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 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
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 lARY, 
 
 STALLS. 
 
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 PASCAKEL.
 
 P A S C A R E L. 
 
 By quid a. ^5fi^' 
 
 AUTHOR OF "CHANDOS," "tRICOTRIN," " UNDER TWO FLAGS," ETC. 
 
 IN THREE VOLS. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY. 
 
 1873- 
 [Ri'jht <'f Translation lieserved.]
 
 LONDON : 
 BRADBURT, AGNF.W, <fc CO., PEINTFES, WHITEFEIABS.
 
 
 «!;i
 
 TO THE READER. 
 
 ITH feminine obstinacy the Donzella sacri- 
 fices truth to pictorial effect, and jus- 
 tice to high-coloured contrast, touching 
 Rome.* The love that Rome begets is different 
 to that which Florence inspires ; but it is never 
 less strong and is even more reverent ; less 
 familiar, and more close on awe ; as tender, but 
 more solemn. In Rome, Art and Nature strain 
 together in perpetual conflict for supremacy ; a 
 struggle of a Titan with a God that holds mortal 
 onlookers breathless : in Florence, Art and Nature 
 clasp hands and smile on men, and even the Mer- 
 cury Agoreus, being in Florence, borrows the flowers 
 
 * Vol. 1, p. 240.
 
 X TO THE READER. 
 
 of Dionysus to deck his scales of barter. But 
 who, with any power of vision or soul of artist 
 in them, can live a day blind to the vast and 
 sublime beauties of the Capital of the World? — 
 who can fail to gi'ow at once the humbler and 
 the greater by dwelling on that sacred soil ? — 
 who will not draw nearer to God himself as they 
 see how mighty human genius can be ? — who 
 will not yield to Rome a homage that is a passion 
 as well as a religion ? If any such there be, let 
 them see the sun fall once on the face of the Faun, 
 let them see the moon shine once on the Palace 
 of the Csesars : — and surely they will repent. 
 
 OUIDA. 
 
 EoME, Feb. 12.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. KINa CARNIVAL 3 
 
 II. THE BIRD AND THE FATES 9 
 
 III. BY THE BROKEN DONATELLO 25 
 
 IV. WITH THE POPOLANI 50 
 
 V. THE peacock's PLUMES 77 
 
 VI. MATER DOLOROSA 93 
 
 VII. A TWILIGHT TALE 98 
 
 VIII. THE LITTLE RED BOX 115 
 
 I. 
 
 II. 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 
 THE GIFTS OF GALA 
 THE VEGLIONE MASQUER . 
 
 129 
 143
 
 xu 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 BOOK II. — Continued. 
 
 ■CHAP, PAGE 
 
 III. THE LAST SLEEP 161 
 
 IV. AT AVE MARIA 164 
 
 V. THE FEAST OF FACSTIXO 175 
 
 VI. FUORI 186 
 
 VII. UNDER THE GARISENDa 201 
 
 VIIL THE MAIDENHAIR 214 
 
 IX. THE BNOW-FLOWER 226 
 
 X. LA REINE DU MOYENAGE 235 
 
 XL THE MIDNIGHT FAIR 247 
 
 XII. WITH THE WILD CROCUS 255 
 
 XIII. THE GREAT MAGICIAN 277
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 
 
 VOL. r.
 
 PASCAEEI 
 
 J 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 KING CAKNIVAi. 
 
 T was the fii'st day of Carnival. 
 
 Tlie populace was out aU over the city 
 in a many-coloured and ever-clianging 
 swarm of human life. The gay masque reeled 
 madly round the marble ii'on-bomid flanks of the 
 Duomo, and flung its hail of toys and flowers against 
 the fro-RTiing masses of the old jialaces and prisons ; 
 and surged in its foam of mu'th and miscliief all 
 along the length of the green Adige in tlie light of 
 the winter noon. 
 
 For a month King CaLnival would reign supreme
 
 PASCAREL. 
 
 in mockery and merriment over the lives of men ; 
 his path strewn with violets, his sovereignty shouted 
 over wine, his djTiasty proclaimed far and wide — 
 ever}T\diere, by high and low, from the cobbler who 
 pranked himself in the guise of Stenterello to the 
 great lady who laughed through her velvet mask of 
 Venice. 
 
 And at the month's end, at nightfall, just as 
 the moon should rise, with music and many a 
 jest and somid of horn and drum, and rioting of 
 Arlecchmo and Pulcinello and all their immemorial 
 brotherhood, at nightfall the fickle people would 
 lead the old I"Cing out to his funeral pyre in the 
 great square, and there would burn him in all pomp 
 and cruelty until the flames should redden grim 
 Eoland standing at his vigil at the cathedral doors, 
 and be seen afar off, where the last outposts of the 
 great Alps kept watch and ward in the quiet of the 
 silence and the chillness of the snow. 
 
 Burn him, — a monarch yesterday, to-day a scape- 
 goat, in grimmest ironic symbol of all human histories. 
 
 Poor King Carnival ! 
 
 His rule has lasted longer than any other dynasty; 
 for though his nations burn him one year, he rises
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 
 
 from his ashes, and they ciy All hail ! to him the 
 next. 
 
 But the axe is at the root of his tlu'one. The 
 old glad days of his mumming are numbered, and 
 the pomp of his pageant is shorn. The world is 
 old and very weary. 
 
 Here "nel aer dolce, die del sol s'allegra," life 
 is brighter and more buoyant than elsewhere. 
 
 Here the people still laugh from clear throats, and 
 the hours still reel away, marked with flowers ; here 
 they sit in the sun, and still know the priceless 
 pleasm-es and true uses of leism-e ; and here the 
 heart of a child still beats in the war-scarred breast 
 of the nation. 
 
 Yet even here the world is older, greyer, sadder 
 than of yore ; and even here the day is close at hand 
 when King Carnival will ride his last ride round the 
 city walls, and be burned for the last time, in all the 
 panoply of his historic robes, upon a pyre whence his 
 ashes shall never rise again. 
 
 The world is too wise to be foohsh — so^ they say. 
 Or is it too foolish to be wise ? 
 
 King Carnival might tell us if he would. Perhaps 
 he would answer : —
 
 PASCAREL. 
 
 "In the (lays when men were so great that they 
 did not fear to stoop, and were so strong that their 
 dignity lost nothing by their mirth, the}' rode in 
 my train and followed me — Carnivale, the old King — 
 and laughed as children laugh — those men of those 
 days of Dante, of those days of Lionardo, of those 
 da3's of Shakspeare. Are you wiser than they ? or 
 weaker ? or only more wear}-, perhaps ? No matter. 
 I have held high feast \ai\i the giants, and the}' 
 were not ashamed to he glad. But you, who blush 
 for your mirth because your miilh is vice, bury me 
 quicldy. I am a thing of the Past." 
 
 And the old King would speak sadly aright ; for 
 his name is almost emptiness, and his earth-swaying 
 orb is but now an empty gourd in which the shrivelled 
 beans of the world's spent ideasures are shaken in 
 fruitless sport and sound. • 
 
 For in the old days, — when he reigned supreme, 
 over all men's lives, from sovereign's to serf's, for 
 a few weeks' span of full feast and fail' folly, — in 
 the old days men lived greatly great lives to great 
 ends. 
 
 Their faith was ever present with them — a 
 thing of daily use and hourly sweetness. Tlieir
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 
 
 liouseholds were wisely ruled and simply ordered. 
 Tliey denuded themselves of tlieii' substance to 
 give their gold to the raising of mighty works — 
 fives lapidihus — which to this day do live and speak. 
 
 Great artists narrowed not themselves to one 
 meagre phase of art, but filled with all its innumer- 
 able powers the splendid plenitude of theii' majestic 
 years. 
 
 And that art was in the hearts of the people 
 who followed it, and adored its power and were 
 nourished by it, so that it was no empty name, but 
 an everv'ivif^'uig presence — a divinity at once of 
 hearth and temple that brooded over the cities with 
 sheltermg and stamless love. 
 
 Therefore in those days men, givmg themselves 
 leave to be glad for a little space, were glad with 
 the same sinewy force and manful singleness of pur- 
 pose as made them in other times laborious, self- 
 denj'ing, patient, and fruitful of high thoughts and 
 deeds. 
 
 Because they laboured for their fellows, therefore 
 they could laugh with them, and because they 
 served God, therefore they dared be glad. 
 
 In those grave, dauntless, austere lives the
 
 8 PASCABEL. 
 
 Cariiivars jocund revelry was as one golden bead 
 in a inlgrim's rosary of thorn-berries. 
 
 Tliey had aimed highly and highly achieved ; 
 therefore they could go forth amidst their children 
 and rejoice. 
 
 But we — in whom all art is the mere empty Shib- 
 boleth of a ruined religion whose priests are all dead ; 
 we — whose whole year-long course is one Dance 
 of Death over the putridity of our pleasures ; we — 
 whose solitary' i)urpose it is to fly faster and faster 
 from desire to satiet}', from satiety to desii'e, in an 
 endless eddy of fruitless eflbrt ; Ave — whose greatest 
 genius can only raise for us some inarticulate protest 
 of despair against some unknown God ; — we have- 
 strangled King Carnival and killed him, and buried 
 him in the ashes of our own miutterable weariness- 
 and woe. 
 
 For the old King is heartsick to hear the manful! 
 laughter that he heard in his youth ; and we — we 
 cannot laugh ; all we can give is a sneer — and a 
 yob.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE BIRD AXD TPIE FATES. 
 
 EVERTHELESS in Verona this first day 
 of Carnival men made believe to be 
 "lad. 
 
 In the deep wintiy gloom of the old sad city the 
 gold of the alien tjTanny had been scattered broad- 
 cast that the people might wear at least the mask of 
 contentment; and on the whole they wore it, no- 
 thing loth, grinning gleefully from ear to ear. 
 
 The old stone balconies were draped with amber 
 and rose and silver ; the beautiful trecento windows 
 were filled with eager faces ; the dusky crypt-like 
 streets were full of colour and tmnult ; the great 
 marble tombs, looming white in the darkness of their
 
 10 PA SC ABEL. 
 
 sepulchres, were Hecked ^vitll the ^n-etty xiallor of 
 violets from Rome. 
 
 Verona mider her taskmasters took lioHday. 
 
 Under a deep porch, sculptured with vine foliage 
 and the heads of griffins, two children stood looking 
 on the pageantry, and not thinldng very much ahout 
 it ; for one of them — the girl, — was full of trouble, 
 and the hoy tried his best to solace her. 
 
 " Do look at Stenterello ! " the little lad mur- 
 mured, " How nimble he is — look, look ! the boys 
 have caught him. No ! — he shps tln'ough like an 
 eel. All, ah ! do look ! There is Ai'lecchino angling 
 for a priest's hat with a gilded fishmg-hook. Oh, 
 carina mia ! to think 3'ou have no heart to laugh to- 
 day " 
 
 The tears brimmed over in his comjianion's 
 ej'es. 
 
 " How can I laugh ? AVe have nothing — abso- 
 lutely nothing. "We must sell those poor little 
 jewels of my mother's, or ]Mariuccia will starve. It 
 must not be, you know ; she is so old, so old ! And 
 yet to sell the jewels ! See here, 'Ino. I have a 
 voice, and I am fifteen 3'ears old, and I am good to 
 look at, you all say. AVliy should I not sing in the
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 11 
 
 choruses ? You know how often we have laughed 
 at them — the fat ugly v^'onien Avith the crowns that 
 would always tumhle off. Now I am as thin as a 
 cane, and am handsome, and could Avear a croAvn as 
 one should be Avorn. V.'h}' might I not sing in the 
 chorus?" 
 
 The pretty hoy looked perplexed, and his little 
 hare foot traced nerA'ously an arabesque on the 
 stone of the dusty stair. 
 
 " That Avould neA'er do, dear donzella ! Your 
 father is too illustrious " 
 
 " But one cannot liA'e on being illustrious. One 
 wants to eat — somehoAA'. And there is nothing to 
 eat. Nothing. We liaA'e not heard of my father for 
 more than a year, and Florio eA"en does not send 
 noAA\ AVliy should I not sing in the chorus '? It is 
 quite easy, all that sort of music." 
 
 He shook his pretty, curly, golden, Venetian head, 
 in grave concern. 
 
 "Oh no, dear donzella; it would never do. 
 Mariuccia Avould never alloAv it. It is so late at 
 night, and the Avomen are not fit for you : it Avould 
 never do." 
 
 " Then the jeAvels must go ? And they are all
 
 12 FASCAEEL. 
 
 that I have of my mother's — the only, only, little 
 thmg ! " 
 
 The words ended in a sob ; and the whirling, 
 many-coloured procession of the Carnival was hid- 
 den from the child's sight h}' a haze of suddea 
 tears. 
 
 At home there were an empty cupboard, a ci^ld 
 hearth, and an old woman of eighty years, who had 
 not broken her fast. Such thmgs seem hard to 
 bear when one is very young ; and it is the first day 
 of Carnival; and beneath there, in the street, 
 all the mad and merry masque is flauntmg on its. 
 way. 
 
 The boy listened wistfully, with a tender and 
 anxious face. 
 
 " See here, dear donzella," he murmured, after 
 a pause. " I have a thought. Sing in the choru& 
 3"ou must not ; but why not sing in the streets ? 
 The people are all happy and good-tempered to-day, 
 I have got my lute here, and we will sing, and then 
 ask them frankly to help us. Why not ? We have 
 made music for them often out of pure love and 
 goodwill. They will certainly give us a little money 
 now, and no harm done."
 
 TEE CITY OF CATULLUS. 13 
 
 "Oil, 'Ino ! Yoii never sang for money yet, nor T. 
 It is so different " 
 
 " We have not sung for it, because we liave not 
 wanted it. But if we do want it, where is the 
 harm " 
 
 "It is shameful!" 
 
 "Shameful! How shameful? When the great 
 singer Lillo went through here last spring, do you 
 not remember that the least atom of standmg room 
 in the theatre was worth gold, and the people took 
 the horses from his carriage, and drew him through 
 the streets, shouting and smothering him with 
 Easter mies ? " 
 
 " That is very different." 
 
 " Not at all different. Except that they pay Lillo 
 Iby millions and we only want a few florins." 
 
 " But why, then, will you never take money when 
 you play yourself? You never do." 
 
 He crossed himself, and glanced gi'atefully at an 
 old battered, black-faced Madonna that hung be- 
 hind an ii-on grating high up above in the doorway. 
 
 " Our Lady has been so good to me, and I have 
 never wanted for anythmg. And the people who 
 would have paid me have always been so poor — so
 
 14 PASCABEL. 
 
 poor. But I would play for money rather than sell 
 a thing of my mother's. Perhaps your mother up 
 there says- to Our Lady, — ' Look at my donzella ; 
 she is proud : take that sin out of her heart.' And 
 Our Lady sa3^s, — ' We will prove her : she must 
 love you a little, though she never looked on your 
 face.' And so Our Ladv sets this thing in your 
 way. And 3'our mother up there waits, watching 
 and trembhng, to see if indeed 3'ou do love her, or 
 only care for your pride. For mothers never forget. 
 That I am ver}- sure. No, not though they sit on 
 the right hand of God with His angels." 
 
 The bo3''s voice was very sweet and solemn, and 
 murmured with a strange softness and clearness 
 through the riotous laughter and uproar that rose 
 from the Carnival crowds in the street below. He 
 looked no longer at the antics of Stenterello and 
 the pranks of Arlecchino, but wp at the breadth of 
 blue serene sky which stretched above where the 
 gabled roof parted. 
 
 His companion listened, with the colour coming 
 and going, fleeting and burning, in her downcast 
 face ; then suddenly she caught his hand and sprang 
 down the first stair.
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 15 
 
 " Let us go, 'Ino — let us go ! " 
 
 And hand in hand they ran down, and -were 
 mingled with the hundreds who were streaming in 
 frolicsome humour, through the narrow tortuous 
 street towards the great Piazza. 
 
 A few minutes later they also were standing in 
 the Cathedral square. 
 
 They were a picturesque httle x)air — the giii taller 
 than the boy by full a head. 
 
 He was barelegged and barefooted — a child of 
 the poi)ulace ; he wore the loose shirt and the red 
 waistband of the Venetian gondohers; and slung 
 round him by another bit of scarlet was an old 
 ebony. mandohne. She was clad in quite another 
 guise, so that she looked like some silky-leaved 
 flower growing out of the grey stone pavements ; 
 she had a hood of dark velvet over her head, from 
 which great, bright, trustful eyes looked out wonder- 
 ingly upon the world ; her skirts were of heavy 
 amber satin, that seemed to have been fashioned 
 out of some brocaded train ; her hands were full 
 of flowers that she had picked up from the ground 
 as the x^eople of the balconies flung them down- 
 ward.
 
 16 PASCAEEL. 
 
 As tliey stood together, hand in hand, the con- 
 trast of colour and the grace of attitude made a 
 picture against the dusky pile of the Duomo and in 
 the crisp whiteness of the sunny frosty air. Many 
 people passing paused to look at them ; the little 
 lad whispered to her, and then unslung his man- 
 doline. 
 
 There was a lull in the sports of the day. Some 
 sporting of a band of mummers headed by a scarlet 
 Mefistofelo and a gorgeous Dulcamara was over 
 and done with : the commencement of the tradi- 
 tional Gala was delayed ; the crowd was unoccupied 
 and willing to be amused, but not impatient nor out 
 of temper, because it was a crowd of Italy. 
 
 The boy judged his time accurately, and touched 
 the cords of his lute. The gii'l wavered a moment 
 with the colour hot in her face ; then with a 
 sudden gesture threw the hood back off her curls, 
 and lifted up her voice and sang. 
 
 Her song was an old familiar street-song of the 
 Lombard population. 
 
 Far and wide on the clear wintry air, keen with 
 ihe hard breath of the mountains, the strong pure 
 notes of a voice in its earliest youth rang out like a
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. l7 
 
 bell over the muttering and shouting of the people. 
 Those nearest to her listened, and hushed down the 
 noise around them ; the silence spread and spread 
 softly like the cii-cles in the water where a stone is 
 thrown ; the boisterous gaiet}' dropped to a quieter 
 key ; in a little while all the square was still. 
 
 The hood fell back wholly upon her shoulders ; 
 the sun shone upon the little group ; the amber of 
 her skirts, the violets in her hands, the scarlet wool 
 of the boy's sash, all glowed in the light; above all 
 hum and buzz from the other quarters of the city 
 the song rose on the air clear as only the tones of 
 childhood can be. 
 
 "L'Uccello ! " the people shouted. " Go on, go 
 on!" 
 
 A smile rippled over her face, as at some familiar 
 word of greeting : she sang on at their bidding song 
 after song of the sweet unwritten melodies of the 
 nation. Now and then the boy struck a chord or 
 two from his mandoline, but seldom ; her voice was 
 rich enough and strong enough to fill the square 
 without aid, and it leaped aloft in the wintry air with 
 the eager, straight, upward flight of a hawk that is. 
 loosed from its holdings. 
 
 VOL. I. n
 
 18 PASCAREL. 
 
 When at length it ceased, the throng in the great 
 square screamed, Laughed, ahnost cried with de- 
 lighted apphmse ; the people in the balconies 
 clapped their hands, the loungers at the caffe 
 dashed their hands on the marble tables till their 
 glasses rang, the masquers and merry-makers 
 shrieked a hundred times, — " Yiva I'Uccello ! Yiva 
 rUccello ! " 
 
 The boy marked tlie propitious hour. He took 
 the red berretta off his curly head, and advanced 
 amongst the multitude, and with the infinite grace 
 of his nation, the grace which is so perfect because 
 so utterly unconscious of itself, stretched out his 
 hand to them for charity. 
 
 " Some little thing, signori, for the love of God. 
 There is an old woman at home who wants bread." 
 
 He was generous, and he sought to bear all the 
 shame of the alms-seeking for his own portion. 
 But his companion saw his purpose, and sprang to 
 liis side. Her cheeks were flushed, the tears Avere 
 bright on her lashes, the winds blew the heavy gold 
 of her hair and the snow off her courtly skirts ; her 
 voice had lost its strength, and trembled a little. 
 
 "It is not for him, signori!" she cried. "It
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 19 
 
 is for me. For himself, when lie phiys and the 
 people would give him coins or cakes or confetti, he 
 will never take payment for his music. He says it 
 is God's gift, not his. The mone}" that he begs now 
 is for me. I am illustrious ; oh yes ! but I am very 
 poor. I have an old nurse at home Avho wants 
 bread, and sits by a tireless hearth. She is so old, 
 so old. And we have nothmg to sell but a few 
 little jewels, and they were my mother's, who is 
 dead. "Will you give me some little thing, if my 
 songs pleased you ? " 
 
 The answer came from a hundred hands at once 
 — from above and around, on every side. 
 
 Paper monej' fluttered to her feet ; loose silver 
 rolled like sugar-plums ; here and there a x)iece of 
 gold flashed like a star through the air ; flowers and 
 toys and gilded horns of sweetmeats, and ribboned 
 plaj'things of the pageantry were all showered upon 
 them from the balconies above and from the throngs 
 around, until their arms ached with stretching for 
 the gifts, he his red berretta, and she her amber skirts. 
 
 Great ladies, leaning in the draped galleries of old 
 palaces, cast down money with lavish hands ; white- 
 coated soldiers, laughing over their wines at the 
 
 c 2
 
 20 PA SC A EEL. 
 
 marble tables, tossed briglit florins to swell the store; 
 a cliikl-noble in his gala-costume of white and gold 
 and powder and jewels, ran down some palace steps 
 and shyly thrust a roll of notes into the singer's 
 hand, and hastily lifted his soft smiling mouth to- 
 kiss her cheek; the poorest of the peoj)le sought 
 in their leathern pouches for some copper pieces to- 
 give. 
 
 In vain the boy and giid, being honest, protested^ 
 laughing and crying both at once — " Basta, basta T 
 — enough, enough ! " 
 
 In vain ; the golden shower did not cease until, 
 in the distance, as the first of the patrician pageantry 
 appeared on the entrance of the square, there rose a 
 glad shout,—" The Gala ! the Gala ! " 
 
 And the populace, Idndly of heart, but fickle of 
 temper, turned to the new pastime, and the little 
 noble ran to his people, and the great ladies looked 
 the other way, and the golden chariots rolled under 
 the historic walls, and the sea of the bright masque- 
 surged outward ; and the children were forgotten 
 where they stood. 
 
 Then to them there came one who had listened 
 and watched all the songs and all the payments
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 21 
 
 where be had leaned iii the shadow of the cathedral 
 wall. 
 
 He uncovered his head as he approached, and the 
 sun fell full on his face — the dark, poetic, historic 
 face of Florence. 
 
 " All, cara donzella," he murmured softly with 
 a smile. *' Money I have none to give you, until I 
 make some more to-night. I too am an artist ; and 
 so — it goes without words — I too am poor. Never- 
 theless, let me thank you." 
 
 He dropped a ring into her amber skirts, 
 amongst the violets of Parma and the daffodils of 
 Tuscany, and turned away and vanished in the 
 throng. 
 
 The girl sought for the ring amongst the flowers 
 and toys and money and sweetmeats with which her 
 skirts were full. 
 
 It was a very old seal ring — an onyx, cut with the 
 heads of the Fates. 
 
 She looked at it long and curiously, with a dream- 
 ing look on her face ; then thrust it into the bosom 
 •of her dress. Then she gathered closely up about 
 her the heavy brocades of her garments, and turned 
 to the boy.
 
 22 PASCABEL. 
 
 "Let lis rim, 'Ino. The people are not looking 
 now. AVe shall lose the Gala, but Mariiiccia is 
 so cold at home." 
 
 So the}- turned away from the square, and went 
 back into the old, irregular, gloomy streets where 
 even at mid-day there Avas no gleam of bright- 
 ness. 
 
 But now they could not run ; their fleet feet 
 were powerless to bear them swiftly ; they were 
 too heavily laden with the spoils of their in-oa- 
 perous eiforts ; it was of no avail to try and 
 move fpiickly ; at every step the}' trod upon a knot 
 of violets, or trampled a bright narcissus under 
 foot. 
 
 They were forced at last to go veiy tranquilly, 
 with bent heads and with cramped hmbs, along the 
 cold and dreaij passage ways. 
 
 •' Oh 'Ino ! " the girl cried. " When we sang for 
 love and goodwill, we Avere so light of heart and of 
 foot. But now " 
 
 Slie sank down upon a flight of steps, her slcirts 
 glided from her hands, her treasures rolled to the 
 ground and were scattered. She sobbed as if her 
 heart would break.
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 23 
 
 " That is ungrateful to the people, cara mia," 
 said the little lad softly. "Is it that stone with the 
 Fates that has chilled you ? " 
 
 *' Nay she is right," said a voice above them, 
 " Count art Ly gold, and it fetters the feet it once 
 winged." 
 
 He who had gi^-en the ring spoke the words, 
 passing swiftly in the shadow so as not to he 
 delayed nor questioned. 
 
 After him ran a gay and giddy throng of masks, 
 thrashing each other with coloured bladders, and 
 chasing him with tumultuous shouts as of a band of 
 mummers to their chief. 
 
 The shouts in their hoarse vibration filled the 
 tunnel of the narrow twilit street as the parti- 
 coloured group of the masquers reeled down it like 
 a score of anemone leaves blown heedlessly upon 
 an autunni wind. 
 
 They all cried one word : — Pascarel. 
 
 I, — the child who sat on the stone stair, weeping 
 over my fallen violets and my scattered wealth, — 
 treasured the name in my heart on which the carven 
 Fates were resting. 
 
 The masquers reeled on out of sight, a cloud of
 
 24 
 
 PASCAREL. 
 
 misty and tangled hues ; over the high grim roofs 
 and the sculptured buttresses the name came back 
 flying gaily in glad echo on the air — 
 " Pascarello ! — Pascarel ! "
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 BY THE BROKEN DOXATELLO. 
 
 HE first thing I remember is of how poor 
 Ave all were ; how horribly poor, how ter- 
 ribly poor ! 
 
 When I went to take my first dancing lesson at 
 four years old, I had holes in my little lace frock, 
 and a pair of faded blue shoes nearly out at the toes. 
 I cried bitterl}' for very shame sake. 
 
 *' Never mind, carina," said old Mariuccia, my 
 nurse. " Never mind. If you dance awaj- with a 
 light heart, what does a tatter or two in the dress 
 signify ? It is better to have holes in the shoes, 
 little one, than a leaden weight on the feet, beheve 
 me.''
 
 26 PASCABEL. 
 
 Oh ! and wluit a lool I thought her ! Though 
 she was sixty and I was not six. 
 
 But Avhen my father's man Florio came in and 
 lifted me up before the ohl battered silver mirror, 
 and murmured in his soft tongue, " Ah ! what does 
 a shabby frock matter when one has an angel's 
 l\iee like the signorina's '? The other little ladies 
 may be all hung with rubies and i^earls if they 
 chose ; nobody will look at them if the signorina be 
 there " — then, indeed, there seemed some sense in 
 the argument, and Florio appeared to me a person 
 so discerning that I consented to be pacified and to 
 be led away to the vast bare frescoed dancing-hall, 
 Avhere one little shrill fiddle was piping and shriek- 
 insf to a score of Lombardic babies, all more or less 
 noble, I believe, in descent. 
 
 AVe were at that time in Verona. Poor old 
 Verona ! World forgotten, though having given so 
 much to the world. 
 
 Tlie city of Lesbia's lover is but a sorry desola- 
 tion now, despite its hidden treasures, that no man 
 remembers once in a score of years. 
 
 Those narrow sun-baked streets, those grim 
 dust-covered fortifications, those little lines of
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 
 
 stunted sickl}- trees, those simooms of lime dust, 
 those bitter piercing mountain winds, those pale 
 grasses, all alive with brown lizards, those loft}' 
 desolate houses, palace and prison in one, those 
 straggling vines choking the strangled maples, 
 the dreary weary " waveless plain," — how mi- 
 serable it all is now, how miserable it all Avas 
 then! 
 
 Verona never seemed like Itah' to me. Perhaps 
 because I saw it always under the dominion of those 
 white-coated stranieri, who pampered its greed}' 
 priesthood and bribed its lazy proletariate, and Avho 
 Avaltzed themselves into favour Avith me bv SAvinging 
 me round many and many a time to the gay 
 measures of their regimental bands, and spending 
 on me floods of sAveetmeats and pretty phrases, 
 although old jMariuccia, whenever she saAv me thus 
 polluted, Avould snatch me away from the barbarian's 
 arms Avitli fiercest flashes of her still eloquent 
 Tuscan eyes. 
 
 Mariuccia told me many a tale of the old grandeurs 
 of the city of Can Grande ; and I used to Avander 
 about it gazing at its amphitheatre and its acacia 
 hedges, and its green Adige and its two Paladins at
 
 28 PASCAREL. 
 
 the door of the duomo, and dreaming of Marius 
 and Theodoric, of Catullus, and Carolus Magnus, 
 of Eomeo, and Ezzelino, of Yitruvius, and Paolo 
 Veronese, in the strangest confusion of fahle and 
 truth, in Avhich my little brain floated as on a 
 gorgeous, but mist}^ sea. 
 
 I never loved Verona. 
 
 The four first years of my small life had been 
 spent with Mariuccia on a farm on the distant 
 Eomagna. 
 
 There I had lived in the open au', rolled in the 
 grass, gleaned the gold of the millet, got di-unk in 
 my innocent fashion ofl" the grapes at vintage time, 
 and filled my hands with wild wood flowers all the 
 whole year round. There I had owned all a child's 
 delicious riches of freedom and sunlight, of chains 
 of dafi'odils, of fans of chesnut leaves, of friend- 
 ships with birds and beasts, of long, happy, heed- 
 less days in which the sky seemed always blue, and 
 the angels of God always near. 
 
 AVhen at four years old I was taken and cooped 
 up in the dusty duskiness of Juliet's birthplace, I 
 rebelled bitterly, and at first pined constantlj^, re- 
 fusing to be comforted. I fretted for the free air
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 29 
 
 and the glad light, as many a prisoner had done 
 before me in the days when 
 
 " Death and sin played at dice with Eccelin." 
 
 Of course after a while my sweet first memories 
 paled a little, and I grew a little reconciled. But 
 I never forgot that bright beloved Italy of mine, 
 away there southward in the blue ocean of the 
 distant Roraagna ; I never grew to care for these 
 gi'im streets, these filthy courts, these parching 
 heats, these frozen winters, these masses of frown- 
 ing stone, these labyrinths of palaces and prisons^ 
 which seemed always to my fancy, as I grew older,, 
 to have still upon them the mark of the scourge 
 of Attila, the gi'ip of the gauntlet of Scala, the 
 scorch of the crimes of Romano. 
 
 At the time when the little shrill fiddle played 
 to me in my little shabby shoes, we were, I say, in. 
 Verona for no better, or lesser, reason than that 
 having got in there we had not the means to get 
 out again. 
 
 We had the second floor of an old palace ; such 
 a palace as you used to rent for a sung in Italy, 
 before Italy changed her proud "Fara da Se,"
 
 30 FASGAREL. 
 
 from a boast and a dream to a heroism and a 
 truth. 
 
 A pahice with superb staircases reeking in filth ; 
 courts whicli would have held a troop of men, armed 
 and mounted, given over to lizards and centipedes ; 
 chambers with tapestries of Hosts, from the cartoons 
 of Bronzino, ancle deep in dust and dirt ; and walls 
 that were due to the designs of Fra Giocondo, hung 
 with the padrona's ragged garments, drying in the 
 sun after their wash in the Adige. 
 
 " Peintures aux plafonds ; ordures aux pieds." 
 It is Georges Sand, if I remember aright, who wrote 
 that bitter line, or something like it, upon Italy. 
 It is terribly bitter, for it is at times terribh' true. 
 
 Our palace was no exception to the rule. 
 
 It was magnificent as a dream, even still above- 
 head, where some wondrous-eyed woman, worthy 
 almost of Leonardo himself, laughed down from her 
 frescoes of roses, or where some apotheosis or cena- 
 colo by Gentile, or Pisanello, still kept its radiant 
 colours, despite all ravages of time, and neglect, and 
 fire, and dust. It Avas magnificent too from that 
 beaut}' of proportion, in a\ hich, as by some almost 
 unerring instinct of synimetr}', so many Italian
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 31 
 
 buildings have a beauty that cannot perish whilst one 
 stone is left upon another, even as in so many 
 Italian faces tliere is a perfection which, being born 
 not of hue but of outline, is unharmed by age, and 
 endures even after death itself, as did that golden 
 loveliness of Faustina that was found a century after 
 death unharmed in the dusky depths of Santa 
 Croce. 
 
 But it was also unutterably drear}-, dirty, ghastly, 
 dismal, comfortless ; bats rustled through its pas- 
 sages, and downy owls haunted its roof timbers. 
 The upper rooms Avere all tenanted by working 
 people, or rather by people who affected to Avork, 
 and in realitv lived on the Austrian doles : and the 
 lower halls were the abode of the padrona and her 
 €ight children. She Avas a stout-built, black-broAved, 
 comely soul ; the most good-natured creature in 
 existence ; and her children lay in the sun, or 
 played boccetta, (jr fought for the chesnuts on the 
 stove, or did Avhatever seemed best to them all day 
 long in an endless strife and riot. 
 
 The padrona was poor enough ; she beat her oAvn 
 linen in the river, and baked, and swept, and 
 cooked unaided, and added to her scanty means by
 
 32 FASCAREL. 
 
 stuffing mattresses witli grass and wool, at which 
 she was an adept. But it was owing to the 
 padrona very often, and to nobody else, that 
 Mariuccia had a meal to give her beloved little 
 illustrissimi. 
 
 There were four of us ; the others were boys ; 
 beautiful boys, who might have come out of a 
 Tiziano or Giorgione canvas ; gay, kindly, saucy, 
 daring creatures, popular with the people every- 
 where, and caring nothing how their linen blouses, 
 were torn, quite content to sit and eat polenta for 
 their only dinner with the woman below and her 
 du'ty children. 
 
 My poor brothers ! They were so bright and so 
 bold, so mirthful on nothing, so full of goodwill to 
 all the world ; and they all died so young ; mere 
 children. One of fever in Verona itself; another 
 of a knife thrust in a street scuffle in Eome ; 
 the last in a white squall off Cagliari, that swamped 
 the little felucca within sight of land. 
 
 But at the time of which I now write, whilst thej^ 
 were all three around me, they were the pride and 
 torment of Mariuccia's life, the delight of the 
 padrona's, and the wonder of all the town, for the
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 33 
 
 skill with which they — bambini inglesi — poured 
 quijis and cranks upon the people in true Veronese 
 tongue and fashion. 
 
 The padrona would stand in her great arched 
 doorwaj', with her arms akimbo, rocking to and fro 
 with laughter at their encounters, whilst her 
 onions frizzled neglected in her frying-pan. They 
 were quite happy teasing the market-women, riding 
 in the bullock waggons, driving the ball at j)allone, 
 fishing with the boatmen, dancing the tarantella in 
 the wine shops, playing at dominoes with Pepe and 
 Zoto and Gian, and all the rest of the padrona's 
 brood. It was only into my soul that the iron of 
 our degradation entered. 
 
 With the male children in the market-place, they 
 were still the young signori, whose shabby clothes 
 could not lessen their distinction, so long as they 
 threw the ruzzola unerringly, and had a lightning- 
 like skill in morra : but for me it was otherwise ; 
 with the feminine aristocrats in embryo of the 
 dancing-lessons I was (mly a little detestable 
 forestiera, who had shabby shoes and a torn frock, 
 and who liad nevertheless tlie intolerable insolence 
 not to l)e ugl}' in proportion to her povert}', and also 
 
 VOL. I, D
 
 3i PASCAEEL. 
 
 to dance very much better than they did them- 
 selves. 
 
 *' Look at the signorma, little ladies, all of you," 
 the old dancing-master would say a dozen times in 
 an hour, suspending the screams of his fiddle to 
 point at me Avith its bow. " Look at her ! only a 
 month in this room, only half the age of most of 
 you, and look at her ! What grace, what accuracy, 
 what lightness ; the sweep of the swallow, the poise 
 of the sea-gull ! And such a baby ! It is won- 
 derful. Are you not ashamed to carry yourselves as 
 you do, with such an example as the little Uccello's 
 before you?" 
 
 Dear old Fortunato ! He taught me, out of pure 
 good will ; having met me often in the street, and 
 having at last succeeded in persuading Mariuccia 
 that not to initiate a woman child into the ways and 
 wiles of Terpsichore was to fly in the face of all 
 the designs of Providence. He taught me from 
 sheer love of his art, and some touch of love I 
 think for me ; but he did me an ill service with the 
 little Lombard ladies by his praise. 
 
 They dared say nothing; for Fortunato could rap 
 both feet and hands sharply enough with his bow.
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 35 
 
 wlien he was mitated by contumacy or clumsiness ; 
 but they eyed me askance very evilly and munched 
 their chocolate chicchi, grouped all together at the 
 top of the room, muttering scornful things of me 
 and mine in an offensive and defensive alliance. 
 
 Unliappily, there were few scornful things which 
 could have been said of us that would not have been 
 sufficiently true to hit us hardly. "We were all of us 
 handsome ; in all times, they say, the race we came 
 from had had the gift of the " fatal face ; " but we 
 had verv little else. 
 
 It was the old, old story ; I used to make Mariuccia 
 tell it me as far as she knew it, over and over 
 again, when she used to sit of an evening shellmg 
 beans on the great staii'case, under a half rumed 
 statue that they said was by Donatello. 
 
 I can see her now, — so j)lainly, — as she used to 
 sit there, with a big round brass basin in her lap ; 
 she had a dark red skirt and a yellow kerchief; her 
 costume never varied ; she had a huge silver pin in 
 her white hau- ; she had the noble frank face and 
 the changeful kind eyes of her countr}" people ; she 
 was weather-beaten till she was as brown as a ches- 
 
 nut, though she had the broad flap hat of the 
 
 I) 2
 
 PASCAEEL. 
 
 country spreading its roof over lier head to keep 
 lier from tlie blaze that streamed through the vines 
 that hung over the grated casements. 
 
