CHAPTER I
How the good News came to Ravenna
Such were the events of that last night of carnival, and of the AshWednesday that followed it;--an Ash Wednesday remembered many a yearafterwards in Ravenna.
The old lawyer, Fortini, standing a pace behind the Marchese Ludovico,when the latter lifted up the sheet from the face of the dead, saw onlythat it was the face of a woman. Paolina Foscarelli he had never seen;and Bianca Lalli he had seen only once or twice on the stage; the lawyernot being much of a frequenter of the theatre. There could be littledoubt that the body lying there beneath the gateway, with the officialsstanding with awe-stricken faces around it, together with the sixpeasants who had brought it thither, was that of one or other of thosetwo young women.
Of course there were plenty of persons at hand who were able to set atrest all doubt as to the identity of the murdered woman,--for such itwas pretty clear she must be considered to be. And of course allinterests in the little provincial city were for many days to comeabsorbed in the terrible interest belonging to the investigation of thefoul deed which had been done.
But in order to set before the reader the whole of this strange storyintelligibly, and to give him the same means of estimating theprobabilities of the questions involved in it, and of reaching asolution of the mysterious circumstances which the authorities, who werecalled upon to investigate them, were in possession of, it will beexpedient to go back to a period some four months previous to thatmemorable Ash Wednesday.
It was a bitterly cold night in Ravenna, towards the latter end ofNovember, some four months before that Ash Wednesday on which the eventsthat have been narrated occurred. Untravelled English people, who haveheard much of "the sweet south," of the sunny skies of Italy, and of itsbalmy atmosphere, do not readily imagine that such cold is ever to befound in that favoured clime. But the fact is that cold several degreesbelow the freezing point is by no means rare in the sub-Alpine andsub-Apennine districts of northern Italy.
And Ravenna is a specially cold place. At Florence, the winter, thoughshort, is often sharp enough; and the climate of the old Tuscan city isconsidered a somewhat severe one for Italy. But the district which liesto the north-eastward, on the low coast of the upper part of the stormyAdriatic, is much colder. There is nothing, neither hill nor forest,between the Friulian Alps and Ravenna, to prevent the north-easternwinds, bringing with them a Siberian temperature, from sweeping the lowshelterless plain on which the ancient capital of the Exarchs issituated.
They were so sweeping that plain, and howling fiercely through thedeserted streets of the old city, on the November evening in question.
Nevertheless there were several persons loitering around the door ofthat ancient hostelry, the "Albergo della Spada," in the Via del Monte,then as now, and for many a generation past, the principal inn ofRavenna. They were wrapped in huge cloaks, most of them with hoods tothem, which gave the wearers a strange sort of monkish appearance. Andthey from time to time blew upon their fingers, in the intervals ofusing their mouths for the purpose of grumbling at the cold. But theynone of them resorted to tramping up and down, or stamping with theirfeet, or threshing themselves with their arms, or had recourse tomovement of any kind to get a little warmth into their bodies, asEnglishmen may be seen to do under similar circumstances. However coldit may be an Italian never does anything of this sort. It must besupposed, that to him cold is a less detestable evil than muscularexertion of any kind.
There were some half-dozen men standing about the door; and though theywere doing nothing, it was not to be supposed that they stood there inthe bitter cold for their own amusement. The fact was, they were waitingfor one of the great events of the day at Ravenna,--the arrival of thediligenza from Bologna. It was past six o'clock in the evening; and itcould not now be long before the expected vehicle would arrive.
It is a distance of some sixty miles from Bologna to Ravenna; thediligence started at five in the morning, and was due at the latter cityat five in the evening. But nobody expected that it would reach itsdestination at that hour. It had never done so within the memory of man,even in the fine days of summer, and now, when the roads were rough withridges of frozen mud! It was now, however, nearly half-past six--yes,there went the half-hour clanging from the cracked-voiced old bell inthe top of the round brick tower, which stands on one side of thecathedral, and by its likeness to a minaret reminds one of the Byzantineparentage of its builders.
