Little novels of Italy

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MADONNA OF THE PEACH-TREE .

IPPOLITA IN THE HILLS' .

THE DUCHESS OF NONA .

II Tertium Quid

A YEAR passed, two years passed. Vanna was three and twenty, no more round but no less blooming in face and figure ; still a reedy, goldenhaired girl. But Baldassare was fifty-seven, and there was no sign of issue. The neighbours, who had nudged each other at one season, whose heads had wagged as their winks flew about, now accepted the sterile mating as of the order of things. Pretty Vanna, mother as she had been to her brothers and sisters, was to be a mother no more. There was talk of May and December. Baldassare was advised to lock up other treasure beside his florins; some, indeed, of the opposite camp gave hints none too honest to the forlorn young wife. The Piazza Sant' Anastasia at the falling-in of the day, for instance. Thus they put it. All girls — and what else was Vanna, a wife in name ? — walked there arm in arm. Others walked there also, she must know. By-and-by some pretty lad, an archer, perhaps, from the palace, some roistering blade of a gentleman's lackey, a friar or twinkling monk out for a frolic, came along with an " Eh, la bellina ! " and then there was another arm at work. So, for one, whispered La Testolina, dipping a head full of confidence and mystery close to Vanna's as the girl sat working out the summer twilight. The Via Stella was narrow and gloomy. The tall houses nearly met in that close way. Looking up you saw the two jagged edges of the eaves, like great tattered wings spread towards each other. When the green sky of evening deepened to blue, and blue grew violet, these shadowing wings were always in advance, more densely dark. There it was that Vanna worked incessantly, sewing seam after seam, patching, braiding, and fitting the pieces. By no chance at all did a hint of the sun fall about her; yet she always sang softly to herself, always wore her pretty fresh colours, and still showed the gold sheen in her yellow hair. Her hair was put up now, pulled smoothly back over her temples ; she spoke in a low, sober, measured voice, and to La Testolina's sly suggestions responded with a little blush, a little shake of the head, and a very little sigh. "Ser Baldassare is good to me," she would say; "would you have me do him a wrong.? Last Friday he gave me a silver piece to spend in whatsoever I chose. I bought a little holy-water stoup with a Gesulino upon it, bowered in roses. On Sunday morning he patted my cheek and called me a good girl. To say nothing of the many times he has pinched my ear, all this was very kind, as you must see. With what do you ask me to reward him ? Fie ! " La Testolina snorted, and shrugged herself away. Vanna went on with her sewing and her little sons ig-

" Giovanottin, che te ne vai di fuora Stattene allegro, e cosi vo' far io.

So sang she, innocently enough, whose sweethearting went no farther than her artless lips. There was not a spice of mischief in the girl. What she had told La Testolina had been no more than the truth: Master Baldassare was good to her — better than you would have believed possible in such a crabbed old stub of a man. He was more of a father to her than ever Don Urbano had been to anything save his own belly ; but it was incontestable that he was not father to anything else. That alone might have been a grievance for Vanna, but there is no evidence that it was. Baldassare was by nature gruff, by habit close-fisted : like all such men, the more he felt the deeper he hoarded the thought under his ribs. The most he would venture would be a hand on her hair and a grunt when she did well ; so sure as she looked up gratefully at him the old man drew off, with puckered brows and jaws working together. He may have been ashamed of his weakness; it is dead certain that no one in Verona, least of all Vanna herself, suspected him of any affection for his young wife. Mostly he was silent ; thus she became silent too whenever he was in the house. This was against nature, for by ordinary her little songs bubbled from her like a bird's. But to see him so glum and staring within doors awed her: she set a finger to her lips as she felt the tune on her tongue, and went about her business mute. Baldassare would go abroad, stooping under his pack : she took her seat at the shop-door, threaded her needle, her fingers flew and her fancy with them. The spring of her music was touched, and all the neighbours grew to listen for the gentle cadences she made.

So passed a year, so two years passed. Vanna was twenty-three, looking less, when along there came one morning a tall young friar, a Carmelite, by name Fra Battista, with a pair of brown dove's eyes in his smooth face. These he lifted towards Vanna's with an air so timid and so penetrating, so delicate and hardy at once, that when he was gone it was to leave her with the falter of a verse in her mouth, two hot cheeks, and a quicker heart.

