THE 
 
 NE FAIR 
 
 WOMAN. 
 
 JOAQUIN MILLER. 
 
 THREE VOLUMES IN ONE. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 G. W. Carleton & Co., Publishers. 
 
 LONDON: CHAPMAN & HALL. 
 MDCCCLXXVI.
 
 PS 
 2397 
 
 COPYRIGHTED, 1876, BY 
 G. W. CARLKTON & CO. 
 
 JOHN F. TROW & SON, 
 
 PRINTERS AND STEREOTYPKRS, 
 
 205-213 Kiist \-zth Street, 
 
 Ntvv YORK.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I. From London to Genoa 11 
 
 II. The Lady in Pink 22 
 
 III. In the City of Palaces 25 
 
 IV. Countess Edna 32 
 
 V. Mad or not Mad 41 
 
 VI. Good-bye, beautiful Lady 52 
 
 VII. Naples an Old Landmark 58 
 
 VIII Roses in her Path 68 
 
 IX. On the Mountain of Fire 73 
 
 X. On St. Paul s Pier 85 
 
 XI. In the Eternal City 89 
 
 XII. A Scene in the Coliseum 100 
 
 XIII. An Interlude 108 
 
 XIV. An Innocent Duel 113 
 
 XV. Down the Tiber 121 
 
 XVI. People of the Campagna 127 
 
 XVII. Real Countesses 133 
 
 XVIII. The Roman Ghetto 144 
 
 XIX. The Pink Lady in St. Peter s 153 
 
 XX. The Countess at Home 165 
 
 XXI. An Italian Doctor 173 
 
 XXII. On the Pincian Hill 186 
 
 XXIII. A Railroad King in Rome 194 
 
 XXIV. The Pink Princess 204 
 
 XXV. New Rome and New Romans 211 
 
 XXVI. Carnival Eve. . . .224
 
 v i CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XXVII. Saturn Sailing Down the Tiber 230 
 
 XXVIII. In a Bad Atmosphere 241 
 
 XXIX. "Est, Est, Est" 251 
 
 XXX. Confetti Day on the Corso 255 
 
 XXXI. On the Capitoline Hill 261 
 
 XXXII. Marietta sees his Shadow 275 
 
 XXXIII. Campo Santo 283 
 
 XXXIV. A Blunt, but Honest Man 292 
 
 XXXV. At the Roman Race-Course 297 
 
 XXXVI A March Hare and a Hatter 305 
 
 XXXVII. On the Appiau Way 311 
 
 XXXVIII. In the Catacombs 326 
 
 XXXIX With the One Fair Woman 334 
 
 XL. Bread on the Waters 344 
 
 XLL The Californian Girl 351 
 
 XLII. In the Palace of a Prince 361 
 
 XLIIL " Old Antiquities " 371 
 
 XLIV. " I have Something to Tell You" 382 
 
 XL V. What They Say 390 
 
 XLVL A New Current of Life 402 
 
 XLVII. The Earthly Paradise 408 
 
 XLVIII. Peace in the Flower-Land 414 
 
 XLIX. A Man for Manhood s Sake 422 
 
 L. Good-bye, Tarpeian Rock 427 
 
 LI. Farewell, Fair Woman 431 
 
 LII. A Skeleton in a Closet , 434 
 
 LIU. Crossing the Rubicon 447 
 
 LIV. The Three Towers 452 
 
 LV. In a Gondola 463 
 
 LVI. Drifting 470 
 
 LVII. We will Reform To-morrow 476 
 
 LVIII. Como at Last 479 
 
 LIX. Sitting by her Side at Last 485 
 
 LX. The Old Admiral Proposes 492
 
 CONTENTS. vii 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 LXI. Child-Stealing 499 
 
 LX1I. Love, or Duty ? 507 
 
 LXIIL A Boat-Race on Lake Como 516 
 
 LXIV. In Milan 523 
 
 LXV. A Very Unfortunate Man 530 
 
 LXVI. Vis-a-vis with Two Monks 538 
 
 LXVII. In the Blessed Isles. 542
 
 TO 
 
 PRINCESS LOUISE.
 
 THE OIE FAIR WOMAN. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 FROM LONDON TO GENOA. 
 
 " O that the desert were my dwelling-place, 
 With one fair spirit for my minister." BYRON. 
 
 " With one fair woman ; the one red rose." BROWNING. 
 
 " By the tideless, dolorous, midland sea, . . 
 There shone one woman, and none but she." 
 SWINBURNE. 
 
 " Others for others, but she was mine 
 The one (air woman beneath the sun." 
 HAT. 
 
 IVE ! Live with all your might 
 in the full strong light of day, 
 for the season of sleep and of 
 dreams comes soon enough to 
 us all. Successful men live in 
 the age in which they are born. 
 Great men live in advance of 
 it. Poets and painters belong 
 to no age. They fit in nowhere 
 on top of the earth. They are 
 more out of place than the 
 other great men in the world s 
 gallery of statuary. Strange, 
 restless, and imhappy men, they 
 hasten on through life, forgetting that the 
 end of the road is but a grave. But the gods 
 love them ; and this must be their consolation, for certainly 
 they have little else. Yet men who conquer worlds do 
 not move by inches. This young man, whom we shall name
 
 12 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 Murietta, in order that his real name may be concealed, was 
 of this restless and impetuous class. 
 
 In the year 18 the world applauded the young artist 
 Alpho Murietta, and pronounced him a genius of the very 
 highest order. 
 
 As the world is nearly always wrong, it is safe to say that 
 in this case it was utterly so. In justice to the young artist, 
 who was being borne as it were on the shoulders of his 
 seniors, and held up to the full gaze of the great, I may say 
 that he himself half suspected that the world was mistaken. 
 Yet he was not so terribly displeased after all at the mistake. 
 
 In the year 18 the world denounced this same young ar 
 tist, Alpho Murietta, as an impostor, a libertine, and a fraud 
 of the very worst stamp. 
 
 As the world is nearly always wrong, perhaps it was mis 
 taken again. As for young Murietta, he was this time him 
 self perfectly certain that the world was mistaken. But this 
 time he was displeased and troxibled too. And sad as it was, 
 and certain as he was in this conviction, in truth I must say 
 that this time he stood almost alone in his belief. 
 
 His had been an eventful story, which we may come upon 
 further on. Boy as he was, he was scarred all over by battle. 
 He had lived the life of a man in his boyhood, and his heart 
 lay broken in bits and scattered like clay all over the world 
 where he had wandered. With all that, he had never yet 
 met the one great woman of his life, the one whom somehow 
 he felt all the time was standing somewhere in the world by 
 his path of life, waiting till he should come that way. 
 
 Woman full, complete, and perfect woman was to him 
 the whole wide world. He would follow her, worship afar 
 off, wait and watch if by some chance he might be able to do 
 her service. His soul and sense of duty to woman was that 
 of a knight of old. Alpho Murietta was born out of his time. 
 Amid the revolutions of his land, the wild South- West, he 
 had grown up in the field and camp almost without culture,
 
 From London to Genoa. 13 
 
 and was what the world, with its usual felicity for fitting a 
 man in his proper niche, was very happy to call a half savage. 
 
 The young new-risen star was rough in his appearance and 
 blunt in expression, but his voice was low and soft, his man 
 ner gentle, engaging, almost childlike, certainly timid, shrink 
 ing, shy of the gaze and attention of men. He stood alone, 
 mantled in the atmosphere of his strange individuality. 
 
 A soldier by chance and fortune, yet his figure was lithe 
 and light as that of a woman. His was a striking face for 
 the age. Men were always saying, <l Why, I have seen that 
 face before! " In fact it was a face that men would paint, 
 would see without knowing it. Artist as he was by nature, 
 his face, half hidden in blonde and abundant hair that hung 
 to the shoulders, was such a face as painters would paint and 
 men would buy and hang on their walls, and yet know not 
 why. And still it was not beautiful, not by any manner of 
 means. It was a sympathetic face, full of affection and full 
 of truth, of resolution, self-will, defiance, doubt. That is, 
 sometimes. 
 
 Faces change so. Let a face be backed by blood and met 
 tle, let the soul be hallowed by experience, and made mellow 
 as a ploughed field by furrows that have torn it up, let it be 
 made charitable of the sins of others by a sense of its own sins, 
 and you have a face that will wear as many changes ot 
 expression as the wind and weather. 
 
 This man had come upon his art by instinct. He had 
 fancied, or perhaps really seen, things of beauty ; he knew 
 they were there hiding back behind his canvas, that some 
 day they would come out from there, stand before him, droop, 
 lean, reach, live, look him in the face, and talk back to him 
 and answer the solitude of his soul. In his solitary hours he 
 had seen them, distant, dim, faint, and far away. They 
 seemed to be afraid to draw near. 
 
 By devotion, self-denial, adoration, love for the beautiful, 
 and a sincere and simple life, he made himself familiar with
 
 14 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 their ways, and then they came, and he made them his friends 
 forever. 
 
 With all his love for woman, he had never yet seen the one 
 certain destiny of his life. Yet he knew she lived. He 
 knew perfectly well that she would come, as the figures and 
 faces of beauty had come on his canvas. And he knew he 
 should recognize her when she came. He pictured her a 
 sad and silent woman, dreamy, still, mysterious ; strong, 
 moving a world, yet scarce moving a hand, a central figure, a 
 sun with a thousand stars that moved as she moved, that 
 knew no light but hers. 
 
 The first year, the one and only year, of his glory was 
 gone. The young artist was no more a wonder. People 
 began to measure their praise, to doubt, to damn with a 
 definition of qualities. Still no man, however willing some 
 were, had yet proclaimed against him. Soon made, soon 
 marred. All sudden growths, as a rule, are the story of 
 Jonah s gourd. 
 
 At last, without design, without desiring such a thing now, 
 at a time in fact when he almost wished his dream of her to 
 be and remain forever but a dream and fancy, he met this 
 One Fair Woman face to face in the highest circles in aristo 
 cratic London. 
 
 He had heard her name without knowing it or caring for 
 it. He had been dreaming all day, all the evening, was 
 dreaming still. He did not see her till he stood before her 
 in the gorgeous saloon, splendid with all the magnificence 
 of modern art and civilization, and set about by beautiful 
 women and noble men, and she the one chief centre stone in 
 the shining casket. 
 
 Then he lifted his eyes to hers, to her eyes, dark and deep 
 and thoughtful, and full of fire. Their light startled him. 
 He awoke from his dream, shrunk back embarrassed, stam 
 mered some strange words that he himself did not understand, 
 and in the whirl and movement of the company took refuge
 
 From London to Genoa. 15 
 
 at once, and was perhaps at once forgotten by this wonderful 
 woman. At least she betrayed no consciousness, no emotion, 
 no interest whatever. 
 
 Possibly she had not heard his name. Possibly she had 
 heard too much of it. Possibly she, too, had been dreaming 
 like himself that night, and did not waken at all. All these 
 and a thousand other possibilities poured through the young 
 man s brain from that day forth. He did not dare to see 
 her again. Yet dreaming or awake he saw nothing but her, 
 heard no sound but her voice, a voice that was so full of 
 soul, of song, of sympathy, so refreshing, soft, and mellow ; 
 like the fountain of Trevi. 
 
 Murietta, as I have said, knew certainly that he would one 
 day meet this woman. Knowing this by some sort of intui 
 tion, a sort of revelation that belongs to certain natures 
 cursed or blessed with intense sensibility, he had been con 
 tent to wait, to go on silently and in a satisfied sort of way 
 with his work, without once considering what he should do 
 when the time came. 
 
 No doubt if he had been asked, or if he had asked himself, 
 he would have replied confidently that he should at once 
 address her, tell her the truth briefly, candidly, frank and 
 bold as a soldier, and possess her. 
 
 As it was, however, he did not address her at all. He ran 
 away. He began for the first time in his life to fear. He 
 could not exactly tell what it was that he feared ; but he felt 
 himself tremble in the presence of man, woman, alone, in 
 crowds, and all the time impressed with the fear that some 
 thing dreadful was about to happen. Then troubles began 
 to pour in upon him from a hundred quarters. He had done 
 nothing at all but hide himself away and try all the time to 
 get that one face from between him and his old loves and 
 beautiful princesses on the canvas. It was impossible. He 
 now was miserable beyond expression. Men began to note 
 his change of manner and of mind. His enemies were de-
 
 1 6 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 lighted ; his few, very few friends shook their heads and left 
 him nearly alone. 
 
 This could not go on with a mind like his. One day in 
 a mood of desperation he resolved to ask who she was. 
 Strange enough, he had not dared mention her name to any 
 one since that night. When at last, pale, excited, trembling, 
 he found the man who could tell him what he sought to learn 
 of her, he found his tongue utterly tied and his mouth dry as 
 if he had had a fever. He wanted to take this man by the 
 collar and lead him into a dark place and turn his face to the 
 wall, and make him tell him there, with his eyes held down 
 and in a voice that only he could hear, who she was, and 
 what her name and history. 
 
 That, I should say, is love love deep, self-denying, yet 
 uncontrolled. 
 
 To his relief, the man led up to the subject of his heart, 
 and told him all about her while he stood by the fire in early 
 autumn, and looked out through the window at a man with a 
 tray on his head and a little bell in his hand hawking his wares. 
 
 The tale was soon told, or at least so much as the man 
 chose to relate, and the artist still stood looking out of the 
 window. The friend set down his glass and laid his hand on 
 his shoulder. He started. 
 
 " I was looking at the man with the tray and bell. Yery 
 singular ; very pretty ; twould make a picture." 
 
 The friend stooped a little and looked through the window ; 
 but no man with a tray was to be seen. In fact he had gone 
 on half an hour before. But to the artist he was still there, 
 ringing his little brass bell up in his own right ear, as if to 
 be certain he made a great noise to attract the little people to 
 buy his homely wares. 
 
 The men looked each other in the face. The artist was 
 pale and embarrassed. 
 
 " You are ill. You must stop work. Do you know what 
 your friends say ? "
 
 From London to Genoa. 17 
 
 " My friends ? " 
 
 " Ay, your friends the world." 
 
 " No." 
 
 Shall I tell you ? " 
 
 " Well, yes, since we had is well hear one falsehood as 
 another." 
 
 " But it will offend you." 
 
 " I have passed that phase." 
 
 " I fear it will annoy you." 
 
 " Nonsense. You annoy me by your insinuations. Speak 
 plain." 
 
 " Well then, my dear fellow, you must stop work." 
 
 " Is that what the world says ? " 
 
 " Well, no, not exactly, but " 
 
 But, but, but ! " 
 
 The artist drew up his hands and wrung them nervously as 
 he looked at his so-called friend. 
 
 "But but! Well?" 
 
 " They say you you that you are ill and " 
 
 " And and ? " This time the hand had clutched the shoul 
 der. They shook the man, and they shook these words from 
 out between his chattering teeth, 
 
 " And that you you are insane ! " 
 
 The artist shook off his friend and found his way into the 
 street. 
 
 Let a man of Marietta s temperament and experience, not 
 half at peace with the world, in fact half at war with it, retire, 
 retreat within himself, and love love blindly and without 
 any definite hope let him be pinched by poverty, nettled by 
 pride, and then, held up to reproach without reason, and he 
 will come to say that either the world is mad, or he himself 
 is mad. 
 
 The subject was not new to him or to his mind at all. As 
 he hastily left his friend s house that day, he was not wonder 
 ing whether or not he was mad, but whether or not she had
 
 1 8 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 heard this rumor. He walked a long way that day, and 
 at last settled it clearly in his mind that all he wanted was 
 the companionship of fresh and original minds ; minds that 
 had point and place to lay hold of, minds that lifted, and that 
 you could ascend with as ascending a wooded and watered 
 mountain, and be rejoiced and refreshed. 
 
 That night the old nervousness came back. He did not 
 close his eyes. 
 
 " I have enemies," he said to himself. " What if these 
 enemies take it into their heads to declare that I am insane ? 
 I do not fit into the life and habits of this land. My thoughts, 
 my actions are my own. What could I answer ? My pro- 
 foundest answer would be taken as a madman s theory. I 
 should go wild. They would expect me to act, to answer as a 
 fool. I cannot. I do not know how." 
 
 A keen, thin, mettled edge was that of Murietta s nature. 
 In fact it is the keenest edge and the highest mettle and the 
 most subtle mind that breaks most suddenly. 
 
 He shut himself up now, and would see no one. He would 
 not go abroad. He would not work nor go out, night or 
 day, and men began to shake their heads. 
 
 One day he tied a great bull-dog to the door. The old 
 woman and old man who kept this house held a council. 
 
 The next day two physicians came, and with them a friend, 
 or at least a fellow-artist. The doctors surveyed the curious 
 figures on the wall, noted the nervous and restless man before 
 them, and began to ask questions, while the friend drew 
 himself back into the corner. 
 
 Murietta suddenly grew pale. His impatience left him, 
 and his eyes grew bright as fire. He looked up towards the 
 wall, where hung two pistols. 
 
 He put his hand up against the wall, close to the butt of a 
 pistol, as if by chance. Then leaning carelessly and lifting 
 one foot up and resting the toe on the carpet, began : 
 
 " You will ask no more questions. I will answer nothing
 
 From London to Genoa. 19 
 
 further now. If you choose you can come here to-morrow 
 at precisely twelve. Now you will go." 
 
 The men looked at each other, and one began to speak. 
 
 A nervous hand on the wall clutched a pistol. 
 
 " Now you will go." 
 
 The artist had already gone. The two physicians started 
 back, stepped light and quick, and shot across the threshold. 
 
 Murietta rang the bell. 
 
 The old woman came. 
 
 " I am going out to see some friends some friends. 1 
 shall not come back to-night. If those three men call here 
 to-morrow at twelve, and I am not here, you can tell them 
 that if they like to wait till I return, they are perfectly wel 
 come to do so." 
 
 The old landlady adjusted her cap as all landladies do who 
 are not perfectly satisfied with the state of affairs, and jerked 
 her head, which is a landlady s bow, and disappeared. 
 
 Murietta stood a moment at the gate of his lodgings, in the 
 London suburb, and asked himself what course he should 
 take. A cab jolted by. The artist lifted his cane. The 
 cabman, who like all good cabmen seemed to have eyes in 
 his back, jerked up as short as if the cane had been a rein 
 in his teeth, and wheeling round took in the man, shut up 
 his trap as if it had caught something in it, and then without 
 a word went jolting on down the street. 
 
 A hand pushed up and opened a trap-door in the roof of 
 the cab. 
 
 " Cabman ; India Docks." 
 
 " Eight." 
 
 The Italian flag was fluttering from the masthead of a ship 
 steaming as if just about to start. It bore the word 
 " Genoa." 
 
 " Genoa ! Genoa? why not? That is in Italy. And she 
 is in Italy." 
 
 Down the stormy channel, around the broken Gates of
 
 20 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 Hercules, and up the choppy, ugly Mediterranean, and they 
 drew in upon the isolated city of palaces. 
 
 At his hotel the good consul sought Murietta out ; but he 
 was still sad and thoughtful. 
 
 " You will dine with me ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " You will at least call and spend an hour see my family." 
 
 " No, no, no. I am not in a mood to see happy people." 
 
 Then suddenly turning to the consul after a moment s 
 silence 
 
 " Consul, do me a favor." 
 
 " With pleasure, if it is in my power." 
 
 " Then take me to see those who are unhappy, the miser 
 able ! " 
 
 The consul hesitated. 
 
 " I am miserable to-day ; take me among my kind to-day ! 
 To-morrow I shall be more cheerful." 
 
 They passed up the narrow crowded streets with mighty 
 marble palaces on either hand, up past many fountains, up 
 many steps, under many arches, then up a spiral stairway of 
 marble, till suddenly they stood before the Jardin Nero with 
 its tropical flowers, its fountains, its birds, its beasts, and its 
 thousand happy children and beautiful women. 
 
 The consul turned his back to this, and led across the shady 
 walk to the beautiful public drive, with its double rows of 
 trees, its fountains, its bands of music, and its whirl of car 
 riages that follow one another around and around on this 
 delightful drive overlooking the sea, that seems to have been 
 fashioned from a half-levelled mountain. 
 
 " There ! " 
 
 " Folly, folly ! I asked for the unhappy. You bring me 
 to this whirl of gayety this giddiness of delight ! " 
 
 " You asked for the miserable. Here they are ! There they 
 sit in those carriages ! Thei-e are the truly unhappy ! and 
 so it is the wide world over."
 
 From London to Genoa. 21 
 
 Murietta grasped Ms hand. He looked him in the face as 
 if he would look him through. 
 
 " You have uttered a great truth. I knew it before, I felt 
 it before, but could not say." 
 
 Around and around the carriages whirled, two and two, 
 and then a double line meeting till they drove four deep, and 
 the horses took in the spirit of the splendid sunset scene, and 
 bent their necks and tossed their manes and stepped as if they 
 scarcely touched the ground. A group of peasants in gay and 
 beautiful dress, with their glorious hair about their shoulders, 
 danced below an acacia tree in the sprinkle of the fountain, 
 while officers in splendid uniforms moved leisurely up and 
 down and bowed to the black-eyed women seated here and 
 there in twos and threes, and the black-e} r ed women smiled 
 and blushed in return ; and all the time the fountains plashed 
 and played in the gold of the sloping sun, while the bands 
 played martial airs and then low and tender melodies. 
 
 The carriages were largely those of foreigners. They were 
 filled with beautiful women and men who certainly wore a 
 look of more care than was consistent with the scene. There 
 was a fearful rivalry between the tenants of many of these 
 splendid equipages. 
 
 This one had the best horses in Genoa, but that one had a 
 carriage that shone with gold and silver ; then this carriage 
 bore the most beautiful woman in the world, while that one 
 claimed a special gloiy because it bore the Crown Prince of 
 Italy.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE LADY IN PINK. 
 
 URIETTA stood there looking 
 at, and yet not half beholding 
 the scene before him. He was 
 devouring the thought that the 
 consul had given him, as if his 
 soul had been hungry. He 
 was turning it over, testing it, 
 trying to prove that it was 
 false, and yet at every ttirn of 
 the gay equipages finding evi 
 dence of its truth. 
 
 From the first there was one carriage 
 that had a special attraction for him. 
 A little boy, with long light hair like 
 gold and sunshine woven together, sat 
 on a front seat dressed in blue velvet, 
 and looking down at the happy peasant 
 children as if he would like to join them and be happy too. 
 
 Beside this boy sat or lounged a great six-foot seaman- 
 looking fellow in a white vest, pea-jacket, and sailor hat, 
 which he was constantly lifting, and sometimes to people who 
 did not respond. There was a swagger in his air that spoke as 
 plain as words could speak that his place and position in the 
 world, whatever it was, was about as unsteady as the deck 
 of a ship in a storm. Yet he had a powerful face, power 
 ful for wickedness. He certainly had a chin like Dante.
 
 The Lady in Pink. 23 
 
 He as certainly had an eye like the devil. One hand was 
 constantly employed in lifting his hat ; the other kept a sort 
 of reach and regard for the little boy at his side. 
 
 As this carriage whirled past, the consul lifted his hat to 
 the very beautiful blonde lady dressed all in soft shades of 
 pink and rose, who sat with her husband on the back seat ; 
 and the big man with the big chin lifted his hat in return and 
 bowed twice to the consul. 
 
 The beautiful lady smiled with an expression of sadness 
 that was even painful, but only smiled. The husband, a 
 handsome, graceful, Italian gentleman, with a small hand and 
 a small weak nose, and a small head which was getting bald, 
 lifted his hat also, with that ease and composure which shows 
 at least the gentleman bred and born. 
 
 " Beautiful ! " said the consul. 
 
 " Sad ! " sighed the artist. 
 
 The two walked on together. 
 
 But Murietta could not forget that face. It was the face 
 of a child. The eyes were large and liquid, yet soft and 
 timid as those of a baby. Her complexion was rose and ala 
 baster. She seemed to blush to her shoulders as she breathed. 
 With her pure pitiful face, sad and sweet and lonesome, with 
 its touch of tenderness for her little boy with hair so like 
 her own, she to Murietta was by far the most beautiful of 
 all the beautiful women of Genoa. 
 
 " Who are they ? " 
 
 " It s a sad story." 
 
 " I knew it was sad. Let me imagine it. It will give me 
 food for to-night whilst prowling through the silent city " 
 
 The sun had set on Genoa. The pretty dancers had disap 
 peared, the bands had broken in pieces, and here and there a 
 man with a great brass instrument coiled about him, stood 
 bantering, cap in hand, with some fair woman. 
 
 The two men were leaving the garden as the carriage with 
 the sad pretty face above the soft rose robes was passing.
 
 24 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 The consul bowed. The fair woman half turned her head to 
 the man beside her, and he reached his arm and touched the 
 footman. The footman turned his head to the coachman, 
 and the carriage stopped. 
 
 The consul stepped up towards the carriage door, shook 
 hands with the gentleman, and then took the extended hand 
 of the big man with the big chin, while the little boy only 
 looked down from the carriage at the doves that strutted 
 about and pecked in the dust under the wheels and the 
 horses feet. 
 
 " Glad to see you, consul," said the big man with the big 
 chin as he clutched the hand in his. " Glad to see you," 
 continued the deep bass voice. " I am a man who carries 
 his heart in his hand, you know. A rough but honest sailor. 
 Glad to see you. looking so well, sir." 
 
 The lady looked in the consul s face with her great sad 
 child s eyes, so full of wonder all the time, and then she 
 looked at his companion, who had held back as if to escape 
 an introduction. 
 
 "My friend Murietta the Countess Edna." 
 
 The lady smiled sadly, sighed as if from habit, and bowed 
 as the artist lifted his hat and held it poised in the air. 
 Then he shook hands with the gentleman at her side who was 
 introduced as " Count Edna," and was about to withdraw. 
 
 "You are not of the family of Alpho Murietta? " 
 
 The artist blushed and bowed in the affirmative. 
 
 The consul said something in a half whisper, and then the 
 lady with an expression of interest again reached her hand. 
 The gentleman at her side was over civil ; and, while the 
 great captain by the little boy, who had just been introduced, 
 was declaring that he was a man who carried his heart in his 
 hand and was only a rough but honest sailor, the polite gen 
 darme came with his finger to his cap, passed up the carriage 
 from blocking the way, and the two parties were separated.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 IN THE CITY OF PALACES. 
 
 ATE picks out and sets the un 
 happy up in a carriage for the 
 poor but content to see them. The 
 consul was quite right. But this 
 truth is not so apparent in Italy 
 or France as in England. 
 
 In the matchless and magnifi 
 cent turnouts, gay with color and 
 gorgeous trappings, pouring down 
 the avenues of wood that echo 
 with nnisic, rounding the corners of watered 
 ways that wind in terraces set with walls 
 of roses, hung above the sea, you have much 
 to look upon besides the tired masks of flesh 
 and blood that but half hide the soul with 
 its sea of troubles. 
 
 In England, in the great drive of Hyde Park, you have 
 little to behold but the faces there. Such sad faces ! The 
 most mournful sight to me is that of an Englishman driving 
 in Hyde Park for pleasure. 
 
 He sits as if he was bolstered up in bed, and his physician 
 was feeling his pulse. He is so stiff that you might imagine 
 him chiselled from some sort of very ugly stone, hat and all. 
 You had almost as well expect to see a Grenadier guardsman 
 lift his bfe-^rskin cap as to see an Englishman s hat move from 
 his head, unless a royal personage appears, while he takes this 
 2
 
 26 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 mournful round in the great ride of the kingdom. The 
 marble head of Julius Caesar is about as likely to fall from 
 the shoulders of the bust in the British Museum, as is the 
 head of an Englishman to turn to the right or the left as he 
 sits there, holding his hands so stiffly, looking so stern, so 
 pitiful, as if he was expecting every moment to hear that 
 melancholy physician say that he must die to-morrow. 
 
 The poor stand on the outside, fifty deep, and look on in. 
 silence at this pageant of black solemnity. All London is 
 there in the season. The carriages are at least four deep. 
 They are packed in like sardines ; there is not room enough 
 left for a baby-cart. They move at one and the same mourn 
 ful pace the whole drive round. They look in the same 
 direction ; they wear the same clothes, the same sad, woe-be- 
 gone, and melancholy look, the same doleful, doomed expres 
 sion the whole drive through the indescribable expression 
 of the damned. 
 
 Once upon a time a careless little country girl, full of sun 
 shine and good health, came to town in an open wagon with 
 her parents. It was her first sight of London ; and she stood 
 up by the side of her red-faced, good-natured mother, clap 
 ping her little red hands and shouting out her delight at 
 whatever took her fancy. 
 
 The little party struck Hyde Park near the great Marble 
 Arch about three in the afternoon in the full blossom of a 
 London May. 
 
 The child looked in, tiptoed up, looked again and then 
 she made it out in a moment. She knew perfectly well what 
 it was now. She tiptoed up again, clapped her hands in a 
 sweet shy tattoo, shook back her curls and called out, 
 
 " Oh, mamma, mamma ! see, mamma, what a pretty, 
 pretty funeral ! " 
 
 What a light, airy, fairy-like drive is this little round be 
 tween the rows of acacia and locust trees of Genoa ! It lies 
 there lifted above the sea, above the city. It is in the heart
 
 In the City of Palaces. 27 
 
 of the old battle-beaten town, and one might well understand 
 that on this little half levelled mountain s summit, men first 
 sat down and began to build as they did on the Palatine 
 Hill. 
 
 You know perfectly well, as you stand there or drive in 
 the cool shadow of the trees, sprinkled by the fountains and 
 fanned by winds from the sea that here stood fortress and 
 battlement, and that there, up that forty-foot wall to the left, 
 the barbarian, clad in hairy skins, climbed with his sword in 
 his teeth, was beaten back, climbed again and again, till the 
 rocks were too slippery with blood to hold his fingers. You 
 are certain that you stand on the heart, the core and key of 
 Genoa. 
 
 Stand here at noon in the cool of the trees, while the 
 Italian lies flat on his back, and sound asleep, and thick on 
 the ground as the dead after battle, all around you in the 
 shade of trees, of fountains, of walls, of benches and look 
 ing out upon the sea, you can count a hundred sails. They, 
 too, seem to be asleep. In a little time, when the sun has 
 rounded the meridian, your Italian will awaken. He will 
 half rise, settle back on his elbow, and half awake, half 
 asleep, will sing an opera with a dozen or two in chorus, and 
 never miss a note. 
 
 Happy, happy fellows ! They are so perfectly happy, so 
 careless, that you too must take in some of this happiness in 
 Italy, if you live there, in spite of yourself. 
 
 To your left, on a hill across a dried river and a dusty 
 valley, with lonesome and brown fig-trees, you see Byron s 
 house, which he named Paradise ; and not far away is the 
 half year s residence of Charles Dickens, which he named 
 the Pink Jail. A little further to your left, and two miles 
 up this dried-up river the bed of which is spread with 
 clothes laid out to dry is the beautiful Campo Santo, the 
 fairest and airiest churchyard in all the civilized world. 
 
 Around your back bends the great wall of Genoa. It is
 
 28 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 so high, where it climbs over the spiirs of the Apennines, 
 that it is occasionally in some place hidden in the clouds. 
 Miles and miles back and np, and on this wall is a strange, a 
 dark-browed and gloomy building. A stranger walked that 
 way once, and while yet nearly half a mile off he heard howls, 
 and the clank of chains, and the most doleful sounds you can 
 conceive. He went up under the walls of this place, and 
 asked what it meant. 
 
 This was the great prison of Genoa, and some miserable 
 wretches were being flogged. 
 
 The howling ceased ; but the rattling chains kept rattling 
 more than before ; and the men told him the prisoners were 
 then being fed. 
 
 Before you, or a little to the left, the sea makes a diver 
 sion, and dim and distant away across the bay you see if 
 you have the eye of a mountaineer a shore that is sacred 
 to the ashes of Shelley. 
 
 Under your feet, or around the corner of the bay a mile 
 or two, and standing almost in the water, is a thin, blue 
 marble shaft that means a whole volume of history. There 
 it was that Garibaldi first embarked with his red-shirted 
 band for the farther Sicily. 
 
 On that high bluff before you, around which the sea always 
 sweeps and swings in an unsatisfied sort of a way, stands a 
 church with a story worth ten times the price the old man at 
 the door will ask for telling it. 
 
 , Yonder, where no woman s feet may enter, lie the bones 
 of John the Baptist, and you fall to wondering, as the good 
 priests show you through the chapel, whatever in the world 
 John the Baptist had done that no woman is permitted to 
 kneel at his tomb or water the place with her tears. You 
 find it the gloomiest place on earth, and your only prayer, 
 as you turn to go away, is that you may not be laid to rest 
 in a place that is never made fair with the presence of woman. 
 
 Yonder in a church, guarded and kept as the most sacred
 
 In the City of Palaces. 29 
 
 relic of all that lias yet been brought from Jerusalem, is the 
 Holy Grail, which but to see is health and happiness for life. 
 Yet, consistent enough with all this virtue, it is to be beheld 
 but once in all the year. 
 
 A little further to your right, and down there where the 
 steamboats whistle around a granite qiiay that smells all the 
 time of paraffin and fish, and looking straight down into 
 the railroad depot, stands the monument of the great 
 navigator, mounted by a colossal figure, and bristling 
 all around with marble prows of ships, and chains, and 
 anchors. 
 
 Yet amidst all this splendor Alpho Murietta was moody 
 and disappointed. Had he been asked why he felt dis 
 appointed, he could not have told. Had he asked himself 
 the question, he could not have answered. His was a mind 
 that moved by instinct, not by reason. 
 
 The truth is he dreaded going to the Gardens for fear he 
 should meet the One Fair Woman. Yet not for fear he should 
 meet her. Quite the reverse. Away down deep in his heart, 
 deeper than any measure of his could fathom, lay the fear, 
 the possibility, that she was not there. He dreaded to find 
 out the truth, for fear that he should find she was not in 
 Genoa. So long as he did not know she was not there, just 
 so long might he go on, and dream, and hope, and fancy 
 that she was there, within the great walls of the old monarch 
 of the Mediterranean. 
 
 This was the summer, the brief bridal day of the old 
 Queen of the Sea. Surely she would be there, the fairest 
 of the fair, the most splendid in all that splendor. 
 
 Never lover drew into shore and swallowed up the crowd 
 with his eyes in search of the one to meet him there, with 
 more eagerness than did Murietta peer through this pageant 
 in search of her, the moment he found he had been led to 
 the centre of attraction. 
 
 " Yes, you are right; the miserable meet here."
 
 30 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 He said this to the consul with all his heart ; for when a 
 man is miserable he sees misery in all things. 
 
 They sauntered on together towards the hotel. Murietta 
 threw away the stump of his cigar. An old man kneeling 
 before a crucifix, and under a little red lamp that burned 
 perpetually at the feet of a Virgin in blue, with a tin crown, 
 sprang up and caught it before it fairly touched the ground. 
 The old man was shadowy as a ghost, and seemed very 
 wretched as he stood still before them. Murietta hastily 
 handed him a franc. The old man threw himself at his 
 feet, and with his face lifted devoutly, and clasped hands, 
 said : 
 
 " Dio mio ! I thought my Saviour was in heaven ! " 
 
 The artist handed him another franc, and much affected, 
 moved on. 
 
 " The pious old man sees my long hair, and takes me for 
 the Saviour." 
 
 " Bah ! " said the consul, "he took me for the Saviour for 
 about six months ; then I quit giving him money, and he 
 changed his mind ! " 
 
 The day was done, and the consul and the artist were walk 
 ing on together toward the Hotel Italic. 
 
 " The poor count has a sorry time of it indeed," observed 
 the consul. 
 
 " And why? He certainly seems the happier of the two." 
 
 " Ah, you do not understand. Well, there is a history ! 
 a sort of story which nobody knows much about ; for the 
 Count is so affectionate, so faithful, and so careful of his wife s 
 good fame, that he would die rather than reveal it. Still, I 
 am partly in his confidence ; and he has hinted at enough 
 to make at least a dozen men miserable." 
 
 "Well, she at least is miserable." 
 
 " She is mad ! " added the consul emphatically. 
 
 Murietta put his hand to his brow. He began to won 
 der if the consul had heard what his enemies had said of
 
 In the City of Palaces. 3 1 
 
 him. He looked in the face of his friend, and drew a breath 
 of relief. 
 
 " And that big man with the little boy ? " 
 
 " A sort of keeper, and a friend of the good Count s." 
 
 " And are they long in Genoa ?" 
 
 " Oh, so-so ! for the season of a few weeks like all travel 
 lers. And they too, like all the English-speaking people, for 
 the Countess is an American, are at the same hotel with 
 yourself." 
 
 Murietta shrugged his shoulders, and wished them almost 
 anywhere else. 
 
 " Whatever she is, I am not in a mood to meet her. As 
 for the Count, he is too insipid too sweet. I should despise 
 him. The big man with the big chin. Look here ! " As 
 Murietta turned the corner of the street, he laid a finger of 
 his left hand in his open palm and said emphatically, " Hon 
 est men don t tell you that they carry their hearts in their 
 hands." 
 
 The consul only laughed, said something about his being a 
 blunt old sailor who only said it for the sake of a pretty ex 
 pression, and the subject was dropped. 
 
 They shook hands at the great castle-gate-like door of the 
 hotel ; and the tired artist wishing a little rest before dinner 
 and devoutly hoping he should meet no one, particularly 
 the woman with the sad face and pitiful history climbed to 
 his rooms up the great marble steps, and selfishly shutting 
 up his heart, entered, shut the door, and walked up and 
 down the marble floor, thinking only of Annette the One 
 Fair Woman.
 
 CHAPTEE IY. 
 
 COUNTESS EDNA. 
 
 F this fair, sad-faced lady, the 
 Countess Edna, was beautiful 
 as she sat in the carriage, she 
 was tenfold more so as she 
 moved in her rich Italian dress 
 down to the salle that evening 
 to dinner. 
 
 Murietta had been there be 
 fore she entered. He had his 
 face on his upturned palm, and 
 
 113 
 
 1 1 was moody and silent, and dissatisfied with 
 Genoa. He had not seen her enter, although 
 he had been looking straight in that direction. 
 When he first saw her, she was walking, or 
 rather gliding, moving as if on waves, coming 
 noiselessly, save the rustle of her trailing pink 
 garments, straight upon him. He half rose to 
 his feet, and her husband, who followed, very gently seated 
 her at the table only a remove or two away. 
 
 Again Murietta fell into his mood. He was thinking of 
 her he fain would find. 
 
 There was the prettiest little laugh, and the beautiful 
 
 countess turned her head just a little so as to lift and let fall 
 
 the shower of her golden hair about her bare and blushing 
 
 shoulders ; and Murietta turned to look, admire, and listen. 
 
 The big admiral sat opposite, bowed low to Murietta,
 
 Countess Edna. 33 
 
 reached his hand as if he held his heart in it and then 
 turned to look with a sort of hungry expression at his pri 
 soner. 
 
 The Count Edna sat beside his lady, and beyond her sat 
 the red-faced, fat, very proper English clergyman, in black 
 clothes, with his napkin tucked up under his chin. 
 
 The lady had been speaking to this clergyman, and he had 
 evidently been talking of or quoting the Italian poets. 
 
 " Dante ! " laughed the lady, " ha, ha ! it was Dante who 
 wrote all about hell, was it not ? " 
 
 The clergyman bowed profoundly. 
 
 " Well, was Dante ever married ? " 
 
 The clergyman laid down his knife and fork, and rolled his 
 eyes about, and lifted up the lower part of his napkin and 
 threatened his mouth with it, and held it there theologically 
 and in silence. 
 
 The count sighed, and looked down the table for sympa 
 thy. A very long spinster in gold spectacles away down 
 the table said, " Poor lady," loud enough for all to hear, and 
 the hungry admiral whipped out a book and wrote something 
 under the shadow of his enormous chin. 
 
 " Because," continued the countess, as if she had not heard 
 a thing that passed, though she heard, saw, felt all, and more 
 than all, " because I want to read Dante once more, and 
 must inform myself on this point, for I have no confidence 
 in authors who get their information second-hand ! " 
 
 As the dinner advanced the big admiral melted away under 
 the influence of Italian wine, and withdrew, taking the Count 
 in tow. The man sandwiched in between the artist and the 
 Countess was absorbed by the literary lady in gold spectacles, 
 and drawn to her side ; and thus Murietta found himself at 
 last almost alone by the very woman he had wished to 
 avoid. 
 
 He had expected her to begin and weary him out in a dozen 
 ways at once. On the contrary, she sat silent, as far as he
 
 34 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 was concerned, and only addressed herself to the little sun 
 shine of a boy by her side. 
 
 " Yes," at last, she answered to the old stereotyped question 
 which every traveller puts to his fellow-traveller by way of 
 breaking the ice, "yes; she liked Genoa well. It had such 
 a history had been such a brave old crxisader." 
 
 " And then it discovered us ! " added the artist. 
 
 She was thoughtful a moment, and then observed, 
 
 " What a nomad ; what a roving restless creature is man 
 all his life and even sometimes after life ! Columbus, born 
 here in the shadow of the Apennines, lies buried on the other 
 side of the world ; and John the Baptist, born away in Judea, 
 lies buried here in Genoa, 
 
 By the tideless, dolorous, midland sea ! " 
 
 The artist was getting interested. He waited for her 
 wished for her to continue, but he did not speak. The lady 
 looked down and lifted the long hair from the shoulders of 
 the little boy who sat by her side in blue velvet and innu 
 merable buttons, then looked at Murietta again, smiling, and 
 went on : 
 
 "It is best to come suddenly upon Genoa, and always from 
 the sea, if you wish to behold it in all its beauty. There 
 are two ways of coming upon new lands : the first, and by far 
 the most common way, is to consult maps, and histories, and 
 guide-books, and books of travel, and so seek out a place, 
 full of second-hand knowledge of all it has to offer you ; the 
 other and better way, if you have the world and life before 
 you, and lots of leisure, is to go down to the sea, embark on 
 the first ship that points in the direction you wish to go, and 
 ask no questions about the land you are to touch upon, but 
 drift and dream till you are set down in your new world. In 
 that way you become to yourself at least a sort of Colum 
 bus ; and the new port is to you a discovery and a revelation." 
 
 Murietta was interested. He had thought of all this, had
 
 Countess Edna. 35 
 
 himself experienced it, and could do no more nor less than 
 frankly confess the truth. 
 
 " I discovered the extreme delight of this sort of a voyage 
 by accident," he said, " or rather by simply going to the sea 
 and shipping without any other purpose or object than to get 
 away from the land. I know of nothing equal to it." 
 
 " How strange it is here, is it not ? " she queried. (( When 
 you first land, you somehow feel you are approaching the 
 confines of Asia. You see turbaned Turks and tawny Arabs, 
 moving dreamily up and down the crowded quay ; and the 
 red-capped sailors and the oddly-dressed fishermen, barefooted 
 and indolent, testify that you have found a new, or rather 
 old very old order of life." 
 
 She stopped, looked at the artist a moment, and went on, 
 " here all things are new, even to very old travellers. From 
 the moment you land you constantly come upon strange 
 things, and are constantly bumping your head against pro 
 prieties and time-honored customs. Few cities have so per 
 fectly maintained their individuality as Genoa. No doubt 
 its isolation v its wall of Apennines, and its long and bitter 
 wars with neighboring cities, had much to do with keeping 
 it apart from the rest of the world. But from the first its 
 people were a brave, resolute, and original race. And even 
 to-day the men who led in the Crusades, discovered a world, 
 and established some rules in art, seem pretty well content 
 to go 011 in ways peculiarly their own." 
 
 Again her great eyes opened wide, and with the same en 
 thusiasm she continued : 
 
 " What immense houses ! they look like little mountains. 
 I thought I had seen large and lofty houses in Edinburgh, 
 but I find the houses of that romantic old city are mere 
 cottages compared to those in Genoa. When I came to look 
 at my rooms here, in this hotel, the proprietor said some 
 thing to the clerk ; then the clerk said something to a man 
 in a red cap ; then the man in the red cap bowed, and said
 
 36 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 something to a woman in a white cap ; and then the black- 
 eyed woman in the white cap took a candle in her hand and 
 stood before me. And do you know that all this time this 
 looked just like a play ? Everybody was dressed as if 
 dressed for the stage, and everybody moved or spoke or 
 reached their hands just as if they had been trained to move 
 and speak and reach their hands just in this way for all 
 time." 
 
 " And then ? " asked Murietta. 
 
 " And then the whole committee, save the clerk, was sent 
 away with the Count to assist in selecting rooms." 
 
 " Ah," laughed the Countess, " it takes more men and 
 women in Genoa to do nothing than in any other place in the 
 world except perhaps in Washington ! " 
 
 Then the lady wandered back to the time she first saw 
 Genoa. 
 
 " If you are only fortunate enough to first sight Genoa as 
 the sun goes down behind you ! Wonderful ! marvellous ! 
 It looks like a miracle ! You will think there is surely a city 
 in the heavens ! There, back of the great white city, with its 
 lofty walls curving about it, lift the Apennines, white with 
 snow as the clouds of an Indian summer ; and looking at 
 Genoa from the sea, you cannot tell where the city leaves off 
 or the Apennine peaks begin. What mighty walls ! And 
 then, even beyond the twenty miles of lofty wall and time- 
 stained battlements on the brown hills, you see terrace above 
 terrace, palace above palace, white and high, and vast and 
 magnificent." 
 
 Her hands were reached here, and her hair was a perfect 
 shower about her shoulder. The woman in gold spectacles, 
 left all alone, was busily taking notes. 
 
 " It is such a city, contempkted from the sea, as we may 
 imagine Jerusalem to have been. It is truly a city set upon 
 a hill ; and you clasp your hands and you gaze and you gaze 
 upon the city of Columbus, forgetting the blue seas, forget-
 
 Countess Edna. 37 
 
 ting the bluer skies, forgetting the dreadful food you have 
 been fed on for a week, forgetting the coarse sea-captain with 
 the great gold rings in his ears, till you have touched the very 
 shore." 
 
 The artist leaned forward and listened with a singular 
 interest. All the time he kept questioning to himself, is 
 this lady mad ; and she continued with the same earnestness : 
 
 " You land, and the delusion is gone. Your great white 
 idol of an hour before is broken ; and lies an unshapely, 
 dirty, ugly mass before you. The mighty palaces, as you 
 approach them, are stained, broken, shattered, falling to de 
 cay, and unlovely to look upon. The frescos are falling 
 away from the walls, and the towers and battlements of the 
 city, that appeared so splendid from the sea, now look as if 
 they had endured a thousand years of siege from the grim 
 old conqueror Time, and had at last quite surrendered. The 
 olive-trees, that stretched in dark and suggestive lines around 
 and through the upper part of the city, are gray with dust ; 
 and the groves of fig-trees look as if they had inherited tho 
 curse of the tree that stood by the wayside of old." 
 
 " Yet Dickens adored Genoa," continued the lady, " and 
 so did Byron and Shelley also. No doubt these great masters 
 were somehow correct in their estimates of the curious and 
 brave old town. But it takes a long time to grow to like it 
 thoroughly ; and you have to find a deal of compensation in 
 its scenery and fine sea-air to reconcile you to its narrow, 
 dirty streets, its cholera-breeding customs, and the unac 
 countable indolence of its people." 
 
 " But," said Murietta, now quite out of his mood, and 
 something more than interested, " what about the troop of 
 players that trooped off up-stairs to find the rooms for you ? " 
 
 " Oh, I followed the party and saw it all. Such fun ! 
 The man in the red cap led off, as if striding across the 
 stage. Then we climbed the great marble stairs. They were 
 wide and large as the steps of a state capitol. They were as
 
 38 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 sloping, gradual, and easy as a well-regulated turnpike. For 
 the first half mile the steps were of white marble. After 
 that the marble was black and the steps more narrow, yet 
 still wide enough for a team of four-in-hand to climb with 
 perfect composure. At last my Hamlet stopped, struck 
 an attitude, had the great double doors swung open, raised 
 the candle above his head, and told me that if these rooms 
 did not suit, he would be happy to show me some others 
 upstairs. " 
 
 " Good gracious! I cried, and is this not up-stairs? 
 Ah, no, answered the gentle Italian, as he lowered the 
 candle, * this is only the fifth floor. " 
 
 "The most noticeable and unpleasant thing here in the 
 construction and arrangement of these massive bjiil dings is 
 the universal and wearisome use of marble. From the mar 
 ble-paved street you enter a marble-paved court, you mount 
 marble steps and many a step indeed ! and at last you enter 
 a massive door cased in white marble, to find your floor a 
 naked shining sheet of ghastly marble. Marble tables, mar 
 ble stands, marble bureaus all things that you look upon 
 or lay hands upon nothing but one dreadful nightmare of 
 marble." 
 
 " It is like taking up quarters in an aristocratic church 
 yard," laughed the Countess. " I am sure that if I should 
 ask for any additional furniture and get it, that it would 
 come in the shape of another tombstone." 
 
 The Count and the lady s keeper had not returned. The 
 little boy had been led away by a servant; and Murietta 
 could do no less than offer the Countess his arm when the 
 cloth was removed. They entered the great parlor, and sat 
 by the open window alone overlooking a portion of the 
 great city. It was white and splendid in the mellow 
 moon. 
 
 " Look," said the painter, pointing to a great palace all 
 covered with beautiful frescos,. " Does it not look as if the
 
 Countess Edna. 39 
 
 palace had been filled full of splendid pictures, and was now 
 boiling over and spilling down on the outside ? " 
 
 " Beautiful ! " cried the lady with enthusiasm. "Nothing 
 is more noticeable here amongst all classes than the devotion 
 to art. This, however, as all the world knows, obtains 
 throughout the whole peninsula. Your porter is an actor ; 
 your bootblack sings an opera, keeping time to the strokes 
 of his brush ; and your chambermaid is generally a better 
 iudge of pictures than yourself. A gentleman told me once 
 of a Genoese boy, his servant, to whom he showed a rather 
 stupid-looking picture of Lucretia, and asked what he 
 thought of it. It is not good, the Italian servant an 
 swered ; there is no death, no desperation, no nothing in 
 the face. She only looks as if she might be sorry that there 
 was not another Tarquin. " 
 
 The lady paused a moment. She seemed delighted with 
 her new friend, and took up the subject again in a wild and 
 eager way. 
 
 " Even the gray-headed old beggar, down at the corner of 
 the street, begs artistically to a fault. I am certain that if 
 he were to make a false gesture with his extended hand, or 
 drop a key too low in his dolorous petition for alms, he 
 would despise himself for a month and possibly go and 
 hang himself in despair. Every house seems to be a pic 
 ture-gallery, without, as well as within. Nearly all the 
 houses are painted outside in flowers and stars and bars and 
 banners, and pictures of hideous beasts and reptiles and 
 men and Madonnas, in every conceivable attitude and con 
 dition, and in all the hues of the rainbow. It is true they 
 are nearly all cracked and faded and ugly perhaps were 
 even from the first even to hideousness. But we take 
 refuge in the thought that they were all done in the interest 
 of art, and possibly meant a great deal in the world s far 
 dawn. And this devotion to art is sincere ! " she continued, 
 absorbed in her subject. " It has borne and will continue
 
 40 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 to bear its fruit. The whole world will testify to that. 
 When you remember that no gallery is complete without a 
 most liberal contribution from this land, and that even the 
 great Covent Garden cannot have an opera without procur 
 ing at least three-fourths of its force from Italy, you are 
 willing to forgive a vast deal of nonsense in detail for the 
 results in the aggregate." 
 
 Her face was glorious with enthusiasm. But she stopped 
 suddenly. She felt, rather than saw, that she was being 
 watched. Murietta turned his head. 
 
 There stood the Count in the doorway under the shadow of 
 the enormous chin. Both men were glaring hard at the two 
 who sat by the window, out of the dark of the doorway. 
 
 She leaned towards Murietta as if continuing the conver 
 sation. 
 
 " I have something to say. Ah ! I must say it, and say it 
 soon. Do not do not run away from me. They all run away 
 all of them whenever I begin to tell them how it is I am 
 a prisoner. I am watched ! I have talked long to you to-night 
 to prove to you that I am not mad. Am I mad ? Do you 
 think I am mad ? Will you some day tell me ? will you some 
 day sit still and hear me ? Oh, I am so alone ! " 
 
 She almost hissed these words into his ear. She had risen 
 as she spoke, and now reaching her hand timidly, she said 
 " Good-night 1 " and was gone, through the door, into the 
 hands of the Count and under the shadow of the enormous chin. 
 
 Murietta paced his room that night. He was perfectly 
 certain he had never seen so much beauty, so much quiet 
 dignity, such devotion to art, such clear good sense in any one 
 woman before. He was certain something was wrong. He had 
 wished to avoid her. He was a knight by nature ; but he did 
 not care for a tilt now. The more he thought of the situation 
 of things, the more he was perplexed and annoyed. 
 
 At last he drew back his foot, kicked an ottoman with all 
 his might, said " Confound that woman ! " and went to bed.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 MAD OR NOT MAD F 
 
 E always rises refreshed in 
 Italy. The rest there is the 
 rest of the Lotus land. 
 
 An Italian beggar will 
 drop down asleep in the 
 shadow of a fig tree or 
 wayside wall, weary, hungry, 
 worn. He will rise up in 
 less than two hours, climb 
 up on the top of the wall 
 if possible, and sit there like a bird, 
 fresh as the morning, and will sing 
 an opera from the very gladness and 
 fulness of his heart. 
 
 Murietta arose next morning on 
 much better terms with himself and 
 
 the world generally. The sea as he looked out from his 
 lofty window was like an opal in the glorious sunlight of 
 an Italian autumn. Ships drew in and ships blew out as if 
 Genoa was young and strong and full of life. 
 
 The stars and stripes fluttered by the side of the crescent, 
 and the artist kissed his hand to the pretty banner, for under 
 its folds he had seen and had suffered much. It was like 
 looking upon an old, dear, and devoted friend. 
 
 The Countess Edna still lingered at breakfast in the coffee- 
 room, and Murietta was not at all annoyed to see her there,
 
 42 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 bright and beautiful, as he entered. There was no cloud 
 lowering over this sun in the shape of the Count, no shadow of 
 the great chin; and the beautiful woman sat there sideways 
 at the table in her light pink clothes, her little feet in pink 
 slippers on a footstool, and seemed tranquil as the morning. 
 Her lap was full of morning papers, which she perhaps had 
 never meant to read. There were, tumbled promiscuously, 
 magazines and little paper-covered novels right and left before 
 her on the table. 
 
 She smiled her recognition, subdued, in silence, and turned 
 her eyes to the chair opposite. Murietta hesitated. At an 
 other time when the sun shone less brightly, or his heartbeat 
 less lightly, he had not hesitated at all, but would have gone 
 straight on to the little table away back in the corner, and 
 hidden himself there out of sight, as was his habit. But now 
 he stood still and looked inquiringly around. 
 
 The lady lifted ner eyes to his. She took hold of him as 
 if he had been a prisoner. She led him with her eyes si 
 lently and gently to the place opposite, and as he bowed 
 helplessly before her and said, " With your permission," set 
 him down a captive to her beauty. 
 
 " Yes, the Count was out on the bay with little Sunshine 
 and the big Admiral." 
 
 " Dear, clear, dead old Genoa ! " The artist said this half 
 to himself and half to the lady, as he looked at the crumbling 
 frescos on the great palace wall opposite, for he did not wish 
 to think of that ugly man the admiral on a morning of such 
 matchless beauty. 
 
 The great dreamy eyes were wide as if with wonder. The 
 little pink feet tapped impatiently on the ottoman, and the 
 papers rustled in the lap with the dress, and against the 
 ruffles of soft pink and rose, and she began with the same 
 strange, earnest enthusiasm she had shown the night before. 
 
 " No, no, no ! Genoa is not dead. It seems to be taking 
 a second growth. There are factories and machine-shops
 
 Mad or Not Mad? 43 
 
 growing up about the outskirts of the town ; and now and 
 then a new palace or hotel is creeping up from the crowded 
 mass of buildings within the walls. You can well imagine, 
 however, that once the city slept. You can see where it 
 stood still for nearly a thousand years until the wonderful 
 little Corsican came down the Alps and awakened all Italy 
 with the thunder of his cannon. And since then there has 
 been no sleep ! but it has gone on steadily step by step 
 politically, socially, and materially till the country stands in 
 no wise in the rear of nations." 
 
 Murietta began to be troubled in his mind again. The 
 pretty Italian actor dressed for his part, and perfect in it as 
 if he had been all night at rehearsal, came sailing in here with 
 two very bright and shining instruments lifted high in his 
 hands, and held by two black and crooked handles. He 
 came sideways and bowing up to the table by Murietta, and 
 bowing again, tilted his instruments, and at one and the same 
 time turned a little cataract of boiling chalk and water, and 
 a little cataract of burnt beans, into a great white coffee cup, 
 and bowing again tilted back his instruments, lifted them in 
 the air on a level with his head, and bowed himself back and 
 sideways with such artistic perfection that Murietta almost 
 expected to see the curtain come down, and was a little dis 
 appointed that there was not a storm of applause from the 
 painted cupids on the frescoed ceilings and walls. 
 
 " And I suppose you have done Genoa ? " he observed 
 to the Countess. 
 
 " No, no, not done Genoa at all. Genoa is like Rome, 
 inexhaustible ! " she said. " One cannot well tire of looking 
 at the old, old palaces, built Heaven knows when ! One sees 
 them still roofed with Roman tile, and on the side next the 
 sun as red and bright as ever, but on the other slope gray 
 and mossed, and made velvet, as if for the feet of Time. 
 And then, within, the walls are made alive with masterpieces 
 of painting ; and some are hung with implements of war
 
 44 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 trophies that were won, and banners that were borne in 
 triumph through the Holy Land." 
 
 Again the papers and the ruffles rustled, and the little 
 pink feet tapped restlessly on the gorgeous ottoman. 
 
 " Then there is a museum of antiquities the collection, 
 unlike those of our country and of England, made up mostly 
 from older lands than Italy as if these people counted theirs 
 but a new country, and only the orient gray enough to give 
 them relics worth preserving. "What a curious collection it 
 is indeed ! The implements of war are all gnawed and bitten 
 by the teeth of Time ; and the stained and yellow statuary is 
 broken up as if it had been overthrown and ground and 
 ground beneath the wheels of his chariot." 
 
 Murietta leaned and listened, and as she paused he said 
 something of the great wealth for want of a better theme 
 for he wished to hear her through. 
 
 " No, you mistake ; these people are comparatively very 
 poor. With all this city full of palaces, filled with costly 
 pictures, you see at once that even the wealthy people of 
 Genoa and even of all Italy as a rule are very poor. That 
 is, we strangers from the West see it and feel it at every turn. 
 Perhaps the feeling will wear away in time, but it makes 
 one uncomfortable at first. However, it is a sort of dignified 
 poverty that refuses to complain or is above complaining. 
 The country, as a whole, reminds you of some great and 
 good man, devoted to art, who had once great fortune, but 
 having lost it, sits down quiet and uncomplaining, satisfied, 
 and scarcely regretting his loss in his love of art." 
 
 " But then come the beggars," said the artist. 
 
 " As for the beggars, I hardly find them a nuisance," she 
 rejoined ; " they are so civil, so artistic, and so easily satisfied. 
 A five-centime piece equal to an American cent is enough 
 to insure you half a dozen graceful bows, and to make a fel 
 low-creature happy for half a day at least ; and I count that 
 very cheap indeed. Besides, the number of these beggars
 
 Mad or Not Mad? 45 
 
 constantly testifies to the liberality of oxir countrymen ; for 
 if we did not continue to give they would cease to beg. You 
 will notice that they never beg of their own countrymen. 
 An answer in Italian is quite as satisfactory as a contribu 
 tion." 
 
 " Perhaps," said Murietta, " I shall yet find it necessary 
 to learn the language and the native accent." 
 
 The little lady laughed in a low careless way, and went 
 on 
 
 "Yes, you will like Genoa; for it is full of art, and heart, 
 and beauty. I know of nothing in the world more beautiful 
 in its way than the kindness and readiness with which the 
 wealthy possessors of fine pictures, of all works of art, and 
 even elegant gardens, open their doors to all comers who wish 
 to behold them. There is a perfect little paradise a garden 
 full of fine statuary, lakes, caves, trees from the tropics, 
 everything that can amuse and instruct a few miles out 
 yonder, overlooking the Mediterranean. This place is open 
 to all on festal days and that means about half the time in 
 Italy without any question whatever. At all other times it 
 is accessible by special permit. It was constructed by an old 
 Italian marquis, in the time of a famine, to give employment 
 to starving men. May he rest in peace, and his name and 
 his deed be long remembered. And this is only a specimen, 
 though perhaps about the finest, of the climbing gardens that 
 look down from the Apennines on Genoa and the sea. It is 
 these sweet environs, no doubt, which endeared Genoa to the 
 great artists who have gone before, and left their footprints 
 in this singular and isolated city. And ah, such funny 
 funerals ! Have you seen a funeral in Genoa ? " 
 
 The artist almost shuddered, and shook his head in silence, 
 for the lady laughed outright. 
 
 " Well, I will tell you how it is done. I with my maid 
 was walking in one of the dark and narrow streets the other 
 day, and I came upon four strangely masked and most solemn
 
 46 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 looking individuals in black, moving slowly and in single file 
 down the steep and stony way. Here is another of their 
 hundred holidays, I said to myself, and these solemn and 
 monkish-looking maskers are gay young fellows bent on hav 
 ing a lark. I felt like poking one of them with the end of 
 my parasol. I said nothing, however ; but as our way lay in 
 the same direction, I followed along till they came to one of 
 those ghostly, dark, close ways, that look like caves and seem 
 never to be closed, and here they entered and faded away into 
 the darkness. Before I had fairly turned aside my solemn 
 maskers again came slowly out of their cave, bearing some 
 thing black upon their shoulders. It was a corpse, and these 
 were the undertakers of Genoa. There is a kind of brother 
 hood here devoted to this solemn office. It is made up of 
 men who do this in penance for their sins. As the streets are 
 too narrow to admit carriages, the dead body must be borne 
 on the shoulders. The burial of the better classes is another 
 affair, and often quite imposing." 
 
 Marietta was silent again. What in the world could in 
 duce this beautiful woman to go prowling around among the 
 dead in those dreadful places ? 
 
 " But you really, you you don t mean to say that you 
 go into these dark streets alone, and for diversion ? " 
 
 " Alone and for diversion, if you like ; why not ? Besides, 
 other amusements are shut to me. Women talk and men 
 stare. They say I am mad ! I go among those poor wretches, 
 I give them money, they give me their blessings ; and I 
 reckon that more than gold. They do not watch me at all. 
 They are honest good. My friend, the sweetest flowers grow 
 close to the earth." 
 
 Marietta did not answer. The little brows were knit a 
 bit, the pretty pouting lips pushed out, and the papers rus 
 tled again over the rosy ruffles, and the regiment of novels 
 on the table changed about as if it intended to march, and 
 the little pink feet tapped more nervously than before.
 
 Mad or Not Mad? 47 
 
 Then she laughed, and the papers joined in a little chorus, 
 and when they had done dancing and laughing, she went on 
 
 " We had a little earthquake here recently ; and not long 
 after the pleasant sensation, in one of my solitary walks 
 through the poor parts of the city, I came upon a most unac 
 countable number of funerals. On inquiring of a physician 
 I found that the cholera was raging in Genoa, and that it was 
 very fatal ; less than one-fourth of those attacked recovering. 
 He told me that the day after the earthquake the number of 
 fatal cases was more than doubled. They were frightened to 
 death ! Do you mind earthquakes ? " 
 
 Murietta only looked his answer. 
 
 " Oh, I do like them so much ! " continued the Countess, 
 " I should like to be rocked to sleep in the lap of my mother 
 by an earthquake." 
 
 The curtain was raised, or at least two actors entered 
 here, bowing gracefully, dressed in splendid stage array, and 
 bearing aloft a tray in each right hand, as they glided side 
 ways towards the table. The china and the teaspoons met 
 in convention on these trays, talked for a moment in an 
 undertone ; the stray bits of bread gathered themselves to 
 gether as these graceful actors moved their hands over the 
 linen. The trays lifted up light as balances; the graceful 
 actors bowed and edging sideways were gone, and the cur 
 tain seemed to come down and the piece was over. 
 
 " You have been to Nervi ? " 
 
 The brown eyes, so soft, so childlike, so lonesome, so 
 hungry for love, so wishful for just one friend, man or 
 woman, brother, sister, mother, any one they lifted to his 
 timidly. Then as if half frightened they turned aside, and 
 the lady laughed as if to divert herself, and tapped the otto 
 man and passed the regiment of novels all up and down with 
 her little lily-white right hand. 
 
 " Well, you must go to Nervi. I will tell you all about 
 it. It is a little resting-place five or six miles down the
 
 48 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 line of sea, and I often go out there for a day or two to see 
 the patient, simple peasants at their work. The drive is the. 
 only really pleasant one around Genoa. You pass right 
 under the little mountain where we first met you look sur 
 prised. Well, you will find the road to the eastern gate of 
 Genoa leads right under and through the little, half levelled 
 mountain on which that beautiful drive and garden with the 
 trees is built. Then you pass through a great moss-grown 
 gate that opens from the old and crowded city, and you pass 
 many Madonnas fastened up in the walls of houses and\over 
 doors. And you know these lamps are always burning, and 
 the peasants never pass them without crossing themselves 
 and lifting their tattered hats." 
 
 She stopped, looked away, and seemed to forget her narra 
 tive. 
 
 " Well ? " said Murietta, as if to call her back to her sub 
 ject. 
 
 " There are soldiers mounted on the mighty wall of the 
 city, which is at least twenty miles in length ; and you rarely 
 pass the gate without having an officer peer into your car 
 riage and pull at the robes, or whatever he likes to lay hands 
 on. You pass Paradiso, the old home of Lord Byron, and 
 The Pink Jail, the residence of Charles Dickens. I fancy 
 that in the names which those two artists gave their Italian 
 homes, you may read much of their natures. But ah ! how 
 beautiful is Paradiso ! What poet could not have written 
 poetry here ? Peace and repose, luxury and refinement and 
 art on every hand, with never a thought of the wolf at the 
 door or the world. 
 
 " A little way beyond this beautiful palace, half hidden in 
 vines and trees, a very island in a little sea of flowers, there 
 stands the tall thin marble shaft that marks the spot from 
 which Garibaldi with his few followers stealthily embarked 
 one night, bearing the future of Italy. I kiss my hand away 
 across the sea to Caprera as I pass !
 
 Mad or Not Mad? 49 
 
 " You cross deep, dried-up gorges pointing into the sea. 
 And all things on this drive remind one so much of Cali 
 fornia. You see I am an American and saw my own country 
 before seeing this ; before I saw the Count Edna. The bare 
 hills, the cunning little lizards on the gray walls, the light 
 blue skies, the sea, the air all things in fact seem a counter 
 part of the fair and far Pacific." 
 
 A pretty actor entered, walked across the stage, let down 
 the colored curtain against the sun, and withdrew as she 
 continued 
 
 " And here are our little lean and ever-patient friends, the 
 mules, in long dusty caravans, climbing up and down and 
 around the rocky hills, jtist as they do in Mexico. Every 
 thing milk, meat, bread, wine, pigs, chickens, children, old 
 men, old women all things, animate or inanimate, belonging 
 to the peasantry, seem to climb up out of the dust into the 
 baskets that hang from the sides of my thoughtful but not 
 always silent little friends. I met one of these little fellows, 
 not much larger than a Newfoundland dog, not long ago as I 
 came into town. The two little bareheaded and barefooted 
 boys, who were on their way to the mountains to get a load 
 of wood, had climbed into the baskets, and there they lay 
 curled up like kittens and fast asleep. It was a very warm 
 day, and the solemn little donkey was taking it very slow, 
 and letting his long ears flop and flag as if they had wilted in 
 the sun ; but he did not stop nor bump the baskets against 
 the walls, nor do anything to disturb the little sleepers." 
 
 " Babes of the woods ! How I should like to paint them," 
 mused the artist. 
 
 " On this pleasant drive to and from Nervi, I must tell 
 you there are two institutions that you cannot avoid, and 
 with which you must not quarrel. One is an old demented 
 beggar, who fancies that he is an officer, and insists on in 
 specting your carriage for contraband goods. A penny, how 
 ever, will satisfy him that it is all right, and he will let you
 
 50 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 pass. The dear old fellow has learnt that from the real 
 officers ; such a satire, is it not ? The other institxition is a 
 one-legged beggar with matches. Now there is no use in 
 trying to drive away from this man. I have tried it, and 
 there is not a horse in all Genoa that can escape him. He 
 is the liveliest Italian I ever saw." 
 
 The soft tones stopped at last ; the little pink feet played 
 their tattoo again, and the nervous little dimpled right hand 
 began to set the regiments of novels in motion as if a battle 
 was about to begin. 
 
 The brown eyes opened wide and clear and candid, and 
 they looked to Murietta. He looked in her face and felt as 
 if he could rise up in spirit and march in through those 
 beautiful, broad, opened doors and enter her soul, and sit 
 down there and rest perfectly satisfied that there was nothing 
 but good, but peace, but charity, but sympathy, hope, and 
 faith, and love. 
 
 " I will go to Nervi, lady." He leaned over the table on 
 his arms as he spoke, and looked full in her face with his old 
 enthusiasm and frankness. " I will go to Nervi. I will go 
 as if on a road that a saint had travelled. I will lift my hafc 
 as I pass the places you have named. Your little peasant 
 boys, yo\ir beggars,* even the little mules, shall have all the 
 road for me, for I will step aside and let them pass. I will 
 see in each one of them an immortal picture. Your custom 
 house officer shall take me a prisoner, and your one-legged 
 beggar " 
 
 The lady turned white as the marbles on the mantle. Her 
 eyes fell, she did not look around. She knew that he was 
 there, and the blood went back to her heart in such floods 
 that it beat and beat as if there was indeed to be a battle. 
 
 The enormous man with that dreadful chin was standing 
 in the door, and the mild-eyed Count, with his weak nose as 
 red as a priest s, was standing under his shadow, watching 
 the beautiful woman and the enthusiastic artist.
 
 Mad or Not Mad? 51 
 
 The warm blood of Marietta arose also. But it was not 
 with fear. He saw the situation of things but imperfectly, yet 
 he saw enough to know perfectly well that there was a wrong, 
 and that a woman was the sufferer. 
 
 A man has no right to ask to know more. This to a man 
 should be enough to insure his action. But it is not enough 
 in this day of shops and shoddy. The creature man, the 
 coward, must first know that he, his name, his position, his 
 money, his all, is not only safe, but that he is to be paid for 
 his services as a sort of upper servant is paid and then he 
 works. 
 
 Bah ! Out upon the time ! 
 
 Murietta did not move. He did not even take back his 
 reached face, but sat there the same as if no one had come 
 upon the scene. 
 
 The beautiful lady, pale as a California lily, sank and 
 settled down as if she would disappear in the rosy folds of 
 her robes." 
 
 " Lady," the artist went on as if he still spoke of the drive 
 to Nervi, " lady, do not fear, do not move unless you desire. 
 No hand shall no tongue shall insult you here." 
 
 " Oh, sir, you do not know what you say. You do not 
 know what you promise. You do not know a thing aboiit 
 it. Ah, if you only knew ! Now now now " she put 
 her little hands to the side of her head as if in pain " Ah, 
 I have wasted time ! I was coining to it, you know. I was 
 going to tell you. I wanted to prove to you that I was all 
 righ t that that you " 
 
 " Will you come ? " called the count, at the samp time 
 lifting his hat civilly. 
 
 " Come, come, it s past meridian," thundered the admiral. 
 
 The lady arose, smiled sadly, bowed, looking back, and 
 went out a prisoner. 
 
 Why did they not come in ? and why did she go away ?
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 GOOD-BYE, BEAUTIFUL LADY 
 
 UKIETTA, finding himself left 
 alone, after loitering an hour 
 or two about the hotel, went 
 to his friend the consul. 
 
 The consul was a good man, 
 which is a new thing in an 
 American officer abroad. The 
 consul was also a politician and 
 a politic man, which is not a 
 new thing at all. In fact, had 
 he not been a politician he had 
 not been a consul. 
 
 The consul shook his head and laughed 
 " My dear boy, this is an old story. 
 Pardon my liberty, but the lady does 
 not suffer. She tells, or tries to tell, 
 some sort of a story to every one who will listen to it. At 
 least, so I hear," added the consul in a sort of foot-note, for 
 he was a politician, and did not like to be positive or say 
 anything that meant anything at all. 
 " Has she ever told anything to you ? " 
 " No, nothing." 
 
 " And you have known her and you respect her ? " 
 " Yes," bowed the consul. 
 
 " And you have known her long and like her much ? " 
 " Like her ? yes, exceedingly. She is a good woman, as 
 good as she is beautiful, and that is saying much ! but she is
 
 Good-Bye, Beautiful Lady. 53 
 
 really, you know " The consul touched his forehead, tapped 
 it with his fingers, and shut his eyes. 
 
 " Yes, I understand what you mean. But may you not be 
 mistaken ? May not she be a prisoner ? May not this hus 
 band be a jealous little monster? an old man of the moun 
 tains ? " 
 
 The cautious consul laughed again, rose up, reached a cigar, 
 struck a match, and with his cigar between his teeth, and the 
 light still burning in his fingers, which he held around it like 
 a lantern, said : 
 
 " Murietta, look here ! You are an artist, an enthusiast, 
 and a dreamer. Half the time you are asleep, the other half 
 you are altogether too much awake. You do things in a wild 
 and unreasonable way. Now you listen to me. I do not 
 sleep, I do not dream ; I am always awake. Level head, you 
 see." 
 
 He tapped his bald head with his forefinger after throwing 
 away the match, and seated himself by the side of his friend. 
 
 " I see," said Murietta, though he did not exactly see what 
 he meant. 
 
 " Well, I make no mistakes. Now let me tell you what to 
 do. Will you hear me ? will you take my advice ? " 
 
 " Yes, that is " 
 
 " That is, what ! " 
 
 " Well, if I see a lady in trouble, I shall not be persuaded 
 to let her suffer ; you may take my word for that." 
 
 " Suffer ! Do you suppose a lady with a hundred thousand 
 francs a year, a husband a titled gentleman of culture, who is 
 with her as if he was her shadow, can be allowed to suffer ? 
 No, no, my boy, depend upon it you are in the wrong. You 
 have no experience with women no sava, as your Mexicans 
 would say. Besides, you cannot afford to mix up in this 
 matter, even though there should be the least bit of tyranny." 
 
 " And why could I not afford it ? " 
 
 " Well, what would the world say ? "
 
 54 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 " That for the world and all it can say and all it can do ! " 
 Marietta sprang to his feet and snapped his fingers, as if he 
 was snapping a cap in the face of the world. " In the teeth 
 of the world I have lived thus far, and in the teeth of the 
 world I shall die ! Let me have the good opinion of myself, 
 and I will whistle in the face of the world and askMt no 
 favors." 1 
 
 He stopped suddenly, held down his head in silence for a 
 few moments, and then threw away his cigar, and came up 
 and stood before the consul. The flame that had shot up, 
 beautiful as it was, was dying out. It had been too intense. 
 His mind had been strung to a sort of madness that morning, 
 and now, in the presence of the cool and clear-headed friend, 
 it was tempering down. 
 
 " Well, you will pardon me. I am sorry. I want only to 
 serve the lady, and not to annoy you. I see that you are 
 wiser in these things than I. Besides, what can I do for 
 her ? " 
 
 "Listen. Will you do as I advise ? " 
 
 Yes." 
 
 " Well, you will do Genoa to-day and to-night. At dawn 
 to-morrow there is a ship goes oiit for Naples. A glorious 
 sea, and a glorious sail it will be. You, my friend, are not 
 now the man to reach a hand into any man s or woman s 
 affairs. You would only spoil all. Wait, if you must inter 
 fere, for a more convenient season." 
 
 The artist thought a moment, thought of the old trouble, 
 the days before he left the British Isles and this confirmed 
 him. He reached his hand. 
 
 " You are perfectly right and I trust you. I will go on 
 the ship that leaves Genoa for Naples to-morrow morning." 
 
 That night Marietta stood by the old city wall above the 
 sea, and watched the sun go down on Genoa. Away to the 
 left the sea and sky were one unbroken curve of blue ; but to 
 the west the sun wedged in between the two and lit it up
 
 Good- Bye, Beautiful Lady. 55 
 
 like a far light in some vnst and eternal temple. And then 
 it fell like a sinking isle of fire, and it was night in the city 
 of the Holy Grail. 
 
 He turned to look at the houses behind him. They stood 
 on the edge of a precipice at least fifty feet in height, and 
 these houses were seven stories high. 
 
 He passed on, and stood in the moonlight down on the old 
 quay, and looked up at the lofty old palaces that had looked 
 out on the sea for a thousand years. 
 
 He entered one of a thousand little alleys, only wide 
 enough for two or three to walk abreast, and took his course 
 toward the upper part of the city. Now and then he would 
 look up. Up ! up ! up ! It seemed as if he had crept like 
 a cricket into a crack of the earth. He could see nothing 
 above him but a long bright line of stars. The opening above 
 looked no wider than a span. Very often there were cause 
 ways away above, reaching from house to house across the 
 street, and in some places carriage roads. 
 
 All the time and all this night, as the dreamer wandered 
 up and down and around and through this mighty and ancient 
 heap of marble, he was thinking and thinking and thinking 
 of that fair child-face that had appealed to him, that wonder 
 ful woman who had been in these strange old places among 
 the poor before him and he was net glad. He even wished 
 he had not promised to go away. 
 
 He came to a thousand walls in trying to make the distance 
 of a mile. There were never such people for building walls 
 in the world. And they build them in the most unlikely 
 places, both in the city and in the country, that one can 
 imagine. Why they build them, one does not know. Some 
 times he would find a narrow opening in the wall, and some 
 times he would have to turn back in despair. Sometimes his 
 way would lead directly through some shop. He would hesi 
 tate, but the polite proprietor would smile and politely show 
 him the way to advance. Little wine-shops, coffee-shops, and
 
 56 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 curious places where maccaroni was wound up, flattened out, 
 strung around, and put in all conceivable shapes for sale. 
 
 He found sitting in a corner of one of these shops a little 
 boy with a bundle of newspapers across his lap. He went up 
 to him, for this was the first newsboy he had seen in <*enoa. 
 The boy was fast asleep. 
 
 What a noisy city ! There is nothing like it on the face of 
 the earth. All day men and boys are shouting their fruits 
 or wares for sale; and at night opera, nothing but opera! 
 At both ends and in the middle of the crack in the earth 
 you hear these sturdy singers at their work. From the side 
 streets, or cracks in the earth, you hear the same, and up and 
 down the great marble walls the sounds are echoed till you 
 cannot hear your own voice. 
 
 In these narrow streets you are hustled and crowded and 
 elbowed and spun around at almost every step. Sometimes 
 you have to wait quite a time before you can advance. You 
 will notice, however, that when some of the masked brother 
 hood come by with a victim of the plague on their shoulders 
 they meet with no obstruction. 
 
 It was a pleasant thing to come again into the open city, 
 to get up and out of those cracks of the earth. There was a 
 gentle breeze blowing in from the sea, and it seemed to fan 
 the stars into a fair and tender light. There was only two or 
 three opera singers near enough to be very distinct ; but the 
 train of little mules coming down the mountain with their 
 loads of milk now and then trumpeted away as if all of 
 Byron s jackals had come back to take possession. 
 
 Looking up the Apennines and beyond the wall, Murietta 
 saw a thousand nay, ten thousand lights on the mountain 
 sides, that looked down upon the city from the cottages of 
 . men who trimmed the vines or tended goats upon the hills. 
 Higher and higher the eye followed the loftier Apennines, 
 further and fainter shone the little lights from the grape- 
 growers doors, until the mountain-tops were lost in the
 
 Good- Bye, Beautiful Lady. 57 
 
 distance and the cottage lights were lost among the 
 stars. 
 
 The sun came suddenly over the hill, blew out the little 
 lights of the cottages and the little lamps up in the purple 
 heavens and it was morning in Genoa ! 
 
 " Good-bye, beautiful lady ! " The dreamer stood on the 
 deck of the ship as she foamed through the opaline sea, and 
 looked sadly back and kissed his hand and said, 
 
 "I am a coward."
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 NAPLES AN OLD LAND 
 MARK. 
 
 ALK through the beauti 
 ful Villa JSTazionale with 
 your face towards Vesu 
 vius, pass the Vittoria, 
 and on under a mountain 
 to the left that is topped with 
 battlements and starred all up 
 and down with marble houses 
 of magnificent style and perfec 
 tion, and you wilt meet on your 
 way some of the most beautiful, as 
 well the most wicked, women in the 
 world. 
 
 Pass the sharp musketry of their 
 dark eyes if you can possibly do so, 
 for it is certainly best that you should ; 
 and there, under this mountain that almost leans over 
 you to look into the sea at your feet, you will come upon 
 an old castle to the left, which, after having served for a 
 palace for centuries, is now simply a lodging-house ; the 
 dirtiest, gloomiest, lonesomest lodging-house in all Italy ; and 
 that is saying a great deal indeed. 
 
 The great Castel dell Ova lies back of it, a little to your 
 right, with the sea breaking and booming quite around it all 
 the time. The sea is always troubled there. If a steamer 
 goes by, the sea runs with its trouble right to the old castle, 
 and complains and complains for half an hour at a time, till 
 a greater trouble, in the form of an ugly piratical sort of a
 
 Naples An Old Landmark. 59 
 
 steam-tug, goes groaning by with a long kite s tail of flat 
 crafts laden with freight from Heaven knows where. 
 
 Then the sea is at it again, lifting up its hands, clinging 
 like a big clumsy baby to the mossy sea-washed walls, break 
 ing up against the little stone causeway that reaches over to 
 the land like a long finger making fun of our dingy old lodg 
 ing-house. 
 
 Then the wind is up ! 
 
 Ah ! the sea laughs a little at first ! then it frowns, then 
 it turns, and, like a dog, shows its white teeth and begins to 
 growl. But now it runs away this sea that showed fight at 
 first and goes tearing up under the guns of the castle, and 
 pale and white and all in tears, it tells its troubles to the 
 Castel dell Ova the gray old castle that sits there like a 
 graiidsire, white with time. Verily the sea is the biggest 
 coward in all the land ! 
 
 It is just at the head of the Strada Lucia, this old lodging- 
 house, that has been in turn castle, palace, prison, hotel, and 
 lodging-house. It is built right into, or fastened right up 
 against, the perpendicular face of the mountain, topped with 
 a fortress where music plays of a morning, and cannon boom 
 over the sea at sunset. 
 
 You enter here, and pass the old porter asleep in his little 
 lodge to the right, all unchallenged. You pass on and at 
 tempt to go up the stairs, and there a porter calls to you loud 
 and sharp enough. It is a red-faced turkey, tied by one leg, 
 and kept there the old landlady will tell you to waken the 
 other porter when people attempt to pass up the stairs. This 
 explanation is necessary, else you might possibly infer that the 
 turkey was tied there because of his wonderful capacity to 
 gobble a talent possessed by Italian porters to an eminent 
 degree. In fact, no people in the world have ever carried 
 such arts to the perfection attained by the Italian. Live in 
 Italy, travel in Italy, and you will soon find a very worldly 
 reason and a deal of wisdom in the injunction of our Saviour
 
 60 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 when He directed His disciples to take with them\no second 
 coat. 
 
 You stand with one foot on the step, and wait for the 
 sleepy porter to hobble out and inspect you, as if you were 
 a ship about to enter port, and he was a health officer. 
 
 If you have any business up the great granite stairs wide 
 enough to admit a carriage to pass, and dirty enough to grow 
 something better than the stray bits of grass that have 
 wedged in between the cracks if you have any business at 
 all up there, I say, you simply nod to the nodding porter, the 
 porter grunts, the turkey gobbles, and you pass on. If you 
 have no business up there, you simply give the sleepy old 
 man half a franc, and pass on all the same. 
 
 Up ! up ! up ! You are in the crater of a sort of Vesuvius, 
 and are trying to get out. Fifth, sixth, seventh floor ! Old 
 pictures, every one of them with a Mount Vesuvius in it, 
 and one certainly with two Mount Vesuvius s one the 
 mountain, and the other the shadow in the sea, though the 
 sun and the sea are quite on the other side ! and you begin to 
 feel, or rather to smell, that you are certainly in an artistic 
 atmosphere. 
 
 All these dirty little rooms, once so rich and beautiful, and 
 even now gorgeous with the mosaics and frescos, are studios 
 for painters very poor painters, painters just beginning and 
 painters just ending, old men and young men. Men there 
 are in here so poor that they borrow each other s clothes 
 when they go out. And it certainly does not require many 
 clothes to go out in in Naples. Men here always pay a franc 
 a-day in advance. Four or five of them are sometimes 
 tumbled into a single room. i 
 
 Some of them are poets ; some of them are musicians. 
 They will not tell you they live here ; they in fact do not 
 live here, they are only waiting for better times. They work 
 an hour or two in the day if they have anything at all to do, 
 and wait, and wait, and wait and so life passes by. Naples
 
 Naples An Old Landmark. 61 
 
 is the poorest place for something to turn up in outside of a 
 tomb. 
 
 An aristocrat had recently come among these men. A 
 man he was, this new-comer, this rich artist, who could 
 really pay two francs a-day. He had a corner room, as well 
 as another receding back towards the bold white wall of the 
 little mountain that hung over the old castle. This lofty 
 second-story apartment had a little iron-railed balcony where 
 two persons could stand together and look over the crowded 
 strada, a half mile underneath down into the sea. 
 
 Standing here on this little balcony, holding on the knob 
 of the door behind you in half fear that the old balcony 
 might break loose and drop, you cotild look, as it sometimes 
 seemed, almost down into the smoking crater of Vesuvius. 
 
 It is a beautiful place. Artists, poor as they are, build, 
 like birds, in the choicest spots. They find out these places 
 with an intelligence that the world does not understand. 
 
 Standing on these little iron-barred balconies, that stand 
 out from every door all along the long front of the seventh 
 story, these artists drank dry the Bay of Naples. It was un 
 derneath them, its thousand sails in the sun were constantly 
 raising pictures for these poor children of art, and the sun 
 was just as glorious to them there, the air just as sweet, the 
 sea just as soft and silver, set and sown with ships as beauti 
 fully, as if they had looked from this palace when a king sat 
 master of it. 
 
 The doors of these two rooms were never locked. There was 
 no occasion for such a thing, even had there been a dishonest 
 man in this lofty rookery looking down into Vesuvius and 
 the Castel dell Ova. There was nothing at all in these 
 rooms but a box of paint or two, brushes, and an easel. Men 
 would come and go, in and out, at will, lean from the little 
 balcony when the smoke came up from Vesuvius, or see the 
 tawny boatmen draw their nets in the Bay ; and even the 
 man whom they had at first thought an intruder into their
 
 62 Rhe One Fair Woman. 
 
 sort of special paradise, did not seem to be any more the 
 master of the place than the others. 
 
 Once this new-comer rose xip, opened the door, and, stand 
 ing out on the balcony, turned his back to Vesuvius and 
 parted his coat-tails as a man does when standing before a 
 great log fire on a frosty morning in the West. An artist 
 passing the open door looked in, and laughed. 
 
 In the course of a short time a little picture was on his 
 easel. 
 
