Mary Murdoch Mason

“ Imagine me in my doorway as you passed in your travelling carriage, hot and tired on your way—say to Sorrento. I would dress my beautiful Italian all up in scarlet flowers and wreathe his big hat and kiss his brown eyes and take his brown hand, and then we would run along by the bay and laugh at you stiff, grand world’s folks as we skipped past you.”
“We shall know where to look for you, if ever you do disappear,” said Norman Mann.
“But, my dear Mae,” added Albert, “though this is amusing, it is utterly useless.”
“Amusing things always are,” said Mae. ”

“ Life and color and youth, a-tremble and a-quiver in every quick movement of her face, in the sudden lifting of the eyelids, the swift turn of the lips, the litheness and carelessness of every motion; above and beyond all, the picture possessed that rare quality which some artist has declared to be the highest beauty, that picturesque charm which shines from within, that magnetic flash and quiver which comes and goes “ere one can say it lightens.” ”

“ Hawthorne and Byron tell us what the Faun’s soul, what the Gladiator’s soul, look from the white marbles to us, and the world daily repeats the story the Antinous whispers in his bent, beautiful head, the vanitas vanitatum that our own hearts whisper, when we drop earnest life for voluptuous pleasures.
The Faun may smile, although life is only one long play-day in green fields and woods, because he is a Faun. The man must sigh, when he has drained his wine-cups and laughed his heartiest laugh, and wakes to another morning, because he is a man. ”

“ The cry of humanity echoes in our souls. We cannot stifle it; we may hush it, and follow our idle joys, but the day comes when we bend our head with Antinous and Solomon and the rest of them, and sigh out our vanitas, vanitas also, in the great weary chorus.
No need, alas! for a Hawthorne, or Byron, or even a Shakspeare to interpret what the Antinous says for us. Our own hearts do it.
Mae caught the spirit of all this, as her eyes roamed out of the window on the Sabine hills, where woods and springs sang. ”

“ If the lady in brown had not passed so quickly, however, she would have seen a something in Mae’s face that spoiled her for a peasant, an earnestness in her admiration, a sharp intensity in her joy, that was very different from the languid content of a Southern Italian. Her movements were rather like those of the Northern squirrel, which climbs nimbly and frisks briskly, than like the sinuous, serpentine motions of the Southern creatures of the soil. We are, after all, born where we belong, as a rule, and the rest of us soon belong where we are born. ”

“ There was a malicious sort of teasing pleasure in running away from Norman, mingled with a shrinking modesty; and, besides, he knew the way to the Capitol, if he chose to follow, and knew she was to be there alone. So, on the whole, Mae went off with a blissful heart.
As she sat down in that celebrated room, immortalized by the Gladiator, the Faun and the Antinous, scales seemed to fall from her eyes and a weight from her heart. Life meant something more than the mere play she delighted in, or the labor she despised. ”

“ At Castellamare, Gaetano, Lisetta’s husband, was awaiting them, with a malicious little donkey, tricked out gaily enough in tags of color and tinkling bells. It was very quaint and delightful to get into the funny, low, rattling cart, and go jogging off, while the feminine sight-seers fanned themselves in the windows of the ladies’ waiting-room, and grumbled, and the poor masculine travellers bartered in poor Italian, with their certain-to-conquer enemies, those triumphant swindlers, the drivers of the conveyances between Sorrento and Castellamare. ”

“ She formed a pretty contrast to Edith, who sat by her side. Miss Jerrold leaned back in her chair quietly, composedly. She fanned herself in long sweeps, looked pleased, contented, but in no wise displaced or surprised—thoroughly well-bred and at home. She might have had a private rehearsal of Othello in her own dramatic hall the evening before, from her air and mien. Mae, on the contrary, was alert, on the qui vive, as interested as a child in each newcomer, and, after the curtain rose, in every tableau.
Such a woman can not fail to attract attention, as long as she is herself unconscious. ”

