Henry Wilton Thomas

“ It was the blatant hour when Mulberry’s street bazaar is in full cry; when the sham battle fought every morning between honeyed sellers and scornful buyers is in hot movement; when dimes and coppers are the vender’s prize against flounders, cabbages, saucepans, calicoes, apples, and shoestrings, as the stake that fires the housewife’s tongue and eye; when stout-lunged hucksters cut the din with the siren songs their kind have sung for ages in the market place.
Spick and span in the clean blouse of Monday, Signor Di Bello stood on his broad threshold ready for the day’s trade. ”

“ Marriage had eaten up the savings brought from Italy and what he had earned since. When Signor Tomato told him that the Government would retain the marble until the impost were paid, he blotted out the poor lad’s fondest anticipations—his dreams of release from Signor Di Bello and the misery of his secret marriage, the freedom to say to his uncle, “Juno is my wife.” To the bust he had looked forward as to a loyal friend, who should come some day to lift him to the plane whereon a man ought to stand. ”

“ The lips of the marchers scarcely moved as they gave forth their hymn of praise to the Genius of Spring. And there was the Queen, wabbling along in her push-cart chariot, the idol of Mulberry’s rabble—the “Presidentessa” whom her creator had dreamed—oh, so trustfully!—to see enthroned upon a porphyry pedestal in the White House, admired of the rich and great. Armando would have dived into the cortège, pushed aside the candle-bearers who guarded the Queen, and striven to reclaim his own, but the grip of Carolina’s hands on his arm held him back. ”

“ No, no; even these Sicilian pigs could not be making game of a dead man. Pulling the handkerchief from his mouth, he dashed across the street, breaking through the ranks and exploding a volley of hisses and wrathful epithets from marchers and bystanders.
“Aunt Carolina! Marianna! Armando!”
“Bertino!”
They all tried to hug and kiss him at once.
“Are you Juno’s husband?” were the first coherent words.
“Yes; miserable that I am!”
“Bravo!” exulted Carolina. “The Napolitana shall not enter.”
“And my uncle? He lives?”
“Lives! By the mass! He is too much alive.” ”

“ Though a good piece of acting, it did not gammon the keen wits of Sara the Frier of Pepper Pods. Taking up her bag of salt, she clattered from the shop, and before long stood the voluble centre of a group of eager women, into whose ears she poured the tidings of rival loves in Casa Di Bello. Meantime the grocer, waiting for Bertino, fanned his wrath. When the young man turned up at the shop this was his greeting:
“Satan the Pig!”
“Why?” asked Bertino.
“And you have the courage to ask? Very innocent for one who tries to rob me of the woman I love. O traitor!” ”

“ From the market place Angelica bore the gossip that was fast reaching every niche and turn of Mulberry—the great tidings that Signor Di Bello and Juno the Superb had been seen the night before in the Caffè of the Beautiful Sicilian sitting at the same table eating a ragout of spiced pigskin.
“It must be stopped!” declared Carolina, setting her gold-patched teeth. The old bugaboo of a wife arose, as it did with any woman to whom the running voice of the colony linked her brother’s name. “He shall never bring that Neapolitan baggage to Casa Di Bello.” ”

“ But the broad smiles vanished from the signore’s face when they drew near to Casa Di Bello. Before the door stood a cab on whose top lay a trunk of ancient pattern that he knew too well. On the sidewalk, gesturing madly, were the leading families of the Torinesi, the Milanesi, and the Genovesi, with a scant sprinkling of southern tribes. They surrounded the barouche and shook their fists at the occupants. A fine trick, indeed! A joke, perhaps, but not the joke of a signore. Ask people to a wedding feast, and then have the door slammed in their faces! ”

“ All Armando knew of sculpture he had learned from his uncle Daniello, a mountain craftsman who never chiselled anything greater than a ten-inch Saint Peter. At night in the tavern on the craggy height, with a flask of barbera before him, the old carver would talk grandly of his doings in art, while his comrades, patient of the oft-told tale, nodded their heads in listless but loyal accord. They all knew very well that it was young Armando who did most of the carving, yet they cried “Bravo!” for old Daniello’s wine was good. ”