 What do you think it was ? What could it have been ? 
 
 It was the picture of Annette. It could not have been 
 anything else. Down in the corner of this picture there was 
 written a name Murietta. 
 
 There was some little surprise among the artists and poets 
 and composers and musicians. In fact the little over-full 
 rookery was quite in a flutter for half an hour. Men told of 
 the artist s presence abroad. 
 
 The next day a tall, thin, lean man, in a tall napless hat 
 and a long, threadbare coat, with a very long umbrella under 
 his arm, and a face as long and woful and faded and hard and 
 white as the oldest kind of a tombstone, passed the porter, 
 passed the turkey, who evidently held him in too imich con 
 tempt to gobble at, and stood before the young artist, bowing, 
 bent and curved, with his umbrella under his arm, and look 
 ing just as though he might be an Indian bow, and this long, 
 thin, hungry umbrella, so poor that you could count every 
 rib in it, an arrow drawn up to the head as if about to 
 shoot. 
 
 There were stray gray streaks of long straight hair hanging 
 down about this tombstone of a face as if they had been the 
 long leafless twigs of a weeping willow hanging down over 
 this monument above the dead. 
 
 The tombstone began with a nasal twang that showed from 
 whence it had been quarried. 
 
 " Sir, I have read your Two Years before the Mast, and
 
 Naples An Old Landmark. 63 
 
 your Innocents Abroad, with the most intense satisfaction. 
 And I have come to pay my respects to the genius of Boston, 
 and to welcome you to Naples." 
 
 The bow twanged with a flourish as it shot the umbrella in 
 to the floor, and the tombstone lifted straight into the air and 
 set its thin stony lip, and looked straight at the artist as if it 
 dared him to deny it. 
 
 " But I am a painter." 
 
 " Ah, a painter ! No matter." The bow was bent again, 
 the arrow in rest, and the tombstone again bowed low with 
 its cluster of willow twigs bristling all around it. " No mat 
 ter. Genius is genius. No matter. I came to pay my re 
 spects to genius. Genius in any form is genius, and I and 
 I " 
 
 The bow slowly relaxed, for the tombstone felt that it had 
 not this time at least made a centre shot, and it lifted a hand 
 and brushed the willow twigs slowly back from the right side 
 of the marble monument. 
 
 " I have been in Naples nearly thirty years. I could not 
 leave dear Naples now." The man said this with enthusiasm, 
 and Murietta looked at his coat and believed him as certainly 
 as if he had been on oath. 
 
 "And you are " 
 
 " A missionary. I am " here the bow was again bent and 
 the arrow jerked into rest for a shot at the artist " I am, 
 sir, I am of the old Puritan stock of Plymouth Rock. We 
 were missionaries five hundred years ago. I was born a 
 missionary, a missionary I will die." 
 
 The bow xinbent, the head shut up, and falling sideways, 
 the eyes closed, the hands clasped, and the umbrella stuck 
 still in rest, tight under the arm and elbow of the missionary, 
 and aimed right out into the eye of the artist. 
 
 " Ah ! and you are getting on, then, in Naples ? " 
 
 The hands unclasped, the arrow shot into the floor, and 
 the head shot up,
 
 64 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 " We did get on ; we did get on." The arrow shot like a 
 little thunderbolt into the floor, and the willow twigs about 
 the tombstone trembled as if a wind was blowing through 
 the railings. " We did get on until that cursed, that abom 
 ination of the Lord, came in the shape of the Hard Shell 
 Baptist Bible and Tract Society from South Boston. I knew 
 them, knew them every one at home. I knew that this was 
 done expressly to ruin me and my future, and put an axe at 
 the very root of my work. I was here established one 
 month and three days before they had established themselves 
 in Naples. I gave them notice at once when they came. I 
 told them that the seventh article in their practice of worship 
 and their interpretations of certain passages of the Acts of 
 the Apostles were not to be tolerated. They answered me 
 with scorn. I gave them notice that they must leave. I 
 laid the case before the consul ; and a war, a thirty years 
 war, ensued. But at last it has been settled. At last it has 
 come before the General Conference of the Society for the 
 Establishment and the Maintenance of Foreign Missions in 
 Heathen Countries; and my course, I am advised, will be 
 fully approved at home, and I am to be sustained abroad in 
 the service. 
 
 The bow was bent again, but the tombstone leaned on the 
 arrow, and the eyes closed as the head fell sideways, and the 
 weeping willows moved gracefully about the old white monu 
 ment. 
 
 " And you have converted some ? " said Murietta, going on 
 steadily with his work, and trying to shake this ghostly 
 tombstone from its pedestal by something but a little short 
 of incivility. 
 
 " Yes, yes, yes, the Lord be praised ! " 
 
 The little thunderbolt shot into the floor, and the face of 
 the tombstone took on a smile of unutterable satisfaction as 
 the eyes closed and the head fell forward and peacefully to 
 one side.
 
 Naples An Old Landmark. 65 
 
 "Yes, one." 
 
 " Ah, that one then is certainly a solace and companion to 
 you in your labors ? " 
 
 " No, no, no. The devil came in the guise of that other 
 mission from Boston, the Hard Shells. They offered her 
 better living, wine twice a day, polenta plenty of polenta 
 and she became converted to them in spite of their fearful 
 seventh rule and form of practice and worship and unholy 
 interpretation of certain Acts of the Apostles. Twice con 
 verted in one year ! " 
 
 The head fell wofully and sadly to one side, the tombstone 
 looked the tombstone indeed, and the willows waved mourn 
 fully about the brows. 
 
 " Twice converted in one year. It was too much. She died. 
 She died, and then don t you think " The bow sprang up, 
 the arrow shot into the floor with a force that made the tall 
 tombstone shake and the willows toss as if in a wind. " And 
 even then don t you think, after all that trouble with her, 
 after all I had done, the ungrateful little minx went and 
 called in a Catholic priest at the last minute, and died and 
 was buried a Catholic, was buried a Catholic, aud went to 
 her purgatory in spite of me ! " 
 
 Murietta laughed from the bottom of his heart. The tomb 
 stone took a mournful step sideways and around the easel as 
 if it had been a sort of crab, and looked over the artist s 
 shoulder. 
 
 " I am going out for a walk," said the artist. 
 
 " I will show you through Naples," said the missionary. 
 
 The turkey gobbled his " all right " as they came down, 
 the porter rubbed his eyes and pretended to be wide-awake, 
 and they passed on, down by the hundred little oyster-stands 
 on the edge of the Strada Lucia, ever in the edge of the sea, 
 and on around by the great theatres, by the splendid 
 Piazza del Plebicito to the Strada Toledo. 
 
 The next day Murietta was in his studio again at work.
 
 66 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 There was that woman s face on the canvas again. It was a 
 splendid, dark, dreamy face. Jt seemed to move before you, 
 to pass on, to look back, to lead you. It beckoned from, and 
 belonged to the future. It was of a race that you might 
 imagine but would never find, though you should go the 
 whole girdle of the earth. It was the diviiiest face that had 
 ever belonged to woman since the blessed Madonna. Stand 
 ing before it as it looked back over its shoulder from the 
 cloud and mystery, from the future, you would have said this 
 face is as the face of woman will be millions of ages in the 
 years to come, when we have attained to perfection on earth. 
 
 The artist had painted this picture because he could not 
 help it. It had always been in his mind. It was no new 
 thing when it carne from behind the canvas as it were, and 
 stood before him. He had seen this face all his life. It was 
 now only like meeting an old friend after a few days absence. 
 He painted this without design or effort. It was, as it were, 
 the work of a day. 
 
 But he put this picture away when done. He did not 
 care to hear the remarks of other men upon it. Their com 
 ments, good or bad, would jar upon his gentle nature. 
 Besides, he felt that it would be a sort of a sacrilege to let 
 men see this face. Why ? Because it was the face of An 
 nette, the one fair woman. He would sometimes take this 
 picture out from under the mantle which he had thrown over 
 it on the easel, and sit before it for hours with his brush in 
 hand. But he never touched it any more. It seemed a sort 
 of idol too sacred to touch. 
 
 The missionary, or doctor as he claimed to be, came very 
 often now. The artist had shaken him off, he had avoided 
 him, but he came all the same, the same singular, half insane 
 enthusiast, who would not be offended, and who could not 
 offend any one else, and perhaps his mortal enemies, the Hard- 
 Shell Baptists of the rival foreign mission in Naples did not 
 fear him.
 
 Naples An Old Landmark. 67 
 
 Yes, lie would show Marietta the city. There was the 
 wonderful museum with the autograph of St. Thomas, and 
 all the charred parchments of Herculaneum ; and all the ten 
 thousand things found in the excavations of the buried and 
 half-unburied cities. Then there was the great poor-house, 
 the largest and best thing of the kind in all the civilized 
 world. Then there was the tomb of Virgil. 
 
 " Come," cried the threadbare man one bright winter morn 
 ing, after having passed both porters unchallenged, " come, 
 let us go to the theatre at Herculaueum. It will be opened 
 to-day. It has been closed for more than seventeen hundred 
 years ; b\it it will be opened to-day." 
 
 " Then may I not have the honor of conducting you to 
 the summit of Vesuvius? It is necessary that you have 
 some one with you; some Christian to protect you from the 
 reformed and unreformed brigands. I can show you how to 
 make the trip in a gorgeous way on twenty francs at the far 
 thest. Go with the usual guide and the customary crowd, 
 and it will cost you at least fifty. You see we will take the 
 stage at Herculaneum for a franc, then we take horses for 
 five francs up to the hermitage, and beyond that we walk up 
 the great ash heat of about half a mile at an angle of forty-five 
 degrees, and we are on the summit. No crowd, no rush, no 
 crush, nothing. You will have the whole spectacle to your 
 self, and then you will not be robbed, you will not be fleeced ; 
 no vulture will attempt to pick your bones." 
 
 The artist laid down his brush. " Come to-morrow, 
 doctor, at sunrise, and we will set out on this excursion just 
 as you propose." The man turned and danced about till his 
 bones fairly rattled.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 ROSES IN HER PATH. 
 
 HAT a beautiful morn 
 ing ! The sea lay there 
 in the sun like glittering 
 gold. The smoke curled 
 over the summit of Vesu 
 vius. It gleamed and 
 glanced in all the colors 
 of the rainbow as the two 
 men mounted a coach and 
 drove about the bead of 
 the Bay of Naples toward the mountain 
 of fire. 
 
 What a populous city, and how wide 
 and grand and beautiful its suburbs ! 
 If Naples continues to build so like a 
 western town for a century longer, it 
 will reach from Pompeii to Pozzuola. 
 
 What a yelling of men as the artist dismounted ! They 
 gathered around him ten deep. They laid hold of him and 
 pulled this way and that, and yelled and shouted, and shook 
 each other off, and elbowed their way up and over each other, 
 as if they had been a lot of street dogs in a fight. 
 
 The missionary was right. These fellows would literally 
 pick your bones. His bones, however, for good and sufficient 
 reasons, they would not pick. He advanced upon these 
 brigands with his umbrella in a sort of bayonet charge, and 
 dispersed them as if he had been a Murat at the head of a 
 thousand horse. 
 
 flw 
 
 I 
 
 fl
 
 Roses in her Path. 69 
 
 Here was a white-bearded old man in a sheepskin, who 
 wanted to sell a staff of oak to be used in climbing Vesuvius. 
 Five centimes, only one cent, was the price that this old 
 merchant asked for his whole stock in trade. Murietta 
 bought him out at a single purchase, and made him happy 
 for a whole day. 
 
 Then there was a pirate, or brigand, or gypsy, or perhaps 
 all three, who had a great knife, which he said he had made 
 with his own hand. A sharp, bright, ugly customer it was. 
 The old leather-clad pirate, or brigand, or gypsy wanted to 
 sell this to the artist. The old merchant protested that he- 
 would need this deadly weapon to defend himself with against 
 the wolves on the mountain. 
 
 Horses ! Sheep they were. Barefooted, long-haired, 
 limping little things, no larger than a Mexican mule. There 
 they stood, fifty in a row. Pay your money and take your 
 choice, if there can be any choice between these bruised and 
 battered and long-haired and helpless little horses. 
 
 Up a narrow lane, and out of the street, up a road that 
 widened soon into a splendid thoroughfare, rising, rising, 
 rising above the sea and above the city, the two men rode 
 against the sun as it pitched down into their faces over the 
 summit and through the smoke of Vesuvius. 
 
 A splendid carriage road, paved, and set with trees, and 
 with fountains on the way where you can stop and drink, 
 lines the whole route, even up to the hermitage away up 
 there, almost at the base of the mighty cone of fire, and great 
 mountain side of growing grapes. 
 
 That hermitage, or rather the man in chai ge of it, has 
 a history. When the mountain was pouring out rivers 
 of fire a few years since, and all the land was dark with 
 smoke, this man, this scientist, placed here to take observa 
 tions, refused to leave his post. 
 
 He had a telegraph connecting with the city. He stood 
 here in the smoke and fire, with his fingers on the very pulse
 
 70 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 of Vesuvius as it were, telling the world every hour what 
 transpired, and what he beheld. 
 
 At last the river of lava, half a mile wide and a hundred 
 feet deep, pouring down to the plain ran within a pistol 
 shot of the hermitage. The heat was almost intolerable. 
 The lone man stood there calmly telling all that happened to 
 the world. 
 
 At last the river of lava overflowed on the mountain above 
 him, and flowing on as if it would swallow him up, came to 
 within fifty yards of the hermitage, and there striking 
 against the upper part of the promontory on which the her 
 mitage is built, poured down on the other side. 
 
 The lone man had now a river of fire on either side of him. 
 He was implored to come down to Naples, and escape certain 
 death. He stood there with his finger on the throbbing pulse 
 of Mother Earth, and refused to retreat. 
 
 At last the t\vo rivers of lava met together below the pro 
 montory. The man was now on an island in the middle of a 
 sea of fire, and flight was impossible. Then the telegraph 
 poles were swept down, and they heard from him no more. 
 Months after that, when the lava grew cool enough to cross 
 over to the island, they found the old man had done all his 
 work with the utmost precision and minuteness, and buried 
 the products in a small copper box in his cellar. And he, 
 the bravest old man ever heard of, was found down under the 
 hill, where there was a little soil, planting a little garden, for 
 his provisions were gone, and he was well nigh starved. 
 
 As our two travellers reached this hermitage they stopped, 
 dismounted, and turned to look on the world below. Ships 
 on the bay blew in and out, white as sea-gulls wings, and 
 their sails seemed scarcely larger. The great city of Naples 
 seemed drawn up close to the base of the mountain. The sea 
 seemed to be almost under them. 
 
 Suddenly some clouds blew in between them and the sea. 
 These clouds were below them. The thunder growled as if it
 
 Roses in her Path. 71 
 
 had been a monstrous beast shut up in the lava caves be 
 neath their feet. 
 
 Then there was lightning. Then the clouds rolled black 
 and dense, and tumbled like seas of the north. 
 
 Then the lightning wove and wound below them as if running 
 threads of fire and gold in this woof and warp of storm and 
 of darkness. Then stab, stab, stab ! the lightning struck in 
 the earth as if angry ; and the thunder boomed, and then the 
 great white rain, the high-born beautiful rain, poured down 
 below them, and then all was light and bright as summer 
 morning. 
 
 Out of this rain rode a lady. She had a better horse than 
 was to be had of the brigands below, and she sat it as if she 
 had been born in the saddle. She led her party, and an old 
 man, a tall man with a severe face who might have been her 
 father, rode at her side. 
 
 Marietta mounted and rode on as he saw her ride out of 
 the cloud and rain up one of the terraced turns of the tortuous 
 road below, for he had no desire to be disturbed that day 
 by the presence of strangers. 
 
 Peasants were coming down in parties, bearing wood on 
 asses, all along the road, and baskets of flowers on their heads. 
 Wild, splendid-looking women they were, and polite as if 
 bred at court. Right and left were high -heaved masses of 
 lava in all conceivable shapes, and over these ugly masses 
 ivies were climbing and twining tenderly, as if to hide them 
 from sight. 
 
 Here and there the smoke came curling up through fis 
 sures in the road. And over there, to the right, the smoke 
 curled up as if from many wigwams. Yet all over this grew 
 roses and grapes, and olives and oranges, and fruits of the 
 four parts of the world. 
 
 A beautiful peasant girl arcmsed the sensitive mind of the 
 artist witli the present of. a beautiful forest rose from the bas 
 ketful which she bore on her head.
 
 72 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 The artist handed her a franc. Then the grateful girl reach 
 ed him the whole basketful, for he had given her thrice the 
 price of it. He took the fragrant and beautiful basket up be 
 fore him, smiled, and wondered what in the world he would 
 do with it. 
 
 There had been some delay, and fearing lest the party led 
 by the lady might be drawing very near, he looked back down 
 the road over his shoulder. They were indeed very near, 
 but he could not see the lady well for the vines and trees by 
 the tortuous road. 
 
 What shall be done with the roses ? He must ride on or 
 the strange lady will be upon them. He lifted a handful and 
 breathed their fragrance, and then let them fall in the road. 
 A thought came like an inspiration. The doctor was in ad 
 vance awaiting him. 
 
 " I will scatter roses in the path of that stranger. In the 
 way of that brave, lone woman, whoever she may be, I will 
 strew roses and wish that there shall be never a thorn. Here 
 on this mountain of fire, in this strange land, in a pilgrim s 
 %path, a pilgrim shall scatter roses." And then the man rode 
 on slowly and lifted the roses by the handful and scattered 
 them in the pleasant Roman road, in the path of the strange 
 woman, while the pretty peasant girl, who seemed to under 
 stand and sympathize with the sentiment and admire his 
 strange fancy, ran beside him, showing her pretty teeth and 
 shaking out her abundant hair. 
 
 The artist emptied the basket, handed it to the girl, but 
 did not dare look back lest he should see the strangers face to 
 face, and possibly be recognized and perhaps be misunder 
 stood. He put spurs to the little pony, rode on, and joined 
 the sedate doctor of divinity.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ON THE MOUNTAIN OF FIRE. 
 
 HERE in the valley over the 
 left shoulder, as you climb 
 up toward the cone of ashes, 
 lies the little newly-destroyed 
 town of St. Sebastian. In 
 one of the houses you see two 
 pictures still hanging on the 
 wall. The lava has surround 
 ed the house and locked the 
 doors, and you stand on the lava and 
 look in through a little window. 
 
 This lava cuts some strange freaks. 
 In another cottage of St. Sebastian 
 you see where it has climbed up to 
 the window, pushed itself through 
 many feet, and then curved down and 
 cooled ; and there it stands, with its 
 
 nose stuck into the poor cotter s house, reaching out black 
 and crooked like the trunk of some great elephant. 
 
 After a pleasant ride of only three hours, all told, from 
 Naples, they came to the steep and stupendous base of the 
 great ashen cone or pyramid. The missionary spurred his 
 little horse boldly against the mountain till he sank in the 
 ashes to his knees ; then he took his long, lean, hungry-look 
 ing umbrella from under his arm, dismounted, and they
 
 74 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 began slowly to walk up the soft and uncertain road of ashes. 
 How they were assailed by guides and beggars at the base ! 
 
 Half-naked, brown, long-haired and hard-looking fellows 
 they were, to be sure. They had ropes fastened round their 
 waists, and would run before the travellers and almost com 
 pel them to lay hold of those ropes for support. But these 
 two had set out to make a little trip alone and unassisted, and 
 so they did to the end. 
 
 The other party came up as the two ascended the cone, and 
 one of the gentlemen was carried up in a chair by eight of 
 these half- wild men ; but the lady laid hold of ropes, and, 
 tucking her dress up prettily under her waist, came boldly on 
 at the head of her party. 
 
 The ascent here is steep, very steep indeed, and you sink 
 into the ashes and advance very slowly. You find it very 
 much like walking over a field of newly-ploughed ground, 
 only here the field seems to be set pretty nearly up on its 
 edge. 
 
 After an hour of not unpleasant climbing, they sat down 
 with a gentle brigand, who had some wine in a basket, which 
 he called by the pretty name of Lachrymse Christi ; and, 
 emptying one of the bottles, they again looked below. 
 
 Naples seemed nearer than ever; and the ships sailed 
 right up against the base of Vesuvius as it seemed, and wound 
 and wove over the bluish bay in a dreamy sort of a way, that 
 seemed almost supernatural and certainly indescribable. To 
 the right and left lay little white towns dotted over the 
 plains, and below them the white houses looked like flocks 
 huddled together, and at rest. 
 
 Away, away at sea the little fishing boats, with their 
 snowy sails, looked like swarms of swallows blowing idly in 
 the sun. 
 
 Another hour up this field of ploughed land set up on its 
 edge, and the ground grows very warm to the feet. Then 
 you come upon little seams and puffs of smoke curling lazily
 
 On the Mountain of Fire. 75 
 
 out from under the clods beneath you. Then you begin to 
 smell sulphur, and coal, and tar, and turpentine, and almost 
 every other odor that you can conceive of. 
 
 As you approach the crater, which is exactly on the sum 
 mit, you are all the time reminded of a mighty coal-pit ; such 
 a coal-pit as you see on the banks of the Ohio and elsewhere 
 out West, where the woodmen burn charcoal. Only, of 
 course, it is multiplied by all the figures in the arithmetic. 
 
 The smoke is rather dense and quite unpleasant to inhale ; 
 but as there is always a current of wind blowing from the 
 sea, you can always get more or less fresh air and do not suffer. 
 
 It is certainly very hot as you draw nearer to the crater ; 
 and the ploughed land seems to be ploughed a great deal 
 deeper, and to be sowed and planted with fire, which seemed 
 to be coming up in a first-rate crop. 
 
 And now after two hours and a half, suddenly and almost 
 before they expected it, they stood by the great crater of the 
 New "Vesuvius. 
 
 The first view of this chasm of smoke and fire is awful in 
 the extreme. Broad and bottomless, round and vast, boiling 
 and seething, it seems alive and full of pent-up strength. 
 
 You can hear the monster breathe. You stand, you lean 
 over, you look down, down into the monster s open mouth 
 the monster that has swallowed up cities and even seas and 
 you are mute with awe and wonder. You feel a fascination 
 and desire that you hope never to feel again. It is an im 
 pulse, almost irresistible, to leap into this awful glowing 
 mouth of restless Mother Earth, and become a part of the 
 grand spectacle before you. 
 
 You feel a little tinge of this on first looking down into 
 Niagara, and something more of it on coming upon Yose- 
 mite ; but nothing half so maddening as this feeling on com 
 ing suddenly into the very jaws of Vesuvius. You can then 
 and there well believe that men have indeed ascended this 
 mountain and never returned.
 
 76 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 The yellow smoke curls lazily about the rim of the crater 
 at your feet ; but the opposite side of the vast round and 
 hollowed mountain, half a mile away, stands up before you 
 clear and fair as pictures on a wall. 
 
 It is sometimes perfectly clear of smoke and flame. At 
 such times you see an unbroken perpendicular wall away 
 down, almost a mile down into this mountain, made light 
 and bright with fires from below, and yoxi see little moun 
 tains of flame and sulphur at the very bottom. 
 
 Surely here are colors that no man has named. 
 
 That wall that stands over opposite is painted, lined, hung, 
 barred and starred by all the known colors, crossing, blend 
 ing into each other, or standing out boldly and alone in per 
 fect garden plots of yellow, green, red and all other known 
 and unknown, named and unnamed hues. Mighty frescos 
 miles and miles in depth perhaps, and wide as the walls of a 
 city. 
 
 Even the reverend doctor was overcome. For the first 
 time Marietta now saw him perfectly silent. lie held tight 
 on to his umbrella, but lie stood up straight and tall as a 
 flagstaff on the American Fourth of July. 
 
 The guide kept all the time insisting on standing between 
 them and the rim of the crater, which he informed them was 
 all the time shelving off and falling in. And shall I con 
 fess it ? after Marietta had got partly over his desire to 
 leap into the crater, he was seized with an \inaccountable 
 desire to push this fellow in backward as he stood before them. 
 
 Surely there is something devilish in the atmosphere of 
 Vesuvius. Possibly this is why the Neapolitans, as a people, 
 are so utterly base and depraved. 
 
 After a time they loosened some stones that lay on the rim 
 of the crater. The doctor held his breath. Marietta held 
 his watch, and noted the time that went by from the moment 
 the stones were loosened till the last sound came up from the 
 fiery depths.
 
 On the Mountain of Fire. 77 
 
 Rumble ! rumble ! rumble ! Crash ! Thud ! Boom ! There 
 was the sound of an avalanche away down in the depths of 
 the crater, among the mountains of sulphur and flame. And 
 then the smoke rolled up in double and treble density. 
 
 They had loosened blocks and comers of the shelving 
 crater, and old Vesuvius was very angry. 
 
 After that they could scarcely see anything in the crater 
 at all. It was something to be able to stir up this old mon 
 ster, and make him howl and fume at will. 
 
 Then they started on the circuit of the crater. It is a 
 little trail carefully cleared out by the guides, is about two 
 feet wide, and lies immediately on the rim. 
 
 If you choose to step six inches to your left as you advance 
 your friends can have the funeral services preached either in 
 New York or San Francisco, as they see fit. The undertaker, 
 however, will find but little profit in your loss. 
 
 Marietta knew perfectly well that the doctor wanted to go 
 back before they got fairly started. He was as certain of this 
 as he was that the doctor turned his head over his shoulder 
 and said, " If anything happens, my mother s address is 
 Chestnut Street, Boston." But they kept on. Murietta lit 
 his cigar by one of the eternal and infernal furnaces on the 
 rim of the crater, and also burnt his fingers in the achieve 
 ment. What in the name of all that is scientific keeps the 
 flame so near the surface one cannot conceive. Yoti cannot 
 see what the flames feed upon. You may have seen many 
 volcanoes and looked into many craters on the Pacific side of 
 America, but never anything like this. 
 
 They passed on around to the other side, describing a half- 
 moon in their half- hour s walk, and now stood on the ex 
 treme summit of that portion of the mountain which has 
 been formed by the various eruptions of the last eighteen 
 centuries. 
 
 Standing here you can distinctly see all the outlines of the 
 great crater of A.D. 78, which was formed when the cities
 
 78 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 were overwhelmed. That crater was many miles in circum- 
 fei ence, but the mountain was not nearly so high then as now. 
 This present crater, remember, is in the centre of a vast ash- 
 heap or cone, which has risen out of the centre of the great 
 crater of 78. This present pyramid is the work of nearly 
 two thousand years. 
 
 Standing here you get a perfect knowledge of all the sur 
 roundings of this wonderful mountain. You have wondered 
 what were its relations with other mountains. You now find 
 that it has none whatever. You see that it is built in an 
 open plain, as if man had been building another and a 
 mightier pyramid. It stands in a plain four or five miles back 
 from the sea, and as perfectly alone as if it were an isle in 
 mid-ocean. As you stand here you can see every foot of the 
 plain surrounding the great volcano. You can count at least 
 a hundred cities and villages in sight. 
 
 You may take a carriage in Naples and drive quite around 
 Mount Vesuvius and be back to your hotel in time for din 
 ner, Avithout going up or down any hills at all. Vesuvius 
 is a growth of the level plain. One can very well fancy that 
 the lazy Italian in the remote past tended his flocks on the 
 spot where the mountain now stands, or lay gracefully down 
 on his load of cabbages heaped on the back of his little mule, 
 and slept peacefully on his way to market just as he docs 
 even to this day. 
 
 The doctor and Murietta could advance no farther than 
 where they now stood. You are told by guides and guide 
 books that you can walk quite around the crater ; but they 
 now found they could just about as easily cross "the impass 
 able gulf." At their feet, in a canon more than half a mile 
 in depth, lay the bed of the St. Sebastian stream of lava, still 
 smoking and burning in its rocky sulphurous bottom. 
 
 You must bear in mind that in 1871 the whole character 
 of the mountain was changed. A gap was broken through 
 the southern rim of the old crater, and through this flowed a
 
 On the Mountain of Fire. 79 
 
 stream of lava which, at a rough calculation, you may say is 
 a hundred feet deep, half a mile wide, and five miles long. 
 
 There it lies, a great, black, crooked serpent, crawling out 
 of the crater of Vesuvius, stealing down into the garden of 
 the plain. Its ugly head is buried in the pretty little village 
 of St. Sebastian. 
 
 Before returning, tho doctor insisted on loosening one 
 more big stone that hung on the edge of the crater. The 
 guide remonstrated, saying that it was too broken, and 
 dangerous ; but the doctor got down on his hands and knees, 
 and then straightened out. He was so long and so thin and 
 so straight, he looked as if he had originally been made for 
 a poker. He was now doing service as a crowbar. He 
 struck out with his feet, fastened them against the heap of 
 lava which he wished to loosen, as if his legs had been hand 
 spikes, and began to push heavily at the stone. It gave signs 
 of yielding. 
 
 " Look at your watch ! " cried the doctor, 
 
 Murietta looked at his watch. " Now ! " cried the doctor ; 
 and he drew up his long thin legs and kicked with all his 
 might. 
 
 The stone gave way. There was a loose rattling of other 
 stones ; then a shelving, sliding, rumbling ; then a long thin 
 man flat on his belly, with a face white as a ghost, clutching 
 and scrambling in the dust and ashes for life. 
 
 He writhed and wriggled, and clutched and sci-ambled, but 
 he seemed to be losing ground and going down slowly and 
 surely into the terrible gulf of fire. The steep ashen slope 
 of the mountain seemed to slide away and draw him in faster 
 than he could by any possible effort draw himself out. He 
 looked like some great black lizard writhing in a heap of hot 
 ashes. 
 
 It seemed that the ashes would never stop shelving and 
 sliding ! It seemed as if the long thin man would never 
 again get on his feet ! Murietta reached him his staff; but
 
 8o The One Fair Woman. 
 
 he had not time to lay hold. As fast as he crawled and 
 scrambled up, the crater drew him back ; and both his hands 
 and feet were busy as a crab s. As for the guide, he ran 
 away as they usually do when most needed. 
 
 All this of course was done in an instant. But to the doc 
 tor and Murietta it seemed to be much the biggest half of 
 that day. 
 
 At last there was a kind of compromise, a sort of mutual 
 suspension of operations. The doctor grew too exhausted to 
 kick or scramble, and it seemed as he ceased to kick and 
 scramble that the earth ceased to shelve and give way ; and 
 Murietta now got him by the coat sleeve, and drew him up 
 out of the crater, nearly suffocated with dust and ashes. 
 
 He sat down in the path, and looked silently round. His 
 hands were bleeding, but he said nothing whatever. In his 
 coat of sackcloth and ashes, he looked very much like a mouse 
 that has just escaped from a bag of meal. 
 
 " What did you say was your mother s address ? " at last 
 asked Murietta, to rouse his spirits, in a sort of banter. But 
 the doctor, who had now risen to his feet preparatory to the 
 return, was busy brushing the ashes from his coat, and pre 
 tended not to hear. 
 
 It was a gloomy and solemn walk back on their half-moon 
 circuit, but they reached the spot at last, and buying some 
 eggs of a half-naked peasant lad, they cooked them over the 
 fires of Vesuvius and extemporized a dinner, after which the 
 doctor was ready to return. 
 
 As they were about to descend, there came up out of the 
 smoke a tall and beautiful lady, with a party of English and 
 American tourists. 
 
 She seemed to lead them, for she came on, dimly seen 
 through the smoke, ahead of all the party. How tall and 
 superb she seemed as seen through the curling smoke that 
 wreathed about her form as she advanced. She seemed as 
 if she was borne in a chariot of tire !
 
 On the Mountain of Fire. 8 1 
 
 At first only her form was visible ; and Marietta stood 
 contemplating her from a distance with awe and wonder. 
 How tall she was ! how graceful she moved ! She seemed 
 to ride on the rising clouds of smoke that curled about her 
 dark mantle. She came on but slowly, np the steep and 
 stupendous field of fire, and Murietta felt an almost irresistible 
 desire to go down and lead her to the summit. 
 
 At last through the smoke he saw dimly behind her the 
 faces of others. Only their faces were seen through the 
 clouds of smoke, and it gave them a weird and unearthly ap 
 pearance. Their feet and forms were hidden in the smoke 
 that curled up from out a thousand pores and fissures of the 
 earth ; but their faces lifted above this and they seemed to be 
 floating in the air. They looked, back there in the dim, 
 drifting, shifting clouds, as if they Avere spirits following 
 always after, and attending on the tall and wonderful woman 
 in black who was just now emerging from the smoke, and 
 turning the crest of the pyramid. 
 
 Murietta had resolved to go forward and oifer her his arm. 
 He took a step forward as she emerged from the smoke. 
 Then he saw her face fairly and fully for the first time, and 
 stepped back, turned his head, and hurried away to one side. 
 His heart beat with a mad and intense delight. 
 
 It was Annette, the one fair woman ! At last he had 
 again looked upon the one woman of all the world for whom 
 he had waited, and the woman who had visited him for years 
 and years in his dreams. 
 
 She stood at last, as he shrank back into the smoke, up on 
 the topmost rim of the pyramid in the full light, leaning on 
 her staff, resting there, looking down into that matchless and 
 magnificent panorama of colors and the awful commotion of 
 the elements. 
 
 She was silent as before. Her brows lifted, a hand passed 
 back the splendor of midnight hair that blew loosely about 
 her shoulders, but she did not speak. 
 4*
 
 82 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 How fitting it was that she should stand alone ! Murietta 
 clasped his hands and bent his knees till they touched the 
 steep side of the mountain where he stood, and he lifted his 
 face in gratitude to God. 
 
 This to him was the most perfect moment that he had ever 
 known. It was a moment large and full and rich to over 
 flowing. He felt that it was such a time, such a scene, such 
 a combination of grandeur and beauty and splendor, so much 
 of history, of love, of poetry the past, the present, the fu 
 ture as he had not found before. It was such a scene, he 
 thought, as his soul had aspired to from the first dawning of 
 his adoration for things that are divine. 
 
 Still clasping his hands, he bent his head, and said softly 
 to himself: 
 
 "I I scattered roses in her path! It is a good ornen. 
 I scattered roses in your path, oh, beautiful and divinest of 
 women, without knowing that it was you ! Some day I will 
 tell you this, and you will look at me and will not be dis 
 pleased." 
 
 The lady moved. He was afraid he would be seen. He 
 hastily arose and fell back further in the smoke and down 
 the mountain almost out of sight. He had sooner dared go 
 into the presence of the Madonna, had she stood there on 
 the crest of the mountain invoking the Deity. 
 
 The doctor and guide came down and stood with him as if 
 ready to descend. 
 
 Murietta looked up once more. The beautiful woman was 
 moving along the rim of the mountain now in the midst of 
 her party. 
 
 " I scattered roses in her path ! " he kept saying to him 
 self, and thanking Heaven for the happy thought and the 
 happy opportunity that had led him to do this little service 
 for the only woman he had ever really loved, or now could 
 ever love. 
 
 He was the happiest man in all that happy land of
 
 On the Mountain of Fire. 83 
 
 happy, happy people. Never had the sun looked down so 
 soft and golden and glorious as it did now. Never had fair 
 Italy seemed half so fair as at this hour. His heart was full 
 of gratitude, and all things seemed fair and good, and full of 
 hope and happiness. 
 
 " I scattered roses in her path ! " he said, and peered 
 among the clouds of smoke that curled about his face as if 
 they had been blowing curtains, as if to see her still more 
 perfectly. 
 
 Then the clouds blew low and close to the ground, and left 
 him quite unveiled before her. He turned hastily and half 
 frightened down the mountain, as if he had stolen into Para 
 dise and was afraid of being seen. 
 
 " I scattered roses in her path ! " he said again, and still 
 kept watching her, and retired slowly down the mountain, 
 and deeper into the smoke, as if to be certain he could not 
 be seen. 
 
 " I scattered roses in her path ! Will she follow me down 
 here ? Perhaps she will come directly down this way ! Then 
 I shall be covered with confusion. Possibly I shall leap down 
 this precipice into the chasm of St. Sebastian. O, if it would 
 please her, if rather she would weep and think of me, I would 
 leap into the depths of Vesuvius ! " 
 
 " I scattered roses in her path ! " Poor man, she had not 
 seen him or thought of him at all ! Such is life such is 
 love. 
 
 No one attempted to go round to the other side of the 
 crater again that day. The smoke was now rolling dark, 
 thick, and threatening, and the new-comers decided to return 
 to the plain. 
 
 Seeing that the fair lady was about to return, and from, 
 some unexplained timidity fearing above all things to meet 
 her then, Murietta led the way, and descended by a more 
 steep and direct route, the great ash-heap moving with them 
 as they strode down with steps that had amazed the giants.
 
 84 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 There is nothing more exhilarating and exciting than this 
 descent. It is much like going down a very precipitous 
 mountain after a deep fall of snow, when the new snow moves 
 down the mountain in little avalanches with you. In a few 
 minutes they were mounted and on their return to town. 
 
 " I scattered roses in her path ! " Murietta murmured that 
 night as he rode home around the Bay of Naples, and watched 
 the stars down in the water, and heard the fishermen singing 
 far out as they lay at rest under the white wings of their 
 fishing boats. 
 
 A cripple, with his legs in the air and his hands where his 
 feet should be, rolled in the dusty road before him. 
 
 " Poor man ! poor man ! How miserable he must be ! " 
 
 Murietta put his hand in his vest pocket, and drawing out 
 a roll of little notes, scattered a perfect snowstorm of francs 
 before the wretch as he rode on as if he was still scatter 
 ing roses in the path of the woman he loved. 
 
 Then the two rode on as the polite captain of police gave 
 a kind salute, and under the guns of the old city wall before 
 which Garibaldi rode as the matches burned in the timid 
 hands of the king s guards, they passed and entered Naples 
 and one all the time was saying to himself: 
 
 " I scattered roses in her path ! It is a good omen." 
 
 That night as he slept he could see only this tall, dark 
 woman towering above the smoke and fire of Vesuvius, and 
 all the time he kept thinking of, and thanking God for the 
 roses. 
 
 It is remarkable how constantly, and all the time, one 
 turns to look at Vesuvius when in this part of Italy. You 
 see people people who were born in Naples, perhaps 
 standing in the street staring up at the gray and grizzled 
 mountain. No matter on which side of the bay you find 
 yourself, it is the last thing you look upon at night on going 
 indoors, and the first thing in the morning. You know you 
 will be lonesome without it when you go away.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 ON ST. PAUL S PIER. 
 
 HE next day they went down 
 to the bay, the doctor and 
 Murietta, to look at the lit 
 tie town of Pozzuoli, where 
 St. Paul was landed when 
 brought to Rome. How 
 beautiful ! How peaceful ! 
 What a touch of tenderness 
 in all things ! And yet 
 Murietta found himself, as they 
 stood together on the broken piers of 
 twenty centuries ago, looking away 
 across the bay at the curling smoke 
 of Vesuvius. 
 
 As the sun rose up in heaven they 
 left the little town, and walked on 
 around the bay to Lake Averno. They stood on the shore in 
 the broken arid crumbling Temple of Apollo, and looked 
 across the bottomless lake straight into the mouth of the 
 cave which Virgil pronounced the entrance into hell. 
 
 How solemn and how serene ! There were a thousand 
 white-coated goats feeding on the green hill above the door 
 of the cave, and the Sibyl s Cave opened its black, myste 
 rious mouth as if to utter an oracle. Away out to the
 
 86 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 right a little boat, with a little white sail, bore its two lovers 
 silently along. 
 
 They strolled back towards the Bay of Naples. They 
 stopped again at Pozzuoli, and went on the broken and 
 deserted pier, and thought of the Apostle Paul, and stood 
 there a long time silent. 
 
 Yonder upon the hillside still steamed the hot bath of 
 Nero. There, but a stone s throw away, was the spot where 
 he had his mother butchered. There was the headland where 
 ^Eneas had landed after deserting Dido, and from that little 
 hill to the right, Pliny had witnessed the eruption of Vesu 
 vius, and waited in vain for the return of his uncle. 
 
 The sun, that had stood in high mid-heaven all day, like 
 a warrior with lifted shield, now settled his shield on his 
 low left hand. Lower and lower he let it fall and settle 
 and sink, till it touched the sea. The sun had set on Vesu 
 vius. 
 
 Again Murietta found himself gazing at the rising column 
 of smoke. The great gray column grew and grew from the 
 summit of the mighty mountain, taller than a California 
 cedar and then it branched and branched away, and blos 
 somed into stars. 
 
 While he stood gazing at Vesu vius, watching the sun go 
 down, and drinking in the scene with all the thirst and eager 
 ness of a poet s or a painter s longing, unsatisfied soul, another 
 party had silently come upon the pier; and they, too, stood 
 still and reverential, as if awed by the scene and the story 
 of the holy place. 
 
 At last the winds blew in and fanned the stars till they 
 shone like torches, and Murietta reluctantly turned to go. 
 
 He turned, and there with her party, right in his path, 
 before he had time to retreat or escape in any manner, stood 
 the lady he so earnestly and devoutly worshipped. 
 
 She seemed full of the scene before her. She gathered her 
 blown garments closer about her, and advanced even a step
 
 On St. Pauls Pier. 87 
 
 nearer. Murietta s heart beat as if he was about to take 
 part in his first battle. 
 
 She was Ictoking away at the sea, and did not speak or 
 notice him, although he could distinctly hear the rustle of 
 her robes. He could almost touch the hem of her garments 
 with his hand. Then she turned a little and looked down 
 the coast in the direction of Naples, at the three little islands. 
 
 How earnest her eyes were ! what a glow and glory in her 
 beautiful face as she looked on the spot where Brutus took 
 his last farewell of Portia, and turned his iron breast to the 
 battle front. What could she have been thinking of? 
 
 Murietta bowed his head as if he had stood in a sacred 
 temple and the high priest stood before him. He did not 
 even dare to lift his eyes for fear he should disturb her and 
 break her meditations. 
 
 She turned at last to look out to sea, and as he lifted his 
 face their eyes met. 
 
 His hat was in his hand, and he bowed and tried to speak, 
 but he could only stammer inaudibly, and his voice trembled 
 like his half-extended hand. 
 
 She did not answer; she did not lift her hand towards his ; 
 she did not even smile, nor bend her head, nor make any sign 
 of recognition whatever. 
 
 She only stepped a little to one side to let him pass from 
 the pier. 
 
 Murietta did not lift his eyes again. He could have gone 
 into battle and died with perfect delight ; he would have 
 smiled. He could have leapt into the warm soft sea-water, 
 and ended it all there and then ; but lift his eyes ! he could 
 not have done it for the kingdom of Naples. He felt that 
 every one of that strange party was looking at him laugh 
 ing at him, and he felt as if he had been crushed beneath a 
 weight. 
 
 On over the broken pier, on up the dusty road, on past the 
 little town the doctor hurrying after the man strode, al-
 
 88 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 most ran, with bis head held down, and his heart as if it was 
 
 a great stone in his breast. 
 
 He reached his lodgings, and sent for one of the painters 
 
 there, with whom he had often talked of Spain. 
 
 " Carlton, what is the best route to reach Barcelona ? " 
 " Barcelona ! Barcelona ? Ah, you may take rail here, 
 
 pass through Rome, through Florence, Turin, the Mont Cenis 
 
 tunnel, and so through France down to the sea. But you 
 
 may find it besieged by land, and in that case you had better 
 
 go by water." 
 
 " Well, well, the best way I will go by water, then." 
 
 " To Barcelona ? Do you -know they are fighting there ? " 
 
 " Are they, Carlton ? Are they fighting fighting sharp 
 
 killing each other by the regiment ? " 
 "Ah, indeed they do kill ! " 
 " Good ! I will go to Barcelona to-morrow."
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 IN THE ETERNAL CITY. 
 
 UEIETTA stood all ready for 
 the voyage long before the sun 
 had risen ; for he had not 
 slept, had not even cared to 
 take off his coat again in 
 Naples. 
 
 How ugly all things seemed 
 that morning in the gray 
 dawn ! There were shrill ugly 
 voices calling in the street 
 that he had never heard be 
 fore. The island of Caprea, away out 
 yonder looked like an ugly humped 
 camel pushed away into the sea. Ve 
 suvius was not beautiful ; it was terrible 
 and ugly, an instrument of destruction 
 the mouth of hell hell with the lid off. 
 
 The ship, after all, was not to go that day. There was 
 cholera on shore, and ships of war at sea, and the Italian 
 captain hesitated about taking in the coast of Spain at all. 
 
 Murietta could not remain in Naples. He would leave 
 Naples that day if he left it on foot, and barefooted at that. 
 What would be the time to the seat of war by way of Rome ? 
 Not long, but you would have to remain over night at Rome. 
 r l his to the artist was particularly unpleasant. Rome was 
 a sort of shrine a temple into which he did not care to enter
 
 90 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 without his mind at peace and his heart pure and his hands 
 clean. He thought of all this, and was more and more per 
 plexed. At last, throwing off the load of indecision which 
 was crushing him, he drove to the station, took his ticket for 
 Rome, and Naples good and bad was as a dream. 
 
 This artist, this enthusiast, was about to enter Rome. How 
 much this shrine had been to him it is hard to say. It was 
 much more than all the world beside in art, in tradition, and 
 in the history of the world. To him there had been, there 
 could be, but one Rome. 
 
 He had talked with his sister and his brother when playing 
 on the shores of the Pacific in the shadow of the linden trees, 
 of this Eternal City, and had said to them, " I shall some 
 day see Rome." And they had said, "When you see Rome 
 think of us, for we shall then be dead." 
 
 And it was so. He was about to enter Rome, and they 
 were dead, and he was thinking of them. 
 
 He sat, wrapped up, alone in a corner, mad that all men 
 around him were laughing, smoking, drinking at every station, 
 getting in and out, coming and going with a flow of spirits 
 that was like a sunny stream. The man was growing selfish. 
 He was sad that his fellow-men were glad. 
 
 Yet who could blame him ? How his heart had gone out 
 to this one woman ! How patiently, how devotedly he had 
 loved her, looked up to her, worshipped her, waited before 
 her as if she had been divine and then to be forgotten, to 
 be unnoticed and unknown ! 
 
 u I scattered flowei s in her path, and she despised me." 
 And sitting wrapped up he fell asleep, and dreamed a 
 hideous dream. 
 
 He dreamed that he entered the walls of Rome, and there 
 somehow, and before he hardly knew it, and in fact in a 
 moment he could not recall, he committed some great sin. 
 What that sin or crime was he did not really know. He only 
 felt the intolerable weight of his crime, and knew that he
 
 In the Eternal City. 91 
 
 was trying to escape from the city. He had never before 
 felt how terrible a thing it was to do wrong. This crime 
 lay upon his soul like a nightmare, and could not be shaken off. 
 
 All the time he was thinking, too, how he had promised 
 to enter Rome barefooted and bareheaded, and think of scenes 
 and faces that were no more. He thought lie had entered 
 Home thoughtless, and loud, and full of merriment, and that 
 this was perhaps his punishment. He promised himself that 
 if ever it was permitted him to enter the Eternal City again, 
 he would stop, leave the train at the last station, and, taking 
 his shoes in his hand, and a pilgrim s staff, walk with bared 
 head into the hoary presence of the past, where Time sits by 
 and wags his beard at Home. 
 
 Then he thought he tried to escape from the city, and went 
 disguised to the People s Gate, opening toward Ponto Malo 
 and Florence, and, mixing with the tide of passers-by, 
 thought to pass out unnoticed. A heavy hand reached out, 
 and fell like a thunderbolt upon his shoulder. He turned 
 his face in his terror, looked up, and saw an enormous chin, 
 and heard a voice thunder, " I am a man who carries his 
 heart in his hand. A rough but honest sailor. Come with me." 
 
 He followed this fearful man, a helpless prisoner, a little 
 while, and then losing himself in the crowds of people, 
 crossed the city, and was passing out of the gate that St 4 
 Peter passed when attempting to escape crucifixion. He 
 was almost otit ; another step and he would be free. His 
 heart leapt with hope ; he looked sharp round, lifted his 
 foot ; he was about to spring forward ; he threw up his 
 hands with delight, and 
 
 " I am a man who carries his heart in his hand. A rough 
 but honest seaman." The hand came down, and the great 
 chin overshadowed him, and led him back as before. 
 
 Again he loosened himself from this hard, horny hand, and 
 again got lost in the crowd, and again attempted to pass the 
 gates of Home.
 
 92 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 This time it was Porto Pio opening to the rising sun. There 
 were not so many people passing this way, for it seemed to 
 Marietta that it was night, and people who pass here live far 
 out against the mountains and in and under Tivoli, and rarely 
 keep their road at night, save in their high wine carts, drawn 
 by white oxen or mules, fairly mailed in shining harness of 
 brass and copper. 
 
 Murietta was desperate. He thought he climbed up into 
 one of those carts, with its hundred jingling bells hanging 
 about the little rookery where the driver sits all the time 
 asleep, and stowed himself in between the empty wine- 
 kegs. 
 
 The bells jingled and rang, and rang and jingled, and the 
 cart drove up under the gate. Murietta was again glad, for 
 this time he certainly would escape. Then the cart stopped, 
 and then all the bells stopped, and that awoke the sleeping 
 driver, and the custom-house man put out his long sharp rod, 
 and the cart again began to move, and the bells to jingle as 
 before. Murietta fairly buiied his nails in. his clenched 
 hands in his anxiety. He felt the perspiration streaming 
 from his face. He crouched his head down like a coward, 
 and shut his eyes tight lest he should see the man with the 
 mighty chin hanging over him like a nightmare. 
 
 The bells jingled and clashed, and clashed and jingled 
 and a hand fell on Murietta s shoulder, and shook him and 
 shook him, and a voice shouted as only an Italian can shout 
 when excited. 
 
 The artist sprang up and attempted to loosen his hands 
 from the folds of his cloak, and strike the man before him 
 for he still thought himself in the hands of the Admiral of 
 Genoa, the man with the big chin. 
 
 " Signor ! Signor ! How yoxi do sleep ! It is Ptome, 
 Signor and you must pass out here, and you must pass in 
 here and be purified after passing through Naples, for Naples 
 is a place of plagues." And here he pushed Murietta through
 
 In the Eternal City. 93 
 
 a door into a place so full of smoke and infernal smells that 
 the man fancied he had not awoke at all, but had been seized 
 upon and carried off by the big man with the big chin di 
 rectly to hell, where he was to suffer for his fearful crime. 
 
 Murietta was growing wild. He would have shrieked ; 
 but the smoke and the smells stifled him, and he could only 
 cough and catch his breath. He began to feel about in the 
 dust and dense smoke, but he found himself borne along with 
 the crowd, and heard people behind and before, and the 
 voices of the officers giving directions to their men. 
 
 At last they were shot out of a great wide door, as if out 
 of the mouth of a mighty cannon. The smoke curled about 
 them as they came out, and clung to their clothes and 
 wreathed out and about and in their hair. They were shot 
 out of the big cannon right into a row of yellow omnibuses 
 backed up to the step, and these omnibuses t>egan to shoot 
 down hill, and to rattle over the stones of Rome. 
 
 Muriefcta had been shot into an omnibus branded " Hotel 
 Angleterre." What the Hotel Angleterre was, he did not 
 know he did not care. Chance had thrown him into this 
 coach. The responsibility was with chance. The man did 
 not care a pin where he went or how he went there. It was, 
 perhaps, a matter of perfect indifference to him, and a thing 
 for which he would not have turned his hand, to find he was 
 not in hell at all, but only in Rome. 
 
 The man who kept the door of the omnibus put up a little 
 tin sign over his head, and then settled down in his seat by 
 the door, wound his arms in and around the little iron stair 
 way riinning to the top of the omnibus, arid in a moment 
 was fast asleep. 
 
 There was a tall, raw-boned, hungry-looking woman in 
 gold spectacles crowding down on Murietta to the right. 
 Her elbo.ws dug into his side. She seemed to have a thousand 
 knots and angles, as if she had just devoured the contents of a 
 hardware store.
 
 94 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 The omnibus jolted and jerked over the cobble-stones, and 
 the bony woman rattled against Marietta and settled down 
 \ipon him. Then she churned him in the ribs ; then she 
 turned her spectacles into his face, and he knew her for the 
 correspondent he had seen taking notes at Genoa. 
 
 " We are going down one of the seven hills of liome one 
 of the seven hills of Rome, Mr. Murietta." 
 
 Murietta looked straight across to the little man sand 
 wiched in between four hat-boxes, three travelling-bags, and 
 two very tired and very cross-looking women. 
 
 " And so you have come to Rome, too ? I knew you 
 would come to Rome, and in fact wrote so in my letter 
 from Genoa, in which, by the way, you will find a long and 
 faithful description of yourself and your appearance in detail, 
 as you sat talking with that eccentric countess." 
 
 She caught her breath a second ; but Murietta did not 
 answer. 
 
 " Yes, you painters, all you painters come to Rome. And 
 you make it pay when you come to Rome, too ! " 
 
 The two women barricaded up behind their baskets, 
 looked out over and down their walls, and listened to hear 
 what Murietta would answer. 
 
 The omnibus rattled over the round cobble-stones of 
 Rome, and the driver still kept snapping his whip as if he 
 had an endless string of fire-crackers, but Murietta did not 
 answer. 
 
 Woman, in any form or light or shade, since his last night 
 in Naples, was to him simply so much marble, to be estimated, 
 valued only by the art and beauty that embellished her. In 
 this case the art and beauty were certainly not apparent by 
 a Roman street lamp, and in a rattling Roman omnibus. 
 
 "I have been thinking," began the spectacles again, "and 
 I so wrote in my last which you will find in the best jour 
 nals of New York that it would be a good commercial in 
 vestment to buy up a ship load of pictures in Rome. You see
 
 In the Eternal City. 95 
 
 J do more to encourage art, and do more for you artists than 
 you suppose. Well, I would buy this ship load of pictures 
 here in Rome, put them in a flat boat, float them down the 
 Tiber, load the ship there at the mouth of the Tiber, and then 
 go straight to New York. I would buy large ones, you see. 
 In fact, I would buy the very largest. The people would 
 have to buy them in the States. I could furnish pictures in 
 this way cheaper than any man in the States could paint 
 them. I could sell them so cheap, in fact, that people would 
 buy them if only to save wall paper." 
 
 How the bony woman did rattle on ! She was louder than 
 the omnibus; she talked as if this was a sort of Cincinnati 
 pork-business. 
 
 " I would ship over my own canvas get it cheap, you 
 know, a sort of second-hand or contract canvas and paint 
 and " 
 
 " Curse that woman ! " 
 
 Murietta shot this out straight ahead at the helpless little 
 man wedged in between the bags and boxes ; and then, as 
 the two sour-looking women dodged down behind their 
 boxes and bags, he hitched himself round and sat at right 
 angles with the bony elbows and the rattling tongue and 
 the empty head, till the end of the ride ; while the spec 
 tacles settled sharply down on the sharp nose, and began 
 taking notes preparatory to writing a sketch which was 
 to annihilate our genius, and prove him a brute and a black 
 guard. 
 
 The stones of Home ceased to rattle beneath them, and the 
 conductor awoke. 
 
 The play began. How beautifully the players were dressed ; 
 and how gorgeously the stage was got up, to be sure ! 
 
 There was a row of street lamps hanging from iron posts 
 topped, with crowns, and great picturesque vases, just exactly 
 as you see in first-class pictures of old Rome. The pavement 
 was so like a picture, or so like a reality, that the mind hes-
 
 96 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 itated between the real and the ideal, and you could hardly 
 make up your mind whether this was a real scene that looked 
 exactly like a picture or a play, or a play and a painted stage 
 that looked exactly like a real scene in life. 
 
 There was a door that opened down into the ground, and 
 people were coming up out of the earth, and going down into 
 the earth ; and the light that burned above the door was per 
 fect; and you could read the sign, "Hotel Angleterre," and 
 you could have sworn that it was a real scene, and then not 
 believe your own oath after all. 
 
 There was a great big willow tree a little to the right of 
 the door as you entered, and under this great willow tree 
 that reached its long green branches half-way acros the pretty 
 street, there was a great stone coffin all covered with pretty 
 chiselled figures, and into this pretty coffin flowed a fountain 
 of cool, sweet water that flashed and sparkled in the bright 
 gaslight, as pretty girls dipped their pretty brown hands and 
 filled their pitchers, or as men plunged their buckets and 
 drew them out with water for their horses. 
 
 There was a pretty beggar-boy, with his feet in sandals 
 fastened with red silk ribbons, a sheepskin coat, and a red 
 shirt open in the breast, and the prettiest face that could be. 
 How well he played ! His head would drop to one side, his 
 pretty lips pout out, his great brown eyes half hiding under 
 his hair that had been a fortune to a belle of fashion ; and 
 such a perfect pathos ! And then his little dimpled brown 
 hand would not reach out at all ; it was a timid hand, half 
 hiding behind the little woolly sheepskin coat, with its rows of 
 brass buttons, and its stripes, and its braids, and its trinkets 
 about the breast and over the shoulders a hand full of dimples, 
 and dirty too, no doubt, but the shyest and sweetest little hand 
 that ever reached out and touched any man s heart and 
 opened his pocket and took out all the pennies, and made the 
 man glad to give them. 
 
 Then there was the conductor. You could tell just exactly
 
 In the Eternal City. 97 
 
 how many centimes any one bad handed him as he came out 
 of the omnibus, by the number of bows he made to the man 
 as he handed him his things. 
 
 Then the driver. He, too, had climbed down and taken 
 his post by the side of the conductor, who was handing out 
 the passengers, and, silk in hand, bowed and bowed as if he 
 were working at a pump-handle, till he had pumped a whole 
 handful of coppers from the passengers. He played his piece 
 exceedingly well, and was exceedingly happy as he climbed up 
 to his box. and resumed his reins, and began again to let off 
 his string of fire-crackers. 
 
 " Silk must be cheap in Italy," thought Murietta, as he 
 watched the play, " else the manager would be bankrupt in a 
 single season." 
 
 Then there came another carriage on the boards. A strange 
 carriage it was indeed, and drawn by one horse. There was 
 a driver ; and then behind him, and sideways, sat a man as if 
 he was sitting at a piano. There was the music and all before 
 him ; there were the ivory keys ; the man was looking up, too, 
 as if for some particular fly on the ceiling, as a sort of key-note 
 by which to begin his performance. 
 
 The pretty girls kept coming and going to and from the 
 pretty marble coffin, and filling their pitchers ; but the fire 
 crackers had at last started the poor Roman horses, and, 
 lifting their hats again and again, the driver and the conductor 
 disappeared from the stage. 
 
 Then the man at the piano began, and he sang and played 
 in the soft and blended moonlight and lamplight in the open 
 streets of Home ; and the pretty girls set down their pitch 
 ers and leaned on the iron rail around the marble coffin, and 
 looked dreamily on in dozens, and listened to the song and 
 music for it was indeed a piano, and a real performer, and 
 a good one too. 
 
 "This," said Murietta, " is the orchestra. I like the play ; 
 1 like the actors ; they are all men ; there is not a woman
 
 98 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 among them save in that ballet by the fountain, with their 
 brown earthen pitchers in their brown, pretty hands." 
 
 What a variety of uniforms ! 
 
 Out there by the fountain, a man with a waist like a 
 woman s, with a sword at his side with the she- wolf and her 
 twins on the great brass hilt, walks idly up and down in a 
 red sash and a coat so full of buttons and so gorgeous with 
 lace, that he might in America be taken for the Lieutenant- 
 General of the armies of the Great Republic. That man in 
 the gorgeous clothes, with a sword, and a waist like a 
 woman s, and a gi-eat black cocked-hat, with a storm of red 
 cock s feathers, was playing the part of a policeman. 
 
 Then the conductor had a uniform with a military cap with 
 a gold band ; then the driver had a uniform with brass but 
 tons enough for an American brigadier. Then the first clerk 
 also had a uniform, bright and beautiful with buttons and 
 cords and tassels and medals, as if he had been an English 
 veteran of Waterloo. 
 
 Then there was the head porter ! he also had a uniform 
 that looked as if its wearer was first in command in Italy. 
 Then the second porter looked as if he might be second in 
 command ; then the third porter and that was " boots," 
 without a doubt had also a uniform about equal to those 
 first, only a little dimmed by time, not by labor, for these 
 men never work hard enough to hurt their clothes in the 
 least. And all this play took place at the little old Hotel 
 Angleterre, away down in the middle of old Rome one of 
 the oldest first-class houses in all the city, but not one of the 
 best by a great deal. 
 
 The play kept on ; the scene brightened, and the man 
 sang, and the brown girls leaned and listened under the great 
 willow by the fountain, or plashed their brown pitchers in 
 the marble coffin and laughed like running water. 
 
 Murietta, wearied at last, called for a porter. A porter 
 came with a great brush, dusted the traveller down in the open
 
 In the Eternal City. 99 
 
 street, struck a thousand artistic attitudes while doing it, and 
 all the while kept time to the music and watched the play with 
 all the interest of a child at its first circus. 
 
 What a sunny-hearted people they are to be sure ! 
 
 Then the artist slipped a copper or two in his hand, and 
 the porter called a boy, and the boy called a cab, and the cab 
 drove upon the boards with a string of fire-crackers going off 
 every second, and Murietta stepped into the little basket, 
 bowed to the players, said " Coliseum," and as the fire 
 crackers flew about his ears, the curtain as far as he was 
 concerned went down on the first act he had witnessed in 
 the City of the Caesars.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 A SCENE IN THE COLISEUM. 
 
 >. NDER the Arch of Titus, with the 
 images of the golden candlesticks 
 brought from plundered and over 
 thrown Jerusalem, and then down a 
 steep and stony road the distance of 
 a rifle-shot, and the man with the 
 string of fire-crackers stopped snap 
 ping his silk, looked back over his 
 shoulder at Murietta, waved his 
 hand towards a structure that tow 
 ered there like a dome of Yosemite, 
 and Murietta got out of the little bas 
 ket trap, handed the silent man with 
 the silk and fire crackers a franc, and 
 passing through an arch that a ship 
 might sail under, stood in the Coliseum. 
 This entrance was at the west. The 
 moon was just then trying hard to get up high enough in the 
 oast to look into the arena. There were many people passing 
 slowly and silently around. 
 
 On the left hand a party was just arranging to go up with 
 the guide and mount the topmost wall to the north. They 
 were lighting torches, and laughing and talking so loud that 
 Murietta knew that the American was abroad and in Rome. 
 There was a great black cross in the centre of the little 
 half-a-mile circle of levelled ground, and there were people
 
 A Scene in the Coliseum. 101 
 
 coming an,d passing before it, and kneeling in circles around 
 it, and rising up in silence, and passing out, bowed and peni 
 tent and silent as they had entered. 
 
 All the time the moon to the east was sliding around and 
 climbing up and peeping over the loftiest and strongest wall 
 that now stands up to tell us of the mighty builders of old. 
 
 The party to the left began their ascent, and now and then 
 you could see their torches through the broken arches, and 
 you would hear an owl beat his wings against the wall as he 
 flew about blinded and awakened. You could hear the 
 American shout now and then in a sort of war-whoop of 
 triumph as he gained some great height and got a particularly 
 good view of Rome and the Campagna outside the walls 
 of the city. 
 
 The moon at last seemed to get her chin up over the edge 
 of the wall, and peeped in like a great round-faced country 
 girl full of curiosity. 
 
 A little party of priests in black came by, walked across 
 the ground sacred to the Christian Martyrs, and did not even 
 whisper. Then a Capuchin monk, bareheaded and in san 
 dals, with a rope around his waist binding to his thin and 
 emaciated frame his one long brown garment, the only thing 
 he is permitted to wear, walked slowly from station to station 
 around the edge of the arena, and said a prayer at each as 
 he passed. 
 
 What a pitiful face was his ! He was literally starving to 
 death. If these Capuchin monks, in sandals, and brown 
 robes bound up with hempen cords, do not get to heaven, 
 they will be losers indeed; for earth to them can only be a 
 torment and crucifixion. 
 
 I have seen pictures of these pious men where they are 
 made merry with wine, red-faced and riotous with good liv 
 ing, fat from over-feeding, and sitting drunk at the wine-tap 
 in their cellars. These men have no wine-cellars. Their 
 cellar is a little wooden basket or box which they carry on
 
 IO2 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 the arm, and lifting the lid from door to door, they take 
 home whatever men have left from their breakfasts or din 
 ners or suppers. They eat what others refuse to eat. They 
 have no store-house. They are not permitted to lay in store. 
 They live from day to day, depending on the charity of the 
 world. 
 
 When these men rise at four o clock in the morning, and 
 go shivering to prayers in this one brown garment, often two 
 or three years old, and threadbare and full of rents, they do 
 not know what they are to have for breakfast, or where that 
 breakfast is to come from. 
 
 You may listen all day and you will not hear one of these 
 brown men speak. You may look a lifetime, perhaps, and 
 you will not see one of them smile. 
 
 The mournful Capuchin kept on his silent and solitary 
 round of penance, and the people came and went from 
 under the shadow of the gi eat black cross in the centre of 
 the sacred ground, while, away up yonder, almost against the 
 stars, a Comanche savage, in the garb of a Christian, 
 shouted his delight at having at last attained the topmost 
 rock of the Coliseum. 
 
 Then through the eastern arch, looking out toward the 
 gate of St. John Lateran, there came a party of peasants 
 who had just entered here on their way to market. They 
 had made a long journey on foot from the hills away out 
 yonder twenty miles across the Campagna, and were very 
 tired. They huddled up close together and seemed half 
 afraid. Perhaps this was their first visit to Rome, for 
 the peasants of the mountains had ever a terror of this 
 city. 
 
 There were old men and young men, old women and young 
 women, and they all bore loads on their backs in great 
 baskets, precisely as do the Mexican peasants and the Cali 
 fornia Indians. These baskets are pointed at the bottom, 
 and broaden out towards the top. You see these same
 
 A Scene in the Coliseum. 103 
 
 baskets in Como, in the Tyrol, and in Switzerland, in Oregon 
 and in Arizona. 
 
 There was something beautiful in the trust and faith and 
 sense of security with which these half wild people of the 
 mountains gathered about this cross, and bowed their heads 
 and invoked their God. 
 
 The women had their hair in pretty braids, but the long, 
 black, and bushy hair of the men fell down in gloomy folds 
 about their shoulders and pushed up in great shocks about 
 the brows, as if determined to push the black and brigandish 
 hat, feather and all, from the head of its proud and artistic 
 owner. 
 
 The feet of all were bound in sandals made from the skins 
 of the buffalo bull of the Pontine marshes, and the legs were 
 wound up in some kind of cloth and bound in a plaid work 
 of many-colored stripes. How beautiful were these women 
 kneeling there, crouching close to husband, parent, or lover, 
 as if in fear that the old story of Romulus and the Sabines 
 might be repeated. 
 
 Go out yonder to Tivoli, an old town, old when Rome was 
 young, that overlooks the Campagna and that overlooks 
 Rome, that looks over Rome and on and into the Mediter 
 ranean Sea, although twenty miles to the east, and ask any 
 peasant there, no matter how wild and savage he may be, 
 how ignorant or stupid, about Rome and the people of 
 Rome. 
 
 The hands of the peasant go up, and he prays for deliver 
 ance. Rome to him is a sort of purgatory. No, no, no, he 
 would not go to Rome for the world ! The men of Rome 
 are robbers, the women have neither virtue nor beauty ! And 
 then if you have a little time and a very little money to spare 
 to buy ten cents worth of wine, he will sit with you till the 
 bottle is finished and will tell you, word for word, of this 
 Rape of the Sabines. He will tell it to you with all the ear 
 nestness and mystery and emphasis of a Hamlet. He will
 
 IO4 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 leave his marble bench at least a dozen times before the bot 
 tle or the story is finished, to play the piece, to show you 
 just exactly how bad the people are in Rome, and how they 
 do these things. 
 
 What is very remarkable about this, and most amusing, is 
 the fact that he tells it as if it happened only within the last 
 year or two. 
 
 No wonder these weary peasants kneeling before the cross, 
 as the moon still kept climbing up and reaching out and 
 peering over as if to get a good look at them, huddled up 
 close together, and kept looking from under their dark brows 
 at any strange footstep that came near, with all the look of a 
 wild beast for the first time brought to look into the face of 
 man. 
 
 Marietta kept close in the shadow of the mighty wall and 
 out of the full of the moonlight, and yet stole lip as close to 
 these people as possible, for to him they had a strange in 
 terest. He looked on their picturesque dress and their sav 
 age beauty with something more than the interest of a 
 painter. To him they were but a counterpart of the people 
 with whom he had spent most of his life. They were to him 
 in some sense brothers men who knew not civilization or 
 its sins, men who live close to the earth, women who blos 
 somed down in the lowliest fields, and he felt that he loved 
 them with all of a brother s affection. 
 
 The moon kept climbing and climbing, and peering in and 
 peeping over, till it looked right straight down on the group 
 of gathered worshippers kneeling under the shadow of the 
 great black cross, and made a picture that any man might 
 remember, carry with him around the world, hang on the 
 walls of his heart, and wear it there ! and though fire and 
 flood might sweep away all that he possessed in the world, 
 still that picture should remain and rest and refresh its 
 possessor whenever he chose to open his heart and look in 
 again.
 
 A Scene in the Coliseum. 105 
 
 Higher and higher the moon climbed up, till her great 
 round face reached high over the wall, and she seemed to 
 reach and lean and look and peer as if for something back in 
 the shadow that she could not see. Higher and higher she 
 climbed, and looked and leaned and reached her face above 
 and over the walls, and down as if she would twist her neck 
 from her shoulders. Up ! up ! up ! over the wall and down. 
 And then she saw her ! and then she touched her with her 
 fingers, and the lady rose up and came forth into the full 
 light, and moved in silence on towards the cross, with her 
 head held down in her hands, her maid following after, and a 
 man back yonder in the corner of the Coliseum with his 
 enormous chin just visible in a bar of moonlight that fell 
 through a rent in the eternal wall. A little slender man 
 stood beside him a shadow, an echo. 
 
 Marietta started. lie stepped back into the shadow of the 
 wall, and the beautiful Countess went on, slowly on, with her 
 hands to her bended face, towards the cross and the suppli 
 cants before it. This woman did seem so beautiful, she 
 seemed so sad, so weirdly beautiful and pitiful the scene 
 was so strange, so inspiring, so full of soul and sentiment, so 
 complete that Murietta leaned against a jutting spur of the 
 wall and grew tranquil from the greatness and solemnity and 
 fulness of the occasion. 
 
 He heard a sob as the woman passed, and in the moonlight 
 streaming full on her face he saw something glistening like 
 diamonds from her fingers. She was weeping as if her heart 
 would break. 
 
 The big man came out from the shadow, and the little man 
 came also, and they stood there scowling on the scene before 
 them. 
 
 " Come ! enough of this nonsense to-night." 
 
 O O 
 
 The man with the big chin had tried to say this in a sub 
 dued voice, but the roar of the lion was only subdued to a 
 growl, and his voice sounded as if it had been that of a lion
 
 io6 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 of old lying there, waiting for the blood of a Christian, 
 growling that he had been kept waiting a moment for his 
 prey and the peasants trembled. 
 
 " Come ! enough of this nonsense to-night," said the echo. 
 But the CoTint spoke in a kinder tone, a sort of softened echo, 
 and he even lifted his hat as he spoke. The admiral frowned, 
 and then the count took down his hand, and tried to frown 
 also and look terrible. 
 
 " Come ! Come away from among these beasts ; you ll 
 get fleas on you." 
 
 The peasants, startled, huddled together a moment, prayed 
 devoutly, and then began to rise and resume their loads. 
 
 " Come away, will you ? You ll get fleas on you," said 
 the little count, and the countess, also startled by the terrible 
 voice, rose up, turned her face from the men without answer 
 ing or even looking in their direction, and walked rapidly, 
 with her head down and her face half concealed, towards the 
 eastern portal. 
 
 " That s the way to do it," growled the admiral to the 
 count, as the two followed after her. 
 
 " That s the way to do it, I suppose," said the count, and 
 they followed the countess through the archway, and the 
 three were gone. 
 
 Murietta was full of emotion. Here was something to do 
 better than go to battle. Here was a woman certainly suffer 
 ing, certainly being persecuted to death ; a sort of dreamer 
 possibly who had not any experience, and who, perhaps, 
 knew not how to proceed to extricate herself from the toils 
 that held her in prison. 
 
 All of the best part of Marietta s nature was being aroused 
 again. 
 
 Here is a man to be punished a woman to be avenged ! 
 But how ? What will be the result ? The result ! He 
 laughed at himself, and began to despise himself that he could 
 stop to ask the result or weigh the danger when a lady needed
 
 A Scene in the Coliseum. 107 
 
 his help. He walked on out, mechanically following the 
 long line of peasants on their way to market. 
 
 All roads lead to Rome. The carriage drove off in ad 
 vance ; the peasants followed, and then Murietta came on 
 slowly after. He stopped as he came up to the Arch of 
 Titus. There was an old woman on the left under the 
 shadow of the arch, reaching a little tin cup with a few cen 
 times in it, and calling out, " Blind ! blind ! blind ! " 
 
 He stopped, after stepping up close to her with some pence 
 in his hand, and stepped back. There was an old man on the 
 other side of the arch who seemed not only to have his eyes, 
 but to be very comfortable as well as something of a mer 
 chant, who had roasted chestnuts and apples and almonds 
 for sale. 
 
 Murietta turned and gave this man the pennies, and passed 
 on almost cursing the wretched old woman with the tin box. 
 
 " No, no, no ! I loved her in a grand proud way. I did 
 not persecute her. I stood far off content to know that she 
 lived and was happy. I did not even speak to her. I scat 
 tered roses in her path. And what came of it ? " 
 
 He set his teeth together as he said this, and set his face 
 and heart against woman.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 AN INTERLUDE. 
 
 HE curtain rose in a little 
 square down in old Rome not 
 a great way from the Tiber. 
 There was a fountain playing 
 there in the centre of the 
 piazza. A great bright foun 
 tain it was, spouting up and 
 spilling down in a grand gran 
 ite sarcophagus big enough tc 
 make a bedroom. 
 
 The pretty girls, like pictures, 
 were coining and going here with 
 their pitchers of water; and gay 
 young men were leaning about over 
 the iron rails around the fountain, 
 and bantering the pretty brown 
 girls, who, as they laughed, showed the whitest teeth to be 
 found anywhere in the world. 
 
 Here a merchant trundled a barrow, and there an old 
 woman bore a basket of fruits or nuts upon her head. Two 
 men were gambling over yonder in a corner of the stage 
 with its great palace for a background, and throwing out 
 their hands and guessing the number of fingers that would 
 
 KJ
 
 An Inter hide. 100 
 
 be opened in the outstretched hand. They were just a little 
 noisy, and as drunk as ever you see a Roman. 
 
 The peasants from the mountains, Avhom we have seen 
 in the Coliseum, enter in a long line, bending under their 
 heavy loads and the fatigue of their long journey. 
 
 An old peasant leads the party. He has been here before ; 
 and, with a dagger but half concealed in his belt and another 
 in the thongs of his sandal, feels that by the divine interpo 
 sition of the Holy Yirgin, and the help of these two weap 
 ons, he will be able to get through his marketing and get out 
 of Rome alive. 
 
 They are again grouped together here, and do not look 
 unlike the time they knelt before the cross. It is growing 
 late ; yet in these beautiful autumn nights business as well 
 as pleasure holds long reaches towards the to-morrow. 
 
 Other actors come around this group, and they begin to 
 nibble, to bite a little, to run back, come again, dart off, throw 
 np their hands, make speeches, shout, thunder, curse, run away 
 swearing to never come back or buy a single thing of these 
 brigands from the mountains, and then the same moment turn 
 on the heel, come back, throw down the money, take up the 
 article and so disappear. 
 
 " How much for these poor little lean fowls ? " 
 
 " These fat, plump young spring chickens are worth two 
 francs apiece." 
 
 " Maria ! Maria ! Holy Mother ! Rome is full of 
 chickens. Rome is eaten up with chickens. Rome is ruined 
 with chickens at half that price. In fact, signor, in confidence 
 I will tell you, the Syndicate is about to pass a law forbid 
 ding chickens to be brought into Rome at all. They breed 
 the cholera the cholera, signor ! And when they pass that 
 law, what then will you do with your poor, lean, little, half- 
 sick, hungry chickens ? tell me that ! " 
 
 " Then since you are so kind as to tell me all this, take 
 them for one franc and a half."
 
 no The One Fair Woman. 
 
 " One franc and a half 1 " Again the hands go up. This 
 excellent actor stands on one leg, he turns round like a top, 
 he looks right and left, sighs pathetically at the old man from 
 the mountains, and bids him good-night. 
 
 " But what will you give, signor merchant ? " 
 
 " Give ? Give ? What will I give ? Signor, I do not 
 want your chickens. I should be ruined if I bought a single 
 chicken. I should starve. I could not eat your chickens 
 your chickens would eat me ! Ha, ha ! Your chickens 
 would eat me ! But listen " and here the splendid actor 
 bows low, looks sharp around him, as if to be sure that no one 
 hears " I will give you half a franc, since it is you, and be 
 come a bankrupt ! " 
 
 " They are yours." 
 
 And now that the business is done the men part. The 
 two actors have played earnestly and well ; and now they give 
 way to others on the boards. 
 
 " The mutton, I tell you, is spoilt. I will have you ar 
 rested I will have you thrown in prison the prison of the 
 Capitoline where St. Paul was kept and where Jugurtha per 
 ished for bringing spoilt meat into the city." 
 
 " Spoilt, signor? Spoilt ! I killed this mutton at noon." 
 
 " At noon yesterday ? " 
 
 " No ; to-morrow ! " 
 
 " Five soldi ! " And five fingers go straight up, and the 
 man tiptoes with excitement. 
 
 " Ten ! " And the other actor springs to his feet, and 
 throws both hands in the air. 
 
 " Six ! " 
 
 " Nine ! " 
 
 " Seven ! " 
 
 "Eight!" 
 
 "Seven and a half!" 
 
 " It is yours ; take it and be satisfied." 
 
 The merchant shoulders his leg of mutton and leaves the
 
 An Interlude. in 
 
 stage, looking back, walking sideways, stepping high, bowing 
 as if in acknowledgment of the applause. 
 
 " And what will the little old woman take for her little 
 old pig ? " 
 
 " This plump little pig which I have brought to market to 
 day is my heart s blood ! It is a late spring pig, three months 
 old, and fat as a chestnut." 
 
 The merchant took the pig in his hands, inspected it, and 
 shook his head. 
 
 " Very sorry but that is a valley pig ! You mountain 
 people steal from the valley people. You stole that pig, 
 mother? You stole that pig, and I have a mind to turn you 
 over to that captain of the police ! " 
 
 "Stole that pig? The Holy Mother! Stole my dear 
 little, darling pig ! Ah, signer, signor ! how could you say 
 so ? Why, I have had that pig in my house, signor, in my 
 own -house for years and years ! " 
 
 This accomplished actor failed in fighting the old woman, 
 and strange as it may seem, paid her her price ; and the 
 peasants having sold their wares and fruits and meats, gather 
 up their wares in their baskets, load up as they pass down 
 the stage with such things as they need in their wild and 
 simple homes, and prepare to pass out of the gates of Rome 
 by midnight ; for they will not consent to sleep within the 
 walls of the sinful city. 
 
 There a man has strung a dozen loaves of bread on a string 
 and swung this around him, and stands in the most graceful 
 pose, throwing back his black hair, as he stands there wait 
 ing for his companions. 
 
 There a woman has taken a great bar of iron on her head. 
 It is enough to load a mule. It is from the mines of Eng 
 land, and will be borne on this woman s head to the tops of 
 the Apennines, and there made by some cunning hands into 
 knives and scissors and shears, and all things that these sim-
 
 112 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 pie people "want, for they will not buy such things from the 
 Romans. 
 
 Looking-glasses, beads, gay colored shawls, scarfs, handker 
 chiefs all these are flowing, folding, falling about the heads, 
 shoulders, waists, of the happy mountain peasants as they 
 stand there in line, waiting till their full force is ready to 
 move, so that not one of their number may be left behind to 
 fall into the hands of the terrible Romans. 
 
 There is an organ-grinder with a piano on a wheelbarrow, 
 playing over yonder, and down in that crowd some man in 
 white clothes and in a Panama hat, with an instrument under 
 his arm, is picking the strings and singing the most villan- 
 ous Spanish song you ever heard. 
 
 The line moves on ; the orchestra plays ; the curtain falls ; 
 and the play in Rome is over for to-night.
 
 CHAPTER XIY. 
 
 AN INNOCENT DUEL. 
 
 TJRIETTA arose at mid-day, 
 still worn from travel and wear- 
 ried in mind from the excite 
 ment of the scene at the Coli 
 seum the evening before. 
 
 As he dressed, he began to 
 ask himself if he really wished 
 to leave Rome, and again enter 
 the arena of war. He found 
 that he did not. 
 
 "And is it because the count 
 ess is here ? " He looked 
 honestly and earnestly in his 
 heart, and then answered him 
 self, " No, it is not because 
 the countess is here. I am perfectly cer 
 tain of that." 
 
 " And then is it because Annette is 
 not here ? " 
 
 He snapped his fingers for a sort of 
 defiant negative ; took up his hat, and sauntered out into the 
 heart of Rome. 
 
 There is something singularly relaxing in the atmosphere 
 here. For the first day you are all excitement. You lie 
 down to sleep. You sleep and sleep and sleep as if you 
 never would awaken ; and then when you do waken, you 
 only do it in half. You seem to be never thoroughly awake in. 
 Rome. So it was with Murietta this morning. He looked
 
 ^ 
 
 114 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 over the fields of action, remembered perfectly well what had 
 been his plans the day before, and wondered why he was now 
 so dull and indifferent. He began to despise himself. 
 
 This man s nature was contradictory. That is, he was not 
 always alike by a great deal. To-day he was all impetuosity 
 all passion ; to-morrow he might be all repose, all peace. 
 
 He was as sudden and stormy at times as a mountain flood 
 of Mexico ; he also was as suddenly exhausted. To-day the 
 tide was out, the Hood had exhausted its force, and the man 
 was dull and indifferent in body and in mind. 
 
 Still he resolved to go on to Spain, and plunge into the 
 war, as he had first proposed on leaving Naples. He tried to 
 laugh at the enigmatical position of the Countess Edna, and 
 by so doing come to despise her. The remembrance of her 
 pitiful face brought tears to his eyes. 
 
 Then he recalled the scorn of the lady on the pier of St. 
 Paul by the sea at Naples. After all, did she really know 
 him ? he asked himself. Might it not have been that she 
 took him for one of the thousand tourists met at every turn, 
 a stranger ? 
 
 Then he laughed to himself and thought, " No, no ; what 
 ever others may do I will not cheat myself." 
 
 He quickened his pace, and soon stood before a dingy old 
 palace, bearing above its portal the banner and arms of Spain. 
 
 The porter limped upstairs, bowing all the time and looking 
 back and showing his teeth in the friendliest fashion to Muri- 
 etta, for besides the card he bore also a little five-franc note. 
 
 The porter limped down, like a robin of a frosty morning, 
 on one leg, and Murietta went up. 
 
 The secretary of legation received him in that most obse 
 quious manner peculiar to all men in subordinate positions 
 in the Latin countries. He would scarcely be seated in his 
 presence. 
 
 " But I wish to see his excellency the Minister of Spain to 
 the Court of Italy."
 
 An Innocent Duel. 115 
 
 " But his excellency his excellency is not is not 
 Really, Signor Murietta, it is but twelve o clock." 
 
 " And at what time can I hope to have my card sent to his 
 excellency ? " 
 
 " Well, really, we rise early here in Rome. At home you 
 know we rise at two ; here his excellency kindly sacrifices 
 himself to the cares of office and the fortunes of his country, 
 and may be seen as early as one o clock." 
 
 The polite clerk bowed as he said this bowed very low 
 and very profcmndly, and shut his eyes and held his breath 
 at the very mention of such a sacrifice on the part of a high 
 born Spaniard. The secretary was perfectly certain that this 
 was the liveliest Spaniard and the widest awake Spaniard in 
 all Europe. 
 
 " I will wait," said Murietta, at last, and began to roll a 
 cigarette. 
 
 " Good, good, that is best ; you are the first here ; you will 
 certainly be the first to see his excellency by right of priority 
 to say nothing of your name." 
 
 Murietta bowed. The secretary rolled a cigarette, lighted 
 it, put it in his mouth, and blew it out in smoke through 
 his nose ; as if his nose was a sort of a double-barrelled 
 shot-gun to be loaded up with paper and discharged with 
 smoke. 
 
 Then there was a silence. Through the smoke Murietta 
 saw that the coat of the kind secretary was literally thread 
 bare. The furniture was so poor it was reduced in many 
 cases to perfect skeletons. There was a sofa standing on three 
 legs like a poor broken-down horse. It looked as if it had 
 been led and was standing before the door of the soap 
 factory, waiting to be knocked on the head and cut into 
 chunks, and boiled into jelly and converted into cakes of first- 
 class fashionable Windsor soap. The curtains were of another 
 century. The carpet looked as if it had been marched over 
 by the iron feet of Time for a thousand years. The secretary
 
 n6 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 was indeed very poor ; therefore he tried hard to be very 
 agreeable. 
 
 He loaded his mouth with paper again, touched a match 
 to the fuse, and turning round toward Murietta tired his 
 double-barrelled shot-gun right at his breast. Murietta too 
 had loaded up, and elevating his nose gave the secretary as 
 good as he had sent. Then they both loaded up again ; and 
 the innocent duel went on till the dusty old clock began 
 to point toward the time when his excellency would allow a 
 card to be sent into his presence. 
 
 " Rome is filling up rapidly," observed the secretary. 
 
 " Ah ! " 
 
 " Yes, yes. Rome, you see, is a great bowl a great basin. 
 Rome is set out here like a tub under the great heavens. 
 Well, it rains ; and Rome fills up. No ? You do not catch 
 my figure ? Well, look here. Rome has a great wall, a great 
 round wall ; that wall suggests the rim of a basin or bowl. 
 Good. Now it rains ; that is, you people, you travellers, you 
 pour into Rome. You rain down upon us. Ha ! ha ! You. 
 fill us up like a flood. Ha ! ha ! Now you understand ? You 
 see " and here the secretary bowed over toward the artist 
 as if about to tell a great secret " you see I have written 
 novels. I owe, in fact and in confidence, I owe my position 
 here, as secretary of legation of the of the of of Spain ! 
 to the fact that I was once a novelist well, men who 
 write novels fall into the habit of using these figures, and 
 and you will pardon me." 
 
 A profound bow, and then a silence. Then the guns were 
 loaded, fired ; and still his excellency did not appear. 
 
 " Spain certainly is not in need of my help, if her minister 
 has so much time for repose," mused Murietta, and he began 
 to be terribly bored. 
 
 " Yes, Rome is filling up. You can go out I go out of a 
 morning, and I put my finger on the rim of the basin that 
 is, the wall and I say, She filled up that much last night.
 
 An Innocent Duel. 117 
 
 Then I walk down the Corso, and I note the density of the 
 crowd there, and I say, Ah, how it did rain yesterday and 
 all last night ! I go up to the basin s rim, and I reach my 
 hand, and I say, It is so high. Ha ! ha ! Home will soon 
 be full up to the top of the basin s rim, and then she will 
 pour over and spill out, and people will flow on in a sort of 
 river to Egypt and on to Palestine. And so it goes on, and 
 so it will continue to go on for years, centuries, long after 
 you and I have gone the great, great journey." 
 
