William De Morgan

“ For the lamp is making haste to die.
That is a timid touch upon the handle of the door. The young soldier's face of expectation is a sight to see, a sight to remember. His one hand is bearing on the table where he placed the lamp—almost as though he were for the moment dizzy. Then, in the wavering light he can see the loose, many-flowered robe of Madeline, such a one as she wears for the toilette, and her white face, and her cloud of beautiful hair that is all undone. They are all there in the leaping light of the fire, and he hears her voice that says, "Oh Jack—-oh Jack—-oh Jack!" ”

“ Reginald Aiken, who managed to brew a quarrel with his wife by his own silliness and bad taste.
It is only dimly visible in the half-light, but Mr. Pelly knows it is there; knows, too, that its eyes can see him, if a picture's eyes can see, and that its laugh is there on the parted lips, and that its jewelled hand is wound into the great tress of gold that falls on its bosom. For it is a portrait of a young and beautiful woman, such as Galuppi Baldassare wrote music about—you know, of course! ”

“ Pelly's mind felt referred to sudden death, but his reply was, "Guaranteed continuity of communication was what I meant." Then he reflected that perhaps sudden death might be only suspension of communication—however, he had had no experience of it himself, and could only guess. The picture continued sadly:
"That makes me think how hard it is that you should wake to live in the great world I cannot join in; to move about and be free, while I must needs be speechless! Give me a thought sometimes, even as the disembodied spirit, as some hold, may give a thought to one he leaves behind. ”

“ It was little to be wondered at that Maddalena should show pleasure when she saw who after all was the young Venetian painter; who, still almost a boy, had climbed so high in fame that it was already held an honour to be painted by him. For he was her old friend Giacinto, and she in her languid lack of interest in all about her, had never asked what was the actual name of lo Spazzolone. For by this nickname only had he been spoken of in her presence, and it may easily be he was known by no other to the old Duca himself, so universal is the practice of nicknaming among the artists of Italy. ”

“ This cousin Volumnia, the elder sister of that little monkey Jessie, was of course the grim big Miss Bax Miss Upwell had met at Lady Presteign's; and, as we have seen, she was a very determined person, one who would stand no nonsense. "Start from where the voice woke you, Cousin Euphemia," said she. She shut her eyes, and frowned, so as to listen judicially.
"I laid the photograph on the table," said Mrs. Aiken, with circumflex accents over every other syllable, which is how to tell things clearly. But Miss Volumnia said, "You needn't pounce. I can hear." So she became normal. ”

“ Yet when the end came it found me not without a hope of Maddalena; or if not Maddalena, at least the Duke.
But I do not see them, either of them. Nor old Marta Zan and her little dog. Nor the dropsical old maggiordomo. That there is no Giacinto is little wonder to me. For I believe him dead, killed by that fell blow on the olive neck I loved so well, just behind the ear. I wonder, though, that I see none of the others. But indeed I have much ado to see anything. All is in a mist of darkness. ”

“ How in Heaven's name had this odious quarrel come about? Nonsense about Sairah! That absurd business began it, of course. Serious quarrels grow out of the most contemptible nonsense, sometimes. Oh no—there was something behind; some underlying cause. But he sought in vain to imagine one. They had always been such capital friends, he and Euphemia! It was true they wrangled a great deal, often enough. But come, I say! If a man wasn't to be at liberty to wrangle with his own wife, what were we coming to?
He believed it was all the doing of that blessed old Aunt of hers. ”

“ Still, she had too much grit in her to dream of giving in. And then, look at the motive! Besides, she had in her heart a strong suspicion that she was a beauty, and that that was why people always gave way to her. Her beauty was of no use, now that Jack was gone. Nothing being of any use to her, now, at least let it help her to do a good turn to a fellow-woman in tribulation. If this picture-ghost—so she said to herself—had told this Mrs. Aiken where Jack was, would she not come and tell, on the chance? Of course she would! Courage! ”

“ Think of my exultation at his returning life—life to be lived for me! And believe me—for this I can know, for I was Maddalena, and now it comes, like a dim memory—that I shuddered when they told me that the sodden old horror that had been my owner was well started on his flight to Hell, sent by the swift little knife-spike of my Marta. Oh how often have I seen that little knife itself in the long girth that could but just span the bloated carcass of the Ferretti!—for he is a clear memory to me. And to think that that knife—that knife—was to..."
Mr. Pelly felt constrained to interrupt. ”

“ Pelly immortal.
If it hears, it hears the few sounds the silent north has to show against the music and the voices of the south. It can listen to the endless torrent of song from its little brown-bird outside above the meadow, poised in the misty blue of a coming day, or the scanty measure of the pleading of the nightingale, heard from a thousand throats among the Apennines in years gone by, welcome now as a memory that brings them back. ”

“ But first he goes and stands opposite the picture, still gripping her wrist. Then says he, "Non c'e male"—not bad—and leads her away, dumb. And they leave me alone in the Stanza delle Quattro Corone, and I hear the door locked from the outside. And the night comes, and I hear the voices of the frogs in the flat land, and think of the boy and girl that heard them together in that other old Castello I remember so well, but have never seen. And the sun comes again and shines upon some blood upon the floor. It is not Giacinto's—it is Maddalena's, where she cut herself on the man with the sword. ”

“ Euphemia Aiken, be it understood, had not brought definition to bear on her motives for running away to her Aunt Priscilla at Coombe. It seemed the nearest handy way of expressing her indignation at her profligate husband's conduct—that was all.
By the time she had got to Clapham Junction her indignation had begun to cool. But no ruction would hold out for five minutes if it depended on legitimate indignation. Unfortunately, when that emotion gets up, it always awakens pride, with whom—or which—it has been sleeping. ”

