David Christie Murray

“ It was, then, that in that house had lived that little English angel who is a woman, and Cecilia. I will set it down in one line. She is all the joy I have and all the sorrow. And now I will set down one thing more that I may see it in plain black and white, and study it there until I drive its meaning into my thick head and my sore heart, and can at last smoke calm pipes over it, and be once more contented. There is no hope for me—there is no hope for me: none in the world. ”

“ But it was not possible to think for a moment that Miss Grammont was anything but a lady. She was old-fashioned and precise in her attire, and she is perhaps forty years of age, but her face is as beautiful as a seraph's. She is calm and sweet and quiet. She is like a Venetian night—sweet and venerable, and moving to touches of soft music. I took tea with them both—a simple meal. We talked of art and of Italy. I brought down my sketches and my violin at their request. I played to them—all manner of things—and they did me the honour to be delighted. ”

“ It contains a bed, a table, a chair, a chest of drawers, a grand piano, a violin, a violoncello, my pipes, my tobacco, my writing materials, and—me. Stay! Hidden for the moment from my glance beneath the grand piano are the tools by which I live: my easel, my porte-couleur, my palette, canvas, and brushes. My estimable uncle round the corner is not a judge of art. It is my weakness that I cannot paint bad pictures. I linger sometimes for a whole day hungry—sometimes even without tobacco—touching and again touching the ripened beauties of my canvas child, before I can dare to leave it. ”

“ I snap my fingers at evil fortune. I despise the goddess Circumstance. Seeking to do me an evil turn this morning she has benefited me, and I am contented in spite of her. Good gracious! Is a man to lose everything because his stomach is empty? The goddess Circumstance shall not keep my heart empty, let her keep my shelves as bare as she will. My Lady of Circumstance, Giovanni Calvotti proffers to you a polite but irrevocable defiance!
This morning my canvas child was a landscape. ”

“ You are a creature of a hundred years—a painter, an artist. This is not paint, but a face—a face of flesh and blood, with soul behind. And this is not paint, but a faded brown silk. And this is not paint, but solid mahogany. You have done more than paint a picture. You have made concrete an inspiration. Your technique is all masterly, but it does not overpower. It gives only fitting body to a beautiful idea—its soul!'
He blushed and trembled whilst I spoke. Englishmen do not often talk poetry—off the stage. He answered—
'No, really, Calvotti, old man, that's rot, you know. ”

“ The one a gentleman and descended from gentlemen, the other a person of the lowest class—the one famous in the annals of contemporary art, the other known for nothing but his love for vulgar dissipation. As they stand there before you they present a spectacle tragic and unique. As I know them—and as you will see them when I have called the one witness I have to call—they present a spectacle yet more amazing. One man stands there a monument of honour, a glory to his country, and a lesson to mankind. The other stands there a murderer in fact already, and in his heart a murderer again ”

“ I am proud of Italy, and I am proud of Naples, and I have no idea of pretending to be other than a Neapolitan. One can be cosmopolitan without losing one's patriotism, I venture respectfully to hope. But I would not have cared then to set myself right with the populace of my native city, either on that or any other point, though I could have done it with a word. ”

“ Yet I felt against them a sort of lofty anger, and felt myself affronted to think that anybody could regard me as being even likely to commit a murder. Ratuzzi was kind throughout, even when he believed me guilty; and Mr. Gregory after his first visit never failed me. I asked him news of Clyde, but he had no news to bring me until two days before my trial, when he came into my cell with a grave but not uncheerful countenance.
'Calvotti,' he said, 'can you tell me with any precision the hour at which you saw Arthur on that fatal night?'
'I can only guess the time,' I answered. ”

“ My verses in four languages are also admitted to show great undeveloped talent. As a painter or a sculptor I might have made fame certain. I am merry and generous, and slow to offence, an unmeasured braggart, careless about money matters, without dignity, but the soul of honour. I am also your obedient servant. Permit me so to subscribe myself—Your obedient servant, Giovanni Calvotti.
My attic is uncarpeted, and its general aspect is sordid. ”

“ We took to each other naturally, and he used to run up to my studio every evening at dusk. Very frequently we used to go upstairs and spend an evening with the ladies. Then we had music, and sometimes young Clyde would sing, and we would all laugh at him, for he knew no more of music than a crow. And yet I could see that it was to him Cecilia played and sang, and to her he listened as though she had been an angel out of heaven. When I played he had no great joy in the music, but when she played—— ah! it was plain enough—then Love gave him ears, and the music she created had power over him. ”

“ Young Clyde had written to me saying that he was tired and overworked, and that he needed a month's holiday, and meant to take it. He had never been in Italy, and naturally proposed to join me in Naples. During the whole ten months which had gone between my farewell to England and my receipt of this letter from Arthur, I had striven, and not unsuccessfully, to banish from my mind all painful and regretful thoughts of Cecilia. Love is a great passion, but, like everything else but fate, it is capable of subjection by a resolute will. ”

“ He led me to his studio, a fine spacious room, with a high north light. He had a chair set in the middle of the room, and on the easel a large veiled picture.
'Now, Calvotti,' he said, speaking with a nervous haste which was altogether foreign to him, 'I have asked you here to settle a question which I cannot settle for myself. Sometimes I'm brimfull of faith and hope, and sometimes I'm in a perfect abyss of despair. You know I've been painting all my life, but I've never sold anything. Everything I paint goes to the governor. ”

“ For though I had given up all hope, and though I was glad to find that in art he was worthy as in manhood he was worthy, yet it was still hard to endorse a rival's triumph and to cut out all envy and stifle all pain. And now I had to go home and to live beneath the same roof with Cecilia, and to see her sometimes, and to talk and look like a friend. If you resist the Devil, will he always fly from you? Is it not sometimes safer to fly from him? ”