 The secretary stopped, wiped his eyes, and waited for the 
 artist to answer. But Murietta meant business rather than 
 sentiment, and he sat silent, still waiting for the great 
 minister. 
 
 " But the great balls, receptions, court, and all that, do not 
 commence just yet they will not until the princess and the 
 belle of the city, Miss Annette B., return from Naples." 
 
 The kind secretary sprang up in alarm. If he had struck 
 the artist in the face, he could not have startled him more 
 than he did by the mention of this name. But it was only 
 momentary. 
 
 " Pray pardon me, I am nervous this morning. Worn 
 from travel and not strong, never strong now, and and Yes, 
 yes. I have seen this lady, Miss Annette B. , but do not know 
 her. I do not know her at all. She does not know me. 
 Does she then live in Rome ? " 
 
 The kind-hearted secretary and the novelist sat down, and 
 bowing again, began to roil another cigarette, preparatory to 
 telling all he knew of Miss Annette B. 
 
 "Yes oh yes, the lady lives in Rome. You go up the 
 Corso towards the Capitoline. Near the farther end you 
 come upon great palaces, the finest old palaces in all Rome. 
 Well, on the left hand, just before you come to the palace of 
 the Cardinal Bonaparte which is on the right you will 
 see, opening from the Corso, a pretty court. This court 
 is a sort of drive, a place where you turn your carriage or
 
 n8 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 your horses, show off the points of your courser as your lady 
 leans from the marble balcony, and from a safe distance laughs 
 and calls back little replies. Well, this court is set all 
 around with bushes, briars, lilies, roses, in season and out of 
 season. It is a sort of paradise. You can see it from the 
 Corso any time you pass that is, any time between twelve 
 and twelve, when the great gates are not shut. Yes, a sort 
 of paradise, and there lives the one fair woman of Rome." 
 
 " The one fair woman of the world," sighed the artist, for 
 now he saw how immeasurably she was above him and how 
 hopeless was his love. 
 
 " Rome would not be Rome without her," continued the 
 secretary. 
 
 " The world would not be the world without her," thought 
 Murietta, and yet he was perfectly certain that he hated her. 
 
 "Ah !" thought he, "if she had only proved to be poor. 
 If she had only been an artist, an artist s daughter, a sol 
 dier s daughter anything ! had her life led upon any ground 
 at all where our souls might meet with understanding, then 
 it had been better for me, and I should have hoped. Now I 
 am perfectly certain she knew me. Her companions are 
 princesses ; her home is a palace. I shall never see her any 
 more. Curse that indolent minister ! " 
 
 The secretary loaded up again, Murietta did the same, and 
 the double-barrelled guns were fired right in each other s 
 faces, but at a good distance, and the duel did no further 
 harm than giving the room the appearance of having inhaled 
 a breath of London fog. 
 
 " Then she is an Italian ? " 
 
 " Bless me, no." 
 
 " Ah, I remember now you told me Spanish ? " 
 
 " Spanish ? I told you no such thing. I only wish she 
 was. She would be an honor even to his excellency the 
 Minister of Spain." Here the secretary bowed profoundly 
 again, again shut his eyes, and again caught his breath.
 
 An Innocent Duel. 119 
 
 " Then she is " 
 
 " American." 
 
 " No ? " 
 
 " Ah, but she is, and the rarest of the race. You find her 
 name, or the name of her family, in every decade of the 
 country s history for centuries back. And, do you know, she 
 herself is not without a history ? " 
 
 Murietta rolled a cigarette, put it to his lips, touched 
 a match, and shot it through his nose in a single breath. He 
 twisted up another in an instant, put it between his teeth, 
 touched it off, and blew out a hurricane of smoke before him. 
 From behind this barricade, which hung there as a sort of 
 defence against whatever arrows the good secretary might in 
 nocently aim at his breast, he said : 
 
 " Tell me tell me all you know." 
 
 " Well, as to that, I know but little, save the fact that she 
 has a history. This history mind you, I did not say I knew 
 her history ; I only said she had a history. That is all I 
 know that is all, perhaps, that the secretary of the Spanish 
 Legation has a right to know." 
 
 And here the cautious novelist looked up at the clock, rose 
 hastily, pulled at a bell till he pulled a small boy in lace and 
 buttons into his presence, handed a card to the small boy in 
 lace and buttons, and went on 
 
 " She has herself been in battle time and again." 
 
 Murietta half rose out of his chair. 
 
 " Yes, it is said that on one great occasion she saved a 
 great battle to her section of the sundered country, and won 
 the love and eternal admiration of all the State." 
 
 " Ah, then, there is blood in her veins there is fire in her 
 blood there is " 
 
 The minister entered with a cigarette in full smoke. He 
 was a small, fat man, and moved slowly and with a great 
 deal of importance. He puffed away like a little steamboat
 
 I2O The One Fair Woman. 
 
 against a hard stream, and fairly blew sparks from his smoke 
 stack as he pulled and putted at his cigarette. 
 
 " Yes, Signor Marietta shall have letters to my friend the 
 comandante at Barcelona. He is my very dear friend, and 
 will do all he can for you. Mr. Secretary, you will draw up 
 letters to my friend." 
 
 The minister filled a chair, after first examining its legs, 
 and back, and arms. He shut his eyes, rested, reflected, 
 rolled a cigarette, looked up to the ceiling, and went on 
 
 " But, you see, you cannot get into Barcelona now. Be 
 sides, you must be prepared not to find my friend in com 
 mand. The truth is, the Government is very active, and it 
 removes its leaders every few days. They want new blood, 
 you see. No, you cannot get into Barcelona now. You had 
 better go to Madrid at once. I have sent a great many gentle 
 men to Madrid." 
 
 " And what can I do at Madrid ? " 
 
 " What can you do ? Why, wait, as the others do. As 
 fast as the officers are killed off, vacancies occur. You sit 
 down there ; you wait your turn. If the war keeps on, in a 
 few years, at furthest, you will find yourself at the head of 
 your regiment." 
 
 " I prefer to go to Barcelona. When can I have my 
 letters ? " 
 
 " Oh, in a week at furthest ; and if you are in great haste 
 to depart, my secretary can have them placed in your hands 
 within a day or two." 
 
 Murietta bowed before this little man, this decrepit repre- 
 sentative of a decrepit government in the decrepit chair, and 
 shaking the hand of the secretary, went out perfectly certain 
 that he had no business in Spain.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 DOWN THE TIBER. 
 
 HY he went straight to 
 the Corso and took that 
 end of it leading towards 
 the Capitoline, Murietta 
 would not even have con 
 fessed to himself. 
 
 He soon came to the 
 great palaces, passed on 
 up the street among the 
 crowds of people saunter 
 ing along in the middle of the street, 
 as in all Italian towns, without regard 
 to the pavement, and perfectly fear 
 less of the slow coaches and carriages 
 that moved good naturedly through 
 the crowd, and saw the open court 
 leading into the great palace, as described bythe secretary. 
 
 He lifted his hat, walked on past, turned on his heel, 
 walked back again, again lifted his hat, crossed the street, 
 stood there, looked a long time at the imposing palace, and 
 then walked on towards the Capitoline. 
 
 " It is utterly impossible. Not only that, but it is fatal 
 
 to entertain the thought of such a thing. I am tired. I 
 
 have worked, and fought, and travelled, and done much for 
 
 others little for myself. I will sit down and rest. I will 
 
 6
 
 122 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 step aside, let the world go by, and watch its actions. Doing 
 nothing myself, bearing no part in the play, no interest in it, 
 no care further than to be amused, I will laugh at its mis 
 takes, and mock at its calamities." 
 
 So mused Murietta as he walked on toward the Capito- 
 line. He went there as a wild beast would have gone under 
 the same circumstances. 
 
 Turn a herd of wild cattle into a field ; they all run at 
 once, bellowing, to the highest part of the field, to take a 
 look at their surroundings. A wild deer in a park, antelope, 
 and all such, will do precisely the same thing. A bear will 
 climb the stoutest tree. A Avolf will sit down on the highest 
 place he can find, and howl all night. 
 
 At the base of the broad step you will see, to the right, 
 and in fact almost at your shoulder, for it is mounted on the 
 end of the balustrade, a tiger in blue marble. Mount these 
 steps, crossing to the other side, and you will find there the 
 little she-wolf, a harmless kind of coyote, no bigger than a 
 sheep-dog, and quite as innocent. It is the wonder of the 
 dozens of little boys forever climbing up and leaning over 
 the balustrade. It is under the eye of a handsome police 
 man, with a sword by his side, mounted by a bronze figure 
 of the she-wolf of old and her twins, and in a cocked hat 
 with a perfect storm of red cock s feathers, and it is kept at 
 the city s expense. 
 
 There are the mighty marble figures of Castor and Pollux, 
 found after a thousand years, broken up and in bits, beneath 
 a ruined palace. They are looking straight down upon the 
 she-wolf, and stand beside their great marble horses in line 
 with " him who first showed his imperial successors the road 
 to heaven." There is the imiseum to the left, where the 
 " Dying Gladiator " and the hideous old brass wolf 
 
 " The thunder- stricken nurse of Rome," 
 are kept, and from that high balcony overlooking all Home,
 
 Down the Tiber. 123 
 
 the new king proclaimed his presence and authority to the 
 people of Rome. 
 
 A mighty mounted figure in bronze, Marcus Aurelius, long 
 thought to be Constantino, stands in the centre of the stony 
 square that tops the Capitoline, and a fountain pours from a 
 group of grand and imposing marbles to the left. 
 
 Marietta passed these, climbed the steps to the right, passed 
 under a high arch, through a long passage into a narrow, 
 dirty street, read the sign which some enterprising speculator 
 had put up at the entrance to a garden : 
 
 " This is the entrance to the Tarpeian JRocJc." 
 
 and passed on down a flight of steps to a narrow street run 
 ning along the side of a steep hill. 
 
 A pretty Roman woman was standing on the steps, with a 
 little boy in a cap which showed that he belonged to the new 
 schools established by the Government. The woman had a 
 pleasant face. The boy was perfectly beautiful. There was 
 a sign over the door. 
 
 " You have apartments to let ? " 
 
 "Yes, signor." 
 
 " Can I see them ? " 
 
 The woman lifted her brows a little. No doubt she was 
 thinking, " This man has committed a crime and wishes to 
 hide. What else could bring him to this part of the town ? " 
 
 Then she said 
 
 " Will you so honor me ? " 
 
 And leading the way she climbed two flights of stairs, 
 pushed open a door, passed into a little hall with a fine view of 
 St. Peter s and Monte Mario from the window, to the north, 
 and then opening a door to the south side of the hall, bade 
 the artist enter. 
 
 A brick floor, the least bit of crazy furniture. It was a 
 cell. There was a bedroom adjoining. A little iron bed 
 stead, a stand, a chair, a rush mat to protect the feet from
 
 124 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 the dusty bricks as you got in and out of bed, and that 
 was all. 
 
 While they talked of the views from the windows, the 
 fine air, and all that, a sister came and stood by the side of 
 the pretty matronly Roman woman. Then as they talked of 
 bed and board, another sister came and stood in the room. 
 Then he asked the price. As he did so, another pretty Roman 
 givl, with curls all about her face, came in, and stood and 
 looked in silence with her great chestnut eyes on the stran 
 ger. 
 
 This charmed him. This would not be a cheerless home 
 at all. He could buy carpets and get a heater for the rooms, 
 and from this lofty look-out watch the world go by, and laugh 
 when he could and weep when he must. 
 
 He counted down the fifty francs for a month, and was per 
 fectly content. The pretty girls began to arrange the rooms 
 as he directed, and to laugh like so many fountains as they 
 moved about. 
 
 Returning to his hotel, he was aboiit to enter a cab to re 
 turn to his lodgings, when the formidable woman, the special 
 correspondent in gold spectacles, stretched out her bony arm 
 as a sort of barrier. 
 
 " And you are going ? " 
 
 "Going." 
 
 " Where, where ? The world, papers I represent, will 
 wish to know where." 
 
 Down the Tiber." 
 
 " Ah, down the Tiber, down the Tiber. Now we shall 
 have some famous pictures to be called Views on the Tiber. 
 Am I not correct ? Yes, yes, I will so state it in my next." 
 
 And as Murietta climbed into the cab she whipped out a 
 note-book, scribbled a second, and then, as fearing he would 
 escape, threw out the long arm again, clutched his leg, and 
 held him fast. 
 
 " You will not forget my plan for shipping pictures to
 
 Down the Tiber. 125 
 
 America. My plan is, you remember, to establish a regular 
 line of ships for taking pictures regularly every month from 
 Rome to the States. That will give room for our American 
 artists to work. That will encourage them. It will encour 
 age you, will it not ? Only fancy, a ship-load of pictures every 
 month ! That will keep at least half of the American artists 
 in steady work. Think of it, think of it ! It is a great 
 humanitarian movement. A thought, it is, worthy of your 
 self. In fact, in my next I shall so state it. That will give 
 it more weight ; perhaps that will get the matter before Con 
 gress get a subsidy in fact, make a fortune. Think of it, 
 think of it ! It will pay ; I tell you it will pay. Besides 
 the pictures we would ship statuary. The statuary would 
 serve for ballast to the ship. We could ballast every ship 
 with statuary by American artists. That would also give 
 room for, and employment to, the American sculptors. Think 
 of it, think of it ! It is valuable, worthy of your co-opera 
 tion. It will pay, it will pay. Pictures and marble, mar 
 ble and pictures, by the ship-load." 
 
 The fearful woman here whipped out her note-book again, 
 and began to write. The little actor on the box, who had 
 seen all this and understood, though he did not understand 
 a word, now let off his double string of fire-crackers, and 
 while the fearful woman clutched after Murietta and still 
 called out that it would " pay," he drove frooi under the 
 shadow of the " Angleterre," and into the Via Montenare 
 by the ancient Theatre of Marcellus. Here Murietta handed 
 his actor with the fire-crackers a franc, gave his trunk into 
 the hands of a man who sat there mending chairs, and, 
 mounting the rough steps that led up under the shadow of 
 the Tarpeian Rock, was soon inside his cell, looking down at 
 the world, watching it, and trying to laugh. 
 
 He fell to thinking -in spite of himself, and when the pretty 
 Roman girl brought him his tea, and only roused him by 
 touching his shoulder and telling him his toast would get
 
 126 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 cold, he rose up in a sort of stupor. He went to the window, 
 looked out on the Theatre of Maroellus, up and away across 
 the Tiber to the dome of St. Peter s, then turned to the 
 pretty girl, and, remembering that he had come there to be 
 cheerful, tried to laugh. The pretty Roman girl shook her head, 
 opened her eyes very wide, looked at the artist sideways, and 
 then went out. 
 
 The four sisters grouped their pretty heads together and 
 shook their curls doubtingly, for the prettiest one had told 
 them that when the man laughed there were tears in his eyes.
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 PEOPLE OF THE CAMPAGNA. 
 
 much Murietta professed 
 to like his tower on or rather under 
 the Tarpeian Rock, and however 
 much he tried to persuade himself 
 that it was just what he wanted and 
 that he was just where he ought to 
 Le, and that he was, finally, very 
 philosophic and perfectly happy, he 
 certainly was very miserable. 
 
 Gaze as he would from his window 
 out on the fresh green trees that 
 topped the Palatine Hill just visible 
 over the lower end of the Capitoline, he kept 
 all the time thinking of her. Do what he 
 might, turn where he would through the 
 labyrinths of old Rome where the Jews had 
 been penned up for a thousand years, and 
 where Time had sat down in a hopeless siege before old tufa- 
 built battlements he all the time saw that one woman, and 
 thought of her and only her. He had thought of her all his 
 life. But then he had thought of her with hope. Now it 
 was only with despair. 
 
 Plow different all things seemed ! 
 
 Hope is day. All life, all things, glitter in the sun ; and
 
 128 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 the world goes by as to the march of music. When Hope 
 lies down and dies, then it is night. You cannot move ; you 
 cannot see. You want to curse, and die too. 
 
 Yet this man was not altogether a child in his weakness. 
 He made strong efforts to rally. Like an old Greek thrown 
 down in battle, he would still fight, still endeavor to rise, to 
 throw off the weight that was crushing him, and go on 
 to the end, if only to see what that end might be. He would 
 wait for the to-morrows as they should come filing by in line 
 one after the other, if only to see what they had to give. 
 
 He had the two little cells carpeted, and this gave them a 
 more cheerful face. There was no stove, uo fireplace ; what 
 was to be done ? 
 
 He spoke to the pretty padrona. 
 
 "Ah no; there are no stoves or fireplaces in all this part 
 of Rome." 
 
 " But what am I to do for a fire? the nights begin to 
 grow chill ? " 
 
 " I will show you." 
 
 She tripped out under her great folds of rich black hair, 
 and brought in a little earthen pot with a handle bent over 
 the top like a flower-basket, and held it up warm and glowing 
 witli its little handful of burning charcoal. 
 
 " There ! that is the Roman fireplace. See here ! " She 
 stepped to the bed-room, threw back the blankets, parted the 
 sheets, and ran the smooth, glazed bottom of the little basket 
 of burning coal over the sheets. 
 
 She held it up again. " See ! Here we set the tea-pot ; 
 there we boil o\ir kettle ; here we broil the meat ; here we 
 warm our hands. This is fireplace, parlour-stove, cook-stove, 
 and warming-pan." 
 
 She held the little basket of fire up admiringly, and then 
 handed it to Murietta, who set it down in the middle of his 
 little parlour, and soon felt the room grow warm and comfort 
 able. The pretty Roman women looked in through the half-
 
 People of the Campagjia. 129 
 
 opened door, as lie sat tliere warming his hands and won 
 dering at this primitive contrivance, and laughed. Not 
 knowing what else to do, Marietta laughed also. 
 
 " What a singular man ! " thought the little head as it 
 moved away under the great folds of midnight hair. And 
 then she tripped away downstairs singing an opera as she 
 went. 
 
 There was a gentle tap at the bed-room door at ten in the 
 morning. 
 
 " Avanti ! " 
 
 The door pushed open ; a pretty little Roman woman en 
 tered with a little tray held high up, as it is always held in 
 Italy ; and she bowed and smiled and blushed, and then 
 laughed like a school-girl. 
 
 There was a little steaming pot of tea, a roll of bread, and 
 a little platter of butter. She wheeled up a little stand by 
 the bedside, set her tray there, and all the time talking in a 
 light laughing way, she seemed to fill the whole house with, 
 sunshine. 
 
 Murietta was delighted ; he rose up like a bolstered inva 
 lid, poured out the steaming tea, broke bread, and as the 
 laughing little woman stood by under her storm of black hair, 
 he said, "Dolce far niente" and laughed also. 
 
 And then he looked at this woman s dress, this pretty 
 woman who stood by his bedside waiting to serve him, or 
 rather he looked at her want of dress, and was amazed. 
 Her shoulders were bare almost to anywhere. She was 
 hardly dressed at all. The dress across her bosom reached 
 and tiptoed and tried hard to get up and hide her beauty, 
 but in vain. The truth is, she was dressed almost as scan 
 tily as a belle at a fashionable ball-room. And yet she did 
 not blush or seem ashamed. 
 
 <c Ah yes, she had been to church, to mass ; they had all 
 been to church. They never missed going to church on the 
 Sunday. And this was Sunday."
 
 130 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 The artist rose at last, dressed, and went down the crooked 
 lane and down the crazy stone steps with grass springing up 
 all along between the kerbs. He came to the Yia Monteuare. 
 What a crowd of people ! And such people ! They were wild 
 as Indians. They were clad in sheepskins and blue woollen 
 clothes spun and woven or the primitive looms that were in 
 use ere Rome had a name or a place on the Palatine. 
 
 The tight blue breeches of the men reached down to the 
 knee. There they were met by long hose wound and 
 bound tight as drums by cords and thongs that showed 
 the muscle to a fine advantage. The feet were bound 
 in sandals made of the buffalo skin. The hair hung long 
 and bushy down the back or about the shoulders, and the 
 head was covered by a tall bell-crowned hat, Avith braid, 
 black, and ornamented by at least one feather. This hat 
 always sat jauntily on the side of the head, and you felt cer 
 tain that the man had just come upon the boards before you, 
 and you always kept expecting him to begin to say his piece. 
 There was always a long large cloak in the possession of each 
 of these wild actors, but you could never see them wear them. 
 They were generally hung over the left shoulder, sometimes 
 out on the arm as a soldier wears a shield. It is safe to say 
 that nine hundred and ninety-nine in any thousand of these 
 men had a knife up his sleeve or down his leg. 
 
 What a splendid set of savages they were to be sure ! 
 
 Tall, supple, nervous, bright-eyed and restless, they swayed, 
 crowded, pushed through the streets together, talked, laughed, 
 bantered the black-eyed women, and seemed quite at home in 
 the dirty narrow little piazza of Montenare. 
 
 But these men never ventured into the new and civilized 
 part of the city. Even where they were, they kept close to 
 gether, looked warily at every man dressed in the modern 
 style, and did not at all mix with the people of Rome. 
 
 These were the men of the Campagna and of the lower 
 Tiber. They poured into the city from seven in the morning
 
 People of the Campagna. 131 
 
 till two in the afternoon ; and then the tide began to set 
 back. Before the sun was down, there was not one of their 
 number to be found in the city. 
 
 They seemed to be innumerable. They filled up the nar 
 row roads and streets for miles and miles. They always 
 came into the city by the gate of St. Paul. They would net 
 enter by any other. The wrongs and oppressions of the city 
 for two thousand years could not be forgotten. These wild 
 men still believe that Rome is Rome. They cannot under 
 stand that there is any law or obedience to law in the city. 
 That is the reason they carry knives in their sleeves, and carry 
 their cloaks on their arms like shields, and always enter at 
 the same gate, and pour in like an army of barbarians about 
 to sack the city, and stick together in a solid mass, and 
 always return before nightfall and in a close body as they 
 come. 
 
 You see them only on Sunday, and at these certain hours, 
 and in this certain street, and under the dark and solemn 
 shadows of the Theatre of Marcellus. If you remain up on 
 the Corso and in new Rome, you will not see one of these 
 people in a lifetime. 
 
 Sometimes as they enter you will see a woman in the mass 
 laden down with produce for traffic, and you will see also 
 hundreds of little mules and asses moving along with enly 
 their legs below and their ears above, visible from out the 
 load of fruit or vegetables being borne into the city for sale. 
 But the men, like the true Indians, refuse to bear loads. 
 They step high and free, their heads thrown back as if they 
 walked the stage and were about to act a tragedy ; their 
 hands are on their knives ; their shields are on their arms. 
 
 As they return, you will see every ass and every mule 
 loaded with bread. All the bread for miles and miles around 
 the city, is baked in Rome. 
 
 This bread for the peasants is black and ugly and sour. It 
 is baked in a hoop or circle, a hole in the centre like a grind-
 
 132 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 ing-stone. Through this hole a rope is passed, and twenty, 
 thirty, forty cakes are stmng together, and then swung 
 around the neck of a mule or over a woman s shoulders. 
 
 There is nothing in Rome or out of Rome so wild, so pic 
 turesque, so interesting, as this herd of half-tamed people 
 pouring out of Rome on their way to their little h uts and 
 their homes in caves and old ruins, away out on the deso 
 lated and desert-like Campagna. Where did these people 
 come from ? Who are they, and what will they accomplish ? 
 Is this the blood of Brutxis you see here in this stern, proud 
 face ? Is that woman in gay and beautiful colors a daughter 
 of Cornelia ? Did that man s fathers found the city of Lon 
 don, or overthrow Jerusalem ?
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 REAL COUNTESSES. 
 
 TJR1ETTA returned and mused 
 at his window, which took in 
 a corner of the Palatine Hill. 
 There was a gentle tap at the 
 half-open door, and the eldest 
 of the four sisters entered. She 
 came in softly, silently, sweet 
 ly, as if she had been a ray of 
 the Italian sun. 
 
 " You are very welcome. It 
 is lonesome here. Sunday is a 
 busy day in Rome, and I know no one 
 and have nothing to do." 
 
 He handed a chair to the pretty 
 woman under the great tent of black 
 and abundant hair, and she sat down 
 by the half-open door. Then one of the other pretty women, 
 in another tent of black and abundant hair, came, and he 
 handed her a chair, and also told her she too was welcome. 
 
 Murietta was just about to open conversation, when 
 another sister entered, and, taking a proffered chair, sat down 
 in a line just like the others. And then the other came. 
 The same languid, dreamy expression, the same quiet refine 
 ment, the same expression in all. You could not tell them 
 apart any more than you could separate them. If one sister 
 made her appearance, you had as well set out the four chairs 
 all in a line first as last.
 
 134 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 "And you are Romans ?" 
 
 The ladies looked at each other and smiled. They had evi 
 dently come in on this Sunday afternoon to see what manner 
 of man this stranger was. 
 
 " And has your family been long in Rome ?" 
 
 " About two thousand years. Perhaps a great deal more, 
 but that is as far back as we can trace our family with cer 
 tainty." 
 
 Murietta was a little disgusted. He had had the honor of 
 knowing some illustrious people, whose ancestors had crossed 
 the Channel with the Conqueror, but this set all that quite 
 in the shade. 
 
 " But you don t mean to say that you find your name so 
 far back as that ?" 
 
 " It is simply a fact which we have but little interest in, 
 and with which we have nothing to do," answered the elder 
 gently. " When you come to know that there are beggars 
 in Rome, and plenty of them, too, whose fathers are named 
 in history as the friends or foes of Caesar, you may under 
 stand how little interest we take in the fact that our family 
 has been known in Rome for twenty centuries." 
 
 " Then you are of the titled people of the old patrician 
 families ? " 
 
 " Our family," gently sighed the elder, " was always one 
 of rank. Revolutions, invasions, persecutions, confiscations, 
 and so on, left it poor. Not being fortunate enough to ever 
 have a Pope in the family, we find that when it has come to 
 our turn to represent our house, it is poor indeed, and even 
 its name is covered up and obscured by newer names that 
 now have the ear of the world and of Rome." 
 
 " Then you ladies are ladies of rank ? " 
 
 " Countesses in our own right." 
 
 There was a touch of tenderness in the words of these 
 beautiful women, and their quiet dignity had much to say 
 in their favor.
 
 Real Countesses. 135 
 
 "And your father?" 
 
 " O yes, our dear good father. You have not seen him 
 yet. He is at church still, for he is very pious. And 
 then you will not see him in the week, for he works very 
 hard, and conies home late, and rises and goes down to his 
 work very early." 
 
 " And do tell me, please, what he finds to do in Eome ? " 
 
 " Oh, he makes antiquities." 
 
 The black eyes looked at each other, looked across at Mu- 
 rietta, danced a cotillion about the room, and the elder beauty 
 went on. " He has a little shop in the Theatre of Marcellus, 
 down across the Via Montenare. It is only a stone s throw 
 distant ; and I go with him, and I work with him, too, and 
 I return with him. The good, good father ! How kind 
 and patient he is ? " 
 
 The black eyes danced and glistened again, but this time 
 with tears. 
 
 " Antiquities ? " 
 
 " Oh yes ! shall I tell you ? " 
 
 "Will you tell me?" 
 
 " Certainly ; why not ? "Well, we make ancient coins. 
 We have also some Etruscan vessels on hand which were 
 made last year; but the best things to sell are coins." 
 
 " Coins ? " 
 
 " Yes, old copper coins, as far back even as the Etruscans. 
 But the best ones to sell are those of the Roman Emperors. 
 And the best emperor to sell is Vespasian." 
 
 " And the worst ? " 
 
 " The worst is Nero. I can t at all make it out, but no 
 body buys Nero. A handsome man, too, he is ; at least we 
 make him so ; but somehow the English have a prejudice 
 against Nero, and he will not sell at all. We lost a great 
 deal of money on Nero, and shall probably have to melt 
 him over again and make him into Vespasian." 
 
 " And how in the name of science do you make them look 
 so old?"
 
 136 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 Marietta put his hand in his pocket and held up a coin which, 
 he had bought that very morning from a wretched old man 
 who professed to have found it in a field. 
 
 The ladies looked at each other and laughed. 
 
 " Ah, I see Pietro has been busy selling his wares on Sun 
 day. It is wrong to sell them on Sunday, and to you. That 
 is too bad. But I will tell you. This coin you see is one we 
 made last week. You will observe that it is very light. 
 Well, it is not copper, but composition, a kind of bronze. It 
 is made very porous, is still malleable, and will take the im 
 pression of the ugly misshapen stamp designed for it. Now it 
 is thrown into boiling oil, then it is cast a moment into acids, 
 then it is boiled in a kettle of copperas and other composition 
 till it takes on this ancient coat of green, and is ready for the 
 market." 
 
 K And you will make a fortune at this ? " 
 
 " A fortune ? We barely make our bread. There is too 
 much competition. Every man may embark in the business 
 who chooses. There is no secret among the trade about 
 making these coins that is not known to all, and no one gets 
 any more than barely pays for his labor." 
 
 " And is it not dishonest ? " 
 
 " Dishonest ? Can it be possible that the thousands and 
 hundreds of thousands who buy these coins can really sus 
 pect that they are real ? Why, they must know that there 
 are more copper coins carried out of Rome every year than 
 coiild have been found at any time within the walls of all old 
 Rome ! The traveller wants them ; we produce them. I do 
 not see the difference between this and any other kind of 
 manufacture. If we thought it wrong or thought any one 
 defrauded, we certainly should not follow it. Yet I do not 
 see what else we could find to do in Rome. It is a hard, 
 hard place for the poor." 
 
 " You make only coins ?" 
 
 " No, we make tear bottles, also."
 
 Real Countesses. 137 
 
 " Tear bottles ?" 
 
 " Yes, and also a few Egyptian antiquities. But these do 
 not sell so well. We made an Egyptian sphinx, and then an 
 Egyptian cat ; but we had to melt them both up again, and 
 so turned them into bronze and sold them for Vespasians." 
 
 " And so you make these pretty little tear bottles too ?" 
 
 <( Tear bottles ! oh yes !" laughed the pretty countesses in 
 their own right in a chorus, and the great black eyes danced 
 another cotillion around the room. " Yes, we make tear 
 bottles thousands and thousands of years old. We sometimes 
 see old Pietro selling our newest and best pattern of old tear 
 bottles, and we stand by, and hear the English purchaser tell 
 just how old it is, the age in which it was cast, the kind of 
 foreign workman who came to Rome on purpose to make it, 
 and all about it from beginning to end while old Pietro bows 
 his head before such wisdom and such knowledge about his 
 country, and says never a word." 
 
 " But this peculiar glint, this shade, this rose and vermilion 
 hue ?" Here Murietta fished out of his vest pocket a little 
 bottle which he had bought that very day, and handed it to 
 the elder sister. The ladies laughed again, and again the 
 eight bright black eyes danced a cotillion around the hand of 
 the artist. " This rose hue, I say, cannot be counterfeited ? 
 Glass, I am told, only takes that shade after it is buried for 
 ages from the light." 
 
 Again the pretty ladies laughed, and they all rose up and 
 stood in a row, and then stood around the artist, who also 
 rose up ; and they all made little speeches and all got quite 
 eloquent, and on the very best possible terms with the simple 
 artist who had been buying their wares, which old Pietro had 
 been selling that morning while he should have been at church. 
 
 A sabre rattled on the narrow stone step, and a door was 
 heard to open on the left side of the stairway. 
 
 Murietta listened, and looked inquiringly at the little array 
 of countesses.
 
 138 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 " Prince Trawaska." 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 " That is the Prince Trawaska," repeated the eldest coun 
 tess, while the younger sister blushed and modestly looked 
 out of the window toward, the Palatine Hill. 
 
 " Yes, the prince has taken a room with us along with 
 Count Paolini. You see, the prince has only the pay of a 
 captain in the Italian army, and it is not enough to keep a 
 gentleman who has been gently reared, so he is always em 
 barrassed, and has come to live with us." 
 
 " And then I have countesses for companions and land 
 ladies, and a prince for my next-room neighbor ? " 
 
 " True. But the prince is very proud, and might not 
 prove so friendly after all. He goes to Court, and fights 
 duels, and drinks wine till he is drunk, and, in fact, is a 
 perfect prince and high-class gentleman." 
 
 "And the Count Paolini?" queried the artist, as he 
 swung his cloak over his arm preparatory to going out. 
 
 There were only six black eyes in the cotillion this time, 
 for the two eyes of one of the pretty countesses fell down and 
 began to number the stripes on the cai-pet as soon as the name 
 of the count was mentioned. 
 
 j " Well, Paolini is a lieutenant, a fine, handsome fellow, and 
 ask sister if he is not ! " and here three ladies laughed, and 
 one looked down in silence, the soul of love and of truth. 
 i The artist threw his cloak over his shoulder, and the four 
 ladies disappeared, laughing, looking back, lifting their hands, 
 turning their heads as only Italians can, just as if they had 
 been playing a great piece, and had been encored to the echo, 
 and were now modestly trying to escape applause and admi 
 ration. 
 
 Down the narrow stone stairs that only the wind had 
 swept for centuries, and folding his cloak about him, the ar 
 tist passed on under the little lamp that burned in a niche in 
 the wall at the feet of the blue Madonna, and then down the
 
 Real Countesses. 139 
 
 rough steps, and under the ugly arch he stood in the Via 
 Montenare. 
 
 "A Prince and a Count for next-room neighbors. A Count 
 and a Prince, and two of my pretty Countesses in love with 
 them, and the fortune of all four tied up in a little bag of 
 brass Vespasian pennies. Well, that is pretty enough ! " mused 
 the artist, as he walked on under the shadow of the Tarpeian 
 Rock. "A pretty story it would make and it means either 
 romance or mischief." 
 
 Murietta rattled his ancient Vespasian copper against the 
 little tear bottle in his pocket, and laughed. "Ha, ha; I 
 am learning the lines and the ways in Rome ! " 
 
 The peasants were melting away, and flowing like a flood 
 down the Tiber and oxit through the gate of St. Paid. 
 
 There was an old woman sitting up against the ancient and 
 battle-beaten wall of the Theatre of Marcellus. She had a 
 pair of scales in her right hand, held up and out as if she was 
 a sort of wrinkled ghost of the ancient figure of Justice. Be 
 fore her, on the ground, sat a long willow basket divided into 
 three compartments. In the left-hand compartment were 
 stumps of cigars in a very fair state of preservation. In the 
 middle compartment were stumps that had been trodden on 
 and flattened out and soaked for a night or two in rain and 
 sewerage. The other end held a third, and if possible a still 
 worse quality of tobacco. 
 
 "Ah," grumbled a man who was driving a hard bargain 
 with this old woman, " I do not mind it so much if you sell 
 me cabbage leaves for tobacco if they are only nice cabbage 
 leaves. But when you sell me cabbage leaves for tobacco 
 and the leaves are rotten, then I do not like it." 
 
 These stumps are gathered from the streets of Rome by 
 boys and girls, who seem to make it their only business. At 
 evening, midnight, or morning, you will see men gliding 
 along, bowed over, looking down, pushing a lamp before them, 
 groping under carriages, squeezing themselves in between
 
 140 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 walls and in the filthiest places you can think of. They have 
 a leather bag by their side and they look like devils. They 
 are homeless, degraded sons of the Caesars, picking up cigar 
 stumps which the barbarous Briton throws away in the street. 
 
 Take a walk or drive some day on the Pincian Hill or in 
 the Borghese with a half finished cigar in your teeth. Pretty 
 soon you will see the black eyes of some one watching you 
 from behind a bust of Columbus or Archimedes. You move 
 on, arid the black eyes follow you from tree to tree, from -bust 
 to bust. Your carriage is followed as a shark follows a ship 
 when a man is dying. Your cigar is finished, thrown aside ; 
 the black eyes follow it, a man darts forward, and it is scarcely 
 allowed to touch the ground. 
 
 Sometimes you may see an Italian count or a Polish prince 
 watching that cigar with a very hungry interest. This count 
 or this prince, as the case may be, is not a merchant, not he ! 
 Still he often lifts his eyes to the unfinished cigar, and won 
 ders when the Western barbarian will have done with it. 
 This count or prince is well dressed. His clothes may be a 
 bit threadbare. His hat may have come into fashion and 
 gone out of fashion for halfa-dozen seasons; yet, for all, 
 he is fairly dressed, and walks with all the air of a gentleman, 
 a prince, or a count. 
 
 He follows that burning cigar as if it were a beacon light. 
 He takes cuts across the drive, and seems to be looking at 
 this bed of flowers, or admiring that work of art in the gar 
 dens of the capital of Italy. Yet his eyes are lifted patiently 
 to his beacon light, and he watches always and waits his time. 
 
 At last you lean back, take out your cigar-case, bite off the 
 end of a new cigar like an indolent man as you are, to ride in 
 a carriage in Rome, and lighting it by the old stump twirl it 
 about in your fingers, and toss the stump to the side of the 
 road. 
 
 The prince and the beggar are face to face. But the 
 prince strides right ahead as if he would tread upon the
 
 Real Countesses. 141 
 
 base-born gatherer of cigar stumps, and the poor plebeian is 
 driven from his rightful prey by the Italian count or the 
 Polish prince. 
 
 The Polish prince or the Italian count walks straight on 
 and looks high up as if he was reading the mystical signs on 
 the Egyptian obelisk, and had never seen a cigar stump in all 
 his life. 
 
 He is stepping across the spot where the smoke of a cigar 
 stump comes stealing up through the grass by the side of the 
 drive. His eyes are still on the obelisk ; he has quite fright 
 ened the beggar away ; but the beggar has turned from be 
 hind the statue of Silence, and seeing the lofty gaze and 
 kingly step of his rival for that cigar stump begins to hope 
 that it is his, and that the prince had never thought of it at 
 all. 
 
 Suddenly the prince stops. He has dropped his handker 
 chief. He tears himself from the contemplation of the mys 
 tical obelisk, and stoops to recover his handkerchief. He 
 rises, looks furtively about, walks on, takes a turn behind a 
 statue with an enormous nose and a wreath of bay about its 
 brow, and then he reappears. He looks the happiest of men j 
 for lo ! he is smoking the stump of a cigar. 
 
 Leaving this wrinkled old tobacco merchant and her cus 
 tomer, Murietta sauntered Tip the Via Montenare toward 
 the blue tiger on the lower end of the balustrade, leading up 
 the steps to the top of the Capitoline Hill. 
 
 About half-way up this walk you come to a little square to 
 the right. For a wonder, this square has neither fountain, 
 obelisk, tower, nor figure of any kind. It is a square piazza 
 paved with cobble-stone, and between these stones in places 
 the grass sometimes grows up as long as your hand. 
 
 All around, at least on three sides of this square, you see 
 rows of tables. Around these tables, beneath the broad um 
 brella that is always kept hoisted against either rain or sun, 
 you often see whole families of peasants. They are talking
 
 142 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 earnestly to an old man with a pen in his hand, and a paper 
 spread before him. 
 
 Sometimes you see a modest servant girl come up the 
 street from out the poor quarter of Rome. She has a piece 
 of paper and an envelope in her hand, and you see her hesi 
 tate at the edge of the square, look all around, and from the 
 mass of old men under the umbrellas, she picks out her 
 scribe. 
 
 This is the only place of this kind in Rome. In Naples 
 you will find at least fifty. This shows pretty clearly the 
 difference between the education of the two cities. 
 
 Leave the street by which you enter, the only way, in 
 fact, by which you can enter, and cross the piazza, and enter 
 the narrow bit of a street that leads up there boldly against 
 that high bluff but half a pistol-shot distant. 
 
 Upon the wall, to the left as you enter, you will see writ 
 ten " Via Tarpeia." 
 
 This is the real Tarpeian Rock. There is another place in 
 the city called the Tarpeian Rock, nearly half a mile from 
 this. They charge you a franc, and show you a garden, and 
 tell you a history which the enterprising Yankee proprietor 
 learned from an American school-book. 
 
 Here is a perfect spider-web of clothes-lines under this 
 gloomy precipice where the sun never shines, and, odd as it 
 seems, you always see the pretty, black-eyed women hanging 
 out clothes in this shade. The houses are low, and do not 
 reach half-way up the sandstone rock, which is topped with 
 pretty gardens, in which are set palaces and summer-houses 
 and beautiful villas. 
 
 At the base of this rock, besides the pretty women here, 
 you see cats. Here they sit, humped up, their tails curled 
 about their toes, and their eyes shut as if asleep. You 
 attempt to take hold of them, and they somehow are all the 
 time just out of your reach. They sit on the mouldy walls, 
 the mouldy window-sills, on the mossy tiles ; black cats, gray
 
 Real Countesses. 143 
 
 cats, tortoise and cinnamon, sitting there and sitting there 
 and sitting there forever with their eyes shut, and their 
 tails curled about their toes. 
 
 The German goes down to France and back again ; the 
 king of Italy comes to Rome and goes ; the Pope retreats to 
 his prison with its nine thousand rooms, and yet these cats 
 sit there forever in the shadow, forever in the damp of the 
 Tarpeian Rock, with their eyes shut and their tails curled 
 around their toes black and gray, and tortoise and cinna 
 mon cats ; nothing but cats !
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE ROMAN GHETTO. 
 
 AKE a walk from the Tarpe- 
 ian Rock up the Tiber to the 
 Bridge of St. Angelo. 
 
 The first thing that startles 
 you and makes you turn a- 
 round and gaze and gaze in 
 wonder is the old Theatre of 
 Marcellus, founded, some say, 
 by the first Csesar. It stands there in 
 the midst of misery and wreck and 
 desolation, as it has stood for more 
 than a thoxisand years. 
 
 It has sunken at least twenty feet 
 into the earth. Or, rather the earth 
 has accumulated about it till it seems 
 half buried. The great arched en 
 trances are filled nearly to the top. In some of them you 
 have to stoop to enter. In all of them are stowed human 
 beings. Poor, filthy, wretched ragpickers, beggars, thieves 
 and robbers. 
 
 Palace after palace has been built from the stones taken 
 from this splendid ruin ; and yet it towers above and over 
 tops everything to be found in all that quarter of Rome. On 
 the Tiber side of it a modern palace has grown like a great
 
 The Roman Ghetto. 145 
 
 toadstool, and all around the base and jammed up against it, 
 and growing out from it like little mushrooms of a day, are 
 the modern houses that go to make up modern Rome. Rickety, 
 wretched, tumble-down affairs are even the best and most 
 aristocratic of Rome s modern structures. You cannot hold 
 a reception or give a party in any new house in Rome with 
 out permission of the proprietor ; you cannot dance in the 
 flat you have rented without the permission of those in the 
 other flats ; and all the time at risk of having the whole 
 structure down about your ears. The extremes of architec 
 ture have met in Rome. The strongest and the weakest 
 structures are here. 
 
 How narrow and how crooked the streets are as you feel 
 your uncertain way through the old clothes shops, fish-stands, 
 wine-stalls, Jew stores on every hand. 
 
 If it is winter and the wind comes down from the Alps, 
 you will meet beggars, fish-women, old-clothes men, merchants 
 of many kinds and conditions, all carrying a little stove in 
 the left hand, as they wind and push and elbow their ways 
 through the crowded, narrow, dirty, and overhung little 
 streets. 
 
 This little stove is called a scaldine. It is only a sort of 
 crock or jar, with a handle over it like the handle of a bas 
 ket. This little stove is filled with live coals and keeps the 
 hands warm and throws out quite a little glow. Sometimes 
 one of these stoves is kept by a little party as a sort of joint- 
 stock establishment. It is true it takes only about a penny s 
 worth of coals to keep up the fire all day ; yet even this little 
 sum is more than most of these poor wretches can spare. Hence 
 the joint-stock company. You will see the little stove passed 
 from one party to the other. The women put it under their 
 clothes sometimes. Sometimes you see a tall and stately cav 
 alier throw back his cloak, lift up his face, and turn his eyes 
 in a most tragic majiner. You think he is going to draw 
 his sword. Not so. He has only been using the little stove
 
 146 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 which he had borrowed for a few moments from the old 
 apple-woman on the corner, and is now about to take it out 
 from under his cloak and to hand it back to her, with ten 
 thousand thanks and at least a dozen courtly bows, either of 
 which would insure the fortune of almost any actor in our 
 cold and formal world in the West. 
 
 At the door of every little shop here sits a Jew. He is 
 generally an old man and looks just like the pictures of that 
 peculiar people painted centuries ago. They have all the 
 Roman peasant s love of the picturesque. They are often 
 dressed in a half savage, half Oriental style, and have their 
 shops hung in all the colors of the rainbow. Even the little 
 scaldine, or stove, which he holds between his legs and sits 
 leaning over, is painted in yellow and red and green, and is 
 glorious with fiery dragons blowing flames through their 
 nostrils and rampant-like steeds plunging in battle. 
 
 In the thick of all this misery you will come upon an old 
 palace that has partly fallen in and is quite going, gone to 
 decay. In that palace, the first you encounter after leaving 
 the theatre, was enacted the first chapters of the awful tragedy 
 of Cenci, for there it was that the old man was murdered. 
 
 Then pretty soon, as you are twisted and turned and cork 
 screwed through these narrow streets, with a turn and a curve 
 and a cross at every ten steps, you come suddenly on to some 
 mighty marble columns lifting up and towering quite above 
 the buildings around them. There is also the porch or front 
 of something that looks as if it might have been a Greek 
 temple. That is the old market. This spot, this market, was 
 once a rival in power, and as a centre of Rome, to the Forum, 
 which lies over yonder, half a mile away and twenty -five feet 
 under the earth. 
 
 Turn a little closer to the river, and you come to the little 
 palace of the Spada. Pass into this miserable place, where 
 perhaps you will find only beggars outside, an old woman at 
 the door, and half a dozen travellers, with eye-glasses and red-
 
 The Roman Ghetto. 147 
 
 covered books, and, standing with his back to the Tiber, 
 standing with tattered banners and broken arms, and rusted 
 mail on the walls around him, you see the colossal statue of 
 Pompey the Great, holding" in his hand the universal world. 
 
 The rival and the relative of Caesar, slain you may say by 
 Caesar, had this statue to his memory made by Caesar, and 
 then stood by in marble and saw his downfall and death, and 
 received his blood into his marble veins when he died. 
 
 There it is, the left leg stained to the thigh, even to this 
 day, with the blood of the ambitious Caesar. 
 
 You will not like this ugly statue of Pompey the Great. 
 There is not a single mark of greatness either in the face or 
 manner as he is represented here. The mouth is weak as 
 that of a modern Chinaman. The rusty streaks in the mar 
 ble, which the ingenious Italian has seen fit to call the blood 
 of Caesar, gives it a dirty and suspicious appearance, and you 
 pronounce it the biggest imposition you have yet seen. And 
 that is saying a great deal. 
 
 Make another diversion in fact, a very sharp one, and 
 directly up from the river toward new Rome and you como 
 upon the skeleton of a mighty round structure, which the 
 people there very properly call the Rotunda. You pass 
 around to the front, and you stand under the porch of the 
 most enduring temple that has been handed down to us from 
 the heathen. 
 
 These mighty granite columns that support the Greek porch 
 are too heavy for any modern machinery to move. They are 
 too large for any modern designs of architecture, and, being 
 monoliths, they, unlike the stones of the Coliseum, will prob 
 ably remain there just as they are for cycles to come. 
 
 You wish to enter the Pantheon, to see the tomb of 
 Raphael. Good. You push the iron gate between the great 
 columns. It creaks, a priest comes out (as they always do 
 come out in every place you go into in Rome), and he stands 
 before you. Hand him a frank. You cannot better intro-
 
 148 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 duce yourself. It does not matter much whether you can 
 talk a word of Italian or not. They all know just what you 
 want ; and you can have it, if you pay for it, just as well 
 without a speech as with it. In Italy they are willing to do 
 all the talking themselves. They are a race of women there. 
 In Italy you are not expected to talk, but to pay. 
 
 All around the round, wigwam-shaped Pantheon you see 
 only shrines and tombs. Priests are moving about in their 
 black gowns and sombre and suspicious-looking cowls ; can 
 dles are burning before the altars ; mass is being said for the 
 dead. 
 
 The mighty temple which the heathen reared for the wor 
 ship of all the gods is now seized upon by the Christian, and 
 devoted not only to the worship of the one God, but to the 
 use of one branch of one religion yea, to the use of one 
 creed of one church. 
 
 It is cold and damp and dismal here. You feel the chill 
 and the fevers in your bones. It is dangerous even to sit 
 down here in this vault. The priests know this, and they 
 keep constantly on their feet when not on their knees. 
 
 The Pantheon, too, has sunk down into the earth ; or, 
 rather, the earth has grown up around the Pantheon. Ages 
 have washed and worn the Alps away ; the Tiber has borne 
 the debris to the streets of Rome ; and now the " Temple to 
 all the Gods," which was once reached by ascending long and 
 lofty marble steps, is reached by descending through the 
 mud. 
 
 If yoxi come here when the Tiber is full, you will come in 
 a boat. Many times during the year all this portion of the 
 city of Rome is under water, and you have a sort of Venice 
 without the gondola. 
 
 At such times the priests enter the Pantheon in boats. 
 You see them pass the great iron gates, row through the open 
 iron doors which have been put up in place of the copper 
 ones torn away and plundered to ornament St. Peter s, and
 
 The Roman Ghetto. 149 
 
 then go all around the altars and say their prayers and light 
 their candles and count their beads, while the awful Pantheon 
 stands up to its knees in the dark and dirty waters of the 
 Tiber. 
 
 These priests paddle their own boats at such, times. They 
 are silent men. Their cowls are about their faces ; ropes are 
 around their waists. They look like birds of evil omen, an 
 gels of the devil, Charon on his solemn voyage of the Styx. 
 
 Go back to the Ghetto. You should see this part of the 
 city some time when the Tiber is booming and boiling through 
 it. The Jew sits no more at the door of his shop, warming 
 his hands over his many-colored scaldine. The houses are 
 in the water up to the waist, and the Israelite is pushed some 
 times even on to the tiles, with all his fortune and family 
 around him there. Up in a day and down in a day. To 
 morrow the Jew will be down at the door, shovelling away the 
 sands of the Tiber, hanging his coats of many colors in all the 
 hues and airy elegance of the rainbow about his door and win 
 dows; and the day after you will see him sitting there at his 
 door, warming his hands, waiting for customers. 
 
 Then the people fill the streets, and steal and starve and 
 suffer as before. But oh ! the fevers now the fevers, the 
 sickness, and the sorrows of this miserable people of the 
 Ghetto ! 
 
 You are in the old Jew Quarter. This is the place where 
 the Jews were fastened up and which they could not leave in 
 the night for more than a thousand years. It looks like 
 death in rags. It smells of the plague. Black-eyed women 
 are looking at you. Black-hearted men are watching you. 
 Bright-eyed children put out their pretty brown hands, lift 
 up their wonderful eyes, half hidden by the clouds of curly 
 hair, and you stop and empty every penny into their dimpled, 
 dirty, little hands. 
 
 Every now and then you come to a great piazza a great 
 piazza for this terribly-crowded quarter and you see a foun-
 
 150 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 tain in the centre, and women, bareheaded and barefooted, 
 coming and going in hundreds, with their brown pitchers 
 held up high in the upturned hand or borne on the head or 
 shoulder. 
 
 At last you emerge from this nightmare of misery, and, 
 looking down the street to the Tiber, you see across a high- 
 arching bridge a battlement that mocks anything that all the 
 modern men have built. 
 
 This is only an old tomb. It is now called the Castle ot 
 Saint Angelo ; and in this gloomy tomb, castle, prison, for 
 tress, arsenal, church, barracks, and hospital, were enacted the 
 last chapters of the sad story of the Cenci. 
 
 You may mount this mighty edifice, and you will find that 
 the luige angel that tops the castle there, in the act of sheath 
 ing his sword, and looks no larger than an ordinary man, is 
 more than Goliath in height. 
 
 Walk across this bridge with reverence and respect. It 
 has blood upon it. There are " the breezy statues of Ber 
 nini," of which Byron spoke in " Childe Harold." They 
 range either side the bridge and represent the Crucifixion. 
 
 Stop here on the keystone of the bridge. Look at that 
 great marble pedestal of the middle statue to the right.- A 
 cannon-ball sent by the French to Garibaldi struck there and 
 shivered it like glass, as you see. Look up and down, the 
 street behind you, and you will see here and there a hole in 
 the wall, a cornice cut off, or a new stone set in to fill a 
 place where a cannon-ball went through. 
 
 You look at the Tiber. You try to get at its secrets. 
 You look at it in vain. You cannot see an inch into its 
 bosom. It is deep and dumb and silent. It is swift as a 
 mountain torrent, yet it never makes a ripple, never once a 
 murmrur. 
 
 There was a storm last night, and the old stream is full 
 and foamy and angry ; but it will not say one word. It is 
 thick and yellow with sand. If you reach and take a dozen
 
 The Roman Ghetto. 151 
 
 drops in the Land, you cannot see your palm. It is darker, 
 thicker than the Missouri after a flood. 
 
 You do not see a single steamer on the storied old river, 
 that floated its thousand barges. You do not see a single 
 
 ~ O 
 
 boat. There is a log of driftwood coming down. A low, 
 black skiff, with a long-haired fisherman, shoots out from 
 under a ruin, drives a pike into the timber, and tows it 
 away under his arch, as a wolf would drag a carcass to his 
 cave ; but that is all the craft you see afloat. 
 
 You look up and down the ugly river, winding between its 
 walls of sand and old battlements and bridges and ruins, that 
 jut into the river, and you wonder where it was that Hora- 
 tius kopt the bridge. You look into the ugly river, as it 
 foams and froths and shows its teeth, and ask it to tell you 
 where it was that the virgins leapt into its waters ; but it 
 will not answer. It keeps its awful secrets, and you pass on, 
 full of thought and sobered by the scene. 
 
 You turn sharply to the left and leave the mighty castle, 
 with its great bridge through the air, leading half a mile to 
 the Vatican, for the convenience and safety of the Pope, and 
 in a few minutes you stand before the vestibule of St. Peter s. 
 
 A great square is here, that may hold a hundred thousand 
 people. Two fountains play on either hand as you walk 
 across this open ground toward the church, and they throw 
 their thousand jets almost half as high as the one lone 
 obelisk standing in the centre. 
 
 You do not see the hundreds of mighty pillars that arch 
 in a crescent right and left, and are mounted by a hundred of 
 the best, or, at least, the most imposing figures of Michael 
 Angelo ; you do not see the rainbows, right and lef^ that 
 are always bending about these fountains, for your eyes are 
 fixed on the mighty edifice that lifts before you. 
 
 You approach the great steps that stretch away down as if 
 to invite you up. There are perhaps a hundred carriages 
 coming and going and crossing the great piazza or waiting at
 
 152 
 
 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 the bottom of the great circular steps ; but all is on such a 
 massive scale, everything is so spacious and stupendous, that 
 the place positively looks lonesome and deserted as you turn 
 and look back at the obelisk and the fountains and the peo 
 ple and the carriages in the great square, while going up the 
 great granite steps to the leather doors of Michael Angelo s 
 Pantheon hung in the air.
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE PINK LADY IN ST. PETER S. 
 
 UEIETTA did not enter St. 
 Peter s the first day, as do 
 most travellers. He stood be 
 fore it. Nor did he enter the 
 second day, nor the third, nor 
 the fourth. No, not for many 
 days. This magnificent temple 
 had been to him a sort of Mec 
 ca. He hovered about it now ; 
 he feared almost to enter it. 
 He looked at it from the Cam- 
 He admired its symmetry and 
 airy proportions from the mountains of 
 Tivoli twenty miles away. He looked 
 down on the great dome from Monte 
 Mario, and felt for a long time con 
 tent to remain without. 
 
 At last he entered and was disappointed. It seemed but 
 a small affair after all. He had expected too much. 
 
 The walls and columns were hung in red, for it was a festal 
 day, and the effect was anything but grand. The place was 
 black with people moving through and through, and there 
 was a sound of voices as if it were a second Babel. He 
 walked to the farther end. It was like walking to church 
 from your country seat. The place began to look more as 
 
 pagna.
 
 154 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 he had expected to find it. He walked back towards the 
 great leather apron. 
 
 Murietta was a devout Christian, and had dipped his fin 
 gers in the bowl of holy water, which is supported by reclin 
 ing cherubs against the pillars to the right and left as you 
 enter. These cherubs at first sight seemed to be no bigger 
 than your hand. Now, as he looked at them again, they be 
 gan to grow and expand, and expand and grow, till they 
 grew larger than a grown man. 
 
 He walked back and stood beneath the dome. 
 
 The people went and came, poured past, talked loud, knelt 
 and prayed in silence, stood up and prayed aloud, or admired, 
 or condemned, or disparaged. There were at least a hundred 
 voices singing to the left, and many deep-throated instruments 
 filled the place with melody. 
 
 " Do you see the angel that holds the pen ?" said one man 
 with an eye-glass and long whiskers and black clothes, and a 
 red-covered guide-book in his hand. 
 
 Another man a tall, lean, hungry-looking man, with a 
 mournful face and a threadbare coat, with an umbrella under 
 his arm took off his spectacles, rubbed them, looked up, 
 and then from under his spectacles said, " Do you see that 
 pen in the hand of the angel away up yonder at the base of 
 the dome. 
 
 " Yes," said a tall, bony woman in gold-rimmed glasses. 
 
 The spectacles came down ; the long neck relaxed ; the 
 long, lean figure that had reached and tiptoed and towered 
 up above the crowd, came down, an umbrella went up, 
 jammed tight up under the arm like an arrow in rest, and 
 the bow bent as if it was about to shoot. 
 
 " Well, that pen looks just precisely the size of an ordi 
 nary goose-quill, in an ordinary hand, does it not?" 
 
 "Yes, doctor, yes," answered the tall, thin Special Corre 
 spondent, stretching her long neck xip and above the mass of 
 people.
 
 The Pink Lady in St. Peter s. 155 
 
 " Well," answered the missionary of Naples, as he shot his 
 arrow down into the floor and sprang up like a bow let loose, 
 " well, that pen is jnst fifteen feet long, fifteen feet long ! 
 Just think of it ! fifteen feet long ! " and at every emphatic 
 " fifteen " he shot his catapult against the floor till it trembled 
 with the concussion. 
 
 " Such, madam, is St. Peter s ! You see a column here 
 that does not look so big after all. Good. Look at the man 
 beside it : he does not stand knee-high to the statue there 
 that only looks to be life-size. Ah, my friend ! delighted to 
 see you." 
 
 The missionary had caught sight of Murietta, who had 
 been thrown by the tide of the people at his elbow. 
 
 "Ah, so delighted to see you ! " The umbrella went up, 
 and the tombstone face with its weeping willows came down, 
 but not so far down as of old. And then the face did not 
 look so mournful as it did before. The missionary had evi 
 dently been having some good fortune. The man had been 
 dining ; the new moon was filling up ; the bow was a little 
 stiff; even the umbrella did not seem so long and lean as be 
 fore ; it seemed to have got some meat on its ribs as well as 
 the missionary. 
 
 If you want a man to bow right well, leave him a little 
 hungry ; don t let him be too fat ; that will make him stiff. 
 The politest man in the world, in the matter of bows at least, 
 is a man who wants a dinner. Perhaps that is why certain 
 Italian and French adventurers are so very civil. 
 
 " Yes," continued the tombstone, as it leaned on the um 
 brella like a man who feels that he is at last of some import 
 ance, " yes, I have been persuaded to leave for a season the 
 onerous duties of my post, and journey through Southern 
 Italy for my health. And " (here he bowed profoundly to 
 the " Special,") " I am now in the hands of this gifted lady 
 and her good friends from Boston ; and I gather bones." 
 
 " Gather bones ! " scowled Murietta.
 
 156 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 " Yes, yes; bones and other antiquities ; but bones is my 
 specialty. You see, at Naples I had got together several very 
 fine specimens, among which I may mention a thigh-bone of 
 Saint Thomas, the left radius of the elder Pliny, the os frontis 
 of Saint Helena, once Empress of Constantinople ; also a 
 very well-preserved cast of a baby found in the streets of 
 Pompeii. We hope to get among the Capuchins and carry off 
 one of their best specimens of dried monks. As for the Cata 
 combs, 1 shall be perfectly at home there, and trust me to 
 get hold of a few bones of Saint Cecilia." 
 
 The umbrella shot down ; the tombstone shot up ; and the 
 missionary again addressed himself to the Special Correspon 
 dent. 
 
 The music rose and rolled and sounded through the vast 
 edifice, and then came softly back and died away as other 
 notes followed, as wave follows wave upon the beach. The 
 priests were passing here and there with lighted candles. A 
 thousand people moved here and there with red books held 
 up before them, and they read aloud as they walked, and 
 looked up and about, and wondered and uttered exclamations 
 as they went. 
 
 There were figures, men and women, who ran against each 
 other, and talked in loud, harsh tones : they held those red- 
 covered books up before them as if they had been a sort of 
 lamp to their feet. 
 
 Murietta wearied of this. To him it was revolting. Here 
 were all things that ought to inspire devotion that did in 
 spire devotion in the Latin. In the Saxon it seemed to ex 
 cite something half akin to profanity. 
 
 " Do you see those mighty twisted columns of bronze that 
 support the canopy above the sacred relics, and the eternal 
 lamps that lead down to the vault?" said one. "Well, 
 those columns are made of the melted doors of the Pan 
 theon." 
 
 "Ah yes," answered another, reading aloud from the guido
 
 The Pink Lady in St. Peter s. 157 
 
 book as he bustled lip against a fat man who was also reading 
 aloud ; "ah yes, and this floor, the very floor of St. Peter s, 
 was plundered from the Baths of Caracalla." 
 
 Murietta had turned to go away and find the quiet of the 
 great piazza. He had been thinking again of his ideal. 
 Even now, as he walked towards the great leathern doors 
 that kept constantly thundering their protest against the rude 
 crowd that pushed and rushed, and went and came, he shook 
 his hair as if to shake off this confusion and sacrilegous tu 
 mult. And then he sighed, and said, " I scattered roses in 
 her path as she rode that morning up the fiery mountain. 
 But then in the dusk by the sea she turned her face away, 
 and "she did not answer me." 
 
 He moved on toward the door, with his head held down, 
 and his hat in his hand. 
 
 There were a hundred people peasants, princes, merchants, 
 pirates, brigands, priests, all kinds and all classes kneeling 
 before and praying to the statue of St. Peter. 
 
 The missionary had got the point of his umbrella in be 
 tween the toes of a cherub weeping at a tomb, and was trying 
 to split them off as a relic of St. Peter s. The passing 
 stranger smiled at his efforts ; but one good Samaritan from 
 his own country came slily up to him, slipped a hammer into 
 his hand, and then as the organ pealed its deepest surge, he 
 struck the little cherub on its marble toes with all his might, 
 and the vandalism was accomplished. 
 
 Murietta passed on towards the door disgusted. There 
 was a row of people standing before the figure of St Peter : 
 they were waiting their turn to kiss his sacred toe. A de 
 votee woxihl step up to the toe, which is or was before it was 
 so much worn away by pious lips set out a little way over 
 the pedestal, and leaning, would wipe or hastily brush the toe 
 with his handkerchief, and then touching the toe with his 
 lips, would bend the head a little more and touch the foot 
 with his forehead ; then he would wipe the toe as he passed
 
 158 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 on, for the man or woman, the prince or peasant, who was 
 waiting his turn behind him. 
 
 There were mothers with their little children. They had 
 in some cases borne these children on their backs, hundreds 
 of miles from out the mountains all the way to Rome on 
 foot, only to touch their little lips to this sacred toe of St. 
 Peter, and thus secure and insure an entrance into heaven. 
 Sometimes a devotee would tiptoe up, reach over, and kiss 
 the other foot ; but as a rule they were content to touch the 
 one which stood reached out and on a level with the lips. 
 
 Murietta turned to look at this as he passed. To him it 
 had a meaning and a beauty. Twas Faith, and Hope, and 
 Charity. A prince of the north was kneeling now, and with 
 him was a bishop from South America, and and an ex-king. 
 They were gorgeously dressed, and were very pious and very 
 penitent. As they approached to kiss the sacred toe, the 
 crowd gave way, the peasants stepped back and left an open 
 space, and the place free to the pious pilgrims who had come 
 far to invoke the pity of St. Peter. 
 
 But there was one who did not give way. She stood 
 close up by the statue. She lifted up her face and looked, 
 with her gold spectacles, right into the face of St. Peter. 
 Then, dipping into her pocket, she fumbled among guide 
 books, note-books, maps, relics, and antiquities, and brought 
 forth a little carpenter s rule, and calmly proceeded to 
 measure the foot of St. Peter, as if to calculate how much of 
 it had been kissed away. 
 
 Perhaps the ex-king thoiight this singular instrument in 
 the hands of this singular woman was a kind of cross, or 
 sacred symbol of worship. At all events, he bowed his head 
 and reached his lips as the woman laid her rule along the 
 foot and measured to the toe. 
 
 The lips of the ex-king touched and kissed the brass end 
 of the carpenter s rule held in the hand of the ex-schoolmis 
 tress of Connecticut. Extremes meet. The world is round.
 
 The Pink Lady in St. Peter s. 159 
 
 Murietta had almost reached the door when the great 
 leathern apron fluttered and thundered louder than before. 
 
 He started back and stood leaning, almost falling, against 
 the feet of the cherub that supports the bowl of holy water. 
 
 The beautiful Countess Edna, the lady in pink, had 
 entered, and was standing there, with her great brown eyes 
 wide open, and wandering in a sort of dreamy wonder about 
 her. 
 
 How beautiful she was ! , Ah, how more than beautiful ! 
 The rose and sea-shell color of her face and neck, the soft baby 
 complexion, the sweet surprise on her face, the old expres 
 sion of inquiry and longing, the lips pushed out and pouting 
 full and as longing for love, the mouth half opened as if 
 to ask you the way into some great brave heart where she 
 could enter in and sit down and rest, as in some sacred 
 temple. 
 
 She stood there like a fluttered bird. Her maid was near 
 her. A man stood behind her. Murietta did not move. 
 He did not dare to move for fear of disturbing the vision 
 before him. He had thirsted for this sight all his life. It 
 had been to him an ideal that he had despaired to see. It 
 had never taken any real shape in his mind. Unlike Annette, 
 he could never have painted this woman before he saw her. 
 But now that he saw her standing thus, in this new light, he 
 knew that he had seen her away down deep in the well of his 
 soul, even from his cradle up. 
 
 She stood still as in a dream. Her face now began to grow 
 more radiant as the organ rose and rolled and died away and 
 swelled again, and a half smile played over the beautiful baby 
 face. The lips whispered as if to things unseen. Her soul 
 was like an opening rose. 
 
 Then the organ pealed again, and the woman moved. She 
 stepped, she turned, she whirled. Her face was beaming, and 
 her eyes were full of a new and uncommon lustre. 
 
 She moved as in a dance. Her pink robes trailed and
 
 160 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 swept the glossy marble ; her pink feet shot in and out and 
 kept time to the music ; and her pretty hands swayed as she 
 spun, and whirled, and glided around and around ; and the 
 diamonds shone on her fingers as the little hands waved in the 
 dreamy movement of the waltz. 
 
 Her faithful maid followed her in her giddy dance, and as 
 she stopped, radiant, smiling, pushing out her pretty mouth, 
 half opening her lips as if to take her breath, she lifted her 
 black lace mantle about her, pushed back the golden fold 
 of hair that had fallen about her face, but did not say one 
 word. 
 
 People were all awonder. Priests were coming forward by 
 the dozen. All this had been done in a moment, but it was 
 not a thing to be tolerated or passed over. 
 
 A priest stood before her. She handed him some money. 
 
 " For your poor, father." 
 
 The priest bowed himself before the lady and melted away 
 into the crowd. 
 
 Then came another, a sterner and an older priest. She 
 looked at him and smiled. He was melted away even without 
 a bow. There was a little consultation among the priests as 
 they stood behind the massive column under the monument 
 of the Queen of Sweden. 
 
 Then three priests, headed by one of dignity and authority, 
 came to the beautiful Countess Edna as she w r alked on slowly 
 toward the statue of St. Peter. 
 
 The priests moved on in a circuit and came up before 
 her. 
 
 " I have brought you some money," said this wonderful 
 woman, in a voice low and soft and sweet as the far-off 
 sound of the silver trumpets that are heard no more from 
 the mighty dome above the sacred statue which she was 
 approaching. 
 
 She stretched out her hand, smiled, and the angry priests 
 were angry no longer, but they too melted away, and were no 
 more seen.
 
 The Pink Lady in St. Peter s. 161 
 
 Murietta had followed her without knowing it. He fol 
 lowed her as he would have followed any other most beauti 
 ful thing in all the world. If it had been possible for 
 that most beautiful thing to come in any other form than 
 that of woman, he would have followed that also just the 
 same. He felt that the beautiful was to him a sort of special 
 property to look upon. He knew how very, very few there 
 are in the world who know what beauty is. He knew per 
 fectly well how rare was perfect beauty. He knew the rare 
 ness of this occasion, and knew it would never happen again 
 in the world to him. Yet he did not know he followed her. 
 If he had asked himself where he was standing, and had not 
 taken heed to look about him, he would have answered that 
 he was resting still against the chubby little cherub that 
 puffed its fat cheeks above the bowl of holy water. 
 
 The lady stopped before the image of St. Peter; but it was 
 evident that her feelings, as she contemplated it, were not 
 those of devotion. There was a touch of pity, a touch of 
 tenderness in her face as she saw the poor, ragged, ignorant 
 wretches from the fields bow before this image, and rise and 
 kiss the cold and unanswering metal. 
 
 A rough hand touched her arm. She started as if she had 
 been stung by a snake, and uttered a cry of pain. 
 
 Murietta sprang forward and almost caught her in his arms. 
 
 " I am a man," thundered a voice that came from out the 
 crowd close by, "I am a man who carries his heart in his 
 hand." The great chin thrust itself in between the lady and 
 Murietta, just as she was reaching her hand in grateful 
 recognition. 
 
 "I am a man, sir," continued the admiral, "who carries 
 his heart in his hand. You know me. You know me to be 
 a blunt but honest sailor ; and I tell you candidly, madam, 
 that this levity in this holy temple will not do." 
 
 " My dear, it will not do," echoed the count, who came in 
 behind the admiral.
 
 1 62 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 The lady was overcome only for a moment with embar 
 rassment. 
 
 Then she laughed like an Apennine cascade. 
 
 " What ! this holy temple ! This great, hideous, hollow 
 piece of architecture, that is only fit to be seen ten miles 
 away on the Campagna. This sacred temple, built of other 
 temples plundered for the purpose this temple, with every 
 atone wet with blood and tears wrung from the poor from 
 Christ s poor ! " 
 
 The admiral had taken a book from his pocket and was 
 writing as fast as he could. 
 
 " What are you doing there ? " 
 
 "I am writing down all this, madam; all that you have 
 done and said against the holy religion." 
 
 "Holy religion! Holy, indeed, it must be, that can har 
 bor such monsters as you ! " 
 
 She tried to pass as she spoke. The admiral caught her by 
 the arm and wrenched it, as he set his teeth with rage. 
 
 The lady screamed with fright and pain. The count timidly 
 remonstrated, and the ruffian swore as if he had been a 
 pirate. 
 
 A crowd was gathering, and priests came forward. The 
 admiral knew too much to create a scene there, and fell back. 
 
 (( Come with me, Murietta," cried the lady. 
 
 Murietta hesitated. 
 
 " I am a man, Murietta, who carries his heart in his hand. 
 How do you do ? How do you do ? I am your friend, believe 
 me. I amy our friend. A rough but honest sailor." 
 
 The count, with his old politeness, bowed and smiled, as 
 was his custom." 
 
 " Come," cried the lady, " I shall die here. I cannot breathe 
 this atmosphere." 
 
 Murietta," growled the admiral, "mind what you do; 
 this is not your affair." 
 
 "This is not your affair, Signor Murietta. Please to be
 
 The Pink Lady in St. Peter s. 163 
 
 careful what you do," said the count, as he bowed and smiled 
 once more. 
 
 "Will you not come with me? I need you." 
 
 " He will not come, madam," thundered the admiral. 
 
 " I need you I need you. Are you a man ? O, is there 
 one man in Rome ? " 
 
 Marietta was by her side. He took her hand, passed it 
 under his arm, and almost lifted her, as he elbowed his way 
 to the door. 
 
 His face was red with anger. He had suddenly grown 
 blind with rage. 
 
 " Two men against one woman ! " He ground his teeth as 
 he said this to himself, and turned on the edge of the crowd 
 to look back and see if he was followed. 
 
 He almost wished he had been followed. He would per 
 haps have left the lady standing there with her maid beside 
 the bowl of holy water, and devout Christian as he was 
 would have sprung like a tiger at the throat of her enemy. 
 
 They were not followed. The count and the admiral were 
 perhaps lost in the crowd. Yet, had they truly sought to 
 find the lady in pink, it had certainly been no task to find 
 her. 
 
 He dipped his fingers in the holy water, and his sudden 
 impulse and passion had passed. 
 
 " You will pardon me, sir. Some time I may tell you all. 
 I meant no harm, you see. But whenever I enter St. 
 Peter s, I am always seized with a desire to dance. It looks 
 so much like a great ball-room hung ready for the dancers. 
 See ! how gay ! how bright ! how many-colored and fantas 
 tic ! Why, is it not a ball-room ? Do you not hear the 
 music playing yonder ? Do you not see the dancers moving 
 up and down ? Why, that old monk there in that fustian 
 dress is already drunk with wine, and the ball is only just 
 begun ! " 
 
 Murietta looked at her in pity. " Surely, surely she is
 
 164 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 mad," he said to himself as he again dipped his fingers in the 
 holy water and piously crossed himself as he bowed his 
 head. 
 
 She sxiddenly grew very grave. " I am by nature a devotee. 
 I should have made a good Catholic, a good fire- worshipper 
 a good anything that demands a whoJe and undivided heart. 
 But I will not be led. I will not be blindfolded ; or at least 
 I will not hold up the scales to my own eyes. Look here ! 
 Do you see this ? 
 
 The peasants were still filing past, bowing before and kiss 
 ing the foot of the statue of St. Peter. 
 
 " Is that religion ? No ! Yes ! I will answer for you. 
 It is on the part of the peasant. On the part of the priest, 
 who knows better, it is blasphemy. Not one of these poor 
 peasants can read. Not one of them knows what the true re 
 ligion is. They are the poorest, the lowest, the most miser 
 able beings on earth. And who made them so ? The men 
 who built St. Peter s. What keeps them so ? St. Peter s. 
 I would blow St. Peter s to the moon ! " 
 
 Murietta was more embarrassed and puzzled than before. 
 They were moving -to wards the door. He did not answer 
 her, but lifted the edge of the great leathern apron, handed 
 the priest a few coppers, and the two passed out, followed by 
 the maid, and descended to the carriage at the foot of the 
 great circular steps.
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE COUNTESS AT HOME. 
 
 HE countess beckoned Muri- 
 etta to enter the carriage. 
 Little Sunshine leaned from 
 the carriage as they stepped 
 in, and with his face half 
 hidden in his curls, was try 
 ing to balance a little balloon 
 that had hardly made up its 
 mind whether to lie down on 
 the ground or rise up into the air. 
 
 " Writing it down ! writing it 
 down ! murmured the lady. They are 
 writing down everything I do or say. 
 They are getting up evidence to put 
 me in a madhouse. I " 
 
 She caught the eyes of little Sun 
 shine, reached out her hands, took him 
 
 in her lap, set him down between herself and Murietta, and 
 laughing softly, and toying with his hair, and adjusting her 
 dress, she made a sign to the maid seated before her. The 
 maid pulled a string ; the man pnshed the driver ; the 
 driver drew the reins, and they rolled away at a sharp trot 
 over the little square paving-stones, around the end of the 
 great curving colonnade under the Vatican, and out through 
 the gate of St. Angelo.
 
 1 66 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 Murietta felt vexed at first, after fairly settling himself in the 
 carriage, and was certain that now he was to hear a long his 
 tory of domestic warfare, that could only be painful and un 
 pleasant to hear. 
 
 She lifted her face, looked up at Monte Mario before 
 them, and pointing with her little baby hand, said : 
 
 "It was on that mountain the French first planted the cannon 
 which drove Garibaldi from Borne. You see it is the highest 
 point within ten miles of the city. It is the key of Rome. 
 It is Rome itself. But, wonderful as it is to tell, Garibaldi 
 had not mounted a single gun. Look at those black 
 cedars ! Well we will drive up there some day, and I will 
 show you the very tracks of the cannon. You can see where 
 those red-mouthed orators of war stood on the summit of the 
 mountain, and talked in unmistakable terms to Garibaldi in 
 the dear old city below." 
 
 "What an oversight in the Liberator ! " 
 
 "Ah, just what you might expect from Garibaldi. Gari 
 baldi, you know, never was a general. He is- only a colonel. 
 He can handle a regiment perhaps better than any man since 
 Caesar. Beyond that, he is beyond his depth. He is, how 
 ever, the next best man in Italy after the king, for he is hon 
 est and unselfish, and has more political ability than all the 
 Mazzinis that have ever been. In fact, do you know, while 
 Garibaldi led his men to battle, that man lay hidden away 
 in an old garret in the Jew quarter, trembling for his life." 
 
 "It is incredible!" 
 
 " It is very true, nevertheless." 
 
 The lady again played with the long sunny hair that fell 
 from the little head leaning on her breast, and there was a 
 silence. 
 
 Murietta, who had at first been really dreading that he 
 should have to listen to a recital of wrongs, now began to fear 
 she would not relate her story at all, and tried in a desultory 
 sort of way to lead back again to the scene in St. Peter s.
 
 The Countess at Home. 167 
 
 She seemed not to understand the drift of his observations, 
 and there was again a silence. 
 
 They were passing up close to the borders of the Tiber, be 
 tween a long, long avenue of locust trees, arid poplar, and 
 chestnut, that almost shut out the light. Men were treading 
 wine by the roadside ; women were singing as they gathered 
 corn from the yellow shocks, and some peasant minstrels in 
 goatskins piped and played as the carriages passed, and caught 
 the pennies thrown them as they danced, and before they 
 touched the ground. 
 
 As they approached Ponte Malo and the road leading away 
 towards Florence, they came upon the Field of Mars by the 
 left roadside, and close to the banks of the turbid river. 
 
 The field was full of soldiers. Cannon were booming 
 against the Sabine hills, and now and then long lines of rifle 
 men would wheel to the front, and the rattle of musketry 
 would make strange music as it fell in the interrupted rests 
 of the camion fired at the target fixed at the base of the Sa 
 bine hills. 
 
 The horses stepped gingerly. The Italian servants bright 
 ened up as if they took a pride in this mimic battle that was 
 going on, and held a little of the old fire that animated men 
 when Rome was Rome. 
 
 A little man with a waist and a face like a woman s, gal 
 loped by with a handful of followers. His enormous blond 
 moustache, such a big moustache on such a little face, looked 
 as if he wore a coat of fur about his throat. 
 
 " The Crown Prince of Italy," said the countess. " Look 
 at that face. Do you fancy those little hands can hold to 
 gether the unsettled States of Rome, when the reins fall from 
 the hands of his great father? " 
 
 Murietta only answered with his eyes. 
 
 " You see, the king is great. He is really great, a wonder 
 ful man. He is born out of his time. ISTot in advance of his 
 time, understand, but at least a thousand years behind it.
 
 1 68 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 He is a sort of wild boar. A perfect grizzly bear. He 
 has the will and strength of a lion. If he lives, Italy lives ; 
 if he dies, Italy is worse off than when under the popes." 
 
 There was a smell of powder in the air as they passed out 
 of the avenue of trees, and turned to the right and passed 
 under the tower of Ponti Malo. 
 
 They passed long lines of peasants bearing wood on their 
 backs to Rome. Some of these carried loads of cork, some 
 had charcoal, some had willows to be woven into baskets. 
 Little mules drew little carts Loaded with wine for the city, 
 and here and there a shepherd in a sheepskin coat, with 
 naked legs, led a sheep or goat to the city to be sold and 
 slaughtered. 
 
 Now and then they would meet splendid equipages on their 
 way out to the Parade, or to the grand and pleasant drives 
 on the Sabine hills beyond the Tiber. 
 
 At last they drew up close to the great gate of Rome, 
 known as the Porto Populo. Still was the fair lady playing 
 with the golden hair, and still was she silent on the subject 
 of which Murietta was now most curious to hear her speak. 
 
 Perhaps he was a little bit vulgar in his curiosity. He 
 was even now ashamed of it, and would not freely admit to 
 himself that just at this time he would give a great deal to 
 have her tell him who she was, and by what right that great 
 vulgar sailor swore at or even spoke to her at all. 
 
 They drove under the great arch with great difficulty. It 
 was like going up against the current of a very swift and 
 narrow stream, for the people were pouring out in thousands 
 to walk in the Borghese or to cross the Tiber, and see the 
 soldiers at drill, or the flocks on the green hills beyond. 
 
 The Corso was full of people on foot. These people walk 
 in the middle of the street and among the carriages with 
 perfect impunity. 
 
 These Italian cities have not, or had not till very lately, 
 any side-walks at all. They were built for only two classes,
 
 The Coimtess at Home. 169 
 
 were these cities of Italy, the peasant on foot and the prince 
 in his carriage. 
 
 Yet this crowd will part as the carriages approach, will 
 part and come together, and part again, and flow on gaily, 
 pleasantly, laughingly, like a stream of water running among 
 the rocks. 
 
 Still the woman in pink was silent. Still her small baby 
 hand lifted and toyed with the golden hair that fell in sunny 
 folds upon her breast. 
 
 They reached the palace of the Cardinal Bonaparte, and 
 Murietta lifted his hat. He kissed his hand in the air to 
 some invisible object, and looked as though he really had 
 seen a face that he loved. 
 
 The lady looked at him with the old wonder in her wide 
 brown eyes, and the color flowed to her face. 
 
 Then the color rose to the face of Murietta too, and they 
 both looked down in the carriage, and did not look up again 
 till they passed the Via Angelo Custoda and drove under an 
 arch, and entered a great court and stopped at the bottom of 
 great tufa steps, so wide and low and slanting that you 
 might drive a carriage up them. 
 
 " This is my home," sighed the Countess Edna, " and I am 
 almost afraid to enter it." 
 
 Murietta began to think, " Now her story will be told." 
 He looked at her inquiringly. 
 
 " Yes, I live here, and a sad sort of a life it is. I had rather 
 live alone under a tree. Rather live in a hut, a peasant s 
 hut, with but a single grape vine and my little boy about me 
 than in this great palace in all this gilded misery ! " 
 
 She turned to the artist and laid her little hand on his 
 arm. Then looking sadly and earnestly into his face, she 
 said; "Ah, my friend, you may build a palace even ten 
 stories high ; and, after all, it is but little nearer to heaven 
 than a cottage." 
 
 The artist began to be ashamed of his vulgar curiosity.
 
 170 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 He pitied her fi om the bottom of his heart. She was so 
 in earnest, so sad yet so beautiful, so fashioned for happiness, 
 so willing to make others happy around her. 
 
 She did not speak again till they had climbed the steps 
 and were standing by the massive doors. 
 
 " I want to say a word or two to you. You will come in ? 
 If the count is in, or the admiral, you will wait till they go, 
 or you will call soon again ? I have something to say to 
 you." 
 
 The little hand trembled like a bird that has just been 
 taken in the toils, as it withdrew from his arm. 
 
 " What then does the woman mean ? " thought Murietta. 
 " Here she has let all this time go by, and not a word has she 
 uttered. Now at the last moment, she has some awful secret 
 at the end of her tongue. Was ever such a curious thing as 
 woman ? " 
 
 They passed through the ante-camera, hung with old arms, 
 implements of the chase and the field, and old and ugly busts 
 and aged pictures, and moth-eaten tapestry on the time- 
 stained walls. 
 
 Then a smaller hall, then a great triangular salon, gor 
 geous with all that embellishes the heart of the palace of a 
 perfect Italian. Gilt and mosaics everywhere. Pictures, 
 frescoes, blood-red carpets, blood-red curtains ; vases, flowers, 
 fragrant herbs in basketsful ; and about the windows and in 
 the corners of the great triangular salon, built in this 
 shape as a preservative against the evil eye, were perfect little 
 forests of all kinds of beautiful and fragrant vines and roses. 
 
 The lady passed through this and led into an adjoining 
 room. This was a round-built salon, and arched overhead 
 like the heavens, and painted blue, with clouds and a moon 
 and stars ; and looking at it you might have imagined you 
 were in a diminutive world of your own, so perfect was the 
 painting of the sky and clouds and twinkling stars. 
 
 Gilt and glass again. Carpets, and curtains, and forests of
 
 The Countess at Home. 171 
 
 ferns grouped around against the painted walls of the curious 
 little salon. 
 
 " Ah, how beautiful ! " cried Murietta. " And do you j 
 not think it a beautiful little retreat ? It is so beautiful ! " 
 It is just such a house as I shall have that is, if I ever have 
 a house," hesitated the artist, looking timidly around. " Yes, 
 I shall have a house just like this room. I will build a house 
 with one great big room. Just one room ; that is best. I 
 do not want but one room. That is the way the Indians live, 
 and it is the best and the warnest and the most friendly way 
 to live in the world. You see I would have a fire here. 
 Yes, I would have a fire here in the centre, so that we could 
 all get around it in a good and a friendly way. That is as 
 the Indians have it it is the best way a sort of wigwam. 
 And there," he pointed up at the top, " I would have a 
 hole a hole for the light to come in and the smoke to go 
 out." 
 
 " Hush, hush, for Heaven s sake ! They are coming. 
 Don t let them, don t let him, hear you talk so. They will 
 write it all down and put you in a madhouse." 
 
 She had corne up to the artist, stood close beside him, laid 
 one little hand on his shoulder, and with the other had 
 closed his mouth. 
 
 " Listen, I cannot say more now ! " She lifted her finger 
 in the air. " But there is something going on that is not 
 altogether right. I had a brother. He came to Italy to take 
 me away. Well, he is gone, I do not know where. I believe 
 they have murdered him. Listen ! No. Not now. I will 
 tell you I will tell you the first possible chance. In the 
 meantime, promise me, promise me solemnly to return soon." 
 
 " I promise." 
 
 Murietta said this sullenly and with a sense of humili 
 ation. He felt that he had for a moment been disloyal to 
 his love, to his ideal, to the one fair woman of whom he had 
 dreamed all his life.
 
 172 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 It seemed to make no difference at all to lain now that his 
 love was hopeless. He had loved Annette before he saw 
 her. He could and would, must and coiild not help loving 
 her, even after she had scorned him. He had now this day 
 allowed the one woman of his life, the one being set up in his 
 heart, to be shaken for a moment on her pedestal. He was 
 ashamed of himself. He wanted to go up into the mountains 
 and pray, as it were. He wanted to be alone again and bow 
 down before his idol, and make a new covenant to love none 
 but her. 
 
 No, he would not sit down. He was tired. He turned, 
 he shook the beautiful pink lady out of his heart the lan 
 guid, the listless, the loving beauty the most worthy, the 
 bravest, and the best woman, quite out of his heart the one 
 woman who needed his help, his advice, his moral support 
 and turned on his heel and passed out and down and into the 
 streets. 
 
