My Friend Prospero

  III

  What passed for breakfast at the presbytery was the usual Continentalevasion of that repast,--bread and coffee, despatched in your apartment.But at noon the household met to dine.

  The dining-room, on the ground floor, long and low, with a vaultedceiling, whitewashed, and a pavement of worn red tiles, was a clean,bare room, that (pervaded by a curious, dry, not unpleasant odour)seemed actually to smell of bareness, as well as of cleanliness. Therewas a table, there was a dresser, there were a few unpainted dealchairs, rush-bottomed (exactly like the chairs in the church, in allItalian churches), and there was absolutely nothing else, save a greatblack and white Crucifix attached to the wall. But, by way ofcompensation, its windows opened southwards, flooding it with sunshine,and commanding the wonderful perspective of the valley,--the blue-greyhills, the snow-peaks, the blossoming low-lands, and the far-awayopalescence that you knew to be the lake.

  At noon the parroco, his niece Annunziata, and his boarder met to dine.

  The parroco was a short, stout, florid, black-haired, hawk-nosed,fierce-looking, still youngish man, if five-and-forty may be reckonedyoungish, with a pair of thin lips and powerful jaws which, for purposesof speech, he never opened if he could help it. Never,--till Sundaycame: when, mounting the pulpit, he opened them indeed, and his pent-uputterance burst forth in a perfect torrent of a sermon, a wild gush ofwords, shouted at the topmost stress of a remarkably lusty voice,arresting for a minute or two by reason of the sheer physical energy itrepresented, and then for a long half hour exquisitely tiresome. But onweek-days he maintained a prodigious silence, and this (as, thoughfierce-looking, he wasn't in the least really fierce) it would often beJohn's malicious study to tempt him to break. Besides, to-day, John washonestly concerned with the pursuit of knowledge.

  Accordingly, grace being said, "You never told me," he began, assuming amien of intelligent interest, "that the castle was haunted." He lookedat the Napoleonic profile of Don Ambrogio, but from the tail of his eyehe kept a watch as well upon Annunziata, and he saw that that wiselittle maiden became attentive.

  "No," said Don Ambrogio, between two spoonfuls of soup.

  "You will conceive my astonishment, then," continued John, urbanely,"when I discovered that it was."

  "It isn't," said Don Ambrogio. He gave himself diligently to thebusiness of the hour; his spoon flew backwards and forwards like ashuttle. His napkin, tucked into his Roman collar, protected his bosom,an effective white cuirass.

  "Oh? Not the castle?" questioned John. "Only the garden? And the olivewood? True, on reflection, I've never seen it in the house."

  "Nothing here is haunted," said the parroco. He made a signal toAnnunziata, who rose to change the plates. Her big eyes were alight, herserious little face was alert; but she would never dream of speaking inthe presence of her uncle. Marcella, the cook, brought in the inevitableveal.

  "Oh, for that," insisted John, courteous but firm, "I beg your pardon. Imyself have seen it on two occasions; and, lest you should fancy it asubjective illusion, I may tell you that it was yesterday seensimultaneously by another."

  "It? It? What is _it_?" asked the parroco, his beaked and ensanguinedvisage fiercer-looking than ever, as he fell upon the inevitable vealwith a somewhat dull carving-knife.

  "Ah," said John, "now you make me regret that I haven't a talent forword-painting. It's the form of a woman, a young woman, tall, slender,in some pale diaphanous garment, that appears here, appears there,remaining distinctly visible for some minutes, and then disappears. No,it isn't a subjective illusion. And it isn't, either," the unscrupulouscreature added, after a pause, raising his voice, and speaking withemphasis, as if to repel the insinuation, while the darkness ofdisenchantment swept the face of Annunziata, "it isn't, either, as someimaginative people might too hastily conclude, a wraith, a phantom, aninsubstantial vapour. It's a real material form, that lives andbreathes, and even, if driven to it, speaks. There's nothingsupernatural about it,--unless, indeed, we take the transcendental viewthat Nature herself is supernatural. I was wondering, Don Ambrogio,whether, without violating a confidence, you could tell me whose form itis?"

  "Nossignore," said Don Ambrogio, economizing his breath.

  "Ah," sighed John, nodding resignedly, "I feared as much. Divining thatI would institute inquiries, she has stolen a march upon me, and pledgedyou to secrecy."

  "Nossignore," disavowed Don Ambrogio, raising eyes the sincerity ofwhich there could be no suspecting.

  John's face took on an expression of aggrieved surprise.

  "But then why won't you tell me?"

  "I cannot tell you because I do not know," said Don Ambrogio.

  "Oh, I see," said John. "And yet," he argued meditatively, "that's hardto conceive. I don't for a moment mean that I doubt it--but it's hard toconceive, like the atomic theory, and some of the articles of religion.(I hear, by-the-by, that the scientists are throwing the atomic theoryover. Oh, fickle scientists! Oh, shifting sands of science!) Surelythere can't be many such tall slender forms, in diaphanous garments,appearing and disappearing here and there in your parish? And one wouldsuppose, antecedently, that you'd know them all."