 The sunbeams and shadows used to jilay on the 
 old marble staii's and the old grey statue ; a passion 
 flower had somehow thrust itself through the stones 
 from without and blossomed there at her feet on 
 that chill bed ; the brass bowl used to glitter lilve 
 gold in the hght ; above at a vast height there was 
 a lunette with frescoes of the labom-s of Hercules ; 
 from below there rose a smell of garlic, of fried 
 meats, of coriander seeds, of stabled cattle ; the 
 crack, crack, crack of the beans used to sound on 
 the silence regular as the ticking of a clock ; the 
 huge straw hat would shake itself slowly and sadly 
 as she sjDoke : 
 
 " Do I remember yoiu" mother '? " she would say. 
 " You ask me that so often, 'Nella. Siu'ely I re- 
 member her. I vras with her at the biilh of every- 
 one of you. I was an old woman then. At least as 
 you children count age. She vras beautiful, yes ; 
 — else your father had never looked at her. You 
 are more like him. Oh, you are handsome enough ; 
 I do not deny that: vou have a face like a flower,
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 37 
 
 and 3'oii know it, thougli you are such a little thing. 
 The people spoil you : they will turn your head with 
 praise. You will end just like that wicked Spero- 
 nella of Padua whom they sing about to this day in 
 all Romagna. It was a name of horrid savour, of 
 ill (nnen, for you ; I always said so ; but your poor 
 mother would have it ; it had been her mother's, 
 she said. It is no use teasing me to tell you more ; I 
 have told you all I laiow a hundred times, and none 
 of it is any good. When I first went to _your mother 
 she had not been long Avedded ; she was happy 
 then ; they alwavs are, — for a week ! There were 
 difficulties ; that I saw the first hour ; but they did 
 not press much. He had met her in Florence ;• she 
 was an opera singer ; he was a gTeat signore, in his 
 own country, so the}' said ; it is always a mistake. 
 He was double her years ; but he was so handsome, 
 — Milordo Maurice. You only see the wreck of 
 him. But you may see that still " 
 
 " And I am like him!" I cried where I sat at the 
 feet of the mutilated Donatello, shedding my quota 
 of beans into the brazen bowl. 
 
 Mariuccia nodded. 
 
 " Yes, you are like him," she said gravely.
 
 PASGAREL. 
 
 " In more Avays than one, signorina. When you 
 get ohler, take care you do not throw your life away 
 as he has thrown his. A noble in his oato country ; 
 and I have to beg a meal for his children from the 
 woman below ! " 
 
 My father was not a nobleman, though Mariuccia, 
 in the common contmental incapacity to miderstand 
 insular titles of courtesy, always called liim so. He 
 was only the fourth son of a northern marquis : — 
 God \\e\]} him ! — but even so much as this I 
 scarcely knew at that time. 
 
 Now I adored my father with very little reason for 
 it, for I saw him perhaps six days in the year, and 
 each time I saw him received about six careless 
 words. But he Avas so handsome, so easy and good- 
 humoured, so indifferent to every created tliins or 
 any possible fortune, that he seemed to me the very 
 perfection of humanity. 
 
 I adored him, at a distance indeed, for it was 
 chiefly when I Avas eating figs on the stairs or crack- 
 ing wahiuts in the court yard, that I ever saw him 
 at all ; but adore him I did, and Ayith the inconsis- 
 tent ingratitude of human nature, I cared more for 
 a slight or a reproof from him whenever he deigned
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 39 
 
 to notice me by one, than I did fur all the untiring 
 goocbiess of Mariuccia. 
 
 She, dear soul, was very wroth against him always, 
 and could not forbear letting out her wrath to me. 
 
 INIariuccia did not think very much of filial 
 duties ; her own parents liad been a traveUing 
 cobbler and his paramour, who had rid themselves 
 of her in her babyhood by the simple process of 
 leaving her at the Innocenti; and she considered that 
 she broke no moral canon when she inveiohed against 
 the shortcomings of her master to me on the old 
 grey stairs. Indeed, I think she honestly believed 
 she only did her duty in tr3'ing to turn me from ni}- 
 unreasonable worship of a false god ; a god more- 
 over who provided next to nothing, and left her to 
 puzzle her brains as best she might how to find 
 bread for three hungry, healthy boys, and how to 
 tui'n my poor mother's costly faded wardrobe into 
 decent attire for my use. 
 
 " He broke your mother's heart," she used to say 
 with a sharp crack of a bean ; and I used to feel a 
 certain pang, yet also a certain incredulity. My 
 mother was a mere vague name to me ; I had not 
 even a portrait of her. " What did he do ? " I
 
 40 FASCAREL. 
 
 used to persist, and Mariuccia would respond in 
 anger : 
 
 " Wliat did lie not do, rather ? He did as lie does 
 now. He went and amused himself, and threw 
 away the little he had in gamhling, and left us for 
 weeks and months to starve in some hole, whilst 
 he feasted in gaming-towns and Avinter- cities, 
 and spent such gold as he might win on crea- 
 tures as' had and as useless as himself. Oh, 
 it is no good 3'our curling 3'our lips and getting 
 on fii-e like that, signorina. It is the truth, as 
 you Avill knoAv to your cost t)ne da3\ Why do you 
 ask me of your mother if you do not helieve what I 
 say ? You are ahvays angry that you are so jioor ; 
 jn-ay whose fault is it if not your father's, and how 
 should he be worth anything, I Avould be glad to 
 know, when not a soul of all his own people ever 
 takes notice that he lives, but every one of them 
 leaves him alone as men pass by a trodden fig, or 
 a dead dog on the causewa}-." 
 
 That used to silence me, for I knew it was true ; 
 and I could only sit in mute rebellion shellmg the 
 beans with a swelling heart, while the bright golden 
 lizards darted to and fro on the stairs, and the
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 11 
 
 radiant sunset lights poured down from the frescoed 
 hmette. 
 
 Then Mariuccia, "whose temper was as close a 
 mingling of sour and sweet as the core of a ripe 
 pomegranate, would relent, and would suspend her 
 bean-shelling to lay her hand on my head. 
 
 " Carina," she would say tenderly, "why will j'ou 
 vex 3'ourself about your father ? Little one, he 
 cares as much for that lizard as for you. Do 3'our 
 duty by hmi ; that is proper, of course ; but do not 
 make a god of him. Fret yourself for some good 
 love, not for a foolish one. It is all ver}' well for 
 the maple to be choked for the vine's sake ; but it 
 is rubbish for the maj^le to die for the night- 
 shade." 
 
 Which hard saying she left for me and the hzard 
 to digest as best we might, whilst she went into the 
 cavernous gloomy little crypt which served her for 
 a kitchen to ivj her beans in oil, or set them to stew 
 with a cabbage. That, or something like it, was 
 our daily meal ; dainty little birds and tempting 
 little pots of chocolate went in for my father when 
 he was there, procured and prepared by Florio, who 
 was a sort of universal genius ; but we children
 
 42 PASCAREL. 
 
 never tasted of such fare. We thought ourselves in 
 wondrous luck if we got a big dish of eggs and 
 macaroni in the Pasqua Week, or could have a 
 handful of sweet ciambelle or a lump or two of j^an 
 giallo for the Befana night. 
 
 As for envying my father his quails and thrushes 
 and mullets, I should have thought it as blas- 
 phemous as Mariuccia would have thought it to 
 envy the Madonnas in the churches their weight of 
 jewelled garments and crowns of beaten gold. 
 
 At such times as Flurio was with us, which was 
 but seldom, I had more success in my endeavours to 
 hear good of my idol. 
 
 Florio, in Italian fashion, had attached himself to 
 us, and having once done so was not to be separated 
 from us by anything that adversity could do to him. 
 Once on the staircase I heard the padrona ask him 
 how he could waste his years in service, so little 
 lucrative, so often indeed, actually only repaying 
 him by privation. 
 
 Florio shrugged his shoulders with the most ex- 
 pressive pantomime in the world. 
 
 " Eh ! what would you ? " he replied to her. " I 
 have got to love them, — it is all said."
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 43 
 
 Florio -would acquiesce in all my enthusiasm for 
 liis master, tliougli lie looked a little grave some- 
 times. But when I would fain have learned from 
 him how my father spent those innumerable long 
 absences of his, Florio would tell me nothing. He 
 would pretend to laugh and show his white 
 teeth. 
 
 " No, no, no," he would cry. " In good tmie the 
 donzella will see for herself how men live ; but 
 she could not understand it yet ; — no, no, no." 
 
 Once again also I overheard him say to Mariuccia, 
 " It is almost always such bad luck with him now; 
 sometimes he has a good vein, and then we live like 
 quails in the fattening coops ; but it is very seldom 
 now. They are all scared of him. At Nizza this 
 very winter they warned him privately from the 
 Massena. And to be too bad for the Mas- 
 sena !" 
 
 Florio threw up his hands in the air with a 
 gesture that concluded his sentence more eloquently 
 than any speech. 
 
 Florio was about forty years old at that time ; 
 a little plump man, as round as a ball, with merry 
 eyes, and the frank, tender smile of his nation.
 
 44 PASCABiJL. 
 
 He was a charming creature. There was very 
 little he could not do. He could put on a white 
 apron and cook to perfection ; he could talk most 
 languages, more or less correctly ; he could draw 
 inimitable caricatures ; he did not disdam to wax 
 a floor, and skim on it with brushes for skates ; 
 on occasion he has woven Machramme as well 
 as any Avoman lacemaker along the Pdviera; he 
 could string a lute and sing on it in a ver}' pretty 
 tenor ; and he would go to market with a big basket 
 and bargain for butter and cheese with a terrible 
 acuteness that was feared by the stoutest shrew that 
 ever sat under a green or crimson umbrella on a 
 sunny piazza, with her live hens screeching in her 
 old mule's panniers. 
 
 As far as his principles went, looldng back 
 to that time, I should say he was absolutely 
 innocent of even knowing the existence of such 
 things. 
 
 He would lie with the sweetest smiling serenity 
 in all the world, and he would cheat — in our service 
 at least — with the most exquisite dexterity. Yet in 
 otlier ways he was as frank as a babe, and if moved 
 to jiity lie gave with both hands, Avithholding
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 45 
 
 notliiiig from any thought of self interest. Yes, — 
 Florio was a charming creature ; the most perfect 
 mixture of intense shrewdness and entire simplicity 
 that I have ever met ; and wholly and entirely 
 devoted to a sei-vice in which his multifarious talents 
 were utterly lost and almost utterly unrequited. 
 And yet even Florio blamed ni}" father ! 
 
 It was a terrible perplexity to me. What evil 
 could my father do ? 
 
 Night after night I used wearily to wonder over 
 the problem, lying awake on my truckle bed, in a 
 vast room painted with the loves of Orpheus and 
 Eurydice, while the bats beat against the lofty 
 windows and the beautiful white moon sailed past 
 them backed in clouds. 
 
 To the condemnations upon him I attached no 
 idea of gambling, despite jMariuccia's invectives. 
 
 I saw everybody gamble ; the children in the 
 court below, the people in the streets and at the 
 public lotteries, the men in the coffee houses and 
 taverns, the boys in the market-places, the old beg- 
 gars on the church steps : they all gambled, with 
 cards, or dice, or balls, with nuts, or little cheeses, 
 with dominoes on the pavement, witli the gny
 
 46 PASCABilL. 
 
 painted cards at taroc, or by means of their fingers 
 alone, at morra, if they had no other method avail- 
 able. That a i^astime so universal in the broad 
 daylight could be in any one criminal never occurred 
 to me. 
 
 And having a strong and entu'ely reasonless ado- 
 ration of my father, who fascinated me into love for 
 him by his mere look and gesture, as he fascinated 
 Florio into his service by a mere surface kindness 
 and gracious trick of manner, I came to the con- 
 clusion as I watched tlie clouds and the moon, that 
 my father was a man deeply wronged by his world 
 and his relatives. It was very easy for me to solace 
 myself thus, for I knew nothing of either one or 
 the other. 
 
 He was called Milordo, and our name was 
 Tempesta — as the Italians had it — that was all I 
 knew : and I had mingled my ideas of him vaguely 
 and oddly enough with that great Tempesta, wlia 
 lias left his sign on so many frescoes and canvases 
 throughout Italy, and who fled to Isola Bella witli 
 liis fatal love and all its crime upon his soul, and 
 dwelt there betAveen sea and sky. 
 
 Such small obstacles as centuries and probabili-
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 47 
 
 ties were nothing to me, lying awake under the 
 «niile of Eurydice, and watching the bats in the 
 moonlight beat their Avings against the painted 
 casements. 
 
 One winter in Verona he stayed longer than 
 usual. He was not well in health Florio told us ; 
 and he had found some Austrians who amused him. 
 He used to go out every evening and return at 
 dawn ; that I knew, for I could tell his step and 
 listened for it. I do not think he rose all day ; for 
 Florio was perpetually in and out of his master's 
 rooms, with some frotliing cup of chocolate, some 
 sparkling cool drink, or some dish of dainty flavours, 
 compounded by his skill. 
 
 One evening I Avas upon the stairs as he came 
 down them. 
 
 Our stairs were very dark. One little poor oil 
 lamp bummg under a hapless Madonna who had 
 lost her nose and hands was all that illumined the 
 immense depth of it from hall to dome. I had 
 been to my lesson with Fortunato ; it was cold ; I 
 was muffled in a little purple-velvet hooded cloak 
 that Mariuccla had made me out of one of my 
 mother's dresses; my cheeks were warm with the
 
 48 PASCAEEL. 
 
 run home ; I had in my hands a silver hmrel-wreath 
 — Fortmiato's yeaiiy prize — with wliich he had just 
 i:)resented me, for the fourth time, in all solemnity 
 and honour. 
 
 In the deei") shadows I saw my father descending 
 the steps ; involuntarily I paused ; my heart gave 
 a great hound ; if he should notice the laurel- 
 wreath, I thought ? 
 
 By a miracle he stopped likewise. 
 
 " Is it you, 'Nella ? Let me look at you." 
 
 He drew me up under the lantern which was hung 
 a step or two aliove, and hent his eyes in studious 
 scrutiny upon my face ; I tremhled from head to 
 foot ; I was a l)old child enough, hut I was afraid 
 of him hecause I loved him, and because he was to 
 me such a majestic mystery, unapproachable, and 
 inscrutable. 
 
 He looked at me long ; my hood had fallen back ; 
 my hair was l)lown about me by the Avind ; I felt 
 my cheeks changing in colour every second under 
 his gaze. 
 
 " Heavens ! how like you look to your mother," 
 he murmured. " And yet you are like us too; — 
 how old are you?"
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 49 
 
 I told him that I was nearh^ ten years old — at 
 least so Mariuccia said. 
 
 " I daresay, I daresaj^" he said, carelessly. 
 " You have grown very much of late. You will be 
 a beautiful woman, 'Nella. Do they tell you so?" 
 
 " Many people do," I murmured ; my limbs 
 shook under me ; my face was scarlet ; my heart 
 beat like a Avild bird's : — he had praised me ! 
 
 He laughed a little, wearily. 
 
 "Ah-eady? Very well ! Good-night, little one." 
 
 He slipped a little gold piece into my velvet 
 mufflers, and, for the first time in my life, touched 
 my lips lightly with his. As he went out of 
 sight into the gloom below, I sat down on the filthj' 
 marble stair under the Madonna and her poor dull 
 lamp, and burst into tears, — tears of passionate 
 
 AVhen Mariuccia found me, she found me sob- 
 bing bitterly, the laurel-wreath neglected on the 
 stones. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 WITH THE POPOLANI. 
 
 jHAT small gold piece I treasured ever after- 
 wards ; piercing it, and hanging it round 
 my neck. I used to be often hmigr^' in 
 those days, but no temptation of coriander cakes, 
 or anchovy pastries, of Neapolitan confetti, or Flo- 
 rentme dolcl, ever allured my little precious five- 
 franc from its hidmg-place. 
 
 The next day Florio summoned Marine cia into 
 my father's room ; he gave her a sum of money, 
 and bade her get me with it such education as she 
 best could in Verona. She had taught me to read ; 
 Fortunato liad taught me to dance ; Florio had 
 taught me to sing ritornelli to a mandolin ; but
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 51 
 
 tliese were all my acquirements ; at ten years old 
 I was barbarousl}' ignorant, and knew nothing, 
 except such quaint old stray pieces of knowledge 
 as I had gleaned from some odd volumes of Vasari 
 and Ammirato, of Villani and Muratori, and the like, 
 which I had found left by some former tenant in 
 our chambers, and which made me conversant with 
 some art-lore and with the heroical histories of 
 
 " Le donne, i cavalieri, le armi, gli armori, 
 Le cortesie, le audaci imprese " 
 
 of the by-gone centuries. 
 
 " It is the Tedeschi's money," grumbled Ma- 
 riuccia, with her face dark, and full of reluctance 
 and of abhorrence. 
 
 Florio showed his white teeth. 
 
 "What is that to you?" he responded. "AH 
 your business is to spend it. That is enough." 
 
 Florio theoretically hated the Tedeschi as much 
 as she did, but i^ractically he thought the best 
 use Tedeschi could be put to was that of si)olia- 
 tion. 
 
 " They are foreigners ; they are hateful ; i\\ey 
 are our t}Tants and our oppressors ; and we will 
 make them fl}'- one day," he would say. " But
 
 PASCABiJL. 
 
 while the}' are here, we may as well get what we 
 can out of them. That is tlie true patriotism." 
 
 It was the true philosophy, at all events ; and 
 one that served its i^rofessor exceedingly well. 
 
 As for me, I could not understand how my 
 father's money could he said to he the Austrians' 
 also. 
 
 " It is not much, anyhoAV," I heard Mariuccia 
 sa}-, when she husied herself over her pots and 
 pans while Florio plucked a Piedmontese partridge 
 as plump as himself. " As I had the chance to see 
 the signore, I spoke up the truth a little. AVhen 
 he had given his commands for 'Nella, I said to 
 liim, ' And the hoys, excellenza ? AYhat of them ? 
 They are gTowing tall, strong, dauntless lads, and 
 they live with Pepe, and Zoto, and Gian, and the 
 children of the people ; and they are as ignorant as 
 so many young mountain hulls. Will vossignoria 
 deign to say what is to he done ahout them?' 
 
 " He only laughed a little. ' They must do as 
 they can,' he answered me. ' AVlien they are old 
 enough, your Tedeschi friends will give them rank 
 in some regiment, I daresay ; and there is very 
 little learning wanted for that.' Did ever j'ou hear
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 53 
 
 such an answer, Florio ? As if the blessed children 
 would ever draw a sword against Italy? But he 
 would not say anything better ; he bade me begone 
 in that gentle way of his which, as 3'ou know, there 
 is no gahisaying. But Avas it not horrible?" she 
 Vv'ent on hfting the lid off her stewpan. " The 
 noble lads ! I am sure they would be cut in a 
 thousand pieces before they would wear the white, 
 and help to enslave Ital}', who has been a foster- 
 mother to them from the very daj's of their 
 birth." 
 
 Florio smiled, as having plucked, he proceeded 
 to truss his partridge. 
 
 " To be sure ; to be sure. Of course we none 
 of us would. Nevertheless, the Vienna beer tastes 
 very light and good in the caffes, they say ; espe- 
 cially Avhen it costs nothing ; and I have seen a 
 good many of our people with their noses buried in 
 the tankards." 
 
 Mariuccia poured her stew into a dish with a 
 charitable wish that an " accidente" might strangle 
 forever all Italians Avho so far forgot themselves as 
 ever to drhik the hcn'rible barley brew of the ac- 
 cursed stranieri ; it was to be as vile a traitor as
 
 54 PASCAREL. 
 
 Judas, she averred, wlieii God liimself liad given 
 the Italians the juice of the vine. 
 
 So it came to pass that I had such teaching as 
 Verona could afford, whilst my brothers ran wild 
 lilie young colts. 
 
 Mariuccia locked the sum my father had given 
 her away in a stout bronze coffer, and eked it out, 
 with religious fidehty, as long and to as good pur- 
 pose as she was able. Every atom of it she spent 
 loyally, as she had been bidden ; and shrewdly as 
 became her Florentine citizenship. 
 
 She wanted many things direfully, for he and 
 Florio went away with the first months of spring, and 
 left her but a miserable pittance for all household 
 purposes. But to take the smallest note from that 
 money to procure rice, or wood, or onions, or flour, 
 or oil for her daily needs, would have been a false- 
 ness to the trust of her stewardship which I am 
 certain never even tempted in imagination that good, 
 sturdy, honest soul of hers. 
 
 She laid it out to the last in the culture of my 
 •worthless little brain ; if I did not profit by it as 
 I might have done, it was no fault of hers. It Avas 
 the fault of the saucy impatience of restraint, and
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 53 
 
 the indolent love of basking in the sun, doing 
 nothing, which the coiintiy and its habits had 
 fostered in me. For I was decidedly a naughty 
 child ; I loved my own way and generally took it ; 
 and my sins of omission and commission were so 
 many and various that with every Eve of Ej)iphany 
 I listened in fear for the tinkling bell in the streets, 
 and dreaded the bag of ashes and the long cane with 
 which the black-faced Befana punishes the wilful. 
 
 Mariuccia went very wisely to w^ork ; she would 
 have nothing to do with women teachers or schools ; 
 there were manj" old professors, old scholars, in the 
 town whom she knew were terribly poor, and yet full 
 of erudition, and not too grand to take something 
 for imparting it. To these men she went, and so 
 she secured me the means of getting a knowledge 
 much more worth the having than the convent- 
 culture which the children of my sex ordinarily 
 obtain ; that I profited too little by it was, as I say, 
 no fault of my dear old nurse. 
 
 For the only teacher amongst them all to 
 whom I really gave attention and obedience was my 
 singing-master. 
 
 I adored music ; it is impossible, I tlimk, not to
 
 56 FAHCAREL. 
 
 Ciire for it, if 3'ou are reared in Italy. Everything 
 seems to sing, from the cicale upwards. All that 
 unAvritten music of the populace whose scores no 
 hands have ever penned, is exquisite ; and every 
 now and then in the streets, or from some liiah 
 casement in the roof, you hear the notes of a 
 divine voice, and you seek it out through filthy 
 courts, up cut-throat stairways, into dark, dismal, 
 foul-smelling chambers, and you find that it is 
 only Pasqua the washerwoman singing at her tub, 
 or Gillo the facchino amusing himself as he carries 
 up the wood. 
 
 I had my mother's voice — so Mariuccia said. It 
 seems that she had been of infinite promise as a 
 singer when my father, desperately enamoured of 
 lier for the moment, bore her off from the stage in 
 the second season of her public appearance, and 
 the first of her performances at the Pergola, What 
 my voice was to others, I do not know; I only 
 know that all ni}- life long song has been as natural 
 to me as to any thrush or bullfinch. 
 
 The Veronese used to call me L'Uccello, the bird; 
 and where there were so many uccelli, all more t)r 
 less musicall3'-throated, the name was in itself a dis-
 
 TRE CITY OF CATULLUS. 
 
 tinction. Many and many a time, in Verona, when I 
 liave been out alone, I have found myself the centre 
 of an eager little crowd, which followed me because 
 I Avas singing aloud as I went ; and to pacif}' them, 
 I have vaulted on a parapet or a ledge, or anything 
 that was convenient, and repeated the stornelli to 
 an enthusiastic circle of blacksmiths, and horse-boys, 
 and porters, and fruit-sellers, and beggars ; — Ma- 
 riuccia knowing nothing. 
 
 And then they would escort me homeward, hiuu- 
 ming the choruses of the songs themselves, delight- 
 ing in me with that mingling of charming famili- 
 arit}', and yet perfect respect, of which the Latin 
 nations alone seem to know the secret ; and saving 
 nothing to me, that a little princess might not have 
 heard, but waving their caps to me, and tendering 
 me, by the hands of some old butcher, or some 
 yoimg ostler, a knot of china roses, or a plume 
 of lilies and verbena, with the prettiest grace, and 
 the sweetest smiles in all the world. 
 
 Ah ! dear people, dear people ! when I think of 
 you, I repent me that I have said I hated your 
 ugly town ; for of a trutli I loved you, and you me. 
 
 My music-master was an old inan, by name
 
 58 PASCAEEL. 
 
 Ambrogio Eufi ; he was most wretcliedly poor ; he 
 lived in a little square den in the roof of a tumble- 
 down house ; he was very dii'ty, very shabby, very 
 ugly ; the world had never heard of him, and he 
 got a bare living as first violinist at the theatre. 
 In his j-outh he had created things that the world 
 would never listen to ; and he had become instead 
 the interpreter of other men's creations. 
 
 He was inexorable as a master ; but he was also 
 admii'able. His severity had an enthusiasm, and 
 even a tenderness, underlying it which made it en- 
 durable. One knew that he w^as only harsh, because 
 he would allow of nothing shght, or mean, or slur- 
 red, to be put forward in the guise of his art. 
 Himself, he was a great master ; — yes ; — though he 
 had never made a name, and had barely where- 
 withal to get a daily meal. I have seen the sums 
 of a princely fortune, and the homage of a fastidious 
 society, poured out upon artists who were not fit to 
 hold a candle to my old master for him to read his 
 score. 
 
 Cii'cumstance is so odd and so cruel a thing. It 
 is wholly apart from talent. 
 
 Genius will do so little for a man if he do not
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 59 
 
 know liow to seize or seduce opportunity. No 
 doubt, in his youth, Ambrogio had been shy, 
 silent, out of his art timid, and in his person 
 unoTaceful and unloveh'. So the workl had 
 passed by him turning a deaf ear to his melodies, 
 and he had let it pass, because he had not that 
 splendid audacity to grasp it perforce, and hold 
 it until it blessed him, without which no genius 
 will ever gain the benediction of the Angel of 
 Fame. 
 
 ^Vliich is a fallen Angel, no doubt ; but still, 
 perhaps, the spii-it most worth wrestling with 
 after all; since wrestle we must in this world, 
 if we do not care to lie down and form a pave- 
 ment for other men's cars of triumph, as the 
 Assyrians of old stretched themselves on their faces 
 before the coming of the chariots of their kings. 
 
 Ambrogio had a few pupils — not many. Most of 
 them were young choristers of promise, whom he 
 had sought on hearing them at some office in the 
 S. Zanone ; and whom he taught for pm'e devo- 
 tion to his art, as Fortunato had taught me 
 to dance. His method of instruction was won- 
 derful, strict, and inexorable, as I have said, and
 
 eo, FASCAREL. 
 
 giving intinite labour, infinite repetition to the 
 scholar, but it was of an unapproachable excel- 
 lence, and sifted the grain from the chaff amongst 
 his aspirants with unerring accuracy. 
 
 There was — there is — an academj- of music in the 
 old city of Catullus, but such was the blindness of 
 its direction, or such the rabid envy of its pro- 
 fessors, that no effort was ever made to secure for 
 it the inestimable value of Ambrogio's lessons. 
 Mariuccia's payments for myself were, I veril}' 
 believe, almost all the remuneration that he ever 
 received. All the rest were so poor ; the children 
 of coppersmiths, and coopers, and vine-dressers, 
 and pottery -painters ; boj's and girls who had fair 
 voices, and avIio sang in the choirs of the churches. 
 
 We used to stand in a semi-circle before him, a 
 dozen children or so, and sing the scale simpl}' hour 
 by hour. You had to be far advanced before he 
 would pernut 3'ou to leave that first arduous 
 exercise. 
 
 It used to be bitterly cold in winter in that 
 little den of his, with its cold stove and its brick 
 tloor ; and stifiingiy hot in summer there amongst 
 the red and grey roofs, the cupolas, and the towers.
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 61 
 
 There was nothing picturesque or poetic in it ; it 
 was all hard work in a wretched little place hefore 
 an ugly old man wlio flashed fury upon you through 
 his spectacles if you dared to torture his ear with a 
 false note. And yet we all Avent to him faithfully ; 
 and seldom or never rebelled. 
 
 There were in him the sincerity and the excel- 
 lence which impress themselves upon children long 
 hefore those children are old enough to reason on 
 Avliat they are awed by and admire. I tormented 
 my other masters sadl}^ enough : hut I am thankful 
 to think that I never added to the many pains 
 and tlie infinite disappointments of Amhrogio's life. 
 
 I was a favoured pupil with him — I and Eaftael 
 Baptista. 
 
 Raffaello was the son of a coppersmith in the 
 town, who lived hard by the cathedral, in a c^uaint 
 old vaulted place filled with coppers of all sorts and 
 sizes, which used to blaze quite red in the sunset. 
 
 It was the workshop as well as the dwelhng- 
 house, and was full all day of the clash of hammers 
 on metal as well as the discordant noises of the 
 church bells and the people's cries. 
 
 Yet amidst all that clangour and uproar, the
 
 C2 FASCAREL. 
 
 child had heen horn with the most suhtle and 
 perfect instmct for meh^dy. One wouhl have 
 thought that all that clanging and clashing of 
 copper and ii'on all the Hvelong day, from the time 
 he had cried in his cradle, would have deadened 
 his ears to all perceptions of liarmon}' ; hut it 
 seemed as though it had produced the contrary- 
 effect, for he detected an incorrect note, and 
 shivered mider it as quickly and as painfully as the 
 Maestro himself. 
 
 Eaffaelmo as we called him, when I met him 
 first at our music lessons, was just eight years old 
 when I was ten ; his mother came of a Venetian 
 race, and he had the Venetian look and accent; he 
 was a small, slender lad, with eyes full of dreams 
 and a mouth full of smiles ; his foir hair clustered 
 thickly round his head ; lie had dark, straight brows 
 and a curious half shy vivacity of expression that 
 changed twenty times in an hour. He was the 
 most picturesque figure in all our little grouj), \\-ith 
 his brown legs bare, and his shirt loose about his 
 throat, and a scarlet woollen sash girt in Venice 
 fashion romid his loms. 
 
 It was not in song that the little Baptista ex-
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 63 
 
 celled. His voice was pure and true, but of no 
 great compass. It was for the violin that lie showed 
 the extraordinary talent which won old Ambrogio's 
 heart to hiin, and one day when he had played on 
 his own little viol a charming little capriccio full of 
 life and gi*ace, and I asked him whence it came, he 
 hung his head and coloured, and confessed at last 
 that it was of his own invention. 
 
 He implored me not to tell the Maestro ; he Mas 
 quite sure that Ambrogio would look up with that 
 frown through his terrible spectacles which we all 
 dreaded, and bid him in tones of thunder go back 
 to his scale practice, and not tempt the wrath of 
 dead Cimarosa and Palestrina, and all the im- 
 mortal brotherhood with such impious audacities. 
 I thought differently; but Baffael had a right to his 
 own secret, so I did not betray him. Which was 
 mifeminine I suppose ; but the only two women I 
 had ever had aught to do with had been the pa- 
 drona and Mariuccia, both simple people as the 
 world went. 
 
 I liked Eaffaello the best of all the chilch'en in 
 Verona; he had an infinite tenderness for his 
 mother, who was blmd and whom he tended with
 
 64 PASCABEL. 
 
 tintii'ing patience ; and lie had a profound homage 
 for n\yself, — the donzeUa as he called me, — and 
 would never meet me without some spray of roses, 
 some bough of lemon, some knot of violets, or some 
 cluster of chesnuts, for which he had rifled the 
 hedges or had begged some neighboiu*. 
 
 In \\\\ Avay I was very proud ; Mariuccia con- 
 tinually reproached me for it ; but I was not the 
 least beset by that sort of pride, which would have 
 made me regret Raffael Baptista's companionship, 
 because his father was a coppersmith, and he • ran 
 about the streets without shoes. I had lived too 
 much amongst the people ; and I had too much of 
 the bohemian in me for that. 
 
 Indeed I enjoyed vastly, Avhen I left Ambrogio's 
 attic, drawing my little velvet hood over my curls 
 and running home hand in hand with Raifaelino, 
 X^ast the dancing hall, at the horn- when Fortunato's 
 pupils, of whom I no longer needed to be one, 
 v,'ere coming forth from his lessons. 
 
 The little feminine respectabilities, — ni}' born foes, 
 — glorious in starch and ribbons, and coral and silk 
 stockings, Avould recognise me by a solemn stare and 
 
 a general drawing togetlier of themselves for mutual
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 65 
 
 protection, and I would laugh in tlieii' faces and 
 flash by them holding 'Ino's hand the tighter, and 
 shaking the rose petals all over my little weather- 
 stained purples, which like all purples fered ill 
 when brought down into the streets. 
 
 Mariuccia never objected to my complaisance for 
 Eaffael. There was much of the old genuine, 
 stm'dy Florentine democrat in her. His mother, 
 too, was a gossip of her own. 
 
 "It is a rare good lad," she used to say; and 
 that he ran the streets with bare feet was no social 
 sin in her eyes. 
 
 At such rare times as Mariuccia allowed herself a 
 spare hour from her incessant bakmg and washing, 
 spinning and sewing, she used to cross the piazza 
 to the coppersmith's workshop, under the sign of 
 the Spiked Mace, and drink a cup of black coffee 
 with the blind woman, not losing her time, l)ut 
 whilst she gossipped going on with her weaving 
 of rough linen garments for us from the little distaff 
 which in true old Tuscan fashion was seldom 
 absent from her, being hung round the waist with 
 its hank of flax in readiness for any unfilled moment 
 of her rare leisure. 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 66 FASCABEL. 
 
 I used to go witli her, and Raffaelino and I used 
 to sit on the threshold and phiy dominoes on the 
 bottom of some big coj^per turned downwards to 
 serve us as a table ; or at other times he would brmg 
 out from its corner his little old quattrocentiste 
 viol, which he had found amongst some lumber, and 
 we would play and sing stornelli whilst the white 
 moonlight was flooding the pavement, and the 
 marbles of the buildings turned to silver in its 
 lustre : Mariuccia beating time with her spindle, 
 and his blind mother nodding her head to the 
 measiu'es. 
 
 One of the young painters then m Yerona made a 
 little picture of Raffael and of me, playing and 
 singmg thus in the moonlight, with the background 
 of the huge arched doors and the innumerable 
 coppers with just the glimmer of a brass oil-lamp 
 behind us where Mariuccia sat and span. 
 
 It was a pretty little bit of genre ; he was de- 
 lighted to sell it for twelve gulden notes to a 
 German Jew dealer. I have seen it since in a 
 great collector's galleries ; and the holder of it told 
 me he had given for it some fifteen thousand 
 francs.
 
 mi; CITY OF CATULLUS. 67 
 
 One of the saddest things perhaps in all the sad- 
 ness of this world is the frightful loss at which so 
 much of the best and strongest work of a man's life 
 has to he thrown away at the onset. If you desire a 
 name amongst men, you must buy the crown of it 
 at such a costly price ! 
 
 True, the price will in the end be paid back to 
 you no doubt when you are worn out, and what 
 you do is as worthless as the rustlincj canes 
 that blow together in autumn hy dull river 
 sides : then you scrawl your signature across 
 your soulless work, and it fetches thrice its weight 
 in gold. 
 
 But though you thus have your turn, and can 
 laugh at your will at the world that you fool, 
 what can that compensate you for all those dear 
 dead darlings ; those bright first fruits, those 
 precious earliest nestlings of your genius, which 
 had to be sold into bondage for a broken crust, 
 which have drifted away from you never to be found 
 again, which you know well were a million fold 
 better, fresher, stronger, higher, better than any- 
 thing you have begotten since then ; and yet in 
 which none could be found to believe, only because 
 
 F 2
 
 68 PASCAREL. 
 
 jou lirtd not Avoii tliat magic spell -wliicli lies in — 
 being known ? 
 
 I was great friends with all those youthful artists 
 who lived in nooks and corners all over the town, 
 and who got tlieii" living by copying or by counter- 
 feiting the old masters. 
 
 From the time that I had been old enough to 
 climb up their steep stau's unaided, they had made 
 a pet of me always, and often a model. I hked 
 nothing better than to be perched on a table in any 
 one of their big barns, arrayed in peacock's plumes, 
 or old laces, or ancient brocades, or any other of 
 the picturesque useless dusty lumber: and I think 
 the dealers and bu^'ers in the old town must have 
 got very tired of my dark-eyed, golden fringed 
 little face, which these students were wont to use 
 for every allegory or childish subject that was 
 ordered of them. 
 
 But painters, if one chance to please them at all, 
 always see so many types in one's face, all more or 
 less contradictory of each other, that one comes to 
 the irresistible conclusion that it must after all only 
 be tyi^ical of the poor human nature which makes 
 us all akin, — when it does not set us all at strife.
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 69 
 
 They were very good to me all those poor lads ; 
 though they quarrelled often enough amongst them- 
 selves, and not seldom got into trouble for fierce 
 wrangle with the invader. They all of them lived 
 high up in the aii', amongst the open rafters of the 
 uneeiled roofs ; with wondrous lights streaming in 
 through the vast bare garrets and magnificent views 
 of limitless horizons, southward to the plains and 
 northward to the mountains. 
 
 They used to be very good to me. They would 
 dance with me unweariedly at the open air balls ; 
 they would take me to laugh my heart out over the 
 dear delicious rheumatic burattini ; they would play 
 me all sorts of SAveet little mad canzoiit, rippling all 
 over with a very phrenzy of mirth ; and when I sat 
 to them they would run out at noonday down six 
 paii-s of stairs into the street to fetch me a noonday 
 meal of coffee, simmering in its brass pipkin, and 
 little patties crisp in theii- white papers. I fear 
 they must often have spent on me the only coins 
 they had for their own dinners, for they lived on 
 about three soldi a day, two of which would go 
 for the theatre and the nightly smoke at their 
 clubs.
 
 70 PASCAREL. 
 
 To mv comino; and Goin" -with them, Mariuccia 
 having once satisfied herself that they were honest 
 Lids, offered sekhnn any opposition. The ItaUans 
 are not a people who think evil of ever}- trifle, 
 and Mariuccia had a G;ood deal in her of 
 the stanch, uncompromising republicanism of old 
 Florence. 
 
 We amused ourselves ; that seemed to Mariuccia 
 the right and proper thing for childhood and youth ; 
 and moreover, as she used to say, with a laugh and 
 a frown together, the " signorina is proud enough 
 for six ; how she queens it over them, the little 
 imperious thing." 
 
 No doubt a nurse duly reared to a sense of her 
 duties would have thought the judgment of heaven 
 would have fallen on her had she allowed a little 
 " illustrissima " often years old to clamber up into 
 the roof of houses to sing stornelli amongst paints 
 and pots, and cans and lumber, with a circle of 
 bearded bohemians, or clamber down again in 
 company with some stout-limbed peasant in gold 
 ear-rings and scarlet Idrtle, with a grand head like, 
 the Donatello Judith's, and a profession which was 
 franklv and undesiffnedlv that of a model.
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 71 
 
 But the songs had never a line in them for which 
 I coiihl have been the worse, and the model was a 
 good gentle soul who had babies at home that she 
 loved, and whose only care was to get broth and 
 jiolenta enough for them. And dear old Mariuccia 
 was too straight and simple a soul to be on the 
 watch for evil ; besides, as she sometimes mumbled 
 to herself as she unlaced her bodice at night before 
 commg to her small straw bed in my chamber, she 
 thought it might be well if I should take to the 
 people altogether, and be happy and marry amidst 
 them in due time, for of a surety money there 
 Avould be none for me, and my father's people made 
 no sign. 
 
 But when I heard her breathe these wishes for 
 me, she standing over me perhaps with her dull 
 <nl lamp and fancying me asleep, I used to 
 laugh her to scorn in silence under the rough 
 hempen sheet. 
 
 " Never, never, never ! " I used to say in my 
 heart. 
 
 Mariuccia used to close her soliloquies by 
 kneeling down to a picture of the Mother of 
 ]Many Sorrows, and prnying to her for my
 
 72 PASCABEL. 
 
 future ; but I, silent beneath tlie sheets, used 
 inij)iously to thmk, " what use is it to be hand- 
 some if one cannot do for oneself without the 
 Madonna?" 
 
