insolence, an embodiment of +his country desecrated by the desire of the enemy; but though, like any +handsome penniless girl, Faustina had now and then been exposed to a free +look or a familiar word, I doubt if she connected such incidents with the +political condition of Italy. She knew, of course, that in marrying Siviano +she was entering a house closed against the Austrian. One of Siviano's +first cares had been to pension his father-in-law, with the stipulation +that Intelvi should resign his appointment and give up all relations with +the government; and the old hypocrite, only too glad to purchase idleness +on such terms, embraced the liberal cause with a zeal which left his +daughter no excuse for half-heartedness. But he found it less easy than he +had expected to recover a footing among his own people. In spite of his +patriotic bluster the Milanese held aloof from him; and being the kind of +man who must always take his glass in company he gradually drifted back +to his old associates. It was impossible to forbid Faustina to visit her +parents; and in their house she breathed an air that was at least tolerant +of Austria. + +But I must not let you think that the young Countess appeared ungrateful or +unhappy. She was silent and shy, and it needed a more enterprising temper +than Roberto's to break down the barrier between them. They seemed to talk +to one another through a convent-grating, rather than across a hearth; but +if Roberto had asked more of her than she could give, outwardly she was +a model wife. She chose me at once as her confessor and I watched over +the first steps of her new life. Never was younger sister tenderer to her +elder than she to Donna Marianna; never was young wife more mindful of her +religious duties, kinder to her dependents, more charitable to the poor; +yet to be with her was like living in a room with shuttered windows. She +was always the caged bird, the transplanted flower: for all Roberto's care +she never bloomed or sang. + +Donna Marianna was the first to speak of it. "The child needs more light +and air," she said. + +"Light? Air?" Roberto repeated. "Does she not go to mass every morning? +Does she not drive on the Corso every evening?" + +Donna Marianna was not called clever, but her heart was wiser than most +women's heads. + +"At our age, brother," said she, "the windows of the mind face north and +look out on a landscape full of lengthening shadows. Faustina needs another +outlook. She is as pale as a hyacinth grown in a cellar." + +Roberto himself turned pale and I saw that she had uttered his own thought. + +"You want me to let her go to Gemma's!" he exclaimed. + +"Let her go wherever there is a little careless laughter." + +"Laughter--now!" he cried, with a gesture toward the sombre line of +portraits above his head. + +"Let her laugh while she can, my brother." + +That evening after dinner he called Faustina to him. + +"My child," he said, "go and put on your jewels. Your sister Gemma gives a +ball to-night and the carriage waits to take you there. I am too much of a +recluse to be at ease in such scenes, but I have sent word to your father +to go with you." + +Andrea and Gemma welcomed their young sister-in-law with effusion, and from +that time she was often in their company. Gemma forbade any mention of +politics in her drawing-room, and it was natural that Faustina should be +glad to escape from the solemn conclaves of the palazzo Siviano to a house +where life went as gaily as in that villa above Florence where Boccaccio's +careless story-tellers took refuge from the plague. But meanwhile the +political distemper was rapidly spreading, and in spite of Gemma's Austrian +affiliations it was no longer possible for her to receive the enemy openly. +It was whispered that her door was still ajar to her old friends; but +the rumor may have risen from the fact that one of the Austrian cavalry +officers stationed at Milan was her own cousin, the son of the aunt on +whose misalliance the old Count had so often bantered her. No one could +blame the Countess Gemma for not turning her own flesh and blood out of +doors; and the social famine to which the officers of the garrison were +reduced made it natural that young Welkenstern should press the claims of +consanguinity. + +All this must have reached Roberto's ears; but he made no sign and his wife +came and went as she pleased. When they returned the following year to the +old dusky villa at Siviano she was like the voice of a brook in a twilight +wood: one could not look at her without ransacking the spring for new +similes to paint her freshness. With Roberto it was different. I found him +older, more preoccupied and silent; but I guessed that his preoccupations +were political, for when his eye rested on his wife it cleared like the +lake when a cloud-shadow lifts from it. + +Count Andrea and his wife occupied an adjoining villa; and during the +_villeggiatura_ the two households lived almost as one family. +Roberto, however, was often absent in Milan, called thither on business of +which the nature was not hard to guess. Sometimes he brought back guests to +the villa; and on these occasions Faustina and Donna Marianna went to Count +Andrea's for the day. I have said that I was not in his confidence; but +he knew my sympathies were with the liberals and now and then he let fall +a word of the work going on underground. Meanwhile the new Pope had been +elected, and from Piedmont to Calabria we hailed in him the Banner that was +to lead our hosts to war. + +So time passed and we reached the last months of '47. The villa on Iseo had +been closed since the end of August. Roberto had no great liking for his +gloomy palace in Milan, and it had been his habit to spend nine months +of the year at Siviano; but he was now too much engrossed in his work to +remain away from Milan, and his wife and sister had joined him there as +soon as the midsummer heat was over. During the autumn he had called me +once or twice to the city to consult me on business connected with his +fruit-farms; and in the course of our talks he had sometimes let fall a +hint of graver matters. It was in July of that year that a troop of Croats +had marched into Ferrara, with muskets and cannon loaded. The lighted +matches of their cannon had fired the sleeping hate of Austria, and the +whole country now echoed the Lombard cry: "Out with the barbarian!" All +talk of adjustment, compromise, reorganization, shrivelled on lips that +the live coal of patriotism had touched. Italy for the Italians, and +then--monarchy, federation, republic, it mattered not what! + +The oppressor's grip had tightened on our throats and the clear-sighted +saw well enough that Metternich's policy was to provoke a rebellion and +then crush it under the Croat heel. But it was too late to cry prudence in +Lombardy. With the first days of the new year the tobacco riots had drawn +blood in Milan. Soon afterward the Lions' Club was closed, and edicts were +issued forbidding the singing of Pio Nono's hymn, the wearing of white and +blue, the collecting of subscriptions for the victims of the riots. To each +prohibition Milan returned a fresh defiance. The ladies of the nobility put +on mourning for the rioters who had been shot down by the soldiery. Half +the members of the Guardia Nobile resigned and Count Borromeo sent back +his Golden Fleece to the Emperor. Fresh regiments were continually pouring +into Milan and it was no secret that Radetsky was strengthening the +fortifications. Late in January several leading liberals were arrested and +sent into exile, and two weeks later martial law was proclaimed in Milan. +At the first arrests several members of the liberal party had hastily left +Milan, and I was not surprised to hear, a few days later, that orders had +been given to reopen the villa at Siviano. The Count and Countess arrived +there early in February. + +It was seven months since I had seen the Countess, and I was struck with +the change in her appearance. + +She was paler than ever, and her step had lost its lightness. Yet she +did not seem to share her husband's political anxieties; one would have +said that she was hardly aware of them. She seemed wrapped in a veil of +lassitude, like Iseo on a still gray morning, when dawn is blood-red on the +mountains but a mist blurs its reflection in the lake. I felt as though her +soul were slipping away from me, and longed to win her back to my care; but +she made her ill-health a pretext for not coming to confession, and for the +present I could only wait and carry the thought of her to the altar. She +had not been long at Siviano before I discovered that this drooping mood +was only one phase of her humor. Now and then she flung back the cowl of +melancholy and laughed life in the eye; but next moment she was in shadow +again, and her muffled thoughts had given us the slip. She was like the +lake on one of those days when the wind blows twenty ways and every +promontory holds a gust in ambush. + +Meanwhile there was a continual coming and going of messengers between +Siviano and the city. They came mostly at night, when the household slept, +and were away again with the last shadows; but the news they brought stayed +and widened, shining through every cranny of the old house. The whole of +Lombardy was up. From Pavia to Mantua, from Como to Brescia, the streets +ran blood like the arteries of one great body. At Pavia and Padua the +universities were closed. The frightened vice-roy was preparing to withdraw +from Milan to Verona, and Radetsky continued to pour his men across the +Alps, till a hundred thousand were massed between the Piave and the Ticino. +And now every eye was turned to Turin. Ah, how we watched for the blue +banner of Piedmont on the mountains! Charles Albert was pledged to our +cause; his whole people had armed to rescue us, the streets echoed with +_avanti, Savoia!_ and yet Savoy was silent and hung back. Each day was +a life-time strained to the cracking-point with hopes and disappointments. +We reckoned the hours by rumors, the very minutes by hearsay. Then +suddenly--ah, it was worth living through!--word came to us that Vienna +was in revolt. The points of the compass had shifted and our sun had risen +in the north. I shall never forget that day at the villa. Roberto sent for +me early, and I found him smiling and resolute, as becomes a soldier on +the eve of action. He had made all his preparations to leave for Milan and +was awaiting a summons from his party. The whole household felt that great +events impended, and Donna Marianna, awed and tearful, had pleaded with +her brother that they should all receive the sacrament together the next +morning. Roberto and his sister had been to confession the previous day, +but the Countess Faustina had again excused herself. I did not see her +while I was with the Count, but as I left the house she met me in the +laurel-walk. The morning was damp and cold, and she had drawn a black scarf +over her hair, and walked with a listless dragging step; but at my approach +she lifted her head quickly and signed to me to follow her into one of the +recesses of clipped laurel that bordered the path. + +"Don Egidio," she said, "you have heard the news?" + +I assented. + +"The Count goes to Milan to-morrow?" + +"It seems probable, your excellency." + +"There will be fighting--we are on the eve of war, I mean?" + +"We are in God's hands, your excellency." + +"In God's hands!" she murmured. Her eyes wandered and for a moment we stood +silent; then she drew a purse from her pocket. "I was forgetting," she +exclaimed. "This is for that poor girl you spoke to me about the other +day--what was her name? The girl who met the Austrian soldier at the fair +at Peschiera--" + +"Ah, Vannina," I said; "but she is dead, your excellency." + +"Dead!" She turned white and the purse dropped from her hand. I picked it +up and held it out to her, but she put back my hand. "That is for masses, +then," she said; and with that she moved away toward the house. + +I walked on to the gate; but before I had reached it I heard her step +behind me. + +"Don Egidio!" she called; and I turned back. + +"You are coming to say mass in the chapel to-morrow morning?" + +"That is the Count's wish." + +She wavered a moment. "I am not well enough to walk up to the village this +afternoon," she said at length. "Will you come back later and hear my +confession here?" + +"Willingly, your excellency." + +"Come at sunset then." She looked at me gravely. "It is a long time since I +have been to confession," she added. + +"My child, the door of heaven is always unlatched." + +She made no answer and I went my way. + +I returned to the villa a little before sunset, hoping for a few words +with Roberto. I felt with Faustina that we were on the eve of war, and the +uncertainty of the outlook made me treasure every moment of my friend's +company. I knew he had been busy all day, but hoped to find that his +preparations were ended and that he could spare me a half hour. I was not +disappointed; for the servant who met me asked me to follow him to the +Count's apartment. Roberto was sitting alone, with his back to the door, at +a table spread with maps and papers. He stood up and turned an ashen face +on me. + +"Roberto!" I cried, as if we had been boys together. + +He signed to me to be seated. + +"Egidio," he said suddenly, "my wife has sent for you to confess her?" + +"The Countess met me on my way home this morning and expressed a wish to +receive the sacrament to-morrow morning with you and Donna Marianna, and I +promised to return this afternoon to hear her confession." + +Roberto sat silent, staring before him as though he hardly heard. At length +he raised his head and began to speak. + +"You have noticed lately that my wife has been ailing?" he asked. + +"Every one must have seen that the Countess is not in her usual health. She +has seemed nervous, out of spirits--I have fancied that she might be +anxious about your excellency." + +He leaned across the table and laid his wasted hand on mine. "Call me +Roberto," he said. + +There was another pause before he went on. "Since I saw you this morning," +he said slowly, "something horrible has happened. After you left I sent for +Andrea and Gemma to tell them the news from Vienna and the probability of +my being summoned to Milan before night. You know as well as I that we have +reached a crisis. There will be fighting within twenty-four hours, if I +know my people; and war may follow sooner than we think. I felt it my duty +to leave my affairs in Andrea's hands, and to entrust my wife to his care. +Don't look startled," he added with a faint smile. "No reasonable man goes +on a journey without setting his house in order; and if things take the +turn I expect it may be some months before you see me back at Siviano.--But +it was not to hear this that I sent for you." He pushed his chair aside and +walked up and down the room with his short limping step. "My God!" he broke +out wildly, "how can I say it?--When Andrea had heard me, I saw him +exchange a glance with his wife, and she said with that infernal sweet +voice of hers, 'Yes, Andrea, it is our duty.' + +"'Your duty?' I asked. 'What is your duty?' + +"Andrea wetted his lips with his tongue and looked at her again; and her +look was like a blade in his hand. + +"'Your wife has a lover,' he said. + +"She caught my arm as I flung myself on him. He is ten times stronger than +I, but you remember how I made him howl for mercy in the old days when he +used to bully you. + +"'Let me go,' I said to his wife. 'He must live to unsay it.' + +"Andrea began to whimper. 'Oh, my poor brother, I would give my heart's +blood to unsay it!' + +"'The secret has been killing us,' she chimed in. + +"'The secret? Whose secret? How dare you--?' + +"Gemma fell on her knees like a tragedy actress. 'Strike me--kill me--it is +I who am the offender! It was at my house that she met him--' + +"'Him?' + +"'Franz Welkenstern--my cousin,' she wailed. + +"I suppose I stood before them like a stunned ox, for they repeated the +name again and again, as if they were not sure of my having heard it.--Not +hear it!" he cried suddenly, dropping into a chair and hiding his face in +his hands. "Shall I ever on earth hear anything else again?" + +He sat a long time with his face hidden and I waited. My head was like a +great bronze bell with one thought for the clapper. + +After a while he went on in a low deliberate voice, as though his words +were balancing themselves on the brink of madness. With strange composure +he repeated each detail of his brother's charges: the meetings in the +Countess Gemma's drawing-room, the innocent friendliness of the two +young people, the talk of mysterious visits to a villa outside the Porta +Ticinese, the ever-widening circle of scandal that had spread about their +names. At first, Andrea said, he and his wife had refused to listen to the +reports which reached them. Then, when the talk became too loud, they had +sent for Welkenstern, remonstrated with him, implored him to exchange into +another regiment; but in vain. The young officer indignantly denied the +reports and declared that to leave his post at such a moment would be +desertion. + +With a laborious accuracy Roberto went on, detailing one by one each +incident of the hateful story, till suddenly he cried out, springing from +his chair--"And now to leave her with this lie unburied!" + +His cry was like the lifting of a grave-stone from my breast. "You must not +leave her!" I exclaimed. + +He shook his head. "I am pledged." + +"This is your first duty." + +"It would be any other man's; not an Italian's." + +I was silent: in those days the argument seemed unanswerable. + +At length I said: "No harm can come to her while you are away. Donna +Marianna and I are here to watch over her. And when you come back--" + +He looked at me gravely. "_If_ I come back--" + +"Roberto!" + +"We are men, Egidio; we both know what is coming. Milan is up already; and +there is a rumor that Charles Albert is moving. This year the spring rains +will be red in Italy." + +"In your absence not a breath shall touch her!" + +"And if I never come back to defend her? They hate her as hell hates, +Egidio!--They kept repeating, 'He is of her own age and youth draws +youth--.' She is in their way, Egidio!" + +"Consider, my son. They do not love her, perhaps; but why should they hate +her at such cost? She has given you no child." + +"No child!" He paused. "But what if--? She has ailed lately!" he cried, and +broke off to grapple with the stabbing thought. + +"Roberto! Roberto!" I adjured him. + +He jumped up and gripped my arm. + +"Egidio! You believe in her?" + +"She's as pure as a lily on the altar!" + +"Those eyes are wells of truth--and she has been like a daughter to +Marianna.--Egidio! do I look like an old man?" + +"Quiet yourself, Roberto," I entreated. + +"Quiet myself? With this sting in my blood? A lover--and an Austrian lover! +Oh, Italy, Italy, my bride!" + +"I stake my life on her truth," I cried, "and who knows better than I? Has +her soul not lain before me like the bed of a clear stream?" + +"And if what you saw there was only the reflection of your faith in her?" + +"My son, I am a priest, and the priest penetrates to the soul as the angel +passed through the walls of Peter's prison. I see the truth in her heart as +I see Christ in the host!" + +"No, no, she is false!" he cried. + +I sprang up terrified. "Roberto, be silent!" + +He looked at me with a wild incredulous smile. "Poor simple man of God!" he +said. + +"I would not exchange my simplicity for yours--the dupe of envy's first +malicious whisper!" + +"Envy--you think that?" + +"Is it questionable?" + +"You would stake your life on it?" + +"My life!" + +"Your faith?" + +"My faith!" + +"Your vows as a priest?" + +"My vows--" I stopped and stared at him. He had risen and laid his hand on +my shoulder. + +"You see now what I would be at," he said quietly. "I must take your place +presently--" + +"My place--?" + +"When my wife comes down. You understand me." + +"Ah, now you are quite mad!" I cried breaking away from him. + +"Am I?" he returned, maintaining his strange composure. "Consider a moment. +She has not confessed to you before since our return from Milan--" + +"Her ill-health--" + +He cut me short with a gesture. "Yet to-day she sends for you--" + +"In order that she may receive the sacrament with you on the eve of your +first separation." + +"If that is her only reason her first words will clear her. I must hear +those words, Egidio!" + +"You are quite mad," I repeated. + +"Strange," he said slowly. "You stake your life on my wife's innocence, yet +you refuse me the only means of vindicating it!" + +"I would give my life for any one of you--but what you ask is not mine to +give." + +"The priest first--the man afterward?" he sneered. + +"Long afterward!" + +He measured me with a contemptuous eye. "We laymen are ready to give the +last shred of flesh from our bones, but you priests intend to keep your +cassocks whole." + +"I tell you my cassock is not mine," I repeated. + +"And, by God," he cried, "you are right; for it's mine! Who put it on your +back but my father? What kept it there but my charity? Peasant! beggar! +Hear his holiness pontificate!" "Yes," I said, "I was a peasant and a +beggar when your father found me; and if he had left me one I might have +been excused for putting my hand to any ugly job that my betters required +of me; but he made me a priest, and so set me above all of you, and laid on +me the charge of your souls as well as mine." + +He sat down shaken with dreadful tears. "Ah," he broke out, "would you have +answered me thus when we were boys together, and I stood between you and +Andrea?" + +"If God had given me the strength." + +"You call it strength to make a woman's soul your stepping-stone to +heaven?" + +"Her soul is in my care, not yours, my son. She is safe with me." + +"She? But I? I go out to meet death, and leave a worse death behind me!" +He leaned over and clutched my arm. "It is not for myself I plead but for +her--for her, Egidio! Don't you see to what a hell you condemn her if I +don't come back? What chance has she against that slow unsleeping hate? +Their lies will fasten themselves to her and suck out her life. You and +Marianna are powerless against such enemies." + +"You leave her in God's hands, my son." + +"Easily said--but, ah, priest, if you were a man! What if their poison +works in me and I go to battle thinking that every Austrian bullet may be +sent by her lover's hand? What if I die not only to free Italy but to free +my wife as well?" + +I laid my hand on his shoulder. "My son, I answer for her. Leave your faith +in her in my hands and I will keep it whole." + +He stared at me strangely. "And what if your own fail you?" + +"In her? Never. I call every saint to witness!" + +"And yet--and yet--ah, this is a blind," he shouted; "you know all and +perjure yourself to spare me!" + +At that, my son, I felt a knife in my breast. I looked at him in anguish +and his gaze was a wall of metal. Mine seemed to slip away from it, like a +clawless thing struggling up the sheer side of a precipice. + +"You know all," he repeated, "and you dare not let me hear her!" + +"I dare not betray my trust." + +He waved the answer aside. + +"Is this a time to quibble over church discipline? If you believed in her +you would save her at any cost!" + +I said to myself, "Eternity can hold nothing worse than this for me--" and +clutched my resolve again like a cross to my bosom. + +Just then there was a hand on the door and we heard Donna Marianna. + +"Faustina has sent to know if the _signar parocco_ is here." + +"He is here. Bid her come down to the chapel." Roberto spoke quietly, and +closed the door on her so that she should not see his face. We heard her +patter away across the brick floor of the _salone_. + +Roberto turned to me. "Egidio!" he said; and all at once I was no more than +a straw on the torrent of his will. + +The chapel adjoined the room in which we sat. He opened the door, and in +the twilight I saw the light glimmering before the Virgin's shrine and the +old carved confessional standing like a cowled watcher in its corner. But +I saw it all in a dream; for nothing in heaven or earth was real to me but +the iron grip on my shoulder. + +"Quick!" he said and drove me forward. I heard him shoot back the bolt of +the outer door and a moment later I stood alone in the garden. The sun had +set and the cold spring dusk was falling. Lights shone here and there in +the long front of the villa; the statues glimmered gray among the thickets. +Through the window-pane of the chapel I caught the faint red gleam of the +Virgin's lamp; but I turned my back on it and walked away. + + * * * * * + +All night I lay like a heretic on the fire. Before dawn there came a call +from the villa. The Count had received a second summons from Milan and was +to set out in an hour. I hurried down the cold dewy path to the lake. All +was new and hushed and strange as on the day of resurrection; and in the +dark twilight of the garden alleys the statues stared at me like the +shrouded dead. + +In the _salone_, where the old Count's portrait hung, I found the +family assembled. Andrea and Gemma sat together, a little pinched, I +thought, but decent and self-contained, like mourners who expect to +inherit. Donna Marianna drooped near them, with something black over her +head and her face dim with weeping. Roberto received me calmly and then +turned to his sister. + +"Go fetch my wife," he said. + +While she was gone there was silence. We could hear the cold drip of the +garden-fountain and the patter of rats in the wall. Andrea and his wife +stared out of window and Roberto sat in his father's carved seat at the +head of the long table. Then the door opened and Faustina entered. + +When I saw her I stopped breathing. She seemed no more than the shell of +herself, a hollow thing that grief has voided. Her eyes returned our images +like polished agate, but conveyed to her no sense of our presence. Marianna +led her to a seat, and she crossed her hands and nailed her dull gaze on +Roberto. I looked from one to another, and in that spectral light it seemed +to me that we were all souls come to judgment and naked to each other as to +God. As to my own wrongdoing, it weighed on me no more than dust. The only +feeling I had room for was fear--a fear that seemed to fill my throat and +lungs and bubble coldly over my drowning head. + +Suddenly Roberto began to speak. His voice was clear and steady, and I +clutched at his words to drag myself above the surface of my terror. He +touched on the charge that had been made against his wife--he did not say +by whom--the foul rumor that had made itself heard on the eve of their +first parting. Duty, he said, had sent him a double summons; to fight for +his country and for his wife. He must clear his wife's name before he was +worthy to draw sword for Italy. There was no time to tame the slander +before throttling it; he had to take the shortest way to its throat. At +this point he looked at me and my soul shook. Then he turned to Andrea and +Gemma. + +"When you came to me with this rumor," he said quietly, "you agreed to +consider the family honor satisfied if I could induce Don Egidio to let me +take his place and overhear my wife's confession, and if that confession +convinced me of her innocence. Was this the understanding?" + +Andrea muttered something and Gemma tapped a sullen foot. + +"After you had left," Roberto continued, "I laid the case before Don Egidio +and threw myself on his mercy." He looked at me fixedly. "So strong was his +faith in my wife's innocence that for her sake he agreed to violate the +sanctity of the confessional. I took his place." + +Marianna sobbed and crossed herself and a strange look flitted over +Faustina's face. + +There was a moment's pause; then Roberto, rising, walked across the room to +his wife and took her by the hand. + +"Your seat is beside me, Countess Siviano," he said, and led her to the +empty chair by his own. + +Gemma started to her feet, but her husband pulled her down again. + +"Jesus! Mary!" We heard Donna Marianna moan. + +Roberto raised his wife's hand to his lips. "You forgive me," he said, "the +means I took to defend you?" And turning to Andrea he added slowly: "I +declare my wife innocent and my honor satisfied. You swear to stand by my +decision?" + +What Andrea stammered out, what hissing serpents of speech Gemma's clinched +teeth bit back, I never knew--for my eyes were on Faustina, and her face +was a wonder to behold. + +She had let herself be led across the room like a blind woman, and had +listened without change of feature to her husband's first words; but as +he ceased her frozen gaze broke and her whole body seemed to melt against +his breast. He put his arm out, but she slipped to his feet and Marianna +hastened forward to raise her up. At that moment we heard the stroke +of oars across the quiet water and saw the Count's boat touch the +landing-steps. Four strong oarsmen from Monte Isola were to row him down +to Iseo, to take horse for Milan, and his servant, knapsack on shoulder, +knocked warningly at the terrace window. + +"No time to lose, excellency!" he cried. + +Roberto turned and gripped my hand. "Pray for me," he said low; and with a +brief gesture to the others ran down the terrace to the boat. + +Marianna was bathing Faustina with happy tears. + +"Look up, dear! Think how soon he will come back! And there is the +sunrise--see!" + +Andrea and Gemma had slunk away like ghosts at cock-crow, and a red dawn +stood over Milan. + + * * * * * + +If that sun rose red it set scarlet. It was the first of the Five Days in +Milan--the Five Glorious Days, as they are called. Roberto reached the city +just before the gates closed. So much we knew--little more. We heard of him +in the Broletto (whence he must have escaped when the Austrians blew in +the door) and in the Casa Vidiserti, with Casati, Cattaneo and the rest; +but after the barricading began we could trace him only as having been +seen here and there in the thick of the fighting, or tending the wounded +under Bertani's orders. His place, one would have said, was in the +council-chamber, with the soberer heads; but that was an hour when every +man gave his blood where it was most needed, and Cernuschi, Dandolo, +Anfossi, della Porta fought shoulder to shoulder with students, artisans +and peasants. Certain it is that he was seen on the fifth day; for among +the volunteers who swarmed after Manara in his assault on the Porta Tosa +was a servant of palazzo Siviano; and this fellow swore he had seen his +master charge with Manara in the last assault--had watched him, sword +in hand, press close to the gates, and then, as they swung open before +the victorious dash of our men, had seen him drop and disappear in the +inrushing tide of peasants that almost swept the little company off its +feet. After that we heard nothing. There was savage work in Milan in those +days, and more than one well-known figure lay lost among the heaps of dead +hacked and disfeatured by Croat blades. + +At the villa, we waited breathless. News came to us hour by hour: the very +wind seemed to carry it, and it was swept to us on the incessant rush of +the rain. On the twenty-third Radetsky had fled from Milan, to face Venice +rising in his path. On the twenty-fourth the first Piedmontese had crossed +the Ticino, and Charles Albert himself was in Pavia on the twenty-ninth. +The bells of Milan had carried the word from Turin to Naples, from Genoa to +Ancona, and the whole country was pouring like a flood-tide into Lombardy. +Heroes sprang up from the bloody soil as thick as wheat after rain, and +every day carried some new name to us; but never the one for which we +prayed and waited. Weeks passed. We heard of Pastrengo, Goito, Rivoli; of +Radetsky hemmed into the Quadrilateral, and our troops closing in on him +from Rome, Tuscany and Venetia. Months passed--and we heard of Custozza. We +saw Charles Albert's broken forces flung back from the Mincio to the Oglio, +from the Oglio to the Adda. We followed the dreadful retreat from Milan, +and saw our rescuers dispersed like dust before the wind. But all the while +no word came to us of Roberto. + +These were dark days in Lombardy; and nowhere darker than in the old villa +on Iseo. In September Donna Marianna and the young Countess put on black, +and Count Andrea and his wife followed their example. In October the +Countess gave birth to a daughter. Count Andrea then took possession of the +palazzo Siviano, and the two women remained at the villa. I have no heart +to tell you of the days that followed. Donna Marianna wept and prayed +incessantly, and it was long before the baby could snatch a smile from her. +As for the Countess Faustina, she went among us like one of the statues in +the garden. The child had a wet-nurse from the village, and it was small +wonder there was no milk for it in that marble breast. I spent much of +my time at the villa, comforting Donna Marianna as best I could; but +sometimes, in the long winter evenings, when we three sat in the dimly-lit +_salone_, with the old Count's portrait overhead, and I looked up and +saw the Countess Faustina in the tall carved seat beside her husband's +empty chair, my spine grew chill and I felt a cold wind in my hair. + +The end of it was that in the spring I went to see my bishop and laid my +sin before him. He was a saintly and merciful old man, and gave me a +patient hearing. + +"You believed the lady innocent?" he asked when I had ended. + +"Monsignore, on my soul!" + +"You thought to avert a great calamity from the house to which you owed +more than your life?" + +"It was my only thought." + +He laid his hand on my shoulder. + +"Go home, my son. You shall learn my decision." + +Three months later I was ordered to resign my living and go to America, +where a priest was needed for the Italian mission church in New York. I +packed my possessions and set sail from Genoa. I knew no more of America +than any peasant up in the hills. I fully expected to be speared by naked +savages on landing; and for the first few months after my arrival I wished +at least once a day that such a blessed fate had befallen me. But it is +no part of my story to tell you what I suffered in those early days. The +Church had dealt with me mercifully, as is her wont, and her punishment +fell far below my deserts.... + +I had been some four years in New York, and no longer thought of looking +back from the plough, when one day word was brought me that an Italian +professor lay ill and had asked for a priest. There were many Italian +refugees in New York at that time, and the greater number, being +well-educated men, earned a living by teaching their language, which was +then included among the accomplishments of fashionable New York. The +messenger led me to a poor boarding-house and up to a small bare room on +the top floor. On the visiting-card nailed to the door I read the name "De +Roberti, Professor of Italian." Inside, a gray-haired haggard man tossed on +the narrow bed. He turned a glazed eye on me as I entered, and I recognized +Roberto Siviano. + +I steadied myself against the door-post and stood staring at him without a +word. + +"What's the matter?" asked the doctor who was bending over the bed. I +stammered that the sick man was an old friend. + +"He wouldn't know his oldest friend just now," said the doctor. "The +fever's on him; but it will go down toward sunset." + +I sat down at the head of the bed and took Roberto's hand in mine. + +"Is he going to die?" I asked. + +"I don't believe so; but he wants nursing." + +"I will nurse him." + +The doctor nodded and went out. I sat in the little room, with Roberto's +burning hand in mine. Gradually his skin cooled, the fingers grew quiet, +and the flush faded from his sallow cheek-bones. Toward dusk he looked up +at me and smiled. + +"Egidio," he said quietly. + +I administered the sacrament, which he received with the most fervent +devotion; then he fell into a deep sleep. + +During the weeks that followed I had no time to ask myself the meaning of +it all. My one business was to keep him alive if I could. I fought the +fever day and night, and at length it yielded. For the most part he raved +or lay unconscious; but now and then he knew me for a moment, and whispered +"Egidio" with a look of peace. + +I had stolen many hours from my duties to nurse him; and as soon as the +danger was past I had to go back to my parish work. Then it was that I +began to ask myself what had brought him to America; but I dared not face +the answer. + +On the fourth day I snatched a moment from my work and climbed to his +room. I found him sitting propped against his pillows, weak as a child but +clear-eyed and quiet. I ran forward, but his look stopped me. + +"_Signor parocco_," he said, "the doctor tells me that I owe my life +to your nursing, and I have to thank you for the kindness you have shown to +a friendless stranger." + +"A stranger?" I gasped. + +He looked at me steadily. "I am not aware that we have met before," he +said. + +For a moment I thought the fever was on him; but a second glance convinced +me that he was master of himself. + +"Roberto!" I cried, trembling. + +"You have the advantage of me," he said civilly. "But my name is Roberti, +not Roberto." + +The floor swam under me and I had to lean against the wall. + +"You are not Count Roberto Siviano of Milan?" + +"I am Tommaso de Roberti, professor of Italian, from Modena." + +"And you have never seen me before?" + +"Never that I know of." + +"Were you never at Siviano, on the lake of Iseo?" I faltered. + +He said calmly: "I am unacquainted with that part of Italy." + +My heart grew cold and I was silent. + +"You mistook me for a friend, I suppose?" he added. + +"Yes," I cried, "I mistook you for a friend;" and with that I fell on my +knees by his bed and cried like a child. + +Suddenly I felt a touch on my shoulder. "Egidio," said he in a broken +voice, "look up." + +I raised my eyes, and there was his old smile above me, and we clung to +each other without a word. Presently, however, he drew back, and put me +quietly aside. + +"Sit over there, Egidio. My bones are like water and I am not good for much +talking yet." + +"Let us wait, Roberto. Sleep now--we can talk tomorrow." + +"No. What I have to say must be said at once." He examined me thoughtfully. +"You have a parish here in New York?" + +I assented. + +"And my work keeps me here. I have pupils. It is too late to make a +change." + +"A change?" + +He continued to look at me calmly. "It would be difficult for me," he +explained, "to find employment in a new place." + +"But why should you leave here?" + +"I shall have to," he returned deliberately, "if you persist in recognizing +in me your former friend Count Siviano." + +"Roberto!" + +He lifted his hand. "Egidio," he said, "I am alone here, and without +friends. The companionship, the sympathy of my parish priest would be a +consolation in this strange city; but it must not be the companionship of +the _parocco_ of Siviano. You understand?" + +"Roberto," I cried, "it is too dreadful to understand!" + +"Be a man, Egidio," said he with a touch of impatience. "The choice lies +with you, and you must make it now. If you are willing to ask no questions, +to name no names, to make no allusions to the past, let us live as friends +together, in God's name! If not, as soon as my legs can carry me I must be +off again. The world is wide, luckily--but why should we be parted?" + +I was on my knees at his side in an instant. "We must never be parted!" I +cried. "Do as you will with me. Give me your orders and I obey--have I not +always obeyed you?" + +I felt his hand close sharply on mine. "Egidio!" he admonished me. + +"No--no--I shall remember. I shall say nothing--" + +"Think nothing?" + +"Think nothing," I said with a last effort. + +"God bless you!" he answered. + +My son, for eight years I kept my word to him. We met daily almost, we ate +and walked and talked together, we lived like David and Jonathan--but +without so much as a glance at the past. How he had escaped from Milan--how +he had reached New York--I never knew. We talked often of Italy's +liberation--as what Italians would not?--but never touched on his share in +the work. Once only a word slipped from him; and that was when one day he +asked me how it was that I had been sent to America. The blood rushed to my +face, and before I could answer he had raised a silencing hand. + +"I see," he said; "it was _your_ penance too." + +During the first years he had plenty of work to do, but he lived so +frugally that I guessed he had some secret use for his earnings. It was +easy to conjecture what it was. All over the world Italian exiles were +toiling and saving to further the great cause. He had political friends in +New York, and sometimes he went to other cities to attend meetings and make +addresses. His zeal never slackened; and but for me he would often have +gone hungry that some shivering patriot might dine. I was with him heart +and soul, but I had the parish on my shoulders, and perhaps my long +experience of men had made me a little less credulous than Christian +charity requires; for I could have sworn that some of the heroes who hung +on him had never had a whiff of Austrian blood, and would have fed out of +the same trough with the white-coats if there had been polenta enough to go +round. Happily my friend had no such doubts. He believed in the patriots as +devoutly as in the cause; and if some of his hard-earned dollars travelled +no farther than the nearest wine-cellar or cigar-shop, he never suspected +the course they took. + +His health was never the same after the fever; and by and by he began to +lose his pupils, and the patriots cooled off as his pockets fell in. Toward +the end I took him to live in my shabby attic. He had grown weak and had a +troublesome cough, and he spent the greater part of his days indoors. Cruel +days they must have been to him, but he made no sign, and always welcomed +me with a cheerful word. When his pupils dropped off, and his health made +it difficult for him to pick up work outside, he set up a letter-writer's +sign, and used to earn a few pennies by serving as amanuensis to my poor +parishioners; but it went against him to take their money, and half the +time he did the work for nothing. I knew it was hard for him to live on +charity, as he called it, and I used to find what jobs I could for him +among my friends the _negozianti_, who would send him letters to copy, +accounts to make up and what not; but we were all poor together, and the +master had licked the platter before the dog got it. + +So lived that just man, my son; and so, after eight years of exile, he died +one day in my arms. God had let him live long enough to see Solferino and +Villa-franca; and was perhaps never more merciful than in sparing him Monte +Rotondo and Mentana. But these are things of which it does not become me to +speak. The new Italy does not wear the face of our visions; but it is +written that God shall know His own, and it cannot be that He shall misread +the hearts of those who dreamed of fashioning her in His image. + +As for my friend, he is at peace, I doubt not; and his just life and holy +death intercede for me, who sinned for his sake alone. + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Crucial Instances, by Edith Wharton + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CRUCIAL INSTANCES *** + +***** This file should be named 7516.txt or 7516.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/7/5/1/7516/ + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Tiffany Vergon, William +Flis, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + +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 +https://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 MERCHANTIBILITY 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 web page at https://www.pglaf.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. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. 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 +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +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 https://pglaf.org + +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 including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.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 thirty 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: + + https://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. diff --git a/7516.zip b/7516.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c66d6d5 --- /dev/null +++ b/7516.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7413e73 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #7516 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7516) diff --git a/images/cover.jpg b/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0bde175 --- /dev/null +++ b/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/old/7crci10.txt b/old/7crci10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f3f7fa9 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/7crci10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6102 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Crucial Instances, by Edith Wharton + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Crucial Instances + +Author: Edith Wharton + +Release Date: February, 2005 [EBook #7516] +[This file was first posted on May 13, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, CRUCIAL INSTANCES *** + + + + +Charles Aldarondo, Tiffany Vergon, William Flis, and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team + + + + CRUCIAL INSTANCES + + BY + + EDITH WHARTON + + + + +TABLE OF CONTENTS + + +I _The Duchess at Prayer_ + +II _The Angel at the Grave_ + +III _The Recovery_ + +IV _"Copy": A Dialogue_ + +V _The Rembrandt_ + +VI _The Moving Finger_ + +VII _The Confessional_ + + + + +THE DUCHESS AT PRAYER + + +Have you ever questioned the long shuttered front of an old Italian house, +that motionless mask, smooth, mute, equivocal as the face of a priest +behind which buzz the secrets of the confessional? Other houses declare the +activities they shelter; they are the clear expressive cuticle of a life +flowing close to the surface; but the old palace in its narrow street, the +villa on its cypress-hooded hill, are as impenetrable as death. The tall +windows are like blind eyes, the great door is a shut mouth. Inside there +may be sunshine, the scent of myrtles, and a pulse of life through all the +arteries of the huge frame; or a mortal solitude, where bats lodge in the +disjointed stones and the keys rust in unused doors.... + + +II + +From the loggia, with its vanishing frescoes, I looked down an avenue +barred by a ladder of cypress-shadows to the ducal escutcheon and mutilated +vases of the gate. Flat noon lay on the gardens, on fountains, porticoes +and grottoes. Below the terrace, where a chrome-colored lichen had sheeted +the balustrade as with fine _laminae_ of gold, vineyards stooped to +the rich valley clasped in hills. The lower slopes were strewn with white +villages like stars spangling a summer dusk; and beyond these, fold on +fold of blue mountain, clear as gauze against the sky. The August air was +lifeless, but it seemed light and vivifying after the atmosphere of the +shrouded rooms through which I had been led. Their chill was on me and I +hugged the sunshine. + +"The Duchess's apartments are beyond," said the old man. + +He was the oldest man I had ever seen; so sucked back into the past that he +seemed more like a memory than a living being. The one trait linking him +with the actual was the fixity with which his small saurian eye held the +pocket that, as I entered, had yielded a _lira_ to the gate-keeper's +child. He went on, without removing his eye: + +"For two hundred years nothing has been changed in the apartments of the +Duchess." + +"And no one lives here now?" + +"No one, sir. The Duke, goes to Como for the summer season." + +I had moved to the other end of the loggia. Below me, through hanging +groves, white roofs and domes flashed like a smile. + +"And that's Vicenza?" + +"_Proprio_!" The old man extended fingers as lean as the hands fading +from the walls behind us. "You see the palace roof over there, just to the +left of the Basilica? The one with the row of statues like birds taking +flight? That's the Duke's town palace, built by Palladio." + +"And does the Duke come there?" + +"Never. In winter he goes to Rome." + +"And the palace and the villa are always closed?" + +"As you see--always." + +"How long has this been?" + +"Since I can remember." + +I looked into his eyes: they were like tarnished metal mirrors reflecting +nothing. "That must be a long time," I said involuntarily. + +"A long time," he assented. + +I looked down on the gardens. An opulence of dahlias overran the +box-borders, between cypresses that cut the sunshine like basalt shafts. +Bees hung above the lavender; lizards sunned themselves on the benches and +slipped through the cracks of the dry basins. Everywhere were vanishing +traces of that fantastic horticulture of which our dull age has lost the +art. Down the alleys maimed statues stretched their arms like rows of +whining beggars; faun-eared terms grinned in the thickets, and above the +laurustinus walls rose the mock ruin of a temple, falling into real ruin +in the bright disintegrating air. The glare was blinding. + +"Let us go in," I said. + +The old man pushed open a heavy door, behind which the cold lurked like a +knife. + +"The Duchess's apartments," he said. + +Overhead and around us the same evanescent frescoes, under foot the same +scagliola volutes, unrolled themselves interminably. Ebony cabinets, with +inlay of precious marbles in cunning perspective, alternated down the +room with the tarnished efflorescence of gilt consoles supporting Chinese +monsters; and from the chimney-panel a gentleman in the Spanish habit +haughtily ignored us. + +"Duke Ercole II.," the old man explained, "by the Genoese Priest." + +It was a narrow-browed face, sallow as a wax effigy, high-nosed and +cautious-lidded, as though modelled by priestly hands; the lips weak and +vain rather than cruel; a quibbling mouth that would have snapped at verbal +errors like a lizard catching flies, but had never learned the shape of a +round yes or no. One of the Duke's hands rested on the head of a dwarf, a +simian creature with pearl ear-rings and fantastic dress; the other turned +the pages of a folio propped on a skull. + +"Beyond is the Duchess's bedroom," the old man reminded me. + +Here the shutters admitted but two narrow shafts of light, gold bars +deepening the subaqueous gloom. On a dais the bedstead, grim, nuptial, +official, lifted its baldachin; a yellow Christ agonized between the +curtains, and across the room a lady smiled at us from the chimney-breast. + +The old man unbarred a shutter and the light touched her face. Such a face +it was, with a flicker of laughter over it like the wind on a June meadow, +and a singular tender pliancy of mien, as though one of Tiepolo's lenient +goddesses had been busked into the stiff sheath of a seventeenth century +dress! + +"No one has slept here," said the old man, "since the Duchess Violante." + +"And she was--?" + +"The lady there--first Duchess of Duke Ercole II." + +He drew a key from his pocket and unlocked a door at the farther end of the +room. "The chapel," he said. "This is the Duchess's balcony." As I turned +to follow him the Duchess tossed me a sidelong smile. + +I stepped into a grated tribune above a chapel festooned with stucco. +Pictures of bituminous saints mouldered between the pilasters; the +artificial roses in the altar-vases were gray with dust and age, and under +the cobwebby rosettes of the vaulting a bird's nest clung. Before the altar +stood a row of tattered arm-chairs, and I drew back at sight of a figure +kneeling near them. + +"The Duchess," the old man whispered. "By the Cavaliere Bernini." + +It was the image of a woman in furred robes and spreading fraise, her hand +lifted, her face addressed to the tabernacle. There was a strangeness in +the sight of that immovable presence locked in prayer before an abandoned +shrine. Her face was hidden, and I wondered whether it were grief or +gratitude that raised her hands and drew her eyes to the altar, where no +living prayer joined her marble invocation. I followed my guide down the +tribune steps, impatient to see what mystic version of such terrestrial +graces the ingenious artist had found--the Cavaliere was master of such +arts. The Duchess's attitude was one of transport, as though heavenly airs +fluttered her laces and the love-locks escaping from her coif. I saw how +admirably the sculptor had caught the poise of her head, the tender slope +of the shoulder; then I crossed over and looked into her face--it was a +frozen horror. Never have hate, revolt and agony so possessed a human +countenance.... + +The old man crossed himself and shuffled his feet on the marble. + +"The Duchess Violante," he repeated. + +"The same as in the picture?" + +"Eh--the same." + +"But the face--what does it mean?" + +He shrugged his shoulders and turned deaf eyes on me. Then he shot a glance +round the sepulchral place, clutched my sleeve and said, close to my ear: +"It was not always so." + +"What was not?" + +"The face--so terrible." + +"The Duchess's face?" + +"The statue's. It changed after--" + +"After?" + +"It was put here." + +"The statue's face _changed_--?" + +He mistook my bewilderment for incredulity and his confidential finger +dropped from my sleeve. "Eh, that's the story. I tell what I've heard. What +do I know?" He resumed his senile shuffle across the marble. "This is a bad +place to stay in--no one comes here. It's too cold. But the gentleman said, +_I must see everything_!" + +I let the _lire_ sound. "So I must--and hear everything. This story, +now--from whom did you have it?" + +His hand stole back. "One that saw it, by God!" + +"That saw it?" + +"My grandmother, then. I'm a very old man." + +"Your grandmother? Your grandmother was--?" + +"The Duchess's serving girl, with respect to you." + +"Your grandmother? Two hundred years ago?" + +"Is it too long ago? That's as God pleases. I am a very old man and she +was a very old woman when I was born. When she died she was as black as a +miraculous Virgin and her breath whistled like the wind in a keyhole. She +told me the story when I was a little boy. She told it to me out there in +the garden, on a bench by the fish-pond, one summer night of the year she +died. It must be true, for I can show you the very bench we sat on...." + + +III + +Noon lay heavier on the gardens; not our live humming warmth but the stale +exhalation of dead summers. The very statues seemed to drowse like watchers +by a death-bed. Lizards shot out of the cracked soil like flames and the +bench in the laurustinus-niche was strewn with the blue varnished bodies of +dead flies. Before us lay the fish-pond, a yellow marble slab above rotting +secrets. The villa looked across it, composed as a dead face, with the +cypresses flanking it for candles.... + + +IV + +"Impossible, you say, that my mother's mother should have been the +Duchess's maid? What do I know? It is so long since anything has happened +here that the old things seem nearer, perhaps, than to those who live in +cities.... But how else did she know about the statue then? Answer me that, +sir! That she saw with her eyes, I can swear to, and never smiled again, +so she told me, till they put her first child in her arms ... for she was +taken to wife by the steward's son, Antonio, the same who had carried +the letters.... But where am I? Ah, well ... she was a mere slip, you +understand, my grandmother, when the Duchess died, a niece of the upper +maid, Nencia, and suffered about the Duchess because of her pranks and the +funny songs she knew. It's possible, you think, she may have heard from +others what she afterward fancied she had seen herself? How that is, it's +not for an unlettered man to say; though indeed I myself seem to have seen +many of the things she told me. This is a strange place. No one comes here, +nothing changes, and the old memories stand up as distinct as the statues +in the garden.... + +"It began the summer after they came back from the Brenta. Duke Ercole had +married the lady from Venice, you must know; it was a gay city, then, I'm +told, with laughter and music on the water, and the days slipped by like +boats running with the tide. Well, to humor her he took her back the first +autumn to the Brenta. Her father, it appears, had a grand palace there, +with such gardens, bowling-alleys, grottoes and casinos as never were; +gondolas bobbing at the water-gates, a stable full of gilt coaches, a +theatre full of players, and kitchens and offices full of cooks and +lackeys to serve up chocolate all day long to the fine ladies in masks +and furbelows, with their pet dogs and their blackamoors and their +_abates_. Eh! I know it all as if I'd been there, for Nencia, you see, +my grandmother's aunt, travelled with the Duchess, and came back with her +eyes round as platters, and not a word to say for the rest of the year to +any of the lads who'd courted her here in Vicenza. + +"What happened there I don't know--my grandmother could never get at +the rights of it, for Nencia was mute as a fish where her lady was +concerned--but when they came back to Vicenza the Duke ordered the villa +set in order; and in the spring he brought the Duchess here and left her. +She looked happy enough, my grandmother said, and seemed no object for +pity. Perhaps, after all, it was better than being shut up in Vicenza, +in the tall painted rooms where priests came and went as softly as cats +prowling for birds, and the Duke was forever closeted in his library, +talking with learned men. The Duke was a scholar; you noticed he was +painted with a book? Well, those that can read 'em make out that they're +full of wonderful things; as a man that's been to a fair across the +mountains will always tell his people at home it was beyond anything +_they'll_ ever see. As for the Duchess, she was all for music, +play-acting and young company. The Duke was a silent man, stepping quietly, +with his eyes down, as though he'd just come from confession; when the +Duchess's lap-dog yapped at his heels he danced like a man in a swarm of +hornets; when the Duchess laughed he winced as if you'd drawn a diamond +across a window-pane. And the Duchess was always laughing. + +"When she first came to the villa she was very busy laying out the gardens, +designing grottoes, planting groves and planning all manner of agreeable +surprises in the way of water-jets that drenched you unexpectedly, and +hermits in caves, and wild men that jumped at you out of thickets. She had +a very pretty taste in such matters, but after a while she tired of it, and +there being no one for her to talk to but her maids and the chaplain--a +clumsy man deep in his books--why, she would have strolling players out +from Vicenza, mountebanks and fortune-tellers from the market-place, +travelling doctors and astrologers, and all manner of trained animals. +Still it could be seen that the poor lady pined for company, and her +waiting women, who loved her, were glad when the Cavaliere Ascanio, the +Duke's cousin, came to live at the vineyard across the valley--you see +the pinkish house over there in the mulberries, with a red roof and a +pigeon-cote? + +"The Cavaliere Ascanio was a cadet of one of the great Venetian houses, +_pezzi grossi_ of the Golden Book. He had been' meant for the Church, +I believe, but what! he set fighting above praying and cast in his lot with +the captain of the Duke of Mantua's _bravi_, himself a Venetian of +good standing, but a little at odds with the law. Well, the next I know, +the Cavaliere was in Venice again, perhaps not in good odor on account of +his connection with the gentleman I speak of. Some say he tried to carry +off a nun from the convent of Santa Croce; how that may be I can't say; but +my grandmother declared he had enemies there, and the end of it was that on +some pretext or other the Ten banished him to Vicenza. There, of course, +the Duke, being his kinsman, had to show him a civil face; and that was how +he first came to the villa. + +"He was a fine young man, beautiful as a Saint Sebastian, a rare musician, +who sang his own songs to the lute in a way that used to make my +grandmother's heart melt and run through her body like mulled wine. He +had a good word for everybody, too, and was always dressed in the French +fashion, and smelt as sweet as a bean-field; and every soul about the place +welcomed the sight of him. + +"Well, the Duchess, it seemed, welcomed it too; youth will have youth, +and laughter turns to laughter; and the two matched each other like the +candlesticks on an altar. The Duchess--you've seen her portrait--but to +hear my grandmother, sir, it no more approached her than a weed comes up to +a rose. The Cavaliere, indeed, as became a poet, paragoned her in his song +to all the pagan goddesses of antiquity; and doubtless these were finer +to look at than mere women; but so, it seemed, was she; for, to believe +my grandmother, she made other women look no more than the big French +fashion-doll that used to be shown on Ascension days in the Piazza. She +was one, at any rate, that needed no outlandish finery to beautify her; +whatever dress she wore became her as feathers fit the bird; and her hair +didn't get its color by bleaching on the housetop. It glittered of itself +like the threads in an Easter chasuble, and her skin was whiter than fine +wheaten bread and her mouth as sweet as a ripe fig.... + +"Well, sir, you could no more keep them apart than the bees and the +lavender. They were always together, singing, bowling, playing cup and +ball, walking in the gardens, visiting the aviaries and petting her grace's +trick-dogs and monkeys. The Duchess was as gay as a foal, always playing +pranks and laughing, tricking out her animals like comedians, disguising +herself as a peasant or a nun (you should have seen her one day pass +herself off to the chaplain as a mendicant sister), or teaching the lads +and girls of the vineyards to dance and sing madrigals together. The +Cavaliere had a singular ingenuity in planning such entertainments and the +days were hardly long enough for their diversions. But toward the end of +the summer the Duchess fell quiet and would hear only sad music, and the +two sat much together in the gazebo at the end of the garden. It was there +the Duke found them one day when he drove out from Vicenza in his gilt +coach. He came but once or twice a year to the villa, and it was, as my +grandmother said, just a part of her poor lady's ill-luck to be wearing +that day the Venetian habit, which uncovered the shoulders in a way the +Duke always scowled at, and her curls loose and powdered with gold. Well, +the three drank chocolate in the gazebo, and what happened no one knew, +except that the Duke, on taking leave, gave his cousin a seat in his +carriage; but the Cavaliere never returned. + +"Winter approaching, and the poor lady thus finding herself once more +alone, it was surmised among her women that she must fall into a deeper +depression of spirits. But far from this being the case, she displayed such +cheerfulness and equanimity of humor that my grandmother, for one, was +half-vexed with her for giving no more thought to the poor young man who, +all this time, was eating his heart out in the house across the valley. It +is true she quitted her gold-laced gowns and wore a veil over her head; but +Nencia would have it she looked the lovelier for the change and so gave the +Duke greater displeasure. Certain it is that the Duke drove out oftener to +the villa, and though he found his lady always engaged in some innocent +pursuit, such as embroidery or music, or playing games with her young +women, yet he always went away with a sour look and a whispered word to +the chaplain. Now as to the chaplain, my grandmother owned there had been +a time when her grace had not handled him over-wisely. For, according to +Nencia, it seems that his reverence, who seldom approached the Duchess, +being buried in his library like a mouse in a cheese--well, one day he made +bold to appeal to her for a sum of money, a large sum, Nencia said, to buy +certain tall books, a chest full of them, that a foreign pedlar had brought +him; whereupon the Duchess, who could never abide a book, breaks out at +him with a laugh and a flash of her old spirit--'Holy Mother of God, must +I have more books about me? I was nearly smothered with them in the first +year of my marriage;' and the chaplain turning red at the affront, she +added: 'You may buy them and welcome, my good chaplain, if you can find +the money; but as for me, I am yet seeking a way to pay for my turquoise +necklace, and the statue of Daphne at the end of the bowling-green, and +the Indian parrot that my black boy brought me last Michaelmas from the +Bohemians--so you see I've no money to waste on trifles;' and as he backs +out awkwardly she tosses at him over her shoulder: 'You should pray to +Saint Blandina to open the Duke's pocket!' to which he returned, very +quietly, 'Your excellency's suggestion is an admirable one, and I have +already entreated that blessed martyr to open the Duke's understanding.' + +"Thereat, Nencia said (who was standing by), the Duchess flushed +wonderfully red and waved him out of the room; and then 'Quick!' she cried +to my grandmother (who was too glad to run on such errands), 'Call me +Antonio, the gardener's boy, to the box-garden; I've a word to say to him +about the new clove-carnations....' + +"Now I may not have told you, sir, that in the crypt under the chapel there +has stood, for more generations than a man can count, a stone coffin +containing a thighbone of the blessed Saint Blandina of Lyons, a relic +offered, I've been told, by some great Duke of France to one of our own +dukes when they fought the Turk together; and the object, ever since, of +particular veneration in this illustrious family. Now, since the Duchess +had been left to herself, it was observed she affected a fervent devotion +to this relic, praying often in the chapel and even causing the stone slab +that covered the entrance to the crypt to be replaced by a wooden one, +that she might at will descend and kneel by the coffin. This was matter of +edification to all the household and should have been peculiarly pleasing +to the chaplain; but, with respect to you, he was the kind of man who +brings a sour mouth to the eating of the sweetest apple. + +"However that may be, the Duchess, when she dismissed him, was seen running +to the garden, where she talked earnestly with the boy Antonio about the +new clove-carnations; and the rest of the day she sat indoors and played +sweetly on the virginal. Now Nencia always had it in mind that her grace +had made a mistake in refusing that request of the chaplain's; but she said +nothing, for to talk reason to the Duchess was of no more use than praying +for rain in a drought. + +"Winter came early that year, there was snow on the hills by All Souls, +the wind stripped the gardens, and the lemon-trees were nipped in the +lemon-house. The Duchess kept her room in this black season, sitting over +the fire, embroidering, reading books of devotion (which was a thing she +had never done) and praying frequently in the chapel. As for the chaplain, +it was a place he never set foot in but to say mass in the morning, +with the Duchess overhead in the tribune, and the servants aching with +rheumatism on the marble floor. The chaplain himself hated the cold, and +galloped through the mass like a man with witches after him. The rest of +the day he spent in his library, over a brazier, with his eternal books.... + +"You'll wonder, sir, if I'm ever to get to the gist of the story; and I've +gone slowly, I own, for fear of what's coming. Well, the winter was long +and hard. When it fell cold the Duke ceased to come out from Vicenza, +and not a soul had the Duchess to speak to but her maid-servants and the +gardeners about the place. Yet it was wonderful, my grandmother said, how +she kept her brave colors and her spirits; only it was remarked that she +prayed longer in the chapel, where a brazier was kept burning for her all +day. When the young are denied their natural pleasures they turn often +enough to religion; and it was a mercy, as my grandmother said, that she, +who had scarce a live sinner to speak to, should take such comfort in a +dead saint. + +"My grandmother seldom saw her that winter, for though she showed a brave +front to all she kept more and more to herself, choosing to have only +Nencia about her and dismissing even her when she went to pray. For +her devotion had that mark of true piety, that she wished it not to be +observed; so that Nencia had strict orders, on the chaplain's approach, to +warn her mistress if she happened to be in prayer. + +"Well, the winter passed, and spring was well forward, when my grandmother +one evening had a bad fright. That it was her own fault I won't deny, for +she'd been down the lime-walk with Antonio when her aunt fancied her to be +stitching in her chamber; and seeing a sudden light in Nencia's window, she +took fright lest her disobedience be found out, and ran up quickly through +the laurel-grove to the house. Her way lay by the chapel, and as she crept +past it, meaning to slip in through the scullery, and groping her way, for +the dark had fallen and the moon was scarce up, she heard a crash close +behind her, as though someone had dropped from a window of the chapel. The +young fool's heart turned over, but she looked round as she ran, and there, +sure enough, was a man scuttling across the terrace; and as he doubled +the corner of the house my grandmother swore she caught the whisk of the +chaplain's skirts. Now that was a strange thing, certainly; for why should +the chaplain be getting out of the chapel window when he might have passed +through the door? For you may have noticed, sir, there's a door leads from +the chapel into the saloon on the ground floor; the only other way out +being through the Duchess's tribune. + +"Well, my grandmother turned the matter over, and next time she met Antonio +in the lime-walk (which, by reason of her fright, was not for some days) +she laid before him what had happened; but to her surprise he only laughed +and said, 'You little simpleton, he wasn't getting out of the window, he +was trying to look in'; and not another word could she get from him. + +"So the season moved on to Easter, and news came the Duke had gone to Rome +for that holy festivity. His comings and goings made no change at the +villa, and yet there was no one there but felt easier to think his yellow +face was on the far side of the Apennines, unless perhaps it was the +chaplain. + +"Well, it was one day in May that the Duchess, who had walked long with +Nencia on the terrace, rejoicing at the sweetness of the prospect and the +pleasant scent of the gilly-flowers in the stone vases, the Duchess toward +midday withdrew to her rooms, giving orders that her dinner should be +served in her bed-chamber. My grandmother helped to carry in the dishes, +and observed, she said, the singular beauty of the Duchess, who in honor +of the fine weather had put on a gown of shot-silver and hung her bare +shoulders with pearls, so that she looked fit to dance at court with an +emperor. She had ordered, too, a rare repast for a lady that heeded so +little what she ate--jellies, game-pasties, fruits in syrup, spiced cakes +and a flagon of Greek wine; and she nodded and clapped her hands as the +women set it before her, saying again and again, 'I shall eat well to-day.' + +"But presently another mood seized her; she turned from the table, called +for her rosary, and said to Nencia: 'The fine weather has made me neglect +my devotions. I must say a litany before I dine.' + +"She ordered the women out and barred the door, as her custom was; and +Nencia and my grandmother went down-stairs to work in the linen-room. + +"Now the linen-room gives on the court-yard, and suddenly my grandmother +saw a strange sight approaching. First up the avenue came the Duke's +carriage (whom all thought to be in Rome), and after it, drawn by a long +string of mules and oxen, a cart carrying what looked like a kneeling +figure wrapped in death-clothes. The strangeness of it struck the girl dumb +and the Duke's coach was at the door before she had the wit to cry out that +it was coming. Nencia, when she saw it, went white and ran out of the room. +My grandmother followed, scared by her face, and the two fled along the +corridor to the chapel. On the way they met the chaplain, deep in a book, +who asked in surprise where they were running, and when they said, to +announce the Duke's arrival, he fell into such astonishment and asked them +so many questions and uttered such ohs and ahs, that by the time he let +them by the Duke was at their heels. Nencia reached the chapel-door first +and cried out that the Duke was coming; and before she had a reply he was +at her side, with the chaplain following. + +"A moment later the door opened and there stood the Duchess. She held her +rosary in one hand and had drawn a scarf over her shoulders; but they shone +through it like the moon in a mist, and her countenance sparkled with +beauty. + +"The Duke took her hand with a bow. 'Madam,' he said, 'I could have had no +greater happiness than thus to surprise you at your devotions.' + +"'My own happiness,' she replied, 'would have been greater had your +excellency prolonged it by giving me notice of your arrival.' + +"'Had you expected me, Madam,' said he, 'your appearance could scarcely +have been more fitted to the occasion. Few ladies of your youth and beauty +array themselves to venerate a saint as they would to welcome a lover.' + +"'Sir,' she answered, 'having never enjoyed the latter opportunity, I am +constrained to make the most of the former.--What's that?' she cried, +falling back, and the rosary dropped from her hand. + +"There was a loud noise at the other end of the saloon, as of a heavy +object being dragged down the passage; and presently a dozen men were seen +haling across the threshold the shrouded thing from the oxcart. The Duke +waved his hand toward it. 'That,' said he, 'Madam, is a tribute to your +extraordinary piety. I have heard with peculiar satisfaction of your +devotion to the blessed relics in this chapel, and to commemorate a zeal +which neither the rigors of winter nor the sultriness of summer could abate +I have ordered a sculptured image of you, marvellously executed by the +Cavaliere Bernini, to be placed before the altar over the entrance to the +crypt.' + +"The Duchess, who had grown pale, nevertheless smiled playfully at this. +'As to commemorating my piety," she said, 'I recognize there one of your +excellency's pleasantries--' + +"'A pleasantry?' the Duke interrupted; and he made a sign to the men, who +had now reached the threshold of the chapel. In an instant the wrappings +fell from the figure, and there knelt the Duchess to the life. A cry of +wonder rose from all, but the Duchess herself stood whiter than the marble. + +"'You will see,' says the Duke, 'this is no pleasantry, but a triumph +of the incomparable Bernini's chisel. The likeness was done from your +miniature portrait by the divine Elisabetta Sirani, which I sent to the +master some six months ago, with what results all must admire.' + +"'Six months!' cried the Duchess, and seemed about to fall; but his +excellency caught her by the hand. + +"'Nothing,' he said, 'could better please me than the excessive emotion you +display, for true piety is ever modest, and your thanks could not take a +form that better became you. And now,' says he to the men, 'let the image +be put in place.' + +"By this, life seemed to have returned to the Duchess, and she answered him +with a deep reverence. 'That I should be overcome by so unexpected a grace, +your excellency admits to be natural; but what honors you accord it is my +privilege to accept, and I entreat only that in mercy to my modesty the +image be placed in the remotest part of the chapel.' + +"At that the Duke darkened. 'What! You would have this masterpiece of a +renowned chisel, which, I disguise not, cost me the price of a good +vineyard in gold pieces, you would have it thrust out of sight like the +work of a village stonecutter?' + +"'It is my semblance, not the sculptor's work, I desire to conceal.' + +"'It you are fit for my house, Madam, you are fit for God's, and entitled +to the place of honor in both. Bring the statue forward, you dawdlers!' he +called out to the men. + +"The Duchess fell back submissively. 'You are right, sir, as always; but I +would at least have the image stand on the left of the altar, that, looking +up, it may behold your excellency's seat in the tribune.' + +"'A pretty thought, Madam, for which I thank you; but I design before long +to put my companion image on the other side of the altar; and the wife's +place, as you know, is at her husband's right hand.' + +"'True, my lord--but, again, if my poor presentment is to have the +unmerited honor of kneeling beside yours, why not place both before the +altar, where it is our habit to pray in life?' + +"'And where, Madam, should we kneel if they took our places? Besides,' says +the Duke, still speaking very blandly, 'I have a more particular purpose +in placing your image over the entrance to the crypt; for not only would I +thereby mark your special devotion to the blessed saint who rests there, +but, by sealing up the opening in the pavement, would assure the perpetual +preservation of that holy martyr's bones, which hitherto have been too +thoughtlessly exposed to sacrilegious attempts.' + +"'What attempts, my lord?' cries the Duchess. 'No one enters this chapel +without my leave.' + +"'So I have understood, and can well believe from what I have learned of +your piety; yet at night a malefactor might break in through a window, +Madam, and your excellency not know it.' + +"'I'm a light sleeper,' said the Duchess. + +"The Duke looked at her gravely. 'Indeed?' said he. 'A bad sign at your +age. I must see that you are provided with a sleeping-draught.' + +"The Duchess's eyes filled. 'You would deprive me, then, of the consolation +of visiting those venerable relics?' + +"'I would have you keep eternal guard over them, knowing no one to whose +care they may more fittingly be entrusted.' + +"By this the image was brought close to the wooden slab that covered the +entrance to the crypt, when the Duchess, springing forward, placed herself +in the way. + +"'Sir, let the statue be put in place to-morrow, and suffer me, to-night, +to say a last prayer beside those holy bones.' + +"The Duke stepped instantly to her side. 'Well thought, Madam; I will go +down with you now, and we will pray together.' + +"'Sir, your long absences have, alas! given me the habit of solitary +devotion, and I confess that any presence is distracting.' + +"'Madam, I accept your rebuke. Hitherto, it is true, the duties of my +station have constrained me to long absences; but henceforward I remain +with you while you live. Shall we go down into the crypt together?" + +"'No; for I fear for your excellency's ague. The air there is excessively +damp.' + +"'The more reason you should no longer be exposed to it; and to prevent the +intemperance of your zeal I will at once make the place inaccessible.' + +"The Duchess at this fell on her knees on the slab, weeping excessively and +lifting her hands to heaven. + +"'Oh,' she cried, 'you are cruel, sir, to deprive me of access to the +sacred relics that have enabled me to support with resignation the solitude +to which your excellency's duties have condemned me; and if prayer and +meditation give me any authority to pronounce on such matters, suffer me to +warn you, sir, that I fear the blessed Saint Blandina will punish us for +thus abandoning her venerable remains!' + +"The Duke at this seemed to pause, for he was a pious man, and my +grandmother thought she saw him exchange a glance with the chaplain; who, +stepping timidly forward, with his eyes on the ground, said, 'There is +indeed much wisdom in her excellency's words, but I would suggest, sir, +that her pious wish might be met, and the saint more conspicuously honored, +by transferring the relics from the crypt to a place beneath the altar.' + +"'True!' cried the Duke, 'and it shall be done at once.' + +"But thereat the Duchess rose to her feet with a terrible look. + +"'No,' she cried, 'by the body of God! For it shall not be said that, after +your excellency has chosen to deny every request I addressed to him, I owe +his consent to the solicitation of another!' + +"The chaplain turned red and the Duke yellow, and for a moment neither +spoke. + +"Then the Duke said, 'Here are words enough, Madam. Do you wish the relics +brought up from the crypt?' + +"'I wish nothing that I owe to another's intervention!' + +"'Put the image in place then,' says the Duke furiously; and handed her +grace to a chair. + +"She sat there, my grandmother said, straight as an arrow, her hands +locked, her head high, her eyes on the Duke, while the statue was dragged +to its place; then she stood up and turned away. As she passed by Nencia, +'Call me Antonio,' she whispered; but before the words were out of her +mouth the Duke stepped between them. + +"'Madam,' says he, all smiles now, 'I have travelled straight from Rome to +bring you the sooner this proof of my esteem. I lay last night at Monselice +and have been on the road since daybreak. Will you not invite me to +supper?' + +"'Surely, my lord,' said the Duchess. 