This Fra Battista, by birth a Bergamask, accredited to the convent at Verona by reason of his parts as a preacher, was tall and shapely, like a spoilt pretty boy to look at, leggy, and soft in the palm. His frock set off this petted appearance — it gave you the idea of a pinafore on him. He did not look manly, was not manly by any means, and yet not so girlish but that you could doubt his sex. His eyes, which, as I say, were soft as a dove's pair, he was not fond of showing ; and this gave them the more searching appeal when he did. His mouth, full and fleshy in the lips, had a lovely curve. He kept it very demure, and, when he spoke, spoke softly. This was a young man born to be Lancilotto to some Ginevra or other ; and, to do him justice, he had had his share of adventure In that sort at an early age. He had learned more out of Ovid than from the Fathers of Divinity, you may believe. Very popular he was in whatsoever convent he harboured, as a preacher famous all over Lornbardy'and the March, — in Bergamo, in Brescia, even as far as Mantua he had been heard of. The superior at Verona did his best to spoil him by endearment, flattery, and indulgence ; but this was difficult, since he had been spoilt already.

He passed down the Via Stella morning and evening for a week. Morning and evening his eyes encountered Vanna's. The third evening he smiled at her, the fourth morning he saluted her ; the fifth evening he stopped and slipped in a gentle word ; the first evening of the second week he stopped again, and that night. La Testolina being by, there was quite a little conversation.

La Testolina had black eyes, a trim figure, and a way of wriggling which showed these to advantage. Fra Battista's fame and the possibility of mischief set her flashing; she led the talk and found him apt : it was not difficult to aim every word that it should go through and leave a dart in Vanna's timid breast. The girl was so artless, you could see her quiver, or feel her, at every shot. For instance, was his sanctity very much fatigued by yesterday's sermon.? Eh, la bella predica ! What invocations of the saints, what heart-groping, what Teachings after the better parts of women ! It was some comfort to know that a woman had a better part at all — by the Saviour ! for their handling by men gave no hint of it. Let Fra Beato — ah, pardon, Fra Battista she should have said — send some such arrows into men's hides ! See them, for the gross-feeding, surly, spend-all, take-all knaves that they werel One or two she might name if she had a mind — ah! one or two in this very city of Verona, in this very Street of the Star, who — But there ! Vanna must go and hear the Prate's next sermon, she must indeed. And if she could take her old curm— Pshutt ! What was she saying ? How she ran on ! She did indeed. Fra Battista, leaning against the lintel, kept his eyelids on the droop, seemed to find his toes of interest. But now and again he would look delicately up, and so sure as he did the brown eyes and the grey seemed to swim towards each other, to melt in a point, swirl in an eddy of the feelings, in which Vanna found herself drowning and found such death sweet. La Testolina still ran on, but now in a monologue. Fra Battista looked and longed, and Vanna looked again and thrilled. It grew quite dark; nothing of each other could they see and little know, until the friar put out his foot and found Vanna's. A tremor, beginning at her heart, ran down to her toes ; Battista felt the flutter of it and was assured.

When he left her that night he kissed her cold hand, then La Testolina's, which he found by no means cold, and moved off leisurely towards the Piazza dell' Erbe. Neither woman spoke for a while : La Testolina was picking at her apron, Vanna sat quietly in the dark holding her heart. She was still in a tremble, so ridiculously moved that when her friend kissed her she burst out crying. La Testolina went nodding away; and the end of the episode may be predicted. Not at one but at many sermons of the tall Carmelite did Vanna sit rapt ; not for one but for every dusk did he stoop to kiss her hand. All Verona saw her devotion, — all Verona, that is, but one old Veronese. The essence of comedy being that the spectators shall chuckle at actors in a fog, here was a comedy indeed.

Ill

THE SEED OF DISCORD

When Vanna announced her condition the neighbours looked slyly at each other ; when her condition announced Vanna, they chattered ; the gossip sank to whispering behind the hand as time went on, and ceased altogether when the baby was born. That was a signal for heads to shake. Some pitied the father, many defended the mother: it did not depend upon your sex; sides were taken freely and voices were shrill when neither was by. Down by the river especially, upon that bleached board below the bridge, ci and si whistled like the wind in the chimneys, and the hands of testimony were as the aspen leaves when storms are in. Some took one side, some another; but when, in due season, it was seen what inordinate pride Baldassare had in the black-eyed bambino, there was no question of sides. He had ranked himself with the unforgivable party : the old man was an old fool, a gull whose power of swallow stirred disgust. Vanna had the rights of it, they said; such men were made to be tricked. As for Fra Battista's pulpit, it was thronged about with upturned faces; for those who had not been before went now to judge what they would have done under the circumstances.

i8

Having been, there were no two opinions about that. Messer Gabriele Arcangelo, some said, judging by the honey-tongue ; San Bastiano, others considered him, who went by his comely proportions ; aiid these gained the day, since his beardless face and friar's frock induced the idea of innocence, which Sebastian's virgin bloom also taught. The quality of his sermons did not grow threadbare under this adventitious criticism: he kept a serene front, lost no authority, nor failed of any unction. There was always a file at his confessional; and at Corpus Christi, when in the pageant he actually figured as Sebastian, his plump round limbs roped to a pine-stock drew tears from all eyes.

