Murietta kept his promise to drive with the countess across the Tiber to the grounds of Prince Doria, very reluctantly next day. He hardly knew why, but he really dreaded to go. He had, in fact, made up his mind not to go at all, and when the footman came up the narrow stone steps and tapped at the door, he found him sitting there before the torn and pierced picture of the one fair woman, moody and ill at ease, and quite unprepared for the drive.
The artist was not well used to the convenient and fashionable lies by which men and women daily escape the responsiilities of promises, and so sending his compliments to the countess, he hastily arranged his toilet, and was soon descending the steps by the little blue Madonna, with the undying lamp at her feet.
The morning was warm; the artist had made some haste, and was descending the steps and approaching the carriage with his cloak thrown but loosely over his shoulers, and his frock coat unbuttoned and pushed back, so that it exposed the rich red silk sash that wound about his waist, and hung in tassels on either side, after the fashion of the Mexican at home.
The countess threw up her hand as if in terror at sight of this rich red tasselled sash about his waist, and cried out like a frightened chlld.
"It is blood! It is a sabre-cut, a dagger's gash! it means death!"
She hid her face in her hands and shuddered, while little Sunshine looked at her in amazement.
After a moment she hfted her face and smiled sad and sweetly as before, and pullng in her rose and pink robes with her dimpled pink baby like hand, that still trembled like a leaf in the wind, she made room for Murietta, and made no more mention of the red sash again.
They crossed the Tiber at the Island Bridge, and were soon climbing the tortuous road towards the Via Garibaldi.
Gardens to the right and gardens to the left, with a splendid fountain pouring out here and there, as if it was large and geneous enough to water the whole thirsty Campagna in a middle summer's day.
Palm trees, sycamore, locust, and trees of every name and clime, and flowers of every colour on this natural hill side, sloping down and overlooking Rome.
This is the most delightful as well as the most dreamy prospect of any city to be seen in the world, for, sitting here and looking east and against high white mounains above Tivoli, and twenty miles away across the Campagna, the city seems to touch the base of these mountains. The towers and the spires, and the mighty structures of every age and elevation, standing there on the half levelled Seven Hills, seem to have their base against the mountains twenty miles away, and the city seems to be built all over the vast plain from the Tiber to Tivoli.
Pass through this gate, with all the walls to the right and left, inside and out, batered and riddled and torn by cannon balls — this gate through which little armies have been coming in and going out, victorious and defeated, moving about, dying that Italy might live for the last ten years, and you come in a little while to the highest spot and the most beautiful on all the banks of the lower Tiber.
Here you drive through long avenues of oak, and the oak trees are seared and split and splintered by shot and shell. You drive through an old cemetery with pagan inscriptions and sarcophagi with Greek traditions and stories pictured out in marble, and the dead man's battles told in bold and bloody relief by the lid of his coffin, now set up and made bare for the contemplation of the curious barbarian from the far north.
Drive on through and under the dark and overhanging oaks, and you see close to your right a little white monument, with its little story in French about the men who fell fighting down yonder for the pope in the other oak avenue, and among the other tombstones.
Here are great pine trees as tall and graceful as those of the Pacific, only they are set with awkward regularity, and have been put down in order and in line and in rows like soldiers, as if everything on this hill of beauty meant battle and discipline and death.
There was a great square in the centre of the open road where princes and even kings came to walk and talk, and revel on the grass in a sort of royal picnic every summer season.
There were but few people there, and the countess drew a long breath of relief as she saw the green plot but sparely sprinkled with people, and but few carriages in the long eight mile drive over the beautiful lands of the great and good Prince Doria.
Perhaps the countess had been thinking of that ugly face that rose up before her on the Pincian, and that came as if from under her own carriage but the day before, and feared a repetition if she should here fall into a crowd of people.
They drove round to the little lake, with its fountains and flowers and water-fowl, and then drew up, and little Sunshine and the artist descended and gathered flowers from the banks, or threw bread at the swans, or fed the goldfish that came up to the surface, almost on to the bank, to take the food from the hand.
The countess sat in her carriage more silent and sad than before. She had remarked to Murietta, as they climbed the hill up out of Rome, that they should have but few more drives together, perhaps but a single drive more, and he was thinking of this, and also thinking of her strange and unreasonable terror at sight of the red sash as he came to the carriage that day, and was not at all pleased to hear that all this must end now that he was coming to like it.
Suddenly through the green trees, below him, yet on a crest of a lower little hill, between him and Rome, he saw a tall and dark and a wonderful figure move and then stand, turn, and plucking at a flower, look directly down on to the rolling Tiber and on Rome.
The artist let go the little boy's hand, dropped his own flowers, and almost fell upon his knees in the tall strong grass through which they had been wandering.
