A Roman Singer Part 36

"And so this is your old home, Nino?" said Hedwig presently, looking about her, and touching the things in the room, as a woman will when she makes acquaintance with a place she has often heard of. "What a dear room it is! I wish we could live here!" How very soon a woman learns that "we" that means so much! It is never forgotten, even when the love that bred it is dead and cold.

"Yes," I said, for Nino seemed so enraptured, as he watched her, that he could not speak. "And there is the old piano, with the end on the boxes because it has no leg, as I dare say Nino has often told you."

"Nino said it was a very good piano," said she.

"And indeed it is," he said, with enthusiasm. "It is out of tune now, perhaps, but it is the source of all my fortune." He leaned over the crazy instrument and seemed to caress it.

"Poor old thing!" said Hedwig, compa.s.sionately. "I am sure there is music in it still--the sweet music of the past."

"Yes," said he laughing, "it must be the music of the past, for it would not stand the 'music of the future,' as they call it, for five minutes. All the strings would break." Hedwig sat down on the chair that was in front of it, and her fingers went involuntarily to the keys, though she is no great musician.

"I can play a little, you know, Nino," she said shyly, and looked up to his face for a response, not venturing to strike the chords. And it would have done you good to see how brightly Nino smiled and encouraged her little offer of music--he, the great artist, in whose life music was both sword and sceptre. But he knew that she had greatness also of a different kind, and he loved the small jewels in his crown as well as the glorious treasures of its larger wealth.

"Play to me, my love," he said, not caring now whether I heard the sweet words or not. She blushed a little, nevertheless, and glanced at me; then her fingers strayed over the keys, and drew out music that was very soft and yet very gay. Suddenly she ceased, and leaned forward on the desk of the piano, looking at him.

"Do you know, Nino, it was once my dream to be a great musician. If I had not been so rich I should have taken the profession in earnest.

But now, you see, it is different, is it not?"

"Yes, it is all different now," he answered, not knowing exactly what she meant, but radiantly happy, all the same.

"I mean," she said, hesitating--"I mean that now that we are to be always together, what you do I do, and what I do you do. Do you understand?"

"Yes, perfectly," said Nino, rather puzzled, but quite satisfied.

"Ah no, dear," said she, forgetting my presence, and letting her hand steal into his as he stood, "you do not understand--quite. I mean that so long as one of us can be a great musician it is enough, and I am just as great as though I did it all myself."

Thereupon Nino forgot himself altogether, and kissed her golden hair.

But then he saw me looking, for it was so pretty a sight that I could not help it, and he remembered.

"Oh!" he said in a tone of embarra.s.sment that I had never heard before. Then Hedwig blushed very much too, and looked away, and Nino put himself between her and me, so that I might not see her.

"Could you play something for me to sing, Hedwig?" he asked suddenly.

"Oh, yes! I can play 'Spirto gentil,' by heart," she cried, hailing the idea with delight.

In a moment they were both lost, and indeed so was I, in the dignity and beauty of the simple melody. As he began to sing, Nino bent down to her, and almost whispered the first words into her ear. But soon he stood erect, and let the music flow from his lips just as G.o.d made it.

His voice was tired with the long watching and the dust and cold and heat of the journey; but, as De Pretis said when he began, he has an iron throat, and the weariness only made the tones soft and tender and thrilling, that would perhaps have been too strong for my little room.

Suddenly he stopped short in the middle of a note, and gazed open-mouthed at the door. And I looked, too, and was horrified; and Hedwig, looking also, screamed and sprang back to the window, overturning the chair she had sat on.

In the doorway stood Ahasuerus Benoni, the Jew.

Mariuccia had imprudently forgotten to shut the door when Hedwig and Nino came, and the baron had walked in unannounced. You may imagine the fright I was in. But, after all, it was natural enough that after what had occurred he, as well as the count, should seek an interview with me, to obtain what information I was willing to give.

There he stood in his gray clothes, tall and thin and smiling as of yore.

