The Italians Part 36

Close to the Church of San Michele, where a brazen archangel with outstretched wings flaunts in the blue sky, is the narrow, crypt-like street of San Salvador. Here stands the Boccarini Palace. It is an ancient structure, square and large, with an overhanging roof and open, pillared gallery. On the first floor there is a stone balcony.

Four rows of windows divide the front. The lower ones, barred with iron, are dismal to the eye. Over the princ.i.p.al entrance are the Boccarini arms, carved on a stone escutcheon, supported by two angels, the whole so moss-eaten the details cannot be traced. Above is a marquis's coronet in which a swallow has built its nest. Both in and out it is a house where poverty has set its seal. The family is dying out. When Marchesa Boccarini dies, the palace will be sold, and the money divided among her daughters.

As dusk was settling into night a carriage rattled along the deserted street. The horses--a pair of splendid bays--struck sparks out of the granite pavement. With a bang they draw up at the entrance, under an archway, guarded by a _grille_ of rusty iron. A bell is rung; it only echoes through the gloomy court. The bell was rung again, but no one came. At last steps were heard, and a dried-up old man, with a face like parchment, and little ferret eyes, appeared, hastily dragging his arms into a coat much too large for him.

He shuffled to the front and bowed. Taking a key from his pocket he unlocked the iron gates, then planted himself on the threshold, and turned his ear toward the well-appointed brougham, and Count n.o.bili seated within.

"Do the ladies receive?" n.o.bili called out. The old man nodded, bringing his best ear and ferret eyes to bear upon him.

"Yes, the ladies do receive. Will the excellency descend?"

Count n.o.bili jumped out and hurried through the archway into a court surrounded by a colonnade.

It is very dark. The palace rises upward four lofty stories. Above is a square patch of sky, on which a star trembles. The court is full of damp, unwholesome odors. The foot slips upon the slimy pavement.

n.o.bili stopped. The old man came limping after, b.u.t.toning his coat together.

"Ah! poor me!--The excellency is young!" He spoke in the odd, m.u.f.fled voice, peculiar to the deaf. "The excellency goes so fast he will fall if he does not mind. Our court-yard is very damp; the stairs are old."

"Which is the way up-stairs?" n.o.bili asked, impatiently. "It is so dark I have forgotten the turn."

"Here, excellency--here to the right. By the Madonna there, in the niche, with the light before it. A thousand excuses! The excellency will excuse me, but I have not yet lit the lamp on the stairs. I was resting. There are so many visitors to the Signora Marchesa. The excellency will not tell the Signora Marchesa that it was dark upon the stairs? Per pieta!"

The shriveled old man placed himself full in n.o.bili's path, and held out his hands like claws entreatingly.

"A thousand devils!--no," was n.o.bili's irate reply, pus.h.i.+ng him back.

"Let me go up; I shall say nothing. Cospetto! What is it to me?"

"Thanks! thanks! The excellency is full of mercy to an old, overworked servant. There was a time when the Boccarini--"

n.o.bili did not wait to hear more, but strode through the darkness at hazard, to find the stairs.

"Stop! stop! the excellency will break his limbs against the wall!"

the old man shouted.

He fumbled in his pocket, and drew out some matches. He struck one against the wall, held it above his head, and pointed with his bony finger to a broad stone stair under an inner arch.

n.o.bili ascended rapidly; he was in no mood for delay. The old man, standing at the foot, struck match after match to light him.

"Above, excellency, you will find our usual lamps. You must go on to the second story."

On the landing at the first floor there was still a little daylight from a window as big as if set in the tribune of a cathedral. Here a lamp was placed on an old painted table. Some moth-eaten tapestry hung from a mildewed wall. Here and there a rusty nail had given way, and the stuff fell in downward folds. n.o.bili paused. His head was hot and dizzy. He had dined well, and he had drunk freely. His eyes traveled upward to the old tapestry--(it was the daughter of Herodias dancing before Herod the cancan of the day). Something in the face and figure of the girl recalled Nera to him, or he fancied it--his mind being full of her. n.o.bili envied Herod in a dreamy way, who, with round, leaden eyes, a crown upon his head--watched the dancing girl as she flung about her lissome limbs. n.o.bili envied Herod--and the thought came across him, how pleasant it would be to sit royally enthroned, and see Nera gambol so! From that--quicker than I can write it--his thoughts traveled backward to that night when he had danced with Nera at the Orsetti ball. Again the refrain of that waltz buzzed in his ear. Again the measure rose and fell in floods of luscious sweetness--again Nera lay within his arms--her breath was on his cheek--the perfume of the flowers in her flossy hair was wafted in the air--the blood stirred in his veins.