'It shall be laid in the +dining-parlor within the hour.' + +"'Why not in your chamber and at once, Madam? Since I believe it is your +custom to sup there.' + +"'In my chamber?' says the Duchess, in disorder. + +"'Have you anything against it?' he asked. + +"'Assuredly not, sir, if you will give me time to prepare myself.' + +"'I will wait in your cabinet,' said the Duke. + +"At that, said my grandmother, the Duchess gave one look, as the souls in +hell may have looked when the gates closed on our Lord; then she called +Nencia and passed to her chamber. + +"What happened there my grandmother could never learn, but that the +Duchess, in great haste, dressed herself with extraordinary splendor, +powdering her hair with gold, painting her face and bosom, and covering +herself with jewels till she shone like our Lady of Loreto; and hardly +were these preparations complete when the Duke entered from the cabinet, +followed by the servants carrying supper. Thereupon the Duchess dismissed +Nencia, and what follows my grandmother learned from a pantry-lad who +brought up the dishes and waited in the cabinet; for only the Duke's +body-servant entered the bed-chamber. + +"Well, according to this boy, sir, who was looking and listening with his +whole body, as it were, because he had never before been suffered so near +the Duchess, it appears that the noble couple sat down in great good humor, +the Duchess playfully reproving her husband for his long absence, while the +Duke swore that to look so beautiful was the best way of punishing him. +In this tone the talk continued, with such gay sallies on the part of the +Duchess, such tender advances on the Duke's, that the lad declared they +were for all the world like a pair of lovers courting on a summer's night +in the vineyard; and so it went till the servant brought in the mulled +wine. + +"'Ah,' the Duke was saying at that moment, 'this agreeable evening repays +me for the many dull ones I have spent away from you; nor do I remember +to have enjoyed such laughter since the afternoon last year when we drank +chocolate in the gazebo with my cousin Ascanio. And that reminds me,' he +said, 'is my cousin in good health?' + +"'I have no reports of it,' says the Duchess. 'But your excellency should +taste these figs stewed in malmsey--' + +"'I am in the mood to taste whatever you offer,' said he; and as she helped +him to the figs he added, 'If my enjoyment were not complete as it is, +I could almost wish my cousin Ascanio were with us. The fellow is rare +good company at supper. What do you say, Madam? I hear he's still in the +country; shall we send for him to join us?' + +"'Ah,' said the Duchess, with a sigh and a languishing look, 'I see your +excellency wearies of me already.' + +"'I, Madam? Ascanio is a capital good fellow, but to my mind his chief +merit at this moment is his absence. It inclines me so tenderly to him +that, by God, I could empty a glass to his good health.' + +"With that the Duke caught up his goblet and signed to the servant to fill +the Duchess's. + +"'Here's to the cousin,' he cried, standing, 'who has the good taste to +stay away when he's not wanted. I drink to his very long life--and you, +Madam?' + +"At this the Duchess, who had sat staring at him with a changed face, rose +also and lifted her glass to her lips. + +"'And I to his happy death,' says she in a wild voice; and as she spoke the +empty goblet dropped from her hand and she fell face down on the floor. + +"The Duke shouted to her women that she had swooned, and they came and +lifted her to the bed.... She suffered horribly all night, Nencia said, +twisting herself like a heretic at the stake, but without a word escaping +her. The Duke watched by her, and toward daylight sent for the chaplain; +but by this she was unconscious and, her teeth being locked, our Lord's +body could not be passed through them. + + * * * * * + +"The Duke announced to his relations that his lady had died after partaking +too freely of spiced wine and an omelet of carp's roe, at a supper she had +prepared in honor of his return; and the next year he brought home a new +Duchess, who gave him a son and five daughters...." + + +V + +The sky had turned to a steel gray, against which the villa stood out +sallow and inscrutable. A wind strayed through the gardens, loosening here +and there a yellow leaf from the sycamores; and the hills across the valley +were purple as thunder-clouds. + + * * * * * + +"And the statue--?" I asked. + +"Ah, the statue. Well, sir, this is what my grandmother told me, here on +this very bench where we're sitting. The poor child, who worshipped the +Duchess as a girl of her years will worship a beautiful kind mistress, +spent a night of horror, you may fancy, shut out from her lady's room, +hearing the cries that came from it, and seeing, as she crouched in her +corner, the women rush to and fro with wild looks, the Duke's lean face in +the door, and the chaplain skulking in the antechamber with his eyes on +his breviary. No one minded her that night or the next morning; and toward +dusk, when it became known the Duchess was no more, the poor girl felt the +pious wish to say a prayer for her dead mistress. She crept to the chapel +and stole in unobserved. The place was empty and dim, but as she advanced +she heard a low moaning, and coming in front of the statue she saw that +its face, the day before so sweet and smiling, had the look on it that you +know--and the moaning seemed to come from its lips. My grandmother turned +cold, but something, she said afterward, kept her from calling or shrieking +out, and she turned and ran from the place. In the passage she fell in a +swoon; and when she came to her senses, in her own chamber, she heard that +the Duke had locked the chapel door and forbidden any to set foot there.... +The place was never opened again till the Duke died, some ten years later; +and then it was that the other servants, going in with the new heir, +saw for the first time the horror that my grandmother had kept in her +bosom...." + +"And the crypt?" I asked. "Has it never been opened?" + +"Heaven forbid, sir!" cried the old man, crossing himself. "Was it not the +Duchess's express wish that the relics should not be disturbed?" + + + + +THE ANGEL AT THE GRAVE + + +The House stood a few yards back from the elm-shaded village street, +in that semi-publicity sometimes cited as a democratic protest against +old-world standards of domestic exclusiveness. This candid exposure to +the public eye is more probably a result of the gregariousness which, in +the New England bosom, oddly coexists with a shrinking from direct social +contact; most of the inmates of such houses preferring that furtive +intercourse which is the result of observations through shuttered windows +and a categorical acquaintance with the neighboring clothes-lines. The +House, however, faced its public with a difference. For sixty years it had +written itself with a capital letter, had self-consciously squared itself +in the eye of an admiring nation. The most searching inroads of village +intimacy hardly counted in a household that opened on the universe; and a +lady whose door-bell was at any moment liable to be rung by visitors from +London or Vienna was not likely to flutter up-stairs when she observed a +neighbor "stepping over." + +The solitary inmate of the Anson House owed this induration of the social +texture to the most conspicuous accident in her annals: the fact that she +was the only granddaughter of the great Orestes Anson. She had been born, +as it were, into a museum, and cradled in a glass case with a label; +the first foundations of her consciousness being built on the rock of +her grandfather's celebrity. To a little girl who acquires her earliest +knowledge of literature through a _Reader_ embellished with fragments +of her ancestor's prose, that personage necessarily fills an heroic space +in the foreground of life. To communicate with one's past through the +impressive medium of print, to have, as it were, a footing in every library +in the country, and an acknowledged kinship with that world-diffused clan, +the descendants of the great, was to be pledged to a standard of manners +that amazingly simplified the lesser relations of life. The village street +on which Paulina Anson's youth looked out led to all the capitals of +Europe; and over the roads of intercommunication unseen caravans bore back +to the elm-shaded House the tribute of an admiring world. + +Fate seemed to have taken a direct share in fitting Paulina for her part as +the custodian of this historic dwelling. It had long been secretly regarded +as a "visitation" by the great man's family that he had left no son and +that his daughters were not "intellectual." The ladies themselves were the +first to lament their deficiency, to own that nature had denied them the +gift of making the most of their opportunities. A profound veneration for +their parent and an unswerving faith in his doctrines had not amended their +congenital incapacity to understand what he had written. Laura, who had her +moments of mute rebellion against destiny, had sometimes thought how much +easier it would have been if their progenitor had been a poet; for she +could recite, with feeling, portions of _The Culprit Fay_ and of the +poems of Mrs. Hemans; and Phoebe, who was more conspicuous for memory than +imagination, kept an album filled with "selections." But the great man +was a philosopher; and to both daughters respiration was difficult on the +cloudy heights of metaphysic. The situation would have been intolerable +but for the fact that, while Phoebe and Laura were still at school, +their father's fame had passed from the open ground of conjecture to the +chill privacy of certitude. Dr. Anson had in fact achieved one of those +anticipated immortalities not uncommon at a time when people were apt to +base their literary judgments on their emotions, and when to affect plain +food and despise England went a long way toward establishing a man's +intellectual pre-eminence. Thus, when the daughters were called on to +strike a filial attitude about their parent's pedestal, there was little +to do but to pose gracefully and point upward; and there are spines to +which the immobility of worship is not a strain. A legend had by this time +crystallized about the great Orestes, and it was of more immediate interest +to the public to hear what brand of tea he drank, and whether he took off +his boots in the hall, than to rouse the drowsy echo of his dialectic. A +great man never draws so near his public as when it has become unnecessary +to read his books and is still interesting to know what he eats for +breakfast. + +As recorders of their parent's domestic habits, as pious scavengers of his +waste-paper basket, the Misses Anson were unexcelled. They always had an +interesting anecdote to impart to the literary pilgrim, and the tact with +which, in later years, they intervened between the public and the growing +inaccessibility of its idol, sent away many an enthusiast satisfied to have +touched the veil before the sanctuary. Still it was felt, especially by old +Mrs. Anson, who survived her husband for some years, that Phoebe and Laura +were not worthy of their privileges. There had been a third daughter so +unworthy of hers that she had married a distant cousin, who had taken her +to live in a new Western community where the _Works of Orestes Anson_ +had not yet become a part of the civic consciousness; but of this daughter +little was said, and she was tacitly understood to be excluded from the +family heritage of fame. In time, however, it appeared that the traditional +penny with which she had been cut off had been invested to unexpected +advantage; and the interest on it, when she died, returned to the Anson +House in the shape of a granddaughter who was at once felt to be what Mrs. +Anson called a "compensation." It was Mrs. Anson's firm belief that the +remotest operations of nature were governed by the centripetal force of her +husband's greatness and that Paulina's exceptional intelligence could be +explained only on the ground that she was designed to act as the guardian +of the family temple. + +The House, by the time Paulina came to live in it, had already acquired +the publicity of a place of worship; not the perfumed chapel of a romantic +idolatry but the cold clean empty meeting-house of ethical enthusiasms. The +ladies lived on its outskirts, as it were, in cells that left the central +fane undisturbed. The very position of the furniture had come to have a +ritual significance: the sparse ornaments were the offerings of kindred +intellects, the steel engravings by Raphael Morghen marked the Via Sacra +of a European tour, and the black-walnut desk with its bronze inkstand +modelled on the Pantheon was the altar of this bleak temple of thought. + +To a child compact of enthusiasms, and accustomed to pasture them on the +scanty herbage of a new social soil, the atmosphere of the old house was +full of floating nourishment. In the compressed perspective of Paulina's +outlook it stood for a monument of ruined civilizations, and its white +portico opened on legendary distances. Its very aspect was impressive +to eyes that had first surveyed life from the jig-saw "residence" of a +raw-edged Western town. The high-ceilinged rooms, with their panelled +walls, their polished mahogany, their portraits of triple-stocked ancestors +and of ringleted "females" in crayon, furnished the child with the historic +scenery against which a young imagination constructs its vision of the +past. To other eyes the cold spotless thinly-furnished interior might have +suggested the shuttered mind of a maiden-lady who associates fresh air and +sunlight with dust and discoloration; but it is the eye which supplies the +coloring-matter, and Paulina's brimmed with the richest hues. + +Nevertheless, the House did not immediately dominate her. She had her +confused out-reachings toward other centres of sensation, her vague +intuition of a heliocentric system; but the attraction of habit, the steady +pressure of example, gradually fixed her roving allegiance and she bent her +neck to the yoke. Vanity had a share in her subjugation; for it had early +been discovered that she was the only person in the family who could read +her grandfather's works. The fact that she had perused them with delight at +an age when (even presupposing a metaphysical bias) it was impossible for +her to understand them, seemed to her aunts and grandmother sure evidence +of predestination. Paulina was to be the interpreter of the oracle, and the +philosophic fumes so vertiginous to meaner minds would throw her into the +needed condition of clairvoyance. Nothing could have been more genuine than +the emotion on which this theory was based. Paulina, in fact, delighted in +her grandfather's writings. His sonorous periods, his mystic vocabulary, +his bold flights into the rarefied air of the abstract, were thrilling to +a fancy unhampered by the need of definitions. This purely verbal pleasure +was supplemented later by the excitement of gathering up crumbs of meaning +from the rhetorical board. What could have been more stimulating than +to construct the theory of a girlish world out of the fragments of this +Titanic cosmogony? Before Paulina's opinions had reached the stage when +ossification sets in their form was fatally predetermined. + +The fact that Dr. Anson had died and that his apotheosis had taken +place before his young priestess's induction to the temple, made her +ministrations easier and more inspiring. There were no little personal +traits--such as the great man's manner of helping himself to salt, or the +guttural cluck that started the wheels of speech--to distract the eye +of young veneration from the central fact of his divinity. A man whom +one knows only through a crayon portrait and a dozen yellowing, tomes on +free-will and intuition is at least secure from the belittling effects of +intimacy. + +Paulina thus grew up in a world readjusted to the fact of her grandfather's +greatness; and as each organism draws from its surroundings the kind of +nourishment most needful to its growth, so from this somewhat colorless +conception she absorbed warmth, brightness and variety. Paulina was the +type of woman who transmutes thought into sensation and nurses a theory in +her bosom like a child. + +In due course Mrs. Anson "passed away"--no one died in the Anson +vocabulary--and Paulina became more than ever the foremost figure of the +commemorative group. Laura and Phoebe, content to leave their father's +glory in more competent hands, placidly lapsed into needlework and fiction, +and their niece stepped into immediate prominence as the chief "authority" +on the great man. Historians who were "getting up" the period wrote to +consult her and to borrow documents; ladies with inexplicable yearnings +begged for an interpretation of phrases which had "influenced" them, but +which they had not quite understood; critics applied to her to verify some +doubtful citation or to decide some disputed point in chronology; and the +great tide of thought and investigation kept up a continuous murmur on the +quiet shores of her life. + +An explorer of another kind disembarked there one day in the shape +of a young man to whom Paulina was primarily a kissable girl, with an +after-thought in the shape of a grandfather. From the outset it had been +impossible to fix Hewlett Winsloe's attention on Dr. Anson. The young man +behaved with the innocent profanity of infants sporting on a tomb. His +excuse was that he came from New York, a Cimmerian outskirt which survived +in Paulina's geography only because Dr. Anson had gone there once or twice +to lecture. The curious thing was that she should have thought it worth +while to find excuses for young Winsloe. The fact that she did so had not +escaped the attention of the village; but people, after a gasp of awe, said +it was the most natural thing in the world that a girl like Paulina Anson +should think of marrying. It would certainly seem a little odd to see a +man in the House, but young Winsloe would of course understand that the +Doctor's books were not to be disturbed, and that he must go down to the +orchard to smoke--. The village had barely framed this _modus vivendi_ +when it was convulsed by the announcement that young Winsloe declined to +live in the House on any terms. Hang going down to the orchard to smoke! +He meant to take his wife to New York. The village drew its breath and +watched. + +Did Persephone, snatched from the warm fields of Enna, peer +half-consentingly down the abyss that opened at her feet? Paulina, it must +be owned, hung a moment over the black gulf of temptation. She would have +found it easy to cope with a deliberate disregard of her grandfather's +rights; but young Winsloe's unconsciousness of that shadowy claim was as +much a natural function as the falling of leaves on a grave. His love was +an embodiment of the perpetual renewal which to some tender spirits seems a +crueller process than decay. + +On women of Paulina's mould this piety toward implicit demands, toward +the ghosts of dead duties walking unappeased among usurping passions, +has a stronger hold than any tangible bond. People said that she gave up +young Winsloe because her aunts disapproved of her leaving them; but such +disapproval as reached her was an emanation from the walls of the House, +from the bare desk, the faded portraits, the dozen yellowing tomes that no +hand but hers ever lifted from the shelf. + + +II + +After that the House possessed her. As if conscious of its victory, it +imposed a conqueror's claims. It had once been suggested that she should +write a life of her grandfather, and the task from which she had shrunk as +from a too-oppressive privilege now shaped itself into a justification of +her course. In a burst of filial pantheism she tried to lose herself in the +vast ancestral consciousness. Her one refuge from scepticism was a blind +faith in the magnitude and the endurance of the idea to which she had +sacrificed her life, and with a passionate instinct of self-preservation +she labored to fortify her position. + +The preparations for the _Life_ led her through by-ways that the most +scrupulous of the previous biographers had left unexplored. She accumulated +her material with a blind animal patience unconscious of fortuitous risks. +The years stretched before her like some vast blank page spread out to +receive the record of her toil; and she had a mystic conviction that she +would not die till her work was accomplished. + +The aunts, sustained by no such high purpose, withdrew in turn to their +respective divisions of the Anson "plot," and Paulina remained alone with +her task. She was forty when the book was completed. She had travelled +little in her life, and it had become more and more difficult to her to +leave the House even for a day; but the dread of entrusting her document to +a strange hand made her decide to carry it herself to the publisher. On the +way to Boston she had a sudden vision of the loneliness to which this last +parting condemned her. All her youth, all her dreams, all her renunciations +lay in that neat bundle on her knee. It was not so much her grandfather's +life as her own that she had written; and the knowledge that it would come +back to her in all the glorification of print was of no more help than, to +a mother's grief, the assurance that the lad she must part with will return +with epaulets. + +She had naturally addressed herself to the firm which had published her +grandfather's works. Its founder, a personal friend of the philosopher's, +had survived the Olympian group of which he had been a subordinate member, +long enough to bestow his octogenarian approval on Paulina's pious +undertaking. But he had died soon afterward; and Miss Anson found herself +confronted by his grandson, a person with a brisk commercial view of his +trade, who was said to have put "new blood" into the firm. + +This gentleman listened attentively, fingering her manuscript as though +literature were a tactile substance; then, with a confidential twist of his +revolving chair, he emitted the verdict: "We ought to have had this ten +years sooner." + +Miss Anson took the words as an allusion to the repressed avidity of her +readers. "It has been a long time for the public to wait," she solemnly +assented. + +The publisher smiled. "They haven't waited," he said. + +She looked at him strangely. "Haven't waited?" + +"No--they've gone off; taken another train. Literature's like a big +railway-station now, you know: there's a train starting every minute. +People are not going to hang round the waiting-room. If they can't get +to a place when they want to they go somewhere else." + +The application of this parable cost Miss Anson several minutes of +throbbing silence. At length she said: "Then I am to understand that the +public is no longer interested in--in my grandfather?" She felt as though +heaven must blast the lips that risked such a conjecture. + +"Well, it's this way. He's a name still, of course. People don't exactly +want to be caught not knowing who he is; but they don't want to spend +two dollars finding out, when they can look him up for nothing in any +biographical dictionary." + +Miss Anson's world reeled. She felt herself adrift among mysterious forces, +and no more thought of prolonging the discussion than of opposing an +earthquake with argument. She went home carrying the manuscript like a +wounded thing. On the return journey she found herself travelling straight +toward a fact that had lurked for months in the background of her life, +and that now seemed to await her on the very threshold: the fact that +fewer visitors came to the House. She owned to herself that for the last +four or five years the number had steadily diminished. Engrossed in her +work, she had noted the change only to feel thankful that she had fewer +interruptions. There had been a time when, at the travelling season, the +bell rang continuously, and the ladies of the House lived in a chronic +state of "best silks" and expectancy. It would have been impossible then to +carry on any consecutive work; and she now saw that the silence which had +gathered round her task had been the hush of death. + +Not of _his_ death! The very walls cried out against the implication. +It was the world's enthusiasm, the world's faith, the world's loyalty that +had died. A corrupt generation that had turned aside to worship the brazen +serpent. Her heart yearned with a prophetic passion over the lost sheep +straying in the wilderness. But all great glories had their interlunar +period; and in due time her grandfather would once more flash full-orbed +upon a darkling world. + +The few friends to whom she confided her adventure reminded her with +tender indignation that there were other publishers less subject to the +fluctuations of the market; but much as she had braved for her grandfather +she could not again brave that particular probation. She found herself, +in fact, incapable of any immediate effort. She had lost her way in a +labyrinth of conjecture where her worst dread was that she might put her +hand upon the clue. + +She locked up the manuscript and sat down to wait. If a pilgrim had come +just then the priestess would have fallen on his neck; but she continued +to celebrate her rites alone. It was a double solitude; for she had always +thought a great deal more of the people who came to see the House than of +the people who came to see her. She fancied that the neighbors kept a keen +eye on the path to the House; and there were days when the figure of a +stranger strolling past the gate seemed to focus upon her the scorching +sympathies of the village. For a time she thought of travelling; of going +to Europe, or even to Boston; but to leave the House now would have +seemed like deserting her post. Gradually her scattered energies centred +themselves in the fierce resolve to understand what had happened. She was +not the woman to live long in an unmapped country or to accept as final +her private interpretation of phenomena. Like a traveller in unfamiliar +regions she began to store for future guidance the minutest natural signs. +Unflinchingly she noted the accumulating symptoms of indifference that +marked her grandfather's descent toward posterity. She passed from the +heights on which he had been grouped with the sages of his day to the lower +level where he had come to be "the friend of Emerson," "the correspondent +of Hawthorne," or (later still) "the Dr. Anson" mentioned in their letters. +The change had taken place as slowly and imperceptibly as a natural +process. She could not say that any ruthless hand had stripped the leaves +from the tree: it was simply that, among the evergreen glories of his +group, her grandfather's had proved deciduous. + +She had still to ask herself why. If the decay had been a natural process, +was it not the very pledge of renewal? It was easier to find such arguments +than to be convinced by them. Again and again she tried to drug her +solicitude with analogies; but at last she saw that such expedients were +but the expression of a growing incredulity. The best way of proving her +faith in her grandfather was not to be afraid of his critics. She had no +notion where these shadowy antagonists lurked; for she had never heard of +the great man's doctrine being directly combated. Oblique assaults there +must have been, however, Parthian shots at the giant that none dared face; +and she thirsted to close with such assailants. The difficulty was to +find them. She began by re-reading the _Works_; thence she passed to +the writers of the same school, those whose rhetoric bloomed perennial +in _First Readers_ from which her grandfather's prose had long +since faded. Amid that clamor of far-off enthusiasms she detected no +controversial note. The little knot of Olympians held their views in common +with an early-Christian promiscuity. They were continually proclaiming +their admiration for each other, the public joining as chorus in this +guileless antiphon of praise; and she discovered no traitor in their midst. + +What then had happened? Was it simply that the main current of thought +had set another way? Then why did the others survive? Why were they still +marked down as tributaries to the philosophic stream? This question carried +her still farther afield, and she pressed on with the passion of a champion +whose reluctance to know the worst might be construed into a doubt of his +cause. At length--slowly but inevitably--an explanation shaped itself. +Death had overtaken the doctrines about which her grandfather had draped +his cloudy rhetoric. They had disintegrated and been re-absorbed, adding +their little pile to the dust drifted about the mute lips of the Sphinx. +The great man's contemporaries had survived not by reason of what they +taught, but of what they were; and he, who had been the mere mask through +which they mouthed their lesson, the instrument on which their tune was +played, lay buried deep among the obsolete tools of thought. + +The discovery came to Paulina suddenly. She looked up one evening from her +reading and it stood before her like a ghost. It had entered her life with +stealthy steps, creeping close before she was aware of it. She sat in the +library, among the carefully-tended books and portraits; and it seemed to +her that she had been walled alive into a tomb hung with the effigies of +dead ideas. She felt a desperate longing to escape into the outer air, +where people toiled and loved, and living sympathies went hand in hand. It +was the sense of wasted labor that oppressed her; of two lives consumed in +that ruthless process that uses generations of effort to build a single +cell. There was a dreary parallel between her grandfather's fruitless +toil and her own unprofitable sacrifice. Each in turn had kept vigil by a +corpse. + + +III + +The bell rang--she remembered it afterward--with a loud thrilling note. It +was what they used to call the "visitor's ring"; not the tentative tinkle +of a neighbor dropping in to borrow a sauce-pan or discuss parochial +incidents, but a decisive summons from the outer world. + +Miss Anson put down her knitting and listened. She sat up-stairs now, +making her rheumatism an excuse for avoiding the rooms below. Her interests +had insensibly adjusted themselves to the perspective of her neighbors' +lives, and she wondered--as the bell re-echoed--if it could mean that Mrs. +Heminway's baby had come. Conjecture had time to ripen into certainty, and +she was limping toward the closet where her cloak and bonnet hung, when her +little maid fluttered in with the announcement: "A gentleman to see the +house." + +"The _House_?" + +"Yes, m'm. I don't know what he means," faltered the messenger, whose +memory did not embrace the period when such announcements were a daily part +of the domestic routine. + +Miss Anson glanced at the proffered card. The name it bore--_Mr. George +Corby_--was unknown to her, but the blood rose to her languid cheek. +"Hand me my Mechlin cap, Katy," she said, trembling a little, as she laid +aside her walking stick. She put her cap on before the mirror, with rapid +unsteady touches. "Did you draw up the library blinds?" she breathlessly +asked. + +She had gradually built up a wall of commonplace between herself and her +illusions, but at the first summons of the past filial passion swept away +the frail barriers of expediency. + +She walked down-stairs so hurriedly that her stick clicked like a girlish +heel; but in the hall she paused, wondering nervously if Katy had put a +match to the fire. The autumn air was cold and she had the reproachful +vision of a visitor with elderly ailments shivering by her inhospitable +hearth. She thought instinctively of the stranger as a survivor of the days +when such a visit was a part of the young enthusiast's itinerary. + +The fire was unlit and the room forbiddingly cold; but the figure which, as +Miss Anson entered, turned from a lingering scrutiny of the book-shelves, +was that of a fresh-eyed sanguine youth clearly independent of any +artificial caloric. She stood still a moment, feeling herself the victim of +some anterior impression that made this robust presence an insubstantial +thing; but the young man advanced with an air of genial assurance which +rendered him at once more real and more reminiscent. + +"Why this, you know," he exclaimed, "is simply immense!" + +The words, which did not immediately present themselves as slang to Miss +Anson's unaccustomed ear, echoed with an odd familiarity through the +academic silence. + +"The room, you know, I mean," he explained with a comprehensive gesture. +"These jolly portraits, and the books--that's the old gentleman himself +over the mantelpiece, I suppose?--and the elms outside, and--and the whole +business. I do like a congruous background--don't you?" + +His hostess was silent. No one but Hewlett Winsloe had ever spoken of her +grandfather as "the old gentleman." + +"It's a hundred times better than I could have hoped," her visitor +continued, with a cheerful disregard of her silence. "The seclusion, the +remoteness, the philosophic atmosphere--there's so little of that kind +of flavor left! I should have simply hated to find that he lived over +a grocery, you know.--I had the deuce of a time finding out where he +_did_ live," he began again, after another glance of parenthetical +enjoyment. "But finally I got on the trail through some old book on Brook +Farm. I was bound I'd get the environment right before I did my article." + +Miss Anson, by this time, had recovered sufficient self-possession to seat +herself and assign a chair to her visitor. + +"Do I understand," she asked slowly, following his rapid eye about the +room, "that you intend to write an article about my grandfather?" + +"That's what I'm here for," Mr. Corby genially responded; "that is, if +you're willing to help me; for I can't get on without your help," he added +with a confident smile. + +There was another pause, during which Miss Anson noticed a fleck of dust on +the faded leather of the writing-table and a fresh spot of discoloration in +the right-hand upper corner of Raphael Morghen's "Parnassus." + +"Then you believe in him?" she said, looking up. She could not tell what +had prompted her; the words rushed out irresistibly. + +"Believe in him?" Corby cried, springing to his feet. "Believe in Orestes +Anson? Why, I believe he's simply the greatest--the most stupendous--the +most phenomenal figure we've got!" + +The color rose to Miss Anson's brow. Her heart was beating passionately. +She kept her eyes fixed on the young man's face, as though it might vanish +if she looked away. + +"You--you mean to say this in your article?" she asked. + +"Say it? Why, the facts will say it," he exulted. "The baldest kind of a +statement would make it clear. When a man is as big as that he doesn't need +a pedestal!" + +Miss Anson sighed. "People used to say that when I was young," she +murmured. "But now--" + +Her visitor stared. "When you were young? But how did they know--when the +thing hung fire as it did? When the whole edition was thrown back on his +hands?" + +"The whole edition--what edition?" It was Miss Anson's turn to stare. + +"Why, of his pamphlet--_the_ pamphlet--the one thing that counts, that +survives, that makes him what he is! For heaven's sake," he tragically +adjured her, "don't tell me there isn't a copy of it left!" + +Miss Anson was trembling slightly. "I don't think I understand what you +mean," she faltered, less bewildered by his vehemence than by the strange +sense of coming on an unexplored region in the very heart of her dominion. + +"Why, his account of the _amphioxus_, of course! You can't mean that +his family didn't know about it--that _you_ don't know about it? I came +across it by the merest accident myself, in a letter of vindication that +he wrote in 1830 to an old scientific paper; but I understood there were +journals--early journals; there must be references to it somewhere in the +'twenties. He must have been at least ten or twelve years ahead of Yarrell; +and he saw the whole significance of it, too--he saw where it led to. As +I understand it, he actually anticipated in his pamphlet Saint Hilaire's +theory of the universal type, and supported the hypothesis by describing +the notochord of the _amphioxus_ as a cartilaginous vertebral column. +The specialists of the day jeered at him, of course, as the specialists in +Goethe's time jeered at the plant-metamorphosis. As far as I can make out, +the anatomists and zoologists were down on Dr. Anson to a man; that was why +his cowardly publishers went back on their bargain. But the pamphlet must +be here somewhere--he writes as though, in his first disappointment, he had +destroyed the whole edition; but surely there must be at least one copy +left?" + +His scientific jargon was as bewildering as his slang; and there were even +moments in his discourse when Miss Anson ceased to distinguish between +them; but the suspense with which he continued to gaze on her acted as a +challenge to her scattered thoughts. + +"The _amphioxus_," she murmured, half-rising. "It's an animal, isn't +it--a fish? Yes, I think I remember." She sank back with the inward look of +one who retraces some lost line of association. + +Gradually the distance cleared, the details started into life. In her +researches for the biography she had patiently followed every ramification +of her subject, and one of these overgrown paths now led her back to +the episode in question. The great Orestes's title of "Doctor" had in +fact not been merely the spontaneous tribute of a national admiration; +he had actually studied medicine in his youth, and his diaries, as his +granddaughter now recalled, showed that he had passed through a brief phase +of anatomical ardor before his attention was diverted to super-sensual +problems. It had indeed seemed to Paulina, as she scanned those early +pages, that they revealed a spontaneity, a freshness of feeling somehow +absent from his later lucubrations--as though this one emotion had reached +him directly, the others through some intervening medium. In the excess of +her commemorative zeal she had even struggled through the unintelligible +pamphlet to which a few lines in the journal had bitterly directed her. But +the subject and the phraseology were alien to her and unconnected with her +conception of the great man's genius; and after a hurried perusal she had +averted her thoughts from the episode as from a revelation of failure. +At length she rose a little unsteadily, supporting herself against the +writing-table. She looked hesitatingly about the room; then she drew a key +from her old-fashioned reticule and unlocked a drawer beneath one of the +book-cases. Young Corby watched her breathlessly. With a tremulous hand she +turned over the dusty documents that seemed to fill the drawer. "Is this +it?" she said, holding out a thin discolored volume. + +He seized it with a gasp. "Oh, by George," he said, dropping into the +nearest chair. + +She stood observing him strangely as his eye devoured the mouldy pages. + +"Is this the only copy left?" he asked at length, looking up for a moment +as a thirsty man lifts his head from his glass. + +"I think it must be. I found it long ago, among some old papers that my +aunts were burning up after my grandmother's death. They said it was of no +use--that he'd always meant to destroy the whole edition and that I ought +to respect his wishes. But it was something he had written; to burn it was +like shutting the door against his voice--against something he had once +wished to say, and that nobody had listened to. I wanted him to feel that I +was always here, ready to listen, even when others hadn't thought it worth +while; and so I kept the pamphlet, meaning to carry out his wish and +destroy it before my death." + +Her visitor gave a groan of retrospective anguish. "And but for me--but for +to-day--you would have?" + +"I should have thought it my duty." + +"Oh, by George--by George," he repeated, subdued afresh by the inadequacy +of speech. + +She continued to watch him in silence. At length he jumped up and +impulsively caught her by both hands. + +"He's bigger and bigger!" he almost shouted. "He simply leads the field! +You'll help me go to the bottom of this, won't you? We must turn out all +the papers--letters, journals, memoranda. He must have made notes. He +must have left some record of what led up to this. We must leave nothing +unexplored. By Jove," he cried, looking up at her with his bright +convincing smile, "do you know you're the granddaughter of a Great Man?" + +Her color flickered like a girl's. "Are you--sure of him?" she whispered, +as though putting him on his guard against a possible betrayal of trust. + +"Sure! Sure! My dear lady--" he measured her again with his quick confident +glance. "Don't _you_ believe in him?" + +She drew back with a confused murmur. "I--used to." She had left her +hands in his: their pressure seemed to send a warm current to her heart. +"It ruined my life!" she cried with sudden passion. He looked at her +perplexedly. + +"I gave up everything," she went on wildly, "to keep him alive. I +sacrificed myself--others--I nursed his glory in my bosom and it died--and +left me--left me here alone." She paused and gathered her courage with a +gasp. "Don't make the same mistake!" she warned him. + +He shook his head, still smiling. "No danger of that! You're not alone, my +dear lady. He's here with you--he's come back to you to-day. Don't you see +what's happened? Don't you see that it's your love that has kept him alive? +If you'd abandoned your post for an instant--let things pass into other +hands--if your wonderful tenderness hadn't perpetually kept guard--this +might have been--must have been--irretrievably lost." He laid his hand on +the pamphlet. "And then--then he _would_ have been dead!" + +"Oh," she said, "don't tell me too suddenly!" And she turned away and sank +into a chair. + +The young man stood watching her in an awed silence. For a long time she +sat motionless, with her face hidden, and he thought she must be weeping. + +At length he said, almost shyly: "You'll let me come back, then? You'll +help me work this thing out?" + +She rose calmly and held out her hand. "I'll help you," she declared. + +"I'll come to-morrow, then. Can we get to work early?" + +"As early as you please." + +"At eight o'clock, then," he said briskly. "You'll have the papers ready?" + +"I'll have everything ready." She added with a half-playful hesitancy: "And +the fire shall be lit for you." + +He went out with his bright nod. She walked to the window and watched his +buoyant figure hastening down the elm-shaded street. When she turned back +into the empty room she looked as though youth had touched her on the lips. + + + + +THE RECOVERY + + +To the visiting stranger Hillbridge's first question was, "Have you seen +Keniston's things?" Keniston took precedence of the colonial State House, +the Gilbert Stuart Washington and the Ethnological Museum; nay, he ran neck +and neck with the President of the University, a prehistoric relic who had +known Emerson, and who was still sent about the country in cotton-wool to +open educational institutions with a toothless oration on Brook Farm. + +Keniston was sent about the country too: he opened art exhibitions, laid +the foundation of academies, and acted in a general sense as the spokesman +and apologist of art. Hillbridge was proud of him in his peripatetic +character, but his fellow-townsmen let it be understood that to "know" +Keniston one must come to Hillbridge. Never was work more dependent for its +effect on "atmosphere," on _milieu_. Hillbridge was Keniston's milieu, +and there was one lady, a devotee of his art, who went so far as to assert +that once, at an exhibition in New York, she had passed a Keniston without +recognizing it. "It simply didn't want to be seen in such surroundings; it +was hiding itself under an incognito," she declared. + +It was a source of special pride to Hillbridge that it contained all the +artist's best works. Strangers were told that Hillbridge had discovered +him. The discovery had come about in the simplest manner. Professor +Driffert, who had a reputation for "collecting," had one day hung a sketch +on his drawing-room wall, and thereafter Mrs. Driffert's visitors (always +a little flurried by the sense that it was the kind of house in which one +might be suddenly called upon to distinguish between a dry-point and an +etching, or between Raphael Mengs and Raphael Sanzio) were not infrequently +subjected to the Professor's off-hand inquiry, "By-the-way, have you seen +my Keniston?" The visitors, perceptibly awed, would retreat to a critical +distance and murmur the usual guarded generalities, while they tried to +keep the name in mind long enough to look it up in the Encyclopaedia. The +name was not in the Encyclopaedia; but, as a compensating fact, it became +known that the man himself was in Hillbridge. Hillbridge, then, owned an +artist whose celebrity it was the proper thing to take for granted! Some +one else, emboldened by the thought, bought a Keniston; and the next +year, on the occasion of the President's golden jubilee, the Faculty, by +unanimous consent, presented him with a Keniston. Two years later there +was a Keniston exhibition, to which the art-critics came from New York +and Boston; and not long afterward a well-known Chicago collector vainly +attempted to buy Professor Driffert's sketch, which the art journals cited +as a rare example of the painter's first or silvery manner. Thus there +gradually grew up a small circle of connoisseurs known in artistic, circles +as men who collected Kenistons. + +Professor Wildmarsh, of the chair of Fine Arts and Archaeology, was the +first critic to publish a detailed analysis of the master's methods and +purpose. The article was illustrated by engravings which (though they had +cost the magazine a fortune) were declared by Professor Wildmarsh to give +but an imperfect suggestion of the esoteric significance of the originals. +The Professor, with a tact that contrived to make each reader feel himself +included among the exceptions, went on to say that Keniston's work would +never appeal to any but exceptional natures; and he closed with the usual +assertion that to apprehend the full meaning of the master's "message" it +was necessary to see him in the surroundings of his own home at Hillbridge. + +Professor Wildmarsh's article was read one spring afternoon by a young +lady just speeding eastward on her first visit to Hillbridge, and already +flushed with anticipation of the intellectual opportunities awaiting her. +In East Onondaigua, where she lived, Hillbridge was looked on as an Oxford. +Magazine writers, with the easy American use of the superlative, designated +it as "the venerable Alma Mater," the "antique seat of learning," and +Claudia Day had been brought up to regard it as the fountain-head of +knowledge, and of that mental distinction which is so much rarer than +knowledge. An innate passion for all that was thus distinguished and +exceptional made her revere Hillbridge as the native soil of those +intellectual amenities that were of such difficult growth in the +thin air of East Onondaigua. At the first suggestion of a visit to +Hillbridge--whither she went at the invitation of a girl friend +who (incredible apotheosis!) had married one of the University +professors--Claudia's spirit dilated with the sense of new possibilities. +The vision of herself walking under the "historic elms" toward the Memorial +Library, standing rapt before the Stuart Washington, or drinking in, +from some obscure corner of an academic drawing-room, the President's +reminiscences of the Concord group--this vividness of self-projection into +the emotions awaiting her made her glad of any delay that prolonged so +exquisite a moment. + +It was in this mood that she opened the article on Keniston. She knew about +him, of course; she was wonderfully "well up," even for East Onondaigua. +She had read of him in the magazines; she had met, on a visit to New York, +a man who collected Kenistons, and a photogravure of a Keniston in an +"artistic" frame hung above her writing-table at home. But Professor +Wildmarsh's article made her feel how little she really knew of the master; +and she trembled to think of the state of relative ignorance in which, but +for the timely purchase of the magazine, she might have entered Hillbridge. +She had, for instance, been densely unaware that Keniston had already had +three "manners," and was showing symptoms of a fourth. She was equally +ignorant of the fact that he had founded a school and "created a formula"; +and she learned with a thrill that no one could hope to understand him who +had not seen him in his studio at Hillbridge, surrounded by his own works. +"The man and the art interpret each other," their exponent declared; and +Claudia Day, bending a brilliant eye on the future, wondered if she were +ever to be admitted to the privilege of that double initiation. + +Keniston, to his other claims to distinction, added that of being hard to +know. His friends always hastened to announce the fact to strangers--adding +after a pause of suspense that they "would see what they could do." +Visitors in whose favor he was induced to make an exception were further +warned that he never spoke unless he was interested--so that they mustn't +mind if he remained silent. It was under these reassuring conditions that, +some ten days after her arrival at Hillbridge, Miss Day was introduced +to the master's studio. She found him a tall listless-looking man, who +appeared middle-aged to her youth, and who stood before his own pictures +with a vaguely interrogative gaze, leaving the task of their interpretation +to the lady who had courageously contrived the visit. The studio, to +Claudia's surprise, was bare and shabby. It formed a rambling addition to +the small cheerless house in which the artist lived with his mother and +a widowed sister. For Claudia it added the last touch to his distinction +to learn that he was poor, and that what he earned was devoted to the +maintenance of the two limp women who formed a neutral-tinted background to +his impressive outline. His pictures of course fetched high prices; but he +worked slowly--"painfully," as his devotees preferred to phrase it--with +frequent intervals of ill health and inactivity, and the circle of Keniston +connoisseurs was still as small as it was distinguished. The girl's fancy +instantly hailed in him that favorite figure of imaginative youth, the +artist who would rather starve than paint a pot-boiler. It is known to +comparatively few that the production of successful pot-boilers is an art +in itself, and that such heroic abstentions as Keniston's are not always +purely voluntary. On the occasion of her first visit the artist said so +little that Claudia was able to indulge to the full the harrowing sense of +her inadequacy. No wonder she had not been one of the few that he cared +to talk to; every word she uttered must so obviously have diminished the +inducement! She had been cheap, trivial, conventional; at once gushing +and inexpressive, eager and constrained. She could feel him counting the +minutes till the visit was over, and as the door finally closed on the +scene of her discomfiture she almost shared the hope with which she +confidently credited him--that they might never meet again. + + +II + +Mrs. Davant glanced reverentially about the studio. "I have always said," +she murmured, "that they ought to be seen in Europe." + +Mrs. Davant was young, credulous and emotionally extravagant: she reminded +Claudia of her earlier self--the self that, ten years before, had first set +an awestruck foot on that very threshold. + +"Not for _his_ sake," Mrs. Davant continued, "but for Europe's." + +Claudia smiled. She was glad that her husband's pictures were to be +exhibited in Paris. She concurred in Mrs. Davant's view of the importance +of the event; but she thought her visitor's way of putting the case a +little overcharged. Ten years spent in an atmosphere of Keniston-worship +had insensibly developed in Claudia a preference for moderation of speech. +She believed in her husband, of course; to believe in him, with an +increasing abandonment and tenacity, had become one of the necessary laws +of being; but she did not believe in his admirers. Their faith in him was +perhaps as genuine as her own; but it seemed to her less able to give an +account of itself. Some few of his appreciators doubtless measured him +by their own standards; but it was difficult not to feel that in the +Hillbridge circle, where rapture ran the highest, he was accepted on +what was at best but an indirect valuation; and now and then she had a +frightened doubt as to the independence of her own convictions. That +innate sense of relativity which even East Onondaigua had not been able to +check in Claudia Day had been fostered in Mrs. Keniston by the artistic +absolutism of Hillbridge, and she often wondered that her husband remained +so uncritical of the quality of admiration accorded him. Her husband's +uncritical attitude toward himself and his admirers had in fact been one of +the surprises of her marriage. That an artist should believe in his +potential powers seemed to her at once the incentive and the pledge of +excellence: she knew there was no future for a hesitating talent. What +perplexed her was Keniston's satisfaction in his achievement. She had +always imagined that the true artist must regard himself as the imperfect +vehicle of the cosmic emotion--that beneath every difficulty overcome a new +one lurked, the vision widening as the scope enlarged. To be initiated into +these creative struggles, to shed on the toiler's path the consolatory ray +of faith and encouragement, had seemed the chief privilege of her marriage. +But there is something supererogatory in believing in a man obviously +disposed to perform that service for himself; and Claudia's ardor gradually +spent itself against the dense surface of her husband's complacency. She +could smile now at her vision of an intellectual communion which should +admit her to the inmost precincts of his inspiration. She had learned +that the creative processes are seldom self-explanatory, and Keniston's +inarticulateness no longer discouraged her; but she could not reconcile +her sense of the continuity of all high effort to his unperturbed air +of finishing each picture as though he had despatched a masterpiece to +posterity. In the first recoil from her disillusionment she even allowed +herself to perceive that, if he worked slowly, it was not because he +mistrusted his powers of expression, but because he had really so little to +express. + +"It's for Europe," Mrs. Davant vaguely repeated; and Claudia noticed that +she was blushingly intent on tracing with the tip of her elaborate sunshade +the pattern of the shabby carpet. + +"It will be a revelation to them," she went on provisionally, as though +Claudia had missed her cue and left an awkward interval to fill. + +Claudia had in fact a sudden sense of deficient intuition. She felt that +her visitor had something to communicate which required, on her own part, +an intelligent co-operation; but what it was her insight failed to suggest. +She was, in truth, a little tired of Mrs. Davant, who was Keniston's latest +worshipper, who ordered pictures recklessly, who paid for them regally +in advance, and whose gallery was, figuratively speaking, crowded with +the artist's unpainted masterpieces. Claudia's impatience was perhaps +complicated by the uneasy sense that Mrs. Davant was too young, too rich, +too inexperienced; that somehow she ought to be warned.--Warned of what? +That some of the pictures might never be painted? Scarcely that, since +Keniston, who was scrupulous in business transactions, might be trusted not +to take any material advantage of such evidence of faith. Claudia's impulse +remained undefined. She merely felt that she would have liked to help Mrs. +Davant, and that she did not know how. + +"You'll be there to see them?" she asked, as her visitor lingered. + +"In Paris?" Mrs. Davant's blush deepened. "We must all be there together." + +Claudia smiled. "My husband and I mean to go abroad some day--but I don't +see any chance of it at present." + +"But he _ought_ to go--you ought both to go this summer!" Mrs. Davant +persisted. "I know Professor Wildmarsh and Professor Driffert and all the +other critics think that Mr. Keniston's never having been to Europe has +given his work much of its wonderful individuality, its peculiar flavor +and meaning--but now that his talent is formed, that he has full command +of his means of expression," (Claudia recognized one of Professor +Driffert's favorite formulas) "they all think he ought to see the work of +the _other_ great masters--that he ought to visit the home of his +ancestors, as Professor Wildmarsh says!" She stretched an impulsive hand to +Claudia. "You ought to let him go, Mrs. Keniston!" + +Claudia accepted the admonition with the philosophy of the wife who is used +to being advised on the management of her husband. "I sha'n't interfere +with him," she declared; and Mrs. Davant instantly caught her up with a cry +of, "Oh, it's too lovely of you to say that!" With this exclamation she +left Claudia to a silent renewal of wonder. + +A moment later Keniston entered: to a mind curious in combinations it +might have occurred that he had met Mrs. Davant on the door-step. In one +sense he might, for all his wife cared, have met fifty Mrs. Davants on the +door-step: it was long since Claudia had enjoyed the solace of resenting +such coincidences. Her only thought now was that her husband's first words +might not improbably explain Mrs. Davant's last; and she waited for him to +speak. + +He paused with his hands in his pockets before an unfinished picture on the +easel; then, as his habit was, he began to stroll touristlike from canvas +to canvas, standing before each in a musing ecstasy of contemplation that +no readjustment of view ever seemed to disturb. Her eye instinctively +joined his in its inspection; it was the one point where their natures +merged. Thank God, there, was no doubt about the pictures! She was what she +had always dreamed of being--the wife of a great artist. Keniston dropped +into an armchair and filled his pipe. "How should you like to go to +Europe?" he asked. + +His wife looked up quickly. "When?" + +"Now--this spring, I mean." He paused to light the pipe. "I should like to +be over there while these things are being exhibited." + +Claudia was silent. + +"Well?" he repeated after a moment. + +"How can we afford it?" she asked. + +Keniston had always scrupulously fulfilled his duty to the mother and +sister whom his marriage had dislodged; and Claudia, who had the atoning +temperament which seeks to pay for every happiness by making it a source +of fresh obligations, had from the outset accepted his ties with an +exaggerated devotion. Any disregard of such a claim would have vulgarized +her most delicate pleasures; and her husband's sensitiveness to it in great +measure extenuated the artistic obtuseness that often seemed to her like a +failure of the moral sense. His loyalty to the dull women who depended on +him was, after all, compounded of finer tissues than any mere sensibility +to ideal demands. + +"Oh, I don't see why we shouldn't," he rejoined. "I think we might manage +it." + +"At Mrs. Davant's expense?" leaped from Claudia. She could not tell why she +had said it; some inner barrier seemed to have given way under a confused +pressure of emotions. + +He looked up at her with frank surprise. "Well, she has been very jolly +about it--why not? She has a tremendous feeling for art--the keenest I +ever knew in a woman." Claudia imperceptibly smiled. "She wants me to let +her pay in advance for the four panels she has ordered for the Memorial +Library. That would give us plenty of money for the trip, and my having the +panels to do is another reason for my wanting to go abroad just now." + +"Another reason?" + +"Yes; I've never worked on such a big scale. I want to see how those old +chaps did the trick; I want to measure myself with the big fellows over +there. An artist ought to, once in his life." + +She gave him a wondering look. For the first time his words implied a sense +of possible limitation; but his easy tone seemed to retract what they +conceded. What he really wanted was fresh food for his self-satisfaction: +he was like an army that moves on after exhausting the resources of the +country. + +Womanlike, she abandoned the general survey of the case for the +consideration of a minor point. + +"Are you sure you can do that kind of thing?" she asked. + +"What kind of thing?" + +"The panels." + +He glanced at her indulgently: his self-confidence was too impenetrable to +feel the pin-prick of such a doubt. + +"Immensely sure," he said with a smile. + +"And you don't mind taking so much money from her in advance?" + +He stared. "Why should I? She'll get it back--with interest!" He laughed +and drew at his pipe. "It will be an uncommonly interesting experience. I +shouldn't wonder if it freshened me up a bit." + +She looked at him again. This second hint of self-distrust struck her as +the sign of a quickened sensibility. What if, after all, he was beginning +to be dissatisfied with his work? The thought filled her with a renovating +sense of his sufficiency. + + +III + +They stopped in London to see the National Gallery. + +It was thus that, in their inexperience, they had narrowly put it; but in +reality every stone of the streets, every trick of the atmosphere, had +its message of surprise for their virgin sensibilities. The pictures were +simply the summing up, the final interpretation, of the cumulative pressure +of an unimagined world; and it seemed to Claudia that long before they +reached the doors of the gallery she had some intuitive revelation of what +awaited them within. + +They moved about from room to room without exchanging a word. The vast +noiseless spaces seemed full of sound, like the roar of a distant multitude +heard only by the inner ear. Had their speech been articulate their +language would have been incomprehensible; and even that far-off murmur +of meaning pressed intolerably on Claudia's nerves. Keniston took the +onset without outward sign of disturbance. Now and then he paused before a +canvas, or prolonged from one of the benches his silent communion with some +miracle of line or color; but he neither looked at his wife nor spoke to +her. He seemed to have forgotten her presence. + +Claudia was conscious of keeping a furtive watch on him; but the sum total +of her impressions was negative. She remembered thinking when she first +met him that his face was rather expressionless; and he had the habit of +self-engrossed silences. + +All that evening, at the hotel, they talked about London, and he surprised +her by an acuteness of observation that she had sometimes inwardly accused +him of lacking. He seemed to have seen everything, to have examined, felt, +compared, with nerves as finely adjusted as her own; but he said nothing +of the pictures. The next day they returned to the National Gallery, and +he began to study the paintings in detail, pointing out differences of +technique, analyzing and criticising, but still without summing up his +conclusions. He seemed to have a sort of provincial dread of showing +himself too much impressed. Claudia's own sensations were too complex, too +overwhelming, to be readily classified. Lacking the craftsman's instinct to +steady her, she felt herself carried off her feet by the rush of incoherent +impressions. One point she consciously avoided, and that was the comparison +of her husband's work with what they were daily seeing. Art, she inwardly +argued, was too various, too complex, dependent on too many inter-relations +of feeling and environment, to allow of its being judged by any provisional +standard. Even the subtleties of technique must be modified by the artist's +changing purpose, as this in turn is acted on by influences of which +he is himself unconscious. How, then, was an unprepared imagination to +distinguish between such varied reflections of the elusive vision? She took +refuge in a passionate exaggeration of her own ignorance and insufficiency. + +After a week in London they went to Paris. The exhibition of Keniston's +pictures had been opened a few days earlier; and as they drove through the +streets on the way to the station an "impressionist" poster here and there +invited them to the display of the American artist's work. Mrs. Davant, who +had been in Paris for the opening, had already written rapturously of the +impression produced, enclosing commendatory notices from one or two papers. +She reported that there had been a great crowd on the first day, and that +the critics had been "immensely struck." + +The Kenistons arrived in the evening, and the next morning Claudia, as a +matter of course, asked her husband at what time he meant to go and see the +pictures. + +He looked up absently from his guide-book. + +"What pictures?" + +"Why--yours," she said, surprised. + +"Oh, they'll keep," he answered; adding with a slightly embarrassed laugh, +"We'll give the other chaps a show first." Presently he laid down his book +and proposed that they should go to the Louvre. + +They spent the morning there, lunched at a restaurant near by, and returned +to the gallery in the afternoon. Keniston had passed from inarticulateness +to an eager volubility. It was clear that he was beginning to co-ordinate +his impressions, to find his way about in a corner of the great imaginative +universe. He seemed extraordinarily ready to impart his discoveries; and +Claudia felt that her ignorance served him as a convenient buffer against +the terrific impact of new sensations. + +On the way home she asked when he meant to see Mrs. Davant. + +His answer surprised her. "Does she know we're here?" + +"Not unless you've sent her word," said Claudia, with a touch of harmless +irony. + +"That's all right, then," he returned simply. "I want to wait and look +about a day or two longer. She'd want us to go sight-seeing with her; and +I'd rather get my impressions alone." + +The next two days were hampered by the necessity of eluding Mrs. Davant. +Claudia, under different circumstances, would have scrupled to share in +this somewhat shabby conspiracy; but she found herself in a state of +suspended judgment, wherein her husband's treatment of Mrs. Davant became +for the moment merely a clue to larger meanings. + +They had been four days in Paris when Claudia, returning one afternoon from +a parenthetical excursion to the Rue de la Paix, was confronted on her +threshold by the reproachful figure of their benefactress. It was not to +her, however, that Mrs. Davant's reproaches were addressed. Keniston, it +appeared, had borne the brunt of them; for he stood leaning against the +mantelpiece of their modest _salon_ in that attitude of convicted +negligence when, if ever, a man is glad to take refuge behind his wife. + +Claudia had however no immediate intention of affording him such shelter. +She wanted to observe and wait. + +"He's too impossible!" cried Mrs. Davant, sweeping her at once into the +central current of her grievance. + +Claudia looked from one to the other. + +"For not going to see you?" + +"For not going to see his pictures!" cried the other nobly. + +Claudia colored and Keniston shifted his position uneasily. + +"I can't make her understand," he said, turning to his wife. + +"I don't care about myself!" Mrs. Davant interjected. + +"_I_ do, then; it's the only thing I do care about," he hurriedly +protested. "I meant to go at once--to write--Claudia wanted to go, but I +wouldn't let her." He looked helplessly about the pleasant red-curtained +room, which was rapidly burning itself into Claudia's consciousness as a +visible extension of Mrs. Davant's claims. + +"I can't explain," he broke off. + +Mrs. Davant in turn addressed herself to Claudia. + +"People think it's so odd," she complained. "So many of the artists +here are anxious to meet him; they've all been so charming about the +pictures; and several of our American friends have come over from London +expressly for the exhibition. I told every one that he would be here +for the opening--there was a private view, you know--and they were so +disappointed--they wanted to give him an ovation; and I didn't know what +to say. What _am_ I to say?" she abruptly ended. + +"There's nothing to say," said Keniston slowly. + +"But the exhibition closes the day after to-morrow." + +"Well, _I_ sha'n't close--I shall be here," he declared with an effort +at playfulness. "If they want to see me--all these people you're kind +enough to mention--won't there be other chances?" + +"But I wanted them to see you _among_ your pictures--to hear you talk +about them, explain them in that wonderful way. I wanted you to interpret +each other, as Professor Wildmarsh says!" + +"Oh, hang Professor Wildmarsh!" said Keniston, softening the commination +with a smile. "If my pictures are good for anything they oughtn't to need +explaining." + +Mrs. Davant stared. "But I thought that was what made them so interesting!" +she exclaimed. + +Keniston looked down. "Perhaps it was," he murmured. + +There was an awkward silence, which Claudia broke by saying, with a glance +at her husband: "But if the exhibition is to remain open to-morrow, could +we not meet you there? And perhaps you could send word to some of our +friends." + +Mrs. Davant brightened like a child whose broken toy is glued together. +"Oh, _do_ make him!" she implored. "I'll ask them to come in the +afternoon--we'll make it into a little tea--a _five o'clock_. I'll +send word at once to everybody!" She gathered up her beruffled boa and +sunshade, settling her plumage like a reassured bird. "It will be too +lovely!" she ended in a self-consoling murmur. + +But in the doorway a new doubt assailed her. "You won't fail me?" she said, +turning plaintively to Keniston. "You'll make him come, Mrs. Keniston?" + +"I'll bring him!" Claudia promised. + + +IV + +When, the next morning, she appeared equipped for their customary ramble, +her husband surprised her by announcing that he meant to stay at home. + +"The fact is I'm rather surfeited," he said, smiling. "I suppose my +appetite isn't equal to such a plethora. I think I'll write some letters +and join you somewhere later." + +She detected the wish to be alone and responded to it with her usual +readiness. + +"I shall sink to my proper level and buy a bonnet, then," she said. "I +haven't had time to take the edge off that appetite." + +They agreed to meet at the Hotel Cluny at mid-day, and she set out alone +with a vague sense of relief. Neither she nor Keniston had made any direct +reference to Mrs. Davant's visit; but its effect was implicit in their +eagerness to avoid each other. + +Claudia accomplished some shopping in the spirit of perfunctoriness that +robs even new bonnets of their bloom; and this business despatched, she +turned aimlessly into the wide inviting brightness of the streets. Never +had she felt more isolated amid that ordered beauty which gives a social +quality to the very stones and mortar of Paris. All about her were +evidences of an artistic sensibility pervading every form of life like the +nervous structure of the huge frame--a sensibility so delicate, alert and +universal that it seemed to leave no room for obtuseness or error. In such +a medium the faculty of plastic expression must develop as unconsciously +as any organ in its normal surroundings; to be "artistic" must cease to be +an attitude and become a natural function. To Claudia the significance of +the whole vast revelation was centred in the light it shed on one tiny +spot of consciousness--the value of her husband's work. There are moments +when to the groping soul the world's accumulated experiences are but +stepping-stones across a private difficulty. + +She stood hesitating on a street corner. It was barely eleven, and she had +an hour to spare before going to the Hotel Cluny. She seemed to be letting +her inclination float as it would on the cross-currents of suggestion +emanating from the brilliant complex scene before her; but suddenly, in +obedience to an impulse that she became aware of only in acting on it, she +called a cab and drove to the gallery where her husband's pictures were +exhibited. + +A magnificent official in gold braid sold her a ticket and pointed the way +up the empty crimson-carpeted stairs. His duplicate, on the upper landing, +held out a catalogue with an air of recognizing the futility of the offer; +and a moment later she found herself in the long noiseless impressive room +full of velvet-covered ottomans and exotic plants. It was clear that the +public ardor on which Mrs. Davant had expatiated had spent itself earlier +in the week; for Claudia had this luxurious apartment to herself. Something +about its air of rich privacy, its diffusion of that sympathetic quality in +other countries so conspicuously absent from the public show-room, seemed +to emphasize its present emptiness. It was as though the flowers, the +carpet, the lounges, surrounded their visitor's solitary advance with +the mute assurance that they had done all they could toward making the +thing "go off," and that if they had failed it was simply for lack of +co-operation. She stood still and looked about her. The pictures struck her +instantly as odd gaps in the general harmony; it was self-evident that they +had not co-operated. They had not been pushing, aggressive, discordant: +they had merely effaced themselves. She swept a startled eye from one +familiar painting to another. The canvases were all there--and the +frames--but the miracle, the mirage of life and meaning, had vanished +like some atmospheric illusion. What was it that had happened? And had +it happened to _her_ or to the pictures? She tried to rally her +frightened thoughts; to push or coax them into a semblance of resistance; +but argument was swept off its feet by the huge rush of a single +conviction--the conviction that the pictures were bad. There was no +standing up against that: she felt herself submerged. + +The stealthy fear that had been following her all these days had her by the +throat now. The great vision of beauty through which she had been moving +as one enchanted was turned to a phantasmagoria of evil mocking shapes. +She hated the past; she hated its splendor, its power, its wicked magical +vitality.... She dropped into a seat and continued to stare at the wall +before her. Gradually, as she stared, there stole out to her from the +dimmed humbled canvases a reminder of what she had once seen in them, a +spectral appeal to her faith to call them back to life. What proof had she +that her present estimate of them was less subjective than the other? The +confused impressions of the last few days were hardly to be pleaded as a +valid theory of art. How, after all, did she know that the pictures were +bad? On what suddenly acquired technical standard had she thus decided +the case against them? It seemed as though it were a standard outside of +herself, as though some unheeded inner sense were gradually making her +aware of the presence, in that empty room, of a critical intelligence that +was giving out a subtle effluence of disapproval. The fancy was so vivid +that, to shake it off, she rose and began to move about again. In the +middle of the room stood a monumental divan surmounted by a _massif_ +of palms and azaleas. As Claudia's muffled wanderings carried her around +the angle of this seat, she saw that its farther side was occupied by the +figure of a man, who sat with his hands resting on his stick and his head +bowed upon them. She gave a little cry and her husband rose and faced her. + +Instantly the live point of consciousness was shifted, and she became aware +that the quality of the pictures no longer mattered. It was what _he_ +thought of them that counted: her life hung on that. + +They looked at each other a moment in silence; such concussions are not apt +to flash into immediate speech. At length he said simply, "I didn't know +you were coming here." + +She colored as though he had charged her with something underhand. + +"I didn't mean to," she stammered; "but I was too early for our +appointment--" + +Her word's cast a revealing glare on the situation. Neither of them looked +at the pictures; but to Claudia those unobtruding presences seemed suddenly +to press upon them and force them apart. + +Keniston glanced at his watch. "It's twelve o'clock," he said. "Shall we go +on?" + + +V + +At the door he called a cab and put her in it; then, drawing out his watch +again, he said abruptly: "I believe I'll let you go alone. I'll join you at +the hotel in time for luncheon." She wondered for a moment if he meant to +return to the gallery; but, looking back as she drove off, she saw him walk +rapidly away in the opposite direction. + +The cabman had carried her half-way to the Hotel Cluny before she realized +where she was going, and cried out to him to turn home. There was an acute +irony in this mechanical prolongation of the quest of beauty. She had +had enough of it, too much of it; her one longing was to escape, to hide +herself away from its all-suffusing implacable light. + +At the hotel, alone in her room, a few tears came to soften her seared +vision; but her mood was too tense to be eased by weeping. Her whole being +was centred in the longing to know what her husband thought. Their short +exchange of words had, after all, told her nothing. She had guessed a faint +resentment at her unexpected appearance; but that might merely imply a +dawning sense, on his part, of being furtively watched and criticised. She +had sometimes wondered if he was never conscious of her observation; there +were moments when it seemed to radiate from her in visible waves. Perhaps, +after all, he was aware of it, on his guard against it, as a lurking knife +behind the thick curtain of his complacency; and to-day he must have caught +the gleam of the blade. + +Claudia had not reached the age when pity is the first chord to vibrate in +contact with any revelation of failure. Her one hope had been that Keniston +should be clear-eyed enough to face the truth. Whatever it turned out to +be, she wanted him to measure himself with it. But as his image rose before +her she felt a sudden half-maternal longing to thrust herself between him +and disaster. Her eagerness to see him tested by circumstances seemed now +like a cruel scientific curiosity. She saw in a flash of sympathy that he +would need her most if he fell beneath his fate. + +He did not, after all, return for luncheon; and when she came up-stairs +from her solitary meal their _salon_ was still untenanted. She +permitted herself no sensational fears; for she could not, at the height of +apprehension, figure Keniston as yielding to any tragic impulse; but the +lengthening hours brought an uneasiness that was fuel to her pity. Suddenly +she heard the clock strike five. It was the hour at which they had promised +to meet Mrs. Davant at the gallery--the hour of the "ovation." Claudia +rose and went to the window, straining for a glimpse of her husband in the +crowded street. Could it be that he had forgotten her, had gone to the +gallery without her? Or had something happened--that veiled "something" +which, for the last hour, had grimly hovered on the outskirts of her mind? + +She heard a hand on the door and Keniston entered. As she turned to meet +him her whole being was swept forward on a great wave of pity: she was so +sure, now, that he must know. + +But he confronted her with a glance of preoccupied brightness; her first +impression was that she had never seen him so vividly, so expressively +pleased. If he needed her, it was not to bind up his wounds. + +He gave her a smile which was clearly the lingering reflection of some +inner light. "I didn't mean to be so late," he said, tossing aside his hat +and the little red volume that served as a clue to his explorations. "I +turned in to the Louvre for a minute after I left you this morning, and the +place fairly swallowed me up--I couldn't get away from it. I've been there +ever since." He threw himself into a chair and glanced about for his pipe. + +"It takes time," he continued musingly, "to get at them, to make out what +they're saying--the big fellows, I mean. They're not a communicative lot. +At first I couldn't make much out of their lingo--it was too different from +mine! But gradually, by picking up a hint here and there, and piecing them +together, I've begun to understand; and to-day, by Jove, I got one or two +of the old chaps by the throat and fairly turned them inside out--made them +deliver up their last drop." He lifted a brilliant eye to her. "Lord, it +was tremendous!" he declared. + +He had found his pipe and was musingly filling it. Claudia waited in +silence. + +"At first," he began again, "I was afraid their language was too hard for +me--that I should never quite know what they were driving at; they seemed +to cold-shoulder me, to be bent on shutting me out. But I was bound I +wouldn't be beaten, and now, to-day"--he paused a moment to strike a +match--"when I went to look at those things of mine it all came over me +in a flash. By Jove! it was as if I'd made them all into a big bonfire to +light me on my road!" + +His wife was trembling with a kind of sacred terror. She had been afraid +to pray for light for him, and here he was joyfully casting his whole past +upon the pyre! + +"Is there nothing left?" she faltered. + +"Nothing left? There's everything!" he exulted. "Why, here I am, not much +over forty, and I've found out already--already!" He stood up and began to +move excitedly about the room. "My God! Suppose I'd never known! Suppose +I'd gone on painting things like that forever! Why, I feel like those +chaps at revivalist meetings when they get up and say they're saved! Won't +somebody please start a hymn?" + +Claudia, with a tremulous joy, was letting herself go on the strong +current of his emotion; but it had not yet carried her beyond her depth, +and suddenly she felt hard ground underfoot. + +"Mrs. Davant--" she exclaimed. + +He stared, as though suddenly recalled from a long distance. "Mrs. Davant?" + +"We were to have met her--this afternoon--now--" + +"At the gallery? Oh, that's all right. I put a stop to that; I went to see +her after I left you; I explained it all to her." + +"All?" + +"I told her I was going to begin all over again." + +Claudia's heart gave a forward bound and then sank back hopelessly. + +"But the panels--?" + +"That's all right too. I told her about the panels," he reassured her. + +"You told her--?" + +"That I can't paint them now. She doesn't understand, of course; but she's +the best little woman and she trusts me." + +She could have wept for joy at his exquisite obtuseness. "But that isn't +all," she wailed. "It doesn't matter how much you've explained to her. It +doesn't do away with the fact that we're living on those panels!" + +"Living on them?" + +"On the money that she paid you to paint them. Isn't that what brought us +here? And--if you mean to do as you say--to begin all over again--how in +the world are we ever to pay her back?" + +Her husband turned on her an inspired eye. "There's only one way that I +know of," he imperturbably declared, "and that's to stay out here till I +learn how to paint them." + + + + +"COPY" + +A DIALOGUE + + +_Mrs. Ambrose Dale--forty, slender, still young--sits in her drawing-room +at the tea-table. The winter twilight is falling, a lamp has been lit, +there is a fire on the hearth, and the room is pleasantly dim and +flower-scented. Books are scattered everywhere--mostly with autograph +inscriptions "From the Author"--and a large portrait of_ Mrs. Dale, +_at her desk, with papers strewn about her, takes up one of the +wall-panels. Before_ Mrs. Dale _stands_ Hilda, _fair and twenty, +her hands full of letters_. