Countess Erika's Apprenticeship Part 34

His proposal was an unusual one; and this seemed to strike him, for before she could reply he added, "Of course it is disagreeable to trust to a stranger's escort, but under the circ.u.mstances it is the only thing to do. I cannot leave you here without a protector: this is no place for a lady."

So dismayed was she by this knowledge that she could find no courteous word of thanks, and all she said in reply was to mention the name of her hotel.

"To the left," he said, motioning in the given direction. His voice, too, seemed familiar.

They pa.s.sed together through the net-work of narrow streets and over a high arched bridge upon which a red lantern was burning and beneath which the sluggish water flowed slowly.

"Of whom does he remind me?" thought Erika. Suddenly her heart beat so as almost to deprive her of breath. Bayreuth--Lozoncyi!

And at the same moment she recalled also his fair companion.

Meanwhile, they had reached a large, airy square.

"Piazza San Zacharie. I know where I am now," she said, very coldly, as she took leave of him.

He stood still, evidently wounded by her tone, and looked after her with a frown.

Without thanking him, she hurried on. Suddenly she paused, unable to resist the impulse to look back. He was still standing looking after her. She half turned to retrace her steps and thank him, when indignation seemed to paralyze her. What had she to say to a man who without the least shame could appear in public with---- Without further hesitation she returned to the hotel.

She slept badly that night. Her teeth chattered with fear at the thought of her adventure. And then--then, in spite of herself, she was vexed that she had said no friendly word to Lozoncyi: he had deserved some such at her hands. What was his private life to her? She recalled the handsome half-starved lad whom she had fed beside the gurgling brook. She longed to see him again. Half asleep, she turned her head uneasily on her pillow. The plas.h.i.+ng of the water beneath her window sounded like a low, trembling sigh, and the sigh became a song. Nearer and nearer it sounded, insinuatingly sweet,--a song of Tosti's then in fas.h.i.+on. She heard only the refrain:

"Ninon, Ninon, que fais-tu de la vie, Toi, qui n'as pas d'amour?"

She sprang out of bed and threw open the window. Along the Grand Ca.n.a.l, illuminated by gay little lanterns, glided a gondola whence the song proceeded.

She leaned forward, but almost before she was aware of it the gondola had pa.s.sed out of sight: it was nothing more in the distance than a shadow with a little dash of colour, and the sweet melody only a sigh slowly absorbed by the rippling waves.

She still stood at the window when all was silent again. All gone! all silent! Where the gondola had pa.s.sed there lay a broad moon-glade upon the black water, and mingling with the swampy odour of the lagoon Erika could perceive the breath of spring.

She closed the window, and no longer heard even the plash of the water, or aught save the beating of her own heart.

CHAPTER XIX.

The next morning after breakfast Erika stood again at her window, looking out upon the magnificence of the palaces bordering the Grand Ca.n.a.l, and upon the dark, sluggish water. She seemed to be looking for the spot where the gondola the previous night had pa.s.sed through the silvery radiance of the moonlight. The burden of the plaintive song still rang in her ears, in her nerves, in her soul:

"Ninon, Ninon, que fais-tu de la vie, Toi, qui n'as pas d'amour?"

Her grandmother entered, ready to go out, an opera-gla.s.s in her hand, and asked her, "Erika, will you not come with me to the exhibition in the Circolo artistico? There is a picture there of which all Venice is talking,--a wonder of a picture, they say."

"Whom is it by?"

"By Lozoncyi."

"Ah!" Erika turned away from her grandmother, and gazed out of the window into the broad Southern sunlight, until black specks danced before her eyes.

"What an indignant exclamation!" her grandmother said, with a laugh.

"Your 'Ah!' sounded as if Lozoncyi were your mortal enemy. Perhaps you resent his being in Bayreuth with--with a companion. You must not be so strict with an artist: the society which these gentlemen, in pursuance of their calling, are obliged to frequent, is apt to blunt their sensibilities in that direction. Besides, he was just from Paris: such things are usual there. We are rather more strict in our notions. It is all the same. For my part, it is a matter of entire indifference to me how this Herr Lozoncyi arranges his domestic affairs. Years ago I prophesied a brilliant future for him, when our best Berlin critics condemned his efforts as unripe fruit. Of course I feel flattered at having been right. The vanity of being in the right is the last to die in the human breast. At all events, he seems to have painted a really great picture, and I thought---- But if you do not want to come with me, you prejudiced young lady, I will go alone. Adieu, my child." She stroked the cheek of the young girl, who had now turned away from the window, and went towards the door.

