George Fleming

“ They're a queer rigged craft, and no mistake, eh, Sora Lucia? isn't that your experience? You'll have a deal to do with their tempers in the way of your business, I'll be bound.'
'Well, Sor Drea, it's rather like the pins and needles—there are all sorts. And it just makes the difference how much you can pay for them,' said the little woman primly, smoothing down the neat cuff of her sleeve.
'Lucia likes women better than men; they walk about the room without making a noise; and they understand about trimmings,' remarked Palmira, with a toss of her head. ”

“ The look of the commonplace crowd around him, the presence of those scores of hurrying, interested, contented, busy men, the very look of the shop windows, all things seemed to conspire together to discredit and ridicule the devoted side, the dramatic side, the only possible side, of his situation. In a world like this—a world of common-sense and convenience and keen enjoyments, a world of sunlight and youth and possibilities, to choose deliberately, at four-and-twenty, to throw away all one's future, all one's love, all one's life in doing—that. ”

“ He took a knife out of his pocket, and picking up the pencil began to sharpen it while she sat watching him, her dark eyes full and bright with such an expression of unquestioning content as one is not accustomed to expect on faces which have outgrown their first childish calm. The water of the canal was as blue that morning as the stainless sky which it reflected, and it seemed almost as still; only now and then the faintest ripple breaking against the step with a weak splash and stir which made the sunbeams sparkle under the wooden platform. ”

“ But it was too busy a part of Leghorn for much idling: all day long the tramp, tramp of hurrying feet, and the hollow rumbling of the weighted carts rolling towards the lading ships, made a dull, continuous bass, which effectually covered any sound of voices. Italia could sing there by the hour over her work, sure of never being heard, save perhaps by some taciturn weather-beaten fisherman poling his flat-bottomed boat into the quieter water of the canal. It was Drea's own landing-stage, and he was jealous of his rights to it, giving but few boats the privilege of mooring there for an hour. ”

“ I have not waited until now to have my own son teach me how to know a good girl when I see one, though, mind you, there's many a lass will sweep out the corners of the balcony while she's waiting to be married, and when she's got a husband—you'll not find her so much as wiping the dust off her own plate. Not that I am saying that Italia is of that sort. She is a good girl.'
'Yes,' said Dino lifting up his face. And then, as if there had indeed been some spell of comfort and of healing in the very sound of her name, he rose with a new look of light and gladness in his young eyes. ”

“ He remembered so well that evening—it was after their demonstration had been dispersed by the police, and he was hot with a sense of battle, and wild with excitement, with bitter baffled indignation. It had seemed so easy a thing then to pledge away his future. He had done it without consulting Valdez—suddenly, madly, on the desperate impulse of the moment. He had done it in a moment of mental crisis; because he was imaginative, because he believed in the cause, heart and soul, because he had been a fool. ”

“ For you'll sooner find an old man without an ache than a young girl without a lover,—eh, signor Marchese? 'Tis the good Lord who made us all, who chose to make us in that way, and where's the harm in speaking of it?' He filled his glass up with a more unsteady hand. 'There's Dino over there looking at me like a black thunder-cloud,—but I suppose I may say what I like about my own daughter in my own house,—eh, boy?'
'I was not contradicting you, Sor Drea,' the young man answered quietly.
'Nay, lad, nay, I meant no malice. ”

“ And so, like some impatient wave breaking too far from shore, whose troubled existence reaches its climax in but one instant of wasted force, in the midst of a sea where every wave which lifts itself must fall, so Olinto died, and his idle raving was hushed, and his place knew him no more. Of mourners he had few or none; it was only to his boy that he left so much as a memory. That was almost the lad's entire heritage, that and the friendship of Pietro Valdez. ”