 The Madonna was all very well no doubt, for 
 these poor lean old folks who had not a friend 
 in the world, or those pale foolish lovesick gMs 
 who could not keep their lovers, but could only 
 kneel down and pray for them in the chapels ; it 
 was very well to have a Madonna, no doubt, when 
 one was ugly or old, and when with one's life all 
 was finished : but for me ! — there was a little tri- 
 angular mirror hung m the corner of my room to 
 Avhich I am afraid I said many more orisons than I 
 ever offered to Mary. 
 
 I loved the people : who would not in Italy ? — 
 the dear, graceful, sumiy-natured people, whose 
 very selfishness is more engaging tlian other 
 nations' virtues. 
 
 Where else but in Italy, when you give a franc 
 for an armful of roses will the seller cast to you in 
 free gift of pure good vail his choicest magnolia 
 fiower ? 
 
 Where else will the old porter to whom you ofi"er
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 
 
 two sous for his trouble in hobbling up and down 
 the stairs for you, limp off to his snuggery and 
 bring you thence a bough from his lemon tree 
 Avith a courtesj and a smile that courtiers might 
 envy ? 
 
 Where else will the faccliino who has toiled 
 after you on a summer's day with a heavy load, 
 l)ut his hands behind his back and shake his curly 
 head, and steadily refuse reward, crying: — 
 
 " No, no, no ! it is pleasure enough just to see the 
 signora ! " 
 
 Where else, if you pause at a little music shop 
 in a bye street, will the master of the shop come 
 out and hum you the songs that you seek har- 
 moniously in a mezza-voce, wliilst your coachman 
 turns round to correct a change to the minor, and 
 the baker-boy pauses to join in the refrain, and a 
 girl, mending her shoe at a window, chaunts her 
 share in the measure, and every mortal leaves off 
 his or her occupation to loiter out and join the 
 chorus with sweet singing rhythm, till the whole 
 narrow street is filled with tlie melody ? 
 
 Where else, indeed ? 
 
 True, if you fiiil to buy roses next day, the seller
 
 74 ASCABEL. 
 
 may petulantly -s^isli you an accidente. True, 
 the porter next week may keep you languishing 
 for }'our letters while he gossij^s over your affairs 
 in the street, and allots you more lovers than there 
 are days in the year. True, the facchino may 
 expect you to nod and smile and be hiion amlco 
 with him all the rest of 3'our life. True, the music- 
 seller may feel not the smallest scruple in giving 
 you imperfect copies at six times their due 
 value. 
 
 But all the same how jjenuine were the 
 grace and the courtesy and the vivacity and 
 the kindliness ! how genuine they will he again 
 a million times over ! how they smooth and 
 illumine the rough and dark pathways of life ! 
 how easy they render the cordial intercourse 
 between far-sundered classes ! how pleasantly 
 they make melod}' amidst our rude human 
 nature, like the singing flower-sown brooks amidst 
 the hillside stones ! 
 
 " Italians cheat one as much as other nations 
 do," said a shreAvd Frenchman to me, the other 
 dny. " Oh, yes, no doubt ; some say they cheat 
 one a little more. But then thev alone know
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUii. 75 
 
 liow to do it amiably; they alone save one's self- 
 respect." 
 
 Such was his verdict (a very superficial one, for, 
 except Stendahl, where is the Frenchman who ever 
 could understand the Italian ?) ; but myself I 
 would go farther than he did. 
 
 I would much sooner say, and surely more 
 justly, that the Italian, to the fine subtleties 
 of civilisation and the keen astuteness of his 
 natm-al mtelligence, unites a rare simplicity and 
 a joyous frankness which he alone of all people 
 has retained amidst the artifice of modern 
 life. 
 
 No, I loved the people ; I had enough soul in me 
 for that ; but all the same, even in my happiest 
 hours, I never dreamed for an instant, as Mariuccia 
 dreamed for me, of being content to dwell amidst 
 them for ever. 
 
 And happy hours I had ; though my brothers 
 and I sat at night reading "S'asari, or old Pulci, or 
 the Chronicles of Compagni, or Ferreto, or the 
 wonderful stories of Croce, that Bolognese "Homer 
 of Children," by the light of one poor little 
 miserable lamp ; and though in the winter some-
 
 76 PASCAREL. 
 
 times we liacl barely charcoal enough to heat the 
 small brown jars, and though even on most summer 
 days we had little else to eat than a roll of bread 
 and a broth of herbs, a few ripe figs from the old 
 tree in the court, or a slice of the jiadrona's 
 polenta.
 
 CHAPTER y. 
 
 THE peacock's PLUMES. 
 
 jiE were happiest when we were alone with 
 Mariuccia. 
 
 "We were children, and strong and well, 
 and there Avas the bright, broad, hving sunlight 
 about us, and all things were possible for us 
 in the future. But when my father came and 
 Florio it was different. We did not reason on it, 
 but we were vaguely affected b.y their presence, 
 vaguely depressed by it. Some breath from a 
 world we knew nothing of blew in on us, and 
 chilled us in our bare old home in the mellow 
 Lombardic heats. 
 
 " Oh, Dio mio ! but it is terrible ! " Florio
 
 PASCAIIEL. 
 
 would say, lifting his liands us lie peered into the 
 faggotless cupboard, the empty ste^\1)ans, the ill- 
 furnished bread pot, and then we became sensible 
 of the privations which we had scarcely perceived 
 before, and alive to that vital truth of the old 
 Condottieri, that " Senza soldi non possono fareJ" 
 
 " It is terrible," Florio would say, cooking a 
 couj)le of little larks and some toadstools out of the 
 v,oods in such magical fashion that thev would 
 have deceived any epicure in the countr}" into behef 
 in them as ortolans and mushrooms. "It gets 
 worse, you see, every year ; of course it gets worse. 
 He wins less often ; and he takes more brandy 
 when he loses. It is always the way. It is a 
 puzzle to live at all, and half the cities are shut to 
 us. Debt — debt — debt. It slaps the gates in our 
 faces. There is hardh' anywhere that they will 
 trust him now. It will end in that, — some day, — 
 and soon." 
 
 With "that" he gave a gesture as though he 
 drew a knife across his bare tlu'oat. Mariuccia 
 shook her head. 
 
 "End in that? End?" she echoed. "And, 
 say ydu, I'lorio, what pray Avill then begin for
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 79 
 
 them ? For the dear little ones ? It is very well 
 to say ' end/ as if he were the only one concerned 
 in the matter. Four of them : and not a farthing" 
 except the few notes he leaves with me when he 
 comes and goes, which the Holy Mother knows 
 would be hardly enough to feed up a goose for San 
 Giovanni's day, let alone feeding four big hungry 
 children from one Lent on to another." 
 
 Such discourse as this we used to hear between 
 them in straj' fragments ; and they left on us a 
 subtle, indistinct sense of some impending evil ; 
 and even I, despite the innumerable illusions and 
 indestructible faiths in which the name of my 
 father was involved for me, grew by degrees dimly 
 sensible that he only returned to us at such times 
 and seasons as it had become impossible for him tu 
 live elsewhere. 
 
 The old barren dusky palace was the cheapest 
 roof that we could have found all the world over to 
 cover our heads, and when he came thither for a 
 temporary refuge, the fidelity of his two servants 
 still contrived to sustain around him some show of 
 ceremonial and some sense of comfort. How they 
 did it I cannot tell, nor even at this day can I
 
 80 PASCAEEL. 
 
 imagine ; but do it tliey did ; with siu'passing 
 patience and with unwavering self-sacrifice. 
 
 An Italian can subsist on almost as little as 
 an Arab ; and if he only offer 3'ou but a couple 
 of dates he can serve them on a majolica plate 
 with a few lentiscus leaves and a little myrtle 
 in such fashion that they will lack nothing in 
 grace of service that any king could desire at his 
 banquet. 
 
 Such a man as my father was could not be any- 
 where wholly without companions. 
 
 The native nobility and gentry never came nigh 
 him ; but the Austrians used to flash their wdiite 
 uniforms on our daik staircase many and many a 
 night. They used to pass within the doors of his 
 room and remain till daylight ; and all night long 
 Florio used to be gliding to and fro with glass jars 
 of chartreuse, or fresh flasks of brandy. 
 
 They were my old Tedesco acquaintances who 
 had waltzed me round a hundred times to the swell 
 of their military bands ; but as I grew older my 
 father sternly bade Mariuccia take heed that I was 
 never about upon the stairs at evening, and she 
 kept me imprisoned by her side under tlie lamp,
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 81 
 
 weaving the lace, which I hated, or studying the 
 scores of Ambrogio Rufi, which I loved. 
 
 Other of my pleasures came to an end too about 
 this time. 
 
 It was a lovely spring in Lombardy, mild even as 
 though amidst the Sorrentine orange woods. 
 
 Everywhere the meadows were white and hya- 
 cinthine-hued with a million crocuses. The violets 
 followed them in countless hordes amongst the 
 grass tufts underneath the vines. The maple and 
 mulberry trees were pusliing forth their tender 
 leaflets, and in tlie dark old city there were soft 
 blushes of colour where the yellow daffodils and the 
 home-reared carnations blossomed in the case- 
 ments and the balconies. 
 
 And away to the northward was the silvery cloud 
 of the Alps, and the students would go outward 
 thither and come back with tlie fresh winds blowing 
 in theii' hair, and with their hands full of blue 
 gentian flowers. 
 
 In the spring, even, our level plain of the Adige, 
 which had not the beauty either of the mountain or 
 the valley, had a certain charm of its own under 
 the budding vine boughs and amongst the delicate 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 PASCAREL. 
 
 acacias ; I used to be in the fields all the day long, 
 with my brothers and Raffaelino, inlaying till we 
 were tired, and then, tyiilg down to rest, watching 
 the blue sea, of those immeasurable distances 
 beyond which lay the world. 
 
 One day when I had filled my arms with masses 
 of wood A'iolets, I clambered up the stairs to the 
 bottega of one of the students. He was very fond 
 of floAvers, and introduced them in all his sketches, 
 and I was accustomed to take him a share of 
 my field-sjooils. He was a swarthy, large-limbed, 
 tender-hearted creature ; a son of peasants of nn 
 Aquillian village, Avliom we always called Cecco. 
 
 One day, when I was about twelve 3'ears old, I 
 went my round as usual amongst ni}- friends the 
 painters. It Avas a fine bright day in February' ; I 
 had been out in the woods by daybreak with my 
 brothers and the padrona's boys gathering violets ; 
 the great odorous purple violets that, like so many 
 other flowers, smell surely sweeter in Italy than ever 
 they do elsewhere. 
 
 We came home by noon laden with them ; tlie 
 padrona's lads went out to stand with their share of 
 the forest plunder at the corners of the streets, and
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 83 
 
 sec if tliey could get a penny to pla}^ with at boccette ; 
 I filled Mariiiccia's pots and jugs with some of mine, 
 and took the rest to ni}' friend Cecco, who loved 
 liowers, as I say, and so often introduced them in 
 his pictures that the students nicknamed him II 
 Squarcionino, or the Little Squarcione, from that 
 old Padovan who was the first of the Earl}- IMasters 
 to i)aint flowers and fruits in arabesque. 
 
 He lived at the top of a lofty old house in a gloomy 
 bye -street. 
 
 I climbed the hundred and odd stairs with labour, 
 for they were rotten, twistmg, and slii)pery from 
 over much dirt ; and, with my arms full of violets, 
 purple and white, darted into his painting room, 
 that was as bare as a barn, and not half as 
 cleanly. 
 
 With Cecco there were three or four other lads, 
 smoking and laughing, and talking as they worked. 
 He had an admirable light in his great, ugly work- 
 room ; and those comrades of his who were not so 
 fortunate in that respect were wont to set up their 
 easels beside his, and labour together all in their 
 various manners. 
 
 They welcomed me with enthusiasm, went on 
 
 2
 
 84 PASGABEL. 
 
 their knees to me and my violets, and abandoned 
 their work that they might sketch me. 
 
 " Just as you are, signorina ! " they called to me. 
 " No ! do not touch a thing ; it is perfect. Look 
 at her now, with the light on all that ruffled hau-, 
 and the little gay skirt full of the violets, and the 
 colour all hot in her face from the wind : ali, bellina, 
 bellina ! " 
 
 So they cried around me in twenty different forms 
 of admiration — tlie artists' admiration, which is so 
 curiously compounded of fancy and of fact, and 
 which they were accustomed to pour out on me as 
 unthinkingly as though I had been a porcelain 
 figure. 
 
 I was so accustomed to it, that it hardly hurt me 
 more than it would have done the china ; I knew 
 Nature had made me good to look upon and pic- 
 turesque. Altro ! I used to shrug my shoulders 
 and think no more about it except to give a passing 
 pity to the unfortunate ones who were not similarly 
 gifted. 
 
 So that day they hoisted me up upon the wooden 
 dais where their models were accustomed to stand, 
 and, with their four easels in the four corners of the
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 85 
 
 room, set to work to paint me as I was, with my 
 load of violets, and my liair all blown from the 
 rough momitain breezes. 
 
 In a couple of hours they had all contented 
 themselves more or less thoroughly Avith a first 
 sketch, and simultaneously laid down their 
 brushes. 
 
 " I have made her the Genius of Spring," said 
 Bernardino Scalchi, surveying his workmanship 
 with his head on one side, hke a robin's. 
 
 " And I have made her ' La Primavera della Vita, 
 La Gioventu dell' Anno,' " said Beppo Lavo, who 
 wrote very pretty verses, and could sing them, too, 
 not ill. 
 
 " And I have made her the Eenaissance of Ital}' ; 
 the type of the Dawn of Freedom, the Symbol of 
 the Future," said Neri Castagno, who was a patriot 
 and a red repubhcan. 
 
 Old, swart, clumsy Cecco laughed a little as he 
 turned round to them : 
 
 "I am very prosaic after you. I have only made 
 her what she is — a child." 
 
 And yet, when all the sketches stood side by side, in 
 the dying light of the late afternoon, it was Cecco's,
 
 86 FASCAREL. 
 
 tliey frankly admitted, wliich had the true poetry in 
 it, after all, 
 
 A child with a skirt full of violets, with a rough 
 Aviutry sky helimd her, with a fresh wind tossing 
 her hair, and with her feet gaily flying over the wet 
 earth already green with the coming of spring: that 
 was all that Cecco had made of it ; hut beside his 
 pictm-e the others looked false in sentiment, 
 strained in fancy, and garish in grandiloquence. 
 
 Their work over, they made me jump from my 
 throne ; they thrust the violets in a howl of water ; 
 they insisted that I should stay and have a little 
 feast with them. Cecco had heen in luck that day ; 
 a small panel of his, a gui's lace in a garland of roses, 
 had sold for the enormous sum of twenty florins ; 
 he was a millionaire, at least, for a da^-, in his 
 own estimation. 
 
 He ran downstairs into the street, and in a few 
 minutes came hack in gay triumjih with a couple of 
 flasks of chiante, with a pan of steaming chesnuts, 
 witli a round sweet-almond cake, and a big bundle 
 of cigars. 
 
 Then he thrust me in an old oak chair draped 
 with dusky tapestries ; he cast over me a magiii-
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 
 
 ficent old brocaded robe that the Jews would have 
 bought of him to cast in the fire for its gold to 
 melt out of the tlu-eads, but which he would never 
 part with, because it had belonged to his father, 
 who had been an artist before him ; he gave me a 
 sceptre of peacock's plumes, and a diadem of silvered 
 paper with which models were crowned when they 
 had to sit for Madonnas ; and then our feast began. 
 
 How we enjoyed ourselves ! how we chattered ! 
 how we laughed ! how rich the wine tasted ! liow 
 crisp were the chesnuts ! how we shouted the 
 " Fuori il stranieri ! " how we sang every song that 
 occiu'red to us, from motives of llossini's and 
 Bellini's to the last chorus of the newest street 
 song ! 
 
 We were merry at heart, and full of zest, in the 
 deepening twilight and the clouds of smoke, while a 
 ruddy light from the setting sun glanced on the 
 swarthy face and kindling eyes of Cecco, and lit up 
 the peacock's plumes of my thyrsus and the gold 
 stitches in the brocade : so merry, indeed, and so 
 full of zest, that we never heard the door unclose or 
 perceived that anyone besides ourselves had entered 
 the paintiug-room.
 
 88 PASGAREL. 
 
 Only at the sound of a strange voice did Cecco 
 tumble liurriedly up from the floor where lie was 
 stretched, and, with eager apologies and bewildered 
 haste, strike light to a lamp and welcome three 
 strangers, who, going the roimd of the ateliers, had 
 come in its turn to his. 
 
 I, seated on my brocaded throne, with my 
 Madonna's cro^vn on my tumbled hau', and my 
 pewter plate of chesnuts on my laj^, paused in my 
 smgmg, and looked up ; two of the strangers Avere 
 Austrians, the tliii'd was my father. 
 
 Trembhng, I slid down and stood like a little 
 culprit, with the folds of the brocade cmded like 
 many-coloured serpents romid my feet : it was not 
 that I had any sense of doing what was ^^Tong, 
 it was only that he was to me a mystery so full 
 of awe, and wonder, and attraction, that to see liim 
 suddenly there appalled me. 
 
 It was the first time in my hfe that I had ever 
 met him in Verona out of our own old home. 
 
 His eyes glanced across me and he knew me in a 
 moment ; that I saw ; but he gave me no recogni- 
 tion. 
 
 As chance would, however, have it, one of the
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 89 
 
 Austriaci looked at me by the flickering lights of 
 the lamp and the sunset. 
 
 " A charming little figure ! " he cried. " Fantastic 
 hut very charming. A model, of course, in all that 
 tinsel and brocade." 
 
 Dumb and perplexed, and glancing at my father 
 in a vague terror, I stood still, with the silver 
 crown upon my curls, and wished to sink into 
 the depths of the old brocades ; but he, hearing 
 liis friend sioeak, came forward and looked at me 
 coldly. 
 
 " A pretty little beggar," he said, with a cold, 
 swift glance of his eyes. I knew his meaning in a 
 moment : he chose to affect to avoid all recognition 
 of me. 
 
 My face burned, my heart rose, my fear of him 
 was forgotten. I threw off my silver diadem and 
 the old robes, and stood up straight before hmi, 
 the poor neglected peacock sceptre trailing on the 
 bricks. 
 
 "If I be a beggar, it is not my fault, nor yet 
 Mariuccia's," I said, boldly, with a scorn for him 
 that thrilled me with a horrible sense of guilt and 
 of humiliation. " AVe are very hungry and very
 
 90 FASCABEL. 
 
 cold — all of us — very often. Tliey do not dare to 
 tell you. But it is true. And if I can forget it a 
 little wliile laughing here, where is the harm ? I 
 am not ashamed." 
 
 My iiither's face, haggard and cold though it was, 
 flushed deeply, whether with anger or any more 
 tender sense of shame, I cannot tell. He thrust me 
 from the room. 
 
 " Whatever else you be, you are too yomig to 
 rant so glibly," he said, as he closed the door upon 
 me. 
 
 I ran dowii the street to fling my woes at 
 Mariuccia's feet, and sobbed as I ran, the poor 
 bedraggled peacock's plumes still trailing from 
 my hand, and gathering in their course the 
 dust and ordure of the uneven and micleanly 
 stones. 
 
 I fled along under the darkling shadows of the 
 grim fortresses wliich overhung the pavement, 
 burning all over with a sense of outrage and of 
 indignant scorn. 
 
 My fatlier was not ashamed to starve me, but 
 he was ashamed to acknowledge me because I sat 
 and laughed and sang, and was glad in a garret.
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 1)1 
 
 in a i^aper diadem, over a horn of cheap wine, 
 and a handful of chesnuts, and a howl of wood- 
 violets. 
 
 I had a passion of scorn for such shame : and yet 
 tlie weight of it was heavy on my child's heart, for 
 I had a vague, shapeless, unreasoned-on sense of 
 foreboding that, as my father had judged, so would 
 the world judge lilvewise. 
 
 Mariuccia comforted me in her tender, homely 
 fashion, and washed clean the peacock's plumes, 
 and set them up over the stove with a palm-sheaf 
 blessed for good luck in Holv Week. 
 
 But at evening-time she told me sadly that m}' 
 father had forbidden her to allow me ever again to 
 visit an}' of the students. 
 
 ' The loss of that cheery, good-natured, chi- 
 valrous, riotous companionship of theirs cost 
 me many and many an hour of rebellious tears, 
 and from that moment I ceased to be loyal to my 
 father. 
 
 I would look at the peacock sceptre again and 
 again, and think to inyself — 
 
 "If you bad been of gold and ivory, he would 
 have praised you."
 
 92 
 
 PASCABEL. 
 
 And I loved my featlier-tl^yrsus all the more 
 tenderly for other's neglect of it ; and for my 
 father a settled scorn fired itself in me, and 
 killed love.
 
 CHAPTEE \I. 
 
 MATEE DOLOROSA. 
 
 things went on, until I reached my 
 fifteenth year. I was tall, hut I was still, 
 — for I had the open-air life which de- 
 velops the limb aaid strengthens the body, — I was 
 still in my ways and my tastes quite a 
 chHd. 
 
 Eaffaelino grew apace, too, and his people talked 
 of his entering the priesthood ; they did not know 
 what to do with him ; he had no taste for 
 any hand trade ; he was fur ever haunting the 
 churches ; and to his mother, who was a reli- 
 gious soul, there seemed no life more beautiful
 
 94 PASCAREL. 
 
 or blessed than life amidst the silent marble 
 cloisters, and the perpetual calm of Certosa or 
 Camaldoli. 
 
 One of my brothers long before had died of fever 
 iu one of the hot, nauseous, pestilential summers of 
 the uncleanly town ; another had gone of his own 
 will off with a Genoese sea-captain, whom he had 
 met by chance, and who had dazzled him with stories 
 of the sea, and he had been dro>\'ned on his first 
 voyage ; a third had kissed us, and clung round 
 Mariuccia's neck, and confessed, shamefacedly, that 
 his heart was breaking with monotony and inaction, 
 and so had also gone his way to see the outer world 
 with some other 3'oung students, as poor and hope- 
 ful as himself, who talked of immortality and starved 
 upon a dream ; and of him, also, we had heard that 
 autumn that a knife thrust in a students' scuffle 
 had ended his short life just as it had opened into 
 manhood. 
 
 She and I w^ere left alone in the old home. 
 
 We closed the great rooms, and lived through 
 a dreary winter in one little chamber abutting 
 on her kitchen, and looking down into the stone 
 court where the fountain that year was frozen.
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 95 
 
 and the cold killed even the hardy bitter-orange- 
 trees. 
 
 We had not heard of my father since the previous 
 Easter-term. 
 
 Twice or thrice, Mariuccia had gone to the little 
 dark den on the piazza, where the letter-writer of 
 the poor people sat, ready to indite an amorous 
 effusion or a summons for rent, a proposal of 
 marriage or a butcher's bill, according to his 
 clients' requirements ; and thence she sent a letter 
 each time to Florio or to her master. 
 
 I suppose she did not care for me to know of it, 
 since she did not avail herself of ray aid to pen 
 them. Twice or thrice, in answer, Florio sent a 
 little money, as from my father ; but I have had 
 many doubts since that Florio had contrived to gain 
 it b}' some one of his innumerable talents, and 
 robbed himself for our sakes. From my father, 
 directly, we received no word. 
 
 The winter Avas terribly dull. 
 
 Mariuccia was getting very old, and wept sadly 
 and often for the loss of her boys. 
 
 They had been as the very apple of her eye ; she 
 had toiled for them from the very days of their
 
 96 PASCAEEL. 
 
 births ; she had spent many a sleepless night and 
 weary day beside their sick-beds in their wayward 
 infancy ; she had gone without her morsel of meat 
 many a time to feed better with it the yomig lion 
 cubs she loved ; and now — one was dead, and the 
 other two had thrown their arms about her neck, 
 and laughed, and talked of the future, and gone 
 gaily away, thinking only of the worlds they had 
 never seen, and of the dreams they were sure would 
 come true. 
 
 That was all her reward : it was hard. 
 
 I saw those firm-shut lips of hers quiver often 
 as she sat and spun by the dull lamplight ; 
 and I heard her many a night murmur on 
 her knees to the Mater Dolorosa, " Do not forget 
 them, thou Blessed One. They will forget thee — 
 children will — but mothers are not angered for 
 that." 
 
 " What has made you stay with us, Mariuccia ?" 
 I asked her once, smitten suddenly with some re- 
 morseful consciousness of the enormous debt we 
 owed to her. "Why have you stayed with us? 
 It has been a hard life always ; and we have been 
 only a trouble to you and no reward ?"
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 
 
 97 
 
 She looked at me with a steady look that had a 
 certam pathetic sadness in it. 
 
 " One must love something," she said, simpl}'. 
 I pondered darkly on the saying. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 CHAPTER yil. 
 
 A TWILIGHT TALE. 
 
 HE winter was very dull. My father's for- 
 biddance had taken from me many of my 
 old pleasiu'es ; and the faikire of fmids 
 iiad arrested all continuance of my education. 
 There was only Amhrogio Paifi to whom I still 
 went, and in whose attic I was solaced by the 
 strains of Cherubini and the melodies of Gluck. 
 It was bitterly cold there. 
 
 The snow was thick on the roof, and the wind 
 from the mountains poured through and through 
 the unprotected place. The old man could afford 
 no such luxury as a stove; and the bare brick floor 
 v,as like ice to the feet. I used to shiver as I sang.
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 99 
 
 And yet when I think of the sweet sigli of the 
 violin melodies through the white winter silence ; of 
 Ealfaelino's eager, dreamy eyes, misty with the 
 student's unutterable sadness and delight; of old 
 Ambrogio, with his semicircle of children round 
 him, lifting their fresh voices at his word ; of the 
 little robin that came every day upon the water- 
 pipe, and listened, and trilled in harmony, and ate 
 joyfully the crumbs which the old maestro daily 
 spared to it from his scanty meal — when I think of 
 those hours, it seems to me that they must have 
 been happiness too. 
 
 " Could we but know when we are happy ! " sighs 
 some poet. As well might he write " Could we but 
 set the dewdrop with our diamonds ! could we but 
 stay the rainbow in our skies ! " 
 
 During this sad time of privation, I saw a little 
 way into the closed past of my old music -master. 
 
 Verona perceived nothing in him but a meagre 
 old man, who took his toilsome way noon and night 
 to the theatre ; who chaffered in the market for a 
 pinch of charcoal and a bit of goat's-milk cheese ; 
 who wore his clothes so long that they fau-ly 
 di'opped asunder; and who made their boys and 
 
 H 2
 
 100 PASCAREL. 
 
 girls cry bitterly at many a sharp word and blow of 
 his fiddle-bow when they sung not to his liking. 
 
 But I had always felt or fancied — fancy, is so 
 much feeling with ever}' child — that there was 
 something sadder, wiser, nobler in Ambrogio than 
 the townsfolk credited. 
 
 Perhaps he liked me better than he did the 
 others, or he lilced my voice better; all human 
 creatures were onl}- counted as so many voices by 
 him ; at any rate he now and then let fall, in my 
 hearing only, brief sentences which seemed to 
 me born of a mind higher than most of those with 
 which I came in dail}' contact. 
 
 Mariuccia would not listen to any idea of the 
 kind. She was a little jealous of my regard for 
 him. 
 
 " Those music-mad people," she would say, " are 
 just like that big sea-shell the dear lads brought me 
 from Genoa. The sea-shell sings all day long if 
 you put it to your ear. Why does it sing ? Just 
 because it is empty. Just because the heart that 
 used to beat in it is dead and gone. It is just 
 so with them. They are all melody because every- 
 thing else born in them is withered up — che-e-e ! "
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 101 
 
 One night, as it grew dark, I ventured, contrary 
 to usage, to go and see my old maestro. 
 
 I was dissatisfied with my tiresome fate ; I was 
 ill at ease and impatient ; I wanted I knew not very 
 well what. 
 
 I climbed up his dark staii'case, and found him 
 in his chamber. 
 
 It was a night when there was no performance 
 at the theatre of which he was one of the orchestra. 
 He sat alone in the cheerless, fireless attic scanning 
 some old scores by the light of a miserable little 
 oil lamp. 
 
 He looked up as I entered ; I think that he was 
 always glad to see me, though he said nothing in 
 welcome at any time. 
 
 " It is late for you to be out," was'all his greeting. 
 
 I told him the Ave Maria had only just then 
 rung; and asked him to explain again some obscure 
 instruction in counterpoint which had been hard for 
 me at his last lesson. 
 
 He went through and through the passage lucidly 
 with me; he was always willing to smooth diffi- 
 culties to a patient student, and in music I had 
 patience, though in nothing else.
 
 102 PASGAREL. 
 
 When the point was so clear to me that I had no 
 longer excuse to Imger over it, I still loitered hy 
 him, sitting there at the old bare table, leaning my 
 elbows on it, and my face on my hands, and gazing 
 at the red, dull wick of the ill-fed lamp. 
 
 '* Talk to me a little, maestro ! " I said, sud- 
 denly. 
 
 Ambrogio took off his spectacles slowly, and 
 gazed at me in stupefaction. 
 
 " Talk ! " he echoed: it never happened to him 
 to be asked for words ; such things as he had it in 
 him to say he said through the strings of his 
 violin. 
 
 "Yes! Talk," I repeated, with the insistance 
 of a spoilt child, — for poor Mariuccia had spoiled 
 me sadly, despite all her warnings. " You must 
 have seen the world sometime. Tell me a little 
 about it." 
 
 " The world ! " 
 
 He said the words with a startled, heavy breath. 
 He looked like one who hears the long, unuttered 
 name of some dead thing. 
 
 " Yes. The world," I said again. " What is it 
 like?"
 
 THE CITY OF GAIULLUS. i03 
 
 " Go in a convent, and never knoAv," he answered, 
 with a bitter brevity. 
 
 "Is it so bad, then?" 
 
 He looked at me across the deal table in the 
 dull, yellow lamphght ; a dreary, gre}', sln'unken 
 figure, very old, very poor, very hopeless, with his 
 great hollow eyes burning bright with the fires of 
 awakening memories. 
 
 "Bad? Good? Pshaw! Those are phrases. 
 No one uses them but fools. You have seen the 
 monkeys' cage in the beast-garden here. That is 
 the world. It is not strength, or merit, or talent, 
 or reason that is of any use there ; it is just wliicli 
 monkey has the skill to squeeze to the front and 
 jabber through the bars, and make his teeth meet 
 ill his neighbours' tails till they shriek and leave 
 him free passage — it is that monkey which gets all 
 the cakes and the nuts of the folk on a feast-day. 
 The monkey is not bad ; it is only a little quicker 
 and more cunning than the rest; that is all." 
 
 I sat silent ; it seemed to me but a dreary pros- 
 pect, this monkeys' cage which I should be doomed 
 to enter when once I should be across the moun- 
 tains.
 
 104 PASCAEiJL. 
 
 " Tell me a little more," I urged to liim. " You 
 must have seen so much when you were young." 
 
 " No," he answered me. " I never saw very 
 much. The man who is poor can only look out 
 of a garret window. He sees the skies, and the 
 sun, and the moon, and the changes of the 
 clouds, hetter than anyone else ; but it is all he 
 does see." 
 
 " But he can wallv abroad ? " 
 
 " Can he ? Shoeleather costs money ; and thougi'i 
 bare feet might safely tread the sands of deserts in 
 the days of saints, they go but ill upon the flints of 
 the king's highways — now." 
 
 This I felt was true ; indeed I loiew it by many 
 a pamful moment when my little worn-out shoes 
 had click-clacked sorrowfully over the scorching 
 stones of Verona in midsummer. 
 
 I grew cold with a sort of sickly fear of this new 
 world into which a second earlier I had been all 
 eagerness to plunge. 
 
 " But you must have seen so much to what I 
 have seen," I urged, after a pause, again with a 
 child's persistency. "Do tell me something — some 
 stor}' I mean — of your old life ? "
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 105 
 
 His e3'es were full of pain beneath his shaggy- 
 brows as they met mine across the dim light. 
 
 " Child, you should never open dead men's 
 graves," he said, drearily, with a sort of shudder. 
 " I tell you I was always poor. It is a kind of 
 blindness — poverty. We can only grope through 
 life when we are poor, hitting and maiming our- 
 selves against eveiy angle." 
 
 " But you had genius ? " 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders in a pathetic, hope- 
 less gesture of resignation that went to mj' heart 
 through all my thoughtless selfishness. 
 
 " I have been most unhappy," he answered 
 simpl}'. "Yes; you are right." 
 
 I felt that I knew his meaning, vaguely though 
 his words shadowed it. 
 
 "And how then," I said under my breath, " how 
 then — not great ? " 
 
 He smiled a little, very wearily. 
 
 "How? Well, I loved Ai-t, and not the world, 
 and, in my way, was honest. Time was, when I 
 was young, that I dreamed a little of being, as you 
 call it, great. At twenty-five, I was — yes, even I — 
 was happ3'.
 
 106 PASCAREL. 
 
 " I was poor indeed ; in winter I had to keep m}^ 
 bed lest I should die of cold, and in summer I 
 was glad to dispute the acorns with the swine. 
 But I was happ}^ I had my Art, and I had a 
 friend closer than a brother. 
 
 *' He was a German, Karl Rothwald ; together we 
 studied music at Milano. He had no strong talent, 
 only a graceful taste. I — well, I had genius, God 
 help me, and of the most arduous study I was never 
 tired. 
 
 " At twenty-five I trusted myself to commence 
 my first great work — an opera upon the theme of 
 Alkestis. I was two years engaged upon it. They 
 were the two happy years of my life. 
 
 " Eothwald and I dwelt in the same chambers 
 together; we Avalked abroad in the daybreak and 
 the evening times, and we sat up late into the 
 nights, I all the while dreaming of Alkestis, and 
 giving shape to the creations that haunted me, 
 and calling on his sympathy and joy each time 
 when my composition was good on my own ear 
 and satisfied my own desire. He never was 
 fatigued, nor ever failed to rejoice with me. 
 
 " Often and often as we went through the millet-
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 1U7 
 
 fields at sunrise, or sat in our garret through the 
 long moonless nights, and the power of song that 
 was in me hroke forth and arose triumphant, and 
 filled me with its own exultant strength, he — my 
 friend — would laugh and weep in his boyish fashion 
 and fling his arms about m}^ shoulders and cry out 
 how beautiful and strong my music was, and pro- 
 phesy I should rank with Bach and Gluck and 
 Palestrina. 
 
 Those two years I was quite happy, — quite, — 
 though I was but a starving scholar, and had often 
 to go without bread to be able to buy paper for my 
 scores. 
 
 " All the world was full of hope and of beauty 
 to me ; everywhere I heard delicious melodies in 
 leaves, and waters, and bells, and winds, and 
 all the things that moved, ^nd my friend was 
 Avitli me, — close as a brother, — dear almost as a 
 mistress. I wanted nothing more, and was sure of 
 fame. 
 
 " My opera was barely finished when llothwald 
 ■was summoned from my side ; some illness in 
 his northern home, he said. 
 
 " I begged him to retm-n swiftly; I pledged my
 
 108 PASCABEL. 
 
 word to him not to submit my opera to the dii'ec- 
 tion of La Scala mitil he should return. ' INIy 
 triumph wouhl be robbed of half its joy if thou 
 wert not with me to rejoice in it;" so I spoke to 
 him as we bade each other our farewell. It was 
 then autumn. 
 
 " The delay was sad for me, for I had hoped to 
 have seen the Alkestis produced that winter ; but I 
 never thought of putting it forward in his absence. 
 I loved him only second to my work; and I had 
 pledged him my word that he should be present 
 whenever it should be given to the public. 
 
 " The first months of winter are bitter in Milano ; 
 they were very cheerless and desolate to me ; but 
 I had many tender letters from him to keep warm 
 my heart, and I occupied myself fondly in touching 
 and refining the creation on which all my future 
 hung. 
 
 *' No one had ever heard a chord of it, except 
 himself, but I had not much fear that it Avould not 
 be accepted. At the great Scala, they knew me ; 
 and the conductor of orchestra, who was powerful 
 with the direction, had a liking for me, because 
 of my execution upon the violin.
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 109 
 
 " Rotlnvakl had been gone four months ; there 
 were snow and ice in Mihm ; one da}' I sat shiver- 
 ing in my garret, yet with my heart warm still, 
 because so much hope abode in it. The chief 
 of orchestra j)aid me a visit; he was, as I say, 
 good to me ; I could not have maintained my life 
 at all without the place he gave me amongst his 
 musicians. 
 
 " He spoke to me of myself this day. ' Am- 
 brogio,' he said, ' it seems to me that you have 
 too much genius to sit behind my baton all your 
 life. I hear that you have attempted original 
 composition. Is it true ? Then let me see your 
 score. It should be something great. You are a 
 master of counterpoint.' He argued with me so 
 kindly and so long, that in the end he prevailed, and 
 I drew out my Alkestis, and bade him judge of it. 
 
 " ' Alkestis ? Alkestis ? ' he murmured, as he 
 heard the name. ' Is that your theme ? It is 
 unfortunate. There is a new opera this very week 
 produced in Vienna on that same old story.' 
 
 " I was pained to hear that I had been forestalled ; 
 I asked him by whom it was composed. 
 
 " ' Nay, that I forget, and am not sure if I have
 
 110 PASCABEL. 
 
 heard, ' lie answered me. ' But, anyway, you had 
 best go thither and judge of it for yourself. If it be 
 poor and fail, you can still produce yours ; but if a 
 triumph, as I am told, we must needs fit jonr 
 music to some other narrative. Ah ! I know how 
 you love your first thought — your first poem, — but 
 still we might manage to alter the Hbretto without 
 much injury. "Well, go you to Vienna — nay, nay, 
 do not be so proud. Take my gold for the journey, 
 and we will leave the matter as a debt to be paid 
 me when La Scala first brings out j^our opera. 
 Nay, do not argue. Go. You must, of necessity, 
 judge your rival for yourself.' 
 
 " So I took his gold and went through the bleak 
 white winter over the mountains at peril of my 
 life. 
 
 " It was night when I reached Vienna. 
 
 " The gay city was all ablaze with light. I had 
 travelled far and fast ; I Avas exhausted. Neverthe- 
 less, before I changed my clothes, or broke my fast, 
 I made my way to the opera-house. There 
 they played Alkestis. 
 
 " I paid my entrance-mone}", and went into the 
 heat and glare and stood and listened. The house
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. ill 
 
 ■was shaking with thunders of applause. When the 
 cLimoui' ceased, the music rose again — it was my 
 own. 
 
 "Phrase after phrase, chorus on chorus, solo and 
 septuor, and recitative, I heard them all like one 
 made stupid by a blow. Thej- were all mme. 
 
 " The curtain fell ; the rapture of the people cried 
 aloud, ' Eothwald ! ' ' Eothwald ! ' ' Eothwald ! ' 
 
 " Then I understood ; 
 
 " I fell like a stone; so they say; they took me 
 up as dead. 
 