 As he passed the flashing fountain of Trevi, he threw a 
 handful of French and English coins into the water and made 
 a wish. 
 
 That night the artist stood all alone before his canvas till 
 the sun rose up and entered in above the (Japitoline. 
 
 Then he was not alone, for on his canvas was Annette, 
 looking at him, looking back at him over her shoulder, turning 
 from him, passing away. 
 
 Ever she moved before him thus.
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 AN ITALIAN DOCTOR. 
 
 URIETTA looked at his new pic- 
 ture in the new light of morn 
 ing with a singular expression 
 on his worn and weary face. He 
 turned it to the light, turned 
 it away, turned it sideways, 
 turned it in every conceivable 
 way ; still it did not please him. 
 Surely it was not the fault of the 
 hand that fashioned it,for it was 
 as wonderful in its execution 
 as it was sudden. It was such a like 
 ness, such a beautiful, matchless, and 
 magnificent face. You could only 
 see the face, and yet you could fancy 
 you saw the lady, saw her moving, 
 gliding, passing away, turning, looking back over her shoul 
 der, earnest, thoughtful, full of soul but it was a soul of 
 pity, of sympathy, not of love. 
 
 And this it was that tormented the fevered brain of Muriet- 
 ta. She was forever turning away from him ; not scornfully, 
 not suddenly or severely, but sadly, and with a face full of 
 pity for him, and that sort of sympathy which a great and 
 good soul feels for an inferior one when troubled. 
 
 He had drawn this picture in a state of mind that made
 
 174 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 him almost beyond the reach of responsibility for his acts. 
 He had painted this by the dim candle-light, and in a single 
 night, and all from memory. Yet he had, from the first be 
 ginning of that picture, determined to paint quite another 
 position and quite another expression. Time and again he 
 had pictured this same face, this same retiring, sympathetic 
 face, looking back at him over her shoulder. If he had 
 painted his ideal woman, the one who had been set up in his 
 heart from the first, it is pretty certain he hail painted this 
 same picture, and painted it exactly after this fashion. At 
 least he could now only image her in that way. He tried to 
 recall the time when she had not been turning away from 
 him, looking back in a great sympathy but he could not. 
 
 He turned the picture to the cold, bright sunbeams that 
 pitched through the little window down over the Capitoline 
 Hill once more, and walked around and around and around, 
 and began to talk to himself in a low, quiet way. Then he 
 turned the picture again. This time he smiled and uttered 
 an exclamation of delight. 
 
 The picture, the face was looking at him as if it might re 
 turn, as if it had stopped in its retreat and would come back, 
 and lay its hand on his arm, and talk to him in a low, sweet 
 way, and not be forever turning from him. 
 
 He stepped close to the picture, spoke to it, clasped his 
 hands, and looked engerly in the face, for he thought he saw 
 the lips move, and he waited to hear her answer him. 
 
 The door softly opened. " Did you call, signor ? " He 
 turned his head angrily and beckoned the countess from the 
 room. 
 
 The dream seemed broken. He could not get the face to 
 look at him again, turn it as he would. His hands were 
 cold ; his head was in a fever. 
 
 Around and around and around he moved, and turned the 
 picture in every possible light ; yet all the time it was pass 
 ing away, and would come to him no more.
 
 An Italian Doctor. 175 
 
 He caught up a dagger that lay on the little table at his 
 side. " I have followed you I have followed you for a 
 thousand years. Centuries before I was born, it seems to 
 uie, I sought to find you out among the millions that make 
 their journey through the chartless seas, and touch the stars, 
 and land sometimes to rest like birds in flight, but found no 
 place where we might rest till now." 
 
 " At last we two are on this earth ! We two have touched 
 this little grain of dust that rises in the great highway of 
 stars from the wheels of Time ; we two together! and yet you, 
 after all my years of weary waiting, will turn away and come 
 to me no more ! " 
 
 He folded his arms, tucked the little blade up under his 
 arm, and stood before the picture ; and he looked at it, and 
 bowed forward, and he listened, and he seemed to hear it 
 speak to speak to him to answer back and to turn to 
 him. Yet all the time his brow grew dark, his lips hot, and 
 his breathing short and quick. 
 
 Suddenly he sprang erect. He seemed to have heard her 
 final answer. 
 
 The blade was in the air. He struck his foot on the floor, 
 and cried, 
 
 " There, go ! go ! I command you to go ! I cui-se you I 
 kill There ! take that and go from out my heart, for you 
 have been my bane and death ! " 
 
 He struck the dagger through the picture, and leaving it 
 there, staggered on past it through the open door, and fell 
 with his face buried in his bed. 
 
 Nothing is so hard for an over-taxed mind to do as noth 
 ing. 
 
 Murietta, all these months past, had been attempting to 
 rest. The result was, his mind was hard at work, and grew 
 more wearied than ever. 
 
 The mind can only rest at work. Lie down to sleep, and 
 the more tired you are, the more certain is the soul to take
 
 176 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 strange journeys, and vex you with scenes that you would not 
 see. 
 
 Had this artist had the strength and the determination, 
 after his first disappointment, to quietly find out some pleas 
 ant English village, sit down there, picture old cathedrals, 
 lonesome lanes, and stout human faces, he had rested at his 
 work and been very well. As it was, he travelled. Just as 
 if a man could travel away from himself ! 
 
 And now at last, with this counter-current, this beautiful 
 Countess with her pitiful face and all her troubles crossing 
 his path, appealing to him, and then his hard life and horrible 
 cell on the shady side of the Tarpeian Rock, the miasma 
 blowing in from the Pontine Marshes, the poisonous air gene 
 rated in the wretched Jew quarter all these were too much. 
 The artist was mad with the Roman fever. 
 
 As he lay there, the bea\itiful Countess, in her strange but 
 becoming dress of rose and pink, was before him all the time 
 and pleading to him for help. 
 
 Pie knew perfectly well, insane as he was with the fever, 
 that his own mind now was not over practical and cool. He 
 felt that his life and soul were not on a level with the world 
 around him, and that in the battle with the world he stood at 
 a sore disadvantage. True, he might be above them all ; yet 
 to be alone, to be lifted up, is to be made a mark for every 
 archer s arrow. 
 
 If you would have rest, or make a successful fight, keep 
 down in the open plain, and on a level with your fellows, for 
 that is best. 
 
 He now remembered more vividly than ever before, his old 
 terror of the madhouse. He seemed to see all his friends, all 
 the fearless and bold and original men who dared speak, live, 
 act, as they believed and for themselves, shut tip by the great 
 majority who live, act, speak, as is prescribed and ordered by 
 society. 
 
 He saw himself persecuted, hunted down, caught, confined
 
 An Italian Doctor. 177 
 
 in a damp prison, behind rusty bars, watched by a set of im 
 beciles, pitied by a set of well-regulated philanthropists, and 
 lie began to cry out in his agony of mind. He half awoke. 
 His mind settled in its place a moment. Yet the Countess, 
 in her warm, soft attire of rose and pink was before him 
 still. 
 
 Never had she seemed so near to him before. His own 
 stormy seas had thrown him on the sands at her feet, 
 
 He seemed to understand her now. He pictured himself 
 as standing in her place. 
 
 He remembered how terrible it had been to him when men 
 tried to make him appear insane. Yet he was a man, strong 
 enough, well enough, with all the world before him, and he 
 was free to choose his time of going and his place of retreat. 
 
 But here was a weak and helpless woman, one who cer 
 tainly had seen nothing at all of the bad side of life, a woman 
 with a family, bound by ties of man and God to a certain 
 person and to a certain form of conduct. And this woman, 
 too, was being persecuted by a beast a sort of Caliban and 
 old man of the mountains combined, from whom she could 
 not escape. And these were trying to make her appear in 
 sane ! 
 
 He saw all this as she stood before him there, and his heart 
 filled full of sympathy. He seemed to stand beside her. He 
 saw that their souls stood very near together now in their 
 trouble, and he questioned himself why he could not reach 
 out his hand to the only one in the world that stood by his 
 side and understood him. 
 
 Then he thought of Annette. He saw her as he had seen 
 her ten thousand times. She was still in his heart, the one 
 great picture there, the central figure on its walls. But she 
 was going away, it seemed to him. She was looking back 
 over her shoulder, turning sharp about, she seemed to be. 
 Yet he had seen her ever thus before. He thought this all 
 over, and tried to remember what had happened that morn-
 
 178 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 ing between them. He was certain lie had just been talking 
 to her. Even now, as she was turning away, passing out of 
 sight, looking back, her lips were half parted. 
 
 Perhaps she had just been saying farewell ! 
 
 This thought maddened him. He sprang up, shrieked 
 aloud and reached his hands in the air, and then fell back 
 moaning in his bed. 
 
 A little lady with a storm of black hair stood before him. 
 She came up close to the bed. 
 
 " Come here, my Roman lady, I have a story to tell you." 
 
 The little Countess came as close as she dared up to the 
 bedside of her singular lodger. 
 
 " You see that picture there with the dagger through it ?" 
 
 He partly turned in his bed and pointed to the picture he 
 had painted that night, and which he had been talking to 
 that morning. " Well, she has gone away. She will never 
 come back any more. You know how beautiful she was 
 how good how gentle she was to all of us ? " 
 
 " But I never saw her." 
 
 " Never saw her ? Why, she was here all night. And 
 you did not see her ? Well, she has gone away and will never 
 come back any more ! " He turned on his side and hid his 
 face in his hands. 
 
 After awhile he opened his eyes and looked up. A black- 
 eyed little lady with a storm of black hair stood beside him. 
 
 "And you did not see her ? " 
 
 "See whom?" 
 
 " The lady that I painted last night, the lady that I was 
 talking to you about." 
 
 " Nay, you have been talking to my sister." 
 
 " And where has your sister gone then ? " 
 
 " She has gone with the prince to bring you a doctor, for 
 you are very ill." 
 
 " Well, what an idea ! Why, you see I have been at work 
 on that picture. I had to finish it last night. I finished it !
 
 An Italian Doctor. 179 
 
 I finished it without raising my head. My hand is so tired, 
 it aches as if it would break. And then, don t you think, 
 she went off in a rage about it ? See ! my dagger is through 
 it ! My dagger is in it up to the hilt." 
 
 The little countess stood back to the wall as the man rose 
 in his bed looking straight in her face. 
 
 Then he reached out his hand, and pointing at the picture 
 and wagging his finger, said, 
 
 " I scattered roses in her path. I followed her by sea and 
 land. I waited and watched and worked for a thousand years, 
 and now just see what comes of it ! " Again the man sank 
 back, burning with fever, and hid his face in the bedclothes. 
 
 He raised his face again, and looked at the little woman in 
 black and abundant hair who stood before him. 
 
 " Was it wrong ? Do you think it was wrong ? " 
 
 " "Wrong ? what was wrong ? " 
 
 " Wrong to drive the dagger through her breast ? " 
 
 " Holy Mother ! what is the man talking of?" The little 
 woman retired back to the door. 
 
 " Talking of ? Why of the picture the picture I was just 
 telling you about." 
 
 " Telling me? No, you must have been telling my sister." 
 
 " And has your sister gone ? " 
 
 " Yes, for a moment." 
 
 Where ? " 
 
 " To bring you a priest." 
 
 " Why a priest ? why ? " 
 
 " O signor, you are so very, very ill ! " 
 
 Murietta did not answer. He understood it all now, and 
 stretched himself back in his bed with his face to the door, 
 while the little countess stood waiting and watching, and 
 ever and anon looking out of the door and listening for steps 
 on the narrow stone stairs. 
 
 There was the rattle of a sabre on the step. The door 
 opened into the little hall, and then into the little salon
 
 180 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 where the picture drooped with the dagger in it as if it had 
 wilted in the sun. 
 
 The doctor lifted his felt-bare hat and brushed it a little 
 with his threadbare sleeve before proceeding to set it 
 down on the little table by the picture. At the same time 
 his black eyes wandered, or rather danced, about the room as 
 if to take an inventory of the baggage and the property in 
 sight. 
 
 It did not take him long. There was a wrinkle in his 
 brow when he had finished. Then he looked at the picture. 
 
 "Ah ! an artist ! " There were now two wrinkles in his 
 brow. He looked through the door into the bed-room, saw 
 the walls hung with strange implements of the savages, and 
 said, " Ah ! an American artist ! " There were now three 
 wrinkles in his brow. 
 
 This man wore the moustache so dear to every Italian. 
 But his moustache seemed to be ashamed of itself, and was 
 all the time trying to hide up under his nose. His eyes 
 were black and small and unsatisfied, and stood very close 
 together as if they too wanted to take shelter under the 
 doctor s nose. There was nothing particularly noticeable 
 about the man s brow save the three wrinkles just above the 
 nose, and the thick black hair just above the wrinkles. He 
 was a tall, thin man who looked as if he had not dined for 
 years. Across his arm was a little leather bag, but it was 
 so little and so light that it did not seem to make the least 
 impression for itself. It was as if a big leather- winged bat 
 had blown out of the ruins somewhere and lit on his arm as 
 he passed. 
 
 Behind the doctor, who stood in the doorway, now taking 
 an inventory of the baggage in the bed-room, stood a stout, 
 heavy, round-faced, beardless man, whom Murietta somehow 
 at once knew to be Prince Trawaska. His right hand rested 
 on the hilt of his sabre ; his left held his cap, which he kept 
 poising and turning lightly in the air, while Marietta
 
 An Italian Doctor. 181 
 
 measured him, as if it made him a little nervous to be 
 looked at. 
 
 The doctor turned his head to the prince in light blue uni 
 form, all ablaze with buttons and broad gold lace and glitter 
 ing epaulettes. 
 
 " Why do you bring me here ?" 
 
 " The countess said the man was mad with the fever." 
 
 " Mad he may be ; mad he is but I ! a professor ! an 
 Italian physician, doctor to the Duke of Mont-ebello, the 
 King of Naples, the Duchess of Sicily ! But this man has 
 not baggage enough to pay for his coffin !" 
 
 The prince shrugged his shoulders. " Ah, but he has 
 friends, perhaps. We can squeeze his friends. Squeeze his 
 friends." 
 
 " His friends ! Does a man who has friends hide away in 
 a place like this ?" 
 
 " But," urged the two little ladies in a breath, " the man 
 is ill he is a stranger. He needs you ; will you not help 
 him ? Besides, he is a good man." 
 
 " A good foreigner ? and poor !" The doctor laughed in 
 a wicked, a devilish sort of a way, that made Murietta s 
 blood run cold. 
 
 " But if you will please to help him," pleaded the countess, 
 " we will pay you. We will pay you your five francs every 
 time you must call." 
 
 " We will pay you your five francs every day," cried four 
 sweet voices at the door together. 
 
 The prince twisted and twirled his cap more nervously 
 than before. 
 
 " Well," said the doctor, after a long breath, " that is 
 you will pardon me, but we professional men are overworked. 
 We are imposed upon also." He turned to the four little 
 ladies all there together (all so perfectly alike that even their 
 lovers sometimes came and began their pathetic tales of love 
 and left them off, and came and began again to one of the
 
 1 82 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 four who had not heard the beginning), and made a long and 
 elaborate speech. 
 
 Marietta lay there perfectly conscious, hearing and under 
 standing every word. 
 
 The Italian knave makes more mistakes than the knave of 
 any race in the world. This he owes to his lively imagina 
 tion. He is all the time jumping at conclusions. 
 
 " Then, good doctor, you will attend him, and attend him 
 at once." 
 
 " At once." 
 
 The little leather- winged bat loosened itself from the thread 
 bare sleeve and fluttered down into the doctor s hand as he 
 stepped towards the bedside, and reached his hand to take 
 and feel the pulse of the artist. 
 
 Murietta drew back his hand, raised up on his elbow, hitch 
 ed himself back in bed, and sat bolt upright, looking the man 
 full in the face. 
 
 The doctor took a step back, and the little leather- winged 
 bat fluttered again back to its perch on the arm. There was 
 a little table by the bedside, and on that little table lay a pistol. 
 
 Murietta raised his arm, passed his hand across his brow, 
 as if to collect his thoughts. Then he let his hand fall care 
 lessly down at his side. It rested very near the butt of the 
 pistol. 
 
 " Doctor, what is your fee for this visit ?" 
 
 The prince jerked up his shoulders till his gorgeous epau 
 lettes danced and rattled beneath his ears. The doctor s 
 moustache tried to hide beneath his nose, and there was noth 
 ing visible on his brow but the three wrinkles. 
 
 " What is your charge for this visit ?" 
 
 The prince recovered first. These men from the north are 
 always masters of themselves, even under circumstances that 
 will crush an Italian. 
 
 The round head, with the big ears above the gorgeous 
 epaulettes, bowed forward and whispered in the doctor s ear.
 
 An Italian Doctor. 183 
 
 " What is your charge, I ask, for this visit ?" The artist 
 was getting loud and excited. 
 
 " Fi five five hundred francs." 
 
 The fingers of the artist clutched the butt of the pistol. 
 The thumb threw itself over the hammer. 
 
 " What is your charge for this visit, I ask ? " 
 
 " Fi five hundred francs." 
 
 The prince leaned forward again. The big ears were blos 
 soming red with excitement. 
 
 " Gold, and in gold," whispered the prince, loud enough to 
 be heard all over the room, " say in gold ! " 
 
 " And in gold," cried the Italian doctor boldly, as he and 
 the prince advanced together towards the bed. 
 
 Click! click! 
 
 The doctor backed against the prince, and the prince 
 backed right against the wall. 
 
 The pistol was pointed at their heads. 
 
 " Five francs ? Did you say five francs, doctor ? " 
 
 The little bull-dog of a pistol stuck its nose out, thrust it 
 forward, way out in the face of the two men, as if it was just 
 about to bark, as if it was positively anxious to bark. It 
 seemed as if it could hardly keep from barking right out. 
 It seemed to say, " O, if you will only say five lumdred 
 francs, so that I can bark at you, I will be so glad. O, do 
 say five hundred francs ! Please say five hundred francs ! " 
 
 The men trembled together till a sabre-point rattled against 
 the stone floor, and the brass image of the she-wolf on the 
 soldier s belt was pressed deep into the body of its wearer by 
 the cowering form of the shivering doctor. 
 
 The big ears had wilted, and were now as pale as paste. 
 
 " Five," hissed the soldier. 
 
 " Fi five," said the doctor, catching his breath. 
 
 The pistol settled down on the stand, but the hammer was 
 still lifted. It lay there like a little bull-clog showing its 
 teeth as if it still was positively anxious to bark.
 
 184 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 " Countess ! " 
 
 A little woman came close xip to his side. A true old 
 Roman was she ! One of the mothers of the new Italy. 
 
 " You will write a receipt in full for five francs, for this 
 doctor to sign." 
 
 " And it is to be gold," said the soldier. 
 
 The little bull-dog sprang up again into the air. And the 
 soldier went to the wall. 
 
 " Well;" gold then," said the artist, "the man does not 
 want the cxm-ency of his country. Give him gold, and let 
 him begone." 
 
 The trembling hand of the doctor wrote his name. 
 
 Then the man caught up his little leather bag on his left 
 arm and stood palling his moustache with his right hand. 
 
 The little bull-dog settled down on the table by the bed 
 side, but it still showed its teeth. 
 
 " Countess, you will hand this man, the doctor, five francs 
 in gold, and you will tell him he need not come to visit me 
 any more." 
 
 The countess smiled a smile of satisfaction and perfect 
 triumph. She handed him the money ; and the doctor, turn 
 ing to Marietta, wished him health and good day, and bowing, 
 took up his hat and passed out. 
 
 " Call back the doctor ! " cried Murietta. 
 
 The soldier, who was just passing out of the door, brought 
 the doctor back, pushed him into tbe room, but was very 
 careful to remain outside himself. 
 
 " You have got your money, have you ? * 
 
 " Yes, signor." 
 
 " You have got your pay in full ? " 
 
 " Yes, signor." 
 
 " You are perfectly satisfied ? " 
 
 " Perfectly satisfied, signor, thank you." 
 
 " Then you can go, and you need not return." 
 
 The doctor bowed more profoundly than before.
 
 An Italian Doctor. 185 
 
 The cunning Italian was getting to have some respect for 
 the foreigner from the West. As he passed out of the door 
 he turned, and bowed most profoundly again. 
 
 He backed himself out from the presence of the artist as 
 if he had been before his king. 
 
 The Prince Trawaska, the Italian colonel, made a military 
 salute, and touched the tip of his cap. He wheeled on his 
 heel as the doctor came out, and was marching him down the 
 stairs as if he had been a sort of new recruit. 
 
 There was a little intei-ruption on the stairs, for the sabre 
 ceased to rattle, and voices were heard in conversation. 
 They had met the priest. It is not certain, but very probable 
 that the doctor forbade the priest to see his patient, for he 
 did not come up the stairs. 
 
 The sabre rattled again ; and the priest and the doctor and 
 the soldier were gone. 
 
 Then at his bed-side, it seemed to him, as he lay there 
 burning with the fever, the Countess came and stood and 
 looked at him with a world of tenderness ; but the One Fair 
 Woman only came to pass right on and away, looking back 
 over her shoulder as she passed.
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 ON THE PINCIAN HILL. 
 
 OW it rains, and rains, and rains in 
 Rome, when it once sets in for the 
 winter ! And there is health in this 
 rain, and not altogether because it 
 washes out and cleanses the filthy 
 streets of Rome, but it somehow 
 seems to purify the atmosphere in and 
 around Rome, and everywhere up 
 and down the Tiber. 
 
 The Roman fever, after the first 
 attack, is nothing more or less than 
 the fever and ague of the Mississippi 
 valley, and the mud lakes near Mexico City. 
 A man who has had the ague in the United 
 States or Mexico is very likely to take this 
 fever in Rome ; and when he does take it, and 
 if he survives the first impetuous attack of 
 the fever, he will readily see the relation between the two. 
 
 Murietta in a few days was almost well again. The fever 
 had gone ; the chill had left his bones and flesh sore, as if he 
 had been oil a long journey ; but his head was clear, and he 
 knew what was the matter, and knew perfectly well what 
 to do. 
 
 One of the little countesses carried a prescription to a 
 druggist 011 the Corso ; and in a short time the artist had
 
 On the Pincian Hill. 187 
 
 beaten his malady, and in another week was beginning to 
 think of finding his way out on the sunny side of the hills of 
 Home. 
 
 But how it did rain ! The narrow streets of Rome were 
 one moving mass of umbrellas. The Tiber came booming up 
 through the streets, and flood wood came down from the 
 mountains in great rafts. The river seemed to be banked up 
 from the sea. In fact it was a little sea of itself. 
 
 Murietta had painted no more. He could not or he would 
 not touch his brush in all this time that he had sat there in 
 his little room over his little stove, so like an open pickle- 
 jar, and all the time mistaking the pretty sisters one for the 
 other, and all the time telling one part of a story to this one 
 and then a bit of it to this other, and so on, till they really 
 thought his mind was out of joint. 
 
 The artist had but one conception in his mind. He could 
 think of but one thing. Even here in eternal Rome, with 
 the flower of his art before him, the best results of all the 
 last five centuries, he saw nothing but this one face. He 
 would not paint that any more. 
 
 Back behind the door, with a shawl thrown over it by the 
 thoughtful and gentle sisters, stood his easel. There was one 
 picture there, the picture of Annette, the one fair woman, 
 with a dagger driven to the hilt in her heart. 
 
 The sunshine follows the rain, in fact as well as in poetry. 
 How terribly tired Murietta had grown of playing the hermit ! 
 He had hidden away determined to let the world go on the 
 other side, go on its own way without him, and let him alone. 
 
 It was a little humiliating to this man s vanity to find that 
 the world did go on, and go on just about as well without 
 him as with him. In fact, he found he was not missed at all. 
 He began to see that this would be the final end of the story ; 
 that men come and go, and the busy world would not trouble 
 its head at all about this man s loves, or that man s losses, or 
 anything of the kind.
 
 1 88 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 The artist began to want to see the world once more. The 
 sun came out one clay in mid-winter, as only an Italian sun 
 can came out after a long long winter rain ; and the hermit 
 left the shadow of the Tarpeian Rock, to see the gay gather 
 ing of people on the Pincian Hill. Under the north side of 
 the Capitoline Hill, down the Corso, up the Via Condotti, to 
 the Spanish Square, and then lip the grand, wide, tufa Span 
 ish steps, the artist took his way, glad again to see the faces 
 of men from the strong new West. 
 
 He went close up to the house standing at the base of the 
 steps to the right, and lifted his hat as he looked in through 
 the window where the last sunlight fell on the face of the boy- 
 poet, Keats ; and he said as he passed on : 
 
 " He is gathered to the kings of thought." 
 
 The sun was spilling all over the hundreds of wide, high, 
 splendid Spanish steps, and people were sunning themselves 
 here in long rows by the dozen. 
 
 Further up the steps, on a little flat, peasants were playing 
 their reed pipes and the tambourine, and men .in long hair 
 and short breeches with little dirk knives just visible between 
 the waists of their goatskin coats, were dancing wildly as the 
 wind with pretty peasant girls in very short dresses, and lit 
 tle tunics and bodices, and striped and tattered shawls thrown 
 loose over the arm and flying in the air as they danced. 
 
 Never is an Italian half so lively as when at the dance. 
 You employ any peasant to do you service, and watch his 
 movements. You will come to think him the dullest, stupid 
 est, slowest, creature that ever has been born. See him dance, 
 and you will think him about the liveliest. 
 
 A beautiful scene was this. They were dancing their old 
 Saturnalia. This was the dance that these people had danced 
 under the cork trees on the Sabine Hills for thousands and 
 thousands of years. And here in Rome it stood apart by 
 itself. There was nothing like it. There can be no music
 
 On the Pincian Hill. 189 
 
 like this. Nothing can imitate or approach it. No one takes 
 part in these dances but these peasants from the Campagna, 
 and they all gather around on these occasions. They stand 
 huddled in a close ring, with the dancers in the centre. The 
 dance goes on for hours and hours. As soon as one man 
 tires he falls back exhausted into the arms of his friends, and 
 another takes his place. The women can endure more of this 
 than the men, but they too fall back exhausted, and then 
 another steps out into the ring, dancing as she enters ; and 
 unless you are very quick in your observation, you will not 
 see the change of dancers at all. 
 
 This is a dance with a meaning. It is a sort of invocation 
 and thanksgiving to Saturn. It is said that the Carnival 
 was introduced by the popes in the hope of displacing and 
 rooting out this relic of heathen custom, but in vain. 
 
 Up these steps to another level, and there in the sun sat 
 a row of beggars engaged in gambling, and all too intent on 
 their game to even reach out a hand to the artist as he passed, 
 and climbed fairly to the top, and stood under the obelisk 
 before the church where sleeps poor Claude Lorraine. 
 
 Here the carriages went whirling by under the barren oak 
 and elm trees on their way to the great little drive on the 
 Pincian Hill. The Spanish steps away up here at the top, 
 with all Home beneath them, had blossomed all along the 
 upper rows and bastions with the most beautiful women ot 
 the lower orders in Southern Italy. 
 
 These women are ranked under the general and not very 
 comprehensive name of models. Such eyes are not to be met 
 with anywhere in the world outside of Rome ! Such wild 
 blown hair about the brows and shoulders ! Teeth, such 
 teeth ! And lips ! only made to love, and laugh, and show such. 
 pretty, perfect teeth. 
 
 O Home ! for all the bloody stories you have given us, 
 for all the crimes with which you cursed the world when you 
 were Home, we hold you hardly guilty when we see what
 
 190 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 beautiful women you have brought us from out the world 
 that was. 
 
 On to the left, between the leafless avenues of elms, with a 
 high wall to your right, and all old Rome away down below 
 you, and a part of new Rome immediately under you, and 
 you come to a very little fountain playing in a very large 
 broad basin, beneath an old gnarled and knotted tree, with 
 its ancient limbs reaching down as if they were tired and 
 would like to come to the ground, and lie there with the pea 
 sants at its roots, and rest and rest. 
 
 You pass through a great iron gate, up a pleasant side-walk 
 with carriages whirling by you all the time, and music play 
 ing on every hand, and cactus growing on the walls, as if you 
 were in Mexico ; and then you stand on the Pincian Hill, with 
 its forests of flowers, its fountains, its hundreds of master 
 pieces in marble, its banks of winter roses, its black firs and 
 forests of great evergreens brought from the farthest borders 
 of the world to beautify and make attractive this most deli 
 cious spot in all Italy. 
 
 Then all around the edge of this, between the avenues of 
 ti-ees, is the drive. To the left there, as you drive between 
 the trees and the rows of beautiful statues, you are above the 
 wall of Rome. The wall is beneath you. If you leave your 
 carriage and walk for ten paces to the left in one of the plea 
 sant paths between the trees and by the flower-beds of 
 beautiful colors, you will come to a little abutment reaching 
 almost to your breast. Lean and look over. You will see 
 that this portion of the wall of Rome is nearly sixty feet in 
 height. 
 
 Below you is the Borghese, the great drive of Rome, where 
 men also ride, and lovers find seclusion in the paths leading 
 from fountain to fountain through the dense wood that masses 
 below you, as you stand on the Pincian hill. 
 
 You return to your carriage and drive on around, by 
 flower-beds, by fountains, by beautiful figures in marble, and
 
 On the Pincian Hill. 191 
 
 under fragrant and dark sweeping trees, and in a little time 
 you are back to the place where you first entered, and in a 
 perfect jam of carriages, with a dozen very handsome and 
 very polite and very helpless and inefficient officers, trying 
 hard to keep the way open and to please every foreigner who 
 has come to enjoy the Carnival in their beautiful city. 
 
 Here is a wide, level place above the great wall. Room 
 enough for a hundred carnages to come abreast. Here the)) 
 make a diversion ; and lines and lines of carriages are drawn 
 up in rank, for under that great big palm tree that King 
 Someone sent to Pope Somebody is the splendid military 
 band that plays here every day just before sundown for the 
 people. 
 
 They are slow to begin. The Italian has always and for 
 ever to make a speech before he begins even the most tri 
 fling task. 
 
 You have a minute to spare. Come close to the wall and 
 look down over Rome to the west. Here under you are foun 
 tains. All along the steep hill side below you see one un 
 broken bed of beautiful flowers, in every colour of the rain 
 bow. Even under the trees the flowers grow in Italy. 
 
 Down there, away down over and across the beds of 
 flowers and beyond the trees and across the many turns ot 
 the road that leads up here from another gate by the way of 
 the Piazza del Popolo, you see gray granite columns bristling 
 with prows of ships. The tradition is that these were set 
 here to commemorate the victory over Antony and Cleo 
 patra. 
 
 Fountains and flowers, and flowers and fountains ! That 
 is Rome ! 
 
 This, just beyond the granite columns and just beneath you 
 as it were, is the great Piazza del Popolo. There is an im 
 mense fountain in the centre of it with great big blue lions, 
 and there are boys riding the stone lions, as they spout water, 
 with strings in their mouths for bridles.
 
 192 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 There are a hundred carriages in the piazza and a thousand 
 people. But the people do not look much taller than a span. 
 
 In the centre of this piazza by the fountain is the oldest 
 obelisk in Rome. That obelisk was chiselled, and had the 
 inscription it holds up there to all the world, long before 
 Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt. 
 
 Tradition locates the tomb of Nero on this very spot. Yet 
 there is another so-called tomb of Nero away over yonder, five 
 miles beyond the Tiber. 
 
 This obelisk was placed here on account of a dream which 
 one of the popes had concerning the old tomb which stood 
 here, bearing the name of Nero. Out of and around and 
 over this tomb had grown a little forest of trees. These 
 trees had grown to an immense size. The rooks had been 
 roosting in them for centuries. 
 
 It was a bad year in Home. Then the pope dreamed that 
 all these rooks roosting in these trees above the tomb of Nero, 
 were evil spirits brooding over the city. He had the trees 
 cut down, the tomb levelled, this obelisk placed there ; and 
 now you see nothing but the naked stones, and obelisk, and 
 fountains. 
 
 And the story is that there is the portion of a man s body 
 beneath this obelisk too ; that when they were placing it there 
 and settling it to its place, a man got caught beneath it, and 
 a part of his body remains still beneath the obelisk buried 
 perhaps with the Emperor Nero ! 
 
 But hark ! the music begins. 
 
 Softly it swells, sways, falls, rises again, loud, louder, 
 long ! now light and faint and far away, sweet as kisses in 
 a dream. 
 
 Classic song in a classic land. You may almost see the 
 satyrs dance below the chestnut trees. You picture the great 
 god Pan sitting by the waters of the Tiber, piping in his reed, 
 and puffing his cheeks, and tapping the time on the sand with 
 his hoof.
 
 On the Pincian Hill. 193 
 
 And these pretty players here, these handsome Italian 
 musicians, with hands and waists like women these soldiers, 
 too, with painted and powdered faces these men wearing 
 stays to make them seem more beautiful, know perfectly well 
 what awe and what interest envelops them. They are play 
 ing under the prestige of the whole world s history, from the 
 days of the she-wolf up to the hour when their king came 
 down from the north and sat down on his throne in Rome. 
 
 These players know that the beautiful blonde barbarians of 
 England, and that farther and still more barbarous country, 
 are listening and looking on and thinking of the time when 
 Caesar entered yonder gate of Rome to reign, and when St. 
 Paul passed out through yonder gate to die. 
 
 Higher and higher the melody mounts up. They are play 
 ing a martial air. The very horses prance in their harness. 
 The officers come closer around, sabres rattle on the sand, the 
 beautiful blondes lean from their carriages and listen, or seem 
 to listen, while they do not at all seem to see the bold and 
 adventurous eyes that watch them from every quarter of the 
 garden. 
 
 Higher and higher the music swells. You can hear the 
 rustle of the palm leaves it is so still. The boughs of the 
 ever green oak quake, tremble, quiver and dance as if with 
 delight. The great palm tree that King Somebody presented 
 to Pope Someone reaches out his great hands as if to say } 
 Bless you, my sunny Italian singers ! 
 
 Higher and higher, louder and louder, and at last the 
 horses fairly plunge in their harness the air, the heavens, 
 are filled with this long last ntfte. 
 
 It dies away ; the horses plunge a-head ; and the carriages 
 are again whirling around on the rim of this last, save the 
 Aventine, of the Seven Hills of Rome. 
 9
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 A RAILROAD KING IN ROME. 
 
 URIETTA had thrown back 
 his great Italian cloak, in 
 which he was nearly enveloped, 
 pushed back the broad-brim 
 med artist s hat from his brow, 
 brushed the long yellow hair 
 with a sweep of the hand back 
 over his shoulders, and was 
 standing there flushed in the 
 face with excitement, and de 
 lighted with the scene. It was 
 the first time for many a day that he 
 had even touched the outer edge of the 
 fairer world, and his soul was hungry, 
 was starving for beauty, sympathy, song, 
 and all the better things of life that go 
 to make it tolerable. 
 
 " O pa ! pa ! there stands the living likeness of dear Mu- 
 rietta ! " 
 
 The old general put up his glasses, looked and looked, and 
 even turned in his seat, as the carriage spun on around in the 
 great little drive on the Pincian Hill, and still looked back 
 over his shoulder. And then Mollie half stood up in the car-
 
 A Railroad King in Rome. 195 
 
 riage, and waved her parasol and shouted in the hope of 
 catching the eye of this living likeness ; and then she stretched 
 her neck as the carriage spun on around and rose up again ; 
 and half a dozen gallant Italians sprang forward to save her 
 to rescue her, to restore her to her parents for themselves 
 in case she should fall ; but still the artist did not see the 
 railroad king or his daughter, and he only gathered his cloak 
 closer about him and moved a little way forward and nearer 
 to the line of passing carriages. 
 
 Suddenly there was a parasol poked in his face from a car 
 riage that was whirling by, as if he had been an enemy en 
 trenched on the Pincian Hill, and this armed Amazon had 
 come in a chariot to drive him from the battlements in a 
 sort of charge of bayonets. 
 
 Murietta started back. The armed Amazon poked the 
 footman in the back with her parasol ; the footman poked the 
 coachman in the ribs with his elbow ; the coachman pulled 
 his reins, and the carriage spun out of line and rested by the 
 parapet overlooking the great Piazza del Popolo. 
 
 " You bet it s him ! I know him by his back ! " 
 
 The general again put up his glasses, and protested that she 
 was mistaken. 
 
 " Don t you think I know sardines ? " 
 
 Again the bright-faced Californian girl poked the footman 
 in the back, and this time pointed with her parasol a turn to 
 the left. The footman poked the coachman, and the coach 
 man made a sharp turn, while two handsome officers stood at 
 the head of the horses to see that no accident happened ; and 
 it seemed half the officers of the Italian army crowded about 
 as a body-guard to Mollie Wopsus. 
 
 " Booh ! " cried the lively and light-hearted Mollie as she 
 thrust out with her bayonet and poked the pensive artist in 
 the back with the point of it. 
 
 The officers sprang forward in a platoon to catch the lively 
 little Amazon in case she should spill from the carriage j but
 
 196 T/ie One Fair Woman. 
 
 she brushed them aside with her bayonet and shouted aloud 
 to the artist, who was just now turning about to see what it 
 all meant. 
 
 " Oh my eye ! Don t look this way ! don t ! Don t know 
 a body, do you ?" She put up her hands, parasol and all, 
 and laughed and pretended to try to hide her face ; and then 
 she reached out and put her arms about the artist s neck and 
 pulled him in towards the carriage, and pushed and leaned and 
 reached till all the army of polite officers came up again to the 
 rescue, and stood there expecting every moment to see her 
 spill herself to the ground. 
 
 " Well now, you are the worst ! And when did you come? 
 and where do you go? and where are you now? and where 
 will you be ? and how have you been ? " 
 
 The Californian girl paused for breath, as the artist shook 
 General Wopsns by the hand in that easy and careless way 
 of the West which showed that the two men were at least old 
 campaigners, if not old friends. At length Miss Mollie took 
 hold of the artist s cloak, and, drawing him closer to her face 
 and leaning her head towards him, she said in a sort of shrill 
 whisper : 
 
 " Do you see those fellows in buttons ? All these here ? 
 Thick enough to stir em with a stick, aren t they? And 
 here she made a movement with her parasol as if she was 
 stirring them up very lively. " Well, them s my lovers ! 
 All them my lovers ; just think of it ! And look here !" she 
 bent her head again towards the artist, " What do you think ? 
 The re princes and counts and marquises and dukes and 
 barons and earls, and everything ! besides being officers, you 
 see ? You bet you ! " She turned her head, held out her 
 parasol sociably, as if to receive on the point of it a bold 
 officer who looked as if he was about to make a charge upon 
 the carriage, and continued : 
 
 " Yes and I am going to Court too ! And I m going with 
 a prince ! Bet your life ! a prince a real live prince ! What
 
 A Railroad King in Rome. 197 
 
 would they say to Mollie Wopsus now, I wonder, in Mexico 
 or California, eh ? " 
 
 The lively little Mollie thurst out her parasol in the direc 
 tion in which she supposed Mexico and California to be, as 
 if she would run them through for some old slight or 
 another ; and then again dropping her head to the artist 
 whispered in a high pitched key. 
 
 "And I ve got a real lover too, Mr. Murietta, a count and 
 an officer, with the brightest sword and epaulettes, and belts 
 and buttons and things ! And oh ! Papa won t let us get 
 married, you know, at all, because he has not yet come into 
 possession of his castle, an old, old uncle, you know, who 
 keeps living on and living on and living on, just for spite you 
 know. And then," and here the little head fell pathetically 
 to one side and the lively girl grew very serious and sentimental, 
 " and then he s so mean to Count Paolini, don t you know ? 
 and the count being a gentleman can t at all get on with his 
 pay, for it is not enough for a gentleman to live upon. And 
 so, you see " she looked slyly up and out to one side to see 
 if Pa was listening " and so you see I divide with him, I 
 do ! Oh, it s so nice ! Better than a novel, ain t it ? " 
 
 Murietta smiled ; and the full-hearted artless, happy girl 
 went on 
 
 " And oh, don t you like Rome ? And oh, ain t it such 
 a nice place to buy jewelry ? And then, such handsome 
 men you know ! and they are so polite, and then only to 
 think only to be surrounded all the time by dukes and 
 princes, and counts and barons! I declare, Mr. Murietta, 
 I m ashamed, heartily ashamed, of being only a general s 
 daughter." 
 
 " Ah, but, Miss Wopsus, when you marry the count, that 
 will be changed, you know ! " 
 
 " When I do ! Yes, yes, indeed it will, and the sooner the 
 quicker, say I ! You see this don t last always. I know 
 whole stacks of American girls who are coming over here next
 
 198 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 year and this tiling won t keep, you know ! These dukes 
 and counts and barons and marquises will all be married, you 
 know. And then what will become of Mollie Wopsus ? " 
 She buried her face in her hands and slowly shook her 
 head. " O if I don t get Count Paolini I shall die ! I shall 
 die, and be buried in the cold, cold ground, and 
 
 Here the music struck up to its highest and final note ; 
 and the horses began to plunge and prance, and the carriage 
 began to move. Mollie kissed her hand as the general 
 reached his, to Murietta. 
 
 " Yes, I shall die, shall die And oh ! you must dine 
 with us to-day, and I declare I am real hungry at the thought 
 of dinner ! How a fellow can eat in Rome ! and " 
 
 The carriage was whirled away, and the pleasant words of 
 the light-hearted and honest Californian girl were spilled 
 down in the tumult, and trodden under the feet of the plung 
 ing and prancing horses, and lost. 
 
 Murietta s heart was made lighter by this young woman 
 whom he had met before in the far West, and gathering his 
 cloak about him he was sauntering away with his eyes turned 
 to the dome of St. Peter s away across the northern edge of 
 Rome and beyond the Tiber. 
 
 As he reached the edge of the crowd a heavy hand fell 
 upon his shoulder. He turned, and the hand was reached in 
 token of friendship. 
 
 " I. am rough but honest, a man who carries his heai t in 
 his hand. Shake hands, 1 am a man of the world ; you are 
 an artist. You dream, I work. Come, we can be of use to 
 each other as friends. We can destroy each other as ene 
 mies. Let us be wise. It is best to be friends." 
 
 His hand was reached out. Murietta drew back and 
 wrapped his cloak closer about him. 
 
 " What if I prefer to be enemies ? " 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! just what I was saying ! You are a dreamer ! 
 Well, there is no occasion for being enemies, none in the
 
 A Railroad King in Rome. 199 
 
 least ; and, in fact, there is but little occasion for being 
 friends. I only want to ask you a question or two about a 
 certain young lady with whom I just now saw you conversing 
 in a most friendly manner." 
 
 The Admiral took out a large note-book from his breast 
 pocket, and began to scan a list of names, with figures, dates, 
 addresses, and the like, set opposite them. He stopped 
 reading a moment, tapped the leather note-book with his 
 fingers as if it had been a kind of instrument on which he 
 was about to play a tune, and then, stepping closer to the 
 side of the artist, and looking carefully about to see that no 
 one was listening, went on 
 
 " I am a blunt and open-hearted man, a rough but honest 
 sailor rAh ! you smile at this ! But if you come to know 
 me, you will say at last, ay ! you will inscribe it upon my 
 tombstone, The admiral was a rough but an honest man. 
 Well, as I was saying," here the fingers played up and down 
 the back of the leather note-book, as if they were about to 
 begin the tune, " as I was saying, I am a blunt, honest man, 
 and if I tell you why I want to know these things, and you 
 see nothing wrong in it, will you not tell me ? " 
 
 " Well, yes," said the artist, half sullenly, and gathering 
 his cloak still closer up under his chin. 
 
 " Then I proceed to explain." The fingers again played 
 a tattoo up and down the back of the leather note-book, and 
 the Admiral, looking again over his shoulder to be doubly 
 sure that no one was listening, went on, 
 
 " In the first place you, you, Murietta, ought to belong to 
 our Society, the Brothers of the Altar. You have a repu. 
 tation. Well, reputation is money. Fame is money. Title 
 is money. The name of a count is worth so much in market. 
 A duke so much. A marquis so much. A general so much, 
 and so on. Well, the name of an illustrious painter is worth 
 let me see ! " the fingers again ran up and down the 
 imaginary keys on the back of the leather note -book " is
 
 2OO The One Fair Woman. 
 
 worth, say well ! say a quarter of a million of francs at 
 least." 
 
 Murietta loosened his cloak a little from under his chin 
 and relaxed his features. He was getting interested to know 
 what this mysterious, half-hideous man was aiming at. 
 
 "You follow me?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " You are interested, then ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Well, you are poor ? " 
 
 " Certainly, if that is any of your business." 
 
 " No offence no offence. I am a blunt but honest man, 
 and only want to feel my way across the ground as I pro 
 ceed." The fingers again tapped and danced along the back 
 of the note-book. " Now we come to the pith of the ques 
 tion. Thousands of young ladies pour into this country 
 every year from America, and also from England. They are 
 the cream of their respective countries, and, particularly from 
 America, are the wealthiest and best in the land. Of course 
 they are vulgar, very loud and very vulgar, but then they are 
 also very rich. Well, you follow me ? " 
 
 Yes." 
 
 " Good. These girls, vulgar but rich, come here in nine 
 cases out of ten to get married. That is their business. 
 They have no other. Particularly those from America are 
 here for that purpose, and that purpose alone. They know 
 nothing about art ; they care less. They would give more to 
 look upon the face of a single member of a royal family than 
 to see all the works of Michael Angelo or Da Vinci." 
 
 " Well, suppose what you say is the truth, what of it ? " 
 
 Murietta was again gathering up his cloak and contracting 
 his brows at this open insult to the best woman in the world. 
 
 " That is it, that is it. Now we come to the point." He 
 again tapped and tattooed on the back of the note-book. 
 "Put this and that together, and you will understand.
 
 A Railroad King in Rome. 201 
 
 These girls, these vulgar but wealthy women from the West, 
 are here to get husbands. Shall they be disappointed ? No. 
 A gallant man will not willingly see a lady disappointed. I 
 am a gallant man. I have set my heart to assist them in 
 this matter. I go about doing good in silence. They do 
 not know, do not dream, how I am assisting them in their 
 efforts to get what they have crossed the seas to obtain." 
 
 " I do not understand you at all." 
 
 " Look here ! read these names. I am a blunt and an 
 honest man a man who carries his heart in his hand. I 
 have nothing whatever to conceal. Read these." 
 
 The admiral handed the book to the artist, and struck an 
 attitude before him as if he would sit for the personification 
 of simple innocence. 
 
 Murietta glanced down a long list of names, with addresses, 
 dates, and figures opposite them. 
 
 " There ! " The admiral pointed to the name of Mollie 
 Wopsus. " There ! Now what sum shall we set opposite ? 
 In other words, AVhat is she worth ? She comes here to be 
 married, like the others. She, like the others, wants a title. 
 Very well. These titled gentlemen are my friends. They 
 are not to be imposed upon. Now, sir, she wants a title. 
 She is easily caught ; too easily we are afraid of her. We 
 cannot find out what she is worth. She comes from too 
 remote a qtiarter. We have agents in New York, in Boston, 
 in Chicago, who keep us informed here, and also in Paris and 
 in all great cities of the Continent, and we know oftentimes 
 better than the father himself knows, what his daughter is 
 worth. But here, sir, we are in a dilemma. Now you know 
 this young lady. You not only know what she is worth, but, 
 should she prove to be wealthy, you can materially assist 
 her assist her, mark you, in a most gallant and disinterested 
 way, to procure a husband. There ! there ! pardon me," said 
 the old admiral, catching his breath and reaching out and tak 
 ing his book, and again tapping the tattoo on its back. 
 9*
 
 2O2 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 " Pardon me, sir, but I hope I have now proved to you that 
 I have no secrets at all in this matter from gentlemen, 
 from gentlemen, mark you. And now, sir, what sum shall we 
 set against the name of the vivacious Miss Mollie Wopsus ? " 
 
 " Let me look at that book again." 
 
 The artist reached his hand with an air of authority. He 
 turned a leaf, looked up and down the lines of names there, 
 and read that of Annette. 
 
 He threw the book in the man s face, and stepping back, 
 loosened his cloak as if to strike, if followed, after the fashion 
 of his country. The admiral picked up his note-book and 
 smiled. 
 
 " I have a mind to tumble you over that parapet." 
 
 " Just as I was saying just as I remarked before ! " and 
 the fingers tattooed again up and down the note-book. " You 
 are a dreamer. You do nothing but dream. Do you sup 
 pose I like this business better than you do ? No. A man 
 must eat. A gentleman must have money. Come. The 
 lady wants a title. Is she able to pay for it ? " 
 
 " You gray-headed old villain ! What if I should tell 
 this to the world ? " 
 
 " Tell it ? tell it ? There is nothing to tell. This which 
 we do is no secret. Every gentleman in Paris, every gentle 
 man in Germany, every gentleman in Italy that is, gentle 
 men who are unfortunate enough to be without fortune 
 belongs to our association. We are a society. We are a 
 band of brothers. We are more than a thousand strong. 
 When one marriage is consummated and a fortune secured, 
 that fortune must go in part to the general fund for the pur 
 chase of clothes, jewels, crests, and other things necessary to 
 catch the eye of the ladies from out your West. Tell it ! ha, 
 ha ! " The fingers again ran up and down the leather keys. 
 " Why, do you see those gentlemen walking up and down 
 there before the lines of carriages ? Well, those gentlemen 
 all have a list like this. These same names, dates, figures,
 
 A Railroad King in Rome. 203 
 
 are down in their books just as in my own. We are hesitat 
 ing about this one name. Tell it ? ha, ha ! The Italian 
 dagger still retains its point. Tell it ! Bah ! These thou 
 sand gentlemen forming one association know it already, and 
 as for the world, it will not believe you ; besides, you would 
 hardly live to tell it twice ; and the fingers again tapped the 
 book. " Come, I have been blunt, but honest. Just as I told 
 you, you will find me to the end. I am a practical man. I 
 am an old man, too. I know perfectly well what I am about, 
 and see no more harm in this trade than in any other transac 
 tion in commerce." 
 
 He took off his glove, drew out a pencil, raised it to the 
 open book, and began to write. 
 
 " Come ! be as frank with me as I have been with you. 
 What sum shall we set opposite to the name of the lively 
 Miss Mollie Wopsus ? " 
 
 Murietta seemed to have a sudden inspiration. He drew 
 his cloak closer up under his chin and said through his teeth : 
 
 " Ten million francs." 
 
 The admiral wrote the figures down with as much coolness 
 as if he had been entering a note of the weather. As he 
 wrote, Murietta noticed that the ends of his fingers were 
 stained and yellow, as if burned by acids. He remained 
 no longer, but left the man writing in his leather note-book, 
 and hastily melted away in the crowd.
 
 CHAPTER XXIY. 
 
 THE PINK PRINCESS. 
 
 URIETTA found his way home 
 under the shadow of the Tar- 
 peiaii Rock, long after nightfall. 
 It was pleasant to again bathe 
 in the sxmshine, sweet to hear 
 the hearty voices of the Saxon 
 from out the West, and he lin 
 gered late and long on the hill. 
 He did not intend to return 
 to his cell on the side of the 
 Capitoline by way of the Corso ; 
 bu\, ne went that way nevertheless in 
 spite of himself, and when he came op 
 posite to a great palace not far from the 
 palace of the Bonapartes, he stopped, 
 looked eagerly in through the high por 
 tals at the little forest of shrubs and flowers, and at last, lifting 
 his hat and kissing his hand, he passed on towards his home. 
 As he was turning out of sight of this palace, he paused, 
 lifted his hat again, looked long at the home of the woman 
 he still loved in spite of himself, and then bowing his head 
 he turned away, saying as he walked slowly on : 
 
 " I scattered roses in her path, and yet she would not know 
 me if we were to meet to-day ! " 
 
 The artist slept late, and rose more cheerful than the little 
 countesses had ever seen him. He even whistled a love tune 
 as lie went down stairs at an early hour in the afternoon on
 
 The Pink Princess. 205 
 
 his way to the gathering, the open air reception on the Pin- 
 cian Hill. 
 
 The sun was brighter than ever. The whole hill-top blos 
 somed with beautiful women from the four wide quarters of 
 the Christian world. They walked, they rested in the sun, 
 on the benches, by the beautiful figures in marble, and by the 
 fountains where white swans swam in reedy little lakes, or 
 drove in the great girdle of carriages that kept whirling 
 and whirling and whirling around on the rim of the blossom 
 ing hill. 
 
 Mollie Wopsus poked the footman in the back, who set 
 things in order to stop the carriage. Then Mollie reached 
 her hand to Marietta, and seemed so very happy. 
 
 This time there was a perfect swarm of gilded butterflies 
 about this wild flower from California, and she fairly revelled 
 in her glory. 
 
 The old General Wopsus, too, came in for a good share of 
 compliment and flattery, and with all his sound railroad sense, 
 was not at all displeased at it. 
 
 He sat back there before his daughter as a sort of king on 
 his throne receiving homage and bestowing honors. In fact, 
 he was in some sense a sort of king even at home amongst 
 the " vulgar " Americans, for he was the great railroad king 
 of the West. 
 
 His wife, Mrs. General Wopsus, sat beside her daughter, 
 a careworn woman, with the lines of her husband s railroads 
 written all over her face. A good woman was she as ever 
 breathed, full of heart and soul and sympathy for all things, 
 rational and irrational ; yet, like most of her countrywomen, 
 most uncommonly weak on the subject of rank and titles. 
 Besides that, she was a woman ; and being a woman, how 
 could she but be overcome and almost dazed with this flood 
 of flattery and compliment that poured in iipon the little 
 group of Wopsuses this morning, as it was drawn in a sort of 
 triumphal procession around the hill, followed and fawned
 
 206 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 upon by a hundred men in glittering arms and uniforms yel 
 low with gold. 
 
 "Oh, ain t it jolly?" shouted Miss Wopsus, as the artist 
 pushed back his hat and took her extended hand. 
 
 Whatever it was she referred to as being particularly 
 "jolly " he did not know, perhaps she did not know herself. 
 The reasonable thing is to suppose that she felt "jolly" on 
 general principles. 
 
 " Oh, ain t it gay though ! " 
 
 She threw out her arms, parasol and all, and caught the 
 artist around the neck as if she were going to smother him 
 or drag him into the carriage. 
 
 The Italians princes, dukes, counts, marquises, and barons 
 who had sprung forward as she threw her arms out, now 
 saw that the embrace was not for them, and they fell back to 
 a respectful distance, tapped their sword hilts, smiled pleas 
 antly, looked at each other, patted the sand with their boots, 
 and kept time to the music, and watched till Mollie Wopsus 
 was done with the stranger. 
 
 " Oh, ain t it delicious living in foreign lands ?" The 
 pretty Californian loosened her arms from the artist, clasped 
 her hands, and setting her head to one side, looked up in an 
 ecstasy of delight. 
 
 The good Mrs. Wopsus was so affected that a little express 
 train of shining tears started down one of the railroad lines, 
 but collided at the corner of one of the numerous junctions, 
 and went all to pieces. 
 
 " But then you see, Mr. Murietta, they are not all foreign 
 ers. And the Americans " here Mollie s head drooped to 
 one side again, the clasped hands went up, and the soft gray 
 eyes went down " the Americans, you know, Mr. Murietta, 
 are so, so very, very vulgar You see, Mr. Murietta, they 
 were not even educated abroad. O, Count Paolini says, they 
 are so, so vulgar ! " 
 
 Then she sighed as she thought of Paolini, and her head
 
 The Pink Princess. 207 
 
 fell down, and her hands went up and clasped, as if in a 
 sort of petition to the railroad king for her lover the Count. 
 
 Dear spoilt little Mollie Wopsus ! She had been to school 
 almost a year in Paris. Therefore Mollie had been edu 
 cated in Europe, and felt that she had a perfect right to 
 cut her American friends save a very few favored ones 
 like the famous artist and she did cut them on every pos 
 sible occasion. 
 
 The music had again reached the high note, and the leaves 
 were dancing on the trees, and the palm was reaching his 
 broad hands to give the blessing, and the horses were pran 
 cing and shaking the harness. 
 
 Mollie caught the artist by the cloak, lifted her sceptre- 
 like parasol, pulled, and landed him, with her father s help, 
 in the seat by the side of the king of railroads. 
 
 The horses plunged forward ; the Italian knights and 
 noblemen fell back, hat in hand, at precisely the same mo 
 ment, made precisely the same low bow with precisely the 
 same gesture, as if they had all been parts of a sort of 
 machine in first-rate working order, which had been set in 
 motion by the wheels of the carriage of the Wopsuses. 
 
 " Yes, we are going to Court. Pa s going to Court. 
 Mamma s going to Court. We are all going to Court. 
 And we, bet your life ! we go on our own hook, don t we, 
 pa?" 
 
 Pa pecked his head a little as if he had been a parrot on a 
 perch, and went on with his thinking. 
 
 " Look here, I ll tell you something." Mollie reached out, 
 took the artist by the cloak, and pulled him towards her. 
 " You see," she went on, " the rest of em have to go to the 
 American minister. There they register in a book, and the 
 minister gets em invited to Court. Pshaw ! Not for 
 Joseph ! " She snapped her fingers in the air, and then, 
 taking up her parasol, made several sword-thrusts at the 
 naked boughs that hung above the carriage as it whirled on
 
 208 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 around the Pincian. " Not much ! We go cross lots we 
 do, don t we, pa ? " 
 
 Pa again pecked his head at the daughter, and kept up his 
 thinking about his gridiron of railroads in the great West. 
 But the kind mother was again so affected by the happiness 
 of her daughter and their good fortune among the great 
 people of this foreign land, that she again sent a little express 
 train of shining tears down one of her numerous railroad 
 lines, till it collided against a pleasant smile at the corner of 
 her mouth. 
 
 " Here they come ! look, here they come ! Look, here 
 they come ! " 
 
 Mollie had thrown down her parasol, and was now clasp 
 ing her chubby hands with perfect delight. The carriage was 
 again rolling up to the point where she had parted with her 
 suitors. 
 
 True enough, they were coming trooping through the beds 
 and avenues of flowers, and winding in and out through the 
 carriages, and coming up straight to the presence of the rail 
 road king and his daughter with the ten-million dowry. 
 
 " Dear, dear ! Mr. Marietta, what could you have said 
 about me yesterday? I declare it was bad enough yesterday, 
 but to-day it is perfectly alarming. And I tell you, look 
 here ! " she reached and caught the artist again by the cloak 
 and pulled him forward so that her parents might not hear ; 
 " look here ! I think I can do better than take Count 
 Paolini. Count Paolini is all right, you know, and I tell you 
 it will break my heart to give him up. It will break my 
 heart, but I can do better I I " She put up her hands 
 and burst into tears. " It will break break it will break 
 my ! " 
 
 " Poor, poor, dear child ! Now just see what your cruelty 
 has done. I told you it would kill her break her break 
 break boo, hoo, hoo ! " Mrs. Wopsus also wept. 
 
 The carriage spun through the crowd and sped on around
 
 The Pink Princess. 209 
 
 the hill, while the polite Italians lifted their hats, and the 
 machinery that seemed to be attached to the carriage-wheels 
 went through the same operation as before. 
 
 This time the kind-hearted mother sent two long and very 
 heavily-laden express trains of tears down her railroad lines, 
 and there was no collision this time till they came to the 
 chin, where they hung and swung like the little light-limbed 
 boys swinging at gymnastics there in the gardens. 
 
 Suddenly Murietta started almost from his seat. They 
 were driving right beside the most beautiful woman in all 
 that gathering of beauty. It was the Countess Edna, dressed 
 as usual in rosy pink, with her black lace mantilla blowing 
 loosely back and about her shoulders. She looked like a 
 great rich rose just opened, fragrant, full, and ready to be 
 gathered by any hand that was bold enough to pluck it from 
 the tree. 
 
 The same subdued sadness aboub her ; the same careless 
 repose ; the half hiding away ; the lounging back in the car 
 riage ; the indifference about her dress, as if she tried hard 
 not to be so beautiful, and was only beautiful because she 
 could not help it. 
 
 Murietta hesitated a moment before lifting his hat. Her 
 lips parted. The man bowed and half rose in his seat with 
 admiration. 
 
 " Jove ! what a beauty ! " ejaculated the railroad king, 
 speaking for the first time. 
 
 " Oh ! who s that pink princess ? " cried Mollie, loud 
 enough almost for the marble statue there of Rienzi to have 
 heard. 
 
 The Countess smiled at this, and the two carriages drove 
 on the round together, and drew up together in the long 
 shadow of the great palm, for it was nearly sunset. 
 
 There were informal introductions passed ; and to the de 
 light and relief of Murietta, Mollie took it upon herself to say 
 all that was necessary to be said, and perhaps a great deal more.
 
 2io The One Fair Woman. 
 
 Marietta was moody once more. This beautiful woman 
 had always made him uncertain of his footing. He had 
 never felt safe in her presence. It always seemed to him 
 that she filled up the whole atmosphere, and absorbed him to 
 herself without knowing or intending it. 
 
 He had not kept his promise to return to her, because in 
 the first place he could not, and then after his illness he 
 would not, but had firmly resolved to forget her. At this 
 moment, as he sat there silent, and Mollie prattled on, his 
 resolution had fled the walls of Rome, and he sat there a 
 captive to his queen. 
 
 How Mollie did talk ! and how she did tell the " pink 
 princess " all her life, and all the life of her father, and the 
 life of her mother, and all her love and her longing for dear, 
 dear Paolini ! 
 
 And how politely the Countess listened, or pretended to 
 listen, all the time smiling half sadly, and not saying one 
 word. 
 
 " And oh ! the dreadful Americans, Countess ! how can 
 we escape them ? They are not even educated abroad, you 
 know ! O Countess, is there a place, can you tell me where 
 there is a place, do you think there is any place, where there 
 are no Americans ? " 
 
 The sun was down ; the carriages were parting ; good-byes 
 were hastily said ; but Mollie shouted back, " Is there a place 
 where there are no Americans ? " 
 
 The Countess smiled as her carriage passed ; and with a 
 half-playful light in her great full eyes, lifted her face to 
 wards Heaven ! And that was Mollie s answer.
 
 CHAPTEE XXV. 
 
 NEW ROME AND NEW ROMANS. 
 
 UT yonder to the south, be 
 yond the walls of Rome, and 
 five, ten, twenty miles away, 
 lies old Rome, lifting here 
 and there above the earth 
 some broken bit of the skel 
 eton of her own mighty pro 
 portions. And down here 
 by the Tiber, immediately 
 under us, as we stand on the 
 Spanish steps and look west, we see 
 shafts of marble, old columns that 
 lift like mossy tombstones on the 
 grave of the great dead city. There 
 lies Rome on the banks of the 
 Tiber, old Rome, dead, very dead, and buried in the dust 
 and the debris of ten and fifteen centuries. 
 
 On the side of this dead city, out of the grave as it were, 
 even out of the dust and bones and ashes of this great dead 
 city, has grown a sort of mushroom. This mushroom is new 
 Rome. 
 
 New Rome is here, pushed back from the Tiber, back on to 
 the higher land, for they could not build closer because of the 
 immense ruins ; and then the Tiber overflowed too. But here 
 is new Rome to-day a very rickety town it is too, compared
 
 212 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 with the old one. You might call it a toadstool grown up 
 out of the bones of the dead lion, and not be far wrong. 
 
 Here are shops, banks, saloons for refreshments, fashionable 
 resorts for fashionable gamblers, fashionable modern improve 
 ments of civilization. 
 
 Here are side-walks and wide streets, and well paved 
 drives, all giving the new town an infinite advantage over 
 the old, down there in the Ghetto where the Jews are. 
 
 Here are also painted women, fast and frivolous, gay young 
 men, giving their fortunes every chance, broken foreigners 
 and threadbare Romans, and many other things which make 
 a man who is in earnest with the world and himself, infinitely 
 prefer the old town, even as it is now, with all its rags and 
 wretchedness, to the new. New Rome is, in fact, a kind of 
 imitation Paris. It may not be quite so wicked, but it 
 certainly does its best, and is improving in that direction every 
 season. 
 
 Murietta was a man of extremes. He had been among the 
 miserable long enough. He had settled away down to the very 
 dregs from what was reckoned about the top of the fashion 
 able world. This he had done by choice ; but now that the 
 sun was out again, and winter nearly gone in fact and in 
 fancy, and a new life was being offered him, he chose to 
 accept it. 
 
 In this one year past, the artist had ranged society in all 
 its shades and grades with a freedom and facility that was 
 amusing even to himself to think of. 
 
 " I have seen it all," said he to himself, " from the open- 
 air reception of the crossing-sweeper up to the first step of the 
 throne. It is a little better than a comedy down about the 
 bottom, but not quite so good as a funeral as you get to the 
 top. Perhaps the best place is a calling acquaintance with 
 those who are just a little below or a good distance above 
 shop. " 
 
 And now that little Mollie Wopsus, who talked to every-
 
 New Rome and New Romans. 213 
 
 body and told everything, had seen the artist, all Rome 
 that is, all the toadstool and mushroom part of Rome knew 
 of it, and invitations to " teas," " afternoon receptions," 
 " evenings," " balls," " club dinners," " prayer meetings," 
 " Christian Associations," " Missionary Societies for the Con 
 version of Catholic Rome," poured into the hands of Mollie, 
 who was supposed to know where he dwelt, to hand over to 
 Marietta. 
 
 He liked the prospect of a change. There was an "even 
 ing" to be given at the palace at the head of the Scala de 
 Spagna. 
 
 There was the picture of an American eagle with outspread 
 wings above. There was a porter, sound asleep in a little 
 lodge which was not nearly big enough for a bedroom, yet a 
 great deal too big for a coffin. 
 
 Marietta had come late. He waked up this man with a 
 military cap and military clothes, made the necessary 
 inquiries as to the route he should take in the labyrinth of 
 stairs, and on what particular flat or floor he should stop and 
 pull the bell, and slipping a franc into the fellow s hand as a 
 sort of healing plaster for his broken rest, he passed up as he 
 had been directed. 
 
 In mushroom Rome yoxi always find this Italian at the 
 door. He is the faithful sentinel. When Rome comes to be 
 destroyed like Pompeii, as it probably will some day, it will 
 be this man, this porter with the military cap with its gold 
 band, and military clothes with gold stripe, who sits at every 
 ^cloor of fashionable Rome, who will, centuries after, be found 
 in the ashes and ruins, dead at his post ! 
 
 No, it will not be the Roman soldier this time ! It will 
 be the Italian porter in the military cap and military clothes, 
 for he will be sound asleep and cannot escape. 
 
 This porter of mushroom Rome seems never to do anything 
 whatever but sleep but to take toll and sleep. He wakes 
 up j ust long enough to take your pennies or your franc, or
 
 214 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 half-franc, and then he settles back in his coffin at the side of 
 the door, and peacefully sleeps right before your eyes. 
 
 What a conscience he must have ! 
 
 Down in old Rome, real Rome, they also have porters. 
 But these porters are shoemakers, and they sit either outside 
 the door or inside the hall. There is no house so humble in 
 Rome, but that it has its porter. And these porters of the 
 Ghetto are great men. They sit there all day, and talk and 
 work, and work and talk, and truly come to be very wise 
 and learned. They know even more than the French barber, 
 and, if such a thing were possible, could even talk faster than 
 he. There is always a crowd around the porter in the Ghetto. 
 He is a sort of bulletin-board, and the poor Jews and tho 
 fishermen and the chestnut women come, and stand before 
 him, and read the news as he prods, and pegs, and pokes, 
 and pounds away at his knees. 
 
 When you first visit this part of old Rome, you wonder 
 why in the world there are so many shoemakers. After you 
 have walked half a mile over the sharp little stones set up as 
 pavement and sidewalk, you cease to wonder. 
 
 All, or at least it seemed to Murietta, all Rome was at 
 this reception. He started back with an expression of dis 
 pleasure as the gentle and the genial hostess led him across 
 the salon. The Countess was before him. And more beau 
 tiful than ever before ! The same half sad smile on her 
 baby face, the same abundance of blond hair about her brows 
 and neck, the same rose and alabaster complexion just as he 
 had seen her in Genoa ! In fact there were the same pink 
 slippers, the same pearl-colored gloves, the same rustle of 
 soft rose silk. She was indeed the beautiful pink prin 
 cess! 
 
 It was a strange dress for any land save this. But in this 
 intense and passionate country, where the blood is warm 
 and the imagination is forever fired by beauty and beautifvil 
 scenes, where the soul is warm with love, and the body glad
 
 New Rome and Nezv Romans. 215 
 
 with wine and the glorious sunshine, color may run riot, 
 and men only admire. 
 
 The commonest Italian soldier wears a uniform more rich 
 and showy tenfold, than the commander-in-chief of the 
 United States army. 
 
 Let one of the police of the city of Rome walk down 
 Broadway in his uniform, with sword and hat, his hat a 
 perfect storm of waving red cock s feathei*s, and all New 
 York would turn out to look and wonder. Here in this 
 warm land you take it all as a matter of course and count it 
 all very appropriate. 
 
 Here was the din and tumult of a hundred voices. Above 
 the tumult the voice of Mollie Wopsus rose like the call of 
 a hunter s horn, and she was everywhere and at the same 
 time the happiest heart, and perhaps the most guileless in 
 all new Rome. 
 
 There was a crowd of admirers around the Countess as 
 she lounged back in a sofa that half buried her in its luxuri 
 ance. These tiresome admirers talked of the wonderful pic 
 tures in Rome with a learning and aptitude of expression 
 not to be found outside of a guide-book. 
 
 How terribly bored she did seem ! It looked as if she had 
 retreated backward to this sofa, and, after retreating from 
 the learned young travellers as far as possible, had there 
 entrenched herself and tried to hide down in the depths of 
 the cushions, and escape. 
 
 A little pink slipper tapped on the low ottoman, and a 
 little pink finger had twisted itself and rolled itself like a 
 silkworm tight up in a little pink frill, and was playing sad 
 havoc with itself and the little pink glove. The Countess 
 was getting nervous. She smiled, pouted, pushed out her 
 rich ruddy lips like the opening of a rose, and tapping the 
 foot a little faster than before, said to those travelled and 
 learned young men, 
 
 "Yes, yes, gentlemen, I understand. I see how it is.
 
 2i6 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 This talk about Art has its phases and its symptoms, and 
 makes its attack and passes away just like a fever. But 
 with this difference. It does not hurb the person whom it 
 attacks. It is only those who are near him who have to 
 suffer." 
 
 i The young men fell back a little, and one of them looked 
 as red as if he had been painted for the war-path. In fact 
 he seemed to think and to act as if he was really on the eve 
 of a battle, and was now advancing with very aggressive 
 voice and gesture on. the quiet Countess entrenched in her 
 sofa. 
 
 " Well, well," she said with a sigh of resignation, " have 
 it out ! Your first month in Italy, you will talk Art all 
 the time. After you are here six months you will only talk 
 Art half the time ; after you are here a year you will not 
 talk Art at all ; but you will begin to think. After thinking 
 it over a year, you will then quietly go home, perfectly 
 satisfied that you don t know anything about it." 
 
 The little silkworm unrolled itself, and the butterflies 
 flew away. 
 
 " There ! I got rid of them at last. Come, sit by me and 
 escape this whirlpool. There are better things in the world 
 than a war dance. Don t you think so ? " 
 
 " You speak in parables," answered the artist, as he took 
 the pretty little hand that was reached to him, in his, and 
 sat down by the side of the Coiintess. The little pink feet 
 ceased to play on the ottoman ; the pretty little hands lay 
 still ; and the nervousness was quite gone away. 
 
 " I surely am getting old," said the Countess a little 
 gravely, as she looked up at the artist. " I take no pleasure 
 in all this excitement of society whatever. In fact I have a 
 terror of it." 
 
 " It does not take many years for one to come to that," 
 laughed the artist. And then he added, looking at the 
 Countess, " That is a sign of wisdom, not of years."
 
 New Rome and New Romans. 217 
 
 " You are complimentary to-night. But speaking of 
 wisdom, do you not know that that same little Mollie is the 
 wisest one in all the salon ? " 
 
 " No ; but to coin a new expression excepting the 
 present company, I know she is about the best." 
 
 " Nay, nay, but she is really wise. Laugh and talk that 
 is wisdom ! " 
 
 " Mollie laughs because she cannot help it. When we are 
 wise enough to know that it is best to laugh, then we are 
 past laughing ! " 
 
 " Such is life," sighed the Countess ; " but do not talk in 
 that way." She looked at him with an earnestness in her 
 great brown eyes that he had never fairly seen before. " Do 
 not stand upon that ground, I entreat you, or you will break 
 down the wall that lies between us now, and our souls will 
 stand confronting each other." 
 
 The little pink foot fairly trembled on the ottoman. 
 
 Murietta was thoughtful and silent now. He was an 
 artist with his brush not with his tongue. At last he rose 
 up and said slowly : 
 
 " You are right. I will not touch upon that land again. 
 We two sail solitaiy seas. We are in the world, and must 
 in some measure remain of the world. We will go on in the 
 way, in the line of thought and action, and after the fashion 
 that it has prescribed, and " 
 
 " Bet your life, here he is, mamma ! here he is, making 
 love to the pink princess ! Now come ! we re going to have 
 something to eat. Ah ! they do make the best lobster salads 
 in Koine ! Celery and lobster and vinegar and oil ! Oh, 
 it s awful jolly ! Come along, come. You ve got to take 
 mamma to supper, the hostess said so, cause we all come 
 from California you know. Come now come along ! Oh 
 if my dear Count was only here ! " 
 
 Murietta laughed outright. 
 10
 
 218 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 11 Love and lobster salad ! Oh Mollie, sunny, sunny 
 Mollie ! " 
 
 "Bet your life I ll do!" And the light-hearted Mollie 
 laid her head sideways and danced the hoka-poka. Murietta 
 resigned the Countess to a gentleman sent to escort her to 
 the table, and taking Mrs. Wopsus on his arm, left Mollie 
 to dance to the admiring Italians in uniform, who hovered 
 about and laughed with delight in spite of themselves. 
 
 Mollie came dancing in as if she was dancing the Saturn 
 alia. She was in the midst of an admiring group of Italian 
 officers. It seems odd to tell, but it was not at all inappro 
 priate. She was so thoroughly good, so simple-hearted, that 
 everybody smiled, and said, " Oh, it s only Mollie Wopsus," 
 and sat down to the repast. 
 
 It was a little singular, and so thought Murietta, that he 
 should find himself seated between the tearful Mrs. Wopsus 
 and the Countess. But such is Italian civility. The gentle 
 man who had come to escort the Countess to the table rightly 
 guessed that he had cut the thread of a conversation, and 
 therefore took some care to restore the lady as nearly as 
 possible to where he found her. 
 
 Mollie sat opposite, and was soon entrenched behind a 
 perfect barricade of salad, and was firing right and left with 
 her tongue at the officers of the Italian army. 
 
 "And really is this Count Paolini here? " asked Murietta, 
 leaning over the table to Mollie. 
 
 " Hush ! " She put up her hand, fork and all, to the side 
 of her head, and leaning half way over the table, to Murietta, 
 said again, " Hush ! He is not here : he he is not 
 here " She began to catch her breath as if she was about 
 to burst into tears. 
 
 , Murietta hastened to change the topic, and spoke to the 
 Countess and Mrs. Wopsus of the weather. 
 
 " Charming weather ! " said Mrs. Wopsus, and went on 
 with her lobster salad.
 
 New Rome and New Romans. 219 
 
 " To-morrow," said the Countess, " is the opening of the 
 Carnival. I shall drive to Ponta Malo to see Saturn descend 
 the Tiber, and will take it as an especial favor if you will 
 be with me aud my little boy." 
 
 " But have you place in your carriage ? The count and 
 the admiral " 
 
 "No no no ! Don t mention them don t mention /tint, 
 I mean the admiral. They will not be with me, and " 
 
 She almost dropped her fork, and half drew back from the 
 table with excitement. 
 
 Murietta had made another mistake, and hastened again, 
 to change the subject, and began to talk to Mollie of the 
 climate of Italy. 
 
 " You will come ? " half whispered the Countess. 
 
 " Yes," answered Murietta sharply, "yes." And then the 
 next second he wished with all his heart he had said No. 
 
 " Come, then, to the palace at twelve. Or shall I send the 
 carriage for you ? " 
 
 Murietta frowned, and said he preferred to call. 
 
 "I will wait for you and expect you ; I cannot go alone. 
 The Count cannot or will not go with me without the ad 
 miral. I will not take the admiral." 
 
 Good ! " 
 
 " Do you know him ? " 
 
 " Yes no that is, I know him thoroughly for a dog and 
 a villain, or a fool and buffoon." 
 
 " Soft ! He is not a fool not a bit. of it. If he only 
 was! No, no; don t for a moment imagine he is a fool. 
 There ! I have been telling secrets ! " sighed the Countess. 
 " Let it pass. Forget what I have said. But be sure to 
 come." 
 
 " I will come. I shall be glad to forget what you have 
 said. And you will pardon me for having said so much 
 about a man of whom I know so little." 
 
 " There you are again making love to the pink princess ! "
 
 220 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 \ 
 
 cried Mollie ; and all the table looked up and laughed, 
 while the face of the Countess took on the hue of not only 
 pink but scarlet. 
 
 1 " Ah ! you are only jealous and provoked because the 
 Count is not here." 
 
 " Bet your life I am provoked because he ain t here." 
 
 " And why is he not here, then ? " queried Marietta across 
 the table. 
 
 " Because, because you see he and Prince Trawaska have 
 gone to Court. They have to be there, you see." 
 
 " And why do they have to be there ? " 
 
 " Oh, they have to be that s all. I reckon it is be 
 cause the king wants them. Maybe the Court could not go 
 on without them don t know but Prince Trawaska " 
 
 " Prince whom ? " asked Murietta, for the first time 
 catching the name that seemed to be familiar. 
 
 " Prince Trawaska, or something of that kind. He s not 
 an Italian, you know. No, he s one of those dreadful 
 Germans, with big red ears and big red heads and big red 
 faces, that look just like as if they had just been born, you 
 know." 
 
 And here Mollie set her fork-handle down on the table 
 with the prongs erect in the air like the trident of Neptune 
 in the Vatican statue, while her pretty lips pouted and wres 
 tled with a mouthful of lobster salad. 
 
 " Mollie, I know a Prince Trawaska," answered Murietta, 
 half gravely, across the table. 
 
 " Ah, do you, do you, do you ? Now, that s nice, you bet 
 your life ! Maybe it s the same one and maybe it s not. 
 That will do you see for the first chapter of a novel. There ll 
 be two. One of them will be a villain, you know, and he 
 will marry some beautiful princess " 
 
 " Or a general s beautiful daughter from California," put 
 in the Countess quietly. 
 
 " Yes, yes, that s it, bet your life ! One of them, you see,
 
 New Rome and New Romans. 221 
 
 will be the heavy villain of the novel. He will marry some 
 body, and then the other one, who will be the brave good 
 knight, will come and rescue her and kill the wicked prince. 
 And then she will mourn very deeply and very properly, and 
 then the cross old father will get reconciled, and will give 
 them any amount of tin and say, Bless you, my children ! 
 And then, after mourning very deeply for just six months to 
 the day, they will be married and move into a great castle 
 with towers and battlements and a secret passage and oh bet 
 your life ! I could write the best novel in the world, I 
 could ! " 
 
 The trident went down and made a harpoon plunge at the 
 diminished heap of salad, and Mollie s little mouth was stop 
 ped effectually for some time. 
 
 "But Mollie," began Marietta gravely. 
 
 Mollie set the trident in rest like another Neptune, and 
 looked up as she wrestled with the lobster salad. 
 
 " But Mollie, suppose these two particular princes and the 
 villain turn out to be the same one? " 
 
 " Oh nonsense, but it won t, it can t. It never does, you 
 know. It never will." 
 
 " No, not in fiction. But it may in fact, nevertheless." 
 
 And Marietta wrinkled his brows and looked across the 
 table very seriously at the light-hearted little Mollie wrest 
 ling with the last fragments of a plateful of lobster salad. 
 
 " But you frighten me, Mr. Marietta. You never talk to 
 me like other people. You always make me think. You 
 are a thousand years old, and* and " Down went the 
 trident across the empty plate with a clang, and Mollie 
 began to pout in earnest. 
 
 " Well, Miss Mollie, I will not frighten you any more. I 
 only want to tell you, however, that this Prince Trawaska 
 that I know is not an Italian, that he is a colonel in the 
 Italian army, that he has enormous ears, a red, smooth, fat 
 face, a stout chin, and a long sabre at his side."
 
 222 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 The Italians present "were leaning and listening with as 
 much attention and interest as their matchless politeness will 
 allow. Marietta went on, " And also I want to tell you 
 that we live in the same house, on the same floor, and " 
 
 " Good ! tip-top, first-class, bet your life ! On the same 
 floor with a prince." 
 
 " Yes, next door to him, in fact. He and an Italian count 
 occupy the adjoining room. And the prince is a knave ! " 
 
 " The adjoining room ! and the prince is a knave ! " ejacu 
 lated Mrs. Wopsus. 
 
 Mollie caught up and again clanged down the trident on 
 the empty plate till it rang like a sword on a helmet. 
 
 " Next thing you ll be saying something dreadful about 
 Count Paolini, you will ! and I won t stand it, I won t ! " 
 
 Down went the little head, up went the little hands, and 
 tears ran through the fingers like rain. 
 
 Then in a moment she seemed to rally, and thought she 
 had something to say and thought she could trust herself to 
 say it, and taking down her hands and taking up the trident, 
 she began : 
 
 " Bet your life, if if Bet your life, if boo hoo 
 hoo " 
 
 Poor kind-hearted Mrs. Wopsus looked up in silent 
 dismay, and then in an instant started two full express trains 
 of tears down the railroad lines of her face, as if to the 
 assistance of her daughter. 
 
 But Mollie soon recovered. These were April showers 
 falling in the bright spring-time of her youth, and the sun 
 soon was shining bright as ever. 
 
 " I will never speak to you again, Mr. Murietta. Never 
 so long as I live. No, Mr. Murietta, I will not. I love 
 Count Paolini, and I don t care who knows it; and I will 
 have him, or it will kill me ! There now ! It s out and I 
 will never speak to you again. Please, Signer Colombo, pass 
 me the salad."
 
 New Rome and New Romans. 223 
 
 The lobster salad was passed. 
 
 "And now, Mr. Marietta," said Mollie, as she set the 
 trident in rest, " I want to know how you happen to know 
 Prince Trawaska is a villain." 
 
 Murietta only said, " To-morrow," in answer, and soon the 
 guests arose and returned to the saloon.
 
 CHAPTER XXYI. 
 
 CARNIVAL EVE. 
 
 URIETTA S mind was filled 
 with the Countess as he took his 
 way down the Spanish steps at 
 an early hour for Italy. He 
 recollected her, and only her. 
 It seemed to him as he thought 
 of her that she filled the whole 
 salon with a soft and a rosy 
 light. 
 
 And he recollected her as be 
 ing singularly alone also there 
 that evening. Even her husband, the 
 cunning little count, seemed to avoid her, 
 and with a devilish and refined courtesy 
 was seen at every opportunity to point 
 out his wife to those with whom he 
 spoke, and shake his head and sigh. 
 
 More than once he had seen the ladies put their heads 
 together and whisper, as they looked furtively over their 
 shoulders at the lady in rose and pink, and once he heard a 
 lady say, " The poor dear count ! what a gentle and devoted 
 Imsband he is ! " 
 
 What could it all mean ? The man was more puzzled than 
 ever. Yet he was more than ever convinced that there was 
 something very wrong and very rotten in Rome. 
 
 He drew his cloak closer about him as he reached the great 
 Spanish square and wedged himself on through the crowd
 
 Carnival Eve. 225 
 
 towards the Corso with great difficulty, for this was Carnival 
 Eve, and Rome was not only full up to the top of the basin, 
 as the Secretary of Legation would have it, but Rome was 
 brimming and boiling over. There was hardly standing room 
 in Rome. It seemed that all Italy was there, and half of 
 America besides. 
 
 What crowds of maskers ! what shouts ! what merriment ! 
 
 In a moment he was forced to put aside the concern and 
 care about the Countess, and was borne away with the stream 
 of pleasure in spite of himself. 
 
 Men were dressed as women, women as men, boys as beasts, 
 and perhaps there were beasts dressed in the guise of gentle 
 men. 
 
 It was noticeable that these maskers were, as a rule, very 
 loud of speech, and often very vulgar, with an accent in 
 whatever tongue they attempted to speak which showed very 
 clearly that they were either from foreign lands having their 
 first Carnival in Rome, or Italians of a very low order and 
 of questionable, or rather unquestionable character. 
 
 It was quite certain that the merry old cardinals and 
 gallant gentlemen who once made the Corso brilliant with 
 sparks of wit flashed from behind their masks on Carnival 
 Eve, were not there now. The scene in some parts of the 
 Corso resembled a lot of madcap boys and girls in the country 
 playing blindman s-buff in a barn. 
 
 " You are a woman! " cried a sharp voice from behind a 
 black mask in very bad French, and with an American 
 accent. " You are a woman. I know you by your long 
 hair ! " and she laid hold of the artist and pulled him towards 
 her, and laughed and shouted as she did so. 
 
 " Pardon me, I am not a woman ! " 
 
 " Prove it ! prove it ! " 
 
 The artist put his arm about her gallantly, and made as if 
 he would kiss her and prove his case. 
 
 She screamed and struggled. 
 10*
 
 226 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 f( Hands off there, sir ! Let her go ! Let her go ! " cried a 
 voice from under a pair of goat s horns and a bearded mask 
 which was meant to represent the god Pan playing his reed 
 by the river. 
 
 " And who are you ? " said Marietta, assuming a mock- 
 heroic attitude, and reaching back his hand as if about to 
 draw a sword. 
 
 The great god Pan stumbled over his goat s hoofs, flourished 
 his reed, and fell back as if terrified to death ; but the artist 
 still held on to the masked lady who had first taken hold of 
 him, as if he was about to play the part of Romulus in the 
 old story of the Sabines. 
 
 " Let her go, please let her go ! that s my sister," pleaded 
 the great god Pan from under his beard and horns. 
 
 " And who are you ? " again asked the artist. 
 
 " Why, I am the son of Mr. Thompson, of Cincinnati." 
 
 " And who is Mr. Thompson of Cincinnati ? " 
 
 " Don t you know Mr. Thompson ? Why, he s the richest 
 pork-packer in the world ! " 
 
 Marietta let go his little Sabine with a singular feeling of 
 disgust, and passed on, musing as he went. 
 
 " The great god Pan with his reed, and the great pork- 
 packer with his gold ! So we go. Such is life. Verily 
 extremes do meet; and fortune as well as misfortune makes 
 some strange bedfellows ! " 
 
 In places the crowd beat and surged against the sides of 
 the streets as does a swollen stream against its banks. In 
 other places the crowd and confusion was not so great, and 
 people stood talking in groups or watching the maskers as 
 they went, and came, and called, and bantered each other as 
 they passed. 
 
 A Capuchin monk was seen coming down a side street and 
 to enter the crowd with a masked woman leaning on his 
 arm. 
 
 The crowd began to hiss and jeer, and throw old bouquets
 
 Carnival Eve. 227 
 
 and cabbages, and everything of the kind they could lay 
 hands upon. For who had ever seen a Capuchin monk with 
 a woman on his arm ? 
 
