The air was like balm in Rome the next morning as the artist rose and looked out of his little window to the red flower garden on the top of the Palatine Hill. There was pure and perfect tranquillity in the air everywhere. The people seemed to have tired of the three days' revel, and now there was a rection. Some cats sat in a row along the top of the glass topped wall across the street, and slept in the sun. The dancers had tired out soon and now sat flat down in the street against the wall, where the sunshine fell on their dark and splendid hair, and gambled at a very noisy game for wine and chestnuts. A group of little children were leading and riding and driving all at once and all together, a brown goat in a sort of triumphal march by the blue Madonna with the perpetual lamp at her feet, and laughing and shouting as if they had only begun to have their own little carnival.
Under this Madonna stood a man muffled up to the chin in a cloak that reached to the ground. Now there was nothing unsual in a man standing under any one of the ten thousand blue Madonnas in Rome, and with his cloak about him too, and pulled up even to the chin, under ordinary circumstances, and in ordinary weather. In fact few men but Murietta, a man born on the far border and bred in battle and in scenes where a man must watch his fellowman and every movement and unusual sign, would have remarked this man standing under the blue Madonna at all. But Murietta saw him, noted him at once.
Why was the man standing there alone and in the midst of the Carnival? And why was he so muffled up, when the sun was shining so warm and soft and sweet?
It is true the Italians say that the sun is only fit for the dogs and the English, but they mean the middle season when the bloom and vigour of spring is over. As for the early sun no man living is so fond of it as an Italian. He seems to feed upon it. Then this man had his cloak drawn up to his chin. That was not the thing for him to do at this hour of the day at all. In fact you very rarely see an Italian with his cloak drawn close about him under any circumstances. He always carries it swinging from one shoulder, and flowing and falling loosely behind him; somewhat after the fashion of the toga.
The artist closed the window, threw his cloak over his shoulder, and adjusting his dagger in its place called one of the countesses, told her he would not return till just before midnight, if at all, that evening, and was just about to descend the steps when he met the old prince and vendor of antiquities.
The old man fairly prostrated himself at the feet of the artist, while the little black eyed daughter stood by and wept with delight and gratitude.
"You have made my fortune,"said the old man.
"It is nothing," answered the artist. "I really did not take my fiiends to your shop; it was only by chance that we were there, and only your good fortune that the man bought your wares. Besides that, your coins and antiquities generally are, as the man said, really the best that are to be had. They look as old as the pyramids."
"Oh yes, oh yes," said the old man, gleefully rubbing his hands "that is my pride, that is my pride. I make it a matter of conscience; a matter of conscience, my friend, to make my antiquities as old as they possibly can be made, and I am sure your friend will never regret his purchases."
"Well, whether he regrets it or not, I am sure he is delighted with his selection, and perhaps it is the best he could have done. The truth is, he came to Europe to spend his money, and he is determined to spend about so much for these old stained coins and copper mouldings, and he had as well spend it with you as any one; ay, better, for you, my old friend, are honest, as the world goes, and your good daughters are most deserving. Therefore I am glad, you are glad, and the military old man from the West is equally glad; why then should I have said a word to interfere with so pleaant a little transaction? Nay, on the contrary, I shall bring you, by the aid of the good old general, at least a dozen customers, and all as profitable to you as he."
"My fortune is doubly made and my daughters shall all be married, and I shall dandle my grandchildren on my knees before I die, and shall ever pray for the Madonna to guide and bless you." The old man was bowing and rubbing his hands and shedding tears of gratitude.
"Prince!" said Murietta suddenly, as if just recollecting himself.
The old man stood up erect at once and with the air of a man among his equals. He looked in the face of the artist inquirngly, and then said —
"Your pleasure?"
"Who is the man in the heavy blue cloak under the Madonna as you come in the wide steps"
"What? shall I tell you? can I trust you?" The old man looked at his daughter and then looked nervously about him as if he feared that the very walls would hear him.
"Trust me, if you like" whispered the artist. "I have something better to do than to tell the secrets of an old man whom I would prefer to befriend."
"Nay, it is not my secret, not mine. In truth I know not what he wants here. He may be waiting to see the Prince Trawaska or my son the Count Paolini, or- "
"Your son!"
"My son the Count Paolini of the Italian army."
The countess blushed and retreated to the door of her own apartments.
"Nay, nay, child," began the old man, "it is no longer necessary to keep it secret now. Our fortune has been made, and now you shall be confirmed in your mariage before all the world. You see," said the old man, turning to Murietta and addressing him, "we are so very, very poor in Italy that often lovers have not only to give up lovers, but sometimes a wife has to give up her husband, a husband his wife, to better their mutual fortunes."
"I do not understand you."
"Well, to explain," said the old man, glancing timidly towards his daughter. "Say, for example, a young man loves a young woman, and both are poor. To be once poor in Italy is to be poor for forty geneations. Very well. Then, in the course of time, the young man chances to meet with a wealthy foreign lady, who consents to become his wife. This, you must understand, is an opportunity not to be thrown away."
"That I can understand," said the artist, "that, I am ashamed to say, might happen in my own land; but how about a man giving up his own wife?"