“ Facing the door a narrow window led out upon a rickety iron balcony, high hung beneath the eaves of the old house, and from thence in the daytime the view was superb, stretching across the Old Port and the New, over the sea, to the pale vision-like peaks of Carrara.
But to-night the curtain was close drawn. A single oil lamp, with a long wick, was burning on the mantelpiece; its light fell upon the bent gray head of an elderly woman, who was knitting busily, and only occasionally moving a little to cast an anxious glance at the contents of an earthen vessel which stood before the fire. ”

“ I shall be very glad to sing for you as much as you like, and father pleases,' Italia answered, looking at him with a great deal of kindness and pleasure. Indeed, every instinct of her nature was always prompting her to do some kindness to some one. As she sat there on her low seat, bending over her guitar, the firelight shining full upon her small dark head and flushed cheeks, and on the movement of her little brown wrists, Dino could not turn his gaze away from her. ”

“ Another man's admiration is a background against which many an ordinary woman has shone clad in unaccustomed graces to her lover's eyes. But in this case Dino wanted no confirming in his devotion: it was only that seeing her there, listening to another man's compliments, had given a slight shock to the sense of unquestioning security which had grown up with him since the very first earliest days of his love. Already he began to look back with some jealous uneasiness at the past years when Italia had seemed as much his, and as much a necessity of his being, as the breath he drew. ”

“ Her own personal life seemed ended: she gazed with the strangest pang of regret and companionship at this fading likeness of the dead face she had loved in her youth. What if afterwards he had neglected her? At least he had come to her once of his own accord, for her own sake—and they had been young together.
She felt herself quite alone, this austere and self-contained woman—alone in a world which could never change for the better now; in which each new morning would only bring new deprivations in place of fresh joys.
*****
Dino had dressed himself in workman's clothes that morning. ”

“ Any one else remembering Olinto de Rossi—had there indeed been any one left in the very least likely to speak of him—any other person would, in all probability, have summed him up briefly as a handsome, fickle, enthusiastic young man, who—having begun life with a tolerable fortune, a persuasive tongue, a singularly equable and lovable temper, and an absolute incapacity for denying himself the smallest satisfaction—had ended by dying miserably of consumption at thirty-five ”

“ Angels visit us for good or ill; the shadows of night gather deeper, or our dawn grows red with promise—and nothing has taken place which was noticeable even to very affectionate eyes. It is not all insensibility in the lookers-on. At every marriage procession, as at every funeral, there must be some person present whose chief interest lies in the trappings—in the workman-like manner in which the wheels go around a corner, and how the horses carry their heads. And life teaches that, as it teaches patience. ”

“ Apologies!—yes—they're cheap enough in every market;—a good wind to torn sails. I believe in actions myself; in doing your duty by your masters and betters, and not hurting the people who love you,—not in fine gentlemen apologies—damn 'em,' said the old man, bringing his knotted hand down heavily upon the table, and glaring from under his shaggy eyebrows at Dino with an unspoken world of troubled reproach in his keen old eyes.
There was a moment of silence, and then, 'Father, dear?' said Italia beseechingly, going up to him and slipping her arm about his neck. ”

“ As little Dino grew up every other detail of his life seemed to change about him, as things do change in the lives of people too poor to order their surrounding circumstances. The Marchesa came less and less often to the Villa Balbi; he had lost the familiar companionship of his foster-brother; of his first childish recollections there was only old Drea left, and the dear face of Italia, to illuminate the past. But, whatever else was altered, he had never lost sight of Valdez. ”

“ After this what would be the use of warning Drea? The simple loyal-hearted old man was as incapable of tempering his gratitude for a gift, with a criticism of the giver's motives as the veriest child. His little store of wisdom held no formula for such a case. It would be next to impossible to make him believe in any form of treachery connected with the handsome open-handed young master; and, even if it were possible, Dino foresaw only too clearly what would be the first—the immediate result. For had he not pledged himself to care for and protect Italia? ”

“ But you should mind. Little girls must mind what is going on about them, else how are they ever to learn their manners before they grow up?' said Sor Drea, still in an admonitory tone, but patting the little face near him as he spoke with a smile which the child understood better than his words. And then he looked about him, 'Well, Dino—Italia, my girl!—and how about our supper? are we not ready for that birthday supper yet?' he said aloud. ”