The old man said truly. All the way up the second stair was lit by little lamps, fed by mouldy oil; and all the way up that waltz rang in n.o.bili's ear. It mounted to his brain like fumes of new wine tapped from the skin. A green door of faded baize faced him on the upper landing, and another bell--a red ta.s.sel fastened to a bit of whipcord.

He rang it hastily. This time a servant came promptly. He carried in his hand a lamp of bra.s.s.

"Did the ladies receive?"

"They did," was the answer; and the servant held the lamp aloft to light n.o.bili into the anteroom.

This anteroom was as naked as a barrack. The walls were painted in a Raphaelesque pattern, the coronet and arms of the Boccarini in the centre.

Count n.o.bili and the servant pa.s.sed through many lofty rooms of faded splendor. Chandeliers hung from vaulted ceilings, and reflected the light of the bra.s.s lamp on a thousand crystal facets. The tall mirrors in the antique frames repeated it. In a cavern-like saloon, hung with rows of dark pictures upon amber satin, n.o.bili and the servant stopped before a door. The servant knocked; A voice said, "Enter." It was the voice of Marchesa Boccarini. She was sitting with her three daughters.

A lamp, with a colored shade, stood in the centre of a small room, bearing some aspect of life and comfort. The marchesa and two of her daughters were working at some mysterious garments, which rapidly vanished out of sight. Nera was leaning back on a sofa, superbly idle--staring idly at an opposite window, where the daylight still lingered. When Count n.o.bili was announced, they all rose and spoke together with the loud peac.o.c.k voices, and the rapid utterance, which in Italy are supposed to mark a special welcome. Strange that in the land of song the talking voices of women should be so harsh and strident! Yet so it is.

"How long is it since we have seen you, Count n.o.bili?" It was the sad-faced marchesa who spoke, and tried to smile a welcome to him. "I have to thank you for many inquiries, and all sorts of luxuries sent to my dear child. But we expected you. You never came."

The two sisters echoed, "You never came."

Nera did not speak then, but when they had finished, she rose from the sofa and stood before n.o.bili drawn up to her full height, radiant in sovereign beauty. "I have to thank you most." As Nera spoke, her cheeks flushed, and she dropped her hand into his. It was a simple act, but full of purpose as Nera did it. Nera intended it should be so. She reseated herself. As his eye met hers, n.o.bili grew crimson.

The twilight and the shaded lamp hid this in part, but Nera observed it, and noted it for future use.

Count n.o.bili placed himself beside the marchesa.

"I am overwhelmed with shame," he said. "What you say is too true.

I had intended coming. Indeed, I waited until your daughter"--and he glanced at Nera--"could receive me, and satisfy me herself she was not hurt. I longed to make my penitent excuses for the accident."

"Oh! it was nothing," said Nera, with a smile, answering for her mother.

"What I suffered, no words can tell," continued, n.o.bili. "Even now I shudder to think of it--to be the cause--"

"No, not the cause," answered Marchesa Boccarini.

The elder sisters echoed--

"Not the cause."

"It was the ribbon," continued the marchesa. "Nera was entangled with the ribbon when she rose; she did not know it."

"I ought to have held her up," returned n.o.bili with a glance at Nera, who, with a kind of queenly calm, looked him full in the face with her bold, black eyes.

"I a.s.sure you, marchesa, it was the horror of what I had done that kept me from calling on you."

This was not true, and Nera knew it was not true. n.o.bili had not come, because he dreaded his weakness and her power. n.o.bili had not come, because he doted on Enrica to that excess, a thought alien to her seemed then to him a crime. What folly! Now he knew Enrica better! All that was changed.

"We have felt very grateful," went on to say the marchesa, "I a.s.sure you, Count n.o.bili, very grateful."

The poor lady was much exercised in spirit as to how she could frame an available excuse for leaving the count alone with Nera. Had she only known beforehand, she would have arranged a little plan to do so, naturally. But it must be done, she knew. It must be done at any price, or Nera would never forgive her.

"You have been so agreeably occupied, too," Nera said, in a firm, full voice. "No wonder, Count n.o.bili, you had no time to visit us."

There was a mute reproach in these few words that made n.o.bili wince.

"I have been absent," he replied, much confused.

"Yes, absent in mind and body," and Nera laughed a cruel little laugh.

"You have been at Corellia, I believe?" she added, significantly, fixing him with her l.u.s.trous eyes.

"Yes, I have been at Corellia, shooting." n.o.bili shrank from shame at the lack of courtesy on his part which had made these social lies needful. How brilliant Nera was!