"I will tell you; listen to me," began the old man as he shrugged his shoulders and laid one finger across the other. "Two young lovers are married. Good. They have health, youth, desires, children; all in fact but the one important and all-imortant thing in Italy to make them happy. that is — money. They are very poor. Well, a cardinal comes along, or some foreign gentleman, and falls in love with the wife. Now," said the old man, again shrugging his shoulders and laying one forefinger still tighter and firmer across the other, and turning his head to one side and half smiling out of his half shut eyes at the artist, "now tell me what is the wise thing to do?"
"Why, blow the cardinal or the wealthy foreigner to the moon if he interferes!" said the artist emphatically.
"No, no, no, no," remonstrated the old man, still shrugging his shoulders and lockng his forefingers together.
"What the?"
"Why, let the cardinal have the wife or let the foreigner marry her if he will, and pay her an annual sum for the husband and the children at home."
"But this is not done?" queried the artist doubtfully.
"Not done! oh, isn't it!" said the old man, putting up his open hands as if he would banish the unpleasant truth from his mind," and here we are coming just back to the point where we began. For instance," said he, again locking his two forefingers together and shrugging up his shoulders "here is my daughter, the countess, secretly married to my son the Count Paolini. Good. But they are very, very poor, and it becomes necessary for him to better his fortune. They could barely subsist on their limited income. They could not bear to bring their children into the world to starve before their eyes. What was to be done? The count joined the order known as the Brothers of the Altar."
"The Brothers of the Altar?"
"Yes, the Brothers of the Altar;" and here the two forefingers wrestled together more violently than even before. "He joined the Brothers of the Altar, much to my disgust, and much to his disgrace, and began to offer his hand in marriage to wealthy foreign ladies from the wild western countries, and was just about to succeed when this good fortune you have brought upon my house happily rendered it unnecessary."
Marietta had been leaning back against the wall stupefied and utterly overcome by this strange revelation, he never before had realized how much money is worth, or how much men are willing to pay for it who hang upon the skirts of society.
At last he said inquiringly, as he straightned up and tried to throw off this spell of half stupor and amazement, "But the man in the long blue cloak under the blue Madonna?"
"Oh yes, oh yes; well, he is one of the Brothers of the Altar. That is all I know, that is all I know." The two brown old hands were thrown up again as if they would like to push this man in the long blue cloak under the blue Madonna and the whole set of the Brothers of the Altar backward over the Tarpeian Rock.
"But what does he want here? Is he not waiting to see my face and my figure so that he will know me in the dark?"
"Perhaps he wants to see the prince. I do not know what he is waiting there for; if I did I would tell you, for you have done more for me in one day, and can do more for a poor Italian family than all the miserable Brothers of the Altar in their whole lives. But I should say he wants to see Prince Trawaska. They are nearly always together. I should say he wants to see the prince, and is standing there in the sun waiting for him to come along."
"Standing in the sun with his cloak muffled about him like a midnight assassin," said the artist savagely. Then turning to the countess he put up his finger and said "He wants me. He wants to see my face and not be seen. You are a honest, true little lady. You will say to the count that Murietta knows what this man is waitng for, and that if I am in peril when I go abroad in the dark places of Rome and come and go through these narrow passages at night, he is in peril also."
The countess grew pale and put up her hands and buried her head in her hands, and her splendid dark hair fell down about her face and shoulders, and over her loose, ungathered gown, but she did not speak.
The old vendor of antiquities shuffled forward, and laid his two forefingers toether, as if in preparation for another wrestling match and long speech, but Murietta had heard quite enough, and said, as he stepped back into the half-closed door of his little apartment —
"Do not fear, old man. You, as I said, are honest, as the world goes. You are a merchant. You do your best to sell your wares as all merchants do. Merchants are simply tollakers and tax gatherers the world over. They are the men who sit between the producer and the consumer, and tax, and tax, and tax whatever passes from the one to the other. They produce nothing whatever. They all of them together never made or brought into the world even so much as one grain of wheat, not even so much as one of your worthless Vespasian copper coins. You are as good as the best of these merchants. Yea, you are even better than the best of them, for you are not only a merchant, but you are also a producer."
Murietta was half smiling all this time, for the old man had begun to grow nervous, but now he bowed at this compliment, and took on his old complacency.
"Therefore, I say," continued the artist "fear nothing from me. Your customers shall be wealthy ones, if they are not numerous, and you shall sell all the old copper crucifixes, bronze serpents, brass cats from Egypt, and battered sphinxes that you can fashion for a year to come; but understand, the count, who had the weakess, and the Prince Trawaksa, who has the wickedness, to set this watch under the blue Madonna upon my track, must be more than careful, or they will pull this old ruin of a house down upon the heads of us all."
He bowed to the countess, who stood pushing back her black stream of hair, and half laughing by this time, and bidding the old man good day, he went in, shut the door, and looked out of the window.
The children were still riding the goat, the cats still sat in a long gray line on the glass tipped wall, the game for chestnuts and wine went on, but the man muffled up to the chin in the long blue cloak, under the blue Madonna with the perpetual lamp at her feet, was gone.
Start reading Chapter 29 ofThe One Fair Lady