CHAPTER VIII
THE CAVALIER
Nothing can be more striking, in common Italian life, than the contrastbetween out-doors and in-doors. Without, all is fragrant and radiant;within, mouldy, dark, and damp. Except in the well-kept palaces ofthe great, houses in Italy are more like dens than habitations, and asight of them is a sufficient reason to the mind of any inquirer, whytheir vivacious and handsome inhabitants spend their life principallyin the open air. Nothing could be more perfectly paradisiacal thanthis evening at Sorrento. The sun had sunk, but left the air fullof diffused radiance, which trembled and vibrated over the thousandmany-colored waves of the sea. The moon was riding in a broad zone ofpurple, low in the horizon, her silver forehead somewhat flushed in thegeneral rosiness that seemed to penetrate and suffuse every object.The fishermen, who were drawing in their nets, gayly singing, seemedto be floating on a violet-and-gold-colored flooring that broke intoa thousand gems at every dash of the oar or motion of the boat. Theold stone statue of Saint Antonio looked down in the rosy air, itselftinged and brightened by the magical colors which floated round it.And the girls and men of Sorrento gathered in gossiping knots on theold Roman bridge that spanned the gorge, looked idly down into itsdusky shadows, talking the while, and playing the time-honored game offlirtation which has gone on in all climes and languages since man andwoman began.
Conspicuous among them all was Giulietta, her blue-black hair recentlybraided and polished to a glossy radiance, and all her costume arrangedto show her comely proportions to the best advantage,--her great pearlear-rings shaking as she tossed her head, and showing the flash ofthe emerald in the middle of them. An Italian peasant-woman may trustProvidence for her gown, but ear-rings she attends to herself,--forwhat is life without them? The great pearl ear-rings of the Sorrentowomen are accumulated, pearl by pearl, as the price of years of labor.Giulietta, however, had come into the world, so to speak, with a goldspoon in her mouth,--since her grandmother, a thriving, stirring,energetic body, had got together a pair of ear-rings of unmatched size,which had descended as heirlooms to her, leaving her nothing to do butdisplay them, which she did with the freest good-will. At present shewas busily occupied in coquetting with a tall and jauntily-dressedfellow, wearing a plumed hat and a red sash, who seemed to bemesmerized by the power of her charms, his large dark eyes followingevery movement, as she now talked with him gayly and freely, and nowpretended errands to this and that and the other person on the bridge,stationing herself here and there, that she might have the pleasure ofseeing herself followed.
"Giulietta," at last said the young man, earnestly, when he found heraccidentally standing alone by the parapet, "I must be going to-morrow."
"Well, what is that to me?" said Giulietta, looking wickedly from underher eyelashes.
"Cruel girl! you know"--
"Nonsense, Pietro! I don't know anything about you;" but as Giuliettasaid this, her great, soft, dark eyes looked out furtively, and saidjust the contrary.
"You will go with me?"
"Did I ever hear anything like it? One can't be civil to a fellowbut he asks her to go to the world's end. Pray, how far is it to yourdreadful old den?"
"Only two days' journey, Giulietta."
"Two days!"
"Yes, my life; and you shall ride."
"Thank you, sir,--I wasn't thinking of walking. But seriously, Pietro,I am afraid it's no place for an honest girl to be in."
"There are lots of honest women there,--all our men have wives; and ourcaptain has put his eye on one, too, or I'm mistaken."
"What! little Agnes?" said Giulietta. "He will be bright that gets her.That old dragon of a grandmother is as tight to her as her skin."
"Our captain is used to helping himself," said Pietro. "We might carrythem both off some night, and no one the wiser; but he seems to want towin the girl to come to him of her own accord. At any rate, we are tobe sent back to the mountains while he lingers a day or two more roundhere."
"I declare, Pietro, I think you all little better than Turks orheathens, to talk in that way about carrying off women; and what if oneshould be sick and die among you? What is to become of one's soul, Iwonder?"
"Pshaw! don't we have priests? Why, Giulietta, we are all very pious,and never think of going out without saying our prayers. The Madonna isa kind Mother, and will wink very hard on the sins of such good sons aswe are. There isn't a place in all Italy where she is kept better incandles, and in rings and bracelets, and everything a woman could want.We never come home without bringing her something; and then we havelots left to dress all our women like princesses; and they have nothingto do from morning till night but play the lady. Come now?"
At the moment this conversation was going on in the balmy, seductiveevening air at the bridge, another was transpiring in the Albergo dellaTorre, one of those dark, musty dens of which we have been speaking.In a damp, dirty chamber, whose brick floor seemed to have beenunsuspicious of even the existence of brooms for centuries, was sittingthe cavalier whom we have so often named in connection with Agnes. Hiseasy, high-bred air, his graceful, flexible form and handsome faceformed a singular contrast to the dark and mouldy apartment, at whosesingle unglazed window he was sitting. The sight of this splendid mangave an impression of strangeness, in the general bareness, much as ifsome marvelous jewel had been unaccountably found lying on that dustybrick floor.
He sat deep in thought, with his elbow resting on a rickety table, hislarge, piercing dark eyes seeming intently to study the pavement.