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Ten more applications for autographs? Isn't it strange +that people who'd blush to borrow twenty dollars don't scruple to beg for +an autograph? + +_Hilda (reproachfully)_. Oh-- + +_Mrs. Dale_. What's the difference, pray? + +_Hilda_. Only that your last autograph sold for fifty-- + +_Mrs. Dale (not displeased)_. Ah?--I sent for you, Hilda, because I'm +dining out to-night, and if there's nothing important to attend to among +these letters you needn't sit up for me. + +_Hilda_. You don't mean to work? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Perhaps; but I sha'n't need you. You'll see that my +cigarettes and coffee-machine are in place, and: that I don't have to crawl +about the floor in search of my pen-wiper? That's all. Now about these +letters-- + +_Hilda (impulsively)_. Oh, Mrs. Dale-- + +_Mrs. Dale_. Well? + +_Hilda_. I'd rather sit up for you. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Child, I've nothing for you to do. I shall be blocking +out the tenth chapter of _Winged Purposes_ and it won't be ready for +you till next week. + +_Hilda_. It isn't that--but it's so beautiful to sit here, watching +and listening, all alone in the night, and to feel that you're in there +_(she points to the study-door)_ _creating_--._(Impulsively.)_ +What do I care for sleep? + +_Mrs. Dale (indulgently)_. Child--silly child!--Yes, I should have +felt so at your age--it would have been an inspiration-- + +_Hilda (rapt)_. It is! + +_Mrs. Dale_. But you must go to bed; I must have you fresh in the +morning; for you're still at the age when one is fresh in the morning! +_(She sighs.)_ The letters? _(Abruptly.)_ Do you take notes of +what you feel, Hilda--here, all alone in the night, as you say? + +_Hilda (shyly)_. I have-- + +_Mrs. Dale (smiling)_. For the diary? + +_Hilda (nods and blushes)_. + +_Mrs. Dale (caressingly)_. Goose!--Well, to business. What is there? + +_Hilda_. Nothing important, except a letter from Stroud & Fayerweather +to say that the question of the royalty on _Pomegranate Seed_ has been +settled in your favor. The English publishers of _Immolation_ write +to consult you about a six-shilling edition; Olafson, the Copenhagen +publisher, applies for permission to bring out a Danish translation of +_The Idol's Feet_; and the editor of the _Semaphore_ wants a new +serial--I think that's all; except that _Woman's Sphere_ and _The +Droplight_ ask for interviews--with photographs-- + +_Mrs. Dale_. The same old story! I'm so toed of it all. _(To +herself, in an undertone.)_ But how should I feel if it all stopped? +_(The servant brings in a card.)_ + +_Mrs. Dale (reading it)_. Is it possible? Paul Ventnor? _(To the +servant.)_ Show Mr. Ventnor up. _(To herself.)_ Paul Ventnor! + +_Hilda (breathless)_. Oh, Mrs. Dale--_the_ Mr. Ventnor? + +_Mrs. Dale (smiling)_. I fancy there's only one. + +_Hilda_. The great, great poet? _(Irresolute.)_ No, I don't +dare-- + +_Mrs. Dale (with a tinge of impatience)_. What? + +_Hilda (fervently)_. Ask you--if I might--oh, here in this corner, +where he can't possibly notice me--stay just a moment? Just to see him come +in? To see the meeting between you--the greatest novelist and the greatest +poet of the age? Oh, it's too much to ask! It's an historic moment. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Why, I suppose it is. I hadn't thought of it in that +light. Well _(smiling)_, for the diary-- + +_Hilda_. Oh, thank you, _thank you_! I'll be off the very instant +I've heard him speak. + +_Mrs. Dale_. The very instant, mind. _(She rises, looks at herself +in the glass, smooths her hair, sits down again, and rattles the +tea-caddy.)_ Isn't the room very warm?--_(She looks over at her +portrait.)_ I've grown stouter since that was painted--. You'll make a +fortune out of that diary, Hilda-- + +_Hilda (modestly)_. Four publishers have applied to me already-- + +_The Servant (announces)_. Mr. Paul Ventnor. + +_(Tall, nearing fifty, with an incipient stoutness buttoned into a +masterly frock-coat, Ventnor drops his glass and advances vaguely, with a +short-sighted stare.)_ + +_Ventnor_. Mrs. Dale? + +_Mrs. Dale_. My dear friend! This is kind. _(She looks over her +shoulder at Hilda, mho vanishes through the door to the left.)_ The +papers announced your arrival, but I hardly hoped-- + +_Ventnor (whose short-sighted stare is seen to conceal a deeper +embarrassment)_. You hadn't forgotten me, then? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Delicious! Do _you_ forget that you're public +property? + +_Ventnor_. Forgotten, I mean, that we were old friends? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Such old friends! May I remind you that it's nearly +twenty years since we've met? Or do you find cold reminiscences +indigestible? + +_Ventnor_. On the contrary, I've come to ask you for a dish of +them--we'll warm them up together. You're my first visit. + +_Mrs. Dale_. How perfect of you! So few men visit their women friends +in chronological order; or at least they generally do it the other way +round, beginning with the present day and working back--if there's time--to +prehistoric woman. + +_Ventnor_. But when prehistoric woman has become historic woman--? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Oh, it's the reflection of my glory that has guided you +here, then? + +_Ventnor_. It's a spirit in my feet that has led me, at the first +opportunity, to the most delightful spot I know. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Oh, the first opportunity--! + +_Ventnor_. I might have seen you very often before; but never just in +the right way. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Is this the right way? + +_Ventnor_. It depends on you to make it so. + +_Mrs. Dale_. What a responsibility! What shall I do? + +_Ventnor_. Talk to me--make me think you're a little glad to see me; +give me some tea and a cigarette; and say you're out to everyone else. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Is that all? _(She hands him a cup of tea.)_ The +cigarettes are at your elbow--. And do you think I shouldn't have been glad +to see you before? + +_Ventnor_. No; I think I should have been too glad to see you. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Dear me, what precautions! I hope you always wear +goloshes when it looks like rain and never by any chance expose yourself +to a draught. But I had an idea that poets courted the emotions-- + +_Ventnor_. Do novelists? + +_Mrs. Dale_. If you ask _me_--on paper! + +_Ventnor_. Just so; that's safest. My best things about the sea have +been written on shore. _(He looks at her thoughtfully.)_ But it +wouldn't have suited us in the old days, would it? + +_Mrs. Dale (sighing)_. When we were real people! + +_Ventnor_. Real people? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Are _you_, now? I died years ago. What you see +before you is a figment of the reporter's brain--a monster manufactured out +of newspaper paragraphs, with ink in its veins. A keen sense of copyright +is _my_ nearest approach to an emotion. + +_Ventnor (sighing)_. Ah, well, yes--as you say, we're public property. + +_Mrs. Dale_. If one shared equally with the public! But the last shred +of my identity is gone. + +_Ventnor_. Most people would be glad to part with theirs on such +terms. I have followed your work with immense interest. _Immolation_ +is a masterpiece. I read it last summer when it first came out. + +_Mrs. Dale (with a shade less warmth)_. _Immolation_ has been out +three years. + +_Ventnor_. Oh, by Jove--no? Surely not--But one is so overwhelmed--one +loses count. (_Reproachfully_.) Why have you never sent me your books? + +_Mrs. Dale_. For that very reason. + +_Ventnor (deprecatingly)_. You know I didn't mean it for you! And +_my_ first book--do you remember--was dedicated to you. + +_Mrs. Dale_. _Silver Trumpets_-- + +_Ventnor (much interested)_. Have you a copy still, by any chance? The +first edition, I mean? Mine was stolen years ago. Do you think you could +put your hand on it? + +_Mrs. Dale (taking a small shabby book from the table at her side)_. +It's here. + +_Ventnor (eagerly)_. May I have it? Ah, thanks. This is _very_ +interesting. The last copy sold in London for L40, and they tell me the +next will fetch twice as much. It's quite _introuvable_. + +_Mrs. Dale_. I know that. _(A pause. She takes the book from him, +opens it, and reads, half to herself--)_ + + _How much we two have seen together, + Of other eyes unwist, + Dear as in days of leafless weather + The willow's saffron mist, + + Strange as the hour when Hesper swings + A-sea in beryl green, + While overhead on dalliant wings + The daylight hangs serene, + + And thrilling as a meteor's fall + Through depths of lonely sky, + When each to each two watchers call: + I saw it!--So did I._ + +_Ventnor_. Thin, thin--the troubadour tinkle. Odd how little promise +there is in first volumes! + +_Mrs. Dale (with irresistible emphasis)_. I thought there was a +distinct promise in this! + +_Ventnor (seeing his mistake)_. Ah--the one you would never let me +fulfil? _(Sentimentally.)_ How inexorable you were! You never +dedicated a book to _me_. + +_Mrs. Dale_. I hadn't begun to write when we were--dedicating things +to each other. + +_Ventnor_. Not for the public--but you wrote for me; and, wonderful as +you are, you've never written anything since that I care for half as much +as-- + +_Mrs. Dale (interested)_. Well? + +_Ventnor_. Your letters. + +_Mrs. Dale (in a changed voice)_. My letters--do you remember them? + +_Ventnor_. When I don't, I reread them. + +_Mrs. Dale (incredulous)_. You have them still? + +_Ventnor (unguardedly)_. You haven't mine, then? + +_Mrs. Dale (playfully)_. Oh, you were a celebrity already. Of course I +kept them! _(Smiling.)_ Think what they are worth now! I always keep +them locked up in my safe over there. _(She indicates a cabinet.) + +Ventnor (after a pause)_. I always carry yours with me. + +_Mrs. Dale (laughing)_. You-- + +_Ventnor_. Wherever I go. _(A longer pause. She looks at him +fixedly.)_ I have them with me now. + +_Mrs. Dale (agitated)_. You--have them with you--now? + +_Ventnor (embarrassed)_. Why not? One never knows-- + +_Mrs. Dale_. Never knows--? + +_Ventnor (humorously)_. Gad--when the bank-examiner may come round. +You forget I'm a married man. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Ah--yes. + +_Ventnor (sits down beside her)_. I speak to you as I couldn't to +anyone else--without deserving a kicking. You know how it all came about. +_(A pause.)_ You'll bear witness that it wasn't till you denied me all +hope-- + +_Mrs. Dale (a little breathless)_. Yes, yes-- + +_Ventnor_. Till you sent me from you-- + +_Mrs. Dale_. It's so easy to be heroic when one is young! One doesn't +realize how long life is going to last afterward. _(Musing.)_ Nor what +weary work it is gathering up the fragments. + +_Ventnor_. But the time comes when one sends for the china-mender, and +has the bits riveted together, and turns the cracked side to the wall-- + +_Mrs. Dale_. And denies that the article was ever damaged? + +_Ventnor_. Eh? Well, the great thing, you see, is to keep one's self +out of reach of the housemaid's brush. _(A pause.)_ If you're married +you can't--always. _(Smiling.)_ Don't you hate to be taken down and +dusted? + +_Mrs. Dale (with intention)_. You forget how long ago my husband died. +It's fifteen years since I've been an object of interest to anybody but the +public. + +_Ventnor (smiling)_. The only one of your admirers to whom you've ever +given the least encouragement! + +_Mrs. Dale_. Say rather the most easily pleased! + +_Ventnor_. Or the only one you cared to please? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Ah, you _haven't_ kept my letters! + +_Ventnor (gravely)_. Is that a challenge? Look here, then! _(He +drams a packet from his pocket and holds it out to her.)_ + +_Mrs. Dale (taking the packet and looking at him earnestly)_. Why have +you brought me these? + +_Ventnor_. I didn't bring them; they came because I came--that's all. +_(Tentatively.)_ Are we unwelcome? + +_Mrs. Dale (who has undone the packet and does not appear to hear +him)_. The very first I ever wrote you--the day after we met at the +concert. How on earth did you happen to keep it? _(She glances over +it.)_ How perfectly absurd! Well, it's not a compromising document. + +_Ventnor_. I'm afraid none of them are. + +_Mrs. Dale (quickly)_. Is it to that they owe their immunity? Because +one could leave them about like safety matches?--Ah, here's another I +remember--I wrote that the day after we went skating together for the first +time. _(She reads it slowly.)_ How odd! How very odd! + +_Ventnor_. What? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Why, it's the most curious thing--I had a letter of this +kind to do the other day, in the novel I'm at work on now--the letter of a +woman who is just--just beginning-- + +_Ventnor_. Yes--just beginning--? + +_Mrs. Dale_. And, do you know, I find the best phrase in it, the +phrase I somehow regarded as the fruit of--well, of all my subsequent +discoveries--is simply plagiarized, word for word, from this! + +_Ventnor (eagerly)_. I told you so! You were all there! + +_Mrs. Dale (critically)_. But the rest of it's poorly done--very +poorly. _(Reads the letter over.)_ H'm--I didn't know how to leave +off. It takes me forever to get out of the door. + +_Ventnor (gayly)_. Perhaps I was there to prevent you! _(After a +pause.)_ I wonder what I said in return? + +_Mrs. Dale (interested)_. Shall we look? _(She rises.)_ Shall +we--really? I have them all here, you know. _(She goes toward the +cabinet.)_ + +_Ventnor (following her with repressed eagerness)_. Oh--all! + +_Mrs. Dale (throws open the door of the cabinet, revealing a number of +packets)_. Don't you believe me now? + +_Ventnor_. Good heavens! How I must have repeated myself! But then you +were so very deaf. + +_Mrs. Dale (takes out a packet and returns to her seat. Ventnor extends +an impatient hand for the letters)_. No--no; wait! I want to find your +answer to the one I was just reading. _(After a pause.)_ Here it +is--yes, I thought so! + +_Ventnor_. What did you think? + +_Mrs. Dale (triumphantly)_. I thought it was the one in which you +quoted _Epipsychidion_-- + +_Ventnor_. Mercy! Did I _quote_ things? I don't wonder you were +cruel. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Ah, and here's the other--the one I--the one I didn't +answer--for a long time. Do you remember? + +_Ventnor (with emotion)_. Do I remember? I wrote it the morning after +we heard _Isolde_-- + +_Mrs. Dale (disappointed)_. No--no. _That_ wasn't the one I +didn't answer! Here--this is the one I mean. + +_Ventnor (takes it curiously)_. Ah--h'm--this is very like unrolling a +mummy--_(he glances at her)_--with a live grain of wheat in it, +perhaps?--Oh, by Jove! + +_Mrs. Dale_. What? + +_Ventnor_. Why, this is the one I made a sonnet out of afterward! By +Jove, I'd forgotten where that idea came from. You may know the lines +perhaps? They're in the fourth volume of my Complete Edition--It's the +thing beginning + + _Love came to me with unrelenting eyes--_ + +one of my best, I rather fancy. Of course, here it's very crudely put--the +values aren't brought out--ah! this touch is good though--very good. H'm, I +daresay there might be other material. _(He glances toward the +cabinet.)_ + +_Mrs. Dale (drily)_. The live grain of wheat, as you said! + +_Ventnor_. Ah, well--my first harvest was sown on rocky +ground--_now_ I plant for the fowls of the air. _(Rising and walking +toward the cabinet.)_ When can I come and carry off all this rubbish? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Carry it off? + +_Ventnor (embarrassed)_. My dear lady, surely between you and me +explicitness is a burden. You must see that these letters of ours can't be +left to take their chance like an ordinary correspondence--you said +yourself we were public property. + +_Mrs. Dale_. To take their chance? Do you suppose that, in my keeping, +your letters take any chances? _(Suddenly.)_ Do mine--in yours? + +_Ventnor (still more embarrassed)_. Helen--! _(He takes a turn +through the room.)_ You force me to remind you that you and I are +differently situated--that in a moment of madness I sacrificed the only +right you ever gave me--the right to love you better than any other +woman in the world. _(A pause. She says nothing and he continues, with +increasing difficulty--)_ You asked me just now why I carried your +letters about with me--kept them, literally, in my own hands. Well, suppose +it's to be sure of their not falling into some one else's? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Oh! + +_Ventnor (throws himself into a chair)_. For God's sake don't pity me! + +_Mrs. Dale (after a long pause)_. Am I dull--or are you trying to say +that you want to give me back my letters? + +_Ventnor (starting up)_. I? Give you back--? God forbid! Your letters? +Not for the world! The only thing I have left! But you can't dream that in +_my_ hands-- + +_Mrs. Dale (suddenly)_. You want yours, then? + +_Ventnor (repressing his eagerness)_. My dear friend, if I'd ever +dreamed that you'd kept them--? + +_Mrs. Dale (accusingly)_. You _do_ want them. _(A pause. He +makes a deprecatory gesture.)_ Why should they be less safe with me than +mine with you? _I_ never forfeited the right to keep them. + +_Ventnor (after another pause)_. It's compensation enough, almost, +to have you reproach me! _(He moves nearer to her, but she makes no +response.)_ You forget that I've forfeited _all_ my rights--even +that of letting you keep my letters. + +_Mrs. Dale_. You _do_ want them! _(She rises, throws all the +letters into the cabinet, locks the door and puts the key in her +pocket.)_ There's my answer. + +_Ventnor_. Helen--! + +_Mrs. Dale_. Ah, I paid dearly enough for the right to keep them, and +I mean to! _(She turns to him passionately.)_ Have you ever asked +yourself how I paid for it? With what months and years of solitude, what +indifference to flattery, what resistance to affection?--Oh, don't smile +because I said affection, and not love. Affection's a warm cloak in cold +weather; and I _have_ been cold; and I shall keep on growing colder! +Don't talk to me about living in the hearts of my readers! We both know +what kind of a domicile that is. Why, before long I shall become a classic! +Bound in sets and kept on the top book-shelf--brr, doesn't that sound +freezing? I foresee the day when I shall be as lonely as an Etruscan +museum! _(She breaks into a laugh.)_ That's what I've paid for the +right to keep your letters. _(She holds out her hand.)_ And now give +me mine. + +_Ventnor_. Yours? + +_Mrs. Dale (haughtily)_. Yes; I claim them. + +_Ventnor (in the same tone)_. On what ground? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Hear the man!--Because I wrote them, of course. + +_Ventnor_. But it seems to me that--under your inspiration, I admit--I +also wrote mine. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Oh, I don't dispute their authenticity--it's yours I +deny! + +_Ventnor_. Mine? + +_Mrs. Dale_. You voluntarily ceased to be the man who wrote me those +letters--you've admitted as much. You traded paper for flesh and blood. I +don't dispute your wisdom--only you must hold to your bargain! The letters +are all mine. + +_Ventnor (groping between two tones)_. Your arguments are as +convincing as ever. _(He hazards a faint laugh.)_ You're a marvellous +dialectician--but, if we're going to settle the matter in the spirit of an +arbitration treaty, why, there are accepted conventions in such cases. It's +an odious way to put it, but since you won't help me, one of them is-- + +_Mrs. Dale_. One of them is--? + +_Ventnor_. That it is usual--that technically, I mean, the +letter--belongs to its writer-- + +_Mrs. Dale (after a pause)_. Such letters as _these_? + +_Ventnor_. Such letters especially-- + +_Mrs. Dale_. But you couldn't have written them if I hadn't--been +willing to read them. Surely there's more of myself in them than of you. + +_Ventnor_. Surely there's nothing in which a man puts more of himself +than in his love-letters! + +_Mrs. Dale (with emotion)_. But a woman's love-letters are like her child. +They belong to her more than to anybody else-- + +_Ventnor_. And a man's? + +_Mrs. Dale (with sudden violence)_. Are all he risks!--There, take +them. _(She flings the key of the cabinet at his feet and sinks into a +chair.) + +Ventnor (starts as though to pick up the key; then approaches and bends +over her)_. Helen--oh, Helen! + +_Mrs. Dale (she yields her hands to him, murmuring:)_ Paul! +_(Suddenly she straightens herself and draws back illuminated.)_ What +a fool I am! I see it all now. You want them for your memoirs! + +_Ventnor (disconcerted)_. Helen-- + +_Mrs. Dale (agitated)_. Come, come--the rule is to unmask when the +signal's given! You want them for your memoirs. + +_Ventnor (with a forced laugh)_. What makes you think so? + +_Mrs. Dale (triumphantly)_. Because _I_ want them for mine! + +_Ventnor (in a changed tone)_. Ah--. _(He moves away from her and +leans against the mantelpiece. She remains seated, with her eyes fixed on +him.)_ + +_Mrs. Dale_. I wonder I didn't see it sooner. Your reasons were lame +enough. + +_Ventnor (ironically)_. Yours were masterly. You're the more +accomplished actor of the two. I was completely deceived. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Oh, I'm a novelist. I can keep up that sort of thing for +five hundred pages! + +_Ventnor_. I congratulate you. _(A pause.)_ + +_Mrs. Dale (moving to her seat behind the tea-table)_. I've never +offered you any tea. _(She bends over the kettle.)_ Why don't you take +your letters? + +_Ventnor_. Because you've been clever enough to make it impossible for +me. _(He picks up the key and hands it to her. Then abruptly)_--Was it +all acting--just now? + +_Mrs. Dale_. By what right do you ask? + +_Ventnor_. By right of renouncing my claim to my letters. Keep +them--and tell me. + +_Mrs. Dale_. I give you back your claim--and I refuse to tell you. + +_Ventnor (sadly)_. Ah, Helen, if you deceived me, you deceived +yourself also. + +_Mrs. Dale_. What does it matter, now that we're both undeceived? I +played a losing game, that's all. + +_Ventnor_. Why losing--since all the letters are yours? + +_Mrs. Dale_. The letters? _(Slowly.)_ I'd forgotten the letters-- + +_Ventnor (exultant)_. Ah, I knew you'd end by telling me the truth! + +_Mrs. Dale_. The truth? Where _is_ the truth? _(Half to +herself.)_ I thought I was lying when I began--but the lies turned into +truth as I uttered them! _(She looks at Ventnor.)_ I _did_ want +your letters for my memoirs--I _did_ think I'd kept them for that +purpose--and I wanted to get mine back for the same reason--but now _(she +puts out her hand and picks up some of her letters, which are lying +scattered on the table near her)_--how fresh they seem, and how they +take me back to the time when we lived instead of writing about life! + +_Ventnor (smiling)_. The time when we didn't prepare our impromptu +effects beforehand and copyright our remarks about the weather! + +_Mrs. Dale_. Or keep our epigrams in cold storage and our adjectives +under lock and key! + +_Ventnor_. When our emotions weren't worth ten cents a word, and a +signature wasn't an autograph. Ah, Helen, after all, there's nothing like +the exhilaration of spending one's capital! + +_Mrs. Dale_. Of wasting it, you mean. _(She points to the +letters.)_ Do you suppose we could have written a word of these if we'd +known we were putting our dreams out at interest? _(She sits musing, with +her eyes on the fire, and he watches her in silence.)_ Paul, do you +remember the deserted garden we sometimes used to walk in? + +_Ventnor_. The old garden with the high wall at the end of the village +street? The garden with the ruined box-borders and the broken-down arbor? +Why, I remember every weed in the paths and every patch of moss on the +walls! + +_Mrs. Dale._ Well--I went back there the other day. The village is +immensely improved. There's a new hotel with gas-fires, and a trolley in +the main street; and the garden has been turned into a public park, where +excursionists sit on cast-iron benches admiring the statue of an +Abolitionist. + +_Ventnor_. An Abolitionist--how appropriate! + +_Mrs. Dale_. And the man who sold the garden has made a fortune that +he doesn't know how to spend-- + +_Ventnor (rising impulsively)_. Helen, _(he approaches and lays his +hand on her letters)_, let's sacrifice our fortune and keep the +excursionists out! + +_Mrs. Dale (with a responsive movement)_. Paul, do you really mean it? + +_Ventnor (gayly)_. Mean it? Why, I feel like a landed proprietor +already! It's more than a garden--it's a park. + +_Mrs. Dale_. It's more than a park, it's a world--as long as we keep +it to ourselves! + +_Ventnor_. Ah, yes--even the pyramids look small when one sees a +Cook's tourist on top of them! _(He takes the key from the table, unlocks +the cabinet and brings out his letters, which he lays beside hers.)_ +Shall we burn the key to our garden? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Ah, then it will indeed be boundless! _(Watching him +while he throws the letters into the fire.)_ + +_Ventnor (turning back to her with a half-sad smile)_. But not too big +for us to find each other in? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Since we shall be the only people there! _(He takes +both her hands and they look at each other a moment in silence. Then he +goes out by the door to the right. As he reaches the door she takes a step +toward him, impulsively; then turning back she leans against the +chimney-piece, quietly watching the letters burn.)_ + + + + +THE REMBRANDT + + +"You're _so_ artistic," my cousin Eleanor Copt began. + +Of all Eleanor's exordiums it is the one I most dread. When she tells me +I'm so clever I know this is merely the preamble to inviting me to meet the +last literary obscurity of the moment: a trial to be evaded or endured, as +circumstances dictate; whereas her calling me artistic fatally connotes +the request to visit, in her company, some distressed gentlewoman whose +future hangs on my valuation of her old Saxe or of her grandfather's +Marc Antonios. Time was when I attempted to resist these compulsions of +Eleanor's; but I soon learned that, short of actual flight, there was +no refuge from her beneficent despotism. It is not always easy for the +curator of a museum to abandon his post on the plea of escaping a pretty +cousin's importunities; and Eleanor, aware of my predicament, is none +too magnanimous to take advantage of it. Magnanimity is, in fact, not in +Eleanor's line. The virtues, she once explained to me, are like bonnets: +the very ones that look best on other people may not happen to suit one's +own particular style; and she added, with a slight deflection of metaphor, +that none of the ready-made virtues ever _had_ fitted her: they all +pinched somewhere, and she'd given up trying to wear them. + +Therefore when she said to me, "You're _so_ artistic." emphasizing the +conjunction with a tap of her dripping umbrella (Eleanor is out in all +weathers: the elements are as powerless against her as man), I merely +stipulated, "It's not old Saxe again?" + +She shook her head reassuringly. "A picture--a Rembrandt!" + +"Good Lord! Why not a Leonardo?" + +"Well"--she smiled--"that, of course, depends on _you_." + +"On me?" + +"On your attribution. I dare say Mrs. Fontage would consent to the +change--though she's very conservative." + +A gleam of hope came to me and I pronounced: "One can't judge of a picture +in this weather." + +"Of course not. I'm coming for you to-morrow." + +"I've an engagement to-morrow." + +"I'll come before or after your engagement." + +The afternoon paper lay at my elbow and I contrived a furtive consultation +of the weather-report. It said "Rain to-morrow," and I answered briskly: +"All right, then; come at ten"--rapidly calculating that the clouds on +which I counted might lift by noon. + +My ingenuity failed of its due reward; for the heavens, as if in league +with my cousin, emptied themselves before morning, and punctually at ten +Eleanor and the sun appeared together in my office. + +I hardly listened, as we descended the Museum steps and got into Eleanor's +hansom, to her vivid summing-up of the case. I guessed beforehand that the +lady we were about to visit had lapsed by the most distressful degrees from +opulence to a "hall-bedroom"; that her grandfather, if he had not been +Minister to France, had signed the Declaration of Independence; that the +Rembrandt was an heirloom, sole remnant of disbanded treasures; that for +years its possessor had been unwilling to part with it, and that even now +the question of its disposal must be approached with the most diplomatic +obliquity. + +Previous experience had taught me that all Eleanor's "cases" presented a +harrowing similarity of detail. No circumstance tending to excite the +spectator's sympathy and involve his action was omitted from the history of +her beneficiaries; the lights and shades were indeed so skilfully adjusted +that any impartial expression of opinion took on the hue of cruelty. I +could have produced closetfuls of "heirlooms" in attestation of this fact; +for it is one more mark of Eleanor's competence that her friends usually +pay the interest on her philanthropy. My one hope was that in this case the +object, being a picture, might reasonably be rated beyond my means; and +as our cab drew up before a blistered brown-stone door-step I formed the +self-defensive resolve to place an extreme valuation on Mrs. Fontage's +Rembrandt. It is Eleanor's fault if she is sometimes fought with her own +weapons. + +The house stood in one of those shabby provisional-looking New York streets +that seem resignedly awaiting demolition. It was the kind of house that, +in its high days, must have had a bow-window with a bronze in it. The +bow-window had been replaced by a plumber's _devanture_, and one might +conceive the bronze to have gravitated to the limbo where Mexican onyx +tables and bric-a-brac in buffalo-horn await the first signs of our next +aesthetic reaction. + +Eleanor swept me through a hall that smelled of poverty, up unlit stairs to +a bare slit of a room. "And she must leave this in a month!" she whispered +across her knock. + +I had prepared myself for the limp widow's weed of a woman that one figures +in such a setting; and confronted abruptly with Mrs. Fontage's white-haired +erectness I had the disconcerting sense that I was somehow in her presence +at my own solicitation. I instinctively charged Eleanor with this reversal +of the situation; but a moment later I saw it must be ascribed to a +something about Mrs. Fontage that precluded the possibility of her asking +any one a favor. It was not that she was of forbidding, or even majestic, +demeanor; but that one guessed, under her aquiline prettiness, a dignity +nervously on guard against the petty betrayal of her surroundings. The +room was unconcealably poor: the little faded "relics," the high-stocked +ancestral silhouettes, the steel-engravings after Raphael and Correggio, +grouped in a vain attempt to hide the most obvious stains on the +wall-paper, served only to accentuate the contrast of a past evidently +diversified by foreign travel and the enjoyment of the arts. Even Mrs. +Fontage's dress had the air of being a last expedient, the ultimate outcome +of a much-taxed ingenuity in darning and turning. One felt that all the +poor lady's barriers were falling save that of her impregnable manner. + +To this manner I found myself conveying my appreciation of being admitted +to a view of the Rembrandt. + +Mrs. Fontage's smile took my homage for granted. "It is always," she +conceded, "a privilege to be in the presence of the great masters." Her +slim wrinkled hand waved me to a dusky canvas near the window. + +"It's _so_ interesting, dear Mrs. Fontage," I heard Eleanor +exclaiming, "and my cousin will be able to tell you exactly--" Eleanor, in +my presence, always admits that she knows nothing about art; but she gives +the impression that this is merely because she hasn't had time to look into +the matter--and has had me to do it for her. + +Mrs. Fontage seated herself without speaking, as though fearful that a +breath might disturb my communion with the masterpiece. I felt that she +thought Eleanor's reassuring ejaculations ill-timed; and in this I was of +one mind with her; for the impossibility of telling her exactly what I +thought of her Rembrandt had become clear to me at a glance. + +My cousin's vivacities began to languish and the silence seemed to shape +itself into a receptacle for my verdict. I stepped back, affecting a more +distant scrutiny; and as I did so my eye caught Mrs. Fontage's profile. Her +lids trembled slightly. I took refuge in the familiar expedient of asking +the history of the picture, and she waved me brightly to a seat. + +This was indeed a topic on which she could dilate. The Rembrandt, it +appeared, had come into Mr. Fontage's possession many years ago, while +the young couple were on their wedding-tour, and under circumstances so +romantic that she made no excuse for relating them in all their parenthetic +fulness. The picture belonged to an old Belgian Countess of redundant +quarterings, whom the extravagances of an ungovernable nephew had compelled +to part with her possessions (in the most private manner) about the time of +the Fontages' arrival. By a really remarkable coincidence, it happened that +their courier (an exceptionally intelligent and superior man) was an old +servant of the Countess's, and had thus been able to put them in the way of +securing the Rembrandt under the very nose of an English Duke, whose agent +had been sent to Brussels to negotiate for its purchase. Mrs. Fontage could +not recall the Duke's name, but he was a great collector and had a famous +Highland castle, where somebody had been murdered, and which she herself +had visited (by moonlight) when she had travelled in Scotland as a girl. +The episode had in short been one of the most interesting "experiences" of +a tour almost chromo-lithographic in vivacity of impression; and they had +always meant to go back to Brussels for the sake of reliving so picturesque +a moment. Circumstances (of which the narrator's surroundings declared the +nature) had persistently interfered with the projected return to Europe, +and the picture had grown doubly valuable as representing the high-water +mark of their artistic emotions. Mrs. Fontage's moist eye caressed the +canvas. "There is only," she added with a perceptible effort, "one slight +drawback: the picture is not signed. But for that the Countess, of course, +would have sold it to a museum. All the connoisseurs who have seen it +pronounce it an undoubted Rembrandt, in the artist's best manner; but the +museums"--she arched her brows in smiling recognition of a well-known +weakness--"give the preference to signed examples--" + +Mrs. Fontage's words evoked so touching a vision of the young tourists of +fifty years ago, entrusting to an accomplished and versatile courier the +direction of their helpless zeal for art, that I lost sight for a moment +of the point at issue. The old Belgian Countess, the wealthy Duke with a +feudal castle in Scotland, Mrs. Fontage's own maiden pilgrimage to Arthur's +Seat and Holyrood, all the accessories of the naif transaction, seemed +a part of that vanished Europe to which our young race carried its +indiscriminate ardors, its tender romantic credulity: the legendary +castellated Europe of keepsakes, brigands and old masters, that +compensated, by one such "experience" as Mrs. Fontage's, for an after-life +of aesthetic privation. + +I was restored to the present by Eleanor's looking at her watch. The action +mutely conveyed that something was expected of me. I risked the temporizing +statement that the picture was very interesting; but Mrs. Fontage's polite +assent revealed the poverty of the expedient. Eleanor's impatience +overflowed. + +"You would like my cousin to give you an idea of its value?" she suggested. + +Mrs. Fontage grew more erect. "No one," she corrected with great +gentleness, "can know its value quite as well as I, who live with it--" + +We murmured our hasty concurrence. + +"But it might be interesting to hear"--she addressed herself to me--"as a +mere matter of curiosity--what estimate would be put on it from the purely +commercial point of view--if such a term may be used in speaking of a work +of art." + +I sounded a note of deprecation. + +"Oh, I understand, of course," she delicately anticipated me, "that that +could never be _your_ view, your personal view; but since occasions +_may_ arise--do arise--when it becomes necessary to--to put a price on +the priceless, as it were--I have thought--Miss Copt has suggested--" + +"Some day," Eleanor encouraged her, "you might feel that the picture ought +to belong to some one who has more--more opportunity of showing it--letting +it be seen by the public--for educational reasons--" + +"I have tried," Mrs. Fontage admitted, "to see it in that light." + +The crucial moment was upon me. To escape the challenge of Mrs. Fontage's +brilliant composure I turned once more to the picture. If my courage needed +reinforcement, the picture amply furnished it. Looking at that lamentable +canvas seemed the surest way of gathering strength to denounce it; but +behind me, all the while, I felt Mrs. Fontage's shuddering pride drawn +up in a final effort of self-defense. I hated myself for my sentimental +perversion of the situation. Reason argued that it was more cruel to +deceive Mrs. Fontage than to tell her the truth; but that merely proved the +inferiority of reason to instinct in situations involving any concession to +the emotions. Along with her faith in the Rembrandt I must destroy not only +the whole fabric of Mrs. Fontage's past, but even that lifelong habit of +acquiescence in untested formulas that makes the best part of the average +feminine strength. I guessed the episode of the picture to be inextricably +interwoven with the traditions and convictions which served to veil Mrs. +Fontage's destitution not only from others but from herself. Viewed in +that light the Rembrandt had perhaps been worth its purchase-money; and I +regretted that works of art do not commonly sell on the merit of the moral +support they may have rendered. + +From this unavailing flight I was recalled by the sense that something +must be done. To place a fictitious value on the picture was at best a +provisional measure; while the brutal alternative of advising Mrs. Fontage +to sell it for a hundred dollars at least afforded an opening to the +charitably disposed purchaser. I intended, if other resources failed, +to put myself forward in that light; but delicacy of course forbade my +coupling my unflattering estimate of the Rembrandt with an immediate offer +to buy it. All I could do was to inflict the wound: the healing unguent +must be withheld for later application. + +I turned to Mrs. Fontage, who sat motionless, her finely-lined cheeks +touched with an expectant color, her eyes averted from the picture which +was so evidently the one object they beheld. + +"My dear madam--" I began. Her vivid smile was like a light held up to +dazzle me. It shrouded every alternative in darkness and I had the flurried +sense of having lost my way among the intricacies of my contention. Of +a sudden I felt the hopelessness of finding a crack in her impenetrable +conviction. My words slipped from me like broken weapons. "The picture," +I faltered, "would of course be worth more if it were signed. As it is, +I--I hardly think--on a conservative estimate--it can be valued at--at +more--than--a thousand dollars, say--" + +My deflected argument ran on somewhat aimlessly till it found itself +plunging full tilt against the barrier of Mrs. Fontage's silence. She sat +as impassive as though I had not spoken. Eleanor loosed a few fluttering +words of congratulation and encouragement, but their flight was suddenly +cut short. Mrs. Fontage had risen with a certain solemnity. + +"I could never," she said gently--her gentleness was adamantine--"under any +circumstances whatever, consider, for a moment even, the possibility of +parting with the picture at such a price." + + +II + +Within three weeks a tremulous note from Mrs. Fontage requested the favor +of another visit. If the writing was tremulous, however, the writer's tone +was firm. She named her own day and hour, without the conventional +reference to her visitor's convenience. + +My first impulse was to turn the note over to Eleanor. I had acquitted +myself of my share in the ungrateful business of coming to Mrs. Fontage's +aid, and if, as her letter denoted, she had now yielded to the closer +pressure of need, the business of finding a purchaser for the Rembrandt +might well be left to my cousin's ingenuity. But here conscience put in +the uncomfortable reminder that it was I who, in putting a price on the +picture, had raised the real obstacle in the way of Mrs. Fontage's rescue. +No one would give a thousand dollars for the Rembrandt; but to tell +Mrs. Fontage so had become as unthinkable as murder. I had, in fact, on +returning from my first inspection of the picture, refrained from imparting +to Eleanor my opinion of its value. Eleanor is porous, and I knew that +sooner or later the unnecessary truth would exude through the loose texture +of her dissimulation. Not infrequently she thus creates the misery she +alleviates; and I have sometimes suspected her of paining people in order +that she might be sorry for them. I had, at all events, cut off retreat in +Eleanor's direction; and the remaining alternative carried me straight to +Mrs. Fontage. + +She received me with the same commanding sweetness. The room was even barer +than before--I believe the carpet was gone--but her manner built up about +her a palace to which I was welcomed with high state; and it was as a mere +incident of the ceremony that I was presently made aware of her decision to +sell the Rembrandt. My previous unsuccess in planning how to deal with Mrs. +Fontage had warned me to leave my farther course to chance; and I listened +to her explanation with complete detachment. She had resolved to travel for +her health; her doctor advised it, and as her absence might be indefinitely +prolonged she had reluctantly decided to part with the picture in order +to avoid the expense of storage and insurance. Her voice drooped at the +admission, and she hurried on, detailing the vague itinerary of a journey +that was to combine long-promised visits to impatient friends with various +"interesting opportunities" less definitely specified. The poor lady's +skill in rearing a screen of verbiage about her enforced avowal had +distracted me from my own share in the situation, and it was with dismay +that I suddenly caught the drift of her assumptions. She expected me to +buy the Rembrandt for the Museum; she had taken my previous valuation as a +tentative bid, and when I came to my senses she was in the act of accepting +my offer. + +Had I had a thousand dollars of my own to dispose of, the bargain would +have been concluded on the spot; but I was in the impossible position of +being materially unable to buy the picture and morally unable to tell her +that it was not worth acquiring for the Museum. + +I dashed into the first evasion in sight. I had no authority, I explained, +to purchase pictures for the Museum without the consent of the committee. + +Mrs. Fontage coped for a moment in silence with the incredible fact +that I had rejected her offer; then she ventured, with a kind of pale +precipitation: "But I understood--Miss Copt tells me that you practically +decide such matters for the committee." I could guess what the effort had +cost her. + +"My cousin is given to generalizations. My opinion may have some weight +with the committee--" + +"Well, then--" she timidly prompted. + +"For that very reason I can't buy the picture." + +She said, with a drooping note, "I don't understand." + +"Yet you told me," I reminded her, "that you knew museums didn't buy +unsigned pictures." + +"Not for what they are worth! Every one knows that. But I--I +understood--the price you named--" Her pride shuddered back from the +abasement. "It's a misunderstanding then," she faltered. + +To avoid looking at her, I glanced desperately at the Rembrandt. Could +I--? But reason rejected the possibility. Even if the committee had been +blind--and they all _were_ but Crozier--I simply shouldn't have dared +to do it. I stood up, feeling that to cut the matter short was the only +alleviation within reach. + +Mrs. Fontage had summoned her indomitable smile; but its brilliancy +dropped, as I opened the door, like a candle blown out by a draught. + +"If there's any one else--if you knew any one who would care to see the +picture, I should be most happy--" She kept her eyes on me, and I saw that, +in her case, it hurt less than to look at the Rembrandt. "I shall have to +leave here, you know," she panted, "if nobody cares to have it--" + + +III + +That evening at my club I had just succeeded in losing sight of Mrs. +Fontage in the fumes of an excellent cigar, when a voice at my elbow evoked +her harassing image. + +"I want to talk to you," the speaker said, "about Mrs. Fontage's +Rembrandt." + +"There isn't any," I was about to growl; but looking up I recognized the +confiding countenance of Mr. Jefferson Rose. + +Mr. Rose was known to me chiefly as a young man suffused with a vague +enthusiasm for Virtue and my cousin Eleanor. + +One glance at his glossy exterior conveyed the assurance that his morals +were as immaculate as his complexion and his linen. Goodness exuded from +his moist eye, his liquid voice, the warm damp pressure of his trustful +hand. He had always struck me as one of the most uncomplicated organisms +I had ever met. His ideas were as simple and inconsecutive as the +propositions in a primer, and he spoke slowly, with a kind of uniformity +of emphasis that made his words stand out like the raised type for the +blind. An obvious incapacity for abstract conceptions made him peculiarly +susceptible to the magic of generalization, and one felt he would have been +at the mercy of any Cause that spelled itself with a capital letter. It was +hard to explain how, with such a superabundance of merit, he managed to be +a good fellow: I can only say that he performed the astonishing feat as +naturally as he supported an invalid mother and two sisters on the slender +salary of a banker's clerk. He sat down beside me with an air of bright +expectancy. + +"It's a remarkable picture, isn't it?" he said. + +"You've seen it?" + +"I've been so fortunate. Miss Copt was kind enough to get Mrs. Fontage's +permission; we went this afternoon." I inwardly wished that Eleanor +had selected another victim; unless indeed the visit were part of a +plan whereby some third person, better equipped for the cultivation of +delusions, was to be made to think the Rembrandt remarkable. Knowing the +limitations of Mr. Rose's resources I began to wonder if he had any rich +aunts. + +"And her buying it in that way, too," he went on with his limpid smile, +"from that old Countess in Brussels, makes it all the more interesting, +doesn't it? Miss Copt tells me it's very seldom old pictures can be traced +back for more than a generation. I suppose the fact of Mrs. Fontage's +knowing its history must add a good deal to its value?" + +Uncertain as to his drift, I said: "In her eyes it certainly appears to." + +Implications are lost on Mr. Rose, who glowingly continued: "That's the +reason why I wanted to talk to you about it--to consult you. Miss Copt +tells me you value it at a thousand dollars." + +There was no denying this, and I grunted a reluctant assent. + +"Of course," he went on earnestly, "your valuation is based on the fact +that the picture isn't signed--Mrs. Fontage explained that; and it does +make a difference, certainly. But the thing is--if the picture's really +good--ought one to take advantage--? I mean--one can see that Mrs. Fontage +is in a tight place, and I wouldn't for the world--" + +My astonished stare arrested him. + +"_You_ wouldn't--?" + +"I mean--you see, it's just this way"; he coughed and blushed: "I can't +give more than a thousand dollars myself--it's as big a sum as I can manage +to scrape together--but before I make the offer I want to be sure I'm not +standing in the way of her getting more money." + +My astonishment lapsed to dismay. "You're going to buy the picture for a +thousand dollars?" + +His blush deepened. "Why, yes. It sounds rather absurd, I suppose. It isn't +much in my line, of course. I can see the picture's very beautiful, but I'm +no judge--it isn't the kind of thing, naturally, that I could afford to go +in for; but in this case I'm very glad to do what I can; the circumstances +are so distressing; and knowing what you think of the picture I feel it's a +pretty safe investment--" + +"I don't think!" I blurted out. + +"You--?" + +"I don't think the picture's worth a thousand dollars; I don't think it's +worth ten cents; I simply lied about it, that's all." + +Mr. Rose looked as frightened as though I had charged him with the offense. + +"Hang it, man, can't you see how it happened? I saw the poor woman's pride +and happiness hung on her faith in that picture. I tried to make her +understand that it was worthless--but she wouldn't; I tried to tell her +so--but I couldn't. I behaved like a maudlin ass, but you shan't pay for my +infernal bungling--you mustn't buy the picture!" + +Mr. Rose sat silent, tapping one glossy boot-tip with another. Suddenly he +turned on me a glance of stored intelligence. "But you know," he said +good-humoredly, "I rather think I must." + +"You haven't--already?" + +"Oh, no; the offer's not made." + +"Well, then--" + +His look gathered a brighter significance. + +"But if the picture's worth nothing, nobody will buy it--" + +I groaned. + +"Except," he continued, "some fellow like me, who doesn't know anything. +_I_ think it's lovely, you know; I mean to hang it in my mother's +sitting-room." He rose and clasped my hand in his adhesive pressure. "I'm +awfully obliged to you for telling me this; but perhaps you won't mind my +asking you not to mention our talk to Miss Copt? It might bother her, you +know, to think the picture isn't exactly up to the mark; and it won't make +a rap of difference to me." + + +IV + +Mr. Rose left me to a sleepless night. The next morning my resolve was +formed, and it carried me straight to Mrs. Fontage's. She answered my knock +by stepping out on the landing, and as she shut the door behind her I +caught a glimpse of her devastated interior. She mentioned, with a careful +avoidance of the note of pathos on which our last conversation had closed, +that she was preparing to leave that afternoon; and the trunks obstructing +the threshold showed that her preparations were nearly complete. They were, +I felt certain, the same trunks that, strapped behind a rattling vettura, +had accompanied the bride and groom on that memorable voyage of discovery +of which the booty had till recently adorned her walls; and there was a +dim consolation in the thought that those early "finds" in coral and Swiss +wood-carving, in lava and alabaster, still lay behind the worn locks, in +the security of worthlessness. + +Mrs. Fontage, on the landing, among her strapped and corded treasures, +maintained the same air of stability that made it impossible, even under +such conditions, to regard her flight as anything less dignified than +a departure. It was the moral support of what she tacitly assumed that +enabled me to set forth with proper deliberation the object of my visit; +and she received my announcement with an absence of surprise that struck +me as the very flower of tact. Under cover of these mutual assumptions the +transaction was rapidly concluded; and it was not till the canvas passed +into my hands that, as though the physical contact had unnerved her, +Mrs. Fontage suddenly faltered. "It's the giving it up--" she stammered, +disguising herself to the last; and I hastened away from the collapse of +her splendid effrontery. + +I need hardly point out that I had acted impulsively, and that reaction +from the most honorable impulses is sometimes attended by moral +perturbation. My motives had indeed been mixed enough to justify some +uneasiness, but this was allayed by the instinctive feeling that it is more +venial to defraud an institution than a man. Since Mrs. Fontage had to be +kept from starving by means not wholly defensible, it was better that the +obligation should be borne by a rich institution than an impecunious youth. +I doubt, in fact, if my scruples would have survived a night's sleep, had +they not been complicated by some uncertainty as to my own future. It was +true that, subject to the purely formal assent of the committee, I had +full power to buy for the Museum, and that the one member of the committee +likely to dispute my decision was opportunely travelling in Europe; but the +picture once in place I must face the risk of any expert criticism to which +chance might expose it. I dismissed this contingency for future study, +stored the Rembrandt in the cellar of the Museum, and thanked heaven that +Crozier was abroad. + +Six months later he strolled into my office. I had just concluded, under +conditions of exceptional difficulty, and on terms unexpectedly benign, +the purchase of the great Bartley Reynolds; and this circumstance, by +relegating the matter of the Rembrandt to a lower stratum of consciousness, +enabled me to welcome Crozier with unmixed pleasure. My security +was enhanced by his appearance. His smile was charged with amiable +reminiscences, and I inferred that his trip had put him in the humor +to approve of everything, or at least to ignore what fell short of his +approval. I had therefore no uneasiness in accepting his invitation to dine +that evening. It is always pleasant to dine with Crozier and never more so +than when he is just back from Europe. His conversation gives even the food +a flavor of the Cafe Anglais. + +The repast was delightful, and it was not till we had finished a Camembert +which he must have brought over with him, that my host said, in a tone of +after-dinner perfunctoriness: "I see you've picked up a picture or two +since I left." + +I assented. "The Bartley Reynolds seemed too good an opportunity to miss, +especially as the French government was after it. I think we got it +cheap--" + +"_Connu, connu_" said Crozier pleasantly. "I know all about the +Reynolds. It was the biggest kind of a haul and I congratulate you. Best +stroke of business we've done yet. But tell me about the other picture--the +Rembrandt." + +"I never said it was a Rembrandt." I could hardly have said why, but I felt +distinctly annoyed with Crozier. + +"Of course not. There's 'Rembrandt' on the frame, but I saw you'd +modified it to 'Dutch School'; I apologize." He paused, but I offered no +explanation. "What about it?" he went on. "Where did you pick it up?" As +he leaned to the flame of the cigar-lighter his face seemed ruddy with +enjoyment. + +"I got it for a song," I said. + +"A thousand, I think?" + +"Have you seen it?" I asked abruptly. + +"Went over the place this afternoon and found it in the cellar. Why hasn't +it been hung, by the way?" + +I paused a moment. "I'm waiting--" + +"To--?" + +"To have it varnished." + +"Ah!" He leaned back and poured himself a second glass of Chartreuse. The +smile he confided to its golden depths provoked me to challenge him with-- + +"What do you think of it?" + +"The Rembrandt?" He lifted his eyes from the glass. "Just what you do." + +"It isn't a Rembrandt." + +"I apologize again. You call it, I believe, a picture of the same period?" + +"I'm uncertain of the period." + +"H'm." He glanced appreciatively along his cigar. "What are you certain +of?" + +"That it's a damned bad picture," I said savagely. + +He nodded. "Just so. That's all we wanted to know." + +"_We_?" + +"We--I--the committee, in short. You see, my dear fellow, if you hadn't +been certain it was a damned bad picture our position would have been a +little awkward. As it is, my remaining duty--I ought to explain that in +this matter I'm acting for the committee--is as simple as it's agreeable." + +"I'll be hanged," I burst out, "if I understand one word you're saying!" + +He fixed me with a kind of cruel joyousness. "You will--you will," he +assured me; "at least you'll begin to, when you hear that I've seen Miss +Copt." + +"Miss Copt?" + +"And that she has told me under what conditions the picture was bought." + +"She doesn't know anything about the conditions! That is," I added, +hastening to restrict the assertion, "she doesn't know my opinion of the +picture." I thirsted for five minutes with Eleanor. + +"Are you quite sure?" Crozier took me up. "Mr. Jefferson Rose does." + +"Ah--I see." + +"I thought you would," he reminded me. "As soon as I'd laid eyes on +the Rembrandt--I beg your pardon!--I saw that it--well, required some +explanation." + +"You might have come to me." + +"I meant to; but I happened to meet Miss Copt, whose encyclopaedic +information has often before been of service to me. I always go to Miss +Copt when I want to look up anything; and I found she knew all about the +Rembrandt." + +"_All_?" + +"Precisely. The knowledge was in fact causing her sleepless nights. Mr. +Rose, who was suffering from the same form of insomnia, had taken her into +his confidence, and she--ultimately--took me into hers." + +"Of course!" + +"I must ask you to do your cousin justice. She didn't speak till it became +evident to her uncommonly quick perceptions that your buying the picture on +its merits would have been infinitely worse for--for everybody--than your +diverting a small portion of the Museum's funds to philanthropic uses. Then +she told me the moving incident of Mr. Rose. Good fellow, Rose. And the +old lady's case was desperate. Somebody had to buy that picture." I moved +uneasily in my seat "Wait a moment, will you? I haven't finished my cigar. +There's a little head of Il Fiammingo's that you haven't seen, by the way; +I picked it up the other day in Parma. We'll go in and have a look at it +presently. But meanwhile what I want to say is that I've been charged--in +the most informal way--to express to you the committee's appreciation of +your admirable promptness and energy in capturing the Bartley Reynolds. We +shouldn't have got it at all if you hadn't been uncommonly wide-awake, and +to get it at such a price is a double triumph. We'd have thought nothing of +a few more thousands--" + +"I don't see," I impatiently interposed, "that, as far as I'm concerned, +that alters the case." + +"The case--?" + +"Of Mrs. Fontage's Rembrandt. I bought the picture because, as you say, the +situation was desperate, and I couldn't raise a thousand myself. What I did +was of course indefensible; but the money shall be refunded tomorrow--" + +Crozier raised a protesting hand. "Don't interrupt me when I'm talking ex +cathedra. The money's been refunded already. The fact is, the Museum has +sold the Rembrandt." + +I stared at him wildly. "Sold it? To whom?" + +"Why--to the committee.--Hold on a bit, please.--Won't you take another +cigar? Then perhaps I can finish what I've got to say.--Why, my dear +fellow, the committee's under an obligation to you--that's the way we look +at it. I've investigated Mrs. Fontage's case, and--well, the picture had to +be bought. She's eating meat now, I believe, for the first time in a year. +And they'd have turned her out into the street that very day, your cousin +tells me. Something had to be done at once, and you've simply given a +number of well-to-do and self-indulgent gentlemen the opportunity of +performing, at very small individual expense, a meritorious action in +the nick of time. That's the first thing I've got to thank you for. And +then--you'll remember, please, that I have the floor--that I'm still +speaking for the committee--and secondly, as a slight recognition of your +services in securing the Bartley Reynolds at a very much lower figure than +we were prepared to pay, we beg you--the committee begs you--to accept the +gift of Mrs. Fontage's Rembrandt. Now we'll go in and look at that little +head...." + + + + +THE MOVING FINGER + + +The news of Mrs. Grancy's death came to me with the shock of an immense +blunder--one of fate's most irretrievable acts of vandalism. It was as +though all sorts of renovating forces had been checked by the clogging of +that one wheel. Not that Mrs. Grancy contributed any perceptible momentum +to the social machine: her unique distinction was that of filling to +perfection her special place in the world. So many people are like +badly-composed statues, over-lapping their niches at one point and leaving +them vacant at another. Mrs. Grancy's niche was her husband's life; and if +it be argued that the space was not large enough for its vacancy to leave a +very big gap, I can only say that, at the last resort, such dimensions must +be determined by finer instruments than any ready-made standard of utility. +Ralph Grancy's was in short a kind of disembodied usefulness: one of those +constructive influences that, instead of crystallizing into definite forms, +remain as it were a medium for the development of clear thinking and fine +feeling. He faithfully irrigated his own dusty patch of life, and the +fruitful moisture stole far beyond his boundaries. If, to carry on the +metaphor, Grancy's life was a sedulously-cultivated enclosure, his wife was +the flower he had planted in its midst--the embowering tree, rather, which +gave him rest and shade at its foot and the wind of dreams in its upper +branches. + +We had all--his small but devoted band of followers--known a moment when it +seemed likely that Grancy would fail us. We had watched him pitted against +one stupid obstacle after another--ill-health, poverty, misunderstanding +and, worst of all for a man of his texture, his first wife's soft insidious +egotism. We had seen him sinking under the leaden embrace of her affection +like a swimmer in a drowning clutch; but just as we despaired he had always +come to the surface again, blinded, panting, but striking out fiercely for +the shore. When at last her death released him it became a question as to +how much of the man she had carried with her. Left alone, he revealed numb +withered patches, like a tree from which a parasite has been stripped. But +gradually he began to put out new leaves; and when he met the lady who +was to become his second wife--his one _real_ wife, as his friends +reckoned--the whole man burst into flower. + +The second Mrs. Grancy was past thirty when he married her, and it was +clear that she had harvested that crop of middle joy which is rooted in +young despair. But if she had lost the surface of eighteen she had kept +its inner light; if her cheek lacked the gloss of immaturity her eyes were +young with the stored youth of half a life-time. Grancy had first known her +somewhere in the East--I believe she was the sister of one of our consuls +out there--and when he brought her home to New York she came among us as +a stranger. The idea of Grancy's remarriage had been a shock to us all. +After one such calcining most men would have kept out of the fire; but we +agreed that he was predestined to sentimental blunders, and we awaited +with resignation the embodiment of his latest mistake. Then Mrs. Grancy +came--and we understood. She was the most beautiful and the most complete +of explanations. We shuffled our defeated omniscience out of sight and gave +it hasty burial under a prodigality of welcome. For the first time in years +we had Grancy off our minds. "He'll do something great now!" the least +sanguine of us prophesied; and our sentimentalist emended: "He _has_ +done it--in marrying her!" + +It was Claydon, the portrait-painter, who risked this hyperbole; and who +soon afterward, at the happy husband's request, prepared to defend it in a +portrait of Mrs. Grancy. We were all--even Claydon--ready to concede that +Mrs. Grancy's unwontedness was in some degree a matter of environment. Her +graces were complementary and it needed the mate's call to reveal the flash +of color beneath her neutral-tinted wings. But if she needed Grancy to +interpret her, how much greater was the service she rendered him! Claydon +professionally described her as the right frame for him; but if she defined +she also enlarged, if she threw the whole into perspective she also cleared +new ground, opened fresh vistas, reclaimed whole areas of activity that had +run to waste under the harsh husbandry of privation. This interaction of +sympathies was not without its visible expression. Claydon was not alone +in maintaining that Grancy's presence--or indeed the mere mention of his +name--had a perceptible effect on his wife's appearance. It was as though a +light were shifted, a curtain drawn back, as though, to borrow another of +Claydon's metaphors, Love the indefatigable artist were perpetually seeking +a happier "pose" for his model. In this interpretative light Mrs. Grancy +acquired the charm which makes some women's faces like a book of which +the last page is never turned. There was always something new to read in +her eyes. What Claydon read there--or at least such scattered hints of +the ritual as reached him through the sanctuary doors--his portrait in +due course declared to us. When the picture was exhibited it was at once +acclaimed as his masterpiece; but the people who knew Mrs. Grancy smiled +and said it was flattered. Claydon, however, had not set out to paint +_their_ Mrs. Grancy--or ours even--but Ralph's; and Ralph knew his own +at a glance. At the first confrontation he saw that Claydon had understood. +As for Mrs. Grancy, when the finished picture was shown to her she turned +to the painter and said simply: "Ah, you've done me facing the east!" + +The picture, then, for all its value, seemed a mere incident in the +unfolding of their double destiny, a foot-note to the illuminated text of +their lives. It was not till afterward that it acquired the significance +of last words spoken on a threshold never to be recrossed. Grancy, a year +after his marriage, had given up his town house and carried his bliss an +hour's journey away, to a little place among the hills. His various duties +and interests brought him frequently to New York but we necessarily saw him +less often than when his house had served as the rallying-point of kindred +enthusiasms. It seemed a pity that such an influence should be withdrawn, +but we all felt that his long arrears of happiness should be paid in +whatever coin he chose. The distance from which the fortunate couple +radiated warmth on us was not too great for friendship to traverse; and our +conception of a glorified leisure took the form of Sundays spent in the +Grancys' library, with its sedative rural outlook, and the portrait of Mrs. +Grancy illuminating its studious walls. The picture was at its best in that +setting; and we used to accuse Claydon of visiting Mrs. Grancy in order to +see her portrait. He met this by declaring that the portrait _was_ +Mrs. Grancy; and there were moments when the statement seemed unanswerable. +One of us, indeed--I think it must have been the novelist--said that +Clayton had been saved from falling in love with Mrs. Grancy only by +falling in love with his picture of her; and it was noticeable that he, to +whom his finished work was no more than the shed husk of future effort, +showed a perennial tenderness for this one achievement. We smiled afterward +to think how often, when Mrs. Grancy was in the room, her presence +reflecting itself in our talk like a gleam of sky in a hurrying current, +Claydon, averted from the real woman, would sit as it were listening to the +picture. His attitude, at the time, seemed only a part of the unusualness +of those picturesque afternoons, when the most familiar combinations of +life underwent a magical change. Some human happiness is a landlocked lake; +but the Grancys' was an open sea, stretching a buoyant and illimitable +surface to the voyaging interests of life. There was room and to spare on +those waters for all our separate ventures; and always beyond the sunset, +a mirage of the fortunate isles toward which our prows bent. + + +II + +It was in Rome that, three years later, I heard of her death. The notice +said "suddenly"; I was glad of that. I was glad too--basely perhaps--to be +away from Grancy at a time when silence must have seemed obtuse and speech +derisive. + +I was still in Rome when, a few months afterward, he suddenly arrived +there. He had been appointed secretary of legation at Constantinople and +was on the way to his post. He had taken the place, he said frankly, "to +get away." Our relations with the Porte held out a prospect of hard work, +and that, he explained, was what he needed. He could never be satisfied to +sit down among the ruins. I saw that, like most of us in moments of extreme +moral tension, he was playing a part, behaving as he thought it became a +man to behave in the eye of disaster. The instinctive posture of grief is +a shuffling compromise between defiance and prostration; and pride feels +the need of striking a worthier attitude in face of such a foe. Grancy, by +nature musing and retrospective, had chosen the role of the man of action, +who answers blow for blow and opposes a mailed front to the thrusts of +destiny; and the completeness of the equipment testified to his inner +weakness. We talked only of what we were not thinking of, and parted, after +a few days, with a sense of relief that proved the inadequacy of friendship +to perform, in such cases, the office assigned to it by tradition. + +Soon afterward my own work called me home, but Grancy remained several +years in Europe. International diplomacy kept its promise of giving +him work to do, and during the year in which he acted as _charge +d'affaires_ he acquitted himself, under trying conditions, with +conspicuous zeal and discretion. A political redistribution of matter +removed him from office just as he had proved his usefulness to the +government; and the following summer I heard that he had come home and +was down at his place in the country. + +On my return to town I wrote him and his reply came by the next post. He +answered as it were in his natural voice, urging me to spend the following +Sunday with him, and suggesting that I should bring down any of the old +set who could be persuaded to join me. I thought this a good sign, and +yet--shall I own it?--I was vaguely disappointed. Perhaps we are apt to +feel that our friends' sorrows should be kept like those historic monuments +from which the encroaching ivy is periodically removed. + +That very evening at the club I ran across Claydon. I told him of Grancy's +invitation and proposed that we should go down together; but he pleaded an +engagement. I was sorry, for I had always felt that he and I stood nearer +Ralph than the others, and if the old Sundays were to be renewed I should +have preferred that we two should spend the first alone with him. I said as +much to Claydon and offered to fit my time to his; but he met this by a +general refusal. + +"I don't want to go to Grancy's," he said bluntly. I waited a moment, but +he appended no qualifying clause. + +"You've seen him since he came back?" I finally ventured. + +Claydon nodded. + +"And is he so awfully bad?" + +"Bad? No: he's all right." + +"All right? How can he be, unless he's changed beyond all recognition?" + +"Oh, you'll recognize _him_," said Claydon, with a puzzling deflection +of emphasis. + +His ambiguity was beginning to exasperate me, and I felt myself shut out +from some knowledge to which I had as good a right as he. + +"You've been down there already, I suppose?" + +"Yes; I've been down there." + +"And you've done with each other--the partnership is dissolved?" + +"Done with each other? I wish to God we had!" He rose nervously and tossed +aside the review from which my approach had diverted him. "Look here," +he said, standing before me, "Ralph's the best fellow going and there's +nothing under heaven I wouldn't do for him--short of going down there +again." And with that he walked out of the room. + +Claydon was incalculable enough for me to read a dozen different meanings +into his words; but none of my interpretations satisfied me. I determined, +at any rate, to seek no farther for a companion; and the next Sunday I +travelled down to Grancy's alone. He met me at the station and I saw at +once that he had changed since our last meeting. Then he had been in +fighting array, but now if he and grief still housed together it was +no longer as enemies. Physically the transformation was as marked but +less reassuring. If the spirit triumphed the body showed its scars. At +five-and-forty he was gray and stooping, with the tired gait of an old man. +His serenity, however, was not the resignation of age. I saw that he did +not mean to drop out of the game. Almost immediately he began to speak of +our old interests; not with an effort, as at our former meeting, but simply +and naturally, in the tone of a man whose life has flowed back into its +normal channels. I remembered, with a touch of self-reproach, how I had +distrusted his reconstructive powers; but my admiration for his reserved +force was now tinged by the sense that, after all, such happiness as his +ought to have been paid with his last coin. The feeling grew as we neared +the house and I found how inextricably his wife was interwoven with my +remembrance of the place: how the whole scene was but an extension of that +vivid presence. + +Within doors nothing was changed, and my hand would have dropped without +surprise into her welcoming clasp. It was luncheon-time, and Grancy led me +at once to the dining-room, where the walls, the furniture, the very plate +and porcelain, seemed a mirror in which a moment since her face had been +reflected. I wondered whether Grancy, under the recovered tranquillity +of his smile, concealed the same sense of her nearness, saw perpetually +between himself and the actual her bright unappeasable ghost. He spoke of +her once or twice, in an easy incidental way, and her name seemed to hang +in the air after he had uttered it, like a chord that continues to vibrate. +If he felt her presence it was evidently as an enveloping medium, the moral +atmosphere in which he breathed. I had never before known how completely +the dead may survive. + +After luncheon we went for a long walk through the autumnal fields and +woods, and dusk was falling when we re-entered the house. Grancy led the +way to the library, where, at this hour, his wife had always welcomed +us back to a bright fire and a cup of tea. The room faced the west, and +held a clear light of its own after the rest of the house had grown dark. +I remembered how young she had looked in this pale gold light, which +irradiated her eyes and hair, or silhouetted her girlish outline as she +passed before the windows. Of all the rooms the library was most peculiarly +hers; and here I felt that her nearness might take visible shape. Then, all +in a moment, as Grancy opened the door, the feeling vanished and a kind +of resistance met me on the threshold. I looked about me. Was the room +changed? Had some desecrating hand effaced the traces of her presence? No; +here too the setting was undisturbed. My feet sank into the same deep-piled +Daghestan; the bookshelves took the firelight on the same rows of rich +subdued bindings; her armchair stood in its old place near the tea-table; +and from the opposite wall her face confronted me. + +Her face--but _was_ it hers? I moved nearer and stood looking up at +the portrait. Grancy's glance had followed mine and I heard him move to my +side. + +"You see a change in it?" he said. + +"What does it mean?" I asked. + +"It means--that five years have passed." + +"Over _her_?" + +"Why not?--Look at me!" He pointed to his gray hair and furrowed temples. +"What do you think kept _her_ so young? It was happiness! But now--" +he looked up at her with infinite tenderness. "I like her better so," he +said. "It's what she would have wished." + +"Have wished?" + +"That we should grow old together. Do you think she would have wanted to be +left behind?" + +I stood speechless, my gaze travelling from his worn grief-beaten features +to the painted face above. It was not furrowed like his; but a veil +of years seemed to have descended on it. The bright hair had lost its +elasticity, the cheek its clearness, the brow its light: the whole woman +had waned. + +Grancy laid his hand on my arm. "You don't like it?" he said sadly. + +"Like it? I--I've lost her!" I burst out. + +"And I've found her," he answered. + +"In _that_?" I cried with a reproachful gesture. + +"Yes; in that." He swung round on me almost defiantly. "The other had +become a sham, a lie! This is the way she would have looked--does look, I +mean. Claydon ought to know, oughtn't he?" + +I turned suddenly. "Did Claydon do this for you?" + +Grancy nodded. + +"Since your return?" + +"Yes. I sent for him after I'd been back a week--." He turned away and gave +a thrust to the smouldering fire. I followed, glad to leave the picture +behind me. Grancy threw himself into a chair near the hearth, so that the +light fell on his sensitive variable face. He leaned his head back, shading +his eyes with his hand, and began to speak. + + +III + +"You fellows knew enough of my early history to A guess what my second +marriage meant to me. I say guess, because no one could understand--really. +I've always had a feminine streak in me, I suppose: the need of a pair of +eyes that should see with me, of a pulse that should keep time with mine. +Life is a big thing, of course; a magnificent spectacle; but I got so tired +of looking at it alone! Still, it's always good to live, and I had plenty +of happiness--of the evolved kind. What I'd never had a taste of was the +simple inconscient sort that one breathes in like the air.... + +"Well--I met her. It was like finding the climate in which I was meant to +live. You know what she was--how indefinitely she multiplied one's points +of contact with life, how she lit up the caverns and bridged the abysses! +Well, I swear to you (though I suppose the sense of all that was latent in +me) that what I used to think of on my way home at the end of the day, was +simply that when I opened this door she'd be sitting over there, with the +lamp-light falling in a particular way on one little curl in her neck.... +When Claydon painted her he caught just the look she used to lift to mine +when I came in--I've wondered, sometimes, at his knowing how she looked +when she and I were alone.--How I rejoiced in that picture! I used to say +to her, 'You're my prisoner now--I shall never lose you. If you grew tired +of me and left me you'd leave your real self there on the wall!' It was +always one of our jokes that she was going to grow tired of me-- + +"Three years of it--and then she died. It was so sudden that there was +no change, no diminution. It was as if she had suddenly become fixed, +immovable, like her own portrait: as if Time had ceased at its happiest +hour, just as Claydon had thrown down his brush one day and said, 'I can't +do better than that.' + +"I went away, as you know, and stayed over there five years. I worked as +hard as I knew how, and after the first black months a little light stole +in on me. From thinking that she would have been interested in what I was +doing I came to feel that she _was_ interested--that she was there and +that she knew. I'm not talking any psychical jargon--I'm simply trying to +express the sense I had that an influence so full, so abounding as hers +couldn't pass like a spring shower. We had so lived into each other's +hearts and minds that the consciousness of what she would have thought +and felt illuminated all I did. At first she used to come back shyly, +tentatively, as though not sure of finding me; then she stayed longer and +longer, till at last she became again the very air I breathed.... There +were bad moments, of course, when her nearness mocked me with the loss of +the real woman; but gradually the distinction between the two was effaced +and the mere thought of her grew warm as flesh and blood. + +"Then I came home. I landed in the morning and came straight down here. The +thought of seeing her portrait possessed me and my heart beat like a +lover's as I opened the library door. It was in the afternoon and the room +was full of light. It fell on her picture--the picture of a young and +radiant woman. She smiled at me coldly across the distance that divided us. +I had the feeling that she didn't even recognize me. And then I caught +sight of myself in the mirror over there--a gray-haired broken man whom she +had never known! + +"For a week we two lived together--the strange woman and the strange man. +I used to sit night after night and question her smiling face; but no +answer ever came. What did she know of me, after all? We were irrevocably +separated by the five years of life that lay between us. At times, as I +sat here, I almost grew to hate her; for her presence had driven away my +gentle ghost, the real wife who had wept, aged, struggled with me during +those awful years.... It was the worst loneliness I've ever known. Then, +gradually, I began to notice a look of sadness in the picture's eyes; a +look that seemed to say: 'Don't you see that _I_ am lonely too?' And +all at once it came over me how she would have hated to be left behind! I +remembered her comparing life to a heavy book that could not be read with +ease unless two people held it together; and I thought how impatiently her +hand would have turned the pages that divided us!