The little boy looked up to him with all the wonder of his mother's matchless eyes, put back his hair with a hand half full of flowers, and stood there waiting while the artist looked away at the wonderful woman slowly plucking the flowers to pieces and looking down upon Rome as if she dreamed. It was Annette.
The little boy picked up the fallen flowers and handed them back to the artist, and then the two went on as before, pickng up and plucking flowers from out the grass; only the artist could not see very clearly, and once when the little boy plucked a flower of singular beauty and held it up under his eyes, he pushed back his hair and looked around and up at the sky, and asked the artist if it was not going to rain, for he felt a drop on his hand.
The lady was standing aloue. Marietta did not dare approach nearer. He even went aside and drew a clump of wood and vine between the lady and himself, as if it had been an impenetrable curtain and he wished to keep it there for ever.
At last she had plucked her flowers to pieces, and then looking over on the dreamy and beautiful scene before her, turned a little to one side and joined her father, a tall and iron-faced soldier, who stood against a great pine close at hand, smoking his cigar.
The father lifted his hand after a moent's consideration, and then a black man came forward and then another, and then a carriage came down the avenue with two black men on the box, and father and daughter entered and drove rapidly away.
The artist led the little boy down and on to the crest of the other hill where the tall dark woman had stood between him and Rome, as she had ever stood before him, lifted up, exalted between him and all things else, and there he stooped as if gathering flowers (while the little boy looked on and wondered), and picked up the bits of flowers that had fallen from her hand and placed them tenderly between the leaves of a book that he wore in his breast.
Then the little boy ran down the hill and plucked some special flower that he had discerned from the distance, and as he ran, the artist, looking quietly around and making sure that no one saw him, kneeled, fell upon his face, and kissed the earth where she had walked. Then he rose up, found the little boy, led him back, and as he entered the carriage and again sat down by the silent countess, he felt somehow inexpressibly happy and intensely sad.
The few carriages were fast rolling away towards Rome, for, beautiful as is this place, it is very sickly and a danerous place to remain in after sunset, and our party speedily followed. Little was said on either side. The countess was thinking of the future, the artist of the past.
"No, no, lady, another time,"said the artist resolutely, as she stood on the steps of her palace above him, urging him to join her at dinner, "I cannot toay."
"Well, then, you will drive with me tomorrow."
The artist hesitated. He had gone back to the worship of his old idol. The couness had driven him a thousand miles from her in a month. He had gone back to her feet in a moment, and he wished to remain there.
"You will come but this once, but this once more."
The countess came down the steps and laid her little hand on his arm and looked in his face with a troubled and an appealing look. "You do not understand; you are a man and do not think of a woman's weakness and her wants, but you will come this once, for after forty drives I have kept this one pleasant one for the last."
"I should be a boor, a brute, lady, to allow you to ask me twice after all the peace and pleasure you have given me. I certainly will be with you to-morrow." He raised his hand, she ascended the steps and he passed out and down to the Caffe Creco, a bohemian headquarters, where he sometimes fell in for an hour's pastime and a lunch or a glass of indifferent wine.
Yet he had not been here much of late, and remembered, as he passed in, that he had not dined from under the roof of the fine and kind countess for days and weeks together.
Some old friends sat there, and he felt that they were a little cold and chilly in their behaviour. Away down in a comer, two artists sat at a little marble table toether, and they laid their heads close together as if they were whispering. One of them was stroking and patting the large round head of a great spotted dog, as he alternately sipped his wine and laid his head over towards the head of his companion, and then looked up at Murietta.
Over to the left, on the other side, an American artist spoke to a French artist and looked at Murietta. The French artist shrugged his shoulders, and then sat still, and left the American artist to translate that remark as he chose.
Carlton arose and came forward, as the one particular friend of the artist, but even he was a little stiff and ceremonious, as Murietta threw off his cloak and sat by his side at a table, and ordered wine for both.
"You have been away from us so long, so very, very long; why, we hardly know you."
'' So very long? Why, I have seen you, my friend Carlton, nearly every day for the last forty."
"Yes, from a splendid carriage by the side of a mad countess and another man's wife, and - "
"Good God!" — the artist sprang to his feet and almost upset the wine that had just been brought "what do you mean?"
"Sit down! The whole caffe is noticing you"
The artist sat and filled a glass to the brim. Then, tossing it off, he said,
"But tell me, what do you mean"
"Mean? Really, I mean nothing. Not I, but the world, that is, the little meddlesome, mischievous American world here, is! talking of you and the countess, and the • countess and you, and nothing else, and it has been doing so for the last fortnight. Can it be possible that you do not know it?"
