It is very hard indeed to write a romance altogether out of facts. The facts refuse all the time to adjust themselves. They are all the time in the way. The unimportant facts refuse to lie down and lie still and be passed over as they should be, and the important ones often stand up tall and white and cold, and ghostly as if they had just risen from a grave yard, and did not want to be disurbed.
And then these dull scenes all want to be described so minutely. They keep inroducing themselves and sitting down before you like Italian models, ever falling in position as they sit, and saying all the time, "I am So-and-so, and not This-and-this."
People, too, are tiresome. These real people are hard to handle. They are not exactly what you want. They someimes persist in being intolerably dull and uninteresting, yet all the time and withal they will insist on being put down just precisely as they appeared, and will determinedly insist all the time in saying exactly the same stupid things they said on the occasion described without one redeeming variation. Better to break up your work root and branch, scatter it to the four winds, and begin with stage, scene, actors, —all from your own brain.
* * * * *
Murietta called at the palace of the pink countess in the afternoon of the next day and sent up his card, since she had not appeared as usual in her daily drive.
It was not absolutely necessary that he should call, but he did so in a spirit of deiance, and wanted to show to himself and the world that he proposed to do as he pleased in this matter so long as he harmed no one, and kept his heart and his conscience clear. Besides, he really wanted to know if any ill had overtaken her, and if he could be of use to her, who had made the last month of his life certainly very pleasant.
Yet he was glad, very glad, when he was told that she was not in; and went down the great broad brown tufa steps with a lighter heart than usual.
"The spell is broken," he said to himself almost gaily as he gained the street, and tapped his boot with his cane. "The spell is broken, the charm is over, and I am again very free, and well escaped from a lady that I never could understand in the least."
Then suddenly he stopped and began to think, and then his brow gathered with concern. He knew perfectly well that she was not out, and he knew just as certainly that she would have seen him, that she wanted to see him, aiid he knew that somehing was wrong at the palace of the beautiful lady in pink.
He began to despise himself again for having only thought of her in the most selfish manner, and for that selfish satisfacion which he felt when he found she would not see him, and he walked on, gloomy and full of conflicting thought.
As he slowly sauntered on along, the Via Felice with his head down, a hand reached out before him, and looking up he saw the pleasant face of the Secretary of Legation.
"I am going," — then the secretary blustered and fumbled in his vest pocket and drew out a llttle piece of paper and a little piece of tobacco, and these somehow rolled themselves together between thumb and finger, as they only can between the thumb and finger of a Spaniard, and putting the end of this little wisp between his teeth, he found a match in the same sudden and mysterious manner, touched it to the end of the wisp, and instantly fired himself off, while the smoke poured from his mouth as firom the mouth of a cannon, "I am going to one of the Afternoons of an American lady, the amiable Miss D., an ancient but most honoured lady; and that is just as much as a Secretary of Legation should say, though if I was again writing novels I might say a great deal more, and would be more than honoured if you would accompany me."
Marietta was just in the mood to do anything, go anywhere. He turned, took the kind, good secretary's arm without a word, and went on silently up the street. He was wondering what in the world had become of the last month. He saw that the deciduous trees which had been quite bare when he last passed that way, were in full leaf, and casting cool and pleasant shadows over at least a hundred happy peasants asleep in the open street.
"What in the world have I been doing?" he asked himself; "what have I done all this pleasant and dreamy summer month?" Then he thought of what Carlton had said the night before his last drive with the countess, and was sorely nettled. "Where am I going now?" He said this to himself almost audibly, and suddenly stopped and turned to the good-natured secretary.
"Pray tell me where we are going, and whom I am to see there?"
"You are going with me to one of the social afternoon gatherings of the amiable and ancient Miss D. A very proper lady, I do assure you, else a Secretary of Legation would not be found there, I will be sworn."
"But whom shall we meet there?"
"Artists and poets, literary and scientific people from all parts of the world. The best people I assure you, the very best place in Rome for a man like you; lots of brain and not many clothes."
"And not many ladies, I hope"
"Ladies! no; no ladies to speak of. Yet there are the tall long people from the States, a sort of flag-staflf species, that vibrate and flutter between the two sexes and belong to neither yet claim all the privileges of both, — I mean the special correspondents in gold-rimmed spectacles, usually from the City of Boston; but further than these, and an old imbecile and superannuated princess or two, you will find nothing much in the shape of woman."