 The man in the garb of the monk backed up against the 
 wall and cried for quarter, while the woman tore off her 
 mask and screamed on general principles. 
 
 " Take off that gown, and let go that woman ! " cried one. 
 
 " A pretty fellow you, indeed, to play the Capuchin with 
 a woman on your arm ! " cried another. 
 
 The bouquets and rotten cabbages fell like a storm, and 
 again the woman screamed for help. 
 
 A policeman lifted his hand to the crowd, and then turn 
 ing to the man, made him take off the gown and unmask 
 where he stood. 
 
 " You are not allowed to mock at religion here ; and 
 above all, let me advise you, never attempt to wear the garb 
 of a Capuchin, for the monks of this order are respected, 
 nay, revered, by all respectable men ; and the people, to say 
 nothing of the law, will not allow them to be insulted." 
 
 The man stood there holding on to the woman as if he 
 was afraid of the crowd. 
 
 " You will give me your name and address, and you can 
 go," said the sergeant. 
 
 He gave his name and address, and proved to be a German 
 student from Heidelberg. 
 
 "Let me tell you how to disguise yourself?" cried a 
 Frenchman. The German looked up. 
 
 " Go home and put on the dress and manners of a gentle 
 man then your own mother will not know you ! " 
 
 " Ay," answered the German back over his shoulder, as he 
 turned away with the woman, " we go to Paris to learn 
 manners of the French. We send our army to Paris to learn 
 manners ! " added the German, looking back at the French 
 man. 
 
 Murietta elbowed his way on up th Corso through tins
 
 228 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 crowd of masks and faces, and wondered what the to-morrow 
 would bring him. 
 
 He lifted his hat as he passed opposite the great palace 
 with the high portal opening to the court, with the little 
 forest of plants and flowers, and again fell to thinking of the 
 one fair woman. 
 
 He went home at last, and was at War with himself. The 
 beautiful Countess floated before him like a rosy light as he 
 passed under the shade of the Tarpeian Rock, and climbed 
 the crooked stairs to his little cell. 
 
 All the merry maskers, and the tumult of the Corso, and 
 the promise of a gay Carnival to-morrow, could not draw this 
 man away from himself for ten minutes together. 
 
 He wished, devoutly wished, he had never seen this Coun 
 tess ; and at last, as he threw off his cloak, he said to himself 
 with an emphasis that was almost an oath, that he would see 
 her no more. 
 
 Then turning behind the door he lifted and laid aside the 
 shawl that his black-eyed little ladies had thrown over the 
 picture there, and bore the easel out to the middle of the 
 room. 
 
 There she was, just as he had always seen her, just as she 
 had always seemed, looking back over her shoulder, going 
 away from him without one word, without even a look of 
 love, without even a glance of recognition ! 
 
 Now his woman seemed to be a part of himself. He 
 thought of the Countess as a stranger, a sort of usurper, as 
 some one against whom he must sometime take up arms and 
 expel. 
 
 He drew the dagger from the bosom where it had hung for 
 a long time, and hurled it back into the corner. The canvas 
 was cut and torn, and swayed and bent all out of shape. He 
 tried to re-arrange it, but the wet picture had dried as the 
 dagger had drawn and stretched it ; and it would not come 
 again in its place.
 
 Carnival Eve. 229 
 
 The impulsive artist stood before the picture with folded 
 arms, and looked at this shadow of his ideal long and earnestly. 
 
 He had wandered away from his ideal love, and had taken 
 delight in the smiles of another. Now he was very penitent 
 and very affectionate. He loved her more than ever before. 
 
 When a man returns late at night and kisses his wife with 
 more than ordinary tenderness, she may be pretty certain 
 that he has been in mischief.
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 SATURN SAILING DOWN THE TIBER. 
 
 JURIETTA slept long and well, 
 and arose late. The sun was 
 sifting through the cracks in the 
 closed shutters, and spilling in 
 long bars as bright as gold over 
 the carpets and the red bricks on 
 the further floor. 
 
 He swung open the window, 
 and looked out toward and over 
 the Palatine Hill. The levelled 
 old citadel was red with roses 
 and flowers. The air was filled with 
 odors from, the opening buds and blos 
 soms of spring. It was as if summer 
 had come while he slept, and sat down 
 in Rome to remain. 
 The air was so soft, and rich, and sweet, that you could 
 fairly feed upon it, and be glad and satisfied. The day was 
 perfect as love. 
 
 Away to the west some clouds, as white as the Alpine tops 
 to where they tended, were drawing into shore across the sea 
 from Africa, and stretching out in long still caravans across
 
 Saturn sailing down the Tiber. 231 
 
 the blue untroubled sky, as if they were bringing oil and 
 spices across some desert, like merchants of the olden time. 
 
 The artist was glad and light of heart in spite of himself. 
 A bird was calling from a cypress tree above his window, 
 and he answered back and then shouted to the boys below, 
 who halloaed in return, and bade himcoine forth and enjoy 
 the Carnival in Rome. 
 
 On the rocky and ugly steps, a little way below, and just 
 underneath the little image of the Madonna with the per 
 petual lamp at her feet, was a little level spot barely broad 
 enough for two persons to turn around in. Four beautiful 
 brown girls were dancing there, and throwing their arms 
 loose from their loosened robes, and laughing and tossing back 
 their glory of hair, and showing their pearly teeth, as they 
 kept time to the tamborine, which a gallant troubadour in a 
 brigand s hat and feather beat and jingled as he sat on a wall 
 above them, with his sandalled feet dangling down in the sun. 
 
 An old woman hobbled by in a mask with a cat on her 
 shoulder ; a man shouted out his wares, and rattled a bell, 
 and danced as he did so, and made a very awkward combina 
 tion of pleasure and business. 
 
 It was evident that it was Carnival time in Home. The 
 spirit of revelry and mirth had reached even these miserable 
 people in this miserable part of the city, and the artist was 
 all curiosity to see what it might now be in the Corso, the 
 great heart vein and artery of the city. 
 
 Looking out on the blossoming hills, breathing this soft 
 sweet air that had blown in across the sea from Africa, see 
 ing the mirth and merry-making about him, Murietta could 
 very well understand how that, away back on the far dim edge 
 of Time, in the world s beginning, the wild people of the 
 Campagna and the Sabine Hills on this day rose up in a bodv, 
 and beat drums, and sang, and danced with delight under 
 the cork trees on the sunny hill side, and thus laid the cor 
 ner-stone for the Carnival of the Christians.
 
 232 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 It seemed impossible that any one should be sad, or even 
 be silent, and refuse to give thanks and be glad in this morn 
 ing of sudden summer. 
 
 The artist hastily drank his coffee, threw his great cloak 
 over one shoulder, as is the custom of Latin countries, and 
 let it swing to the ground. He brushed back his long yellow 
 hair, then went up to the little looking-glass and arranged 
 his brown moustache in a gallant and becoming twirl. What 
 a wonderful elasticity there is in the air of a full-blown and 
 sudden spring ! 
 
 The cock that has been careless half a season with his 
 feathers, now mounts his dunghill, and plumes himself in 
 the sun, and challenges the admiration of the world. The 
 wildest beast in the forest at such a time smooths down his 
 hairy coat, and contemplates his visage in the water when he 
 drinks in the sun. 
 
 The peasants had been pouring in from the Campagiia 
 through the gate of Saint Paul since dawn ; many of them 
 had fowls in baskets, fruits in leaves and grass, early vege 
 tables, and dried meats to sell to the multitudes of the old 
 Jew quarter of the city. 
 
 Every inch of the streets seemed occupied. And yet you 
 could make your way with but little trouble. On one side 
 of the street the stream poured in one direction, while on the 
 other side it poured in the other, so that yoxi had only to 
 fall in on the proper side, and you would be borne along 
 whether you willed it or no, almost as fast as your legs could 
 follow. 
 
 Omnibuses, asses, carriages, footmen, and footwomen ; beg 
 gars and men in masks ; princes coming to see the poor in 
 the Jew quarter, and the poor of the Jew quarter 011 their 
 way to the Corso to see the princes. What a medley it was, 
 and what a tumult ! 
 
 Every man laughed and every woman smiled. Women 
 trod on men s toes, and men chucked women under the chin,
 
 Saturn sailing down the Tiber. 233 
 
 but no one cried out or complained in the least, for no one is 
 allowed to get angry in Caraival. Besides that, it is con 
 sidered a bad omen. The tradition and prophecy among the 
 peasants is to the effect that the man who is angry in Car 
 nival will die before the end of the year, and the woman who 
 is cross shall have no children. 
 
 At last, borne along with, and almost on, this strong stream 
 of happy people, the artist reached the Piazza of the Twelve 
 Apostles. It was nearly twelve o clock by the sun-dial on the 
 palace of the Colonnas. 
 
 At twelve o clock he had promised to be with the Count 
 ess. But then he had promised himself last night that he 
 would see her no more. He stopped and began to consider. 
 In one case he had made a promise to another, to a woman. 
 But then he had made that promise hastily and without re 
 flection. In the other case he had made the promise only to 
 himself. But then this promise he had made with due de 
 liberation, and he even now was certain that it was right and 
 wisely made, and should be manfully kept. 
 
 But then, to break a promise with a lady! The long thin 
 shadow on the sun-dial was drawing sharp and close upon the 
 last minute. 
 
 " Let me see," said Murietta, pushing back his hat and 
 pulling at his moustache with the air of a man who is greatly 
 perplexed. " If I go I shall be no better off, but possibly a 
 great deal worse : and besides, I shall have broken a promise 
 with myself. If I do not go, I shall at all events have a pleas 
 ant day of it, shall be safe and secure, and shall have " 
 
 he pulled at his moustache very vigorously, and as if getting 
 excited, "and shall have broken a promise with a 
 lady." 
 
 He said this slowly and in links, as if to hear the full indig 
 nity of it. 
 
 The dial showed that he stood on the very brink of twelve 
 o clock.
 
 234 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 " If I do not go ? " Then, suddenly he started, gathered 
 up his cloak, and said, almost as if he had been speaking to 
 the crowd that poured past and around him, " What have I 
 been doing ? I have been thinking only of myself. I have 
 only been thinking what good or what ill, what pleasure or 
 what displeasure will happen to myself if I go or do not go 
 with this beautiful lady who has so kindly otfered me a seat 
 at her side to see the Carnival. Well, then, what will hap 
 pen to her if T go? she will probably enjoy the drive and the 
 scene. At all events she will have what she asked and what 
 I promised. And if I do not go ? Then she will wait and 
 wait, and be disappointed and displeased, and perhaps not go 
 out at all, and miss the whole scene which all Rome has been 
 looking forward to with such intense interest and concern." 
 
 He did not stand there to finish the sentence. The long 
 thin shadow on the high white wall was lying flat and straight 
 on the line of the meridian. 
 
 He pressed through the people, laid hold of men and women 
 as if pulling his way up a stream, and in a little time he lifted 
 his hat and threw back his cloak before the beautiful Count 
 ess, who sat, arrayed in pink and rose, awaiting him in her 
 carriage in the court of her palace. 
 
 She did not speak. She only smiled, and with a little, 
 gloved hand drew her pink robes closer to her side as Muri- 
 etta mounted and took his place there without a word. 
 
 Little Sunshine, who had been watching the doves that 
 flew and fluttered and cooed about the court as if having a 
 little Carnival of their own, now lifted his eyes to his mother s. 
 His mother smiled, he pulled a string which seemed as it 
 might have been one of the heart-strings of the man on the 
 box, and then the man on the box elbowed the great, fat, 
 senatorial looking Roman who held the reins, and the car 
 riage rumbled out and over the stones of Rome, through the 
 Porto Populo toward the Ponte Malo. 
 
 What crowds of people ! What good-natured peasants, and
 
 Saturn sailing down the Tiber. 235 
 
 what gallant princes and gentlemen on horseback ! What 
 handsome lady-like soldiers in gorgeous uniforms, and what 
 manly-looking women from the foot-hills of the Alps, with 
 their brown faces and their braided hair ; fit mothers of 
 Romans when Rome was Rome. 
 
 How these peasants huddled together and kept in groups 
 by themselves ! The Italian seems to fear no one half so 
 much as he does the Italian. Perhaps it is because of their 
 old feuds that went on for ages. Perhaps it is because he 
 knows him best. 
 
 Both sides of the turbid, yellow Tiber were lined above the 
 bridge for miles by people, mostly peasants, each party or 
 band from each particular village or district keeping close to 
 gether, looking eagerly up the river, waiting for the great 
 gold barges with silver oars that were to bear Saturn and 
 King Pasquino down the Tiber to the golden chariot that 
 stood there with its ten white oxen waiting to drive them 
 and their suite to the city of Rome. 
 
 By begging the peasants, bantering the maskers and gentle 
 men, and bribing the policemen, Murietta managed to get 
 the carriage driven to the very keystone of the bridge. Here, 
 drawn to one side, they waited the descent of Saturn, who 
 was to bring from his winter palace of ice in the Alps the 
 authority of the gods to King Pasquino the Second to open 
 the Carnival in Rome. 
 
 About two o clock puffs of smoke were seen to rise from 
 away up the crooked Tiber, and as the barges turned a point 
 and hove in sight, the cannon on the banks of the Tiber 
 boomed, the bands played martial airs, and the people threw 
 their hats in the air and shouted and danced and danced and 
 shouted with wild excitement and delight. 
 
 At first, and when far off, the effect was beautiful. All 
 banners of all nations floated in the summer wind that blew 
 tip the Tiber as if to welcome them, and the barges glistened 
 in the sun as if they were sheeted in. gold.
 
 236 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 As they drew neai-, however, you began to see that these 
 barges were only ugly old flat boats used for carrying stones 
 and wood down the river, and that the gold was only brass- 
 foil, which was now breaking away and blowing and floating 
 off as they eddied about in the swift stream and struck the 
 sandy shore and attempted in vain to land. 
 
 The people shouted and laughed, the cannon boomed no 
 more, the musicians threw their instruments up above their 
 heads and screamed with excitement, as Saturn stood there 
 in his tinsel and paper crown, helpless, and half afraid of 
 being overturned and drowned in the Tiber. 
 
 At last a rope was reached and made fast to the shore. 
 The great gold barge was tied up, a plank was slipped down 
 the steep bank, and the god, sceptre in hand, attempted to 
 walk to land, but stumbled and fell, and lost his crown in 
 the attempt. 
 
 The rabble fumed and hissed again. The musicians broke 
 off in the middle of a triumphal march, and again flashed 
 their bright instruments in the sun above their heads. 
 
 Somehow, Saturn clambered up again, and his crown was 
 fished out of the river, and soiled and dripping, was restored 
 once more to his head ; but he seemed to have hurt himself 
 in the fall, for they had to help him to his high place in the 
 centre of the Four Seasons on the top of the great golden 
 car, which was made out of brass foil and wall paper and very 
 weak and rickety timber. 
 
 There were four bronze lions set at the corners of this car, 
 and a handsome body-guard of boys dressed as Amazons kept 
 guard around the sacred person of Saturn as he sat there 
 with his flowing beard and battered paper crown in the 
 centre of the Four Seasons. 
 
 This great car was to be followed by King Pasquino the 
 Second ; who, in acknowledgement of the authority of 
 Saturn, was to come after him in a less gorgeous, but fortu-
 
 Saturn sailing down the Tiber. 237 
 
 nately more substantial conveyance. The king was drawn 
 by asses. 
 
 All being ready, and the monarchs being seated with their 
 crowns firmly fixed, the cannon boomed again, the musicians 
 began their march, and the ten white oxen, each led by a 
 Roman in the old days of the first Csesar, began to move, 
 and the procession of a dozen cars, each bearing some impor 
 tant personage supposed to be connected with the opening of 
 the Carnival, was on its way to the walls of Rome. 
 
 The Four Seasons scattered flowers and fruit and bread 
 and nuts to the thousands who stood on either side the long 
 dusty road that reached to the gate of the city, 
 
 The King Pasquirio had announced that the good guardian 
 angel who stood at the back of his throne, on his high car, 
 would scatter money in vast quantities to the people who 
 followed his car and his fortunes on the triumphal march to 
 the city. 
 
 But the good guardian angel seemed to get sea sick, as the 
 rickety car rocked from side to side and threatened to upset, 
 and after a few seconds she sat down quite out of sight, and 
 a man in the crowd shouted out that she was putting the 
 money all up her sleeve. 
 
 The good-natured officers of the day assisted the carriages 
 to turn and fall in line behind the slow and ludicrous pro 
 cession, headed by the ten white oxen ; and Murietta and the 
 Countess in pink and rose were on their way back to Rome. 
 
 All day she had been silent : perhaps she had not said ten 
 words. There was a sort of audacity and indifference in this 
 that puzzled him ; yet it pleased him above everything else. 
 Nothing would have interested him so much as this. Had 
 she talked with the wit of a clown or the wisdom of a sage 
 he had grown weary of her : as it was, he was more interested 
 than ever. She had promised revelations ; but now that she 
 had an opportunity to reveal, she was as silent as if she had 
 been marble.
 
 238 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 The procession moved but slo\vly. The Carnival was 
 growing monotonous. At last one of the bronze lions at the 
 corner of Saturn s car fell to the ground. The dreadful 
 beast had only been made of hair and plaster, and as this 
 had not yet been thoroughly dried, he could not stand on his 
 feet for all the day, and so broke quite down and tumbled 
 off to the ground and was broken in bits as he fell. 
 
 This stopped the procession for a time, and carnages were 
 allowed to pass on. 
 
 Our little party availed itself of this opportunity, and shot 
 by and took up position among the tens of thousands who 
 stood in the great plaza of the people just inside the walls of 
 Rome, waiting for the great procession. 
 
 The fountains played and sparkled in the sun. Banners 
 floated from a thousand house-tops and towers, and all the 
 Corso was one perfect flower-bank of flags and scarfs and 
 ensigns and banners brought from every land, and now let 
 loose to float and flutter from the windows and balconies of 
 those who had been fortunate enough to secure places in this 
 one favoured street of Rome. 
 
 At last the procession came to the gates, demanded tho 
 keys, received them, and attempted to enter. But alas ! for 
 the calculations of the Italian architect who had constructed 
 the car ! The flagstaff of Saturn struck against the lofty 
 arch of the great gate, and stuck there, and stopped the pro 
 cession just when it began to assume an air of solemnity and 
 importance. 
 
 At this critical period, one of the Four Seasons somehow 
 got hold of an axe, and, climbing up, cut down the flagstaff 
 and lowered the banner, and let the procession pass on, as she 
 resumed her seat, and began solemnly to scatter roasted 
 chestnuts to the ragged children about the wheels of the car. 
 
 Here the procession formed anew, and redoubled its force 
 and importance. A great pasteboard elephant representing 
 the one division of the world led off after the car of Saturn
 
 Saturn sailing down the Tiber. 239 
 
 and the king, and this was followed by an enormous hump 
 backed camel, made also of pasteboard for this occasion only, 
 and drawn on wheels, with a Turk or Arab in a turban sit 
 ting on his back, leisurely smoking his pipe. Europe came 
 next as a cow, and America fell in line in the form of a 
 buffalo. 
 
 How happy were the people of Rome ! this race of 
 children ! Old men were merry as boys in a hayfield ; and 
 old women made eyes at men as if they were young again, 
 and were once more belles and queens of the Corso in the 
 good old times when the kings came to masquerade and take 
 part in the Carnivals of the Holy Father. 
 
 The procession had wound like a long serpent from the 
 broad square, and down its length through the Corso. The 
 king had proclaimed the Carnival begun in Rome ; and the 
 people were running by on foot and in crowds throwing con 
 fetti, and riding by on horses with bags of the vile stuff at 
 their sides and saddle-bows ; and parties in carriages behind 
 with masks, with basketsful before them, were driving by 
 like mad, and throwing confetti right and left on every one 
 in reach. 
 
 The countess endured this for some time, and little Sun 
 shine laughed at this strange diversion of this childish people. 
 
 At last she said, " We will drive home," and drove up by 
 the way of the Pincian. Hill to escape the crowd and confetti. 
 
 "And you do not like the Carnival? " said Murietta, look 
 ing inquiringly at her. 
 
 " ISTot this throwing of dirt ! Mercy ! that people should 
 find diversion in throwing dirt ! " 
 
 " But," laughed Murietta, " there are people who spend 
 all their time in throwing dirt. Perhaps this is an open il 
 lustration of life." 
 
 " Well, I do not like it, whatever it may mean. I see but 
 two parties here : one to throw the dirt, the other to receive 
 it. If this is one of the good things that the old popes
 
 240 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 brought in use for Italy, why then I pity Italy and am 
 ashamed for the popes." 
 
 The sun was setting behind St. Peter s and the air was 
 falling damp and chill as they climbed the hill amid a stream 
 of carriages pouring up and down, and Murietta did not an 
 swer, but gathered his cloak about him and began to look at 
 the carriages full of fair women as they flew past. 
 
 Suddenly a carriage, with two black men on the box, hav 
 ing two ladies, came dashing down the hill and passed our 
 party. 
 
 Murietta threw up his hands to his face, pushed back his 
 hat, and almost rose from his seat. It was Annette, the One 
 Fair Woman.
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 IN A BAD ATMOSPHERE. 
 
 HE Belle of Rome ! " cried 
 the Countess, suddenly grow 
 ing animated, and turning to 
 Murietta as she spoke. 
 
 "The Beauty of Rome!" 
 answered Murietta warmly. 
 " Do you know her ? " 
 " Know the lady ! I have 
 known her a thousand years ! " 
 " O, in the time of the Caesars ! 
 Why not say in the time of the 
 Caesars ? Say, for example, that you 
 met her at the ball given by the 
 wife of citizen Brutus, to celebrate 
 the opening of the Appian Way, 
 and so on." 
 
 " Well," snid Murietta, coldly, " since you are so exact 
 about the matter, I am bound to confess the truth, and to 
 tell you that I do not know her at all ; or at least, that she 
 does not know me." 
 
 " Are you certain that you are not romancing ? " One of 
 the pretty little pink fingers in a little pink glove was rolling 
 itself up like a silkworm in the tassels of a scrape shawl as 
 11
 
 242 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 she said this, and the lips pouted out saucily, and the lady 
 colored to the brows. 
 
 " I am certain that she does not recognize me, and I can 
 only add in all candor that I am sorry that she does not, 
 and am covered with shame and confusion, for I have fol 
 lowed her as faithfully as night follows day, and " 
 
 lie stopped then suddenly, and bit his lips. 
 
 The color went from the face of the beautiful Countess 
 only for an instant. Then, turning to Marietta, she laid her 
 little hand on his arm, gently, very gently, scarcely touching 
 it, and looking in his face so earnestly, so sadly, so full of 
 soul, she said 
 
 " I comprehend, I understand you ; I understand you per 
 fectly ; and, Mr. Murietta, listen to me and believe me : I, 
 too, am sorry ; very, very sorry." 
 
 " Hist ! soft ! Her name is sacred, lady. Remember, I 
 said I knew nothing of her whatever. I have never spoken 
 to her one word. The admission that I have made is my 
 own. It is also my own secret. If I have followed her and 
 worshipped her, it has not been her fault in anywise whatever. 
 Remember that ! Remember that ! Her name, somehow, is 
 sacred. Her good name and her fair fame, her purity of 
 heart, her charity, her truth, her nobility of nature, that 
 would forbid her to encourage for one .moment a passion that 
 she could not entertain, must never be questioned. She never 
 so much as spoke to me, or even smiled in my presence." 
 
 " Please don t be mysterious," pleaded the Countess. 
 
 " But I am only trying fo be plain." 
 
 " I do not understand you." 
 
 " But you said you understood perfectly." 
 
 I do not understand a nature and a sentiment like that." 
 The pretty little pink finger was wound tight as a silkworm 
 in its shroud, and the great brown eyes full of melancholy 
 lifted and looked with earnestness and inquiry into the face 
 of Murietta.
 
 In a Bad Atmosphere. 243 
 
 The carriage had turned into the court, and stopped at the 
 foot of the great stairway, while the footman stood holding 
 open the door for them to descend. 
 
 " You will dine with us to day ? " 
 
 No." 
 
 " You will at least come in and have a glass of wine ? " 
 
 The artist gave the lady his arm ; little Sunshine ran up 
 the steps holding on to the footman s hand, and the senato 
 rial Roman on the box snapped his silk, and lifting his finger 
 to his hat, trundled over the stones and was gone. 
 
 The doors of the old palace were massive and old, and 
 rusty as the doors of a prison. A whole army might be held 
 at bay for ever so long by one of these doors, built in the 
 middle ages out of crossed beams of oak, and crossed bars 
 of iron and bolts of copper and plates of brass. 
 
 There was a smell of tobacco smoke as they entered the 
 ante-camera, and from beyond there came the shouts of many 
 voices, as if men were at wine in a wayside inn. 
 
 The Countess tried to pass this tumult by with the remark 
 that the Count and his friends were having their Carnival in 
 the palace instead of on the Corso, but she looked very much 
 troubled, and her brow gathered with care and anxiety. 
 
 They entered the great saloon, gorgeous with mirrors and 
 paintings, and set all around by little forests of flowers, and 
 pleasant to the feet with its voluptuous carpets. 
 
 To the delight and relief of Murietta, here they came 
 upon Carlton, the American artist and poet we have before 
 met in Naples. He was hidden away in a corner like a her 
 mit, devouring a book, and as if he was trying to get out of 
 sight and hearing of the terrible din of voices back yonder 
 somewhere in the depths of the palace. 
 
 The beautiful Countess, with her brows gathered in trouble, 
 left the two gentlemen together, and taking her little boy by 
 the hand, passed on through the great saloon into the little 
 rotunda we have before visited.
 
 244 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 Carl ton was a shy, cautious man, with some of the look 
 and manner, and, some said, with all the cunning of a Catho 
 lic priest of the most zealous order. 
 
 " I have come here to dine with the Count," be<*an Carlton 
 
 y o 
 
 cautiously, as he flipped the leaves of his book backwards 
 and forwards, " and I have seen the strangest man ! " 
 
 " Well ! the strangest man ought to be very interesting, at 
 all events," laughed the artist. 
 
 " But he does not interest me, I assure you ; he sets my 
 teeth on edge. I am afraid of him." 
 
 "Heavens! you talk like a man who finds himself among 
 the banditti of the Alps." 
 
 " No, I am not afraid the man will murder me nothing 
 like that ; only he gives me the shivers ; and if I could I 
 should so like to get out of the house and awav from the 
 presence and hearing of that man, for he is my evil genius." 
 
 " Why, my dear fellow, does he persecute you ? " asked 
 the artist kindly. 
 
 No, no, I can hardly understand. I certainly cannot ex 
 plain. I only know that he strikes me with terror when he 
 talks, and almost drives me wild when he laughs ; and this 
 terrible man is to dine here. That is him now." 
 
 The two men listened to the uproar in the depths of the 
 palace, and the voice of one man rose above the tumult like 
 the trumpet of a sea-captain in a storm. 
 
 " Why, that is the voice of the Admiral," said Murietta. 
 
 " I don t care who it is, that man is my evil genius. He 
 absorbs me, he takes my strength. Perhaps I shall have to 
 sit by him at dinner." 
 
 " Mercy, man ! are you afraid he will eat you ? Come, if 
 it comes to that, I shall dine here also, and we will see what 
 idle fancies you poets cherish." 
 
 " JSTo, it is not an idle fancy. That man has blood on his 
 hands, and that man will die a violent death." 
 
 " Carlton, you have a reputation for prudence and caution j
 
 In a Bad Atmosphere. 245 
 
 but to-day you are perfectly reckless in your remarks. The 
 old sailor, a sort of ugly sea-dog, is of course vulgar and hard- 
 natured, but as for there being blood on his hands, that is a 
 thing that is hard on him to assert and would be hard on 
 
 O 
 
 yourself to prove." 
 
 " You are right, Murietta. But I will tell you what may 
 be proved, and what time will testify to." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " That man will die a violent death." 
 
 "Are you mad, or are you talking only for your own 
 amusement ? " 
 
 " Neither, I trust. You see, Murietta," said Carlton, 
 coming close up to his friend and laying his hand on his 
 shoulder, and looking slowly and cautiously around, as poets 
 are sometimes seen to do. "you see violent men, men of 
 marked and savage individuality, often have their future 
 written in their faces, and it is given to some men of a very 
 sensitive composition, to read them as prophecies. That man 
 will be hanged ! " 
 
 lie shrank back, and holding up the book in his other hand, 
 began to look through the leaves hurriedly; but his face was 
 red, and flushed as if it would set the leaves on fire. 
 
 The Admiral had entered from a door behind a screen, and 
 was upon them even as Carlton spoke. He reeled and rolled 
 as if he walked the deck of a ship in a storm. The Admiral 
 was drunk. 
 
 The Count was with him, close up by his side, near him, as 
 a sort of shadow. 
 
 The Admiral came up, slapped Carlton on the shoulder with 
 his hard horny hand, shook hands with both the artists, rolled 
 his big heavy head from one shoulder to the other, and talked 
 and bantered in a loud and boisterous manner. 
 
 The Count was veiy quiet and very friendly. This annoyed 
 Murietta. Had be been a stranger to the Latin race and the 
 nature of this distinct people, he had not been either sur-
 
 1246 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 i 
 
 prised or displeased at this friendliness ; on the contrary, he 
 had been delighted, and would have concluded that these men 
 had found out, and admitted to themselves, that they were 
 wrong in the little scene at St. Peter s, and were now willing 
 to admit as much by their actions, without going into the un 
 pleasant task of a formal acknowledgment to Murietta. 
 But he knew that the pride of these people never allows them 
 to confess themselves in the wrong. He knew that they 
 never forget or forgive. He knew that the little scene in St. 
 Peter s was uppermost in their minds, even as they smiled 
 and made him welcome to the palace. 
 
 Had the Countess appeared, he had taken his leave, and 
 been very glad to get away. As it was, he sauntered about 
 the saloon with Carlton after the two men, who had forced a 
 reluctant consent from him to remain to dinner, had returned 
 to their boon companions, and talked of the pictures and the 
 palace. 
 
 " What a display of wealth," said Carlton ; " there is 
 enough hanging on every one of these four walls to make a 
 little fortune." 
 
 " And where does it come from ? " queried Murietta of his 
 friend. " These Italians as a rule are so very poor." 
 
 " Where does it come from ? " echoed Carlton, turning 
 sharply to Murietta as they stood before a Titian ; " from 
 America from our country." 
 
 " No ! " 
 
 " Every sou of it. That Count, like all other foreign counts, 
 is a beggai , of course, like the whole crew he has about him." 
 
 " But do you really know these men he has about him ? 
 You must remember we are to dine with those men." 
 
 " Yes, we are to dine with them ; and, mark me, I tell you 
 if they were only beggars I should not care. They are a deal 
 worse than beggars." The poet shrugged his shoulders, 
 pointed out some special point of beauty in the old Titian 
 before them, and passed on to another picture.
 
 In a Bad Atmosphere. 247 
 
 Murietta was somehow very glad to know that all this 
 wealth was that of the Countess in pink and rose. This at 
 least would keep her from dependence on those around her, 
 and would in all reason ensure her some liberty of action and 
 some repose and peace of mind. 
 
 He tried to recall any allusion she had made to this matter, 
 but could not. On this subject, as well as that of her alleged 
 malady and misfortune, and the good or ill behaviour of the 
 Count, she had been as silent as possible. Her soul, it seemed 
 to him, had always risen above these things. He could now 
 see how she had been lashed to fury, as in St. Peter s, and 
 wild words and expressions sometimes forced from her un 
 willing lips, that were closed and silent again as soon as she 
 had escaped and was free. 
 
 The door of the beautiful little room, which we have seen 
 before, opened, and the maid stepped up to Murietta, after 
 glancing about the saloon to see that no one was watching 
 her, and said : 
 
 " Here ! one moment, the Countess." 
 
 He looked at Carlton, and then hastily passed in after the 
 maid. 
 
 The beautiful woman lay there, pale and prostrate on the 
 sofa. Her gorgeous robes were tumbled about her, and her 
 dress was open at the throat. 
 
 A dark Italian with a little leathern bag, and a little black 
 retreating moustache stood by her side, and leaned above her. 
 
 Murietta started back. How did this man get into the 
 presence of the Countess, and who could he be ? 
 
 The Countess put out her hand. It was so delicate, so 
 soft and beautiful. It had all the tint and hue of a pink 
 shell of the sea, and was soft and sweet as a full blown rose 
 to touch. 
 
 " I am ill," she began in a voice as low and tender as if 
 she spoke to an infant. " I am. too ill to join you at dinner, but 
 you will stay, and you will come again and as soon as possible,
 
 248 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 for it is lonesome here, and Heaven knows when I shall get 
 out of the palace again. There go, go, and do not let them 
 see you, or let them know that you have been here," 
 
 She beckoned him back : frowned as he lingered, and threw 
 out her hand as if to urge him through the door. 
 
 Murietta, all breathless and embarrassed, stepped back and 
 through the door as he had been directed, and as he did so 
 heard a strong bolt close behind him, and the beautiful 
 woman lying there on the sofa, like a pink rose full blown 
 and gathered in the hand and half withered in the sun, was 
 locked and bolted in the saloon with the dark wicked Italian 
 doctor. 
 
 Mnrietta did not like mystery. To him there was enough 
 that was incomprehensible in the very problem of life and 
 death and the future worlds, and it annoyed him to see 
 enigmas and to find secrecy where it seemed to him there 
 should have been candor and simplicity. 
 
 Carlton had taken his seat on the sofa in a retreat behind 
 a little forest of blossoming rhododendrons, and was again 
 turning the leaves of the book. 
 
 " Well, and have you been into the secret cave in search 
 of the lamp ? " 
 
 " The Countess is ill," said Murietta gravely, " and will 
 not be able to join us at dinner." 
 
 Here the Admiral again entered. He was singing a loud 
 sailor s song, and he seemed to be walking a stormier deck 
 than ever before. 
 
 There was the sound of another bolt being shot behind the 
 door that led from the grand saloon to the rotunda where the 
 Countess was lying. 
 
 The Count was at the side of the Admiral, smiling in a sort 
 of drunken imbecility. The two men heard the bolt. They 
 went up to the door and the Count called through the key 
 hole. Then he tapped on the door with his knuckles and put 
 down his head to wait for an answer. Then he knocked
 
 In a Bad Atmosphere. 249 
 
 again louder than before. No answer. Then the Admiral 
 called in a voice that might wake the dead. Still no answer. 
 At this the Admiral raised his two hands and pounded against 
 the door of the room where lay the beautiful lady, ill, as if 
 they had been battering rams. No answer. He waited a 
 moment longer and then drew back and kicked the door with 
 all his might. 
 
 Here the Count feebly remonstrated. 
 
 " Teach her a lesson," thundered the Admiral, as the two 
 men turned away from the door, and came towards where the 
 artist and the poet sat together, indignant witnesses of this 
 scene. 
 
 " I will not taste his bread," said Murietta, between his 
 teeth. 
 
 " As to that," answered Carl ton, " the bread is not his, and 
 we can t well get away now." 
 
 The Count came forward with great politeness and an 
 nounced that dinner was waiting. In a walk of half a minute 
 across the great saloon, he had laid off the rough and brutal 
 behavior just exhibited to his wife, and now with these 
 strangers was only civility and sweetness. As for the ad 
 miral, he went straight on into the dining-hall and sat at the 
 table and talked and behaved in all respects like a savage old 
 Saxon of the middle ages, and as if not only all this palace 
 but all of Rome was his special property. 
 
 There were at least a dozen men present, and all strangers, 
 save the little threadbare Secretary of the Legation whom he 
 had met on his first arrival at Rome. As for the others of 
 the party, they were mostly after the type and manners of 
 the Admiral, and all seemed to look up to him as a sort of 
 leader. 
 
 " Are these men really beggars," said Murietta to himself, 
 as he took a seat between the Secretary and Carlton, " or are 
 they a band of brigands ? " 
 
 Carlton glanced about the hall, and as he spread his nap- 
 11*
 
 250 
 
 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 kin on his lap said to Murietta, in a low voice and a strange 
 tongue, " There is a closet in every corner of this hall, and 
 there is a skeleton in every closet."
 
 CHAPTEK XXIX. 
 
 EST, EST, EST. 
 
 HE Count, with a singular air 
 of gentleness, deplored the 
 absence of the Countess, an 
 nounced to the company thai 
 she was ill, and then the ser 
 vants removed the silvel 
 covers. 
 
 The dinner was a splendid 
 affair, as far as the matter of 
 food was concerned, and the men 
 did it every compliment. 
 
 And there was a peculiar wine. It 
 looked like gold and sunshine. It 
 tasted like nectar. It was certainly 
 a drink for the gods. 
 
 This wine was brought on the table 
 in little flagons woven and bound in 
 The flask was then uncorked, a piece 
 of cotton inserted to absorb the oil, which must be poiired in 
 upon the wine to preserve it, and then it was poured into the 
 glass and drank amid the praises of every one present. 
 
 This wine was new to Murietta, and the Count told this 
 story concerning it. 
 
 Once the pope desired to find the very best wines in Italy 
 
 wicker-work of reeds.
 
 252 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 for his own use, and with that object sent a cardinal to tasto 
 all the wine through the vine-growing countries and send to 
 him such as he deemed best. 
 
 This cardinal sent before him some good old priests, whose 
 experience had been great, and whose tastes were unquestion 
 able, to dwell in the villages and taste of the wines, and have 
 some sort of selection made by the time he should arrive, so 
 that he would not himself have to taste of every villainous 
 drink that the good and ever-zealous wine merchants might 
 see fit to force upon him. 
 
 The cardinal directed them to write on that brand which 
 they found good the one Latin word JEst, so that the peasants 
 and wine merchants might not understand. He directed 
 them if they found, by any good fortune, wine that was par 
 ticularly excellent they should write Est^ est, on the brand. 
 
 Then he further directed them that, if, by the mercy of God, 
 they should come upon a wine that was wonderful and above 
 all other wines, and such as the gods are supposed to drink, 
 they should write Est^ esl, est. Then giving the good monks 
 his blessing, the cardinal sent them forward, and soon after 
 followed on his mission as the holy father had directed. 
 
 For years and years the good monks led on through the 
 vine lands of the Adriatic coast, the Apennine foot-hills, and 
 even in the Alps, and found much that was excellent, and that 
 delighted the palate of the cardinal who followed and the 
 pope who remained in Rome ; but they, having done their 
 work, as they had been directed, were on their way back to 
 the Eternal City, and were even almost within sight of the 
 dome of St. Peter s. 
 
 Here the monks dismounted from their asses and taking 
 their staffs in hand, after selecting one of their number to re 
 main and keep off with the curses of the Church any brigands 
 who might seek to carry oft their asses, began to climb up a 
 little round mountain to a little village that sat perched on 
 the top, and ask for hospitality.
 
 Est Est Est. 253 
 
 The good peasants were only too glad to receive the merry 
 fathers whose homes were in Rome, and the asses were soon 
 dragged up the mountain, and the monks seated altogether 
 around a course of choice meats, brown bread, and a wine of 
 the most beautiful and peculiar colour. 
 
 This they looked at with distrust for some time. At last 
 a very fat old monk, who was very thirsty, could wait no 
 longer. He drew the cork, and inserting a corner of his gray 
 and greasy gown to absorb the oil, he filled the horns which 
 the priests had been quietly loosening from the hempen cords 
 around their waists. 
 
 The fat monk set down the flagon, unfastened his own horn, 
 took up the flagon again, and -now the horns were all filled. 
 
 And the monks lifted the black horns, and loooking at each 
 other with half closed eyes over the brims, turned the wine 
 to their lips. 
 
 Then they set down their horns, and tasted and tasted, and 
 smacked their lips and looked at each other with their eyes 
 wide open and bright with delight. 
 
 Then they tasted again. Then again and again and again. 
 
 Then the leader called for a vote. This vote was always 
 given by each monk turning up his emptied horn, and, un 
 known to the others, and without having asked any question 
 or expressing any opinion, writing his verdict on the bottom. 
 
 Each monk wrote in silence. Then they reached to the 
 father their horns, and he read on the bottom of every one 
 this verdict, Est, est, est. 
 
 They asked the name of the place, and the peasants said it 
 was called Montefiscaone. In time they went down to the 
 base of the little round mountain and waited for the cardinal, 
 who led his ass to the village, on the top where they had found 
 this wonderful wine. 
 
 The cardinal tasted it and was dumb with delight. He 
 sent the wine to Rome, surrendered his high place in the 
 Church, built him a house on Montefiscaone, made his will,
 
 254 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 and there he lived and died, and there he is buried now, with 
 the main facts of this story written on his tomb and a flagon. 
 of JEst, est, est at his feet. 
 
 Murietta liked the wine. He liked the story. He liked 
 the man s manner in telling it ; for, in spite of his surmisings, 
 and in spite of some very strange behavior towards the Coun 
 tess, this man had a voice and a manner that, contrasted with 
 that of the Admiral, was strangely gentle and winning. 
 
 But the wine could not revive the heart of Murietta, or 
 clear his mind from one unpleasant picture of that evening. 
 He all the time saw the beautiful Countess strewn upon the 
 sofa like a bouquet of soft and sweet-smelling pinks that 
 were withering away and losing their fragrance and their 
 beauty. He saw the black wicked little man beside her, and 
 almost shuddered at the thought of him. Then he saw the 
 Count, half drunk at such a time, peering in through the key 
 hole, and* then heard the Admiral thundering at the door of 
 the sick woman, and hurling his insults unrestrained. 
 
 The company was getting boisterous, and the two strangers 
 were anxious to get away. Murietta leaned over to the 
 Count, who was now the mosb sober, as he was always the 
 most civil of all those he had around him, and begged to be 
 allowed to withdraw unobserved. 
 
 " Certainly." He arose, and himself saw them to the great 
 door, which a servant laid hold of with both hands and swung 
 on its iron hinges with great effort. 
 
 When the two men stood once mor in the streets of 
 Rome they drew a long breath of relief together. 
 
 " What it is I don t know," said Carlton, as they shook 
 hands and parted ; " but there is a bad atmosphere in that 
 palace, and I for one shall never enter it again, though the 
 table be one flowing fountain of delicious Est est."
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 CONFETTI DAY ON THE COKSO. 
 
 OME was full, even up to high tido 
 mark, and the peasants were still 
 pouring in in a torrent at the gate 
 of St. Paul when the artist looked 
 out next morning. 
 
 The sun was shining bright as 
 the day before, the people were 
 dancing, singing, moving to and 
 fro in gay attire and with joyful 
 faces, but Murietta was not glad. 
 He sat down before his picture a 
 long time, and contemplated it in silence and 
 in sadness. He had never before felt how 
 vast and insurmountable was the world 
 that lay between himself and this lady he 
 so loved. 
 
 And why had he loved her ? Why had 
 he been made to love her and her only, if 
 they were never to meet and mingle soul with soul? He 
 was severe in his denouncement of fortune as he sat there 
 alone and depressed, while all the world outside was mingling 
 together and making merry. 
 
 " It was not my seeking," said he to himself, " I had no 
 more hand in this matter than I had in my own creation. I 
 loved this woman from the first loved her long before I saw 
 her, and I trembled the very moment I first saw her face. 
 With me, on my side at least, it was like meeting with one
 
 256 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 again with whom I had spent half my life, and known all my 
 happiness. 
 
 Half the day had gone by when this man rose up, half 
 desperate, and went out hurriedly, trying very hard to make 
 up his mind as he hastened down the stone steps, near the 
 little blue Madonna with the sacred lamp at her feet, to vow 
 to never lift his face to her whom he had loved and followed 
 so long and so faithfully. 
 
 "Why can I not be as other men are ? Why should I not 
 mix with men and laugh, and laugh loud and long, and be 
 careless and glad, and let the days go over my head lightly, 
 instead of tearing through my heart, uprooting my hair, 
 ploughing furrows in my face, and sowing trouble and care 
 across my brows. I will arise, I will shake off this load that 
 weighs me down and makes me old before my middle age. I 
 will put off this care as one puts off a coat." He almost cast 
 off his cloak as he said this aloud to himself while elbowing 
 his way through the crowd toward the Corso. 
 
 He heard people laugh and he laughed also. He heard 
 them shout and he also shouted. He shouted till there were 
 tears on his face. 
 
 He kept on down the Corso, when suddenly, as the clock 
 struck two, the great body of those about him melted away 
 into side streets, or retired into the palaces by the way, and 
 another class of people took their places. These new comers 
 were all strangely dressed, and had their faces protected with 
 iron or wire masks. They bore little leather bags by their 
 sides. These bags were filled with confetti, bouquets, little 
 puff and powder bags, and other things to be thrown at the 
 enemy in the coming battle. 
 
 Suddenly the air was filled with confetti. It came down 
 from all sides, from every window, from below, from above, 
 from the side streets, from everywhere. 
 
 It was worse than a snow-storm in the Alps. You could 
 not see the distance of a block.. Every one was white as a
 
 Confetti Day on the Cor so. 257 
 
 meal bag in an instant. The artist drew his cloak about him 
 and drew his hat down, and thus protected kept on down the 
 middle of the Corso, mixing with the people, laughing, shout 
 ing with the men, elbowing with the women, determined to 
 be glad, and at least appear light-hearted, even though his 
 heart was cold and heavy as a tombstone. 
 
 How the battle did rage, and how the dirt flew ! Now and 
 then some lady would faint and have to be carried out of the 
 dense white crowd, and now and then some gentleman would 
 be knocked down by accident and have to leave the field ; and 
 all along, right and left, you would see people bent down, 
 rubbing their eyes, and trying to rid them of the vile confetti 
 and the lime that was thrown as a sort of powder with these 
 little bullets so like buck-shot. 
 
 Then there came a great procession. A platoon of horse 
 soldiers with wooden cannon, wooden horses, and wooden 
 swords went by, bearing sheaves and boughs and shepherds 
 crooks, and all kinds of signs and implements that meant 
 peace and plenty over the land. 
 
 Then there came a full-rigged ship, drawn by ten real horses, 
 and filled with men in sailor attire, and officers,and all that goes 
 to make up a ship of war. These men had barrels and barrels 
 of confetti in their vessel, and they threw it out by the bush 
 el, right and left, and front and back, they poured broadside 
 after broadside. They threw it at the ladies up in the balco 
 nies as if their lives depended on the force and precision of 
 their shots. Never were Italians seen to work so hard before. 
 
 And yet, fast as they poured out the confetti, the great ship, 
 as it moved slowly up the Corso, was filled, and almost foun 
 dered by the loads and loads that poured into it from the 
 balconies right and left. 
 
 The men were at last exhausted and silenced. Sometimes 
 you could not see the ship at all, you could only see the great 
 white cloud of dust and dirt that enveloped it. 
 
 The ship could not run the gauntlet. It drew off ere it
 
 258 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 had made half the length of the Corso. But then it was 
 manned by a fresher force, and soon was seen moving up the 
 street again at the head of the procession, amid the renewed 
 showers of white shot and the shouts of the people. 
 
 Then there followed men on horseback with long lances. 
 These men were clad in complete steel armour as well as their 
 horses, and they had nothing to do but bow to the ladies as 
 they leaned from their balconies, and threw the harmless shot 
 from their white hands, and at the same time made more cer 
 tain havoc with their wonderful eyes. 
 
 Then other things followed, with a meaning and without a 
 meaning, with a moral and without a moral. At last, a mob 
 of strange and questionable maskers brought up the rear of 
 this singular display. At the very rear was a very tall man, 
 noticeable, both from his strange dress and his strange beha 
 viour and his mysterious prophecies. He was dressed in a 
 red nightcap, a long white gown, and red slippers ; and he 
 kept crying in a doleful voice : 
 
 " This is the end of the Carnival." 
 
 Then was heard from a balcony above, 
 
 " The dirty beast ! Bet your life ! " 
 
 Bang ! went another bucketful of shot at the prophet from 
 the strong arm of Mollie Wopsus, as she leaned from the bal 
 cony beside her mother and her mischievous little brother 
 Johnny. 
 
 Murietta looked up, glad as if he had heard the voice of a 
 bird above him in his native woods of the Pacific. 
 
 " By the bald-headed Elijah ! There he is at last ! Come 
 in ! come up ! That s right ! That s the way, right through 
 there to the left, and I will meet you on the step." 
 
 " Come up, Murietta ! do come up," said the good old 
 General Wopsus, " it will be such a relief to have one man 
 at least by my side who is not an Italian count, or a Polish 
 prince, or an American colonel." 
 
 The good Mrs. Wopsus also leaned from the balcony, and
 
 Confetti Day on the Cor so. 259 
 
 braving the fire from the few stray shots that were still fly 
 ing, added her entreaties to those of the good General and the 
 good-natured Mollie; and the man entered at once, and 
 handed his dusty cloak and hat to the porter, and passed on 
 up the stairs, where Mollie met him with extended arms. 
 
 " And you must never speak to me any more. Never so 
 long as I live," laughed Mollie, and she handed the artist 
 over to her mother, and then to her father, who proceeded to 
 hand him over to counts and colonels and princes. And the 
 first count there, at least the first in favor in the eyes of 
 Mollie, was the Count Paolini. And the first in favor, in 
 the eyes of the General, of all the assembled princes, was the 
 Prince Trawaska. 
 
 Murietta sat down in silence. In truth there was a very 
 awkward silence just then, and as the artist sat there, looking 
 down into the white and now half- deserted street, he saw or 
 rather felt that the handsome Paolini was eying him from 
 head to foot. 
 
 He had recognized him. He knew perfectly well that this 
 man, who sat there so quiet and so complacently, and who 
 seemed the accepted lover of this woman of prodigious wealth, 
 was the very man who dwelt in the mean and wretched rooms 
 next door to his own, on the side of the Tarpeian Rock. And 
 he, the lover, was thinking all the time as he noticed the 
 artist there, how he should conciliate him, win him to his 
 side, and make him his ally in this campaign on which de 
 pended his fall or his fortune. 
 
 Then his brows gathered. Another and a darker thought 
 took hold of him. He said to himself, " Why conciliate ? 
 Are there not enough desperadoes in Rome to match this one 
 man, who dares the darkest streets at the most dangerous 
 hours of the night ? Is the Tiber not deep and dark enough 
 to hide him and my secret with him ? " Then he thought of 
 the last night, as he stood there with his arm about the dark 
 Italian Countess, looking out of the north window towards
 
 260 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 St. Peter s, and began to wonder if this artist would expose 
 him there and then. He looked into the face of Marietta 
 with all his might. He could see no further into his soul 
 than one can see into the dark and turbid Tiber. 
 
 But Murietta s mind was elsewhere. After the excitement 
 came a reaction, and his active and vivid imagination had 
 tm-ned at once to another scene, so soon as the tumult of the 
 day was over. It had flown like a bird that had been im 
 prisoned all day, and was wild to escape to its old haunts on 
 the wooded hill-side. Yesterday he had sat by the beautiful 
 Countess in pink and rose. He had shared her hospitalit^, 
 had delighted in her company, entered her house, and eaten 
 her bread. Then he had left her, a sort of prisoner as it were, 
 in the hands of ruffians or brigands. He had at last left her 
 lying prostrate with illness, alone with a stranger, with the 
 house full of drunken men, and had not called or sent one 
 word, or made a single inquiry after the health of his beauti 
 ful hostess. 
 
 Marietta was not thinking of Count Paolini or his friends in 
 the least. He had forgotten almost where he was, and was 
 commiserating with the beautiful Countess, and feeling very 
 much ashamed of himself and his selfish pleasure this day, 
 when his companion of the day before was so miserable.
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 ON THE CAPITOLIXE HILL. 
 
 HE Carnival had exhausted it 
 self in the two first days, and, 
 at least so thought Marietta, 
 was becoming a bore. And 
 evidently many others thought 
 so too ; for, as he, the next 
 day, set his face in another 
 direction than that of the 
 Corso, and climbed the broad 
 and magnificent tufa steps that lead 
 from the shops up to the top of the 
 Capitoline Hill, past the colossal fig 
 ures of Castor and Pollux, and right 
 in the face of the grand old brass 
 emperor on his brass horse, he found 
 a whole tide of people pouring up 
 and down, and quite a little army hanging about the broad 
 steps and idling about the little wolf in its wire cage. 
 
 Mothers would lead their little children up carefully to the 
 balustrades that rise before the cage, and point them out the 
 wolf, and tell them the wonderful story of Romulus and 
 Remus. And they would tell it, too, as if it had happened but 
 yesterday. Perhaps these Roman mothers thought this to be
 
 262 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 the very wolf that had been so kind to the twins, for these 
 peasants seem to have no idea of dates whatever, although 
 they can tell you nearly all the great events in the history 
 of Rome. 
 
 And what a queer-looking, foxy little wolf it is ! It is pre 
 cisely like a Californian coyote in action and appearance. 
 Let us hope that it is not so in spirit. 
 
 Little boys hold on to each other in a sort of shiver, as 
 they come to look at the harmless little creature, and evi 
 dently contemplate it with a feeling of terror. But it is as 
 harmless as a kitten. So is its counterpart in the garden 
 on the Palatine Hill. They are a sort of cross between a very 
 lazy yellow dog of a nameless species, and a brown, chicken- 
 stealing fox. This one on the Capitoline got out of his wire 
 cage not long ago, and ran off down through the town. All 
 Rome was in terror. The people thought they were to be de 
 voured by this wolf, and retired to their palaces and shut the 
 portals. An English gentleman, however, found the little 
 fellow soon after in a side street, took him by the back of the 
 neck, tucked him up under his coat, and taking him back to 
 the hill, restored him to his keeper. Then Rome was glad 
 once more. 
 
 Passing the little wolf, and the army of little urchins that 
 hung about the " Nurse of Rome," he turned to the left when 
 once on top of the hill, and entered the museum. 
 
 Mounting the first stairs, he stood in the little room where 
 the dying gladiator sinks upon his shield and dies. 
 
 He was now before the one work in marble worth making 
 the circuit of the world to see. 
 
 You cannot get away from this pitiful face and figure if 
 you would. The man is down, dying. He is half resting on 
 his right hand, but you seem to see him sinking. You are 
 certain he will fall every moment. His brow seems to per 
 spire. You hold your breath as you look at him, and sym 
 pathize with him, and suffer with him. You are actually
 
 On the Capitoline Hill. 263 
 
 suffering with this piece of ancienb marble. "What a despair 
 in his held down face! What a sick look in his swooning 
 eyes ! 
 
 It seems to me as if a man could stand before this immor 
 tal creation, and repeat literally the lines of Lord Byron on 
 the Dying Gladiator, although he had never heard or read 
 the lines in his life. 
 
 Once a poet stood before this figure and looked at it long 
 and earnestly. At last he said with a sigh, " Byron has done 
 me more wrong than all the world together ; he has ruined 
 my future, for if he had not written those poems of his, I 
 should have written them ; and it seems to me I should have 
 written them just as he wrote them." 
 
 Butcher d to make a Roman holiday. 
 
 Bet your life ! that s why the Romans have got so many holi 
 days. It s because they butchered so many of them gladia 
 tors. How d ye do, Murietta ? " And the merry-hearted 
 Mollie shot out her hand and shook the artist with all the 
 heartiness of an old veteran who had just met a comrade of 
 many campaigns. 
 
 " Come along, governor, here s your hobby ! Now then, if 
 you want an antiquity, buy that ! O, how sick he does look. 
 It makes me hungry ! " So saying, she took the artist by 
 the arm, and leaving her parents and the party of Americans 
 to walk around and wonder at the " Sick " gladiator, she led 
 him on into the next room. 
 
 " And O, thou thunder-stricken nurse of Borne ! " 
 
 cried Mollie, as she caught sight of the big brass wolf stand 
 ing up astride of the two twins, and pointing out her sharp 
 nose, and looking as stiff and stupid as a wooden hobby 
 horse. 
 
 " O, thou thunder-stricken nurse of Rome ! " 
 
 Why don t you quote Byron, Mr. Murietta ? Why don t you
 
 264 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 spout Byron ? Don t you know that everybody spouts Byron 
 that comes to Italy ? That s why they put so much of Byron 
 in the guide-book. "Want to have it ready, you see. Why, 
 when I go into the Coliseum I fire Byron at the Coliseum. 
 When I go into any place or any city, and I want to stand 
 there and say something nice and sentimental, why I just turn 
 to my red-book, and there it is all ready, all cooked up. 
 Byron, Byron, Byron ! " 
 
 The pretty Mollie clasped her ruddy hands, put her parasol 
 up under her wing of an elbow, and pouting out her lips, 
 began in a loud and solemn voice : 
 
 " And O, thou thunder-stricken nurse of " 
 
 Oh, just see ! just look there ! how one of her hind legs has 
 been split and torn ! Bet that s where the dogs caught her, 
 eh? 
 
 " And 0, thou thunder-stricken " 
 
 Poor little twins ! How hungry they do look ! Come along, 
 come along, let s see this old Socrates. Why he looks like 
 an Irish plug-ugly, with his nose all knocked up. Bet your 
 life ! Square off, old Sock ! " And then she threw her 
 parasol up under her arm, doubled up her fist, and stood in a 
 very warlike attitude before the old philosopher, who had 
 perhaps seen quite enough of that in his lifetime to last him 
 to the end. 
 
 At length Mollie fell in with one of the handsome and polite 
 sergeants in attendance, and went on to another room as the 
 general came up, and Murietta still lingered about " the 
 thunder-stricken nurse of Rome," for to him it was full of 
 history and meaning. 
 
 Then Mrs. Wopsus, having done with the Dying Gladiator, 
 came in with her face wet with tears, and lifting up her eyes 
 saw the storied wolf and her twins. She then held her head,
 
 On the Capitoline Hill. 265 
 
 threw up her hands, clasped them together, and, perfectly 
 certain that she was doing something very original, said, 
 
 " And 0, tlwu thunder-stricken nurse of Rome ! " 
 
 Then there came in an old party with green glasses and a 
 very lai-ge umbrella, and looking up he started back, and with 
 extended arms and umbrella said, in a deep and a dreadful 
 voice, that sounded as if it might come up from out of a 
 pulpit, 
 
 " And 0, thou thunder-stricken nurse of Rome." 
 
 Then feeling that he had done a good thing and done it well, 
 the green glasses and the great umbrella passed on in the 
 wake of Mrs. Wopsus, as if they had their own opinion of 
 men who could not, on great occasions like this, quote the 
 immortal poet. 
 
 A young man just from school came next, and walking up 
 to the rigid and misshapen wolf, he deliberately opened his 
 red book, and, striking an oratorical attitude, read as follows 
 in a loud, clear voice : 
 
 "And O, thou thunder -stricken nurse of Rome ! " 
 
 Then this young man passed on, feeling very sure that this 
 thing had never been done before. 
 
 A tall and bony spinister entered now, and, lifting her gold- 
 rimmed spectacles, she walked straight up before the nose of 
 the brass wolf, put her nose against it, and then stepping back, 
 made a grimace at it and said, " Booh ! " Then she shook 
 her head and said, " Don t you think I m afraid of you, if you 
 did have twins." Then stepping still further back, she 
 opened a book, turned through the leaves, and at last seemed 
 to find what she sought, for she adj usted her spectacles, and 
 then she shrieked out in a voice that was sharp enough almost 
 to split even the brass ears of the brass wolf: 
 
 "And O, thou thunder-stricken nurse of Rome."
 
 266 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 Then the Special Correspondent took out a carpenter s rule, 
 and measuring the extent of the rupture on the hind leg, she 
 made a note of it in her book and passed on. 
 
 Another figure, tall and gaunt and threadbare, stood in the 
 presence of the bronze wolf. Then a long lean umbrella 
 shot down upon the floor, and the old missionary of Naples, 
 shaking his death s head on the tombstone till the weeping 
 willows waved about it mournfully, said in a voice that 
 seemed to come from the grave : 
 
 " And 0, thou thunder-stricken nurse of Rome." 
 
 Then, taking up his umbrella, and assuming the most meek 
 and humble carriage and expression of countenance, he went 
 up and reached out his hand and tried to tear off one of the 
 twins and put it in his pocket. But finding it was too se 
 curely fastened, and also finding that a sergeant who seemed 
 to be asleep was not asleep, he passed on, and to the great 
 relief of Marietta, did not see him. 
 
 The American party, having completed the round of the 
 museum, returned ; and Mollie, bouncing into the room as she 
 had first entered it that morning, found Murietta still divid 
 ing his attention between the Gladiator and the Wolf. 
 
 " Come. Bet your life you ve got to come. You can t 
 shake me ; I come from California, I do, and I know my way 
 about. Now you come along, that s a good old boy." 
 
 Murietta, glad enough to go, go anywhere with this lively, 
 light-hearted, and honest creature, this bit of California sun 
 shine, anywhere to get away from himself, away from his 
 thoughts, offered her his arm good-naturedly, and asked : 
 
 ; But where do you go, Miss Mollie ? " 
 
 " O, we re all going to jail, you know ! Won t that be 
 jolly ? Bet your life I ll have a flirtation with the jailoi-, 
 make him give me up his keys, and all that, you know." 
 
 "But what jail are you going to this pleasant weather?" 
 asked the artist, as they all passed out together.
 
 On the Capitoline HilL 267 
 
 " Oh, the jail, you know, where they kept St. Paul, and 
 St. Peter, and where poor old Jugurtha was starved, and 
 where the jailor was baptized, and where the spring of cool 
 water came up to baptize him in, and all that, you know. 
 Didn t you never hear of it all ? Well, I read it this morn 
 ing in the guide-book. It s just here, you know. There it 
 is ! Here s the door. They ve turned it into a church, you 
 see." 
 
 Down, down, down, and around, the old priest led, and as 
 he passed down a step so narrow that Mollie and her mother 
 could hardly pass their crinolines through, he crossed him 
 self devoutly, and told his beads, and mumbled his prayers. 
 
 " Stay ! Look here, Mr. Monk, now what does that 
 mean ? " 
 
 Mollie stopped the whole party in its dark descent of the 
 narrow stairs, and stopped the good priest in his prayers, and 
 would not pass on till he turned about and explained that 
 the hole in the wall made to the right was the place where 
 the head of St. Peter struck one day when the jailor pushed 
 him down the steps toward his dungeon, and that it was one 
 of the most sacred things in Rome. 
 
 Soon they reached the round dark cell. There, above 
 them, just high enough to permit them to stand and swing a 
 lamp ; and by the dim light, you could see the very hole 
 through which the great African king was dropped. There 
 lay the same great stone that was closed above his living 
 grave. You could almost hear it fall : you could almost 
 hear the stony walls echo : 
 
 " Ye gods, how cold are the hot baths of Rome." 
 
 " And this is the stone that St. Peter sat on," began the 
 priest, in a mournful voice. 
 
 " Oh, is it ? " said Mollie, and she turned about and sat 
 flat down on the cold, damp rock in a manner so refreshing, 
 that it fairly took the good father s breath.
 
 268 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 " And this," the priest began again, " is the holy fountain 
 of water that burst forth to baptize the converted jailor." 
 
 " Mollie, I thought you were going to flirt with the 
 jailor." 
 
 " Flirt with your grandmother ! Do you suppose I want 
 to flirt with a man in a brown petticoat ? " 
 
 " Ah well, Mollie, never mind ! We will send for the 
 Count Paolini, and fancy that he is jailor." 
 
 " Oh I m so hungry ! Look here, Mr. Monk, hand me 
 that dipper. " The California girl had been fumbling all the 
 time in her pocket, and at last had brought out a roll of sand 
 wiches and a wing of chicken. 
 
 The astonished priest passed the dipper of water, and as he 
 proceeded to tell all the wonderful things that had taken 
 place in that terrible prison, the little lady sat on the sacred 
 stone, drank from the holy fountain, and ate her lunch of 
 sandwiches and chicken wing with perfect satisfaction, while 
 her mother stood by and looked tearfully on, and tried to fol 
 low the good priest in his mournful catalogue of crimes. 
 
 " No more, Mr. Monk, thank you. Now I am ready to 
 go; " and the arbitrary little tyrant led off up the narrow 
 steps, munching a chicken bone as she went. 
 
 She stopped at the holy hole in the wall, and laid her head 
 in it, and then began to scream and shout as if caught in a 
 trap. 
 
 " Oh, my child, my child ! what in the world has hap 
 pened ?" 
 
 " Bet your life I don t put my head in there again, " said 
 Mollie, half laughing, half crying, as she mounted the step, 
 and stood out on the upper floor. 
 
 " But, my child, my dear Mollie, what in the world has 
 happened ? " 
 
 "Nothing. It s all hunky. I only put my head in there 
 while I was chewing my chicken, and I caught my chin. 
 That s all. See there. That s blood. Scratched my chin on,
 
 On the Capita line Hill. 269 
 
 old St. Peter s rock. Bet your life lie s got a harder head 
 than I have !" 
 
 Mollie stood rubbing her chin ; Mrs. Wopsus stood rolling 
 her eyes, and the general was fumbling in his vest pocket for 
 the usual five-franc piece for seeing this gloomy dungeon ; 
 while Murietta was thinking of the mighty men who had 
 gone down in the great whirlpool of Rome, that for cen 
 turies drew all things to its centre, and swallowed them up as 
 if it had been a maelstrom. 
 
 " And they have turned this into a church too," said the 
 quiet old General, looking up as they passed out and bent 
 their steps toward the Temple of Vesta. Passing over the 
 sort of bridge that crosses the excavations of the Forum, thafc 
 in fact runs right over and above the remnants of the ancient 
 Forum, they soon stood before a little round structure of 
 marble, topped with a rotund roof of tiles, and not a great 
 deal larger than a wigwam of buffalo skins in the West. 
 
 The party entered. There was one priest there to open the 
 door, and another to stand before the altar and beg money. 
 They saw some old relics, some wretched pictures, and that 
 was all. 
 
 And when was this built ? " asked the General. The 
 priests could not tell. They could not tell when it was built, 
 who built it, or what it was built for. They only knew that 
 it was called the Temple of Vesta, that it was a church now, 
 and that sometimes it stood up to its waist in the waters of 
 the Tiber, on whose very brink it was built. 
 
 The General again fumbled in his vest pocket for the ex 
 pected five francs, and Mollie rubbed her chin at the blue 
 Madonna with the lamp at her feet, and Murietta mused and 
 wondered what was the difference between this lamp, and the 
 lamp of sacred fire of the vestal virgins that burned in these 
 same walls, attended by never-sleeping virgins twenty centu. 
 ries before. 
 
 " Well," said General Wopsus, feeling that he was buying
 
 270 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 a great deal of religion, as he tapped his vest pocket, " well, 
 they have turned this into a Catholic church, too." 
 
 It is but a few steps from the Temple of Vesta to the Tem 
 ple of Fortune, just across the narrow, dirty street from the 
 house of Hienzi the Tribune. 
 
 They found that this ancient and venerable structure was 
 of more imposing proportions by a great deal than the Tem 
 ple of Vesta ; but, to the infinite disgust of the general, who 
 was anything but a Catholic, they found a great leathern 
 apron swinging there, and a priest to pull it back and impor 
 tune you for alms. 
 
 The same mournful pictures, the same blue Madonna, with 
 the dim lamp at her feet, and that was all they found in the 
 storm-stained Temple of Fortune. 
 
 Again the General fumbled in his pocket. Murietta mused 
 and wondered if the goddess would be kinder to him now that 
 he had made a pilgrimage to her shrine. And Mollie still 
 rubbed her chin, and Mrs. Wopsus rubbed her nose, and 
 said : " 
 
 " Oh my ! what a smell ! " 
 
 " And what next ? " asked the general, with a smiling air 
 and gesture, of the group as they stood \inder the marble eaves 
 of the house of the Last of the Tribunes. 
 
 " Let us see the Cloaca Maxima," said Murietta. " It is 
 just here, close by the Temple of Janus." 
 
 " The Cloaca Whatima ? " asked the mischievous Mollie. 
 
 " Why the great Cloaca," answered Murietta. "It is the 
 great drain cut by the Tarquins, and it has been the sewer of 
 Home for more than twenty centuries." 
 
 " No, no," said the General, raising his voice. " We will 
 not go there to see a sewer so old as that, for if we did we 
 should find it turned into a Catholic church, also." 
 
 Murietta laughed. " Then I propose the Theatre of Mar- 
 cellus," said he. 
 
 " But is it not shut in Carnival ? " asked the General.
 
 On the Capitoline Hill. 271 
 
 " Ah yes," answered Murietta. " This theatre is shut this 
 Carnival and every other Carnival. And in fact it has been 
 shut ever since about the time of the death of Julius Caesar." 
 
 "Bet your life I want to go there. I ve heard all about 
 this place. Robbers and brigands there, and all that. 
 Thieves, banditti ! Jolly, won t it be ! Come along ! Buckle 
 on your swords ! " 
 
 And off led the lively Mollie up and amid the way of the 
 Montenare between the Tiber and the Capitoline Hill. 
 
 " How tired and hungry it looks ! " Mollie stood before the 
 mighty structure with her back to the Tarpeian Rock ; and in 
 that one sentence photographed the grand old battle-torn edi 
 fice better than many a polished page could do it. 
 
 By degrees they drew up to the dingy shops and dens in 
 the once lofty and beautifully chiselled arches of the theatre. 
 
 Soon they found their way into the shop of the old maker 
 and vendor of antiquities, and the General was at once at 
 home and very delighted. Ah yes ! the General knew an old 
 coin at the first glance. He had at least a thousand coins, all 
 procured at an immense cost of time and money. He felt of 
 those before him, and pronounced them about the best he 
 had ever seen. He talked in a very patronizing way to the 
 cunning old vendor, and told him that they had got to mak 
 ing spurious old coins in England as well as in America, and 
 shipping them to Rome. 
 
 The cunning old Prince for this was the father of the four 
 countesses seemed greatly surprised, as no doubt he was at 
 some part of this information, and crossed himself devoutly, 
 and then proceeded to express his contempt and abhorrence 
 of such deception in the strongest terms. 
 
 " Be careful," said the simple-hearted Californian General, 
 "be careful, my old friend, or they will impose upon you! 
 You see they may come down here to you in your isolated 
 retreat, and sell you these coins at a seeming sacrifice, and 
 ruin you; ruin you, both in fortune and your good name."
 
 272 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 The old prince was very much afraid they would indeed, 
 and his hands trembled and shook as he handled his coins, 
 and crocodiles, and brass cats and curious copper sphinxes 
 that seemed older even than the baby toys of Father Time. 
 
 Mollie was amused with all the many curiosities the vener 
 able dealer set before them with a trembling hand on the 
 rickety bench by the door, and so was her mother. They 
 liked these things because the good-natured General liked 
 them. They were his great delight, and the party lingered 
 here even till the setting of the sun. 
 
 Many and many a coin, and many a curious sphinx and 
 cat and serpent were selected and set aside, and the old dealer 
 kept blessing the patron saint and the good Madonna who 
 had led these people to his door. 
 
 " You should be on the Corso with these things, you 
 should be on the Corso, by all means, or at least in the Via 
 Condotti," said the General to the old palsied Prince. 
 
 " Ah, that has been the ambition of my life. But my 
 children are so many, and my customers so few, that I have 
 never dared leave the shelter of this gloomy den of ours, and 
 here I must live and die," sighed the old man, " unless the 
 good Madonna sends me some day another customer as kind 
 and generous as yourself." 
 
 " Another customer ! Well, I will send you another 
 customer, I will send you two, three, four; we will buy, be 
 fore we leaA e Rome, the whole of your stock." 
 
 " Then at last my fortune will be made, my daughters will 
 be married, and I shall have a shop on the Corso," said the 
 old man, clasping his hands before the good General, shedding 
 tears of genuine joy. 
 
 It was getting chilly in that damp and cheerless part of 
 Rome, and the party prepared to move on. 
 
 The General drew out a full wallet of Italian notes, and 
 counted down the old Prince, the maker and vendor of an 
 tiquities, his full price and demand without a murmur. It
 
 On the Capita line Hill. 273 
 
 was like a fairy tale. He had never seen, or at least never 
 touched, so much money in all his life. It was nearly a 
 thousand francs, and his fortune was indeed made. 
 
 The store of antiquities was carefully packed in a little 
 box, and one from the dozens of idle boys about the door 
 was selected to bear them on his back for the General to the 
 door of his hotel. 
 
 Suddenly the old Prince threw up his hand to the side of 
 his head, as if he had just remembered a very important and 
 wonderful secret. He touched the General with his finger. 
 
 " Signer." 
 
 The General bent his head to listen. 
 
 " I have the serpent ! " 
 
 The General waited for an explanation. 
 
 " I have a bronze of the original serpent seen by Eve in 
 the Garden of Eden." 
 
 The General was both astonished and delighted. 
 
 " Will you only look at it look at it now ? I will tell 
 you the history of it some other time. I will only tell you 
 now that this little coiled-up image, which I will find in a 
 moment," and he kept feeling about in the cracks of the 
 wall as if he was looking for, and was about to find, a real 
 live serpent, " I will only tell you now, I say, that this 
 serpent was modelled by one of the great great grandchildren 
 of Eve ; the name, I regret to say, has not reached us, but 
 there is no doubt about this." 
 
 The General had begun to smile with that incredulous 
 smile that is the terror of dealers in antiquities. 
 
 " I tell you that it was made by one of the great great 
 great grandchildren of Eve, while she sat by in the chimney 
 corner smoking her pipe of an evening, and reading her Bible, 
 and at intervals giving him directions as to how the serpent 
 looked and behaved when she saw him in the Garden of Eden." 
 
 " But," protested the honest old General and railroad king, 
 " I I I don t believe a word of it." 
 12*
 
 274 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 " I can prove it prove it ; will you, signer, only let me 
 prove it ? " 
 
 The General bowed his assent, and the old Prince laid hold 
 of his coat, and began to talk as only an Italian merchant can 
 talk. 
 
 It was getting late, and Mollie was getting hungry. The 
 General really was becoming convinced. 
 
 " And what will you take for it ? " 
 
 * Five hundred no. no, you have been so generous, so 
 
 just one hundred " he stopped, looked in the General s 
 
 face, and thought he still saw a smile there, and catching his 
 breath, went on, " fifty francs I will take fifty francs for 
 the bronze serpent of the Garden of Eden," and he laid it, 
 coiled up, in the General s hand, as he all breathless finished 
 his speech. 
 
 The General paid him the money, and the party moved 
 away, as the railroad king stood lifting the precious serpent 
 in his hand, and rubbing its scaly coils and very remarkable 
 looking head. 
 
 Taking a step after the party, white the delighted old 
 vendor of antiquities followed hat in hand ; and, bowing all 
 the time, he turned and said to the old Prince and dealer as 
 he still rubbed his head : 
 
 " But what makes it so very smooth ? " 
 
 The remarkable old merchant put on his hat, struck an 
 attitude, and then throwing out and reaching his arms as if 
 he was about to hand something down and down and down 
 through the hands of a thousand people standing in a line, 
 he said : 
 
 "Ah, that was done by handing it down from generation 
 to generation."
 
 CHAPTER XXXIL 
 
 MURIETTA SEES HIS SHADOW. 
 
 HE air was like balm in Rome 
 the next morning, as the artist 
 rose and looked out of his 
 little window to the red 
 flower-garden on the top of 
 the Palatine Hill. There was 
 pure and perfect tranquility 
 in the air everywhere. The 
 people had really tired of 
 the three days revel, and now there 
 was a reaction. Some cats sat in a 
 row along the top of the glass-topped 
 wall across the street, and slept in the 
 sun. The dancers had tired out soon, 
 and now sat flat down in the street 
 against the wall, where the sunshine 
 fell on their dark and splendid hair, 
 
 and gambled at a very noisy game for wine and chestnuts. 
 A group of little children were leading and riding and 
 driving all at once and all together, a brown goat in a sort of 
 triumphal march by the blue Madonna with the perpetual 
 lamp at her feet, and laughing and shouting as if they had 
 only begun to have their own little Carnival. 
 
 Under this Madonna stood a man muffled up to the chin
 
 276 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 in a cloak that reached to the ground. Now there was 
 nothing unusual in a man standing under any one of the ten 
 thousand blue Madonnas in Rome, and with his cloak about 
 him too, and pulled tip even to his chin, under ordinary 
 circumstances, and in ordinary weather. In fact, few men 
 b\it Murietta, a man born on the far border and bred in 
 battle and in scenes where a man must watch his fellow-man 
 and every movement and unusual sign, would have remarked 
 this man standing under the blue Madonna at all. But 
 Murietta saw him, noted him at once. 
 
 Why was the man standing there alone and in the midst of 
 the Carnival ? And why was he so muffled up, when the 
 sun was shining so warm and soft and sweet ? 
 
 It is true the Italians say that the sun is only fit for the 
 dogs and the English, but they mean the middle season, when 
 the bloom and vigor of spring is over. As for the early 
 sun, no man living is so fond of it as an Italian. He seems 
 to feed upon it. But this man had his cloak drawn up to 
 his chin. That was not the thing for him to do at this hour 
 of the day, at all. In fact you very rarely see an Italian 
 with his cloak drawn close about him under any circum 
 stances. He as a rule carries it swinging from one shoulder, 
 and flowing and falling loosely behind him ; somewhat after 
 the fashion of the toga. 
 
 The artist closed the window, threw his cloak over his 
 shoulder, and adjusting his dagger in its place, called one of 
 the countesses, told her he would not return till just before 
 midnight, if at all, that evening; and was just about to 
 descend the steps when he met the old Prince and vendor of 
 antiquities. 
 
 The old man fairly prostrated himself at the feet of the 
 artist, while his little black-eyed daughter stood by and 
 wept with delight and gratitude. 
 
 " You have made my fortune," said the old man. 
 
 " It is nothing," answered the artist, " I really did not
 
 Murietta sees his Shadow. 277 
 
 take my friends to yonr shop ; it was only your good fortune 
 that the man bought your wares. Besides that, your coins 
 and antiquities generally, are, as the man said, really the best 
 that are to be had. They look as old as the pyramids ! " 
 
 " Oh yes. oh yes," said the old man, gleefully rubbing his 
 hands, " that is my pride, that is my pride. I make it a 
 matter of conscience ; a matter of conscience, my friend, to 
 make my antiquities as old as they possibly can be made, and 
 I am sure your friend will never regret his purchases." 
 
 " Well, whether he regrets it or not, I am sure he is de 
 lighted with his selection, and perhaps it is the best he could 
 have done. The truth is, he came to Europe to spend his 
 money, and he is determined to spend about so much for 
 these old stained coins and copper mouldings, and he had as 
 well spend it with you as any one ; ay, better for you, my 
 old friend, are honest, as the world goes, and your good 
 daughters are most deserving. Therefore I am glad, you are 
 glad, and the military old man from the West is equally glad ; 
 why then should I have said a word to interfere with so plea 
 sant a little transaction ? Nay, on the contrary, I shall 
 bring you, by the aid of the good old General, at least a 
 dozen customers, and all as profitable to you as he." 
 
 " My fortune is doubly made, and my daughters shall all be 
 married, I shall dandle my grandchildren on my knees before 
 I die, and shall ever pray for the Madonna to guide and bless 
 you !" The old man was bowing and rubbing his hands and 
 shedding tears of gratitude. 
 
 " Prince ! " said Murietta suddenly, as if just recollecting 
 himself. 
 
 The old man stood up erect at once and with the air of a 
 man among his equals. He looked in the face of the artist 
 inquiringly, and then said 
 
 " Your pleasure ? " 
 
 " Who is the man in the heavy blue cloak under the Ma 
 donna as you come up the wide steps ? "
 
 278 TJic One Fair Woman. 
 
 " What? shall I tell you ? can I trust you ? " The old man 
 looked at his daughter, and then looked nervously about him, 
 as if he feared that the walls would hear him. 
 
 " Trust me, if you like," whispered the artist. " I have 
 something better to do than to tell the secrets of an old man 
 whom I would prefer to befriend." 
 
 " Nay, it is not my secret, not mine. In truth I know 
 not what he wants here. He may be waiting to see the 
 Prince Trawaska, or my son the Count Paolini, or 
 
 " Your son ! " 
 
 " My son, the Count Paolini of the Italian army." 
 
 The Countess blushed, and retreated to the door of her own 
 apartments. 
 
 " Nay, nay, child," began the old man, " it is no longer 
 necessary to keep it secret now. Our fortune has been made, 
 and now you shall be confirmed in your marriage before all 
 the world. You see," said the old man, turning to Murietta 
 and addressing him, " we are so very, very poor in Italy 
 that often lovers have not only to give up lovers, but some 
 times a wife has to give up her husband, a husband his wife, 
 to better their mutual fortunes." 
 
 " I do not understand you," 
 
 " Well, to explain," said the old man glancing timidly 
 towards his daughter. " Say, for example, a young man 
 loves a young woman, both are poor. To be once poor in Italy 
 is to be poor for forty generations. "Very well. Then, in 
 the course of time, the young man chances to meet with a 
 wealthy foreign lady, who consents to become his wife. This, 
 you must understand, is an opportunity not to be thrown 
 away." 
 
 "That I can understand," said the artist ; " that, I am 
 ashamed to say, might happen in my own land ; but how about 
 a man giving up his own wife ? " 
 
 . " I will tell you ; listen to me," began the old man as he 
 shrugged his shoulders and laid one finger across the other,
 
 Murictta sees his Shadow. 279 
 
 " Two young lovers are married. Good. They have health, 
 youth, desires, children ; all, in fact, but the one all-important 
 thing in Italy to make them happy, that is money. They 
 are very poor. Well, a cardinal comes along, or some foreign 
 gentleman, and falls in love with the wife. Now," said the 
 old man, again shrugging his shoulders and laying one fore 
 finger still tighter and firmer across the other, and turning his 
 head to one side and half smiling out of his half shut eyes at 
 the artist, " now tell me what is the wise thing to do ?" 
 
 " Why, blow the cardinal or the wealthy foreigner to the 
 moon if he interferes ! " said the artist emphatically. 
 
 " No, no, no, no," remonstrated the old man, still shrug 
 ging his shoulders and locking his forefingers together. 
 
 " What then ? " 
 
 " Why, let the cardinal have the wife, or let the foreigner 
 marry her if he will, and pay her an annual sum for the hus 
 band and the children at home." 
 
 " But this is not done ? " queried the artist doubtfully. 
 
 " Not done ! oh, isn t it ! " said the old man, putting up 
 his open hands, as if he would banish the unpleasant truth 
 from his mind, "and here we are coming just back to the 
 point where we began. For instance," said he, again locking 
 his two forefingers together and shrugging up his shoulders, 
 " here is my daughter, the Countess, secretly married to my 
 son the Count Paolini. Good. But they are very, very 
 poor, and it becomes necessary for him to better his fortune. 
 They could barely subsist on their limited income. They 
 could not bear to bring their children into the world to starve 
 before their eyes. What was to be done ? The count joined 
 the order known as the Brothers of the Altar." 
 
 " The Brothers of the Altar ? " 
 
 {< Yes, the Brothers of the Altar ; " and here the two fore 
 fingers wrestled together more violently than ever before. 
 " He joined the Brothers of the Altar, much to niy disgust, 
 and much to his disgrace, and began to oft er his hand in mar-
 
 280 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 riage to wealthy foreign ladies from the wild western coun 
 tries, and was just about to succeed, when this good fortune 
 you have brought upon my house happily rendered it un 
 necessary." 
 
 Murietta had been leaning back against the wall, stupefied 
 and utterly overcome by this strange revelation. He never 
 before had realized how much money is worth, or rather how 
 much men are willing to pay for it who hang upon the skirts 
 of society. 
 
 At last he said inquiringly, as he straightened up, and 
 tried to throw off this spell of half stupor and amazement, 
 " But the man in the long blue cloak under the blue Ma 
 donna ? " 
 
 "Oh yes, oh yes; well, he is one of the Brothers of the 
 Altar. That is all I know, that is all I know." The two 
 brown old hands were thrown up again, as if they would like 
 to push this man in the long blue cloak under the blue 
 Madonna, and the whole set of the Brothers of the Altar 
 backward over the Tarpeian Rock. 
 
 " But what does he want here ? " Is he not waiting to see 
 my face and my figure, so that he will know me in the 
 dark?" 
 
 " Perhaps he wants to see the Prince. I do not know what 
 he is waiting there for ; if I did I would tell you ; for you 
 have done more for me in one day, and can do more for a 
 poor Italian family than all the miserable Brothers of the 
 Altar in their whole lives. But I should say he wants to see 
 Prince Trawaska. They are nearly always together. I should 
 say he wants to see the Prince, and is standing there in the 
 sun waiting for him to come along." 
 
 " Standing in the sun, with his cloak muffled about him like 
 a midnight assassin," said the artist savagely. Then, turning 
 to the Countess, he put up his finger and said, " He wants me. 
 He wants to see my face and not be seen. You are an honest, 
 true little lady. Yoxi will say to the Count that Murietta
 
 Murietta sees his Shadow. 281 
 
 knows what this man is waiting for, and that if I am in peril 
 when I go abroad in the dark places of Rome and come and 
 go through these nai row passages at night, he is in peril 
 also." 
 
 The Countess grew pale, and put up her hands and buried 
 her head in her hands, and her splendid dark hair fell down 
 about her face and shoulders, and over her loose, ungathered 
 gown, but she did not speak. 
 
 The old vendor of antiquities shuffled forward, and laid his 
 two forefingers together, as if in preparation for another 
 wrestling match and long speech, but Murietta had heard 
 quite enough, and said, as he stepped back into the half- 
 closed door of his little apartment 
 
 " Do not fear, old man. You, as I said, are honest, as the 
 world goes. You are a merchant. You do your best to sell 
 yoiir wares as all merchants do. Merchants are simply toll- 
 takers and tax-gathei-ers, the world over. They are the men 
 who sit between the producer and the consumer, and tax, and 
 take tribute on and of whatever passes from the one to the 
 other. They produce nothing whatever. They all of them 
 together never made or brought into the world even so much 
 as one grain of wheat, not even so much as one of yonr 
 worthless Vespasian copper coins. Yon are as good as the 
 best of these merchants. Yea, you are even better than the 
 best of them, for you are not only a merchant, but you are 
 also a producer." 
 
 Murietta was half smiling all this time, for the old man 
 had began to grow nervous, but now he bowed at this com- 
 pliment,and took on his old complacency. 
 
 " Therefore, I say," continued the artist," fear nothing from 
 me. Your customers shall be wealthy ones, if they are not 
 numerous, and you shall sell all the old copper crucifixes, 
 bronze serpents, brass cats from Egypt, and battered sphinxes 
 that you can fashion for a year to come ; but understand, 
 the Count, who had the weakness, and the Prince Trawaska,
 
 282 TJic One Fair Woman. 
 
 who has the wickedness to set this watch under the bine 
 Madonna upon my track, must be more than careful, or they 
 will pull this old ruin of a house down upon the heads of us 
 all." 
 
 He bowed to the Countess, who stood pushing back her 
 black stream of hair; and, bidding the old man good-day, he 
 went in, shut the door, and looked out of the window. 
 
 The children were still riding the goat, the cats still sat in 
 a long great line on the glass-tipped wall, the game for chest 
 nuts and wine went on, but the man muffled to the chin in 
 the long blue cloak, xinder the blue Madonna with the per 
 petual lamp at her feet, was gone.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 CAMPO SANTO. 
 