--So the idea came to me: +'It's the picture that stands between us; the picture that is dead, and not +my wife. To sit in this room is to keep watch beside a corpse.' As this +feeling grew on me the portrait became like a beautiful mausoleum in which +she had been buried alive: I could hear her beating against the painted +walls and crying to me faintly for help.... + +"One day I found I couldn't stand it any longer and I sent for Claydon. He +came down and I told him what I'd been through and what I wanted him to do. +At first he refused point-blank to touch the picture. The next morning I +went off for a long tramp, and when I came home I found him sitting here +alone. He looked at me sharply for a moment and then he said: 'I've changed +my mind; I'll do it.' I arranged one of the north rooms as a studio and he +shut himself up there for a day; then he sent for me. The picture stood +there as you see it now--it was as though she'd met me on the threshold and +taken me in her arms! I tried to thank him, to tell him what it meant to +me, but he cut me short. + +"'There's an up train at five, isn't there?' he asked. 'I'm booked for a +dinner to-night. I shall just have time to make a bolt for the station and +you can send my traps after me.' I haven't seen him since. + +"I can guess what it cost him to lay hands on his masterpiece; but, after +all, to him it was only a picture lost, to me it was my wife regained!" + + +IV + +After that, for ten years or more, I watched the strange spectacle of a +life of hopeful and productive effort based on the structure of a dream. +There could be no doubt to those who saw Grancy during this period that +he drew his strength and courage from the sense of his wife's mystic +participation in his task. When I went back to see him a few months later I +found the portrait had been removed from the library and placed in a small +study up-stairs, to which he had transferred his desk and a few books. He +told me he always sat there when he was alone, keeping the library for his +Sunday visitors. Those who missed the portrait of course made no comment on +its absence, and the few who were in his secret respected it. Gradually all +his old friends had gathered about him and our Sunday afternoons regained +something of their former character; but Claydon never reappeared among us. + +As I look back now I see that Grancy must have been failing from the time +of his return home. His invincible spirit belied and disguised the signs of +weakness that afterward asserted themselves in my remembrance of him. He +seemed to have an inexhaustible fund of life to draw on, and more than one +of us was a pensioner on his superfluity. + +Nevertheless, when I came back one summer from my European holiday and +heard that he had been at the point of death, I understood at once that we +had believed him well only because he wished us to. + +I hastened down to the country and found him midway in a slow +convalescence. I felt then that he was lost to us and he read my thought at +a glance. + +"Ah," he said, "I'm an old man now and no mistake. I suppose we shall have +to go half-speed after this; but we shan't need towing just yet!" + +The plural pronoun struck me, and involuntarily I looked up at Mrs. +Grancy's portrait. Line by line I saw my fear reflected in it. It was the +face of a woman who knows that her husband is dying. My heart stood still +at the thought of what Claydon had done. + +Grancy had followed my glance. "Yes, it's changed her," he said quietly. +"For months, you know, it was touch and go with me--we had a long fight of +it, and it was worse for her than for me." After a pause he added: "Claydon +has been very kind; he's so busy nowadays that I seldom see him, but when I +sent for him the other day he came down at once." + +I was silent and we spoke no more of Grancy's illness; but when I took +leave it seemed like shutting him in alone with his death-warrant. + +The next time I went down to see him he looked much better. It was a Sunday +and he received me in the library, so that I did not see the portrait +again. He continued to improve and toward spring we began to feel that, as +he had said, he might yet travel a long way without being towed. + +One evening, on returning to town after a visit which had confirmed my +sense of reassurance, I found Claydon dining alone at the club. He asked me +to join him and over the coffee our talk turned to his work. + +"If you're not too busy," I said at length, "you ought to make time to go +down to Grancy's again." + +He looked up quickly. "Why?" he asked. + +"Because he's quite well again," I returned with a touch of cruelty. "His +wife's prognostications were mistaken." + +Claydon stared at me a moment. "Oh, _she_ knows," he affirmed with a +smile that chilled me. + +"You mean to leave the portrait as it is then?" I persisted. + +He shrugged his shoulders. "He hasn't sent for me yet!" + +A waiter came up with the cigars and Claydon rose and joined another group. + +It was just a fortnight later that Grancy's housekeeper telegraphed for me. +She met me at the station with the news that he had been "taken bad" and +that the doctors were with him. I had to wait for some time in the deserted +library before the medical men appeared. They had the baffled manner of +empirics who have been superseded by the great Healer; and I lingered only +long enough to hear that Grancy was not suffering and that my presence +could do him no harm. + +I found him seated in his arm-chair in the little study. He held out his +hand with a smile. + +"You see she was right after all," he said. + +"She?" I repeated, perplexed for the moment. + +"My wife." He indicated the picture. "Of course I knew she had no hope from +the first. I saw that"--he lowered his voice--"after Claydon had been here. +But I wouldn't believe it at first!" + +I caught his hands in mine. "For God's sake don't believe it now!" I +adjured him. + +He shook his head gently. "It's too late," he said. "I might have known +that she knew." + +"But, Grancy, listen to me," I began; and then I stopped. What could I say +that would convince him? There was no common ground of argument on which we +could meet; and after all it would be easier for him to die feeling that +she _had_ known. Strangely enough, I saw that Claydon had missed his +mark.... + + +V + +Grancy's will named me as one of his executors; and my associate, having +other duties on his hands, begged me to assume the task of carrying out our +friend's wishes. This placed me under the necessity of informing Claydon +that the portrait of Mrs. Grancy had been bequeathed to him; and he replied +by the next post that he would send for the picture at once. I was staying +in the deserted house when the portrait was taken away; and as the door +closed on it I felt that Grancy's presence had vanished too. Was it his +turn to follow her now, and could one ghost haunt another? + +After that, for a year or two, I heard nothing more of the picture, and +though I met Claydon from time to time we had little to say to each other. +I had no definable grievance against the man and I tried to remember that +he had done a fine thing in sacrificing his best picture to a friend; but +my resentment had all the tenacity of unreason. + +One day, however, a lady whose portrait he had just finished begged me +to go with her to see it. To refuse was impossible, and I went with the +less reluctance that I knew I was not the only friend she had invited. +The others were all grouped around the easel when I entered, and after +contributing my share to the chorus of approval I turned away and began +to stroll about the studio. Claydon was something of a collector and his +things were generally worth looking at. The studio was a long tapestried +room with a curtained archway at one end. The curtains were looped back, +showing a smaller apartment, with books and flowers and a few fine bits of +bronze and porcelain. The tea-table standing in this inner room proclaimed +that it was open to inspection, and I wandered in. A _bleu poudre_ +vase first attracted me; then I turned to examine a slender bronze +Ganymede, and in so doing found myself face to face with Mrs. Grancy's +portrait. I stared up at her blankly and she smiled back at me in all +the recovered radiance of youth. The artist had effaced every trace of +his later touches and the original picture had reappeared. It throned +alone on the panelled wall, asserting a brilliant supremacy over its +carefully-chosen surroundings. I felt in an instant that the whole room was +tributary to it: that Claydon had heaped his treasures at the feet of the +woman he loved. Yes--it was the woman he had loved and not the picture; and +my instinctive resentment was explained. + +Suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder. + +"Ah, how could you?" I cried, turning on him. + +"How could I?" he retorted. "How could I _not_? Doesn't she belong to +me now?" + +I moved away impatiently. + +"Wait a moment," he said with a detaining gesture. "The others have gone +and I want to say a word to you.--Oh, I know what you've thought of me--I +can guess! You think I killed Grancy, I suppose?" + +I was startled by his sudden vehemence. "I think you tried to do a cruel +thing," I said. + +"Ah--what a little way you others see into life!" he murmured. "Sit down a +moment--here, where we can look at her--and I'll tell you." + +He threw himself on the ottoman beside me and sat gazing up at the picture, +with his hands clasped about his knee. + +"Pygmalion," he began slowly, "turned his statue into a real woman; +_I_ turned my real woman into a picture. Small compensation, you +think--but you don't know how much of a woman belongs to you after you've +painted her!--Well, I made the best of it, at any rate--I gave her the best +I had in me; and she gave me in return what such a woman gives by merely +being. And after all she rewarded me enough by making me paint as I shall +never paint again! There was one side of her, though, that was mine alone, +and that was her beauty; for no one else understood it. To Grancy even +it was the mere expression of herself--what language is to thought. Even +when he saw the picture he didn't guess my secret--he was so sure she was +all his! As though a man should think he owned the moon because it was +reflected in the pool at his door-- + +"Well--when he came home and sent for me to change the picture it was like +asking me to commit murder. He wanted me to make an old woman of her--of +her who had been so divinely, unchangeably young! As if any man who really +loved a woman would ask her to sacrifice her youth and beauty for his sake! +At first I told him I couldn't do it--but afterward, when he left me alone +with the picture, something queer happened. I suppose it was because I was +always so confoundedly fond of Grancy that it went against me to refuse +what he asked. Anyhow, as I sat looking up at her, she seemed to say, 'I'm +not yours but his, and I want you to make me what he wishes." And so I did +it. I could have cut my hand off when the work was done--I daresay he told +you I never would go back and look at it. He thought I was too busy--he +never understood.... + +"Well--and then last year he sent for me again--you remember. It was after +his illness, and he told me he'd grown twenty years older and that he +wanted her to grow older too--he didn't want her to be left behind. The +doctors all thought he was going to get well at that time, and he thought +so too; and so did I when I first looked at him. But when I turned to +the picture--ah, now I don't ask you to believe me; but I swear it was +_her_ face that told me he was dying, and that she wanted him to know +it! She had a message for him and she made me deliver it." + +He rose abruptly and walked toward the portrait; then he sat down beside me +again. + +"Cruel? Yes, it seemed so to me at first; and this time, if I resisted, +it was for _his_ sake and not for mine. But all the while I felt her +eyes drawing me, and gradually she made me understand. If she'd been there +in the flesh (she seemed to say) wouldn't she have seen before any of us +that he was dying? Wouldn't he have read the news first in her face? And +wouldn't it be horrible if now he should discover it instead in strange +eyes?--Well--that was what she wanted of me and I did it--I kept them +together to the last!" He looked up at the picture again. "But now she +belongs to me," he repeated.... + + + + +THE CONFESSIONAL + + +When I was a young man I thought a great deal of local color. At that +time it was still a pigment of recent discovery, and supposed to have +a peculiarly stimulating effect on the mental eye. As an aid to the +imagination its value was perhaps overrated; but as an object of pursuit +to that vagrant faculty, it had all the merits claimed for it. I certainly +never hunted any game better worth my powder; and to a young man with rare +holidays and long working hours, its value was enhanced by the fact that +one might bring it down at any turn, if only one kept one's eye alert and +one's hand on the trigger. + +Even the large manufacturing city where, for some years, my young +enthusiasms were chained to an accountant's desk, was not without its +romantic opportunities. Many of the mill-hands at Dunstable were Italians, +and a foreign settlement had formed itself in that unsavory and unsanitary +portion of the town known as the Point. The Point, like more aristocratic +communities, had its residential and commercial districts, its church, its +theatre and its restaurant. When the craving for local color was on me it +was my habit to resort to the restaurant, a low-browed wooden building with +the appetizing announcement: + +"_Aristiu di montone_" + +pasted in one of its fly-blown window-panes. Here the consumption of tough +macaroni or of an ambiguous _frittura_ sufficed to transport me to the +Cappello d'Oro in Venice, while my cup of coffee and a wasp-waisted cigar +with a straw in it turned my greasy table-cloth into the marble top of +one of the little round tables under the arcade of the Caffe Pedrotti at +Padua. This feat of the imagination was materially aided by Agostino, the +hollow-eyed and low-collared waiter, whose slimy napkin never lost its +Latin flourish and whose zeal for my comfort was not infrequently displayed +by his testing the warmth of my soup with his finger. Through Agostino I +became acquainted with the inner history of the colony, heard the details +of its feuds and vendettas, and learned to know by sight the leading +characters in these domestic dramas. + +The restaurant was frequented by the chief personages of the community: +the overseer of the Italian hands at the Meriton Mills, the doctor, his +wife the _levatrice_ (a plump Neapolitan with greasy ringlets, a plush +picture-hat, and a charm against the evil-eye hanging in a crease of her +neck) and lastly by Don Egidio, the _parocco_ of the little church +across the street. The doctor and his wife came only on feast days, but +the overseer and Don Egidio were regular patrons. The former was a quiet +saturnine-looking man, of accomplished manners but reluctant speech, and I +depended for my diversion chiefly on Don Egidio, whose large loosely-hung +lips were always ajar for conversation. The remarks issuing from them +were richly tinged by the gutturals of the Bergamasque dialect, and it +needed but a slight acquaintance with Italian types to detect the Lombard +peasant under the priest's rusty cassock. This inference was confirmed +by Don Egidio's telling me that he came from a village of Val Camonica, +the radiant valley which extends northward from the lake of Iseo to +the Adamello glaciers. His step-father had been a laborer on one of +the fruit-farms of a Milanese count who owned large estates in the Val +Camonica; and that gentleman, taking a fancy to the lad, whom he had seen +at work in his orchards, had removed him to his villa on the lake of Iseo +and had subsequently educated him for the Church. + +It was doubtless to this picturesque accident that Don Egidio owed the +mingling of ease and simplicity that gave an inimitable charm to his +stout shabby presence. It was as though some wild mountain-fruit had been +transplanted to the Count's orchards and had mellowed under cultivation +without losing its sylvan flavor. I have never seen the social art carried +farther without suggestion of artifice. The fact that Don Egidio's +amenities were mainly exercised on the mill-hands composing his parish +proved the genuineness of his gift. It is easier to simulate gentility +among gentlemen than among navvies; and the plain man is a touchstone who +draws out all the alloy in the gold. + +Among his parishioners Don Egidio ruled with the cheerful despotism of the +good priest. On cardinal points he was inflexible, but in minor matters he +had that elasticity of judgment which enables the Catholic discipline to +fit itself to every inequality of the human conscience. There was no appeal +from his verdict; but his judgment-seat was a revolving chair from which he +could view the same act at various angles. His influence was acknowledged +not only by his flock, but by the policeman at the corner, the "bar-keep'" +in the dive, the ward politician in the corner grocery. The general verdict +of Dunstable was that the Point would have been hell without the priest. +It was perhaps not precisely heaven with him; but such light of the upper +sky as pierced its murky atmosphere was reflected from Don Egidio's +countenance. It is hardly possible for any one to exercise such influence +without taking pleasure in it; and on the whole the priest was probably +a contented man; though it does not follow that he was a happy one. On +this point the first stages of our acquaintance yielded much food for +conjecture. At first sight Don Egidio was the image of cheerfulness. He had +all the physical indications of a mind at ease: the leisurely rolling gait, +the ready laugh, the hospitable eye of the man whose sympathies are always +on the latch. It took me some time to discover under his surface garrulity +the impenetrable reticence of his profession, and under his enjoyment of +trifles a levelling melancholy which made all enjoyment trifling. Don +Egidio's aspect and conversation were so unsuggestive of psychological +complexities that I set down this trait to poverty or home-sickness. There +are few classes of men more frugal in tastes and habit than the village +priest in Italy; but Don Egidio, by his own account, had been introduced, +at an impressionable age, to a way of living that must have surpassed his +wildest dreams of self-indulgence. To whatever privations his parochial +work had since accustomed him, the influences of that earlier life were +too perceptible in his talk not to have made a profound impression on his +tastes; and he remained, for all his apostolic simplicity, the image of the +family priest who has his seat at the rich man's table. + +It chanced that I had used one of my short European holidays to explore +afoot the romantic passes connecting the Valtelline with the lake of Iseo; +and my remembrance of that enchanting region made it seem impossible +that Don Egidio should ever look without a reminiscent pang on the grimy +perspective of his parochial streets. The transition was too complete, too +ironical, from those rich glades and Titianesque acclivities to the brick +hovels and fissured sidewalks of the Point. + +This impression was confirmed when Don Egidio, in response to my urgent +invitation, paid his first visit to my modest lodgings. He called one +winter evening, when a wood-fire in its happiest humor was giving a +factitious lustre to my book-shelves and bringing out the values of the one +or two old prints and Chinese porcelains that accounted for the perennial +shabbiness of my wardrobe. + +"Ah," said he with a murmur of satisfaction, as he laid aside his shiny hat +and bulging umbrella, "it is a long time since I have been in a _casa +signorile_." + +My remembrance of his own room (he lodged with the doctor and the +_levatrice_) saved this epithet from the suggestion of irony and kept +me silent while he sank into my arm-chair with the deliberation of a tired +traveller lowering himself gently into a warm bath. + +"Good! good!" he repeated, looking about him. "Books, porcelains, objects +of _virtu_--I am glad to see that there are still such things in the +world!" And he turned a genial eye on the glass of Marsala that I had +poured out for him. + +Don Egidio was the most temperate of men and never exceeded his one glass; +but he liked to sit by the hour puffing at my Cabanas, which I suspected +him of preferring to the black weed of his native country. Under the +influence of my tobacco he became even more blandly garrulous, and I +sometimes fancied that of all the obligations of his calling none could +have placed such a strain on him as that of preserving the secrets of the +confessional. He often talked of his early life at the Count's villa, where +he had been educated with his patron's two sons till he was of age to be +sent to the seminary; and I could see that the years spent in simple and +familiar intercourse with his benefactors had been the most vivid chapter +in his experience. The Italian peasant's inarticulate tenderness for the +beauty of his birthplace had been specialized in him by contact with +cultivated tastes, and he could tell me not only that the Count had a +"stupendous" collection of pictures, but that the chapel of the villa +contained a sepulchral monument by Bambaja, and that the art-critics were +divided as to the authenticity of the Leonardo in the family palace at +Milan. + +On all these subjects he was inexhaustibly voluble; but there was one point +which he always avoided, and that was his reason for coming to America. I +remember the round turn with which he brought me up when I questioned him. + +"A priest," said he, "is a soldier and must obey orders like a soldier." +He set down his glass of Marsala and strolled across the room. "I had not +observed," he went on, "that you have here a photograph of the Sposalizio +of the Brera. What a picture! _E stupendo_!" and he turned back to his +seat and smilingly lit a fresh cigar. + +I saw at once that I had hit on a point where his native garrulity was +protected by the chain-mail of religious discipline that every Catholic +priest wears beneath his cassock. I had too much respect for my friend +to wish to penetrate his armor, and now and then I almost fancied he was +grateful to me for not putting his reticence to the test. + +Don Egidio must have been past sixty when I made his acquaintance; but it +was not till the close of an exceptionally harsh winter, some five or six +years after our first meeting, that I began to think of him as an old man. +It was as though the long-continued cold had cracked and shrivelled him. He +had grown bent and hollow-chested and his lower lip shook like an unhinged +door. The summer heat did little to revive him, and in September, when I +came home from my vacation, I found him just recovering from an attack of +pneumonia. That autumn he did not care to venture often into the night air, +and now and then I used to go and sit with him in his little room, to which +I had contributed the unheard-of luxuries of an easy-chair and a gas-stove. + +My engagements, however, made these visits infrequent, and several weeks +had elapsed without my seeing the _parocco_ when, one snowy November +morning, I ran across him in the railway-station. I was on my way to New +York for the day and had just time to wave a greeting to him as I jumped +into the railway-carriage; but a moment later, to my surprise, I saw him +stiffly clambering into the same train. I found him seated in the common +car, with his umbrella between his knees and a bundle done up in a red +cotton handkerchief on the seat at his side. The caution with which, at my +approach, he transferred this bundle to his arms caused me to glance at it +in surprise; and he answered my look by saying with a smile: + +"They are flowers for the dead--the most exquisite flowers--from the +greenhouses of Mr. Meriton--_si figuri_!" And he waved a descriptive +hand. "One of my lads, Gianpietro, is employed by the gardener there, and +every year on this day he brings me a beautiful bunch of flowers--for such +a purpose it is no sin," he added, with the charming Italian pliancy of +judgment. + +"And why are you travelling in this snowy weather, _signor parocco_?" +I asked, as he ended with a cough. + +He fixed me gravely with his simple shallow eye. "Because it is the day of +the dead, my son," he said, "and I go to place these on the grave of the +noblest man that ever lived." + +"You are going to New York?" + +"To Brooklyn--" + +I hesitated a moment, wishing to question him, yet uncertain whether his +replies were curtailed by the persistency of his cough or by the desire to +avoid interrogation. + +"This is no weather to be travelling with such a cough," I said at length. + +He made a deprecating gesture. + +"I have never missed the day--not once in eighteen years. But for me he +would have no one!" He folded his hands on his umbrella and looked away +from me to hide the trembling of his lip. + +I resolved on a last attempt to storm his confidence. "Your friend is +buried in Calvary cemetery?" + +He signed an assent. + +"That is a long way for you to go alone, _signor parocco_. The streets +are sure to be slippery and there is an icy wind blowing. Give me your +flowers and let me send them to the cemetery by a messenger. I give you my +word they shall reach their destination safely." + +He turned a quiet look on me. "My son, you are young," he said, "and you +don't know how the dead need us." He drew his breviary from his pocket and +opened it with a smile. "_Mi scusi?_" he murmured. + +The business which had called me to town obliged me to part from him as +soon as the train entered the station, and in my dash for the street I +left his unwieldy figure laboring far behind me through the crowd on the +platform. Before we separated, however, I had learned that he was returning +to Dunstable by the four o'clock train, and had resolved to despatch my +business in time to travel home with him. When I reached Wall Street I was +received with the news that the man I had appointed to meet was ill and +detained in the country. My business was "off" and I found myself with +the rest of the day at my disposal. I had no difficulty in deciding how +to employ my time. I was at an age when, in such contingencies, there is +always a feminine alternative; and even now I don't know how it was that, +on my way to a certain hospitable luncheon-table, I suddenly found myself +in a cab which was carrying me at full-speed to the Twenty-third Street +ferry. It was not till I had bought my ticket and seated myself in the +varnished tunnel of the ferry-boat that I was aware of having been diverted +from my purpose by an overmastering anxiety for Don Egidio. I rapidly +calculated that he had not more than an hour's advance on me, and that, +allowing for my greater agility and for the fact that I had a cab at my +call, I was likely to reach the cemetery in time to see him under shelter +before the gusts of sleet that were already sweeping across the river had +thickened to a snow-storm. + +At the gates of the cemetery I began to take a less sanguine view of my +attempt. The commemorative anniversary had filled the silent avenues +with visitors, and I felt the futility of my quest as I tried to fix the +gatekeeper's attention on my delineation of a stout Italian priest with a +bad cough and a bunch of flowers tied up in a red cotton handkerchief. The +gate-keeper showed that delusive desire to oblige that is certain to send +its victims in the wrong direction; but I had the presence of mind to go +exactly contrary to his indication, and thanks to this precaution I came, +after half an hour's search, on the figure of my poor _parocco_, +kneeling on the wet ground in one of the humblest by-ways of the great +necropolis. The mound before which he knelt was strewn with the spoils of +Mr. Meriton's conservatories, and on the weather-worn tablet at its head I +read the inscription: + +IL CONTE SIVIANO +DA MILANO. + +_Super flumina Babylonis, illic sedimus et flevimus._ + +So engrossed was Don Egidio that for some moments I stood behind him +unobserved; and when he rose and faced me, grief had left so little room +for any minor emotion that he looked at me almost without surprise. + +"Don Egidio," I said, "I have a carriage waiting for you at the gate. You +must come home with me." + +He nodded quietly and I drew his hand through my arm. + +He turned back to the grave. "One moment, my son," he said. "It may be for +the last time." He stood motionless, his eyes on the heaped-up flowers +which were already bruised and blackened by the cold. "To leave him +alone--after sixty years! But God is everywhere--" he murmured as I led him +away. + +On the journey home he did not care to talk, and my chief concern was to +keep him wrapped in my greatcoat and to see that his bed was made ready as +soon as I had restored him to his lodgings. The _levatrice_ brought a +quilted coverlet from her own room and hovered over him as gently as though +he had been of the sex to require her services; while Agostino, at my +summons, appeared with a bowl of hot soup that was heralded down the +street by a reviving waft of garlic. To these ministrations I left the +_parocco_, intending to call for news of him the next evening; but an +unexpected pressure of work kept me late at my desk, and the following day +some fresh obstacle delayed me. + +On the third afternoon, as I was leaving the office, an agate-eyed infant +from the Point hailed me with a message from the doctor. The _parocco_ +was worse and had asked for me. I jumped into the nearest car and ten +minutes later was running up the doctor's greasy stairs. + +To my dismay I found Don Egidio's room cold and untenanted; but I was +reassured a moment later by the appearance of the _levatrice_, who +announced that she had transferred the blessed man to her own apartment, +where he could have the sunlight and a good bed to lie in. There in fact +he lay, weak but smiling, in a setting which contrasted oddly enough with +his own monastic surroundings: a cheerful grimy room, hung with anecdotic +chromos, photographs of lady-patients proudly presenting their offspring +to the camera, and innumerable Neapolitan _santolini_ decked out with +shrivelled palm-leaves. + +The _levatrice_ whispered that the good man had the pleurisy, and +that, as she phrased it, he was nearing his last mile-stone. I saw that he +was in fact in a bad way, but his condition did not indicate any pressing +danger, and I had the presentiment that he would still, as the saying is, +put up a good fight. It was clear, however, that he knew what turn the +conflict must take, and the solemnity with which he welcomed me showed that +my summons was a part of that spiritual strategy with which the Catholic +opposes the surprise of death. + +"My son," he said, when the _levatrice_ had left us, "I have a favor +to ask you. You found me yesterday bidding good-bye to my best friend." +His cough interrupted him. "I have never told you," he went on, "the name +of the family in which I was brought up. It was Siviano, and that was +the grave of the Count's eldest son, with whom I grew up as a brother. +For eighteen years he has lain in that strange ground--_in terra +aliena_--and when I die, there will be no one to care for his grave." + +I saw what he waited for. "I will care for it, _signor parocco_." + +"I knew I should have your promise, my child; and what you promise you +keep. But my friend is a stranger to you--you are young and at your age +life is a mistress who kisses away sad memories. Why should you remember +the grave of a stranger? I cannot lay such a claim on you. But I will tell +you his story--and then I think that neither joy nor grief will let you +forget him; for when you rejoice you will remember how he sorrowed; and +when you sorrow the thought of him will be like a friend's hand in yours." + + +II + +You tell me (Don Egidio began) that you know our little lake; and if you +have seen it you will understand why it always used to remind me of the +"garden enclosed" of the Canticles. + +_Hortus inclusus; columba mea in foraminibus petrae_: the words used +to come back to me whenever I returned from a day's journey across the +mountains, and looking down saw the blue lake far below, hidden in its +hills like a happy secret in a stern heart. We were never envious of +the glory of the great lakes. They are like the show pictures that some +nobleman hangs in his public gallery; but our Iseo is the treasure that +he hides in his inner chamber. + +You tell me you saw it in summer, when it looks up like a saint's eye, +reflecting the whole of heaven. It was then too that I first saw it. +My future friend, the old Count, had found me at work on one of his +fruit-farms up the valley, and hearing that I was ill-treated by my +step-father--a drunken pedlar from the Val Mastellone, whom my poor mother +a year or two earlier had come across at the fair of Lovere--he had taken +me home with him to Iseo. I used to serve mass in our hill-village of +Cerveno, and the village children called me "the little priest" because +when my work was done I often crept back to the church to get away from +my step-father's blows and curses. "I will make a real priest of him," +the Count declared; and that afternoon, perched on the box of his +travelling-carriage, I was whirled away from the dark scenes of my +childhood into a world, where, as it seemed to me, every one was as happy +as an angel on a _presepio_. + +I wonder if you remember the Count's villa? It lies on the shore of the +lake, facing the green knoll of Monte Isola, and overlooked by the village +of Siviano and by the old parish-church where I said mass for fifteen happy +years. The village hangs on a ledge of the mountain; but the villa dips its +foot in the lake, smiling at its reflection like a bather lingering on the +brink. What Paradise it seemed to me that day! In our church up the valley +there hung an old brown picture, with a Saint Sabastian in the foreground; +and behind him the most wonderful palace, with terraced gardens adorned +with statues and fountains, where fine folk in resplendent dresses walked +up and down without heeding the blessed martyr's pangs. The Count's villa, +with its terraces, its roses, its marble steps descending to the lake, +reminded me of that palace; only instead of being inhabited by wicked +people engrossed in their selfish pleasures it was the home of the kindest +friends that ever took a poor lad by the hand. + +The old Count was a widower when I first knew him. He had been twice +married, and his first wife had left him two children, a son and a +daughter. The eldest, Donna Marianna, was then a girl of twenty, who +kept her father's house and was a mother to the two lads. She was not +handsome or learned, and had no taste for the world; but she was like the +lavender-plant in a poor man's window--just a little gray flower, but a +sweetness that fills the whole house. Her brother, Count Roberto, had been +ailing from his birth, and was a studious lad with a melancholy musing face +such as you may see in some of Titian's portraits of young men. He looked +like an exiled prince dressed in mourning. There was one child by the +second marriage, Count Andrea, a boy of my own age, handsome as a Saint +George, but not as kind as the others. No doubt, being younger, he was less +able to understand why an uncouth peasant lad should have been brought to +his father's table; and the others were so fearful of hurting my feelings +that, but for his teasing, I might never have mended my clumsy manners or +learned how to behave in the presence of my betters. Count Andrea was not +sparing in such lessons, and Count Roberto, in spite of his weak arms, +chastised his brother roundly when he thought the discipline had been too +severe; but for my part it seemed to me natural enough that such a godlike +being should lord it over a poor clodhopper like myself. + +Well--I will not linger over the beginning of my new life for my story has +to do with its close. Only I should like to make you understand what the +change meant to me--an ignorant peasant lad, coming from hard words and +blows and a smoke-blackened hut in the hills to that great house full of +rare and beautiful things, and of beings who seemed to me even more rare +and beautiful. Do you wonder I was ready to kiss the ground they trod, and +would have given the last drop of my blood to serve them? + +In due course I was sent to the seminary at Lodi; and on holidays I used +to visit the family in Milan. Count Andrea was growing up to be one of +the handsomest young men imaginable, but a trifle wild; and the old Count +married him in haste to the daughter of a Venetian noble, who brought as +her dower a great estate in Istria. The Countess Gemma, as this lady was +called, was as light as thistledown and had an eye like a baby's; but while +she was cooing for the moon her pretty white hands were always stealing +toward something within reach that she had not been meant to have. The old +Count was not alert enough to follow these manoeuvres; and the Countess hid +her designs under a torrent of guileless chatter, as pick-pockets wear long +sleeves to conceal their movements. Her only fault, he used to say, was +that one of her aunts had married an Austrian; and this event having taken +place before she was born he laughingly acquitted her of any direct share +in it. She confirmed his good opinion of her by giving her husband two +sons; and Roberto showing no inclination to marry, these boys naturally +came to be looked on as the heirs of the house. + +Meanwhile I had finished my course of studies, and the old Count, on my +twenty-first birthday, had appointed me priest of the parish of Siviano. It +was the year of Count Andrea's marriage and there were great festivities at +the villa. Three years later the old Count died, to the sorrow of his two +eldest children. Donna Marianna and Count Roberto closed their apartments +in the palace at Milan and withdrew for a year to Siviano. It was then +that I first began to know my friend. Before that I had loved him without +understanding him; now I learned of what metal he was made. His bookish +tastes inclined him to a secluded way of living; and his younger brother +perhaps fancied that he would not care to assume the charge of the estate. +But if Andrea thought this he was disappointed. Roberto resolutely took up +the tradition of his father's rule, and, as if conscious of lacking the +old Count's easy way with the peasants, made up for it by a redoubled zeal +for their welfare. I have seen him toil for days to adjust some trifling +difficulty that his father would have set right with a ready word; like the +sainted bishop who, when a beggar asked him for a penny, cried out: "Alas, +my brother, I have not a penny in my purse; but here are two gold pieces, +if they can be made to serve you instead!" We had many conferences over +the condition of his people, and he often sent me up the valley to look +into the needs of the peasantry on the fruit-farms. No grievance was too +trifling for him to consider it, no abuse too deep-seated for him to root +it out; and many an hour that other men of his rank would have given to +books or pleasure was devoted to adjusting a quarrel about boundary-lines +or to weighing the merits of a complaint against the tax-collector. I +often said that he was as much his people's priest as I; and he smiled and +answered that every landowner was a king and that in old days the king was +always a priest. + +Donna Marianna was urgent with him to marry, but he always declared that +he had a family in his tenantry, and that, as for a wife, she had never +let him feel the want of one. He had that musing temper which gives a man +a name for coldness; though in fact he may all the while be storing fuel +for a great conflagration. But to me he whispered another reason for not +marrying. A man, he said, does not take wife and rejoice while his mother +is on her death-bed; and Italy, his mother, lay dying, with the foreign +vultures waiting to tear her apart. + +You are too young to know anything of those days, my son; and how can any +one understand them who did not live through them? Italy lay dying indeed; +but Lombardy was her heart, and the heart still beat, and sent the faint +blood creeping to her cold extremities. Her torturers, weary of their +work, had allowed her to fall into a painless stupor; but just as she was +sinking from sleep to death, heaven sent Radetsky to scourge her back to +consciousness; and at the first sting of his lash she sprang maimed and +bleeding to her feet. + +Ah, those days, those days, my son! Italy--Italy--was the word on our +lips; but the thought in our hearts was just _Austria_. We clamored +for liberty, unity, the franchise; but under our breath we prayed only to +smite the white-coats. Remove the beam from our eye, we cried, and we shall +see our salvation clearly enough! We priests in the north were all liberals +and worked with the nobles and the men of letters. Gioberti was our +breviary and his Holiness the new Pope was soon to be the Tancred of our +crusade. But meanwhile, mind you, all this went on in silence, underground +as it were, while on the surface Lombardy still danced, feasted, married, +and took office under the Austrian. In the iron-mines up our valley there +used to be certain miners who stayed below ground for months at a time; +and, like one of these, Roberto remained buried in his purpose, while life +went its way overhead. Though I was not in his confidence I knew well +enough where his thoughts were, for he went among us with the eye of a +lover, the visionary look of one who hears a Voice. We all heard that +Voice, to be sure, mingling faintly with the other noises of life; but to +Roberto it was already as the roar of mighty waters, drowning every other +sound with its thunder. + +On the surface, as I have said, things looked smooth enough. An Austrian +cardinal throned in Milan and an Austrian-hearted Pope ruled in Rome. In +Lombardy, Austria couched like a beast of prey, ready to spring at our +throats if we stirred or struggled. The Moderates, to whose party Count +Roberto belonged, talked of prudence, compromise, the education of the +masses; but if their words were a velvet sheath their thought was a dagger. +For many years, as you know, the Milanese had maintained an outward show of +friendliness with their rulers. The nobles had accepted office under the +vice-roy, and in the past there had been frequent intermarriage between +the two aristocracies. But now, one by one, the great houses had closed +their doors against official society. Though some of the younger and more +careless, those who must dance and dine at any cost, still went to the +palace and sat beside the enemy at the opera, fashion was gradually taking +sides against them, and those who had once been laughed at as old fogeys +were now applauded as patriots. Among these, of course, was Count Roberto, +who for several years had refused to associate with the Austrians, and +had silently resented his easy-going brother's disregard of political +distinctions. Andrea and Gemma belonged to the moth tribe, who flock to +the brightest light; and Gemma's Istrian possessions, and her family's +connection with the Austrian nobility, gave them a pretext for fluttering +about the vice-regal candle. Roberto let them go their way, but his own +course was a tacit protest against their conduct. They were always welcome +at the palazzo Siviano; but he and Donna Marianna withdrew from society in +order to have an excuse for not showing themselves at the Countess Gemma's +entertainments. If Andrea and Gemma were aware of his disapproval they were +clever enough to ignore it; for the rich elder brother who paid their debts +and never meant to marry was too important a person to be quarrelled with +on political grounds. They seemed to think that if he married it would be +only to spite them; and they were persuaded that their future depended on +their giving him no cause to take such reprisals. I shall never be more +than a plain peasant at heart and I have little natural skill in discerning +hidden motives; but the experience of the confessional gives every priest +a certain insight into the secret springs of action, and I often wondered +that the worldly wisdom of Andrea and Gemma did not help them to a clearer +reading of their brother's character. For my part I knew that, in Roberto's +heart, no great passion could spring from a mean motive; and I had always +thought that if he ever loved any woman as he loved Italy, it must be from +his country's hand that he received his bride. And so it came about. + +Have you ever noticed, on one of those still autumn days before a storm, +how here and there a yellow leaf will suddenly detach itself from the bough +and whirl through the air as though some warning of the gale had reached +it? So it was then in Lombardy. All round was the silence of decay; but now +and then a word, a look, a trivial incident, fluttered ominously through +the stillness. It was in '45. Only a year earlier the glorious death of the +Bandiera brothers had sent a long shudder through Italy. In the Romagna, +Renzi and his comrades had tried to uphold by action the protest set forth +in the "Manifesto of Rimini"; and their failure had sowed the seed which +d'Azeglio and Cavour were to harvest. Everywhere the forces were silently +gathering; and nowhere was the hush more profound, the least reverberation +more audible, than in the streets of Milan. + +It was Count Roberto's habit to attend early mass in the Cathedral; and one +morning, as he was standing in the aisle, a young girl passed him with her +father. Roberto knew the father, a beggarly Milanese of the noble family of +Intelvi, who had cut himself off from his class by accepting an appointment +in one of the government offices. As the two went by he saw a group of +Austrian officers looking after the girl, and heard one of them say: "Such +a choice morsel as that is too good for slaves;" and another answer with a +laugh: "Yes, it's a dish for the master's table!" + +The girl heard too. She was as white as a wind-flower and he saw the words +come out on her cheek like the red mark from a blow. She whispered to +her father, but he shook his head and drew her away without so much as +a glance at the Austrians. Roberto heard mass and then hastened out and +placed himself in the porch of the Cathedral. A moment later the officers +appeared, and they too stationed themselves near the doorway. Presently the +girl came out on her father's arm. Her admirers stepped forward to greet +Intelvi; and the cringing wretch stood there exchanging compliments with +them, while their insolent stare devoured his daughter's beauty. She, +poor thing, shook like a leaf, and her eyes, in avoiding theirs, suddenly +encountered Roberto's. Her look was a wounded bird that flew to him for +shelter. He carried it away in his breast and its live warmth beat against +his heart. He thought that Italy had looked at him through those eyes; for +love is the wiliest of masqueraders and has a thousand disguises at his +command. + +Within a month Faustina Intelvi was his wife. Donna Marianna and I +rejoiced; for we knew he had chosen her because he loved her, and she +seemed to us almost worthy of such a choice. As for Count Andrea and his +wife, I leave you to guess what ingredients were mingled in the kiss with +which they welcomed the bride. They were all smiles at Roberto's marriage, +and had only words of praise for his wife. Donna Marianna, who had +sometimes taxed me with suspecting their motives, rejoiced in this fresh +proof of their magnanimity; but for my part I could have wished to see them +a little less kind. All such twilight fears, however, vanished in the flush +of my friend's happiness. Over some natures love steals gradually, as the +morning light widens across a valley; but it had flashed on Roberto like +the leap of dawn to a snow-peak. He walked the world with the wondering +step of a blind man suddenly restored to sight; and once he said to me with +a laugh: "Love makes a Columbus of every one of us!" + +And the Countess--? The Countess, my son, was eighteen, and her husband was +forty. Count Roberto had the heart of a poet, but he walked with a limp and +his skin was sallow. Youth plucks the fruit for its color rather than its +flavor; and first love does not serenade its mistress on a church-organ. In +Italy girls are married as land is sold; if two estates adjoin two lives +are united. As for the portionless girl, she is a knick-knack that goes to +the highest bidder. Faustina was handed over to her purchaser as if she +had been a picture for his gallery; and the transaction doubtless seemed +as natural to her as to her parents. She walked to the altar like an +Iphigenia; but pallor becomes a bride, and it looks well for a daughter to +weep on leaving her mother. Perhaps it would have been different if she had +guessed that the threshold of her new home was carpeted with love and its +four corners hung with tender thoughts of her; but her husband was a silent +man, who never called attention to his treasures. + +The great palace in Milan was a gloomy house for a girl to enter. Roberto +and his sister lived in it as if it had been a monastery, going nowhere and +receiving only those who labored for the Cause. To Faustina, accustomed to +the easy Austrian society, the Sunday evening receptions at the palazzo +Siviano must have seemed as dreary as a scientific congress. It pleased +Roberto to regard her as a victim of barbarian insolence, an embodiment of +his country desecrated by the desire of the enemy; but though, like any +handsome penniless girl, Faustina had now and then been exposed to a free +look or a familiar word, I doubt if she connected such incidents with the +political condition of Italy. She knew, of course, that in marrying Siviano +she was entering a house closed against the Austrian. One of Siviano's +first cares had been to pension his father-in-law, with the stipulation +that Intelvi should resign his appointment and give up all relations with +the government; and the old hypocrite, only too glad to purchase idleness +on such terms, embraced the liberal cause with a zeal which left his +daughter no excuse for half-heartedness. But he found it less easy than he +had expected to recover a footing among his own people. In spite of his +patriotic bluster the Milanese held aloof from him; and being the kind of +man who must always take his glass in company he gradually drifted back +to his old associates. It was impossible to forbid Faustina to visit her +parents; and in their house she breathed an air that was at least tolerant +of Austria. + +But I must not let you think that the young Countess appeared ungrateful or +unhappy. She was silent and shy, and it needed a more enterprising temper +than Roberto's to break down the barrier between them. They seemed to talk +to one another through a convent-grating, rather than across a hearth; but +if Roberto had asked more of her than she could give, outwardly she was +a model wife. She chose me at once as her confessor and I watched over +the first steps of her new life. Never was younger sister tenderer to her +elder than she to Donna Marianna; never was young wife more mindful of her +religious duties, kinder to her dependents, more charitable to the poor; +yet to be with her was like living in a room with shuttered windows. She +was always the caged bird, the transplanted flower: for all Roberto's care +she never bloomed or sang. + +Donna Marianna was the first to speak of it. "The child needs more light +and air," she said. + +"Light? Air?" Roberto repeated. "Does she not go to mass every morning? +Does she not drive on the Corso every evening?" + +Donna Marianna was not called clever, but her heart was wiser than most +women's heads. + +"At our age, brother," said she, "the windows of the mind face north and +look out on a landscape full of lengthening shadows. Faustina needs another +outlook. She is as pale as a hyacinth grown in a cellar." + +Roberto himself turned pale and I saw that she had uttered his own thought. + +"You want me to let her go to Gemma's!" he exclaimed. + +"Let her go wherever there is a little careless laughter." + +"Laughter--now!" he cried, with a gesture toward the sombre line of +portraits above his head. + +"Let her laugh while she can, my brother." + +That evening after dinner he called Faustina to him. + +"My child," he said, "go and put on your jewels. Your sister Gemma gives a +ball to-night and the carriage waits to take you there. I am too much of a +recluse to be at ease in such scenes, but I have sent word to your father +to go with you." + +Andrea and Gemma welcomed their young sister-in-law with effusion, and from +that time she was often in their company. Gemma forbade any mention of +politics in her drawing-room, and it was natural that Faustina should be +glad to escape from the solemn conclaves of the palazzo Siviano to a house +where life went as gaily as in that villa above Florence where Boccaccio's +careless story-tellers took refuge from the plague. But meanwhile the +political distemper was rapidly spreading, and in spite of Gemma's Austrian +affiliations it was no longer possible for her to receive the enemy openly. +It was whispered that her door was still ajar to her old friends; but +the rumor may have risen from the fact that one of the Austrian cavalry +officers stationed at Milan was her own cousin, the son of the aunt on +whose misalliance the old Count had so often bantered her. No one could +blame the Countess Gemma for not turning her own flesh and blood out of +doors; and the social famine to which the officers of the garrison were +reduced made it natural that young Welkenstern should press the claims of +consanguinity. + +All this must have reached Roberto's ears; but he made no sign and his wife +came and went as she pleased. When they returned the following year to the +old dusky villa at Siviano she was like the voice of a brook in a twilight +wood: one could not look at her without ransacking the spring for new +similes to paint her freshness. With Roberto it was different. I found him +older, more preoccupied and silent; but I guessed that his preoccupations +were political, for when his eye rested on his wife it cleared like the +lake when a cloud-shadow lifts from it. + +Count Andrea and his wife occupied an adjoining villa; and during the +_villeggiatura_ the two households lived almost as one family. +Roberto, however, was often absent in Milan, called thither on business of +which the nature was not hard to guess. Sometimes he brought back guests to +the villa; and on these occasions Faustina and Donna Marianna went to Count +Andrea's for the day. I have said that I was not in his confidence; but +he knew my sympathies were with the liberals and now and then he let fall +a word of the work going on underground. Meanwhile the new Pope had been +elected, and from Piedmont to Calabria we hailed in him the Banner that was +to lead our hosts to war. + +So time passed and we reached the last months of '47. The villa on Iseo had +been closed since the end of August. Roberto had no great liking for his +gloomy palace in Milan, and it had been his habit to spend nine months +of the year at Siviano; but he was now too much engrossed in his work to +remain away from Milan, and his wife and sister had joined him there as +soon as the midsummer heat was over. During the autumn he had called me +once or twice to the city to consult me on business connected with his +fruit-farms; and in the course of our talks he had sometimes let fall a +hint of graver matters. It was in July of that year that a troop of Croats +had marched into Ferrara, with muskets and cannon loaded. The lighted +matches of their cannon had fired the sleeping hate of Austria, and the +whole country now echoed the Lombard cry: "Out with the barbarian!" All +talk of adjustment, compromise, reorganization, shrivelled on lips that +the live coal of patriotism had touched. Italy for the Italians, and +then--monarchy, federation, republic, it mattered not what! + +The oppressor's grip had tightened on our throats and the clear-sighted +saw well enough that Metternich's policy was to provoke a rebellion and +then crush it under the Croat heel. But it was too late to cry prudence in +Lombardy. With the first days of the new year the tobacco riots had drawn +blood in Milan. Soon afterward the Lions' Club was closed, and edicts were +issued forbidding the singing of Pio Nono's hymn, the wearing of white and +blue, the collecting of subscriptions for the victims of the riots. To each +prohibition Milan returned a fresh defiance. The ladies of the nobility put +on mourning for the rioters who had been shot down by the soldiery. Half +the members of the Guardia Nobile resigned and Count Borromeo sent back +his Golden Fleece to the Emperor. Fresh regiments were continually pouring +into Milan and it was no secret that Radetsky was strengthening the +fortifications. Late in January several leading liberals were arrested and +sent into exile, and two weeks later martial law was proclaimed in Milan. +At the first arrests several members of the liberal party had hastily left +Milan, and I was not surprised to hear, a few days later, that orders had +been given to reopen the villa at Siviano. The Count and Countess arrived +there early in February. + +It was seven months since I had seen the Countess, and I was struck with +the change in her appearance. + +She was paler than ever, and her step had lost its lightness. Yet she +did not seem to share her husband's political anxieties; one would have +said that she was hardly aware of them. She seemed wrapped in a veil of +lassitude, like Iseo on a still gray morning, when dawn is blood-red on the +mountains but a mist blurs its reflection in the lake. I felt as though her +soul were slipping away from me, and longed to win her back to my care; but +she made her ill-health a pretext for not coming to confession, and for the +present I could only wait and carry the thought of her to the altar. She +had not been long at Siviano before I discovered that this drooping mood +was only one phase of her humor. Now and then she flung back the cowl of +melancholy and laughed life in the eye; but next moment she was in shadow +again, and her muffled thoughts had given us the slip. She was like the +lake on one of those days when the wind blows twenty ways and every +promontory holds a gust in ambush. + +Meanwhile there was a continual coming and going of messengers between +Siviano and the city. They came mostly at night, when the household slept, +and were away again with the last shadows; but the news they brought stayed +and widened, shining through every cranny of the old house. The whole of +Lombardy was up. From Pavia to Mantua, from Como to Brescia, the streets +ran blood like the arteries of one great body. At Pavia and Padua the +universities were closed. The frightened vice-roy was preparing to withdraw +from Milan to Verona, and Radetsky continued to pour his men across the +Alps, till a hundred thousand were massed between the Piave and the Ticino. +And now every eye was turned to Turin. Ah, how we watched for the blue +banner of Piedmont on the mountains! Charles Albert was pledged to our +cause; his whole people had armed to rescue us, the streets echoed with +_avanti, Savoia!_ and yet Savoy was silent and hung back. Each day was +a life-time strained to the cracking-point with hopes and disappointments. +We reckoned the hours by rumors, the very minutes by hearsay. Then +suddenly--ah, it was worth living through!--word came to us that Vienna +was in revolt. The points of the compass had shifted and our sun had risen +in the north. I shall never forget that day at the villa. Roberto sent for +me early, and I found him smiling and resolute, as becomes a soldier on +the eve of action. He had made all his preparations to leave for Milan and +was awaiting a summons from his party. The whole household felt that great +events impended, and Donna Marianna, awed and tearful, had pleaded with +her brother that they should all receive the sacrament together the next +morning. Roberto and his sister had been to confession the previous day, +but the Countess Faustina had again excused herself. I did not see her +while I was with the Count, but as I left the house she met me in the +laurel-walk. The morning was damp and cold, and she had drawn a black scarf +over her hair, and walked with a listless dragging step; but at my approach +she lifted her head quickly and signed to me to follow her into one of the +recesses of clipped laurel that bordered the path. + +"Don Egidio," she said, "you have heard the news?" + +I assented. + +"The Count goes to Milan to-morrow?" + +"It seems probable, your excellency." + +"There will be fighting--we are on the eve of war, I mean?" + +"We are in God's hands, your excellency." + +"In God's hands!" she murmured. Her eyes wandered and for a moment we stood +silent; then she drew a purse from her pocket. "I was forgetting," she +exclaimed. "This is for that poor girl you spoke to me about the other +day--what was her name? The girl who met the Austrian soldier at the fair +at Peschiera--" + +"Ah, Vannina," I said; "but she is dead, your excellency." + +"Dead!" She turned white and the purse dropped from her hand. I picked it +up and held it out to her, but she put back my hand. "That is for masses, +then," she said; and with that she moved away toward the house. + +I walked on to the gate; but before I had reached it I heard her step +behind me. + +"Don Egidio!" she called; and I turned back. + +"You are coming to say mass in the chapel to-morrow morning?" + +"That is the Count's wish." + +She wavered a moment. "I am not well enough to walk up to the village this +afternoon," she said at length. "Will you come back later and hear my +confession here?" + +"Willingly, your excellency." + +"Come at sunset then." She looked at me gravely. "It is a long time since I +have been to confession," she added. + +"My child, the door of heaven is always unlatched." + +She made no answer and I went my way. + +I returned to the villa a little before sunset, hoping for a few words +with Roberto. I felt with Faustina that we were on the eve of war, and the +uncertainty of the outlook made me treasure every moment of my friend's +company. I knew he had been busy all day, but hoped to find that his +preparations were ended and that he could spare me a half hour. I was not +disappointed; for the servant who met me asked me to follow him to the +Count's apartment. Roberto was sitting alone, with his back to the door, at +a table spread with maps and papers. He stood up and turned an ashen face +on me. + +"Roberto!" I cried, as if we had been boys together. + +He signed to me to be seated. + +"Egidio," he said suddenly, "my wife has sent for you to confess her?" + +"The Countess met me on my way home this morning and expressed a wish to +receive the sacrament to-morrow morning with you and Donna Marianna, and I +promised to return this afternoon to hear her confession." + +Roberto sat silent, staring before him as though he hardly heard. At length +he raised his head and began to speak. + +"You have noticed lately that my wife has been ailing?" he asked. + +"Every one must have seen that the Countess is not in her usual health. She +has seemed nervous, out of spirits--I have fancied that she might be +anxious about your excellency." + +He leaned across the table and laid his wasted hand on mine. "Call me +Roberto," he said. + +There was another pause before he went on. "Since I saw you this morning," +he said slowly, "something horrible has happened. After you left I sent for +Andrea and Gemma to tell them the news from Vienna and the probability of +my being summoned to Milan before night. You know as well as I that we have +reached a crisis. There will be fighting within twenty-four hours, if I +know my people; and war may follow sooner than we think. I felt it my duty +to leave my affairs in Andrea's hands, and to entrust my wife to his care. +Don't look startled," he added with a faint smile. "No reasonable man goes +on a journey without setting his house in order; and if things take the +turn I expect it may be some months before you see me back at Siviano.--But +it was not to hear this that I sent for you." He pushed his chair aside and +walked up and down the room with his short limping step. "My God!" he broke +out wildly, "how can I say it?--When Andrea had heard me, I saw him +exchange a glance with his wife, and she said with that infernal sweet +voice of hers, 'Yes, Andrea, it is our duty.' + +"'Your duty?' I asked. 'What is your duty?' + +"Andrea wetted his lips with his tongue and looked at her again; and her +look was like a blade in his hand. + +"'Your wife has a lover,' he said. + +"She caught my arm as I flung myself on him. He is ten times stronger than +I, but you remember how I made him howl for mercy in the old days when he +used to bully you. + +"'Let me go,' I said to his wife. 'He must live to unsay it.' + +"Andrea began to whimper. 'Oh, my poor brother, I would give my heart's +blood to unsay it!' + +"'The secret has been killing us,' she chimed in. + +"'The secret? Whose secret? How dare you--?' + +"Gemma fell on her knees like a tragedy actress. 'Strike me--kill me--it is +I who am the offender! It was at my house that she met him--' + +"'Him?' + +"'Franz Welkenstern--my cousin,' she wailed. + +"I suppose I stood before them like a stunned ox, for they repeated the +name again and again, as if they were not sure of my having heard it.--Not +hear it!" he cried suddenly, dropping into a chair and hiding his face in +his hands. "Shall I ever on earth hear anything else again?" + +He sat a long time with his face hidden and I waited. My head was like a +great bronze bell with one thought for the clapper. + +After a while he went on in a low deliberate voice, as though his words +were balancing themselves on the brink of madness. With strange composure +he repeated each detail of his brother's charges: the meetings in the +Countess Gemma's drawing-room, the innocent friendliness of the two +young people, the talk of mysterious visits to a villa outside the Porta +Ticinese, the ever-widening circle of scandal that had spread about their +names. At first, Andrea said, he and his wife had refused to listen to the +reports which reached them. Then, when the talk became too loud, they had +sent for Welkenstern, remonstrated with him, implored him to exchange into +another regiment; but in vain. The young officer indignantly denied the +reports and declared that to leave his post at such a moment would be +desertion. + +With a laborious accuracy Roberto went on, detailing one by one each +incident of the hateful story, till suddenly he cried out, springing from +his chair--"And now to leave her with this lie unburied!" + +His cry was like the lifting of a grave-stone from my breast. "You must not +leave her!" I exclaimed. + +He shook his head. "I am pledged." + +"This is your first duty." + +"It would be any other man's; not an Italian's." + +I was silent: in those days the argument seemed unanswerable. + +At length I said: "No harm can come to her while you are away. Donna +Marianna and I are here to watch over her. And when you come back--" + +He looked at me gravely. "_If_ I come back--" + +"Roberto!" + +"We are men, Egidio; we both know what is coming. Milan is up already; and +there is a rumor that Charles Albert is moving. This year the spring rains +will be red in Italy." + +"In your absence not a breath shall touch her!" + +"And if I never come back to defend her? They hate her as hell hates, +Egidio!--They kept repeating, 'He is of her own age and youth draws +youth--.' She is in their way, Egidio!" + +"Consider, my son. They do not love her, perhaps; but why should they hate +her at such cost? She has given you no child." + +"No child!" He paused. "But what if--? She has ailed lately!" he cried, and +broke off to grapple with the stabbing thought. + +"Roberto! Roberto!" I adjured him. + +He jumped up and gripped my arm. + +"Egidio! You believe in her?" + +"She's as pure as a lily on the altar!" + +"Those eyes are wells of truth--and she has been like a daughter to +Marianna.--Egidio! do I look like an old man?" + +"Quiet yourself, Roberto," I entreated. + +"Quiet myself? With this sting in my blood? A lover--and an Austrian lover! +Oh, Italy, Italy, my bride!" + +"I stake my life on her truth," I cried, "and who knows better than I? Has +her soul not lain before me like the bed of a clear stream?" + +"And if what you saw there was only the reflection of your faith in her?" + +"My son, I am a priest, and the priest penetrates to the soul as the angel +passed through the walls of Peter's prison. I see the truth in her heart as +I see Christ in the host!" + +"No, no, she is false!" he cried. + +I sprang up terrified. "Roberto, be silent!" + +He looked at me with a wild incredulous smile. "Poor simple man of God!" he +said. + +"I would not exchange my simplicity for yours--the dupe of envy's first +malicious whisper!" + +"Envy--you think that?" + +"Is it questionable?" + +"You would stake your life on it?" + +"My life!" + +"Your faith?" + +"My faith!" + +"Your vows as a priest?" + +"My vows--" I stopped and stared at him. He had risen and laid his hand on +my shoulder. + +"You see now what I would be at," he said quietly. "I must take your place +presently--" + +"My place--?" + +"When my wife comes down. You understand me." + +"Ah, now you are quite mad!" I cried breaking away from him. + +"Am I?" he returned, maintaining his strange composure. "Consider a moment. +She has not confessed to you before since our return from Milan--" + +"Her ill-health--" + +He cut me short with a gesture. "Yet to-day she sends for you--" + +"In order that she may receive the sacrament with you on the eve of your +first separation." + +"If that is her only reason her first words will clear her. I must hear +those words, Egidio!" + +"You are quite mad," I repeated. + +"Strange," he said slowly. "You stake your life on my wife's innocence, yet +you refuse me the only means of vindicating it!" + +"I would give my life for any one of you--but what you ask is not mine to +give." + +"The priest first--the man afterward?" he sneered. + +"Long afterward!" + +He measured me with a contemptuous eye. "We laymen are ready to give the +last shred of flesh from our bones, but you priests intend to keep your +cassocks whole." + +"I tell you my cassock is not mine," I repeated. + +"And, by God," he cried, "you are right; for it's mine! Who put it on your +back but my father? What kept it there but my charity? Peasant! beggar! +Hear his holiness pontificate!" "Yes," I said, "I was a peasant and a +beggar when your father found me; and if he had left me one I might have +been excused for putting my hand to any ugly job that my betters required +of me; but he made me a priest, and so set me above all of you, and laid on +me the charge of your souls as well as mine." + +He sat down shaken with dreadful tears. "Ah," he broke out, "would you have +answered me thus when we were boys together, and I stood between you and +Andrea?" + +"If God had given me the strength." + +"You call it strength to make a woman's soul your stepping-stone to +heaven?" + +"Her soul is in my care, not yours, my son. She is safe with me." + +"She? But I? I go out to meet death, and leave a worse death behind me!" +He leaned over and clutched my arm. "It is not for myself I plead but for +her--for her, Egidio! Don't you see to what a hell you condemn her if I +don't come back? What chance has she against that slow unsleeping hate? +Their lies will fasten themselves to her and suck out her life. You and +Marianna are powerless against such enemies." + +"You leave her in God's hands, my son." + +"Easily said--but, ah, priest, if you were a man! What if their poison +works in me and I go to battle thinking that every Austrian bullet may be +sent by her lover's hand? What if I die not only to free Italy but to free +my wife as well?" + +I laid my hand on his shoulder. "My son, I answer for her. Leave your faith +in her in my hands and I will keep it whole." + +He stared at me strangely. "And what if your own fail you?" + +"In her? Never. I call every saint to witness!" + +"And yet--and yet--ah, this is a blind," he shouted; "you know all and +perjure yourself to spare me!" + +At that, my son, I felt a knife in my breast. I looked at him in anguish +and his gaze was a wall of metal. Mine seemed to slip away from it, like a +clawless thing struggling up the sheer side of a precipice. + +"You know all," he repeated, "and you dare not let me hear her!" + +"I dare not betray my trust." + +He waved the answer aside. + +"Is this a time to quibble over church discipline? If you believed in her +you would save her at any cost!" + +I said to myself, "Eternity can hold nothing worse than this for me--" and +clutched my resolve again like a cross to my bosom. + +Just then there was a hand on the door and we heard Donna Marianna. + +"Faustina has sent to know if the _signar parocco_ is here." + +"He is here. Bid her come down to the chapel." Roberta spoke quietly, and +closed the door on her so that she should not see his face. We heard her +patter away across the brick floor of the _salone_. + +Roberto turned to me. "Egidio!" he said; and all at once I was no more than +a straw on the torrent of his will. + +The chapel adjoined the room in which we sat. He opened the door, and in +the twilight I saw the light glimmering before the Virgin's shrine and the +old carved confessional standing like a cowled watcher in its corner. But +I saw it all in a dream; for nothing in heaven or earth was real to me but +the iron grip on my shoulder. + +"Quick!" he said and drove me forward. I heard him shoot back the bolt of +the outer door and a moment later I stood alone in the garden. The sun had +set and the cold spring dusk was falling. Lights shone here and there in +the long front of the villa; the statues glimmered gray among the thickets. +Through the window-pane of the chapel I caught the faint red gleam of the +Virgin's lamp; but I turned my back on it and walked away. + + * * * * * + +All night I lay like a heretic on the fire. Before dawn there came a call +from the villa. The Count had received a second summons from Milan and was +to set out in an hour. I hurried down the cold dewy path to the lake. All +was new and hushed and strange as on the day of resurrection; and in the +dark twilight of the garden alleys the statues stared at me like the +shrouded dead. + +In the _salone_, where the old Count's portrait hung, I found the +family assembled. Andrea and Gemma sat together, a little pinched, I +thought, but decent and self-contained, like mourners who expect to +inherit. Donna Marianna drooped near them, with something black over her +head and her face dim with weeping. Roberto received me calmly and then +turned to his sister. + +"Go fetch my wife," he said. + +While she was gone there was silence. We could hear the cold drip of the +garden-fountain and the patter of rats in the wall. Andrea and his wife +stared out of window and Roberto sat in his father's carved seat at the +head of the long table. Then the door opened and Faustina entered. + +When I saw her I stopped breathing. She seemed no more than the shell of +herself, a hollow thing that grief has voided. Her eyes returned our images +like polished agate, but conveyed to her no sense of our presence. Marianna +led her to a seat, and she crossed her hands and nailed her dull gaze on +Roberto. I looked from one to another, and in that spectral light it seemed +to me that we were all souls come to judgment and naked to each other as to +God. As to my own wrongdoing, it weighed on me no more than dust. The only +feeling I had room for was fear--a fear that seemed to fill my throat and +lungs and bubble coldly over my drowning head. + +Suddenly Roberto began to speak. His voice was clear and steady, and I +clutched at his words to drag myself above the surface of my terror. He +touched on the charge that had been made against his wife--he did not say +by whom--the foul rumor that had made itself heard on the eve of their +first parting. Duty, he said, had sent him a double summons; to fight for +his country and for his wife. He must clear his wife's name before he was +worthy to draw sword for Italy. There was no time to tame the slander +before throttling it; he had to take the shortest way to its throat. At +this point he looked at me and my soul shook. Then he turned to Andrea and +Gemma. + +"When you came to me with this rumor," he said quietly, "you agreed to +consider the family honor satisfied if I could induce Don Egidio to let me +take his place and overhear my wife's confession, and if that confession +convinced me of her innocence. Was this the understanding?" + +Andrea muttered something and Gemma tapped a sullen foot. + +"After you had left," Roberto continued, "I laid the case before Don Egidio +and threw myself on his mercy." He looked at me fixedly. "So strong was his +faith in my wife's innocence that for her sake he agreed to violate the +sanctity of the confessional. I took his place." + +Marianna sobbed and crossed herself and a strange look flitted over +Faustina's face. + +There was a moment's pause; then Roberto, rising, walked across the room to +his wife and took her by the hand. + +"Your seat is beside me, Countess Siviano," he said, and led her to the +empty chair by his own. + +Gemma started to her feet, but her husband pulled her down again. + +"Jesus! Mary!" We heard Donna Marianna moan. + +Roberto raised his wife's hand to his lips. "You forgive me," he said, "the +means I took to defend you?" And turning to Andrea he added slowly: "I +declare my wife innocent and my honor satisfied. You swear to stand by my +decision?" + +What Andrea stammered out, what hissing serpents of speech Gemma's clinched +teeth bit back, I never knew--for my eyes were on Faustina, and her face +was a wonder to behold. + +She had let herself be led across the room like a blind woman, and had +listened without change of feature to her husband's first words; but as +he ceased her frozen gaze broke and her whole body seemed to melt against +his breast. He put his arm out, but she slipped to his feet and Marianna +hastened forward to raise her up. At that moment we heard the stroke +of oars across the quiet water and saw the Count's boat touch the +landing-steps. Four strong oarsmen from Monte Isola were to row him down +to Iseo, to take horse for Milan, and his servant, knapsack on shoulder, +knocked warningly at the terrace window. + +"No time to lose, excellency!" he cried. + +Roberto turned and gripped my hand. "Pray for me," he said low; and with a +brief gesture to the others ran down the terrace to the boat. + +Marianna was bathing Faustina with happy tears. + +"Look up, dear! Think how soon he will come back! And there is the +sunrise--see!" + +Andrea and Gemma had slunk away like ghosts at cock-crow, and a red dawn +stood over Milan. + + * * * * * + +If that sun rose red it set scarlet. It was the first of the Five Days in +Milan--the Five Glorious Days, as they are called. Roberto reached the city +just before the gates closed. So much we knew--little more. We heard of him +in the Broletto (whence he must have escaped when the Austrians blew in +the door) and in the Casa Vidiserti, with Casati, Cattaneo and the rest; +but after the barricading began we could trace him only as having been +seen here and there in the thick of the fighting, or tending the wounded +under Bertani's orders. His place, one would have said, was in the +council-chamber, with the soberer heads; but that was an hour when every +man gave his blood where it was most needed, and Cernuschi, Dandolo, +Anfossi, della Porta fought shoulder to shoulder with students, artisans +and peasants. Certain it is that he was seen on the fifth day; for among +the volunteers who swarmed after Manara in his assault on the Porta Tosa +was a servant of palazzo Siviano; and this fellow swore he had seen his +master charge with Manara in the last assault--had watched him, sword +in hand, press close to the gates, and then, as they swung open before +the victorious dash of our men, had seen him drop and disappear in the +inrushing tide of peasants that almost swept the little company off its +feet. After that we heard nothing. There was savage work in Milan in those +days, and more than one well-known figure lay lost among the heaps of dead +hacked and disfeatured by Croat blades. + +At the villa, we waited breathless. News came to us hour by hour: the very +wind seemed to carry it, and it was swept to us on the incessant rush of +the rain. On the twenty-third Radetsky had fled from Milan, to face Venice +rising in his path. On the twenty-fourth the first Piedmontese had crossed +the Ticino, and Charles Albert himself was in Pavia on the twenty-ninth. +The bells of Milan had carried the word from Turin to Naples, from Genoa to +Ancona, and the whole country was pouring like a flood-tide into Lombardy. +Heroes sprang up from the bloody soil as thick as wheat after rain, and +every day carried some new name to us; but never the one for which we +prayed and waited. Weeks passed. We heard of Pastrengo, Goito, Rivoli; of +Radetsky hemmed into the Quadrilateral, and our troops closing in on him +from Rome, Tuscany and Venetia. Months passed--and we heard of Custozza. We +saw Charles Albert's broken forces flung back from the Mincio to the Oglio, +from the Oglio to the Adda. We followed the dreadful retreat from Milan, +and saw our rescuers dispersed like dust before the wind. But all the while +no word came to us of Roberto. + +These were dark days in Lombardy; and nowhere darker than in the old villa +on Iseo. In September Donna Marianna and the young Countess put on black, +and Count Andrea and his wife followed their example. In October the +Countess gave birth to a daughter. Count Andrea then took possession of the +palazzo Siviano, and the two women remained at the villa. I have no heart +to tell you of the days that followed. Donna Marianna wept and prayed +incessantly, and it was long before the baby could snatch a smile from her. +As for the Countess Faustina, she went among us like one of the statues in +the garden. The child had a wet-nurse from the village, and it was small +wonder there was no milk for it in that marble breast. I spent much of +my time at the villa, comforting Donna Marianna as best I could; but +sometimes, in the long winter evenings, when we three sat in the dimly-lit +_salone_, with the old Count's portrait overhead, and I looked up and +saw the Countess Faustina in the tall carved seat beside her husband's +empty chair, my spine grew chill and I felt a cold wind in my hair. + +The end of it was that in the spring I went to see my bishop and laid my +sin before him. He was a saintly and merciful old man, and gave me a +patient hearing. + +"You believed the lady innocent?" he asked when I had ended. + +"Monsignore, on my soul!" + +"You thought to avert a great calamity from the house to which you owed +more than your life?" + +"It was my only thought." + +He laid his hand on my shoulder. + +"Go home, my son. You shall learn my decision." + +Three months later I was ordered to resign my living and go to America, +where a priest was needed for the Italian mission church in New York. I +packed my possessions and set sail from Genoa. I knew no more of America +than any peasant up in the hills. I fully expected to be speared by naked +savages on landing; and for the first few months after my arrival I wished +at least once a day that such a blessed fate had befallen me. But it is +no part of my story to tell you what I suffered in those early days. The +Church had dealt with me mercifully, as is her wont, and her punishment +fell far below my deserts.... + +I had been some four years in New York, and no longer thought of looking +back from the plough, when one day word was brought me that an Italian +professor lay ill and had asked for a priest. There were many Italian +refugees in New York at that time, and the greater number, being +well-educated men, earned a living by teaching their language, which was +then included among the accomplishments of fashionable New York. The +messenger led me to a poor boarding-house and up to a small bare room on +the top floor. On the visiting-card nailed to the door I read the name "De +Roberti, Professor of Italian." Inside, a gray-haired haggard man tossed on +the narrow bed. He turned a glazed eye on me as I entered, and I recognized +Roberto Siviano. + +I steadied myself against the door-post and stood staring at him without a +word. + +"What's the matter?" asked the doctor who was bending over the bed. I +stammered that the sick man was an old friend. + +"He wouldn't know his oldest friend just now," said the doctor. "The +fever's on him; but it will go down toward sunset." + +I sat down at the head of the bed and took Roberto's hand in mine. + +"Is he going to die?" I asked. + +"I don't believe so; but he wants nursing." + +"I will nurse him." + +The doctor nodded and went out. I sat in the little room, with Roberto's +burning hand in mine. Gradually his skin cooled, the fingers grew quiet, +and the flush faded from his sallow cheek-bones. Toward dusk he looked up +at me and smiled. + +"Egidio," he said quietly. + +I administered the sacrament, which he received with the most fervent +devotion; then he fell into a deep sleep. + +During the weeks that followed I had no time to ask myself the meaning of +it all. My one business was to keep him alive if I could. I fought the +fever day and night, and at length it yielded. For the most part he raved +or lay unconscious; but now and then he knew me for a moment, and whispered +"Egidio" with a look of peace. + +I had stolen many hours from my duties to nurse him; and as soon as the +danger was past I had to go back to my parish work. Then it was that I +began to ask myself what had brought him to America; but I dared not face +the answer. + +On the fourth day I snatched a moment from my work and climbed to his +room. I found him sitting propped against his pillows, weak as a child but +clear-eyed and quiet. I ran forward, but his look stopped me. + +"_Signor parocco_," he said, "the doctor tells me that I owe my life +to your nursing, and I have to thank you for the kindness you have shown to +a friendless stranger." + +"A stranger?" I gasped. + +He looked at me steadily. "I am not aware that we have met before," he +said. + +For a moment I thought the fever was on him; but a second glance convinced +me that he was master of himself. + +"Roberto!" I cried, trembling. + +"You have the advantage of me," he said civilly. "But my name is Roberti, +not Roberto." + +The floor swam under me and I had to lean against the wall. + +"You are not Count Roberto Siviano of Milan?" + +"I am Tommaso de Roberti, professor of Italian, from Modena." + +"And you have never seen me before?" + +"Never that I know of." + +"Were you never at Siviano, on the lake of Iseo?" I faltered. + +He said calmly: "I am unacquainted with that part of Italy." + +My heart grew cold and I was silent. + +"You mistook me for a friend, I suppose?" he added. + +"Yes," I cried, "I mistook you for a friend;" and with that I fell on my +knees by his bed and cried like a child. + +Suddenly I felt a touch on my shoulder. "Egidio," said he in a broken +voice, "look up." + +I raised my eyes, and there was his old smile above me, and we clung to +each other without a word. Presently, however, he drew back, and put me +quietly aside. + +"Sit over there, Egidio. My bones are like water and I am not good for much +talking yet." + +"Let us wait, Roberto. Sleep now--we can talk tomorrow." + +"No. What I have to say must be said at once." He examined me thoughtfully. +"You have a parish here in New York?" + +I assented. + +"And my work keeps me here. I have pupils. It is too late to make a +change." + +"A change?" + +He continued to look at me calmly. "It would be difficult for me," he +explained, "to find employment in a new place." + +"But why should you leave here?" + +"I shall have to," he returned deliberately, "if you persist in recognizing +in me your former friend Count Siviano." + +"Roberto!" + +He lifted his hand. "Egidio," he said, "I am alone here, and without +friends. The companionship, the sympathy of my parish priest would be a +consolation in this strange city; but it must not be the companionship of +the _parocco_ of Siviano. You understand?" + +"Roberto," I cried, "it is too dreadful to understand!" + +"Be a man, Egidio," said he with a touch of impatience. "The choice lies +with you, and you must make it now. If you are willing to ask no questions, +to name no names, to make no allusions to the past, let us live as friends +together, in God's name! If not, as soon as my legs can carry me I must be +off again. The world is wide, luckily--but why should we be parted?" + +I was on my knees at his side in an instant. "We must never be parted!" I +cried. "Do as you will with me. Give me your orders and I obey--have I not +always obeyed you?" + +I felt his hand close sharply on mine. "Egidio!" he admonished me. + +"No--no--I shall remember. I shall say nothing--" + +"Think nothing?" + +"Think nothing," I said with a last effort. + +"God bless you!" he answered. + +My son, for eight years I kept my word to him. We met daily almost, we ate +and walked and talked together, we lived like David and Jonathan--but +without so much as a glance at the past. How he had escaped from Milan--how +he had reached New York--I never knew. We talked often of Italy's +liberation--as what Italians would not?