Unhappily you have to pay for your successes. There were other preachers in Verona, and other eloquent preachers, who, being honest men, had had to depend upon their eloquence. These were the enemy — Franciscans, of course, and Dominicans — who got wind of something amiss, and began to nose for a scandal. What they got gave them something besides eloquence to lean on: there were now other sermons than young Fra Battista's, and the moral his person pointed had a double edge. In fact, where he pointed with his person, the Dominicans pointed with their sharp tongues. The Franciscans, more homely, pointed with their fingers. Fra Battista began to be notorious — a thing widely different from fame ; he also began to be uncomfortable, and his superior with him. They talked it over in the cloister, walking up and down together in the cool of the day. " It has an ugly look, my dear," said the provincial; "send the young woman to me."

What of the young woman, meantime? Let me tell the truth: motherhood became her so well that she was brazen from the very beginning. No dehcacy, no pretty shame, no shrinking — she gloried in the growing fact. When she was brought to bed she made a quick recovery ; she insisted upon a devout churching, an elaborate christening of the doubtful son (whereat, if you will believe me, no other than Fra Battista himself must do the ofifice!); thenceforth she was never seen without her bimbo. While she worked it lay at her feet or across her knee like a stout chrysalis ; the breast was ever at its service, pillow or fount ; when it slept she lifted up a finger or her grave eyes at the very passers-by ; her lips moulded a " Hush ! " at them lest they should dare disturb her young lord's rest. The saucy jade ! Was ever such impudence in the world before ? It drew her, too, to old Baldassare in a remarkable way. This the neighbours — busy with sniffing — did not see. She had always had a sense of the sweet root under the rind, always purred at his stray grunts and pats, taking them by instinct for what they were really worth ; and now to watch his new delight filled her with gratitude — and more, she felt free to love the man. For one thing, it unlocked his lips and hers. She could sing about the house since Cola had come — they had christened him after good Saint Nicholas — because Master Baldassare was so talkative on his account. The old man sat at home whenever he could, in his shiny armchair, his cup of black wine by his side, and watched Vanna with the baby by the hour together, poring over every downward turn of her pretty head, every pass of her fingers, every Httle eager striving of the sucking child. There were, indeed, no bounds to his content : to be a father — poor old soul ! — seemed to him the most glorious position in the world. Can Grande II. in the judgment-seat, the bishop stalled in his throne, the Holy Father himself in the golden chambers of his castle at Avignon, had nothing to offer Ser Baldassare Dardicozzo, the old-clothes man.

Though the neighbours knew nothing of this inner peace, they could not deny that Monna Vanna, brazen or no, was mightily become by her new dignity or (as you should say) indignity. She was more staid, more majestic ; but no less the tall, swaying, crowned girl she had ever been. She was seen, without doubt, for a splendid young woman. The heavy child seemed not to drag her down, nor the slant looks of respectable citizens, her neighbours, to lower her head. She met them with level eyes quite candid, and a smiling mouth to all appearance pure. When she found they would not discuss her riches she talked of theirs. When she found them oversatisfied with their children, she laughed quietly as one who knew better. This was a thing to take away a woman's breath, that she should grow the more glorious for her shame. Party feeling had been stormy, like crossing tides, between those who held Baldassare for a gull and those who resented Vanna's unruffled brows. But now there was but one party. It was very well to hoodwink an old skinflint; but, by the Mass, not honest to flaunt your methods in the world's face. And since our own dignity is the skin upon which we rely for all our protection, while contempt for our neighbours is but a grease we put upon it for its ease, it was self-defence which brought it about that the party against Vanna grew ominously large, while Baldassare gained quite a host of sympathizers. The girl was now shunned, ostentatiously, carefully shunned. Even La Testolina was shy of her. But, bless you, she saw nothing of it — or cared nothing. She chattered to her grossly deceived husband, went (nominally, you may be sure !) confessing to the grossly deceiving friar, she cooed to her baby, warbled her little songs, looked handsome, carried herself nobly, as if she were the Blessed Virgin herself, no less. This could not be endured : a thousand tongues were ready to shoot at her, and would have shot but for fear of old Baldassare 's grim member — reputed forked. While he was in the way, fat-headed fool, there was no moral glow to be won by a timely word. The tongues lay itching; two or three barren women in the Via Stella were hoarding stones.

