THE SIXTH CHRONICLE
HOW HE SANG TO HIS MANDOLIN AND WHAT CAME OF HIS SINGING
They walked back slowly in silence up the street down which they hadridden. Earth darkened, the moon grew brighter: and Rodriguez gazing atthe pale golden disk began to wonder who dwelt in the lunar valleys;and what message, if folk were there, they had for our peoples; and inwhat language such message could ever be, and how it could fare acrossthat limpid remoteness that wafted light on to the coasts of Earth andlapped in silence on the lunar shores. And as he wondered he thought ofhis mandolin.
"Morano," he said, "buy bacon."
Morano's eyes brightened: they were forty-five miles from the hills onwhich he had last tasted bacon. He selected his house with a glance,and then he was gone. And Rodriguez reflected too late that he hadforgotten to tell Morano where he should find him, and this with nightcoming on in a strange village. Scarcely, Rodriguez reflected, he knewwhere he was going himself. Yet if old tunes lurking in its hollows,echoing though imperceptibly from long-faded evenings, gave themandolin any knowledge of human affairs that other inanimate thingscannot possess, the mandolin knew.
Let us in fancy call up the shade of Morano from that far generation.Let us ask him where Rodriguez is going. Those blue eyes, dim with thedistance over which our fancy has called them, look in our eyes withwonder.
"I do not know," he says, "where Don Rodriguez is going. My master didnot tell me."
Did he notice nothing as they rode by that balcony?
"Nothing," Morano answers, "except my master riding."
We may let Morano's shade drift hence again, for we shall discovernothing: nor is this an age to which to call back spirits.
Rodriguez strolled slowly on the deep dust of that street as thoughwondering all the while where he should go; and soon he and hismandolin were below that very balcony whereon he had seen the whiteneck of Serafina gleam with the last of the daylight. And now thespells of the moon charmed Earth with their full power.
The balcony was empty. How should it have been otherwise? And yetRodriguez grieved. For between the vision that had drawn his footstepsand that bare balcony below shuttered windows was the differencebetween a haven, sought over leagues of sea, and sheer, unchartedcliff. It brought a wistfulness into the music he played, and amelancholy that was all new to Rodriguez, yet often and often beforehad that mandolin sent up through evening against unheeding Space thatcry that man cannot utter; for the spirit of man needs a mandolin as acomrade to face the verdict of the chilly stars as he needs a bulldogfor more mundane things.
Soon out of the depth of that stout old mandolin, in which so manyhuman sorrows had spun tunes out of themselves, as the spiders spinmisty grey webs, till it was all haunted with music, soon the old crywent up to the stars again, a thread of supplication spun of the matterwhich else were distilled in tears, beseeching it knew not what. And,but that Fate is deaf, all that man asks in music had been granted then.
What sorrows had Rodriguez known in his life that he made so sad amelody? I know not. It was the mandolin. When the mandolin was made itknew at once all the sorrows of man, and all the old unnamed longingsthat none defines. It knew them as the dog knows the alliance that itsforefathers made with man. A mandolin weeps the tears that its mastercannot shed, or utters the prayers that are deeper than its master'slips can draw, as a dog will fight for his master with teeth that arelonger than man's. And if the moonlight streamed on untroubled, andthough Fate was deaf, yet beauty of those fresh strains going starwardfrom under his fingers touched at least the heart of Rodriguez andgilded his dreams and gave to his thoughts a mournful autumnal glory,until he sang all newly as he never had sung before, with limpid voicealong the edge of tears, a love-song old as the woods of his father'svalleys at whose edge he had heard it once drift through the evening.And as he played and sang with his young soul in the music he fancied(and why not, if they care aught for our souls in Heaven?) he fanciedthe angles putting their hands each one on a star and leaning out ofHeaven through the constellations to listen.
"A vile song, senor, and a vile tune with it," said a voice quite close.
However much the words hurt his pride in his mandolin Rodriguezrecognised in the voice the hidalgo's accent and knew that it was anequal that now approached him in the moonlight round a corner of thehouse with the balcony; and he knew that the request he courteouslymade would be as courteously granted.
"Senor," he said, "I pray you to permit me to lean my mandolin againstthe wall securely before we speak of my song."
"Most surely, senor," the stranger replied, "for there is no fault withthe mandolin."
"Senor," Rodriguez said, "I thank you profoundly." And he bowed to thegallant, whom he now perceived to be young, a youth tall and lithe likehimself, one whom we might have chosen for these chronicles had we notfound Rodriguez.