--but never touched on his share in +the work. Once only a word slipped from him; and that was when one day he +asked me how it was that I had been sent to America. The blood rushed to my +face, and before I could answer he had raised a silencing hand. + +"I see," he said; "it was _your_ penance too." + +During the first years he had plenty of work to do, but he lived so +frugally that I guessed he had some secret use for his earnings. It was +easy to conjecture what it was. All over the world Italian exiles were +toiling and saving to further the great cause. He had political friends in +New York, and sometimes he went to other cities to attend meetings and make +addresses. His zeal never slackened; and but for me he would often have +gone hungry that some shivering patriot might dine. I was with him heart +and soul, but I had the parish on my shoulders, and perhaps my long +experience of men had made me a little less credulous than Christian +charity requires; for I could have sworn that some of the heroes who hung +on him had never had a whiff of Austrian blood, and would have fed out of +the same trough with the white-coats if there had been polenta enough to go +round. Happily my friend had no such doubts. He believed in the patriots as +devoutly as in the cause; and if some of his hard-earned dollars travelled +no farther than the nearest wine-cellar or cigar-shop, he never suspected +the course they took. + +His health was never the same after the fever; and by and by he began to +lose his pupils, and the patriots cooled off as his pockets fell in. Toward +the end I took him to live in my shabby attic. He had grown weak and had a +troublesome cough, and he spent the greater part of his days indoors. Cruel +days they must have been to him, but he made no sign, and always welcomed +me with a cheerful word. When his pupils dropped off, and his health made +it difficult for him to pick up work outside, he set up a letter-writer's +sign, and used to earn a few pennies by serving as amanuensis to my poor +parishioners; but it went against him to take their money, and half the +time he did the work for nothing. I knew it was hard for him to live on +charity, as he called it, and I used to find what jobs I could for him +among my friends the _negozianti_, who would send him letters to copy, +accounts to make up and what not; but we were all poor together, and the +master had licked the platter before the dog got it. + +So lived that just man, my son; and so, after eight years of exile, he died +one day in my arms. God had let him live long enough to see Solferino and +Villa-franca; and was perhaps never more merciful than in sparing him Monte +Rotondo and Mentana. But these are things of which it does not become me to +speak. The new Italy does not wear the face of our visions; but it is +written that God shall know His own, and it cannot be that He shall misread +the hearts of those who dreamed of fashioning her in His image. + +As for my friend, he is at peace, I doubt not; and his just life and holy +death intercede for me, who sinned for his sake alone. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, CRUCIAL INSTANCES *** + +This file should be named 7crci10.txt or 7crci10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 7crci11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 7crci10a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance +of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. +Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections, +even years after the official publication date. + +Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A +preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment +and editing by those who wish to do so. + +Most people start at our Web sites at: +http://gutenberg.net or +http://promo.net/pg + +These Web sites include award-winning information about Project +Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new +eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!). + + +Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement +can get to them as follows, and just download by date. This is +also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the +indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an +announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter. + +http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext04 or +ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext04 + +Or /etext03, 02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90 + +Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want, +as it appears in our Newsletters. + + +Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) + +We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The +time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours +to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright +searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. Our +projected audience is one hundred million readers. If the value +per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2 +million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text +files per month: 1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+ +We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002 +If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total +will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end. + +The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks! +This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, +which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users. + +Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated): + +eBooks Year Month + + 1 1971 July + 10 1991 January + 100 1994 January + 1000 1997 August + 1500 1998 October + 2000 1999 December + 2500 2000 December + 3000 2001 November + 4000 2001 October/November + 6000 2002 December* + 9000 2003 November* +10000 2004 January* + + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created +to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people +and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, +Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, +Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, +Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New +Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, +Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South +Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West +Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. + +We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones +that have responded. + +As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list +will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states. +Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state. + +In answer to various questions we have received on this: + +We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally +request donations in all 50 states. If your state is not listed and +you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have, +just ask. + +While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are +not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting +donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to +donate. + +International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about +how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made +deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are +ways. + +Donations by check or money order may be sent to: + + PROJECT GUTENBERG LITERARY ARCHIVE FOUNDATION + 809 North 1500 West + Salt Lake City, UT 84116 + +Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment +method other than by check or money order. + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by +the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN +[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154. Donations are +tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law. As fund-raising +requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be +made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +You can get up to date donation information online at: + +http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html + + +*** + +If you can't reach Project Gutenberg, +you can always email directly to: + +Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com> + +Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message. + +We would prefer to send you information by email. + + +**The Legal Small Print** + + +(Three Pages) + +***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START*** +Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. +They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with +your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from +someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our +fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement +disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how +you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to. + +*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK +By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept +this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive +a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by +sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person +you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical +medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request. + +ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS +This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks, +is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart +through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project"). +Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright +on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and +distribute it in the United States without permission and +without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth +below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook +under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark. + +Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market +any commercial products without permission. + +To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable +efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain +works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any +medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other +things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged +disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer +codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. + +LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES +But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, +[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may +receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims +all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including +legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR +UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE +OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE +POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. + +If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of +receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) +you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that +time to the person you received it from. If you received it +on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and +such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement +copy. If you received it electronically, such person may +choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to +receive it electronically. + +THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS +TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A +PARTICULAR PURPOSE. + +Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or +the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the +above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you +may have other legal rights. + +INDEMNITY +You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation, +and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated +with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm +texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including +legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the +following that you do or cause: [1] distribution of this eBook, +[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook, +or [3] any Defect. + +DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" +You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by +disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this +"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, +or: + +[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this + requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the + eBook or this "small print!" statement. You may however, + if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable + binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, + including any form resulting from conversion by word + processing or hypertext software, but only so long as + *EITHER*: + + [*] The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and + does *not* contain characters other than those + intended by the author of the work, although tilde + (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may + be used to convey punctuation intended by the + author, and additional characters may be used to + indicate hypertext links; OR + + [*] The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at + no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent + form by the program that displays the eBook (as is + the case, for instance, with most word processors); + OR + + [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at + no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the + eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC + or other equivalent proprietary form). + +[2] Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this + "Small Print!" statement. + +[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the + gross profits you derive calculated using the method you + already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation" + the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were + legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent + periodic) tax return. Please contact us beforehand to + let us know your plans and to work out the details. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of +public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed +in machine readable form. + +The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time, +public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses. +Money should be paid to the: +"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or +software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at: +hart@pobox.com + +[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only +when distributed free of all fees. Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by +Michael S. Hart. Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be +used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be +they hardware or software or any other related product without +express permission.] + +*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END* + diff --git a/old/7crci10.zip b/old/7crci10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c4ecfaa --- /dev/null +++ b/old/7crci10.zip diff --git a/old/8crci10.txt b/old/8crci10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b0a944c --- /dev/null +++ b/old/8crci10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6102 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Crucial Instances, by Edith Wharton + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Crucial Instances + +Author: Edith Wharton + +Release Date: February, 2005 [EBook #7516] +[This file was first posted on May 13, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO Latin-1 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, CRUCIAL INSTANCES *** + + + + +Charles Aldarondo, Tiffany Vergon, William Flis, and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team + + + + CRUCIAL INSTANCES + + BY + + EDITH WHARTON + + + + +TABLE OF CONTENTS + + +I _The Duchess at Prayer_ + +II _The Angel at the Grave_ + +III _The Recovery_ + +IV _"Copy": A Dialogue_ + +V _The Rembrandt_ + +VI _The Moving Finger_ + +VII _The Confessional_ + + + + +THE DUCHESS AT PRAYER + + +Have you ever questioned the long shuttered front of an old Italian house, +that motionless mask, smooth, mute, equivocal as the face of a priest +behind which buzz the secrets of the confessional? Other houses declare the +activities they shelter; they are the clear expressive cuticle of a life +flowing close to the surface; but the old palace in its narrow street, the +villa on its cypress-hooded hill, are as impenetrable as death. The tall +windows are like blind eyes, the great door is a shut mouth. Inside there +may be sunshine, the scent of myrtles, and a pulse of life through all the +arteries of the huge frame; or a mortal solitude, where bats lodge in the +disjointed stones and the keys rust in unused doors.... + + +II + +From the loggia, with its vanishing frescoes, I looked down an avenue +barred by a ladder of cypress-shadows to the ducal escutcheon and mutilated +vases of the gate. Flat noon lay on the gardens, on fountains, porticoes +and grottoes. Below the terrace, where a chrome-colored lichen had sheeted +the balustrade as with fine _laminae_ of gold, vineyards stooped to +the rich valley clasped in hills. The lower slopes were strewn with white +villages like stars spangling a summer dusk; and beyond these, fold on +fold of blue mountain, clear as gauze against the sky. The August air was +lifeless, but it seemed light and vivifying after the atmosphere of the +shrouded rooms through which I had been led. Their chill was on me and I +hugged the sunshine. + +"The Duchess's apartments are beyond," said the old man. + +He was the oldest man I had ever seen; so sucked back into the past that he +seemed more like a memory than a living being. The one trait linking him +with the actual was the fixity with which his small saurian eye held the +pocket that, as I entered, had yielded a _lira_ to the gate-keeper's +child. He went on, without removing his eye: + +"For two hundred years nothing has been changed in the apartments of the +Duchess." + +"And no one lives here now?" + +"No one, sir. The Duke, goes to Como for the summer season." + +I had moved to the other end of the loggia. Below me, through hanging +groves, white roofs and domes flashed like a smile. + +"And that's Vicenza?" + +"_Proprio_!" The old man extended fingers as lean as the hands fading +from the walls behind us. "You see the palace roof over there, just to the +left of the Basilica? The one with the row of statues like birds taking +flight? That's the Duke's town palace, built by Palladio." + +"And does the Duke come there?" + +"Never. In winter he goes to Rome." + +"And the palace and the villa are always closed?" + +"As you see--always." + +"How long has this been?" + +"Since I can remember." + +I looked into his eyes: they were like tarnished metal mirrors reflecting +nothing. "That must be a long time," I said involuntarily. + +"A long time," he assented. + +I looked down on the gardens. An opulence of dahlias overran the +box-borders, between cypresses that cut the sunshine like basalt shafts. +Bees hung above the lavender; lizards sunned themselves on the benches and +slipped through the cracks of the dry basins. Everywhere were vanishing +traces of that fantastic horticulture of which our dull age has lost the +art. Down the alleys maimed statues stretched their arms like rows of +whining beggars; faun-eared terms grinned in the thickets, and above the +laurustinus walls rose the mock ruin of a temple, falling into real ruin +in the bright disintegrating air. The glare was blinding. + +"Let us go in," I said. + +The old man pushed open a heavy door, behind which the cold lurked like a +knife. + +"The Duchess's apartments," he said. + +Overhead and around us the same evanescent frescoes, under foot the same +scagliola volutes, unrolled themselves interminably. Ebony cabinets, with +inlay of precious marbles in cunning perspective, alternated down the +room with the tarnished efflorescence of gilt consoles supporting Chinese +monsters; and from the chimney-panel a gentleman in the Spanish habit +haughtily ignored us. + +"Duke Ercole II.," the old man explained, "by the Genoese Priest." + +It was a narrow-browed face, sallow as a wax effigy, high-nosed and +cautious-lidded, as though modelled by priestly hands; the lips weak and +vain rather than cruel; a quibbling mouth that would have snapped at verbal +errors like a lizard catching flies, but had never learned the shape of a +round yes or no. One of the Duke's hands rested on the head of a dwarf, a +simian creature with pearl ear-rings and fantastic dress; the other turned +the pages of a folio propped on a skull. + +"Beyond is the Duchess's bedroom," the old man reminded me. + +Here the shutters admitted but two narrow shafts of light, gold bars +deepening the subaqueous gloom. On a dais the bedstead, grim, nuptial, +official, lifted its baldachin; a yellow Christ agonized between the +curtains, and across the room a lady smiled at us from the chimney-breast. + +The old man unbarred a shutter and the light touched her face. Such a face +it was, with a flicker of laughter over it like the wind on a June meadow, +and a singular tender pliancy of mien, as though one of Tiepolo's lenient +goddesses had been busked into the stiff sheath of a seventeenth century +dress! + +"No one has slept here," said the old man, "since the Duchess Violante." + +"And she was--?" + +"The lady there--first Duchess of Duke Ercole II." + +He drew a key from his pocket and unlocked a door at the farther end of the +room. "The chapel," he said. "This is the Duchess's balcony." As I turned +to follow him the Duchess tossed me a sidelong smile. + +I stepped into a grated tribune above a chapel festooned with stucco. +Pictures of bituminous saints mouldered between the pilasters; the +artificial roses in the altar-vases were gray with dust and age, and under +the cobwebby rosettes of the vaulting a bird's nest clung. Before the altar +stood a row of tattered arm-chairs, and I drew back at sight of a figure +kneeling near them. + +"The Duchess," the old man whispered. "By the Cavaliere Bernini." + +It was the image of a woman in furred robes and spreading fraise, her hand +lifted, her face addressed to the tabernacle. There was a strangeness in +the sight of that immovable presence locked in prayer before an abandoned +shrine. Her face was hidden, and I wondered whether it were grief or +gratitude that raised her hands and drew her eyes to the altar, where no +living prayer joined her marble invocation. I followed my guide down the +tribune steps, impatient to see what mystic version of such terrestrial +graces the ingenious artist had found--the Cavaliere was master of such +arts. The Duchess's attitude was one of transport, as though heavenly airs +fluttered her laces and the love-locks escaping from her coif. I saw how +admirably the sculptor had caught the poise of her head, the tender slope +of the shoulder; then I crossed over and looked into her face--it was a +frozen horror. Never have hate, revolt and agony so possessed a human +countenance.... + +The old man crossed himself and shuffled his feet on the marble. + +"The Duchess Violante," he repeated. + +"The same as in the picture?" + +"Eh--the same." + +"But the face--what does it mean?" + +He shrugged his shoulders and turned deaf eyes on me. Then he shot a glance +round the sepulchral place, clutched my sleeve and said, close to my ear: +"It was not always so." + +"What was not?" + +"The face--so terrible." + +"The Duchess's face?" + +"The statue's. It changed after--" + +"After?" + +"It was put here." + +"The statue's face _changed_--?" + +He mistook my bewilderment for incredulity and his confidential finger +dropped from my sleeve. "Eh, that's the story. I tell what I've heard. What +do I know?" He resumed his senile shuffle across the marble. "This is a bad +place to stay in--no one comes here. It's too cold. But the gentleman said, +_I must see everything_!" + +I let the _lire_ sound. "So I must--and hear everything. This story, +now--from whom did you have it?" + +His hand stole back. "One that saw it, by God!" + +"That saw it?" + +"My grandmother, then. I'm a very old man." + +"Your grandmother? Your grandmother was--?" + +"The Duchess's serving girl, with respect to you." + +"Your grandmother? Two hundred years ago?" + +"Is it too long ago? That's as God pleases. I am a very old man and she +was a very old woman when I was born. When she died she was as black as a +miraculous Virgin and her breath whistled like the wind in a keyhole. She +told me the story when I was a little boy. She told it to me out there in +the garden, on a bench by the fish-pond, one summer night of the year she +died. It must be true, for I can show you the very bench we sat on...." + + +III + +Noon lay heavier on the gardens; not our live humming warmth but the stale +exhalation of dead summers. The very statues seemed to drowse like watchers +by a death-bed. Lizards shot out of the cracked soil like flames and the +bench in the laurustinus-niche was strewn with the blue varnished bodies of +dead flies. Before us lay the fish-pond, a yellow marble slab above rotting +secrets. The villa looked across it, composed as a dead face, with the +cypresses flanking it for candles.... + + +IV + +"Impossible, you say, that my mother's mother should have been the +Duchess's maid? What do I know? It is so long since anything has happened +here that the old things seem nearer, perhaps, than to those who live in +cities.... But how else did she know about the statue then? Answer me that, +sir! That she saw with her eyes, I can swear to, and never smiled again, +so she told me, till they put her first child in her arms ... for she was +taken to wife by the steward's son, Antonio, the same who had carried +the letters.... But where am I? Ah, well ... she was a mere slip, you +understand, my grandmother, when the Duchess died, a niece of the upper +maid, Nencia, and suffered about the Duchess because of her pranks and the +funny songs she knew. It's possible, you think, she may have heard from +others what she afterward fancied she had seen herself? How that is, it's +not for an unlettered man to say; though indeed I myself seem to have seen +many of the things she told me. This is a strange place. No one comes here, +nothing changes, and the old memories stand up as distinct as the statues +in the garden.... + +"It began the summer after they came back from the Brenta. Duke Ercole had +married the lady from Venice, you must know; it was a gay city, then, I'm +told, with laughter and music on the water, and the days slipped by like +boats running with the tide. Well, to humor her he took her back the first +autumn to the Brenta. Her father, it appears, had a grand palace there, +with such gardens, bowling-alleys, grottoes and casinos as never were; +gondolas bobbing at the water-gates, a stable full of gilt coaches, a +theatre full of players, and kitchens and offices full of cooks and +lackeys to serve up chocolate all day long to the fine ladies in masks +and furbelows, with their pet dogs and their blackamoors and their +_abates_. Eh! I know it all as if I'd been there, for Nencia, you see, +my grandmother's aunt, travelled with the Duchess, and came back with her +eyes round as platters, and not a word to say for the rest of the year to +any of the lads who'd courted her here in Vicenza. + +"What happened there I don't know--my grandmother could never get at +the rights of it, for Nencia was mute as a fish where her lady was +concerned--but when they came back to Vicenza the Duke ordered the villa +set in order; and in the spring he brought the Duchess here and left her. +She looked happy enough, my grandmother said, and seemed no object for +pity. Perhaps, after all, it was better than being shut up in Vicenza, +in the tall painted rooms where priests came and went as softly as cats +prowling for birds, and the Duke was forever closeted in his library, +talking with learned men. The Duke was a scholar; you noticed he was +painted with a book? Well, those that can read 'em make out that they're +full of wonderful things; as a man that's been to a fair across the +mountains will always tell his people at home it was beyond anything +_they'll_ ever see. As for the Duchess, she was all for music, +play-acting and young company. The Duke was a silent man, stepping quietly, +with his eyes down, as though he'd just come from confession; when the +Duchess's lap-dog yapped at his heels he danced like a man in a swarm of +hornets; when the Duchess laughed he winced as if you'd drawn a diamond +across a window-pane. And the Duchess was always laughing. + +"When she first came to the villa she was very busy laying out the gardens, +designing grottoes, planting groves and planning all manner of agreeable +surprises in the way of water-jets that drenched you unexpectedly, and +hermits in caves, and wild men that jumped at you out of thickets. She had +a very pretty taste in such matters, but after a while she tired of it, and +there being no one for her to talk to but her maids and the chaplain--a +clumsy man deep in his books--why, she would have strolling players out +from Vicenza, mountebanks and fortune-tellers from the market-place, +travelling doctors and astrologers, and all manner of trained animals. +Still it could be seen that the poor lady pined for company, and her +waiting women, who loved her, were glad when the Cavaliere Ascanio, the +Duke's cousin, came to live at the vineyard across the valley--you see +the pinkish house over there in the mulberries, with a red roof and a +pigeon-cote? + +"The Cavaliere Ascanio was a cadet of one of the great Venetian houses, +_pezzi grossi_ of the Golden Book. He had been' meant for the Church, +I believe, but what! he set fighting above praying and cast in his lot with +the captain of the Duke of Mantua's _bravi_, himself a Venetian of +good standing, but a little at odds with the law. Well, the next I know, +the Cavaliere was in Venice again, perhaps not in good odor on account of +his connection with the gentleman I speak of. Some say he tried to carry +off a nun from the convent of Santa Croce; how that may be I can't say; but +my grandmother declared he had enemies there, and the end of it was that on +some pretext or other the Ten banished him to Vicenza. There, of course, +the Duke, being his kinsman, had to show him a civil face; and that was how +he first came to the villa. + +"He was a fine young man, beautiful as a Saint Sebastian, a rare musician, +who sang his own songs to the lute in a way that used to make my +grandmother's heart melt and run through her body like mulled wine. He +had a good word for everybody, too, and was always dressed in the French +fashion, and smelt as sweet as a bean-field; and every soul about the place +welcomed the sight of him. + +"Well, the Duchess, it seemed, welcomed it too; youth will have youth, +and laughter turns to laughter; and the two matched each other like the +candlesticks on an altar. The Duchess--you've seen her portrait--but to +hear my grandmother, sir, it no more approached her than a weed comes up to +a rose. The Cavaliere, indeed, as became a poet, paragoned her in his song +to all the pagan goddesses of antiquity; and doubtless these were finer +to look at than mere women; but so, it seemed, was she; for, to believe +my grandmother, she made other women look no more than the big French +fashion-doll that used to be shown on Ascension days in the Piazza. She +was one, at any rate, that needed no outlandish finery to beautify her; +whatever dress she wore became her as feathers fit the bird; and her hair +didn't get its color by bleaching on the housetop. It glittered of itself +like the threads in an Easter chasuble, and her skin was whiter than fine +wheaten bread and her mouth as sweet as a ripe fig.... + +"Well, sir, you could no more keep them apart than the bees and the +lavender. They were always together, singing, bowling, playing cup and +ball, walking in the gardens, visiting the aviaries and petting her grace's +trick-dogs and monkeys. The Duchess was as gay as a foal, always playing +pranks and laughing, tricking out her animals like comedians, disguising +herself as a peasant or a nun (you should have seen her one day pass +herself off to the chaplain as a mendicant sister), or teaching the lads +and girls of the vineyards to dance and sing madrigals together. The +Cavaliere had a singular ingenuity in planning such entertainments and the +days were hardly long enough for their diversions. But toward the end of +the summer the Duchess fell quiet and would hear only sad music, and the +two sat much together in the gazebo at the end of the garden. It was there +the Duke found them one day when he drove out from Vicenza in his gilt +coach. He came but once or twice a year to the villa, and it was, as my +grandmother said, just a part of her poor lady's ill-luck to be wearing +that day the Venetian habit, which uncovered the shoulders in a way the +Duke always scowled at, and her curls loose and powdered with gold. Well, +the three drank chocolate in the gazebo, and what happened no one knew, +except that the Duke, on taking leave, gave his cousin a seat in his +carriage; but the Cavaliere never returned. + +"Winter approaching, and the poor lady thus finding herself once more +alone, it was surmised among her women that she must fall into a deeper +depression of spirits. But far from this being the case, she displayed such +cheerfulness and equanimity of humor that my grandmother, for one, was +half-vexed with her for giving no more thought to the poor young man who, +all this time, was eating his heart out in the house across the valley. It +is true she quitted her gold-laced gowns and wore a veil over her head; but +Nencia would have it she looked the lovelier for the change and so gave the +Duke greater displeasure. Certain it is that the Duke drove out oftener to +the villa, and though he found his lady always engaged in some innocent +pursuit, such as embroidery or music, or playing games with her young +women, yet he always went away with a sour look and a whispered word to +the chaplain. Now as to the chaplain, my grandmother owned there had been +a time when her grace had not handled him over-wisely. For, according to +Nencia, it seems that his reverence, who seldom approached the Duchess, +being buried in his library like a mouse in a cheese--well, one day he made +bold to appeal to her for a sum of money, a large sum, Nencia said, to buy +certain tall books, a chest full of them, that a foreign pedlar had brought +him; whereupon the Duchess, who could never abide a book, breaks out at +him with a laugh and a flash of her old spirit--'Holy Mother of God, must +I have more books about me? I was nearly smothered with them in the first +year of my marriage;' and the chaplain turning red at the affront, she +added: 'You may buy them and welcome, my good chaplain, if you can find +the money; but as for me, I am yet seeking a way to pay for my turquoise +necklace, and the statue of Daphne at the end of the bowling-green, and +the Indian parrot that my black boy brought me last Michaelmas from the +Bohemians--so you see I've no money to waste on trifles;' and as he backs +out awkwardly she tosses at him over her shoulder: 'You should pray to +Saint Blandina to open the Duke's pocket!' to which he returned, very +quietly, 'Your excellency's suggestion is an admirable one, and I have +already entreated that blessed martyr to open the Duke's understanding.' + +"Thereat, Nencia said (who was standing by), the Duchess flushed +wonderfully red and waved him out of the room; and then 'Quick!' she cried +to my grandmother (who was too glad to run on such errands), 'Call me +Antonio, the gardener's boy, to the box-garden; I've a word to say to him +about the new clove-carnations....' + +"Now I may not have told you, sir, that in the crypt under the chapel there +has stood, for more generations than a man can count, a stone coffin +containing a thighbone of the blessed Saint Blandina of Lyons, a relic +offered, I've been told, by some great Duke of France to one of our own +dukes when they fought the Turk together; and the object, ever since, of +particular veneration in this illustrious family. Now, since the Duchess +had been left to herself, it was observed she affected a fervent devotion +to this relic, praying often in the chapel and even causing the stone slab +that covered the entrance to the crypt to be replaced by a wooden one, +that she might at will descend and kneel by the coffin. This was matter of +edification to all the household and should have been peculiarly pleasing +to the chaplain; but, with respect to you, he was the kind of man who +brings a sour mouth to the eating of the sweetest apple. + +"However that may be, the Duchess, when she dismissed him, was seen running +to the garden, where she talked earnestly with the boy Antonio about the +new clove-carnations; and the rest of the day she sat indoors and played +sweetly on the virginal. Now Nencia always had it in mind that her grace +had made a mistake in refusing that request of the chaplain's; but she said +nothing, for to talk reason to the Duchess was of no more use than praying +for rain in a drought. + +"Winter came early that year, there was snow on the hills by All Souls, +the wind stripped the gardens, and the lemon-trees were nipped in the +lemon-house. The Duchess kept her room in this black season, sitting over +the fire, embroidering, reading books of devotion (which was a thing she +had never done) and praying frequently in the chapel. As for the chaplain, +it was a place he never set foot in but to say mass in the morning, +with the Duchess overhead in the tribune, and the servants aching with +rheumatism on the marble floor. The chaplain himself hated the cold, and +galloped through the mass like a man with witches after him. The rest of +the day he spent in his library, over a brazier, with his eternal books.... + +"You'll wonder, sir, if I'm ever to get to the gist of the story; and I've +gone slowly, I own, for fear of what's coming. Well, the winter was long +and hard. When it fell cold the Duke ceased to come out from Vicenza, +and not a soul had the Duchess to speak to but her maid-servants and the +gardeners about the place. Yet it was wonderful, my grandmother said, how +she kept her brave colors and her spirits; only it was remarked that she +prayed longer in the chapel, where a brazier was kept burning for her all +day. When the young are denied their natural pleasures they turn often +enough to religion; and it was a mercy, as my grandmother said, that she, +who had scarce a live sinner to speak to, should take such comfort in a +dead saint. + +"My grandmother seldom saw her that winter, for though she showed a brave +front to all she kept more and more to herself, choosing to have only +Nencia about her and dismissing even her when she went to pray. For +her devotion had that mark of true piety, that she wished it not to be +observed; so that Nencia had strict orders, on the chaplain's approach, to +warn her mistress if she happened to be in prayer. + +"Well, the winter passed, and spring was well forward, when my grandmother +one evening had a bad fright. That it was her own fault I won't deny, for +she'd been down the lime-walk with Antonio when her aunt fancied her to be +stitching in her chamber; and seeing a sudden light in Nencia's window, she +took fright lest her disobedience be found out, and ran up quickly through +the laurel-grove to the house. Her way lay by the chapel, and as she crept +past it, meaning to slip in through the scullery, and groping her way, for +the dark had fallen and the moon was scarce up, she heard a crash close +behind her, as though someone had dropped from a window of the chapel. The +young fool's heart turned over, but she looked round as she ran, and there, +sure enough, was a man scuttling across the terrace; and as he doubled +the corner of the house my grandmother swore she caught the whisk of the +chaplain's skirts. Now that was a strange thing, certainly; for why should +the chaplain be getting out of the chapel window when he might have passed +through the door? For you may have noticed, sir, there's a door leads from +the chapel into the saloon on the ground floor; the only other way out +being through the Duchess's tribune. + +"Well, my grandmother turned the matter over, and next time she met Antonio +in the lime-walk (which, by reason of her fright, was not for some days) +she laid before him what had happened; but to her surprise he only laughed +and said, 'You little simpleton, he wasn't getting out of the window, he +was trying to look in'; and not another word could she get from him. + +"So the season moved on to Easter, and news came the Duke had gone to Rome +for that holy festivity. His comings and goings made no change at the +villa, and yet there was no one there but felt easier to think his yellow +face was on the far side of the Apennines, unless perhaps it was the +chaplain. + +"Well, it was one day in May that the Duchess, who had walked long with +Nencia on the terrace, rejoicing at the sweetness of the prospect and the +pleasant scent of the gilly-flowers in the stone vases, the Duchess toward +midday withdrew to her rooms, giving orders that her dinner should be +served in her bed-chamber. My grandmother helped to carry in the dishes, +and observed, she said, the singular beauty of the Duchess, who in honor +of the fine weather had put on a gown of shot-silver and hung her bare +shoulders with pearls, so that she looked fit to dance at court with an +emperor. She had ordered, too, a rare repast for a lady that heeded so +little what she ate--jellies, game-pasties, fruits in syrup, spiced cakes +and a flagon of Greek wine; and she nodded and clapped her hands as the +women set it before her, saying again and again, 'I shall eat well to-day.' + +"But presently another mood seized her; she turned from the table, called +for her rosary, and said to Nencia: 'The fine weather has made me neglect +my devotions. I must say a litany before I dine.' + +"She ordered the women out and barred the door, as her custom was; and +Nencia and my grandmother went down-stairs to work in the linen-room. + +"Now the linen-room gives on the court-yard, and suddenly my grandmother +saw a strange sight approaching. First up the avenue came the Duke's +carriage (whom all thought to be in Rome), and after it, drawn by a long +string of mules and oxen, a cart carrying what looked like a kneeling +figure wrapped in death-clothes. The strangeness of it struck the girl dumb +and the Duke's coach was at the door before she had the wit to cry out that +it was coming. Nencia, when she saw it, went white and ran out of the room. +My grandmother followed, scared by her face, and the two fled along the +corridor to the chapel. On the way they met the chaplain, deep in a book, +who asked in surprise where they were running, and when they said, to +announce the Duke's arrival, he fell into such astonishment and asked them +so many questions and uttered such ohs and ahs, that by the time he let +them by the Duke was at their heels. Nencia reached the chapel-door first +and cried out that the Duke was coming; and before she had a reply he was +at her side, with the chaplain following. + +"A moment later the door opened and there stood the Duchess. She held her +rosary in one hand and had drawn a scarf over her shoulders; but they shone +through it like the moon in a mist, and her countenance sparkled with +beauty. + +"The Duke took her hand with a bow. 'Madam,' he said, 'I could have had no +greater happiness than thus to surprise you at your devotions.' + +"'My own happiness,' she replied, 'would have been greater had your +excellency prolonged it by giving me notice of your arrival.' + +"'Had you expected me, Madam,' said he, 'your appearance could scarcely +have been more fitted to the occasion. Few ladies of your youth and beauty +array themselves to venerate a saint as they would to welcome a lover.' + +"'Sir,' she answered, 'having never enjoyed the latter opportunity, I am +constrained to make the most of the former.--What's that?' she cried, +falling back, and the rosary dropped from her hand. + +"There was a loud noise at the other end of the saloon, as of a heavy +object being dragged down the passage; and presently a dozen men were seen +haling across the threshold the shrouded thing from the oxcart. The Duke +waved his hand toward it. 'That,' said he, 'Madam, is a tribute to your +extraordinary piety. I have heard with peculiar satisfaction of your +devotion to the blessed relics in this chapel, and to commemorate a zeal +which neither the rigors of winter nor the sultriness of summer could abate +I have ordered a sculptured image of you, marvellously executed by the +Cavaliere Bernini, to be placed before the altar over the entrance to the +crypt.' + +"The Duchess, who had grown pale, nevertheless smiled playfully at this. +'As to commemorating my piety," she said, 'I recognize there one of your +excellency's pleasantries--' + +"'A pleasantry?' the Duke interrupted; and he made a sign to the men, who +had now reached the threshold of the chapel. In an instant the wrappings +fell from the figure, and there knelt the Duchess to the life. A cry of +wonder rose from all, but the Duchess herself stood whiter than the marble. + +"'You will see,' says the Duke, 'this is no pleasantry, but a triumph +of the incomparable Bernini's chisel. The likeness was done from your +miniature portrait by the divine Elisabetta Sirani, which I sent to the +master some six months ago, with what results all must admire.' + +"'Six months!' cried the Duchess, and seemed about to fall; but his +excellency caught her by the hand. + +"'Nothing,' he said, 'could better please me than the excessive emotion you +display, for true piety is ever modest, and your thanks could not take a +form that better became you. And now,' says he to the men, 'let the image +be put in place.' + +"By this, life seemed to have returned to the Duchess, and she answered him +with a deep reverence. 'That I should be overcome by so unexpected a grace, +your excellency admits to be natural; but what honors you accord it is my +privilege to accept, and I entreat only that in mercy to my modesty the +image be placed in the remotest part of the chapel.' + +"At that the Duke darkened. 'What! You would have this masterpiece of a +renowned chisel, which, I disguise not, cost me the price of a good +vineyard in gold pieces, you would have it thrust out of sight like the +work of a village stonecutter?' + +"'It is my semblance, not the sculptor's work, I desire to conceal.' + +"'It you are fit for my house, Madam, you are fit for God's, and entitled +to the place of honor in both. Bring the statue forward, you dawdlers!' he +called out to the men. + +"The Duchess fell back submissively. 'You are right, sir, as always; but I +would at least have the image stand on the left of the altar, that, looking +up, it may behold your excellency's seat in the tribune.' + +"'A pretty thought, Madam, for which I thank you; but I design before long +to put my companion image on the other side of the altar; and the wife's +place, as you know, is at her husband's right hand.' + +"'True, my lord--but, again, if my poor presentment is to have the +unmerited honor of kneeling beside yours, why not place both before the +altar, where it is our habit to pray in life?' + +"'And where, Madam, should we kneel if they took our places? Besides,' says +the Duke, still speaking very blandly, 'I have a more particular purpose +in placing your image over the entrance to the crypt; for not only would I +thereby mark your special devotion to the blessed saint who rests there, +but, by sealing up the opening in the pavement, would assure the perpetual +preservation of that holy martyr's bones, which hitherto have been too +thoughtlessly exposed to sacrilegious attempts.' + +"'What attempts, my lord?' cries the Duchess. 'No one enters this chapel +without my leave.' + +"'So I have understood, and can well believe from what I have learned of +your piety; yet at night a malefactor might break in through a window, +Madam, and your excellency not know it.' + +"'I'm a light sleeper,' said the Duchess. + +"The Duke looked at her gravely. 'Indeed?' said he. 'A bad sign at your +age. I must see that you are provided with a sleeping-draught.' + +"The Duchess's eyes filled. 'You would deprive me, then, of the consolation +of visiting those venerable relics?' + +"'I would have you keep eternal guard over them, knowing no one to whose +care they may more fittingly be entrusted.' + +"By this the image was brought close to the wooden slab that covered the +entrance to the crypt, when the Duchess, springing forward, placed herself +in the way. + +"'Sir, let the statue be put in place to-morrow, and suffer me, to-night, +to say a last prayer beside those holy bones.' + +"The Duke stepped instantly to her side. 'Well thought, Madam; I will go +down with you now, and we will pray together.' + +"'Sir, your long absences have, alas! given me the habit of solitary +devotion, and I confess that any presence is distracting.' + +"'Madam, I accept your rebuke. Hitherto, it is true, the duties of my +station have constrained me to long absences; but henceforward I remain +with you while you live. Shall we go down into the crypt together?" + +"'No; for I fear for your excellency's ague. The air there is excessively +damp.' + +"'The more reason you should no longer be exposed to it; and to prevent the +intemperance of your zeal I will at once make the place inaccessible.' + +"The Duchess at this fell on her knees on the slab, weeping excessively and +lifting her hands to heaven. + +"'Oh,' she cried, 'you are cruel, sir, to deprive me of access to the +sacred relics that have enabled me to support with resignation the solitude +to which your excellency's duties have condemned me; and if prayer and +meditation give me any authority to pronounce on such matters, suffer me to +warn you, sir, that I fear the blessed Saint Blandina will punish us for +thus abandoning her venerable remains!' + +"The Duke at this seemed to pause, for he was a pious man, and my +grandmother thought she saw him exchange a glance with the chaplain; who, +stepping timidly forward, with his eyes on the ground, said, 'There is +indeed much wisdom in her excellency's words, but I would suggest, sir, +that her pious wish might be met, and the saint more conspicuously honored, +by transferring the relics from the crypt to a place beneath the altar.' + +"'True!' cried the Duke, 'and it shall be done at once.' + +"But thereat the Duchess rose to her feet with a terrible look. + +"'No,' she cried, 'by the body of God! For it shall not be said that, after +your excellency has chosen to deny every request I addressed to him, I owe +his consent to the solicitation of another!' + +"The chaplain turned red and the Duke yellow, and for a moment neither +spoke. + +"Then the Duke said, 'Here are words enough, Madam. Do you wish the relics +brought up from the crypt?' + +"'I wish nothing that I owe to another's intervention!' + +"'Put the image in place then,' says the Duke furiously; and handed her +grace to a chair. + +"She sat there, my grandmother said, straight as an arrow, her hands +locked, her head high, her eyes on the Duke, while the statue was dragged +to its place; then she stood up and turned away. As she passed by Nencia, +'Call me Antonio,' she whispered; but before the words were out of her +mouth the Duke stepped between them. + +"'Madam,' says he, all smiles now, 'I have travelled straight from Rome to +bring you the sooner this proof of my esteem. I lay last night at Monselice +and have been on the road since daybreak. Will you not invite me to +supper?' + +"'Surely, my lord,' said the Duchess. 'It shall be laid in the +dining-parlor within the hour.' + +"'Why not in your chamber and at once, Madam? Since I believe it is your +custom to sup there.' + +"'In my chamber?' says the Duchess, in disorder. + +"'Have you anything against it?' he asked. + +"'Assuredly not, sir, if you will give me time to prepare myself.' + +"'I will wait in your cabinet,' said the Duke. + +"At that, said my grandmother, the Duchess gave one look, as the souls in +hell may have looked when the gates closed on our Lord; then she called +Nencia and passed to her chamber. + +"What happened there my grandmother could never learn, but that the +Duchess, in great haste, dressed herself with extraordinary splendor, +powdering her hair with gold, painting her face and bosom, and covering +herself with jewels till she shone like our Lady of Loreto; and hardly +were these preparations complete when the Duke entered from the cabinet, +followed by the servants carrying supper. Thereupon the Duchess dismissed +Nencia, and what follows my grandmother learned from a pantry-lad who +brought up the dishes and waited in the cabinet; for only the Duke's +body-servant entered the bed-chamber. + +"Well, according to this boy, sir, who was looking and listening with his +whole body, as it were, because he had never before been suffered so near +the Duchess, it appears that the noble couple sat down in great good humor, +the Duchess playfully reproving her husband for his long absence, while the +Duke swore that to look so beautiful was the best way of punishing him. +In this tone the talk continued, with such gay sallies on the part of the +Duchess, such tender advances on the Duke's, that the lad declared they +were for all the world like a pair of lovers courting on a summer's night +in the vineyard; and so it went till the servant brought in the mulled +wine. + +"'Ah,' the Duke was saying at that moment, 'this agreeable evening repays +me for the many dull ones I have spent away from you; nor do I remember +to have enjoyed such laughter since the afternoon last year when we drank +chocolate in the gazebo with my cousin Ascanio. And that reminds me,' he +said, 'is my cousin in good health?' + +"'I have no reports of it,' says the Duchess. 'But your excellency should +taste these figs stewed in malmsey--' + +"'I am in the mood to taste whatever you offer,' said he; and as she helped +him to the figs he added, 'If my enjoyment were not complete as it is, +I could almost wish my cousin Ascanio were with us. The fellow is rare +good company at supper. What do you say, Madam? I hear he's still in the +country; shall we send for him to join us?' + +"'Ah,' said the Duchess, with a sigh and a languishing look, 'I see your +excellency wearies of me already.' + +"'I, Madam? Ascanio is a capital good fellow, but to my mind his chief +merit at this moment is his absence. It inclines me so tenderly to him +that, by God, I could empty a glass to his good health.' + +"With that the Duke caught up his goblet and signed to the servant to fill +the Duchess's. + +"'Here's to the cousin,' he cried, standing, 'who has the good taste to +stay away when he's not wanted. I drink to his very long life--and you, +Madam?' + +"At this the Duchess, who had sat staring at him with a changed face, rose +also and lifted her glass to her lips. + +"'And I to his happy death,' says she in a wild voice; and as she spoke the +empty goblet dropped from her hand and she fell face down on the floor. + +"The Duke shouted to her women that she had swooned, and they came and +lifted her to the bed.... She suffered horribly all night, Nencia said, +twisting herself like a heretic at the stake, but without a word escaping +her. The Duke watched by her, and toward daylight sent for the chaplain; +but by this she was unconscious and, her teeth being locked, our Lord's +body could not be passed through them. + + * * * * * + +"The Duke announced to his relations that his lady had died after partaking +too freely of spiced wine and an omelet of carp's roe, at a supper she had +prepared in honor of his return; and the next year he brought home a new +Duchess, who gave him a son and five daughters...." + + +V + +The sky had turned to a steel gray, against which the villa stood out +sallow and inscrutable. A wind strayed through the gardens, loosening here +and there a yellow leaf from the sycamores; and the hills across the valley +were purple as thunder-clouds. + + * * * * * + +"And the statue--?" I asked. + +"Ah, the statue. Well, sir, this is what my grandmother told me, here on +this very bench where we're sitting. The poor child, who worshipped the +Duchess as a girl of her years will worship a beautiful kind mistress, +spent a night of horror, you may fancy, shut out from her lady's room, +hearing the cries that came from it, and seeing, as she crouched in her +corner, the women rush to and fro with wild looks, the Duke's lean face in +the door, and the chaplain skulking in the antechamber with his eyes on +his breviary. No one minded her that night or the next morning; and toward +dusk, when it became known the Duchess was no more, the poor girl felt the +pious wish to say a prayer for her dead mistress. She crept to the chapel +and stole in unobserved. The place was empty and dim, but as she advanced +she heard a low moaning, and coming in front of the statue she saw that +its face, the day before so sweet and smiling, had the look on it that you +know--and the moaning seemed to come from its lips. My grandmother turned +cold, but something, she said afterward, kept her from calling or shrieking +out, and she turned and ran from the place. In the passage she fell in a +swoon; and when she came to her senses, in her own chamber, she heard that +the Duke had locked the chapel door and forbidden any to set foot there.... +The place was never opened again till the Duke died, some ten years later; +and then it was that the other servants, going in with the new heir, +saw for the first time the horror that my grandmother had kept in her +bosom...." + +"And the crypt?" I asked. "Has it never been opened?" + +"Heaven forbid, sir!" cried the old man, crossing himself. "Was it not the +Duchess's express wish that the relics should not be disturbed?" + + + + +THE ANGEL AT THE GRAVE + + +The House stood a few yards back from the elm-shaded village street, +in that semi-publicity sometimes cited as a democratic protest against +old-world standards of domestic exclusiveness. This candid exposure to +the public eye is more probably a result of the gregariousness which, in +the New England bosom, oddly coexists with a shrinking from direct social +contact; most of the inmates of such houses preferring that furtive +intercourse which is the result of observations through shuttered windows +and a categorical acquaintance with the neighboring clothes-lines. The +House, however, faced its public with a difference. For sixty years it had +written itself with a capital letter, had self-consciously squared itself +in the eye of an admiring nation. The most searching inroads of village +intimacy hardly counted in a household that opened on the universe; and a +lady whose door-bell was at any moment liable to be rung by visitors from +London or Vienna was not likely to flutter up-stairs when she observed a +neighbor "stepping over." + +The solitary inmate of the Anson House owed this induration of the social +texture to the most conspicuous accident in her annals: the fact that she +was the only granddaughter of the great Orestes Anson. She had been born, +as it were, into a museum, and cradled in a glass case with a label; +the first foundations of her consciousness being built on the rock of +her grandfather's celebrity. To a little girl who acquires her earliest +knowledge of literature through a _Reader_ embellished with fragments +of her ancestor's prose, that personage necessarily fills an heroic space +in the foreground of life. To communicate with one's past through the +impressive medium of print, to have, as it were, a footing in every library +in the country, and an acknowledged kinship with that world-diffused clan, +the descendants of the great, was to be pledged to a standard of manners +that amazingly simplified the lesser relations of life. The village street +on which Paulina Anson's youth looked out led to all the capitals of +Europe; and over the roads of intercommunication unseen caravans bore back +to the elm-shaded House the tribute of an admiring world. + +Fate seemed to have taken a direct share in fitting Paulina for her part as +the custodian of this historic dwelling. It had long been secretly regarded +as a "visitation" by the great man's family that he had left no son and +that his daughters were not "intellectual." The ladies themselves were the +first to lament their deficiency, to own that nature had denied them the +gift of making the most of their opportunities. A profound veneration for +their parent and an unswerving faith in his doctrines had not amended their +congenital incapacity to understand what he had written. Laura, who had her +moments of mute rebellion against destiny, had sometimes thought how much +easier it would have been if their progenitor had been a poet; for she +could recite, with feeling, portions of _The Culprit Fay_ and of the +poems of Mrs. Hemans; and Phoebe, who was more conspicuous for memory than +imagination, kept an album filled with "selections." But the great man +was a philosopher; and to both daughters respiration was difficult on the +cloudy heights of metaphysic. The situation would have been intolerable +but for the fact that, while Phoebe and Laura were still at school, +their father's fame had passed from the open ground of conjecture to the +chill privacy of certitude. Dr. Anson had in fact achieved one of those +anticipated immortalities not uncommon at a time when people were apt to +base their literary judgments on their emotions, and when to affect plain +food and despise England went a long way toward establishing a man's +intellectual pre-eminence. Thus, when the daughters were called on to +strike a filial attitude about their parent's pedestal, there was little +to do but to pose gracefully and point upward; and there are spines to +which the immobility of worship is not a strain. A legend had by this time +crystallized about the great Orestes, and it was of more immediate interest +to the public to hear what brand of tea he drank, and whether he took off +his boots in the hall, than to rouse the drowsy echo of his dialectic. A +great man never draws so near his public as when it has become unnecessary +to read his books and is still interesting to know what he eats for +breakfast. + +As recorders of their parent's domestic habits, as pious scavengers of his +waste-paper basket, the Misses Anson were unexcelled. They always had an +interesting anecdote to impart to the literary pilgrim, and the tact with +which, in later years, they intervened between the public and the growing +inaccessibility of its idol, sent away many an enthusiast satisfied to have +touched the veil before the sanctuary. Still it was felt, especially by old +Mrs. Anson, who survived her husband for some years, that Phoebe and Laura +were not worthy of their privileges. There had been a third daughter so +unworthy of hers that she had married a distant cousin, who had taken her +to live in a new Western community where the _Works of Orestes Anson_ +had not yet become a part of the civic consciousness; but of this daughter +little was said, and she was tacitly understood to be excluded from the +family heritage of fame. In time, however, it appeared that the traditional +penny with which she had been cut off had been invested to unexpected +advantage; and the interest on it, when she died, returned to the Anson +House in the shape of a granddaughter who was at once felt to be what Mrs. +Anson called a "compensation." It was Mrs. Anson's firm belief that the +remotest operations of nature were governed by the centripetal force of her +husband's greatness and that Paulina's exceptional intelligence could be +explained only on the ground that she was designed to act as the guardian +of the family temple. + +The House, by the time Paulina came to live in it, had already acquired +the publicity of a place of worship; not the perfumed chapel of a romantic +idolatry but the cold clean empty meeting-house of ethical enthusiasms. The +ladies lived on its outskirts, as it were, in cells that left the central +fane undisturbed. The very position of the furniture had come to have a +ritual significance: the sparse ornaments were the offerings of kindred +intellects, the steel engravings by Raphael Morghen marked the Via Sacra +of a European tour, and the black-walnut desk with its bronze inkstand +modelled on the Pantheon was the altar of this bleak temple of thought. + +To a child compact of enthusiasms, and accustomed to pasture them on the +scanty herbage of a new social soil, the atmosphere of the old house was +full of floating nourishment. In the compressed perspective of Paulina's +outlook it stood for a monument of ruined civilizations, and its white +portico opened on legendary distances. Its very aspect was impressive +to eyes that had first surveyed life from the jig-saw "residence" of a +raw-edged Western town. The high-ceilinged rooms, with their panelled +walls, their polished mahogany, their portraits of triple-stocked ancestors +and of ringleted "females" in crayon, furnished the child with the historic +scenery against which a young imagination constructs its vision of the +past. To other eyes the cold spotless thinly-furnished interior might have +suggested the shuttered mind of a maiden-lady who associates fresh air and +sunlight with dust and discoloration; but it is the eye which supplies the +coloring-matter, and Paulina's brimmed with the richest hues. + +Nevertheless, the House did not immediately dominate her. She had her +confused out-reachings toward other centres of sensation, her vague +intuition of a heliocentric system; but the attraction of habit, the steady +pressure of example, gradually fixed her roving allegiance and she bent her +neck to the yoke. Vanity had a share in her subjugation; for it had early +been discovered that she was the only person in the family who could read +her grandfather's works. The fact that she had perused them with delight at +an age when (even presupposing a metaphysical bias) it was impossible for +her to understand them, seemed to her aunts and grandmother sure evidence +of predestination. Paulina was to be the interpreter of the oracle, and the +philosophic fumes so vertiginous to meaner minds would throw her into the +needed condition of clairvoyance. Nothing could have been more genuine than +the emotion on which this theory was based. Paulina, in fact, delighted in +her grandfather's writings. His sonorous periods, his mystic vocabulary, +his bold flights into the rarefied air of the abstract, were thrilling to +a fancy unhampered by the need of definitions. This purely verbal pleasure +was supplemented later by the excitement of gathering up crumbs of meaning +from the rhetorical board. What could have been more stimulating than +to construct the theory of a girlish world out of the fragments of this +Titanic cosmogony? Before Paulina's opinions had reached the stage when +ossification sets in their form was fatally predetermined. + +The fact that Dr. Anson had died and that his apotheosis had taken +place before his young priestess's induction to the temple, made her +ministrations easier and more inspiring. There were no little personal +traits--such as the great man's manner of helping himself to salt, or the +guttural cluck that started the wheels of speech--to distract the eye +of young veneration from the central fact of his divinity. A man whom +one knows only through a crayon portrait and a dozen yellowing, tomes on +free-will and intuition is at least secure from the belittling effects of +intimacy. + +Paulina thus grew up in a world readjusted to the fact of her grandfather's +greatness; and as each organism draws from its surroundings the kind of +nourishment most needful to its growth, so from this somewhat colorless +conception she absorbed warmth, brightness and variety. Paulina was the +type of woman who transmutes thought into sensation and nurses a theory in +her bosom like a child. + +In due course Mrs. Anson "passed away"--no one died in the Anson +vocabulary--and Paulina became more than ever the foremost figure of the +commemorative group. Laura and Phoebe, content to leave their father's +glory in more competent hands, placidly lapsed into needlework and fiction, +and their niece stepped into immediate prominence as the chief "authority" +on the great man. Historians who were "getting up" the period wrote to +consult her and to borrow documents; ladies with inexplicable yearnings +begged for an interpretation of phrases which had "influenced" them, but +which they had not quite understood; critics applied to her to verify some +doubtful citation or to decide some disputed point in chronology; and the +great tide of thought and investigation kept up a continuous murmur on the +quiet shores of her life. + +An explorer of another kind disembarked there one day in the shape +of a young man to whom Paulina was primarily a kissable girl, with an +after-thought in the shape of a grandfather. From the outset it had been +impossible to fix Hewlett Winsloe's attention on Dr. Anson. The young man +behaved with the innocent profanity of infants sporting on a tomb. His +excuse was that he came from New York, a Cimmerian outskirt which survived +in Paulina's geography only because Dr. Anson had gone there once or twice +to lecture. The curious thing was that she should have thought it worth +while to find excuses for young Winsloe. The fact that she did so had not +escaped the attention of the village; but people, after a gasp of awe, said +it was the most natural thing in the world that a girl like Paulina Anson +should think of marrying. It would certainly seem a little odd to see a +man in the House, but young Winsloe would of course understand that the +Doctor's books were not to be disturbed, and that he must go down to the +orchard to smoke--. The village had barely framed this _modus vivendi_ +when it was convulsed by the announcement that young Winsloe declined to +live in the House on any terms. Hang going down to the orchard to smoke! +He meant to take his wife to New York. The village drew its breath and +watched. + +Did Persephone, snatched from the warm fields of Enna, peer +half-consentingly down the abyss that opened at her feet? Paulina, it must +be owned, hung a moment over the black gulf of temptation. She would have +found it easy to cope with a deliberate disregard of her grandfather's +rights; but young Winsloe's unconsciousness of that shadowy claim was as +much a natural function as the falling of leaves on a grave. His love was +an embodiment of the perpetual renewal which to some tender spirits seems a +crueller process than decay. + +On women of Paulina's mould this piety toward implicit demands, toward +the ghosts of dead duties walking unappeased among usurping passions, +has a stronger hold than any tangible bond. People said that she gave up +young Winsloe because her aunts disapproved of her leaving them; but such +disapproval as reached her was an emanation from the walls of the House, +from the bare desk, the faded portraits, the dozen yellowing tomes that no +hand but hers ever lifted from the shelf. + + +II + +After that the House possessed her. As if conscious of its victory, it +imposed a conqueror's claims. It had once been suggested that she should +write a life of her grandfather, and the task from which she had shrunk as +from a too-oppressive privilege now shaped itself into a justification of +her course. In a burst of filial pantheism she tried to lose herself in the +vast ancestral consciousness. Her one refuge from scepticism was a blind +faith in the magnitude and the endurance of the idea to which she had +sacrificed her life, and with a passionate instinct of self-preservation +she labored to fortify her position. + +The preparations for the _Life_ led her through by-ways that the most +scrupulous of the previous biographers had left unexplored. She accumulated +her material with a blind animal patience unconscious of fortuitous risks. +The years stretched before her like some vast blank page spread out to +receive the record of her toil; and she had a mystic conviction that she +would not die till her work was accomplished. + +The aunts, sustained by no such high purpose, withdrew in turn to their +respective divisions of the Anson "plot," and Paulina remained alone with +her task. She was forty when the book was completed. She had travelled +little in her life, and it had become more and more difficult to her to +leave the House even for a day; but the dread of entrusting her document to +a strange hand made her decide to carry it herself to the publisher. On the +way to Boston she had a sudden vision of the loneliness to which this last +parting condemned her. All her youth, all her dreams, all her renunciations +lay in that neat bundle on her knee. It was not so much her grandfather's +life as her own that she had written; and the knowledge that it would come +back to her in all the glorification of print was of no more help than, to +a mother's grief, the assurance that the lad she must part with will return +with epaulets. + +She had naturally addressed herself to the firm which had published her +grandfather's works. Its founder, a personal friend of the philosopher's, +had survived the Olympian group of which he had been a subordinate member, +long enough to bestow his octogenarian approval on Paulina's pious +undertaking. But he had died soon afterward; and Miss Anson found herself +confronted by his grandson, a person with a brisk commercial view of his +trade, who was said to have put "new blood" into the firm. + +This gentleman listened attentively, fingering her manuscript as though +literature were a tactile substance; then, with a confidential twist of his +revolving chair, he emitted the verdict: "We ought to have had this ten +years sooner." + +Miss Anson took the words as an allusion to the repressed avidity of her +readers. "It has been a long time for the public to wait," she solemnly +assented. + +The publisher smiled. "They haven't waited," he said. + +She looked at him strangely. "Haven't waited?" + +"No--they've gone off; taken another train. Literature's like a big +railway-station now, you know: there's a train starting every minute. +People are not going to hang round the waiting-room. If they can't get +to a place when they want to they go somewhere else." + +The application of this parable cost Miss Anson several minutes of +throbbing silence. At length she said: "Then I am to understand that the +public is no longer interested in--in my grandfather?" She felt as though +heaven must blast the lips that risked such a conjecture. + +"Well, it's this way. He's a name still, of course. People don't exactly +want to be caught not knowing who he is; but they don't want to spend +two dollars finding out, when they can look him up for nothing in any +biographical dictionary." + +Miss Anson's world reeled. She felt herself adrift among mysterious forces, +and no more thought of prolonging the discussion than of opposing an +earthquake with argument. She went home carrying the manuscript like a +wounded thing. On the return journey she found herself travelling straight +toward a fact that had lurked for months in the background of her life, +and that now seemed to await her on the very threshold: the fact that +fewer visitors came to the House. She owned to herself that for the last +four or five years the number had steadily diminished. Engrossed in her +work, she had noted the change only to feel thankful that she had fewer +interruptions. There had been a time when, at the travelling season, the +bell rang continuously, and the ladies of the House lived in a chronic +state of "best silks" and expectancy. It would have been impossible then to +carry on any consecutive work; and she now saw that the silence which had +gathered round her task had been the hush of death. + +Not of _his_ death! The very walls cried out against the implication. +It was the world's enthusiasm, the world's faith, the world's loyalty that +had died. A corrupt generation that had turned aside to worship the brazen +serpent. Her heart yearned with a prophetic passion over the lost sheep +straying in the wilderness. But all great glories had their interlunar +period; and in due time her grandfather would once more flash full-orbed +upon a darkling world. + +The few friends to whom she confided her adventure reminded her with +tender indignation that there were other publishers less subject to the +fluctuations of the market; but much as she had braved for her grandfather +she could not again brave that particular probation. She found herself, +in fact, incapable of any immediate effort. She had lost her way in a +labyrinth of conjecture where her worst dread was that she might put her +hand upon the clue. + +She locked up the manuscript and sat down to wait. If a pilgrim had come +just then the priestess would have fallen on his neck; but she continued +to celebrate her rites alone. It was a double solitude; for she had always +thought a great deal more of the people who came to see the House than of +the people who came to see her. She fancied that the neighbors kept a keen +eye on the path to the House; and there were days when the figure of a +stranger strolling past the gate seemed to focus upon her the scorching +sympathies of the village. For a time she thought of travelling; of going +to Europe, or even to Boston; but to leave the House now would have +seemed like deserting her post. Gradually her scattered energies centred +themselves in the fierce resolve to understand what had happened. She was +not the woman to live long in an unmapped country or to accept as final +her private interpretation of phenomena. Like a traveller in unfamiliar +regions she began to store for future guidance the minutest natural signs. +Unflinchingly she noted the accumulating symptoms of indifference that +marked her grandfather's descent toward posterity. She passed from the +heights on which he had been grouped with the sages of his day to the lower +level where he had come to be "the friend of Emerson," "the correspondent +of Hawthorne," or (later still) "the Dr. Anson" mentioned in their letters. +The change had taken place as slowly and imperceptibly as a natural +process. She could not say that any ruthless hand had stripped the leaves +from the tree: it was simply that, among the evergreen glories of his +group, her grandfather's had proved deciduous. + +She had still to ask herself why. If the decay had been a natural process, +was it not the very pledge of renewal? It was easier to find such arguments +than to be convinced by them. Again and again she tried to drug her +solicitude with analogies; but at last she saw that such expedients were +but the expression of a growing incredulity. The best way of proving her +faith in her grandfather was not to be afraid of his critics. She had no +notion where these shadowy antagonists lurked; for she had never heard of +the great man's doctrine being directly combated. Oblique assaults there +must have been, however, Parthian shots at the giant that none dared face; +and she thirsted to close with such assailants. The difficulty was to +find them. She began by re-reading the _Works_; thence she passed to +the writers of the same school, those whose rhetoric bloomed perennial +in _First Readers_ from which her grandfather's prose had long +since faded. Amid that clamor of far-off enthusiasms she detected no +controversial note. The little knot of Olympians held their views in common +with an early-Christian promiscuity. They were continually proclaiming +their admiration for each other, the public joining as chorus in this +guileless antiphon of praise; and she discovered no traitor in their midst. + +What then had happened? Was it simply that the main current of thought +had set another way? Then why did the others survive? Why were they still +marked down as tributaries to the philosophic stream? This question carried +her still farther afield, and she pressed on with the passion of a champion +whose reluctance to know the worst might be construed into a doubt of his +cause. At length--slowly but inevitably--an explanation shaped itself. +Death had overtaken the doctrines about which her grandfather had draped +his cloudy rhetoric. They had disintegrated and been re-absorbed, adding +their little pile to the dust drifted about the mute lips of the Sphinx. +The great man's contemporaries had survived not by reason of what they +taught, but of what they were; and he, who had been the mere mask through +which they mouthed their lesson, the instrument on which their tune was +played, lay buried deep among the obsolete tools of thought. + +The discovery came to Paulina suddenly. She looked up one evening from her +reading and it stood before her like a ghost. It had entered her life with +stealthy steps, creeping close before she was aware of it. She sat in the +library, among the carefully-tended books and portraits; and it seemed to +her that she had been walled alive into a tomb hung with the effigies of +dead ideas. She felt a desperate longing to escape into the outer air, +where people toiled and loved, and living sympathies went hand in hand. It +was the sense of wasted labor that oppressed her; of two lives consumed in +that ruthless process that uses generations of effort to build a single +cell. There was a dreary parallel between her grandfather's fruitless +toil and her own unprofitable sacrifice. Each in turn had kept vigil by a +corpse. + + +III + +The bell rang--she remembered it afterward--with a loud thrilling note. It +was what they used to call the "visitor's ring"; not the tentative tinkle +of a neighbor dropping in to borrow a sauce-pan or discuss parochial +incidents, but a decisive summons from the outer world. + +Miss Anson put down her knitting and listened. She sat up-stairs now, +making her rheumatism an excuse for avoiding the rooms below. Her interests +had insensibly adjusted themselves to the perspective of her neighbors' +lives, and she wondered--as the bell re-echoed--if it could mean that Mrs. +Heminway's baby had come. Conjecture had time to ripen into certainty, and +she was limping toward the closet where her cloak and bonnet hung, when her +little maid fluttered in with the announcement: "A gentleman to see the +house." + +"The _House_?" + +"Yes, m'm. I don't know what he means," faltered the messenger, whose +memory did not embrace the period when such announcements were a daily part +of the domestic routine. + +Miss Anson glanced at the proffered card. The name it bore--_Mr. George +Corby_--was unknown to her, but the blood rose to her languid cheek. +"Hand me my Mechlin cap, Katy," she said, trembling a little, as she laid +aside her walking stick. She put her cap on before the mirror, with rapid +unsteady touches. "Did you draw up the library blinds?" she breathlessly +asked. + +She had gradually built up a wall of commonplace between herself and her +illusions, but at the first summons of the past filial passion swept away +the frail barriers of expediency. + +She walked down-stairs so hurriedly that her stick clicked like a girlish +heel; but in the hall she paused, wondering nervously if Katy had put a +match to the fire. The autumn air was cold and she had the reproachful +vision of a visitor with elderly ailments shivering by her inhospitable +hearth. She thought instinctively of the stranger as a survivor of the days +when such a visit was a part of the young enthusiast's itinerary. + +The fire was unlit and the room forbiddingly cold; but the figure which, as +Miss Anson entered, turned from a lingering scrutiny of the book-shelves, +was that of a fresh-eyed sanguine youth clearly independent of any +artificial caloric. She stood still a moment, feeling herself the victim of +some anterior impression that made this robust presence an insubstantial +thing; but the young man advanced with an air of genial assurance which +rendered him at once more real and more reminiscent. + +"Why this, you know," he exclaimed, "is simply immense!" + +The words, which did not immediately present themselves as slang to Miss +Anson's unaccustomed ear, echoed with an odd familiarity through the +academic silence. + +"The room, you know, I mean," he explained with a comprehensive gesture. +"These jolly portraits, and the books--that's the old gentleman himself +over the mantelpiece, I suppose?