Murietta was amused, and was also glad to know that there was no probability of meeting the One Fair Woman at this gathering of bohemians on the hill.
On reflection he began to see that he had really been keeping out of society, or at least had lacked courage to go to more than one pleasant gathering, for fear lie should come face to face with Annette. Therefore he was well pleased to know that in this company at least, which had been so humorusly pictured by the good-natured novelist and secretary, he should be quite certain to not encounter her.
They climbed the longest, steepest, narowest stone stairs in all Rome, perhaps. It was a perfect corkscrew, and went round and round and round in the dark till they both grew dizzy headed.
Then at last they pulled at the red tassel of a rope that hung there like a little red lamp trying hard to make itself seen, and then they entered a very pleasant anteoom, and leaving their hats and canes and cloaks, they passed to a door which opened into a most pleasant place, and out of which poured a murmur of most pleasant voices, aa of a great multitude talking in all the tongues of Europe.
They were met by a busy, bustling little woman who kept fluttering about and catchng her breath and coughing and flipping her fan, and introducing everybody to everybody, and bumping against people, and all the time keeping her part of the saloons — and that was nearly every part at the same instant — in a perfect state of excitement and turmoil.
This little lady's name should have been Mother Bunch, for she was so fat and so good natured and so delightfully stupid. She had corkscrew curls all about her ears and shoulders. In fact, nearly every woman there had, more or less, corkscrew curls about her. Even the little brown poodle there, who seemed terribly jealous of every attention to his mistress, and who pretended to sleep all the time and yet never slept at all, unless he did it while he was snapping at some lady, even this little poodle had little corkscrew curls hanging from and about his little flossy, brown tan and leather ears.
There were a great many tall, bony, and lonesome women in corkscrew curls moving mournfully about behind a teacup and saucer.
These women wore gold-rimmed specacles, and nearly every one there had at least once in her life mounted the stump, and in the face of the world uttered unintelligible philippics against man and in behalf of her down-trodden sex.
These tall, bony, hungry lookmg women from Boston towered above the other sex assembled there, like flag staffs above the procession in a Fourth of July Celebration.
They went round, behind their goldimmed spectacles and teacup and saucer, thrusting their long lean necks right and left, and looking like the giraffes in a menagerie. You would almost expect them to turn their heads to one side, reach up and nip off the ivy leaves that had been frescoed around the border of the ceiling.
What an odd assemblage it was to be sure! There sat the man in the centre of an admiring group, who had devoted his life to prowling through the Catacombs and dragging up Christian bones to the vulgar gaze of the curious, and removing their simple tombstones to the museum of Rome.
This was the man who had torn the ivy and the old fig trees from the Coliseum, and he was now telling, with a flourish of triumph, what he expected to find when he excavated the very foundations of the Coliseum. This was the man who had renovated the ruins of the Baths of Caracalla and made the place vile with asphalte and the smell of tar and turpentine. Yet this man set himself up for quite a hero, and was certainly quite a centre here.
There was a tall, lean figure standing before him imploring a few Christian bones for his private collection, and at least one bone of some celebrated martyr.
The missionary of Naples was promised all that he desired by this little autocrat, — who, like all sensible Italians, sat graceully on the sofa, and rested and grew fat, while the unhappy storks and giraffes stalked and wandered mournfully around. Then a tall woman in gold rimmed spectacles came by. Whipping out a note book, pencil, and a two foot rule, she stood before the little man and seemed to monopolize him for the remainder of the day.
There were good and great men too standing away here and there in the corners. And now and then you stood before a man, as you wandered around and wedged yourself through the crowd, whose name had been familiar to you even in your childhood. And after all Murietta began to fall in love with this place and the puffy, fussy little woman who had come and set up a little kingdom on the Seventh Hill of the Caesars, and in spite of his determination to retreat as soon as possible, he now found he was loth to go away.
There were some pretty flowers there too. The violet looked up from the base of the wall to the tall sunflower that tossed its head and lorded the land, and the violet peeped out from under the thorn and the thistle with its sweet blue eyes, and gave the place a charm and a perfect freshness. It was a sort of human forest.