“ The banking house and steamship office of Signor Tomato had reached the border of a crisis. Inch by inch the despairing padrone had seen his well of profit dry up. No longer did labour contractors come to him for men, and for more than a year he had not taken in a soldo of commission on wages. Even Anselmo the baker, who for two loyal years had bought a four-dollar draft on Naples, took his business to an upstart rival, and people sneered at the sham packages of Italian currency exposed in the little window. ”

“ But what can one expect from a silly girl? I buy you fine clothes, I bring you to America in second class like a signora. I offer you a signore for a husband, with a beautiful house to live in. But you, the goose, say you like better to dress in rags, to have a beggar for a husband, to starve, to live in the streets; for into the streets you go, remember, if you continue to play the fool.”
Carolina was no stranger to the lotus that gives languor of conscience toward means when the end cries for attainment. ”

“ This news was a cut and thrust at the hope [Pg 165] whereon Juno’s crude self-love had fed for many a month, and it killed the solitary motive that made her hold to Bertino. By neither word nor sign, however, did she betray her disgust and anger; she even feigned sympathy, and bade him be of good cheer, saying tenderly that ill fortune would not dog them forever; that by luck or pluck they should get possession of the bust, and carry out his plan for money-making. These were the first heartening words she had ever spoken to him—the first kindness he could recall as coming from her lips. ”

“ At length he discovered the Tenderloin, with its dazzling electric displays at the doors of theatres and drinking places, its phantom gaiety. Resolved to sound the depths of this ocean of lights, he went along with a current that flowed to the box office of the Titania, where the glittering Aztec spectacle, “Zapeaca” was the magnet, charged with “one hundred American beauties.”
“By Cristoforo Colombo, it is she!” the grocer exclaimed, as the woman he had hunted in a cityful marched across the stage, bringing up the rear of a long column of high-heeled warriors. ”

“ Ah! the grand truth in the proverb, “Blind eyes lose their night when gold is in sight.” Straightway he went to the landlord, got the key of the old shop, and, when darkness had fallen, Bridget and her brood were eating cabbage soup behind the nankeen sail in the revivified Banca Tomato.
But the Last Lady was still with them, to the hearty disgust of Bridget. Not yet had the hour arrived for Carolina to bring the bust on the scene, and Signor Tomato, with many a word and grimace of reluctance, consented, under an oath of secrecy, to keep it in his place until the supreme moment. ”

“ Then he added, after an apparent mental struggle with the stubborn truth: “Yes; she has made grand trouble for you, but you shall not suffer. I will buy your Juno and the Peacock and—the other Juno, if only to smash it in a thousand pieces!”
“Will you pay me back the Dogana, signore?” put in the banker, striking the hot iron. “I too have been ruined by the Last Lady.”
“Excuse me, signore; you are old enough to know better.”
“And so are you,” chirped Tomato, whereat Signor Di Bello held his tongue. ”

“ Every eye turned from the marble Juno to the Juno of flesh and blood. She had let fall the counterfeit blossoms that the signore had just placed in her hand, but gave no other token of disquiet. A glow of admiration lit up her face as she gazed steadily at her double in stone.
“It is really beautiful,” she said calmly, [Pg 319] moving nearer. “I knew I should look well in marble.”
She passed one hand behind the bust as though to judge it by the sense of touch, but before any one could hinder she lifted it to the window sill and sent it somersaulting into the rear court. ”

“ Bertino stood a moment, grasping the knife and looking at Juno; then he flung it down and made for the door. One of the card players held it open for him as he passed out; for the vendetta is a man’s sacred right—a strictly private matter to be settled by him in his own way, free of outside interference. Enough that he use the genteel knife and not the clumsy pistol, which is seldom sure of its mark, and brings the police to make trouble for one’s friends. ”

“ But Armando had a soul that looked far above the gleaming tonsures of ten-inch Saint Peters. Wherefore he was unhappy. When his twentieth birthday dawned it seemed to him that his life had been a failure. One morning, after a night of much barbera and noisy gasconade, old Daniello did not wake up, and two days afterward they laid him to rest in the sloping graveyard in the gorge by the olive-oil mill. ”