 OU had better sail boldly on 
 in almost any direction than 
 drift without any direction at 
 all. You had better sail in 
 the maddest storm that ever 
 troubled your sea of life, than 
 lie on the sea and drift with 
 any wind that chooses to blow. 
 Murietta was utterly alone 
 in Rome, as far as anything 
 like real friends were con 
 cerned, although he was petted and 
 patronized and courted by the kind 
 artists here ; and many an old woman, 
 and young one too, for that, had made 
 ineffectxial efforts to draw and cork 
 screw him into their special clique and 
 
 circle, where weak tea and strong scandal were dealt out with 
 prodigal liberality. Yet he persistently held himself aloof, 
 and with very few exceptions kept his friends and his place 
 among the poor and lowly people of old Rome. 
 
 He seemed to have lost his spirit somehow. He was drift 
 ing. He was not waiting for anything to turn up. He was 
 not wanting anything to turn up. It seemed to him rather
 
 284 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 that there was now nothing else to be done. He felt that he 
 had come to the end of his weary road ; and was perfectly cer 
 tain in his own mind, and perfectly satisfied, too, with the 
 thought, that he should never live to leave Rome. 
 
 The warm, soft wind was in again from Africa as the artist 
 opened his window next morning. The cats were on the wall 
 asleep, just as they were before. Possibly they had not left 
 their posts on the battlement all this time. It was as warm 
 and sweet as middle Spring. Even the beggars affected the 
 shade of the wall, and the people as they passed by sang low 
 and dreamily, if they sang at all, and all seemed languid and 
 half-asleep. 
 
 The artist passed out of his room and crossed the little 
 white hall and looked away to the hills beyond the Tiber and 
 above the dome of St. Peter s. Monte Mario, in almost a sin 
 gle night, had mounted himself in green. He lifted his glass 
 and saw that the side of the mountain turning to the sun was 
 in places red with roses and in other places white with flocks 
 of sheep. 
 
 " I can almost hear the songs and the pipes of the skin-clad 
 shepherds," said the man, as he lowered his glass and turned 
 back to the lonesome room. " I can almost hear the music 
 of spring/ The country seems to call to me across the mossy 
 walls of Rome, and invite me to come forth and be glad." 
 
 He was walking slowly across the room asking himself 
 what he should now do, when his eyes fell upon the picture 
 hiding away in the shadow of the door. lie approached, 
 lifted it tenderly to the light, and sat down before it in 
 silence. What could he have been thinking of? At last he 
 rose up with a sigh, set it back in its place, and then shook 
 his head and shrugged his shoulders violently, as if he would 
 shake off and throw off the load of thought that encumbered 
 him. 
 
 " I will go upon the Campagna." He took his hat as he 
 said this, threw his cloak over his shoulders, and hastened
 
 Campo Santo. 285 
 
 down the narrow stone steps. He had been looking at 
 Annette, loving her, worshiping her, talking to her, taking 
 her into his heart. Therefore he almost hated the Countess. 
 
 " There is truly a bad atmosphere about that palace of the 
 pink Countess, and what have I done that I must condemn 
 myself to perpetually inhale it ? She is in the meshes of 
 some great grief and trouble," mused the man, " and now 
 why, or what reason there is that I, I of all men, should take 
 it upon myself to champion her, I cannot understand. I will 
 not ! There ! " 
 
 He snapped his fingers as if he had sundered the cord that 
 bound him to her, and then threw back his head and began to 
 whistle as he went on down the street, like a country plough 
 man. 
 
 Carriages were pouring past, \ip, and down, as he reached 
 the Corso, and they were full of beautiful women, and fra 
 grant with bouquets and enormous baskets of roses. 
 
 Sometimes these roses would be thrown in a perfect shower 
 from carriage to carriage, and now and then some beautiful 
 woman, in these little battles of the roses, would be almost 
 covered with red and white and pink as she sat in her car 
 riage. This to Murietta seemed to be the most beautiful and 
 innocent thing of all the carnival. 
 
 His spirits rose as he saw so much levity, such innocent 
 diversion, and so many light-hearted and happy people, and 
 he began to despise himself for a morbid and a discontented 
 man. 
 
 " I will join them," thought he. " I can get a carriage 
 there around the corner. I can get a carriage there under 
 the palace around the corner ; but where can I get a beauti 
 ful woman to sit by my side and challenge the volley of 
 roses ? " 
 
 The carriages rolled by as if they were innumerable. There 
 were mounted cavaliers throwing roses and bantering the 
 beautiful women, and lifting their hats and leaning from their
 
 286 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 horses to talk in whispers. All the air was full of the breath 
 and fragrance of the country, and all things seemed as beauti 
 ful and full of life as if Home was one great ball-room, hung 
 with flowers and filled with the beauty of the earth, and all 
 were moving down the mazes of the dance. 
 
 The man lingered here a long time. He looked and peered 
 into every carriage with an eagerness and concern and anxiety 
 on his face that was not to be mistaken. Had he been asked 
 what he was looking for, he would have been angry even with 
 his best friend. Had he asked himself what he sought there, 
 he would have said " Nothing." He was looking for An 
 nette. She was not there. 
 
 Suddenly he began to wonder if the Countess was out in 
 this glorious air, so full of life, and health, and happiness. 
 
 He looked up at the sundial and saw that it was then the 
 very hour she would set out to drive. He reflected a mo 
 ment, put his hand to his brow, stepped back and was star 
 tled as he lifted his face. Annette was before him, driving 
 down the Corso on a perfect carpet of flowers. Princes, sons 
 of kings, were scattering roses in her path. 
 
 He started for the palace of the Countess. He was 
 jealous. His heart was always steeped in sweets or bitter 
 ness. He would break over on this side now and flow to an 
 unreasonable extreme, and then would go as far the other- 
 way, and be at the same time perfectly sincere, and feel certain 
 that he was right, and that that was really the only course 
 for him to take. 
 
 True enough, there she sat in her carriage; and as the 
 artist approached she reached him her hand, as if reaching 
 it over the chasm of days that had divided them. And not 
 one word did she whisper of reproach. 
 
 " I have been waiting for you for half an hour." 
 
 " Waiting for me ? " 
 
 11 Yes, you should have come at twelve." 
 
 The restless horses had stamped so long and so hard on the
 
 Campo Santo. 287 
 
 stones of the court that the doves had all fluttered and flown 
 away and up to the sun on the niches and arches of the 
 palace, and little Sunshine had muffled himself up, and was 
 sitting all a-shiver on the front seat ; for nothing is more 
 tantalizing, and chilling, and cheerless than the courts of 
 these damp, dismal palaces. 
 
 " You are so very fashionable," smiled the beautiful 
 Countess, as she half rose and drew her pink and rose robes 
 to one side to give place to the artist. 
 
 " A thousand pardons, lady, I feel very guilty. But then," 
 he added, as he sat down by the rustling robes of pink and 
 silk and lace, "you know it is always twelve until it is one, 
 in law." 
 
 " Yes, in law, but in love ? " 
 
 The artist was glad the carriage and the horses feet on the 
 cobble stones of Rome preluded a reply, for he was certain 
 the Countess used the last word in the remark, not with any 
 significance, but simply because it fitted in there and was a 
 pleasant word, and in that place made a pretty alliteration. 
 
 This very often happens in conversation. Words do not 
 always have the same weight and importance. 
 
 There was a beautiful but silent scorn of the gaieties of 
 Rome on the part of the Countess that day, which now more 
 pleased the moody Murietta than anything that she said or 
 could have said. She had chosen this day, this "Feast 
 of Flowers," in quite another sense. 
 
 Turning down the Via Angelo Custoda they passed the 
 Fountain of Trevi, reached the Corso, passed the resurrected 
 and exhumed Forum of Trajan, and, crossing the old Roman 
 Forum, soon touched the Tiber under the steep and north 
 side of Mount Aventine, and were on their way out to the 
 Gate of St. Paul. 
 
 The Countess never questioned Murietta as to whether this 
 drive would please him or whether that would displease him. 
 " Whatever she may be," mused the man to himself, as they
 
 288 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 sat silent all the time, " whatever she may be now, or what 
 ever troubles encompass her, she is a lady who, once in her 
 life, at least, has known no will or whini or humour but her 
 own." 
 
 As they rolled between the yellow Tiber to the left, and 
 the steep Aventine covered with old ruins and new woods to 
 the right, the lady looked up, and lifting her little pink hand 
 to the top of the mountain, and following it with her great 
 hazel eyes, said 
 
 " There is a shrine up there, would you care to see it as 
 we return ? " 
 
 " Well, there are so many shrines in Rome," answered the 
 artist, " that one must be a little particular, else one will 
 never get through with them all." 
 
 " But this one is very old." 
 
 " And pray what is it ? " 
 
 " The Tomb of Remus. It was there he watched the flight 
 of the birds, and there, says tradition, he was buried." 
 
 " No, I do not care to see it. I am not in a mood to visit 
 tombs to-day." 
 
 " Not in a mood to visit tombs to-day ? But you must be," 
 said the lady, looking the least bit troubled ; u do you see 
 that little mountain down the Tiber there with the great 
 cross at the top ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " That overlooks the Campo Santo. We are going there ; 
 it is the prettiest place in all Rome. We will visit the graves 
 of Keats and Shelley." 
 
 After passing down a long avenue of elm and locust trees, 
 they turned to the right through a broad gate, and passed on 
 to the south, toward the great marble pyramid built in the 
 wall of Rome, and when almost against the wall stopped be 
 fore a deep moat that runs around the old Protestant bury 
 ing ground. 
 
 The sexton led across a little arched bridge, and there, in
 
 Campo Santo. 289 
 
 one corner of the island, as it were, with its few trees and 
 many flowers, lifted a flat faded stone without any name 
 whatever. For that name has been " writ in water." 
 
 A few roses were blooming pale and feebly on a few sickly 
 bushes that had struggled ineffectually with the thick carpet 
 ing of grass, and here and there a bright margaretta starred 
 the green covering, but the place was cheerless and lonesome, 
 and cold from the shadows of the trees and the walls. The 
 grave and the little stones had been restored but a few years 
 before by a sculptor of Rome, who had come from the New 
 World, and the strange and mournful inscription on the head 
 stone without a name had been made once more legible. 
 
 That man lies buried now up yonder, under the tall dark 
 cypresses in the new ground against the wall of the city, and 
 not so very far from the ashes of Shelley. 
 
 Murietta, on first taking his seat in the carriage, had 
 thought that the Countess contemplated a revel in the Carni 
 val of Flowers on the Corso, for there, in charge of the foot 
 man, were two bi oad and splendid baskets of roses. They 
 were destined for a better purpose, these flowers, than to be 
 trodden under the feet of revellers. 
 
 The Countess moved about the grave of the great boy poet 
 as silent as the stone that stood nameless above his head. 
 She turned to her footman at last, and made a si<m. He 
 
 * O 
 
 brought the basket of flowers, and while he held it in his 
 hand, she scattered the roses above his dust, and then de 
 parted in silence. She had not spoken one word. 
 
 It is but a stone s-throw from this burying-ground which 
 is now full and closed up to the higher and more beautiful 
 ground where Shelley has his last resting-place. 
 
 They passed through a great iron gate, and stood at once in 
 one of the most beautiful flower-gardens to be found in all 
 that land of flowers. 
 
 The keeper knows perfectly well what the stranger wants 
 who enters that iron gate. His hat is in his hand, and he 
 13
 
 290 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 leads at once slowly up through the garden of flowers, up the 
 little hill between the long row of tall, dark cypresses, right 
 against the very top of the wall of Rome. The old man 
 knows full well that but two classes of people come to him 
 there, and but for two purposes : one is the traveller who 
 comes to visit the grave of Shelley, and the other is the man 
 who has finished his travels and has come home to his own 
 grave. 
 
 Whatever beautiful things Shelley may have said of the 
 grave of Keats, it is not so beautiful now. It is beautiful, it 
 is true, but it seems so very, very lonesome. 
 
 But here, by Shelley s grave, the birds sing. The sun is 
 always here when it is anywhere in Rome ; and then the spot 
 is lifted so high and so much above all the other world that 
 it really seems nearer to heaven than any other place. Even 
 the dark and mournful trees look pleasant, for all about their 
 feet are flowers of every clime and color, and birds are in the 
 bushes. 
 
 The flat stone that lies above the sacred ashes, with its 
 well-known inscription, is nestled in blooming roses that nod 
 and toss in the wind that blows in and softly around the wall 
 from the Campagna. 
 
 Others had set flowers there that day. Ladies had come 
 and left their little tokens, and their gifts lay still fresh and 
 unwithered on the white stone. 
 
 The earth is almost level here with the top of the wall. 
 The grave of Shelley looks over the Campagna, and you can, 
 on a day of singular clearness, see the Mediterranean Sea 
 from the port-hole in which the grave is very nearly placed. 
 
 The silent Countess, after scattering the roses on the 
 ground and around the stone, taking care not to disturb the 
 gifts of those who had come before her, lest they should be 
 from nearer and dearer hands, passed through the little half- 
 open door that had been placed there at the mouth of this 
 port-hole, and stood there and looked away to the south on
 
 Campo Santo. 291 
 
 the mighty edifice of St. Paulo and on to the spot where the 
 apostle perished, but spoke no word. 
 
 Birds and flowers and sunshine, and the songs of peasants 
 bore in from the fields and over the walls ; dark sweeping 
 trees and pilgrims coming and peering from under their 
 shadows the whole year through. Surely this is the grave, 
 if such a grave there be, to make a man " in love with 
 death." 
 
 The artist followed in silence this silent and incomprehen 
 sible woman, and lifted her in the carriage and took his place 
 by her side with a feeling almost akin to reverence. She 
 seemed to him now to have something of that soul and sym 
 pathy which he had ever in his heart demanded that every 
 one should have before they entered his heart. Here was a 
 woman cradled in the lap of fortune, a beautiful woman, too, 
 the most beautiful woman in her way in all the wide woi ld, 
 a woman full of life and love, who had turned in contempt 
 from the follies of the Corso, where all the world had met to 
 bandy wit and challenge and mingle in the Battle of Flowers, 
 and had gono aside in silence to scatter roses on the graves 
 of strangers.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 A BLUNT, BUT HONEST MAN." 
 
 HE sun was dropping down 
 behind the great gold ball 
 of the dome of St. Peter s, 
 as the Countess drove, with 
 a thousand others, up the 
 Pincian Hill. 
 
 It looked as if the whole 
 world had climbed the Pin 
 cian ; as if there had been a 
 deluge and every one had come up 
 .here out of the dark shadows, to 
 stand in the last bright rays of the 
 sun and escape. 
 
 What a gregarious people these 
 Italians are ! They are like a flock 
 of sheep ; wherever the leader goes 
 the rest will follow, and not give it athought or make any 
 question. But this was the season, and the full blossom and 
 flower of the season, on this little hill and around this little 
 drive among the figures and around the fountains. 
 
 The music played under the great palm tree as the sun 
 settled behind St Peter s, with a melody and sweetness that 
 Murietta had never known before.
 
 A Blunt biit Honest Man. 293 
 
 A thousand handsome men, the handsomest men by far 
 in all the world, were there in their gorgeous uniforms glit 
 tering in the sun as they moved to and fro, mixed with the 
 crowd, or passed from carriage to carriage lifting their hats 
 to the ladies. 
 
 The band stopped playing for a moment, and the mass of 
 carriages moved on, one, two, three, four abreast, and fast as 
 the gay horses could whirl and spin about the little circle. 
 The whole hill was blossoming with carriages, and every 
 carriage was blossoming with beautiful women clad in every 
 color of the rainbow. 
 
 Then the band began to play again, and again the carriages 
 drew up on the broad gravel before the great palrn tree, and 
 listened and looked at the sun hiding down behind St. Peter s 
 or laughed and talked and made love with their eyes. 
 
 The carriage of the Countess, either by accident or by quiet 
 and unobserved direction, was kept well out on the edge of 
 the immense crowd, and but few acquaintances were en 
 countered ; and these few the silent Countess dismissed with 
 well-directed monosyllables, as if they had been little single- 
 handed stabs aimed at their vitals, and she was left much to 
 herself. As for Marietta, probably he had not spoken ten. 
 words all day. 
 
 There was a hat fluttering in the air in the face of the 
 Countess, as if to attract her attention, for she was looking 
 dreamingly away toward the gold and fire of the falling sun. 
 
 She caught her breath as she saw this hat, and her little 
 hands clutched in her rose and pink and lace, and her face was 
 deadly pale. 
 
 The hat, however, was replaced, and the man with his old 
 gesture, as if he would say, " I am a blunt but honest, sailor 
 who carries his heart in his hand," passed on and joined the 
 Count and Prince Trawaska, and a group of other gentlemen 
 who stood beneath one of the little sycamores talking and 
 watching the gay whirl of fashion in the carriages.
 
 294 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 The Countess was suffering terribly. The old Admiral knew 
 this, too, for as he passed on he threw a glance over his 
 shoulder, looked hard and steadfast for a second in her pale 
 and pitiful face, as if to be perfectly certain that his arrow had 
 gone to the heart, and then passed on with a swing and flour 
 ish of his cane and a leer of satisfaction on his iron face. 
 
 The lady put her hand to her throat, she clutched at her 
 clothes, and was for a moment in great agony, and for a time 
 it seemed doubtful if she could rally without assistance < 
 Murietta caught her hand, tore off the little pink glove, and 
 began chafing it, and tried to coax the frightened blood back 
 and out from her heart and into her hands and face again. 
 
 As he did this, the old Admiral again elbowed his way 
 through the crowd near the carriage, and led the Count and 
 his friends, or followers, whichever they may have been, in 
 his wake. 
 
 The Admiral looked hard into the carriage at Murietta, 
 half stooped, whispered to a man at his side, spoke to the 
 Count, who lifted his hat very civilly and respectfully to his 
 wife, and so went on. 
 
 This time the Countess was almost utterly overcome. She 
 bit her lips till they bled. She sank back into the carriage, 
 and it was with the greatest effort that she could be aroused. 
 
 " He will murder me yet." She whispered this to herself, 
 and when Murietta asked her if she really feared this man 
 would harm her, she would not answer, but looked away 
 again at the sun dying in a sea of blood, and was still silent 
 and very pale. 
 
 At last the carriages in front began to move, It woiild be 
 but a few minutes till the carriage of the Countess also must 
 move on and give room. 
 
 She turned to the artist and looked at him with the same 
 sad longing, the same lonely and pitiful expression he had 
 seen in her face at Genoa, and said : 
 
 " I have something on my niind, on my hands. It is a
 
 A Blunt but Honest Man. 295 
 
 matter of liberty, perhaps my life is involved. I may be 
 imprisoned before I am out again. I must prepare for 
 something terrible. Will you do me one favor ? " 
 
 " I will do anything in my power to serve you, lady," 
 answered the artist, with all the earnestness and determina 
 tion of a nature now aroused and ready for much. 
 
 After a moment s silence the Coimtess began more quietly, 
 " I am so situated that I am worse than alone. I must drive 
 out, and keep up my strength, and dare not go out alone. 
 That man will not murder me with a knife. He will not 
 spill one drop of blood, but he will kill me as certainly as I 
 meet him when alone, and he will do it deliberately and by 
 inches." 
 
 " But, my dear lady, I do not understand." 
 
 " No, you do not understand, and you do not promise." 
 
 <c I do, I do promise." If you are in danger, or if any 
 lady is in danger, or if you even imagine you are in danger, 
 what better can I do, what else have I to do, in this sullen, 
 weary world " the man was almost on his feet " than to 
 stand up and protect you ? " 
 
 " Gently, gently," whispered the Countess, "you are grow 
 ing wild, you will ruin everything. But listen. Some day 
 I may be, in trouble, what then ? " 
 
 " Send for me," answered the artist, firmly and emphati 
 cally. 
 
 " If I am ill," she began again, in a low voice, " or if I 
 should be imprisoned, do you understand ? " 
 
 "I I think I " 
 
 " No, no, you do not understand. Look here. If a lady 
 should send to you send her maid could send nothing like 
 a note or letter, or other message, and tell you she was a 
 prisoner and required your help, what would you do? " 
 
 " Well, I suppose the correct thing to do would be to go 
 the consul representing the country from which the lady 
 came and "
 
 296 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 " And get laughed at for your pains." 
 
 The carriages were moving off. The Countess laid her 
 little hand on the arm of Marietta, and again looked in his 
 face. 
 
 " If I some day send my maid to you, will you come to 
 me, and at once, and contrive to get a message from me to 
 my father ? " 
 
 " Come to you ! I will come to you for that purpose if I 
 have to come through fire 1 " 
 
 She looked at the man s passionate and determined face, 
 and seemed satisfied. She took her hand from his arm as the 
 carriage whirled down the serpentine road between the rows 
 of sycamore trees, and looking once more into his face, said 
 softly : 
 
 " You will remember ? " 
 
 " I will remember." 
 
 They stood together at the palace door, but the artist re 
 fused to enter ; and she said, looking back with her pink foot 
 on the threshold: 
 
 " No ? you will not dine with me to-day ? Then to 
 morrow you will be sure to be with me by twelve, and we 
 will find a new drive outside the walls." And then the lady 
 disappeared within before he could say nay.
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 AT THE ROMAN RACE-COURSE. 
 
 HERE was certainly something 
 very remarkable in the conduct 
 of this Count Edna. No man 
 could be more gentle. All men 
 spoke of him with kindness; 
 the ladies even spoke of him 
 with affection; yet he seemed 
 to be not only helpless, but 
 willingly so. He allowed this 
 monster, who seemed to be his master, 
 to torture his wife to the verge of in 
 sanity. He even allowed her to be 
 driven to do and say very unreasonable 
 things, and then let these very things 
 be set. down by the world as evidence 
 of her insanity. 
 All this was not only remarkable but was also very unrea 
 sonable. In fact, had these things not been remarkable and 
 even unreasonable, I do not know that I should have taken 
 the pains to tell them. 
 
 Marietta came next day early, even before the Countess 
 
 was yet in her carriage, and sat in the parlor and talked with 
 
 the gentle Count, for the old Admiral was not yet to be seen, 
 
 and talked of art and other things, and found him really in 
 
 13*
 
 298 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 all respects, or to all appearances at least, a perfect gentle 
 man. 
 
 He even assisted the Countess to her carriage, lifted his hat 
 as they drove away, and then stood on the steps looking after 
 her. 
 
 All that afternoon did Marietta sit by the silent Countess, 
 as they drove out through one of the many gates of the Eter 
 nal City and to the Campagna. 
 
 Nothing was said, nothing transpired worth repeating, and 
 the artist began to imagine that all his fears were groundless, 
 idle, and bred of his or her own brain. 
 
 He enjoyed these drives thoroughly. How few people 
 have the good sense to sit silent in the carriage as they drive 
 through the groves, and let God speak ! 
 
 All day these two would sit together as they whirled 
 around the green hills or drove through the wood and out of 
 the sun, and often not one word would be spoken. 
 
 Every day, every drive, Murietta felt that he was going 
 further and further away from Annette, and in his heart he 
 was very glad, for he felt that he was once more becoming his 
 own master. 
 
 The ai-tist now often met the Count at the palace and else 
 where, and he was always very friendly, yet a little mysterious 
 and reserved. He was often intoxicated, yet to all appearances 
 a perfect gentleman and man of the world. 
 
 The Admiral, too, was now often to be seen both in social 
 circles, at the rides and elsewhere, and always he was the 
 same imperious and insolent bully, both in action and expres 
 sion, and always had a circle of his followers about him. At 
 such times the Count Edna was a mere cipher, and was 
 hardly to be heard. 
 
 Still, the presence of this ponderovis chin had lost its old 
 terror to Murietta, and he had come to admit that thei e 
 might be very much worse things in the world than a man 
 who was always blustering about like a March wind, and
 
 At the Roman Race- Course. 299 
 
 swearing that he was a rough but honest sailor who always 
 carried his heart in his hand. 
 
 He became as familiar with every gate, every road, every 
 one of the twenty beautiful drives in and all around Rome, 
 as with his own narrow stairs, rows of cats, and blue Madon 
 nas on the side of the Tarpeian Rock. 
 
 The Countess would now drive down past his little 
 tower on the Rock, send up her footman, and, without 
 even a sound, save the rustle of the pink and rose silk robes, 
 that seemed to whisper pretty songs of sentiment and 
 love, he would take his seat beside her, and then they would 
 whirl away to the most unfrequented and most pleasant drive, 
 and only stopping now and then for a glass of " Est est " or 
 buns for the little Sunshine at some one of the wayside inns, 
 they would spend fiill half of the alluring, balmy, beautiful 
 day, sitting there behind the strong spirited horses, watching 
 the work of summer, the coming and going of strange men 
 up and down the roads of Rome, the stacking up of the tall 
 Indian corn in the fertile fields, the brown harvesters bend 
 ing to the scythe, or would look away at the bent and curved 
 new moon that hung in the west against the blue bent walls 
 of heaven, as bright and clear as if it had just been cut and 
 fashioned from new and polished silver. 
 
 " And this is best," said Murietta to himself, over and 
 over again, " come what comes of it, I will not deny myself 
 the gifts of the gods. I will no longer play the hermit. 
 These fields are finer than the shadows of the Tarpeian Rock. 
 There is rest and repose in this gorgeous beauty, and the 
 strength and movement of these spirited horses gives me life 
 and lets my blood run warm and natural. This beautiful, 
 silent lady by my side is inspiration itself. I will take the 
 gifts of the gods and be glad." 
 
 There was a great gathering of men and women outside the 
 walls, four or five miles to the south of the city, at a place 
 called Old Rome.
 
 300 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 This Old Rome is said to be the site of a city once as 
 mighty as Rome itself when Rome was the capital of the 
 Caesars. Yet all you see there now is a succession of mounds 
 and long reaches of moles and little hills that certainly were 
 not placed there by accident or by the sport of Nature. 
 
 These little mounds are topped in many cases by groves of 
 olive, and sometimes by palm and pine and orange trees ; 
 though they are usually white with flocks of sheep, and bare 
 of anything save coats of grass. The people there are thin, 
 sleepy, skin-clad shepherds, with little white woolly and most 
 vicious dogs. 
 
 As the Countess and the ai tist drove upon this ground on 
 this great gala day, there was a battle going on between a 
 duke of the house of Rusk and a Hapsburg. Each prince 
 had gathered his friends and followers about him ; and ihen, 
 buying up all the oranges they could procure from the many 
 little stands all along the road and around the grand stand 
 and the race-course, for this was the great day for the sports 
 of the turf, they began to pour in upon each other volley after 
 volley of oranges. 
 
 Sometimes one party, with their hats or arms full of 
 oranges, would sally forth from their fortress and attempt to 
 carry the works of the enemy by storm, but would always be 
 driven back hatless and hot, and sometimes with bleeding 
 noses, to their own mound, where, perhaps, three or four 
 thousand years before had stood as gorgeous, and high, and 
 sacred a temple as anything now to be found on the face of 
 the earth. 
 
 Ladies would laugh and lift their little hands, and wave 
 their handkerchiefs and cheer the successful party in a way 
 that made one almost feel that it was real life, and quite in 
 accord with human, or at least woman, nature. 
 
 The red flag shot up above the grand stand, where stood 
 the king of Italy, under cover, with his courtiers around 
 him ; the word was given, and the dust of Old Rome trem-
 
 At the Roman Race-Course. 301 
 
 bled under the flying feet of a hundred splendid horses, 
 brought from that little wintry island away out yonder on 
 the edge of the world, in the ultima Thule, to where Caesar s 
 soldiers hesitated to follow him. 
 
 And English riders, English owners, English everything, 
 even the man who tiptoed up in the crowd and even climbed 
 on to the wheel of the Countess s carriage to get a glimpse of 
 his favourite English horse, swore in English as he saw him 
 dropping behind, and by that act drawing hard English coin 
 from the pocket of his English backer. 
 
 All the world was here. The little mounds for miles 
 around were black with armies of people gathered there to 
 shout and clap their hands and toss their hats over the winner 
 of the day, whoever he might be, after the fashion of the 
 world. 
 
 The king applauded too. A stout black man, in black 
 clothes, with a black beard, and black bushy hair, that grew 
 very low down on his forehead, he stood there with his naked 
 brown hands clasped over the rail when the race was done, 
 and looking down at the band that struck up the national 
 air. He looked very tired of it all, and as if he was intoler 
 ably bored, and wanted to get back to his hills, in north Italy, 
 and to his boar hunts in the Alps. 
 
 How black and ugly and brigandish he looked in his great 
 black slouch hat, his plain, black, slovenly clothes, and with 
 his monstrous black moustache curling up and out like the 
 horns of a vicious black buffalo bull. 
 
 " Santa Maria ! * said a monk at the side of the carriage, 
 as he crossed himself, "he looks like the devil ! " 
 
 Yet, that fierce, ugly old man, standing there, stood with 
 the weight of all new Italy on his shoulders. There was the 
 look and the action of something more than the king in this 
 man, standing there, trying to look pleased at the mob of a 
 million strong, that had gathered that day to waste the pre 
 cious time, while half the fields of Italy lay fallow. He looked
 
 302 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 a very Titan. You felt that the ground would tremble when 
 he moved. His very awkwardness was grace and strength 
 and majesty. Amid the swarms of popinjays in satins and 
 silks and lace and feathers, it was so refreshing to see this 
 old grizzly standing there so perfectly individual, so solely 
 original, so very much alone, so manly and so kingly. He 
 is, perhaps, the only king to-day that has a throne. 
 
 The Count Paolini, with Miss Mollie and Mrs. Wopsus 
 and the General, sat in a carriage but a little way to the left. 
 They bowed to the Countess, and the General and the Count 
 got down and elbowed their way through the crowd and came 
 to pay their respects to the lady in pink. 
 
 How sweetly she smiled as they bowed before her and 
 called her the Countess ! 
 
 Marietta marked this more than ever on that day. He 
 had seen and often remarked this before ; but to-day it struck 
 him with such singular clearness that he made a note of it in 
 his mind, and it took place there as the key by which a mys 
 tery might be unravelled. 
 
 When these gentlemen withdrew, and again as they bowed 
 themselves away, repeatedly called her the Countess, she again 
 smiled, and seemed more satisfied with this common appellation 
 than with all the splendid scene before her, or all the Italian 
 compliments the Count Paolini had paid her beauty and her 
 wit that day. 
 
 " Let me see," he mused, as his face rested on his upturned 
 hand, and he lounged back in the carriage and looked at the 
 king, who still stood there clutching on to the rail before him, 
 and looking down at the fiddlers and pipers in gold and lace 
 and tassels and cock s feathers. " Let me see. Here was a 
 young American girl, full of romance, and fed on Italian 
 novels written by men who never saw Italy and all glittering 
 with gems and gold, and set with high-sounding names of 
 titled men who were always the soul of chivalry and honor. 
 She was a child of fortune, and blessed with beauty, and
 
 At the Roman Race-Course. 303 
 
 therefore flattered on every hand, till her little untried brain 
 was fairly turned. 
 
 " Then there came this Italian or foreign count of what 
 ever country he may be, and his gentle manners, and his 
 sweet and insinuating words, and his title, most of all, made 
 him an object of interest. Then this man, this foreign count, 
 a Brother of the Altar, sat down before her as a general 
 would sit down before a besieged town ; he made his calcula 
 tions with the same coolness, the same deliberation, the same 
 estimation of the loss of time, of money, and other operations, 
 as a general would make in a campaign or a siege ; counted 
 the probabilities of gain, the possibilities of loss, and so sat 
 down, and so besieged and won and carried her away to his 
 own land. And then," continued the artist, following up the 
 train of his fancy, " we will suppose the lady, when it was 
 too late, discovered her fearful mistake, but still fond and 
 proud of her rank and title, cherished it, was more pleased 
 with it than anything else, despite the awful price she had 
 paid for it ; and so in the face of the world kept her secrets, 
 and stood between her spouse and his exposure." 
 
 What the lady at his side was thinking of or guessing at, 
 no one may know, for she was a remarkable woman a woman 
 without curiosity, and a woman who could keep silent for a 
 month, and who could keep her secrets for ever. 
 
 The band ceased playing, the king with a sigh of relief 
 loosed his hooked hands from the railings before him, and 
 turned his broad shoulders to our party in the carriage, and 
 walked to the other side of the Stand, for the red flag was 
 again flying, and the English horses were again making the 
 dust of Old Rome fly in the face of the king of New Italy. 
 
 " Note him well, Guiseppe. Jesus ! if you were only as 
 good a hand with a pistol as you are with a plate of maccaroni, 
 you might rid the earth of the black brute even at this dis 
 tance, and then take shelter under a priest s gown, and never 
 once be suspected. Christ ! what a splendid opportunity ! "
 
 304 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 " Oh ! " whispered Guiseppe, " but you are always urging 
 others to do things that you never dream of daring to do 
 yourself." 
 
 " Guiseppe, a general does not touch a musket or apply the 
 match. I am the leader of the party. I cannot afford to do 
 this thing, nor can the order afford to allow me to do it." 
 
 Murietta heard all this distinctly, although it was whis 
 pered and hissed between the teeth, and back behind the car 
 riage of the Countess. Long training and experience on the 
 border, where men lie awake at night listening for the tawny 
 enemy, where a man s life depends on his watchfulness, had 
 sharpened his senses beyond his fellows. 
 
 " That is the same assassin that stands under my Madonna. 
 We shall meet again," said Murietta to himself. 
 
 They soon after returned, and the artist at the steps of the 
 palace took leave of the Countess. 
 
 She ascended the steps and he passed out and down to the 
 Gaffe Creco, a bohemian head-quarters, where he sometimes 
 fell in for an hour s pastime and a lunch or a glass of in 
 different wine.
 
 CHAPTER XXXYI. 
 
 A MARCH HAKE AND A HATTER. 
 
 OME old friends sat there as the ar 
 tist entered the cafe, and he felt that 
 they were a little cold and chilly in 
 their behaviour. Away down in a 
 corner, two artists sat at a little mar 
 ble table together, and they laid their 
 heads close together, as if they were 
 whispering. One of them was strok 
 ing and patting the large round head 
 of a great spotted dog, as he alternately 
 sipped his wine and laid his head over towards 
 the head of his companion, and looked up at 
 Marietta. 
 
 Over to the left, on the other side, an Ameri 
 can artist spoke to a French artist and looked 
 at Murietta. The French artist shrugged his 
 shoulders, and then sat still, and left the American artist to 
 translate that remark as he chose. 
 
 Carlton arose and came forward, as the one particular 
 friend of the artist, but even he was a little stiff and" ceremo 
 nious, as Murietta threw off his cloak and sat by his side at a 
 table, and ordered wine for both. 
 
 " You have been away from us so long, so very, very long ; 
 why we hardly know you ! "
 
 306 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 " So very long ? Why, I have seen you, my friend 
 Carlton, nearly every day for the last fortnight." 
 
 " Yes, from a splendid carriage by the side of a mad 
 countess and another man s wife, and " 
 
 " Good God ! " the artist sprang to his feet and almost 
 upset the wine that had just been brought " what do you 
 mean ? " 
 
 " Sit down ! The whole cafe is noticing you ! " 
 
 The artist sat and filled a glass to the brim. Then, tossing 
 it ofi , he said, 
 
 " But tell me, what do you mean ? " 
 
 " Mean ? Really, I mean nothing. Not I, but the world, 
 that is, the little meddlesome, mischievous American world 
 here, is talking of you and the Countess, and the Countess and 
 you, and nothing else, and it has been doing so for the last 
 fortnight. Can it be possible that you do not know it ? " 
 
 " Know it ! I did not dream of it ! Besides, look here ! " 
 he caught the man half savagely by the breast of his coat, 
 " you know me, you know my affections lie in another field, 
 you know, you knew, when you heard people use her name 
 and mine, that it was utterly impossible that 1 should do, nay 
 think, an improper thing in this connection ! " 
 
 " Yes, I knew it." 
 
 " A_nd what did you say to these meddlers ? " 
 
 " What should I have said ? " 
 
 " You should have told them they lied, and you should 
 have driven the lie down their throats ! Not for my sake, 
 Carlton, not for mine ! my name will take care of itself, and 
 in the teeth of the woi-ld I shall pass unstained like a hard 
 cold stone ; but for her sake, for her, knowing what you 
 knew of me, for you have broken bread at her table ; and 
 whatever a merchant may do or a politician may devise, a 
 man a man, mark you, who takes my hand and holds friend 
 ship with me, takes on himself the responsibilities of a man, 
 and stands between an honest woman and an insolent world."
 
 A March Hare and a Hatter. 307 
 
 The artist had risen up, gathered his cloak about him and 
 was about to pass out. 
 
 " Hear me, one word ! Heaven knows my friendship for 
 you, and I know your simplicity and your sincerity. Pray 
 sit one moment and let us not part thus, for you wrong me 
 now, as you are always wronging yourself." 
 
 Murietta muffled his cloak closer about him and sat down. 
 
 " Now, hear me. You are too impetuous. You know as 
 little of the world as you do of women. You bring with 
 you all the freedom and movement of the plains. You would 
 tomahawk a man as if you were a Comanche." 
 
 The artist tapped the stone floor of the cafe fiercely with 
 his foot. " All Rome then is talking of that gentle and un 
 happy lady ! All Rome is also talking of me ! And the 
 fair Annette ! What has she heard and what will she 
 say?" 
 
 The world looked black to Murietta. He was almost 
 blind with passion and tumultuous thought. Suddenly he 
 turned to Carlton. 
 
 " Well, my politic and most civilized friend," began he, 
 sharply and bitterly, " what would you have me do ? " 
 
 " With the present state of affairs, nothing," answered 
 Carlton gently. " I should simply employ my own carriage, 
 let the kind and gentle Count Edna, who has the sympathy 
 and respect of all Rome, ride with and take care of his own 
 wild wife, while I took care of my own reputation." 
 
 " I shall drive with the Countess to-morrow ! " 
 
 " Yes, perhaps you will drive with the Countess to hell ! " 
 
 " Mai k you," Murietta leaned over and shook his finger 
 in the face of his cool and prudent friend, " mark you, if 
 ever any man, even though that man be her husband, dares 
 wag his tongue against that woman, he dies, by heaven ! " 
 
 " No, no, no, no. That is not the way to live ; that is not 
 the way to get on. If you will insist on your war-dance, 
 put on your war-paint and go back to your Mexican border. *
 
 308 - The One Fair Woman. 
 
 Cai-lton had reached and taken the artist by his arm and 
 half forced him back again into his seat. 
 
 The cool half humor of his friend did more to pacify him 
 than a dozen sermons ; and, sitting still a moment, he leaned 
 over to Carlton and said, " I am not curious, or at least T 
 hope not vulgarly so ; but please tell me what some of these 
 meddlesome gossip-mongers have been saying." 
 
 " Well," began Carlton quietly, " do you remember the 
 little fairy story in the Child s Primer," about the March 
 Hare and the Hatter ? " 
 
 " No ; and what the devil has a March hare and a hatter 
 to do with me and the Countess ? " 
 
 " Listen, and you shall hear." 
 
 Marietta again tapped the stone floor with his foot, and 
 biting his lips, sat eager to listen. 
 
 Carlton filled his glass, drank it off filled that of Murietta, 
 waited for him to empty it, or at least sip at it in the old 
 Italian fashion, and then he deliberately began : 
 
 " Well, this fairy tale was after this fashion : Once upon 
 a time a little girl was lost in fairy-land, and she did not 
 know her way out. At last she came to the forks of the 
 road, and there in the way sat an old woman with a short 
 pipe in her mouth. 
 
 " Madam, can you tell me which road I shall take to find 
 my way home ? 
 
 " Well, my child, if you turn to the right and follow that 
 road, it will lead you to the house of the hatter. But, mark 
 you, the hatter is mad mad as a March hare ! 
 
 " The little girl shuddered, and turned and looked down 
 the other road, and then timidly asked if she should not, 
 then, take that road. 
 
 " Take it if you like, my child, take it if you like ; but 
 mark you, down that road there lives the March hare, and 
 the March hare is mad mad as a hatter ! : 
 
 Carleton stopped, laughed a little, and then filled his glass
 
 A March Hare and a Hatter. 309 
 
 and drank it off at a gulp, for ho was an American and did 
 not know how to drink wine. 
 
 " Well," said Marietta, " well, well ! " his foot tapped in 
 a terrible tattoo on the stone floor. " What, in the name 
 of all the saints what, in the name of all the saints, has this 
 mad hatter and this mad March hare to do with me, or this 
 gentle and beautiful lady, the Countess ? " 
 
 " Nothing whatever, nothing at all," answered the other 
 slowly ; " only this morning or yesterday, as you drove through 
 the crowd in the great drive as usual, I heard a remark as 
 usual, and that remark 
 
 " And that remark Murietta was again on his feet. 
 
 " Sit down, sit down," half whispered, half hissed Carlton 
 as he tried to laugh, and as he reached up his hand and laid 
 it on the arm of Murietta, and tried to gently drag him again 
 back to his seat ; " will you not sit down ? " 
 
 " No ; I am wild ; I am sick and disgusted. I want the 
 air. I can t breathe here ; it suffocates me. I want to go 
 out. I want to go outside the walls of Rome. There is no 
 room here ; it is too close ! " 
 
 " Come, come ; here is another table." 
 
 " Enough, enough ! " said the artist, and tried to shake 
 him off. "I am going out. Good night." 
 
 " But the story," said Carlton. 
 
 " But what? " asked Murietta, turning around and drawing 
 his cloak closer about him. 
 
 " The story, or rather the sequel after the fairy tale of the 
 hatter and the March hare." 
 
 "Yes; that remark what was it? You would provoke 
 the devil," said he, again tapping a tattoo on the stones as he 
 stood there, with his hat down over his eyes and his cloak 
 drawn close about him. 
 
 " Sit down, and I will tell you what it was, lest you think 
 it something either very wicked or very witty, but I assure 
 you that it was neither."
 
 3io 
 
 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 " Well I am here," said the artist taking his seat. 
 
 " Really," laughed Carlton, quietly, " it is nothing worth 
 repeating ; a man in the crowd simply said, as you and the 
 Countess passed by, There goes the hatter and the March 
 hare. "
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 ON THE APPIAN WAY. 
 
 T midday Murietta stood half 
 leaning against a marble pillar 
 by the pool and fountain of 
 Trevi. The sun was pitching 
 down into the cool clear basin of 
 water, over the top of the shops 
 to the south ; and women, pretty 
 brown Roman peasant women, in 
 short petticoats of gay colors, 
 were coming and going with their pitchers ; and 
 now and then one would lift up her great dark 
 eyes to the dreamer as she passed, and wonder 
 who his love might be, and why she kept him 
 waiting and looking all the time so forlorn and 
 lone. He had resolved to see the Countess no 
 more, after a long hard battle in his heart. He 
 was trying in vain to persuade himself that he 
 had made this resolution, and kept it, solely for her own 
 good. 
 
 Had he ever, at any time, had any affection for the lady 
 in pink, he would have had a fearful account to settle with 
 himself, as he stood there listening to the soft call of the 
 waters so like a cascade of the mountains. 
 
 But nothing of the kind had ever been, and he was not,
 
 312 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 therefore, much at war with himself ; but was certainly very 
 ill content, to say the least of it, and was now keeping a resolve 
 in his heart to see the pink Countess no more. 
 
 And this, not because the world advised it, but because he 
 felt that he was becoming disloyal to his ideal love. True, 
 he had overthrown his ideal love. He had driven a dagger 
 through her image. He had stood up and sworn to himself 
 to forget her, and to put her utterly away from his heart. 
 Yea, the man had done all this, and done it but a little time 
 before. Therefore, like a true lover, of that type and tem 
 perament, he now stood damning himself before himself, and 
 holding her dearer in his heart than ever. 
 
 Carriages were coming and going past, and people on foot 
 were wedged in and making their way along among the 
 wheels as only Italians can. 
 
 " Bet your life it s he ! " 
 
 Murietta, as one just awakened from a dream, looked up. 
 
 " There ! there ! what did I tell you. Murietta ! " 
 
 The carriages stopped, and the artist, hearing his name 
 called by the loud, clear- voiced Californian girl, turned and 
 made his way through the crowd. 
 
 The Countess put out her little hand in a little pearl- 
 colored glove, and smiling, said in a low, sweet voice, 
 
 " I have kept the Appian Way as something sacred, as a 
 sort of dessert to be taken when all else palls, you see." 
 
 " But, my dear lady, what are you speaking of ? " 
 
 " Why, do you not understand ? " The little hand fluttered 
 about over the pink and rose robes of the lady, as if it had 
 been a sort of butterfly in a garden of flowers. 
 
 " We are on the way for a drive my last drive in or 
 around Rome. We are going over the Via Appia." 
 
 " A pleasant drive and a safe return ! " said the artist, 
 lifting his hat, and stepping back to say good-bye. 
 
 " No, no, no ! Come ! " cried the Countess, reaching her 
 hand. " We will not go without you ! "
 
 On the Appian Way. 313 
 
 " Come along, stupid. Hop in ! There ! And little 
 Mollie rose up, and left the side of the Countess, and sat op 
 posite. 
 
 The street was getting blocked, and a little Roman, in a 
 beautiful uniform overshadowed by an enormous plume of 
 red cocks feathers, came up smiling and bowing, and beckon 
 ing for the carriage to move on. 
 
 " Come ! " cried Mollie, " you will have us all arrested ! " 
 
 " Well, sit back by the Countess, and I am with you." 
 
 The artist climbed into the carriage just in time to escape 
 a speech from the policeman, and the party moved slowly on 
 through the jammed and crowded streets above the buried 
 city, and around the partly excavated Forum of Trajan. 
 
 "And Mollie the Mischievous is well ?" said the artist, 
 settling down in his seat, and looking at the picture of health 
 before him. 
 
 " Well, and happy, too, as an apple on a tree ! " and the 
 little California lady, as if just reminded of it, put her hand 
 in her pocket, laughed while doing so, and then, drawing it 
 forth, held it out full of nuts and raisins and candies. 
 
 " No, thank you." 
 
 Then she wanted to divide with the Coimtess, who had 
 settled back as if hiding away out of sight behind the bounc 
 ing, warm-hearted girl, and as if half hurt that she was not 
 all the time the centre and the one person present. 
 
 " After all," said Murietta to himself, as he noticed this, 
 " she is only a woman ; and what a perfect woman, too ! " 
 
 " Then you were going without me ? " The artist looked 
 at the Countess, and spoke as if he meant to reproach her. 
 
 " On the contrary ; I should not have gone without you at 
 all." 
 
 " But you did not know I was here ? " 
 
 " I knew you would be found on a morning like this, and 
 after a day like yesterday, either at the Fountain of Trevi 
 listening to the water, or in the garden of the Palatine look- 
 14
 
 314 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 ing at the flowers. Had I not found you here, I should have 
 driven directly to the gardens." 
 
 The artist sat silent, and was a bit embarrassed. 
 
 " Something more than a woman after all ! " he said to him 
 self. " For, true as I live, I was just thinking of turning my 
 steps to the Palatine." 
 
 " You are moody and dissatisfied." The little butterfly- 
 hand, in the pearl colored glove, again fluttered about over 
 the flowers of rose and pink, and the great brown eyes looked 
 at the man with their old wonder. 
 
 " Not at all," he answered yet he answered with a sigh. 
 " Not at all. On the contrary, I am glad to be with you 
 this morning glad to make this wonderful drive with you, 
 whatever it may be. But what is the special attraction ? " 
 
 " We shall see ! In the first place, listen." The pearl- 
 colored butterfly fluttered about, and then rested down among 
 the roses and pinks, and brought out a little Bible, " Listen 
 to this," and the Countess read : 
 
 " And from thence, when the brethren heard of us, they 
 came to meet us as far as Appii forum, and The three taverns : 
 whom when Paul saw, he thanked God, and took courage." 
 Acts, xxviii. 15. 
 
 Then closing the book, and looking at the artist, while all 
 the time Mollie sat munching her nuts and raisins and candies, 
 she said, 
 
 " We are going out over that road towards the Three Tav 
 erns, and over the same stones that were pressed by the feet 
 of Saint Paul and his followers." 
 
 " Good," said Murietta. You are more than kind. It is 
 the one thing certainly in the world to do, a sort of pilgrim- 
 age." 
 
 Then he fell to wondering again what manner of woman 
 this Countess was, and found himself more puzzled than ever. 
 
 After a little time she began, 
 
 " When a man from the far, far West, from the iinder
 
 On the Appian Way. 315 
 
 world, as it were, makes his way around the globe, and 
 comes first upon the footprints of the Apostles, he is thrilled 
 by a sort of awe that nothing else can produce. He feels 
 somehow that he has come upon the confines of another 
 world -a better world, and a fairer one and he, for the day 
 at least, is a better man for the fact." 
 
 Murietta leaned forward and listened. His heart was 
 again vibrating between two idols. Here was a sincerity, 
 a sort of religious devotion that he had never seen in this 
 woman before. He was certain he had done her wrong. The 
 lady lifted her little pearl-colored hand, as if she would put 
 Rome and the ruins behind her. 
 
 " You get tired of Rome in a month or two, in spite ot 
 yourself," she said. " Ruins and galleries, towers and 
 churches (three hundred and sixty-five churches ! and if 
 there had been more days in the year there would have been 
 more churches in Rome !) and you want to get outside the 
 great brick walls somewhere and sit down and rest. You are 
 a sort of anaconda, that has at last swallowed an ox, and you 
 want to steal away and lie down and digest it." 
 
 Just then a boy stood up on a box by the side of the driver 
 of the carriage in advance, and shouted aloud, " I say, Moll ! " 
 
 " Oh Johnny ! do sit down, or you will break your neck ! " 
 said Mollie, answeiing back. 
 
 " And who is Johnny ? " queried the artist. 
 
 " Oh that s my big little brother, just down from school 
 at Florence, and he is the worst ! bet your life ! he is the 
 worst that ever was ! Sit down there, Johnny, or you ll drive 
 mother into the tan-ta-rarns ! " 
 
 The mother and the good Genei al also kept reaching out to 
 the rosy, mischievous boy just from school, who would persist 
 in riding on the box with the man with the fire-crackers ; and 
 Johnny, for their pains, kept them in a constant state of ter 
 ror by standing up on the box and turning around and shout 
 ing back to sister " Moll."
 
 316 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 " Oh Johnny ! Johnny ! will you never sit down till you 
 break your neck ? " cried Mollie. 
 
 " Never, Mollie, never ! " 
 
 " Then break it and be done with it ! " And the pouting 
 Mollie once more filled her pretty mouth with goodies. 
 
 But Johnny still stood there on the seat, still looked back 
 and called across his shoulder. 
 
 Mercy ! the carriage wheel has bximped against a bit of 
 tombstone, and Johnny is pitched forward on the horses, and 
 lands among them aiid-under their heels. 
 
 Mollie now had a good opportunity to observe, and did 
 observe with a great deal of satisfaction, that the horses of 
 degenerate Rome, under very aggravating circumstances, 
 kick very much like the horses of the gi eat American repub 
 lic. 
 
 Johnny is fished out, however, at last ; and like very many 
 other bad boys, has escaped almost scot-free. This boy and 
 other similar boys convince one of the absolute necessity of 
 a first-class and well-regulated hell. 
 
 The trouble is, these bad boys are nearly always as sharp 
 as briars and as quick as traps. If they would only consent 
 to be fools ! You can compromise with a good-natured idiot, 
 and get him to capitulate on very reasonable terms; but this 
 boy among the tombs of the Via Appii was quite another 
 thing. 
 
 As soon as the mother, who had been shrieking, wild with 
 terror, discovered that he was not hurt, she said she wished 
 he had broken his neck a wish that was joined in by at 
 least one of the party with more heartiness than she would 
 have desired. 
 
 The party drew up for a moment beside the excavations of 
 the Roman Forum, and getting down from their carriages, 
 stood together and leaned over the rails and looked down 
 at the little indolent army of workers twenty-five feet below 
 them.
 
 On the Appian Way. 317 
 
 " There," said Miss Mollie, pointing to a heap of stones 
 that stood on the clear pavement away down there, that had 
 just been laid bare, " there is the spot, almost underneath us, 
 where Caesar s body was burned, and Antony and Brutus 
 spoke their respective pieces." 
 
 The General stood and looked earnestly at the work of ex 
 cavation, and then said, 
 
 " It looks for all the world like a California mining claim ! " 
 
 " I think the owners are doing just about enough work to 
 hold the claim." said Mollie. 
 
 "Nothing," said the General thoughtfully, "can more 
 closely resemble a placer mine than this ugly excavation. 
 There lies the bed-rock, the old Roman pavement, swept 
 clean and creviced out ; there are the picks and the wheel 
 barrows, and there the granite boulders and the quartz, only 
 the quartz happens to be marble, and the granite boulders to 
 be broken columns." 
 
 Mrs. Wopsus wiped her eyes, as if overcome with some 
 sort of emotion ; and then she reached out her hand and took 
 Johnny by the coat collar at the back of the neck, and held 
 on to him till they again moved on, lest he should tumble 
 over the bank and break his precocious neck. 
 
 People were standing in hundreds looking down idly over 
 the rails at the idle workmen. Here and there stood groups 
 of tourists, with red guide-books in their hands, that looked 
 like lamps hung up by the authorities to give notice of re 
 pairs. 
 
 Never did a live American see such indolent men as these 
 Italians at their work. They move as if half asleep. Their 
 tools are awkward, and always dull ; their wheelbarrows 
 have an old primitive wooden wheel, and hold about a 
 saucepanful of earth. They use no running planks, but push 
 their load slowly up on the uneven ground. 
 
 " A Californian," said the General, " could carry twice the 
 load in his hat."
 
 318 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 " A.y, that he could," cried Johnny ; " particularly if it 
 was apples from some forbidden garden." 
 
 The Countess was thoughtful. Somehow this levity did not 
 suit her. Then they climbed into their carriages, and went 
 on to the gates of the Palatine Hill, only a pistol-shot distant. 
 
 They passed through in the presence of the two or three 
 Romans in uniform to be found at every gate in Italy, and 
 then climbed up, up, up a thousand steps, and stood at last 
 on the level where Romulus had set his capitol. 
 
 The Countess kept aloof from the party. She patted the 
 little she-wolf on the head, gave her some nuts, and asked her 
 about Romulus and Remus. The wolf only drooped her 
 bushy tail, scratched in the crack of the floor for a nut which 
 she had dropped, and pretended not to hear. 
 
 The Countess turned to Murietta, and to him alone all the 
 day, and told him every thing that might be of interest, as if 
 to keep the way open between their hearts. He, on the other 
 hand, would have b\iilt a wall colossal and high between them. 
 
 Further along the hill, and on the other side of the beaiiti- 
 ful garden of flowers, they came upon the excavations where 
 the frescos of twenty centuries ago are laid bare. But the 
 Countess would not descend from the roses and sunshine. 
 
 Mollie ranged herself beside the others at the edge of the 
 garden ; aud, standing on the bank, called attention to the 
 little negro lad that had just been exhumed. 
 
 " Bet your life, pa, he s a New York negro ! My ! just 
 look at him, with his head held sideways as he looks up at 
 you ! I can almost hear him say, Black er boots, sah ? 
 black er boots ? " 
 
 " What is most remarkable about this statue," said the 
 General, " is that its nose is perfectly intact ! It is the only 
 very old face in Rome that has not a broken nose. Of course 
 this is because it has such a broad foundation, and is set so 
 closely to the face ; but it is none the less noticeable." 
 
 " But oh ! to think," said Mollie, what this curly-headed,
 
 On the Appian Way. 319 
 
 good natured little fellow has had to endure for two thousand 
 years. Two thousand years to endure the smells of Rome ! 
 
 Monk and Mussulman, Pagan and Jew, 
 
 all have filed past our woolly-headed little friend, have left 
 their filth, and gone away." 
 
 Then Mrs. Wopsus, holding her handkerchief to her nose 
 with one hand, and holding Johnny by the collar with the 
 othei , slowly spoke and said, 
 
 " No wonder that Mr. Caesar and Citizen Brutus and Gen 
 eral Antony, and all the rest, have had their noses broken to 
 the very base ! " 
 
 " We must push on," said the Countess, after a moment. 
 " Will you allow me ? " She took the artist s arm, and they 
 returned together through the garden of roses to the gate. 
 
 " You are not strong ? " he said, as he handed her into the 
 carriage. 
 
 The lady s face was pink and rose as her dress, for the 
 blood mounted to her cheeks as she said, 
 
 " I fear I lean heavily on your arm." 
 
 " No, 110, not at all ! " not that, only 
 
 " Never mind ! cried Mollie. " Take a pea-nut ! " And 
 she laughed and reached her full hand to the artist as the 
 carriages whirled away from the crowd of beggars that was 
 gathering around. 
 
 They drove under the Triumphal Arch of Titus. On the 
 marble pillars of the gate, Murietta marked the figures of 
 great strong men bearing the holy candlesticks and other -sa 
 cred vessels of the Tabernacle which were brought to Rome 
 by the son of Vespasian when he overthrew Jerusalem. 
 
 "Tradition," began the Countess, talking entirely to Muri 
 etta, " says they were thrown into the Tiber, when the Van 
 dals came down and plundered Rome. There is strong talk 
 of turning the course of the river to search for this and other 
 treasure supposed to be hidden there."
 
 320 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 The carriages rumbled on down a sloping hill, over a 
 very rough and broken section of old Roman pavement, that 
 has lain there unrepaired for perhaps a thousand years. 
 
 Suddenly the Countess reached a pink and pearl hand to the 
 left, and lifted her beautiful face, all aglow with enthusiasm, 
 as he said, pointing, 
 
 " Now we come to the shadows of the Coliseum ! The gray 
 Coliseum, lifting its stony circles against the eternal rounds 
 of Time ! " 
 
 " But Time," cried Mollie, " has set his teeth in it ! " 
 
 " How old ! " said Murietta. 
 
 " No," said the Countess, "it does not look old ! It is not 
 old ! It has outlived the Cresars, the Charlemagnes, and will 
 probably outlive the Kaisers of Germany. But the Coliseum 
 does not look old ! It has stood as a stone quarry for a whole 
 city, for centuries, and all the fine palaces of Rome have been 
 built from it, and yet it does not seem to have suffered any 
 material damage ! " 
 
 " Damage ! " rejoined Mollie, munching away at her nuts, 
 " no, not a bit ! It still looks as though it might furnish 
 material for two or three Chicagos, and yet hold its place as 
 the biggest thing out of doors ! " 
 
 The carriages stopped for a time, and sitting there togeth 
 er, they contemplated the colossal structure. 
 
 " Look up there ! Holy Spoons ! What can that man be 
 doing up there with a broom ? " cried little Johnny, as he 
 pointed to the topmost ruin of the Coliseum. The party 
 looked as the boy pointed with his hand ; and lo ! there 
 stood an Italian leaning on his broom in the most graceful 
 pose, as if he was standing on a cross street calmly wait 
 ing the approach of some good-natured countryman whom 
 his quick eye had selected from the crowd as a probable con 
 tributor. 
 
 Then the man with the broom swept right and left, walked 
 on along his lofty precipice, poised his broom in the air on
 
 On. the Appian Way. 321 
 
 his forefinger, and danced as he did so, and sang a snatch of 
 an opera. 
 
 " And look there ! " cried Johnny again, as they drove still 
 nearer to the Coliseum. " Look up and down the broken wall 
 and on the borders there. Do you see those people clinging 
 here and there, and pulling little weeds and grasses from out 
 the crevices of the rocks ! " 
 
 Sure enough, there they hung and clung, some by ropes, and 
 some by help of the broken and decayed parts of the wall that 
 gave them a foothold, while they jerked at the grass and weeds 
 as if they had been of a species of two-legged goat. 
 
 " And what does it all mean ? " asked Mollie. 
 
 "It means," answered the General, "that the government 
 of Italy is spending the genius of her gifted sons, and the 
 revenues of her coffers, in a glorious attempt to accomplish 
 the work of renovation. " 
 
 Mollie looked puzzled. 
 
 " Ah, you are surprised," continued the General. <c But let 
 me give you the reasons of these Italians, and recount some 
 of their labors in that line." 
 
 " You see, the Coliseum had only stood two thousand 
 years when this new order of things was established in Italy. 
 It is true it was not at all affected by Time in this little period 
 of twenty centuries, for those blocks of tufa of which it is 
 built are about as tough and imperishable as the lead that 
 held the blocks together. But then these gentle- Italians 
 began to fear that it would be affected if they left it standing 
 out here in its coat of grass and its glorious company of old 
 fig-trees and splendid folds of ivy ; and so they cut all that 
 away, and made the Coliseum seem the newest thing in Rome !" 
 
 " And what are they sweeping it down for ? " queried 
 Mollie, twisting her head and looking back at the actor on 
 the top of the ruin with his broom. 
 
 " Oh, they intend to paint it perhaps ! " " Paint it paint 
 it in the three colors of Italy ! " 
 14*
 
 322 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 " Certainly paint it, whitewash it, you know, and make it 
 look gay and lively ! " chimed in Johnny. 
 
 " Yes, and then put green window-blinds in its windows ! " 
 said Mollie, leaning over, and looking into the old General s 
 face, " and oh ! won t that be a jolly ruin then ! bet your 
 life ! " laughed the little maiden from California. 
 
 " To be serious, began the General again," " to be serious 
 about a really serious matter, these men are mad about their 
 ruins. They see the whole world come here to look iipon 
 these relics of old Rome ; and these men, now lacking even 
 the little sense shown by the pope who thought to make a 
 woollen mill of the Coliseum, have, in these few years, almost 
 destroyed what it took nearly two thousand years to attain." 
 
 " But it had not been touched for nearly a century ; not 
 for nearly a century has a hand been laid on a stone of it, till 
 these new Vandals came and cut down the trees and tore 
 away the ivy." 
 
 " You see these popes counted it as a holy spot. They set 
 up a cross there, and the stones became sacred. And that 
 was the only one of their hundreds of shrines and churches 
 that I would have bent before within the walls of Rome ! 
 for it was, indeed, a temple that Nature had reclaimed from 
 man. It was so magnificent, and so imposing, that she took 
 it as if it had been her own work and made a garden of it, 
 and planted flowers there, found nowhere else on earth." 
 
 " When the place was undisturbed, the botanists came 
 here, and on the walls, and about the floors among the fallen 
 columns, they found hundreds of plants and flowers that were 
 utterly new to the world. Look at it now ! " 
 
 " The floor is like a parade ground," said Murietta. 
 
 " The walls are bare as if built yesterday." 
 
 " There is a man employed like a parlour-maid dusting it 
 down with a broom, as if it was a sort of child s toy, or at 
 most a parlor wall." 
 
 The party drove on. The irrepressible Johnny bawled
 
 On the Appian Way. 323 
 
 back from his father s carriage that he would like to see old 
 Joshua marched around that, and toot his horn, and see what 
 would come of it ; and then his mother reached and took him 
 by the collar. 
 
 They now passed under the great Triumphal Arch of Con- 
 stantine, and then had a long leafy ride through a lane of 
 elms. 
 
 Peasants were spinning ropes of flax to the right ; and all 
 along they came and went to and from the city with great 
 loads on their heads, and leading their little children by the 
 hand. 
 
 Then again the party was silent, for Mollie was absorbed 
 in her nuts and candies, and Murietta was moody, and his 
 mind was drifting far away. 
 
 They passed through the great wall of Rome, and were in 
 the wide open Campagna, a place that looks more like a bit 
 of the great American plains than anything to be seen in 
 Europe. 
 
 Barefooted peasant girls, and beautiful, too, as red May 
 roses, were going into town in Indian file, with bundles of 
 wood and cane on their heads. A shoemaker sat in his cot 
 tage door as they passed, with half-a-dozen children at his 
 knees, and he stopped work to look at Johnny, who had set 
 his thumb against his nose, and was wriggling his fingers in 
 the air in the direction of his mother. * 
 
 "I never saw so many shoemakers in my life as there are 
 in Rome," said Murietta at last. " At the door of almost 
 every house you enter, there sits a little, dried up, wrinkled 
 old shoemaker." 
 
 The great soft eyes of the Countess twinkled just the least 
 bit mischievously here, as she looked at Murietta, and said, 
 
 " Is it not possible now, after all, that this is why Rome 
 is called the City of the Soul ? " 
 
 He only smiled in reply, and there was again a long silence 
 as the carriages rattled on over the rough stones.
 
 324 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 The Appian Way is dreadfully disappointing. It is not 
 more than twenty or twenty-five feet wide, and there is not a 
 shady tree to be seen along the way. 
 
 On either hand lift great walls that hide the gardens and 
 peasants at their labor ; and, but for the interesting relics 
 which compose these walls in part, you would find but little 
 to amuse you. 
 
 These walls, in many places, have been repaired, or were 
 originally built of broken marble, plundered from Heaven 
 knows what ruined city or palace ; for these llomans seem to 
 have had no respect whatever for antiquity. The great St. 
 Peter s Church, for example, is built for the most part out of 
 stones taken from their most picturesque ruins. 
 
 You will notice a broken arm reaching helplessly out of 
 this wall on the Appian Way in one place as you pass ; and 
 in another you will see a pretty cluster of flowers. A part 
 of a giant serpent is also to be seen along with a hundred 
 other like fragments of art, where storms and time have laid 
 bare the rough masonry of the wall. 
 
 Latterly, however, these gentle Romans have come to pre 
 serve all these things, and stick them up in the stucco walls 
 of the houses all along the roads. This, of course, spoils the 
 etfect, and you take less interest in the broken marbles when 
 you find they are posted up for exhibition. 
 
 Capuchin, monks, in brown gowns and sandals, go by, 
 indolent-looking and filthy, though they are the best of 
 their kind, and very attentive to the sick in times of the 
 plague. 
 
 Then they met a family of peasants going into town. They 
 all had loads on their heads, and chatted, and sang, and 
 seemed very happy. Then came another party of Capuchin 
 monks, and looking at them, Mollie observed, 
 
 " L have* never yet seen a monk carry anything heavier 
 than his little basket, where he puts whatever may be given 
 him in charity."
 
 On the Appian Way. 325 
 
 "And that," answered the Countess, "is just one basket 
 more than I have seen any clergyman carry." 
 
 There was another silence, as they still rumbled on over the 
 stones of the Via Appii. 
 
 Virgins and holy families look down from niches in the 
 walls, and here and there is a Madonna with a burning lamp. 
 One or two mossy urns only now are noticeable of all the 
 thousands that sat of old on either side of the way. 
 
 Johnny climbed the wall as they stopped for a moment for 
 a carriage full of English people to get by ; and, lifting the 
 lid of an urn, bawled out to his mother to know if she would 
 have a " pickle ! " 
 
 " Here in this little church to the left are the two foot 
 prints of our Saviour in the stone," said the Countess, as they 
 drove up, and found two monks at the door stringing beads. 
 Then, as they looked in, the General told the party this story 
 of the footprints. 
 
 St. Peter had been condemned in Rome to be crucified ; 
 but his heart had failed him, and, having met with an oppor 
 tunity to escape, he was now making his way at night along 
 the Appian Way toward the sea. But suddenly here, on the 
 site of this church, which is built over the old road, so that 
 the new road has to pass around, he came face to face with 
 his Master. 
 
 Peter said, " Master, whither goest thou ? " 
 
 " I go to Rome to be crucified." 
 
 At this Peter returned to Rome, and died at the hands of 
 the Romans on the site of St. Peter s church. 
 
 The very paving stones of the old road are still here, and 
 form the floor of the church. But the good priest told them 
 that this was only a copy of the stone in which the feet of the 
 Saviour pressed as he spoke to Peter.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 IN THE CATACOMBS. 
 
 NCE more on the road, the 
 party in a little time pulled 
 up at another gate, with the 
 usual man in keeping, who 
 expects, and looks daggers 
 indeed out of his black Ita 
 lian eyes, if he does not get 
 the usual fee. 
 
 The Countess sat in her 
 carriage, and would not enter 
 the six hundred miles of Christian 
 Catacombs. But Marietta went on 
 with the party. Having voted to 
 take a mile or two of this singular 
 burying-ground and resting-place of 
 martyrs, they passed through a gate on foot, they climbed a 
 little eminence, and there, among the grape vines and garden 
 plants, with peasants all around them at work, they went 
 down, down, down narrow stairs, led by a guide, who at 
 last stopped at the door of a dark cavern, and furnished 
 them each with a coil of lighted taper. 
 
 He led them along a level, narrow passage, with its sides 
 all cut into niches, not much unlike the berths of a ship, and 
 cut in tiers on either hand, as high as you can reach.
 
 In the Catacombs. 327 
 
 Here the bodies had been placed, sometimes a whole family, 
 side by side, in the red sandstone. After interment, the 
 mouth of the little shelf had been closed with a marble slab, 
 bearing the name and date, and the whole tightly sealed with 
 cement. Many of these had fallen away and had disappeared. 
 Perhaps they now are used to build the wall around the gar 
 den of some modern Cincinnatus. 
 
 Some of these little tombs are still sealed as they had been 
 at first ; and the inscriptions on the polished marble a,re the 
 same as if made yesterday. Often you see the dove bearing 
 the olive-branch, and now and then a pea-fowl, or some other 
 bird familiar to the Romans. Where the marble slab is gone, 
 there lie the bones crumbling to ashes on the stone only a 
 handful of dust, nothing more. 
 
 The enterprising Johnny hid the brown and crumbling jaw 
 bone of a possible Christian martyr under his waistcoat, and 
 then loudly declared to the unsuspecting guide that he would 
 assist him in detecting any one who attempted to carry off 
 any of the sacred relics, even though the guilty party should 
 be his own mother. 
 
 To the infinite satisfaction of Murietta, as he was talking 
 back over his shoulder to the guide from a side-passage, this 
 promising youth fell over a broken stone coffin and nearly 
 broke his neck. 
 
 A very noticeable thing here is a great marble slab, which 
 was the tombstone of a bishop, with a long and elaborate in- 
 sci iption. The interest of the thing hinges on the fact that 
 on the other side of the great slab is another long inscription, 
 showing it to have been primarily used as the tombstone of 
 an ancient Roman pagan of consular dignity. 
 
 "Stealing each other s tombstones!" exclaimed the Gene 
 ral. 
 
 " Let s get out of this," sighed Mollie ; " I feel queer ! " 
 
 Then Mrs. Wopsus was in tears, and she too wanted to go 
 away and get up out of the earth and from among the dead.
 
 328 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 And the place was unpleasant to Murietta, too, despite the 
 little lamp hung at every corner, and the old pictures, and 
 the crosses and images of the Saviour everywhere. 
 
 To him there was something wanting. He did not know 
 how much he missed the Countess all the time. He would 
 have laughed if any one had told him the truth ; and he really 
 would have believed this truth to be a lie. There was one 
 light that was more to him than all the little lights that hung 
 along these mournful walls of the dead the light of her great 
 sad eyes of brown. 
 
 But the General must see the tomb of St. Cecilia, and 
 thither the guide led the way. 
 
 Perhaps the most interesting feature of all this underground 
 place of tombs is the resting-place of St. Cecilia. On the 
 stone wall is a fresco painting of the departed, in a fair state 
 of preservation ; and also a picture of the Saviour. 
 
 You are bound to admit, however, that these paintings 
 were very poor productions from the first. They are done 
 altogether in red and black colors, and look more like the 
 paintings of the savages of the plains on their skins of 
 buffalo. 
 
 In another place you are shown two bodies in stone coffins. 
 One is that of a mummy, and it is not much unlike those of 
 Egypt, save that it is perfectly white. The other is more 
 ghastly only a little line of bones lying at the bottom, sink 
 ing, as it were, into the stone resting, resting, resting. 
 
 Mollie stood here in silence. Her hand was full of candies 
 and sweets, but they were untasted. 
 
 " Come," whispered she to her mother, " I hear strange 
 sounds. Perhaps that is somebody lost away out yonder in 
 the labyrinths among the dead." 
 
 Even the General shuddered at the thought of being lost in. 
 the six hundred miles of this awful place, and instinctively 
 reached out his hand and took Johnny by the coat-collar and 
 held him tight and fast.
 
 In the Catacombs. 329 
 
 Mrs. Wopsus threw her arms about Mollie s neck and 
 b\irst into tears. 
 
 " Don t mash my hat, mother," said Mollie. And then 
 she shook her parent off, and began once more to eat her 
 candy. 
 
 The voices were drawing nearer. There was a glimmer of 
 light through the solemn passages. It was only another 
 party that had descended another way, now coming up to 
 pay a pilgrimage to the tomb of the famous patron saint of 
 Song. 
 
 Our party here moved on, to the infinite delight of Mollie, 
 and the reliuf of all. For, as Murietta looked back over his 
 shoulder, he saw that this new party was headed by his whi 
 lom friend, the doctor and missionary of Naples. And above 
 the noise of crushing bones under their feet as they passed 
 out, and the accumulated echoes of every sound through the 
 awful chambers of death, he heard the clarion voice of the 
 Special Correspondent ringing loud and clear. 
 
 " Good heavens ! " said the artist to himself as they re 
 gained the light, " that monster, that ghoul, has come to steal 
 away a bone of St. Cecilia ! " 
 
 The Countess sat in her carriage, leaning her face on her 
 hand. She did not see the party till they came suddenly 
 through the gate. She evidently had not expected them to 
 return so soon. She lifted her face half frightened ; and as 
 she did so there were tears on her great sweeping lashes, and 
 her face was still wet with weeping. 
 
 The artist took his seat in silence, and Mollie was, for the 
 first time and for a wonder, thoughtful. They drove rapidly 
 on, for the suir was settling to the west. 
 
 In a few minutes they were before the little church of St. 
 Sebastian, and without yet having spoken to the Countess ; 
 and without speaking, the artist descended and entered, while 
 she remained seated still in the carriage as before. 
 
 A very small black monk was kneeling before an altar, and
 
 330 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 rising up as our party entered, he lighted a taper on the staff, 
 and coming forward, pulled aside a red curtain, and showed 
 the original footprints of our Saviour. 
 
 The stone is of a brown color, hard as marble, and about 
 eighteen inches square. The prints are side by side, as 
 close as possible, are rather large, and set at least an inch 
 deep in the stone. 
 
 The rim or edge of the stone seems to be cased in gold. It 
 stands up against an altar to the right of the entrance to 
 the church, or monastery as it is called here, and is kept 
 under cover behind a double iron gate. Hero you are also 
 shown an arrow, said to be one of those by which the martyr 
 fell, and also a portion of a stone pillar, to which he was 
 bound when slain. 
 
 Johnny told the quiet little monk that he had seen the 
 whole column at Milan. 
 
 " Very likely," answered the priest, gravely ; " for there 
 were three of these small columns set together, and to these 
 three was St. Sebastian bound." 
 
 " Ah ! the wealth and the levity of these places of wor 
 ship ! It looks bad to see so much extravagance in this way, 
 when there is so much poverty and misery among the poor," 
 said the General to the monk. 
 
 " But," said the monk in answer, " when we reflect that it 
 is the poor who chiefly use these sacred houses, and that they 
 there, at least, are peers with the proudest of the land, it is 
 not so bad after all." 
 
 The General saw that the subject, like nearly all others in 
 the world, had two sides to it, and was silent. 
 
 While they were here, an old woman came in with her 
 weaving apparatus a part of a loom it seemed on her 
 shoulders, and setting it down in a corner, crossed herself, 
 said a prayer, and then asked to see the sacred relics. 
 Murietta remarked, with pleasure, that the priest lighted the 
 taper, and put the red curtain aside, precisely the same for
 
 In the Catacombs. 331 
 
 this old weaver-woman, as he did for the party of sovereigns 
 from America. 
 
 What had come between Murietta and the Countess? 
 Surely nothing had been said or done that day by either that 
 they should now be standing wide apart, as it were. 
 
 The artist took his seat once more, and once more without 
 one word. The lady did not look up. As the carriages 
 whirled away, that the party might see the sun go down from 
 the Tomb of Metella, the lady s little pink and pearl hands 
 lay still on the flower-beds of rose and pink, and her pretty 
 baby-face kept trying to hide back behind her companion. 
 
 Yea, they were standing wide apart. A stream was flow 
 ing between them. It was growing cold in their hearts 
 cold enough to freeze the flowing stream to ice. 
 
 Ruins ! ruins ! ruins ! right and left. After passing the 
 Tomb of Metella, with its girdle of oxen skulls bound in 
 wreaths a tomb that has been a battlement, a palace, and a 
 prison, they came to a tomb that has not even a name ; and 
 yet it is almost as colossal as a pyramid, and twice as grand. 
 
 " Marvellous, marvellous ! " mused the General, as they 
 turned their carriages, and rested here a moment before re 
 turning to Rome. 
 
 On the top of this lofty and colossal structxire, that even 
 the most imaginative Italian falters before, there is growing 
 a grove of olive trees, and there is a little farm-house perched 
 up there, and the man has really a little farm on the top of 
 this tomb. 
 
 While our party rested here, a cock came to the edge of his 
 little world, and, strutting up and down, he flapped his wings 
 and crowed above them, loud and clear and defiant. 
 
 Then Johnny rose up, arid standing in his seat, answered 
 back the challenge. Then the cock again strutted along the 
 edge of his little world, and looking contemptiiously down 
 again, crowed and crowed and crowed as the party drove on. 
 
 Here are ruins that will probably survive all other struc-
 
 332 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 tures now in existence, save the Pyramids, either old or 
 new. 
 
 The one thing that saddens a man in contemplating these 
 great works is the reflection that the labor was all done by 
 slaves. Done by men chiefly brought captive from other 
 lands and made to waste out their existence here in most 
 ignoble toil for masters as cruel and as insolent as the 
 Pharaohs. 
 
 Yonder is the sacred wood, and, hard by, the ruins of the 
 Temple of Bacchus. Here and there are mounds, and you 
 can guess what lies beneath. Only now and then, the ruins 
 lift in mass above the climbing grass and shrubs and ti-ees. 
 Sometimes, however, they loom up as if they would never 
 stop, and stand hundreds of feet in the air. These will 
 never fall. The earth may climb up around them ; the grass 
 will take root, and in time will smooth the rugged front ; 
 but they have melted together as it were in one solid mass, 
 and stand like a spur of the Sierras. 
 
 Kind earth claims them for her own, and has pressed them 
 so long and so close against her breast that they have sunk 
 all together, brick and mortar in one indistinguishable mass. 
 
 The sun had gone down on Rome ; and round about Rome 
 on the mighty mountain tops was drawn a girdle of fire. 
 
 Twenty miles away to the west as they returned, flashed 
 the sea in the dying sun of Italy, like a hemisphere of 
 flame. 
 
 Before them, in the middle of the great Campagna, with 
 its far-off wall of eternal and snowy mountains, huddled 
 together the white houses of Rome, like a flock of goats 
 gathered to rest for the night ; and mighty St. Peter s 
 towered above them all like a tall shepherd keeping watch 
 and ward. 
 
 " Now I can see that it was no chance or accident that 
 built the Eternal City in the centre of this mighty amphi 
 theatre," said Murietta. " Nature ordered it. She pointed
 
 In the Catacombs. 333 
 
 to the little group of hills lifting out of the plain by the 
 Tiber, and said, Build your city on the Palatine ! 
 
 The Countess did not answer ; but the man seemed inspired 
 with the scene, and went on, as if speaking to himself 
 
 " Yonder mighty crescent of snowy mountains seems to 
 me, as the sun is fading from their forked summits, to be but 
 another, a more magnificent Coliseum. Yonder are the 
 gladiators now, battling to the death Papist and Protestant, 
 Turk and Jew. Rome is the arena ! and I am but an idle 
 looker on." 
 
 Still the Countess did not answer. She did not look up 
 or even lift a finger. 
 
 What could have been the matter ? The stream that 
 flowed between them was indeed frozen over. It was dark 
 and still. It was dead and made no sound. 
 
 They drew up at the palace, and Murietta, after lifting the 
 lady from the carriage and ringing a bell, left her, and, gath 
 ering his cloak about him, turned away with no other word 
 than the coldest courtesies of the occasion. 
 
 He was half down the steps. 
 
 " You. will come to-morrow." 
 
 He turned, folded his cloak tighter about him, but did 
 not speak. 
 
 " You will come to-morrow. I command you to come ! " 
 
 The door opened, and she disappeared. 
 
 The man stood there and tapped the step a moment with 
 his foot, and then was gone.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 WITH THE ONE FAIR WOMAN. 
 
 T is very hard indeed to write a 
 romance altogether out of facts. 
 The facts refuse all the time to 
 adjust themselves. They are 
 all the time in the way. The 
 unimportant facts refuse to lie 
 down and lie still and be passed 
 over as they should be, and the 
 important ones often stand up 
 tall and white and cold, and 
 ghostly, as if they had just risen from a grave 
 yard, and did not want to be disturbed. 
 
 And then these dull scenes all want to be 
 described so minutely. They keep introducing 
 themselves and sitting down before you like 
 Italian models, ever falling in position as they 
 sit, and saying all the time, " I am So-and-so, 
 and not Thisand-this." 
 
 People, too, are tiresome. These real people are hard to 
 handle. They are not exactly what you want. They some 
 times persist in being intolerably dull and uninteresting, and 
 yet all the time and withal they will insist on being put 
 down just precisely as they appeared, and will determinedly 
 insist all the time in saying exactly the same stupid things
 
 With the One Fair Woman. 335 
 
 they said on the occasion described without one redeeming 
 variation. Better to break up your work root and branch, 
 scatter it to the four winds, and begin with stage, scene, 
 actors all from your own brain. 
 
 Murietta called at the palace of the pink Countess in the 
 afternoon of the next day, and sent up his card. A woman 
 had commanded, and he would obey. Yet he knew or felt 
 that it was not absolutely necessary that he should call, but 
 he did so partly in a spirit of defiance. He wanted to show 
 to himself and the world that he proposed to do as he 
 pleased in this matter, so long as he harmed no one, and 
 kept his heart and his conscience clear. 
 
 He was glad, very glad, when he was told that she was 
 not in ; and went down the great broad brown tufa steps 
 with a lighter heart than usual. 
 
 " The spell is broken," he said to himself almost gaily, as 
 he gained the street, and tapped his boot with his cane. 
 " The spell is broken, the charm is over, and I am again 
 free, and well escaped from a sentiment and a thraldom that 
 I never could understand in the least." 
 
 Then suddenly he stopped and began to think, and then 
 his brow gathered with concern. He knew perfectly well 
 that she was not out, and he knew just as certainly that she 
 would have seen him if she could, that she wanted to see 
 him, and he knew that something was wrong at the palace 
 of the beautiful lady in pink. 
 
 He began to despise himself again for having only thought 
 of her in the most selfish manner, and for that selfish satis 
 faction which he felt when he found she would not see him, 
 and he walked on, gloomy and full of conflicting thought. 
 
 As he slowly sauntered on along the Via Felice, with his 
 head down, a hand reached out before him and, looking up, 
 he saw the pleasant face of the Secretary of Legation. 
 
 " I am going," then the Secretary blustered and fumbled
 
 336 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 in his vest pocket, and drew out a little piece of paper and a 
 little piece of tobacco, and these somehow rolled themselves 
 together between thumb and finger, as they only can between 
 the thumb and finger of a Spaniard, and putting the end of 
 this little wisp between his teeth, he found a match in the 
 same mysterious manner, touched it to the end of the wisp, 
 and instantly fired himself off, while the smoke poured from 
 his mouth as from the mouth of a cannon, " I am going to 
 one of the Afternoons of an American lady, the amiable Miss 
 D., an ancient but most honored lady; and that is just as 
 much as a Secretary of Legation should say, though if I was 
 again writing novels I might say a great deal more, and 
 would be more than honored if you would accompany 
 me." 
 
 Murietta was just in the mood to do anything, go any 
 where. He turned, took the kind, good Secretary s arm 
 without a word, and went on silently up the street. He was 
 wondering what in the world had become of the last mouth. 
 He saw that the deciduous trees which had been quite bare 
 when he last passed that way, were in full leaf, and casting 
 cool and pleasant shadows over at least a hundred happy 
 peasants asleep in the open street. 
 
 " What in the world have I been doing ? " he asked him 
 self ; "what have 1 done all this pleasant and dreamy sum 
 mer month ? " Then he thought of what Carlton had said 
 the night before his last drive with the Countess, and was 
 sorely nettled. " Where am I going now ? " He said this 
 to himself almost audibly, and suddenly stopped and turned 
 to the good-natured Secretary. 
 
 " Pray tell me where we are going, and whom I am to see 
 there ? " 
 
 " You are going with me to one of the social afternoon 
 gatherings of the amiable and ancient Miss D. A very 
 proper lady, I do assure you, else a Secretary of Legation 
 would not be found there, I will be sworn."
 
 With the One Fair Woman. 337 
 
 11 Bxit whom shall we meet there ? " 
 
 "Artists and poets, literary and scientific people from all 
 parts of the world. The best people, I assure you, the very 
 best place in Rome for a man like me ; lots of brain and not 
 many clothes." 
 
 " And not many ladies, I hope ? " 
 
 " Ladies ! no ; no ladies to speak of. Yet there are the 
 tall long people from the States, a sort of flag-staff species, 
 that vibrate and flutter between the two sexes and belong to 
 neither, yet claim all the privileges of both, I mean the 
 special correspondents in gold-rimmed spectacles, usually 
 from the City of Boston ; but, further than these, and an old 
 imbecile and superannuated princess or two, you will find 
 nothing much in the shape of women." 
 
 Murietta was amused, and was also glad to know that 
 there was no probability of meeting the One Fair Woman at 
 this gathering of Bohemians on the hill. 
 
 On reflection he began to see that he had really been keep 
 ing out of society, or at least had lacked courage to go to 
 more than one pleasant gathering, for fear he should come 
 face to face with Annette. Therefore he was well pleased 
 to know that, in this company at least, which had been so 
 humorously pictured by the good-natured novelist and secre 
 tary, he should be quite certain to not encounter her. 
 
 They climbed the longest, steepest, narrowest stone stairs 
 in all Rome, perhaps. It was a perfect corkscrew, and went 
 round and round and round in the dark till they both grew 
 dizzy -headed. 
 
 Then at last they pulled at the red tassel of a rope that 
 hung there, like a little red lamp trying hard to make itself 
 seen, and then they entered a very pleasant ante-room, and 
 leaving their hats and canes and cloaks, they passed to a door 
 which opened into a most pleasant place, and out of which 
 poured a murmur of most pleasant voices, as of a great mul 
 titude, talking in all the tongues of Europe. 
 15
 
 338 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 They wore met by a busy, bustling little woman, who kept 
 fluttering about and catching her breath and coughing and 
 flipping her fan, and introducing everybody to everybody, 
 and bumping against people, and all the time keeping her 
 part of the saloons and that was nearly every part at the 
 same time in a perfect state of excitement and turmoil. 
 
 This little lady s name should have been Mother Bunch, 
 for she was so fat and so good-natured and so delightfully 
 stupid. She had corkscrew curls all about her ears and 
 shoulders. In fact, nearly every woman there had, more or 
 less, corkscrew curls about her. Even the little brown poodle 
 there, who seemed terribly jealous of every attention to his 
 mistress, and who pretended to sleep all the time and yet 
 never slept at all, unless he did it while he was snapping at 
 some body, even this little poodle had little corkscrew curls 
 hanging from and about his little flossy, brown tan and leather 
 ears. 
 
 There were a great many tall, bony, and lonesome women 
 in corkscrew curls, moving solemnly about behind a teacup 
 and saucer. 
 
 These women wore gold-rimmed spectacles, and nearly 
 every one there had at least once in her life mounted the 
 stump, and in the face of the world uttered unintelligible 
 philippics against man, and in behalf of her down-trodden 
 sex. 
 