  "A peasant, a villager," said Don Ambrogio.

  "I put it to you as an observer of life," said John, "do peasants, dovillagers, wear diaphanous garments?"

  "A visitor, a sight-seer, from some place on the lake," said DonAmbrogio.

  "I put it to you as a student of probabilities," said John, "would avisitor, would a sight-seer, from some place on the lake, walk in thegarden of the castle without a hat? And would she appear at Sant'Alessina on two days in succession?"

  But Don Ambrogio had finished his veal, and when he had finished hisveal he always left the table, first twice devoutly making the sign ofthe Cross, and then with a bow to John, pronouncing the formula, "Youwill graciously permit? My affairs call me. A thousand regrets." To-dayhe slightly amplified that formula. "A thousand regrets," he said, "andas many excuses for my inability to afford the information desired."

  After his departure, John turned to Annunziata, where, in her greycotton pinafore, her lips parted, her big eyes two lively points ofinterrogation, she sat opposite to him, impatient to take up the theme.

  "Well, Mistress Wisdom!" he saluted her, smiling, and waving his hand."It is a good and wholesome thing for the young to witness thediscomfiture of the wicked. Your uncle retreats with flying colours. Hemade, to be sure, a slender dinner, but that's his daily habit. If youhave tears to shed, shed them for me. I have made none at all."

  From points of interrogation, Annunziata's eyes changed to abysses ofwonder, and, big as they were, seemed to grow measurably bigger.

  "You have made no dinner?" she protested, in that strangely deep voiceof hers, with its effect of immense solemnity.

  "No, poor dear," said John, with pathos, "no, I have made no dinner."

  "But you have eaten a great deal," exclaimed Annunziata, frowning,nonplussed. "And you are still eating."

  "Quite so," responded John, "though I think it's perhaps the meresttrifle unhandsome of you to fling it in my face. I have eaten a greatdeal, and I am still eating. That is what I come to table for. In anorderly life like mine there is a place for everything. I come to tableto eat, just as I go to bed to sleep and to church to say my prayers.Would you have me sleep at table, eat in church, and say my prayers inbed? Eating, however, has nothing to do with the case. I spoke ofdining--I said I had not dined. Now you shall be the judge. The questionis, can a Christian man dine twice on the same day? Answer me that."

  "Oh, no," answered Annunziata, her pale face very sober, and shelengthened out her vowels in deprecation of the idea. "At least, itwould be gluttony if he did."

  "There you are," cried John. "And gluttony is not the undeadliest of theSeven Deadly Sins. So, then, unless you would have me guilty of thedeadly sin of gluttony, you must agree that I have not dined. For I amgoing to dine this evening. I am going to dine at the Hotel Victoria atRoccadoro. I am goi
ng to dine with a lady. I am going to dine in all thepomp and circumstance of my dress-suit, with a white tie and pumps. Andyou yourself have said it, a Christian man may not, without guilt ofgluttony, dine twice on the same day. Therefore it is the height ofuncharitableness, it's a deliberate imputation of sin, to contend that Ihave dined already."

  Annunziata followed his reasoning thoughtfully, and then gravely set himright.

  "No," she said, with a drop of the eyelids and a quick little shake ofthe head, "you do not understand. I will explain." Her eyes were wideopen again, and bright with zeal for his instruction. "You have dinedalready. That is a certain truth, because this meal is dinner, and youhave eaten it. But to-night you are going to a dinner of ceremony--andthat is different. A dinner of ceremony does not count. It is the sameas a supper. My uncle himself once went to a dinner of ceremony atBergamo. No, it will not be gluttony for you to go to a dinner ofceremony."

  "You speak like a little pope," said John, with enthusiasm. "In mattersof Faith and Morals I believe you are infallible. If you could guess theload you have lifted from my conscience!" And he pushed a hearty ouf.

  "I am glad," said Annunziata. And then she attempted to hark back.Curiosity again lighting her eyes, "This form that you have seen in thegarden--" she began.

  "Don't try to change the subject," John interrupted. "Let us cultivatesequence in our ideas. What I am labouring with hammer and tongs to dragfrom you is the exact date at which, somewhere between the years of oursalvation 1387 and 1455, you sat for your portrait to the beatifiedpainter Giovanni of Fiesole. Now, be a duck, and make a clean breast ofit."

  Annunziata's eyes clouded. A kind of scorn, a kind of pity, and a kindof patient longanimity looked from them.

  "That is folly," she said, on the deepest of her deep notes, with asuccession of slow, reflective, side-wise nods.

  "Folly--?" repeated John, surprised, but bland. "Oh? Really?"

  "Sit for my portrait between the years 1387 and 1455,--how could I?"scoffed Annunziata.

  "Why? What was to prevent you?" innocently questioned he.

  "_Ma come!_ I was not yet alive," said she.