 "He had stolen it all — all — all : stored up m his 
 notes and his copied score. 
 
 " It made him a great name. You may hear of 
 him now in the world. He has done nothing great 
 since ; the world wonders ; but it is possible to 
 stretch one triumph over a lifetime so that it covers 
 every after failure. To make a name is hard ; but 
 once made, to live on it is easy. 
 
 " As for me — I saj — I was dead. My heart, my 
 brain, my genius were all killed. It is only my 
 body that has dragged on life ever since. 
 
 " I never denounced him — no. For I had loved 
 him. And if I had denounced him, where had
 
 112 FASCAEEL. 
 
 been my proof ? None would have been found to 
 believe." 
 
 As the last words died on his lips, his head sunk 
 on his chest ; a film overspread the weariness of his 
 hollow eyes ; the silence of the innumerable j^ears 
 that he had passed, mute and alone, amidst his 
 kind, stole afresh over him. 
 
 In vain I knelt before him ; in vain I caressed 
 his withered hands ; in vain I spoke to him, 
 begging his forgiveness for my thoughtless cruelty 
 which had thus torn open rudely this deadly wound 
 so long concealed from every human glance. 
 
 In vain : he answered nothing ; he heard nothing ; 
 his dulled eyes only gazed at the gleam of the 
 lamp ; his hands only moved vaguely as though 
 straying over the chords of some half-remembered 
 music ; his lips only muttered now and then under 
 their breath : 
 
 " He betrayed me; yes; he stole all, — all, — all. 
 But could I denounce him? He had been my 
 friend." 
 
 And this he said again, and again, and again, 
 many times ; not knowing rightly what he said ; 
 and murmuring between whiles softly to himself
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 113 
 
 sweet broken snatches of sad melodies — the melo- 
 dies, doubtless, of his lost Alkestis. 
 
 I stole away, awed and afraid, for I was but a 
 child, and went out into the flood of moonlight, 
 into the bath of cold and luminous aii", and there in 
 the streets I sat down and wept bitterly for a woe 
 not my own — for a life that was ended. 
 
 On the morrow he did not seem to remember 
 the confession he had i)oured out to me, nor ever 
 again did any allusion to it pass his lips, or mine. 
 But he had become sacred to me ; every time that 
 I stood before him I could have kissed his hands 
 for very love, and reverence, and pity. 
 
 From that hour I loved and honoured, and never 
 dared be wayward Avith liim. 
 
 He was only an old withered man, very bent and 
 broken and poor, ill clad, and taking snuff with 
 trembling hands in the bitter cold of his fireless 
 attic, but to me from that night onward he was a 
 hero and a martjT, and whilst he lived I never told 
 to anyone what he had told to me, not even to 
 Raff'aelino. 
 
 When a man's eyes meet yours, and his faith 
 trusts you and his heart upon a vague impulse is 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 PASCAREL. 
 
 laid bare to you, it always has seemed to me the 
 basest treachery the world can hold to pass the 
 gold of confidence which he pours out to you from 
 hand to hand as common coin for common cu'cu- 
 lation. 
 
 It was Mariuccia who had reared me in that 
 manner of thinking. 
 
 "Child," she used to say, "if they gaye a 
 diamond in trust to your safe keeping, would you 
 run with it to the goldsmiths' shops in the public 
 streets ? Well, is not human faith of more sanctity 
 than diamonds?" 
 
 She thought so ; being an old stanch republican 
 of Florence and a woman yery poor always, who knew 
 little of the world or of its ways.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE LITTLE RED BOX. 
 
 T tliis time the winter set in witli an almost 
 unexampled severity. 
 
 All over Italy it was cold; so tliey 
 said ; and poor Verona l3dng in her open plain 
 receiving full upon her defencelessness the strokes 
 of the alpine storm winds, seemed to crouch and 
 perish under the driving of the hurricanes; her 
 huge old houses were riven through and through 
 with cold, and her high leaning walls whose shadow 
 was so precious in the summer noons, seemed now 
 like barriers of ice. 
 
 That winter was a very terrible one to Mariuccia 
 and to me.
 
 116 PASCABEL. 
 
 ^ 
 
 Poor we bad always been, but tbat whiter we had 
 absohitely nothmg. Of my father we had not heard 
 for nearly twelve months, and the last of Florio's 
 letters was ah"eady half a year old. 
 
 Mariuccia earned a little, a very little, by spmning* 
 and by selling the work, but this was all. We 
 lived on the very barest food that could keep life 
 in any human creatures. 
 
 Of clothing there was no absolute need, for my 
 poor mother's wardrobe had been costly and almost 
 indestructible. But even in this we had come 
 to the very last, and I was forced either to wear 
 rustling silks and lustrous velvets, which made me 
 look like a figure out of a masked ball, or else go 
 without covering in the bitter alpine blasts. 
 
 Happily it did not matter so much in Italy as it 
 would have mattered any where else ; yet I used to 
 feel absurdly and cruelly out of keepmg with my 
 fate as I wove lace to get a pennyworth of bread 
 to stand between me and starvation, whilst all the 
 time my brocaded skirts swept the brick floor, and 
 a boddice sown with gold thread and seed pearls 
 imjorisoned my aching and hungry heart. 
 
 I was fifteen ; and old enough to know that it was
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 117 
 
 very terrible to be without friends or money in the 
 world ; and very bitter to sit endlessly crossing 
 and knotting the threads of my lace all the while 
 wholly x^owerless to untwist one of the threads 
 of fate. 
 
 If I could only escape from Verona, I used to 
 think — it seemed to me it would all be quite simple 
 then, once beyond the gates : — -just once. 
 
 The Clmstmas week came, and kept the bells 
 of all the churches ringrug all day and night. 
 
 The dark, black-faced Befana had her feast day, 
 and the people rejoiced and ate and drank and sang 
 at the midnight mass, and exchanged compliments 
 and confetti, good will and generous wines. 
 
 And all this time Mariuccia and I had not so 
 much as a log of wood for the hearth, or a slice 
 of meat for the soup pot; we were cold, poor, 
 alone. 
 
 We went to mass all the same ; and no one look- 
 ing at her in her ruddy serge kirtle and her great 
 Tuscan hat, and at me in my satin sldrts and my 
 velvet hood, would ever have dreamed we were in 
 want of anything. For Mariuccia in her way was 
 very proud ; and so was I in mine. Nevertheless,
 
 118 PASGAREL. 
 
 so utterly did we want that Ave Lesouglit the 
 Madonna humbly to send us a crust of hread. 
 
 But no doubt the Madonna hears this cry of 
 " bread, bread, only a little bread," so ver}^ often 
 that she has got deaf to it. 
 
 Be that how it ma}" she sent us nothing ; and in 
 a little Avhile it came to pass that for one whole 
 da}' we did not even break our fast, and must have 
 gone supperless to our chill beds, had not the 
 j)ach'ona, from whom Ave could neA'er quite conceal 
 our dire needs, toiled up the stairs in the dark 
 with a smoking pan of maccaroni lentil flavoured, 
 and besought us to partake of it for the love of 
 God. 
 
 Mariuccia accepted it AA'ith tears in her fearless old 
 eyes, Avhich for more than eighty years had never 
 failed to open at daAvn to the day's labour. Mariuc- 
 cia Avould take a gift as frankly as she would give 
 one ; yet to eat the meal of charity was ver}^ bitter 
 to her ; she had done her best so long to live A\ith- 
 out alms ; it seemed to her, I thinls:, hard not to 
 have died a little earlier, so as to have escaped this 
 degradation. 
 
 That night she prayed very long to her Mother
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 119 
 
 of Many Sorrows ; I sobbed myself to sleeiD shivering 
 and without a praj'er. 
 
 In the morning, when we rose, there was not a 
 thing in the house for our hunger ; not a drop of 
 milk for oui" thirst. Mariuccia set out the cups and 
 plates by sheer habit, but they remained empty ; 
 there was not so much as a dust of charcoal with 
 which to heat any water. 
 
 It was a very cold day, but very bright. The sun 
 was shining. The bells were ringing. Already in 
 the streets below there was a crowd of quickly 
 moving feet and of laughing voices. The Carnival 
 had come. It was the fii'st day of the corso di gala. 
 
 Mariuccia and I looked at one another with the 
 diy eyes of an absolute despair. 
 
 After a little space she went to a drawer in an old 
 walnut-W'Ood press, and took out a little red box. 
 She brought it to me where I sat with the pillow 
 of my work lying idle in my lap. She took out of 
 it a few trinkets ; corals and mosaics. 
 
 " These were j^our mother's," she said tenderly. 
 " She had a great mass of jewels when I went to her 
 first. After her death 3'our father took them away, 
 and sold them all no doubt. I have never seen
 
 120 PA8CAREL. 
 
 them again. He kept these few httle thmgs ; they 
 are not of much vahie, though they are good of their 
 kind. I have kept them for you. I could not think 
 it right to sell them. But now it is a question 
 whether they go or you starve. You are old enough 
 to choose ; — say." 
 
 I held them in my hand whilst she spoke ; there 
 were earrings and lockets and a bracelet, all — in 
 mosaic. 
 
 My poor young mother ! I had never felt such 
 pity for her, such nearness to her as I felt 
 then. 
 
 My eyes grew wet with a rush of tears. I threw 
 my arms about Mariuccia's throat. 
 
 " Keej) them to-da}'," I murmured. " Dear, 
 dear Mariuccia ! — just to-day. I have thought of 
 something. I am going to Ambrogio." 
 
 I had flung my velvet hood over my head, and 
 was out of the chamber and down the stairs into 
 the street before she had time to question me ; 
 moreover she had no fear ; I went every other day to 
 Ambrogio. 
 
 The sun was shining radiantly upon the frosty 
 pavements as I went out upon them. It was the
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 121 
 
 fourteenth day of the new year and the first of th e 
 carnival. 
 
 In the teeth of the cold people were all astir ; 
 huggmg close their charcoal braziers, and wrap- 
 jjing their faces to the eyes in their cloaks ; and 
 although it was scarcely noon, in many a dark door- 
 way there flashed some gay mummer's disguise. 
 
 The chimes of all the churches were ringing 
 madly ; there were bursts of music here and there ; 
 a set of the Tedeschi flashed b}' me, driving in the 
 Tirol fashion ; muflled with scarlet rugs and brown 
 sables, theii" horses in belled harness stretched like 
 greyhounds ; from a balcon}^ above, there fell on 
 them as they galloped by a shower of house- 
 reared violets and roses, a woman laughed gaily as 
 she cast the flowers ; their Tirolean postilions 
 roused the echoes of the old gatewavs with a taran- 
 tarratara upon theii- tasselled bugles — how pretty 
 and bright it all was ! 
 
 It was the first gala of Carnival, and although the 
 procession had scarcely commenced all the cit}' was 
 out in holiday attii-e, and in holiday humour. 
 
 There was a wonderful glow everywhere of many 
 various colours.
 
 122 PASGABiJL. 
 
 In the great multitudes that thronged every 
 square and street and passage-way, and shelved 
 upward like banks of flowers against the huge 
 stones of the palaces and prisons, there were beau- 
 tiful half tones of crimsons and greys and ambers, 
 with here and there a broad flash of white from a 
 woman's coif, or a glisten of golden spangles from 
 a mummer's gear. 
 
 Here and there about in the throngs ran Sten- 
 terello or Arlecchmo, or some other of their 
 quaint, gay, bespangled and beribboned brother- 
 hood. 
 
 Now and again the ranks of the people parted 
 with shouts to let through some group of masks 
 in all the colours of the rainbow, or some conjuror 
 all aglow in scarlet, striking at them with his magic 
 rod. 
 
 Through the swarming masses there began to 
 sweep the gorgeous equipages of the patriciate, 
 ushered forth in aU the old-world pomp of Carnival ; 
 with the child-nobles clad in the costumes of theii- 
 ancestors, powdered and jewelled with their rapiers 
 at their side. 
 
 The draped balconies and the deep embrasures
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 123 
 
 of tlie casements were filled Avitli briglit-e3'ed cliil- 
 di-eu, dark browed women, and old men with grey 
 and noble heads, lilce a painter's studies for Pros- 
 2)ero or Bellincion Berti. 
 
 Sometimes there was a burst of music, some- 
 times some glittering troop of cavalry clanged 
 and clattered tln-ough the press, sometimes there 
 rose the blare of ti'umpets, the tinkling of mando- 
 lines, the cries of the vendors of confetti, the 
 shouts of little lads baiting the pantomime ; and 
 above it all, the laughter of the populace was 
 always mm'muring like an unresting sea. 
 
 I ran eagerly through the twisting passages to 
 Ambrogid's. I had an idea that he might get me 
 some employment in the chorus of the opera 
 house. I found his attic empty ; the people of the 
 place told me he was gone to a rehearsal at the 
 theatre of Don Pacheco. 
 
 I ran then not less quickly to the coppersmith's 
 under the Spiked Mace ; I thought I would ask 
 Ilaffaelo's mother to take a little coffee and bread 
 for pity's sake to her poor old gossip and friend- 
 But there was not a living creature in the work- 
 shop : even the blind wcjman had gone forth with
 
 124 PASO ABEL. 
 
 lier children to hear the echoes of the festivities she 
 could not see. 
 
 I thought of poor Cecco, who would I know 
 share his last soldi with me, but he and all his heed- 
 less tribe would be I knew as surely out in the town, 
 busily helping or hindering the preparations of the 
 mumming and the harlequinade, and all the gay 
 street shows with which the Carnival would be wel- 
 comed in its royal pomp. 
 
 Broken-hearted and hungry, and with my cheeks 
 wet with tears, I wandered carelessly about the 
 streets, unwilling to return ; the time stole on, the 
 people began to pour out in throngs that grew 
 merrier and larger with every moment ; even the 
 very cripples and beggars looked glad and trium- 
 phant, and had garlanded their crutches or adorned 
 their rags with wreaths of leaves or knots of 
 ribbons. 
 
 I only was all alone and most unllapp3^ 
 
 All at once a flute-like voice called out to me : 
 
 ** Oh, dear donzella, come up here, come up 
 
 here. I have looked for you everywhere. My 
 
 mother is gone with my big brothers, and I have been 
 
 to the house to look for you, and you had been out
 
 THE CITY OF CATULLUS. 125 
 
 qiiite an hour and more, so the padrona said. 
 Come up here ; it is such a good place. One sees 
 everjiihing, and the crowd is getting large." 
 
 It was little Raffaelino who called to me, standing 
 on the topmost edge of a flight of marble steps in 
 one of the arched doorways of an old palace. 
 
 I joined him where he stood ; and so it came to 
 pass, that day, that I sang to the people in the 
 great Piazza in my violet hood and my amber 
 skirts, and that I heard the band of the maskers 
 and scaramouches running down the street, with 
 their coloured bladders, crying, m eager chase : 
 
 " Pascarello ! — Pascarel ! "
 
 BOOK 11. 
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE GIFTS OF GALA. 
 
 HAT is Pascarel?" I asked of Raf- 
 iiielino as they passed away, and I 
 gathered my fallen treasures and rose to 
 go liomeAvard to poor Maiiuccia. 
 
 The little lad did not know; he said that he 
 would ask his brothers. He thought that it must 
 be the name of some new-fashioned game of tlie 
 Carnival. 
 
 At the entrance of my dwelling, Tno poured all his 
 own spoils into my arms, and before I could refuse 
 them or arrest him, he had fled off down the street 
 again as fast as his fleet, brown, bare limbs could 
 carry hira. 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 PASCABEL. 
 
 He wanted to avoid being pressed to take a 
 sliare ; and, moreover, altogether to lose seeing the 
 gala would have been a trial too bitter for his 
 pleasure-loving Italian temper to endure to con- 
 template. He loved me, and had sacrificed himself 
 to serve me ; but now that he could no longer 
 benefit me, the gala resumed all its supremacy'. 
 
 The tears were still wet upon my cheeks, but my 
 heart bounded joyously against the grim, graven 
 stone of the Fates as I crossed the court^'ard and 
 flew up the staii'case. 
 
 The house was quite empt}- ; everyone was gone 
 to see the Corso ; there Avas no sound but the 
 drip, drip, drip of the water in the stone fountain, 
 and the wailing of little Zoto and Tito, the pa- 
 drona's 3'oungest children, who being too small 
 to go out by themselves without being trampled on, 
 and too troublesome for their* mother to spoil her 
 festa by looking after them, had been locked in, in 
 the lower part of the house, and left to console 
 themselves as they could with a few chesnuts and 
 some curls of wood shavings for playthings. 
 
 I ran like a greyhound up the stairs and across 
 the bare chambers to tlie little inner den where
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 131 
 
 Mariuccia always sat and span under the liigk 
 tiuTet window that was stained in many colours 
 with the life and mii'acles of S. Bruno. 
 
 I was covered with violets and confetti ; they 
 had lodged ever3'wliere, in my hood and my curls, 
 in my skirts, in my gathered-up dress which held, 
 like a great yellow pannier, the heaps of rosettes 
 and bouquets, and crisp bank-notes, and florins, 
 gold and silver, and sweetmeat-papers, and knots of 
 carnations. 
 
 My old nurse glanced up, startled, as I appeared 
 before her like the very genius of tlie Carnival 
 incarnated and filled with gifts, for, as I threw open 
 the door, a flood of high noonday sunhght 
 streamed in with me, and danced upon the yellow 
 dafi'odils and the rosy knots of the other flowers, 
 and the bright bands of the ribbons that streamed 
 away from me in all directions. 
 
 Breathless and wordless, I poured my gleanings 
 into her lap before she had fully seen that I stood 
 before her. 
 
 *' Here is enough for weeks and weeks and 
 weeks ! " I cried to her. " You need never be cold 
 any more, and the stew-pots shall always be full. 
 
 K 2
 
 132 PASCABEL. 
 
 Just a few minutes in the square, and it is done I 
 We shall never want to sell the mosaics ! " 
 
 Mai'iuccia looked, stupefied, dovm upon the con- 
 fused heap of gold and of silver, of bank-notes and 
 of cakes, of fruits, and of sugared dainties. I 
 dropped down on my knees before her and laughed 
 in her face with delight ; a delight to which tears 
 lay close. 
 
 "Are you so astonished, Mariuccia? You never 
 thought the people would care so much ? It was 
 Ino's thought, not mine. He would not take a 
 thing for himself, not so much as a candied chesnut. 
 But are 3'ou not glad, Mariuccia ? Only think how 
 we can live now ! Just a song or two in the streets, 
 and we are rich ! " 
 
 Mariuccia's strong old frame shook with a sudden 
 emotion that vaguely awed me ; a glance that was 
 stern and 3'et piteous flashed on me from her dark 
 eyes ; a quick sad-stricken cry escaped her : — 
 
 ** In the streets ! " she echoed ; " in the streets ? 
 for money ? And for me ? child, O carina ! 
 AVhat shame ! " 
 
 "Shame?" 
 
 I rose to my feet chilled, silenced, mortified. I
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 133 
 
 liad used the one little gift Avitli which Nature Imd 
 dowered me, and the people had only given me 
 what they would in retui-n for the song that I gave 
 them. Where was the harm ? It was simple and 
 fail', and honest ; how could it, then, bring any 
 shame ? 
 
 So I pondered, being but a child. 
 
 Meanwhile Mariuccia covered her face with the 
 hem of her garment, and, rocking herself to and fro, 
 wept bitterly. 
 
 "In the streets? for money?" she murmured 
 again and again. " Oh, carina ! the shame of it, 
 the shame ! " 
 
 I said nothing ; I felt the tears swell to my eyes, 
 but I would not let them fall. 
 
 I took up my poor treasures from the floor, on 
 to wliich they had fallen in a disordered heaj), and 
 <.'arried them to the head of the stairs and sorted 
 them. 
 
 The notes and money I put away in the little 
 old oak cofler that always held our riches when we 
 earned any : then I leaned over tlie deep Avell of 
 the staircase and called the names of Zoto and 
 Tito.
 
 134 PASCAREL. 
 
 The poor little loneh' babies came tumbling and 
 tottering to me at the summons from their old 
 Ijlayground in the snow-filled court ; I filled their 
 little du'ty eager hands with all the ribbons and 
 roses, ' and sweetmeats, and pretty painted toys, 
 which no longer had any beauty in my sight, or 
 flavour to my mouth. 
 
 " Take them— all, all, all ! " I cried to the asto- 
 nished children who stood before me open-eyed at. 
 my sudden wealth and their good fortunes : the}' 
 wanted no second permission to seize on all they 
 saw ; in another moment I had nothmg left, and 
 they, rapturous and shouting loudly in over glee, 
 toddled do-\m again in the court below, keeping 
 high carnival amidst the snow. 
 
 As for me, I sat cold and still and sorrowful 
 exceedmgly beside the broken Donatello. Against 
 my heart I still held the Fates. 
 
 I was Avrong when I Avas proud, so they said; 
 and now, when I had conquered pride for honesty's 
 sake, I was wrong too ; — the perplexity was a kno-t 
 I could not unravel. 
 
 Mariuccia, the dear tender soul, soon found me 
 sitting there, and came to me, and laid her hand
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 135 
 
 upon my shoulder and kissed me between the 
 ej'es. 
 
 " 'Nella mia, I was wrong to be so quick with 
 3^ou/' she said, whilst her voice still shook. " You 
 did for the best, dear, and it was good of j'ou to 
 think of me at all. But, all the same, it must not 
 be ; 3'ou must never go out in the streets agam — 
 never, never." 
 
 I sat silent upon the marble stairs ; I was pained, 
 angered, mortified, perplexed. She spoke to me, 
 I thought, as if I had robbed in the streets 
 instead of simply using the gifts with which 
 Nature had dowered me, and taking nothing but 
 what the good-Avill of the people had joyously cast 
 to me. 
 
 Mariuccia kept her hand on my shoulders where 
 she stood before me, trying to see down into my 
 drojiped veiled e3-es. 
 
 " Piomise me you will never do such a thing 
 again, 'Xella ! " she said, anxiously ; " I love 
 you for it, carina ; dearly, dearly. But it is so 
 shameful ! " 
 
 I shook her hands off me, and rose. I felt my 
 face burn with anger ; anger that was not perhaps
 
 136 FASCABEL. 
 
 so very unjust after all, for I had tried honestly to 
 do right. 
 
 " Shameful ! " I echoed. " I see nothing shameful 
 in it. You speak to me as though I were a thief. I 
 think it is much more shameful to sit still and see 
 you starve of cold and hunger, and live myself on 
 the padrona's charities. Sell the mosaics, if you 
 like, if you think that hetter. But they will not 
 last long, and what shall we do then ? Altro ! I 
 am not a hahy now. I know we have no money at 
 all, and tliat 3'ou cannot tell where to write to my 
 father. Are we to die of famine like caged rats, 
 then, because you will not let the i^eople pay me of 
 their own goodwill for pleasmg them '? I am fifteen 
 now, INIariuccia ; and something or other I will do 
 with my life ; I will not mope and moulder for ever 
 in this old prison-house. I will go away, as my 
 brothers have gone." 
 
 My hcait smote me as soon as the words had 
 passed my 'lips. I saw her sturdy old frame shrink 
 as if I had struck her a blow. 
 
 No doubt it was hard — harder than in my 
 thoughtless youth I realized — to have given so 
 many years, so much patience, such long un-
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 137 
 
 changing care to the rearing of us motherless 
 tilings, only to have us all as we reached our 
 strength and stature impatient to escape her hold 
 and pass from out her sight. 
 
 She Avas silent, and so was I ; down in the court- 
 3'ard tlie chilch-en pla3'ed with tlieii" spoils in riotous 
 glee ; a sound of trumpets and of laughter came, 
 deadened, through the closed casements from the 
 distant streets. 
 
 "Do vou hear them ?" I cried to her at last in 
 impotent impetuous pain. " Everywhere there are 
 mirth and riches, and ease and pleasure ; wlij' am I 
 not to have mv share ? I am handsome, so you all 
 say ; I have a voice ; I am not a fool ; I could do 
 something in the world, I think. Anyway, can one 
 do worse tlian die of cold and of want of food here ? 
 Let me go, as my brothers have gone. Whatever 
 the Avorst may be, it cannot be worse than this.^' 
 
 Mariuccia grew very pale, with that strange 
 terrible pallor of age when the emotions come and 
 go so slowly and with so much pain. 
 
 She looked down into my eyes which now met 
 hers speaking, no doubt, the longing that possessed 
 mc with more eloquence than my words could hold.
 
 138 PASCABEL. 
 
 Her strong withered hands shook where they still 
 rested, on my shoulders. 
 
 "Wait a little," she said, at length, "wait, 
 and let me tlimk. The boj's, at the worst, can only 
 die ; but you " 
 
 She left the phrase unended and went from me, 
 and passed away into the gloom of the passages. 
 
 AVhere I sat, under the broken Donatello, a 
 shiver, that did not come from the chillness of the 
 marble solitudes, or from the winds that blew from 
 over the mountams and the snow, ran through and 
 froze the bright current of my warm young blood. 
 
 What was this calamit}', worse than death, which 
 could not come to my brothers, biit to me alone ? 
 
 The rest of that day Mariuccia and I spoke not at 
 all to one another ; we sat silently as two strangers 
 in the little square dark room with its smell of dried 
 rose leayes and of the onions that keep off the evil 
 eye. 
 
 She sat and span on at the distaff at her girdle, 
 for she came of the class that camiot lay aside its 
 daily work however much it may endure or may 
 lament ; but I sat aimlessly doing nothing, leaning 
 my forehead against the grated window and watch-
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 139 
 
 ing the Carnival throngs far down beneath me in 
 the white piazza. 
 
 Once as the twilight closed in, Mariuccia called 
 me to her ; her voice sounded a little feeble. I 
 conld not see her ver}' plainly, the shadows were 
 so dark. 
 
 I bent to her to hear what she would say ; her 
 hand went up to my forehead, and passed over mr 
 hair in her old familiar gesture. 
 
 " Bambina mia," she said, eagerly, quite in a 
 whisper, as she held me there ; " promise me you 
 will not sing in the streets again. Promise me ! 
 What should I say to your mother in heaven ? " 
 
 *' I will j)romise," I answered her, for there was 
 an accent in the words that vaguely awed me, and 
 almost vanquished the angry rebellion that was 
 astir in my heart. 
 
 " Our Lady be with yovi ever," she muttered, 
 softly and wearily, like one who is half asleep from 
 fatigue, and speaks but on unconscious instinct. 
 I went back to my place by the grated casement 
 and fretted my soul in mute repining. 
 
 Now and then people flung up at me crowns of 
 evergreens or showers of sweetmeats, but these all
 
 140 PASGABEL. 
 
 struck against tlie barred panes and fell back again 
 into the street below. 
 
 I did not care to reach my hand and open the 
 lattice so that they might enter. 
 
 The day went dully on its course ; the duller in 
 that little room of ours because of the mirth and 
 mischief in the town below. It was the first day of 
 the first Carnival in which Mariuccia and I had not 
 clothed ourselves in the best and brightest apparel 
 that we could and gone down to wander through 
 the crowded ways laughing at every step, giving gay 
 greetings, and lingering until with the grey of night 
 the lamps had glittered by then- tens of thousands 
 all over the lines and domes of the green old city. 
 
 It was the first day in which we sat within and 
 let the rejoicing throng flash by without us. 
 
 The hours were very slow, very cold, very dreary ; 
 there was no charcoal in the stove ; there was no 
 bread in the pot ; the padrona and all her flock had 
 gone forth to the popular mirth-making ; in the old 
 house all was dark, and still, and melancholy. 
 
 The twilight came early; there was no oil for our 
 lamp ; no food for our hunger ; it was night very 
 soon; we sat quiet in the darkness, which was only
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 141 
 
 broken when some torch-lit procession or some 
 blaze of fireworks flashed a fitful reflection into the 
 chamber from the streets and squares of Yerona. 
 
 "\Ve should go, cold to the bone and supperless, 
 to our chill beds ; yet neither she nor I stirred to 
 take the money I had gained in the morning from 
 its place in the oak coffer. 
 
 I looked at Mariuccia. She was still asleep. 
 
 At length, the rebellion and the weariness in me 
 vanquished every other feeling. Why should I not 
 go and enjoy with the rest ? Why should I sit and 
 mope here like an owl in the market-place, because 
 a foolish old woman had quibbles and foibles about 
 the good blood in my veins and the dangers of girl- 
 hood ? 
 
 So I reasoned in the Avickedness of my heart until 
 the revolt in me ripened. 
 
 I stole again a glance at Mariuccia. She did not 
 stir nor seem to hear. I stole noiselessly across 
 the room, trimmed the lamp afresh, reached down 
 my hood, and went out on to the stairs. 
 
 There was no one to say me nay. Every soul in 
 the house was out that night, except the two 
 bambini, who were fast asleep curled together on a
 
 142 PASCABEL. 
 
 lieap of pine sliavings, the emptied sugarplum- 
 horns and the broken toys strewn all around them. 
 
 I was soon in the streets and squares, that were 
 all alive with tln'ongs of people, bent hither and 
 thither, laughing and talking, some singing, others 
 dancing down the gloom of the solemn passage 
 waj'S. 
 
 It was quite late. 
 
 Time had glided away unperceived as I had sat 
 in that monotonous vexation and quietude. They 
 were setting fireworks in the cathedral square, and 
 the great bells were ringing the tenth hour of the 
 night.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE VEGLIONE MASQUER. 
 
 PXG familiarity with the Veronese waj-s 
 Iiacl made me quite able to take care of 
 myself in a crowd ; and the Italian 
 crowds, though often riotously mirthful, are never 
 rough or rude. 
 
 I got in a coign of vantage just under the grim 
 old stone Roland, and seated myself comfortably and 
 carelessly to see the girandola. 
 
 The fireworks were very fine, and shot upward in 
 streams and clouds of glory on the frosty night air, 
 shedding their many colours on the sea of upturned 
 faces, and flashing over the darkness of the Duomo 
 pile. I yielded myself eagerly and with utter zest 
 to the enjoj'ment of them.
 
 144 PASCABEL. 
 
 I was veiy hungry, to be sure, and cold still ; but 
 it was mucli better to be liungry and cold but well 
 amused than to suffer the same thing in loneliness 
 and gloom. I had not been born in Italy without 
 being born to as much philosophy as lay in this 
 simple reasoning. . 
 
 So I gave m5-self up to the girandola sitting aloft 
 under the paladins, laughing, and shouting " I^el- 
 lissima!" and " Brava ! " with the throng around 
 me, and for the time utterly oblivious that I had wept 
 such bitter tears under the Donatello, and, alas, 
 equally forgetful, I shame to say, that INIariuccia sat 
 at home alone in her sadness and her patience. 
 
 The bands of the Austrian regiments were x^laying 
 in the piazza, to keep the Veronese in good humour ; 
 and the music, the fireworks, the picturesque chiaro 
 scuro of the thronged square, as the various fires 
 illumined it, all combined to make me forget my 
 woes, and to rouse me into an exhilaration which 
 was all the more excited and unreal because I had 
 fasted for so many hours. 
 
 I was in no mood to go home and creep to bed in 
 the cold supperless. It was now midnight, I knew, 
 but I was indifferent. Mariuccia would scold ; but
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 145 
 
 then — liad she not done so when I had tried to 
 please and help her in the forenoon ? 
 
 So I hardened my heart ; and -when the last sheaf 
 of coloured flames had died out, and the streams of 
 people hegan to pour outward., this way and that. 
 I strolled on also, looking to see if hy any chance 
 there might he other amusements still forthcoming. 
 
 The Stranieri spent their gold lavislily in diver- 
 sions for the populace ; and the Veronese Carnival 
 at the time of that foreign dominance, if its mirth 
 were IioHoav, was, at least, as brilliant in festivity as 
 any in Itah'. 
 
 Mariuccia would scold, of course, when I went 
 home, but what of that ? Words break no bones. 
 
 So I said to myself, in my wilfulness and revolt. 
 Alas ! that hour has been a remorse to me ever 
 since. 
 
 As I have said before, I was never very good and 
 often very bad in those days, so far as waywardness 
 and daring went. As a child — and I was still no 
 more than a child — I was aftectionate always ; and 
 courageous, Avhen my imagination was not affected 
 by fear ; I told the truth, and I would give anj'thing 
 I possessed, however much I might want it myself. 
 
 VOL. r. L
 
 146 PASCABEL. 
 
 But there my virtues ended. I -was disobedient 
 to a headlong rashness ; and I was in a mood to be 
 so to-night. 
 
 As I went out of the piazza, there was a little 
 laughing group of sightseers, cloaked and hooded 
 in an odd fashion. They looked like monks, but 
 they Avere waltzing down the pavement, and singmg 
 a taverii song very popular then in Verona. 
 
 " Pascarello ! Pascarel ! " they screamed at the 
 top of then- voices, as a flash of red went by under 
 an old archway ; and they set off running swiftly, 
 their monkish robes showing beneath them women's 
 little feet with rosetted ribbons flj^ing. 
 
 This mystical name fascinated me ; the desii'e to 
 know its meaning grew stronger and stronger. 
 
 I flew in their wake, and ran too. The gleam of 
 scarlet had vanished into the gloom of the arch. 
 
 Soon I came upon a throng of people standing 
 before some columned steps and some wide entrance 
 doors. Above, many lamps glittered, and against 
 the wall there fluttered on a scroll, in great white 
 letters on a scarlet ground, the Avord of Vegiione. 
 
 From the belfries of the cit}^ midnight was sound- 
 ing. The stream of people was passing within the
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 147 
 
 building ; they looked very strange to me ; they 
 made me think of an old painting that hung in our 
 old palace entrance-hall, and that was called the 
 " Gates of Hell." 
 
 But I pressed on to enter with them ; I was not 
 afraid ; it was the Vegiione by the writing on the 
 wall. 
 
 I had heard strange and wonderful things of 
 that saturnalia, and I imagined many more ; more- 
 over, here had entered those veiled figures who had 
 been seeking Pascarel. 
 
 I rail eagerly up the stejDS, and was carried by 
 the press of the pleasure-seekers into the body of 
 the hall. There was a barrier at which they stopped 
 me for payment. 
 
 I stood helpless, with the rushing sound of the 
 many footsteps on my ears ; a man's hand, 
 stretched over my shoulder, cast down the mone}' 
 for me, and a man's voice laughed in my ear, " So 
 handsome, and not masked? Pass in, pass in, 
 carina." 
 
 The pressm'e of the onward moving throngs swept 
 me through the barrier, and aAvay from my deliverer. 
 I was borne into the very midst of the strange tor- 
 
 L 2
 
 148 PASGAREL. 
 
 rent of colour and tumult, of laughter and of 
 music. 
 
 I stood still and looked, the blaze of the light 
 half bhnding me ; my fiice was uncovered ; ni}- hood 
 fell back ; my feet were bare ; my yellow skirts 
 were stained witli manj^ a crushed fruit and bruised 
 flower, in the old glad days of my wanderings ; my 
 little hot hands held between them the onyx ring 
 against my breast. 
 
 There was a broad piece of mirror before me in 
 the entrance-hall ; I saw my reflection in it, and 
 was charmed and yet ashamed. 
 
 My cheeks burned like wild jDoppies ; my hair 
 was in a lustrous tangle : my eyes looked like great 
 burning lamps in the tliinness of my hunger-worn, 
 small face ; my mouth was scarlet and parched with 
 excitement ; and yet I knew so well I looked hand- 
 some — so well that the people would look at me 
 and cry, " Bellina ! " 
 
 I was frightened, and ^-et I was fascinated. 
 There seemed some horrible evil about me, and yet 
 it was so vivacious, and so gay, and so full of 
 pictures, that I could not help being allured 
 by it.
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 149 
 
 Pascarel I did not discover, and, truth to tell, I 
 forgot all about that mystery. 
 
 I was too absorbed in it all to be conscious that 
 I was singular in going thus bareheaded and un- 
 masked amongst the dominoes. 
 
 It was a pageantry to me, nothing else; and I 
 moved on as I should have done in the streets ; 
 the people supping at tlieii- little snowy tables in 
 theii- boxes; the quaint, glittering costumes that 
 leaned over the panels ; the stir and colour of it all, 
 the headlong flight of the mad waltzers, the white 
 mousquetaires wringing the champagne from their 
 long moustaches; the gorgeous eighteenth-century 
 dresses crowned with powdered hair ; the crowd of 
 black monk-lilve figures that served only to inten- 
 sify the gaiety of colour — all these were so many 
 pictures to me. 
 
 I wandered on enchanted, and unheeding the ob- 
 servation that I gathered in my course ; the only 
 thing that I noticed was the intentness with 
 which I was followed by the eyes of a Florentine 
 Florindo, who wore that traditional dress with 
 an easy grace that was in a manner familiar to 
 me. But the Florindo did not approach me, and
 
 150 FASCAREL. 
 
 I soon ceased to think about him in the midst of 
 the masquers. 
 
 For me, I never doubted that it was i^ande- 
 monimn itself; and yet the fantastic charm, and 
 the lui'id brilliancy of it bewitched me. It was 
 horrible, and yet it was beautiful. 
 
 The women's eyes, as the}^ glittered like snakes' 
 eyes through the blackness of the masks ; the 
 cloud, and flutter, and tumult of colom*; the 
 furious speed of the dancers whirling, stamping, 
 shoutmg, reeling m all the maddest ecstasies 
 of folly; the sombre darkness of the gliding 
 dommoes passing silently with little low, sneer- 
 ing laughs, as the arrows of their whispered 
 s])eecli hit some blot or some wound in men's 
 strength or women's weakness ; the intoxication of 
 the loud, gay music crossed ever}'^ second by the 
 wild war-whoop of the revellers ; the dazzle of in- 
 numerable hues and sliine of countless jewels in the 
 great semicircle full from floor to roof, whilst here 
 and there some masquer, ablaze with diamonds, 
 flung her flowers from above, and some noble, 
 powdered and jewelled, leaned down to pledge a 
 dishevelled, pantmg dancer, in rosy, foaming wine ;
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 151 
 
 the wonder, and chaos, and glow, and tumult of the 
 scene bewitched me as I gazed on it. 
 
 It was only the masked ball of the Carnival; but 
 to me it was beautiful as paradise and horrible as 
 heU. 
 
 It all swam giddily before my sight, and the 
 music rolled like thunder above my head. 
 
 As I stood, a dancer, in the di'ess of the Louis 
 Treize musketeers, flung his arms about me, and 
 swept me into the circle of the waltzers with a 
 force that bore me off my feet. 
 
 " Cara mia," he cried in my ear, " 3'ou are in 
 strange guise for the Veglione, but what matter 
 that ? I paid for you at the doors. You shall 
 reward me up yonder." 
 
 He never ended his phrase. I struck him on 
 the mouth bhndly with both hands on the mere 
 instinct for freedom, and broke from his hold, and 
 ran through the maze of the dancers A\'itliout sense 
 or sight of what I did. 
 