 These tall, bony, hungry-looking women from Boston tow 
 ered above the other sex assembled there, like flag-staffs above 
 the procession in a Fourth of July Celebration. 
 
 They went round, behind their gold-rimmed spectacles and 
 teacup and saucer, thrusting their long lean necks right and 
 left, and looking like the giraffes in a menagerie. You would 
 almost expect them to turn their heads to one side, reach up 
 and nip off the ivy leaves that had been frescoed around the 
 border of the ceiling. 
 
 What an odd assemble it was to be sure ! There sat the
 
 With the One Fair Woman. 339 
 
 man, in the centre of an admiring group, who had devoted 
 his life to prowling through the Catacombs and dragging up 
 Christian bones to the vulgar gaze of the curious, and remov 
 ing their simple tombstones to the museum of Rome. 
 I This was the man who had torn the ivy and the old fig- 
 trees from the Coliseum, and he was now telling, with a nour 
 ish of triumph, what he expected to find when he excavated 
 the very foundations of the Coliseum. This was the man 
 who had renovated the ruins of the Baths of Caracalla, and 
 made the place vile with asphalte and the smell of tar and 
 turpentine. Yet this man set himself lip for quite a hero, 
 and was certainly quite a centre here. 
 
 There was a tall, lean figure standing before him, imploring 
 a few Christian bones for his private collection, and at least 
 one bone of some celebrated martyr. 
 
 The missionary of Naples was promised all that he desired 
 by this little autocrat, who, like all sensible Italians, sat 
 gracefully on the sofa, and rested and grew fat, while the un 
 happy storks and giraffes stalked and wandered mournfully 
 ai-ound. Then a tall woman in gold-rimmed spectacles came 
 by. Whipping out a note-book, pencil, and a two-foot rule, 
 she stood before the little man, and seemed to monopolize him 
 for the remainder of the day. 
 
 There were good and great men, too, standing away here 
 and there in the corners. And now and then you stood be 
 fore a man, as you wandered around and wedged yourself 
 through the crowd, whose name had been familiar to you 
 even in your childhood. And, after all, Marietta began to 
 fall in love with this place, and the puffy, fussy little woman 
 who had come and set up a little kingdom on the Seventh 
 Hill of the Caesars ; and, in spite of his determination to re 
 treat as soon as possible, he now found he was loth to go 
 away. 
 
 There were, to change the figure, some pretty flowers there 
 too. The violet looked xip from the base of the wall to the
 
 34 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 tall sunflower that tossed its head and lorded the land, and 
 the violet peeped out from under the thorn and the thistle, 
 with its sweet blue eyes, and gave the place a charm and a 
 perfect freshness. It was a sort of human forest. 
 
 The menagerie, to restore the figure again, was complete. 
 If the giraffe was there, then the mild-eyed gazelle was there 
 also. Beautiful young girls sat there, as silent as if they were 
 painted on the wall against which they sat, as they watched 
 the tall and terrible women moving to and fro upon their 
 various missions in Rome. These beautiful children made 
 one in love with Silence. 
 
 The lion was there also, the shaggy Nmnidian lion, and he 
 moved about and shook his mane and roared in a voice and 
 manner that made you feel very certain, and also very sorry, 
 that the lion is and ever will be a beast in spite of his 
 strength and dignity. 
 
 The elephant and the hippopotamus waddled and toddled 
 about the grounds, and, like beasts just let loose to be fed, 
 snapped and snarled at each other from behind their wires, 
 and talked art and disputed with a zeal that was equalled 
 only by their ignorance. 
 
 Good-natured old gentlemen, dukes, princes, consuls, and 
 secretaries of legations, went about feeding the pretty animals 
 and the plain animals too in the menagerie, with tea and 
 cake and buns and bread and butter ; and pretty innocent 
 Mollie stood back in the corner by the side of Paolini, look 
 ing as happy as possible and eating as fast as an old General 
 could feed her. She was playing the part of a little pet griz 
 zly bear standing on his hind legs and eating nuts from the 
 hand of a Californian. 
 
 Such was American society in Rome, or at least the busy, 
 the active, the accessible, the working wing of it ; for be it 
 known that the majority of the people present who contri 
 buted to make up this pleasant little menagerie were Ameri 
 cans.
 
 With the One Fair Woman. 341 
 
 The party were thinning out and melting asvay. Muri- 
 etta had found the modest little Secretary of Legation, and the 
 two together were seeking for the amiable little hostess to 
 say good-bye. 
 
 There was a nutter about the door, and she was not to be 
 found. Then in a moment there was a murmur of admira 
 tion just audible all around the saloon, and Murietta shrank 
 back behind the little Secretary and close against the wall, 
 and as well out of sight as possible. 
 
 The crowd parted before her as she passed on. Never yet 
 did woman move with such grace, such quiet power, and such 
 noble presence as did that lady then and there, as she crossed 
 the saloon with her father, the iron-faced soldier, and sat 
 down dreamily on a lounge by his side. 
 
 Murietta, by accident, had settled back against the wall in 
 this very same direction. He was standing now almost in 
 reach of her hand. He hardly dared to breathe. He was 
 wondering if she did not hear his heart beat, and then he 
 began to look in vain for an opportunity to steal away un 
 seen. 
 
 Just then the kind little hostess, who had led Annette and 
 her father to the seat, caught sight of the artist. There was 
 no escaping ; there was no time for excuse or explanation. 
 He came forth from his retreat as the little woman called his 
 name, and an informal introduction, a simple, sudden, hand- 
 to-hand, Bohemian introduction passed in a moment. 
 
 The lady did not rise. She sat perfectly still and com 
 posed all the time ; yet she was neither disdainful nor 
 indifferent. She was simply perfectly at home, and by her 
 easy manners and careless off-hand conduct did more to make 
 Murietta satisfied with himself and at rest, than anything 
 that she could have said or done. 
 
 The artist settled down in a chair at the head of the sofa, 
 with his arms thrown carelessly over the head of the covered 
 settee, and in a moment was talking on the old and easy
 
 342 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 topic of all travellers in that sunny land, art and the future 
 of Italy. 
 
 Gallant and graceful men would come, pay their compli 
 ments to the belle of Rome and pass on, looking fondly back 
 as one might fancy Adam looked on leaving Paradise ; but 
 the artist, to his intense delight, was specially favored by 
 fortune, and sat there and talked as if he had known this 
 lady all his life. 
 
 Now and then the scarred and iron-faced soldier would say 
 a word or two, but his mind seemed above and beyond the 
 tame surroundings. His soul was riding on the smoke of 
 battle. The old commander was marshalling his regiments, 
 and fighting OA er again the battles that had been lost. It is 
 a dangerous thing for a man to engage in great contests and 
 stretch his mind to its utmost tension in the accomplishment 
 of herculean tasks. His soul becomes keyed to that high 
 place, and he cannot come back to earth and be satisfied any 
 more with common things. 
 
 Yes he, the artist, had been to Naples, and he detested 
 Naples. 
 
 " And do you like Naples ? " 
 
 " To me," answered Annette, " Naples is a dream of 
 paradise. I think it perfectly lovely." 
 
 " Well, yes," answered Murietta, * now that I think of it, 
 I, too, like Naples above all the world." 
 
 Then the lady paused a moment, and lifting her great, 
 dai k, sweeping lashes, so full of poetry, and passion held at 
 will, she said : 
 
 " And I ascended Mount Vesuvius, I and father together, 
 and found it perfectly delightful. And what do you think 
 happened ? Ah, it was so touching and so beautiful ! " 
 
 Murietta leaned forward to listen. He could not guess. 
 
 " Well then," laughed the lady gaily, " I will tell you. As we 
 rode up the broad carriage road winding above the sea toward 
 the hermitage, there was a party of two in advance of us."
 
 With the One Fair Woman. 343 
 
 " A party of two. Nothing remarkable in that, unless 
 perhaps they were brigands or lovers." 
 
 " No, nothing remarkable in the number, or in the men, so 
 far as I know, for I never saw the faces of either of them. 
 But this is the pretty little romance of it. The pretty, 
 winding, watered road began to be starred and strewn with 
 little leaves of pink and crimson." 
 
 "And then!" 
 
 "Why, that is all;" and the great lashes lifted, and the 
 fair and beautiful woman looked at the man a moment, and 
 then let her eyes fall to the carpet, and said softly, and as if 
 in a dream, and as if she was remembering something very 
 pleasant, and telling it over only to herself and not to a 
 stranger, " the man before me, who rode up the mountain iu 
 the sun, was scattering roses in ray path ! "
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 BREAD ON THE WATERS. 
 
 HE man who is miserable is 
 also the man who is happy. 
 He is, in fact, the only man 
 who is really happy. A man 
 may not reap till he has first 
 ploughed. No one can under 
 stand joy till he has first felt 
 misery. Nature seems to be 
 a vulgar commercial shop 
 keeper. All things seem to have a 
 price. There are a few men, howevei 1 , 
 who are so fortunate that they aro 
 sometimes able to get a little happiness, 
 or at least pleasure in advance of pay 
 ment ; on credit, as it were. But then, 
 when these men come to pay for it 
 they have to pay such enormous interest that they are ruined. 
 Then there are other men who come to their full estate 
 and fortune with the ruddy hue of youth on their faces and 
 full of sunshine in their hearts. No, no ! these men have not 
 suffered, neither have they enjoyed. They are children still. 
 You may follow this idea down till you come to a stone
 
 Bread on the Waters. 345 
 
 standing placid and still, and always serene and peaceful, but 
 in the form and expression of a man : and this form of a 
 man, this stone, has not suffered at all. It cannot enjoy. 
 
 Fire in the eye and furrows on the face. Let these 
 things come when they may, they have their meaning. A 
 man may crowd forty years into forty days and nights of his 
 impetuous life, if he be large enough of soul to hold them, 
 and may die an old man at thirty. 
 
 Nature keeps her own books and baptismal records, and 
 all that, herself. It would be interesting if we could some 
 times manage to have her books and man s compared. We 
 should be startled at the discrepancies. 
 
 Well, let no man murmur, or woman weep, in vain. The 
 storm is only the prophet and forerunner of fair weather. 
 The peasants know perfectly well that they are going to have 
 a warm and an early spring when they have had a hard and 
 unhappy winter. If a pendulum swings far to the left, it 
 must swing just exactly as far to the right when it returns. 
 All things are pretty evenly balanced. The law of compen 
 sation is exact arid unalterable. The great store of Nature is 
 indeed a big, vulgar shop. You must pay for everything you 
 get. And what is very interesting to know is the fact that 
 the peasant has just as much of Nature s currency in his 
 pocket as the prince. 
 
 Murietta had been doing a large business in this line from 
 the first. From the very first he had felt and suffered much. 
 Standing on a peak of the Cordilleras when still a boy, with 
 the sun and wind of the Pacific in his yellow hair, he had 
 dared to question why he had ever been born. Said some 
 one, revolutions never go backward. Ask this qiiestion, and 
 sometimes the answer may come to you when you are tired 
 and want to rest. Then you cannot rest. 
 
 When you are suffering intensely you can safely say to your 
 self, " I am heaping up money, I am putting it in the bank 
 of Nature, and some day it will be paid back with interest." 
 15*
 
 346 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 Now it seemed to Murietta, as he sat there so perfectly full 
 of calm delight, that there never any more could be even the 
 breath of a storm. 
 
 His roses in the road, in the path of the strangers who fol 
 lowed, had been bread upon the waters. 
 
 He did not say one word when she told this. He did not 
 even look at her, for fear of he knew not what. He did not 
 speak or answer her, or even lift his eyes to look at her. He 
 was satisfied. It was enough. 
 
 Now, for the first time, he liked Naples. He even was 
 certain that he loved Naples and all her motley wretched peo 
 ple. He liked all Italy and all the people of Italy ; the beg 
 garly princes of the old Jew quarter of Rome, and the 
 princely beggai s on the Spanish steps. He loved them all. 
 For had not she said she liked Italy, and was not that 
 enough ? He was willing he wished to be blind. He 
 wanted henceforth to see only through her eyes. 
 
 Murietta did not dare remain long in her presence. In 
 fact, for all that he had thought and said and felt, he had 
 been before her but a few minutes. But such minutes ! 
 They weree ons of bliss. They were great big bank-notes that 
 Nature had handed him, and bade him go and take a glorious 
 holiday. 
 
 The good old Commander came down from his cloud of 
 battle-smoke as the artist rose to say good-day, and in a 
 dreamy and indistinct way said something of wishing to see 
 this young man at his own house ; and then, to the unutter 
 able delight of Murietta, Annette took up the tangled thread, 
 and laid it straight and made its meaning intelligible, by 
 means of dates and numbers and names on a card which she 
 now got from the dreamy old Commander, who had gone 
 back to ride on his battle-cloud ; and then, by means of a 
 pencil and a few bold clear words in a hand as clear and 
 strong as if it might hold and control a world of its own, she 
 blazed out the future path of the artist s mind for many a day.
 
 Bread on the Waters. 347 
 
 She had simply written the day, or evening, in which her 
 house was open and they were all at home. But this to him 
 was more than all the wealth of banks, than all the world be 
 side. 
 
 Poor deluded boy, self-deluded ! He did not know, he did 
 not think, could not think, that she had said nothing, done 
 nothing, done nothing whatever that she might not have 
 said and done to any one, even the most humble and least 
 favored in all that house. 
 
 Then he retreated from her presence, and found the good 
 secretary hidden away in a corner where the light would not 
 fall too heavily on his clothes, and then, turning to the good 
 Mother Bunch, they bowed themselves away, and were gone. 
 
 Down the corkscrew steps, and down and down, and 
 around and around and around. Murietta laughed as he 
 descended, and he knew not why he laughed. His heart was 
 so full of happiness that it jostled and spilled over and on to 
 the steps as they made their unsteady descent. 
 
 " We have been up in heaven," he said to the good Secre 
 tary, as they ,shook hands at the great portal, and then 
 turned and gave to the beggars who crowded around all the 
 money he could find in his pockets. 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! A pretty figure that," laughed the Secretary, 
 as he said good-bye, " a figure that might be used by a 
 novelist. It was indeed heaven ; and, like heaven, it was very 
 hard to attain. Let us hope that we have not descended into 
 hell." And, so saying, the novelist and secretary bowed very 
 low ; and then, waving their hands, went on their way. 
 
 The artist again stood- alone in the street, but he did not 
 feel alone. If all the hundreds of millions who have laid 
 down and died in Rome, who have made the very roads and 
 streets, even the soil of Rome for many feet deep, out of their 
 dust, had risen up, he could not have felt more in the pre 
 sence of, and in sympathy with, his kind. 
 
 It is a bad sign if you feel lonesome in a city. And yet it
 
 348 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 is no uncommon feeling. And, too, if a man does feel lone 
 some in a city he feels it terribly. There is no man so lone 
 some as a man who is lonesome in a crowd so thick that the 
 people jostle him with their elbows. 
 
 This man was not a bit exalted. He gave away all his 
 money to beggars. He could have taken the little urchin, 
 clad in sheepskin even in summer, who ran by his side and 
 asked for a sou, into his arms and kissed him ; yet, when he 
 saw Carlton coming down the street on his way to the popu 
 lar and populous Greco, he tui-ned up a court and escaped him. 
 
 Why had he done this ? He did not know. Perhaps he 
 did not wish to speak to him ? Possibly he was oftended 
 with him ? Not so. He could not have shaped the reason 
 into expression, or have given it utterance. But the truth 
 is, he felt that this day was sacred. It was to him a holy 
 day. He felt that it would be profanity to speak. He 
 wanted to think, to dream, to drift. He did not want to 
 speak to Carlton, because he wanted to think of Annette. 
 
 And now that he was happy, he did not stop to think that 
 this would end some day. He felt that henceforth he should 
 for ever walk on in the sun. It seemed to him just as if it 
 would never be night any more in figure or in fact. His 
 soul was drifting away into and over a great sea of light 
 that knew not any shore. How could he then think of 
 shore, or shipwreck, or anything that had a dark side or any 
 disaster in it ? 
 
 There are three things, at least, in art worth seeing in 
 Home, outside the Vatican. One of these, possibly the first, 
 is the Dying Gladiator. Then there is the Moses of Michael 
 Angelo, out in the rich old church near the Coliseum. 
 
 This last-named is an ugly figure, with horns on its head. 
 It sits there right before you, as if it had come down from 
 some high place to get close to you, and appeal to you, and 
 absorb you into its awful self. It sits there lifting its wrinkled 
 brows all day to God.
 
 Bread on the Waters. 349 
 
 That figure seems as full of life, of husbanded strength, of 
 suppressed power, as the Nile, when flowing dark and full of 
 flood, and lapping the topmost limit of its stony embank 
 ment. 
 
 Whatever you may be, standing before this awful form of 
 deified man, be you Papist, Protestant, Jew or Pagan, 
 you feel somehow that from ovit of a man like that, and only 
 that, there could have flowed a stream and tide of people 
 with all their laws and ceremonies intact even from this 
 fountain-head before you, sitting there with all the awful 
 majesty and desolation of Sinai in the desert, that should 
 flow on forever to the eternal sea. 
 
 The third and last, if it is not the first, is a little face, 
 thrown back over the shoulder, looking at you from under 
 the careless brown hair, with the lips half parted, as if she had 
 a story to tell, and you were bound to stand there and look 
 and listen, and listen and look, till you made out all the story 
 yourself. 
 
 Murietta went and stood before this picture, and alone. 
 Whenever any one with a red book, who had the good taste 
 to find the little treasure on the walls of the Barbarini Palace, 
 would stop before the sad face of the Cenci, he would pass on 
 a moment, and only a moment, until the disappointed visitor 
 shrugged his shoulders, shut up his book, as if disgusted with 
 the laudations heaped upon this little picture, and then he 
 would return. 
 
 There he stood and listened, and listened and stood, and 
 watched the light come and go from the great sad eyes ; 
 watched the blood flow and fall and pulsate through the neck ; 
 watched the parted lips till the soul seemed passing through 
 them, and then the sun was down, and the story was finished. 
 He knew her now, and all her awful sorrows. Their souls 
 stood close together. Lawless and terrible both of these, and 
 mighty for good or ill. 
 
 How singular it is that all beautiful things are sad ! Every
 
 350 
 
 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 greafc face seems to be a flood-gate of tears that is about to 
 burst. This face of the Cenci is so, the Moses of Angelo is 
 so ; the face of the Gladiator would be so, only that he is a 
 soldier, and is weeping blood.
 
 CHAPTER XLL 
 
 THE CALIFORNIA!! GIKL. 
 
 T was a week, one full long 
 week, before the time when the 
 artist hoped to meet Annette in. 
 her own home. He could not sit 
 there before her picture, which 
 he had now brought into the 
 full light, and made a sort of 
 shrine, and look at it all the 
 time. What should he do ? 
 Finally, he found himself ascend 
 ing the steps of the Hotel Ville, and heard a shout 
 and a bounding step that was not to be mistaken. 
 " Bet your life \ Oh I bet your life I m glad to 
 see you, so glad to see you ; " and the honest, 
 open-hearted little lady threw her arms about his 
 neck, and laughed till she cried. 
 " Why, Mollie, what in the world is the matter ? " said he 
 at last, as he, half smothered, disengaged himself from the 
 girl, and stood smiling at her enthusiasm and easy habits. 
 
 " Matter ! Nothing the matter at all, only I ve I ve got 
 something nice to tell you." She stood swinging her hat by 
 the ribbons, for it had been pushed off in her haste to 
 embrace her brother, as she sometimes called Murietta, and
 
 352 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 holding her head to one side, and looking very bashful and 
 mischievous. 
 
 "Well, Mollie, what is it?" said he, as they sauntered 
 along the hall toward the parlor, while she still swung her 
 hat, and held her head to one side, and looked the very 
 picture of perfect happiness. 
 
 "No, I won t tell you," pouted the saucy girl. " It s my 
 little secret. My own little bit of a secret, the only one I 
 ever had in my life, and I intend to keep it. I intend to 
 keep it all day to myself." Then she held her head still 
 lower to one side, and swung her hat as if she intended to 
 twist the ribbons off, and send it flying through the window. 
 
 " Come, come, Mollie, tell me. It must be something nice, 
 you seem so very happy ! " 
 
 " It is nice, and I am happy, bet your life ! " Then she 
 stopped swinging her hat, thought a moment, and then 
 diving into her pocket and holding out her hand to Marietta, 
 said, " Have some goodies ? " 
 
 "Certainly, Mollie. But now, about that wonderful little 
 secret that you are going to keep all day, and that you told 
 me about the moment I came, and that you will tell me 
 before ten minutes longer ; what is it ? " 
 
 " Well now, don t you tell. Mamma knows it, and papa 
 knows it, and the Count Paolini knows it, and that is all. 
 Won t tell ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Hope you may die if you tell ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Well, now listen, this is my little secret all mine, you 
 know, but I can t keep it. The Count made me promise not 
 to tell, and he is so very particular. Well, now, he s in 
 there," pointing to the parlor, as they still sauntered up and 
 around the hall, looking at the pictures and statuary, " and 
 don t you let it out when you go in. Well, he don t want 
 any big wedding either, but I do ; bet your life I didn t come
 
 The Californian Girl. 353 
 
 all the way from California to be married off like a dummy. 
 Not much, bet your life ! That ain t me. Have another 
 goodie ? " 
 
 " "Yes, Mollie. I am feeling so very well to-day that I 
 feel like I could almost eat you." 
 
 " Well, there you are, a whole handful. And now I am 
 going to tell you my little secret." 
 
 She stood before him blushing, with her pretty lips pouted 
 out and her mouth full of sugar-plums. She laid her head 
 to one side, swung her hat faster than before, and began. 
 
 " Now, you mustn t tell ; hope you may die, and all 
 that ? " 
 
 " Yes ; but Mollie, 1 know all about it." 
 
 "Shut up! you don t! " 
 
 "But I do." 
 
 The hat stopped swinging, and the pretty lips pouted out, 
 and then she stooped, reached into her pocket, and got 
 another handful of candies. 
 
 After a moment the old mischievous look came back into 
 the eyes of the innocent girl, and she began : 
 
 " Now I ll bet you a forty-dollar hoss to a gooseberry, 
 that you don t know anything about it." 
 
 " I will bet you a whole herd of M \istang ponies to one 
 kiss, Miss Mollie, that I do know all about it." 
 
 " Done ! " 
 
 " Is it a bet ? " 
 
 " Yes, it s a bet. Here s the stakes. Put up your Mus 
 tang ponies." 
 
 " The Mustangs are on the plains of Arizona ; you must 
 trust me." 
 
 " I will trust you. Now come, what is it ? " 
 
 The artist began a little thoughtfully, and quite slowly, 
 for he felt more than half serious over this announcement, 
 which in her happiness she had made without knowing it, 
 and said :
 
 354 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 " You are engaged to be married to Count Paolini." 
 
 " There ! take the bet." 
 
 She reached forward her girlish face, and the man kissed 
 his romping, sometime sister, and then said, more earnestly 
 than was his custom when speaking to this half child : 
 
 " Mollie ! " 
 
 " Marietta ? " 
 
 " This is a very serious business." 
 
 " Oh ain t it, though ! Do you know, Mr. Murietta, I 
 cried and cried and cried for half an hour; and then mother, 
 she cried and cried ; and even old papa, the good old 
 governor, he cried too ! Oh, it s awful serious, ain t it? I 
 declare it makes me feel real shaky." And here she stopped, 
 reached into her pocket and drew forth another handful of 
 candies. 
 
 " You know, Mollie," said the artist taking a handful of 
 proffered candies, and dropping them down among the flowers 
 by the wall, " you know I promised to take you to my little 
 palace on the Tarpeian Rock." 
 
 " Yes ; and like all the men, you forgot all about it, and 
 never did it." 
 
 " No ; but I have come for you this morning. Can you 
 
 go?" 
 
 " Go ? Oh won t it be jolly ! But then," and her manner 
 took on a mock gravity which she really meant to be real, 
 " but then, you know, mamma must go too, for the Count is 
 awful particular. You know the Count says we American 
 girls are all too fast and loose, and all that, and are liable to 
 get ourselves talked about ; and now that I am engaged, you 
 know, I must be particular, if only to please him. 
 
 " Well now, my good little Mollie, will you do one thing 
 first to please me ? " 
 
 " Yes, a dozen." 
 
 " No, only this one thing." 
 
 * Well, what is it ? Come, let s get it done and be off,
 
 The Calif ornian Girl. 355 
 
 for ain t it just the bulliest weather you ever saw to be 
 out?" 
 
 " Well, Mollie, this is it. Don t tell the Count where you 
 are going. We will go to the Capuchin monks tell him 
 that if you like after that we will take in the Tarpeiau. 
 Rock." 
 
 " Right ; mum s the motto," and here Mollie laid her finger 
 on her pouting lips, and reaching down for another handful 
 of sweets, she led into the parlor. 
 
 Mrs. Wopsus burst into tears, as usual, and the General 
 came forward quoting some snatches of poetry, which showed 
 that his mind was not on railroads, or anything of the kind, 
 that day at least. 
 
 Paolini turned pale. Yet he recovered himself in an 
 instant, and in the softest and sweetest voice, so well modu 
 lated that, in the sweet Italian tongue, it was music in itself, 
 he passed the compliments of the day as he came up and 
 reached his hand, for he was standing all ready, as if waiting 
 to go. 
 
 In a moment he was talking over the ordinary topics of 
 the day, and showed no concern at all, whatever he may have 
 felt. And perhaps after the first flush of sudden apprehen 
 sion, he felt none, but leaned steadily upon fortune with all 
 the confidence of youth and inexperience, and left all to the 
 fates and his leaders, who had this matter in. hand. He 
 tapped his sword hilt with his gloved fingers, dvisted the least 
 bit of down off his sleeve, and lifting his cap after one or two 
 low soft sweet speeches to Mollie, he passed out, promising to 
 return in the evening. 
 
 In a few minutes more, Murietta, Mrs. Wopsus and Mollie 
 left the old General on his shaded balcony with his papers, 
 and taking the carriage at the door, were on their way to the 
 strange and gloomy den known as the monastery of the 
 Capuchin monks. 
 
 "It was a fearful place to take a young girl just contem-
 
 356 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 plating her near wedding-day, and yet, for the purposes of 
 Murietta, was perhaps the best in all the world. 
 
 On their way they picked up the good-natured Carlton, 
 who was a great favourite with Mrs. Wopsus, and in fact 
 with all the family. 
 
 Under some trees, in a little square that opens on to the 
 broad, desolate plaza of Barbarini, with its one hideous figure 
 blowing a fountain in the centre, then under an arch, then 
 up a wide court, and then, pulling a bell in a low wall to the 
 left, they found themselves at the door of the Capuchins. 
 
 Very dark, and very damp and deathlike. Mushrooms 
 grow here ; and, what is very strange and fearful to tell, these 
 mushrooms that grow out of these bones and half rotten men 
 are, it is said, sometimes extremely like a death s head. 
 
 Here were lamps and dim lights, just light enough to see 
 the dead men hanging up around the walls only half dried, as 
 if the place had been a sort of Cincinnati smoke-house for 
 cui ing hams and whole hogs. 
 
 The monk who opened this was a brown monk, in a brown 
 gown and brown sandals. He kept coughing all the time ; 
 he was only skin and bone. He kept coughing and barking 
 over his kennel of bones as if he had been a kind of watcli- 
 dog. Poor devil ! what a desolate life was his ! 
 
 He looked as if he had unhooked himself from a place on 
 the wall alongside of another fellow who hung up there, all 
 skin and bone, with his hair and beard hanging loose about 
 his face, and his toes and finger-bones hanging in strings 
 down there, as if they were a sort of ornament to him, like 
 an Indian s beads. 
 
 Now and then this poor lean monk, with a brown beard 
 and a brown gown and a consumptive cough, would look 
 back and up at the other fellow hanging there, and would look 
 as if he was very tired, and would like to hang himself up there, 
 and stay there all the time, and never come down any more. 
 He looked as if he wanted to quit telling strangers about
 
 The Calif or nian Girl. 357 
 
 whoso bones this sunflower was made of, and how many thigh 
 bones it took to build this monk s monument sleeping there 
 in the dust brought from Jerusalem, or just how many monks 
 had to die and have their back-bones wired together, in order 
 to make this beautiful ornament now suspended from the 
 low ceiling and doing service as a chandelier. 
 
 " I want some of this dirt from Jerusalem," said Carlton. 
 " Will you not, good father, let me have just one little pinch 
 of this dirt from Jerusalem ? " 
 
 " Impossible ! " cough, cough, cough. 
 
 Then the little bell rang again, and the monk went to the 
 door, yet all the time kept looking back over his shoulder 
 and barking like a dog. 
 
 There was a commotion at the door, and a noisy crowd 
 poured in- and began to deluge the monk with questions. 
 
 " Good gracious! was he a full-grown man? " 
 
 " A full-grown man, madam. You see he was bearded 
 like a prophet, 4 coughed the skin-aud-borie monk who was 
 not hanging on a hook on the wall, as he looked up at and 
 alluded to the skin-and-bone monk who was hanging up on a 
 hook against the wall. 
 
 Then the Special Correspondent took out a carpenter s rule, 
 and stepping across and straddling over some new graves, 
 she carefully measured the length of the lean skin-and-boue 
 monk on the wall ; and, still standing there, straddling over a 
 grave, she took out note-book and pencil and wrote very 
 rapidly for some time. 
 
 " Only three feet long ! " she said to herself as she shut 
 the note-book and again strode over the new graves, and 
 came forth arid joined our party in the little vault at the feet 
 of the graves, and under the curious lines and strange ar 
 rangements of bones and skulls about the walls. 
 
 " There is here somewhere, says tradition " A tall man, 
 in black threadbare clothes, set his umbrella down, and bent 
 himself into a new moon. " There is somewhere here," he
 
 358 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 said, facing the Special Correspondent, who stood before him 
 all attention, " a bone of Saint Francis, and I would give 
 more to know where that bone is," and here he shot upright 
 again, and tall as a cypress, " I would give more, I say, to 
 know just where to put my hand on that bone than to be at 
 the head of all the Missions of Italy." 
 
 The missionary stooped as he finished this speech, and got 
 hold of a skull on the top of a heap of skulls hard by, and 
 tried to get it into his pocket or under his coat, but to his 
 great disgust found that it was fastened there by a wire, just 
 as are grinding-stones or other articles fastened at the doors of 
 shops where people are liable to pick up little things as they 
 pass. 
 
 The monk turned to look at the missionary as he heard 
 the rattling of dry bones, and began to cough, as a dog would 
 bark to warn off thieves, and let it be known at least that there 
 was someone on watch. 
 
 Then Carlton, who had been refused a pinch of earth from 
 Jerusalem, leaned over the little frame at the foot of one of 
 the graves, and taking a bit between his fingers, hastily arose. 
 But the eyes of the monk were on him, and the brown skin- 
 and-bone creature came forward and stood barking like a 
 very weak but very faithful dog at this sacrilegious piracy of 
 unconsidered trifles. 
 
 Carlton began slowly and carelessly to roll his cigarette. In 
 this cigarette was the sacred earth. The monk s little black 
 eyes glistened. He had his suspicions, but was not certain 
 that he was right. Would this Carlton go on with that 
 cigarette would he roll it up, turn down the end of it ? 
 Would he then dare place the sacred dust still damp and 
 reeking with dead men s flesh between his teeth ? 
 
 The monk s eyes glistened, and his outstretched hand 
 trembled like a leaf in the wind. 
 
 Would he go 011 and finish the cigarette, and put the dust 
 between his teeth ?
 
 The Calif or nian Girl. 359 
 
 Carlton, too, was more than nervous, he was pale ; but he 
 did not hesitate. His hands trembled and rattled the paper, 
 as he rolled it tight and smoothly, and then he slowly fas 
 tened down one end, after the manner of the Mexican when 
 smoking a cigarette, and then slowly raised it up and deliber 
 ately set it between his teeth. 
 
 The monk was satisfied ; or at least he felt that, whether 
 this man was guilty or not, he was too audacious to interfere 
 with ; and, leaving a pile of bones rather to the right, he has 
 tened around in that direction and began to look furtively at 
 the missionary, who had found these goods also wired to the 
 shop and impossible to purloin. 
 
 Mrs. Wopsus was all the time in tears. Mollie did not 
 say one word, but kept all the time back in the dark and half 
 hidden out of sight. Murietta sought her out at last, for he 
 feared this unearthly sight might have an unpleasant influence 
 on her young spirits. 
 
 She was leaning up against the damp wall eating a bun 
 and trying to count by the dim grating light the number of 
 bones that there were in an exquisite figure worked on the 
 ceiling just over her head. 
 
 Carlton seemed to be getting cold and chilly and nervous. 
 The brown monk kept looking at him, too, as a dog will look 
 and growl at a man he has seen doing some crime, and he 
 wanted to go at once. 
 
 The monk went down to where the Special Correspondent 
 was trying to measure the size of a dead monk s skull, and 
 kindly pretended to help her in her enterprise ; but it was 
 observed that as soon as he got the party away he fell to 
 counting his skulls ; and, looking for this one and that, as a 
 shoddy will count his spoons after a dinner to the Press or 
 some great politician. 
 
 A t last the party filed out through the narrow door of 
 death into the open day, and once more breathed the open 
 air, as the little monk stood by, taking his toll, as if they
 
 360 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 were passing orer a bridge from one world to the other, and 
 barking at the party all the time as if to warn them off the 
 premises. 
 
 What possible sermon was this charnel-house to preach ? 
 What lesson can these fantastic figures teach ? Those dead 
 men stand grinning at death ! 
 
 What possible good can there be in the existence of this 
 terrible place, except to teach men to thank God for the 
 sunlight when they once more behold it.
 
 CHAPTER XLIL 
 
 IX THE PALACE OF A 
 PEINCE. 
 
 / 
 
 E are now going to visit 
 the palace of a prince," 
 said Murietta, as he took 
 his seat, and the carriage 
 passed under the arch and 
 out into the street. 
 
 Mollie looked up, for 
 she knew who was addres 
 sing her. 
 
 " And oh, won t that be 
 jolly ! Pictures as old as St. Luke, old 
 swords and lances on the wall, helmets 
 hanging all around, great armor, men 
 of steel standing in every corner. Oh, 
 I know just what it s like. Bet your 
 life I know all about it. I ve read all 
 the books and novels that ever was, and " 
 . " Nay, but this is nothing of that sort, Miss Mollie," 
 broke in Murietta, for he wanted to prepare her mind for 
 something unpleasant, instead of allowing it to run riot in 
 such imaginings. " No, nothing of that sort at all." And 
 the artist shook his head gravely. 
 
 " Well, there is at least a secret staircase and a skeleton 
 16
 
 362 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 or two, and some pretty story about a cruel old father and a 
 faithful maiden and a brave knight." 
 
 " Like Paolini, for instance," chimed in Carlton. 
 
 " I protest," \irged Murietta, once more and very gravely ; 
 " this house where I live, and this old Prince lives, and some 
 others whom you happen to know, is nothing of the sort. It 
 is a rotten tumble-down old barracks, or- any thing you choose 
 to call it that is vile, and we who live there are beggars." 
 
 " Beggars ! " cried Mollie, catching her breath. 
 
 " Yes, beggars. That is, we are not all beggars j some of 
 us are only thieves and robbers and assassins." 
 
 Mollie s eyes were wide with wonder, as she sat gazing at 
 the earnest and immovable face of the artist. 
 
 " But speak ! you look as if you meant it ! " 
 
 " I mean it ; every word of it." Then leaning over to 
 wards the half-frightened, honest-hearted girl, he said, " Mol 
 lie, you have often asked to see my home in Home." 
 
 " Yes," answered the girl. 
 
 " I promised you that pleasure, or whatever you may be 
 polite enough to call it, oftentime." 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 " I also once said to you that Prince Trawaska was a vil 
 lain ! " 
 
 " You did, and he is the gentlest of men. Why, he is the 
 bosom friend of Count Paolini ! " 
 
 " One moment. Here we are. Here we get out, climb 
 these broken steps, and then up a narrow court, and then up 
 a narrower stair, and we are in the palace of the old Prince, 
 where I and Prince Trawaska and Count Paolini, singularly 
 enough, have been thrown together. And Mollie, listen." 
 
 The girl looked eagerly in his face as the carriage stopped, 
 and the footman opened the door, and the artist went on hur 
 riedly, "Were you not a Californian, and the full-hearted 
 whole-souled little creature that you are, I would not waste 
 my time and risk being run through for this. Nay, you are
 
 In the Palace of a Prince. 363 
 
 as brave as you are honest. I would not dare bring anyone 
 in all the world but you face to face with the truth, as I 
 shall to-day ! " 
 
 The others had descended and were waiting for Muriettato 
 lead up the broken steps. 
 
 " Why this would make a pretty good pasture for cattle," 
 said Mrs. Wopsus, as they went up the broken steps and 
 brushed the long strong grass that was growing up between 
 the cracks in the rocks and out of the crevices. 
 
 Carlton, light-hearted and careless as ever, tapped a little 
 curly-headed boy on his head, as he politely lifted his cap 
 with its crown and gold band, which showed he belonged to 
 the newly-established schools of Rome, and the party began, 
 to ascend the narrow, dirty steps. 
 
 " How dark it is ! said Mollie. 
 
 " Perhaps this is the secret staircase of the palace where we 
 are to find the skeletons," said Carlton, as they still climbed 
 and climbed, one after the other, in Indian file. 
 
 " What a smell of onions!" said Mrs. Wopsus behind her 
 handkerchief, as she panted and caught her breath at every 
 step. 
 
 At last they stopped at the head of the stairs, and breathed 
 the fresh air, for here was an open window looking out 
 towards St. Peter s. 
 
 " Well, it s not so dreadful bad, after all," said Mollie, as 
 she leaned against the wall and looked out and over the Tiber 
 towards St. Peter s. 
 
 Murietta threw back his cloak, and fumbled a moment in 
 his pocket. Then the door flew open, or rather groaned open ; 
 and, stepping back, he beckoned his friends to enter. They 
 went in, headed by Mollie, and passed on down the narrow 
 hall in single file. 
 
 " First door to the right," calle d out the artist. The door 
 stood ajar, and Mollie peeped in. 
 
 " No thank you, I will stop here and take a peep at St.
 
 364 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 Peter s." So saying, she turned to an open window and 
 leaned over and looked out and away to the north. A 
 little yellow bird was hopping against the wall in its wire 
 cage, and the merry girl reached in her pocket, drew forth a 
 handful of sweets, and began to feed the bird, while the party 
 entered and sat down in the little parlor and studio of the 
 artist, with its single picture. 
 
 Carl ton saw this picture, cried " By Jove ! " and then sat 
 down before it in silence, and sat and looked as if he would 
 continue so for hours, without once lifting his eyes from the 
 great, moving and wonderful face before him. 
 
 Mrs. Wopsus occupied herself in looking out from the 
 studio window to the south, and watching the innumerable 
 cats along the top of the walls. 
 
 A black-eyed countess in a cloud of hair came timidly in. 
 
 " Is the Prince, your father, in ? asked Murietta. 
 
 " Oh yes, he is always in at this hour ; the dear good old 
 father, he is always in at this hour for his lunch." 
 
 " Pray don t disturb him now ; but when he has quite 
 finished his lunch let him know that I am here with some 
 friends who would be glad to see him. " The Countess 
 withdrew, and Murietta went up to where Mollie stood 
 whistling and feeding the little yellow bird. 
 
 " Have a goodie ? " 
 
 "No thanks; no candies for me, this morning, my little 
 school-girl." 
 
 " My little school-girl ! My little school-girl ! Now look 
 here, Mr. Murietta, I m sever teen come next May ; I m not 
 a school-girl, I ve finished. Bet your life I m done. And, 
 Mr. Murietta, I m not going back to school any more. Johnny 
 must go back, because Johnny s a boy, and is not so old even 
 as I am, but I not for Joseph !" 
 
 And here she danced and spun about, and whistled at the 
 bird, and then wound up by once more reaching out her hand 
 to the artist and asking him if he would " have a goodie."
 
 In the Palace of a Prince. 365 
 
 He shook his head. "And so you will not go back to 
 school any more ?" 
 
 " Of course I won t. Why, do you know, Mr. Murietta," 
 and here she looked about her; and then, reaching her head, 
 and letting her voice fall, " do you know I ve seven offers of 
 marriage ! Seven ! Seven ! And I go back to school ! Ha, 
 ha! Now I like that. Why, you know I am engaged 1" 
 
 " But you will not marry Paolini ? " 
 
 " Then I will die an old maid. I will enter a convent, or 
 a what-do-you-call-it a nunnery, a monkery anything, 
 everything. No I will drown myself, Murietta, if I do not 
 marry Count Paolini." 
 
 Again the light-hearted girl left the little bird to hop about 
 on his wires, and again she spun around and danced till tears 
 came into her eyes, and then she came back and looked at the 
 little yellow bird bouncing around on his wires, and laughed. 
 There had nearly been an April shower in the full spring 
 time of this girl s life, but it blew over in an instant, and now 
 the sun was shining brighter than before. Murietta went 
 close up to the girl as she began again to feed the little yel 
 low bird, as he fluttered about on his wires. 
 
 " What in the world makes you look so serious ? " exclaimed 
 Mollie, as she stopped her hand half way to the cage with a 
 bit of candy. 
 
 "It is nothing, Mollie," he said, assuming a careless air, 
 you know I told you they were all either beggars or thieves 
 in this palace." 
 
 " Well, beggars you might be from the looks of things ; but 
 thieves and robbers, I reckon hardly." 
 
 " Yes," said Murietta emphatically, " Prince Trawaska is 
 a robber. And then there is Guiseppe, he is only a thief and 
 an assassin ; and then there is the Prince of this palace, and 
 then myself, only we are only gentle beggars, while Count 
 Paolini is perhaps by turns all three ! " 
 
 The little maiden dropped the nut which she held halfway
 
 366 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 to the fluttering little yellow habitant of the wire house, and 
 opened her soft and earnest eyes wider than ever before. 
 
 " I do not trifle, Mollie. I have brought you here to see 
 for yourself. First see for yourself, and then act for yourself. 
 Your good sense will not fail you. You have been very 
 ready to believe all that these strangers and men of another 
 land and another religion have had to say. They were inter 
 ested. I have no interest but to serve you, and save an 
 honest and happy girl from crime and misery. It is because 
 you are so good and so trustful, and so ready and willing to 
 believe anything that you must now suffer. And yet it is 
 only because you have these qualities that I dare be so frank 
 and plain with you. Will you trust me ? " 
 
 The girl put out her hand in. a helpless sort of a manner, 
 and still stared at the artist. Her mind was floundering 
 beyond its depth. 
 
 " Delighted, Senor, and doubly honored ! " The old 
 prince came shuffling forth, and bowing almost to the floor as 
 he said this. " And will the lady do me the honor to remem 
 ber the old Prince she saw in the ancient Theatre of Marcellus 
 among his antiquities? " 
 
 Mollie reached her hand and smiled at the humility of the 
 old Prince, who now stood before her uncovered. 
 
 " And you still have a store of antiquities on hand ? " 
 
 " Oh most fortunate, fair lady, most fortunate for me and 
 for your noble and most generous father, I have just received 
 a small . ship-load from Egypt, and the Holy Land, and else 
 where. Oh, I have now enough to flood all America, if I 
 could only find the buyers. If I could only find the buyers," 
 mused the old man, half to himself, " if I could only find the 
 buyers, then might my daughters all have a dowry, and the 
 crooked be made straight." 
 
 " Then you have daughters," said Mollie, once looking up, 
 for she had again began to feed the yellow little captive in 
 the wire house.
 
 In the Palace of a Prince. 367 
 
 " Daughters ! " The old man s face lighted tip with parental 
 pride ; and he looked at Murietta as if he wished him to con 
 firm his story, and tell the young lady all about them, while he 
 stood there bowing very humbly, and all the time rubbing his 
 hands, as if to wash them free from the stains of acids and 
 colors used in making his antiquities. 
 
 " Yes, indeed, and most beautiful and interesting children 
 they are too," said the artist ; and he passed into his parlor 
 and pulled the bell. 
 
 A beautiful young lady came, as if borne in a cloud of hair. 
 Murietta presented his young friend, and then the two began 
 to feed the little yellow prisoner together, as they talked in a 
 friendly fashion of their favorite birds. 
 
 I wonder if this is the wife of Count Paolini," thought 
 Murietta ; and then, remembering how that lady always 
 blushed and held her head in a timid and tender fashion, he 
 said, 
 
 " And is the Count Paolini well ? " 
 
 " He is well, I believe ; but I doubt if he has yet risen." 
 The lady laughed, but did not blush. 
 
 The artist stepped again into his parlor, and again pulled 
 the bell. 
 
 Then another beautiful lady entered, noiselessly and airy, 
 as if she too moved in a cloud. 
 
 The artist presented his friend, and Mollie handed her a 
 handful of candies at once, and then all three fell to feeding 
 the little yellow prisoner. 
 
 " Is the Count Paolini fond of birds ? " asked the artist, 
 with well-disguised concern. 
 
 " Oh, very fond of birds," answered the second lady in the 
 cloud, as she looked up from feeding the little favorite. 
 But she did not blush. 
 
 Again the artist stepped to the bell. The door opened, 
 another dark and airy cloud, with a beautiful face half hidden 
 away, came drifting dreamily through the door.
 
 368 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 Murietta stepped back to give her room ; and she, too, in a 
 little time had passed through the ceremony of an introduc 
 tion, and had been presented with a handful of candies, and 
 now was also feeding the little yellow favorite. 
 
 <( The Count Paolini is late this morning," began the artist. 
 
 The lady dropped the bit of candy behind the bars, and 
 blushed to her glorious hair, and hid her face behind her sis 
 ter. 
 
 " Your husband," began the artist in a cold, clear voice, 
 "your husband, the Count Paolini, rises late, my lady." 
 
 " True, he is late, and but what but what is the matter 
 with the beautiful Inglese ? " 
 
 Mollie had dropped her handful of sweets on the floor, and 
 pale and startled, stood looking at Murietta. 
 
 The artist turned to the old Prince, who again began to bow 
 when he saw that he was about to be spoken to, and in a 
 clear, deliberate voice began : " I happen to know your son, 
 the Count Paolini, better than you suppose ; and so does this 
 lady know him ; and we desire to see him." 
 
 " With the greatest pleasure. With the greatest pleasure. 
 You honor him, you honor us." And the old Prince shuf 
 fled up the hall and out of the door, and in a moment was 
 knocking at the door of the Count Paolini and the Prince 
 Trawaska. 
 
 Singular as it may seem, Mollie in a moment had recovered 
 her self-possession, and reaching in her pocket for a handful of 
 candies, she now stood leaning out of the window with the 
 other ladies and whistling at the little yellow captive in the 
 wire prison. The little Californian maiden was utterly hid 
 den by the many dark clouds that hung over and about her. 
 Yet the sky seemed clearing up again. The April shower of 
 tears was passing over. The sun and sunshine of May was 
 once more filling her heart. 
 
 The Count Paolini came forward at the call of his father- 
 in-law with a great deal of confidence. There was a little
 
 In the Palace of a Prince. 369 
 
 swagger and banter in his air as he came in in advance 
 of the old Prince, who shuffled on after him, as his eyes 
 fell upon the artist. But he did not flinch. He came 
 boldly forward, bowed with that perfect hollow politeness 
 peculiar only to refined scoundrels, and waited for Murietta s 
 reply. 
 
 Soon the dark ladies, in their storms of hair, tiirned from 
 the bird to the Count, for they perhaps knew his step, or what 
 is more likely they felt his presence, as we often feel the pres 
 ence of our friends long before either seeing or hearing them. 
 
 Then, as the ladies turned and the clouds cleared away, 
 the eyes of the Count fell upon the form of Mollie as she 
 leaned from the window and whistled still at the yellow little 
 flutterer. 
 
 The artist lifted his finger into the face of the Count, and 
 said almost savagely : 
 
 " That is all I have to say, Count Paolini, and this is all I 
 have to do." 
 
 Mollie sprang back from the window, and now stood look 
 ing over the shoulder of one of the ladies right into the face 
 of the Count. 
 
 The artist continued : " I have nothing further to do or 
 say. I bring you all together here the husband and the 
 wife, and the promised wife, the little confiding school-girl 
 that a hundred base Italians have been trying half a year to 
 entrap. I only wish you all to know the truth, and then to 
 do precisely as you please." 
 
 " Come let us go, let us go ; where is my mother ? Let us 
 go away, I shall go wild." Mollie had been standing still all 
 the time. Her hand was full of sweets. 
 
 She lifted them up, looked at them, and then threw them 
 through the window. 
 
 What if, in that moment standing there, this young woman, 
 this girl, had crossed the line that lies somewhere between 
 the girl and the woman ?
 
 370 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 " And that is your hxisband ? " she said, with a touch of 
 tenderness, to the Countess at her side. 
 
 " Yes, lady, yes. But oh, do not blame him too much. It 
 is so, so hard. You do not know what it is to fight day by 
 day, day by day, with nothing to fight with; to go hungry in 
 order that you may hold your place in the world, the place 
 you are born to, and to appear respectable. Oh, you have 
 fortune, you people of the New World, and you know not 
 what we have to endure ! " 
 
 Mollie forgot herself in a moment. The emotion, the 
 beautiful sorrow of this woman touched her heart. 
 
 The least selfish of living women, she threw her arms aboxit 
 the neck of the dark Countess, kissed her, called her sister, 
 and telling her not to weep, turned suddenly to the old 
 Prince, as if inspired with a new thought, and said, 
 
 " Get your antiquities together for to-morrow. Be there 
 early. I shall be there, and I shall bring my California!! 
 friends. Now come ! " And without one word to Paolini, 
 who stood as if struck dumb, she led down the narrow step, 
 and left the artist to bring her mother and Carlton ; and in a 
 little time they were back to the Hotel Ville as if nothing had 
 happened.
 
 CHAPTER XLIIT. 
 
 OLD ANTIQUITIES. 
 
 OME here, Carlton; 
 come here, Muri- 
 etta." Mollie came 
 bounding by, after 
 kissing the old Gen 
 eral, who was all the 
 time running his 
 mind down the iron 
 grooves of his rail 
 roads, to the neglect 
 of everything else, and took the two 
 men with her on to the moonlit bal 
 cony. 
 
 a Now, look here," she said, in some 
 thing of a flurry, as she dived her hand 
 ]]/|\ down into her pockets, drew up a handful 
 of sweets, looked at them a second, and 
 then sent them through the air: " I ve got 
 a little game, and you re to help me." 
 " Well, Mollie, but what is it ? " 
 " None of your business ; won t you help me ? " 
 " Certainly, I will help you. We both will help you.
 
 372 The One Fair Wontan. 
 
 But you must tell us what it is, or we will not know what to 
 do/ 
 
 " Well, I will tell you what to do and how to do it. You 
 know Jones ? " 
 
 "Yes," answered Marietta. 
 
 "And you know McCreavy, the man who used to be head 
 porter in the Oriental Hotel, in San Francisco ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Carlton, " I know him very well. He s a 
 millionaire, and a wonderfully conceited Irishman he is, too ; 
 and a bit proud for one who began life as a day labourer. 
 
 " No matter about how he began his life, or how he spends 
 it. His money is as good as any man s, and I want him to 
 spend his money. That s all. I don t want him to carry 
 trunks or wheel dirt on the railroad. I want him to buy, and 
 I want them all to buy." 
 To buy ? " 
 
 " Yes, to buy. You see, they all want little sphinxes, and 
 Egyptian cats, and copper crocodiles, and brazen serpents, 
 and tear-bottles, and Etruscan coins; and I know a place 
 where they are cheap and plenty. I know where there s 
 a whole ship-load, and, bet your life, I am going to buy out 
 the whole lot." 
 
 " But I do not know anything about this," protested 
 Marietta, who felt that he had done enough ; and, at all 
 events, preferred to keep clear of any freak of the charming 
 and disappointed little Californian. 
 
 Well, now, you look here." The little lady laid hold of 
 the artist s coat, and drew him and Carlton close together. 
 " You know the old Prince call him the prince of humbugs, 
 if you like, who keeps the stall of old wares in the Mar- 
 cellus ? " 
 
 " Where your father bought a supply ? " 
 " The very place. Well, now, I m going to buy out Old 
 Antiquities, and if you don t like this business, you have 
 only to go to your friends, and my friends, and all mutual
 
 " Old Antiquities." 373 
 
 friends, who have plenty of money, and tell them that Miss 
 Mollie Wopsiis wants to see them. You have both promised 
 to help me, and now will you do this much to start on ? " 
 The men both cheerfully agreed. 
 
 " Very good ; now go, and be sure and deliver my orders, 
 and be sure that these men promise to come to me, and to 
 come at once." 
 
 Carlton gave the young girl his word, and passed into the 
 parlor, and began to talk with the General and his wife. 
 Murietta lingered a time, and when he finally and firmly re 
 fused to go with her on her speculation in the old theatre, 
 next day, she simply said, half laughing 
 
 " Very well, then call to-morrow, at this time, and I will 
 tell you all about it." 
 
 He stood a moment, then passed slowly through the half- 
 open door, to join the other party ; but, looking back over his 
 shoulder, saw the girl weeping as if her heart would break. 
 
 Then, with that impulsiveness and suddenness of action that 
 was always getting him into trouble, he turned back, took 
 the child of nature in his arms, and under the great white 
 moon, that wheeled low and large in the west, bent his head 
 and kissed her tenderly as a brother might kiss a lonely and 
 weeping sister, and then, promising certainly to join her the 
 next day in her little enterprise, he led her into the parlor. 
 
 Mr. McCreavy came, as she expected. " I have found the 
 dearest old place you know ! " began the little Californian 
 maiden, looking around, as if she feared some one would get 
 at the secret she was about to reveal. " Ah, it is the dearest 
 old place in all the world to buy antiquities. And, Mr. 
 McCreavy, knowing how learned you are, I want your 
 opinion." 
 
 The Irish millionaire bowed in profound acknowledgment, 
 and with an air that seemed to say, " You are perfectly right, 
 young woman, else how could a day laborer rise to be head 
 porter in a hotel ? and then how could an Irish head porter
 
 374 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 rise to be a millionaire, and the companion of Irish kings 
 and Italian princes?" 
 
 " Well, as I was saying," and again she looked around, as 
 if she feared her secret might escape her, " I have found this 
 place all by myself, I and the governor, and he has bought a 
 great deal, and we intend to buy a great deal more to-morrow, 
 and you see they will not last, these antiquities, they will all 
 be gone to-morrow night. And don t you know, Mr. 
 McCreavy, that they have got some of the original brazen 
 serpents that Moses set upon a pole, when, he got into trouble 
 crossing the plains ? Well, they have got some of these very 
 serpents." 
 
 The Irishman was not certain that he precisely cared to 
 have any serpents in his house, whether brazen or what 
 not, yet he was all the time secretly resolving in his heart, 
 that if the old railroad king bought any of this collec 
 tion of antiquities, he too would have his share, at any cost ; 
 for no man from California should surpass the man they 
 were . accustomed to sneer at as the porter of the Oriental 
 Hotel. 
 
 " Oh ! here comes Jones ; now Jones, you know, is father s 
 bosom friend," said Mollie, " and of course he, too, must be 
 with us, but I have promised father to let no one know a 
 word about it but Californians." 
 
 " Good, that is best ; for, barring a few more crosses, and a 
 few more baskets of beads that have been blessed by the 
 Holy Father, which I must take home for my Irish servant 
 girls you know how exacting the Irish servant girls are, 
 and how much they always expect ; well, as I was saying, 
 barring a few crosses and beads, I know of nothing I want 
 now but a few more antiquities of the far past middle ages 
 of the period of Moses." 
 
 " Well, now," said Mollie, in a whisper, and still looking 
 around, as if in great fear of listeners, " this is the only place 
 in Rome where no foreigners ever go. It is away down
 
 " Old Antiquities" 375 
 
 there among the thieves and robbers, and where they have 
 the fevers, and look here ! " 
 
 The Irishman leaned eagerly forward. 
 
 " It is kept by a Prince ! " 
 
 " No ! " 
 
 "But I tell you it is. It is the dingiest and the dread- 
 fullest place in all the old Theatre of Marcellus. And I tell 
 you it is kept by an old Italian prince who has four beauti 
 ful daughters, all countesses in their own right, and all that, 
 so that there is no mistake about it. But here I must see 
 Jones. You will not tell ? " 
 
 " Not a word." 
 
 " And you will please not go too eai ly in tlie morning. 
 Meet vis there at about twelve ; for you know the governor 
 has not yet had half his supply." 
 
 " O, never fear. I may be a little early," said the shrewd 
 Irishman, " but still I will not take anything that your 
 governor wants. The General is too dear to me for that." 
 
 And then the millionaire took his leave, and went home de 
 termined to be the first in the field next morning, and show 
 the General and Jones too, that he really did understand 
 antiquities, and prize them too. 
 
 " And now," said the designing little Mollie to herself, 
 " I shall proceed to doctor Mr. Jones," and so she did. And 
 as the General dilated on what he had bought, and exhibited 
 his collection of coins, to be taken back to California and pre 
 sented to the University at his death, Jones sighed to think 
 how he had frittered away his time, and so had really no 
 thing at all to take back with him of the Old World to show 
 his taste and industry to his countrymen. For the first time 
 he began to see how very important a personage in the eyes 
 of his fellow-citizens is the antiquarian who has spent his 
 time abroad buying and acquiring relics of the dead past. 
 
 " By George ! " said Jones, as he drove his hat unnecessarily 
 hard over his head that evening, after bidding an early good
 
 376 The One Fajr Woman. 
 
 evening to the old General and his good wife and daughter, 
 "by George ! Now here s a chance to buy a lot of this infer 
 nal antiquarian stun" by the wholesale, and hanged if I don t 
 do it ! " 
 
 Jones reached home early that evening, filled his pockets 
 with all kinds of money and plenty of it, and ordered his 
 carriage for an unusually early hour. 
 
 It was past the appointed time when the artist came to 
 the hotel next morning, and he found Mollie sitting with 
 her mother in the carriage waiting in the court for his com 
 ing. 
 
 The General had grown tired of waiting, and had gone back 
 to his study and his railroads. Perhaps he had not wanted 
 to go in the first place. 
 
 They drove rapidly to the Theatre of Marcellus. 
 
 " The dear old Prince," said Mollie, still pouting a little 
 over the tardiness of the artist, " the dear old prince of anti 
 quities, he will begin to think I did not intend to keep my 
 word." 
 
 Soon they drew up before the shop. 
 
 " This is not the place," said Mollie. 
 
 " It looks like the place," said Murietta ; " but it is shut 
 up. Perhaps the old man is sick." 
 
 " No, no, no," remonstrated Mollie, " he is not sick, unless 
 he is sick at heart and disgusted that I did not keep niy pro 
 mise. Come, we will drive there. We will see your palace 
 again ; " and the Californian girl gave the order, as only a 
 Californian girl can, without asking the consent or opinion of 
 any one, and in a moment they were turning around a corner 
 and making their way through the crowd of peasants in the 
 street of the Via Montenare. 
 
 Under the low arch, up the broken steps with the long 
 grass, up by the blue Madonna with the perpetual lamp at 
 her feet, up the narrow stone steps, and the artist threw back 
 his cloak, fumbled in his pocket, and then the old door
 
 " Old Antiquities" 377 
 
 groaned and opened its wide mouth, and swallowed the party 
 without another word. 
 
 Mollie fell to feeding the little yellow bird that bobbed and 
 bounded about in its wire prison, and Mrs. Wops us looked 
 out over the pleasant Palatine in the distance, while the artist 
 rang the bell for a Countess, that he might inquire after the 
 health of the old Prince. 
 
 A Countess came to the door, saw Mollie feeding the little 
 yellow favorite ; and then she fell at the feet of the Cali- 
 fornian girl, and laid hold of her very shoes, soiled and dusty 
 as they were, and wept and laughed with delight by turns. 
 
 " Well ! " said Murietta to himself, " that one is not much 
 account to answer questions, guess I shall have to ring up 
 another." He pulled the bell, and pulled out another 
 Countess through the door. But to his amazement, this one, 
 too, the moment she saw the confused and embarrassed girl, 
 fell at her feet beside her sister, and also burst into tears. 
 
 " Well, that s incomprehensible ! " said the artist. " I 
 must have some one to explain," and he again pulled the 
 bell. 
 
 Then another Countess, and lo ! she too fell at the feet of 
 the Californian girl, and wept and laughed with her sisters. 
 
 Murietta was getting almost as embarrassed as Mollie, who 
 had stood there all this time, turning red and more red each 
 time a Countess came out and fell at her feet. He rushed 
 back and pulled the bell with all his might. 
 
 The door opened. The fourth Countess came, and came 
 as if she was a little frightened at the loud manner in which 
 the bell had rang. But no sooner did she see the face and 
 figure of Mollie than she went down on her face before her, 
 and mingled her tears with those of her sisters. 
 
 The artist scratched his head. Then, not knowing what 
 else to do, and possibly not really knowing what he did, he 
 reached and once more pulled the bejl as if he would break 
 its heart-strings.
 
 378 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 This time there was a shuffling noise, and the old Prince 
 stood in the door in his slippers, while the Count stood look 
 ing over his shoulder at the scene before him. The old 
 Prince had a great roll of bank notes and Italian money of 
 many colors in his hand. 
 
 " You did not keep your promise," cried Mollie, as she 
 saw. the Prince, for she was glad to have something to say to 
 break this singular gathering of black clouds that had quite 
 alarmed her. 
 
 " Keep my promise, lady ! O lady, you are my patron 
 saint ! Surely you are the Madonna in disguise ! " And 
 here the old man himself fell down on his knees, and left the 
 Count Paolini standing all alone. 
 
 " You are an angel ! I am a devil, but you are an angel ! " 
 cried the Count ; and then he too fell iipoii his knees before 
 her. 
 
 " What in the woi-ld does it all mean ? Come, old Prince, 
 get tip, I want to buy your antiquities." 
 
 " Buy my worthless antiquities, lady ! Thank heaven, 
 they have all been sold these two hours, and the shop is shut. 
 1 am now indeed a Prince. And I have also escaped the sin 
 of selling to you, my dearest friend, these worthless wares, 
 for your friends have bought them all, and at my own 
 price." 
 
 The dark clouds about the feet of the new Madonna had 
 gently risen, and some of them were leaning out of the win 
 dow by the yellow little bird as the old man finished this 
 speech, and rose up with Count Paolini ; and Mollie now 
 stood quite alone, and seemed a little embarrassed at the 
 thought of how much good she had done to this really good 
 old man and his grateful and beautiful daughters. 
 
 She, too, turned to feed the little bird as before ; and then, 
 suddenly unfastening the hanging cage, she turned to the 
 Prince and the Count, and holding it up before her, while the 
 yellow little captive flew from wire to wire, and chirped and
 
 " Old Antiqtiities" 379 
 
 bowed, and bowed and chirped, as if he was bowing and 
 chirping good bye to every one at once, she said, " I have 
 nothing to love now but this little yellow bird. I will take 
 this bird ! " And then she turned to go ; and as her mother 
 and Marietta followed, the ladies crow ded around and kissed 
 her hands as she held the cage up as if to ward them off; but 
 the Count did not dare to speak, and the old Prince stood in 
 the door bowing profoundly, and all the time washing his 
 hands as if he now would really like to wash off the stains 
 of the acids, and forget that he had ever had to do with 
 them. 
 
 " Murietta," said Mollie with a sigh, " I have one more 
 favor to ask," as they drove up past the base of the great 
 stairs leading to the top of the Capitoline by the little she- wolf. 
 
 " And if it is in my power I will grant it. Tell me what 
 it is." 
 
 " I want you to buy me that she- wolf ; for I have nothing 
 now in the world to love but this little yellow bird." The 
 delicate little chin of the girl quivered as she spoke, and 
 looked down at the chirping yellow creature springing from 
 wire to wire, and Mi s. Wopsus burst into tears. 
 
 " Why, my dear Mollie, Rome would part rather with the ( 
 pope than that little she-wolf. But here ! " He called outj 
 to the driver, and, dismounting at a well-known turn in the 
 street, soon had a whole menagerie of pets sent to the car 
 riage. 
 
 Mollie was not hard to please. She chose an enormous 
 white-winged cockatoo from Africa and a little brown poodle 
 dog, not much larger than a mouse, and the party soon drew 
 up at the hotel. 
 
 Mollie remained very thoughtful for hours. After dinner 
 she said to her father suddenly : " You wish me to return to 
 school ? " 
 
 " Ah, my daughter," said the General affectionately, " if 
 you only would return to school for a few years ! "
 
 380 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 " Say no more about it. I am going. I am going back 
 to school with Johnny in the morning. And you are to take 
 me, take me and the little yellow fidgetty, the brown mouse 
 bull dog, and the great big screaming cockatoo and all !" 
 
 " And all," cried the happy old General. " Everything 
 you want in the world, Mollie, only go back again to school, 
 and get away from these hollow, cunning, and cold-hearted 
 fortune-hunters ! " 
 
 " Yes, I am going, we will go to-morrow ; " and then she 
 rose up and kissed the old General very tenderly, and then 
 kissed her mother till both burst into tears ; and then in a 
 few moments this little April shower had blown over, and all 
 seemed perfectly happy. 
 
 Mollie and Marietta sat out on the balcony late that night, 
 and watched the great white moon settle and settle away in 
 the west till it touched the Mediterranean Sea. 
 
 " It is my last night in Rome, or in society at all for a 
 long time ; and I want you to stay here and talk to me, for I 
 shall be a little lonesome." And so he remained and talked 
 to the little lady of the Far West of all things, of anything 
 except the one sad subject that he feared might still be eating 
 at her heart. 
 
 At last it was time to retire, and the two stood together 
 on the balcony and he bade the brave, warm-hearted little 
 woman farewell, and he kissed her with a brother s kiss. 
 
 Suddenly she turned, as they were passing through the 
 door to join her parents in the parlor, and said, half savagely, 
 with her little fist lifted in the air, " Do you know what I 
 should have done if Paolini had been a man ? " 
 
 " You mean if you had been a man, Mollie." 
 
 " No, I don t. I mean if Paolini had been a man ; or if 
 he had been even the tenth part of a man. Nay, had he 
 been the hundredth part of the man that I am myself j do 
 you know what I would have done ? "
 
 " Old Antiquities." 381 
 
 " I do not know, Mollie." 
 
 " I would have murdered him ! " She fairly hissed the 
 words through her teeth. " I would have shot him through 
 the heart to-day ! Shot him through the heart ! Bet your 
 life ! "
 
 CHAPTER XLIV. 
 
 " I HAVE SOMETHING TO TELL 
 
 YOU." 
 
 FEW days after the last scene, 
 Muiietta, with the Secretary and 
 Carlton, sauntered out of Rome 
 for a walk in the Borghese. 
 They passed through the Porto 
 Populo, turned to the right, and 
 passed under the extended wings 
 of the great eagles that sit above 
 the massive gates of the roads 
 under the north-east wall of the city. 
 
 This was the season for such a walk. It was 
 just the thing to do. All Rome was daily pursu 
 ing the same thing ; with the exception that half 
 of Rome rode in carriages, and a portion still 
 were on horseback, including the King of Italy, 
 the Crown Prince, and a small army of officers of 
 their suite. 
 
 The woods were in full leaf, the grass grew long and 
 strong, and leaned in the soft wind that blew through the 
 trees, and there was the sound of bees in the white blos 
 soms of the locust boughs overhead, and birds and butterflies 
 wound and wound through the boughs, and all things seemed 
 full of life, and tranquil life and rest and peace.
 
 " / have Something to tell You" 383 
 
 Away out yonder on the lawn, under the wall, were a lot 
 of monks in long red gowns playing at ball, and shouting at 
 each other like children. Some of these red monks were 
 black, curly-headed negroes. 
 
 Carriages were coming and going by hundreds. People 
 passed on foot in light and airy dress, and horsemen galloped 
 past in pairs, and men lifted their hats in silent respect as 
 tho royal party rode on under the waving boughs, and on by 
 the many fountains. 
 
 Our friends reached the heart of the lonely wood, and there 
 leaving the carriage road, went down a stair of stones toge 
 ther toward a little valley of deeper wood, with dark and 
 mysterious walks, and fountains playing at every cross of the 
 many iiiterwinding walks through the silent and most 
 romantic wood. 
 
 Some swans were floating idly around under the plash and 
 fall of the fountain, and children were feeding them from 
 their little hands whenever they could induce them near 
 enough to the brink of the great stone basin in which they 
 swam. 
 
 " Ah, this was a land to battle for," said Carlton, swing 
 ing his cane in the air, and catching a glimpse of the blue 
 skies through the boughs and blossoms overhead. 
 
 " When Rome was Rome," said the Secretary, " and there 
 stood on every hill a new Jerusalem, as it were, what won 
 der that men gave soul and body for the hope of holding her 
 reins in hand but a single day." 
 
 " The skies are the same," said Murietta, the woods aro 
 the same, the birds and the butterflies, they blow about us 
 the same as they did around the golden chariots of the Cae 
 sars. Ah, my friends, it is not the city that thrills you this 
 morning. It is the wood, the air, the sky, Nature. There 
 needs to be no new Jerusalem on a hill to challenge your 
 admiration this morning. This is perfection. Man will 
 never make it finer, build his cities as he may ! No, it is not
 
 384 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 the city. You may build a palace seven stories high, and 
 after all it is not much nearer Heaven than a wigwam." And 
 the man half sighed as he remembered the Countess, whose 
 thought he had first expressed. 
 
 Thus admiring, talking carelessly, walking slowly on, they 
 carne soon to the carriage drive on the other side of the 
 wood, for the place is limited, and the road makes a circuit 
 around the little valley Avith the deep dense wood. Our 
 friends had crossed the valley, and coming now out of the 
 thick of the wood, they saw a number of carriages drawn up 
 under the trees on the grass at the side of the drive by a 
 plashing fountain. They drew near this fountain, for some 
 tall dark men, in the costume of the desert, Arabs they were, 
 had dismounted, and, oddly enough, were leading their supple 
 horses up to drink at the fountain; just as if they were out 
 on a great desert, and had suddenly come upon a well. 
 
 Murietta s admiration for the horse was always great ; but 
 now, to see these children of nature, here, in this old civiliza 
 tion, dismount and devote their first care to their supple and 
 sinewy friends, whom they talked to and treated as brothers, 
 he was quite carried away, and noticed no one, nothing but 
 these tall dark men, these Ishmselites, with their strange his 
 tory and wild life of the desert, and their beautiful horses. 
 He left his companions, and passed at the back of the party of 
 Arabs, and under the deeper hanging wood, where there were 
 but few carriages, to get a better view of the splendid steeds 
 as they stretched their necks and gratefully drank from the 
 fountain. 
 
 " I have escaped from my prison, you see, ha, ha, ha ! " 
 
 " Good heavens ! " The man threw up his hand to his 
 face like a child that is frightened, and took a step backward. 
 
 "Are you well? How are you ? And how does it happen 
 that you are on foot, when the king and all his court are so 
 gaily mounted to-day, and riding through the woods ? " 
 
 The lady laughed a little as she spoke, and, raising her
 
 " / have Something to tell You!" 1 385 
 
 head, looked to the left down the wood as if she was ex 
 pecting some one, and was in fear that he would come too 
 soon. 
 
 The artist stepped forward mechanically, touched the little 
 pink and pearl hand ; and then, as it fluttered about and 
 finally settled, as it always did settle, on the bed of rose and 
 pink before the beautiful Countess, lifted his hat, passed the 
 compliments of the day, and was stepping back and away 
 into the crowd. 
 
 The lady lifted her hand, leaned forward, looked very 
 serious at the artist ; and then, glancing suddenly over her 
 shoulder, as if to be sure she was not watched or overheard, 
 she turned her great brown eyes, now half full of tears, full 
 upon the artist, and said : 
 
 " I have something to tell you. Come here. For heaven s 
 sake do not leave me. This may be the last time I shall see 
 you. I only managed to escape this morning from my prison 
 by the skin of my teeth. Come ! " 
 
 The man stepped back, and stood by the carriage very 
 awkwardly, and very much concerned ; for the lady seemed 
 wild and excited beyond any reason. 
 
 She looked once more over her shoulder, nervously. " They 
 are down there." The little pearl hand fluttered in the 
 direction of the deep wood. 
 
 " They will be back in a minute. You see I cannot shake 
 them off for a moment. They have got my little boy ; my 
 little Sunshine, as you call him." 
 
 The artist caught a nervous fear from the lady, as if it had 
 been a fever ; and he, too, began to look down the wood and 
 feel a dread that they would come. Perhaps this was in 
 sympathy for the lady, who really seemed to suffer with 
 terror at the thought of seeing them. 
 
 " Do you know," she lifted her finger to her lip, " do you 
 know they are trying to get my little boy away from me, try 
 ing to turn him against me, and make him hate me ? " 
 
 IT
 
 386 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 Murietta did not answer. He began to feel a sympathy 
 that was tearing his heart out. 
 
 " Well, they are," she continued, still glancing now and 
 then over her shoulder, and once more lifting her finger to 
 her lips, " they are doing everything to turn him against me, 
 and get him away, and to make him hate me. And that is 
 not all ; nay, that is not half. Half! that is nothing that is 
 nothing at all. But do you know what fearful thing thoy 
 are trying to do ? " 
 
 The artist again looked blank, but did not answer, save 
 with his eyes. 
 
 " I will tell you. Look here. Lean your head a little 
 further." 
 
 The artist stepped close, and she reached out her face, now 
 all aglow, and once more looking over her shoulder, she said 
 excitedly : 
 
 " They are trying to make him a Catholic ! " 
 Then the lady s face grew suddenly white, and she settled 
 back in her bed of pink and rose, and the little pearl hand 
 lay on her lap as dead and helpless as if it was to never rise 
 up any more. 
 
 If there had been a grain of selfishness in the make-up of 
 this man, he now would certainly have lifted his hat and 
 turned away. There are men who suffer more from the ner 
 vous fears and concerns of others than from their own. 
 Murietta was such a man as this. He was a man who had 
 suffered terribly and intensely all his life ; yet he despised 
 suffering when that suffering was his own. When the affair 
 was one of his own, he would rise up, take the bit in his teeth. 
 if the occasion was great enough to demand it, and right 
 things and revenge them, or else bear and be satisfied. But 
 when it was another who suffered, a fair and a beautiful 
 woman, full of soul and sentiment, and one whom he could 
 not assist, then he, through this sympathetic nature of his, 
 suffered too, and even more terribly than she.
 
 " I have Something to tell You" 387 
 
 Standing there before her, all the sunshine of the day was 
 driven away. He became most utterly overcast. A cold 
 moist wind seemed blowing on him, and rasping his nerves 
 with a chill and damp that went to the marrow. 
 
 He wanted to get away, and yet his unselfish, sympathetic 
 nature bade him stand there and suffer while she suffered. 
 
 He lifted his eyes and looked from under the boughs over 
 and across the fountain, for the Arabs were now leading their 
 horses away and mounting them in the edge of the open road. 
 Watching these men, for want of something better to do, while 
 he stood there, his eyes met the eyes of Carl ton. He had 
 been looking at him all this time. Glancing around the 
 crowd, he saw that others, too, were noticing him, and frown 
 ing or half sneering as if he had been caught in a crime. 
 
 It was his turn now to turn pale. The whole thing flashed 
 on his mind in a moment. " Then they saw me put down 
 my face to hers to hear her tell her trouble. They saw her 
 reach her hand, saw her fall back in the carriage as if some 
 thing terrible had been said or done." He pulled his cloak 
 close about his shoulders, for he was growing chill, even in a 
 Roman summer. 
 
 The Countess half straightened in her seat, and looking up 
 under the sweeping boughs down a sloping walk towards a 
 fountain, she said, " They are coming," and then she smiled 
 in the old half-sad fashion, as if nothing had happened, for 
 she caught sight of her little boy sailing along with his hat 
 in his hand and his hair on the morning wind, as he ran in 
 chase of a butterfly. 
 
 " How beautiful he is this morning," said Marietta. 
 
 " Do you know," said the Countess, now quite recovered, 
 " that I am perfectly certain that children come to us di 
 rectly and immediately from among the angels ? " 
 
 " And pray," smiled Murietta, " how came you by such 
 pleasant knowledge ? " 
 
 " Oh, I know it by the way they behave, by their actions.
 
 388 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 See look ut my little boy there, as lie runs in chase of the 
 butterfly. How light and airy he is. He is hardly yet of 
 the earth. You see he can almost fly even yet. He is more 
 of heaven than earth, even though he has already been here 
 for some years." 
 
 The old Admiral was glorious in his summer sailor s clothes 
 and low-crowned hat, with its immense band, just as we have 
 seen him at Genoa. He walked with the same swagger 
 through the beautiful avenue by the musical fountains as he 
 did at the first. Beauty, melody, nature, had nothing in 
 common with him, and took no hold on his hard and uncom 
 promising soul. 
 
 " Oh, that monster ! Must I for ever remain in the power 
 of that man ? " The lady hid her face as she said this, and 
 shuddered and trembled. 
 
 Murietta s blood was in his face once more. He was 
 about to speak, about to throw back his cloak and ask per 
 mission of the Countess to fly at the throat of this man who 
 was persecuting her, whomsoever he might be, and strangle 
 him on the spot ; when she went on kindly, as she uncovered 
 her face : 
 
 " You made me a promise." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " You promised that when I sent my maid to you sent 
 any one with word to you that I needed you, you would 
 come." 
 
 " Yes," he said, emphatically. 
 
 "Lift your hand." 
 
 He lifted his hand from out his cloak and in the air above 
 his head. 
 
 " You swear to keep your promise ? " 
 
 " I swear to keep my promise." 
 
 " There, that is well," and she sank back again as the men 
 drew near. Then, suddenly rising up and leaning forward, 
 she said, " Here is a secret. My father is coming. My old,
 
 " / have Something to tell You" 389 
 
 old father. He is old and he is dying, but he is coming to 
 take me out of Italy and away from these people who hold 
 me here, or die with. me. He is coming. They will try to 
 keep him from coming ; they have kept him from me for 
 years, but he will be here soon. They will try to keep him 
 from seeing me when he comes. But you " 
 
 The men were passing through the wood but a few steps 
 distant. The old Admiral had his hat in his left hand, and 
 was reaching the other to Marietta. 
 
 " Glad to see you, Mr. Murietta. You know I am a blunt 
 but honest sailor." 
 
 The Countess leaned forward, and almost screamed these 
 words, " Don t touch his hand, he is a murderer."
 
 CHAPTER XLV. 
 
 WHAT THEY SAY. 
 
 HE Count was not at all want 
 ing in politeness this morn 
 ing. Italians never are, ex 
 cept it be to their wives or 
 their servants, but it seemed 
 to Murietta, who stood there 
 quietly on his ground and 
 also on his guard, that he was 
 just a little over-anxious to 
 gel in the carriage and get his wife 
 away. 
 
 "That man," said the artist, after 
 lifting his hat to the Countess, as the 
 carriage whirled away, (< that man 
 simply has a property in that woman. 
 Whatever they may say, he is a knave ; 
 and if he is not as great a knave as 
 
 the Admiral, it is not because he lacks the motive, but the 
 brain." 
 
 " Beautiful horses," said the Secretary, looking in the di 
 rection the Arabs had just taken down the drive. 
 
 "Yes, and beautiful men those fellows of the desert," an 
 swered Murietta, as the three friends once more fell in to-
 
 What They Say. 391 
 
 gether and sought the deeper shade, for the sun was now high 
 and hot when yon were not protected by the wood or the 
 plash of a fountain. 
 
 " Ah, but my friend Marietta," laughed Carlton, " has a 
 better eye for beautiful women than beautiful horses, or 
 beautiful men either ! " 
 
 " So I fear, so I fear ; and if a Secretary may be permitted 
 to say as much, all Rome is perfectly well aware of the fact." 
 
 " Gentlemen," said Murietta, earnestly and emphatically, 
 " that for what all Rome may say ! " and he snapped his fin 
 gers in the air with a force not to be mistaken ; " but as for 
 that lady, the lady to whom I spoke, and of whom you speak, 
 she is a stranger here in a strange land, and in trouble." 
 
 (( Ah," said the good Secretary, quietly, " that is a good 
 beginning for a novel ! " 
 
 " Come, come, Murietta, you are indeed stating a strong 
 case! The lady may be a stranger, and also in a strange 
 land, but she is hardly among strangers." 
 
 " Please to explain," said Murietta, as they walked on 
 through the wood together. 
 
 " Well, a lady who is with her husband and has her chil 
 dren or her child about her, and has besides an income that 
 supports a palace and a small army of servants, can hardly 
 be said to be among strangers ! " 
 
 " And then the Count is so very, very kind. Why, do you 
 know," said the Secretary, " he can scarcely speak of her or 
 her malady without tears ? " 
 
 " Her malady ! " exclaimed Murietta, stopping short in the 
 road, as he moved between his two friends. 
 
 " Yes, her malady. The Countess, did you not know it, is 
 mad." 
 
 " Then so am I mad ! " answered the man with earnest 
 ness. 
 
 " Not at all unlikely ! " laughed Carltou, " only your mad 
 ness, my dear boy, is a sort of innocence that makes us like
 
 392 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 you all the more, and not afraid to be with you ; while that 
 of the Countess is of a dangerous nature, and the poor Count 
 has no alternative but to put her in a mad-house, or keep a 
 constant watch over her." 
 
 " And how noble it is in him to give up his life to taking 
 care of her," said the Secretary zealously. " Why, the old 
 Admiral tells me that the Count scarcely sleeps from one 
 week s end to another." 
 
 " The Admiral ! " said Murietta with a sneer, as he 
 thought of what the Countess had just hissed in his ear. 
 
 " Ah, I see," returned the Secretary, " you are disposed to 
 laugh at the rough but honest old sailor, but he is just the 
 man for the place. You could not expect a prince or a man 
 of an over-sensitive nature to consent to become the guardian 
 or body-guard, as it were, of a mad woman. No, no, it 
 takes pluck, and patience, and gentleness, and a great deal of 
 good sound sense and firmness ; and all these qualities the 
 old Admiral possesses, I am sure." 
 
 " I am bound to say I never liked the old Admiral," added 
 Carlton. " He is either a very flat old fool, or a very deep 
 knave, and I do not know which ; and besides, 1 do not know 
 that it is any of my business." 
 
 " No, no ; he is neither the one nor the other. I know the 
 man, and I know human natiire. We novelists must study 
 human nature. We must make it a specialty in order to 
 succeed. That is my specialty. Well, this man, the Ad 
 miral, is simply an honest, happy-go-lucky old seaman, 
 who is honest to the core himself, and of course thinks 
 every one else so. For my part, I should like first-rate to 
 put him in a novel, as the hero of a great humanitarian 
 enterprise, and a man who went about in a blunt, honest 
 way, doing good to every one, and not asking or expecting 
 any return." 
 
 " I am afraid there would be but little good done in the 
 world, if it was left for that man to do it," said the artist,
 
 What They Say. 393 
 
 " and I should be very sorry to fall in with your hero on the 
 highway of a night, I assure you ! " 
 
 " Why ! good heavens ! do you fear that he would rob 
 you?" " 
 
 " He would either rob me or run away." 
 
 " Ha, you painters, you study only nature generally. We 
 novelists study human nature. If we did not, we would not 
 get on. You can give me the tints and the bloom and the 
 beauty of that bank of rose and briar to a nicety and preci 
 sion that I would despair of, but you cannot tell one man. 
 or one man s motive, where I, as a novelist, can tell a hun 
 dred." 
 
 " Well, well, whatever there is in the old Admiral, either 
 good or bad, it matters little to me ; but I do pity the poor 
 Count from the bottom of my heart ; for he has a hard time 
 of it, and all Rome sympathizes with him most deeply," said 
 Carlton. 
 
 " And the lady ? " said M urietta, stopping suddenly again, 
 and looking Carlton in the face inquiringly. 
 
 " Well, yes ; I pity the lady too, I suppose. At least I 
 had not thought of that. She somehow never seemed to 
 challenge my sympathy. She is always smiling, always ban 
 tering, sometimes saying very wild and often very pointed 
 things." 
 
 " While he, her lord, who sits in watch and judgment over 
 her," said Murietta, as they moved on, "does ask yoxi for 
 pity, does pose and profess, and bend down and keep himself 
 all the time in favor with the world, like a hound as he is, 
 winning the world s good will at the risk of his wife s good 
 name." 
 
 The party had passed through the valley of close wood, and 
 climbed the stone steps before the fountain. 
 
 " We will meet this evening," said the Secretary, reaching 
 his hand, as if glad to break off the unpleasant subject of the 
 unfortunate Countess, " this evening at the palace of the 
 
 17*
 
 394 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 cloudy old General, who is all the time dreaming and drifting 
 away on his battle-cloud." 
 
 " And may we meet in peace ! " smiled Marietta. He 
 took his hand and said good-bye, as if he had just now thought 
 of this approaching evening for the first time ; when it had 
 been in his heart, been standing there as the one great coming 
 event of his life, every hour since he had met her in that 
 little heaven at the head of the long and tiresome corkscrew 
 stairs the week before. 
 
 How cunning is love ! He deceives everyone. He will be 
 frank with no one. He deceives the heart he dwells in most 
 of all. 
 
 The two artists moved on down the slope toward the gate 
 with great stone eagles over it, in silence. The red monks 
 had finished their game of ball, and were now gathering .to 
 gether in groups in the long grass and out of the sun. The 
 king, too, had gone back with his suite from his morning 
 ride, and the many carriages were gradually finding the gate 
 that led out of the wood and back to Rome. 
 
 Carriages were passing down the drive toward the gate in 
 hundreds, as our friends kept on under the locust trees, that 
 were white and fragrant with flowers and full of the drowsy 
 sound of bees. 
 
 Murietta was thinking, and he was thinking too of the 
 Countess with the deepest concern. He was conscious that 
 he had done nothing, said nothing, nay, thought nothing 
 whatever that could possibly have been construed, either by 
 the world or by her, into an improper act or word or thought, 
 or anything but the highest and most holy motive. 
 
 And yet Rome was loud with her name and his, if the not 
 over-sensitive Carlton, and the very stupid but good-natured 
 Secretary were to be believed. What could he do? He 
 turned this over and over in his mind ; and then, feeling still 
 helpless and at the mercy of the many idle tongues, he found 
 relief in the fact that he had promised to stand by her side if
 
 What They Say. 395 
 
 ever she needed assistance, and the further fact that her 
 father was on his way to Rome, and so with an effort dis 
 missed the subject from his mind. 
 
 They were passing under an arch by some sarcophagi and 
 an obelisk, where the drive is very narrow, and the carriages 
 were jammed and blocked for a moment in the road. 
 
 The artist lifted his eyes, and then let them fall in an in 
 stant, as if they had received the full light of the sun. 
 
 He lifted his eyes again and bowed. The lady, the one 
 fair woman, Annette, had recognized him, and inclined her 
 head from her carriage, where she sat by the side of her 
 father the General, who still rode on his battle-cloud and saw 
 no one. 
 
 The carriage passed on instantly, but the lady half turned 
 her head, half looked back over her shoulder as she whirled 
 out of sight ; looked back at the artist in the old way as he 
 had ever painted her. But this time she smiled, and the man 
 was made more happy than he had been that morning with 
 all the smiles of nature in his face. 
 