Then Rodriguez stepped back a short way and placed his kerchief on theground; and upon this he put his mandolin and leaned it against thewall. When the mandolin was safe from dust or accident he approachedthe stranger and drew his sword.
"Senor," he said, "we will now discuss music."
"Right gladly, senor," said the young man, who now drew his sword also.There were no clouds; the moon was full; the evening promised well.
Scarcely had the flash of thin rapiers crossing each other by moonlightbegun to gleam in the street when Morano appeared beside them and stoodthere watching. He had bought his bacon and gone straight to the housewith the balcony. For though he knew no Latin he had not missed thesilent greeting that had welcomed his master to that village, or failedto interpret the gist of the words that Rodriguez' dumb glance wouldhave said. He stood there watching while each combatant stood hisground.
And Rodriguez remembered all those passes and feints that he had hadfrom his father, and which Sevastiani, a master of arms in Madrid, hadtaught in his father's youth: and some were famous and some were littleknown. And all these passes, as he tried them one by one, his unknownantagonist parried. And for a moment Rodriguez feared that Morano wouldsee those passes in which he trusted foiled by that unknown sword, andthen he reflected that Morano knew nothing of the craft of the rapier,and with more content at that thought he parried thrusts that werestrange to him. But something told Morano that in this fight thestranger was master and that along that pale-blue, moonlit, unknownsword lurked a sure death for Rodriguez. He moved from his place ofvantage and was soon lost in large shadows; while the rapiers playedand blade rippled on blade with a sound as though Death were gentlysharpening his scythe in the dark. And now Rodriguez was giving ground,now his antagonist pressed him; thrusts that he believed invincible hadfailed; now he parried wearily and had at once to parry again; theunknown pressed on, was upon him, was scattering his weakening parries;drew back his rapier for a deadlier pass, learned in a secret school,in a hut on mountains he knew, and practised surely; and fell in a heapupon Rodriguez' feet, struck full on the back of the head by Morano'sfrying-pan.
"Most vile knave," shouted Rodriguez as he saw Morano before him withhis frying-pan in his hand, and with something of the stupid expressionthat you see on the face of a dog that has done some foolish thingwhich it thinks will delight its master.
"Master! I am your servant," said Morano.
"Vile, miserable knave," replied Rodriguez.
"Master," Morano said plaintively, "shall I see to your comforts, yourfood, and not to your life?"
"Silence," thundered Rodriguez as he stooped anxiously to hisantagonist, who was not unconscious but only very giddy and who nowrose to his feet with the help of Rodriguez.
"Alas, senor," said Rodriguez, "the foul knave is my servant. He shallbe flogged. He shall be flayed. His vile flesh shall be cut off him.Does the hurt pain you, senor? Sit and rest while I beat the knave, andthen we will continue our meeting."
And he ran to his kerchief on which rested his mandolin and laid itupon the dust for the stranger.
"No, no," said he. "My head clears agai
n. It is nothing."
"But rest, senor, rest," said Rodriguez. "It is always well to restbefore an encounter. Rest while I punish the knave."
And he led him to where the kerchief lay on the ground. "Let me see thehurt, senor," he continued. And the stranger removed his plumed hat asRodriguez compelled him to sit down. He straightened out the hat as hesat, and the hurt was shown to be of no great consequence.
"The blessed Saints be praised," Rodriguez said. "It need not stop ourencounter. But rest awhile, senor."
"Indeed, it is nothing," he answered.
"But the indignity is immeasurable," sighed Rodriguez. "Would you care,senor, when you are well rested to give the chastisement yourself?"
"As far as that goes," said the stranger, "I can chastise him now."
"If you are fully recovered, senor," Rodriguez said, "my own sword isat your disposal to beat him sore with the flat of it, or how you will.Thus no dishonour shall touch your sword from the skin of so vile aknave."
The stranger smiled: the idea appealed to him.
"You make a noble amend, senor," he said as he bowed over Rodriguez'proffered sword.
Morano had not moved far, but stood near, wondering. "What should aservant do if not work for his master?" he wondered. And how work forhim when dead? And dead, as it seemed to Morano, through his own faultif he allowed any man to kill him when he perceived him about to do so.He stood there puzzled. And suddenly he saw the stranger coming angrilytowards him in the clear moonlight with a sword. Morano was frightened.
