Rome was full, even up to high tide mark, and the peasants were still pouring in in a torrent at the gate of St. Paul when the artist looked out next morning.
The sun was shining bright as the day before, the people were dancing, singing, moving to and fro in gay attire and with joyful faces, but Murietta was not glad. He sat down before his picture a long time, and contemplated it in silence and in sadess. He had never before felt how vast and insurmountable was the world that lay between himself and this lady he so loved.
And why had he loved her? Why had he been made to love her and her only, if they were to never meet and mingle soul with soul? He was severe in his denounceent of fortune as be sat there alone and depressed while all the world outside was mingling together and making merry.
"It was not my seeking," said he to himself "I had no more hand in this matter than I had in my own creation. I loved this woman from the first — loved her long before I saw her, and I trembled the very moment I first saw her face. With me, on my side at least, it was like meeting with one again with whom I had spent half my life, and known all my happmess."
Half the day had gone by when this man rose up half desperate, dashed the picture down on the floor, and went out hurriedly, determiaed to never look upon it again, and trying very hard to make up his mind as he hastened down the stone steps, near the little blue Madonna with the sacred lamp at her feet, to vow to never lift his we to her whom he had loved and followed so long and so faithfully.
"Why can I not be as other men are? Why should I not mix with men and laugh, and laugh loud and long, and be careless and glad, and let the days go over my head lightly, instead of tearing through my heart, and uprooting my hair, and ploughing furrows in my face, and sowing trouble and care across my brows. I will arise, I will shake off this load that weighs me down and makes me old before my middle age. I will put off this care as one puts off a coat." He almost cast off his cloak as he said this aloud to himself whlle elbowing his way through the crowd toward the Corso.
He heard people laugh and he laughed also. He heard them shout and he also shouted. He shouted till there were tears on his face.
He kept on down the Corso, when sudenly, as the clock struck two, the great body of those about him melted away into side streets, or retured into the palaces by the way, and another class of people took their places. These new comers were all strangely dressed, and had their faces protected with iron or wire masks. They bore lltile leather bags by their sides. These bags were filled with confetti bouquets, little puff and powder bags, and other things to be thrown at the enemy in the coming battle.
Suddenly the air was filled with confetti. It came down from all sides, from every window, from below, from above, from the side streets, from everywhere.
It was worse than a snow-storm in the Alps. You could not see the distance of a single block. Every one was white as a meal bag in an instant. The artist drew his cloak about him and up to his eyes and drew his hat down, and thus protected kept on down the middle of the Corso, mixing with the people, laughing, shouting with the men, elbowing with the women, determined to be glad, and at least appear light-hearted, even though his heart was cold and heavy as a tombstone.
How the battle did rage, and how the dirt flew! Now and then some lady would faint and have to be carried out of the dense white crowd, and now and then some gentleman would be knocked down by accident and have to leave the field; and all along, right and left, you would see people bent down, rubbing their eyes, and trying to rid them of the vile confetti and the lime that was thrown as a sort of powder with these llttle bullets so like buck-shot.
Then there came a great procession. A platoon of horse soldiers with wooden cannon, wooden horses, and wooden swords went by, bearing sheaves and boughs and shepherd's crooks, and all kinds of signs and implements that meant peace and plenty over the land.
Then there came a full rigged ship, drawn by ten horses, and filled with men in sailor attire, and officers, and all that goes to make up a ship of war. These men had barrels and barrels of confetti in their vessel, and they threw it out by the bushel, right and left, and front and back, they poured broadside after broadside. They threw it at the ladies up in the balconies as if their lives depended on the force and precision of their shots. Never were Italians seen to work so hard before.
And yet, fest as they poured out the confetti the great ship, as it moved slowly up the Corso, was filled, and almoBt founered by the loads and loads that poured into it from the balconies right and left.
The men were at last exhausted and silenced. Sometimes you could not see the ship at all, you could only see the great white cloud of dust and dirt that enveloped it.
The ship could not run the gauntlet. It drew off ere it had made half the length of the Corso. But then it was manned by a fresher force, and soon was seen moving up the street again at the head of the procesion amid the renewed showers of white shot and the shouts of the people.
