The Italians Part 16

"Count," said Enrica, looking up and endeavoring to break a silence which had become painful, "if I have inspired you with any interest--"

She hesitated.

"_If_ you have inspired me?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Marescotti, reproachfully, not moving his eyes off her.

"I can hardly believe it," she added; "but, if it be so, speak to me in the voice of poetry. Tell me your thoughts."

"Yes," exclaimed the count, clasping his hands; "I have been longing to do so ever since I first saw you. Will you permit it? If so, give me paper and pencil, that I may write."

Enrica had neither. Rising from the ground, she crossed over to where Trenta sat, apparently absorbed in the contemplation of the roofs of his native city. Fortunately, after diving into various pockets, he found a pencil and the fly-leaf of a letter. Marescotti took them and retreated to the farther end of the tower; Enrica leaned against the wall beside the cavaliere.

In a few minutes the count joined them; he returned the pencil with a bow to the cavaliere. The sonnet was already written on the fly-leaf of the letter.

"Oh!" cried Enrica, "give me that paper, I know it will tell me my fate. Give it to me. Count, do not refuse me." Her look, her manner, was eager--imploring. As the count drew back, she endeavored to seize the paper from his hand. But Marescotti, holding the paper above his head, in one moment had crushed it in his fingers, and, rus.h.i.+ng forward, he flung it over the battlements.

"It is not worthy of you!" he exclaimed, with excitement; "it is worthy neither of you nor of me! No, no," and he leaned over the tower, and watched the paper as it floated downward in the still air.

"Let it perish."

"Oh! why have you destroyed it?" cried Enrica, greatly distressed.

"That paper would have told me all I want to know. How cruel! how unkind!"

But there was no help for it. No lamentation could bring the paper back again. The sonnet was gone. Marescotti had sacrificed the man to the poet. His artistic sense had conquered.

"Excuse me, dear signorina," he pleaded, "the composition was imperfect. It was too hurried. With your permission, on my return, I will address some other verses to you, more appropriate--more polished."

"Ah! they will not be like those. They will not tell me what I want to know. They cannot come from your very soul like those. The power to divine is gone from you." Enrica could hardly restrain her tears.

"I am very sorry," answered the count, "but I could not help it; I did it unconsciously."

"Indeed, count, you did very wrong," put in the cavaliere; "one understands you wrote _in furore_--so much the better," and Trenta gave a sly wink, which was entirely lost on Marescotti. "But time is getting on. When are we to have that oration on the history and beauties of Lucca that we came up to hear? Had you not better begin?"

The count was engaged at that moment in plucking a sprig of bay for himself and for the cavaliere to wear, as he said, "in memoriam." "I am ready," he replied. "It is a subject that I love."

"Let us begin with the mountains; they are the nearest to G.o.d." As he p.r.o.nounced that name, the count raised his eyes reverently, and uncovered his head. Enrica had placed herself on his right hand, but all interest had died out of her face. She only listened mechanically.

(Yes, the mountains, the glorious mountains! There they were--before, behind, in front; range upon range--peak upon peak, like breakers on a restless sea! Mountains of every shade, of every shape, of every height. Already their mighty tops were flecked with the glow of the western sunbeams; already pink and purple mists had gathered upon their sides, filling the valleys with mystery!)

"There," said the count, pointing in the direction of the winding river Serchio, "is La Panga, the loftiest Apennine in Central Italy.

The peaked summits of those other mountains more to the right are the marble-bosomed range of Carrara. One might believe them at this time covered with a mantle of snow, but for the ardent sun, the deep green of the belting plains, and the luxuriance of the forests. Yonder steep chestnut-clothed height that terminates the valley opening before us is Bargilio, a mountain fortress of the Panciatici over the Baths of Lucca."

Marescotti paused to take breath. Enrica's eyes languidly followed the direction of his hand. The cavaliere, standing on his other side, was adjusting his spectacles, the better to distinguish the distance.