--and the elms outside, and--and the whole +business. I do like a congruous background--don't you?" + +His hostess was silent. No one but Hewlett Winsloe had ever spoken of her +grandfather as "the old gentleman." + +"It's a hundred times better than I could have hoped," her visitor +continued, with a cheerful disregard of her silence. "The seclusion, the +remoteness, the philosophic atmosphere--there's so little of that kind +of flavor left! I should have simply hated to find that he lived over +a grocery, you know.--I had the deuce of a time finding out where he +_did_ live," he began again, after another glance of parenthetical +enjoyment. "But finally I got on the trail through some old book on Brook +Farm. I was bound I'd get the environment right before I did my article." + +Miss Anson, by this time, had recovered sufficient self-possession to seat +herself and assign a chair to her visitor. + +"Do I understand," she asked slowly, following his rapid eye about the +room, "that you intend to write an article about my grandfather?" + +"That's what I'm here for," Mr. Corby genially responded; "that is, if +you're willing to help me; for I can't get on without your help," he added +with a confident smile. + +There was another pause, during which Miss Anson noticed a fleck of dust on +the faded leather of the writing-table and a fresh spot of discoloration in +the right-hand upper corner of Raphael Morghen's "Parnassus." + +"Then you believe in him?" she said, looking up. She could not tell what +had prompted her; the words rushed out irresistibly. + +"Believe in him?" Corby cried, springing to his feet. "Believe in Orestes +Anson? Why, I believe he's simply the greatest--the most stupendous--the +most phenomenal figure we've got!" + +The color rose to Miss Anson's brow. Her heart was beating passionately. +She kept her eyes fixed on the young man's face, as though it might vanish +if she looked away. + +"You--you mean to say this in your article?" she asked. + +"Say it? Why, the facts will say it," he exulted. "The baldest kind of a +statement would make it clear. When a man is as big as that he doesn't need +a pedestal!" + +Miss Anson sighed. "People used to say that when I was young," she +murmured. "But now--" + +Her visitor stared. "When you were young? But how did they know--when the +thing hung fire as it did? When the whole edition was thrown back on his +hands?" + +"The whole edition--what edition?" It was Miss Anson's turn to stare. + +"Why, of his pamphlet--_the_ pamphlet--the one thing that counts, that +survives, that makes him what he is! For heaven's sake," he tragically +adjured her, "don't tell me there isn't a copy of it left!" + +Miss Anson was trembling slightly. "I don't think I understand what you +mean," she faltered, less bewildered by his vehemence than by the strange +sense of coming on an unexplored region in the very heart of her dominion. + +"Why, his account of the _amphioxus_, of course! You can't mean that +his family didn't know about it--that _you_ don't know about it? I came +across it by the merest accident myself, in a letter of vindication that +he wrote in 1830 to an old scientific paper; but I understood there were +journals--early journals; there must be references to it somewhere in the +'twenties. He must have been at least ten or twelve years ahead of Yarrell; +and he saw the whole significance of it, too--he saw where it led to. As +I understand it, he actually anticipated in his pamphlet Saint Hilaire's +theory of the universal type, and supported the hypothesis by describing +the notochord of the _amphioxus_ as a cartilaginous vertebral column. +The specialists of the day jeered at him, of course, as the specialists in +Goethe's time jeered at the plant-metamorphosis. As far as I can make out, +the anatomists and zoologists were down on Dr. Anson to a man; that was why +his cowardly publishers went back on their bargain. But the pamphlet must +be here somewhere--he writes as though, in his first disappointment, he had +destroyed the whole edition; but surely there must be at least one copy +left?" + +His scientific jargon was as bewildering as his slang; and there were even +moments in his discourse when Miss Anson ceased to distinguish between +them; but the suspense with which he continued to gaze on her acted as a +challenge to her scattered thoughts. + +"The _amphioxus_," she murmured, half-rising. "It's an animal, isn't +it--a fish? Yes, I think I remember." She sank back with the inward look of +one who retraces some lost line of association. + +Gradually the distance cleared, the details started into life. In her +researches for the biography she had patiently followed every ramification +of her subject, and one of these overgrown paths now led her back to +the episode in question. The great Orestes's title of "Doctor" had in +fact not been merely the spontaneous tribute of a national admiration; +he had actually studied medicine in his youth, and his diaries, as his +granddaughter now recalled, showed that he had passed through a brief phase +of anatomical ardor before his attention was diverted to super-sensual +problems. It had indeed seemed to Paulina, as she scanned those early +pages, that they revealed a spontaneity, a freshness of feeling somehow +absent from his later lucubrations--as though this one emotion had reached +him directly, the others through some intervening medium. In the excess of +her commemorative zeal she had even struggled through the unintelligible +pamphlet to which a few lines in the journal had bitterly directed her. But +the subject and the phraseology were alien to her and unconnected with her +conception of the great man's genius; and after a hurried perusal she had +averted her thoughts from the episode as from a revelation of failure. +At length she rose a little unsteadily, supporting herself against the +writing-table. She looked hesitatingly about the room; then she drew a key +from her old-fashioned reticule and unlocked a drawer beneath one of the +book-cases. Young Corby watched her breathlessly. With a tremulous hand she +turned over the dusty documents that seemed to fill the drawer. "Is this +it?" she said, holding out a thin discolored volume. + +He seized it with a gasp. "Oh, by George," he said, dropping into the +nearest chair. + +She stood observing him strangely as his eye devoured the mouldy pages. + +"Is this the only copy left?" he asked at length, looking up for a moment +as a thirsty man lifts his head from his glass. + +"I think it must be. I found it long ago, among some old papers that my +aunts were burning up after my grandmother's death. They said it was of no +use--that he'd always meant to destroy the whole edition and that I ought +to respect his wishes. But it was something he had written; to burn it was +like shutting the door against his voice--against something he had once +wished to say, and that nobody had listened to. I wanted him to feel that I +was always here, ready to listen, even when others hadn't thought it worth +while; and so I kept the pamphlet, meaning to carry out his wish and +destroy it before my death." + +Her visitor gave a groan of retrospective anguish. "And but for me--but for +to-day--you would have?" + +"I should have thought it my duty." + +"Oh, by George--by George," he repeated, subdued afresh by the inadequacy +of speech. + +She continued to watch him in silence. At length he jumped up and +impulsively caught her by both hands. + +"He's bigger and bigger!" he almost shouted. "He simply leads the field! +You'll help me go to the bottom of this, won't you? We must turn out all +the papers--letters, journals, memoranda. He must have made notes. He +must have left some record of what led up to this. We must leave nothing +unexplored. By Jove," he cried, looking up at her with his bright +convincing smile, "do you know you're the granddaughter of a Great Man?" + +Her color flickered like a girl's. "Are you--sure of him?" she whispered, +as though putting him on his guard against a possible betrayal of trust. + +"Sure! Sure! My dear lady--" he measured her again with his quick confident +glance. "Don't _you_ believe in him?" + +She drew back with a confused murmur. "I--used to." She had left her +hands in his: their pressure seemed to send a warm current to her heart. +"It ruined my life!" she cried with sudden passion. He looked at her +perplexedly. + +"I gave up everything," she went on wildly, "to keep him alive. I +sacrificed myself--others--I nursed his glory in my bosom and it died--and +left me--left me here alone." She paused and gathered her courage with a +gasp. "Don't make the same mistake!" she warned him. + +He shook his head, still smiling. "No danger of that! You're not alone, my +dear lady. He's here with you--he's come back to you to-day. Don't you see +what's happened? Don't you see that it's your love that has kept him alive? +If you'd abandoned your post for an instant--let things pass into other +hands--if your wonderful tenderness hadn't perpetually kept guard--this +might have been--must have been--irretrievably lost." He laid his hand on +the pamphlet. "And then--then he _would_ have been dead!" + +"Oh," she said, "don't tell me too suddenly!" And she turned away and sank +into a chair. + +The young man stood watching her in an awed silence. For a long time she +sat motionless, with her face hidden, and he thought she must be weeping. + +At length he said, almost shyly: "You'll let me come back, then? You'll +help me work this thing out?" + +She rose calmly and held out her hand. "I'll help you," she declared. + +"I'll come to-morrow, then. Can we get to work early?" + +"As early as you please." + +"At eight o'clock, then," he said briskly. "You'll have the papers ready?" + +"I'll have everything ready." She added with a half-playful hesitancy: "And +the fire shall be lit for you." + +He went out with his bright nod. She walked to the window and watched his +buoyant figure hastening down the elm-shaded street. When she turned back +into the empty room she looked as though youth had touched her on the lips. + + + + +THE RECOVERY + + +To the visiting stranger Hillbridge's first question was, "Have you seen +Keniston's things?" Keniston took precedence of the colonial State House, +the Gilbert Stuart Washington and the Ethnological Museum; nay, he ran neck +and neck with the President of the University, a prehistoric relic who had +known Emerson, and who was still sent about the country in cotton-wool to +open educational institutions with a toothless oration on Brook Farm. + +Keniston was sent about the country too: he opened art exhibitions, laid +the foundation of academies, and acted in a general sense as the spokesman +and apologist of art. Hillbridge was proud of him in his peripatetic +character, but his fellow-townsmen let it be understood that to "know" +Keniston one must come to Hillbridge. Never was work more dependent for its +effect on "atmosphere," on _milieu_. Hillbridge was Keniston's milieu, +and there was one lady, a devotee of his art, who went so far as to assert +that once, at an exhibition in New York, she had passed a Keniston without +recognizing it. "It simply didn't want to be seen in such surroundings; it +was hiding itself under an incognito," she declared. + +It was a source of special pride to Hillbridge that it contained all the +artist's best works. Strangers were told that Hillbridge had discovered +him. The discovery had come about in the simplest manner. Professor +Driffert, who had a reputation for "collecting," had one day hung a sketch +on his drawing-room wall, and thereafter Mrs. Driffert's visitors (always +a little flurried by the sense that it was the kind of house in which one +might be suddenly called upon to distinguish between a dry-point and an +etching, or between Raphael Mengs and Raphael Sanzio) were not infrequently +subjected to the Professor's off-hand inquiry, "By-the-way, have you seen +my Keniston?" The visitors, perceptibly awed, would retreat to a critical +distance and murmur the usual guarded generalities, while they tried to +keep the name in mind long enough to look it up in the Encyclopdia. The +name was not in the Encyclopdia; but, as a compensating fact, it became +known that the man himself was in Hillbridge. Hillbridge, then, owned an +artist whose celebrity it was the proper thing to take for granted! Some +one else, emboldened by the thought, bought a Keniston; and the next +year, on the occasion of the President's golden jubilee, the Faculty, by +unanimous consent, presented him with a Keniston. Two years later there +was a Keniston exhibition, to which the art-critics came from New York +and Boston; and not long afterward a well-known Chicago collector vainly +attempted to buy Professor Driffert's sketch, which the art journals cited +as a rare example of the painter's first or silvery manner. Thus there +gradually grew up a small circle of connoisseurs known in artistic, circles +as men who collected Kenistons. + +Professor Wildmarsh, of the chair of Fine Arts and Archaeology, was the +first critic to publish a detailed analysis of the master's methods and +purpose. The article was illustrated by engravings which (though they had +cost the magazine a fortune) were declared by Professor Wildmarsh to give +but an imperfect suggestion of the esoteric significance of the originals. +The Professor, with a tact that contrived to make each reader feel himself +included among the exceptions, went on to say that Keniston's work would +never appeal to any but exceptional natures; and he closed with the usual +assertion that to apprehend the full meaning of the master's "message" it +was necessary to see him in the surroundings of his own home at Hillbridge. + +Professor Wildmarsh's article was read one spring afternoon by a young +lady just speeding eastward on her first visit to Hillbridge, and already +flushed with anticipation of the intellectual opportunities awaiting her. +In East Onondaigua, where she lived, Hillbridge was looked on as an Oxford. +Magazine writers, with the easy American use of the superlative, designated +it as "the venerable Alma Mater," the "antique seat of learning," and +Claudia Day had been brought up to regard it as the fountain-head of +knowledge, and of that mental distinction which is so much rarer than +knowledge. An innate passion for all that was thus distinguished and +exceptional made her revere Hillbridge as the native soil of those +intellectual amenities that were of such difficult growth in the +thin air of East Onondaigua. At the first suggestion of a visit to +Hillbridge--whither she went at the invitation of a girl friend +who (incredible apotheosis!) had married one of the University +professors--Claudia's spirit dilated with the sense of new possibilities. +The vision of herself walking under the "historic elms" toward the Memorial +Library, standing rapt before the Stuart Washington, or drinking in, +from some obscure corner of an academic drawing-room, the President's +reminiscences of the Concord group--this vividness of self-projection into +the emotions awaiting her made her glad of any delay that prolonged so +exquisite a moment. + +It was in this mood that she opened the article on Keniston. She knew about +him, of course; she was wonderfully "well up," even for East Onondaigua. +She had read of him in the magazines; she had met, on a visit to New York, +a man who collected Kenistons, and a photogravure of a Keniston in an +"artistic" frame hung above her writing-table at home. But Professor +Wildmarsh's article made her feel how little she really knew of the master; +and she trembled to think of the state of relative ignorance in which, but +for the timely purchase of the magazine, she might have entered Hillbridge. +She had, for instance, been densely unaware that Keniston had already had +three "manners," and was showing symptoms of a fourth. She was equally +ignorant of the fact that he had founded a school and "created a formula"; +and she learned with a thrill that no one could hope to understand him who +had not seen him in his studio at Hillbridge, surrounded by his own works. +"The man and the art interpret each other," their exponent declared; and +Claudia Day, bending a brilliant eye on the future, wondered if she were +ever to be admitted to the privilege of that double initiation. + +Keniston, to his other claims to distinction, added that of being hard to +know. His friends always hastened to announce the fact to strangers--adding +after a pause of suspense that they "would see what they could do." +Visitors in whose favor he was induced to make an exception were further +warned that he never spoke unless he was interested--so that they mustn't +mind if he remained silent. It was under these reassuring conditions that, +some ten days after her arrival at Hillbridge, Miss Day was introduced +to the master's studio. She found him a tall listless-looking man, who +appeared middle-aged to her youth, and who stood before his own pictures +with a vaguely interrogative gaze, leaving the task of their interpretation +to the lady who had courageously contrived the visit. The studio, to +Claudia's surprise, was bare and shabby. It formed a rambling addition to +the small cheerless house in which the artist lived with his mother and +a widowed sister. For Claudia it added the last touch to his distinction +to learn that he was poor, and that what he earned was devoted to the +maintenance of the two limp women who formed a neutral-tinted background to +his impressive outline. His pictures of course fetched high prices; but he +worked slowly--"painfully," as his devotees preferred to phrase it--with +frequent intervals of ill health and inactivity, and the circle of Keniston +connoisseurs was still as small as it was distinguished. The girl's fancy +instantly hailed in him that favorite figure of imaginative youth, the +artist who would rather starve than paint a pot-boiler. It is known to +comparatively few that the production of successful pot-boilers is an art +in itself, and that such heroic abstentions as Keniston's are not always +purely voluntary. On the occasion of her first visit the artist said so +little that Claudia was able to indulge to the full the harrowing sense of +her inadequacy. No wonder she had not been one of the few that he cared +to talk to; every word she uttered must so obviously have diminished the +inducement! She had been cheap, trivial, conventional; at once gushing +and inexpressive, eager and constrained. She could feel him counting the +minutes till the visit was over, and as the door finally closed on the +scene of her discomfiture she almost shared the hope with which she +confidently credited him--that they might never meet again. + + +II + +Mrs. Davant glanced reverentially about the studio. "I have always said," +she murmured, "that they ought to be seen in Europe." + +Mrs. Davant was young, credulous and emotionally extravagant: she reminded +Claudia of her earlier self--the self that, ten years before, had first set +an awestruck foot on that very threshold. + +"Not for _his_ sake," Mrs. Davant continued, "but for Europe's." + +Claudia smiled. She was glad that her husband's pictures were to be +exhibited in Paris. She concurred in Mrs. Davant's view of the importance +of the event; but she thought her visitor's way of putting the case a +little overcharged. Ten years spent in an atmosphere of Keniston-worship +had insensibly developed in Claudia a preference for moderation of speech. +She believed in her husband, of course; to believe in him, with an +increasing abandonment and tenacity, had become one of the necessary laws +of being; but she did not believe in his admirers. Their faith in him was +perhaps as genuine as her own; but it seemed to her less able to give an +account of itself. Some few of his appreciators doubtless measured him +by their own standards; but it was difficult not to feel that in the +Hillbridge circle, where rapture ran the highest, he was accepted on +what was at best but an indirect valuation; and now and then she had a +frightened doubt as to the independence of her own convictions. That +innate sense of relativity which even East Onondaigua had not been able to +check in Claudia Day had been fostered in Mrs. Keniston by the artistic +absolutism of Hillbridge, and she often wondered that her husband remained +so uncritical of the quality of admiration accorded him. Her husband's +uncritical attitude toward himself and his admirers had in fact been one of +the surprises of her marriage. That an artist should believe in his +potential powers seemed to her at once the incentive and the pledge of +excellence: she knew there was no future for a hesitating talent. What +perplexed her was Keniston's satisfaction in his achievement. She had +always imagined that the true artist must regard himself as the imperfect +vehicle of the cosmic emotion--that beneath every difficulty overcome a new +one lurked, the vision widening as the scope enlarged. To be initiated into +these creative struggles, to shed on the toiler's path the consolatory ray +of faith and encouragement, had seemed the chief privilege of her marriage. +But there is something supererogatory in believing in a man obviously +disposed to perform that service for himself; and Claudia's ardor gradually +spent itself against the dense surface of her husband's complacency. She +could smile now at her vision of an intellectual communion which should +admit her to the inmost precincts of his inspiration. She had learned +that the creative processes are seldom self-explanatory, and Keniston's +inarticulateness no longer discouraged her; but she could not reconcile +her sense of the continuity of all high effort to his unperturbed air +of finishing each picture as though he had despatched a masterpiece to +posterity. In the first recoil from her disillusionment she even allowed +herself to perceive that, if he worked slowly, it was not because he +mistrusted his powers of expression, but because he had really so little to +express. + +"It's for Europe," Mrs. Davant vaguely repeated; and Claudia noticed that +she was blushingly intent on tracing with the tip of her elaborate sunshade +the pattern of the shabby carpet. + +"It will be a revelation to them," she went on provisionally, as though +Claudia had missed her cue and left an awkward interval to fill. + +Claudia had in fact a sudden sense of deficient intuition. She felt that +her visitor had something to communicate which required, on her own part, +an intelligent co-operation; but what it was her insight failed to suggest. +She was, in truth, a little tired of Mrs. Davant, who was Keniston's latest +worshipper, who ordered pictures recklessly, who paid for them regally +in advance, and whose gallery was, figuratively speaking, crowded with +the artist's unpainted masterpieces. Claudia's impatience was perhaps +complicated by the uneasy sense that Mrs. Davant was too young, too rich, +too inexperienced; that somehow she ought to be warned.--Warned of what? +That some of the pictures might never be painted? Scarcely that, since +Keniston, who was scrupulous in business transactions, might be trusted not +to take any material advantage of such evidence of faith. Claudia's impulse +remained undefined. She merely felt that she would have liked to help Mrs. +Davant, and that she did not know how. + +"You'll be there to see them?" she asked, as her visitor lingered. + +"In Paris?" Mrs. Davant's blush deepened. "We must all be there together." + +Claudia smiled. "My husband and I mean to go abroad some day--but I don't +see any chance of it at present." + +"But he _ought_ to go--you ought both to go this summer!" Mrs. Davant +persisted. "I know Professor Wildmarsh and Professor Driffert and all the +other critics think that Mr. Keniston's never having been to Europe has +given his work much of its wonderful individuality, its peculiar flavor +and meaning--but now that his talent is formed, that he has full command +of his means of expression," (Claudia recognized one of Professor +Driffert's favorite formulas) "they all think he ought to see the work of +the _other_ great masters--that he ought to visit the home of his +ancestors, as Professor Wildmarsh says!" She stretched an impulsive hand to +Claudia. "You ought to let him go, Mrs. Keniston!" + +Claudia accepted the admonition with the philosophy of the wife who is used +to being advised on the management of her husband. "I sha'n't interfere +with him," she declared; and Mrs. Davant instantly caught her up with a cry +of, "Oh, it's too lovely of you to say that!" With this exclamation she +left Claudia to a silent renewal of wonder. + +A moment later Keniston entered: to a mind curious in combinations it +might have occurred that he had met Mrs. Davant on the door-step. In one +sense he might, for all his wife cared, have met fifty Mrs. Davants on the +door-step: it was long since Claudia had enjoyed the solace of resenting +such coincidences. Her only thought now was that her husband's first words +might not improbably explain Mrs. Davant's last; and she waited for him to +speak. + +He paused with his hands in his pockets before an unfinished picture on the +easel; then, as his habit was, he began to stroll touristlike from canvas +to canvas, standing before each in a musing ecstasy of contemplation that +no readjustment of view ever seemed to disturb. Her eye instinctively +joined his in its inspection; it was the one point where their natures +merged. Thank God, there, was no doubt about the pictures! She was what she +had always dreamed of being--the wife of a great artist. Keniston dropped +into an armchair and filled his pipe. "How should you like to go to +Europe?" he asked. + +His wife looked up quickly. "When?" + +"Now--this spring, I mean." He paused to light the pipe. "I should like to +be over there while these things are being exhibited." + +Claudia was silent. + +"Well?" he repeated after a moment. + +"How can we afford it?" she asked. + +Keniston had always scrupulously fulfilled his duty to the mother and +sister whom his marriage had dislodged; and Claudia, who had the atoning +temperament which seeks to pay for every happiness by making it a source +of fresh obligations, had from the outset accepted his ties with an +exaggerated devotion. Any disregard of such a claim would have vulgarized +her most delicate pleasures; and her husband's sensitiveness to it in great +measure extenuated the artistic obtuseness that often seemed to her like a +failure of the moral sense. His loyalty to the dull women who depended on +him was, after all, compounded of finer tissues than any mere sensibility +to ideal demands. + +"Oh, I don't see why we shouldn't," he rejoined. "I think we might manage +it." + +"At Mrs. Davant's expense?" leaped from Claudia. She could not tell why she +had said it; some inner barrier seemed to have given way under a confused +pressure of emotions. + +He looked up at her with frank surprise. "Well, she has been very jolly +about it--why not? She has a tremendous feeling for art--the keenest I +ever knew in a woman." Claudia imperceptibly smiled. "She wants me to let +her pay in advance for the four panels she has ordered for the Memorial +Library. That would give us plenty of money for the trip, and my having the +panels to do is another reason for my wanting to go abroad just now." + +"Another reason?" + +"Yes; I've never worked on such a big scale. I want to see how those old +chaps did the trick; I want to measure myself with the big fellows over +there. An artist ought to, once in his life." + +She gave him a wondering look. For the first time his words implied a sense +of possible limitation; but his easy tone seemed to retract what they +conceded. What he really wanted was fresh food for his self-satisfaction: +he was like an army that moves on after exhausting the resources of the +country. + +Womanlike, she abandoned the general survey of the case for the +consideration of a minor point. + +"Are you sure you can do that kind of thing?" she asked. + +"What kind of thing?" + +"The panels." + +He glanced at her indulgently: his self-confidence was too impenetrable to +feel the pin-prick of such a doubt. + +"Immensely sure," he said with a smile. + +"And you don't mind taking so much money from her in advance?" + +He stared. "Why should I? She'll get it back--with interest!" He laughed +and drew at his pipe. "It will be an uncommonly interesting experience. I +shouldn't wonder if it freshened me up a bit." + +She looked at him again. This second hint of self-distrust struck her as +the sign of a quickened sensibility. What if, after all, he was beginning +to be dissatisfied with his work? The thought filled her with a renovating +sense of his sufficiency. + + +III + +They stopped in London to see the National Gallery. + +It was thus that, in their inexperience, they had narrowly put it; but in +reality every stone of the streets, every trick of the atmosphere, had +its message of surprise for their virgin sensibilities. The pictures were +simply the summing up, the final interpretation, of the cumulative pressure +of an unimagined world; and it seemed to Claudia that long before they +reached the doors of the gallery she had some intuitive revelation of what +awaited them within. + +They moved about from room to room without exchanging a word. The vast +noiseless spaces seemed full of sound, like the roar of a distant multitude +heard only by the inner ear. Had their speech been articulate their +language would have been incomprehensible; and even that far-off murmur +of meaning pressed intolerably on Claudia's nerves. Keniston took the +onset without outward sign of disturbance. Now and then he paused before a +canvas, or prolonged from one of the benches his silent communion with some +miracle of line or color; but he neither looked at his wife nor spoke to +her. He seemed to have forgotten her presence. + +Claudia was conscious of keeping a furtive watch on him; but the sum total +of her impressions was negative. She remembered thinking when she first +met him that his face was rather expressionless; and he had the habit of +self-engrossed silences. + +All that evening, at the hotel, they talked about London, and he surprised +her by an acuteness of observation that she had sometimes inwardly accused +him of lacking. He seemed to have seen everything, to have examined, felt, +compared, with nerves as finely adjusted as her own; but he said nothing +of the pictures. The next day they returned to the National Gallery, and +he began to study the paintings in detail, pointing out differences of +technique, analyzing and criticising, but still without summing up his +conclusions. He seemed to have a sort of provincial dread of showing +himself too much impressed. Claudia's own sensations were too complex, too +overwhelming, to be readily classified. Lacking the craftsman's instinct to +steady her, she felt herself carried off her feet by the rush of incoherent +impressions. One point she consciously avoided, and that was the comparison +of her husband's work with what they were daily seeing. Art, she inwardly +argued, was too various, too complex, dependent on too many inter-relations +of feeling and environment, to allow of its being judged by any provisional +standard. Even the subtleties of technique must be modified by the artist's +changing purpose, as this in turn is acted on by influences of which +he is himself unconscious. How, then, was an unprepared imagination to +distinguish between such varied reflections of the elusive vision? She took +refuge in a passionate exaggeration of her own ignorance and insufficiency. + +After a week in London they went to Paris. The exhibition of Keniston's +pictures had been opened a few days earlier; and as they drove through the +streets on the way to the station an "impressionist" poster here and there +invited them to the display of the American artist's work. Mrs. Davant, who +had been in Paris for the opening, had already written rapturously of the +impression produced, enclosing commendatory notices from one or two papers. +She reported that there had been a great crowd on the first day, and that +the critics had been "immensely struck." + +The Kenistons arrived in the evening, and the next morning Claudia, as a +matter of course, asked her husband at what time he meant to go and see the +pictures. + +He looked up absently from his guide-book. + +"What pictures?" + +"Why--yours," she said, surprised. + +"Oh, they'll keep," he answered; adding with a slightly embarrassed laugh, +"We'll give the other chaps a show first." Presently he laid down his book +and proposed that they should go to the Louvre. + +They spent the morning there, lunched at a restaurant near by, and returned +to the gallery in the afternoon. Keniston had passed from inarticulateness +to an eager volubility. It was clear that he was beginning to co-ordinate +his impressions, to find his way about in a corner of the great imaginative +universe. He seemed extraordinarily ready to impart his discoveries; and +Claudia felt that her ignorance served him as a convenient buffer against +the terrific impact of new sensations. + +On the way home she asked when he meant to see Mrs. Davant. + +His answer surprised her. "Does she know we're here?" + +"Not unless you've sent her word," said Claudia, with a touch of harmless +irony. + +"That's all right, then," he returned simply. "I want to wait and look +about a day or two longer. She'd want us to go sight-seeing with her; and +I'd rather get my impressions alone." + +The next two days were hampered by the necessity of eluding Mrs. Davant. +Claudia, under different circumstances, would have scrupled to share in +this somewhat shabby conspiracy; but she found herself in a state of +suspended judgment, wherein her husband's treatment of Mrs. Davant became +for the moment merely a clue to larger meanings. + +They had been four days in Paris when Claudia, returning one afternoon from +a parenthetical excursion to the Rue de la Paix, was confronted on her +threshold by the reproachful figure of their benefactress. It was not to +her, however, that Mrs. Davant's reproaches were addressed. Keniston, it +appeared, had borne the brunt of them; for he stood leaning against the +mantelpiece of their modest _salon_ in that attitude of convicted +negligence when, if ever, a man is glad to take refuge behind his wife. + +Claudia had however no immediate intention of affording him such shelter. +She wanted to observe and wait. + +"He's too impossible!" cried Mrs. Davant, sweeping her at once into the +central current of her grievance. + +Claudia looked from one to the other. + +"For not going to see you?" + +"For not going to see his pictures!" cried the other nobly. + +Claudia colored and Keniston shifted his position uneasily. + +"I can't make her understand," he said, turning to his wife. + +"I don't care about myself!" Mrs. Davant interjected. + +"_I_ do, then; it's the only thing I do care about," he hurriedly +protested. "I meant to go at once--to write--Claudia wanted to go, but I +wouldn't let her." He looked helplessly about the pleasant red-curtained +room, which was rapidly burning itself into Claudia's consciousness as a +visible extension of Mrs. Davant's claims. + +"I can't explain," he broke off. + +Mrs. Davant in turn addressed herself to Claudia. + +"People think it's so odd," she complained. "So many of the artists +here are anxious to meet him; they've all been so charming about the +pictures; and several of our American friends have come over from London +expressly for the exhibition. I told every one that he would be here +for the opening--there was a private view, you know--and they were so +disappointed--they wanted to give him an ovation; and I didn't know what +to say. What _am_ I to say?" she abruptly ended. + +"There's nothing to say," said Keniston slowly. + +"But the exhibition closes the day after to-morrow." + +"Well, _I_ sha'n't close--I shall be here," he declared with an effort +at playfulness. "If they want to see me--all these people you're kind +enough to mention--won't there be other chances?" + +"But I wanted them to see you _among_ your pictures--to hear you talk +about them, explain them in that wonderful way. I wanted you to interpret +each other, as Professor Wildmarsh says!" + +"Oh, hang Professor Wildmarsh!" said Keniston, softening the commination +with a smile. "If my pictures are good for anything they oughtn't to need +explaining." + +Mrs. Davant stared. "But I thought that was what made them so interesting!" +she exclaimed. + +Keniston looked down. "Perhaps it was," he murmured. + +There was an awkward silence, which Claudia broke by saying, with a glance +at her husband: "But if the exhibition is to remain open to-morrow, could +we not meet you there? And perhaps you could send word to some of our +friends." + +Mrs. Davant brightened like a child whose broken toy is glued together. +"Oh, _do_ make him!" she implored. "I'll ask them to come in the +afternoon--we'll make it into a little tea--a _five o'clock_. I'll +send word at once to everybody!" She gathered up her beruffled boa and +sunshade, settling her plumage like a reassured bird. "It will be too +lovely!" she ended in a self-consoling murmur. + +But in the doorway a new doubt assailed her. "You won't fail me?" she said, +turning plaintively to Keniston. "You'll make him come, Mrs. Keniston?" + +"I'll bring him!" Claudia promised. + + +IV + +When, the next morning, she appeared equipped for their customary ramble, +her husband surprised her by announcing that he meant to stay at home. + +"The fact is I'm rather surfeited," he said, smiling. "I suppose my +appetite isn't equal to such a plethora. I think I'll write some letters +and join you somewhere later." + +She detected the wish to be alone and responded to it with her usual +readiness. + +"I shall sink to my proper level and buy a bonnet, then," she said. "I +haven't had time to take the edge off that appetite." + +They agreed to meet at the Hotel Cluny at mid-day, and she set out alone +with a vague sense of relief. Neither she nor Keniston had made any direct +reference to Mrs. Davant's visit; but its effect was implicit in their +eagerness to avoid each other. + +Claudia accomplished some shopping in the spirit of perfunctoriness that +robs even new bonnets of their bloom; and this business despatched, she +turned aimlessly into the wide inviting brightness of the streets. Never +had she felt more isolated amid that ordered beauty which gives a social +quality to the very stones and mortar of Paris. All about her were +evidences of an artistic sensibility pervading every form of life like the +nervous structure of the huge frame--a sensibility so delicate, alert and +universal that it seemed to leave no room for obtuseness or error. In such +a medium the faculty of plastic expression must develop as unconsciously +as any organ in its normal surroundings; to be "artistic" must cease to be +an attitude and become a natural function. To Claudia the significance of +the whole vast revelation was centred in the light it shed on one tiny +spot of consciousness--the value of her husband's work. There are moments +when to the groping soul the world's accumulated experiences are but +stepping-stones across a private difficulty. + +She stood hesitating on a street corner. It was barely eleven, and she had +an hour to spare before going to the Hotel Cluny. She seemed to be letting +her inclination float as it would on the cross-currents of suggestion +emanating from the brilliant complex scene before her; but suddenly, in +obedience to an impulse that she became aware of only in acting on it, she +called a cab and drove to the gallery where her husband's pictures were +exhibited. + +A magnificent official in gold braid sold her a ticket and pointed the way +up the empty crimson-carpeted stairs. His duplicate, on the upper landing, +held out a catalogue with an air of recognizing the futility of the offer; +and a moment later she found herself in the long noiseless impressive room +full of velvet-covered ottomans and exotic plants. It was clear that the +public ardor on which Mrs. Davant had expatiated had spent itself earlier +in the week; for Claudia had this luxurious apartment to herself. Something +about its air of rich privacy, its diffusion of that sympathetic quality in +other countries so conspicuously absent from the public show-room, seemed +to emphasize its present emptiness. It was as though the flowers, the +carpet, the lounges, surrounded their visitor's solitary advance with +the mute assurance that they had done all they could toward making the +thing "go off," and that if they had failed it was simply for lack of +co-operation. She stood still and looked about her. The pictures struck her +instantly as odd gaps in the general harmony; it was self-evident that they +had not co-operated. They had not been pushing, aggressive, discordant: +they had merely effaced themselves. She swept a startled eye from one +familiar painting to another. The canvases were all there--and the +frames--but the miracle, the mirage of life and meaning, had vanished +like some atmospheric illusion. What was it that had happened? And had +it happened to _her_ or to the pictures? She tried to rally her +frightened thoughts; to push or coax them into a semblance of resistance; +but argument was swept off its feet by the huge rush of a single +conviction--the conviction that the pictures were bad. There was no +standing up against that: she felt herself submerged. + +The stealthy fear that had been following her all these days had her by the +throat now. The great vision of beauty through which she had been moving +as one enchanted was turned to a phantasmagoria of evil mocking shapes. +She hated the past; she hated its splendor, its power, its wicked magical +vitality.... She dropped into a seat and continued to stare at the wall +before her. Gradually, as she stared, there stole out to her from the +dimmed humbled canvases a reminder of what she had once seen in them, a +spectral appeal to her faith to call them back to life. What proof had she +that her present estimate of them was less subjective than the other? The +confused impressions of the last few days were hardly to be pleaded as a +valid theory of art. How, after all, did she know that the pictures were +bad? On what suddenly acquired technical standard had she thus decided +the case against them? It seemed as though it were a standard outside of +herself, as though some unheeded inner sense were gradually making her +aware of the presence, in that empty room, of a critical intelligence that +was giving out a subtle effluence of disapproval. The fancy was so vivid +that, to shake it off, she rose and began to move about again. In the +middle of the room stood a monumental divan surmounted by a _massif_ +of palms and azaleas. As Claudia's muffled wanderings carried her around +the angle of this seat, she saw that its farther side was occupied by the +figure of a man, who sat with his hands resting on his stick and his head +bowed upon them. She gave a little cry and her husband rose and faced her. + +Instantly the live point of consciousness was shifted, and she became aware +that the quality of the pictures no longer mattered. It was what _he_ +thought of them that counted: her life hung on that. + +They looked at each other a moment in silence; such concussions are not apt +to flash into immediate speech. At length he said simply, "I didn't know +you were coming here." + +She colored as though he had charged her with something underhand. + +"I didn't mean to," she stammered; "but I was too early for our +appointment--" + +Her word's cast a revealing glare on the situation. Neither of them looked +at the pictures; but to Claudia those unobtruding presences seemed suddenly +to press upon them and force them apart. + +Keniston glanced at his watch. "It's twelve o'clock," he said. "Shall we go +on?" + + +V + +At the door he called a cab and put her in it; then, drawing out his watch +again, he said abruptly: "I believe I'll let you go alone. I'll join you at +the hotel in time for luncheon." She wondered for a moment if he meant to +return to the gallery; but, looking back as she drove off, she saw him walk +rapidly away in the opposite direction. + +The cabman had carried her half-way to the Hotel Cluny before she realized +where she was going, and cried out to him to turn home. There was an acute +irony in this mechanical prolongation of the quest of beauty. She had +had enough of it, too much of it; her one longing was to escape, to hide +herself away from its all-suffusing implacable light. + +At the hotel, alone in her room, a few tears came to soften her seared +vision; but her mood was too tense to be eased by weeping. Her whole being +was centred in the longing to know what her husband thought. Their short +exchange of words had, after all, told her nothing. She had guessed a faint +resentment at her unexpected appearance; but that might merely imply a +dawning sense, on his part, of being furtively watched and criticised. She +had sometimes wondered if he was never conscious of her observation; there +were moments when it seemed to radiate from her in visible waves. Perhaps, +after all, he was aware of it, on his guard against it, as a lurking knife +behind the thick curtain of his complacency; and to-day he must have caught +the gleam of the blade. + +Claudia had not reached the age when pity is the first chord to vibrate in +contact with any revelation of failure. Her one hope had been that Keniston +should be clear-eyed enough to face the truth. Whatever it turned out to +be, she wanted him to measure himself with it. But as his image rose before +her she felt a sudden half-maternal longing to thrust herself between him +and disaster. Her eagerness to see him tested by circumstances seemed now +like a cruel scientific curiosity. She saw in a flash of sympathy that he +would need her most if he fell beneath his fate. + +He did not, after all, return for luncheon; and when she came up-stairs +from her solitary meal their _salon_ was still untenanted. She +permitted herself no sensational fears; for she could not, at the height of +apprehension, figure Keniston as yielding to any tragic impulse; but the +lengthening hours brought an uneasiness that was fuel to her pity. Suddenly +she heard the clock strike five. It was the hour at which they had promised +to meet Mrs. Davant at the gallery--the hour of the "ovation." Claudia +rose and went to the window, straining for a glimpse of her husband in the +crowded street. Could it be that he had forgotten her, had gone to the +gallery without her? Or had something happened--that veiled "something" +which, for the last hour, had grimly hovered on the outskirts of her mind? + +She heard a hand on the door and Keniston entered. As she turned to meet +him her whole being was swept forward on a great wave of pity: she was so +sure, now, that he must know. + +But he confronted her with a glance of preoccupied brightness; her first +impression was that she had never seen him so vividly, so expressively +pleased. If he needed her, it was not to bind up his wounds. + +He gave her a smile which was clearly the lingering reflection of some +inner light. "I didn't mean to be so late," he said, tossing aside his hat +and the little red volume that served as a clue to his explorations. "I +turned in to the Louvre for a minute after I left you this morning, and the +place fairly swallowed me up--I couldn't get away from it. I've been there +ever since." He threw himself into a chair and glanced about for his pipe. + +"It takes time," he continued musingly, "to get at them, to make out what +they're saying--the big fellows, I mean. They're not a communicative lot. +At first I couldn't make much out of their lingo--it was too different from +mine! But gradually, by picking up a hint here and there, and piecing them +together, I've begun to understand; and to-day, by Jove, I got one or two +of the old chaps by the throat and fairly turned them inside out--made them +deliver up their last drop." He lifted a brilliant eye to her. "Lord, it +was tremendous!" he declared. + +He had found his pipe and was musingly filling it. Claudia waited in +silence. + +"At first," he began again, "I was afraid their language was too hard for +me--that I should never quite know what they were driving at; they seemed +to cold-shoulder me, to be bent on shutting me out. But I was bound I +wouldn't be beaten, and now, to-day"--he paused a moment to strike a +match--"when I went to look at those things of mine it all came over me +in a flash. By Jove! it was as if I'd made them all into a big bonfire to +light me on my road!" + +His wife was trembling with a kind of sacred terror. She had been afraid +to pray for light for him, and here he was joyfully casting his whole past +upon the pyre! + +"Is there nothing left?" she faltered. + +"Nothing left? There's everything!" he exulted. "Why, here I am, not much +over forty, and I've found out already--already!" He stood up and began to +move excitedly about the room. "My God! Suppose I'd never known! Suppose +I'd gone on painting things like that forever! Why, I feel like those +chaps at revivalist meetings when they get up and say they're saved! Won't +somebody please start a hymn?" + +Claudia, with a tremulous joy, was letting herself go on the strong +current of his emotion; but it had not yet carried her beyond her depth, +and suddenly she felt hard ground underfoot. + +"Mrs. Davant--" she exclaimed. + +He stared, as though suddenly recalled from a long distance. "Mrs. Davant?" + +"We were to have met her--this afternoon--now--" + +"At the gallery? Oh, that's all right. I put a stop to that; I went to see +her after I left you; I explained it all to her." + +"All?" + +"I told her I was going to begin all over again." + +Claudia's heart gave a forward bound and then sank back hopelessly. + +"But the panels--?" + +"That's all right too. I told her about the panels," he reassured her. + +"You told her--?" + +"That I can't paint them now. She doesn't understand, of course; but she's +the best little woman and she trusts me." + +She could have wept for joy at his exquisite obtuseness. "But that isn't +all," she wailed. "It doesn't matter how much you've explained to her. It +doesn't do away with the fact that we're living on those panels!" + +"Living on them?" + +"On the money that she paid you to paint them. Isn't that what brought us +here? And--if you mean to do as you say--to begin all over again--how in +the world are we ever to pay her back?" + +Her husband turned on her an inspired eye. "There's only one way that I +know of," he imperturbably declared, "and that's to stay out here till I +learn how to paint them." + + + + +"COPY" + +A DIALOGUE + + +_Mrs. Ambrose Dale--forty, slender, still young--sits in her drawing-room +at the tea-table. The winter twilight is falling, a lamp has been lit, +there is a fire on the hearth, and the room is pleasantly dim and +flower-scented. Books are scattered everywhere--mostly with autograph +inscriptions "From the Author"--and a large portrait of_ Mrs. Dale, +_at her desk, with papers strewn about her, takes up one of the +wall-panels. Before_ Mrs. Dale _stands_ Hilda, _fair and twenty, +her hands full of letters_. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Ten more applications for autographs? Isn't it strange +that people who'd blush to borrow twenty dollars don't scruple to beg for +an autograph? + +_Hilda (reproachfully)_. Oh-- + +_Mrs. Dale_. What's the difference, pray? + +_Hilda_. Only that your last autograph sold for fifty-- + +_Mrs. Dale (not displeased)_. Ah?--I sent for you, Hilda, because I'm +dining out to-night, and if there's nothing important to attend to among +these letters you needn't sit up for me. + +_Hilda_. You don't mean to work? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Perhaps; but I sha'n't need you. You'll see that my +cigarettes and coffee-machine are in place, and: that I don't have to crawl +about the floor in search of my pen-wiper? That's all. Now about these +letters-- + +_Hilda (impulsively)_. Oh, Mrs. Dale-- + +_Mrs. Dale_. Well? + +_Hilda_. I'd rather sit up for you. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Child, I've nothing for you to do. I shall be blocking +out the tenth chapter of _Winged Purposes_ and it won't be ready for +you till next week. + +_Hilda_. It isn't that--but it's so beautiful to sit here, watching +and listening, all alone in the night, and to feel that you're in there +_(she points to the study-door)_ _creating_--._(Impulsively.)_ +What do I care for sleep? + +_Mrs. Dale (indulgently)_. Child--silly child!--Yes, I should have +felt so at your age--it would have been an inspiration-- + +_Hilda (rapt)_. It is! + +_Mrs. Dale_. But you must go to bed; I must have you fresh in the +morning; for you're still at the age when one is fresh in the morning! +_(She sighs.)_ The letters? _(Abruptly.)_ Do you take notes of +what you feel, Hilda--here, all alone in the night, as you say? + +_Hilda (shyly)_. I have-- + +_Mrs. Dale (smiling)_. For the diary? + +_Hilda (nods and blushes)_. + +_Mrs. Dale (caressingly)_. Goose!--Well, to business. What is there? + +_Hilda_. Nothing important, except a letter from Stroud & Fayerweather +to say that the question of the royalty on _Pomegranate Seed_ has been +settled in your favor. The English publishers of _Immolation_ write +to consult you about a six-shilling edition; Olafson, the Copenhagen +publisher, applies for permission to bring out a Danish translation of +_The Idol's Feet_; and the editor of the _Semaphore_ wants a new +serial--I think that's all; except that _Woman's Sphere_ and _The +Droplight_ ask for interviews--with photographs-- + +_Mrs. Dale_. The same old story! I'm so toed of it all. _(To +herself, in an undertone.)_ But how should I feel if it all stopped? +_(The servant brings in a card.)_ + +_Mrs. Dale (reading it)_. Is it possible? Paul Ventnor? _(To the +servant.)_ Show Mr. Ventnor up. _(To herself.)_ Paul Ventnor! + +_Hilda (breathless)_. Oh, Mrs. Dale--_the_ Mr. Ventnor? + +_Mrs. Dale (smiling)_. I fancy there's only one. + +_Hilda_. The great, great poet? _(Irresolute.)_ No, I don't +dare-- + +_Mrs. Dale (with a tinge of impatience)_. What? + +_Hilda (fervently)_. Ask you--if I might--oh, here in this corner, +where he can't possibly notice me--stay just a moment? Just to see him come +in? To see the meeting between you--the greatest novelist and the greatest +poet of the age? Oh, it's too much to ask! It's an historic moment. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Why, I suppose it is. I hadn't thought of it in that +light. Well _(smiling)_, for the diary-- + +_Hilda_. Oh, thank you, _thank you_! I'll be off the very instant +I've heard him speak. + +_Mrs. Dale_. The very instant, mind. _(She rises, looks at herself +in the glass, smooths her hair, sits down again, and rattles the +tea-caddy.)_ Isn't the room very warm?--_(She looks over at her +portrait.)_ I've grown stouter since that was painted--. You'll make a +fortune out of that diary, Hilda-- + +_Hilda (modestly)_. Four publishers have applied to me already-- + +_The Servant (announces)_. Mr. Paul Ventnor. + +_(Tall, nearing fifty, with an incipient stoutness buttoned into a +masterly frock-coat, Ventnor drops his glass and advances vaguely, with a +short-sighted stare.)_ + +_Ventnor_. Mrs. Dale? + +_Mrs. Dale_. My dear friend! This is kind. _(She looks over her +shoulder at Hilda, mho vanishes through the door to the left.)_ The +papers announced your arrival, but I hardly hoped-- + +_Ventnor (whose short-sighted stare is seen to conceal a deeper +embarrassment)_. You hadn't forgotten me, then? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Delicious! Do _you_ forget that you're public +property? + +_Ventnor_. Forgotten, I mean, that we were old friends? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Such old friends! May I remind you that it's nearly +twenty years since we've met? Or do you find cold reminiscences +indigestible? + +_Ventnor_. On the contrary, I've come to ask you for a dish of +them--we'll warm them up together. You're my first visit. + +_Mrs. Dale_. How perfect of you! So few men visit their women friends +in chronological order; or at least they generally do it the other way +round, beginning with the present day and working back--if there's time--to +prehistoric woman. + +_Ventnor_. But when prehistoric woman has become historic woman--? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Oh, it's the reflection of my glory that has guided you +here, then? + +_Ventnor_. It's a spirit in my feet that has led me, at the first +opportunity, to the most delightful spot I know. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Oh, the first opportunity--! + +_Ventnor_. I might have seen you very often before; but never just in +the right way. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Is this the right way? + +_Ventnor_. It depends on you to make it so. + +_Mrs. Dale_. What a responsibility! What shall I do? + +_Ventnor_. Talk to me--make me think you're a little glad to see me; +give me some tea and a cigarette; and say you're out to everyone else. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Is that all? _(She hands him a cup of tea.)_ The +cigarettes are at your elbow--. And do you think I shouldn't have been glad +to see you before? + +_Ventnor_. No; I think I should have been too glad to see you. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Dear me, what precautions! I hope you always wear +goloshes when it looks like rain and never by any chance expose yourself +to a draught. But I had an idea that poets courted the emotions-- + +_Ventnor_. Do novelists? + +_Mrs. Dale_. If you ask _me_--on paper! + +_Ventnor_. Just so; that's safest. My best things about the sea have +been written on shore. _(He looks at her thoughtfully.)_ But it +wouldn't have suited us in the old days, would it? + +_Mrs. Dale (sighing)_. When we were real people! + +_Ventnor_. Real people? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Are _you_, now? I died years ago. What you see +before you is a figment of the reporter's brain--a monster manufactured out +of newspaper paragraphs, with ink in its veins. A keen sense of copyright +is _my_ nearest approach to an emotion. + +_Ventnor (sighing)_. Ah, well, yes--as you say, we're public property. + +_Mrs. Dale_. If one shared equally with the public! But the last shred +of my identity is gone. + +_Ventnor_. Most people would be glad to part with theirs on such +terms. I have followed your work with immense interest. _Immolation_ +is a masterpiece. I read it last summer when it first came out. + +_Mrs. Dale (with a shade less warmth)_. _Immolation_ has been out +three years. + +_Ventnor_. Oh, by Jove--no? Surely not--But one is so overwhelmed--one +loses count. (_Reproachfully_.) Why have you never sent me your books? + +_Mrs. Dale_. For that very reason. + +_Ventnor (deprecatingly)_. You know I didn't mean it for you! And +_my_ first book--do you remember--was dedicated to you. + +_Mrs. Dale_. _Silver Trumpets_-- + +_Ventnor (much interested)_. Have you a copy still, by any chance? The +first edition, I mean? Mine was stolen years ago. Do you think you could +put your hand on it? + +_Mrs. Dale (taking a small shabby book from the table at her side)_. +It's here. + +_Ventnor (eagerly)_. May I have it? Ah, thanks. This is _very_ +interesting. The last copy sold in London for 40, and they tell me the +next will fetch twice as much. It's quite _introuvable_. + +_Mrs. Dale_. I know that. _(A pause. She takes the book from him, +opens it, and reads, half to herself--)_ + + _How much we two have seen together, + Of other eyes unwist, + Dear as in days of leafless weather + The willow's saffron mist, + + Strange as the hour when Hesper swings + A-sea in beryl green, + While overhead on dalliant wings + The daylight hangs serene, + + And thrilling as a meteor's fall + Through depths of lonely sky, + When each to each two watchers call: + I saw it!--So did I._ + +_Ventnor_. Thin, thin--the troubadour tinkle. Odd how little promise +there is in first volumes! + +_Mrs. Dale (with irresistible emphasis)_. I thought there was a +distinct promise in this! + +_Ventnor (seeing his mistake)_. Ah--the one you would never let me +fulfil? _(Sentimentally.)_ How inexorable you were! You never +dedicated a book to _me_. + +_Mrs. Dale_. I hadn't begun to write when we were--dedicating things +to each other. + +_Ventnor_. Not for the public--but you wrote for me; and, wonderful as +you are, you've never written anything since that I care for half as much +as-- + +_Mrs. Dale (interested)_. Well? + +_Ventnor_. Your letters. + +_Mrs. Dale (in a changed voice)_. My letters--do you remember them? + +_Ventnor_. When I don't, I reread them. + +_Mrs. Dale (incredulous)_. You have them still? + +_Ventnor (unguardedly)_. You haven't mine, then? + +_Mrs. Dale (playfully)_. Oh, you were a celebrity already. Of course I +kept them! _(Smiling.)_ Think what they are worth now! I always keep +them locked up in my safe over there. _(She indicates a cabinet.) + +Ventnor (after a pause)_. I always carry yours with me. + +_Mrs. Dale (laughing)_. You-- + +_Ventnor_. Wherever I go. _(A longer pause. She looks at him +fixedly.)_ I have them with me now. + +_Mrs. Dale (agitated)_. You--have them with you--now? + +_Ventnor (embarrassed)_. Why not? One never knows-- + +_Mrs. Dale_. Never knows--? + +_Ventnor (humorously)_. Gad--when the bank-examiner may come round. +You forget I'm a married man. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Ah--yes. + +_Ventnor (sits down beside her)_. I speak to you as I couldn't to +anyone else--without deserving a kicking. You know how it all came about. +_(A pause.)_ You'll bear witness that it wasn't till you denied me all +hope-- + +_Mrs. Dale (a little breathless)_. Yes, yes-- + +_Ventnor_. Till you sent me from you-- + +_Mrs. Dale_. It's so easy to be heroic when one is young! One doesn't +realize how long life is going to last afterward. _(Musing.)_ Nor what +weary work it is gathering up the fragments. + +_Ventnor_. But the time comes when one sends for the china-mender, and +has the bits riveted together, and turns the cracked side to the wall-- + +_Mrs. Dale_. And denies that the article was ever damaged? + +_Ventnor_. Eh? Well, the great thing, you see, is to keep one's self +out of reach of the housemaid's brush. _(A pause.)_ If you're married +you can't--always. _(Smiling.)_ Don't you hate to be taken down and +dusted? + +_Mrs. Dale (with intention)_. You forget how long ago my husband died. +It's fifteen years since I've been an object of interest to anybody but the +public. + +_Ventnor (smiling)_. The only one of your admirers to whom you've ever +given the least encouragement! + +_Mrs. Dale_. Say rather the most easily pleased! + +_Ventnor_. Or the only one you cared to please? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Ah, you _haven't_ kept my letters! + +_Ventnor (gravely)_. Is that a challenge? Look here, then! _(He +drams a packet from his pocket and holds it out to her.)_ + +_Mrs. Dale (taking the packet and looking at him earnestly)_. Why have +you brought me these? + +_Ventnor_. I didn't bring them; they came because I came--that's all. +_(Tentatively.)_ Are we unwelcome? + +_Mrs. Dale (who has undone the packet and does not appear to hear +him)_. The very first I ever wrote you--the day after we met at the +concert. How on earth did you happen to keep it? _(She glances over +it.)_ How perfectly absurd! Well, it's not a compromising document. + +_Ventnor_. I'm afraid none of them are. + +_Mrs. Dale (quickly)_. Is it to that they owe their immunity? Because +one could leave them about like safety matches?--Ah, here's another I +remember--I wrote that the day after we went skating together for the first +time. _(She reads it slowly.)_ How odd! How very odd! + +_Ventnor_. What? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Why, it's the most curious thing--I had a letter of this +kind to do the other day, in the novel I'm at work on now--the letter of a +woman who is just--just beginning-- + +_Ventnor_. Yes--just beginning--? + +_Mrs. Dale_. And, do you know, I find the best phrase in it, the +phrase I somehow regarded as the fruit of--well, of all my subsequent +discoveries--is simply plagiarized, word for word, from this! + +_Ventnor (eagerly)_. I told you so! You were all there! + +_Mrs. Dale (critically)_. But the rest of it's poorly done--very +poorly. _(Reads the letter over.)_ H'm--I didn't know how to leave +off. It takes me forever to get out of the door. + +_Ventnor (gayly)_. Perhaps I was there to prevent you! _(After a +pause.)_ I wonder what I said in return? + +_Mrs. Dale (interested)_. Shall we look? _(She rises.)_ Shall +we--really? I have them all here, you know. _(She goes toward the +cabinet.)_ + +_Ventnor (following her with repressed eagerness)_. Oh--all! + +_Mrs. Dale (throws open the door of the cabinet, revealing a number of +packets)_. Don't you believe me now? + +_Ventnor_. Good heavens! How I must have repeated myself! But then you +were so very deaf. + +_Mrs. Dale (takes out a packet and returns to her seat. Ventnor extends +an impatient hand for the letters)_. No--no; wait! I want to find your +answer to the one I was just reading. _(After a pause.)_ Here it +is--yes, I thought so! + +_Ventnor_. What did you think? + +_Mrs. Dale (triumphantly)_. I thought it was the one in which you +quoted _Epipsychidion_-- + +_Ventnor_. Mercy! Did I _quote_ things? I don't wonder you were +cruel. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Ah, and here's the other--the one I--the one I didn't +answer--for a long time. Do you remember? + +_Ventnor (with emotion)_. Do I remember? I wrote it the morning after +we heard _Isolde_-- + +_Mrs. Dale (disappointed)_. No--no. _That_ wasn't the one I +didn't answer! Here--this is the one I mean. + +_Ventnor (takes it curiously)_. Ah--h'm--this is very like unrolling a +mummy--_(he glances at her)_--with a live grain of wheat in it, +perhaps?--Oh, by Jove! + +_Mrs. Dale_. What? + +_Ventnor_. Why, this is the one I made a sonnet out of afterward! By +Jove, I'd forgotten where that idea came from. You may know the lines +perhaps? They're in the fourth volume of my Complete Edition--It's the +thing beginning + + _Love came to me with unrelenting eyes--_ + +one of my best, I rather fancy. Of course, here it's very crudely put--the +values aren't brought out--ah! this touch is good though--very good. H'm, I +daresay there might be other material. _(He glances toward the +cabinet.)_ + +_Mrs. Dale (drily)_. The live grain of wheat, as you said! + +_Ventnor_. Ah, well--my first harvest was sown on rocky +ground--_now_ I plant for the fowls of the air. _(Rising and walking +toward the cabinet.)_ When can I come and carry off all this rubbish? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Carry it off? + +_Ventnor (embarrassed)_. My dear lady, surely between you and me +explicitness is a burden. You must see that these letters of ours can't be +left to take their chance like an ordinary correspondence--you said +yourself we were public property. + +_Mrs. Dale_. To take their chance? Do you suppose that, in my keeping, +your letters take any chances? _(Suddenly.)_ Do mine--in yours? + +_Ventnor (still more embarrassed)_. Helen--! _(He takes a turn +through the room.)_ You force me to remind you that you and I are +differently situated--that in a moment of madness I sacrificed the only +right you ever gave me--the right to love you better than any other +woman in the world. _(A pause. She says nothing and he continues, with +increasing difficulty--)_ You asked me just now why I carried your +letters about with me--kept them, literally, in my own hands. Well, suppose +it's to be sure of their not falling into some one else's? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Oh! + +_Ventnor (throws himself into a chair)_. For God's sake don't pity me! + +_Mrs. Dale (after a long pause)_. Am I dull--or are you trying to say +that you want to give me back my letters? + +_Ventnor (starting up)_. I? Give you back--? God forbid! Your letters? +Not for the world! The only thing I have left! But you can't dream that in +_my_ hands-- + +_Mrs. Dale (suddenly)_. You want yours, then? + +_Ventnor (repressing his eagerness)_. My dear friend, if I'd ever +dreamed that you'd kept them--? + +_Mrs. Dale (accusingly)_. You _do_ want them. _(A pause. He +makes a deprecatory gesture.)_ Why should they be less safe with me than +mine with you? _I_ never forfeited the right to keep them. + +_Ventnor (after another pause)_. It's compensation enough, almost, +to have you reproach me! _(He moves nearer to her, but she makes no +response.)_ You forget that I've forfeited _all_ my rights--even +that of letting you keep my letters. + +_Mrs. Dale_. You _do_ want them! _(She rises, throws all the +letters into the cabinet, locks the door and puts the key in her +pocket.)_ There's my answer. + +_Ventnor_. Helen--! + +_Mrs. Dale_. Ah, I paid dearly enough for the right to keep them, and +I mean to! _(She turns to him passionately.)_ Have you ever asked +yourself how I paid for it? With what months and years of solitude, what +indifference to flattery, what resistance to affection?--Oh, don't smile +because I said affection, and not love. Affection's a warm cloak in cold +weather; and I _have_ been cold; and I shall keep on growing colder! +Don't talk to me about living in the hearts of my readers! We both know +what kind of a domicile that is. Why, before long I shall become a classic! +Bound in sets and kept on the top book-shelf--brr, doesn't that sound +freezing? I foresee the day when I shall be as lonely as an Etruscan +museum! _(She breaks into a laugh.)_ That's what I've paid for the +right to keep your letters. _(She holds out her hand.)_ And now give +me mine. + +_Ventnor_. Yours? + +_Mrs. Dale (haughtily)_. Yes; I claim them. + +_Ventnor (in the same tone)_. On what ground? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Hear the man!--Because I wrote them, of course. + +_Ventnor_. But it seems to me that--under your inspiration, I admit--I +also wrote mine. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Oh, I don't dispute their authenticity--it's yours I +deny! + +_Ventnor_. Mine? + +_Mrs. Dale_. You voluntarily ceased to be the man who wrote me those +letters--you've admitted as much. You traded paper for flesh and blood. I +don't dispute your wisdom--only you must hold to your bargain! The letters +are all mine. + +_Ventnor (groping between two tones)_. Your arguments are as +convincing as ever. _(He hazards a faint laugh.)_ You're a marvellous +dialectician--but, if we're going to settle the matter in the spirit of an +arbitration treaty, why, there are accepted conventions in such cases. It's +an odious way to put it, but since you won't help me, one of them is-- + +_Mrs. Dale_. One of them is--? + +_Ventnor_. That it is usual--that technically, I mean, the +letter--belongs to its writer-- + +_Mrs. Dale (after a pause)_. Such letters as _these_? + +_Ventnor_. Such letters especially-- + +_Mrs. Dale_. But you couldn't have written them if I hadn't--been +willing to read them. Surely there's more of myself in them than of you. + +_Ventnor_. Surely there's nothing in which a man puts more of himself +than in his love-letters! + +_Mrs. Dale (with emotion)_. But a woman's love-letters are like her child. +They belong to her more than to anybody else-- + +_Ventnor_. And a man's? + +_Mrs. Dale (with sudden violence)_. Are all he risks!--There, take +them. _(She flings the key of the cabinet at his feet and sinks into a +chair.) + +Ventnor (starts as though to pick up the key; then approaches and bends +over her)_. Helen--oh, Helen! + +_Mrs. Dale (she yields her hands to him, murmuring:)_ Paul! +_(Suddenly she straightens herself and draws back illuminated.)_ What +a fool I am! I see it all now. You want them for your memoirs! + +_Ventnor (disconcerted)_. Helen-- + +_Mrs. Dale (agitated)_. Come, come--the rule is to unmask when the +signal's given! You want them for your memoirs. + +_Ventnor (with a forced laugh)_. What makes you think so? + +_Mrs. Dale (triumphantly)_. Because _I_ want them for mine! + +_Ventnor (in a changed tone)_. Ah--. _(He moves away from her and +leans against the mantelpiece. She remains seated, with her eyes fixed on +him.)_ + +_Mrs. Dale_. I wonder I didn't see it sooner. Your reasons were lame +enough. + +_Ventnor (ironically)_. Yours were masterly. You're the more +accomplished actor of the two. I was completely deceived. + +_Mrs. Dale_. Oh, I'm a novelist. I can keep up that sort of thing for +five hundred pages! + +_Ventnor_. I congratulate you. _(A pause.)_ + +_Mrs. Dale (moving to her seat behind the tea-table)_. I've never +offered you any tea. _(She bends over the kettle.)