Then there followed men on horseback with long lances. These men were clad in complete steel armour as well as their horses, and they had nothing to do but bow to the ladies as they leaned from their balconies and threw the harmless shot from their white hands, and at the same time made more certain menaces with their wonerful eyes.
Then other things followed, with a meaning and without a meaning, with a moral and without a moral. At last a mob of strange and questionable maskers brought up the rear of this singular display. Among them a very tall man was noticeable, both from his strange dress and his strange beaviour and his mysterious prophecies. He was dressed in a red nightcap, a long white gown, and red slippers; in his left hand he bore a pot of a base and nameless use, and in his other hand he held a large spoon, and would now and then make believe to eat from this pot with the spoon, which he bore to his mouth, and kept howling out dolefully as he walked along,
"This is the end of the Carnival."
"The dirty beast! Bet your life, I'd like to knock him over! Can't he get anything better than that to eat "
Bang! went another bucketful of shot at the prophet from the strong arm of Mollie Wopsus, as she leaned from the balcony beside her mother and her mischievous little brother Johnny.
Murietta looked up, glad as if he had heard the voice of a bird above him in his native woods of the Pacific.
"By the bald-headed Elijah! There he is at last! Come in! come up! That's right! That's the way, right through there to the left, and I will meet you on the step."
"Come up, Murietta! do come up," said the good old General Wopsus "it will be such a relief to have one man at least by my side who is not an Italian count, or a Polish prince, or an American colonel."
The good Mrs. Wopaus also leaned from the balcony, and standing the fire from the few stray shots that were still flying, added her entreaties to those of the good general and the good natured Mollie; and the man entered at once, and handed his cloak and hat to the porter, and passed on up the stairs, where Mollie met him with extended arms.
"And you must never speak to me any more. Never so long as I live," laughed Mollie, and she handed the artist over to her mother, and then to her father, who proceeded to hand him over to counts and colonels and princes. And the first count there, at least the first in favour in the eyes of Mollie, was the Count Paolini.
And the first in favour, in the eyes of the general, of all the assembled princes, was the Prince Trawaska.
Murietta sat down in silence. In truth there was a very awkward silence just then, and as the artist sat there looking down into the white and now half-deserted street, he saw or rather felt that the handsome Paolini was eying him from head to foot.
He had recognized him. He knew perectly well that this man who sat there so quiet and so complacently, and who seemed to be hand and glove with this woman of prodigious wealth, was the very man who dwelt in the mean and wretched rooms next door to his own, on the side of the Tarpeian Rock. And he was thinking all the time as he noticed the artist there, how he should conciliate him, win him to his side, and make him his ally in this campaign on which depended his fall or his fortune.
Then his brows gathered. Another and a darker thought took hold of him. He said to himself "Why conciliate? Are there not enough desperadoes in Rome to meet this one man, who scours the darkest streets at the most dangerous hours of the night? Is the Tiber not deep and dark enough to hide him and my secret with him?" Then he thought of the last night, as he stood there with his arm about the dark Italian countess, looking out of the north window towards St. Peter's, and began to wonder if this artist would espose him there and then. He looked into the face of Murietta with all his might. He could see no further into his soul than one can see into the dark and turbid Tiber. He was troubled and annoyed at his composure.
But Murietta's mind was elsewhere. After the excitement came a reaction, and his lively and yivid imagination had turned at once to another scene, so soon as the tumult of the day was oyer. It had flown like a bird that had been imprisoned all day and was wild to escape to its old haunts on the wooded hillside. Yesterday he had sat by the beautiful countess in pink and rose. He had shared her hospitality, had delighted in her company, entered her house, and drank her wine. Then he had left her, a sort of prisoner aa it were, in the hands of brigands. He had at last left her lying prostrate with illness, alone with a stranger, with the houseful of drunken men, and had not called or sent one word, or made a single inquiry after the health of his beautiful hostess.
Murietta was not thinking of Count Paolini or his friends in the least. He had forgotten almost where he was, and was commiserating with the beautiful countess, and feeling very much ashamed of himself for his selfish pleasure this day, when his companion of the day before was so miserable.
Start reading Chapter 27 ofThe One Fair Lady