 Shrill cries rose round me ; the people parted 
 hastily to let me through, and many fled from me 
 in terror ; a shout arose that I was mad, and had 
 broken loose from the hospital. The sense of the
 
 152 PASGABi:L. 
 
 outcry came to me dully as voices ring over water 
 from a far shore to a drifting boat. 
 
 Suddenly I stopped, andTflung my head upward 
 like a beaten stag, and looked across the blinding 
 blaze of colour, vaguely seeking help. 
 
 Fronting me was the red glow of drooping cur- 
 tains, a great knot of carnival camellias, a little 
 group of men and women, like a picture from the 
 Decamerone, a medley of violet and gold, and scarlet 
 and black, and diamonds and pearls ; it was an 
 opera-box, in which five dominoes leaned and 
 laughed, and drank and jested. 
 
 The central figure of them all stood erect, with 
 a red illume tossing in the light ; he was in a flash 
 of ruby colour and of Avhite ; he wore the dress of 
 the Florentme Florindo, and had a dark oval face 
 like that of an old i)icture ; his hand Avas on his 
 sword-hilt ; he laughed gaily with the masked and 
 mirthful women. 
 
 I do not clearly remember what ensued. 
 
 A band of debardeurs sm-rounded me ; a hideous 
 cock crowed at me ; a clown grinned and gabbered ; 
 a set of black masks hooted and threw their limbs 
 hither and thither in wild contortion.
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 153 
 
 The Mousquetaii'e seized me afresh ; lifted me 
 from the gromid, and phiiiged into the wikl gal- 
 lopade that was rushing down the boards like a 
 trooj) of riderless horses on San Giovanni's day in 
 Florence. 
 
 I shrieked for help and release. 
 
 My tormentor, screaming with laughter, held me 
 the tighter. There was a moment's pause ; then 
 a crash of sound, a loud outcry, a tumult of the 
 masquers, and the Florindo with the scarlet plmne 
 had sprung from the box aboA^e, had struck or tossed 
 the arms away that held me, and had luuTied me 
 through the maze of the dancers out of the heat 
 and the glare into the cool white moonlight that was 
 streaming through the darkness of Verona. 
 
 " Pascarello — Pascarel ! " the people had shouted 
 as he came ; and there was no jjursuit, and no 
 offence taken against him. 
 
 He stood and looked at me in the silvery light ; 
 a bright and many coloured figure, flashing with the 
 grace and glitter of the old dead centuries under 
 the gloom of the walls of the Scala. 
 
 "Well, my singing bird," he said, with a smile 
 in his eyes, " what Avere you doing there, may I
 
 154 PASGAREL. 
 
 ask ? It is a place for kites and hawks, and all 
 manner of evil birds ; but not for nightingales. 
 You did not seem as if you liked the air '? " 
 
 The voice was the voice of the giver of the onyx. 
 I burst into tears, and told him what had drawn 
 me thither. 
 
 He heard me with a gentle amusement in his 
 eyes ; dark eyes, tender and poetic, such as Sor- 
 dello's might have been here in this very same 
 Verona. 
 
 " The best thing I can do for you is to take you 
 homeward quickly," he said, moving onward, and 
 bidding me shoAv him the way to my home. '* To 
 be abroad on a Veglione night is not the best thing 
 for you, donzella. Courage is very admirable, 
 but a little prudence is needful too in this 
 world. 
 
 " It is to make your cake all of coriander-seeds — 
 to make life \\\) of rashness ovl\y. 
 
 " Tell me — why were you singmg in the streets 
 this morning ? You look like a little princess, 
 Signorina Uccello. Nay ; never mind. You shall 
 teU me to-morrow. You will let me come and see 
 3'ou to-morrow.
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 155 
 
 " You want to get out of Verona ? Oh, fie, for 
 shame. That is not poetic at all. To get away 
 fi'om the Stranieii is always good, I admit, but 
 sui'ely Verona has a charm of her own still, if only 
 you will look for it. 
 
 " She is not like my Florence, indeed ; it is not 
 given to every city to be born out of fields of lihes, 
 and keep their sweetness with her for ever, as 
 Florence does ; a woodland fragrance always amidst 
 the marble and the gold. 
 
 "But Verona, — oh, 3-es, — Sordello's song is here, 
 if only you listen, and it is the same moon that 
 Giulietta saw from the balcony, and those great 
 Scali — they seem to daunt and to awe the place 
 still, — and do 3'ou not see Adelai'da ever bending 
 her terrible brows in the shadows ? 
 
 " Nor Cunizza, the faithless, with her ' strong, 
 cruel star,' that ruled her life so ill, and her lovely 
 eyes burning with the madness of the Romano, 
 and at her side her gentle Troubadour, Ser Folco ? 
 Do you never see them? They lived and loved 
 here in this old Verona that j'ou despise because 
 you are so ignorant of all its beauties. 
 
 **And then, far away, — so far away in the dawn
 
 156 PA8GABEL. 
 
 of the i^oets — the i)retty Lesbia twistmg the roses 
 in lier lover's locks iii their gardens yonder, while 
 at a how-shot in the circus the citizens shouted, 
 ' Ad leones ? ' Oh, you should not hate Verona. 
 It is so ancient, and it Avas so mighty once, 
 though it never used its might for any very good 
 XHU'pose." 
 
 He talked on thus merely of com'se for the 
 purpose of banishing my fear, and reconcihng me 
 to the strangeness of my position, in wandering the 
 streets thus at night, with an unknown masquer in 
 the dress of Florindo. There was that true and 
 kindly delicacy in him which would not to pro- 
 long his own amusement, and gratif}' his own cuii- 
 osity, increase my embarrassment, or cause me 
 pain. 
 
 His voice was so beguiling, his eyes so frank and 
 tender, his whole bearing so full of a certain gen- 
 
 tleness and carelessness, that I was attracted into 
 an irresistible sense of confidence in him. 
 
 He was an utter stranger ; he was one of those 
 mad carnival mummers who had imbued me with 
 a vague sense of unspeakable, intangible evil ; he 
 was only a VegHone masquer, gay and grotesque
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 157 
 
 in his vari-coloured disguise in the white Veronese 
 moonlight ; and yet I trusted him, and felt a sense 
 of secmity in his presence, and spoke to him as 
 simply and as naturall}' as I could have done into 
 the ear of little Eaffaelino. 
 
 ''But this was very naughty of you," he said, 
 still with the smile in his eyes, as he heard my sins. 
 
 "I am never good!" I confessed very piteous- 
 ly. "I am like that wicked Speronella of Padova, 
 whose namesake I am — so my nurse says, at the 
 least." 
 
 He laughed indulgentl}'. 
 
 *' Oh come ! not quite so bad as that, I trust. 
 And 3'ou will grow wiser in time. Let us hope 
 rather that you will end like that good Nella whom 
 her husband, even in a better world than this, if 
 poets may be credited, quoted as a priceless per- 
 fection. But what possessed you to go to that place 
 to-night ? A freak of mischief no doubt, but what 
 promoted it ? " 
 
 " I wanted to see what Pascarel was ! That was 
 all. That was all indeed ! " 
 
 He paused a moment in the silent street, and 
 laughed outright.
 
 158 PASCABi:L. 
 
 " Well," he asked, " did you find out ? " 
 
 *' No ! Do you know ? Pray tell me." 
 
 "I have tried to find out too," he said, with the 
 laugh on his lips. " Tried all mj life, and never 
 succeeded yet." 
 
 "Is it something so wonderful ? " 
 
 " Oh, dear, no. No wonder of any sort in 
 it. 
 
 " Is it an enigma then ? " 
 
 " Well — yes — a little. Probably the answer lies 
 in nothing deeper than in the one word with which 
 Oildipus answered the Sphinx. Do not trouble 
 youi* head after it. It is not worth your while." 
 
 "Why ? The people seem to care." 
 
 A tender and saddened shade swept over his face, 
 
 " Ay ! the people, perhaps, a little." 
 
 " What is it then ? Do tell me." 
 
 In my eagerness I paused midway in the street ; 
 the snow lay lightly on aU the roofs and stones 
 and balconies ; the icy Alpine air had frozen it 
 into all sorts of lovely and fentastic shajoes. 
 
 The masquer broke off one of the pretty snow 
 flowers off an iron scroll, and held it in his hand. 
 
 It slowly melted and vanished.
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 159 
 
 " That is what Pascarel is ; nothing more ! " he 
 said, hghtly. " Do not talk of it ; tell me about 
 j^ourself." 
 
 I had not space to tell him much, for the old 
 2)alace was at a stone's throw from the opera- 
 house, and he and I stood in a few moments' time 
 before our huge, cavernous, arched portals, whose 
 nail-studded ancient doors stood forever Avide open, 
 night and da}', for we were all too poor there to 
 have fears of theft, having naught amongst us all 
 to lose. 
 
 At the entrance he x^aused and uncovered his. 
 head. 
 
 " I will bid 3'ou good-night, donzella, and gO' 
 back to my pranks and my follies. To-morrow, if 
 you will let me, I will come and see you. 
 Gratitude ? Oh, altro ! you have no cause for 
 that. It is I rather who am grateful to the Fates. 
 By-the-way, I wish that I had had sometliing 
 brighter and fairer to give you than the old grim 
 onj-x ; they are an ugly portent I am afraid, those 
 stern sisters. Never mind, I will try and get you 
 some roses to-morrow. They will be very much 
 fitter for you. Nightingales and roses have
 
 160 PASCAEEL. 
 
 belonged to one another ever since the days of 
 paradise. Addio ! " 
 
 He kissed my hand with easy grace, and turned 
 away down the deep shadows of the street ; in the 
 moonlight the red and white of his dress — 
 colours of Florence — glistened as the moonrays 
 caught them ; he went singing, half aloud, the 
 catalogue of the Loves from the Giovanni. 
 
 I watched him until he was lost to sight in the 
 darkness that fell from the lofty palaces, half for- 
 tress and half prison, the twisted galleries, the 
 marble balconies, the frowning stones of Romeo's 
 cit}' ; it w^as a little scene from the Tre Cento, 
 from the Decamerone, from Goldoni ; the old dead 
 amorous poetic life seemed suddenly to breathe and 
 move again amidst the decay and the despair of 
 old Verona. 
 
 I went slowly up the staircase, past the ruined 
 Donatello, and fancied that the broken, dust- 
 strewn stairs were the steps of the Capulet palace, 
 and that I was Giulietta in that tender da^'break, 
 when the lark sang all too soon.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE LAST SLEEP. 
 
 S I entered the chamber where I had left 
 jMariuccia, and groping for a match lit the 
 little lamp, I saw that she was still in her 
 oak chair b}' the tireless hearth. Her hands were 
 folded, and her chin had snnk upon her breast. 
 I knew that she was used to allow herself a little 
 rest and slumber after her long day of toil, and I 
 imagined that she had dozed on and on, not noticing 
 my absence, nor the flight of time. 
 
 I slid down quietly upon the floor at her feet, 
 and did not speak lest I should waken her. 
 
 I was glad that she could in sleep forget the 
 hunger and the cold. I was glad, too, to have 
 vor, I. M
 
 162 PASCABEL. 
 
 escaped the reproaches and rebukes that my con- 
 duct merited. 
 
 I leaned my head agamst her knee as I had done 
 so often m my babyhood, and sat there, very 
 quiet, with her hands resting heavily agamst ni}* 
 shoulder. 
 
 It was deadly cold ; my limbs Avere frozen ; my 
 brain swam a little from long fasting and excite- 
 ment ; it was quite dark ; from the streets below 
 there came the hum and outcry of a city m its 
 hoHday ; Mariuccia did not waken. 
 
 I think that I also must have slept a little or at 
 the least lost consciousness of time, for I started 
 as one starts when suddenly roused from a bad 
 dream, as the last fireworks of the night's pageantry 
 rose with a rushing sound above the roof, against 
 the moonless sky. 
 
 A great girandola shot its fountain of many- 
 coloured fires up above the black outline of the 
 Duomo, fired most likely by the last revellers of the 
 Veglione, and the reflection from it fell, golden and 
 reddened, through the little grilled window into the 
 chamber ; its light fell u^ion Mariuccia's face. 
 
 Something in the look of its closed eyes and
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 163 
 
 silent mouth made my heart tighten with a breath- 
 less fear. 
 
 " Mariuccia ! " I cried to her. '* Mariuccia ! 
 You fricfhten me ! dear Mariuccia — are vou still 
 asleep ? " 
 
 She was indeed asleep. 
 
 The brief and fitful fires of the girandola died 
 away, and left behind it the blank of an utter dark- 
 ness ; the dense impenetrable darkness that pre- 
 cedes a winter's dawn. 
 
 Upon the old quiet patient face there was a look 
 of rest, and the withered hands on which I rained 
 my kisses were yet warm. Yet I, who never before 
 had looked on death, knew well that death was here, 
 and that whilst Verona laughed on her first night 
 of Carnival, I sat in the silence of the old palace, 
 alone with the dead body of the sole friend I had 
 on earth. 
 
 
 
 M -2
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 AT AVE MARIA. 
 
 HREE days from that time Mariuccia had 
 gone to her last home. 
 
 The wooden shell had been jostled in 
 the common hearse and bm-ied in the common 
 resting-place where the poor lie. The padrona and 
 Raffaello and his blind mother and I had toiled 
 after it through the driving cold of the early 
 morning, and heard the heavy clods fall on it one 
 by one. 
 
 It was all over — all over : the strong, pui-e, 
 honest, tireless life had gone, spent in obscm-it}' 
 and toil, unrecognised and um-ecompensed to the 
 last.
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 165 
 
 I was but a thoughtless, wa3'ward, and selfish 
 child. I had been heedless always, cruel often. 
 I had taken the countless sacrifices that she made 
 to me with all a child's reckless, tyrannous, un- 
 conscious egotism. I scarcely even now knew the 
 immeasurable debt I had owed to her. 
 
 Yet a vague heavy pain, that was almost re- 
 morse, weighed on me, and on some insufficient yet 
 pregnant sense. 
 
 T realised all that this one lost life, old as it 
 was, and humble and poor, had yet been to me 
 from my bii'th, with its buckler of stanch fidehty 
 held ever between me and the evils of the world. 
 
 The dreary weeks went by ; to all the rest of 
 Verona they were gay with all the zest of Carnival. 
 
 Night after night the fireworks would blaze 
 against the skies, and the music would roll tlii-ough 
 the sad old streets, and the mad and merry maskers 
 would scamper and frolic under the shadow of 
 prison and fortress and monastery. 
 
 The echoes and the reflections of the noise and 
 the lights would come to me where I sat in my 
 dismal little chamber, but that was all the share I 
 had in them.
 
 166 PASCAREL. 
 
 The padrona, though so poor, -vvoukl have some 
 friends to laugh with her in her dmi ohl kitchen, 
 and would find some copper pieces to give her a 
 sight of the puppets and the shows that enlivened 
 for Verona those long and chilly da3's when the 
 Avinds swept down like dragons whose breath was 
 ice from the deep Tyrol valleA's and the desolate 
 Dolomite range. 
 
 But I was all alone, except when Piaifaellino 
 came and tried to while away my sorrow^ by his 
 innocent fanciful talk and the tender strains of 
 his viol. 
 
 With the sad morrow my Romeo of the VegHone 
 never returned. 
 
 Even in my passionate remorse and giief I could 
 not but think often of him that da}^ 
 
 AVhen we returned from our dreary errand in the 
 snow, there was awaiting me a great cluster of 
 roses, red and white, that must have come from 
 Tuscany or Ptome. 
 
 Little Gian, who had been upon the stairs when 
 they arrived, said that a boy about his own age had 
 brought them, saying nothing whence they came. 
 
 I knew.
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 1G7 
 
 I set the beautiful tilings before me against the 
 dismal grated window, and wept my heart out over 
 them. The grief Avas most for the loss of dear dead 
 Mariuccia; but a little also for the broken faith 
 of the Florence masquer. 
 
 What could I do ? • 
 
 I knew no more whither my father was gone than 
 whither the crows flew when they passed in a black 
 cloud over the Adige ; and though the good padrona 
 served for me, cooked for me, and bade me be as 
 welcome under her roof as were the rains in 
 summer, I was too proud to think a moment that 
 such dependence on another could ever long endure. 
 
 The desire to escape from Verona grew stronger 
 on me with every hour. I had no notion of what 
 I should do elsewhere : but all good things seemed 
 possible to me if once only I could cross the dreary 
 plain and seek the sunrise of the south. 
 
 I said nothing ; for I knew that Ilaffaello 
 would weep and protest and the padrona take 
 fright, and the priests would be spoken with, and 
 some means perhaps be fomid to detain me, if ever 
 they knew that I wished to take wing. 
 
 But all those winter days, when the Corso was at
 
 168 . PA8CABEL. 
 
 its ffavest and the streets Avere full of masks and 
 mummers, I sat in m^' dull little stone chamber and 
 revolved again and again a thousand schemes for 
 my freedom. 
 
 As the first step towards liberty, I went out one 
 day at the close of the Carnival to see the scrivere 
 whom Mariuccia had been wont to emplo}^ for her 
 communications to Florio. 
 
 A certain sense of reluctance to trench on any- 
 thing that seemed like a secret of the dead had 
 held me back from asking this letter-writer any 
 questions ; but as the weeks of silence succeeded 
 one another, I argued that not to try and find my 
 father Avould be a follv and a fault, and in the last 
 hours of one wintry day I crossed the square to 
 where Maso Sasso held his councils at his little 
 worm-eaten desk. 
 
 I thought sadly as I we)it of the homely old 
 figure that had always been at my side spinning 
 and talking as she hobbled over the stones ; I 
 thought a little too of that gay red and white 
 masker whose eloquent eyes had smiled on me in 
 the moonlight of Juliet's city. 
 
 Why had he not followed his roses ?
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 1G9 
 
 He was not a man to me, nor a stranger; lie 
 ■was a poem, a picture, a thing of grace, a shape of 
 tlie cinque cento ; Sordello, onl}- not so sad ; 
 Eomeo, only not so boyish-; Ariosto, perhaps, that 
 gayest of lovers and poets ; or one of those pa- 
 trician improvisatori Avho spent half their lives in a 
 court and the other half in the marketplace. 
 
 I Avas thinking of him still as I crossed the 
 piazza to the hole in the wall where Maso Sasso 
 sat. 
 
 When the Ave-Maria was rung he used to 
 close his office by a bronze wicket and his day's 
 Avork was done. Then he Avould pass methodically 
 across the piazza to his favourite trattoria ; and in 
 front of it, taking his frugal repast, would make 
 himself amends for the long silence of the day by 
 detailing to an interested audience such of the 
 sayings and doings of his clintela as he deemed it 
 proper to reveal. 
 
 He Avas knoAvn to be a miracle of propriety and 
 discretion ; nevertheless he A\'as a good companion 
 Avlien the sun Avas set. 
 
 Indeed, they Avere used to say if you brewed him a 
 bibita to his liking, there Avas very little that you
 
 170 PA8CAEEL. 
 
 might not hear concerning yoiir neighhour in 
 Verona. But a puhhc that has to recomit its joys 
 and sorrows aloud to its penman cannot he very 
 scrupulous ahout secresy, and the popularity of 
 Maso Sasso never waned on that account. 
 
 He had his office in a little dark stone loggia; 
 curiously black and still in the midst of the 
 changeful life of the piazza. 
 
 He was a little meagre, yellow, shrivelled old 
 man, who sat all day long in his den and heard all 
 the comical comedies and tearful tragedies of the 
 city, and never seemed to be touched at all by any 
 one of the innumerable idyls and the pathetic 
 obscure heroisms which came hourly before him, 
 as the citizens and the contadini flocked around his 
 stall eager to have had some good tidings sent to 
 some absent one, or to imfold some stiff and 
 blotted scrawl from over the mountains and the 
 sea. 
 
 There Avas a crowd of people around the loggia 
 in which his desk was placed wlien I drew near it ; 
 it was nearly four, and it was known that no press 
 of pubHc necessities would ever make him prolong 
 his sittings after the Ave-Maria.
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 171 
 
 I had to wait patiently my turn. 
 
 A broad-shouldered crimson-kertled contadina 
 Avanted a love-letter sent to a soldier away in 
 Piedmont ; she did not care what was said so that 
 it was all as sweet as sugar. 
 
 A poor wife held out a dirty miserable scrawl, 
 and fell down in a loose lifeless heap upon the 
 stones, as she heard that her husband had been 
 drowned off Iscliia. 
 
 A jager of the Tirol, with his green plumes 
 dangling in his saucy black eyes, dictated an offer 
 of marriage, giggling and grinning as the pen flew. 
 
 An old meek, timid creature tendered a paper 
 with a trembling hand, and turned away with a 
 heart-stricken moan as the slow changeless tones of 
 the scrivere read aloud to her that her only son 
 was sentenced for life to the galleys far away in 
 the Regno. 
 
 What an ej^itome was Maso Sasso's den of 
 human nature and of human fate ! 
 
 I stood and listened with my hood drawn over my 
 face : when my turn came I had foi'gotten my own 
 sorrows. 
 
 " Oh how can j^ou bear it — every dny and all da}-
 
 172 PASCABEL. 
 
 long — like tliis ? " I cried to the wizen, immovable, 
 indifferent old man. 
 
 He si)read liis palms outward over his desk in a 
 gesture of silent contempt. 
 
 " Sigiiorina — it is life ! " 
 
 " But the sorrow — the joy — one against the other 
 — tlie comedy — the tragedy — it is horrible ! " 
 
 The old man smiled grimly. 
 
 " What does that matter to me ? — joy or sorrow 
 — tragedy or comedy — I get my scudo for my 
 trouble." 
 
 " But how can you bear it ? " I cried again, " day 
 after day, year after year — always those terrible 
 things, side by side with all this laughter." 
 
 The old man shrugged his shoulders and took off 
 his horn spectacles to wipe them free of dust. 
 
 " Signorina — whether it is woe or laughter, what 
 does it matter to me ? I get my scudo, and have 
 something to gossip about. That is all that con- 
 
 cerns me." 
 
 In later years I have found that the world is very 
 much of opinion with the scrivere. It scans the 
 mass of human life through its spectacles, and 
 whether it reads a fiat of death or dishonour, or a
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 173 
 
 jest-story of love and of lightness, it cares nothing 
 so that only it can take out of both its scudo's worth 
 of scandal. 
 
 He asked me for the third time what I needed ; 
 I was keeping more profitable customers from his 
 stall. I inquired of him whether Mariuccia had 
 addi'essed her letters to my father. Maso Sasso 
 shrugged his shoulders again, and sought in the full 
 stores of his memories. 
 
 *' The letters were to be left at the post, any- 
 where," he said at last. " Sometimes Nice — Paris 
 — Vienna — the last time, I think, Florence. Yes ; 
 Florence. But always the post-office. Nothing 
 more." 
 
 " You are sure it was Florence the last time ?" I 
 cried, entreating him tremblingly. 
 
 " Yes, quite sure. But the last time Avas eight 
 months ago. Will the Signorina please to move 
 aside ? People are waiting, and the sun will soon 
 set." 
 
 I moved aside mechanically, and walked dreamily 
 across the square and sat down on the steps 
 of a great church, where the beggars were wont to 
 sit.
 
 174 PASCABfJL. 
 
 Florence seemed a long way off; and the chance 
 but a very slight one. Nevertheless, it was all I 
 had. 
 
 The evening was cold still, but bright and wind- 
 less. 
 
 It was at the end of February ; there were 
 lovely roseate lights in the sky, and all fresh 
 mountain scents on the air. Women went by with 
 large baskets full of crocuses and daffodils. 
 
 In the beautiful pearly hues of the late day the 
 old gaunt city was transfigured. 
 
 Its roofs and domes gained a sjnritual light, and 
 vast dream-like shadows swept its plams. It was 
 for once possible to beheve in Giulietta and to 
 muse on Catullus. 
 
 At least, so it seemed to me ; but perhaps it was 
 only lovelier that night because I knew that so soon 
 I should look my last on it, — perchance for 
 ever.
 
 CHAPTEK V. 
 
 THE FEAST OF FAUSTINO. 
 
 \ hour passed away with nie sitting there, 
 tlreamil}' Avatching Verona. 
 
 I coukl see my ohl home ; the dark 
 gruesome stone pile of it rose sheer as a rock 
 against the hlueness of the sky, michanged since 
 the days when Henry the Seventh had slept 
 beneath its roof, and the hriglit Conraddin ridden 
 forth from its court yard. 
 
 I had never loved the place. Indeed, it had been 
 as a prison to me all my years. And yet my heart 
 ached now to leave it. We are so bitterly un- 
 grateful to the present, so blindly grateful to the 
 X^ast, — alwa}'s.
 
 17fi PASCAEEL. 
 
 Tlie Ave Maria slowly swung from all the bells of 
 all the churches ; the bronze gate of the loggia was 
 shut with a clang, the scrivere hobbled across the 
 square to his place, of gossipry ; lamps were set one 
 by one in the doorways ; the oil wicks were lighted 
 in the iron sconces of the streets ; the little char- 
 coal stoves of the chesnut sellers began to glow 
 ruddily in the coming gloom. 
 
 As I turned away from the sunset to go home- 
 ward, Avhilst those colours of glory faded over the 
 silent city, a hand touched me, a voice startled 
 me. 
 
 " Pregiatissima Signorina ! have the Veronese no 
 eyes (that you are left to stray their streets 
 alone ? " 
 
 It was the voice of the Mousquetaire, from whom 
 the Florentine Florindo had rescued me at the 
 Veglione ; a voice with a strong and harsh foreign 
 accent. The shudder of disgust and dismay with 
 which I recognised him made an impatient and 
 displeased shadow sweep across his face. 
 
 " Wait. Hear me a little," he said eagerly as I 
 turned my bach on him and went with quicker steps 
 out of the piazza. " I am a friend of your father's.
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 177 
 
 I have spent many an hour with him. You have 
 nothing to fear. I have pitied you many a time, 
 poverina, sitting up there, all alone, at that grated 
 window; so fair a singing bird in so dark a 
 cage." 
 
 I twitched my purple mantle from his grasp. 
 
 " I do not want your pity. Let me be." 
 
 But he kept step with me. 
 
 " Nay, why do you bear me such ill will ? " he 
 said, with a petulance in his laugh that served ill to 
 reassure me. 
 
 " Listen, carina mia ; you are a beautiful child. 
 Did no one ever tell 3'ou so before ? I have seen 
 your golden head at that grating many a day, and 
 been sorely tempted to enter your door ; only that 
 direful dragon Avhom you have happily buried for 
 good and all, sat on guard so very griml}-." 
 
 I shook him off as best I could. 
 
 " Eespect the dead at least, and leave me ! " I 
 cried to him ; I hated the sound of his voice, the 
 look of his eyes, and the street into which we had 
 passed was so empty, and now that the after-glow 
 had faded the city was so dark. 
 
 He laughed lightly and pursued his way. 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 FASCABEL. 
 
 " Oh no, cara mia ! I let you go that night 
 because I liked you too well to raise a scene around 
 you. But I mean soon or late to have all that I 
 there surrendered out of chivalry to you. See here, 
 my pretty signorina, you were out on a freak, and 
 no one knew, of course, and it was I who passed you 
 in to the Veglione. Well, that is very harmless if 
 you trust in me ; I shall be silent, that you may be 
 sure. But otherwise, if you provoke me — if you 
 carry that handsome sunny head of yom-s aloft in 
 
 that fashion, why then " 
 
 I paused and faced him. 
 " Well ?— What then ? " 
 
 " What then ? Why then — every one will know 
 that the little Tempesta stole at midnight to the 
 opera ball with me, and she will be very glad to give 
 me whatever I please to take — " 
 
 He threw his arms about me, and bent his face to 
 mme ; but with all the strength I had I struck him 
 on the mouth, poured on him all the epithets of 
 injmy and of disgust with which my knowledge of 
 the Veronese streets supplied me, and shaking 
 myself free of him, ran as swiftly as a hare through 
 the twistmg passages to my home.
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 179 
 
 The insult of this stranger liad decided me. I 
 did not dare to stay another day longer in Verona ; 
 I was pursued with the dread of him, and the disgust 
 that he inspired was the last touch of impulsion 
 needed to make me take wing into the unknown 
 lands — into the unknown world. 
 
 I reached my own room unobserved; and put 
 together the few clothes I possessed and counted 
 my little store of money. I had changed all 
 that I had gained on the day of Gala into gold 
 with a childish idea that notes were of little com- 
 parative value ; and so liberal had been the people 
 to me, that when Mariuccia's funeral and ni}' own 
 expenses for the last weeks had been paid, I had left 
 me sixteen broad gold Austrian florins. 
 
 I put the money with my mother's mosaics into a 
 leathern bag, and strapped it about my waist. The 
 onyx Fates were round my throat. I had a fancy 
 that they would bring me fair fortune. 
 
 I took too a little dead rosebud from the o-reat 
 clusters that the Florentine masquer had sent me ; 
 and tied it with the onyx close about me. I had a 
 fancy that it would propitiate the Fates. 
 
 My purple and amber costume was an absurd one 
 
 N 2
 
 180 PASCAEiJL. 
 
 for travel, but I had no otlier that had any -svarmth 
 against the mountain winds, and I was forced to 
 wear it. 
 
 I looked longing!}' around the long, familiar 
 chambers, dusky and grim, with grated windows 
 and deep vaulted roofs and floors of marble ; 
 desolate and prison-like though thej had been, 
 they were j'et all I knew of Home. 
 
 With sobs that choked me I kneeled and prayed 
 to the Mother of INIanj^ Sorrows, where her picture 
 hung above Mariuccia's bed, then with a last look of 
 farewell I drew the velvet hood over my head and 
 stole down the stairs. 
 
 I met little Zoto and Tito, and kissed them. 
 
 I could see the padrona in her kitchen wringing 
 out washed linen by the light of a little oil lamp, 
 under a picture of S. Sulpitia. A contadina from 
 the plains sat chatting with her and plaiting straw 
 as tlie}'^ talked. 
 
 My eyes filled with tears, and shut out the little 
 jHcture. In another moment I had crossed the 
 threshold, and was running hard and fiist towards 
 the south gate in the twilight. 
 
 On my way, I passed of necessity the copper-
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 181 
 
 smith's workshop under the Spiked Mace. I 
 ghmced wistfully through the open entrance. 
 
 The light of a large wood fire was leaping about 
 all the brazen and copper vessels. The blind woman 
 sat in its warmth. The coppersmith moved to and 
 fro with bare sinewy arms. Little Ilaffaelino sat 
 reading a score, with his lithe limbs twisted under 
 him, and his lute by his side on the bricks. I 
 dared not let him know that I was going away, 
 lest he should raise, far and near, opposing 
 clamour. 
 
 I prayed mutely, in my heart, to the Ma- 
 donna for them, then went on my way to the 
 dull crooked passage in which Ambrogio Rufi 
 dwelt. 
 
 I dared not bid any one farewell, lest they should 
 find means to stop me in my course. I knew well 
 that they would all say I was too young to stray 
 alone over Italy. I dared not speak to anyone 
 else, but I could not bring my heart to quit the 
 city without some word, some look uxson the face of 
 my old master. 
 
 I stole upward to the desolate garret, and entered 
 it unheard by Imn.
 
 182 PA8GAREL. 
 
 He was sitting leaning over the little brazier, 
 wliicli was ail that he could aflford to warm him in 
 the bitterest weather. 
 
 It was the feast of the Martj^r Faustino, and all 
 the churches were calling to vespers. 
 
 The attic was quite dark. 
 
 The moon had not 3'et risen. It was so high 
 in the air, that all the metallic clash and clangour 
 of the bells seemed to beat through its silence 
 like the clamour of a thousand hammers on a 
 thousand anvils. 
 
 I went and kneeled down by him without his 
 hearing me. I ventured to touch him gentty. 
 
 "Dear master, does not the noise of all these 
 bells tire you sometimes ? " 
 
 He did not lift his head from his chest. 
 
 " I am always tired," he muttered. " What of 
 that ? " 
 
 " But if you lived where it is quieter ? — here it 
 is so close to all the belfries." 
 
 "It does not matter," he answered me, absently. 
 " They drown the music in my brain. I am glad 
 of them — sometimes." 
 
 " But if you wrote the music down ? "
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 183 
 
 He shivered a little wliere lie leaned over the 
 brazier. 
 
 '' To feed the stove ? Not I— not I." 
 
 I dared not urge him farther. The utter hope- 
 lessness, the terrible apathy of this lost genius, 
 which all its life long had woven beautiful things to 
 Avhich the world was forever deaf. What could I 
 say to these ? — I, a child, to whom every sun that 
 rose was as a promise and a smile from God ? 
 
 I waited a little while, kneeling before the brazier 
 at his side. My heart was very sore to leave him, 
 though he so seldom seemed to note my presence. 
 
 " Maestro," I murmured, at the last, " speak to 
 me a little. I am going away." 
 
 "Ay, ay!" he echoed, di'earily. "To be sure 
 — to be sure. You all go away. Why not ? " 
 
 I was silent. 
 
 How many hundreds of us he must have seen pass 
 away, bright-eyed, flute-voiced children, who stood 
 around him for a little space, and then drifted out 
 of sight, out of knowledge, into the darkness of the 
 unknown world ; while he, the old man, changed in 
 nothing, but remained always by his cheerless hearth 
 under liis lonely roof.
 
 184 PASCAEEL. 
 
 I pressed a little closer to liis side, timidly. 
 "Maestro," I murmiu-ed again, "I have no one 
 in tlie world, and I am going away. Will you bless 
 me once — just once, for fear I never see your face 
 again ? " 
 
 He roused himself from his lethargy with a strong 
 shudder. He looked at me a moment mth a startled, 
 awakened look in his dim eyes. He laid his hand 
 upon my head, and, as it rested there, it trembled 
 greatly. 
 
 " I dare not bless you — I have doubted God ; but 
 I wish you Avell, poor child. That is — I wish you 
 without a heart, without a soul, without a con- 
 science, so that 3'ou may deal unto men as surel}' 
 they will deal unto you." 
 
 His hand' sunk from my head ; his chin dropped 
 again upon his chest. He had fallen once more 
 into his old dreaming stupor over the charcoal 
 fumes under the roar of the bells. 
 
 I rose to my feet sorely afraid. It was a di'ead 
 
 benediction with which to commence my pilgrimage. 
 
 In another moment I was again on my way to 
 
 the south gate of the city. I looked back once. 
 
 The old palace was black and full of gloom against
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 185 
 
 the clearness of the skies. I sliivered a little, and 
 set my face again to the south-east. 
 
 Who could say how the sun might rise for me 
 there ?
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 FUORI. 
 
 ALF-AN-HOUR later I was rolling imdei- 
 neath the stone vault of the gate which 
 faced towards Tuscany, in the old heavy, 
 cumbrous, leathern-curtained diligenza, which thrice 
 in every week droned on its way to Padova and 
 Bologna. 
 
 Rich people travelled otherwise, I knew ; but I 
 had only sixteen florins in the world. 
 
 The soldiers at the gates looked hard at me, but 
 said nothing. The man with the horn, on the step 
 of the clumsy vehicle, took my money and asked no 
 questions. I was safe on the road to Florence. It 
 seemed a terribly long way off, across those un-
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 18^ 
 
 known mountains ; but the name of the City of 
 Lihes allured me with a strong sweet spell. 
 
 Mariuccia had told me many glories of the place 
 of her birth; and my young mother I knew had 
 there won her bright brief fame. And with what 
 love my Florentine masker had spoken of it, — he 
 whose tenderest little rose I had saved when dead 
 with the rest, and had brought away with me where 
 the stone Fates were hidden. 
 
 It was a queer, capacious, ill-scented old waggon 
 — this conveyance, which was dignified by the name 
 of diligenza. 
 
 There were three peasant women, smelling strongly 
 of garlic, and hugging great baskets of woollen 
 stuffs, of pizzicheria goods, and of live hens that 
 they had purchased in the town. There were two 
 old priests, a burly fattore, and a young Tirolese 
 in the picturesque garb of the Untermnthal. 
 
 The vehicle was as full as it could hold, and no one 
 looked with much favour on me as I entered, except 
 the young mountaineer. 
 
 No doubt I had appeared to them, starting up in 
 the heavy gloom of the night, strange enough as 
 they had thundered slowly over the stones in the
 
 188 PASCAUEL. 
 
 gateway ; all alone at my age, and dressed as I was 
 in my muftlings of velvet, and my most absurd 
 3'ellow skirts of rich brocaded satin fit for the wear- 
 ing of any queen. 
 
 They made place for me, however, with pleasant 
 good-humour. 
 
 The old waggon settled heavily on its way over 
 the plains. 
 
 It was a dark, moonless night. An oil-lamp 
 hung in the roof, which gave us very little light. 
 AVe rolled on with a creaking droning noise, only 
 varied by the crack of the whip. 
 
 The contadina and the priests went to sleep ; the 
 fattore took out Ids accounts and reperused them ; 
 the good-looking Unterinnthaler and I were alone 
 wide awake, being young, and on a journey that 
 was strange to us. 
 
 They had told me that it would be day and night 
 again before we reached Bologna ; and to Bologna, 
 as the farthest stage of all, I had said that I would 
 go. The others were to be set down midway at 
 Padova and other places on the route. 
 
 I had never been out of Verona since our resi- 
 dence had begun there in my fourth year.
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. ISO 
 
 ]My head was in a tumult, my brain was in a wliiil, 
 with tlie strange movement, the throbbing noise, 
 and that odd sense of jumbling on into the darkness 
 of the night which was but too true an emblem of 
 the obscurity of my fate. 
 
 I could with difficulty keep my sobs quite silent 
 as I thought of the old deserted, familiar chambers, 
 of the old bronze lamp swinging by the broken 
 Donatello, of the little quiet, nameless grave in the 
 cemeterj'of the poor; of the homelike nook amongst 
 the coppersmith's huge, shining vessels, where 
 Kaffaelino would still be sitting with his blind 
 mother, scanning some ancient score by the dim 
 
 light of his bronze lucernata. 
 
 « 
 
 It was all gone — all gone forever, never to come 
 back. 
 
 Yet I felt with it all a curious sense of liberation 
 and of exultation. If I had been alone I would 
 have laughed and cried aloud. 
 
 The pit-a-pat, i)it-a-pat of the horses' feet on the 
 hard road seemed to me to beat out an everlasting 
 tris^'llable, — " Fuori, fuori, fuori!" Yes, I was 
 " fuori " now, — fairly out of the gates and away. 
 So I told myself again and again, and took an odd,
 
 190 PASGAEEL. 
 
 unsatisfactory, remorsefvil and j^et intoxicating plea- 
 sure in the freedom of it all. 
 
 I must have looked very strange, doubtless, as 
 I sat there with my cheeks changing to red and 
 white in my excitement, and my lips twitching in 
 my longmg to cry, and my hair all ruffled by the 
 haste with which I had run, and the ridiculous 
 3'ellow skirts crushed up between the tattered black 
 robe of a priest and the grey woollen petticoat of a 
 contadina. 
 
 We thundered on in perfect silence for a time, 
 with a little light flashing in upon us now and then 
 from some village post-house or some lamplit wa}-- 
 side Calvary. 
 