CHAPTER XXIV

Nino is a man for great emergencies, as I have had occasion to say, and when he realised who the unwelcome visitor was, he acted as promptly as usual. With a face like marble he walked straight across the room to Benoni and faced him.

"Baron Benoni," he said, in a low voice, "I warn you that you are most unwelcome here. If you attempt to say any word to my wife, or to force an entrance, I will make short work of you." Benoni eyed him with a sort of pitying curiosity as he made this speech:--

"Do not fear, Signor Cardegna. I came to see Signor Grandi, and to ascertain from him precisely what you have voluntered to tell me. You cannot suppose that I have any object in interrupting the leisure of a great artist, or the privacy of his very felicitous domestic relations. I have not a great deal to say. That is, I have always a great deal to say about everything, but I shall at present confine myself to a very little."

"You will be wise," said Nino, scornfully, "and you would be wiser if you confined yourself to nothing at all."

"Patience, Signor Cardegna," protested Benoni. "You will readily conceive that I am a little out of breath with the stairs, for I am a very old man."

"In that case," I said, from the other side of the room, "I may as well occupy your breathing time by telling you that any remarks you are likely to make to me have been forestalled by the Graf von Lira, who has been with me this morning." Benoni smiled, but both Hedwig and Nino looked at me in surprise.

"I only wished to say," returned Benoni, "that I consider you in the light of an interesting phenomenon. Nay, Signor Cardegna, do not look so fierce. I am an old man--"

"An old devil," said Nino hotly.

"An old fool," said I.

"An old reprobate," said Hedwig, from her corner, in deepest indignation.

"Precisely," returned Benoni, smilingly. "Many people have been good enough to tell me so before. Thanks, kind friends, I believe you with all my heart. Meanwhile, man, devil, fool, or reprobate, I am very old. I am about to leave Rome for St. Petersburg, and I will take this last opportunity of informing you that in a very singularly long life I have met with only two or three such remarkable instances as this of yours."

"Say what you wish to say, and go," said Nino, roughly.

"Certainly. And whenever I have met with such an instance I have done my very utmost to reduce it to the common level, and to prove to myself that no such thing really exists. I find it a dangerous thing, however; for an old man in love is likely to exhibit precisely the agreeable and striking peculiarities you have so aptly designated."

There was something so odd about his manner and about the things he said that Nino was silent, and allowed him to proceed.

"The fact is," he continued, "that love is a very rare thing, nowadays, and is so very generally an abominable sham that I have often amused myself by diabolically devising plans for its destruction. On this occasion I very nearly came to grief myself. The same thing happened to me some time ago--about forty years, I should say,--and I perceive that it has not been forgotten. It may amuse you to look at this paper, which I chance to have with me. Good-morning. I leave for St. Petersburg at once."

"I believe you are really the Wandering Jew!" cried Nino, as Benoni left the room.

"His name was certainly Ahasuerus," Benoni replied from the outer door. "But it may be a coincidence, after all. Good-day." He was gone.

I was the first to take up the paper he had thrown upon a chair. There was a pa.s.sage marked with a red pencil. I read it aloud:--

"... Baron Benoni, the wealthy banker of St. Petersburg, who was many years ago an inmate of a private lunatic asylum in Paris, is reported to be dangerously insane in Rome." That was all. The paper was the _Paris Figaro_.

"Merciful Heavens!" exclaimed Hedwig, "and I was shut up with that madman in Fillettino!" Nino was already by her side, and in his strong arms she forgot Benoni, and Fillettino, and all her troubles. We were all silent for some time. At last Nino spoke.

"Is it true that the count was here this morning?" he asked, in a subdued voice, for the extraordinary visit and its sequel had made him grave.

"Quite true," I said. "He was here a long time. I would not spoil your pleasure by telling you of it, when you first came."

"What did he--what did my father say?" asked Hedwig, presently.

"My dear children," I answered, thinking I might well call them so, "he said a great many unpleasant things, so that I offered to fight him if he said any more." At this they both laid hold of me and began to caress me; and one smoothed my hair, and the other embraced me, so that I was half smothered.