"To the south," continued the count, pointing with his finger--"in the centre of that rich vine-trellised Campagna, lies Pescia, a garden of luscious fruits. Beyond, nestling in the hollows of the Apennines, shutting in the plain of that side, is ancient Lombard-walled Pistoja--the key to the pa.s.ses of Northern Italy. Farther on, nearer Florence, rise the heights of Monte Catni, crowned as with a diadem by a small burgh untouched since the middle ages. Nearer at hand, glittering like steel in the suns.h.i.+ne, is the lake of Bientina. You can see its low, marshy sh.o.r.es fringed by beauteous woodlands, but without a single dwelling."

Enrica, in a fit of abstraction, leaned over the parapet. Her eyes were riveted upon the city beneath. Marescotti followed her eyes.

"Yes," said he, "there is Lucca;" and as he spoke he glanced inquiringly at her, and the tones of his clear, melodious voice grew soft and tender. "Lucca the Industrious, bound within her line of ancient walls and fortifications. Great names and great deeds are connected with Lucca. Here, tradition says, Julius Caesar ruled as proconsul. How often may the sandals of his feet have trod these narrow streets--his purple robes swept the dust of our piazza! Here he may have officiated as high-priest at our altars--dictated laws from our palaces! It was after the conquest of the Nervii (most savage among the Gaulish tribes) that Julius Caesar is said to have first come to Lucca. Pompey and Cra.s.sus met him here. It was at this time that Domitius--Caesar's enemy, then a candidate for the consuls.h.i.+p--boasted that he would ruin him. But Caesar, seizing the opportune moment of his recent victories over the Gauls, and his meeting with Pompey--formed the bold plan of grasping universal power by means of his deadliest enemies. These enemies, rather than see the supreme power vested in each other, united to advance him. The first triumvirate was the consequence of the meeting. Ages pa.s.s by.

The Roman Empire dissolves. Barbarians invade Italy. Lucca is an independent state--not long to remain so, however, for the Countess Matilda, daughter of Duke Bonifazio, is born within her walls. At Lucca Countess Matilda holds her court. By her counsels, a.s.sistance, and the rich legacy of her patrimonial dominions, she founds the temporal power of the papacy. To Lucca came, in the fifteenth century, Charles VIII. of France, presumptuous enough to attempt the conquest of Naples; also that mighty dissembler, Charles V. to meet the reigning pontiff Paul III. in our cathedral of San Martino. But more precious far to me than the traditions of the shadowy pomp of defunct tyrants is the remembrance that Lucca was the Geneva of Italy--that these streets beneath us resounded to the public teaching of the Reformation! Such progress, indeed, had the reformers made, that it was publicly debated in the city council, 'If Lucca should declare herself Protestant--'"

"Per Bacco! a disgraceful fact in our history!" burst out Trenta, a look of horror in his round blue eyes. "Hide it, hide it, count! For the love of Heaven! You do not expect me to rejoice at this? Pray, when you mention it, add that the Protestants were obliged to flee for their lives, and that Lucca purified itself by abject submission to the Holy Father."

"Yes; and what came of that?" cried the count, raising his voice, a sudden flush of anger mounting over his face. "The Church--your Catholic and Apostolic Church--established the Inquisition. The Inquisition condemned to the flames the greatest prophet and teacher since the apostles--Savonarola!"

Trenta, knowing how deeply Marescotti's feelings were engaged in the subject of Savonarola, was too courteous to desire any further discussion. But at the same time he was determined, if possible, to hear no more of what was to him neither more nor less than blasphemy.

"Do you know how long we have been up here, count?" he asked, taking out his watch. "Enrica must return. I hope you won't detain us," he said, with a pitiful look at the count, who seemed preparing for an oration in honor of the mediaeval martyr. "I have already got a violent rheumatism in my shoulder.--Here, Balda.s.sare, open the trap-door, and let us go down.--Where is Balda.s.sare?--Balda.s.sare!