_ Why don't you take +your letters? + +_Ventnor_. Because you've been clever enough to make it impossible for +me. _(He picks up the key and hands it to her. Then abruptly)_--Was it +all acting--just now? + +_Mrs. Dale_. By what right do you ask? + +_Ventnor_. By right of renouncing my claim to my letters. Keep +them--and tell me. + +_Mrs. Dale_. I give you back your claim--and I refuse to tell you. + +_Ventnor (sadly)_. Ah, Helen, if you deceived me, you deceived +yourself also. + +_Mrs. Dale_. What does it matter, now that we're both undeceived? I +played a losing game, that's all. + +_Ventnor_. Why losing--since all the letters are yours? + +_Mrs. Dale_. The letters? _(Slowly.)_ I'd forgotten the letters-- + +_Ventnor (exultant)_. Ah, I knew you'd end by telling me the truth! + +_Mrs. Dale_. The truth? Where _is_ the truth? _(Half to +herself.)_ I thought I was lying when I began--but the lies turned into +truth as I uttered them! _(She looks at Ventnor.)_ I _did_ want +your letters for my memoirs--I _did_ think I'd kept them for that +purpose--and I wanted to get mine back for the same reason--but now _(she +puts out her hand and picks up some of her letters, which are lying +scattered on the table near her)_--how fresh they seem, and how they +take me back to the time when we lived instead of writing about life! + +_Ventnor (smiling)_. The time when we didn't prepare our impromptu +effects beforehand and copyright our remarks about the weather! + +_Mrs. Dale_. Or keep our epigrams in cold storage and our adjectives +under lock and key! + +_Ventnor_. When our emotions weren't worth ten cents a word, and a +signature wasn't an autograph. Ah, Helen, after all, there's nothing like +the exhilaration of spending one's capital! + +_Mrs. Dale_. Of wasting it, you mean. _(She points to the +letters.)_ Do you suppose we could have written a word of these if we'd +known we were putting our dreams out at interest? _(She sits musing, with +her eyes on the fire, and he watches her in silence.)_ Paul, do you +remember the deserted garden we sometimes used to walk in? + +_Ventnor_. The old garden with the high wall at the end of the village +street? The garden with the ruined box-borders and the broken-down arbor? +Why, I remember every weed in the paths and every patch of moss on the +walls! + +_Mrs. Dale._ Well--I went back there the other day. The village is +immensely improved. There's a new hotel with gas-fires, and a trolley in +the main street; and the garden has been turned into a public park, where +excursionists sit on cast-iron benches admiring the statue of an +Abolitionist. + +_Ventnor_. An Abolitionist--how appropriate! + +_Mrs. Dale_. And the man who sold the garden has made a fortune that +he doesn't know how to spend-- + +_Ventnor (rising impulsively)_. Helen, _(he approaches and lays his +hand on her letters)_, let's sacrifice our fortune and keep the +excursionists out! + +_Mrs. Dale (with a responsive movement)_. Paul, do you really mean it? + +_Ventnor (gayly)_. Mean it? Why, I feel like a landed proprietor +already! It's more than a garden--it's a park. + +_Mrs. Dale_. It's more than a park, it's a world--as long as we keep +it to ourselves! + +_Ventnor_. Ah, yes--even the pyramids look small when one sees a +Cook's tourist on top of them! _(He takes the key from the table, unlocks +the cabinet and brings out his letters, which he lays beside hers.)_ +Shall we burn the key to our garden? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Ah, then it will indeed be boundless! _(Watching him +while he throws the letters into the fire.)_ + +_Ventnor (turning back to her with a half-sad smile)_. But not too big +for us to find each other in? + +_Mrs. Dale_. Since we shall be the only people there! _(He takes +both her hands and they look at each other a moment in silence. Then he +goes out by the door to the right. As he reaches the door she takes a step +toward him, impulsively; then turning back she leans against the +chimney-piece, quietly watching the letters burn.)_ + + + + +THE REMBRANDT + + +"You're _so_ artistic," my cousin Eleanor Copt began. + +Of all Eleanor's exordiums it is the one I most dread. When she tells me +I'm so clever I know this is merely the preamble to inviting me to meet the +last literary obscurity of the moment: a trial to be evaded or endured, as +circumstances dictate; whereas her calling me artistic fatally connotes +the request to visit, in her company, some distressed gentlewoman whose +future hangs on my valuation of her old Saxe or of her grandfather's +Marc Antonios. Time was when I attempted to resist these compulsions of +Eleanor's; but I soon learned that, short of actual flight, there was +no refuge from her beneficent despotism. It is not always easy for the +curator of a museum to abandon his post on the plea of escaping a pretty +cousin's importunities; and Eleanor, aware of my predicament, is none +too magnanimous to take advantage of it. Magnanimity is, in fact, not in +Eleanor's line. The virtues, she once explained to me, are like bonnets: +the very ones that look best on other people may not happen to suit one's +own particular style; and she added, with a slight deflection of metaphor, +that none of the ready-made virtues ever _had_ fitted her: they all +pinched somewhere, and she'd given up trying to wear them. + +Therefore when she said to me, "You're _so_ artistic." emphasizing the +conjunction with a tap of her dripping umbrella (Eleanor is out in all +weathers: the elements are as powerless against her as man), I merely +stipulated, "It's not old Saxe again?" + +She shook her head reassuringly. "A picture--a Rembrandt!" + +"Good Lord! Why not a Leonardo?" + +"Well"--she smiled--"that, of course, depends on _you_." + +"On me?" + +"On your attribution. I dare say Mrs. Fontage would consent to the +change--though she's very conservative." + +A gleam of hope came to me and I pronounced: "One can't judge of a picture +in this weather." + +"Of course not. I'm coming for you to-morrow." + +"I've an engagement to-morrow." + +"I'll come before or after your engagement." + +The afternoon paper lay at my elbow and I contrived a furtive consultation +of the weather-report. It said "Rain to-morrow," and I answered briskly: +"All right, then; come at ten"--rapidly calculating that the clouds on +which I counted might lift by noon. + +My ingenuity failed of its due reward; for the heavens, as if in league +with my cousin, emptied themselves before morning, and punctually at ten +Eleanor and the sun appeared together in my office. + +I hardly listened, as we descended the Museum steps and got into Eleanor's +hansom, to her vivid summing-up of the case. I guessed beforehand that the +lady we were about to visit had lapsed by the most distressful degrees from +opulence to a "hall-bedroom"; that her grandfather, if he had not been +Minister to France, had signed the Declaration of Independence; that the +Rembrandt was an heirloom, sole remnant of disbanded treasures; that for +years its possessor had been unwilling to part with it, and that even now +the question of its disposal must be approached with the most diplomatic +obliquity. + +Previous experience had taught me that all Eleanor's "cases" presented a +harrowing similarity of detail. No circumstance tending to excite the +spectator's sympathy and involve his action was omitted from the history of +her beneficiaries; the lights and shades were indeed so skilfully adjusted +that any impartial expression of opinion took on the hue of cruelty. I +could have produced closetfuls of "heirlooms" in attestation of this fact; +for it is one more mark of Eleanor's competence that her friends usually +pay the interest on her philanthropy. My one hope was that in this case the +object, being a picture, might reasonably be rated beyond my means; and +as our cab drew up before a blistered brown-stone door-step I formed the +self-defensive resolve to place an extreme valuation on Mrs. Fontage's +Rembrandt. It is Eleanor's fault if she is sometimes fought with her own +weapons. + +The house stood in one of those shabby provisional-looking New York streets +that seem resignedly awaiting demolition. It was the kind of house that, +in its high days, must have had a bow-window with a bronze in it. The +bow-window had been replaced by a plumber's _devanture_, and one might +conceive the bronze to have gravitated to the limbo where Mexican onyx +tables and bric-a-brac in buffalo-horn await the first signs of our next +aesthetic reaction. + +Eleanor swept me through a hall that smelled of poverty, up unlit stairs to +a bare slit of a room. "And she must leave this in a month!" she whispered +across her knock. + +I had prepared myself for the limp widow's weed of a woman that one figures +in such a setting; and confronted abruptly with Mrs. Fontage's white-haired +erectness I had the disconcerting sense that I was somehow in her presence +at my own solicitation. I instinctively charged Eleanor with this reversal +of the situation; but a moment later I saw it must be ascribed to a +something about Mrs. Fontage that precluded the possibility of her asking +any one a favor. It was not that she was of forbidding, or even majestic, +demeanor; but that one guessed, under her aquiline prettiness, a dignity +nervously on guard against the petty betrayal of her surroundings. The +room was unconcealably poor: the little faded "relics," the high-stocked +ancestral silhouettes, the steel-engravings after Raphael and Correggio, +grouped in a vain attempt to hide the most obvious stains on the +wall-paper, served only to accentuate the contrast of a past evidently +diversified by foreign travel and the enjoyment of the arts. Even Mrs. +Fontage's dress had the air of being a last expedient, the ultimate outcome +of a much-taxed ingenuity in darning and turning. One felt that all the +poor lady's barriers were falling save that of her impregnable manner. + +To this manner I found myself conveying my appreciation of being admitted +to a view of the Rembrandt. + +Mrs. Fontage's smile took my homage for granted. "It is always," she +conceded, "a privilege to be in the presence of the great masters." Her +slim wrinkled hand waved me to a dusky canvas near the window. + +"It's _so_ interesting, dear Mrs. Fontage," I heard Eleanor +exclaiming, "and my cousin will be able to tell you exactly--" Eleanor, in +my presence, always admits that she knows nothing about art; but she gives +the impression that this is merely because she hasn't had time to look into +the matter--and has had me to do it for her. + +Mrs. Fontage seated herself without speaking, as though fearful that a +breath might disturb my communion with the masterpiece. I felt that she +thought Eleanor's reassuring ejaculations ill-timed; and in this I was of +one mind with her; for the impossibility of telling her exactly what I +thought of her Rembrandt had become clear to me at a glance. + +My cousin's vivacities began to languish and the silence seemed to shape +itself into a receptacle for my verdict. I stepped back, affecting a more +distant scrutiny; and as I did so my eye caught Mrs. Fontage's profile. Her +lids trembled slightly. I took refuge in the familiar expedient of asking +the history of the picture, and she waved me brightly to a seat. + +This was indeed a topic on which she could dilate. The Rembrandt, it +appeared, had come into Mr. Fontage's possession many years ago, while +the young couple were on their wedding-tour, and under circumstances so +romantic that she made no excuse for relating them in all their parenthetic +fulness. The picture belonged to an old Belgian Countess of redundant +quarterings, whom the extravagances of an ungovernable nephew had compelled +to part with her possessions (in the most private manner) about the time of +the Fontages' arrival. By a really remarkable coincidence, it happened that +their courier (an exceptionally intelligent and superior man) was an old +servant of the Countess's, and had thus been able to put them in the way of +securing the Rembrandt under the very nose of an English Duke, whose agent +had been sent to Brussels to negotiate for its purchase. Mrs. Fontage could +not recall the Duke's name, but he was a great collector and had a famous +Highland castle, where somebody had been murdered, and which she herself +had visited (by moonlight) when she had travelled in Scotland as a girl. +The episode had in short been one of the most interesting "experiences" of +a tour almost chromo-lithographic in vivacity of impression; and they had +always meant to go back to Brussels for the sake of reliving so picturesque +a moment. Circumstances (of which the narrator's surroundings declared the +nature) had persistently interfered with the projected return to Europe, +and the picture had grown doubly valuable as representing the high-water +mark of their artistic emotions. Mrs. Fontage's moist eye caressed the +canvas. "There is only," she added with a perceptible effort, "one slight +drawback: the picture is not signed. But for that the Countess, of course, +would have sold it to a museum. All the connoisseurs who have seen it +pronounce it an undoubted Rembrandt, in the artist's best manner; but the +museums"--she arched her brows in smiling recognition of a well-known +weakness--"give the preference to signed examples--" + +Mrs. Fontage's words evoked so touching a vision of the young tourists of +fifty years ago, entrusting to an accomplished and versatile courier the +direction of their helpless zeal for art, that I lost sight for a moment +of the point at issue. The old Belgian Countess, the wealthy Duke with a +feudal castle in Scotland, Mrs. Fontage's own maiden pilgrimage to Arthur's +Seat and Holyrood, all the accessories of the naf transaction, seemed +a part of that vanished Europe to which our young race carried its +indiscriminate ardors, its tender romantic credulity: the legendary +castellated Europe of keepsakes, brigands and old masters, that +compensated, by one such "experience" as Mrs. Fontage's, for an after-life +of aesthetic privation. + +I was restored to the present by Eleanor's looking at her watch. The action +mutely conveyed that something was expected of me. I risked the temporizing +statement that the picture was very interesting; but Mrs. Fontage's polite +assent revealed the poverty of the expedient. Eleanor's impatience +overflowed. + +"You would like my cousin to give you an idea of its value?" she suggested. + +Mrs. Fontage grew more erect. "No one," she corrected with great +gentleness, "can know its value quite as well as I, who live with it--" + +We murmured our hasty concurrence. + +"But it might be interesting to hear"--she addressed herself to me--"as a +mere matter of curiosity--what estimate would be put on it from the purely +commercial point of view--if such a term may be used in speaking of a work +of art." + +I sounded a note of deprecation. + +"Oh, I understand, of course," she delicately anticipated me, "that that +could never be _your_ view, your personal view; but since occasions +_may_ arise--do arise--when it becomes necessary to--to put a price on +the priceless, as it were--I have thought--Miss Copt has suggested--" + +"Some day," Eleanor encouraged her, "you might feel that the picture ought +to belong to some one who has more--more opportunity of showing it--letting +it be seen by the public--for educational reasons--" + +"I have tried," Mrs. Fontage admitted, "to see it in that light." + +The crucial moment was upon me. To escape the challenge of Mrs. Fontage's +brilliant composure I turned once more to the picture. If my courage needed +reinforcement, the picture amply furnished it. Looking at that lamentable +canvas seemed the surest way of gathering strength to denounce it; but +behind me, all the while, I felt Mrs. Fontage's shuddering pride drawn +up in a final effort of self-defense. I hated myself for my sentimental +perversion of the situation. Reason argued that it was more cruel to +deceive Mrs. Fontage than to tell her the truth; but that merely proved the +inferiority of reason to instinct in situations involving any concession to +the emotions. Along with her faith in the Rembrandt I must destroy not only +the whole fabric of Mrs. Fontage's past, but even that lifelong habit of +acquiescence in untested formulas that makes the best part of the average +feminine strength. I guessed the episode of the picture to be inextricably +interwoven with the traditions and convictions which served to veil Mrs. +Fontage's destitution not only from others but from herself. Viewed in +that light the Rembrandt had perhaps been worth its purchase-money; and I +regretted that works of art do not commonly sell on the merit of the moral +support they may have rendered. + +From this unavailing flight I was recalled by the sense that something +must be done. To place a fictitious value on the picture was at best a +provisional measure; while the brutal alternative of advising Mrs. Fontage +to sell it for a hundred dollars at least afforded an opening to the +charitably disposed purchaser. I intended, if other resources failed, +to put myself forward in that light; but delicacy of course forbade my +coupling my unflattering estimate of the Rembrandt with an immediate offer +to buy it. All I could do was to inflict the wound: the healing unguent +must be withheld for later application. + +I turned to Mrs. Fontage, who sat motionless, her finely-lined cheeks +touched with an expectant color, her eyes averted from the picture which +was so evidently the one object they beheld. + +"My dear madam--" I began. Her vivid smile was like a light held up to +dazzle me. It shrouded every alternative in darkness and I had the flurried +sense of having lost my way among the intricacies of my contention. Of +a sudden I felt the hopelessness of finding a crack in her impenetrable +conviction. My words slipped from me like broken weapons. "The picture," +I faltered, "would of course be worth more if it were signed. As it is, +I--I hardly think--on a conservative estimate--it can be valued at--at +more--than--a thousand dollars, say--" + +My deflected argument ran on somewhat aimlessly till it found itself +plunging full tilt against the barrier of Mrs. Fontage's silence. She sat +as impassive as though I had not spoken. Eleanor loosed a few fluttering +words of congratulation and encouragement, but their flight was suddenly +cut short. Mrs. Fontage had risen with a certain solemnity. + +"I could never," she said gently--her gentleness was adamantine--"under any +circumstances whatever, consider, for a moment even, the possibility of +parting with the picture at such a price." + + +II + +Within three weeks a tremulous note from Mrs. Fontage requested the favor +of another visit. If the writing was tremulous, however, the writer's tone +was firm. She named her own day and hour, without the conventional +reference to her visitor's convenience. + +My first impulse was to turn the note over to Eleanor. I had acquitted +myself of my share in the ungrateful business of coming to Mrs. Fontage's +aid, and if, as her letter denoted, she had now yielded to the closer +pressure of need, the business of finding a purchaser for the Rembrandt +might well be left to my cousin's ingenuity. But here conscience put in +the uncomfortable reminder that it was I who, in putting a price on the +picture, had raised the real obstacle in the way of Mrs. Fontage's rescue. +No one would give a thousand dollars for the Rembrandt; but to tell +Mrs. Fontage so had become as unthinkable as murder. I had, in fact, on +returning from my first inspection of the picture, refrained from imparting +to Eleanor my opinion of its value. Eleanor is porous, and I knew that +sooner or later the unnecessary truth would exude through the loose texture +of her dissimulation. Not infrequently she thus creates the misery she +alleviates; and I have sometimes suspected her of paining people in order +that she might be sorry for them. I had, at all events, cut off retreat in +Eleanor's direction; and the remaining alternative carried me straight to +Mrs. Fontage. + +She received me with the same commanding sweetness. The room was even barer +than before--I believe the carpet was gone--but her manner built up about +her a palace to which I was welcomed with high state; and it was as a mere +incident of the ceremony that I was presently made aware of her decision to +sell the Rembrandt. My previous unsuccess in planning how to deal with Mrs. +Fontage had warned me to leave my farther course to chance; and I listened +to her explanation with complete detachment. She had resolved to travel for +her health; her doctor advised it, and as her absence might be indefinitely +prolonged she had reluctantly decided to part with the picture in order +to avoid the expense of storage and insurance. Her voice drooped at the +admission, and she hurried on, detailing the vague itinerary of a journey +that was to combine long-promised visits to impatient friends with various +"interesting opportunities" less definitely specified. The poor lady's +skill in rearing a screen of verbiage about her enforced avowal had +distracted me from my own share in the situation, and it was with dismay +that I suddenly caught the drift of her assumptions. She expected me to +buy the Rembrandt for the Museum; she had taken my previous valuation as a +tentative bid, and when I came to my senses she was in the act of accepting +my offer. + +Had I had a thousand dollars of my own to dispose of, the bargain would +have been concluded on the spot; but I was in the impossible position of +being materially unable to buy the picture and morally unable to tell her +that it was not worth acquiring for the Museum. + +I dashed into the first evasion in sight. I had no authority, I explained, +to purchase pictures for the Museum without the consent of the committee. + +Mrs. Fontage coped for a moment in silence with the incredible fact +that I had rejected her offer; then she ventured, with a kind of pale +precipitation: "But I understood--Miss Copt tells me that you practically +decide such matters for the committee." I could guess what the effort had +cost her. + +"My cousin is given to generalizations. My opinion may have some weight +with the committee--" + +"Well, then--" she timidly prompted. + +"For that very reason I can't buy the picture." + +She said, with a drooping note, "I don't understand." + +"Yet you told me," I reminded her, "that you knew museums didn't buy +unsigned pictures." + +"Not for what they are worth! Every one knows that. But I--I +understood--the price you named--" Her pride shuddered back from the +abasement. "It's a misunderstanding then," she faltered. + +To avoid looking at her, I glanced desperately at the Rembrandt. Could +I--? But reason rejected the possibility. Even if the committee had been +blind--and they all _were_ but Crozier--I simply shouldn't have dared +to do it. I stood up, feeling that to cut the matter short was the only +alleviation within reach. + +Mrs. Fontage had summoned her indomitable smile; but its brilliancy +dropped, as I opened the door, like a candle blown out by a draught. + +"If there's any one else--if you knew any one who would care to see the +picture, I should be most happy--" She kept her eyes on me, and I saw that, +in her case, it hurt less than to look at the Rembrandt. "I shall have to +leave here, you know," she panted, "if nobody cares to have it--" + + +III + +That evening at my club I had just succeeded in losing sight of Mrs. +Fontage in the fumes of an excellent cigar, when a voice at my elbow evoked +her harassing image. + +"I want to talk to you," the speaker said, "about Mrs. Fontage's +Rembrandt." + +"There isn't any," I was about to growl; but looking up I recognized the +confiding countenance of Mr. Jefferson Rose. + +Mr. Rose was known to me chiefly as a young man suffused with a vague +enthusiasm for Virtue and my cousin Eleanor. + +One glance at his glossy exterior conveyed the assurance that his morals +were as immaculate as his complexion and his linen. Goodness exuded from +his moist eye, his liquid voice, the warm damp pressure of his trustful +hand. He had always struck me as one of the most uncomplicated organisms +I had ever met. His ideas were as simple and inconsecutive as the +propositions in a primer, and he spoke slowly, with a kind of uniformity +of emphasis that made his words stand out like the raised type for the +blind. An obvious incapacity for abstract conceptions made him peculiarly +susceptible to the magic of generalization, and one felt he would have been +at the mercy of any Cause that spelled itself with a capital letter. It was +hard to explain how, with such a superabundance of merit, he managed to be +a good fellow: I can only say that he performed the astonishing feat as +naturally as he supported an invalid mother and two sisters on the slender +salary of a banker's clerk. He sat down beside me with an air of bright +expectancy. + +"It's a remarkable picture, isn't it?" he said. + +"You've seen it?" + +"I've been so fortunate. Miss Copt was kind enough to get Mrs. Fontage's +permission; we went this afternoon." I inwardly wished that Eleanor +had selected another victim; unless indeed the visit were part of a +plan whereby some third person, better equipped for the cultivation of +delusions, was to be made to think the Rembrandt remarkable. Knowing the +limitations of Mr. Rose's resources I began to wonder if he had any rich +aunts. + +"And her buying it in that way, too," he went on with his limpid smile, +"from that old Countess in Brussels, makes it all the more interesting, +doesn't it? Miss Copt tells me it's very seldom old pictures can be traced +back for more than a generation. I suppose the fact of Mrs. Fontage's +knowing its history must add a good deal to its value?" + +Uncertain as to his drift, I said: "In her eyes it certainly appears to." + +Implications are lost on Mr. Rose, who glowingly continued: "That's the +reason why I wanted to talk to you about it--to consult you. Miss Copt +tells me you value it at a thousand dollars." + +There was no denying this, and I grunted a reluctant assent. + +"Of course," he went on earnestly, "your valuation is based on the fact +that the picture isn't signed--Mrs. Fontage explained that; and it does +make a difference, certainly. But the thing is--if the picture's really +good--ought one to take advantage--? I mean--one can see that Mrs. Fontage +is in a tight place, and I wouldn't for the world--" + +My astonished stare arrested him. + +"_You_ wouldn't--?" + +"I mean--you see, it's just this way"; he coughed and blushed: "I can't +give more than a thousand dollars myself--it's as big a sum as I can manage +to scrape together--but before I make the offer I want to be sure I'm not +standing in the way of her getting more money." + +My astonishment lapsed to dismay. "You're going to buy the picture for a +thousand dollars?" + +His blush deepened. "Why, yes. It sounds rather absurd, I suppose. It isn't +much in my line, of course. I can see the picture's very beautiful, but I'm +no judge--it isn't the kind of thing, naturally, that I could afford to go +in for; but in this case I'm very glad to do what I can; the circumstances +are so distressing; and knowing what you think of the picture I feel it's a +pretty safe investment--" + +"I don't think!" I blurted out. + +"You--?" + +"I don't think the picture's worth a thousand dollars; I don't think it's +worth ten cents; I simply lied about it, that's all." + +Mr. Rose looked as frightened as though I had charged him with the offense. + +"Hang it, man, can't you see how it happened? I saw the poor woman's pride +and happiness hung on her faith in that picture. I tried to make her +understand that it was worthless--but she wouldn't; I tried to tell her +so--but I couldn't. I behaved like a maudlin ass, but you shan't pay for my +infernal bungling--you mustn't buy the picture!" + +Mr. Rose sat silent, tapping one glossy boot-tip with another. Suddenly he +turned on me a glance of stored intelligence. "But you know," he said +good-humoredly, "I rather think I must." + +"You haven't--already?" + +"Oh, no; the offer's not made." + +"Well, then--" + +His look gathered a brighter significance. + +"But if the picture's worth nothing, nobody will buy it--" + +I groaned. + +"Except," he continued, "some fellow like me, who doesn't know anything. +_I_ think it's lovely, you know; I mean to hang it in my mother's +sitting-room." He rose and clasped my hand in his adhesive pressure. "I'm +awfully obliged to you for telling me this; but perhaps you won't mind my +asking you not to mention our talk to Miss Copt? It might bother her, you +know, to think the picture isn't exactly up to the mark; and it won't make +a rap of difference to me." + + +IV + +Mr. Rose left me to a sleepless night. The next morning my resolve was +formed, and it carried me straight to Mrs. Fontage's. She answered my knock +by stepping out on the landing, and as she shut the door behind her I +caught a glimpse of her devastated interior. She mentioned, with a careful +avoidance of the note of pathos on which our last conversation had closed, +that she was preparing to leave that afternoon; and the trunks obstructing +the threshold showed that her preparations were nearly complete. They were, +I felt certain, the same trunks that, strapped behind a rattling vettura, +had accompanied the bride and groom on that memorable voyage of discovery +of which the booty had till recently adorned her walls; and there was a +dim consolation in the thought that those early "finds" in coral and Swiss +wood-carving, in lava and alabaster, still lay behind the worn locks, in +the security of worthlessness. + +Mrs. Fontage, on the landing, among her strapped and corded treasures, +maintained the same air of stability that made it impossible, even under +such conditions, to regard her flight as anything less dignified than +a departure. It was the moral support of what she tacitly assumed that +enabled me to set forth with proper deliberation the object of my visit; +and she received my announcement with an absence of surprise that struck +me as the very flower of tact. Under cover of these mutual assumptions the +transaction was rapidly concluded; and it was not till the canvas passed +into my hands that, as though the physical contact had unnerved her, +Mrs. Fontage suddenly faltered. "It's the giving it up--" she stammered, +disguising herself to the last; and I hastened away from the collapse of +her splendid effrontery. + +I need hardly point out that I had acted impulsively, and that reaction +from the most honorable impulses is sometimes attended by moral +perturbation. My motives had indeed been mixed enough to justify some +uneasiness, but this was allayed by the instinctive feeling that it is more +venial to defraud an institution than a man. Since Mrs. Fontage had to be +kept from starving by means not wholly defensible, it was better that the +obligation should be borne by a rich institution than an impecunious youth. +I doubt, in fact, if my scruples would have survived a night's sleep, had +they not been complicated by some uncertainty as to my own future. It was +true that, subject to the purely formal assent of the committee, I had +full power to buy for the Museum, and that the one member of the committee +likely to dispute my decision was opportunely travelling in Europe; but the +picture once in place I must face the risk of any expert criticism to which +chance might expose it. I dismissed this contingency for future study, +stored the Rembrandt in the cellar of the Museum, and thanked heaven that +Crozier was abroad. + +Six months later he strolled into my office. I had just concluded, under +conditions of exceptional difficulty, and on terms unexpectedly benign, +the purchase of the great Bartley Reynolds; and this circumstance, by +relegating the matter of the Rembrandt to a lower stratum of consciousness, +enabled me to welcome Crozier with unmixed pleasure. My security +was enhanced by his appearance. His smile was charged with amiable +reminiscences, and I inferred that his trip had put him in the humor +to approve of everything, or at least to ignore what fell short of his +approval. I had therefore no uneasiness in accepting his invitation to dine +that evening. It is always pleasant to dine with Crozier and never more so +than when he is just back from Europe. His conversation gives even the food +a flavor of the Caf Anglais. + +The repast was delightful, and it was not till we had finished a Camembert +which he must have brought over with him, that my host said, in a tone of +after-dinner perfunctoriness: "I see you've picked up a picture or two +since I left." + +I assented. "The Bartley Reynolds seemed too good an opportunity to miss, +especially as the French government was after it. I think we got it +cheap--" + +"_Connu, connu_" said Crozier pleasantly. "I know all about the +Reynolds. It was the biggest kind of a haul and I congratulate you. Best +stroke of business we've done yet. But tell me about the other picture--the +Rembrandt." + +"I never said it was a Rembrandt." I could hardly have said why, but I felt +distinctly annoyed with Crozier. + +"Of course not. There's 'Rembrandt' on the frame, but I saw you'd +modified it to 'Dutch School'; I apologize." He paused, but I offered no +explanation. "What about it?" he went on. "Where did you pick it up?" As +he leaned to the flame of the cigar-lighter his face seemed ruddy with +enjoyment. + +"I got it for a song," I said. + +"A thousand, I think?" + +"Have you seen it?" I asked abruptly. + +"Went over the place this afternoon and found it in the cellar. Why hasn't +it been hung, by the way?" + +I paused a moment. "I'm waiting--" + +"To--?" + +"To have it varnished." + +"Ah!" He leaned back and poured himself a second glass of Chartreuse. The +smile he confided to its golden depths provoked me to challenge him with-- + +"What do you think of it?" + +"The Rembrandt?" He lifted his eyes from the glass. "Just what you do." + +"It isn't a Rembrandt." + +"I apologize again. You call it, I believe, a picture of the same period?" + +"I'm uncertain of the period." + +"H'm." He glanced appreciatively along his cigar. "What are you certain +of?" + +"That it's a damned bad picture," I said savagely. + +He nodded. "Just so. That's all we wanted to know." + +"_We_?" + +"We--I--the committee, in short. You see, my dear fellow, if you hadn't +been certain it was a damned bad picture our position would have been a +little awkward. As it is, my remaining duty--I ought to explain that in +this matter I'm acting for the committee--is as simple as it's agreeable." + +"I'll be hanged," I burst out, "if I understand one word you're saying!" + +He fixed me with a kind of cruel joyousness. "You will--you will," he +assured me; "at least you'll begin to, when you hear that I've seen Miss +Copt." + +"Miss Copt?" + +"And that she has told me under what conditions the picture was bought." + +"She doesn't know anything about the conditions! That is," I added, +hastening to restrict the assertion, "she doesn't know my opinion of the +picture." I thirsted for five minutes with Eleanor. + +"Are you quite sure?" Crozier took me up. "Mr. Jefferson Rose does." + +"Ah--I see." + +"I thought you would," he reminded me. "As soon as I'd laid eyes on +the Rembrandt--I beg your pardon!--I saw that it--well, required some +explanation." + +"You might have come to me." + +"I meant to; but I happened to meet Miss Copt, whose encyclopdic +information has often before been of service to me. I always go to Miss +Copt when I want to look up anything; and I found she knew all about the +Rembrandt." + +"_All_?" + +"Precisely. The knowledge was in fact causing her sleepless nights. Mr. +Rose, who was suffering from the same form of insomnia, had taken her into +his confidence, and she--ultimately--took me into hers." + +"Of course!" + +"I must ask you to do your cousin justice. She didn't speak till it became +evident to her uncommonly quick perceptions that your buying the picture on +its merits would have been infinitely worse for--for everybody--than your +diverting a small portion of the Museum's funds to philanthropic uses. Then +she told me the moving incident of Mr. Rose. Good fellow, Rose. And the +old lady's case was desperate. Somebody had to buy that picture." I moved +uneasily in my seat "Wait a moment, will you? I haven't finished my cigar. +There's a little head of Il Fiammingo's that you haven't seen, by the way; +I picked it up the other day in Parma. We'll go in and have a look at it +presently. But meanwhile what I want to say is that I've been charged--in +the most informal way--to express to you the committee's appreciation of +your admirable promptness and energy in capturing the Bartley Reynolds. We +shouldn't have got it at all if you hadn't been uncommonly wide-awake, and +to get it at such a price is a double triumph. We'd have thought nothing of +a few more thousands--" + +"I don't see," I impatiently interposed, "that, as far as I'm concerned, +that alters the case." + +"The case--?" + +"Of Mrs. Fontage's Rembrandt. I bought the picture because, as you say, the +situation was desperate, and I couldn't raise a thousand myself. What I did +was of course indefensible; but the money shall be refunded tomorrow--" + +Crozier raised a protesting hand. "Don't interrupt me when I'm talking ex +cathedra. The money's been refunded already. The fact is, the Museum has +sold the Rembrandt." + +I stared at him wildly. "Sold it? To whom?" + +"Why--to the committee.--Hold on a bit, please.--Won't you take another +cigar? Then perhaps I can finish what I've got to say.--Why, my dear +fellow, the committee's under an obligation to you--that's the way we look +at it. I've investigated Mrs. Fontage's case, and--well, the picture had to +be bought. She's eating meat now, I believe, for the first time in a year. +And they'd have turned her out into the street that very day, your cousin +tells me. Something had to be done at once, and you've simply given a +number of well-to-do and self-indulgent gentlemen the opportunity of +performing, at very small individual expense, a meritorious action in +the nick of time. That's the first thing I've got to thank you for. And +then--you'll remember, please, that I have the floor--that I'm still +speaking for the committee--and secondly, as a slight recognition of your +services in securing the Bartley Reynolds at a very much lower figure than +we were prepared to pay, we beg you--the committee begs you--to accept the +gift of Mrs. Fontage's Rembrandt. Now we'll go in and look at that little +head...." + + + + +THE MOVING FINGER + + +The news of Mrs. Grancy's death came to me with the shock of an immense +blunder--one of fate's most irretrievable acts of vandalism. It was as +though all sorts of renovating forces had been checked by the clogging of +that one wheel. Not that Mrs. Grancy contributed any perceptible momentum +to the social machine: her unique distinction was that of filling to +perfection her special place in the world. So many people are like +badly-composed statues, over-lapping their niches at one point and leaving +them vacant at another. Mrs. Grancy's niche was her husband's life; and if +it be argued that the space was not large enough for its vacancy to leave a +very big gap, I can only say that, at the last resort, such dimensions must +be determined by finer instruments than any ready-made standard of utility. +Ralph Grancy's was in short a kind of disembodied usefulness: one of those +constructive influences that, instead of crystallizing into definite forms, +remain as it were a medium for the development of clear thinking and fine +feeling. He faithfully irrigated his own dusty patch of life, and the +fruitful moisture stole far beyond his boundaries. If, to carry on the +metaphor, Grancy's life was a sedulously-cultivated enclosure, his wife was +the flower he had planted in its midst--the embowering tree, rather, which +gave him rest and shade at its foot and the wind of dreams in its upper +branches. + +We had all--his small but devoted band of followers--known a moment when it +seemed likely that Grancy would fail us. We had watched him pitted against +one stupid obstacle after another--ill-health, poverty, misunderstanding +and, worst of all for a man of his texture, his first wife's soft insidious +egotism. We had seen him sinking under the leaden embrace of her affection +like a swimmer in a drowning clutch; but just as we despaired he had always +come to the surface again, blinded, panting, but striking out fiercely for +the shore. When at last her death released him it became a question as to +how much of the man she had carried with her. Left alone, he revealed numb +withered patches, like a tree from which a parasite has been stripped. But +gradually he began to put out new leaves; and when he met the lady who +was to become his second wife--his one _real_ wife, as his friends +reckoned--the whole man burst into flower. + +The second Mrs. Grancy was past thirty when he married her, and it was +clear that she had harvested that crop of middle joy which is rooted in +young despair. But if she had lost the surface of eighteen she had kept +its inner light; if her cheek lacked the gloss of immaturity her eyes were +young with the stored youth of half a life-time. Grancy had first known her +somewhere in the East--I believe she was the sister of one of our consuls +out there--and when he brought her home to New York she came among us as +a stranger. The idea of Grancy's remarriage had been a shock to us all. +After one such calcining most men would have kept out of the fire; but we +agreed that he was predestined to sentimental blunders, and we awaited +with resignation the embodiment of his latest mistake. Then Mrs. Grancy +came--and we understood. She was the most beautiful and the most complete +of explanations. We shuffled our defeated omniscience out of sight and gave +it hasty burial under a prodigality of welcome. For the first time in years +we had Grancy off our minds. "He'll do something great now!" the least +sanguine of us prophesied; and our sentimentalist emended: "He _has_ +done it--in marrying her!" + +It was Claydon, the portrait-painter, who risked this hyperbole; and who +soon afterward, at the happy husband's request, prepared to defend it in a +portrait of Mrs. Grancy. We were all--even Claydon--ready to concede that +Mrs. Grancy's unwontedness was in some degree a matter of environment. Her +graces were complementary and it needed the mate's call to reveal the flash +of color beneath her neutral-tinted wings. But if she needed Grancy to +interpret her, how much greater was the service she rendered him! Claydon +professionally described her as the right frame for him; but if she defined +she also enlarged, if she threw the whole into perspective she also cleared +new ground, opened fresh vistas, reclaimed whole areas of activity that had +run to waste under the harsh husbandry of privation. This interaction of +sympathies was not without its visible expression. Claydon was not alone +in maintaining that Grancy's presence--or indeed the mere mention of his +name--had a perceptible effect on his wife's appearance. It was as though a +light were shifted, a curtain drawn back, as though, to borrow another of +Claydon's metaphors, Love the indefatigable artist were perpetually seeking +a happier "pose" for his model. In this interpretative light Mrs. Grancy +acquired the charm which makes some women's faces like a book of which +the last page is never turned. There was always something new to read in +her eyes. What Claydon read there--or at least such scattered hints of +the ritual as reached him through the sanctuary doors--his portrait in +due course declared to us. When the picture was exhibited it was at once +acclaimed as his masterpiece; but the people who knew Mrs. Grancy smiled +and said it was flattered. Claydon, however, had not set out to paint +_their_ Mrs. Grancy--or ours even--but Ralph's; and Ralph knew his own +at a glance. At the first confrontation he saw that Claydon had understood. +As for Mrs. Grancy, when the finished picture was shown to her she turned +to the painter and said simply: "Ah, you've done me facing the east!" + +The picture, then, for all its value, seemed a mere incident in the +unfolding of their double destiny, a foot-note to the illuminated text of +their lives. It was not till afterward that it acquired the significance +of last words spoken on a threshold never to be recrossed. Grancy, a year +after his marriage, had given up his town house and carried his bliss an +hour's journey away, to a little place among the hills. His various duties +and interests brought him frequently to New York but we necessarily saw him +less often than when his house had served as the rallying-point of kindred +enthusiasms. It seemed a pity that such an influence should be withdrawn, +but we all felt that his long arrears of happiness should be paid in +whatever coin he chose. The distance from which the fortunate couple +radiated warmth on us was not too great for friendship to traverse; and our +conception of a glorified leisure took the form of Sundays spent in the +Grancys' library, with its sedative rural outlook, and the portrait of Mrs. +Grancy illuminating its studious walls. The picture was at its best in that +setting; and we used to accuse Claydon of visiting Mrs. Grancy in order to +see her portrait. He met this by declaring that the portrait _was_ +Mrs. Grancy; and there were moments when the statement seemed unanswerable. +One of us, indeed--I think it must have been the novelist--said that +Clayton had been saved from falling in love with Mrs. Grancy only by +falling in love with his picture of her; and it was noticeable that he, to +whom his finished work was no more than the shed husk of future effort, +showed a perennial tenderness for this one achievement. We smiled afterward +to think how often, when Mrs. Grancy was in the room, her presence +reflecting itself in our talk like a gleam of sky in a hurrying current, +Claydon, averted from the real woman, would sit as it were listening to the +picture. His attitude, at the time, seemed only a part of the unusualness +of those picturesque afternoons, when the most familiar combinations of +life underwent a magical change. Some human happiness is a landlocked lake; +but the Grancys' was an open sea, stretching a buoyant and illimitable +surface to the voyaging interests of life. There was room and to spare on +those waters for all our separate ventures; and always beyond the sunset, +a mirage of the fortunate isles toward which our prows bent. + + +II + +It was in Rome that, three years later, I heard of her death. The notice +said "suddenly"; I was glad of that. I was glad too--basely perhaps--to be +away from Grancy at a time when silence must have seemed obtuse and speech +derisive. + +I was still in Rome when, a few months afterward, he suddenly arrived +there. He had been appointed secretary of legation at Constantinople and +was on the way to his post. He had taken the place, he said frankly, "to +get away." Our relations with the Porte held out a prospect of hard work, +and that, he explained, was what he needed. He could never be satisfied to +sit down among the ruins. I saw that, like most of us in moments of extreme +moral tension, he was playing a part, behaving as he thought it became a +man to behave in the eye of disaster. The instinctive posture of grief is +a shuffling compromise between defiance and prostration; and pride feels +the need of striking a worthier attitude in face of such a foe. Grancy, by +nature musing and retrospective, had chosen the rle of the man of action, +who answers blow for blow and opposes a mailed front to the thrusts of +destiny; and the completeness of the equipment testified to his inner +weakness. We talked only of what we were not thinking of, and parted, after +a few days, with a sense of relief that proved the inadequacy of friendship +to perform, in such cases, the office assigned to it by tradition. + +Soon afterward my own work called me home, but Grancy remained several +years in Europe. International diplomacy kept its promise of giving +him work to do, and during the year in which he acted as _charg +d'affaires_ he acquitted himself, under trying conditions, with +conspicuous zeal and discretion. A political redistribution of matter +removed him from office just as he had proved his usefulness to the +government; and the following summer I heard that he had come home and +was down at his place in the country. + +On my return to town I wrote him and his reply came by the next post. He +answered as it were in his natural voice, urging me to spend the following +Sunday with him, and suggesting that I should bring down any of the old +set who could be persuaded to join me. I thought this a good sign, and +yet--shall I own it?--I was vaguely disappointed. Perhaps we are apt to +feel that our friends' sorrows should be kept like those historic monuments +from which the encroaching ivy is periodically removed. + +That very evening at the club I ran across Claydon. I told him of Grancy's +invitation and proposed that we should go down together; but he pleaded an +engagement. I was sorry, for I had always felt that he and I stood nearer +Ralph than the others, and if the old Sundays were to be renewed I should +have preferred that we two should spend the first alone with him. I said as +much to Claydon and offered to fit my time to his; but he met this by a +general refusal. + +"I don't want to go to Grancy's," he said bluntly. I waited a moment, but +he appended no qualifying clause. + +"You've seen him since he came back?" I finally ventured. + +Claydon nodded. + +"And is he so awfully bad?" + +"Bad? No: he's all right." + +"All right? How can he be, unless he's changed beyond all recognition?" + +"Oh, you'll recognize _him_," said Claydon, with a puzzling deflection +of emphasis. + +His ambiguity was beginning to exasperate me, and I felt myself shut out +from some knowledge to which I had as good a right as he. + +"You've been down there already, I suppose?" + +"Yes; I've been down there." + +"And you've done with each other--the partnership is dissolved?" + +"Done with each other? I wish to God we had!" He rose nervously and tossed +aside the review from which my approach had diverted him. "Look here," +he said, standing before me, "Ralph's the best fellow going and there's +nothing under heaven I wouldn't do for him--short of going down there +again." And with that he walked out of the room. + +Claydon was incalculable enough for me to read a dozen different meanings +into his words; but none of my interpretations satisfied me. I determined, +at any rate, to seek no farther for a companion; and the next Sunday I +travelled down to Grancy's alone. He met me at the station and I saw at +once that he had changed since our last meeting. Then he had been in +fighting array, but now if he and grief still housed together it was +no longer as enemies. Physically the transformation was as marked but +less reassuring. If the spirit triumphed the body showed its scars. At +five-and-forty he was gray and stooping, with the tired gait of an old man. +His serenity, however, was not the resignation of age. I saw that he did +not mean to drop out of the game. Almost immediately he began to speak of +our old interests; not with an effort, as at our former meeting, but simply +and naturally, in the tone of a man whose life has flowed back into its +normal channels. I remembered, with a touch of self-reproach, how I had +distrusted his reconstructive powers; but my admiration for his reserved +force was now tinged by the sense that, after all, such happiness as his +ought to have been paid with his last coin. The feeling grew as we neared +the house and I found how inextricably his wife was interwoven with my +remembrance of the place: how the whole scene was but an extension of that +vivid presence. + +Within doors nothing was changed, and my hand would have dropped without +surprise into her welcoming clasp. It was luncheon-time, and Grancy led me +at once to the dining-room, where the walls, the furniture, the very plate +and porcelain, seemed a mirror in which a moment since her face had been +reflected. I wondered whether Grancy, under the recovered tranquillity +of his smile, concealed the same sense of her nearness, saw perpetually +between himself and the actual her bright unappeasable ghost. He spoke of +her once or twice, in an easy incidental way, and her name seemed to hang +in the air after he had uttered it, like a chord that continues to vibrate. +If he felt her presence it was evidently as an enveloping medium, the moral +atmosphere in which he breathed. I had never before known how completely +the dead may survive. + +After luncheon we went for a long walk through the autumnal fields and +woods, and dusk was falling when we re-entered the house. Grancy led the +way to the library, where, at this hour, his wife had always welcomed +us back to a bright fire and a cup of tea. The room faced the west, and +held a clear light of its own after the rest of the house had grown dark. +I remembered how young she had looked in this pale gold light, which +irradiated her eyes and hair, or silhouetted her girlish outline as she +passed before the windows. Of all the rooms the library was most peculiarly +hers; and here I felt that her nearness might take visible shape. Then, all +in a moment, as Grancy opened the door, the feeling vanished and a kind +of resistance met me on the threshold. I looked about me. Was the room +changed? Had some desecrating hand effaced the traces of her presence? No; +here too the setting was undisturbed. My feet sank into the same deep-piled +Daghestan; the bookshelves took the firelight on the same rows of rich +subdued bindings; her armchair stood in its old place near the tea-table; +and from the opposite wall her face confronted me. + +Her face--but _was_ it hers? I moved nearer and stood looking up at +the portrait. Grancy's glance had followed mine and I heard him move to my +side. + +"You see a change in it?" he said. + +"What does it mean?" I asked. + +"It means--that five years have passed." + +"Over _her_?" + +"Why not?--Look at me!" He pointed to his gray hair and furrowed temples. +"What do you think kept _her_ so young? It was happiness! But now--" +he looked up at her with infinite tenderness. "I like her better so," he +said. "It's what she would have wished." + +"Have wished?" + +"That we should grow old together. Do you think she would have wanted to be +left behind?" + +I stood speechless, my gaze travelling from his worn grief-beaten features +to the painted face above. It was not furrowed like his; but a veil +of years seemed to have descended on it. The bright hair had lost its +elasticity, the cheek its clearness, the brow its light: the whole woman +had waned. + +Grancy laid his hand on my arm. "You don't like it?" he said sadly. + +"Like it? I--I've lost her!" I burst out. + +"And I've found her," he answered. + +"In _that_?" I cried with a reproachful gesture. + +"Yes; in that." He swung round on me almost defiantly. "The other had +become a sham, a lie! This is the way she would have looked--does look, I +mean. Claydon ought to know, oughtn't he?" + +I turned suddenly. "Did Claydon do this for you?" + +Grancy nodded. + +"Since your return?" + +"Yes. I sent for him after I'd been back a week--." He turned away and gave +a thrust to the smouldering fire. I followed, glad to leave the picture +behind me. Grancy threw himself into a chair near the hearth, so that the +light fell on his sensitive variable face. He leaned his head back, shading +his eyes with his hand, and began to speak. + + +III + +"You fellows knew enough of my early history to A guess what my second +marriage meant to me. I say guess, because no one could understand--really. +I've always had a feminine streak in me, I suppose: the need of a pair of +eyes that should see with me, of a pulse that should keep time with mine. +Life is a big thing, of course; a magnificent spectacle; but I got so tired +of looking at it alone! Still, it's always good to live, and I had plenty +of happiness--of the evolved kind. What I'd never had a taste of was the +simple inconscient sort that one breathes in like the air.... + +"Well--I met her. It was like finding the climate in which I was meant to +live. You know what she was--how indefinitely she multiplied one's points +of contact with life, how she lit up the caverns and bridged the abysses! +Well, I swear to you (though I suppose the sense of all that was latent in +me) that what I used to think of on my way home at the end of the day, was +simply that when I opened this door she'd be sitting over there, with the +lamp-light falling in a particular way on one little curl in her neck.... +When Claydon painted her he caught just the look she used to lift to mine +when I came in--I've wondered, sometimes, at his knowing how she looked +when she and I were alone.--How I rejoiced in that picture! I used to say +to her, 'You're my prisoner now--I shall never lose you. If you grew tired +of me and left me you'd leave your real self there on the wall!' It was +always one of our jokes that she was going to grow tired of me-- + +"Three years of it--and then she died. It was so sudden that there was +no change, no diminution. It was as if she had suddenly become fixed, +immovable, like her own portrait: as if Time had ceased at its happiest +hour, just as Claydon had thrown down his brush one day and said, 'I can't +do better than that.' + +"I went away, as you know, and stayed over there five years. I worked as +hard as I knew how, and after the first black months a little light stole +in on me. From thinking that she would have been interested in what I was +doing I came to feel that she _was_ interested--that she was there and +that she knew. I'm not talking any psychical jargon--I'm simply trying to +express the sense I had that an influence so full, so abounding as hers +couldn't pass like a spring shower. We had so lived into each other's +hearts and minds that the consciousness of what she would have thought +and felt illuminated all I did. At first she used to come back shyly, +tentatively, as though not sure of finding me; then she stayed longer and +longer, till at last she became again the very air I breathed.... There +were bad moments, of course, when her nearness mocked me with the loss of +the real woman; but gradually the distinction between the two was effaced +and the mere thought of her grew warm as flesh and blood. + +"Then I came home. I landed in the morning and came straight down here. The +thought of seeing her portrait possessed me and my heart beat like a +lover's as I opened the library door. It was in the afternoon and the room +was full of light. It fell on her picture--the picture of a young and +radiant woman. She smiled at me coldly across the distance that divided us. +I had the feeling that she didn't even recognize me. And then I caught +sight of myself in the mirror over there--a gray-haired broken man whom she +had never known! + +"For a week we two lived together--the strange woman and the strange man. +I used to sit night after night and question her smiling face; but no +answer ever came. What did she know of me, after all? We were irrevocably +separated by the five years of life that lay between us. At times, as I +sat here, I almost grew to hate her; for her presence had driven away my +gentle ghost, the real wife who had wept, aged, struggled with me during +those awful years.... It was the worst loneliness I've ever known. Then, +gradually, I began to notice a look of sadness in the picture's eyes; a +look that seemed to say: 'Don't you see that _I_ am lonely too?' And +all at once it came over me how she would have hated to be left behind! I +remembered her comparing life to a heavy book that could not be read with +ease unless two people held it together; and I thought how impatiently her +hand would have turned the pages that divided us!--So the idea came to me: +'It's the picture that stands between us; the picture that is dead, and not +my wife. To sit in this room is to keep watch beside a corpse.' As this +feeling grew on me the portrait became like a beautiful mausoleum in which +she had been buried alive: I could hear her beating against the painted +walls and crying to me faintly for help.... + +"One day I found I couldn't stand it any longer and I sent for Claydon. He +came down and I told him what I'd been through and what I wanted him to do. +At first he refused point-blank to touch the picture. The next morning I +went off for a long tramp, and when I came home I found him sitting here +alone. He looked at me sharply for a moment and then he said: 'I've changed +my mind; I'll do it.' I arranged one of the north rooms as a studio and he +shut himself up there for a day; then he sent for me. The picture stood +there as you see it now--it was as though she'd met me on the threshold and +taken me in her arms! I tried to thank him, to tell him what it meant to +me, but he cut me short. + +"'There's an up train at five, isn't there?' he asked. 'I'm booked for a +dinner to-night. I shall just have time to make a bolt for the station and +you can send my traps after me.' I haven't seen him since. + +"I can guess what it cost him to lay hands on his masterpiece; but, after +all, to him it was only a picture lost, to me it was my wife regained!" + + +IV + +After that, for ten years or more, I watched the strange spectacle of a +life of hopeful and productive effort based on the structure of a dream. +There could be no doubt to those who saw Grancy during this period that +he drew his strength and courage from the sense of his wife's mystic +participation in his task. When I went back to see him a few months later I +found the portrait had been removed from the library and placed in a small +study up-stairs, to which he had transferred his desk and a few books. He +told me he always sat there when he was alone, keeping the library for his +Sunday visitors. Those who missed the portrait of course made no comment on +its absence, and the few who were in his secret respected it. Gradually all +his old friends had gathered about him and our Sunday afternoons regained +something of their former character; but Claydon never reappeared among us. + +As I look back now I see that Grancy must have been failing from the time +of his return home. His invincible spirit belied and disguised the signs of +weakness that afterward asserted themselves in my remembrance of him. He +seemed to have an inexhaustible fund of life to draw on, and more than one +of us was a pensioner on his superfluity. + +Nevertheless, when I came back one summer from my European holiday and +heard that he had been at the point of death, I understood at once that we +had believed him well only because he wished us to. + +I hastened down to the country and found him midway in a slow +convalescence. I felt then that he was lost to us and he read my thought at +a glance. + +"Ah," he said, "I'm an old man now and no mistake. I suppose we shall have +to go half-speed after this; but we shan't need towing just yet!" + +The plural pronoun struck me, and involuntarily I looked up at Mrs. +Grancy's portrait. Line by line I saw my fear reflected in it. It was the +face of a woman who knows that her husband is dying. My heart stood still +at the thought of what Claydon had done. + +Grancy had followed my glance. "Yes, it's changed her," he said quietly. +"For months, you know, it was touch and go with me--we had a long fight of +it, and it was worse for her than for me." After a pause he added: "Claydon +has been very kind; he's so busy nowadays that I seldom see him, but when I +sent for him the other day he came down at once." + +I was silent and we spoke no more of Grancy's illness; but when I took +leave it seemed like shutting him in alone with his death-warrant. + +The next time I went down to see him he looked much better. It was a Sunday +and he received me in the library, so that I did not see the portrait +again. He continued to improve and toward spring we began to feel that, as +he had said, he might yet travel a long way without being towed. + +One evening, on returning to town after a visit which had confirmed my +sense of reassurance, I found Claydon dining alone at the club. He asked me +to join him and over the coffee our talk turned to his work. + +"If you're not too busy," I said at length, "you ought to make time to go +down to Grancy's again." + +He looked up quickly. "Why?" he asked. + +"Because he's quite well again," I returned with a touch of cruelty. "His +wife's prognostications were mistaken." + +Claydon stared at me a moment. "Oh, _she_ knows," he affirmed with a +smile that chilled me. + +"You mean to leave the portrait as it is then?" I persisted. + +He shrugged his shoulders. "He hasn't sent for me yet!" + +A waiter came up with the cigars and Claydon rose and joined another group. + +It was just a fortnight later that Grancy's housekeeper telegraphed for me. +She met me at the station with the news that he had been "taken bad" and +that the doctors were with him. I had to wait for some time in the deserted +library before the medical men appeared. They had the baffled manner of +empirics who have been superseded by the great Healer; and I lingered only +long enough to hear that Grancy was not suffering and that my presence +could do him no harm. + +I found him seated in his arm-chair in the little study. He held out his +hand with a smile. + +"You see she was right after all," he said. + +"She?" I repeated, perplexed for the moment. + +"My wife." He indicated the picture. "Of course I knew she had no hope from +the first. I saw that"--he lowered his voice--"after Claydon had been here. +But I wouldn't believe it at first!" + +I caught his hands in mine. "For God's sake don't believe it now!" I +adjured him. + +He shook his head gently. "It's too late," he said. "I might have known +that she knew." + +"But, Grancy, listen to me," I began; and then I stopped. What could I say +that would convince him? There was no common ground of argument on which we +could meet; and after all it would be easier for him to die feeling that +she _had_ known. Strangely enough, I saw that Claydon had missed his +mark.... + + +V + +Grancy's will named me as one of his executors; and my associate, having +other duties on his hands, begged me to assume the task of carrying out our +friend's wishes. This placed me under the necessity of informing Claydon +that the portrait of Mrs. Grancy had been bequeathed to him; and he replied +by the next post that he would send for the picture at once. I was staying +in the deserted house when the portrait was taken away; and as the door +closed on it I felt that Grancy's presence had vanished too. Was it his +turn to follow her now, and could one ghost haunt another? + +After that, for a year or two, I heard nothing more of the picture, and +though I met Claydon from time to time we had little to say to each other. +I had no definable grievance against the man and I tried to remember that +he had done a fine thing in sacrificing his best picture to a friend; but +my resentment had all the tenacity of unreason. + +One day, however, a lady whose portrait he had just finished begged me +to go with her to see it. To refuse was impossible, and I went with the +less reluctance that I knew I was not the only friend she had invited. +The others were all grouped around the easel when I entered, and after +contributing my share to the chorus of approval I turned away and began +to stroll about the studio. Claydon was something of a collector and his +things were generally worth looking at. The studio was a long tapestried +room with a curtained archway at one end. The curtains were looped back, +showing a smaller apartment, with books and flowers and a few fine bits of +bronze and porcelain. The tea-table standing in this inner room proclaimed +that it was open to inspection, and I wandered in. A _bleu poudr_ +vase first attracted me; then I turned to examine a slender bronze +Ganymede, and in so doing found myself face to face with Mrs. Grancy's +portrait. I stared up at her blankly and she smiled back at me in all +the recovered radiance of youth. The artist had effaced every trace of +his later touches and the original picture had reappeared. It throned +alone on the panelled wall, asserting a brilliant supremacy over its +carefully-chosen surroundings. I felt in an instant that the whole room was +tributary to it: that Claydon had heaped his treasures at the feet of the +woman he loved. Yes--it was the woman he had loved and not the picture; and +my instinctive resentment was explained. + +Suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder. + +"Ah, how could you?" I cried, turning on him. + +"How could I?" he retorted. "How could I _not_? Doesn't she belong to +me now?" + +I moved away impatiently. + +"Wait a moment," he said with a detaining gesture. "The others have gone +and I want to say a word to you.--Oh, I know what you've thought of me--I +can guess! You think I killed Grancy, I suppose?" + +I was startled by his sudden vehemence. "I think you tried to do a cruel +thing," I said. + +"Ah--what a little way you others see into life!" he murmured. "Sit down a +moment--here, where we can look at her--and I'll tell you." + +He threw himself on the ottoman beside me and sat gazing up at the picture, +with his hands clasped about his knee. + +"Pygmalion," he began slowly, "turned his statue into a real woman; +_I_ turned my real woman into a picture. Small compensation, you +think--but you don't know how much of a woman belongs to you after you've +painted her!--Well, I made the best of it, at any rate--I gave her the best +I had in me; and she gave me in return what such a woman gives by merely +being. And after all she rewarded me enough by making me paint as I shall +never paint again! There was one side of her, though, that was mine alone, +and that was her beauty; for no one else understood it. To Grancy even +it was the mere expression of herself--what language is to thought. Even +when he saw the picture he didn't guess my secret--he was so sure she was +all his! As though a man should think he owned the moon because it was +reflected in the pool at his door-- + +"Well--when he came home and sent for me to change the picture it was like +asking me to commit murder. He wanted me to make an old woman of her--of +her who had been so divinely, unchangeably young! As if any man who really +loved a woman would ask her to sacrifice her youth and beauty for his sake! +At first I told him I couldn't do it--but afterward, when he left me alone +with the picture, something queer happened. I suppose it was because I was +always so confoundedly fond of Grancy that it went against me to refuse +what he asked. Anyhow, as I sat looking up at her, she seemed to say, 'I'm +not yours but his, and I want you to make me what he wishes." And so I did +it. I could have cut my hand off when the work was done--I daresay he told +you I never would go back and look at it. He thought I was too busy--he +never understood.... + +"Well--and then last year he sent for me again--you remember. It was after +his illness, and he told me he'd grown twenty years older and that he +wanted her to grow older too--he didn't want her to be left behind. The +doctors all thought he was going to get well at that time, and he thought +so too; and so did I when I first looked at him. But when I turned to +the picture--ah, now I don't ask you to believe me; but I swear it was +_her_ face that told me he was dying, and that she wanted him to know +it! She had a message for him and she made me deliver it." + +He rose abruptly and walked toward the portrait; then he sat down beside me +again. + +"Cruel? Yes, it seemed so to me at first; and this time, if I resisted, +it was for _his_ sake and not for mine. But all the while I felt her +eyes drawing me, and gradually she made me understand. If she'd been there +in the flesh (she seemed to say) wouldn't she have seen before any of us +that he was dying? Wouldn't he have read the news first in her face? And +wouldn't it be horrible if now he should discover it instead in strange +eyes?--Well--that was what she wanted of me and I did it--I kept them +together to the last!" He looked up at the picture again. "But now she +belongs to me," he repeated.... + + + + +THE CONFESSIONAL + + +When I was a young man I thought a great deal of local color. At that +time it was still a pigment of recent discovery, and supposed to have +a peculiarly stimulating effect on the mental eye. As an aid to the +imagination its value was perhaps overrated; but as an object of pursuit +to that vagrant faculty, it had all the merits claimed for it. I certainly +never hunted any game better worth my powder; and to a young man with rare +holidays and long working hours, its value was enhanced by the fact that +one might bring it down at any turn, if only one kept one's eye alert and +one's hand on the trigger. + +Even the large manufacturing city where, for some years, my young +enthusiasms were chained to an accountant's desk, was not without its +romantic opportunities. Many of the mill-hands at Dunstable were Italians, +and a foreign settlement had formed itself in that unsavory and unsanitary +portion of the town known as the Point. The Point, like more aristocratic +communities, had its residential and commercial districts, its church, its +theatre and its restaurant. When the craving for local color was on me it +was my habit to resort to the restaurant, a low-browed wooden building with +the appetizing announcement: + +"_Aristi di montone_" + +pasted in one of its fly-blown window-panes. Here the consumption of tough +macaroni or of an ambiguous _frittura_ sufficed to transport me to the +Cappello d'Oro in Venice, while my cup of coffee and a wasp-waisted cigar +with a straw in it turned my greasy table-cloth into the marble top of +one of the little round tables under the arcade of the Caff Pedrotti at +Padua. This feat of the imagination was materially aided by Agostino, the +hollow-eyed and low-collared waiter, whose slimy napkin never lost its +Latin flourish and whose zeal for my comfort was not infrequently displayed +by his testing the warmth of my soup with his finger. Through Agostino I +became acquainted with the inner history of the colony, heard the details +of its feuds and vendettas, and learned to know by sight the leading +characters in these domestic dramas. + +The restaurant was frequented by the chief personages of the community: +the overseer of the Italian hands at the Meriton Mills, the doctor, his +wife the _levatrice_ (a plump Neapolitan with greasy ringlets, a plush +picture-hat, and a charm against the evil-eye hanging in a crease of her +neck) and lastly by Don Egidio, the _parocco_ of the little church +across the street. The doctor and his wife came only on feast days, but +the overseer and Don Egidio were regular patrons. The former was a quiet +saturnine-looking man, of accomplished manners but reluctant speech, and I +depended for my diversion chiefly on Don Egidio, whose large loosely-hung +lips were always ajar for conversation. The remarks issuing from them +were richly tinged by the gutturals of the Bergamasque dialect, and it +needed but a slight acquaintance with Italian types to detect the Lombard +peasant under the priest's rusty cassock. This inference was confirmed +by Don Egidio's telling me that he came from a village of Val Camonica, +the radiant valley which extends northward from the lake of Iseo to +the Adamello glaciers. His step-father had been a laborer on one of +the fruit-farms of a Milanese count who owned large estates in the Val +Camonica; and that gentleman, taking a fancy to the lad, whom he had seen +at work in his orchards, had removed him to his villa on the lake of Iseo +and had subsequently educated him for the Church. + +It was doubtless to this picturesque accident that Don Egidio owed the +mingling of ease and simplicity that gave an inimitable charm to his +stout shabby presence. It was as though some wild mountain-fruit had been +transplanted to the Count's orchards and had mellowed under cultivation +without losing its sylvan flavor. I have never seen the social art carried +farther without suggestion of artifice. The fact that Don Egidio's +amenities were mainly exercised on the mill-hands composing his parish +proved the genuineness of his gift. It is easier to simulate gentility +among gentlemen than among navvies; and the plain man is a touchstone who +draws out all the alloy in the gold. + +Among his parishioners Don Egidio ruled with the cheerful despotism of the +good priest. On cardinal points he was inflexible, but in minor matters he +had that elasticity of judgment which enables the Catholic discipline to +fit itself to every inequality of the human conscience. There was no appeal +from his verdict; but his judgment-seat was a revolving chair from which he +could view the same act at various angles. His influence was acknowledged +not only by his flock, but by the policeman at the corner, the "bar-keep'" +in the dive, the ward politician in the corner grocery. The general verdict +of Dunstable was that the Point would have been hell without the priest. +It was perhaps not precisely heaven with him; but such light of the upper +sky as pierced its murky atmosphere was reflected from Don Egidio's +countenance. It is hardly possible for any one to exercise such influence +without taking pleasure in it; and on the whole the priest was probably +a contented man; though it does not follow that he was a happy one. On +this point the first stages of our acquaintance yielded much food for +conjecture. At first sight Don Egidio was the image of cheerfulness. He had +all the physical indications of a mind at ease: the leisurely rolling gait, +the ready laugh, the hospitable eye of the man whose sympathies are always +on the latch. It took me some time to discover under his surface garrulity +the impenetrable reticence of his profession, and under his enjoyment of +trifles a levelling melancholy which made all enjoyment trifling. Don +Egidio's aspect and conversation were so unsuggestive of psychological +complexities that I set down this trait to poverty or home-sickness. There +are few classes of men more frugal in tastes and habit than the village +priest in Italy; but Don Egidio, by his own account, had been introduced, +at an impressionable age, to a way of living that must have surpassed his +wildest dreams of self-indulgence. To whatever privations his parochial +work had since accustomed him, the influences of that earlier life were +too perceptible in his talk not to have made a profound impression on his +tastes; and he remained, for all his apostolic simplicity, the image of the +family priest who has his seat at the rich man's table. + +It chanced that I had used one of my short European holidays to explore +afoot the romantic passes connecting the Valtelline with the lake of Iseo; +and my remembrance of that enchanting region made it seem impossible +that Don Egidio should ever look without a reminiscent pang on the grimy +perspective of his parochial streets. The transition was too complete, too +ironical, from those rich glades and Titianesque acclivities to the brick +hovels and fissured sidewalks of the Point. + +This impression was confirmed when Don Egidio, in response to my urgent +invitation, paid his first visit to my modest lodgings. He called one +winter evening, when a wood-fire in its happiest humor was giving a +factitious lustre to my book-shelves and bringing out the values of the one +or two old prints and Chinese porcelains that accounted for the perennial +shabbiness of my wardrobe. + +"Ah," said he with a murmur of satisfaction, as he laid aside his shiny hat +and bulging umbrella, "it is a long time since I have been in a _casa +signorile_." + +My remembrance of his own room (he lodged with the doctor and the +_levatrice_) saved this epithet from the suggestion of irony and kept +me silent while he sank into my arm-chair with the deliberation of a tired +traveller lowering himself gently into a warm bath. + +"Good! good!" he repeated, looking about him. "Books, porcelains, objects +of _virt_--I am glad to see that there are still such things in the +world!" And he turned a genial eye on the glass of Marsala that I had +poured out for him. + +Don Egidio was the most temperate of men and never exceeded his one glass; +but he liked to sit by the hour puffing at my Cabanas, which I suspected +him of preferring to the black weed of his native country. Under the +influence of my tobacco he became even more blandly garrulous, and I +sometimes fancied that of all the obligations of his calling none could +have placed such a strain on him as that of preserving the secrets of the +confessional. He often talked of his early life at the Count's villa, where +he had been educated with his patron's two sons till he was of age to be +sent to the seminary; and I could see that the years spent in simple and +familiar intercourse with his benefactors had been the most vivid chapter +in his experience. The Italian peasant's inarticulate tenderness for the +beauty of his birthplace had been specialized in him by contact with +cultivated tastes, and he could tell me not only that the Count had a +"stupendous" collection of pictures, but that the chapel of the villa +contained a sepulchral monument by Bambaja, and that the art-critics were +divided as to the authenticity of the Leonardo in the family palace at +Milan. + +On all these subjects he was inexhaustibly voluble; but there was one point +which he always avoided, and that was his reason for coming to America. I +remember the round turn with which he brought me up when I questioned him. + +"A priest," said he, "is a soldier and must obey orders like a soldier." +He set down his glass of Marsala and strolled across the room. "I had not +observed," he went on, "that you have here a photograph of the Sposalizio +of the Brera. What a picture! _ stupendo_!" and he turned back to his +seat and smilingly lit a fresh cigar. + +I saw at once that I had hit on a point where his native garrulity was +protected by the chain-mail of religious discipline that every Catholic +priest wears beneath his cassock. I had too much respect for my friend +to wish to penetrate his armor, and now and then I almost fancied he was +grateful to me for not putting his reticence to the test. + +Don Egidio must have been past sixty when I made his acquaintance; but it +was not till the close of an exceptionally harsh winter, some five or six +years after our first meeting, that I began to think of him as an old man. +It was as though the long-continued cold had cracked and shrivelled him. He +had grown bent and hollow-chested and his lower lip shook like an unhinged +door. The summer heat did little to revive him, and in September, when I +came home from my vacation, I found him just recovering from an attack of +pneumonia. That autumn he did not care to venture often into the night air, +and now and then I used to go and sit with him in his little room, to which +I had contributed the unheard-of luxuries of an easy-chair and a gas-stove. + +My engagements, however, made these visits infrequent, and several weeks +had elapsed without my seeing the _parocco_ when, one snowy November +morning, I ran across him in the railway-station. I was on my way to New +York for the day and had just time to wave a greeting to him as I jumped +into the railway-carriage; but a moment later, to my surprise, I saw him +stiffly clambering into the same train. I found him seated in the common +car, with his umbrella between his knees and a bundle done up in a red +cotton handkerchief on the seat at his side. The caution with which, at my +approach, he transferred this bundle to his arms caused me to glance at it +in surprise; and he answered my look by saying with a smile: + +"They are flowers for the dead--the most exquisite flowers--from the +greenhouses of Mr. Meriton--_si figuri_!" And he waved a descriptive +hand. "One of my lads, Gianpietro, is employed by the gardener there, and +every year on this day he brings me a beautiful bunch of flowers--for such +a purpose it is no sin," he added, with the charming Italian pliancy of +judgment. + +"And why are you travelling in this snowy weather, _signor parocco_?" +I asked, as he ended with a cough. + +He fixed me gravely with his simple shallow eye. "Because it is the day of +the dead, my son," he said, "and I go to place these on the grave of the +noblest man that ever lived." + +"You are going to New York?" + +"To Brooklyn--" + +I hesitated a moment, wishing to question him, yet uncertain whether his +replies were curtailed by the persistency of his cough or by the desire to +avoid interrogation. + +"This is no weather to be travelling with such a cough," I said at length. + +He made a deprecating gesture. + +"I have never missed the day--not once in eighteen years. But for me he +would have no one!" He folded his hands on his umbrella and looked away +from me to hide the trembling of his lip. + +I resolved on a last attempt to storm his confidence. "Your friend is +buried in Calvary cemetery?" + +He signed an assent. + +"That is a long way for you to go alone, _signor parocco_. The streets +are sure to be slippery and there is an icy wind blowing. Give me your +flowers and let me send them to the cemetery by a messenger. I give you my +word they shall reach their destination safely." + +He turned a quiet look on me. "My son, you are young," he said, "and you +don't know how the dead need us." He drew his breviary from his pocket and +opened it with a smile. "_Mi scusi?