As the hidalgo came up to him he stretched out his left hand to seizeMorano by the shoulder. Up went the frying-pan, the stranger parried,but against a stroke that no school taught or knew, and for the secondtime he went down in the dust with a reeling head. Rodriguez turnedtoward Morano and said to him ... No, realism is all very well, and Iknow that my duty as author is to tell all that happened, and I couldwin mighty praise as a bold, unconventional writer; at the same time,some young lady will be reading all this next year in some far country,or in twenty years in England, and I would sooner she should not readwhat Rodriguez said. I do not, I trust, disappoint her. But the gist ofit was that he should leave that place now and depart from his servicefor ever. And hearing those words Morano turned mournfully away and wasat once lost in the darkness. While Rodriguez ran once more to help hisfallen antagonist. "Senor, senor," he said with an emotion that somewearing centuries and a cold climate have taught us not to show, andbeyond those words he could find no more to say.
"Giddy, only giddy," said the stranger.
A tear fell on his forehead as Rodriguez helped him to his feet.
"Senor," Rodriguez said fervently, "we will finish our encounter comewhat may. The knave is gone and ..."
"But I am somewhat giddy," said the other.
"I will take off one of my shoes," said Rodriguez, "leaving the otheron. It will equalise our unsteadiness, and you shall not bedisappointed in our encounter. Come," he added kindly.
"I cannot see so clearly as before," the young hidalgo murmured.
"I will bandage my right eye also," said Rodriguez, "and if this cannotequalise it ..."
"It is a most fair offer," said the young man.
"I could not bear that you should be disappointed of your encounter,"Rodriguez said, "by this spirit of Hell that has got itself clothed infat and dares to usurp the dignity of man."
"It is a right fair offer," the young man said again.
"Rest yourself, senor," said Rodriguez, "while I take off my shoe," andhe indicated his kerchief which was still on the ground.
The stranger sat down a little wearily, and Rodriguez sitting upon thedust took off his left shoe. And now he began to think a littlewistfully of the face that had shone from that balcony, where all wasdark now in black shadow unlit by the moon. The emptiness of thebalcony and its darkness oppressed him; for he could scarcely hope tosurvive an encounter with that swordsman, whose skill he now recognisedas being of a different class from his own, a class of which he knewnothing. All his own feints and passes were known, while those of hisantagonist had been strange and new, and he might well have evenothers. The stranger's giddiness did not alter the situation, forRodriguez knew that his handicap was fair and even generous. Hebelieved he was near his grave, and could see no spark of light tobanish that dark belief; yet more chances than we can see often guardus on such occasions. The absence of Serafina saddened him like asorrowful sunset.
Rodriguez rose and limped with his one shoe off to the stranger, whowas sitting upon his kerchief.
"I will bandage my right eye now, senor," he said.
The young man rose and shook the dust from the kerchief and gave it toRodriguez with a renewed expression of his gratitude at the fairness ofthe strange handicap. When Rodriguez had bandaged his eye the strangerreturned his sword to him, which he had held in his hand since hiseffort to beat Morano, and drawing his own stepped back a few pacesfrom him. Rodriguez took one hopeless look at the balcony, saw it asempty and as black as ever, then he faced his antagonist, waiting.
"Bandage one eye, indeed!" muttered Morano as he stepped up behind thestranger and knocked him down for the third time with a blow over thehead from his frying-pan.
The young hidalgo dropped silently.
Rodriguez uttered one scream of anger and rushed at Morano with hissword. Morano had already started to run; and, knowing well that he wasrunning for his life, he kept for awhile the start that he had of therapier. Rodriguez knew that no plump man of over forty could lastagainst his lithe speed long. He saw Morano clearly before him, thenlost sight of him for a moment and ran confidently on pursuing. He ranon and on. And at last he recognised that Morano had slipped into thedarkness, which lies always so near to the moonlight, and was not infront of him at all. So he returned to his fallen antagonist and foundhim breathing heavily where he fell, scarcely conscious. The thirdstroke of the frying-pan had done its work surely. Rodriguez' fury dieddown, only because it is difficult to feel two emotions at once: itdied down as pity took its place, though every now and then it wouldsuddenly flare and fall again. He returned his sword and lifted theyoung hidalgo and carried him to the door of the house under which theyhad fought.
With one fist he beat on the door without putting the hurt man down,and continued to hit it until steps were heard, and bolts began togrumble, as though disturbed too early from their rusty sleep in stonesockets.