“ I would rather go down to Southern Italy and look at lazzaroni lie on stone walls, in red cloaks, as they do in pictures, and not be obliged to topple off the common Italian to pile the gray stone with old memories of some great dead man. Everything is ghostly in Rome. Now, there must be some excitement in Southern Italy. There’s Vesuvius, and she isn’t dead—like Nero—but a living demon, that may erupt any night, and give you a little red grave by the sea for your share.”
“She’s not nearly through yet,” laughed Edith, as Mae paused for breath. ”

“ Mae’s eyes sparkled so.
“She needs,” said Eric, pushing back his chair, “to be married. She is in love. That’s what’s the matter. Read those two last lines, Albert:
‘While above, beyond them all, Loud a woman’s heart makes call.’
“Don’t you see?”
“O, wise young man,” laughed Edith. But Mae arose. The scarlet buds in her cheeks flamed into full-blown roses. “There speaks the man,” she cried passionately, “and pray doesn’t a woman’s heart ever call for anything but love—aren’t life and liberty more than all the love in the world? ”

“ Norman looked at her for a minute with a struggle in his heart and a flash of half scorn, Mae thought, on his face. What was he thinking?
That the child was in danger. He had no doubt in his own mind now that the flowers and the note came from Bero and that Mae knew it. He held the paper crushed in his hand, while he looked at her.
“I presume you will never forgive me,” he said, “but I must warn you, not as a mentor or even as a friend,” noticing her annoyed air, “but as one soul is bound to warn another soul, seeing it in danger. Take care of yourself, and there!” ”

“ She put up her hands and caught the oranges, one—two—three—four. In a moment she had freed the fluttering birds and tossed the fruit back into the street. “Pay them, Eric,” she cried indignantly; “Why, what is this?” for one of the little creatures, after vainly flapping its wings, had fallen on the balcony. Mae picked it up. It half opened its eyes at her and then lay still in her hands.
“It is dead,” said Mae, quietly, going up to Norman. “Oh! Mr. Mann, I thought Carnival meant real fun, not cruelty. Isn’t there anywhere in this big world where we can get free from such dreadful things? ”

“ The color came to her cheeks, the smile played around her lips, and when she paused to breathe, she found the Italians showing their white teeth, and clapping their brown hands in her honor, while the tallest musician gazed at her from the dark doorway, with the rapt reverence he gave to all things beautiful and thrilling. She was a new song to him.
“The Signorina is the veriest Italian of us all,” cried Lisetta.
“She honors our Italy,” called Mae’s last partner.
“Her feet are those of a chamois,” said one from the north. ”

“ Luigi looked slowly around and saw a crowd of Italian loungers gazing at the little stranger with their softly-bold black eyes full of admiration. He shrugged his shoulders slightly. “Bah, they gaze in that way at all womankind. See, now they are watching the next one,” and as he spoke, the boys turned with one accord to stare at a young Italian girl, who pressed closer to the side of her hook-nosed old duenna:
“It is not those loungers that I noticed,” replied the other. ”

“ A mirror is a dangerous thing for a woman who has come to pity herself. She sees the possibilities of her face too clearly. And Mae, looking into the mirror then, realized to an extent she never had before, that her eyes and mouth might be powerful friends to herself and foes to Norman Mann, if she so desired. And to-day she did so desire, and went down to the Carnival with as reckless and dangerous a spirit as good King Pasquino could have asked. ”

“ I’m going to be good, to read and study and grow restful,”—and Mae folded her hands and looked off toward the sea. “She’s a witching child,” thought Norman. Then she raised her head. “I said it lightly because I felt it deeply,” she added, as if in reply to his thought. “I am going to grow, if I can, unselfish and sympathetic, and perhaps, who knows, wise, and any way good.”
“There is no need of giving up your champagne entirely. Give yourself a dinner party now and then o’ holidays. The world is full of color and beauty, and poetry you love. ”