Half-past six! The loiterers about the inn door remark to each other,that unless "something" has happened old Cecco Zoppo can't be far offnow.
The arrival of the Bologna diligence, the main means of communicationbetween remote out-of-the-way Ravenna and the rest of the world, wasalways a matter of interest in the old-world little city, where mattersof interest were so few. And on a pleasant evening in spring or summerthe attendance of expectant loungers was wont to be far larger than itwas on that bitter November night, and to include a large number ofamateurs; whereas the half-dozen now waiting were all either officiallyor otherwise directly interested in the arrival. Indeed, there was avery special interest attached to the coming of the expected vehicle onthat November night; and nothing but the extreme severity of the weatherwould have prevented a very distinguished assemblage from being on thespot to hear the first news that was expected to be brought by one ofthe travellers.
"Eccolo! I heard the bells, underneath the gate-way. Per Bacco, it istime! I'm well-nigh frozen alive," said Pippo, the ostler.
"If they don't keep him an hour at the gate," rejoined a decidedly moreragged and poverty-stricken individual, who held recognized office asthe ostler's assistant.
"Not such a night as this! Those gentlemen there at the gate can feelthe cold for themselves, if they can't feel nothing else," rejoined theostler, who was a frondeur and disaffected to the government, inconsequence of a drunken grandson having been turned out of the place ofthird assistant scullion in the kitchen of the Cardinal Legate. "There'sthe bells again! They've let him off pretty quick. I thought as much,"added the old man, with a chuckle.
"Wasn't Signor Ercole's woman here with a lanthorn just now?" saidanother of the bystanders, a young man, who, though wrapped to the eyesin the universal all-levelling cloak, belonged evidently to a superiorclass of society to the previous speakers.
"Si, Signor Conte, she is there in the kitchen. Per Dio! she would havehad no fingers to hold the light for her master, if she had stayed outhere," replied the ostler. And then the rattle of wheels becamedistinct, and in the next instant the feeble light of a couple of lampsbecame visible at the far end of the street, as the coach turned out ofthe Piazza Maggiore into the Via del Monte, and struggled forwardstowards the knot at the inn door; it came at a miserable little trot,but with an accompaniment of tremendous whip-cracking, that awoke echoesin the silent streets far and near, and imparted an impression ofbreathless speed to the imagination of the bystanders, who, beingItalians, accepted the symbol in despite of their certain knowledge thatthe reality of the thing symbolised was not there. Like the immortalMarchioness, Dick Swiveller's friend, in the Old Curiosity Shop, theItalians, when the realities of circumstances are unfavourable, canalways manage to gild them a little by "making believe very strong."
"Now then, Signora Marta, bring out your light," called the deputyostler in at the inn door.
The individual addressed as Signor Conte became evidently excited, andprepared himself to be the first to present himself at the door of thecoach as it drew up opposite the inn. The ostler stepped out into thestreet with his stable lanthorn. Signora Marta, shivering, with a hugeshawl over her head, took up her position, lanthorn in hand, behind theSignor Conte, and the ramshackle old coach, rattling over the unevenround cobble-stones of the execrable pavement with a crash of noise thatseemed to threaten that every jolt would be its last, came to astandstill at the inn door.
The Signor Conte Leandro Lombardoni--that was the name of the young manhitherto called Il Signor Conte--opened the door wit
h his own hand, and,putting his head eagerly into the interior, cried,
"Are you there, Signor Ercole? Well! What news? Have you succeeded? Letme give you a hand."
"Grazie, Signor Leandro, grazie," replied a high-pitched voice ofsingularly shrill quality from within the vehicle, "I don't know whetherI can move. Misericordia! che viaggio! What a journey I have had. I amnearly dead. My blood is frozen in my veins. I have no use of my limbs.I shall never recover it; never!"
And then very slowly a huge bundle of cloaks and rags and furs, nearlycircular in form and about five feet in diameter, began to move towardsthe door of the carriage, and gradually, by the help of Signor Leandroand Signora Marta, to struggle through it and get itself down on thepavement.