The door of the house with the balcony was opened by a servant who,when he saw who it was that Rodriguez carried, fled into the house inalarm, as one who runs with bad news. He carried one candle and, whenhe had disappeared with the steaming flame, Rodriguez found himself ina long hall lit by the moonlight only, which was looking in through thesmall contorted panes of the upper part of a high window. Alone withechoes and shadows Rodriguez carried the hurt man through the hall, whowas muttering now as he came back to consciousness. And, as he went,there came to Rodriguez thoughts between wonder and hope, for he hadhad no thought at all when he beat on the door except to get shelterand help for the hurt man. At the end of the hall they came to an opendoor that led into a chamber partly shining with moonlight.
"In there," said the man that he carried.
Rodriguez carried him in and laid him on a long couch at the end of theroom. Large pictures of men in the blackness, out of the moon's rays,frowned at Rodriguez mysteriously. He could not see their faces in thedarkness, but he somehow knew they frowned. Two portraits that wereclear in the moonlight eyed him with absolute apathy. So cold a welcomefrom that house's past generations boded no good to him from those thatdwelt there today. Rodriguez knew that in carrying the hurt man therehe helped at a Christian deed; and yet there was no putting the meritsof the case against the omens that crowded the chamber, lurking alongthe edge of moonlight and darkness, disappearing and reappearing tillthe gloom was heavy with portent. The omens knew. In a weak voice andfew words the hurt man thanked him, but the apathetic faces seemed tosay What of that? And th
e frowning faces that he could not see stillfilled the darkness with anger.
And then from the end of the chamber, dressed in white, and all shiningwith moonlight, came Serafina.
Rodriguez in awed silence watched her come. He saw her pass through themoonlight and grow dimmer, and glide to the moonlight again thatstreamed through another window. A great dim golden circle appeared atthe far end of the chamber whence she had come, as the servant returnedwith his candle and held it high to give light for Dona Serafina. Butthat one flame seemed to make the darkness only blacker; and for anycheerfulness it brought to the gloom it had better never havechallenged those masses of darkness at all in that high chamber amongthe brooding portraits it seemed trivial, ephemeral, modern, ill ableto cope with the power of ancient things, dead days and forgottenvoices, which make their home in the darkness because the days thathave usurped them have stolen the light of the sun.
And there the man stood holding his candle high, and the rays of themoon became more magical still beside that little mundane, flickeringthing. And Serafina was moving through the moonlight as though its rayswere her sisters, which she met noiselessly and brightly upon someisland, as it seemed to Rodriguez, beyond the coasts of Earth, soquietly and so brightly did her slender figure move and so aloof fromhim appeared her eyes. And there came on Rodriguez that feeling thatsome deride and that others explain away, the feeling of which romanceis mainly made and which is the aim and goal of all the earth. And hislove for Serafina seemed to him not only to be an event in his life butto have some part in veiled and shadowy destinies and to have theblessing of most distant days: grey beards seemed to look out of gravesin forgotten places to wag approval: hands seemed to beckon to him outof far-future times, where faces were smiling quietly: and, dreaming onfurther still, this vast approval that gave benediction to his heart'syouthful fancy seemed to widen and widen like the gold of a summer'sevening or, the humming of bees in summer in endless rows of limes,until it became a part of the story of man. Spring days of his earliestmemory seemed to have their part in it, as well as wonderful eveningsof days that were yet to be, till his love for Serafina was one withthe fate of earth; and, wandering far on their courses, he knew thatthe stars blessed it. But Serafina went up to the man on the couch withno look for Rodriguez.
With no look for Rodriguez she bent over the stricken hidalgo. Heraised himself a little on one elbow. "It is nothing," he said,"Serafina."
Still she bent over him. He laid his head down again, but now with openand undimmed eyes. She put her hand to his forehead, she spoke in a lowvoice to him; she lavished upon him sympathy for which Rodriguez wouldhave offered his head to swords; and all, thought Rodriguez for threeblows from a knave's frying-pan: and his anger against Morano flared upagain fiercely. Then there came another thought to him out of theshadows, where Serafina was standing all white, a figure of solace. Whowas this man who so mysteriously blended with the other unknown thingsthat haunted the gloom of that chamber? Why had he fought him at night?What was he to Serafina? Thoughts crowded up to him from the interiorof the darkness, sombre and foreboding as the shadows that nursed them.He stood there never daring to speak to Serafina; looking forpermission to speak, such as a glance might give. And no glance came.