“ The Piedmontese officer is godlike. He must be of a certain imposing height to obtain his position, and his luxurious yellow moustaches and blue black eyes, enriched and intensified by southern blood, give him a strange fascination. The cold, manly beauty and strength of a northern blonde meet with the heat and lithe grace of the more supple southerner to produce this paragon. There is a combination of half-indolent elegance and sensuous langour, with a fire, a verve, a nobility, that puts him at the very head of masculine beauty. ”

“ There’s a spirit-malaria that eats into my life. I feel as if all the volumes of Roman history bound in heavy vellum, that papa has in his study, were laid right on top of my little heart, so that every time it beats, it thumps against them, and I assure you, mamma, its worse than dyspepsia. If I could only get out on a New England hillside, where there were no graves more important than those of grasshoppers and butterflies! ”

“ As Edith and her mother quietly read, and ate grapes, and lolled in a delightfully feminine way, voices were heard,—Mae’s and Norman’s. They were in the middle of a conversation. “Yes,” Mae was saying, “you do away with individuality altogether nowadays, with your dreadful classifications. It is all the same from daffodils up to women.”
“How do we classify women, pray?”
“In the mind of man,” began Mae, as if she were reading, “there are three classes of women; the giddy butterflies, the busy bees, and the woman’s righters. ”

“ Suppose you, Mae Madden, have been odd, full of variety, ready to twist common occurrences into something startling and romantic, have you been happy? Haven’t you been restless and discontented? Now, can’t you, grown humdrum and good, be very happy and contented and joyful, even if the sun rises on just about the same Mondays and Tuesdays and Wednesdays, the year round? You will not do for a story-book then, but won’t you do better for life? And, after all, a lively murderer is a great deal more sensational than you could ever be. ”

“ I cannot believe that this small Mae Madden is the only being who has had a swift, brilliant awakening from the first surface, depressing thoughts of Rome—an awakening to the living spirits which float proudly over their vacant shells that lie below the old pavements. Once you do feel the strong, rich Roman life about you, the decay, the ruin float off on the dust of the ages, before the glorified breath of proud matrons and stately warriors, who step over the centuries to walk by your side. ”

“ Norman’s arms were folded, and his face set.
Mae looked at one, then at the other, perplexedly. Then she understood. Like lightning, a terrible temptation flashed into her mind. The Italian loved her, would shield, protect, honor her. Norman must hate her, would always despise her. Should she lift her little weak woman’s hand and place it in the man’s hand ready to claim it, or stand still and be crushed by that other hand there?
Ah! she could not do it. She tried once. She held out weakly her right hand toward Bero; but the left stretched itself involuntarily to Norman. ”

“ Then she smoothed down her peasant apron, bade Giovanni leave off pinching Roberto, and commenced.
“The government hates the banditti,” began Lisetta, wisely, “and indeed it should,” and she looked gravely at Giovanni, “for they are very wild men, who live reckless bad lives, and steal, and are quite dreadful. But we poor, we do not hate them as the government does, because they are good to us, and do not war with us, and sometimes those we love join them—a brother or a cousin, perhaps,”—and Lisetta’s black eyes filled, and her lip quivered. ”

“ He leaps from the Grecian barge to the Trojan land, alive. Does he turn to look at his comrades and off eastwards, beyond homewards, with a great thrill before he falls dead? We do not know.
All we do know is, that WE thrill now as we see him leaping to his death, even over this gap of ages, through these shadows of unreality.
We have left Mae flashing scorn at Norman for a long while, a much longer while than she really needed for her flash, for Norman’s angry start, violent exclamation, and indignant glance convinced her of her mistake before he answered her. ”

“ No; three souls, thinks Mae, three real people, and she looks at the abiding faun, freedom and joy of the Satyr, the continual sentimental sadness of the Antinous, and the perpetual brave death-struggle of the Gladiator. They are living on now, and touching our hearts. Their mute lips open other eloquent mouths to speak for them. ”