"Know it! I did not dream of it! Besides, look here!" he caught the man half savagely by the breast of his coat, "you know me, you know my affections lie in another field, you know, you knew, when you heard people use her name and mine, that it was utterly impossible that I should do, nay think, an improper thing in this connection"
"Yes, I knew it."
"And what did you say to these medlers "
"What should I have said?"
"You should have told them they lied, and you should have driven the lie down their throats! Not for my sake, Carlton, not for mine! my name will take care of itself, and in the teeth of the world I shall pass unstained like a polished stone; but for her sake, for her, knowing what you knew of me, for you have broken bread at her table; and whatever a merchant may do or a politician may devise, a man — a man, mark you, who takes my hand and holds friendship with me, takes on himself the responsibilities of a man, and stands between a woman and the world!"
The artist had risen up, gathered his cloak about him and was about to pass out. He had leaned his head and almost hissed his last words in the ears of Carlton between his teeth.
"Hear me, one word! Heaven knows my friendship for you, and I know your simplicity and your sincerity. Pray sit one moment and let us not part thus, for you wrong me now, as you are always wronging yourself."
Murietta muffled his cloak closer about him and sat down.
"Now, hear me. You are too impetuous. You know as little of the world as you do of women. You bring with you all the freeom and movement of the plains. You would tomahawk a man as if you were a Comanche."
The artist tapped the stone floor of the caffe fiercely with his foot. "All Rome then is talking of that gentle and unhappy lady! All Rome is also talking of me! And the fair Annette! What has she heard and what will she say?"
The world looked black to Murietta. He was almost blind with passion and tumultuous thought. Suddenly he turned to Carlton.
"Well, my politic and most civilized friend," began he, sharply and bitterly, "what would you have me do?"
"With the present state of affairs, nohing, "answered Carlton gently. "I should simply employ my own carriage, let the kind and gentle Count Edna, who has the sympathy and respect of all Rome, ride with and take care of his own wild wife, while I took care of my own reputation."
"I shall drive with the countess toorrow!
"Yes, perhaps you will drive with the countess to hell!"
"Mark you," Marietta leaned over and wagged his finger in the face of his cool and prudent friend, "mark you, if ever any man, even though that man be her husband, dares wag his tongue against that woman, he dies, by heaven"
"No, no, no, no. That is not the way to live; that is not the way to get on. If you will insist on your war dance, put on your war paint and go back to your Mexian border."
Carlton had reached and taken the artist by his arm and half forced him back again into his seat.
The cool half humour of his friend did more to pacify him than had a dozen sermons, and sitting still a moment, he leaned over to Carlton and said, "I am not curious, or at least 1 hope not vulgarly so, but please tell me what some of these meddlesome gossip mongers have been saying."
"Well," began Carlton quietly, "do you remember the little fairy story in the 'Child's Primer,' about the March Hare and the Hatter?"
"No; and what the devil has a March hare and a hatter to do with me and the countess?"
"Listen, and you shall hear."
Murietta again tapped the stone floor with his foot, and biting his lips, sat eager to listen.
Carlton filled his glass, drank it off, filled that of Murietta, waited for him to empty it, or at least sip at it in the old Italian fashion, and then he deliberately began.
"Well, this fairy tale was after this fashion : Once upon a time a little girl was lost in fairy land, and she did not know her way out. At last she came to the forks of the road, and there in the way sat an old woman with a short pipe in her mouth.
"Madam, can you tell me which road I shall take to find my way home?"
"Well, my child, if you turn to the right and follow that road, it will lead you to the house of the hatter. But, mark you, the hatter is mad — mad as a March hare!"
"The little girl shuddered, and turned and looked down the other road, and then timidly asked if she should not, then, take that road.
[page 233 is unreadable]drag him again back to his seat; "will you not sit down?"
"No; I am wild; I am sick and disgusted. I want the air. I can't breathe here; it suffocates me. I want to go out; I want to go outside the walls of Rome. There is not room here; it is too close"
"Come, come; here is another table. It is my treat."
"Enough, enough!" said the artist, and tried to shake him off. "I am going out. Good night."
"But the story,"said Carlton.
"But what?"asked Murietta, turning around and drawing his cloak closer about him.
"The story, or rather the sequel after the fairy tale of the hatter and the March hare."
"Yes; that remark — what was it? You would provoke the devil," said he, again tapping a tattoo on the stones as he stood there with his hat down over his eyes and his cloak drawn close about him.
"Sit down, and I will tell you what it was, lest you think it something either very wicked or very witty, but I assure you that it was neither."
"Well, I am here," said the artist, taking his seat.
"Really," laughed Carlton quietly "it is nothing worth repeating; a man in the crowd simply said, as you and the countess; passed by, 'There goes the hatter and the March hare."
Start reading Chapter 33 ofThe One Fair Lady