“ It was in the theatre that I saw her—at the Titania, a grand spectacle. So many women, and beautiful! But not one was the equal of Juno. My word of honour for that. Well, I waited after the representation, but did not see her. To-morrow night, though, I shall say to her: ‘Juno, be my wife. In three months come to my house, to Casa Di Bello.’ These words will I say to her, and I shall wait at the stage door until she comes out.”
“You will wait many months, then,” said Bertino to himself with a smothered chuckle as he fell upon a patty of codfish that Angelica had just brought in. ”

“ Do you know how I am going to make money? I do not tell everybody—not even my uncle—but I will tell you. I have a friend in Italy, at Cardinali. Do you know the place? No matter. My friend is what is called a sculptor, and he is going to make statues—oh, so fine!—of great people in this country. Now, it is I who am to tell him what to make. When I have made up my mind, I shall send him the picture of some great American—some famous man—and from this he will make a marble bust. The marble is all ready. ”

“ The priest, looking out of the window, shook his sides.
“You must be his!” said Carolina, catching hold of her arm and striving to drag her away from Armando.
“She shall not!” cried the sculptor, placing an arm about Marianna, authority in his eye and voice. “Take off your hand. No one else shall have her.”
“Bravo!” exclaimed Signor Di Bello. “Let the pigs squeal. I am not a man to marry a girl against her will.” ”

“ In the shock of this terrible thought he upset the pail of yellow just as Signor Di Bello stepped out of the shop.
“Soul of a cat!” exclaimed the grocer, the toe of one of his black shoes tipped with the paint. “What the rhinoceros are you about? Gran Dio, what stupendous stupidity!”
Re-entering the shop, he cleaned off the paint, fuming the while and growling. Then he flew out, scowling at Bertino as he passed, and made straight for the Caffè of the Three Gardens.
“The monkey!” said Bertino to himself. “When the bust arrives I’ll be rid of him.” ”

“ Here is Armando. He is a fine sculptor. We know that. The proof is here.” He tapped the big box. “But in Genoa they are too stupid and too poor to buy his magnificent work. Now, in America people are neither stupid nor poor. Why can he not make a fortune in America?”
“I can’t go to America,” said Armando.
“No; he can’t go to America,” chimed in Marianna. “What a foolish idea!”
[Pg 15]
“Excuse me. Who wants him to go to America? He stays in Cardinali and makes statues. I go to New York and sell them. ”

“ Juno gave no answer. In the vestibule a mincing sacristan, low of bow and smiling, came forward to meet the rich merchant and his bride and conduct them at once to the altar. Already a frail girl in pink and a hulking fellow clad in new jeans and fumbling his hat were at the rail receiving [Pg 243] a wedlock yoke. In the rear pews sat other wedding parties, awaiting their turns at the altar—solemn-faced brides and listless grooms, bridesmaids in gayest feather, best men with red neckties, aged fathers and mothers half asleep. ”

“ The first came from the impresario, who told her, with tearful voice, that the affairs of the theatre had gone so badly of late that he was obliged—how much against his will Iddio knew—to dispense with her services. The second blow came after the performance, when she was eating polenta and birds with Signor Di Bello. She had broached the subject of a wedding ring, only to have him dash her hopes with a roar of laughter that shook the caffè. The rich husband failing and her stage career closed, she decided to tide over present difficulties by accepting Bertino’s offer of a situation as wife. ”

“ Flowers for a Neapolitan of the Porto! Blossoms that have poison in their breath! [Pg 54] Stupid Di Bello! Stupid Genovese! Twelve years in Mulberry, and to forget the hatred that Neapolitans of Naples have for natural blooms! Perhaps you thought she was from the country, like most of the people there. Bah! In such a serious matter one ought to be sure.
It was the women’s golden chance. They started a titter of derisive laughter that became a gale and swept through the theatre. Juno moved toward the box, trampling the odious flowers, and spat in the face of Signor Di Bello. ”

“ But an impulse of fidelity to Armando conquered his fears, and, turning up his coat collar and drawing his soft hat over his eyes, he went on, dogging the push-cart in all its fits and starts through the lighted highways that he was sure teemed with detectives.
At Bleecker Street and the Bowery Andrea turned, and with a sinking of courage Bertino guessed that the Last Lady was bound for the very heart of Mulberry. Here every man and woman would know him for a murderer, and not a doorway or alley that [Pg 285] would not have a law-hound in its shadow! ”