“ My estimable Uncle round the corner has the rest. Perhaps I am less a hermit than a prisoner—a prisoner over whom that sternest of janitors, Poverty, holds the key.
I am a little proud of my English, and I do not think you can have yet discovered from my style of expression that I am not a native of this country. Permit me to describe myself.
I am an Italian and a gentleman, and my age is thirty. My main fault is, that I am able to do much in too many directions. I play admirably upon several instruments, and my little original compositions are admitted to show great undeveloped talent. ”

“ Past joys are a grief—griefs gone by are a joy to us. Who knows what may come?
And so, poor Hope, you would spread your peacock wings even here? Ah, go your way! You forget. Our companionship is dissolved. We are not on speaking terms any longer.
I have not been plagued with any official severities, for Ratuzzi is mindful of old favours. He has told me only this morning that my father extended some such kindness to his father as that for which he bears such grateful memory to me. It was a small affair; a mere matter of money. Against my wish he brought to me a doctor and an advocate. ”

“ I live in an attic. I am in the immediate neighbourhood of a great tavern and a famous place of amusement. The thoroughfare on which I can look whilst I sit at my window is noisy with perpetual traffic. In the midst of London I am more of a hermit than is that pretentious humbug who waves his flag at passing steamers from his rock in the Ægean. I am not a hermit from any choice of mine, or from any dislike of men and women. I am not a hermit because of any dislike which men and women may entertain for me. In my time I have been popular, and have had many friends. ”

“ The patient must see nobody for a week to come, but I have hopes that we shall yet clear up a terrible mystery, and shall find that Arthur is as innocent as I believe you to be.'
I told him I would give all in my world to share his hopes. How could I doubt my own eyes? A vision, moreover, does not dash against a man and knock him down and stun him for hours. In all that Mr. Gregory could tell me I found no hope, but only vague suspicions of a plan to divert suspicion. ”

“ Good-day, Calvotti; good-day, Miriam.' Then he turned and kissed Cecilia. 'Good-day, Baby. God bless my soul! it seems only the other day since you were a baby. And now I suppose you'll be getting married in a week or two.'
Cecilia blushed and laughed, and Mr. Gregory turned round with a droll look to me, and then took his hat and went in his own solid and determined way out of the room. Even in his walk the determination of his character declared itself. He was strong and square and firm, but within very gentle. Oh, you English! you English! you are a great people! ”

“ Some men of exceptional talent do many things admirably, but nothing supremely well. I am a man of exceptional talent. Pardon the modest candour which is compelled to assume the garb of egotism.
My landlady looked at my canvas child, and then at me, and laughed.
'To Mr. Aaron's, sir?' Asking this, she put her hands upon the edges of the framework of the canvas.
'Yes, madame,' I answered, for we have always the same formula on Fridays at noon. 'To my estimable uncle round the corner.'
'Anything more than usual?' my landlady asked me. ”

“ To learn that her lover is her brother's murderer, and not only that, but that by his silence he accuses a friend who is innocent, would break her heart beyond all the remedy of hope and years. That shall not be. ”

“ It is now on its way back to the landscape condition, and will have revived all its glories by to-morrow. It was noon when I rang my bell.
'Madame,' I said to my landlady, in my cheerful Italian manner, 'will you again extend to me your courtesy?'
My landlady is not an educated woman, but she is a good creature, and has a delicate and refined susceptibility. She recognises in me a gentleman. She reveres in my person a genius to which I make no pretension. I am not a man of genius. A man of genius does one thing supremely well. ”

“ When the salt mines of Sardinia are on one side a man and liberty is on the other, he does not yield to despair. Ha! The impossibility, signor, of defending oneself unless one criminates another? And that other a friend—a lover? I am right, signor. No gestures of denial can throw down a conclusion so obviously firm. And now, suppose that it should not be necessary to criminate another. Would you then consent to be defended? No? Well, signor, I am not the accusatore pubblico, and it is no business of mine to hunt down criminals. ”

“ And then came music, and for an hour we were happy.
CHAPTER III.—AT POSILIPO.
Ay me, for one hour we were happy, and for many hours thereafter. But when your heart is glad, when you drink the wine of joy, there is Madame Circumstance keeping the score, and she brings in the bill at the end of the banquet, and you pay it in coin of sorrow. She is my old enemy, this Madame Circumstance, as I have told you. It is not always that I can defy her. Who is it that is always brave? Not I. But I shall be brave again in the morning, and the battle will begin again, and I shall win. ”

“ My landlady laughed again and said, 'Very good, sir.' Then she went downstairs with the picture, and I felt unhappy when my canvas child was gone, and was fain (an idiom employed by your best writers) to solace myself with my violin. So far there was nothing to mark this Friday morning from any other Friday morning for the last nine weeks. It is now nine weeks that I have been a hermit. I was very hungry, and was glad to think of the coffee and the loaf. I should have told you that my habits are very abstemious, and that I am admirably healthy on a low diet. ”

“ When I had removed the mud from my canvas child I found that its countenance was badly scratched. So I busied myself in putting up my easel and in setting my palette.
'Oh, signor,' said the poor child, 'I am so sorry.'
Then she cried again.
'Mademoiselle,' I replied, with charming gaiety, 'it is not your fault at all. It is the doing of another lady, an old enemy of mine. The other lady has been trying to spite me, mademoiselle, for several years. She is powerful; she has hosts of servants. ”

“ I can stand up and say one or two things which it is well for a man to say. It is one of them that I do not whine like a baby because I cannot have my own way. It is another that I have strangled jealous hate and buried deep the baseness which would have led me to endeavour to estrange these hearts for my own purpose. ”