 The nights were still cold, being so earty in the 
 spring. Sittmg there, I grew very stiff and chilly. 
 The priest was stout and so was the contadina. 
 Both were soundly sleeping, and sometimes swayed 
 heavily against me. 
 
 My heart began to sink. The sense of tlie 
 " fuori " to be more pain than glory. I thouglit 
 wistfully of the little bed where I had slept for so 
 many years under the sheltering shadows of Ma- 
 riuccia's Mater Dolorosa.
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 191 
 
 I was roused by a sheepskin being placed about 
 n\y knees, and by the gentle rustic voice of the 
 young Tirolese, who prayed nie to accept its 
 covering. He was sure, he said, tlie signorina was 
 very cold. 
 
 I looked up and thanked him. In the dull light 
 of the lamp I saw his gentle honest eyes fixed on 
 me, whilst he blushed hotly at his own temerity. 
 
 I took his sheepskin. It was roughly dressed, 
 but warm ; and emboldened, he asked me if I Mas 
 all alone. 
 
 " Yes," I told him, glad to hear liis voice in that 
 horrible gloom and that unceasing galop. " And 
 you too ? " 
 
 " I too, signorina ? Yes— but then for a man it 
 is nothing," he answered. " Besides, I go to 
 people I know in Este — an uncle of mine married 
 and settled there. But the signorina, does she go 
 to friends too ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes," I assured him, being too proud to say 
 otherwise. But my heart rose in my throat at the 
 little lie. I knew hoAv far, far away was the only 
 hope to which I clung. 
 
 The young Unterinnthaler looked at me wistfully.
 
 192 PASCAREL. 
 
 I think lie knew that what I said was not very 
 true. 
 
 " It is cold to-night, signorina," he said, gently. 
 
 '' Yes— very." 
 
 " And you go far ? " 
 
 " To Bologna." 
 
 ** Your friends meet you there ? " 
 
 ''No." 
 
 " Then you go farther still ?" 
 
 " I am not sure." 
 
 Do what I would the great tears brimmed over 
 in my eyes ; his questions made me realise my 
 desolation. 
 
 With kindly courtesy he busied himself with 
 rubbing off the mist of om- breaths from the glass 
 window nearest him, so that we might see the dark 
 maple-trees fly by us in the shadows of the night. 
 
 " Do you know my country, signorina ? " he asked 
 me, to divert my thoughts, no doubt. '' M}- country, 
 across the mountams. I am a farmer in the Un- 
 terinnthal. No ? Ah, that is such a pity ! " 
 
 " Is it so beautiful, tlien ? " 
 
 "Beautiful? Ay, God knows it is beautiful. 
 Not flat like this, with nothing but these weary
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 193 
 
 olives ; but all so great, so superb, so wonderful ; 
 all pine forest and endless alps, and then the waters 
 that flash like so much light, and the snows that lie 
 so high ; and then the clouds that are alwaj^s about 
 the mountains, and the rich green woods and the 
 yellow maize-fields all below — beautiful ? Ah, 
 indeed ! " 
 
 " You would not leave it, then ? " 
 
 " To live m Este ? The holy saints forbid. I 
 should be a dead man in a year, signorina. Away 
 from the mountains ? I will tell you who did that. 
 It was Andi'ea Zafiii- ; he was older than I, but I 
 knew him. He was kapellmeister in our burgh. 
 AVhen he led the choir it was enough to make one 
 weep ; it was like the singing of the angels in heaven. 
 AVell, some day some people came who persuaded 
 him that his voice might be a mine of gold to him 
 if he would only leave the mountains and go into 
 the world along with them. In an evil hour An- 
 drea listened. He was poor, you see, and they told 
 him fine things ; so he went. AVhether the world 
 cared much for him or not I never heard ; but I 
 know that they shut him up in cities over there, 
 German cities and French. And one day, two years 
 
 VOL. I,
 
 194 PASCAREL. 
 
 later, they came for his okl mother, and told her 
 that Andrea was dying and prayed to see her. She 
 went at once ; hut even then she was too late. She 
 found him in Paris, hut he was out of his mind ; he 
 did not know her at all ; and all he kept saying 
 forever was ' Take me hack to the mountains ! take 
 me hack ! take me hack ! ' He had made a great 
 deal of gold ; the old mother was rich when she 
 returned ; hut he died, crying aloud to see the 
 mountains once more. Nothing had heen any joy 
 to him ; he had always heen cramped and stifled, 
 and sick to death away from the mountains. It 
 must always he so. Love them once, you can never 
 leave them — and live." 
 
 His voice was very hushed and quiet as he spoke, 
 and there came a dreamy look into his eyes — the 
 far-away look that men always get who dwell amidst 
 the heights. 
 
 I hardly understood him well ; for, though lie 
 spoke Italian it was not our Italian ; 3"et there was 
 something so gentle and simple in him that it pleased 
 me to hear him talk. 
 
 I was glad to have him to spcalc to in that oiijiressive 
 endless gloom, Avith the surging noise of the horses'
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. ' 195 
 
 gallop always on my ears, and only now and then 
 some break in it when a lantern flashed its red glare 
 in upon us, and hoarse, shrill voices piped discordant 
 orders at the doors of some roadside posting 
 house. 
 
 Finding that I listened to him, he went on to tell 
 me all about Limself — how his name was Marco 
 Rosas ; how he was of Italian race ; how he was 
 left fatherless in infancy ; how his twin-brother 
 and himself lived together on the little farm on 
 the green slope of the Berg ; how he was twenty- 
 two j^ears old, and well-to-do in his own way, and 
 indeed quite rich for a farmer of the Tirol. 
 
 He described all his treasures to me; his chalet 
 
 of pinewood, shingle-roofed against the hurricane 
 
 and avalanche, in autumn hung over with the great 
 
 yellow ears of the millet ; the herds of small dun 
 
 cattle, witli their antelope-like eyes, and flocks of 
 
 silvery hill goats ; his stout little horse, with its 
 
 I)eal of musical bells ; his vines, that yielded such 
 
 sweet huge purple grapes as were never ripened 
 
 save in that clear, lustrous, buoyant air ; the paintmg 
 
 of the Holy Trinity that was fastened in his wall, 
 
 over his house door, in an iron grating, to be a bless- 
 
 2
 
 196 PASCABiJL. 
 
 ing on the place ; his orchard, and his pastures 
 that stretched in such perfect vivid green up the 
 hillside, whilst above all the great snow slopes 
 towered. 
 
 Most of all he talked of his mother — a woman 
 whom, if all he said were true, must have been one 
 of those who are far above rubies. A tender, homely, 
 noble soul as this m_ountaineer sketched her, such, 
 indeed, as those great silent hills produce not 
 seldom — a woman with the life of a saint and the 
 heart of a hero, though she neither read nor wrote, 
 but span her ovm linen, milked her own herds, and 
 had had the sweet strong breath of her ovm moun- 
 tain air upon her all her years. 
 
 So we journeyed on our way, and, lilve Con- 
 raddin before us, passed " per Lombardia e per la 
 via di Pavia," into the Romagna countr3\ 
 
 The day Avas one long bright flood of sunshine 
 with beautiful flakes of clouds floating before a fresh 
 mountain mnd. 
 
 The broad plains that have been the battleground 
 of so many races and so many ages were green 
 and peaceful under the primitive husbandry of the 
 contadini.
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 197 
 
 Everywhere under the long Hnes of the yet uu- 
 buclded vines the seed was springing, and the 
 trenches of the earth were brimful with brown 
 bubbhng water left from the floods of winter, 
 when Eeno and Adda had broken loose from theii' 
 beds. 
 
 Here and there was some old fortress grey 
 amongst the silver of the olive orchards ; some 
 village with white bleak house-walls and flat roofs 
 I)ale and bare against the level fields ; or some 
 little long-forgotten city once a stronghold of war 
 and a palace for princes, now a little hushed and 
 lonely x^lace, with weed-grown ramparts and gates 
 rusted on their hinges, and tapestry weavers throw- 
 ing the shuttle in its deserted and dismantled ways. 
 
 But chiefly it was always the green, fruitful, 
 weary, endless plain trodden by the bullocks and the 
 goats, and silent, strangely silent, as though fearful 
 still of its tremendous past. 
 
 Day came and night again, and all the heavy, 
 chill, bitter, lonely hours jumbled themselves away 
 in some dreary chaos. The journey had become 
 horrible to me. I was stiff and cold and miserable. 
 I lost all heart to look out at the spaces between the
 
 198 PASCABEL. 
 
 leatliern curtains on to the countiy beyond. I bad 
 lost all power to watch for the fii'st outline of 
 Tasso's " grand' Apennino." 
 
 We had passed tlu'ough Padovu in the darkness, 
 and I had not noticed the young Tii-olese descend 
 there. But I found the sheepskin left about my 
 knees, and was touched by this httle gentle wayside 
 flower of kindness. 
 
 I suppose I must have slept some portion of the 
 time, but the beat of the horses' hoofs never ceased 
 to thunder through my brain. 
 
 There were red flashes of lights on my eyes as we 
 stopped to change at a postmg-house ; wonderful 
 purple and rose smisets and sunrise ; a sense of 
 endless gliding green distances that never gi'ew any 
 one whit the nearer ; a confusion of cruel noises ; 
 a contmual sense of pain and of unrest ; and then 
 at length the cumbrous vehicle paused under an 
 immense vaulted gateway ; a sentinel challenged ; 
 a guard looked in, holding up a lantern ; the gates 
 vmclosed and closed again ; and as we rolled over 
 the stones I heard the tired travellers mutter the 
 name — " Bologna." 
 
 I trembled, and felt afraid as the tired horses
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 199 
 
 toiled wearily over the pavement uiKlerneatli the 
 ink-black shadows of those vaulted footways. 
 
 It seemed to me as though they would never end ; 
 their silence, their gloom, theii- architecture, the 
 enormous height of the walls, the vista of the 
 interminable arches, the hollow echo of the stones 
 that had been trodden for fifteen hundred centuries 
 by the feet of men and beasts — all terrified me 
 with a vague poetic awe wliich yet was, in a sense, 
 delightful. 
 
 Every old Italian city has this awe about it — holds 
 close the j)ast and moves the living to a cm-ious sense 
 that they are dead and in theii" graves are dreammg; 
 for the old cities themselves have beheld so much 
 perish around them, and yet have kept so firm a 
 hold upon tradition and upon the supreme beauty of 
 great arts, that those who wander there grow, as it 
 were, bewildered, and know not which is life and 
 which is death amongst them. 
 
 To enter Bologna at midnight is to plunge into 
 the depths of the middle ages. 
 
 Those desolate sombre streets, those immense 
 dark arches, dark as Tartarus, those endless arcades 
 where scarce a footfall breaks the stillness, that
 
 200 PASCABEL. 
 
 labyrinth of marble, of stone, of antiquity ; the -past 
 alone broods over them all. 
 
 As you go it seems to j'ou that you see the gleam 
 of a snowy plume and the shine of a straight rapier 
 strildng home through cuirass and doublet, whilst on 
 the stones the dead body falls, and high above over 
 the lamp-iron, where the torch is flaring, a casement 
 uncloses, and a woman's hand droj)S a rose to the 
 slayer, and a woman's voice murmurs, with a cruel 
 little laugh, " Cosa fatta non capo ha ! " 
 
 There is nothing to break the spell of that old 
 world enchantment. 
 
 Nothing to recall to you that the ages of Benti- 
 vogho and of Visconti have fled for ever. 
 
 The mighty Academy of Luvena Juris is so old, 
 so old, so old ! — the folly and frippery of modern 
 life cannot dwell in it a moment ; it is as that 
 enchanted throne which turned into stone like itself 
 whosoever dared to seat himself upon its majestic 
 heights. 
 
 For fifteen centuries Bologna has giimly watched 
 and seen the mad life of the world go by ; it sits 
 amidst the plains as the Sphynx amidst lier 
 deserts.
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 UNDER THE GARISENDA. 
 
 SEEMED to awake roughly from some 
 marvellous dream, when the vehicle stopped 
 at a post-house with a great gilded sign of 
 a golden boar projecting far out in the dull lantern 
 light across the shadow of one of the narrow 
 streets. 
 
 The entrance to it was through a deep archway 
 into a paved court ; from witliin there was the feeble 
 light of oil wicks burning in iron sconces ; beyond 
 I could see the kitchen, with the glimmer of its 
 copper and pewter and the sturd}' padrona in a 
 Idrtle of orange and green, who was sending her
 
 202 PASCABEL. 
 
 people right and left in her eagerness to retain for 
 the night all travellers hy the stage. 
 
 The dihgence stopped for good at the Cignale 
 d'Oro, and I thought that I could do no hetter. 
 The inn folk came round me eyeing me with some 
 amazement and with some suspicion ; hut an Italian's 
 first impulse is always one of ready kindness ; the 
 vociferous padrona softened her voice for me, her 
 household smiled on me, and when I asked them for 
 a little hed where I could sleep in peace, a black- 
 hrowed damsel showed me up a wooflen stair to a 
 little bare chamber with a radiant gleam of her white 
 teeth and laughter of her dusky eyes, such as might 
 fairly have made sunshine in the shadiest place. 
 
 That sunny smile of Italy ! — it has in it all the 
 youth of the earth's golden ages — all the faith of 
 man's first dreams of God. 
 
 My little chamber was very bare, ver}^ narrow, 
 with a floor of red brick and a casement that looked 
 only on to a pigeon-house in the roof. But I had 
 been used to simple ways of living, and I Avas very 
 tired ; I wanted nothing but rest ; and being young, 
 rest came to me as soon as I stretched my limbs out 
 and closed my eyes upon the hard grass mattress.
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 203 
 
 I slept all night dreamlessly ; and when I awoke 
 Avith the sun shining full on my face, and the 
 pigeons, Avliite and grey, pluming themselves upon 
 the roof outside, I s^n-ang up refreshed and fearless ; 
 eager to begin again this strange new story of life, 
 Avhose first chapter I had read and turned down for 
 ever when I had looked my last at sunset on 
 Verona. 
 
 There is nothing in any after times, however 
 radiant with pleasure or success those latter times 
 may he, so perfectly happ}' as the buoyant and 
 fearless ignorance of the creature who has just left 
 childhood for youth, just first thrust out its head 
 from the shell of dejiendence and ventured alone to 
 surve}^ with dazzled and dehghted eyes the ilhmit- 
 able domain that lies in the mere Possible. 
 
 To any other than myself it would have seemed, 
 as it had done to the Tirolean, that nothing in the 
 whole range of human fate could be more desolate or 
 more appalling than my fate ; there was a child of 
 fifteen years let loose upon the world with a dozen 
 gold florins for her soHtary possession, without a 
 friend, without a refuge, and with no relative in all 
 humanity, except a father who had abandoned her.
 
 204 . PA8GABEL. 
 
 and of wliom she knew not even so much as whether 
 he were living or were dead. 
 
 Nothing couhl well have been more lonely or less 
 to be envied sm-el}' than I ; and 5^et when I had flung 
 the cold water over myself and tossed the hair back 
 over my shoulders, and looked out of the window to 
 say good morrow to the pigeons opposite, I laughed 
 quite happil}'- in the face of the bright day and was 
 not afraid. 
 
 It seemed to me that nothing could long go verj- 
 ill in that fresh spring air, in that warm living light, 
 in that pleasant mmmur of birds' wings, and of 
 di'owsy bees, that rose upward on the stillness of the 
 city from the little garden court below. 
 
 It was early as I unslid the wooden bar of my 
 door and ran downstairs in the mu'thful sunlieht ; 
 but the padrona was up and about, and all her stout 
 damsels at work with her, coming and going in 
 their many-coloured garments to and fro in the 
 brightness and the shadows of the oi3en court and 
 the sombre archways. 
 
 Great turkeys Avere ruffling and struttmg about 
 the passages, hens were squatting by the stoves, a 
 big white owl blinked his eyes on a butter tub, and
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 205 
 
 grey rabbits ran between the swiftly flying feet of 
 the inn-maidens as they vied in haste to obey the 
 shrill commands of their mistress. 
 
 In the square court they had set out the winter- 
 housed store of lemon trees. 
 
 There was a thread of water bubbling from a 
 sculptured Medusa's mouth into a huge earthen 
 amphora ; on the door sill an old woman was slicing 
 carrots; above her in the carved lintel was a Lucca 
 della Eobbia worth its weight in gold : it was such 
 a scene as might have stayed there unchanged smce 
 Guido had first dipped his brush in oils. 
 
 I had all the forenoon before me, and not liking 
 to take up room there in that busy tavern, I wan- 
 dered out to look a little at the city. 
 
 A windmg passage-way led from the court-j^ard 
 straight out in front of the two leaning towers, with 
 their coppersmiths' workshops beneath them and 
 above the clear blue sk}" of the Romagna. 
 
 It was about nine o'clock and a market da}^, and 
 all the town was astir ; throngs of busy, laughing, 
 hurrying people were crying their goods aloud, or 
 lustily chaffering for the goods of others ; whilst 
 around them were those old sun-burned walls, those
 
 206 PASGAREL. 
 
 dim gigantic frescoes, those austere arcades, those 
 mighty stones that had borne the fires and the 
 furies of a thousand years of sack and siege. 
 
 Mules brayed, dogs barked, poultry cackled, the 
 charlatan screamed his sing-song recitative, the 
 hawkers vaunted their dried pumpkin seeds, their 
 little fried alardi, or their barrowful of manv- 
 coloured woollen socks and kerchiefs ; the bells 
 clanged sonorously, the old scriveri held solemn 
 court withm their dens, the peasants rode in on 
 their asses laden with cabbages or with poultry ; 
 the ringmg hammers of the countless coppersmiths 
 and pewterers resounded from a hundred workshops ; 
 and it was all life, mii-th, tumult, business ; and 
 amidst it all rose the old unfinished mournful pile 
 of the Duomo, the ancient palaces with beggars' 
 rags fluttering from the balconies, the slanting shafts 
 of the twin towers, the arched footways brown and 
 sear with the passing of a thousand generations. 
 
 In the gay sunlight it was not so terrible as in 
 the darkness of night ; but it was perhaps more 
 melancholy still. 
 
 I wandered on and on, looking now at the conten- 
 tion of some buyer and seller under the leathern
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 207 
 
 awniiig of a market-stall, and now at tlie grandeur 
 of some decaying fresco dying slowly of neglect and 
 age above on the sculptured houses. 
 
 I stood gazing up at the Garisenda, where it 
 leaned above against the delicate blue of the im- 
 mense Romagna skies, whilst beneath in their dusky 
 workshops the brawny bare-armed cojipersmiths 
 beat the ruddy metals, their hammers rising and 
 falling with steady and deafening rhythm. 
 
 I stood gazing at the Garisenda and the Assinelli 
 that in their day had seen the slender hands of 
 Properzia de' Rossi at work upon the monumental 
 marbles ; and had heard the last BentivogHo called 
 from his workshop to a crown ; and had watched 
 the scholars come from all far countries — from wild 
 Ireland, away in the mists of the northern seas, as 
 from fountain filled Damascus rose-girt on the edge 
 of the desert, — trooping by thousands and tens of 
 thousands to pace the stones and learn the lore of 
 the great Academy. 
 
 I loitered long in the old stone labyrinths of the 
 Bentivogiie's city. It awed me, it oppressed me, yet 
 it allured me. 
 
 The Past is very gaunt and grim in the old
 
 208 PASCAREL. 
 
 Universit}', but it is noble for all that. It is like 
 the lofty skeleton of a dead knight wrapped in the 
 black cloak of the Miseiicordia. 
 
 The people chattered with me gladly ; and told 
 me where to find the Raffael, the Guido, the Dome- 
 nichino, the Tarini, above all their darlings — 
 the Carracci. 
 
 In Verona I had felt but little the genius of the 
 place. Verona had forgotten so much ; the foe's 
 heel had stamped out her brain ; and besides, her 
 great Paolo, ages ago, was stolen utterly from her 
 by wanton Venice. 
 
 But here in Bologna it was beautiful to find how 
 dear and living to them their three Brethren were. 
 
 Stendahl was astonished to find his cobbler in 
 Bologna able to tell him all sorts of traits of the 
 Carracci, and really full of sorrowful reminiscences, 
 because Luigi had died of grief at some bad drawing 
 of his own in the angel of the Annunciation. 
 Stendahl adds that a cobbler in Paris would have 
 had a gilt chair in his shop, but would have told 
 you nought of Greuze or of Gros. 
 
 It is just this tenderness of the past and know- 
 ledge of it, which make the Italian populace unlike
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 209 
 
 any other under tlie sun : — in these peoples' eyes 
 there are always dreams, and in their memories 
 there is always greatness. 
 
 Wandering full of these thoughts, vivid and yet 
 confused in my brain, the hours sped away un- 
 counted by me. 
 
 That there was pain or danger or singularity in 
 my position, I had utterly forgotten. I was only 
 glad to be free and to be amidst these places which 
 had lived so long for me only in the Hght of imagina- 
 tion and of history. 
 
 I was standing under the Garisenda picturing that 
 old academic life and thinking how good the days of 
 a student must have been in those times when the 
 meaning of scholarship had just touched the world 
 with its light ; I was just standing there, when the 
 voices of men and women beside me caught my ear, 
 speaking of an opera which had been given the 
 previous night with unusual pomp before all the great 
 people of the Romagna. 
 
 Its name arrested me ; for it was the Alkestis. 
 
 " A German opera! " said one with a shrug of 
 his shoulders. " We have to swallow it." 
 
 '* Nay, it is fine music ; music that has held all 
 
 VOL. I. p
 
 210 PASCABEL. 
 
 the stages of Europe forty years," said another. 
 " Aiid it is more Italian than anything ; the man 
 studied always in Milan " 
 
 " But what good thing has he Avritten since ? " 
 
 "Mere roha," grumbled the first speaker. "It is 
 that Avhich beats me ; and he gets such prices ! — he 
 is as rich as all the Ghetto — whilst look at our 
 Eossini." 
 
 " Those German hogs get all the truffles of 
 Europe," said the other with a sigh. " But there 
 is this Rothwald, the guest of the Grand Duke, to- 
 day, and to-morrow of the Cardinal, and what not, 
 and good Italians starving their naked bones over a 
 pinch of charcoal in their garrets, with more melody 
 in theii' do, re, me, as they sing to themselves as 
 they saunter about, than this fellow in all his long 
 lifetime." 
 
 " Caro, caro, be just," laughed the others. 
 " The Alliestis is perfect, quite perfect ; our fathers 
 settled that long ago ; but then of course it is due 
 to Milan, since he studied there. Rothwald is a 
 great old man, that we are bound to confess, and 
 his music is as fresh to-day as though some 
 youngster had just penned it. The chorus people
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 211 
 
 saiio- his great Cora degii Dei, under his Avindow 
 in the Palace this morning early. He was quite 
 touched; he came out into the balcony, and there 
 threw down a handful of gold whilst they tossed 
 him carnival flowers." 
 
 I heard, and my cheek burned, and my heart 
 beat high with hatred : I thought of Ambrogio Rufi 
 as I had left him stooping over his wretched and 
 solitary hearth. 
 
 " They honour Rothwald like that?" I cried to 
 the students, heedless who my hearers were, as it was 
 my careless childish fashion to be, everywhere and 
 always. 
 
 They looked at me in surprise, and no doubt I 
 had a strange enough aspect, glowing in my purple 
 and yellow against the darlmess of the cox)persmiths' 
 dens, and above me the quaint Garisenda. 
 
 "Why not, sigiiorina ?" they cried gaily to me, 
 possibly amused at the rage of disdain that doubt- 
 less quivered over all my face. "Because he is a 
 Tedesco? — a good reason, we grant." 
 
 "Because he was a traitor! " I said to them, and 
 then could say no more, but turned awav with a 
 burning face and a swelling heart, for there seemed 
 
 r 2
 
 212 PASCAREL. 
 
 to rise before me the broken-hearted, weary, death- 
 stricken form of my dear okl master, and the 
 thought of this man who had betrayed him was 
 mibearable to me ; this man, who dwelt in princes' 
 palaces, and scattered gold broadcast, and received 
 the songs and the flowers of the nation he had 
 robbed. 
 
 In the fury against injustice and the passion of 
 longing to redress it, which are part and parcel of 
 all youth that is at all generous or at all unworldly, 
 I felt strong enough to force my way to the palace 
 itself up high on the hill there amongst the cy- 
 presses, and fling the truth in the face of this 
 perjurer whose lie had been for forty years fair and 
 fruitful before the world. 
 
 " Oh ! why does God let such things be '? " I 
 cried in the rebellion of my heart against the 
 cruelty of creation, as I dropped down under a little 
 shrine in a twisting passage-way out of the public 
 square. 
 
 Bologna had lost its charm for me; it seemed 
 only a great dark, dusty, noisome, cruel place, with 
 its strange city of the dead walled up beyond its 
 gates.
 
 IHE CITY OF LILIES. 213 
 
 AVliat was it to me that my old master sat alone 
 by a wretched hearth whilst the man who had 
 betrayed him was feasted by cardinals and honoured 
 by nations ? What was it to me ? 
 
 Nothing indeed. 
 
 And yet I sobbed bitterly as I tm-ned from the 
 streets into an old dark church, ashamed that the 
 people should see the tears upon my cheeks.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE MAIDENHAIR. 
 
 jHE church was quite empty: an mimense 
 naked marble desolation, with a white 
 Christ looming vast and sad above the 
 
 altar. 
 
 I sat down on an oaken bench and cried my 
 heart out, as the children say : most for the cruelt}' 
 of Ambrogio's fate, but also a little for the utter 
 loneliness of my own. 
 
 I had little hope of findmg my fether ; and if I 
 found him, how could I tell he Avould not disown a 
 little travel- stained 2:)enniless wanderer, as he had 
 disowned the child with the peacock's plumes in the 
 painting chamber of the Veronese students ?
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 215 
 
 I dreaded his calm cold smile ; I dreaded his icy 
 incredulous response ; I resolved within mj^self, if 
 I found him not at Florence, to seek him no more, 
 hut to go on and try my fortunes at Kome. 
 
 For once, when I had sung in the streets to a little 
 knot of people in Verona, an old man had come up 
 to me and had told me he was the dh-ector of the 
 Corea, and had bidden me, if ever I had a mind to 
 appear in public, to betake myself to him there in 
 the Eternal City. 
 
 " Might I not help you a little, illustrissima ?" 
 said a gentle, timid voice, I started, and saw the 
 young Tirolean, the bright colour in his costume 
 glowing in the gloom of the dusky aisles. 
 
 I was not sorry for companionship, yet I was 
 wounded to be seen in my sorrow. I stared at him 
 stupidly through my tears. 
 
 "You did not stay at Padova, then?" I asked him 
 at length, seeing that he seemed more ashamed 
 than I. 
 
 *' No, signorina," he answered shyly, and then 
 was still. 
 
 " You have business in Bologna? " 
 "No."
 
 216 PASCABEL. 
 
 He spoke with downcast eyes, and swept the dust 
 of the pavement with the long phimes in his hat. 
 
 " I was Sony for the little eccellenza," he stam- 
 mered hmnbly. "And it seemed so terrible for 
 her to be alone ; so young, and with such a face as 
 that ; and so I dared to travel on with her. I was 
 on the roof of the dihgenza all the way from 
 Padova." 
 
 Then he was silent ; liftmg, timidlj^, his brown, 
 honest, dog-like eyes, that were wistful like a dog's 
 that dreads a beatmg. 
 
 But I was too used to the comradeship of II 
 Squarcionino and all his boyish brethren to be in 
 any whit embarrassed by this act of the yomig 
 mountaineer. I took it as a kindly j)iece of thought- 
 fulness, no more. 
 
 " It was very good of you," I said, brightening a 
 little, " and — and — it is true, I am all alone. But 
 no one would hurt me — why should they ? I am 
 not afraid." 
 
 *' The little illustrissima is hardly more than a 
 child," mmmured Marco Rosas, with a jiity m his 
 look I did not comprehend. " It is so damp and 
 cold in this church. "Would the signorina come a
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 217 
 
 little in the countiy ? There is a great Madonna 
 here to see, they say, and the day is long." 
 
 I hesitated a moment, then consented. "What 
 harm could there be '? And anything was better 
 than being alone ; and the young man was so 
 gentle, so simple, and so frank, that he seemed to 
 me onl}- like a bigger Eaffaelino. 
 
 So out of the gates I went into the white wide 
 country, with the sun on its dusty roads, along 
 which the bullock wagons were crawling. 
 
 Anywhere else I should have been stared at — in 
 m}' yellow and violet, with the hood lying on my 
 shoulders and my hair uncovered to the sun, and the 
 young Unterinnthaler in his picture-hke dress of 
 velvet, and broad red sash, and hat with the droop- 
 ing myrtle-green plume. 
 
 But in Italy — blessed Italy — no one noticed. 
 
 There is such immunity from observation in a 
 country where colour is a household fairy brighten- 
 ing every rent and ruin, in lieu of an unknown god 
 at once dreaded and derided. 
 
 So I went on in the sunshine along the road 
 that leads to the Madonna of S. lAica high on her 
 green hill.
 
 i?18 PASCABi:L. 
 
 We made our obeisance at lier shrine, and gazed 
 through the wonderful breadth of the pLains with 
 their countless cities and towns, and the low lines 
 of the circling mountains Ipng curve on curve in 
 endless undulation. 
 
 Then we came down from the height and wandered 
 whither Ave knew not exactly amongst fresh-turned 
 fields and vines just set with leaf, and orchards of 
 olive and mulberr}^ where many a little quiet paese 
 nestled with white-walled houses and red-roofed dove- 
 cotes. At one of these poderi there was a woman 
 with a merry handsome face and a scarlet kirtle 
 sitting spiiniing on the top of a flight of steps 
 under a dark archway hung with convolvulus. 
 
 Marco Rosas asked her if she could give us a 
 draught of milk. 
 
 She assented joyfully, and brought out not only 
 milk but honey and pomegranates and black sweet 
 bread, and set them out on a stone bench on the 
 top of the step under the convolvulus ; and would 
 have us eat there and then, she spinning all the 
 while and telling us her own liistory and her 
 grandmother's before her, looking across the 
 great sunny plains that stretched away like the
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 219 
 
 sea-green ocean, some white tower rising liere and 
 there out of the sun-mist like a seagull on the 
 wing. 
 
 She was a cheery, good-hearted creature ; she 
 lived on the most wondrous hattle -field of all 
 Em-ope, but she knew nothing of that ; she onl}- 
 knew that her eggs sold well in Bologna market, 
 and her bit of land was fruitful, and her husband 
 was a good man though careless, and her olive-trees 
 had been bit by the frost and would bear ill that 
 summer. 
 
 We had a pleasant hour with her there on the 
 sunny steps facing the low tumbled crests of the 
 Apennines, hyacinth-hued in the clear spring 
 w'eather. 
 
 We bade her farewell with many good wishes on 
 either side, and went on our way to the cit}'. The 
 sun was not far from its setting. 
 
 During those long sauntering walks the Unterinn- 
 thaler had told me still more about himself and his 
 birthplace in the high mountains. 
 
 As we drew under the city walls he began to speak 
 again, and a little confusedly, of his country, of his 
 home, of his people. His millet-fields and liis
 
 220 PA8GAREL. 
 
 mountain cattle were dearer to liim than all the 
 dead glories of Bologna. 
 
 " The chalet is large," he told me, " and Anton, 
 my brother, is a good, gentle lad. There is a great 
 store of linen, for my mother and her mother before 
 her were great spinners; and there is some little silver 
 in the plate chest, for our people have been there 
 for generations. It is not so very cold in the winter- 
 time, for everywhere we have double windows, and 
 we can afford to burn as man}" oak logs as we like. 
 And then in the spring it is so beautiful — all the 
 waters leaping as though they were mad, and the 
 loose snows rushing, thundering down, and the 
 cattle lowing with delight to get once more up on 
 their pastures, and the hyacinths and gentian spring- 
 ing up everj'where — oh, signorina, you do not laiow 
 how beautiful it is upon our mountains then ! " 
 
 "No doubt," I answered him, dreamily, m}- 
 thoughts not being with him. 
 
 " Much more beautiful than all this ! " he said, 
 with a sweep outward of his hand to the country. 
 " Here it is just maple and mulberry, mulberry and 
 maple, over and over again, and those endless vine- 
 yards ever3'where — so flat, so j)ale and tiresome."
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 221 
 
 "No doubt," I said again to liim, indifferent, 
 watching the white bullocks come through the gates 
 with an open wagon of the past year's hay. 
 
 He was silent a little while ; then he spoke again ; 
 his voice was swift and low. 
 
 " Signorma, did ever you hear of a tale that our 
 priest told us once ? There were terrible times 
 across the mountains, amongst the Francesi, I 
 think, and the peasantry rose against the aristocrats, 
 and everywhere they slew the nobles ; and at one 
 place the nobles were drowned by thousands in a 
 river. Do you know '? " 
 
 " You mean the Noyades of Nantes ?" 
 
 " It may be. I cannot tell the name. It was in 
 some time of revolution, and they did not spare even 
 the women. All the wives and daughters and 
 mothers of the nobles were bound and flung into 
 the water. There was only one way that anyone 
 of those young noble maidens could be spared ; it 
 was if one of the men of the populace asked and 
 took her in marriage " 
 
 He stopped abruptly. I, gathering some tufts of 
 maidenhair off the city wall, laughed a little. 
 
 " The waters were better, I should think. Well ? "
 
 222 PASCABEL. 
 
 " Signoriiia," lie began once more, and as I looked 
 up, astonished at the tremulous sound in his voice, 
 I saw his eyes fastened on me in imthetic entreaty, 
 still as of a dog that i)rays of you not to beat liim. 
 " Signorina, I have been thinking. It is almost as 
 ill with you as with those young noble Francese 
 maidens. You are all alone, and j^ou have no home 
 and no friends — you have told me so ; and surely 
 your father cannot be amongst the living, or he had 
 never been silent so long. Now, I am only a 
 mountaineer, I know that, and ignorant, and alto- 
 gether beneath you, and yet if you would let me 
 give you my home so long as ever — as ever — you 
 want one. The world \is bitter and bad for a 
 motherless child." 
 
 He paused and grew very red, then hurried on 
 with his explanation. 
 
 " I meant — if 3'ou Avould come to us — my mother 
 is so good : the little illustrissima would get to care 
 for her ; and the place is humble indeed, but sweet 
 and wholesome — and safe, I would go straight 
 back with the donzella, and not rest till she was 
 safe with my mother on the mountains. And I — I 
 know well the donzella would never look at me,
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 223 
 
 never think of me — I should never dream of it. But 
 if she woiikl only let me be of use to her, onh' let 
 me put a roof over her head, I should he so thank- 
 ful ! I would serve her hke a dog. For — for — in 
 this one little short day I have got to love her so 
 well!" 
 
 Then he stopped abruptly, and gTew ver}- white, 
 and I could hear his quick hard breathing as we 
 stood together outside the gates of Bologna in the 
 red sunset light. 
 
 My first impulse was that of ungrateful way^-ard- 
 ness. 
 
 What ! escape from Verona only to end my gor- 
 geous dreams in a peasant's shieling on northern 
 mountains ! I, who had set my face to the golden 
 south, dreaming of my Sordello of the winter's 
 masque, of my Romeo of the fairy roses. 
 
 I am ashamed to say that, like a spoilt and cruel 
 child as I was, I flashed on him a contemptuous 
 glance and laughed aloud. 
 
 The moment my laughter had struck on the even- 
 ing silence I was sorry. I shall never forget the 
 look on the frank fair face of Marco Rosas. 
 
 " Tlie donzella is riuht and I was mad — no 
 
 \
 
 224 PASCAB^L. 
 
 doubt," lie murmured, humbly; then he fell 
 behind, and followed me in silence through the 
 gates into the grim old town. 
 
 My heart smote me a little as I went. He had 
 meant so well ; perhaps it was cruel in me to 
 wound him. 
 
 I heard liis slow firm tread behind me until I had 
 passed into the open court of the Cignale d'Oro. 
 
 Then he stopped, and his voice — quite changed 
 in tone — muttered in my ear — 
 
 " Signorina, I will never see your face again. 
 Say you forgive me once ? " 
 
 I turned and looked at him, relenting a little. It 
 was so absurd ; and yet some sense of his thorough 
 goodness, of his perfect simplicity and sincerity, stole 
 on me and moved me despite myself. 
 
 I stretched my hand out to him witli the little 
 shaking maidenhair as a peace-offering. 
 
 "You were very good," I said to him, half 
 laughing, half crying. " I thank you very much 
 indeed ; only, it was so absurd, you know ; — go 
 away and forget me ; pray, pray do, or I shall be 
 so sorr}' ! " 
 
 He took the little tuft of grasses and looked at
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 225 
 
 me with a wistful sadness in liis eyes that haunted 
 me for many an hour after. 
 
 " I shall never forget, dear signorina. Never — 
 till I die." 
 
 Then he bent his head ver}^ low, and turned away 
 and left me. 
 
 One httle short day, and a life was won ! 
 
 I felt a strange thrill of conscious power, yet a 
 sense of some wrong thing done by me, as I 
 watched him pass wearily through the entrance 
 passage and disappear into the blackness of the 
 shadow. 
 
 I let him go in silence, and went upstairs to my 
 little room under the eaves. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 THE SNOW-FLOWER. 
 
 WAS pained and vet incensed. 
 
 It seemed as thougli all the cares and 
 sorrows of mature years crowded in on 
 me in one moment. I liad been so liappy in my 
 heedless goodfellowship with any one who smiled 
 on me, and was willing to be idle and mirthful with 
 me for an hour. 
 
 I do not know how others have been moved by 
 the first utterance of love to them ; but to me it 
 brought a weary sense of burdensome jiower and of 
 lost liberty. All the golden hazy glory of my future 
 seemed to have faded suddenlv. The future was
 
 THE CITY OF LILIE.S. 227 
 
 only now to me a blank uncertainty, which might 
 hold anything — or nothing. 
 
 All the gay elastic hopefulness of the previous 
 day was gone from me. I leaned on the edge 
 of my little casement, tired, and with an aching 
 heart. 
 
 It was another red and gold evening. 
 
 The voices were merry in the cortile below. The 
 little boy of the house played dominoes with his 
 granddam on the stone steps. The padrona and 
 her maidens hurried in and out, for the inn was full 
 of travellers passing through towards Padova and 
 Venice and Milan. 
 
 The whole was a little bright busy picture in 
 the sombreness of this great old city, which had 
 seen so much bloodshed, so much genius, so much 
 woe, so much splendour, and now Hved on, on its 
 past, as childless greybeards do alone amidst their 
 2)alaces. 
 
 I had no heart any more that day for the streets 
 of Bologna. I shut myself in my little cliamber 
 and watched the pigeons plume themselves upon 
 the roof, and heard tlie chattering, laughing voices 
 down below, and vexed my soul as young things 
 
 q2
 
 228 FASCAREL. 
 
 will over the perplexities and the cruelties of human 
 life. 
 