The menagerie was complete. If the giraffe was there, then the mild eyed gazelle was there also. Beautiful young girls sat there as silent as if they were painted on the wall against which they sat, as they watched the tall and terrible women moving to and fro upon their various missions in Rome. These beautiful children made one in love with Silence.
The lion was there also, the shaggy Numidian lion, and he moved about and shook his mane and roared in a voice and manner that made you feel very certain, and also very sorry, that the lion is and ever will be a beast in spite of his strength and dignity.
The elephant and the hippopotamus waddled and toddled about the grounds, and like beasts just let loose to be fed, snapped and snarled at each other from behind their wires, and talked art and disuted with a zeal that was equalled only by their ignorance.
Good natured old gentlemen, dukes, princes, consuls, and secretaries of legaions went about feeding the pretty animals — and the plain animals too — in the menagerie, with tea and cakes and buns and bread and butter; and pretty innocent Mollie stood back in the corner by the side of Paolini, looking as happy as possible and eating as fast as an old general could feed her. She was playing the part of a little pet grizzly bear standing on his hind legs and eating nuts from the hand of a Californian.
Such was American society in Rome, or at least the busy, the active, the accessible, the working wing of it, for be it known that the majority of the people present who contributed to make up this pleasant little menagerie were Americans, although the bustling little Mother Bunch of a hostess was English, notwithstanding the good secretary had said she was American.
The party was thinning out and melting away. Murietta had found the modest little secretary of legation, and the two together were seeking for the amiable little hostess to say goodbye.
There was a flutter about the door, and she was not to be found. Then in a moment there was a murmur of admiration just audible all around the saloon, and Murietta shrank back behind the little secretary and close against the wall, and as well out of sight as possible.
The crowd parted before her as she passed on. Never yet did woman move with such perfect grace, such quiet power, and such noble presence as did that lady then and there, as she crossed the saloon with her father, the iron-faced soldier, and sat down dreamily on a lounge by his side.
Murietta, by accident, had settled back against the wall in this very same direcion. He was standing now almost in reach of her hand. He hardly dared breathe. He was wondering if she did not hear his heart beat, and then he began to look in vain for an opportunity to steal away unseen.
Just then the kind little hostess, who had led Annette and her father to the seat, caught sight of the artist. There was no escaping; there was no time for excuse or explanation. He came forth from his rereat as the little woman called his name, and an informal introduction, a simple, sudden, hand-to-hand, bohemian introduction passed in a moment.
The lady did not rise. She sat perfectly still and composed all the time; yet she was neither disdainful nor indifferent. She was simply perfectly at home, and by her easy manners and careless offhand conduct did more to make Marietta satisfied with himself and at rest, than anything that she could have said or done.
The artist settled down in a chair at the head of the sofa with his arms thrown careessly over the head of the covered settee, and in a moment was talking on the old and easy topic of all travellers in that sunny land, — art and the future of Italy.
Gallant and graceful men would come, pay their compliments to the belle of Rome and pass on, looking fiercely back as one might fancy Adam looked on leaving Paradise; but the artist, to his intense delight, was specially favoured by fortune, and sat there and talked as if he had known this lady all his life.
Now and then the seared and ironaced soldier would say a word or two, but his mind seemed above and beyond the tame surroundings. His soul was riding on the smoke of battle. The old commander was marshalling his regiments and fighting over again the battles that
[p294 unreadable]"And I ascended Mount Vesuvius. I and father together and found it perfectly delightful. And what to you think happened? And it was so touching and beautiful!"
Murierta leaned forward to listen. He could not guess.
"Well then," laughed the lady gaily, "I will tell you. As we rode up the broad carriage road winding above the sea toward the hermitage there was a party of two in advance of us."
"A party of two. Nothing remarkable in that, unless perhaps they were brigands or lovers."
"No, nothing remarkable in the number or in the men, so far as I know, for I never saw the faces of either of them. But this is the pretty little romance of it. The pretty, winding, natural road began to be starred and strewn with little leaves of pink and crimson."
"And then!"
"Why, that is all;" and the great lashes lifted and the fair and beautiful woman looked at the man a moment, and then let her eyes fall to the carpet, and said softly and as if in a dream, and as if she was remembering something very pleasant and telling it over only to herself and not to a stranger, "the man, this man before me who rode up the mountain in the sun, was scattering roses in my path"
Start reading Chapter 36 ofThe One Fair Lady