_" he murmured. + +The business which had called me to town obliged me to part from him as +soon as the train entered the station, and in my dash for the street I +left his unwieldy figure laboring far behind me through the crowd on the +platform. Before we separated, however, I had learned that he was returning +to Dunstable by the four o'clock train, and had resolved to despatch my +business in time to travel home with him. When I reached Wall Street I was +received with the news that the man I had appointed to meet was ill and +detained in the country. My business was "off" and I found myself with +the rest of the day at my disposal. I had no difficulty in deciding how +to employ my time. I was at an age when, in such contingencies, there is +always a feminine alternative; and even now I don't know how it was that, +on my way to a certain hospitable luncheon-table, I suddenly found myself +in a cab which was carrying me at full-speed to the Twenty-third Street +ferry. It was not till I had bought my ticket and seated myself in the +varnished tunnel of the ferry-boat that I was aware of having been diverted +from my purpose by an overmastering anxiety for Don Egidio. I rapidly +calculated that he had not more than an hour's advance on me, and that, +allowing for my greater agility and for the fact that I had a cab at my +call, I was likely to reach the cemetery in time to see him under shelter +before the gusts of sleet that were already sweeping across the river had +thickened to a snow-storm. + +At the gates of the cemetery I began to take a less sanguine view of my +attempt. The commemorative anniversary had filled the silent avenues +with visitors, and I felt the futility of my quest as I tried to fix the +gatekeeper's attention on my delineation of a stout Italian priest with a +bad cough and a bunch of flowers tied up in a red cotton handkerchief. The +gate-keeper showed that delusive desire to oblige that is certain to send +its victims in the wrong direction; but I had the presence of mind to go +exactly contrary to his indication, and thanks to this precaution I came, +after half an hour's search, on the figure of my poor _parocco_, +kneeling on the wet ground in one of the humblest by-ways of the great +necropolis. The mound before which he knelt was strewn with the spoils of +Mr. Meriton's conservatories, and on the weather-worn tablet at its head I +read the inscription: + +IL CONTE SIVIANO +DA MILANO. + +_Super flumina Babylonis, illic sedimus et flevimus._ + +So engrossed was Don Egidio that for some moments I stood behind him +unobserved; and when he rose and faced me, grief had left so little room +for any minor emotion that he looked at me almost without surprise. + +"Don Egidio," I said, "I have a carriage waiting for you at the gate. You +must come home with me." + +He nodded quietly and I drew his hand through my arm. + +He turned back to the grave. "One moment, my son," he said. "It may be for +the last time." He stood motionless, his eyes on the heaped-up flowers +which were already bruised and blackened by the cold. "To leave him +alone--after sixty years! But God is everywhere--" he murmured as I led him +away. + +On the journey home he did not care to talk, and my chief concern was to +keep him wrapped in my greatcoat and to see that his bed was made ready as +soon as I had restored him to his lodgings. The _levatrice_ brought a +quilted coverlet from her own room and hovered over him as gently as though +he had been of the sex to require her services; while Agostino, at my +summons, appeared with a bowl of hot soup that was heralded down the +street by a reviving waft of garlic. To these ministrations I left the +_parocco_, intending to call for news of him the next evening; but an +unexpected pressure of work kept me late at my desk, and the following day +some fresh obstacle delayed me. + +On the third afternoon, as I was leaving the office, an agate-eyed infant +from the Point hailed me with a message from the doctor. The _parocco_ +was worse and had asked for me. I jumped into the nearest car and ten +minutes later was running up the doctor's greasy stairs. + +To my dismay I found Don Egidio's room cold and untenanted; but I was +reassured a moment later by the appearance of the _levatrice_, who +announced that she had transferred the blessed man to her own apartment, +where he could have the sunlight and a good bed to lie in. There in fact +he lay, weak but smiling, in a setting which contrasted oddly enough with +his own monastic surroundings: a cheerful grimy room, hung with anecdotic +chromos, photographs of lady-patients proudly presenting their offspring +to the camera, and innumerable Neapolitan _santolini_ decked out with +shrivelled palm-leaves. + +The _levatrice_ whispered that the good man had the pleurisy, and +that, as she phrased it, he was nearing his last mile-stone. I saw that he +was in fact in a bad way, but his condition did not indicate any pressing +danger, and I had the presentiment that he would still, as the saying is, +put up a good fight. It was clear, however, that he knew what turn the +conflict must take, and the solemnity with which he welcomed me showed that +my summons was a part of that spiritual strategy with which the Catholic +opposes the surprise of death. + +"My son," he said, when the _levatrice_ had left us, "I have a favor +to ask you. You found me yesterday bidding good-bye to my best friend." +His cough interrupted him. "I have never told you," he went on, "the name +of the family in which I was brought up. It was Siviano, and that was +the grave of the Count's eldest son, with whom I grew up as a brother. +For eighteen years he has lain in that strange ground--_in terra +aliena_--and when I die, there will be no one to care for his grave." + +I saw what he waited for. "I will care for it, _signor parocco_." + +"I knew I should have your promise, my child; and what you promise you +keep. But my friend is a stranger to you--you are young and at your age +life is a mistress who kisses away sad memories. Why should you remember +the grave of a stranger? I cannot lay such a claim on you. But I will tell +you his story--and then I think that neither joy nor grief will let you +forget him; for when you rejoice you will remember how he sorrowed; and +when you sorrow the thought of him will be like a friend's hand in yours." + + +II + +You tell me (Don Egidio began) that you know our little lake; and if you +have seen it you will understand why it always used to remind me of the +"garden enclosed" of the Canticles. + +_Hortus inclusus; columba mea in foraminibus petr_: the words used +to come back to me whenever I returned from a day's journey across the +mountains, and looking down saw the blue lake far below, hidden in its +hills like a happy secret in a stern heart. We were never envious of +the glory of the great lakes. They are like the show pictures that some +nobleman hangs in his public gallery; but our Iseo is the treasure that +he hides in his inner chamber. + +You tell me you saw it in summer, when it looks up like a saint's eye, +reflecting the whole of heaven. It was then too that I first saw it. +My future friend, the old Count, had found me at work on one of his +fruit-farms up the valley, and hearing that I was ill-treated by my +step-father--a drunken pedlar from the Val Mastellone, whom my poor mother +a year or two earlier had come across at the fair of Lovere--he had taken +me home with him to Iseo. I used to serve mass in our hill-village of +Cerveno, and the village children called me "the little priest" because +when my work was done I often crept back to the church to get away from +my step-father's blows and curses. "I will make a real priest of him," +the Count declared; and that afternoon, perched on the box of his +travelling-carriage, I was whirled away from the dark scenes of my +childhood into a world, where, as it seemed to me, every one was as happy +as an angel on a _presepio_. + +I wonder if you remember the Count's villa? It lies on the shore of the +lake, facing the green knoll of Monte Isola, and overlooked by the village +of Siviano and by the old parish-church where I said mass for fifteen happy +years. The village hangs on a ledge of the mountain; but the villa dips its +foot in the lake, smiling at its reflection like a bather lingering on the +brink. What Paradise it seemed to me that day! In our church up the valley +there hung an old brown picture, with a Saint Sabastian in the foreground; +and behind him the most wonderful palace, with terraced gardens adorned +with statues and fountains, where fine folk in resplendent dresses walked +up and down without heeding the blessed martyr's pangs. The Count's villa, +with its terraces, its roses, its marble steps descending to the lake, +reminded me of that palace; only instead of being inhabited by wicked +people engrossed in their selfish pleasures it was the home of the kindest +friends that ever took a poor lad by the hand. + +The old Count was a widower when I first knew him. He had been twice +married, and his first wife had left him two children, a son and a +daughter. The eldest, Donna Marianna, was then a girl of twenty, who +kept her father's house and was a mother to the two lads. She was not +handsome or learned, and had no taste for the world; but she was like the +lavender-plant in a poor man's window--just a little gray flower, but a +sweetness that fills the whole house. Her brother, Count Roberto, had been +ailing from his birth, and was a studious lad with a melancholy musing face +such as you may see in some of Titian's portraits of young men. He looked +like an exiled prince dressed in mourning. There was one child by the +second marriage, Count Andrea, a boy of my own age, handsome as a Saint +George, but not as kind as the others. No doubt, being younger, he was less +able to understand why an uncouth peasant lad should have been brought to +his father's table; and the others were so fearful of hurting my feelings +that, but for his teasing, I might never have mended my clumsy manners or +learned how to behave in the presence of my betters. Count Andrea was not +sparing in such lessons, and Count Roberto, in spite of his weak arms, +chastised his brother roundly when he thought the discipline had been too +severe; but for my part it seemed to me natural enough that such a godlike +being should lord it over a poor clodhopper like myself. + +Well--I will not linger over the beginning of my new life for my story has +to do with its close. Only I should like to make you understand what the +change meant to me--an ignorant peasant lad, coming from hard words and +blows and a smoke-blackened hut in the hills to that great house full of +rare and beautiful things, and of beings who seemed to me even more rare +and beautiful. Do you wonder I was ready to kiss the ground they trod, and +would have given the last drop of my blood to serve them? + +In due course I was sent to the seminary at Lodi; and on holidays I used +to visit the family in Milan. Count Andrea was growing up to be one of +the handsomest young men imaginable, but a trifle wild; and the old Count +married him in haste to the daughter of a Venetian noble, who brought as +her dower a great estate in Istria. The Countess Gemma, as this lady was +called, was as light as thistledown and had an eye like a baby's; but while +she was cooing for the moon her pretty white hands were always stealing +toward something within reach that she had not been meant to have. The old +Count was not alert enough to follow these manoeuvres; and the Countess hid +her designs under a torrent of guileless chatter, as pick-pockets wear long +sleeves to conceal their movements. Her only fault, he used to say, was +that one of her aunts had married an Austrian; and this event having taken +place before she was born he laughingly acquitted her of any direct share +in it. She confirmed his good opinion of her by giving her husband two +sons; and Roberto showing no inclination to marry, these boys naturally +came to be looked on as the heirs of the house. + +Meanwhile I had finished my course of studies, and the old Count, on my +twenty-first birthday, had appointed me priest of the parish of Siviano. It +was the year of Count Andrea's marriage and there were great festivities at +the villa. Three years later the old Count died, to the sorrow of his two +eldest children. Donna Marianna and Count Roberto closed their apartments +in the palace at Milan and withdrew for a year to Siviano. It was then +that I first began to know my friend. Before that I had loved him without +understanding him; now I learned of what metal he was made. His bookish +tastes inclined him to a secluded way of living; and his younger brother +perhaps fancied that he would not care to assume the charge of the estate. +But if Andrea thought this he was disappointed. Roberto resolutely took up +the tradition of his father's rule, and, as if conscious of lacking the +old Count's easy way with the peasants, made up for it by a redoubled zeal +for their welfare. I have seen him toil for days to adjust some trifling +difficulty that his father would have set right with a ready word; like the +sainted bishop who, when a beggar asked him for a penny, cried out: "Alas, +my brother, I have not a penny in my purse; but here are two gold pieces, +if they can be made to serve you instead!" We had many conferences over +the condition of his people, and he often sent me up the valley to look +into the needs of the peasantry on the fruit-farms. No grievance was too +trifling for him to consider it, no abuse too deep-seated for him to root +it out; and many an hour that other men of his rank would have given to +books or pleasure was devoted to adjusting a quarrel about boundary-lines +or to weighing the merits of a complaint against the tax-collector. I +often said that he was as much his people's priest as I; and he smiled and +answered that every landowner was a king and that in old days the king was +always a priest. + +Donna Marianna was urgent with him to marry, but he always declared that +he had a family in his tenantry, and that, as for a wife, she had never +let him feel the want of one. He had that musing temper which gives a man +a name for coldness; though in fact he may all the while be storing fuel +for a great conflagration. But to me he whispered another reason for not +marrying. A man, he said, does not take wife and rejoice while his mother +is on her death-bed; and Italy, his mother, lay dying, with the foreign +vultures waiting to tear her apart. + +You are too young to know anything of those days, my son; and how can any +one understand them who did not live through them? Italy lay dying indeed; +but Lombardy was her heart, and the heart still beat, and sent the faint +blood creeping to her cold extremities. Her torturers, weary of their +work, had allowed her to fall into a painless stupor; but just as she was +sinking from sleep to death, heaven sent Radetsky to scourge her back to +consciousness; and at the first sting of his lash she sprang maimed and +bleeding to her feet. + +Ah, those days, those days, my son! Italy--Italy--was the word on our +lips; but the thought in our hearts was just _Austria_. We clamored +for liberty, unity, the franchise; but under our breath we prayed only to +smite the white-coats. Remove the beam from our eye, we cried, and we shall +see our salvation clearly enough! We priests in the north were all liberals +and worked with the nobles and the men of letters. Gioberti was our +breviary and his Holiness the new Pope was soon to be the Tancred of our +crusade. But meanwhile, mind you, all this went on in silence, underground +as it were, while on the surface Lombardy still danced, feasted, married, +and took office under the Austrian. In the iron-mines up our valley there +used to be certain miners who stayed below ground for months at a time; +and, like one of these, Roberto remained buried in his purpose, while life +went its way overhead. Though I was not in his confidence I knew well +enough where his thoughts were, for he went among us with the eye of a +lover, the visionary look of one who hears a Voice. We all heard that +Voice, to be sure, mingling faintly with the other noises of life; but to +Roberto it was already as the roar of mighty waters, drowning every other +sound with its thunder. + +On the surface, as I have said, things looked smooth enough. An Austrian +cardinal throned in Milan and an Austrian-hearted Pope ruled in Rome. In +Lombardy, Austria couched like a beast of prey, ready to spring at our +throats if we stirred or struggled. The Moderates, to whose party Count +Roberto belonged, talked of prudence, compromise, the education of the +masses; but if their words were a velvet sheath their thought was a dagger. +For many years, as you know, the Milanese had maintained an outward show of +friendliness with their rulers. The nobles had accepted office under the +vice-roy, and in the past there had been frequent intermarriage between +the two aristocracies. But now, one by one, the great houses had closed +their doors against official society. Though some of the younger and more +careless, those who must dance and dine at any cost, still went to the +palace and sat beside the enemy at the opera, fashion was gradually taking +sides against them, and those who had once been laughed at as old fogeys +were now applauded as patriots. Among these, of course, was Count Roberto, +who for several years had refused to associate with the Austrians, and +had silently resented his easy-going brother's disregard of political +distinctions. Andrea and Gemma belonged to the moth tribe, who flock to +the brightest light; and Gemma's Istrian possessions, and her family's +connection with the Austrian nobility, gave them a pretext for fluttering +about the vice-regal candle. Roberto let them go their way, but his own +course was a tacit protest against their conduct. They were always welcome +at the palazzo Siviano; but he and Donna Marianna withdrew from society in +order to have an excuse for not showing themselves at the Countess Gemma's +entertainments. If Andrea and Gemma were aware of his disapproval they were +clever enough to ignore it; for the rich elder brother who paid their debts +and never meant to marry was too important a person to be quarrelled with +on political grounds. They seemed to think that if he married it would be +only to spite them; and they were persuaded that their future depended on +their giving him no cause to take such reprisals. I shall never be more +than a plain peasant at heart and I have little natural skill in discerning +hidden motives; but the experience of the confessional gives every priest +a certain insight into the secret springs of action, and I often wondered +that the worldly wisdom of Andrea and Gemma did not help them to a clearer +reading of their brother's character. For my part I knew that, in Roberto's +heart, no great passion could spring from a mean motive; and I had always +thought that if he ever loved any woman as he loved Italy, it must be from +his country's hand that he received his bride. And so it came about. + +Have you ever noticed, on one of those still autumn days before a storm, +how here and there a yellow leaf will suddenly detach itself from the bough +and whirl through the air as though some warning of the gale had reached +it? So it was then in Lombardy. All round was the silence of decay; but now +and then a word, a look, a trivial incident, fluttered ominously through +the stillness. It was in '45. Only a year earlier the glorious death of the +Bandiera brothers had sent a long shudder through Italy. In the Romagna, +Renzi and his comrades had tried to uphold by action the protest set forth +in the "Manifesto of Rimini"; and their failure had sowed the seed which +d'Azeglio and Cavour were to harvest. Everywhere the forces were silently +gathering; and nowhere was the hush more profound, the least reverberation +more audible, than in the streets of Milan. + +It was Count Roberto's habit to attend early mass in the Cathedral; and one +morning, as he was standing in the aisle, a young girl passed him with her +father. Roberto knew the father, a beggarly Milanese of the noble family of +Intelvi, who had cut himself off from his class by accepting an appointment +in one of the government offices. As the two went by he saw a group of +Austrian officers looking after the girl, and heard one of them say: "Such +a choice morsel as that is too good for slaves;" and another answer with a +laugh: "Yes, it's a dish for the master's table!" + +The girl heard too. She was as white as a wind-flower and he saw the words +come out on her cheek like the red mark from a blow. She whispered to +her father, but he shook his head and drew her away without so much as +a glance at the Austrians. Roberto heard mass and then hastened out and +placed himself in the porch of the Cathedral. A moment later the officers +appeared, and they too stationed themselves near the doorway. Presently the +girl came out on her father's arm. Her admirers stepped forward to greet +Intelvi; and the cringing wretch stood there exchanging compliments with +them, while their insolent stare devoured his daughter's beauty. She, +poor thing, shook like a leaf, and her eyes, in avoiding theirs, suddenly +encountered Roberto's. Her look was a wounded bird that flew to him for +shelter. He carried it away in his breast and its live warmth beat against +his heart. He thought that Italy had looked at him through those eyes; for +love is the wiliest of masqueraders and has a thousand disguises at his +command. + +Within a month Faustina Intelvi was his wife. Donna Marianna and I +rejoiced; for we knew he had chosen her because he loved her, and she +seemed to us almost worthy of such a choice. As for Count Andrea and his +wife, I leave you to guess what ingredients were mingled in the kiss with +which they welcomed the bride. They were all smiles at Roberto's marriage, +and had only words of praise for his wife. Donna Marianna, who had +sometimes taxed me with suspecting their motives, rejoiced in this fresh +proof of their magnanimity; but for my part I could have wished to see them +a little less kind. All such twilight fears, however, vanished in the flush +of my friend's happiness. Over some natures love steals gradually, as the +morning light widens across a valley; but it had flashed on Roberto like +the leap of dawn to a snow-peak. He walked the world with the wondering +step of a blind man suddenly restored to sight; and once he said to me with +a laugh: "Love makes a Columbus of every one of us!" + +And the Countess--? The Countess, my son, was eighteen, and her husband was +forty. Count Roberto had the heart of a poet, but he walked with a limp and +his skin was sallow. Youth plucks the fruit for its color rather than its +flavor; and first love does not serenade its mistress on a church-organ. In +Italy girls are married as land is sold; if two estates adjoin two lives +are united. As for the portionless girl, she is a knick-knack that goes to +the highest bidder. Faustina was handed over to her purchaser as if she +had been a picture for his gallery; and the transaction doubtless seemed +as natural to her as to her parents. She walked to the altar like an +Iphigenia; but pallor becomes a bride, and it looks well for a daughter to +weep on leaving her mother. Perhaps it would have been different if she had +guessed that the threshold of her new home was carpeted with love and its +four corners hung with tender thoughts of her; but her husband was a silent +man, who never called attention to his treasures. + +The great palace in Milan was a gloomy house for a girl to enter. Roberto +and his sister lived in it as if it had been a monastery, going nowhere and +receiving only those who labored for the Cause. To Faustina, accustomed to +the easy Austrian society, the Sunday evening receptions at the palazzo +Siviano must have seemed as dreary as a scientific congress. It pleased +Roberto to regard her as a victim of barbarian insolence, an embodiment of +his country desecrated by the desire of the enemy; but though, like any +handsome penniless girl, Faustina had now and then been exposed to a free +look or a familiar word, I doubt if she connected such incidents with the +political condition of Italy. She knew, of course, that in marrying Siviano +she was entering a house closed against the Austrian. One of Siviano's +first cares had been to pension his father-in-law, with the stipulation +that Intelvi should resign his appointment and give up all relations with +the government; and the old hypocrite, only too glad to purchase idleness +on such terms, embraced the liberal cause with a zeal which left his +daughter no excuse for half-heartedness. But he found it less easy than he +had expected to recover a footing among his own people. In spite of his +patriotic bluster the Milanese held aloof from him; and being the kind of +man who must always take his glass in company he gradually drifted back +to his old associates. It was impossible to forbid Faustina to visit her +parents; and in their house she breathed an air that was at least tolerant +of Austria. + +But I must not let you think that the young Countess appeared ungrateful or +unhappy. She was silent and shy, and it needed a more enterprising temper +than Roberto's to break down the barrier between them. They seemed to talk +to one another through a convent-grating, rather than across a hearth; but +if Roberto had asked more of her than she could give, outwardly she was +a model wife. She chose me at once as her confessor and I watched over +the first steps of her new life. Never was younger sister tenderer to her +elder than she to Donna Marianna; never was young wife more mindful of her +religious duties, kinder to her dependents, more charitable to the poor; +yet to be with her was like living in a room with shuttered windows. She +was always the caged bird, the transplanted flower: for all Roberto's care +she never bloomed or sang. + +Donna Marianna was the first to speak of it. "The child needs more light +and air," she said. + +"Light? Air?" Roberto repeated. "Does she not go to mass every morning? +Does she not drive on the Corso every evening?" + +Donna Marianna was not called clever, but her heart was wiser than most +women's heads. + +"At our age, brother," said she, "the windows of the mind face north and +look out on a landscape full of lengthening shadows. Faustina needs another +outlook. She is as pale as a hyacinth grown in a cellar." + +Roberto himself turned pale and I saw that she had uttered his own thought. + +"You want me to let her go to Gemma's!" he exclaimed. + +"Let her go wherever there is a little careless laughter." + +"Laughter--now!" he cried, with a gesture toward the sombre line of +portraits above his head. + +"Let her laugh while she can, my brother." + +That evening after dinner he called Faustina to him. + +"My child," he said, "go and put on your jewels. Your sister Gemma gives a +ball to-night and the carriage waits to take you there. I am too much of a +recluse to be at ease in such scenes, but I have sent word to your father +to go with you." + +Andrea and Gemma welcomed their young sister-in-law with effusion, and from +that time she was often in their company. Gemma forbade any mention of +politics in her drawing-room, and it was natural that Faustina should be +glad to escape from the solemn conclaves of the palazzo Siviano to a house +where life went as gaily as in that villa above Florence where Boccaccio's +careless story-tellers took refuge from the plague. But meanwhile the +political distemper was rapidly spreading, and in spite of Gemma's Austrian +affiliations it was no longer possible for her to receive the enemy openly. +It was whispered that her door was still ajar to her old friends; but +the rumor may have risen from the fact that one of the Austrian cavalry +officers stationed at Milan was her own cousin, the son of the aunt on +whose misalliance the old Count had so often bantered her. No one could +blame the Countess Gemma for not turning her own flesh and blood out of +doors; and the social famine to which the officers of the garrison were +reduced made it natural that young Welkenstern should press the claims of +consanguinity. + +All this must have reached Roberto's ears; but he made no sign and his wife +came and went as she pleased. When they returned the following year to the +old dusky villa at Siviano she was like the voice of a brook in a twilight +wood: one could not look at her without ransacking the spring for new +similes to paint her freshness. With Roberto it was different. I found him +older, more preoccupied and silent; but I guessed that his preoccupations +were political, for when his eye rested on his wife it cleared like the +lake when a cloud-shadow lifts from it. + +Count Andrea and his wife occupied an adjoining villa; and during the +_villeggiatura_ the two households lived almost as one family. +Roberto, however, was often absent in Milan, called thither on business of +which the nature was not hard to guess. Sometimes he brought back guests to +the villa; and on these occasions Faustina and Donna Marianna went to Count +Andrea's for the day. I have said that I was not in his confidence; but +he knew my sympathies were with the liberals and now and then he let fall +a word of the work going on underground. Meanwhile the new Pope had been +elected, and from Piedmont to Calabria we hailed in him the Banner that was +to lead our hosts to war. + +So time passed and we reached the last months of '47. The villa on Iseo had +been closed since the end of August. Roberto had no great liking for his +gloomy palace in Milan, and it had been his habit to spend nine months +of the year at Siviano; but he was now too much engrossed in his work to +remain away from Milan, and his wife and sister had joined him there as +soon as the midsummer heat was over. During the autumn he had called me +once or twice to the city to consult me on business connected with his +fruit-farms; and in the course of our talks he had sometimes let fall a +hint of graver matters. It was in July of that year that a troop of Croats +had marched into Ferrara, with muskets and cannon loaded. The lighted +matches of their cannon had fired the sleeping hate of Austria, and the +whole country now echoed the Lombard cry: "Out with the barbarian!" All +talk of adjustment, compromise, reorganization, shrivelled on lips that +the live coal of patriotism had touched. Italy for the Italians, and +then--monarchy, federation, republic, it mattered not what! + +The oppressor's grip had tightened on our throats and the clear-sighted +saw well enough that Metternich's policy was to provoke a rebellion and +then crush it under the Croat heel. But it was too late to cry prudence in +Lombardy. With the first days of the new year the tobacco riots had drawn +blood in Milan. Soon afterward the Lions' Club was closed, and edicts were +issued forbidding the singing of Pio Nono's hymn, the wearing of white and +blue, the collecting of subscriptions for the victims of the riots. To each +prohibition Milan returned a fresh defiance. The ladies of the nobility put +on mourning for the rioters who had been shot down by the soldiery. Half +the members of the Guardia Nobile resigned and Count Borromeo sent back +his Golden Fleece to the Emperor. Fresh regiments were continually pouring +into Milan and it was no secret that Radetsky was strengthening the +fortifications. Late in January several leading liberals were arrested and +sent into exile, and two weeks later martial law was proclaimed in Milan. +At the first arrests several members of the liberal party had hastily left +Milan, and I was not surprised to hear, a few days later, that orders had +been given to reopen the villa at Siviano. The Count and Countess arrived +there early in February. + +It was seven months since I had seen the Countess, and I was struck with +the change in her appearance. + +She was paler than ever, and her step had lost its lightness. Yet she +did not seem to share her husband's political anxieties; one would have +said that she was hardly aware of them. She seemed wrapped in a veil of +lassitude, like Iseo on a still gray morning, when dawn is blood-red on the +mountains but a mist blurs its reflection in the lake. I felt as though her +soul were slipping away from me, and longed to win her back to my care; but +she made her ill-health a pretext for not coming to confession, and for the +present I could only wait and carry the thought of her to the altar. She +had not been long at Siviano before I discovered that this drooping mood +was only one phase of her humor. Now and then she flung back the cowl of +melancholy and laughed life in the eye; but next moment she was in shadow +again, and her muffled thoughts had given us the slip. She was like the +lake on one of those days when the wind blows twenty ways and every +promontory holds a gust in ambush. + +Meanwhile there was a continual coming and going of messengers between +Siviano and the city. They came mostly at night, when the household slept, +and were away again with the last shadows; but the news they brought stayed +and widened, shining through every cranny of the old house. The whole of +Lombardy was up. From Pavia to Mantua, from Como to Brescia, the streets +ran blood like the arteries of one great body. At Pavia and Padua the +universities were closed. The frightened vice-roy was preparing to withdraw +from Milan to Verona, and Radetsky continued to pour his men across the +Alps, till a hundred thousand were massed between the Piave and the Ticino. +And now every eye was turned to Turin. Ah, how we watched for the blue +banner of Piedmont on the mountains! Charles Albert was pledged to our +cause; his whole people had armed to rescue us, the streets echoed with +_avanti, Savoia!_ and yet Savoy was silent and hung back. Each day was +a life-time strained to the cracking-point with hopes and disappointments. +We reckoned the hours by rumors, the very minutes by hearsay. Then +suddenly--ah, it was worth living through!--word came to us that Vienna +was in revolt. The points of the compass had shifted and our sun had risen +in the north. I shall never forget that day at the villa. Roberto sent for +me early, and I found him smiling and resolute, as becomes a soldier on +the eve of action. He had made all his preparations to leave for Milan and +was awaiting a summons from his party. The whole household felt that great +events impended, and Donna Marianna, awed and tearful, had pleaded with +her brother that they should all receive the sacrament together the next +morning. Roberto and his sister had been to confession the previous day, +but the Countess Faustina had again excused herself. I did not see her +while I was with the Count, but as I left the house she met me in the +laurel-walk. The morning was damp and cold, and she had drawn a black scarf +over her hair, and walked with a listless dragging step; but at my approach +she lifted her head quickly and signed to me to follow her into one of the +recesses of clipped laurel that bordered the path. + +"Don Egidio," she said, "you have heard the news?" + +I assented. + +"The Count goes to Milan to-morrow?" + +"It seems probable, your excellency." + +"There will be fighting--we are on the eve of war, I mean?" + +"We are in God's hands, your excellency." + +"In God's hands!" she murmured. Her eyes wandered and for a moment we stood +silent; then she drew a purse from her pocket. "I was forgetting," she +exclaimed. "This is for that poor girl you spoke to me about the other +day--what was her name? The girl who met the Austrian soldier at the fair +at Peschiera--" + +"Ah, Vannina," I said; "but she is dead, your excellency." + +"Dead!" She turned white and the purse dropped from her hand. I picked it +up and held it out to her, but she put back my hand. "That is for masses, +then," she said; and with that she moved away toward the house. + +I walked on to the gate; but before I had reached it I heard her step +behind me. + +"Don Egidio!" she called; and I turned back. + +"You are coming to say mass in the chapel to-morrow morning?" + +"That is the Count's wish." + +She wavered a moment. "I am not well enough to walk up to the village this +afternoon," she said at length. "Will you come back later and hear my +confession here?" + +"Willingly, your excellency." + +"Come at sunset then." She looked at me gravely. "It is a long time since I +have been to confession," she added. + +"My child, the door of heaven is always unlatched." + +She made no answer and I went my way. + +I returned to the villa a little before sunset, hoping for a few words +with Roberto. I felt with Faustina that we were on the eve of war, and the +uncertainty of the outlook made me treasure every moment of my friend's +company. I knew he had been busy all day, but hoped to find that his +preparations were ended and that he could spare me a half hour. I was not +disappointed; for the servant who met me asked me to follow him to the +Count's apartment. Roberto was sitting alone, with his back to the door, at +a table spread with maps and papers. He stood up and turned an ashen face +on me. + +"Roberto!" I cried, as if we had been boys together. + +He signed to me to be seated. + +"Egidio," he said suddenly, "my wife has sent for you to confess her?" + +"The Countess met me on my way home this morning and expressed a wish to +receive the sacrament to-morrow morning with you and Donna Marianna, and I +promised to return this afternoon to hear her confession." + +Roberto sat silent, staring before him as though he hardly heard. At length +he raised his head and began to speak. + +"You have noticed lately that my wife has been ailing?" he asked. + +"Every one must have seen that the Countess is not in her usual health. She +has seemed nervous, out of spirits--I have fancied that she might be +anxious about your excellency." + +He leaned across the table and laid his wasted hand on mine. "Call me +Roberto," he said. + +There was another pause before he went on. "Since I saw you this morning," +he said slowly, "something horrible has happened. After you left I sent for +Andrea and Gemma to tell them the news from Vienna and the probability of +my being summoned to Milan before night. You know as well as I that we have +reached a crisis. There will be fighting within twenty-four hours, if I +know my people; and war may follow sooner than we think. I felt it my duty +to leave my affairs in Andrea's hands, and to entrust my wife to his care. +Don't look startled," he added with a faint smile. "No reasonable man goes +on a journey without setting his house in order; and if things take the +turn I expect it may be some months before you see me back at Siviano.--But +it was not to hear this that I sent for you." He pushed his chair aside and +walked up and down the room with his short limping step. "My God!" he broke +out wildly, "how can I say it?--When Andrea had heard me, I saw him +exchange a glance with his wife, and she said with that infernal sweet +voice of hers, 'Yes, Andrea, it is our duty.' + +"'Your duty?' I asked. 'What is your duty?' + +"Andrea wetted his lips with his tongue and looked at her again; and her +look was like a blade in his hand. + +"'Your wife has a lover,' he said. + +"She caught my arm as I flung myself on him. He is ten times stronger than +I, but you remember how I made him howl for mercy in the old days when he +used to bully you. + +"'Let me go,' I said to his wife. 'He must live to unsay it.' + +"Andrea began to whimper. 'Oh, my poor brother, I would give my heart's +blood to unsay it!' + +"'The secret has been killing us,' she chimed in. + +"'The secret? Whose secret? How dare you--?' + +"Gemma fell on her knees like a tragedy actress. 'Strike me--kill me--it is +I who am the offender! It was at my house that she met him--' + +"'Him?' + +"'Franz Welkenstern--my cousin,' she wailed. + +"I suppose I stood before them like a stunned ox, for they repeated the +name again and again, as if they were not sure of my having heard it.--Not +hear it!" he cried suddenly, dropping into a chair and hiding his face in +his hands. "Shall I ever on earth hear anything else again?" + +He sat a long time with his face hidden and I waited. My head was like a +great bronze bell with one thought for the clapper. + +After a while he went on in a low deliberate voice, as though his words +were balancing themselves on the brink of madness. With strange composure +he repeated each detail of his brother's charges: the meetings in the +Countess Gemma's drawing-room, the innocent friendliness of the two +young people, the talk of mysterious visits to a villa outside the Porta +Ticinese, the ever-widening circle of scandal that had spread about their +names. At first, Andrea said, he and his wife had refused to listen to the +reports which reached them. Then, when the talk became too loud, they had +sent for Welkenstern, remonstrated with him, implored him to exchange into +another regiment; but in vain. The young officer indignantly denied the +reports and declared that to leave his post at such a moment would be +desertion. + +With a laborious accuracy Roberto went on, detailing one by one each +incident of the hateful story, till suddenly he cried out, springing from +his chair--"And now to leave her with this lie unburied!" + +His cry was like the lifting of a grave-stone from my breast. "You must not +leave her!" I exclaimed. + +He shook his head. "I am pledged." + +"This is your first duty." + +"It would be any other man's; not an Italian's." + +I was silent: in those days the argument seemed unanswerable. + +At length I said: "No harm can come to her while you are away. Donna +Marianna and I are here to watch over her. And when you come back--" + +He looked at me gravely. "_If_ I come back--" + +"Roberto!" + +"We are men, Egidio; we both know what is coming. Milan is up already; and +there is a rumor that Charles Albert is moving. This year the spring rains +will be red in Italy." + +"In your absence not a breath shall touch her!" + +"And if I never come back to defend her? They hate her as hell hates, +Egidio!--They kept repeating, 'He is of her own age and youth draws +youth--.' She is in their way, Egidio!" + +"Consider, my son. They do not love her, perhaps; but why should they hate +her at such cost? She has given you no child." + +"No child!" He paused. "But what if--? She has ailed lately!" he cried, and +broke off to grapple with the stabbing thought. + +"Roberto! Roberto!" I adjured him. + +He jumped up and gripped my arm. + +"Egidio! You believe in her?" + +"She's as pure as a lily on the altar!" + +"Those eyes are wells of truth--and she has been like a daughter to +Marianna.--Egidio! do I look like an old man?" + +"Quiet yourself, Roberto," I entreated. + +"Quiet myself? With this sting in my blood? A lover--and an Austrian lover! +Oh, Italy, Italy, my bride!" + +"I stake my life on her truth," I cried, "and who knows better than I? Has +her soul not lain before me like the bed of a clear stream?" + +"And if what you saw there was only the reflection of your faith in her?" + +"My son, I am a priest, and the priest penetrates to the soul as the angel +passed through the walls of Peter's prison. I see the truth in her heart as +I see Christ in the host!" + +"No, no, she is false!" he cried. + +I sprang up terrified. "Roberto, be silent!" + +He looked at me with a wild incredulous smile. "Poor simple man of God!" he +said. + +"I would not exchange my simplicity for yours--the dupe of envy's first +malicious whisper!" + +"Envy--you think that?" + +"Is it questionable?" + +"You would stake your life on it?" + +"My life!" + +"Your faith?" + +"My faith!" + +"Your vows as a priest?" + +"My vows--" I stopped and stared at him. He had risen and laid his hand on +my shoulder. + +"You see now what I would be at," he said quietly. "I must take your place +presently--" + +"My place--?" + +"When my wife comes down. You understand me." + +"Ah, now you are quite mad!" I cried breaking away from him. + +"Am I?" he returned, maintaining his strange composure. "Consider a moment. +She has not confessed to you before since our return from Milan--" + +"Her ill-health--" + +He cut me short with a gesture. "Yet to-day she sends for you--" + +"In order that she may receive the sacrament with you on the eve of your +first separation." + +"If that is her only reason her first words will clear her. I must hear +those words, Egidio!" + +"You are quite mad," I repeated. + +"Strange," he said slowly. "You stake your life on my wife's innocence, yet +you refuse me the only means of vindicating it!" + +"I would give my life for any one of you--but what you ask is not mine to +give." + +"The priest first--the man afterward?" he sneered. + +"Long afterward!" + +He measured me with a contemptuous eye. "We laymen are ready to give the +last shred of flesh from our bones, but you priests intend to keep your +cassocks whole." + +"I tell you my cassock is not mine," I repeated. + +"And, by God," he cried, "you are right; for it's mine! Who put it on your +back but my father? What kept it there but my charity? Peasant! beggar! +Hear his holiness pontificate!" "Yes," I said, "I was a peasant and a +beggar when your father found me; and if he had left me one I might have +been excused for putting my hand to any ugly job that my betters required +of me; but he made me a priest, and so set me above all of you, and laid on +me the charge of your souls as well as mine." + +He sat down shaken with dreadful tears. "Ah," he broke out, "would you have +answered me thus when we were boys together, and I stood between you and +Andrea?" + +"If God had given me the strength." + +"You call it strength to make a woman's soul your stepping-stone to +heaven?" + +"Her soul is in my care, not yours, my son. She is safe with me." + +"She? But I? I go out to meet death, and leave a worse death behind me!" +He leaned over and clutched my arm. "It is not for myself I plead but for +her--for her, Egidio! Don't you see to what a hell you condemn her if I +don't come back? What chance has she against that slow unsleeping hate? +Their lies will fasten themselves to her and suck out her life. You and +Marianna are powerless against such enemies." + +"You leave her in God's hands, my son." + +"Easily said--but, ah, priest, if you were a man! What if their poison +works in me and I go to battle thinking that every Austrian bullet may be +sent by her lover's hand? What if I die not only to free Italy but to free +my wife as well?" + +I laid my hand on his shoulder. "My son, I answer for her. Leave your faith +in her in my hands and I will keep it whole." + +He stared at me strangely. "And what if your own fail you?" + +"In her? Never. I call every saint to witness!" + +"And yet--and yet--ah, this is a blind," he shouted; "you know all and +perjure yourself to spare me!" + +At that, my son, I felt a knife in my breast. I looked at him in anguish +and his gaze was a wall of metal. Mine seemed to slip away from it, like a +clawless thing struggling up the sheer side of a precipice. + +"You know all," he repeated, "and you dare not let me hear her!" + +"I dare not betray my trust." + +He waved the answer aside. + +"Is this a time to quibble over church discipline? If you believed in her +you would save her at any cost!" + +I said to myself, "Eternity can hold nothing worse than this for me--" and +clutched my resolve again like a cross to my bosom. + +Just then there was a hand on the door and we heard Donna Marianna. + +"Faustina has sent to know if the _signar parocco_ is here." + +"He is here. Bid her come down to the chapel." Roberta spoke quietly, and +closed the door on her so that she should not see his face. We heard her +patter away across the brick floor of the _salone_. + +Roberto turned to me. "Egidio!" he said; and all at once I was no more than +a straw on the torrent of his will. + +The chapel adjoined the room in which we sat. He opened the door, and in +the twilight I saw the light glimmering before the Virgin's shrine and the +old carved confessional standing like a cowled watcher in its corner. But +I saw it all in a dream; for nothing in heaven or earth was real to me but +the iron grip on my shoulder. + +"Quick!" he said and drove me forward. I heard him shoot back the bolt of +the outer door and a moment later I stood alone in the garden. The sun had +set and the cold spring dusk was falling. Lights shone here and there in +the long front of the villa; the statues glimmered gray among the thickets. +Through the window-pane of the chapel I caught the faint red gleam of the +Virgin's lamp; but I turned my back on it and walked away. + + * * * * * + +All night I lay like a heretic on the fire. Before dawn there came a call +from the villa. The Count had received a second summons from Milan and was +to set out in an hour. I hurried down the cold dewy path to the lake. All +was new and hushed and strange as on the day of resurrection; and in the +dark twilight of the garden alleys the statues stared at me like the +shrouded dead. + +In the _salone_, where the old Count's portrait hung, I found the +family assembled. Andrea and Gemma sat together, a little pinched, I +thought, but decent and self-contained, like mourners who expect to +inherit. Donna Marianna drooped near them, with something black over her +head and her face dim with weeping. Roberto received me calmly and then +turned to his sister. + +"Go fetch my wife," he said. + +While she was gone there was silence. We could hear the cold drip of the +garden-fountain and the patter of rats in the wall. Andrea and his wife +stared out of window and Roberto sat in his father's carved seat at the +head of the long table. Then the door opened and Faustina entered. + +When I saw her I stopped breathing. She seemed no more than the shell of +herself, a hollow thing that grief has voided. Her eyes returned our images +like polished agate, but conveyed to her no sense of our presence. Marianna +led her to a seat, and she crossed her hands and nailed her dull gaze on +Roberto. I looked from one to another, and in that spectral light it seemed +to me that we were all souls come to judgment and naked to each other as to +God. As to my own wrongdoing, it weighed on me no more than dust. The only +feeling I had room for was fear--a fear that seemed to fill my throat and +lungs and bubble coldly over my drowning head. + +Suddenly Roberto began to speak. His voice was clear and steady, and I +clutched at his words to drag myself above the surface of my terror. He +touched on the charge that had been made against his wife--he did not say +by whom--the foul rumor that had made itself heard on the eve of their +first parting. Duty, he said, had sent him a double summons; to fight for +his country and for his wife. He must clear his wife's name before he was +worthy to draw sword for Italy. There was no time to tame the slander +before throttling it; he had to take the shortest way to its throat. At +this point he looked at me and my soul shook. Then he turned to Andrea and +Gemma. + +"When you came to me with this rumor," he said quietly, "you agreed to +consider the family honor satisfied if I could induce Don Egidio to let me +take his place and overhear my wife's confession, and if that confession +convinced me of her innocence. Was this the understanding?" + +Andrea muttered something and Gemma tapped a sullen foot. + +"After you had left," Roberto continued, "I laid the case before Don Egidio +and threw myself on his mercy." He looked at me fixedly. "So strong was his +faith in my wife's innocence that for her sake he agreed to violate the +sanctity of the confessional. I took his place." + +Marianna sobbed and crossed herself and a strange look flitted over +Faustina's face. + +There was a moment's pause; then Roberto, rising, walked across the room to +his wife and took her by the hand. + +"Your seat is beside me, Countess Siviano," he said, and led her to the +empty chair by his own. + +Gemma started to her feet, but her husband pulled her down again. + +"Jesus! Mary!" We heard Donna Marianna moan. + +Roberto raised his wife's hand to his lips. "You forgive me," he said, "the +means I took to defend you?" And turning to Andrea he added slowly: "I +declare my wife innocent and my honor satisfied. You swear to stand by my +decision?" + +What Andrea stammered out, what hissing serpents of speech Gemma's clinched +teeth bit back, I never knew--for my eyes were on Faustina, and her face +was a wonder to behold. + +She had let herself be led across the room like a blind woman, and had +listened without change of feature to her husband's first words; but as +he ceased her frozen gaze broke and her whole body seemed to melt against +his breast. He put his arm out, but she slipped to his feet and Marianna +hastened forward to raise her up. At that moment we heard the stroke +of oars across the quiet water and saw the Count's boat touch the +landing-steps. Four strong oarsmen from Monte Isola were to row him down +to Iseo, to take horse for Milan, and his servant, knapsack on shoulder, +knocked warningly at the terrace window. + +"No time to lose, excellency!" he cried. + +Roberto turned and gripped my hand. "Pray for me," he said low; and with a +brief gesture to the others ran down the terrace to the boat. + +Marianna was bathing Faustina with happy tears. + +"Look up, dear! Think how soon he will come back! And there is the +sunrise--see!" + +Andrea and Gemma had slunk away like ghosts at cock-crow, and a red dawn +stood over Milan. + + * * * * * + +If that sun rose red it set scarlet. It was the first of the Five Days in +Milan--the Five Glorious Days, as they are called. Roberto reached the city +just before the gates closed. So much we knew--little more. We heard of him +in the Broletto (whence he must have escaped when the Austrians blew in +the door) and in the Casa Vidiserti, with Casati, Cattaneo and the rest; +but after the barricading began we could trace him only as having been +seen here and there in the thick of the fighting, or tending the wounded +under Bertani's orders. His place, one would have said, was in the +council-chamber, with the soberer heads; but that was an hour when every +man gave his blood where it was most needed, and Cernuschi, Dandolo, +Anfossi, della Porta fought shoulder to shoulder with students, artisans +and peasants. Certain it is that he was seen on the fifth day; for among +the volunteers who swarmed after Manara in his assault on the Porta Tosa +was a servant of palazzo Siviano; and this fellow swore he had seen his +master charge with Manara in the last assault--had watched him, sword +in hand, press close to the gates, and then, as they swung open before +the victorious dash of our men, had seen him drop and disappear in the +inrushing tide of peasants that almost swept the little company off its +feet. After that we heard nothing. There was savage work in Milan in those +days, and more than one well-known figure lay lost among the heaps of dead +hacked and disfeatured by Croat blades. + +At the villa, we waited breathless. News came to us hour by hour: the very +wind seemed to carry it, and it was swept to us on the incessant rush of +the rain. On the twenty-third Radetsky had fled from Milan, to face Venice +rising in his path. On the twenty-fourth the first Piedmontese had crossed +the Ticino, and Charles Albert himself was in Pavia on the twenty-ninth. +The bells of Milan had carried the word from Turin to Naples, from Genoa to +Ancona, and the whole country was pouring like a flood-tide into Lombardy. +Heroes sprang up from the bloody soil as thick as wheat after rain, and +every day carried some new name to us; but never the one for which we +prayed and waited. Weeks passed. We heard of Pastrengo, Goito, Rivoli; of +Radetsky hemmed into the Quadrilateral, and our troops closing in on him +from Rome, Tuscany and Venetia. Months passed--and we heard of Custozza. We +saw Charles Albert's broken forces flung back from the Mincio to the Oglio, +from the Oglio to the Adda. We followed the dreadful retreat from Milan, +and saw our rescuers dispersed like dust before the wind. But all the while +no word came to us of Roberto. + +These were dark days in Lombardy; and nowhere darker than in the old villa +on Iseo. In September Donna Marianna and the young Countess put on black, +and Count Andrea and his wife followed their example. In October the +Countess gave birth to a daughter. Count Andrea then took possession of the +palazzo Siviano, and the two women remained at the villa. I have no heart +to tell you of the days that followed. Donna Marianna wept and prayed +incessantly, and it was long before the baby could snatch a smile from her. +As for the Countess Faustina, she went among us like one of the statues in +the garden. The child had a wet-nurse from the village, and it was small +wonder there was no milk for it in that marble breast. I spent much of +my time at the villa, comforting Donna Marianna as best I could; but +sometimes, in the long winter evenings, when we three sat in the dimly-lit +_salone_, with the old Count's portrait overhead, and I looked up and +saw the Countess Faustina in the tall carved seat beside her husband's +empty chair, my spine grew chill and I felt a cold wind in my hair. + +The end of it was that in the spring I went to see my bishop and laid my +sin before him. He was a saintly and merciful old man, and gave me a +patient hearing. + +"You believed the lady innocent?" he asked when I had ended. + +"Monsignore, on my soul!" + +"You thought to avert a great calamity from the house to which you owed +more than your life?" + +"It was my only thought." + +He laid his hand on my shoulder. + +"Go home, my son. You shall learn my decision." + +Three months later I was ordered to resign my living and go to America, +where a priest was needed for the Italian mission church in New York. I +packed my possessions and set sail from Genoa. I knew no more of America +than any peasant up in the hills. I fully expected to be speared by naked +savages on landing; and for the first few months after my arrival I wished +at least once a day that such a blessed fate had befallen me. But it is +no part of my story to tell you what I suffered in those early days. The +Church had dealt with me mercifully, as is her wont, and her punishment +fell far below my deserts.... + +I had been some four years in New York, and no longer thought of looking +back from the plough, when one day word was brought me that an Italian +professor lay ill and had asked for a priest. There were many Italian +refugees in New York at that time, and the greater number, being +well-educated men, earned a living by teaching their language, which was +then included among the accomplishments of fashionable New York. The +messenger led me to a poor boarding-house and up to a small bare room on +the top floor. On the visiting-card nailed to the door I read the name "De +Roberti, Professor of Italian." Inside, a gray-haired haggard man tossed on +the narrow bed. He turned a glazed eye on me as I entered, and I recognized +Roberto Siviano. + +I steadied myself against the door-post and stood staring at him without a +word. + +"What's the matter?" asked the doctor who was bending over the bed. I +stammered that the sick man was an old friend. + +"He wouldn't know his oldest friend just now," said the doctor. "The +fever's on him; but it will go down toward sunset." + +I sat down at the head of the bed and took Roberto's hand in mine. + +"Is he going to die?" I asked. + +"I don't believe so; but he wants nursing." + +"I will nurse him." + +The doctor nodded and went out. I sat in the little room, with Roberto's +burning hand in mine. Gradually his skin cooled, the fingers grew quiet, +and the flush faded from his sallow cheek-bones. Toward dusk he looked up +at me and smiled. + +"Egidio," he said quietly. + +I administered the sacrament, which he received with the most fervent +devotion; then he fell into a deep sleep. + +During the weeks that followed I had no time to ask myself the meaning of +it all. My one business was to keep him alive if I could. I fought the +fever day and night, and at length it yielded. For the most part he raved +or lay unconscious; but now and then he knew me for a moment, and whispered +"Egidio" with a look of peace. + +I had stolen many hours from my duties to nurse him; and as soon as the +danger was past I had to go back to my parish work. Then it was that I +began to ask myself what had brought him to America; but I dared not face +the answer. + +On the fourth day I snatched a moment from my work and climbed to his +room. I found him sitting propped against his pillows, weak as a child but +clear-eyed and quiet. I ran forward, but his look stopped me. + +"_Signor parocco_," he said, "the doctor tells me that I owe my life +to your nursing, and I have to thank you for the kindness you have shown to +a friendless stranger." + +"A stranger?" I gasped. + +He looked at me steadily. "I am not aware that we have met before," he +said. + +For a moment I thought the fever was on him; but a second glance convinced +me that he was master of himself. + +"Roberto!" I cried, trembling. + +"You have the advantage of me," he said civilly. "But my name is Roberti, +not Roberto." + +The floor swam under me and I had to lean against the wall. + +"You are not Count Roberto Siviano of Milan?" + +"I am Tommaso de Roberti, professor of Italian, from Modena." + +"And you have never seen me before?" + +"Never that I know of." + +"Were you never at Siviano, on the lake of Iseo?" I faltered. + +He said calmly: "I am unacquainted with that part of Italy." + +My heart grew cold and I was silent. + +"You mistook me for a friend, I suppose?" he added. + +"Yes," I cried, "I mistook you for a friend;" and with that I fell on my +knees by his bed and cried like a child. + +Suddenly I felt a touch on my shoulder. "Egidio," said he in a broken +voice, "look up." + +I raised my eyes, and there was his old smile above me, and we clung to +each other without a word. Presently, however, he drew back, and put me +quietly aside. + +"Sit over there, Egidio. My bones are like water and I am not good for much +talking yet." + +"Let us wait, Roberto. Sleep now--we can talk tomorrow." + +"No. What I have to say must be said at once." He examined me thoughtfully. +"You have a parish here in New York?" + +I assented. + +"And my work keeps me here. I have pupils. It is too late to make a +change." + +"A change?" + +He continued to look at me calmly. "It would be difficult for me," he +explained, "to find employment in a new place." + +"But why should you leave here?" + +"I shall have to," he returned deliberately, "if you persist in recognizing +in me your former friend Count Siviano." + +"Roberto!" + +He lifted his hand. "Egidio," he said, "I am alone here, and without +friends. The companionship, the sympathy of my parish priest would be a +consolation in this strange city; but it must not be the companionship of +the _parocco_ of Siviano. You understand?" + +"Roberto," I cried, "it is too dreadful to understand!" + +"Be a man, Egidio," said he with a touch of impatience. "The choice lies +with you, and you must make it now. If you are willing to ask no questions, +to name no names, to make no allusions to the past, let us live as friends +together, in God's name! If not, as soon as my legs can carry me I must be +off again. The world is wide, luckily--but why should we be parted?" + +I was on my knees at his side in an instant. "We must never be parted!" I +cried. "Do as you will with me. Give me your orders and I obey--have I not +always obeyed you?" + +I felt his hand close sharply on mine. "Egidio!" he admonished me. + +"No--no--I shall remember. I shall say nothing--" + +"Think nothing?" + +"Think nothing," I said with a last effort. + +"God bless you!" he answered. + +My son, for eight years I kept my word to him. We met daily almost, we ate +and walked and talked together, we lived like David and Jonathan--but +without so much as a glance at the past. How he had escaped from Milan--how +he had reached New York--I never knew. We talked often of Italy's +liberation--as what Italians would not?--but never touched on his share in +the work. Once only a word slipped from him; and that was when one day he +asked me how it was that I had been sent to America. The blood rushed to my +face, and before I could answer he had raised a silencing hand. + +"I see," he said; "it was _your_ penance too." + +During the first years he had plenty of work to do, but he lived so +frugally that I guessed he had some secret use for his earnings. It was +easy to conjecture what it was. All over the world Italian exiles were +toiling and saving to further the great cause. He had political friends in +New York, and sometimes he went to other cities to attend meetings and make +addresses. His zeal never slackened; and but for me he would often have +gone hungry that some shivering patriot might dine. I was with him heart +and soul, but I had the parish on my shoulders, and perhaps my long +experience of men had made me a little less credulous than Christian +charity requires; for I could have sworn that some of the heroes who hung +on him had never had a whiff of Austrian blood, and would have fed out of +the same trough with the white-coats if there had been polenta enough to go +round. Happily my friend had no such doubts. He believed in the patriots as +devoutly as in the cause; and if some of his hard-earned dollars travelled +no farther than the nearest wine-cellar or cigar-shop, he never suspected +the course they took. + +His health was never the same after the fever; and by and by he began to +lose his pupils, and the patriots cooled off as his pockets fell in. Toward +the end I took him to live in my shabby attic. He had grown weak and had a +troublesome cough, and he spent the greater part of his days indoors. Cruel +days they must have been to him, but he made no sign, and always welcomed +me with a cheerful word. When his pupils dropped off, and his health made +it difficult for him to pick up work outside, he set up a letter-writer's +sign, and used to earn a few pennies by serving as amanuensis to my poor +parishioners; but it went against him to take their money, and half the +time he did the work for nothing. I knew it was hard for him to live on +charity, as he called it, and I used to find what jobs I could for him +among my friends the _negozianti_, who would send him letters to copy, +accounts to make up and what not; but we were all poor together, and the +master had licked the platter before the dog got it. + +So lived that just man, my son; and so, after eight years of exile, he died +one day in my arms. God had let him live long enough to see Solferino and +Villa-franca; and was perhaps never more merciful than in sparing him Monte +Rotondo and Mentana. But these are things of which it does not become me to +speak. The new Italy does not wear the face of our visions; but it is +written that God shall know His own, and it cannot be that He shall misread +the hearts of those who dreamed of fashioning her in His image. + +As for my friend, he is at peace, I doubt not; and his just life and holy +death intercede for me, who sinned for his sake alone. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, CRUCIAL INSTANCES *** + +This file should be named 8crci10.txt or 8crci10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 8crci11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 8crci10a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance +of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. +Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections, +even years after the official publication date. + +Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A +preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment +and editing by those who wish to do so. + +Most people start at our Web sites at: +http://gutenberg.net or +http://promo.net/pg + +These Web sites include award-winning information about Project +Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new +eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!). + + +Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement +can get to them as follows, and just download by date. This is +also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the +indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an +announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter. + +http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext04 or +ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext04 + +Or /etext03, 02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90 + +Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want, +as it appears in our Newsletters. + + +Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) + +We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The +time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours +to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright +searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. Our +projected audience is one hundred million readers. If the value +per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2 +million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text +files per month: 1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+ +We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002 +If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total +will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end. + +The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks! +This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, +which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users. + +Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated): + +eBooks Year Month + + 1 1971 July + 10 1991 January + 100 1994 January + 1000 1997 August + 1500 1998 October + 2000 1999 December + 2500 2000 December + 3000 2001 November + 4000 2001 October/November + 6000 2002 December* + 9000 2003 November* +10000 2004 January* + + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created +to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people +and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, +Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, +Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, +Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New +Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, +Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South +Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West +Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. + +We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones +that have responded. + +As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list +will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states. +Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state. + +In answer to various questions we have received on this: + +We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally +request donations in all 50 states. If your state is not listed and +you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have, +just ask. + +While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are +not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting +donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to +donate. + +International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about +how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made +deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are +ways. + +Donations by check or money order may be sent to: + + PROJECT GUTENBERG LITERARY ARCHIVE FOUNDATION + 809 North 1500 West + Salt Lake City, UT 84116 + +Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment +method other than by check or money order. + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by +the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN +[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154. Donations are +tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law. As fund-raising +requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be +made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +You can get up to date donation information online at: + +http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html + + +*** + +If you can't reach Project Gutenberg, +you can always email directly to: + +Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com> + +Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message. + +We would prefer to send you information by email. + + +**The Legal Small Print** + + +(Three Pages) + +***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START*** +Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. +They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with +your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from +someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our +fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement +disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how +you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to. + +*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK +By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept +this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive +a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by +sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person +you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical +medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request. + +ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS +This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks, +is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart +through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project"). +Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright +on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and +distribute it in the United States without permission and +without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth +below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook +under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark. + +Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market +any commercial products without permission. + +To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable +efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain +works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any +medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other +things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged +disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer +codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. + +LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES +But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, +[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may +receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims +all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including +legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR +UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE +OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE +POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. + +If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of +receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) +you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that +time to the person you received it from. If you received it +on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and +such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement +copy. If you received it electronically, such person may +choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to +receive it electronically. + +THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS +TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A +PARTICULAR PURPOSE. + +Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or +the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the +above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you +may have other legal rights. + +INDEMNITY +You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation, +and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated +with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm +texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including +legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the +following that you do or cause: [1] distribution of this eBook, +[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook, +or [3] any Defect. + +DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" +You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by +disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this +"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, +or: + +[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this + requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the + eBook or this "small print!" statement. You may however, + if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable + binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, + including any form resulting from conversion by word + processing or hypertext software, but only so long as + *EITHER*: + + [*] The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and + does *not* contain characters other than those + intended by the author of the work, although tilde + (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may + be used to convey punctuation intended by the + author, and additional characters may be used to + indicate hypertext links; OR + + [*] The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at + no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent + form by the program that displays the eBook (as is + the case, for instance, with most word processors); + OR + + [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at + no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the + eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC + or other equivalent proprietary form). + +[2] Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this + "Small Print!" statement. + +[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the + gross profits you derive calculated using the method you + already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation" + the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were + legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent + periodic) tax return. Please contact us beforehand to + let us know your plans and to work out the details. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of +public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed +in machine readable form. + +The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time, +public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses. +Money should be paid to the: +"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or +software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at: +hart@pobox.com + +[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only +when distributed free of all fees. Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by +Michael S. Hart. Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be +used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be +they hardware or software or any other related product without +express permission.] + +*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END* + diff --git a/old/8crci10.zip b/old/8crci10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..5f71063 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/8crci10.zip |