"And this I do and suffer for thee, Ravenna!" said the bundle in thesame shrill tenor, making an attempt, as it spoke, to raise two littleprojecting fins towards the cold, unsympathising stars.
"But have you succeeded, Signor Ercole?" asked the other again,anxiously.
"I have succeeded in sacrificing myself for my country," replied theshrill voice with chattering teeth; "for I know I shall never get overit. I am frozen. It is a very painful form of martyrdom."
"But you can at least say one word, Signor Ercole? You can say yes or noto the question, whether you have succeeded in our object?" urged theConte Leandro.
Signor Ercole Stadione, however, who was, as the reader is aware, noless important a personage than the impresario of the principal theatreof Ravenna, knew too well all the importance that belonged to the newshe had to tell to part with his secret so easily. "Signor Conte," hequavered out, "I tell you I am frozen! A man cannot speak on any subjectin such a condition. I know nothing. My intellectual faculties have nottheir ordinary lucidity. I must endeavour to reach my home. Marta, holdthe lamp here."
"And I who have waited here for your arrival ever since theventi-quattro! Per Dio! Do you think I ain't cold too? And the Marcheseis expecting you. Of course, you will go to him at once?"
"I don't know that I shall ever recover myself sufficiently to do so. Itis useless for the city to expect more from a man than he canaccomplish. When I have got thawed, I will endeavour to do my duty. Goodnight, Signor Conte!" said the little impresario, preparing to followhis servant with the lanthorn, as well as the enormous quantity of wrapsaround him would allow him to do so.
"Come now, Signor Ercole, you won't be so ill-natured. You know how muchinterest I take in the matter. Think how long I have waited here foryou, and nobody else has cared enough to do that. Come now, begood-natured, and tell a fellow. Just one word. Look here now," addedthe Conte Leandro, seeing that he was on the point of losing thegratification for the sake of which he had undergone the penance ofstanding sentinel in the cold for the last hour, and that his only hopewas to bring forward les grands moyens,--"see now, the only thing tobring you round is a glass of hot punch. Now, while you go home and getyour things off, I will go to the cafe and get you a good glass ofpunch, hot and strong--smoking hot! and have it brought to your house,all hot, you know, in a covered jug. But before I go; you will just saythe one word: Have you been successful? Come now. Just one word."
Signor Ercole Stadione, the impresario, would much have preferred notsaying that one word just then. He knew perfectly well that the grandobject of his questioner was to be the first to carry the great news tothe Circolo--the club where all the young nobles of the town were in thehabit of congregating; and to make the most of the sort of reputation tobe gained by being the first in Ravenna to have accurate information onthe matter in question. He knew also that within a quarter-of-an-hourafter the news should be told to Signor Leandro Lombardoni it would beknown to all Ravenna. Further, he was perfectly aware that, frozen ornot frozen, he must wait that evening on the Marchese, of whom SignorLeandro had spoken--the Marchese Lamberto di Castelmare, in order tocommunicate to him the news which Signor Leandro was so anxious to hear;that not to do so would be as much as his standing and position inRavenna were worth. And he would have preferred that the Marchese shouldnot have heard what he had to tell before telling it to him himself;which he thought likely enough to happen, if he let the cat out of thebag to Signor Leandro. But the offer of the punch was irresistible. Thepoor little impresario knew how little possibility there was of findingany such pleasant stimulant in the cold, cheerless, wifeless littlequartiere which he and Marta called their home. His teeth werechattering with cold; and the hot punch carried the day.
"Troppo buono, Signor Conte! Truly a good glass of hot ponche would bethe saving of me! It is very kindly thought of. Well, then; listen inyour ear. But you won't say a word about it till to-morrow morning. Itis all right. The thing is done. The writings signed. Have I done well,eh? Have I deserved well of the city, eh? But you won't say a word!"
"Bravo, Signor Ercole! Bravo, bravissimo! Not a word. Not a word. I runto order the punch. Good night. Not a word to a living soul!"
And the Conte Leandro ran off to give a hasty order at the cafe in thePiazza, on his way to the Circolo to spread his important news all overthe town.