Where are you, imbecile? Balda.s.sare, I say! Why, diamine! Where can the boy be? He's not been privately practising his last new step behind the bay-trees, and taken a false one over the parapet?"

The small s.p.a.ce was easily searched. Balda.s.sare was discovered sketched at full length and fast asleep under a bench on the other side of the bay-trees.

"Ah, wretch!" grumbled the old chamberlain, "if you sleep like this you will outlive me, who mean to flourish for the next hundred years. He's always asleep, except when dancing," he added indignantly appealing to Marescotti. "Look at him. There's beauty without expression. Doesn't he inspire you? Endymion who has overslept himself and missed Diana--Narcissus overcome by the sight of his own beauty."

After being called, pushed, and pinched, by the cavaliere, Balda.s.sare at last opened his eyes in great bewilderment--stretched himself, yawned, then, suddenly clapping his hand to his side, looked fiercely at Trenta. Trenta was shaking with laughter.

"Mille diavoli!" cried Balda.s.sare, rubbing himself vigorously, "how dare you pinch me so, cavaliere? I shall be black and blue. Why should not I sleep? n.o.body spoke to me."

"I fear you have heard little of the history of Lucca," said the count, smiling.

"Dio buono! what is history to me? I hate it!--I-tell you what, cavaliere, you have hurt me very much." And Balda.s.sare pa.s.sed his hand carefully down his side. "The next time I go to sleep in your company, I'll trouble you to keep your fingers to yourself. You have rapped me like a drum."

Trenta watched the various phases of Balda.s.sare's wrath with the greatest amus.e.m.e.nt. The descent having been safely accomplished, the whole party landed in the street. Count Marescotti, who came last, advanced to take leave of Enrica. At this moment an olive-skinned, black-eyed girl rose out of the shadow of a neighboring wall, and, lowering a basket from her head, filled with fruit--tawny figs, ruddy peaches, purple grapes, and russet-skinned medlars, s.h.i.+elded from the heat by a covering of freshly-picked vine-leaves--offered it to Enrica. Our Adonis, still sulky and sore from the pinches inflicted by the mischievous fingers of the cavaliere, waved the girl rudely away.

"Fruit! Che! Begone! our servants have better. Such fruit as that is not good enough for us; it is full of worms."

The girl looked up at him timidly, tears gathered in her dark eyes.

"It is for my mother," she answered, humbly; "she is ill."

As she bent her head to replace the basket, Marescotti, who had listened to Balda.s.sare with evident disgust, raised the basket in his arms, and with the utmost care poised it on the coil of her dark hair.

"Beautiful peasant," he said, "I salute you. This is for your mother,"

and he placed some notes in her hand.

The girl thanked him, coloring as red as the peaches in her basket, then, hastily turning the corner of the street, disappeared.

"A perfect Pomona! I make a point of honoring beauty whenever I find it," exclaimed the count, looking after her. He cast a reproving glance at Balda.s.sare, who stood with his eyes wide open. "The Greeks wors.h.i.+ped beauty--I agree with them. Beauty is divine. What say you?

Were not the Greeks right?"

The words were addressed to Balda.s.sare--the sense and the direction of his eyes pointed to Enrica.

"Yes; beauty," replied Balda.s.sare, smoothing his glossy mustache, and trying to look very wise (he was not in the least conscious of the covert rebuke administered by Marescotti)--"beauty is very refres.h.i.+ng, but I must say I prefer it in the upper cla.s.ses. For my part, I like beauty that can dance--wooden shoes are not to my taste."

"Ah! canaglia!" muttered the cavaliere, "there is no teaching you. You will never be a gentleman."

Balda.s.sare was dumbfounded. He had not a word to reply.

"Count"--and the old chamberlain, utterly disregarding the dismay of poor Adonis, who never clearly understood what he had done to deserve such severity, now addressed himself to Marescotti--"will you be visible to-morrow after breakfast? If so, I shall have the honor of calling on you."

"With pleasure," was the count's reply.