It had now been four months since Murietta had set foot in Rome, and he began heartily to tire of the town. He was now particularly anxious to get outside the sultry walls of the city since he knew that Annette was going, and almost at once.
The two first months of the four he had spent almost alone in that strange and unknown part of the world called the Ghetto of Rome. The third month he had spent almost entirely in the carriage and by the side of the sad but beautiful lady in robes of pink and rose. But the fourth month he had scarcely seen her. It had now been weeks since he had seen her face. What had become of her? He was preparing to leave Rome. Should he go away without seeing the woman who had lightened many a dark and lonesome day of his life in that strange city of heat and cold — of contradictions?
He had seen the count but seldom of late, and he, the count, seemed but ill satisfied, even though the old admiral blustered about him and asserted himself with the same bold look of assertion which he had always shown from the first. The count, however, had the same gentleness of manner and always showed that culture and politeness which seems so inseparable from an Italian, whenever his and the lines of the artist crossed, either in the streets of the city or the saloons of fashion.
It was now June, and Rome was sultry as midsummer. The fountains plashed and played all over the town, and the streets were kept running with fresh water, and all the place was hung with awnings and canvas, as if it had been the deck of one mighty ship. Yet Rome was awfully sultry, and people were pouring out of every gate that opened to the north in the direction of the Alps and the Apennines.
Carlton, too, was anxious to get away. He was running all over the town, now with the admiral, who, it seems, had more than once approached him on the subject of making him a member of the Brothers of the Altar, as he had Murietta, and now with the count, who evidently looked upon him with more favour than he did Murietta, and now with strangers. If any one knew what was going on in town, Carlton probably knew it, for he was everywhere, talking with every one, drinking wine today, and reforming tomorrow.
Everybody moved under canvas. The streets of Rome were one mass of moving umbrellas. If a peasant brought a goat into town to be milked for your coffee, as was and is the custom, at four o'clock in the morning, he brought an umbrella along to lead it back under to the Sabine Hills.
"We must get out of this," cried Carlton from under his full sail of canvas one morning in June to Murietta, "there is nothing remaining in Rome now but the cats and dogs and goats and peasants, and a few of the old tried settlers. Let us get out — flee to the mountains"
"I am with you in the spirit, but may not be in the flesh, I fear, for a time yet."
"And why not? You remember our covenant to blow away to Venice together, do you not?" answered Carlton, as he took a whole hatful of roses from a pretty peasant girl, and began to tear them to pieces to inhale the odour.
"Aye, yours was a covenant man with man," replied the artist, as he also took a bunch of roses from the pretty girl's basket, and handed her a penny, which she gratefully acknowledged as a most liberal payment; "but you remember I promised a lady, the countess, to remain in Rome till her father came to her."
"Then, if that is all," laughed Carlton, as he scattered the flowers at the feet of a bare legged peasant girl, who showed him her pretty teeth as she passed, "you might have left Rome a week ago."
"A week ago!"
"Certainly my dear fellow. You might have gone away into the Alps to reform fully a week ago; for her father has been here at least a week, and 1 have been with him a great deal, and have talked with him about his unfortunate daughter, and have really almost shed tears with the little white headed old patriarch, for it seems he has lost his only son somewhere in Italy, by brigands or assassins, and now his poor daughter is mad, and does not even know him."
"Mad! and does not know him?" Murietta went close up to Carlton, and took him by the arm as he threw his roses to the ground. "Gods! what have I been doing for this month past? It does seem to me that I am sometimes mad myself. I get in grooves. I get in a river with deep banks, and float down and cannot see out I see nothing but myself!"
"Well, but she is no worse. She simply will not see her father, and besides, the doctor forbids that she shall be disturbed. The count, I assure you, is nearly brokenhearted. And then you know she is not a Catholic, and that disturbs him greatly. The poor good fellow, you know, is apprehensive that she may die or go utterly mad, and not be prepared for the better world."
There were wrinkles on the brow of Murietta as he listened to this. Then he began very solemnly, as he still held on to the arm of his friend, and looked him in the face,
"Have you seen the countess at any time within the last few weeks?"
"Not since I saw you with her, my dear fellow," he answered, tapping the stones with his foot and shifting his umbrella from right to left.
"Has any one seen her, do you suppose? Have you spoken to her father about the possibility of her being locked up by these cunning Italians and designing priests, and—"
"Tut! tut! Now look here. Do you suppose Rome is a den of brigands and kidnappers, and men who could or would lock up a lady and keep her from her father? I tell you, you are wild. You are as mad as a March hare. At first yoii thought her husband a sort of moral or immoral Blue Beard, and you were going to storm the castle and set her at liberty. Then you waited till her father came upon the field. And now, even now you fancy that husband, father, children, all fire wrong, and you alone are right, and like another crazy Don Quixote, you propose to ride a tilt against the world's windmill!"
Murietta began to doubt bis own judgment. He felt that something was wrong. He was almost certain of that in his own mind; but how to correct it, or how to proceed without doing more harm than good, he did not know. He wanted to see the countess to say good bye. He was perfectly certain that she would know him ] and be glad to see him. Then he reflected 1 a moment, as he took the arm of Carlton, and they moved down the street under the canvas, and remembering that she said she would send for him when the hour came that she should need him, and remembering that she had not sent for him, and reviewing the whole ground he stopped, looked his companion in the face, and said, —
"I am ready to go. We will leave Rome together tomorrow."
"Good!" cried Carlton, "we will leave Rome tomorrow. You see, my dear boy," he continued, "if the countess is sane and will not or does not care to see her father, why, of course, she does not need you or your assistance or your presence. But if she is not sane, as the count and the doctor and the admiral say, and cannot see her father, why, of course, she cannot you. You know, my dear boy, I am disposed to humour your whims, whatever they may be — just for the sake of the pleasure of your company in a gondola at Venice; but turn this case to any light you like, and the picture cannot be improved by any cunning tint of yours."
"I am satisfied," sighed Murietta, "yet I am broken up by the thought that this woman must remain here in the intolerable heat of lonesome Rome the merry summer through. It will break her too delicate thread of life. I shall never see the beautiful and most mournful face any more!"
"Beautiful she is indeed, my friend," answered Carlton, "and I now understand, or at least feel certain, that whatever Rome may have said against her, Rome is now sorry for it and sympathises deeply with her misfortune. And for my own part, I tell you that I knew from the first and all the time that she was as pure as the snow of the Alps!"
"Give me your hand. God pity the poor dear lady," said Murietta solemnly, as they stood together with clasped hands, "God pity and protect the poor dear countess, the sad and beautifullady; and God pardon me for any wrong, real or imaginary, that I may have done her, for we shall never meet any more!"
Start reading Chapter 46 ofThe One Fair Lady