Murietta's mind was filled with the countess as he took his way down the Spanish steps at an early hour for Italy. He recollected her, and only her. It seemed to him as he thought of her that she filled the whole salon with a soft and a rosy light.
And he recollected her as being singuarly alone also there that evening. Even her husband, the cunning little count, seemed to avoid her, and with a devilish and refined courtesy was seen at every opportunity to point out his wife to those with whom he spoke, and shake his head and sigh.
More than once he had seen the ladies put their heads together and whisper as they looked furtively over their shoulders at the. lady in rose and pink, and then he would hear them say"The poor dear count! what a gentle and devoted husband he is!"
What could it all mean? The man was more puzzled than ever. Yet he was more than ever convinced that there was somehing very wrong and very rotten in Rome.
He drew his cloak closer about him as he reached the great Spanish square and wedged himself on through the crowd toards the Corso with great difficulty, for this was Carnival Eve, and Rome was not only full up to the top of the basin, as the Secretary of Legation would have it, but Rome was brimming and boiling over. There was hardly standing room in Rome. It seemed that all Italy was there, and half of America besides.
What crowds of maskers! What shouts! What merriment!
In a moment he was forced to put aside the concern and care about the countess, and was borne away with the stream of pleasure in spite of himself.
Men were dressed as women, women as men, boys as beasts, and perhaps there were beasts dressed in the guise of gentlemen.
It was noticeable that these maskers were, as a rule, very loud of speech, and often very vulgar, with an accent in whatver tongue they attempted to speak which showed very clearly that they were either from foreign lands having their first Carnival in Rome, or Italians of a very low order and of questionable, or rather unquestionable character.
It was quite certain that the merry old cardinals and gallant gentlemen who once made the Corso brilliant with sparks of wit flashed from behind their masks on Carnival Eve, were not there now. The scene in some parts of the Corso resembled a lot of madcap boys and girls in the country playng blindman's buff in a barn.
"You are a woman!" cried a sharp voice from behind a black mask in very bad French, and with an American accent. "You are a woman. I know you by your long hair!" and she laid hold of the artist, and pulled him towards her, and laughed and shoated as she did so.
"Pardon me, I am not a woman!"
"Prove it! prove it!"
The artist put his arm about her galantly, and made as if he would kiss her and prove his case.
She screamed and struggled.
"Hands off there, sir! Let her go! Let her go!" cried a voice from ander a pair of goat's horns and a bearded mask which was meant to represent the god Pan playing his reed by the river.
"And who are you?"said Marietta, assuming a mock-heroic attitude, and reaching back his hand as if he was about to draw a sword.
The great god Pan stumbled over his goat's hoofs, flourished his reed, and fell back as if terrified to death; but the artist still held on to the masked lady who had first taken hold of him, as if he was about to play the part of Romulus in the old story of the Sabines.
"Let her go, please let her go! that's my sister," pleaded the great god Pan from under his beard and horns.
"And who are you?" again asked the artist.
"Why, I am the son of Mr. Thompson, of Cincinnati."
"And who is Mr. Thompson of Cincinati"
"Don't you know Mr. Thompson? Why, he's the richest pork-packer in the world!"
Murietta let go his little Sabine with a singular feeling of disgust, and passed on, musing as he went.
"The great god Pan with his reed, and the great pork packer with his gold! So we go. Such is life. Verily extremes do meet; and fortune as well as misfortune makes some strange bedfellows!"
In places the crowd beat and surged against he sides of the streets as does a swollen stream against its banks. In other places the crowd and confusion was not so great, and people stood talking in groups or watching the maskers as they went, and came, and called, and bantered each other as they passed.
A Capuchin monk was seen coming down a side street and to enter the crowd with a masked woman leaning on his arm.
The crowd began to hiss and jeer, and throw old bouquets and cabbages, and everything of the kind they could lay hands upon.
The man in the garb of the monk backed up against the wall and cried for quarter, while the woman tore off her mask and screamed on general principles.
"Take off that gown, and let go that woman!"cried one.
"A pretty fellow you, indeed, to play the Capuchin with a woman on your arm!" cried another.
The bouquets and rotten cabbages fell like a storm, and again the woman screamed for help.
A policeman lifted his hand to the crowd, and then turning to the man, made him take off the gown and unmask where he stood.
"You are not allowed to mock at religion here; and above all let me advise you, never attempt to wear the garb of a Capuchin, for the monks of this order are respected, nay, revered, by all respectable men; and the people, to say nothing of the law, will not allow them to be insulted."
The man stood there holding on to the woman as if he was afraid of the crowd.
"You will give me your name and adress, and you can go." said the sergeant.
He gave his name and address, and proved to be a German student from Heidelberg.
"Let me tell you how to disguise youself?" cried a Frenchman. The German looked up.
"Go home and put on the dress and manners of a gentleman — then your own mother will not know you."
"Ay," answered the German back over his shoulder as he turned away with the woman. "we go to Paris to learn manners of the French. We send our army to Paris to learn manners!" added the German, looking back at the Frenchman.
Murietta elbowed his way on up the Corso through this crowd of masks and faces, and wondered what the tomorrow would bring him.
He lifted his hat and stood a long time opposite the great palace with the high portal opening to the court, with the little forest of plants and flowers, and again fell to thinking of the one fair woman.
He went home at last, and was at war with himself. The beautiful countess floated before him like a rosy light as he passed under the shade of the Tarpeian Rock, and climbed the crooked stairs to his little cell.
All the merry maskers, and the tumult of the Corso, and the promise of a gay Carnival tomorrow, could not draw this man away from himself for ten minutes together.
He wished, devoutly wished, he had never seen this countess, and at last as he threw off his cloak he said to himself with an emphasis that was almost an oath, that he would see her no more.
Then turning behind the door he lifted and laid aside the shawl that his black-eyed little ladies had thrown over the picture there, and bore the easel out to the middle of the room.
There she was, just as he had always seen her, just as she had always seemed, looking back over her shoulder, going away from him without one word, without even a look of love, without even a glance of recognition!
But this woman seemed to be a part of himself. He thought of the countess as a stranger, a sort of usurper, as some one against whom he must sometime take up arms and expel.
He drew the dagger from the bosom where it had hung for a long tune, and hurled it back into the corner. The canvas was terribly cut and torn, and swayed and bent all out of shape. He tried to re-arrange it, but the wet picture had dried as the dagger had drawn and stretched it; and it would not come again in its place.
The impulsive artist stood before the picture with folded arms, and looked at this shadow of his ideal long and earnestly.
He had wandered away from his ideal love, and had taken delight in the smiles of another. Now he was very penitent and very affected. He loved her more than ever before.
When a man returns at night and kisses his wife with more than ordinary tenderess, she may be pretty certain that he has been in mischief.
Start reading Chapter 24 ofThe One Fair Lady