But before she had reached it, Erika called after her: "But, grandmother, do not be in such haste. I--I should like to take a little walk with you, and I do not care where we go."

"Very well: I will wait."

Shortly afterwards grandmother and grand-daughter walked across the little square behind the hotel, decorated in honour of the spring with orange-trees and laurels in tubs, towards the Piazza San Stefano. The day was lovely, and the streets were filled with people. Erika wore a dark-green cloth walking-suit, that became her well. Although she gave but little thought to her dress, with her good taste was instinctive: she always looked like a picture, and to-day like an uncommonly handsome picture.

"Everybody turns to look at you," her grandmother whispered to her; "and I must confess that it is worth the trouble."

This sounded like old times. The compliment had no effect upon Erika, but the tenderness that prompted it did the girl good. She smiled affectionately, but shook her forefinger at the old lady.

"What? I am to take care not to spoil you?" the old Countess said, with a laugh. "I'll answer for that. If flattered vanity could spoil, you would be quite ruined by this time. Good heavens! I would rather you were a little spoiled,--just a little,--and happy, instead of being as you are, an angel,--sometimes an insufferable one, but still an angel,--with no suns.h.i.+ne in your heart." She looked askance, almost timidly, at the young girl, as if to see if she were not a little merrier to-day than usual. No, Erika did not look merry: she looked touched, but not merry.

"If I only knew what you want!" the grandmother sighed, half aloud.

Erika moved closer to her side. "I want nothing. I have too much," she whispered. "You spoil me."

"How can I help it? I am seventy-two years old: how much time is left me to delight in you? It may be all over for me to-day or to-morrow, and then----" But when she looked again at Erika the tears were rolling down the girl's cheeks. "Foolish child!" exclaimed the grandmother. "In all probability I shall not die so very soon: you need not spoil your fine eyes with crying, beforehand; but one ought to be prepared for everything, and of course I should like to see you married to a good husband."

She had rested her hand on Erika's arm, and hitherto the young girl in a child-like caressing way had pressed it close to her side, but now she extricated herself from the old lady's clasp; her lips quivered.

"Whom shall I marry?" she exclaimed, with bitter emphasis.

Then both were silent. The grandmother was conscious of the blunder she had committed, and was furious with herself; which nevertheless would not in the least prevent her from making another of the same kind whenever an opportunity offered.

Erika walked stiff and haughty beside her without looking at her again.

When they reached the Circolo, after a long walk, they wandered through the splendid, s.p.a.cious rooms for some time without discovering the object of their expedition. The spring exhibition at the Circolo was spa.r.s.ely attended: strangers had no time for modern art in Venice, and the natives preferred a walk in such fine weather. Consequently the pictures signed by famous modern names hung for the most part upon the walls merely for the satisfaction of their originators. Bezzy's landscapes the old Countess p.r.o.nounced to be masterpieces, and she became so absorbed in a sirocco by that artist that she quite forgot the purpose for which she had come hither.

It looked almost as if Erika took more interest than her grandmother in Lozoncyi's picture. She looked about her in search of it. From the next room came the sound of voices, now suppressed, then loud in talk. Her heart began to beat fast, and she directed her steps thither.

A group of six or seven men were standing in front of a large picture which hung alone on one side of the room, probably because no other artist had ventured to provoke comparison with it. The men standing before it--Erika suspected, from their remarks, that they were all artists by profession--spoke of it in low tones, as of something sacred, which the picture was not,--far from it; but it was a magnificent revelation of genius, and as such was something divine.

'Francesca da Rimini' was engraved upon the frame. The old subject was strangely treated. Trees in full leaf were cut short by the frame so that only their luxuriant foliage and blossom-laden boughs were visible, and above them against a background of dull, gloomy storm-clouds floated two forms closely intertwined.

Never had Erika seen two such figures living, as it were, upon canvas; never had she seen writhing despair so revealed in every limb and muscle. Her first sensation was one of almost angry repulsion for the artist.

"What do you say to it?" the old Countess, who had followed Erika, asked, rather loudly, as was her wont. "A masterpiece, is it not?"

Erika turned away. She was very pale, and she trembled from head to foot.

"It is wonderfully beautiful," she murmured, in a low voice, "but it is unpleasant. I feel as if it were a sin to look at it."

As they crossed the Piazza San Stefano on their way home, at the foot of Manin's statue stood a group of five street-singers, two men and three women, all over fifty, both men blind, one of the women one-eyed, another hump-backed, and the third so corpulent that she looked like a caricature.