The door opened, and a gray-headed old man entered, who approached himrespectfully.
"Well, Paolo?" said the cavalier, suddenly starting.
"My Lord, the men are all going back to-night."
"Let them go, then," said the cavalier, with an impatient movement. "Ican follow in a day or two."
"Ah, my Lord, if I might make so bold, why should you expose yourperson by staying longer? You may be recognized and"--
"No danger," said the other, hastily.
"My Lord, you must forgive me, but I promised my dear lady, yourmother, on her death-bed"--
"To be a constant plague to me," said the cavalier, with a vexed smileand an impatient movement; "but speak on, Paolo,--for when you once getanything on your mind, one may as well hear it first as last."
"Well, then, my Lord, this girl,--I have made inquiries, and every onereports her most modest and pious,--the only grandchild of a poor oldwoman. Is it worthy of a great lord of an ancient house to bring her toshame?"
"Who thinks of bringing her to shame? 'Lord of an ancient house!'"added the cavalier, laughing bitterly,--"a landless beggar, cast out ofeverything,--titles, estates, all! Am I, then, fallen so low that mywooing would disgrace a peasant-girl?"
"My Lord, you cannot mean to woo a peasant-girl in any other way thanone that would disgrace her,--one of the House of Sarelli, that goesback to the days of the old Roman Empire!"
"And what of the 'House of Sarelli that goes back to the days of theold Roman Empire'? It is lying like weeds' roots uppermost in theburning sun. What is left to me but the mountains and my sword? No, Itell you, Paolo, Agostino Sarelli, cavalier of fortune, is not thinkingof bringing disgrace on a pious and modest maiden, unless it woulddisgrace her to be his wife."
"Now may the saints above help us! Why, my Lord, our house in days pasthas been allied to royal blood. I could tell you how Joachim VI."--
"Come, come, my good Paolo, spare me one of your chapters of genealogy.The fact is, my old boy, the world is all topsy-turvy, and the bottomis the top, and it isn't much matter what comes next. Here are shoalsof noble families uprooted and lying round like those aloes that thegardener used to throw over the wall in springtime; and there is thatgreat boar of a Caesar Borgia turned in to batten and riot over ourpleasant places."
"Oh, my Lord," said the old serving-man, with a distressful movement,"we have fallen on evil times, to be sure, and they say his Holinesshas excommunicated us. Anselmo heard that in Naples yester
day."
"Excommunicated!" said the young man,--every feature of his fine face,and every nerve of his graceful form seeming to quiver with the effortto express supreme contempt. "Excommunicated! I should hope so! Onewould hope through Our Lady's grace to act so that Alexander, and hisadulterous, incestuous, filthy, false-swearing, perjured, murderouscrew, would excommunicate us! In these times, one's only hope ofparadise lies in being excommunicated."
"Oh, my dear master," said the old man, falling on his knees, "what isto become of us? That I should live to hear you talk like an infideland unbeliever!"
"Why, hear you, poor old fool! Did you never hear in Dante of the Popesthat are burning in hell? Wasn't Dante a Christian, I beg to know?"
"Oh, my Lord, my Lord! a religion got out of poetry, books, andromances won't do to die by. We have no business with the affairs ofthe Head of the Church,--it's the Lord's appointment. We have only toshut our eyes and obey. It may all do well enough to talk so when youare young and fresh; but when sickness and death come, then we _must_have religion,--and if we have gone out of the only true Roman CatholicApostolic Church, what becomes of our souls? Ah, I misdoubted aboutyour taking so much to poetry, though my poor mistress was so proud ofit; but these poets are all heretics, my Lord,--that's my firm belief.But, my Lord, if you do go to hell, I'm going there with you; I'm sureI never could show my face among the saints, and you not there."
"Well, come, then, my poor Paolo," said the cavalier, stretching outhis hand to his serving-man, "don't take it to heart so. Many a betterman than I has been excommunicated and cursed from toe to crown, andbeen never a whit the worse for it. There's Jerome Savonarola there inFlorence--a most holy man, they say, who has had revelations straightfrom heaven--has been excommunicated; but he preaches and gives thesacraments all the same, and nobody minds it."
"Well, it's all a maze to me," said the old serving-man, shaking hiswhite head. "I can't see into it. I don't dare to open my eyes for fearI should get to be a heretic; it seems to me that everything is gettingmixed up together. But one must hold on to one's religion; because,after we have lost everything in this world, it would be too bad toburn in hell forever at the end of that."
"Why, Paolo, I am a good Christian. I believe, with all my heart, inthe Christian religion, like the fellow in Boccaccio,--because I thinkit must be from God, or else the Popes and Cardinals would have had itout of the world long ago. Nothing but the Lord Himself could have keptit against them."
"There you are, my dear master, with your romances. Well, well, well! Idon't know how it'll end. I say my prayers, and try not to inquire intowhat's too high for me. But now, dear master, will you stay lingeringafter this girl till some of our enemies hear where you are and pouncedown upon us? Besides, the troop are never so well affected when youare away; there are quarrels and divisions."
"Well, well," said the cavalier, with an impatient movement,--"one daylonger. I must get a chance to speak with her once more. I must seeher."