Then, just about the time when the prior of the Carmelites bid Fra Battista send him the young woman, Baldassare took the road for a round of chaffer which might keep him out of Verona a week. The Via Stella felt, and Fra Battista knew, that the chance had come.

IV The Harvest Of Little Ease

Verona, stormy centre of strife, whose scarred grey face still wears a blush when viewed from the ramp of the Giusti garden, was in those times a place of short and little ease. The swords were never rusty. A warning clang from the belfry, two or three harsh strokes, the tall houses disgorged, the streets packed; Capulet faced Montagu, Bevilacqua caught Ridolfi by the throat, and Delia Scala sitting in his hall knew that he must do murder if he would live a prince. It seems odd that the suckling of a little shopkeeper should lead to such issues ; but so it was. And thus it was.

On the morning of Baldassare's setting-out for the Mantuan road. La Testolina — at that time much and unhealthily in Fra Battista's hire — came breathless to the Via Stella. Craning her quick head round the door-post, she saw Vanna sitting all in cool white (for the' weather was at the top of summer), stooped over her baby, happy and calm as always, and fingering her breast that she might give the little tyrant ease of his drink. That baby was a glutton. " Hist, Vanna, hist ! " La Testolina whispered ; and Vanna looked up at her with a guarded smile, as who should say,

" Speak softer, my dear, lest Cola should strangle in his swallow."

But La Testolina's eyes were like pin-points, centring all her alarms.

"You must come to the Carmehtes, Vanna. There is a great to-do. The warden of San Francesco has been to the bishop, and the bishop is with Can Grande at this moment. You must come, indeed, at once — subitissimo ! "

Vanna laughed — the rich quiet laugh of a girl whose affairs are in good train, and all other affairs the scratch of a flea.

" Why, what have I to do with the bishop and Can Grande, La Testolina .? " says she. " My master is out, and I must mind the shop. There is baby too."

" By Saints Pan and Silvanus, my girl, it will be the worse for you if you come not," said La Testolina, with a tragic sniff. " Eh, you little fool, don't you know that it is you and your brat have set all Verona by the ears t "

Vanna had never thought of the ears of Verona, and knew not how to think of them now; but she saw that her friend was in a fever of suppressed knowledge. Therefore she shawled her head and her baby in her sea-blue cloak, locked the shop-door, and followed La Testolina.

The sealed gates in the white convent wall were barred and double-locked. A scared brother cocked his eye through the grille to see who was there.

" It is she," hissed La Testolina.

" Dio mzo, the causa causans /" cried he, and let them in through a cranny. " Follow me, mistresses, and God give good ending to this adventure," he prayed as he slippered up the court.

Vanna, blank and smiling. La Testolina with wandering, fearful eyes, followed.

They found the prior sitting well back in his ebony chair and in meditation, his chin buried in his hand. Behind him (and behind his back his hands) was Fra Corinto the pittanciar, pockmarked, thin, and mortified. He looked the prior's reproach, and was.

"Now, women," said the prior, testily — a fat and flabby old man with a sour mouth — " now, women, which of you is at the bottom of this accursed business ? Where is the baby .'' Let me judge for myself."

La Testolina, protesting her remarkable innocence by every quiver of her head, edged Vanna to the front. Vanna stood up, straight as a candle, and unveiled her bosom.

" Do you want to see my little son, reverend prior? " she said. " Behold him here [Eccololt)" She held him out proudly in her arms, as if he were monstrance and she priest.

Now, whether it was that motherhood had fired a comely girl with the beautiful seriousness of a woman, so that she was transfigured before him ; or whether some chance passage of the crossing lights played tricks with his vision — which it was, or whether it was both, I know not. He saw, or thought he saw, a tall, smiling lady, hooded in blue over white, holding up a child; he saw, or thought for a moment that he saw, the Image of all Mothers displaying the Image of all Sons. His fingers pattered over his scapular. " Eh, my

Lady the Virgin ! What dost thou here, glorifying this place ? " As soon as he had said it he might have known that he was a fool ; but Vanna's large grey eyes loomed upon him to swallow him up, her colour of faint rose glowed over him and throbbed. Vera incessu patuit deal " By her presence ye shall judge her," quoth the prior to himself, and hid his eyes.

There was a hush upon all the group in the chamber, during which you could have heard afar off the nasal discords of the brethren in choir droning through an office. No one spoke. The prior's lips moved at his prayers ; Fra Corinto looked frowningly before him ; La Testolina was fidgety to speak, but dared not ; Vanna, her long form like a ripple of moonlight in the dusk, cooed under her voice to the baby; he, unheeding cause of so much strife in high places, held out his pair of puckered hands and crowed to the company. So with their thoughts : the prior thought he had seen the Holy Virgin ; Fra Corinto thought the prior an old fool ; La Testolina hoped his reverence had not the colic; and Vanna thought of nothing at all.