“ Each morning may bring that forelock again within reach, and each morning the same apathy that made us yesterday too languid to stretch out a hand and grip the old scamp and employ him for our own advantage keeps us in the same stupid abeyance, and we lose the chance for another twenty-four hours. Every postponement makes a new precedent, and every new precedent stiffens the back of inaction.
It was so with Mr. and Mrs. Reginald Aiken. ”

“ So ignorant was I that I rejoiced to think that I should be the means of preserving for my family the long stretches of vine-clad hills and the old Castello in the Apennines that had borne our name since the first stone was laid, centuries ago. So ignorant, innocent, indifferent—call it what you will!—that the moment I was told my destiny I went straight to Giacinto, the page, with whom I had grown from infancy, to tell him the good news, that he might rejoice too. ”

“ The first instinct of visitors to a Studio is to find some way of avoiding looking at the pictures. A good method towards success in this object is to lean back and peep over all the canvases with their faces to the wall, and examine all the sketch-books, in search of what really interests you so much more than finished work; to wit, the first ideas of the Artist, fresh from his brain—incomplete, of course, but full of an indefinable something. They are himself, you see! But they spoil your new gloves, and perhaps you are going on to Hurlingham. ”

“ One does not lightly forget these hours—the hours before the ugly dawn of the real World. Nor the little joys one takes as a right, without a rapture or a thought of gratitude; nor the little pangs one thinks so hard to bear, and so soon forgets.
If you should ask me how it came about that the two of them should have so completely parted during all those six years, that La Maddalena should not even have known the nickname of the young painter, nor his fame, I must beg that you will remember that these were not the days of daily posts, of telegraphs, and railways ”

“ Her voice has a little laugh in it. It is not a sweet laugh to hear.
"'"Does he still sleep—will he sleep?" It is my Maddalena who asks. And la Marta replies, "Non c'e pericolo! No fear!" But I see across the shoulder of my darling, as she stoops over me again and tries to clear my brow of tangled hair—but, you may well think, to little purpose—I see that the old woman holds somewhat up, hanging from betwixt her finger and old thumb, to show to Attilio. And he laughs to see the little knife and its sharp point, but below his breath, as guilt laughs to guilt. ”

“ No one would be more interested than myself in such discussions under circumstances of guaranteed continuity. But..." Mr. Pelly paused, and the voice laughed. The picture itself remained unmoved.
"Circumstances of guaranteed continuity," it repeated mockingly. "When have you ever had a guarantee of continuity, and from whom? If you were suddenly to find yourself extinct, at any moment, could you logically—could you reasonably—express surprise?—you who had actually passed through an infinity of nonentity before you, at any rate, became a member of Society! ”

“ And when within a year after his accident Jack Calverley was ordered away with his Company to South Africa, where war had all but broken out, the sacramental service the picture—or someone—had witnessed, just by the glass case with the big fish in it, was the farewell of a couple of heartbreaks, kept under by the upspring of Hope in youth, that clings to the creed that the stricken classes, the mourning classes, are Other People, and that to them pity shall be given from within our pale of well-fenced security. ”

“ Aiken's old ivory foot-rule, which was the only accurate one in the British Empire, and what the dooce had become of it he never could tell; plaster heads without noses, and fingers without hands, and discarded fig-foliage, like a pawnshop in Eden; things, too, for which no assignable purpose appeared on the closest examination—things that must have been the lifework of insane artisans, skilful and thorough outside the powers of language to express, but stark mad beyond a doubt. ”

“ So Marta, though she looked mighty glum over it, kept her thoughts for her own use, with due consideration how she might get most profit from what she foresaw, and yet keep her footing firm with her great Duke. She was a cunning old black spot, was Marta, and quick to scheme her own advantage, for all she was near seventy. But she saw no reason for meddling to check her young Duchessa's free flow of spirits, and she invented a good apology for letting her alone. She was not going to mar the portrait by making the sitter cry and look sulky: red eyes and swelled cheeks were no man's joy. ”

“ But not alone! For there are behind him two of his retinue, rough troopers, buff-jerkined and morion-capped with steel, ready for any crime at their master's noble bidding. So silently have they come that the first sound that rouses the young artist and his sorellaccia from their little moment of rapture—for which I for one see little reason to blame them—and brings them back to conscious life and the knowledge of their lot, is the slight ring of the short sword-dagger one of them draws from the scabbard. Their eyes are opened now, and lo Spazzolone sees his executioners ”

“ Is it reasonable, Euphemia, to expect me to be surprised? After what I have so frequently had occasion to say. But I am quite prepared to hear that I have said no such thing. Pray tell me anything you like. I will not contradict you." Aunt Priscilla assumed a rigid continuousness, as of one who forms to receive aspersions. Truth will triumph in the end; meanwhile there is no harm in portending that triumph by an aggressive stony patience.
"Only you don't know what it is, Aunt Prissy," said her niece. ”

“ This young lady, Madeline Upwell, had never been in a real picture-restorer's Studio before, and could not presume to be questioning anything, or taking exceptions. So she accepted Sairah's handiwork as technical skill of a high order. And Mr. Aiken, his conscience at ease at having avoided fibs, which so often lead to embarrassments, felt quite in high spirits, and could give himself airs about his knowledge of Early Italian Art. ”

“ Were it otherwise, the estimation of a painter's merit would rise or fall with his colourman's bill and the rent of his studio. This gentleman—although he is a friend of the author—has no Soul. If he had, the spectacle of the life-struggle which is often the lot of Genius would appeal to him, and cause him to suspend his opinion. It is always, we understand, desirable to suspend one's opinion.
He would do so, for instance, in the case of an Artist, a common acquaintance of ours, whom at present he condemns freely, calling him names. ”