  John looked at her with startled eyes, and spoke with animation.

  "Weren't you? Word of honour? Are you sure? How do you know? Have youany definite recollection that you weren't? Can you clearly recall theperiod in question, and then, reviewing it in detail, positively attestthat you were dead? For there's no third choice. A person must either bealive or dead. And how, if you weren't alive, how ever did it come topass that there should be a perfect portrait of you from Giovanni'sbrush in the Convent of Saint Mark at Florence? Your grave little whiteface, and your wise little big eyes, and your eager little inquisitiveprofile, and your curls flowing about your shoulders, and your pinaforethat's so like a peplum,--there they all are, precisely as I see thembefore me now. And how was Giovanni able to do them if you weren'talive? Perhaps you were pre-mortally alive in Heaven? Giovanni's cell,as is well known, had a window that opened straight into Heaven. Perhapshe saw you through that window, and painted you without your knowing it.The name they give your portrait, by-the-by, would rather seem toconfirm that theory. What do you think they call it? They call it an _unangiolo_. I've got a copy of it in England. When you come to London tovisit the Queen I'll show it to you."

  Annunziata gave her flowing curls a toss.

  "The form of the young woman which you have seen in the garden--" shebegan anew.

  "Ah," said John, "observe how differently the big fish and the littlefish will be affected by the same bait."

  "When you first spoke of it," said she, "I thought you had seen a holyapparition."

  "Yes," said he. "That was because I couched my communication in languagedesignedly misleading. I employed the terminology of ghost-lore. I said'haunted' and 'appear,' and things like that. And you were very properlyand naturally deceived. I confidently expected that you would be. No, itis not given to world-stained and world-worn old men like me to see holyapparitions."

  "Old men? You are not an old man," said Annunziata.

  "Oh? Not? What am I, then?" said John.

  "You are a middle-aged man," said she.

  "Thank you, Golden Tongue," said he, with a bow.

  "And you are sure that it was merely a real person?" she pursued.

  "No," said he. "I am too profoundly imbued with the basic principles ofmetaphysics ever to be sure of the objective reality of phenomena. I canonly swear to my impression. My impression was and is that it was merelya real person."

  "Then," said Annunziata, with decision, "it must be the person who isvisiting the Signora Brandi."

  "The Signora Brandi?" repeated John. "What a nice name! Who is theSignora Brandi?"

  "She is an Austrian," said Annunziata.

  "Oh--?" said John.

  "She lives in the pavilion beyond the clock-tower," said Annunziata.

  "I wasn't aware," said John, "that the pavilion beyond the clock-towerwas inhabited. I wasn't aware that any part of this castle wasinhabited, except the porter's lodge and the part that we inhabit. Whyhave I been left till now in this state of outer darkness?"

  "The Signora Brandi has been absent," said Annunziata. "She has been inher own country--in Austria. But the other day she returned. And withher came a person to visit her. That is the person whose form you haveseen in the garden."

  "How do you know it wasn't the form of the Signora Brandi herself?" Johnsaid.

  "Oh, no," said Annunziata. "The Signora Brandi is not young. She is old.She is as old as--"

  "Methuselah? Sin? The hills?" suggested John, Annunziata having pausedto think.

  "No," said Annunziata, repudiating the suggestion with force. "No one isso old as Methuselah. She is as old as--well, my uncle."

  "I see," said John. "Yes, it's all highly mysterious."

  "Mysterious?" said Annunziata.

  "I should think so," asseverated he. "Cryptic, enigmatic, esoteric tothe last degree. To begin with, how does the Signora Brandi, being anAustrian, come by so characteristically un-Austrian a name? Is thatmysterious? And in the next place, why does an Austrian Signora Brandiso far forget what is due to her nationality as to live, not in Austria,but in Lombardy? And--as if that were not enough--at Castel Sant'Alessina? And--as if that were not more than enough--in the pavilionbeyond the clock? Come, come! Mysterious!"

  "You are living in Lombardy, you are living at Castel Sant' Alessina,yourself," said Annunziata.

  "I hardly think so," said John. "You can scarcely with precision callthis living--this is rather what purists call sojourning. But even wereit otherwise, there's all the difference in the world between my caseand the Signora Brandi's. I am middle-aged and foolish, but she is asold as your uncle. Don't you see the mysterious significance of thatcoincidence? And I haven't a young woman visiting me. _Who is the youngwoman?_ Is that a mystery? My sweet child, we tread among mysteries. Weare at the centre of a coil of mysteries. _Who is the young woman?_ Andhow--consider well upon this--how does it happen that the young womanspeaks English? Mysterious, indeed!"

  He rose, and bowed, with ceremony.

  "But we burn daylight. I must not detain you longer. Suffer me toimprint upon your hand of velvet a token of my high regard."

  And taking Annunziata's frail little white hand, he bent low to kiss it;and though his blue eyes were full of laughter, I think that behind thelaughter there was a great deal of real fondness and admiration.