“ I won't tease you any more: don't be vexed with me, lad,' she said soothingly, looking into his perplexed face with a quivering smile. She put up her hand to brush off an imaginary speck of dust from his coat. 'Nay, 'tis no wonder if people love you. Go, my Dino, go to—her,' she said; and as Dino bent his head and kissed her, 'It's because I am sending him away,' she thought, bitterly enough.
'And how about Monte Nero, mother? The pilgrimage, you know. Italia was asking about it last night,' he said cheerfully, glad to see her beginning to accept things more placidly. ”

“ And from first to last Dino saw nothing but the poem; his father treating him throughout with a gentleness, a pride in his clever boy, and an amount of expansive affection, which cost him nothing, and which bound the lad to him with a more than common reverence and love. As for his wife, for Dino's mother, she was by nature a silent woman, who did not need to express all that she thought; and this, Olinto sometimes reflected, was perhaps fortunate: the view other people take of the less admirable consequences of our actions being apt to strike one as morbid. ”

“ Women are never the worse for being kept waiting; in fact, it does them good, and their hearts get softer with time, just as a peach softens when you leave it for a bit to ripen on the tree. I say, Dino, be a good obliging fellow for once. You are not really in a hurry?'
'No, sir.'
'Benissimo! Then you can go and do an errand for me. I want—— Look here; it's a letter I want carried. Rather an important letter. It's—it's a love-letter, in fact,' said Gasparo, beginning to laugh, 'and I want it taken to the woman with the most beautiful eyes in Leghorn—the most beautiful? ”

“ She is at Pancaldi's this morning, at the Stabilimento. Go straight in to the platform where the baths are in summer; you'll find her there, looking at the waves.' He laughed, brushing up his moustache. 'So there you are; and now right about face—march! Why, man, what are you staring at? There's the letter; and I say, Dino, mind you give it to her quietly; just slip it into her hand, you know, as if it were the answer to some commission. Faith! they are pretty eyes, if they're not so bright as Italia's.'
Dino turned red; he drew his shoulder away from the Marchese's careless touch. ”

“ Fortune is as much at his beck and call as any of the rest of us. And now there's Italia——'
He thought how she too would recognise the prestige of the young soldier's successes, and in what a different spirit! How often in their long talks together had they arrived at the same conclusions, but by what divergent ways? What was careless ease in her, in Dino was pure recklessness: on the one side was the freedom of unconcern, and opposed to it the freedom of desperation. ”

“ Drea did not expect him yet, but it was just possible there might be something which wanted doing in the boat. It was such a bright fresh morning after the storm; a morning to make young hearts beat lightly and young blood run fast with a quick sense and joy of dear life. ”

“ Who believes in accidents? Any fool can call a thing an accident,' retorted Sor Checco, with increasing irritation, standing up and giving an impatient push to his chair. The chair immediately slipped back against the nearest end of the fender, bringing the fire-irons to the ground with a loud rattle and crash.
There was a general laugh at the head clerk's expense, under cover of which Dino walked quietly over to his old place under the window, unlocked a drawer with a key which he took from his pocket, and began putting together some loose papers and a manuscript book. ”

“ It was some time before anything more was said concerning Dino's prospects. When a man's daily food is the measure of his degree of success in the world, conversation at table means chiefly an interruption. So that it was some time before old Drea pushed away his plate and drew his glass nearer, rubbing the back of one hand across his lips with a deep-drawn breath of satisfaction, while with the other he fumbled in his pocket for his pipe. ”

“ It was a cold clear night, with many stars and a piercing March wind, which set the gas lamps flickering in the deserted Via Grande; for it was a Saturday, and all the Jewish shops were closed; and even the few Christian vendors scattered here and there along the street seemed for once to have renounced both orthodoxy and profit, and were for the most part engaged in putting up their shutters with cold and hasty hands. ”