Fra Corinto it was (looking not for Madonna in a baggage) who, by discreetly coughing, brought his master back to his senses. The prior cleared his throat once or twice, looked at the young woman, and felt quite himself. Ridiculous what tricks a flicker of sunlight will play on the wisest of men !

" Monna Vanna," said he, " I have not brought you here to judge between you and my brother Battista, now at discipline in his cell. The flesh, which he should have tamed, has raised, it appears, a bruised head for one last spite. My brother was bitten, and my brother fell into sin. Whether, as of old, the tempter was the woman, it is sure that, as of old, the eater was a man, I will not condemn you unheard, lest I incur reproach in my turn. But our order is in peril ; the enemy is abroad, with Envy, Hatred, and Malice barking on their leashes. What can the poor sheep do but scatter before the wolves ? Fra Battista, his penance duly done, must leave Verona ; and you, my sister, must do penance, that God be not mocked, nor the Veronese upraised to mock Him."

Of this solemn appeal, Vanna, to all seeming, understood not one word. True, she blushed a little, but that was because a prior was talking to her : her honest grey eyes were quite untroubled, her smile as tender as ever. She spoke as one deprecating temerity — that she should speak at all to so great a man — and by no means any judgment.

" I am only a poor girl, reverend prior," said she, " most ignorant and thick-witted. Pray, what have I and my baby to do with these high matters of Fra Battista's error .i* "

The prior grew angry. " Tush, my woman," he grunted, " I beg you to drop the artless. It is out of place here. Let me look at the youngster."

" Yes, yes, mistress, let us see the child," said Fra Corinto, who croaked like a nightingale in June.

Vanna moved forward on a light foot. " Willingly, reverend fathers," said she. " He is a fine child, they all say, and reputed the image of his father." A sublime utterance, full of humoursome matter, if it had been a time for humours.

But it was not. La Testolina could not_ contain her virtuous indignation — for who is so transcendently righteous as your rascal for once in the right ?

" Hey, woman!" she cried shrilly, "what grossness is this ? Do you think the whole city don't know about you ? "

Vanna turned quivering. " And what is it that the whole city knows but does not say, if you please ? "

The prior wagged helplessly his hands. Like Pilate, he would have washed off the business if he could. He looked at the two women. Eh, by the Lord ! there would be a scene. But the whole thing was too impudent a fraud: there must be an end of it. He caught Fra Corinto's eyes and raised his brows. Fra Corinto was his jackal — here was his cue. He went swiftly to the door, set it open, came back and caught Vanna roughly by the shoulder. He turned her shocked face to the open door, and his dry voice grated horribly upon her ears.

" Out with you, piece ! " was what he said ; and Vanna reeled.

For a full minute she gaped at him for a meaning; his face taught the force of his words only too well. She sobbed, threw up her high head, bent it, like Jesus, for the cross, and fled.

The old porter leered by his open gates. " He ! he ! They are all outside," he chuckled — " Magpies and Dusty-hoods, Parvuses, Minors and Minims, Benets, and Austins, every cowl in Verona! Come along, my handsome girl, you must move briskish this day ! "

She heard the hoarse muttering of the men, and, a worse poison for good ears, the shrill venom of the women. Out of the gates she blindly went, and all the pack opened their music upon her. Stones flew, but words flew faster and stuck more deep. The mob, as she blundered through the streets, shufHing, gasping, stumbling at her caught gown, dry-eyed, open-mouthed, panting her terror, her bewilderment, her shame and amaze — the mob, I say, dizzied about her like a cloud of wasps ; yet they had in them what wasps have not — voices primed by hatred to bay her mad. There was no longer any doubt for her : the pittanciar's word (which had not been '' piece ") was tossed from pavement to pavement, from balcony to balcony, out at every open door, shot like slops from every leaning casement, and hissed in her ears as it flew. It was a mad race. The Franciscans tucked up their frocks and discarded stones, that they might run and shout the more freely. The Dominicans soon tired: their end was served. The cloistered orders were out of condition ; the secular clergy came to weary of what was, after all, but a matter for the mendicants. The common people, however, had the game well in hand. They headed her off the narrow streets, where safety might have been, and kept her to the Lung' Adige. Round the great S the river makes she battled her blind way, trying for nothing, with wits for nothing, without hope, or understanding, or thought. She ran, a hunted woman, straight before her, and