 The warm sunset was just tinging the solemn 
 gre^'s of the cit}' mto all manner of tender hues, 
 when above the clatter of the voices I heard the 
 little shrill voice of the child of the inn crying as 
 he ran out into the court, — 
 
 " Oh, mother, mother ! give me a scudo — -just 
 one to S]3end to-night." 
 
 " Fie, you naughty soul ! " grumbled the 
 mother ; " you are always spending money. You 
 will come to no good, Berto. The Frate says you 
 do not know your alfabeta, and yoii with those 
 blessed Scolopi Fathers over two years ! " 
 
 " Give me a scudo, mother ! " pleaded the little 
 lad. " Only one ! I will win it back at ruzzola 
 to-morrow." 
 
 " Oh, I daresa3%" sighed the padrona ; "all my 
 dear little cheeses bowled away down the streets. 
 You are a wicked one, Berto, and you my only 
 child, and I a widoAv ; seven years old too, as you 
 are!" 
 
 " Give me a scudo ! " cried Berto, cKnging to 
 her skirts, and, in fine, helping himself without
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 229 
 
 more ado from the leathern pouch that hmig at her 
 girdle- 
 
 "What is it for, Berto ? " she asked, catching 
 the child by his long hair. 
 
 " Pascarel, mother mine ! " shouted the little 
 scapegrace, who might have seven j^ears at 
 the uttermost. " To-night — just to-night — and 
 then on to Florence. Will you come too ? Do, 
 mother ! " 
 
 *^I do not mind if I do," said the padrona, cast- 
 ing her lace veil about her head. " There is only 
 that Httle donzella in the house, and two traders 
 from Ferrara. I do not mind if I do. Pascarel is 
 as good as a winning number at lotter}^ Here, 
 Pasqua, Gilla, Marta," — 
 
 She called her maidens round her, and set them 
 their tasks of cooking, spinning, poultry-feeding 
 and the Idee, standing in a circle of red light 
 in the black and white paved court under my 
 casement, and then went out with her little 
 son down into the dusk}-^ tunnel of the passage- 
 way. 
 
 Pascarel ! the name bewildered and yet com- 
 forted me. What would it be, I wondered : a
 
 230 PASCABEL. 
 
 game, a sliow, a dance, or the name of a living 
 creatm'e ? 
 
 Tlie name of the man who had chosen the bright 
 melting snow as its emblem ? — the snow-flower 
 that glittered a day in the light, and then 
 vanished ? 
 
 Anjnvay, it had a solace for me when I leaned 
 there in the red evening, while the place grew 
 quite still as the pigeons went to roost, and 
 the old chimes called to vespers, and the inn 
 maidens ran to chatter within-doors to the 
 Ferrarese as soon as their mistress's back was 
 turned. 
 
 Whatever it might be, this mystical Pascarel, it 
 went before me southward to Florence. If it were 
 only a snow-flower that would melt at a touch, it 
 seemed to me better than all the deathless flowers 
 of Paradise. 
 
 As I leaned there Avatching the silvery birds fly 
 against the reddened sky, I thought — why I do not 
 know — of Properzia de' Rossi. 
 
 I knew her story. I had often pondered over it, 
 and looked at the delicate sad face of her, with its 
 drooped lids and its Madonna's eyes. She had
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 231 
 
 dwelt here, in this mighty Bologna ; and Bologna 
 had made her its saint and sovereign whilst her 
 short hfe lasted, and in her death had mourned 
 her almost as Borne Baffaelle. 
 
 A slender, dainty, girlish thing, she had a name 
 of power even in that age of giants. She dared to 
 Avield, and to "svield well, the chisel and the burin 
 in the days when Miehaelangelo and Marcantonio 
 held them as their sceptres. Her city honoured 
 her, and the envy and injury of Amico gave her the 
 surest warranty of triumph. 
 
 And yet, — she had no joy in any of it ; she won 
 one by one all the laurels only to find them bitter 
 on her lips ; the marbles chilled her as though thej' 
 were dead children, and the shouts of the Boma- 
 gnese homage was dull and without music on her ears. 
 For why ? for this ; — so little and yet all. That one, 
 only m the city's width, saw no beauty in her, and 
 no wonder in her deeds : and this one, — alone of 
 them all, — she loved. 
 
 And he, not knowing, and when knowing, caring 
 nothing, but turning away his beautiful cold face 
 into the hght of others' smiles, Broperzia grew 
 weary of her work, and changed to hate her lavish
 
 232 PABCAREL. 
 
 gifts of nature ; and left undone the public sculp- 
 tui*es she had sought so eagerty ; and would not for 
 all the city's wooing use her power again, but drew 
 herself in from life and light like a sea-flower that 
 is thrown by tempest on the rocks. And so, when 
 Clement came into Bologna to crown great Charles, 
 and asked, as the first of all the wonders of 
 the place, for that Properzia whose fame had 
 spread from sea to sea in Italy, the Bolognese, 
 weeping bitterly, could only lead him to the 
 hospital to look upon the fair dead body of a 
 girl. 
 
 I thought of her wistfully as the tawny evening 
 colours spread themselves like an emperor's pall 
 over the desolate city. 
 
 I only saw the beauty and the sadness of the 
 story. What there was of evil in it passed by me ; 
 the passion and the shame shadowed out in that 
 terrible sculpture, which was the last her genius 
 wrought, had no meaning for me ; of the poison 
 of unrequited desire which had burned up and 
 ruined all the dehcate grace and innocent loveh- 
 ness of her nature and her life, I liad no sense or 
 suspicion.
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 233 
 
 I was only sorry for lier — dead all those cen- 
 turies before — here in the city of Guido. And a 
 strange new wonder awoke and thrilled in me ; — 
 what could it be, this marvellous thing called Love 
 which had thus killed her ? 
 
 And then I thought, — I knew not why, — of 
 the dark and tender eyes of the Florentine 
 Masquer. 
 
 The owl had awoke from his watch-tower on 
 the tub, and had begun to boom to and fro hunt- 
 ing bats through the shadows of the angles and 
 roofs. 
 
 The deep bell of the Misericordia boomed over 
 Bologna in the stillness. The old woman, spin- 
 ning at her wheel, stopped to cross herself and 
 say a prayer or two for the poor passmg 
 soul. 
 
 I saw the stars come out, and thought of how 
 they were shining there away across the plains on 
 those lowly graves beneath the shadow of the Alps ; 
 and then I threw myself wearily on the little bed, 
 and cried mj'self to sleep. 
 
 At daybreak I rose and went down and paid my 
 slender score. Then I bade them farewell, and
 
 234 
 
 FASCAREL. 
 
 went out into the white and glistening light that 
 heralds mornmg in the Italian plains. 
 
 An hour later I was on ni}' way across the wild 
 gorges of the hills to Florence.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 LA REINE DU MOYENAGE 
 
 ^LL day long, and all nigiit long, the heavy 
 diligenza creaked and rolled upon its 
 course over the grey heights, and through 
 the dusky ravines of the Aj)ennines. 
 
 I slept and dreamed, and woke and gazed, and 
 slept and dreamed again ; it was all blent to me in 
 a confused tumult of light and darkness, rest and 
 pain. 
 
 It was again daybreak, when, with a shock and a 
 dull crash, the great vehicle reeled over on its 
 side and fell broken and crushed ujion the stony 
 way, the poor beasts struggling under their 
 entangled weight of leather, rope, and links of brass.
 
 236 PASCAREL. 
 
 It had been urged too swiftly down a steep and 
 angular slope. 
 
 I rose -with a confused sense of pain, Lut I liad 
 received no luirt. 
 
 There were stir and strife and lamentation. Then 
 some one told nie that it would be hom's ere the 
 vehicle could be again upon the road, and that it 
 were better to go on foot to Florence : we were on 
 the hill-side, not a league away, and very soon night 
 would have fallen. They pointed me the way ; I 
 followed it ; a rough road winding between liigh 
 stone walls, descending always abruptl}^ and with- 
 out beauty, white with dust, and rugged to the feet; 
 above, a wondrous sky; sapphire blue in the zenith, 
 all to westward glowing with a million cloud-flecks of 
 intensest rose; the rose of the deep carnation buds 
 when the}' blush into life with the spring of the 
 year. 
 
 I followed patiently the windings of the path, 
 always between the pale stone walls, a little 
 solitary figure, purple and yellow, as though the 
 violets and crocuses of the Avoods had dressed 
 me. 
 
 Suddenly, with a sharp bend, the road sheered
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 237 
 
 downward into a wide valle}', white and grey with 
 the blossoming woods of the olive. In the midst 
 of that silveiy sea was stretched the fairest cit}" of 
 all the empires of the world. 
 
 The smi was setting. 
 
 Over the whole Valdarno there was everywhere a 
 faint ethereal golden mist that rose from the water 
 and the woods. 
 
 The town floated on it as upon a lake ; her 
 spires, and domes, and towers, and palaces bathed 
 at their base in its amber waves, and rising up- 
 ward into the rose-hued radiance of the upper 
 ail'. The mountains that encircled her took all the 
 varying hues of the sunset on their pale heights 
 until they flushed to scarlet, glowered to violet, 
 Avavered with flame, and paled to whiteness, as the 
 opal burns and fades. Warmth, fragrance, silence, 
 loveliness encompassed her ; and in the gi'eat still- 
 ness the bell of the basilica tolled slowly in the 
 evening call to prayer. 
 
 Thus Florence rose before me. 
 
 A strange tremor of exceeding joy thrilled through 
 me as I beheld the reddened shadows of those close- 
 lying roofs, and those marble heights of towers and
 
 238 FA8GAREL. 
 
 of temples. At last my eyes gazed on lier ! — the 
 daughter of flowers, the mistress of art, the nursing 
 mother of liberty and of aspiration. 
 . I fell on my knees and thanked God. I pity 
 those who, in such a moment, have not done like- 
 wise. 
 
 My e3^es Avere dim, but ray heart was strong, and 
 beat high with hope as I rose and stumbled down 
 the rugged way, onwards, to the entrance of her 
 gates ; always with the great dome shining before 
 me in the golden haze ; always with the clouds light 
 «s a breath, scarlet as a flame, hovering above me 
 in the windless air. 
 
 The afterglow was still warm in the heavens 
 when I reached the city walls and entered the 
 shadows of her historic streets. 
 
 I wandered all the evening, unconscious of 
 fatigue, until tlie streets were all ablaze with lights, 
 and all astir with people. I remembered then, for 
 the first time, that it was the last Domenica of the 
 year's Carnival. 
 
 The great white Seasons of the Santa Trinita 
 rose like snow against the golden air. Monte 
 Oliveto towered dark against the rosy glory of the
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 239 
 
 west. There was a sweet sea wiiid blowing which 
 fanned out as it went all the spiced odours of the 
 pharmacies, and all the scents of the budding- 
 woods. Tlie shops of the goldsmiths, and mosaic 
 sellers, and alabaster workers gleamed and sparkled 
 in the light. Everywhere there was some beauty, 
 some fragrance, some treasure; and above it all 
 rose the wondrous shaft of the campanile, glancing 
 like gold and ivory in the sun. 
 
 Where Hes the secret of the spell of Florence ? — 
 a spell that strengthens, and does not fade with time? 
 
 It is a strange, sweet, subtle charm that makes 
 those who love her at all love her with a passionate, 
 close-clinging faith in her as the fairest thing that 
 men have ever builded where she lies amidst her 
 lily-whitened meadoAvs. 
 
 Perhaps it is because her story is so old, and her 
 beauty is so young. 
 
 Behind her lie such abysses of mighty memories. 
 Upon her is shed such radiance of sunlight and of 
 life. The stones of her are dark with the blood of 
 so many generations, but her air is bright with the 
 blossoms of so many flowers ; even as the eyes of 
 lier people have in them more sadness than lies in
 
 240 PASCAEEL. 
 
 tears, whilst theii' lips have the gayest laughter that 
 ever made music in the weariness of the world. 
 
 Eome is terrible in her old age. It is the 
 old age of a mighty murderess of men. About her 
 there is ever the scent of death ; the abomination 
 of desolation. She was, in her days of power and 
 of sorcery, a living lie. She called herself the 
 mother of freed men, and she conceived but slaves. 
 The shame of her and the sin cling' to her still, 
 and the blood that she shed makes heavy and hor- 
 rible the air that she respires. Her head is crowned 
 with ashes, and her lips, as they mutter of dead 
 days, breathe j)estilence. 
 
 But Florence, where she sits throned amidst her 
 meadows white with lilies, Florence is never ter- 
 rible, Florence is never old. In her infanc}' they 
 fed her on the manna of freedom, and that faii'est 
 food gave her eternal youth. In her early years 
 she worshipped ignorantly indeed, but truly alwa^'S 
 the day-star of liberty; and it has been with her 
 always so that the light shed ujDon her is still as 
 the light of morning. 
 
 Does tliis sound a fanciful folly ? Nay, there is 
 a real truth in it.
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 241 
 
 The past is so close to you in Floreiice. You 
 touch it at eveiy step. It is not the dead past that 
 men bmy and then forget. It is an unquenchable 
 thing ; beautiful, and full of lustre, even in the 
 tomb, like the gold from the sepulchres of the 
 Etruscan kmgs that shines on the breast of some 
 fair living woman, undimmed by the dust and the 
 length of the ages. 
 
 The music of the old greatness thrills through all 
 the commonest things of life like the grilli's chant 
 through the wooden cages on Ascension Day ; and, 
 like the song of the grilh, its poetry stays in the 
 warmth of the common hearth for the ears of the 
 little children, and loses nothing of its melod}-. 
 
 The beauty of the past in Florence is lilve the 
 beauty of the great Duomo. 
 
 About the Duomo there is stir and strife at all 
 times ; crowds come and go ; men bu\- and sell ; 
 lads laugh and fight ; piles of fruit blaze gold and 
 crimson ; metal pails clash down on the stones 
 with shrillest clangour; on the steps boys play- at 
 dominoes, and women give their children food, and 
 merry maskers grin in carnival fooleries ; but there 
 in then- midst is the Duomo all unharmed and un- 
 
 VOI,. I. R
 
 242 PASGARJEL. 
 
 degraded, a poem and a pra3'er in one, its marbles 
 shining in the upper air, a thing so majestic in its 
 strength, and yet so human in its tenderness, that 
 nothing can assail, and nothing equal it. 
 
 Other, though not many, cities have histories as 
 noble, treasuries as vast ; but no other city has them 
 living and ever present in her midst, familiar as 
 household words, and touched by every baby's hand 
 and peasant's step, as Florence has. 
 
 Every line, every rood, every gable, every tower, 
 has some story of the past present in it. Every 
 tocsin that sounds is a chronicle ; every bridge that 
 unites the two banks of the river unites also the 
 crowds of the living with the heroism of the dead. 
 
 In the winding dusky irregular streets, with the 
 outlines of their logge and arcades, and the glow 
 of colour that fills their niches and galleries, the 
 men who "have gone before " walk Avith you; not 
 as elsewhere mere gliding shades clad in the pallor 
 of a misty memory, but present, as in theii- daily 
 lives, shading their dreamful eyes against the noon- 
 day sun or setting their brave brows against the 
 mountain wind, laughing and jesting in their 
 mnnful mirth and speaking as brother to brother of
 
 THE CITY OF LILIEH. 243 
 
 great gifts to give the world. All this while, 
 though the past is thus close ahout you the i:>re- 
 sent is beautiful also, and does not shock you by 
 discord and unseemliness as it will ever do else- 
 where. The throngs that pass you are the same 
 in likeness as those that brushed against Dante 
 or Calvacanti; the populace that you move 
 amidst is the same bold, vivid, fearless, 
 eager people with eyes full of dreams, and lips 
 braced close for war, which welcomed Vinci 
 and Cimabue and fought from Montaperto to 
 Solferino. 
 
 And as you go through the streets you will 
 surely see at every step some colour of a fresco on 
 a wall, some quaint curve of a bas-relief on a 
 lintel, some vista of Romanesque arches in a x^alace 
 court, some dusky interior of a smith's forge or a 
 wood-seller's shop, some Renaissance seal ring 
 elimmering on a trader's stall, some loveh' hues of 
 fruits and herbs tossed down together in a Tre 
 Cento window, some gigantic mass of blossoms 
 being borne aloft on men's shoulders for a church 
 festivity of roses, something at every step that lias 
 
 some beauty or some charm in it, some gracious- 
 
 K 2
 
 244 PASGAREL. 
 
 ness of the ancient time, or some poetry of the 
 j)resent hour. 
 
 The beauty of the past goes with you at every 
 step in Florence. Buy eggs in the market, and 
 you buy them where Donatello bought those which 
 fell down in a broken heap before the w^onder 
 of the crucifix. Pause in a narrow bye-street in 
 a crowd and it shall be that Borgo Allegri, which 
 the people so baptised for love of the old painter 
 and the new-born art. Stray into a great dark 
 church at evening time, w^here peasants tell their 
 beads in the vast marble silence, and you are where 
 the whole city flocked, weeping, at midnight to look 
 theii" last upon the face of their Michael Angelo. 
 Pace up the steps of the palace of the Signoria and 
 vou tread the stone that felt the feet of him to 
 whom so bitterly was known " com'' e ditro calle, lo 
 scenderc el salir iier Valtn'ii scale.'' Buy a knot of 
 March anemoli or April arum lilies, and you may 
 bear them with you through the same city ward in 
 which the child Ghirlandajo once played amidst the 
 gold and silver garlands that his father fashioned 
 for the young heads of the Eenaissance. Ask for 
 a shoemaker and you shall find the cobbler sitting
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 245 
 
 "with his board in the same okl twisting, shadowy 
 street way, where the okl man Toscanelli drew his 
 charts that served a faii'-haii'ed sailor of Genoa, 
 called Columbus. Toil to fetch a tinker through 
 the squalor of San Niccolo, and there shall fall on 
 you the shadow of the bell-tower where the old 
 sacristan saved to the world the genius of the 
 Night and Day. Glance up to see the hour of 
 tlie evening time, and there, sombre and tragical, 
 will loom above you the walls of the communal 
 palace on which the traitors were painted by the 
 brush of Sarto, and the tower of Giotto, fair and 
 fresh in its perfect grace as though angels had 
 builded it in the night just past, " oiuV ella toglie 
 ancora e terza e nona" as in the noble and simple 
 days before she brake the " eerchia antlca." 
 
 Everywhere there are flowers, and breaks of 
 songs, and rills of laughter, and wonderful eyes 
 that look as if they too, like their Poets, had gazed 
 into the heights of heaven and the depths of hell. 
 
 And then you will pass out at the gates 
 beyond the city walls, and all around you 
 there will be a radiance and serenity of light 
 that seems to throb in its intensity and yet is
 
 246 PASCAREL. 
 
 divinely restful, like the passion and the peace 
 of love when it has all to adore and nothing to 
 desii-e. 
 
 The water will be broad and gold, and darkened 
 here and there into shadows of porphyrine amber. 
 Amidst the grey and green of the olive and acacia 
 foliage there will arise the low pale roofs and Hat- 
 topped towers of innumerable villages. 
 
 Everywhere there will be a wonderful width of 
 amethystine hills and mystical depths of seven- 
 chorded light. Above, masses of rosy cloud will 
 drift, hke rose leaves leaning on a summer wind. 
 And, like a magic girdle which has shut her out 
 from all the curse of age and death and man's 
 obhvion, and given her a youth and loveliness 
 which will endure so long as the earth itself en- 
 dures, there will be the cii'cle of the mountains, 
 pm-ple and white and golden, lying around Florence. 
 
 Who, having known her, can forsake her for 
 lesser loves ? 
 
 Who, having once abode with her, can turn their 
 faces from the rising sun and set the darkness of 
 the hills betwixt herself and them ?
 
 CHAPTEK XI. 
 
 THE :^^DNIGHT FAIR. 
 
 beautiful was it all, so strange, so wild, 
 so fantastic, that all hunger, fatigue, and 
 fear were forgotten by me in its curious 
 delight. I wandered on and on, asking nothing, 
 only for ever looking and looking and looking. 
 I thought that I had strayed over the border 
 land that parts us from the past, and was amidst 
 the breathing burning life of the Cinque Cento. 
 
 By many and various streets — all made noble 
 with frowning fortress, carven statues, walls mas- 
 sive and loft}' as alpine slopes, ornament delicate 
 and wonderful as frost on woven aspen boughs, — I 
 came at length into a great square, which I needed
 
 248 FASCABEL. 
 
 none to tell me was the place -where the soul of 
 Savonarola had been sent forth on fire. For there 
 the standard of the jieople rose on the tower of 
 the Commonwealth, and the lustrous moonlight 
 lay calm and broad about the feet of the bronze 
 Perseus. 
 
 The Hercules and the David stood white and 
 serene against the darlaiess; the battlements of the 
 magisterial palace were set like jaws of iron hard 
 agamst the night ; the moonshine caught the 
 colours on the blazoned shields that edged the 
 walls ; the beautiful Judith knit her brows against 
 the world from under the black arch of her loggia. 
 How still it was there, where only the shaj^es of 
 marble and of bronze kept watch and ward in the 
 gathering-place of the EepubKc. 
 
 Yet — a stone's throw, and all Florence laughed, 
 and danced, and reeled, and sang, and gamed, and 
 shouted in the open gallery of the Uffizi. A 
 stone's throw, — and in the very shadow of the 
 Vecchio standard, under the very gaze of the 
 Donatello, Florence in her wildest gaiety held her 
 riot and her revehy. 
 
 It was the midnight I'air of the Carnival.
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 249 
 
 All the length of the arcade was filled with 
 the bright and motley throng. In open spaces 
 on the flagstones the people were dancing to shrill 
 clamour of fife and drum. Here a white Filatrice 
 with powdered face was whirled down b}^ a scarlet 
 Mephisto, and here an Arlecchino all ablaze in 
 squares of colour, spun round a black domino ready 
 masked for the Veglione. There a debardeur, 
 sunny-faced and stout-limbed, toyed with a 
 Neapolitan Pulcinello ; and there a lithe conta- 
 dina, with eyes of jet, galloped like a Friuli 
 filly down the pavement, tiring out a panting and 
 piteous Stenterello. 
 
 ()n either side in the niches between the marble 
 figures were ranged the little gay canteens and 
 stalls of the traders ; wines and straw work, and 
 flowers and woollen goods, and all the merchandise 
 of the whole contado, were decked out with coloured 
 lamps and painted devices, and streaming ribbons, 
 and all fanciful follies of gay ornamentation. 
 
 Aloft on a barrel, the charlatan, in a flourish of 
 scarlet cloth, screamed forth the praises of his 
 pharmacy and of his life-pills ; whilst his compeer 
 of the lottery, in tissue of silver and a conical hat
 
 2oO PASCAREL. 
 
 an ai'm"s length high, with iiaunting peacock's 
 phnnes, rattled his dice and shouted forth the 
 winning nunihers. Peasant girls with penthouse 
 hats of straw, grave fattori watching the selling of 
 their wares, little children hugging loads of strac- 
 ciataunta, maskers flying in a blaze of crackers, 
 the people ever3'^vhere, in crowds, pushmg, shouting, 
 anticking, sporting, but always in glee and always 
 in good humour, wliile here and there amidst 
 them some patrician idler sauntered with some 
 mistress of the hour, masked, upon his arm, 
 smiling together as they watched the humours of 
 the fair. 
 
 Amidst it all stood the white statues ; here the 
 quiet face of Arretino, — there the bold brows of the 
 Uberti ; here the austere sadness of Dante, — there 
 the old man's smile of Sant' Antonino. 
 
 And away at the far end of the great gallery the 
 white arches crossed each other high above against 
 the blackness of the night ; and in the gleam of the 
 tossing lamps the drooping banners of the Lost 
 Liberties hung, crimson as the blood o'f Campal- 
 dino and Custozza ; and out further in the stillness 
 beyond the stone i)arapet rolled the broad moon-
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 25 1 
 
 liglitened Arno water ; and above all were the clear 
 skies, breathless as in summer, the eloquent lumi- 
 nous pui-ple skies of a Florence night. 
 
 This is how I saw the city first ; this is how she 
 will lie in my heart and in my memories for ever. 
 
 I was but a child ; I was entranced by the goodly 
 chaos of mii'th and colour, by the beautiful outlines, 
 b}^ the zestful masking, by the gaiety and the gro- 
 tesqueness that were framed in that stately setting. 
 
 I found a quiet nook under the marble shelter 
 of the figure of old Taddeo Gaddi, and rested 
 there and watched the whims and vagaries of the 
 Florentmes. 
 
 It had grown quite late. I heard all the chimes 
 of the belfries striking and ringing the twelfth hour 
 of the night. 
 
 Acrobats were tumbling, musicians were braying, 
 the dancers were flying faster and faster, the swift 
 crackers were runnmg along the stones like stars, 
 the buyers and sellers were raising shriller and 
 shriller their clamour, the winners at the lottery 
 were darting hither and thither triumphant, hugging 
 theii' prizes of wines and capons and kerchiefs and 
 sugar-loaves ; and every now and then, amidst the
 
 252 PASCABEL. 
 
 noise and uproar, there would come a sweet, sliort 
 rijiple from a lute that broke in the air lilce sea 
 spray ; or there would pass through the crowd 
 young, barefooted, with dreaming eyes that saw 
 heaven afar off, and were blind to all the stir 
 around him, some monk, with the head of Fra 
 Angelic o. 
 
 For in Italy life is all contrast, and there 
 is no laugh and love-song without a sigh beside 
 them ; tliere is no velvet mask of mirth and passion 
 without the marble mask of art and death near to 
 it. For everywhere the wild tulip burns red upon 
 a ruined altar, and everywhere the blue borage rolls 
 its azure waves through the silent temples of for- 
 gotten gods. 
 
 As I stood against the stone figure of old 
 Taddeo, a man went by me swiftly, laughing, 
 and chased by the people. He Avas clad in the 
 gay and man^'-coloured dress of the Neapolitan 
 Pulcinello, bound, no doubt, later on, for the 
 Veglione. 
 
 He had a scourge of bladders and little gilded bells 
 in his hand, and he struck his pursuers deftly, cast- 
 ing amongst them wild words of the shrewd Tuscan
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 253 
 
 wit that is sharp and silver like the leaf of the 
 Tuscan olive. 
 
 The people flew after him, laughing, tumbling, 
 shouting, frolicking, and as they chased him called 
 out, " Pascarello ! Pascarel ! " 
 
 It was he who had given me the onyx. It was 
 my Eomeo of Verona, my Florindo of the scarlet 
 plume, and unconsciously I sprang forward and 
 tried to touch him as he flew. 
 
 Alas ! it was in vain. 
 
 He passed me like the wind, and caught a giil 
 of the Casentino about the waist, and whirled her 
 into the maze of the waltzing. He did not 
 notice me where I leaned in the grey shadow of old 
 Gaddi ; and I soon lost liim from sight in tlie mass 
 of blending hues, and the strange chiaroscuro of 
 that shadowy balkoom, with its torch Ughts flaming 
 amongst its banners and the blue night sky for its 
 roof. 
 
 A sense of deadly chillness and of blank dis- 
 appointment stole over me. 
 
 He was but a stranger, and I had seen liis face 
 but twice, and yet I was stung to a passionate grief 
 and humiliation to think that he had passed me by
 
 254 
 
 PASCAREL. 
 
 and gone to fling about in the wild dancing that 
 black -browed, red-kirtled contadina. 
 
 The beauty and the frolic of the fiera were all 
 over for me.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 "v\t:th the wild crocus. 
 
 LEFT it with my eyes dim and my heart 
 beating fast with a sickening pain ; left 
 it in the height of its revehy, the i)eople 
 streaming in faster and faster to join the merriment 
 and take their chance at the lottery. 
 
 I had no knowledge whither to go or where 
 best to rest the night. I moved across the piazza 
 Avithout quite well knowing where I Avent, and 
 casting one look behind me at the Judith Avhere she 
 knit her dark brows in scorn against the folh' of it 
 all, I left the square by a little dusky passage Avay. 
 
 Some man accosted me as I turned into the 
 gloom, but I hurried on, my Iiood Avell OA'er my face, 
 nnd he Avns in haste to reach the TIflfizi and let me
 
 256 PASCABEL. 
 
 pass. In the street that is named of the vmc I 
 saw a little homel3'-looking hosteh'y called the 
 Silver Melon. I was very tired and sad now that 
 the excitement of my entrj- into the city had passed 
 bv. I asked them if I could have a bed there, and 
 when they assented I crept up to the little chamber 
 that they offered me, and, after a little space, cried 
 myself to sleep with the shouts of the populace 
 and the strains of the music in the gallery hard by 
 keeping the air astir all night and mingling witli 
 my dreams. 
 
 When the daylight came, a certain hope and 
 gladness came to me with it. 
 
 There was so much to see in this wondrous city, 
 and I was so young, — and, after all, tilings would 
 surely go well with me. 
 
 The people had alwaj'S said that I was fair to 
 see ; and those who knew had told me that I had a 
 fortune in my voice. After all, I was in Florence, 
 and I had a dozen broad florins in gold, and I was 
 a child, and I was not afraid. 
 
 When I had broken my fast, I left my little 
 load of clothes in jiledge of my return, and 
 went.
 
 TEE CITY OF LILIES. 257 
 
 ' ' "Where, white and wide, 
 Washed by the morning's water-gold, 
 Florence lay out on the mountain side." 
 
 It was past ten by ilie clocks and belfries, and a 
 flood of sunlight streamed on the Valdarno. In 
 its delicious brilliance I moved on and on and on, 
 enthralled, entranced, in rapture of the present, in 
 meditation of the past. 
 
 ' ' Rirer, and bridge, and street, and square, 
 Laj' mine, as much at my beck and call. 
 Through the live translucent bath of air, 
 As the sights in the magic crystal ball. ", 
 
 And of my magic crystal I was never tu'ed. 
 
 All the town was astir, eager to make the utter- 
 most of the last days of Carnival. The bells were 
 ringing madly, in as much tumult and confusion 
 of metal tongues as ever called the Trades together 
 in the old days for a raid upon Oltrarno. The 
 long, covered gallery of the Medician tyranny hung 
 in the air lilce a black cloud. I thought of the 
 day when to build it the}' had pierced through 
 the cobbler's dwelling, and had laid bare to the 
 tyrant's eyes the beauty of Camilla IMartelli. One 
 seems to see her sitting there in tlie little, dusky 
 
 VOL. I. s
 
 258 PASCAEi:L. 
 
 den, with the smell of the leather and the tic-tac 
 of the shoemaker's hammer, her only comimnion- 
 ship all through the weary hours, until the crash 
 of the axes and mallets broke down the wall of the 
 chamber, and, with the flood of the dayhght, let in 
 so wondrous a blaze of changed fortune. Beneath 
 it, on the old bridge, the penthouses of the 
 jewellers and of the workers in gold and silver 
 sparlded with colour and glistened with treasure, 
 whilst the men and the mules pushed by, and to 
 right and left through the arches shone the sunny 
 stretch of the river, the trireme-like group of the 
 boats cutting sharply and darkly against the gold. 
 I thought of that awful morning when over that 
 bridge there had ridden the gay young bridegroom 
 of Buondelmonte, with the white garland on his 
 golden locks, whilst at the feet of the statue of 
 Mars the avengers had waited with naked blades 
 and souls set hard on the slaughter. One seemed 
 to hear the shiver of the steel against the marriage 
 jewels, and to watch the Easter lilies fall, trampled 
 on the blood-red stones. 
 
 Everywhere the people were about, they had 
 danced tiU daydawn at the VegHone and the
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 259 
 
 Fiera, what of that ? — they tossed down a little 
 red Avine, and fastened new signal rihbous to 
 their shoulders, and swept out hi troops into 
 the sunshine, ready again for the masquing and 
 motley. There were bursts of music ; notes of 
 mandolines ; ripples of laughter ; chattering at all 
 street corners ; great clusters of scented roses torn 
 from castello walls beyond the gates ; sweet clus- 
 ters of rosy cyclamen blushing faintly like sea- 
 shells; baskets of yellow muscat grapes and great 
 black figs, and the red hearts of cut pomegranates. 
 And above all the warmth, and stir, and glare, and 
 mirth, and tumult, there rose the spuitual beauty 
 of towers and sj)ires, such as sculptors see in cities 
 of theii- dreams, and on the high standards there 
 flashed the scarlet cross of Florence that once had 
 burned triumphant above even the walls of Rome 
 herself. 
 
 It was past noon as I came out on to the river's 
 side, and saw to right and left of me, far as the 
 eye could strain, the lovely reaches of the sun- 
 burnished water, the near hills silver witli oHve, 
 dark with ilex and cj7)ress, and, far, far away, the 
 green plains, the lines of Lombard poplars, the 
 
 s 2
 
 260 PASCAREL. 
 
 golden sea of light, the purple shadows of the 
 mountains, sown with then' countless \'illages and 
 villas as a lake with the whiteness of its summer 
 lilies. 
 
 So near they looked, so ethereal, so worthy to be 
 some mystic border land of Paradise, those soft 
 Apennine and Carrara ranges, lying fold on fold in 
 their loveliness, that my steps were irresistibly 
 drawn towards them until I had passed out through 
 one of the city gates, and was in a wooded place 
 upon the river, with deep ilex shadows above my 
 head, and near me thickets of acacia, with their 
 budding branches quivering in the light ; and in 
 the distance always those soft, dreamy hues of 
 the Carrara marble flashing in the noonday sun. 
 
 Then, being tired and warm, I sat down upon a 
 stone bench where the trees grew very thickly and 
 bordered a meadow sown at every step with cro- 
 cuses, until the grass was pale and pm'ple with 
 them. 
 
 I did not think what was likely to become of me, 
 nor of how little probable it was that I should find 
 trace of my father and of Florio. I was only 
 dreamily happy, half-stupidly conscious of the
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 261 
 
 cliarm of the soft soutliern air and the spell of the 
 stretching mountains. 
 
 All was quite still : a rabbit scudded swiftly 
 amongst the crocuses, nibbling here and there : a 
 hawk flew by : beyond the canes that grew thick by 
 the water there were some sweet bells ringing away 
 there where the grey shadows of Monte Murello 
 sloped upwards against the sun. 
 
 After a while an old creature, with a basket full 
 of Roman lilies and Parma violets, came across the 
 l)lace where I sat. She cast some lilies into my 
 lap, and called me her dear signorina, and begged of 
 me a coin for the love of God. 
 
 "What bells are those?" I asked her, lifting 
 the lilies, with their long green leaves, doubtfully, 
 for I was too poor to buy them. 
 
 " Perretola, dear signora," she said, sadly. "I 
 was born there eighty years ago. It is hard to live 
 eighty years only to sell flowers for a bit of bread. 
 It is a little place. Step out, and you can see it 
 across the vines. Yes, the bells are fine. They 
 rang when I was married. I thought marriage a 
 fine thing. He was a worker in stone. He got 
 into trouble in the old Duke's time when the
 
 262 PASGAEEL. 
 
 French were about the place ; and was m jnison, 
 and what not ; as if married men should do aught 
 but find charcoal to boil the soup-pot — but it was 
 the way of them all at that time. And now he is 
 dead; dead a matter of twenty-five 3'ear, and we 
 are no nearer all the fine free things he used to be 
 mad to talk of, at least so they prate ; and I sell 
 Hlies for a bit of bread. It was better in the 
 old Duke's time — better in the old Duke's time — 
 so I say." 
 
 "Poor soul! It was ''better in the old Duke's 
 time " to her. To her, notliing the liberties of Italy, 
 the rise of the People, the expulsion of the Gaul, 
 the rebound from bondage into aspiration and free- 
 drawn breath. It was " better m the Duke's time " 
 — when she had had youth and health, and love 
 and dreams, away there where the bells were ring- 
 ing in the white village just across the vines. 
 
 I felt sorry for her, she was so old, so old : and 
 to stand in the sun when one was as old as that, 
 and hear the very bells that once rung in one's 
 bridal hour and find no music in them, but only 
 desire to mumble a crust in one's toothless jaws — 
 it seemed horrible to me, ver}' horrible.
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 263 
 
 " Give me sometliiiig — some little something, 
 dear signorina," she mui'mured, holding out her 
 withered hands. "The lilies die so soon in the 
 sun, and I have wall^ed in from Perretola without 
 bit or droj) ! " 
 
 Wisely or unwisely, my heart was won. I slid 
 my hand into the little leathern pouch bound round 
 my waist by a thong, in which all my little worldly 
 store was kept. Oh Dio ! the horror of that 
 moment. The purse was empty ! 
 
 In lieu of touching coin either of gold or of 
 copper, my fingers slid down the bag, meeting 
 nothing in their way. I sprang to my feet Avith a 
 scream ; I tore the pouch off my girdle ; I pulled 
 it inside out with the horrible vehemence of a 
 deadly terror ; not so much as a brazen scudo fell 
 upon the ground. In the chamois leather there 
 was a straight slit, as though cut through by a 
 knife : the pouch was empty. No doubt I had 
 been robbed the previous night in the j)ress of the 
 Carnival Fair. 
 
 I did net cry out ; I stood like a frozen thmg, in 
 cold, gazing at my empty hands. The sunsliiny 
 country reeled before me ; the white road seemed
 
 264 PASCAEEL. 
 
 to heave to and fro like a sea. Every thing was 
 sickly, and blinding, and unreal. 
 
 I knew the meaning of poverty too well not to 
 measure in one moment the whole extent of the 
 ruin that befell me. The old contadiiia stood still 
 and looked at me, appalled, no doubt, by the 
 despair of my face and of my attitude. 
 
 " The signorina has nothmg?" she stammered, 
 thinking, doubtless, poor wretch, of her own empty 
 liearth and her owai achmg hunger. The words 
 broke the spell of the terror that kept me motion- 
 less and silent. 
 
 " Nothing ! " I echoed, and I know I laughed 
 aloud — laughed wildly, in riotous hilarity, in my 
 unutterable horror. " Nothing — nothing — nothing 
 in all the whole world. My God ! " 
 
 Then I tlirew myself down prostrate at the foot 
 of tlie marble bench, whilst the old peasant, aghast 
 and bewildered, stood and looked on, silent and 
 appalled. I could not speak nor weej) ; I felt as 
 though some huge stone had been flmig on me and 
 had stretched me half dead beneath its weight. 
 
 With my little store of golden florins, I had felt 
 myself strong enough and hopeful enough to meet
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 265 
 
 all accidents of life and vanquish them, hut 
 penniless, I was nerveless, hopeless, homeless. 
 The extremity of my du-e despair stifled me, 
 as though some suffocating hand were at my 
 throat. 
 
 Alone, without a coin in the world to get me 
 bread ! 1 thought how much more mercy the 
 robber of my little all would surely have shown to 
 me if only he had drawn his knife across my throat. 
 
 I do not know how long I lay there, crushed 
 and stunned, doAvn on the beautiful crocus-filled 
 grass of the pasture. 
 
 The old woman stooped and touched me gently. 
 
 " Have you, indeed, nothing, signorina ? Is 
 it stolen, or what? Do not lie like that— you 
 frighten me." 
 