And now, as though soothed by her beauty, the hurt man closed his eyes.Serafina stood beside him anxious and silent, gleaming in that dimplace. The servant at the far end of the chamber still held his onecandle high, as though some light of earth were needed against thefantastic moon, which if unopposed would give everything over to magic.Rodriguez stood there, scarcely breathing. All was silent. And thenthrough the door by which Serafina had come, past that lonely, golden,moon-defying candle, all down the long room across moonlight andblackness, came the lady of the house, Serafina's mother. She came, asSerafina came, straight toward the man on the couch, giving no look toRodriguez, walking something as Serafina walked, with the same poise,the same dignity, though the years had carried away from her the graceSerafina had: so that, though you saw that they were mother anddaughter, the elder lady called to mind the lovely things of earth,large gardens at evening, statues dim in the dusk, summer andwhatsoever binds us to earthly things; but Serafina turned Rodriguez'thoughts to the twilight in which he first saw her, and he pictured hernative place as far from here, in mellow fields near the moon, whereinshe had walked on twilight outlasting any we know, with all delicatethings of our fancy, too fair for the rugged earth.
As the lady approached the couch upon which the young man was lying,and still no look was turned towards Rodriguez, his young dreams fledas butterflies sailing high in the heat of June that are suddenlyplunged in night by a total eclipse of the sun. He had never spoken toSerafina, or seen before her mother, and they did not know his name; heknew that he, Rodriguez, had no claim to a welcome. But his dreams hadflocked so much about Serafina's face, basking so much in her beauty,that they now fell back dying; and when a man's dreams die whatremains, if he lingers awhile behind them?
Rodriguez suddenly felt that his left shoe was off and his right eyestill bandaged, things that he had not noticed while his only thoughtwas for the man he carried to shelter, but torturing his consciousnessnow that he thought of himself. He opened his lips to explain; butbefore words came to him, looking at the face of Serafina's mother,standing now by the couch, he felt that, not knowing how, he hadsomehow wronged the Penates of this house, or whatever was hid in thedimness of that long chamber, by carrying in this young man there torest from his hurt.
Rodriguez' depression arose from these causes, but having arisen, itgrew of its own might: he had had nothing to eat since morning, and inthe favouring atmosphere of hunger his depression grew gigantic. Heopened his lips once more to say farewell, was oppressed by all mannerof thoughts that held him dumb, and turned away in silence and left thehouse. Outside he recovered his mandolin and his shoe. He was tiredwith the weariness of defeated dreams that slept in his spiritexhausted, rather than with any fatigue his young muscles had from thejourney. He needed sleep; he looked at the shuttered houses; then atthe soft dust of the road in which dogs lay during the daylight. Butthe dust was near to his mood, so he lay down where he had fought theunknown hidalgo. A light wind wandered the street like a visitor cometo the village out of a friendly valley, but Rodriguez' four days onthe roads had made him familiar with all wandering things, and thebreeze on his forehead troubled him not at all: before it had weariedof wandering in the night Rodriguez had fallen asleep. Just by the edgeof sleep, upon which side he knew not, he heard the window of thebalcony creak, and looked up wide awake all in a moment. But nothingstirred in the darkness of the balcony and the window was fast shut. Sowhatever sound came from the window came not from its opening butshutting: for a while he wondered; and then his tired thoughts rested,and that was sleep.
A light rain woke Rodriguez, drizzling upon his face; the first lightrain that had fallen in a romantic tale. Storms there had been, lashingoaks to terrific shapes seen at night by flashes of lightning, throughwhich villains rode abroad or heroes sought shelter at midnight;hurricanes there had been, flapping huge cloaks, fierce hail andcopious snow; but until now no drizzle. It was morning; dawn was old;and pale and grey and unhappy.
The balcony above him, still empty, scarcely even held romance now.Rain dripped from it sadly. Its cheerless bareness seemed worse thanthe most sinister shadows of night.
And then Rodriguez saw a rose lying on the ground beside him. And forall the dreams, fancies, and hopes that leaped up in Rodriguez' mind,rising and falling and fading, one thing alone he knew and all the restwas mystery: the rose had lain there before the rain had fallen.Beneath the rose was white dust, while all around it the dust wasturning grey with rain.
Rodriguez tried to guess how long the rain had fallen. The rose mayhave lain beside him all night long. But the shadows of mystery recededno farther than this one fact that the rose was there before the rainbegan. No sign of any kind came from the house.
Rodriguez pu
t the rose safe under his coat, wrapped in the kerchiefthat had guarded the mandolin, to carry it far from Lowlight, throughplaces familiar with roses and places strange to them; but it remainedfor him a thing of mystery until a day far from then.
Sadly he left the house in the sad rain, marching away alone to lookfor his wars.