 I raised my head, and looked at her. A mist 
 swam before my eyes. The whole green expanse 
 of the meadow eddied giddily about me lilce a 
 whirlpool. But in the midst of my misery a vague 
 remembrance of how bitterly I must have disap- 
 pointed her arose to me : she was not poorer than 
 I was now ; but then she was so old. 
 
 " I am sorry," I murmured, brokenly, " sorry
 
 266 PASGAREL. 
 
 for 3-011 ; but they have robbed me — I have notliing 
 in the workl." 
 
 The poor old creature sighed ; to her also the 
 blow was heavy. She had argued from m}- face 
 and my, youth some liberal gift. But the generous 
 and tender heart of her country beat in her 
 withered breast. 
 
 "Never mind, dear signorina," she said, softly, 
 "you wished to give; Our Lady will remember it 
 to you just the same — just the same. And you 
 love the lilies." 
 
 She laid another cluster of the flowers on my lap 
 as she turned away. Poor soul ! I hope that act 
 has been remembered to her likewise. 
 
 How Italian it Avas ! the little simple sunny 
 kindness done in all the darkness of poverty and 
 age and pain. 
 
 I could not speak to her again ; vacantly I 
 watched her figure, brown and crooked, pass across 
 the blossoming meadow in the full blaze of the 
 shadowless light. No doubt she went to sell her 
 lilies at the gates. 
 
 On the road, wliich ran thi'ough trees beyond the 
 field -with all the vast panorama of the Ai^enuines
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 2G7 
 
 unrolled along its length, I saw a bullock-waggon 
 creeping towards me, and farther yet a little cloud 
 of people, bright against the sun as gold-winged 
 demoizelle. 
 
 Instinctive^, to avoid sight or sound, I rose and 
 wandered into the wood which bordered the 
 meadow ; it was of ilex and pine, dusky even at 
 noon. I plunged into its shadow, holding the hlies 
 to my aching heart. 
 
 I moved on and on through the trees, unconscious 
 of what I did, until 1 struck my breast against the 
 trunk of a tall fir with a shock that brought me to 
 sharp consciousness of where I was. I sat down 
 beneath its shade, Avounded by the momentary pain. 
 
 I was all alone. I looked around me with a 
 curious sense at once of apathy and desperation. I 
 knew not what I feared ; but I feared everything — 
 I in whose daring eyes, a moment earlier, all heaven 
 and earth had seemed to smile in the smile of 
 Florence. 
 
 I dropped my head upon my hands, and crouched 
 there at the foot of the j)ine. I sobbed as though 
 my very heart would break. 
 
 As I sat thus there came the little wliite scuddina"
 
 268 FASCABPlL. 
 
 figure of a scampering dog ; he ran before a little 
 trooj) of people : they all stopj)ecl at some dis- 
 tance from me at the end of one of the aisles of 
 pine. 
 
 They were talking and laughing gaily. I could 
 hear the indistinct bubble of their mirthful chatter ; 
 they had three dogs with them and a monkey ; thej' 
 threw themselves on the grass, and took some food 
 and wine from a basket, and one of them built up a 
 fire with dry sticks ; all the while the dogs frisked, 
 the men laughed, the woman sang little fresh 
 passages of song ; they were all so glad and so gay, 
 it seemed to make my misery unendurable. 
 
 The sun came down on them where they were 
 stretched upon the turf; I sat alone in the shadow. 
 I saw them ; they seemed not to see me. 
 
 They had no doubt come out to breakfast in the 
 Cascine woods, as Florentines will do on spring 
 and summer days. 
 
 They seemed gay as the griUi in the grasses, 
 and their dress was light and full of sunny liues ; 
 and from the broad hats of tlie men long scarlet 
 ribbons floated. They had only bread and herbs, 
 and some purple wine ; but their laughter all
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 269 
 
 the while was like a rippling brook, and they 
 seemed not to know nor to want any better or faii-er 
 thing under heaven than thus "in sweet Valdarno 
 to forget the day in twilight of the ilex." 
 
 They had a lute with them, and now and then 
 one of them, the one who seemed leader amongst 
 them, sang to it. His voice had the clear, sono- 
 rous, far-reaching vibration, like the chords of 
 some stringed instrument, that belongs alone to 
 Italian voices. 
 
 I sat there in a sort of stupefaction, listening to 
 them, wondering dully how much longer the sun 
 Avould only fall on other people and the gloom alone 
 be mine. The slow tears dropped do-wn my cheeks ; 
 my sobs had ceased ; I had passed into the passive 
 exhaustion of a great grief. 
 
 After awhile I think they caught sight of me, for 
 they whispered together in lower tones. The 
 woman with them rose and came towards me — a 
 little pretty figure, plump as a little rabbit, blue, 
 light, and gay, with twinkling feet and a small 
 brown face under the lace headgear of Genoa, 
 that seemed to me as bright and rosy as any 
 tulip-bell amongst the wheat in Maytime.
 
 270 PASCAREL. 
 
 She came towards me with a fresh charmmg grace, 
 and paused before me. 
 
 " The signorma does not seem happy," she said, 
 hesitatingl}'. " Has anything gone ill ? " 
 
 I could not speak to her ; I was ashamed and full 
 of pride. I tried for her not to see the tears that 
 were wet upon ni}' face. 
 
 " I am sure there is something ill," she persisted. 
 " The donzella is weeping, and all alone ; if she 
 would tell us, perhaps we might help? " 
 
 I turned my face to the trunk of the pine ; but I 
 could not keep from her sight the great mute sob 
 that shook me from head to foot as I leaned there. 
 
 Perhaps it frightened her, for she was silent some 
 time, though she did not move away ; then, turning 
 a little, she called to her companions. 
 
 I heard the step of a man brush through the 
 grasses and approach her. 
 
 " Speak to her, caro mio," said the girl, in a low 
 voice. " There must be something amiss with her, 
 I am sure — and she so young too ! — only a 
 child ! " 
 
 "If the signorina will not si)eak we can do no- 
 thing," said the voice of the man. It was very rich
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 271 
 
 and flute-like. It was lie who had sung the songs 
 to the lute. 
 
 It conquered ni}^ pride. I turned and answered 
 without looking at him. 
 
 " I had onl}: twelve gold florins in all the world," 
 I cried, in the despair of my heart. "And the.y 
 have taken them, every one — every one ! " 
 
 " Who have taken them ? " 
 
 "A thief — how can I tell? In the fiera, last 
 night, it must surely have been. They were safe 
 when I came into Florence, and now — see here ! " 
 
 I tm-ned and showed them my poor little slit 
 pouch. I did not look up in the face of the speaker, 
 for my eyes were blinded by their rain of tears. 
 
 He took the bag and examined it. 
 
 " Cut through with a knife, no doubt," he said, 
 after awhile. " And 3'ou are very sad for the loss 
 of this money, signorina ? Someone will scold you 
 if you go home without it, is that it ? " 
 
 " Oh no ! " I cried, with a fresh passion of weep- 
 ing that I could not repress. " If it were only that ! 
 It is all I have in the world, I tell you — all — all — 
 all!" 
 
 "But your friends?" '
 
 272 PASCABEL. 
 
 "I have none." 
 
 *' AVliat ! You were adrift on the world with 
 twelve florins — yoii ? " 
 
 "Yes. Why not? I have no one to give me 
 anytliing. I made that money honestly ; it was all 
 mine. It would have lasted me till I should have 
 got to Rome. And now I have not a farthmg in 
 the world — not one — not one. I can sing a little, 
 indeed, but then I promised Mariuccia never to sing 
 in the streets, and I dare not break my word, for 
 she is dead, you know. And I am all alone here in 
 Florence. I do not know a soul. And my brothers 
 are all dead ; and no one can tell where my father 
 is. But nothing of that frightened me so long as I 
 had the money. But now I am frightened, oh 
 Mother of God ! for I have nothing in all the 
 world, you see ; I must just starve and die ; per- 
 haps even they will not believe what I say, but 
 will take me for a thief, when they find that I 
 have nothing ! And if I had only died in 
 Bologna!" 
 
 The passionate stream of the words had coursed 
 from my tongue unbroken when once my pride 
 had given way and found a refuge in speech;
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 273 
 
 when my voice dropped in very weariness I stood 
 before tliem heart-broken and striving with my 
 piteous sense of shame ; my cheeks burned dry my 
 scorchmg tears, and my sobs died silent in my 
 throat. 
 
 The man standing above under the ilex leaves 
 laughed, but the laughter was tender and 
 gentle. 
 
 "All nonsense, nonsense, cava Jiiia ! " he cried 
 lightly. "No one ever dies in Bologna that can 
 help it. It is not pleasant, you see, to be walled up 
 in a square of bricks, and labelled dismally in the 
 lump, with a thousand other 'vagahondi,' or ' ladri,^ or 
 'hrlcconl,' just as it may please the good town com- 
 plimentaril}'- to classify you. Take heart, signorina, 
 and come and breakfast with us. Your gold florins, 
 after all, may perhaps have been left at the house 
 you slept in — who knows ? You may mistake, or 
 the thief may repent, or be found out, which is 
 indeed the same thing. Come along and see my 
 dogs, and taste my wine, if there be any left. Do 
 not be afraid of us ; we are none of us ver}' 
 respectable perhaps, except the dogs, but we will 
 do you no harm." 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 274 PASCAREL. 
 
 Sometliing in liis voice and laugh, something of 
 silvery resounding clearness, " com' il dolce suonar 
 d'una lira,'' ringing on a metal plate, thrilled through 
 my heart familiar and full of solace. I dashed the 
 blinding mist from my eyes and my falling hair 
 from my forehead, and gazed up at him breathless 
 and entranced. 
 
 "And you never came the next day ! " I cried to 
 him in passionate reproach. " And you never saw 
 me last nioht ! Do vou not know me now ? I have 
 kept one of the roses — look ! " 
 
 I took out of the folds of my dress one of the 
 dead white roses of Verona. His face flushed 
 darkly ; he laughed ; but his beautiful eyes looked 
 dim. 
 
 How had I been a moment without knoAving him? 
 partly, because absorbed in the terror of my grief I 
 had paid hardly any heed to anything around me ; 
 chiefly, because on the two nights when I had seen 
 him he had been disguised in the gay masquerade 
 of the carnival costumes. 
 
 And yet his was a face not commonly seen, 
 nor once seen lightly forgotten ; the Cinque 
 Cento face, the face of the old Eenaissance
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 275 
 
 when the features of men bore the reflex of the 
 artistic and heroical life which was in its full 
 flower in their midst. The face with aquiline 
 outline, dreaming lids, thoughtful brows; pro- 
 foundly melancholy m repose, and in mirth gay 
 as a young child's ; with eyes sad as death, and 
 a smile frank as smilight ; the face which is the 
 most historical and purely idealic of all human 
 countenances. 
 
 Be the reason what it may, lie as it will in 
 cHmate, race, or breeding, it is a fact that the 
 ItaHan phj^siognomy retams as no other nation's 
 does, the impression of the past upon it. 
 
 The noble comes to you down the bare stone 
 galleries of his old palace, and it is still the noble 
 of Tintoretto and Tiziano that salutes you with 
 that cold and lofty grace, which can change at 
 will to the joyous and caressing softness of a 
 woman. The peasant of the contado flings his 
 brown mantle across his mouth to screen himself 
 from the mountain blast in the market place, and it " 
 is still the model of Angelo and of Sarto that 
 laughs aloud from those glancing teeth, and 
 saunters through the braying mules and bleating 
 
 T 2
 
 276 PASCAREL. 
 
 kids with those supple and sinewy limbs, and that 
 unconscious harmony of gesture. 
 
 Were it not too fanciful one would say that 
 those great centuries, while they gave an immortal 
 soul to the pagan graces of art and produced 
 human genius in its most complex and complete 
 form, had so entered into the blood and bone of 
 these people that their influence is deathless. The 
 sun of that wondrous summer noon of art has set 
 indeed ; but the after-glow of its rays shmes still in 
 the regard of the living sons of Itah'. 
 
 Such a face was this which had laughed on me 
 in the moonlight in the streets of Verona, and now 
 in gentle compassion was before me in the City of 
 Lilies.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE GREAT MAGICIAN. 
 
 SLID the rose back iiito its hiding-place 
 a Httle sh3^1y. The black-eyed girl was 
 gaziiig at me with wide parted, astonished 
 lips, and a little jealous wonder in her eyes. 
 
 "And you never loiew me, last night?" I mur- 
 mured to him. " Last night I almost touched 
 
 you, and you never saw " 
 
 " Last night ! no ; " said he, frankly. " When I 
 go mad at the Carnival fair, I know nothing and 
 nobody. But to-day, donzella, oh yes, I recog- 
 nised you the instant you sat down under the 
 cypress. That you have a genius for adventure
 
 278 PASCARJEL. 
 
 is self-evident. How come you here all tliis way- 
 over the mountains ? " 
 
 " But you never kept your promise ! " I cried to 
 liim, intent on my one especial wrong. 
 
 " But 3^ou never came to me ! " I cried to him, 
 " You only sent the roses ! " 
 
 *' No, for the best of all reasons, signorina," 
 said he, with a smile. " I had tall<;ed sedition that 
 day, or so the stranieri construed it. I had lashed 
 thy people with more than bladders, and had salted 
 their soup with more than jokes ; and to crown 
 it all, in the Vegiione, after I left you that night, 
 I made an harangue which to 'Austrians' ears 
 savoured of downright treason. So, in the grey of 
 the daybreak, as I went home singing and dreaming 
 no evil, the good Tedeschi seized hold of me, and 
 marched me out of the gates, and gave me not 
 a second ,to pack my knajDsack or send a word to . 
 my people, but set off with me for the frontier 
 in the sleet and the teeth of the wind. They were 
 fifty to one, so there had been no sense in resist- 
 ance. Hard by the gates I spied a flower shoj), 
 just opening its shutters ; I asked the soldiers to 
 let me stop and light my sigaretto. Then I
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 279 
 
 picked out a knot of roses, the best I could see, 
 and x^aid for them, and bade them take them to 
 you. I am glad they did so honestly. It was 
 very cold tramping across Lombardy, at a horse's 
 tail, in that Florindo masquing dress, which looked 
 absm-d enough in the midst of the grey and white 
 plain; and it snowed hard, and the tramontana blew 
 like a knife, but the sharpest thing about it to me 
 was the thought that you would believe I had 
 broken my promise." 
 
 He smiled a little as he spoke, that wondrous 
 Italian smile which has so much mirth in it, so 
 much tenderness, so much pathos. Surely that 
 smile of Italy is the loveliest thing left in all the 
 width and weariness of the world ! 
 
 Something in his accent made me turn and 
 gaze at him. I breathed quickly in a happy 
 excitation. 
 
 "Then you had not forgotten me really?" I 
 cried. "I thought you had; I quite thought you 
 had last night." 
 
 He laughed. 
 
 " Certainly not. I knew you, cara mia, at my 
 first glance at you under the cypress yonder. You
 
 280 PASCAREL. 
 
 sang too well in Verona that da}- to be forgotten, 
 and that wonderful black and gold dress, and yoiu- 
 hands full of the Carnival roses, and that hair of 
 yours with all the yellow Hghts in it ; — yes, I saw 
 you, and a pretty picture you made, tliat I grant 
 I should have stayed a little to find you out ; but 
 your Tedesco friends and I have no love for one 
 another. They say I excite the people. So I was 
 fain to go out of Verona, not knowing your name, 
 signorina." 
 
 " They have not stolen the on^-x," I cried, 
 breathless, standing still with the red sun in 
 my eyes, whilst I tore the little silk cord from 
 about my throat and drew the ring from its 
 hiding place. 
 
 A flush of pleasure swept, Hke light, over his 
 expressive face. 
 
 " Ah-ah ! you kept that stupid thing ? Too 
 large and clumsy for your pretty little fingers, 
 and no use to you at all. "What did you do with 
 the rest of the treasures ? You had a fine lapfull 
 that morning." 
 
 *' I gave them away," I said, dreamily, not ver}'- 
 well knowing what he said, gazing at him in the
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 281 
 
 lustre of that crimson flash of the red and fadmg 
 light in which we both were standing. 
 
 The little plump brown rabbit of a maiden 
 peeped with her pretty, shy, raven-lilve eyes 
 over my shoulder : she saw the ring with the 
 Fates. 
 
 " Why, Pascarel, that is your onyx," she cried to 
 him ; " the onyx you lost in Yerona that first day of 
 the Carnival when I was not with you, you 
 remember ? " 
 
 Pascarel looked a little impatient. 
 
 "Did I ever tell you I lost it? At any rate 
 the donzella found it, and it is hers now bj" every 
 law of possession. Cara mia, those dismal old 
 immutable Parcne do not look fit dispensers of the 
 Future to you." 
 
 *' Would you not have it again ? " I murmured, 
 seeing that he now wore no ring. 
 
 He repulsed it with a sort of gentle impatience. 
 
 " Would you insult me because I am poor ? 
 Keep it, signorina ; though it be a grim and gloomy 
 fashion of gift to you." 
 
 I hardly heard him, I was so bewildered at his 
 recognition of me. I slipped the onyx fondly back
 
 282 PA SC ABEL. 
 
 within my dress. I looked at him, glad and asto- 
 nished. 
 
 " How strange it is ! " I murmured. 
 
 " Forse il destino ! " hummed Pascarel, in a soft 
 mezza voce, as if in answer. 
 
 " Do you helieve in destiny ?" I asked him, wist- 
 fully, in a little awe. 
 
 " To be sure ! " he answered me. " But it is al- 
 ways femmine, cara mia, whatever om* grammarians 
 maj' say to the contrary. And, now, will j'ou tell 
 me your stoiy a little ? " 
 
 AVhat could he be, I wondered, ceaselessly ; of 
 what grade, what habits, what pursuit ? A scholar 
 in exevj accent, a gentleman in every gesture, with 
 the pure inflexions of voice, with the slender delicacy 
 of form, with the indescribable ease and indiffer- 
 ence of manner which only come of birth and of 
 breeding, he lived solel}', as it seemed, amongst 
 the populace ; his white linen garments were worn 
 and threadbare ; his meal was of the simplest and 
 most frugal ; and his companions were nothing 
 more than populace, little more indeed than 
 vagrants. 
 
 Perhaps he caught and understood the specu-
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 283 
 
 lative wonder in my gaze at him. At any rate, 
 what coukl he be, I wondered. He did not leave 
 me long in doubt. 
 
 "We are strolling ^jlayers, at your service," he 
 said, with his bright laugh, casting himself down 
 beside me. " She who was so terrified about you 
 is called Brunotta ; that short lad with the round 
 head is little Tocco ; and the other one owns the 
 time-honoured name of Cocomero. The three 
 poodles are Pepito, Pepita, and Toto. The monkey 
 is Pantagruel. Toto in especial is the star of my 
 troop. Now you know us all. As for me, I am 
 Pascarello or Pascarel. If you are not afraid of 
 such disreputable companionship, will you narrate 
 us something of your own liistory, signorina ? " 
 
 He had made me drink a little of his red 
 Chiante wme and break a crust of bread ; it was a 
 solace only to be able to speak of my immense 
 calamity ; I told him willingly all my stoiy, 
 warming to the recital of my woes and of my 
 wrongs. 
 
 He listened, stretched on the grass and leaning 
 on one elbow ; the girl Brunotta lent an eager 
 ear, her little round brown face flushing and
 
 284 PASCABEL. 
 
 growing pale in sympathy ; the two Lids leaned 
 against a tree open-mouthed and breathless ; flat- 
 tered by my interested and reverential audience, I 
 grew a little calmer under my loss, and waxed 
 more and more fluent in the narrative of my sad 
 adventures. 
 
 My tale ended, Pascarel sent the youth, whom 
 he had called Cocomero, into the city to acquaint 
 the guardia with the theft, and make enquuies 
 at the locanda ; that done, he threw himself 
 again upon the turf. I wondered if he Avere sorry 
 for me — he had not said so. All the ejaculations of 
 sorrow and compassion had been Brunotta's. 
 
 I was full of passionate sorrow for myself; the 
 sight of these light-hearted people only made my 
 sense of utter desolation weigh the heavier upon 
 me; when the excitement of the relation of my 
 miseries had passed away, a very horror of despond- 
 ency possessed me ; and, without reasoning very 
 much upon it, to find my Eomeo of the Veghone 
 nothing more than a hedge-comedian cast a shadow 
 of bitter disappointment over the romance of my 
 vague dreams. 
 
 " So you are absolutely all alone, cara mia ? "
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 285 
 
 said Pascarel, bending his luminous eyes down on 
 mine. 
 
 " All alone— yes ! " 
 
 "And if we cannot find this thief, have not a 
 copper paul in all the world ? " 
 
 " I have told you so ! " I cried with a despe- 
 ration of pain at being driven to repeat my 
 degradation. 
 
 " Altro ! " he said, breathing gently that won- 
 derful expletive which comprehends in itself every 
 shade and variety of human emotion. 
 
 " Do you know what it is to be all alone and 
 penniless in this best of all possible worlds ? " 
 he said, slowly, cruelly, as I thought. I almost 
 burst out sobbing afresh under the torture of the 
 question. 
 
 "If I do no harm, can I be hurt?" I asked, 
 wdstfully looking in his face. 
 
 He laughed, in a kindly compassion. 
 " Ah ! if one does no harm, it goes very ill indeed 
 with one in this world. We are suspected — for 
 
 ever ! 
 
 In the stupefaction of my sorrow the irony was 
 too fine to reach me.
 
 2Sr, PASCAREL. 
 
 " Is it right to do wrong, then, ever ? " I asked, 
 hewilderedly ; for I knew that Mariuccia had been 
 my only teacher, and that she, poor soul ! had 
 known nothmg of the world. Besides, — in Am- 
 hrogio's story, was it not Bothwald Avho had done 
 the wrong, jet who had thriven ? " 
 
 " There is only one thing wrong in the world — 
 poverty," answered my new friend briefly. 
 
 "It is much the same in the country too," the 
 little Brunotta murmured. 
 
 " Assuredly," said the player, stretched on his 
 back in the sun. " The country is only human 
 nature washed in buttermilk ; the town is human 
 nature soaked m brandy." 
 
 " Why will you talk as though you were a 
 cynic, Pascarel ? " said Brunotta in petulant ex- 
 postulation. 
 
 He held up the ragged sleeve of his old white 
 
 jacket; it had been, I saw, of finest and silkiest 
 
 tliibetti. 
 
 " Every one is a cj'nic Avho has a hole at his 
 
 elbow," he answered her. 
 
 " But — as if you cared ! " 
 
 He laughed, and pinched her pretty rosy ear.
 
 TEE CITY OF LILIES. 287 
 
 " We do not care ; but then we are very dis- 
 reputable. All respectable people care. It is only 
 scamps who smile." 
 
 " A smiling scamp is better than a frowning 
 miser," said the girl; and she set the two white 
 dogs, Pepito and Pepita, to waltz round with each 
 other, whilst she waltzed too, singmg a dance tune, 
 down the avenue. 
 
 Pascarel sprang up and caught her round the 
 waist, and set himself Avhirling likewise ; the boy 
 with the fiddle struck out a wild waltz measure : 
 the dogs capered, the monkey chattered loud, the 
 man and the gui span round and round laughing, 
 with their hands on each other's shoulders, and 
 their feet flying like leaves blown in circles by the 
 wind. 
 
 The fiddle grew louder and wilder and faster; 
 the ape screamed in chorus ; the dogs jumped 
 over each other and sank panting on the ground. 
 Pascarel and Brunotta danced and danced and 
 danced, with the grass beneath them and the 
 leaves above, and every now and then a blaze of 
 sunshine catching the blue tassels at her sku't and 
 the scarlet ribbons on his hat.
 
 288 PASCAREL. 
 
 Then, at last, exhausted and laughmg, and panting 
 like their dogs, they cast one another aside, and 
 dropped down on the turf in the shadow. 
 
 " How well it is to be poor ! " cried Pascarel. " If 
 we were dukes and duchesses we could not scamper 
 like that in a wood ! we could only go masked, in 
 the gas, to an opera ball." 
 
 As he spoke he laughed, and fanned himself and 
 her with a sheaf of chesnut leaves. I, sitting alone 
 in the depth of the shadow from the cypress, 
 watched them, wondering, and envying their glad 
 content. 
 
 Brunotta of the bird-lilve eyes seeing me sitting 
 there alone in the dark, rose and crossed to me, and 
 touched me again gently. 
 
 " Pascarel says it is always well for those who 
 love to be jooor ? " she whispered. 
 
 I shivered a little. The double trouble was mine, 
 to be poor without any love to help me under it. 
 
 " If both are content, perhaps," I murmured 
 aloud. But I was very doubtful. 
 
 "He is; — I don't say I see it so myself," said 
 the little player, as she dropped down by me and 
 wove a plait of grasses, and tidked in a cheery.
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 289 
 
 ■quick, babbling voice like the tinlding of a brook ; 
 " we are poor — so jioor — but then we are so 
 merry. Pascarel Avas not always so poor. He 
 is a great comedian ; only the j^eople are all 
 he will play to, and he does not care to be 
 ^reat. Coco's father Avas a Harlequin and 
 never had any money ; and they used to travel 
 much as we do now. He danced for his own 
 bread when he was three years old ; and then, when 
 he grew older, he played. He is eighteen now. 
 Pascarel has a talent — such a talent : I have none. 
 I never did anything until three years ago, except 
 milk the goats and take the insects off the vines, 
 and plait straw, and spin, of course. I can 
 only hop about. We have travelled with three or 
 fom- companies, but Pascarel never could get on 
 with the directors ; one director made love to me ; 
 and another one was cruel to poor little Toto ; 
 iind a thu-d one failed and ran away in debt to all 
 his troop, and so on and so on ; so we are as we 
 are, and we have a merry life. The two lads and 
 the animals love us, and we go about where we 
 like ; and Pascarel can always make the people 
 laugh, and we always get enough to live upon ; and 
 
 VOL. I. U
 
 290 PASCAREL. 
 
 it is much better tlian being at any tyrant's beck 
 and call ; and now and then we have a holiday in 
 the woods — like this. In the winter it is a little 
 harder, of coiu'se ; but even then the little towns 
 are bright and wann, and the people are always 
 glad to be made merry ; and before one has 
 romjoed through Carnival — presto ! — the winter is 
 gone ! A hearty laugh makes one forget that 
 one could eat more maccaroni, and when one's 
 toes are cold in the snow a dance warms them 
 quicker than anything. Sometunes I am sorry 
 Pascarel cares nothing at all to make himself 
 great, because he has such a talent ; and if he 
 were great one would have such good things to 
 eat ever}^ day, and fine clothes and real jewels ; 
 but he says one should not care for such tilings — 
 but then to be sure he does not trouble his head 
 whether he eats a ciambello or a cucumber, a swan 
 or a sparrow ! But hoAv selfish I am to run on so ! 
 — you are unhappy ? " 
 
 The little actress saw the whiteness that came 
 over the face above her, and paused in the weaving 
 of her braid of grasses, and said softly again : — 
 
 " You are so mihappy '? "
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 291 
 
 ** Of course ; but it does not matter." 
 
 " Yes, it does. Everj-thing seems so unhappy — 
 excei)t just Pascarel and myself, and the dogs ; 
 and it is such a pity, in a sunshine like this, when 
 everything ought to live like the crocuses, being 
 glad and taking no thought. You are unhappy 
 because you are alone, no doubt. Will you come 
 with us ? I am sure Pascarel would be glad ! It 
 will be so much better; and we will not teaze you 
 to know what you do not wish to tell — if there is 
 anything " 
 
 " But you know nothing of me " 
 
 The girl laughed. 
 
 " Ah bah ! We are not great people that dare 
 not taste a pear till they know what stem it was 
 grafted on. We are only poor pla3^ers ; we have 
 nothing to lose ; and if we take a liking to a face 
 we are not afraid of its fellowship. There is so 
 much libei-t}' in being poor, you see ! " 
 
 "Is there?" 
 
 I could not see it ; it appeared to me that 
 poverty was an ass's hobble, with which one was 
 tied miserably to one place that we had long 
 browsed bare. 
 
 XJ 2
 
 292 PASCAEEL. 
 
 "It is the difference between an old sliirt and a 
 new," said Pascarel, rising and lounging near. 
 " The new is embroidered perhaps, and ver}'' white 
 and handsome, no doubt, but it is tight and the 
 stitches gall; that shirt is respectable, admii'able, 
 and fit for a palace ; but comfortable — no. The 
 old is ugly maybe, and looks bad, and in it 3'ou 
 will not be asked to a noble's table or a bishop's 
 feast ; but it is so easy to wear, and it has so many 
 recollections, that dear old shirt: you pawned it 
 here, and you danced in it there, and pretty 
 fingers darned it in one place, and a rosy-cheeked 
 laundress cobbled it in another ; it is picturesque, 
 it is memorial, it is venerable ; above all, it never 
 scratches. Those two shirts are Wealth and 
 Povei-t3\" 
 
 "Will it not be much better?" said Brunotta, 
 eagerl^^ interrupting him, — " much better, if the 
 signorma come with us for a little space ?" 
 
 Pascarel swept the turf with his ribboned som- 
 brero, and declared his willingness in flowery 
 plu'ases. 
 
 " Only — only," he said, at the end of his gi'aceful 
 and gracious sentences, " you forget one thing,
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 293 
 
 Brunotta. The signorina is gentle-born and gentle - 
 bred ; our mode of life would be but a sorry one for 
 her." 
 
 "But what can she do?" cried the little 
 Brunotta. 
 
 "Ah! what, indeed?" I thought; and I threw 
 myseK down face downwards on the earth in a very 
 paroxj'sm of despaii'. 
 
 Pascarel threw one gentle look on me, then 
 turned and walked up and down under the trees in 
 meditation. 
 
 " Brunotta! " I heard him call; she went to him, 
 and I heard their voices, low and earnest, in con- 
 versation at some distance from me, too far away 
 for their meaning to be intelligible. 
 
 Then they ceased, and all was quite silent in the 
 wood except the joyous and wild bark of the dogs 
 as they chased a bu'd or a rabbit. I lay still there 
 with ni}' face pressed on the dr^^, hard earth. 
 
 " If they would only kill me," I thought, " and 
 make an end of it all ! " 
 
 A little picture rose before my memor}- of Eaffael- 
 ino sitting at the coppersmith's door at sunset 
 playing on liis mnndoline, while liis mother and
 
 29-i FASGAllEL. 
 
 Mariuccia gossii^ed within over the lamp, and the 
 light shone on the huge red coppers, and the stars 
 came out over the dark quiet piazza. 
 
 " Oh, why ! oh, why ! " I thought, " cannot we 
 know when we are happy ! " 
 
 I would have given away twenty years of my 
 young unspent life only to have been back once 
 more in that old, despised, safe home in the city of 
 Can Grande ! 
 
 Pascarel aroused me, touching me on the 
 shoulder. 
 
 " Rise up, cara mia," he said, gently. " That is 
 not the way anyhow to get back your florins, or to 
 win 3'ourself new ones." 
 
 I rose as he bade me, and looked him in the 
 face ; my own face I felt was white with pain and 
 desperation. 
 
 " I have been very foolish," I said to him, " and 
 you have been ver}' good ; 3'ou are all strangers, 
 and can care nothing for me. I will go now ; I 
 thank you very much — you and yours." 
 
 I put out my hands to him in farev/ell ; his eyes 
 v.-ere so beautiful, and he had been so kind, I could 
 hardly keep the tears from flooding my own eyes
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 29 
 
 as I spoke to liim, and yet I knew I must not 
 trouble them any longer — all strangers as they 
 were. 
 
 Pascarel took my hands and kissed them lightly 
 with the easy grace of all his actions. 
 
 He looked troubled and almost embarrassed. 
 „ " Not so fast, donzella," he said, gently ; " wait 
 awhile ; Coco is not back yet with any news, and 
 -even if he find your florins, it cannot be said 
 that you are in very fair case for wandering over 
 the country all alone. See here, we are not of your 
 grade in life; we are poor strolling Bohemians; we 
 fire not, as I tell you, very reputable people, and 
 we are poor as the devil — altro ! — and yet, if you 
 would lilce to stay Avith us as — as — Brunotta said, it 
 might be safer at an}' rate for you than to stray 
 about Italy by youi'self as helpless as my little 
 Toto would be if I lost him. We are a sorry 
 resort, I know, but perhaps we are better than 
 nothing, and I may be more able to find your father 
 than you. Say, will you wait Avith us a little '? " 
 
 Ere I could answer him, the youth Cocomero 
 burst through the bushes breathless from having 
 run to and from the town.
 
 296 PASCAIIEL. 
 
 " There is no news," lie panted, gloomily, 
 " They knew nothing at the Silver Melon, and the 
 guards say there have been man}' foreign cutj)ursey 
 in the city of late. They have had a score of such 
 robberies this winter." 
 
 Pascarel shrugged his shoulders and lifted his 
 hands with that indescribable gesture in which 
 an Italian expresses consummate disgust and 
 resignation. 
 
 "It is destiny ! " he murmured, resting liis eyetj 
 on me with a look I did not understand. " Well, 
 signorina mia, will vou stav with us ? " 
 
 " I should be glad ! " I said, with a little sob iii- 
 my voice. "It is so horrible — so very horrible — to- 
 be alone ! " 
 
 " Of course it is horrible," he echoed, as he took 
 my hands afresh within his own, and cast hunself 
 down upon his knees before me where I stood, in 
 that easy unstudied abandonment of himself to each 
 impulse and emotion of the moment which makes- 
 grace of posture as natural to an Italian as it is to a 
 deer or an antelope. 
 
 "You will stay?" he murmured, still lightly 
 holding m}' hand in his. " That is well — at least
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 297 
 
 for you it shall be well ; tliat I swear, liiclies we 
 have not, and glory we have not, and the ways of 
 our life will be hard — for you. But all that we can 
 do we will." 
 
 " You are very good ! " I said to him, scarcely 
 knowinsj what indeed to answer him. 
 
 He was a stranger, seen but half an hour 
 before, and yet abeady he seemed Kke a familiar 
 friend. 
 
 A shade of sadness and impatience swept over his 
 speaking face. 
 
 " Che-che ! Wait to praise us till you know us.. 
 We are good for very little, cara mia. We will 
 make 3'ou laugh sometimes, that I can promise, and 
 perhaps that is much m this life." 
 
 " But if I stay with you ? " I said, a sudden fear 
 and remembrance striking me with its shame, " if 
 I stay — I have nothing ; I will not be a burden tO' 
 you ; never, never ! Is there nothing I can do to- 
 get my bread? My voice is good " 
 
 " Yes ! You sing like all the angels." 
 
 " About the angels — I do not know. But 
 anything ; — always." 
 
 "But vou are so voung " 
 
 V
 
 298 PA SC ABEL. 
 
 " Not too 5'oimg for that — only I promised 
 
 dear dead Mariuccia But I will not stay 
 
 v.itli you unless you tell me of some way to get 
 my bread." 
 
 "Bread? Nonsense! You eat, I daresay, as 
 much as one flings to the SAvallows. But, if you 
 are in earnest, you might be one of us." 
 
 "A player! I?" 
 
 I echoed the words half in aifront half in delight. 
 jMy pride rebelled, my fancy was allui'ed. 
 
 "AVhy not?" said Pascarel. "Do 3'ou know 
 aright what it is to be one ? " 
 
 " Surety ! " I answered him, with a little gay con- 
 tempt — had I not seen them scores of times in 
 Verona? "It is to be no longer a man or a 
 woman, but only a mere wooden burattino that has 
 to dance or die, to swagger or shrink, just as its 
 master chooses to make people laugh for a copper 
 coin. A fine thing, certamly ! " 
 
 Pascarel released my hands and sprang to his feet 
 erect. His mobile face flushed darkly ; liis change- 
 ful e3'es flashed fire. 
 
 " Is that all you know ? " he cried, while his 
 voice rang like a trumpet-call. " Listen here, then.
 
 TRE CITY OF LILIES. 299 
 
 little lady, and leani better. What is it to be a 
 X^layer ? It is this. A thing despised and rejected 
 on all sides ; a thing that was a century since 
 denied what they call Christian burial ; a thing 
 that is still deemed for a woman disgraceful, and for 
 a man degrading and emasculate ; a thmg that is 
 mute as a dmice save when, parrot-like, it repeats 
 by rote with a mii-thless grin or a tearless sob ; a 
 -wooden doll, as you say, applauded as a brave 
 puppet in its prime, hissed at in its first hour of 
 failure or decay ; a tiling made up of tinsel and 
 paint, and patchwork, of the tailor's shreds and the 
 barber's curls of tow — a ridiculous thing to be sure! 
 That is a plaj'er. And yet again, — a thing without 
 which laughter and jest were dead in the sad lives 
 of the populace ; a thing that breathes the poet's 
 words of fire so that the humblest heart is set 
 aflame ; a thing that has a magic on its lips to waken 
 smiles or weeping at its will ; a thing Avhich holds a 
 people silent, breathless, intoxicated with mii'th or 
 with awe, as it chooses ; a thing Avhose grace kmgs 
 envy, and whose wit great men will steal; a thing 
 by whose utterance alone the poor can know the 
 fail* follies of a thoughtless hour, and escax^e for a
 
 300 PASCAREL. 
 
 little space from the dull prisons of their colourless 
 lives into the sunlit paradise where genius dwells ; 
 — that is a player, too ! " 
 
 His voice trembled a little over the closing' 
 words, and, ashamed of the passionate eloquence 
 into which the sting of my idle slighting phrase 
 had hurried him, he turned away and began to 
 romp and laugh and gambol with Pepito and 
 Pepita. 
 
 I listened ; ashamed myself; moved, I knew not 
 very well why ; and regretful to tliink that I had 
 ■wounded him. 
 
 I waited a little while ; then I went up to him 
 where he stooped over his dogs, and laid my fingers 
 on his arm. 
 
 "I spoke idl}'," I murmured. "I did not think. 
 And — and — I will try and be a player too." 
 
 He lifted his head, with a flash of light over all 
 his face, and touched my hand caressingly with his 
 own. 
 
 " Altro ! " he said. " It is a fate. Come with 
 us. But as for being a player; — wait and see. 
 You must not choose your future in blind haste." 
 
 Then he bade me sinii' to him, which I did, and
 
 THE CITY OF LILIES. 301 
 
 Tocco touched liis violin in (quaint accord with 
 nie ; and Pascarel himself raised the echoes of the 
 wood with half the popular songs of Italy. 
 
 So, laughing and singing, and pausing to watch 
 the dogs at play, we idled time away under the 
 hlack pines and the budding chestnut trees. 
 
 I was only a child; I was almost happy again. 
 Sometimes I started and wondered if indeed I had 
 been so wretched, there, in that very place, an 
 hour before. 
 
 Was he a magician, I wondered, this Pascarel ? 
 
 I was ungrateful to the supreme magician — 
 Youth, 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 BRADBCRY, AGNEW, & CO., PRINTEKS WHITEFRI/JIS.
 
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