 The gay and careless Oarlton stopped suddenly, with his 
 feet on the edge of the green grass under a white locust 
 tree with the sound of the bees above them, and, turning 
 sharp, looked his friend in the face, and said slowly but 
 severely : 
 
 " You are a fool ! " 
 
 " Since you are so in earnest," answered Murietta, also 
 stopping and looking up as if at the bees in the locust blos 
 soms, " you perhaps will be kind enough to tell me on what 
 particular act of mine you base this voluntary but no doubt 
 very honest opinion." 
 
 " Well," said Carlton, half leaning against the locust tree, 
 and also looking up at the bees, as if he felt rather in doubt 
 about the ground on which he was now about to tread once 
 more, " well, you see that I happen to know you have been 
 following this beautiful lady, the belle of Italy, for years."
 
 396 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 11 And ? " queried Murietta, half smiling, and looking away 
 to the left under the locust boughs at a party of red monks. 
 
 " And you have found her, and she favors you as she 
 would not favor a prince ! Why, just fancy," and here the 
 man brought his eyes down from the bees up in the white 
 blossoms, "just fancy a lady in her position picking you out 
 of this vast army of vagabonds here on foot, and turning in 
 her carriage and speaking to you with her eyes, and looking 
 after you down the avenue." 
 
 " And therefore I am a fool ; a fortunate fool, eh ? " 
 
 "No, not therefore. Not for that," answered the other 
 seriously. " No, my friend Murietta, you are so blind and 
 so careless of the great world that crushes or crowns us. 
 Pardon me for alluding to the Countess once more, after what 
 passed in the Cafe Greco." 
 
 " Go on," answered Murietta, still looking away under the 
 white boughs at the red monks moving along the sward of 
 long green grass, with the great brown wall of Rome for a 
 background. " Go on, you are pardoned for all your sins in 
 that direction, according to the Church, for forty days to 
 come." 
 
 "Well, then, do you not know that when that fair lady 
 Annette leaned from her carriage and looked at you, she 
 looked at you through a cloud, a perfect thunder-cloud, that 
 you have brought about your own head with your own 
 hands. 
 
 " Heavens ! what do you speak of ? " 
 
 " I speak of the Countess again, your pink Countess and 
 the poor half-distracted Count. If there is no one in Rome 
 among all your admirers friend enough to tell you of your 
 folly, I will take the resposibility myself." 
 
 " But what have I done? " aaked Murietta eagerly, looking 
 his friend in the face. 
 
 " Nought, so far as I know. In fact I know I, who know- 
 that you love but this one fair woman who has just passed,
 
 What They Say. 397 
 
 know perfectly well that you have done nothing ; or, at least, 
 if you have done anything, you have done it with the best of 
 intentions. But the world, Murietta, does not know it the 
 great big world does not know you." 
 
 " Then pray tell me what this great big world, as yoxi call 
 it, says of my sin." 
 
 " Well," began Carlton, as he laid one forefinger medita 
 tively across the other, and speaking very slowly and 
 earnestly, " the old Admiral says, and the great-little world 
 of Rome believes him, that you are winning the affections of 
 the Countess away from her lord, and that she is too weak of 
 mind to resist ; that, in fact, you are about to betray and 
 mislead and ruin a lady who is insane and irresponsible." 
 
 Marietta s fingers twitched nervously, and his lips were pale 
 as ashes. lie reached out to the hedge, and plucking a bunch 
 of budding roses and twigs and leaves, he crushed them all 
 together between his fingers, but did not answer. 
 " It sounds dreadful, does it not? " 
 
 " It is a crime," said Murietta at last, with a sigh, " by 
 the side of which murder is but a child s amusement ! " 
 
 " Of course I know better. And to come back to the fair 
 lady who has just passed, and who looked on you so favor 
 ably, she, too, must know better. Yet, seeing her so friendly, 
 and remembering that you had just left the side of the Coun 
 tess, I could not help saying as I did You are a fool." 
 
 " Well, I may be a fool. But, Carlton, that Admiral is a 
 knave of the deepest quality, and that Count is a scoundrel 
 and a coward. And what is more, now mark me, that Coun 
 tess is no more insane than yourself." 
 
 Carlton shrugged his shoulders, and looked away up the 
 avenue at the approaching night. 
 
 " She is in trouble ; and so far from being insane, it takes 
 all the talent of these two scoundrels to watch her. Two 
 men, you see, against one poor invalid woman." 
 
 " Ah ! but you know," cried Carlton, " these lunatics are
 
 398 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 oftentimes the most cunning, and often elude the whole set 
 of keepers at an asylum." 
 
 " No matter. She is not insane. I have served her in a 
 small way. I stand ready to do so even to the risk of life." 
 
 "You risk more than life, you risk your good name." 
 
 " So much the more credit and honour ! A dog can die. 
 It is something more than death, however, to give name and 
 fame and all, and die disgraced. Yet this I stand ready to do. 
 And mark me. Since this thing is being said of me, I shall 
 -walk through Rome, reach my hand to this lady, and defy 
 them all." 
 
 " Well, you will find yourself alone. Here, shake hands ! 
 The lady has not one friend in the city. I tell you the whole 
 town is in sympathy with the Count, and that she stands 
 alone." 
 
 " Then ten times the reason I should stand by her side. O 
 brave city ! most valiant little world ! to take the side so 
 unanimously of the strong ! " 
 
 " Come, we will not shake hands now," said Carlton, as he 
 passed his hand through the arm of his friend, and the two 
 went on slowly down the avenue, " but I will tell you what 
 to do." 
 
 " Well, I will hear you with patience." 
 
 " If," began Carlton, throwing up his head, " if, as you 
 imagine, an American lady is being imposed upon, and is the 
 victim of some plot in this strange land, then lay the matter 
 before the consul. But be advised, and do not commit your 
 self to this lady s follies or freaks, whatever they may be." 
 
 " The American consul ? " 
 
 "Yes, the American consul." 
 
 " Carlton, do you know what an American consul is ? 
 Well, he is a poor, lean, hungry dyspeptic, whose greatest 
 achievement in life has been in procuring the place he occ\i- 
 pi.es, and whose sole capacity is addressed to the work of hold 
 ing it."
 
 What They Say. 399 
 
 " But they are here in these foreign lands for the purpose 
 of protecting strangers." 
 
 " Possibly away back in the early history of the govern 
 ment there existed a tradition to that effect, but it is now 
 obsolete. The business of the politic, cautious, and noncom- 
 mittant consul of to-day is to protect himself. But besides, 
 in justice to these poor pensioners, who have served some 
 political master at home and are now having their meagre re 
 ward or rather punishment, you must know that they have but 
 little power and less money. They can affix a seal to a docu 
 ment, and send home a sailor who has been unjustly discharged 
 in a foreign land, and there their power and authority ends." 
 
 Carlton looked incredulous. 
 
 " All this is strictly true," continued Murietta, " They 
 have a name and that is all. They have hardly bread enough 
 to live upon. They are literally like the Italian nobility of the 
 Ghetto. I happen to know the consul at Naples. He is a 
 gentleman, a perfect gentleman, and a very learned man, yet 
 he has neither power nor money. He is literally starved. I 
 think he is the leanest American I ever saw abroad." 
 
 " No," said Murietta emphatically, as they passed through 
 the gate, and Carlton was still silent, " if you want anyone 
 helped in Italy, don t fancy you can find a consul either ca 
 pable or willing to assist. You must do it yourself." 
 
 " Well, well," said C arlton at last, as if he had been think 
 ing, " suppose you help this lady in any imaginary trouble, 
 what will come of that, and where will it end ? " 
 
 " Time enough to think of the consequence, Carlton, after 
 the task. I am not a merchant. I am a soldier by nature, 
 and a knight by birth and culture. I am not a cautious man 
 or a coward. Caution belongs to politicians." 
 
 " However, we leave Rome soon," said Carlton, with an 
 other light toss of the head, " and then there will be at leasfc 
 the end of one chapter of the story, if not one volume." 
 
 " Yes, that I know was our agreement. We leave Rome to-
 
 400 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 gether for Venice, and the time agreed upon comes on but " 
 
 he turned, lifted his finger as both stopped, and again looked 
 the man in the face before him, " I have just promised the 
 Countess not to leave Rome till her father arrives, and I will 
 not." 
 
 The two men looked at each other again, one with a sort of 
 remonstrance in his face, and the other with quiet determina 
 tion, and then they moved on with the crowd. 
 I " And when will her father arrive ? " asked Carlton, in a 
 half doubting, half moody manner. 
 
 " I do not know. But he will certainly be here before long. 
 It is safe to say he will be here before our day of departure, so 
 do not yet borrow any trouble in that quarter. Possibly he 
 will arrive to-morrow." 
 
 " And if he arrives to-morrow ? " 
 
 " If he arrives to-morrow, or whenever he does arrive, my 
 relations with the Countess cease. He will be able to protect 
 her from the wretches that surround her." 
 
 " To protect her from her husband," half laughed Carlton. 
 
 " Certainly ! to protect her from her husband," cried the 
 artist, emphatically. " Do you not know that there are such 
 things as tyrants and gaolers and all but murderers in some 
 palaces ? Do you not know that the handsome man, the mar 
 rying man, the good fellow, as he is called by his friends 
 the man who gives his time to his friends, his money to the 
 wine dealer, and God knows what to his wife, is half the time 
 a murderer ? " 
 
 Again Carlton was arrested, and, as they passed by a 
 fountain, turned and looked amazed at his friend, as he con 
 tinued 
 
 " These petty tyrants are wife murderers, they kill their 
 wives by inches. They sometimes drive them into a madhouse, 
 but oftener drive them into eternity. And what is most 
 terrible, they know it. These handsome, gay, gallant, carpet 
 knights, who are all the time bowing before the world and
 
 What They Say. 401 
 
 winning its worthless applause, as princes of good fellows, 
 know perfectly well the crime they commit. They see their 
 poor, persecuted wives die, day by day, inch by inch, and take 
 a delight in it." 
 
 " Well," answered Carlton at last, as if recovering himself, 
 " that is an open question, and a question that will keep ; but 
 now, suppose the lady s father comes to-morrow ? " 
 
 " Then I am ready to go with you to Venice to-morrow." 
 
 " Good ! Then we will reform to-morrow." 
 
 " Reform ? " 
 
 " Ah, yes, reform ! You know 1 am always reforming to 
 morrow," answered Carlton, as he reached his hand to say good- 
 evening, at the end of the Corso. " To-morrow, my boy, is 
 the best of all days to reform in. The great mysterious to 
 morrow that ever runs before ! " He waved his hand, as he 
 turned towards the Forum of Trajan, and said, as he looked 
 back, " To-morrow, we will reform to-morrow ! "
 
 CHAPTER XLVI. 
 
 A NEW CURRENT OF LIFE. 
 
 T was with a heart beating 
 warm and wild, that Muri- 
 etta mounted the great stair 
 way, with its rows of plants 
 and flowers set on either side 
 behind the shining brass 
 banisters, leading to the door 
 that should open to him, for 
 the first time, upon the Ono 
 Fair Woman. 
 
 He found the door closed when he had 
 mounted the stairway, and was glad of it, for 
 it gave him time to rest and collect his thoughts. 
 As he stood there he could hear the beating 
 fo his heart. 
 
 To the right, as if guarding the door, 
 stood a great Californian lion, with his head 
 Jifted and his mouth wide open. 
 
 " Ah, my old friend, my whilom old companion of the 
 Cordilleras, we have met before," said Murietta, as he ad 
 vanced and stroked his broad lifted head. " It seems to me 
 it is a good omen to meet you here. It is like shaking hands 
 with an old friend on the field of battle. Well, guard her
 
 A New Current of Life. 403 
 
 well, my Californian lion, guard her well ! " said the dreamer, 
 and he stepped back to the door and drew the bell. 
 
 A man stood before him a man, as the door opened, who 
 looked as if he had been chiselled by some of those wonderful 
 sculptors out of a solid piece of the blackest midnight. 
 
 Then the great African, with a manner made up out of 
 combined ease and indolence, took his hat and coat, led 
 through the great saloon to the door of a still greater one, 
 and announced his name. Then there was a little nutter 
 among the dozen birds of beautiful plumage gathered there, a 
 lady came forward the One Fair Woman and the man stood 
 face to face with what I may call his Destiny. 
 
 Even this great saloon was a forest of flowers, right and left, 
 as he entered. His feet sank in the soft and seamless carpet, 
 as he advanced to be presented to the fair woman s mother, 
 and to take the hand of the good old General, who seemed to 
 come down from out his battle-cloud for no other purpose 
 than to give his hand, for in a moment he was off again, drift 
 ing and dreaming and riding higher and higher, on his cloud 
 of battle-smoke. 
 
 Sofas and settees and ottomans, and every oriental luxury 
 that a fervid imagination could conceive of as places of re. 
 pose, were scattered here and there, like little flower-beds in a, 
 garden, and in these flower-beds were blossoming many beau 
 tiful flowers. 
 
 There were tiger skins scattered about the floor in a wild 
 and careless way, and back in a corner of the saloon, on the 
 .wall, half hidden by flowers, were hanging some implements 
 of war. Great beams of oak crossed overhead, and the ceil 
 ing was so frescoed that it looked as though it was some old 
 ruin overrun with ivy. 
 
 People were lounging here and there, or passing up and 
 down, or taking tea, or talking by twos and threes in a 
 dreamy and silent sort of a way, that pleased the nervous and. 
 sensitive artist from the first ; and, contrary to his fears, he
 
 404 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 soon found himself perfectly at home. He seemed to fit in 
 there from the first. In less than an hour he felt that he had 
 known that place and these people all his life. 
 
 He looked around him, and he saw that here was another 
 and a superior class of people to anything he had seen in 
 Rome. Here was a Roman Prince, who really looked and be 
 haved the gentleman a quiet and an unpretending man. 
 
 There was a Cardinal over in the centre of a group of beau 
 tiful ladies in bright colors, and away back yonder in a 
 corner out of the light, as usual, sat the good Secretary of Le 
 gation, telling over the points of his last novel to an ancient 
 princess from Germany. 
 
 There were Generals talking of war in the Spanish tongue, 
 and politicians talking of finance in French, and Englishmen 
 talking art in their own tongue ; and yet all this was as quiet 
 as a snow-fall. 
 
 " This is a new current of life," said the artist to himself, 
 " I should have been here before." Then he fell to thinking 
 of the tall, dark beauty who had moved before him for ever, 
 who was moving now noiselessly across the saloon, looking at 
 him just the least bit from under her dark sweeping lashes as 
 she passed, and he asked himself how long he, with his im 
 pulsive and imperious nature, would find a welcome there. 
 
 To Marietta this was a paradise. It was a paradise of 
 noiseless birds and of dreams. He had seen society enough 
 of it but it had never pleased him in any form before en 
 countered. Sometimes it had been formal, sometimes stiff 
 and cold and corpse-like, sometimes noisy and turbulent and 
 loud. This was peace and rest. Verily it was paradise. 
 
 The little woman was there, too ; the busy, bustling Mrs. 
 Bunch, who presided at the top of the intolerable and tor 
 tuous corkscrew stairs, in the noisy little menagerie of ani 
 mals from all parts of the earth, which the good threadbare 
 Secretary of Legation had called, or rather miscalled, heaven. 
 
 " Do you like Roman society ? " said a spinster, stirring
 
 A New Current of Life. 405 
 
 her cup of tea by the side of Marietta, and at the same time 
 keeping her long curls swinging and twisting round and 
 round as she stirred the spoon. 
 
 The artist did not have time to answer, for the spoon kept 
 going, and the curls kept turning, and the tongue kept on, 
 and all together and all at once, as if tongue and spoon and 
 curls were all a sort of machine that had been patented as 
 parts of a wheel, and must all run together or stop together. 
 
 " Roman society is mixed, very mixed. I came here and 
 sat down on the Seven Hills, to use a classical quotation, 
 thirty years ago." Then she stopped and sighed ; and the 
 spoon and the curls and the tongue and all, to the artist s 
 infinite satisfaction, all stopped together, but the patent 
 machine suddenly started again. " I was but a child then. 
 O, I was ever so small you know, and I know all about 
 Roman society, and if you go with one set you must not go 
 with another ; and if you belong to one club you must not 
 enter another ; and if you subscribe to one church, you must 
 expect to have all the others for enemies ; for there is the 
 new Baptist Church well, they sank forty feet to get a foun 
 dation for it, and even then they came upon a beautiful 
 mosaic that the government took to put in the museum ; 
 forty feet ! just imagine it ; they used to come every week to 
 get subscriptions for sinking their foundation, and I called 
 it the sinking fund. Well, I gave money to this church ; and 
 then I had all the papists for enemies, as well as every other 
 church in the world, to war with, and I was nearly ruined. 
 Oh, Rome is mightily mixed, the people are so split up." 
 
 " But you have not the Protestant denominations here ? " 
 
 " All, everything, even to the howling Methodists. Why, 
 they came here from the States and opened tents away oiit on 
 the, Campagna and established missions there, and prayed for 
 the destruction of the Catholic Church and the death of the 
 pope for a whole month together, and then fell to quarrelling 
 among themselves, and had each other arrested for slander
 
 406 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 and fraud, and all the ordinary sins and crimes that you can 
 well think of." 
 
 Of all intolerable people on earth there are none, perhaps, 
 half so terrible as persons who will persist in talking when 
 they ought to be silent ; when, in fact, nobody wants to hear 
 them talk under any circumstances or at any time. 
 
 The safest thing to do is to be silent in ninety-nine cases 
 out of a hundred. You can remember, perhaps, fifty occa 
 sions in your life when you have said too much. You can 
 not remember one when you said too little. You may spend 
 a whole evening a silent listener in society, and leave every 
 one your friend. It would be very hard to do that much if 
 you talked, even though you talked like an angel. 
 
 " As I was saying," began the spoon and the tongue and 
 the corkscrew curls, " here in Rome you must be very par 
 ticular what you do, where you go, who you mix with, and 
 where and how you worship. And now, Mr. Murietta, you 
 will pardon me for what I am about to say, but really you 
 are to some entent in my hands. You are my charge my 
 child ha, ha, my child ! " and here the spoon spun around, 
 followed faster and faster by the corkscrew curls and the 
 meddlesome tongue. " I am sure you will pardon me, but if 
 you wish to get on in Rome, and I am sure you want to get, 
 on in the Eternal City, if I may again be permitted to use 
 a classical quotation therefore, I say, if you wish to get on, 
 you must be careful who you mix with in Rome or whom you 
 speak to. And, Mr. Murietta, if you wish to be careful 
 whom you speak to, allow me to caution you with respect to 
 one lady, one person ha, ha ! one person, that is the 
 comely appellation, if I may be permitted to use a classical 
 quotation " 
 
 She stopped suddenly, spoon and curls, tongue and all, as if 
 she had been a kind of clock that had run down. Then, as 
 if half reviving, she said, " Yes, with respect to this one per 
 son, in all confidence, if you expect to move in our circle "
 
 A New Current of Life. 407 
 
 Then the spoon stopped, and the tongue and the curls, and 
 the artist sat looking at the little machine in amazement, 
 while the One Fair Woman, who had all the time been silent, 
 sat looking the other way, and tapping on the soft carpet 
 with her foot, as if nervous and annoyed. 
 
 Then the spoon and the curls and the tongue began again, 
 and went round and round and round, as if winding them- 
 
 * O 
 
 selves up to some great pitch ; and then, leaning a little for 
 ward, and going still a little faster, the tongue said 
 
 " You understand ? " 
 
 Marietta, knitted his brows. "I do not understand." 
 
 " Well then, the Countess Edna " 
 
 The artist arose. He stood there almost trembling. Then 
 the One Fair Woman took his arm, and they moved away 
 together and in silence.
 
 CHAPTER XLYII. 
 
 THE EARTHLY PARADISE. 
 
 E wanted to fall at the feet of this dark 
 silent woman, and worship her as he 
 had worshipped her in an. ideal way 
 for all his life. 
 
 They sat down away by themselves 
 by the side of a table with photo 
 graphs, pictures, and minatures in oil. 
 It was the most supreme moment of 
 his life. 
 
 " I fear you do not sympathise 
 greatly with my art," stammered the 
 man at last, looking at a miniature in 
 stead of the lady. 
 
 " Oh yes, I do," answered Annette. " I 
 think too much of it. I am all the time wan 
 dering about among pictures and through the 
 old homes of the masters." 
 " How delightful ! " said Murietta, recovering himself at 
 once. " And, do you know, I have had a fancy I should 
 like to see the land of Titian ? But then I hear it is so hard 
 to reach." 
 
 " Well, it is hard," said Annette, " a long, hard road ; 
 but you are doubly paid for your trouble, and to me it is one 
 of the sweetest spots in Italy."
 
 The Earthly Paradise. 409 
 
 " But you have not been to Cadore ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, indeed, oftentime." 
 
 " Will you tell me of it ? will you tell me of the home of 
 the great good man and master ? " 
 
 The soul of the beautiful lady came to the surface like a 
 spirit called from the deep by a magician, and the great eyes 
 opened and dawned upon the artist like a new sunrise. He 
 began to understand her now. This silent woman, she too 
 could talk, when there was a subject that touched her heart. 
 Her soul was of another atmosphere. She sailed undiscovered 
 seas. The gossip of a town had not even the dignity of her 
 contempt. 
 
 She began as if she was about to tell a fairy tale to a child. 
 Perhaps this proud, great woman thought him but a child. 
 Perhaps, after all, he was but a child. 
 
 " There is no prettier or sweeter dimple in all the fair face 
 of mother earth, than this little slope or half valley, where 
 the great master was born, and where he spent his early 
 youth. And he knew it well, for it is told of him that, no 
 matter where the summer found him, after he became 
 famous, even up to the year of his death, he turned to the 
 home of his youth for his holiday." 
 
 Murietta did not speak. He only looked at her ; but she 
 seemed to understand his question, even though he had not 
 opened his lips. 
 
 " No thanks to the sharp, fierce spurs of the Dolomite 
 Peaks you cannot reach Titian s Land, as it is familiarly 
 called in Italy, by rail. You can get two hours out from 
 Venice towards the base of the Venetian Alps by rail, and 
 then you take the post or a private carriage, and, pushing up 
 the Piave river, which has its source in Titian s Land, for 
 nearly two days, you come upon Cadore, the little mountain 
 town where the great master was born. Hen; are great splin 
 tered peaks of granite all around you, and the lady s hand, 
 Avent up in the air. " These singular formations are known as 
 18
 
 4io The One Fair Woman. 
 
 the Dolomite Peaks. They look very much as if a mountain 
 of stone had been set up on another mountain, and then the 
 Titans had come by, and hacked and hewed and split it to its 
 base. 
 
 He leaned forward and listened in silence. " Your soul 
 and mine stand nearer together than I had even dared to 
 dream of," he was saying to himself, as she Avent on : 
 
 " Here, also, nearly all around you, are great banks and 
 slopes of snow, for you are in the heart of the Venetian 
 Alps; but there are no snowy peaks, as in the Rocky moun 
 tains or the Sierras. In all these Alps there is not one thing 
 that at all approaches or looks like the most insignificant of 
 the snow-cones and peaks of the West, but only slopes and 
 slides of snow on the side of some ugly broken mountain. 
 
 " The first thing here in Titian s country that strikes one 
 who is at all familiar with his great pictures, is the exact 
 likeness and copy of these mountains, noticeable in all his 
 backgrounds. Coming directly from Venice, on my first visit 
 where I had been haunting Belle Arti for a month, and 
 feasting on his great pieces every day, I found that I had 
 seen every great mountain that lay around me. Even in the 
 picture of Jerusalem, where the Virgin is presented to the 
 high priesb a picture counted, you know, as one of the three 
 greatest pictures in the world you see there the exact copy 
 of the first mountain that ever met the master s eyes, even to 
 the curling clouds that are for ever moving about its sum 
 mit, even to the camp-fire of the half wild woodman on the 
 mountain s side. 
 
 " "What a smell of spruce and of pine in the air ! " The 
 lady looked away, as if she stood on the mountains of which 
 she spoke. " What fragrance of flowers and of new-mown 
 hay ! What soft sweet songs of the peasant-girls at work in 
 the fields as we drove into Oadore ! For it was harvest- 
 time in the Alps when first I was there ; and all the sloping 
 hills below the snow and below the pines, were yellow with
 
 The Earthly Paradise. 411 
 
 fields of wheat and spotted with little patches of grain, no 
 bigger oftentimes than little town-lots ! And there is not a 
 level piece of land in all the country. A hard country in 
 deed and yet the hardiest and happiest people in all Italy. 
 To want in all the land not one beggar to be met within a 
 month. And this is a great relief to one coming directly 
 from Venice. 
 
 " There are ten little towns in sight, all grouped close 
 together, like herds on the hill sides. Indeed they could 
 not be anywhere else, except on the hill tops ! " 
 
 She went on as if talking to herself. 
 
 " What a tall, sinewy, and splendid type of people the 
 grand old painter sprang from ! They are utterly distinct 
 from the Italians of the valleys ; and it is noticeable that in 
 Titian s land there are many fair and yellow-haired men to be 
 found, and blonde women Titian s types of beauty ! " 
 
 There was a rustle in the room. The pretty birds, whose 
 brilliant plumage ornamented this paradise, were fluttering 
 up and down and hovering about the floweVs as if about to 
 take flight. The old General had come down from out his 
 battle-cloud of smoke for a moment, and was marching 
 across the saloon to join his daughter and the artist. 
 
 Then a beautiful bird sang with a beautiful voice, while 
 a dozen men hung about her like bees around a flower. And 
 these old and familiar words were in her song : 
 
 " He either fears his fate too much, 
 
 Or his desert is small, 
 Who dares not put it to the touch, 
 And win or lose it all. " 
 
 The little woman with the curls and cup of tea and spoon 
 stood looking straight at Murietta as the song proceeded ; 
 but he was looking in quite another direction. Yet all the 
 time he could not help wondering if these words applied at 
 all to himself.
 
 412 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 As soon as the song was finished, the artist, quietly and 
 unobserved, reached his hand to the hostess and her daughter, 
 and withdrew. 
 
 The little lady in corkscrew curls, who had cautioned the 
 artist about his associates, and made him so miserable, way 
 laid him as he went out ; but as she had set down her tea 
 cup, she had no spoon to set her tongue going with, and so 
 stood by the door shaking her curls in vain, and in a helpless 
 attempt to revive her lecture about his conduct and the 
 Countess Edna. 
 
 The accomplished and polished bit of chiselled midnight 
 opened the outer door, and as he went back he showed at 
 least twenty of his teeth in his grin of delight. 
 
 The artist was very happy ; and he gave the negro enough 
 to make him smile for a week. 
 
 " Take care of her, old California lion ! Take care of her, 
 my old friend of the Cordilleras ! " said he, as he again 
 stepped close and patted and stroked the stuffed beast on the 
 head. Take care of this beautiful lady, like a true Califor- 
 nian ! Fly at the throat of any man who dares to enter 
 here with an evil thought ! Take care of her, my savage 
 and tawny old friend ! " 
 
 He descended the broad tufa steps between the walls of 
 flowers, and then walked down the Corso at peace with all 
 the world. 
 
 " Come what comes," he cried, as he went to rest that 
 night, " I have been blessed ! I can end the scene now 
 satisfied, and, dying, say that God has been good to me ; and 
 that I have been for once, in my hard and eventful life, per 
 fectly happy ! " 
 
 And then he slept. 
 
 Poor soul ! he had not stopped to consider that this 
 lady had been only civil ; that she had not said a word 
 beyond the most civil expressions ; and that, notwithstand 
 ing the kind invitation to call often and at any time, he,
 
 The Earthly Paradise. 413 
 
 among the multitude of her friends, might be forgotten in a 
 month. 
 
 He slept, and he dreamed ; and his dream was of a green 
 serpent swinging from a cork tree, as he and Annette rode 
 by in silence under it, along the Sabine Hills.
 
 CHAPTER XLVIII. 
 
 PEACE IX THE FLOWEU-LAND. 
 
 IME went by with Murietta 
 like a dream, or a great strong 
 stream through a mighty for 
 est that is silent and shadowy, 
 and sweet with the smell of 
 pine and of spices and of costly 
 gums. 
 
 Night was a delight, and 
 the morning brought no sense of 
 loneliness or of weariness. A laborer 
 is weary of an evening. A man who 
 toils with his mind and makes battle 
 with invisible things in the fields of 
 anywhere that have not name or place 
 to common men, is weary in the morn 
 ing, and he goes forth among men to 
 try to labor with them in order that he may rest. 
 
 This man was resting now, perhaps, for the first time in 
 his life. He took something more than a morbid interest in 
 men, and men s affairs. 
 
 He called often at the palace on the Corso, and was always 
 well received. Once the fair woman, Annette, arose from 
 the side of a most illustrious gentleman who was paying her
 
 Peace in the Flower-Land. 415 
 
 court, and came and sat down by the side of the artist in her 
 easy, careless way, and began again to talk of Titian, as on the 
 occasion of his first meeting with her at her palace. 
 
 This filled the goblet full. Marietta asked no more at the 
 hand of man, woman, God. 
 
 And he had never yet whispered a word of love. It is just 
 possible he had not thought of it ; nay, it is very probable. 
 He was satisfied : he was happy. This was his first great 
 happiness. He had nothing more to ask. And then again, 
 there might have been a dormant fear deep down in his heart, 
 in that fathomless somewhere where action is born of in 
 stinct, a fear to break this charmed life that now enveloped 
 him. 
 
 One thing is certain : he had not thought of marriage. 
 This is remarkable, but it is very true. He was the least sel 
 fish of men, and did not often think of himself. Yet he could 
 not have endured that another should wed her. He was 
 willing to live and worship her as she was. He was perfectly 
 satisfied satisfied from instinct, not from reason. The truth 
 is, he had not yet come to reason at all on this matter : he 
 did not want to do that. The man was a dreamer. He had 
 come upon the airy gates of a fairy land that he had long 
 dreamed of and hoped for. The gates had swung open, and 
 he had entered, and found it even more delightful and full of 
 peace than his imagination had pictured, and he was not yet 
 ready or willing to take a foot-rule in his hand and proceed 
 to measure it off, and make calculations, and to count the 
 chances of making it his own. 
 
 Once, on an evening when he had dropped in and found 
 her all alone, save with her own family, which was a rare 
 thing indeed he saw her, while he sat talking with the old 
 General, who looked serenely down at him from out his battle- 
 cloud, sitting apart and alone with her hands pushed out and 
 diawn together in a passionate sort of a manner, her black 
 and abundant hair as if it was ready to drop its great folds
 
 4i 6 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 like midnight curtains about her shoulders, and her face half 
 turned and looking back over her shoulder. 
 
 " Good heavens ! " he said to himself, " that is just as I 
 have painted her a hundred times ! " 
 
 She was not looking at him ; not looking at anything. 
 There was nothing remarkable in it all, save her remarkable 
 beauty, outside of the very singular fact, that this was exactly 
 the attitude and there was just the expression that he had so 
 often painted, despite his repeated efforts to paint her other 
 wise. 
 
 The old General drew back his face when he found he was 
 no longer the object of the artist s interest that evening, and 
 drifted away on his battle-cloud into his land of dreams. 
 
 Without designing it, without even knowing it, the artist 
 arose and passed over to the other side, and stood before the 
 beautiful lady as she sat there alone, dreaming and looking 
 anywhere. 
 
 She lifted her dark sweeping lashes, smiled, made a place 
 beside her with a movement of her hand, and without a word 
 the artist sat beside her on the lounge. 
 
 "I have spoiled a picture," he said at length. 
 
 She looked at him in a grand, still way, as if but half 
 awake, as if it was hardly worth while to come back to earth, 
 or to speak at all, or to do anything any more this side of 
 paradise. 
 
 " I spoiled a picture for the world, but I have it in iny 
 heart. Hung on the walls of memory, your face as I saw 
 you now, as I sat there, shall remain as long as I shall love 
 the beautiful," said he, with earnest and honest enthusiasm. 
 
 She heard this awkward compliment as one who knew the 
 man meant just what he said, and as one, the one perhaps 
 who had the good sense to not profess to be disturbed by it, 
 or to consider it out of place or nature in any inspect. 
 
 " If you would only paint it," she said with a touch of 
 earnestness.
 
 Peace in the Flower-Land. 417 
 
 " But I have painted it. I have painted it, the same face, 
 position, expression, dress, all, exactly " 
 
 The artist found he had risen suddenly, and was all flushed 
 and excited, as the silent and dreamy old General laid his 
 hand upon his shoulder, and stood there as if to listen, or in 
 a careless and casual way take part in the conversation. 
 
 "I was just saying," continued Murietta, with some em 
 barrassment, " I was just saying that I had spoiled a beauti 
 ful picture, when I came up and disturbed the lady your 
 daughter, just now." 
 
 "Ah ! and I, fear I may have spoiled something more 
 than a picture by disturbing you," said the old General, as 
 he quietly noted the artist s embarrassment, and then went 
 back into his battle-cloud and again drifted away, in body 
 at least, and perhaps in spirit. 
 
 Murietta, conscious that he had said too much, and been at 
 least impetuous, sat down again beside the lady and was 
 silent. But she was now too much interested to let the sub 
 ject drop, and again began about the picture. 
 
 "And you really have painted a fancy sketch or something, 
 with which you have associated my name ?" 
 
 " Not your name, lady, your face," said he earnestly. 
 
 " And then you will let me see it?" 
 
 " Would you care to see it ?" 
 
 " Would I care to see it ? Do you not know that I am 
 human ? Nay, I am not only human, but I am also a woman, 
 and would take a woman s delight in looking at any picture 
 that even resembles me, whether it was meant for me or 
 not." 
 
 " This was meant for you, and for you only," said he 
 thoughtfully. 
 
 " Then I shall see it to-morrow. You will send it to me 
 to-morrow. Or shall I drive " 
 
 " No, no, no," he answered, excitedly. 
 
 " Do not drive to my studio. I have no studio fit to 
 18*
 
 4i 8 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 receive you in. I am an idle looker-on in Rome. I am not 
 at work." 
 
 " But you have done this one picture in Rome ?" 
 
 " In Rome, in Naples, in " 
 
 The dark eyes opened wide and wondering, and looked at 
 the man inquiringly and earnestly. 
 
 " Ah, I understand you now," she said, " you have been at 
 work at this picture some time, and did a part of it at 
 Naples, and a part of it here." 
 
 The artist had never been schooled in the fashionable and 
 accomplished art of lying. Here he had, without intending 
 it, aroused the beautiful woman s curiosity, and he saw that 
 it was not to be satisfied by an evasion. Should he tell her the 
 truth, the whole blunt history ? He was very much em 
 barrassed. Had he had the least bit of cunning in him or 
 design, he might have told with good effect just so much of it 
 as served his purpose and no more, and then at once pro 
 duced the picture, soiled and pierced as it was. with splendid 
 and possibly telling effect. 
 
 But no, the man thought only of his secret, the secret of 
 his love. He did not stop to reason. He could not have 
 told why, but somehow he feared that she would be offended 
 or annoyed by his confession of his love for her or an hun 
 dredth part of it. So much for the poor man s knowledge of 
 woman. As if any woman could be offended at such a thing ! 
 
 The situation was very embarrassing for him. He reached, 
 pulled a blossom from a rhododendron, as if he had been 
 walking in a forest, and began to pull it to pieces, while his 
 eyes were fixed on. the floor. 
 
 The lady laughed in the quietest kind of a way, and 
 reached her hand and took the blossom which he was tearing 
 to pieces from out his fingers, and arranged the crumpled 
 leaves, and held it carefully, as if it had to her a value. 
 
 " Then I am to see this picture to-morrow ? You will 
 send it to me here ? "
 
 Peace in the Flower-Land. 419 
 
 " But it is not finished. That is, it is not fit to be seen. 
 It is soiled, it is cut and warped and " He stopped sud 
 denly. He saw that he was once more exciting a woman s 
 curiosity. 
 
 " Why, how strange ! " she exclaimed, holding up the little 
 flowers and still arranging the torn leaves and petals, "what 
 a fate and what a misfortune my picture has met with to be 
 sure. You certainly have had no care for it, else it would 
 not now be soiled and warped and wounded, and goodness 
 knows what ! Come, you are to tell me of this picture." 
 
 " I entreat you, lady, not to-night. I am going now. I 
 shall speak to your parents, and " 
 
 He gave her his hand hastily, and, not at all satisfied 
 with himself, was about to pass through the door and into 
 the black and ebon block of chiselled midnight, when An 
 nette, standing before him, said , 
 
 " But you really have a picture painted here in Rome 
 which you say resembles me as I sat yonder this evening ? " 
 
 " It is an exact and perfect picture of you, if ever I drew 
 a perfect picture or a straight line. It is equally true that 
 the picture has a history, and true also that it is now not fit 
 to be seen." 
 
 "And am I never to see this picture, which no doubt any 
 one, a stranger, a peasant, anyone passing, can drop in and 
 see ? " 
 
 " You are to see it. You shall see it if you will so honor 
 me, and it shall be yours if you will receive it as a gift, but 
 not till it is repaired and repainted." 
 
 " Well, I must practice patience, I suppose. But I shall 
 count the days that lie between me and the time I am to re 
 ceive it. But you are not to repaint it. That will spoil the 
 interest, however much you may improve the picture. 
 Promise me you will not re-touch it. It is but a new work, 
 and if it has been once finished, let it remain just as it is. 
 Promise me that."
 
 420 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 " Yes, I promise you not to re-touch it, save to cover up a 
 scar in the breast." 
 
 "A scar in the breast ! " The glorious eyes were again 
 wide open with wouuder. 
 
 " I implore you, do not push me to the wall. I am not 
 gifted with the art of escaping from the responsibility of my 
 own blunt statements. Please leave something of the story 
 to the future." 
 
 " To the future it is," she laughed, as she again noticed 
 his embarrassment. " Pretty stories will always keep, and, 
 like good wine, be none the worse for it. But when am I to 
 have the picture ? Come, we will make a covenant. I do 
 promise and agree, as the law has it, to not ask you for the 
 little story that I am dying to know, till you are ready to 
 tell it ; on condition," and here she smiled and looked very 
 knowing, " that you send me this picture within a given 
 time." 
 
 " It is a covenant," he said, extending his hand, " and I 
 promise to send you the picture at the end of a month." 
 
 "At the end of a month ! " she exclaimed, " why, we shall 
 be on Lake Como." 
 
 "And you are going to Como for the summer, and soon ? " 
 
 " We are going to Como. We start soon, but are going to 
 travel slowly, take in the little towns 011 the Adriatic, the 
 Republic of San Marino, and possibly Venice, and shall 
 reach Como about the time everybody else leaves it, in July ; 
 and, to get back to a subject of interest, how am I to get my 
 picture ? " 
 
 " I will have this picture sent me at Como. I will also be 
 in Como in July. I will take pleasure, an untold pleasure, 
 in presenting it to you there, and telling you the whole story 
 of its creation." 
 
 " How delightful ! Would that it were July ! " she ex 
 claimed. 
 " Delightful ! you will be disappointed. But I shall keep
 
 Peace in the Flower-Land. 421 
 
 the covenant. And now, good-night : remember, we meet at 
 Como." 
 
 There was a look of earnestness in his face as he . passed 
 out, saying to himself, " We meet at Como. Shall Como be 
 my fate my Philippi ? Well, well, I shall tell her the 
 story of the picture there, and the story of the roses in her 
 path, and then it may be our souls will stand together in the 
 pure white light on the hills of God ! " 
 
 " Take care of her, my California lion. Show your teeth, 
 my friend, to any man who dares to hold an evil thought of 
 her." He tapped the beast on the head, opened the negro s 
 mouth, and saw two perfect rows of teeth for a few francs, 
 and went down the stairs full of hope and the future.
 
 CHAPTER XLIX. 
 
 A MAN FOR MANHOOD S SAKE. 
 
 T had now been half a year 
 since Marietta had set foot in 
 Rome, and he began heartily 
 to tire of the town. He was 
 now particularly anxious to get 
 outside the sultry walls of 
 the city, since he knew that 
 Annette was going, and almost 
 at once. 
 
 It had now been weeks since 
 
 he had seen the pink Countess. What had be 
 come of her ? He was preparing to leave Rome. 
 Should he go away without seeing the woman 
 who had lightened many a dark and lonesome 
 day of his life in that strange city of heat and 
 cold of contradictions ? 
 He had seen the Count but seldom of late, and he, the 
 Count, seemed but ill satisfied, even though the old Admiral 
 blustered about him and asserted himself with the same bold 
 look of assertion which he had always shown from the first. 
 The Count, however, had the same gentleness of manner, 
 and always showed that culture and politeness which seems 
 BO inseparable from an Italian, whenever his and the lines of 
 the artist crossed, either in the streets of the city or the sa 
 loons of fashion.
 
 A Man for Manhoods Sake. 423 
 
 It was now June, and Rome was sultry as Midsummer. 
 The fountains plashed and played all over the town, and the 
 streets were kept running with fresh water, and all the place 
 was hung with awnings and canvas, as if it had been the 
 deck of one mighty ship. Yet Rome was awfully sultry, 
 and people were pouring out of every gate that opened to 
 the north in the direction of the Alps and the Apennines. 
 
 Carlton, too, was anxious to get away. He was running 
 all over the town, not with the Admiral, who, it seems had 
 more than once approached him on the subject of making 
 him a member of the Brothers of the Altar, as he had 
 Murietta, but with the Count, who now evidently looked 
 upon him with more favor than he did before, and also 
 with sti-angers. If any one knew what was going on in 
 town, Carlton probably knew it, for he was everywhere, 
 talking with every one, drinking wine to-day, and reforming 
 to-morrow. 
 
 Everybody moved under canvas. The streets of Rome were 
 one mass of moving umbrellas. If a peasant brought a goat 
 into town to be milked for your coffee, as was and is the 
 custom, at four o clock in the morning, he brought an 
 umbrella along to lead it back under to the Sabine Hills. 
 
 " We must get out of this," cried Carlton, from under his 
 full sail of canvas one morning in June, to Murietta, " there 
 is nothing remaining in Rome now but the cats and dogs and 
 goats and peasants, and a few of the old tried settlers. Let 
 us get out flee to the mountains." 
 
 " I am with you in the spirit, but may not be in the flesh, 
 I fear for a time yet." 
 
 "And why not? You remember our covenant to blow 
 away to Venice together, do you not ? " answered Carlton, as 
 he took a whole handful of roses from a pretty peasant girl, 
 and began to tear them to pieces to inhale the odor. 
 
 " Aye, our s was a covenant man with man," replied the 
 artist, as he also took a bunch of roses from the pretty girl s
 
 424 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 basket, " but you remember I promised a lady, the Countess, 
 to remain in Rome till her father came to her. 
 
 " Then, if that is all," laughed^ Carlton, as he scattered the 
 flowers at the feet of a bare-legged peasant-girl, who showed 
 him her pretty teeth as she passed, " you might have left 
 Rome a week ago." 
 
 " A week ago ! " 
 
 " Certainly, my dear fellow. You might have gone away 
 into the Alps to reform, fully a week ago ; for her father 
 has been here at least a week, and I have been with him a 
 great deal, and have talked with him about his unfortunate 
 daughter, and have really almost shed tears with the little 
 white-headed old patriarch, for it seems he has lost his only 
 son somewhere in Italy, by brigands or assassins, and now 
 his poor daughter is mad, and does not even know him." 
 
 " Mad ! and does not know him ? " Murietta went close 
 up to Carlton, and took him by the arm as he threw his roses 
 to the ground. " Gods ! what have I been doing for this 
 month past ? It does seem to me that I am sometimes mad 
 myself. I get in grooves. I get in a river with deep banks, 
 and float down and cannot see out. I see nothing but my 
 self ! " 
 
 " "Well, but she is no worse. She simply will not see her 
 father ; and besides, the doctor forbids that she shall be dis 
 turbed. The Count, I assure you, is nearly broken-hearted. 
 And then, you know she is not a Catholic, and that disturbs 
 him greatly. The poor good fellow, you know, is appre 
 hensive that she may die or go utterly mad, and not be pre 
 pared for the better world." 
 
 There were wrinkles on the brow of Murietta as he listened 
 to this. Then he began very solemnly, as he still held on to 
 the arm of his friend, and looked him in the face. 
 
 " Have you seen the Countess at any time within the last 
 few weeks ? " 
 
 " Not since I saw you with her, my dear fellow," he
 
 A Man for Manhood s Sake. 425 
 
 answered, tapping the stones with his foot and shifting his 
 umbrella from right to left. 
 
 "Has any one seen her, do you suppose? Have you 
 spoken to her father about the possibility of her being locked 
 up by that cunning Admiral and designing priests, and " 
 
 " Tut ! tut ! Now look here. Do you suppose Rome is a 
 den of brigands and kidnappers, and men who could or would 
 lock up a lady and keep her from her father ? I tell you, 
 you are wild. You are as mad as a March hare. At first 
 you thought her husband a sort of moral or immoral Blue 
 Beard, and you were going to storm the castle and set her at 
 liberty. Then you waited till her father came upon the field. 
 And now, even now, you fancy that husband, father, 
 children, all are wrong, and you alone are right, and like 
 another crazy Don Quixote, you propose to ride a tilt against 
 the world s windmill ! " 
 
 Marietta began to doubt his own judgment. He felt that 
 something was wrong. He was almost certain of that in his 
 own mind ; but how to correct it, or how to proceed without 
 doing more harm than good, he did not know. He wanted 
 to see the Countess to say good-bye. He was perfectly cer 
 tain that she would know him and be glad to see him. Then 
 he reflected a moment, as he took the arm of Carlton, and 
 they moved down the street under the canvas, and remember 
 ing that she said she would send for him when the hour came 
 that she should need him, and remembering that she had not 
 sent for him, and reviewing the whole ground, he stopped, 
 looked his companion in the face, and said, 
 
 " I am ready to go. We will leave Rome together to 
 morrow." 
 
 " Good ! " cried Carlton, " we will leave Rome to-mor 
 row. You see, my dear boy," he continued, " if the 
 Countess is sane, and will not or does not care to see her 
 father, why, of course, she does not need you or your assis 
 tance or your presence. But if she is not sane, as the Count
 
 426 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 and the doctor and the Admiral say, and cannot see her father, 
 why, of course, she cannot you. You know, my dear boy, I 
 am disposed to humor your whims, whatever they may be 
 just for the sake of the pleasure of your company in a gondola 
 at Venice ; but turn this case to any light you like, and the 
 picture cannot be improved by any cunning tint of yours." 
 
 " I am satisfied," sighed Murietta, " yet I am broken up by 
 the thought that this woman must remain here in the intoler 
 able heat of lonesome Home the merry summer through. It 
 will break her too delicate thread of life. I shall never see 
 the beautiful and most mournful face any more ! " 
 
 " Beautiful she is indeed, my friend," answered Carlton, 
 "and I now understand, or at least feel certain, that whatever 
 Rome may have said against her, Rome is now sorry for it 
 and sympathises deeply with her misfortune. And for my 
 own part, I tell you that I knew from the first and all the 
 time that she was as pure as the snow of the Alps ! " 
 
 " Give me your hand. God pity the poor dear lady," said 
 Murietta, solemnly, as they stood together with clasped hands, 
 " God pity and protect the poor dear Countess, the sad and 
 beautiful lady ; and God pardon me for any wrong, real or 
 imaginary, that I may have done her, for we shall never meet 
 any more ! "
 
 CHAPTER L. 
 
 GOOD-BYE, TARPEIAN ROCK. 
 
 VERY to-morrow is an un 
 read romance. When that 
 to-morrow means farewells, 
 journeys, new lands, faces, 
 scenes, it has for us a singular 
 interest, and takes hold of us 
 and fills the mind with a con 
 cern akin to sorrow. No man 
 goes upon a journey without 
 growing older. 
 
 The two friends parted ; and soon the artist, 
 full of thought and hopes and plans, was pack 
 ing up his little store of luggage in his two 
 little cells on the side of the Tarpeian Rock. 
 
 When all was done, he rang and pulled un 
 til he had pulled one of the dark and shadowy 
 little ladies into his presence. He gave her a seat and then 
 proceeded to set the other chairs in a row beside her. They 
 came, and how kind and beautiful they were, and how they 
 did talk all at once, and deplored the sad separation as an 
 event big with consequence. 
 
 Then the good old Prince came shuffling in, with the air of
 
 428 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 a man who feels that he is no longer a creature without a 
 place or a niche in the statuary of the world. He was just 
 a little bit stiff, just a little bit better dressed, arid only the 
 least bit more the Prince in his manner, from having his new 
 shop on the Corso, and his son-in-law, his openly-acknow 
 ledged son-in-law, an officer in the army of regenerate Italy. 
 
 Then the Count himself came in, and sat down and talked 
 in a kind and contented manner, just as if he never had been 
 a member of the Brothers of the Altar, and just as if he 
 never in his life had aspired to the hand of an American 
 heiress, while his own wife, a young and beautiful Countess, 
 lived in the very city and saw his face every day of his life, 
 and even consented to his contemptible sin. 
 
 The cool composure of these people iu their cunning plots 
 and villanies has no counterpart outside of the serene and 
 ever placid Chinaman. 
 
 And yet these people here, the old Prince and his four 
 daughters, were not only very delightful people, but they 
 were really honest people at heart, and kind and affectionate. 
 
 They looked upon such practices for obtaining money as 
 legitimate commercial enterprises; and when they failed they 
 simply considered it a bad investment, and so sat down un 
 complaining and undisturbed in conscience. 
 
 Such is the result of a religion where indolent monks are 
 keepers of the consciences of the people, and where they are 
 forgiven their sins for a price ! 
 
 The artist was pleasantly disappointed when the Prince 
 did not, according to the custom of Italy, and France as 
 well, bring in a long bill for damages to the apartments ; and, 
 in consideration of this forbearance, he left his carpets and 
 the like to the four pretty ladies sitting in a row against the 
 wall before him. 
 
 He rolled up his picture carefully, wrote the address and 
 the directions, and directed it to be forwarded to him at 
 Como.
 
 Good-Bye, Tarpeian Rock. 429 
 
 The ladies gave him their hands and expressed their grati 
 tude, and then, in the prettiest Italian way possible, turned 
 aside, and silently shed tears. 
 
 The Count, himself, petty villain as he was, really felt 
 grateful and kindly towards the stranger as he took his ex 
 tended hand, and promised if ever it was in his power to 
 serve him he would certainly do so. The man had been 
 conquered by kindness. 
 
 " I have already," began the Count, as he held the hand 
 of the artist, " I mean we have already," and here he looked 
 at the pretty Countesses who had now risen up, and were 
 standing in a line, " done you a very considerable favor, 
 which, now that you are about to leave us and we may not 
 meet again, you may as well know." 
 
 " I should be delighted to know one or two things, if you 
 may tell me without too much hazard," answered the artist, 
 half evading th e proffered narration. 
 
 " And I shall be delighted to tell you, if possible." 
 
 " Well, then, who placed Giuseppe, the man who was once 
 set apart to assassinate the King, and whom I have often seen 
 with the old Admiral, under the blue Madonna there, to 
 watch me and my movements ? " 
 
 The ladies looked at each other with horror and terror in 
 every feature. The Italian officer turned pale, and fairly 
 trembled till his sword rattled in its sheath. He did not 
 open his lips, but looked down to the carpet in silence. 
 
 " Well, then," continued the artist, letting go the hand and 
 stepping back, " I now understand you. You are the same 
 villain as before. Your good fortune has not changed your 
 nature. You are simply resting on your laurels, eating up 
 the money the good and brave-hearted little Californian 
 threw in the way of this family, and, when that is finished, 
 you will be spreading other nets. You will pardon me, my 
 subtle Count ; you see, you have kept much of this from these 
 gentle people here, who look up to you as a head and leader,
 
 43 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 and it is well enough that I remind you of your sins, and let 
 them see what you have been doing, so that they may know 
 what you are equal to." 
 
 The Count bowed his head like a reed in a gale. He knew 
 this would soon blow over, and he had no ambition to lift his 
 limbs like an oak and provoke the storm to its full strength, 
 or invoke mai tyrdom. 
 
 " You can serve me," the artist went on bitterly, " in still 
 another way." 
 
 The Count ventured to lift his eyes, and Murietta went on. 
 
 " I should like to know where the doctor is all this time, 
 and what has become of yoiir companion, the bold Prince 
 Trawaska. Yea, more, I should like to know what you have 
 done with my countrywoman, the Countess Edna, and to 
 know what her disappearance, and the disappearance of the 
 doctor and the Prince " 
 
 The Count threw up his hands, as men do in the West, 
 as a sign of surrender. The shot had gone to the heart. 
 The Count staggered back, and almost fell into the arms of 
 the women. 
 
 " You will not answer ? Well, I have no other favor, 
 no other questions to ask you. But you must remember, 
 Count, that I understand you now perfectly ; and you must 
 also remember that the Saxons often smile at your villanies 
 and the practices of your cunning people, rather than take the 
 trouble to punish them." 
 
 The artist took up his hat, bowed to the ladies, looked at the 
 luggage, said " Hotel Russe," and went down the narrow stone 
 steps, down under the blue Madonna with the perpetual lamp 
 at her feet, and then xip the Via Montenare for the last time, 
 and for the last time passed out from under the shadows of 
 the Tarpeian Rock.
 
 CHAPTER LI. 
 
 FAREWELL, FAIR WOMAN. 
 
 HE good-natured African 
 swung the door of the palace 
 very wide,as the artist entered 
 to say farewell. And the good 
 old General was good enough 
 to drift a long way off, even to 
 the other side of the great 
 saloon, on his cloud of battle- 
 smoke, as he took her out 
 stretched hand, when he said he had 
 come to say good-bye. 
 
 Very beautiful was she that night, 
 and wai-m as sun and summer weather. 
 She talked of Titian, as they stood 
 there, and of great men and of great 
 artists, but never a word was said of 
 the petty strifes of life, or of the little world around her. She 
 was all that she had seemed to this man at first. She was as 
 great and as good as she had ever appeared, and as he had 
 imagined her all the years that he had dreamed of her and 
 pictured her, before he knew she was yet upon the eai tli.
 
 432 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 The Countess had driven him a thousand miles from this 
 One Fair Woman in a month. He had returned to her in a 
 moment, and was now kneeling at her feet. 
 
 " You have not forgotten the picture you pi omised me?" 
 
 Forgotten it! Lady, I have thought of little else, save 
 of that picture and the original, since I last saw your face. 
 Do not fear ; the picture is yours. 
 
 " I shall expect it at Coino." 
 
 " I promise you the picture is yours ; and, besides that, it 
 shall not be touched further than to repair a rent in the can 
 vas. But, in the meantime, would it be too much to ask you 
 for a photograph ? " 
 
 " And so you intend to paint me from a photograph ? " 
 
 " There ! You see what a simpleton, what a helpless, fool 
 ish fellow I am. Always and for ever being misunderstood, 
 because I have not the art and the address of men of the 
 world. Permit me to repeat that the picture, such as it is, is 
 finished. I asked for a photograph as a token, a keepsake, 
 something to call mine, and to remind me of this beautiful 
 home and its more beautiful queen." 
 
 " I believe you entirely ; and to convince you here, I will 
 give you a picture, a photograph taken in. a dress represent 
 ing the unhappy queen whose name I bear." 
 
 The lady, so saying, took up a pen, and drawing a large pho 
 tograph from an album, she wrote in a bold, clear, hurried hand 
 her name in full at the bottom of the picture, and on the re 
 verse side the date and the city. Then she handed it to the 
 artist, who took it eagerly, and turned it up to the light. 
 
 "Good heavens! It is just the picture that I have 
 painted." 
 
 The artist said this with a wild earnestness that for a mo 
 ment half frightened the beautiful woman. But, soon recov 
 ering herself, she smiled and said. " You mean that it is 
 exactly like the picture you intend to paint ? " 
 
 " Lady, it is the picture that I have painted. It is as I
 
 Farewell, Fair Woman. 433 
 
 have always seen you, looking back at me, moving away, 
 leaving me, and not saying one word. O there is meaning, 
 there is a mystery here I do not understand. I have a story to 
 tell you. That picture has a story. Lady, once upon a time, 
 on a mountain of fire above the sad sweet sea, above the city 
 where Virgil sang and died, a man strewed roses in the path 
 of his queen, and then turned away, and could not look upon 
 her face, because he had worshipped her, and made her even 
 as his God." The artist stopped, startled at his own utterances. 
 
 The dark eyes drooped down. There was a tinge of rose 
 in the beautiful face, and a hand reached out and laid hold of 
 a blossom, and plucked ib, and dropped it on the carpet, and 
 its petals were red like dripping blood. 
 
 She did not answer. She did not look up or lift her eyes 
 at all. The artist grew terrified. He was certain he had 
 done a fearful thing. He felt that he had ruined all that he 
 had hoped for. " O, if she would only speak, or lift her eyes, 
 or stir," he said to himself, as he stood there listening to his 
 heart, " but this is. intolerable." 
 
 He was standing by the half open door. Still, she did not 
 speak, or stir, or lift her eyes, but the fingers kept plucking 
 the crimson flowers and dropping blood upon the carpet, as if 
 from some mortal wound. 
 
 The man glided through the door like a spirit, passed from 
 the suffocating palace to the sultry street, holding a photo 
 graph tight in his hand, and on down the Corso to his hotel, 
 where he knew that, according to his promise, Carlton stood 
 waiting him from the balcony over the street. 
 
 Venice to-morrow ; then Como Paradise, Paradise, or 
 Purgatory ! 
 
 "And shall I not see the Countess before I go ? No, thank 
 God, that is over," said the artist, still talking to himself, as 
 he approached his friend : " There lay the path of duty, but 
 here at last lies the path of love ; and this I will follow till 
 lost in the forests or till lauded in the Elysian fields." 
 19
 
 CHAPTER LIT. 
 
 SKELETON IN A CLOSET. 
 
 E will reform to-morrow," 
 said Carlton, laughing, 
 and looking very know 
 ingly at the artist in the dusk, 
 as he came down and led him 
 through the hall to his room. 
 " Yes, my dear Murietta, you 
 are a cunning dog ; but I forgive 
 you, and am certain that, like myself, 
 you will reform to-morrow, if to-mor 
 row ever comes." 
 
 " But I do not understand you," an 
 swered the puzzled artist. 
 
 " But you will understand, perhaps, 
 when she explains. Oh, you still are 
 
 in the dark ? Well, to be brief with you, there is a lady, or 
 rather a lady s maid, waiting for you in my parlor." 
 " A lady s maid waiting for me ? " 
 
 Go along, go along. You understand. Keep your own 
 secrets if you like. Only be sure you reform to-morrow," 
 laughed Carlton, as he led up to his rooms and pushed open 
 the door. 
 
 There she sat in the dark and under the curtains, like a
 
 A Skeleton in a Closet. 435 
 
 frightened bird that had fluttered in through the window. It 
 was the faithful maid of the Countess Edna. 
 
 " Come ! her keeper is drunk and asleep ! It is the first 
 time she could send to you, or I could escape. Come at once 
 he may awake. There is a secret passage in from the porter s 
 lodge ; we can get in by that, for the Admiral and Count are 
 on the great stairway, and watching all th e other doors. Coine, 
 there is not a moment to lose." 
 
 The excited girl laid hold of the artist, and, still trembling 
 with fright and anxiety, attempted to pull him to the door, 
 as if to hasten his departure. 
 
 At the door he met Carlton, who had left him for a moment, 
 returning. 
 
 " Look here, Carlton," he said hurriedly, while the terrified 
 maid kept looking wildly about, as if afraid she was followed 
 and watched, " I am going to the Countess Edna. Take this, 
 there is trouble in the wind." The artist handed him his 
 pistol. 
 
 " Well, I thought men as a rule buckled on their armor 
 when there is trouble in the wind ; but you, it seems, lay it 
 off!" 
 
 " The Countess has sent for me, and there may be trouble. 
 I know how grave and serious a thing it is to attempt to see 
 her ; but see her I will, and I wish to harm no one. I will 
 be with you yet to-night, if I live." 
 
 " Good, my boy ; go, and reform to-morrow ! " 
 
 He waved his hand and went into his rooms, as the artist 
 went out at the back gate, followed by the maid. 
 
 " Bah ! that Marietta is a rake," said Carlton, as he lighted 
 a cigar, and, seating himself on the sofa, lifted his legs to the 
 table, and began to blow a cloud to the ceiling. 
 
 They reached the coffin-like lodge at the side of the great 
 portal or arch of the palace, and, handing the little man a roll 
 of francs, the door immediately and very slyly opened; and 
 then the little Roman soldier at his post opened a blank door
 
 436 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 behind him, and making certain that he was not observed, led 
 the two through into a dark, dingy, passage, where he lighted 
 a coil wax taper, such as is used in the passage of the Cata 
 combs, and beckoned them forward. 
 
 They ascended a narrow stairway, damp and heavy with 
 the smell of the grave, and then made a long detour to the 
 right. Here they stopped and listened. The little porter 
 laid his ear to the wall, but could hear nothing. Then he laid 
 it down to the floor, and arose satisfied that all was clear, and 
 led up another stairway as dark and dismal as the first. 
 
 Here they listened again. Not a sound, save the rats nib 
 bling at some leathern objects lying about on the floor. 
 
 The porter opened this door cautiously, and the three stood 
 in a clamp, dark vault, where there were piled bags of what 
 might have been either chestnuts or walnuts, or any other 
 thing of the kind, to all appearances. 
 
 There were dozens of rats running over and around these 
 bags, and as they ran something rattled over the floor and 
 rolled at the feet of the artist. He stooped and picked it up. 
 It was a cartridge. 
 
 The porter listened again, and then led on rapidly, without 
 looking to the right or left. There was a smell of death not 
 to be mistaken. The maid shrank close up to the side of the 
 porter, and the porter hastened to unfasten the door. 
 
 " Have you ever been in this passage before ?" asked the 
 artist, taking the coil of wax from his hand, and turning back 
 to the bags of cartridges. 
 
 " No, no, never before ; and, please the blessed Virgin, I 
 will never come again, even though the Countess should give 
 me her palace. It smells ! " 
 
 " Look here ! stop ! lift that cloak ! " said the artist, hold 
 ing the light over a dark object heaped lip in a corner. 
 
 The porter shrank back against the maid, and the maid 
 against the wall. 
 
 The artist pushed the cloak aside with his foot. There lay
 
 A Skeleton in a Closet. 437 
 
 the half-decayed skeleton of a man close against the bags of 
 ammunition. 
 
 He looked at the two cowering figures before him. Then 
 he put his finger to his lips. They made signs that they 
 would be silent. 
 
 " Swear it. Lift up your right hands, and swear it in the 
 presence of the dead." 
 
 They lifted up their hands, and he swore them in the name 
 of the Madonna. 
 
 " Now, mark you this. Your own lives depend on your 
 secrecy. Tell of this dead man, and the law will demand of 
 you some account of how he came here." 
 
 The porter saw the position, and again promised the pro- 
 foundest secrecy, as they replaced the cloak and once more 
 passed on. 
 
 They entered an outer camera, where a dim light was burn 
 ing on a little table where were flasks and bottles of wine. 
 
 There was a bed in a corner of this room, and on this bed 
 lay a man muttering in a drunken -sleep. 
 
 Passing on cautiously and swiftly as possible through 
 another door, they entered a very neat and comfortable 
 saloon, where evidently the hand of woman was not wanting 
 to set things in order. 
 
 Fussing through this saloon, the maid tapped gently at a 
 door, till a voice, soft and sweet and low, bade her come. 
 
 The Countess opened her great brown eyes, looked at the 
 party a moment, and then fell into the arms of Marietta 
 and burst into tears. She seemed as if her heart would 
 break, yet all the time tried to restrain herself, and tried to 
 speak and make herself understood. 
 
 " Here ! take this; take this ring; take it, and at once ! 
 Put it on your finger, turn it under, so so that they will 
 not sec it. Take it, for heaven s sake ! " she cried, as he 
 hesitated. " Take it ! " and she took his hand and almost 
 forced it on his finger.
 
 438 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 " It is my dead brother s ring. Listen ! You know he 
 had that ring on his hand when he disappeared. He has 
 never been heard of since. But I went among them last 
 night. I went out among the drunken, brawling brigands, 
 that fill my palace and keep me a prisoner here. And what 
 do you think ? I found them lying drunk and asleep, and 
 that ring that curious and rich ring, that was on my dead 
 brother s hand when last I saw him was on the finger of 
 the dark old Admiral. Hush ! I took it off. They missed 
 it this morning. And what did they do ? They took my 
 little boy and threatened to destroy him too, body and soul, 
 if I dared to say one word." 
 
 " Gods ! I should have brought my pistols ! " hissed the 
 artist. 
 
 "Are you unarmed ? Then heaven help you ! But my 
 husband, the Count, is not so bad. No, no ; he is not 
 bad. It is the terrible society to which he belongs ; and he 
 has not the strength or will to escape." 
 
 " And where are these wretches now ! " 
 
 " Here in my palace. I dare not lift a finger, or say one 
 word, or they will destroy my little boy, as they did my 
 brother. And they tell me that if I do not give up this ring, 
 I shall never be allowed to get out again, or to see a friend. 
 You are the first Christian I have seen ! " 
 
 The lady s face was flushed and on fire with excitement 
 and rage. 
 
 "And your husband, the Count, will he endure all 
 this?" 
 
 " Oh, I have exhausted all hope every resource in that 
 direction. He tells me these are his friends ; he is my 
 husband, and they must be made welcome ; and when I 
 pleaded for my liberty this morning, and protested against 
 this imprisonment, he simply said the ring is not mine, that 
 I have no right to it, and that if I want to go out, I have 
 only to give it up and go. I will not give it up to him. It
 
 A Skeleton in a Closet. 439 
 
 is the death-warrant of that monster. We must keep it. 
 Keep it, Murietta, with your life ! " 
 
 " I will keep it. By heaven, I will keep it ! " 
 
 " I know you will keep it, and keep my secret till it is 
 time to reveal it. Listen to me," she sank down on the sofa, 
 in a heap of rose and pink robes " I said I had something 
 to tell you. You grew tired of hearing me say it. Well, 
 this is it. My husband, the Count, belongs to a strange 
 society. I do not know what it is. I know it is something 
 terrible, and that its members meet here, and make my palace 
 the head-quarters of their crimes. He says he was sworn 
 into their order when he was too young to xinderstand, and 
 that he cannot now leave it and live. Listen ! This, all 
 this, has been going on for years. We have been here five 
 years. At first I endured it well. Then they began to take 
 all the money I had, to plunge me in debt, to try to take 
 my little boy into strange churches, and to teach him terri 
 ble things; and then, at last, I managed to get the truth to 
 my brother. He came at once. They treated him with all the 
 civility possible ; but when he determined to take me out of 
 Italy, to my father, my husband protested ; and they the 
 brigands told him, that I should never leave Italy, for 
 through me came the money that kept the order together. I 
 could not, I would not then, reveal to the world the truth of 
 things. I was proud of being a Countess, and all the time 
 hoped for the best, and believed I would yet get the Count 
 out of the country, and away from these evil men, and 
 
 There was a noise in the room through which the little 
 party had just entered, and the porter laid hold of the bolt 
 and key. 
 
 " I must be brief," whispered the Countess, lifting her 
 hand towards the door. " My brother deterauned to take 
 me away, and at once. We were to start the next day. He 
 went out to ride on the Campagna. He had that ring on 
 his finger. A man at the Porto Popolo told me he saw him
 
 44 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 return and enter Rome ; but I I never saw him any more. 
 I enquired everywhere. They said I was crazy, mad. And 
 now, here, this is what you must do. I must have help. 
 Take this ring get it to my father in the States, and " 
 
 " But your father is in Home ; he is in Rome, and at the 
 Russe Hotel." 
 
 " In Rome ? Do you say in Rome ? Oh, do you say in 
 Rome? " She fell upon her knees, and took the man s hand 
 in hers, and held it to her lips, and covered it with tears. 
 
 " Then go to him at once. Take that ring. No. Yes ; 
 take the ring ; but do not show it to him. He is old, and 
 very frail. He would know the ring, for it was our mother s, 
 and it might affect him too much. But take it and go. 
 Bring him here at once. Go now, for God s sake ! I hear 
 voices ! Here, this way ! They are coming through the 
 secret passage ! Go go by the grand saloon and down the 
 broad steps. Bring my father. Tell the Consul. Christ ! is 
 there not, in all Catholic Rome, one man to protect a 
 woman ? " 
 
 The artist hurried through the grand saloon through a 
 door through a hall through an outer door, and was then 
 in an ante-camera, and moving across to the great door that 
 opened upon the broad stairway, where he would be safe and 
 free from the hands or daggers of those who were watching 
 his movements. 
 
 " Stop there ! I am a man who carries his heart in his 
 hand. A rough but honest sailor ; and now I want to know 
 what in hell you are doing here ? " 
 
 He struck his fist on a great side-board where lay a lot of 
 old arms, and the arms bounded and rattled as if they were 
 marshaling for war. 
 
 This seemed to be a sort of signal of distress, for men, 
 headed by the Count ; and, all more or less intoxicated, came 
 staggering in through a door that opened deeper into the 
 palace to the left.
 
 A Skeleton in a Closet. 441 
 
 " Let me pass," cried the artist. " Let me pass, I say." 
 
 The Count rushed up, and attempted to seize him by the 
 throat. 
 
 " What are you ? " 
 
 The words were driven back down his throat by a blow 
 from Marietta in his mouth, and he fell back, and then 
 gathered strength, and came up to his work like a man really 
 fighting for the right ; but only to be sent back again with 
 severer punishment. 
 
 " Open that door ! " cried the artist, advancing towards 
 the Admiral, who had placed his back against it. 
 
 The Count was down ; the other men had retreated, and 
 the old Admiral had no disposition to enter the lists with 
 this infuriated man, whose hand was bleeding and dripping 
 with blood from his own wounds and from the face of the 
 Count. The Admiral preferred to fight with women, and 
 therefore proceeded to open the door. 
 
 " There now, begone ! " he cried, as he swung it wide 
 open, " and beware how you again enter the palace of a 
 gentleman uninvited. 
 
 " Look here, my gray-headed murderer ! Mark you here ! " 
 answered Murietta, as he still stood in the middle of the floor, 
 and lifted his fist towards the Admiral. " One word before I go. 
 You profess to be a blunt and an honest man. I will also be 
 plain with you. I go ; but I return. This door is to be 
 opened for me. I bring the father of the Countess to her. 
 You can be discreet. I bring the old man to his daughter, 
 who you have been telling all the time is insane. ISTow, 
 will this door be opened to me or not ? " 
 
 " Opened to you ? Ha, ha ! " 
 
 " Yes ; opened to rue. Since you seem to be the captain of 
 the castle, " said Murietta, now looking at the Count, Avho 
 stood leaning on the table and wiping the blood from his 
 face as he listened to the parley, " I will make my terms of 
 capitulation with you. Shall I find this door open, or shall 
 19*
 
 442 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 I " he advanced towards the retiring Admiral, and shook 
 
 his fist in his face, " or shall I enter by the secret passage, 
 and take the police with me once show them the dead man, 
 the brother of the Countess, whose body lies by the magazine 
 with which you expect to blow the palace to the moon. An 
 swer me, yes or no ! " 
 
 "Yes, yes, " gasped the admiral, as he sank against the 
 wall. "Let us be friends. What is the use of strife ? " 
 
 The artist was gone. 
 
 He found the father at the Hotel Russe, a little bent old 
 man, with a beard white as snow. 
 
 " Your daughter, the Countess Edna, wants to see you. 
 You are to come to her at once. I have just left her side, and 
 she sends me to tell you to come to her as soon as possible." 
 
 " But my daughter is my daughter has my daughter 
 cannot see me. I have been waiting and waiting. I have just 
 come from the palace. The good old Admiral, who is on watch, 
 tells me that she is even worse. " 
 
 " But you are to come, " cried the eager and impulsive 
 artist, " and to come at once. Only come and see ; that 
 will not take you long. " 
 
 " Yes, yes, yes ; that is quite true. I will go. I will go 
 with you, Mr. Mr. " 
 
 " Murietta, " said the artist. 
 
 " Murietta ! Heaven help me ! Is it you who have the au 
 dacity to come to me you, who have blighted my daughter s 
 name, and driven her to madness ? No, no ! Get out of my 
 sight ! Do not speak to me ! " 
 
 "But will you not go with me? Will you not go and 
 see ? Men have been telling lies. Come, 1 will prove to 
 you that they have lied. " 
 
 " No, no. Go. Will you riot get out of my sight ? Oh 
 that my son were here, that he might chastise you for your 
 crime and your audacity ! " 
 
 " Your son ! " The artist thought of the dead man s ring.
 
 A Skeleton in a Closet. 443 
 
 " Your daughter has just been speaking of jour son. She 
 has just received a ring a ring he wore when last she saw 
 him ; and, fearing you might be deterred from coining with me, 
 a stranger she bade me show it you, if that was necessary, 
 to convince you of the truth of my message. See ! " 
 
 He held the glittering jewel up on his forefinger before the 
 old man s eyes under the lamp in the hall. 
 
 "It is it is true! It is his! I had a dream. You will 
 forgive me," he said, offering his hand. " I had a dream, and 
 now my dream is coming true. Lead on lead on bring me 
 to my child ! " 
 
 " Double fare, and a fast drive, " said the artist to the 
 driver, as they entered a carriage at the door. 
 
 True to the old Admiral s promise, he stood at the door, 
 and it opened without a word. 
 
 " She has suddenly recovered her mind," he whispered to 
 the old man, her father ; " but still has strange illusions that 
 you must not contradict or interfere with at all. That will 
 make her worse. " 
 
 They stood before the parlor door, which opened with 
 some delay. 
 
 The Countess lay exhausted upon her sofa. The excitement 
 of the half hour with the artist had broken her down, for she 
 was a weak and over-nervous woman, and could not endure 
 such tension of the mind long at a time. 
 
 To the dismay and disgust of Murietta, in the door oppo 
 site stood the sleek, cunning Giuseppe, and by the side of the 
 Countess stood the narrow-browed doctor we have seen at the 
 little cell by the Tarpeian Rock. Over in a corner sat the 
 Count, with his head bandaged, and his eye closed, from the 
 frightful blows in his face. 
 
 The lady saw her father ; and, rising slowly, and with an air 
 of authority, she waved the two villains out, or attempted to 
 wave them out of the room. They retreated but a few steps, 
 and still lingered.
 
 444 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 " Are you the mistress here, or am I ? " Then turning 
 quietly to her father, she said, " You see, father, these men 
 constitute themselves my keepers. I am a prisoner, and my 
 husband is powerless to help me ! " Then she put her arms 
 about his neck and kissed him rapturously, and cried as if 
 her baby heart would break, and she should never cease to 
 weep. 
 
 At last she lifted her head, and the two keepers were gone. 
 The Count still sat there with an eye closed, and bound and 
 silent. 
 
 " And now you will never, never leave me ! " she said, as 
 she still held on to her father as if she had been a child. 
 " And now we can go all together, and get away from this 
 dreadful nightmare and the terrible nieii that have fastened 
 upon the Count ! " 
 
 " No, no, I will never leave my child," said the feeble old 
 man as he sank into a seat, " never part with my wayward 
 little daughter, who would wed a stranger and in a strange 
 land, any more. No, no, we can all go home together, as you 
 say, and be glad and content again. Come Count, my son ! 
 see, we are all right now. We can go to-morrow, for it is 
 killing me in Rome." 
 
 " To-morrow, O let it be to-morrow ! " cried the Countess, 
 clasping her hands. " Do, do let it be to-morrow ! Leave 
 the palace, leave it all. It is haunted. There is a skeleton 
 in the house." 
 
 The Count started up and staggered towards the door, as he 
 tore the bandages from his face. 
 
 " Poor, poor Count, and what is the matter now with his 
 face ? " said the old man to the Countess. 
 
 She looked up towards the door, saw the Count passing out, 
 and Murietta standing before him. 
 
 " Stand aside, Mr. Murietta ! stand back, and let the 
 Count, my husband, pass ! Why did you lift your hand 
 against my husband ? Was there no one else for you to lay
 
 A Skeleton in a Closet. 445 
 
 your heavy blows upon? Is it thus that you would assist a 
 lady in distress ? Sir, you can go." 
 
 " Lady," said the man sadly, as he drew a ring from his 
 finger, " I leave you with your father and your husband. I 
 am very sorry I raised my hand against the Count. I see I 
 am again misunderstood. But now you are safe, and I go. 
 Good-bye, and God bless you ! " He handed the ring to the 
 old man as he said this, and hastened away. She did not 
 call him back or say one word. 
 
 " Yes," he said, as he reached the street, " Carlton was 
 right. I know nothing whatever about women, and very 
 little indeed about men." 
 
 There was a dog crossing before him as he turned a corner, 
 and he drew back his foot and kicked it with all his might. 
 
 " No matter," he said, as he climbed the steps of the Hotel 
 Russe and found his friend Carlton. " No matter ; I have 
 done my duty to the living, and nothing can help the dead. 
 J do not see what else remains or what I have to complain 
 of. The old man will now care for his daughter and " 
 
 The artist thought a long time over what he had seen in 
 the secret passage, and then said to himself, " Some day there 
 will be an explosion in that palace, and the Papists will say 
 it s the king s party trying to blow up good Catholics; and 
 the Government will say is it the Pope trying to re-establish 
 his tottered throne ; while, in truth, it will be but a nest of 
 brigands trying to conceal their crimes! " 
 
 The friends parted for the night very soon, for they had to 
 be up with the sun on their way to Venice. 
 
 " We will reform to-morrow," said Carlton, laughing and 
 looking back over his shoulder as he retired to his bed-room, 
 for he did not yet know anything that had transpired chat 
 evening at the palace. 
 
 How wide-awake the day was that morning, as the two 
 friends drove to the station for the four o clock train. Italy 
 was bathing her morning face in a golden shower of sunlight.
 
 446 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 The artist thought only of Annette, as they whirled through 
 the ruins, and out and under the walls away towards the Alps, 
 pointing toward Como by way of Venice. 
 
 " Rome is the earth, the centre of the earth ; but Como 
 shall be my heaven," and the artist raised his hand in an 
 eternal farewell to the Eternal City, as Carlton drew forth a 
 red-bound book, and began to read aloud of gondolas and 
 palaces, and of " The Bridge of Sighs."
 
 CHAPTER LIII. 
 
 CROSSING THE RUBICON. 
 
 UR two friends left the cars 
 when they first touched 
 the Adriatic. Before them 
 and far up the coast flowed 
 the black and silent little 
 Rubicon through the tall sea 
 grass, and yonder rose the 
 famous three towers of San 
 Marino. They were in old, 
 old and classic Italy. 
 Italy looks so very tired. Let 
 her lie down and rest. She is old 
 and weary, and worn, and storm- 
 stained, and battered and battle- 
 torn, till it seems like irreverence 
 to ask her now to rise up and take 
 
 a place among the powers of the earth. Let her rest, and 
 we will respect, aye, reverence her still. We will come up 
 from the under world, and sit at her feet and listen, and 
 learn from her songs of a thousand years. 
 
 New Italy is a misnomer. It is out of place. It fires 
 one s soul to think of steam-ploughs on the Campagna, and 
 patent gas burners among the blinking owls of the Coliseum.
 
 448 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 "We have enough of the clash and thunder of commerce at 
 home. One comes to Italy to rest. There is something 
 awful in the rush of a railroad over your head as you prowl 
 among the dead of the Catacombs. The tomb of Augustus is 
 a theatre with all the modern improvements. The Tarpeian 
 rock is a telegraph office. One turns away disgusted, and 
 devoutly wishes that that little difference between the Fope 
 and his people had never happened. 
 
 And yet the world is to blame. There was no strife to 
 speak of, outside of the moral Avar. The world said, " Italy 
 be free," as it had said to Greece ; and it was so. A few 
 Italians fought a few Italians ; and, leaving out the Emperor 
 of the French and Victor Emanuel, there was not enough 
 real mettle and manhood shown to lift the whole affair above 
 the province of a farce. 
 
 It is the safest prophecy in the world to say, that when 
 the present grand old figure-head, Victor Emanuel, makes 
 his tomb in this house of tombs, and takes permanent posses 
 sion of it, then the Pope will again swing his drowsy censers 
 and Italy will again lie down and sleep, and sleep, and sleep 
 for a full thousand years. The thought is not unpleasant. 
 One feels like resenting this new life in this old land. It is 
 a corpse set grinning by a galvanic battery, and it is hideous 
 as an old woman in the dress of her grandchild. 
 
 Our friends were at Ancona. Ancona seems to have been 
 planted here on the Adriatic by the Greeks as a sort of battle 
 field for future generations. This battered little fishing town, 
 in the last three thousand years, has scored at least a hun 
 dred battles. 
 
 " We will rest here," cried Carlton, lifting his glass as 
 they sat to dinner, "for here is peace and plenty; the olive 
 and the vine. It is said that men must leave Ancona when 
 they wish to die." 
 
 " Then we surely will remain and rest," answered Mu- 
 rietta.
 
 Crossing the Rubicon. 449 
 
 " N"o," said Carlton, " fate demands that we move on to 
 morrow. Twas ever thus." 
 
 The glasses were again emptied. Carlton pushed out his 
 long legs under the marble table, drew in his breath, as if 
 feeding on the sweet air of the Adriatic, and the two artists 
 sat contemplating each other, and well content with the world 
 and themselves. 
 
 Carlton filled and emptied his glass again. Marietta 
 looked at the man, with the least bit of a wrinkle on his 
 brow. 
 
 " Ah ! " but I will reform to-morrow," laughed Carlton ; 
 and again the happy fellow threw back his head, and the 
 glass was empty. 
 
 There was a bustle at the door of the dining saloon, a rush 
 of feet and a rustle of silk, and a party of three poured in 
 upon our friends as they sat by their table. 
 
 " Bet your life, I m hungry ! and poor dear ma the bald- 
 headed Elijah ! " cried the delighted California!! girl, as she dis 
 covered our friends, and sprang forward, and caught them both 
 at the same time as they sat there, in one sweeping embrace. 
 
 " Oh now ! ain t this jolly ! Just the fellows I wanted to 
 see. Now you sit down there, pa and yo\i, ma, there and 
 I ll sit by Mr. Murietta and talk to him about the pink Prin 
 cess and Rome, and " 
 
 The girl s voice faltered, and Murietta hastened to change 
 the drift of her thought. 
 
 " Oh yes, I had to leave Florence ! Florence is so hot. 
 Oh, Florence is the worst ! It is the hottest hole. Florence 
 pleasant ? Oh ! why, Florence is hot enough to melt a brass 
 monkey !" 
 
 And thus the light-hearted girl rattled on all the evening, 
 and her mother and the General sat by and listened and 
 admired, while Murietta thought all the time of a dark and 
 lovely lady, and Carlton tilted his glass continually, and said 
 all the time that he should reform to morrow.
 
 450 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 Then it was agreed that they should all visit San Marino 
 together on their way to Venice ; and the friends separated 
 for the night. 
 
 There was something as fresh as a sea-breeze in the idea of 
 a visit to San Marino. Who has not seen its three towers in 
 the picture-books ? And who has not read how the Little 
 Corporal of Corsica respected San Marino, and San Marino 
 only, of all the powers of Europe ? 
 
 They left the rumbling cars entirely at Ancona, the oldest 
 Greek colony on the Italian Adriatic, and there took a car 
 riage, and drove leisurely up the sea till almost under the 
 high towers of the little Republic. On the way, they drove 
 through a little town known as the birth-place of Rossini, a 
 hot, miserable little place ; and the fat little composer, sitting 
 in a coat of verdigris, on a very uneasy seat, right by the side 
 of the railroad, is its only attraction. His townsmen told the 
 travellers that this Rossini was a very mean man ; and that, 
 though very wealthy, he would eat only maccaroni, and that 
 even then he would not trust any one to purchase it for him, 
 for fear of being cheated. 
 
 " Oh me ! I wish I had not heard that !" sighed Mollie, 
 " for now I shall never hear one of his wonderful pieces 
 without thinking of a dirty little town by the Adriatic, and 
 a fat loafing little Italian winking in the sun as he tells of 
 the prophet who had no honor in his own town ; and then 
 I shall get hungry and think all the time of Italian macca 
 roni !" 
 
 The towers of the Republic lie almost twenty miles back 
 from the sea ; yet they are so high and clearly cut in the 
 pure air that they seem but a little distance away. 
 
 Not far from Rimini, a town full of interest on account of 
 its connection with the name of Dante, they crossed the 
 Rubicon. A mean little river indeed is the Rubicon, but 
 one must feel a strange deep interest in crossing it; and 
 they halted on the little bridge, and looked up and down
 
 Crossing the Rubicon. 451 
 
 its wandering waters in the full bright moon, for it was late 
 at night before they reached their inn. There were a thou 
 sand bright fire-flies in the dark pines that hung over its 
 waters and on the thick verdure that grew along its banks, 
 fireflies, and that was all.
 
 CHAPTEK LIV. 
 
 THE THREE TOWERS. 
 
 ERE lay Rimini red brick Rimini 
 in the edge of the sea ; and here our 
 party rested for the night. 
 
 The next morning they drove to 
 the place where St. Anthony went 
 down and preached to the fishes be 
 cause the men refused to listen to him. 
 And then, after tliat, they saw the old 
 castle where Dante laid his pretty 
 story, his prettiest story, wherein the 
 two lovers, as a punishment for their 
 sins, are sent flying and flying forever 
 and forever through space. 
 
 "You ( ti ht to visit San Marino," said the 
 driver. " It is the oldest and strongest place 
 in the world. Even Napoleon the Great could 
 not take it." 
 
 " Arid how old is San Marino ?" asked the democratic 
 General. " Nearly eight thousand years old. I was born 
 there. I belong to San Marino and ought to know. If the 
 Signori please, I would like to show them San Marino." 
 
 "This reformed or unreformed brigand is just a little 
 shaky in his history, isn t he ?" said Mollie. 
 
 They did not. employ him ; but before noon they were 
 whirling along at a good pace on the only road that leads 
 to the only town of the oldest republic in the world.
 
 The Three Towers. 453 
 
 Ten miles back from the sea they passed a great number of 
 Italian soldiers; and, as they neared the line, they swarmed 
 as thickly as tourists in Switzerland. 
 
 Asking the cause of this, they found that King Victor 
 Emanuel was just on the point of declaring war against San 
 Marino, for refusing to surrender certain runaway soldiers 
 who had taken refuge in the rocks and caverns of the He- 
 public. 
 
 It was here that Garibaldi came with his dying wife and 
 their children, after his gallant exploits in Rome. A broken 
 and vanquished man, he came bleeding, weary, and alone, to 
 rest on the high rocks of San Marino. 
 
 You do not think so kindly of the little Republic when you 
 remember how he was told to "move on." 
 
 You look away along the sea as you stand in San Marino, 
 and there catch a glimpse of the little town to which the 
 brave man retreated, carrying his dying wife in his arms. 
 Her grave is there ; for outside the town he laid her down at 
 the door of a hut and asked for water ; but, before it could be 
 brought, the woman was dead. 
 
 She lies buried there nowiii the town that boasts the tomb 
 and bones of Dante. 
 
 A little stream marks the boundary between Italy and the 
 little rocky, desolate, ten-mile Republic. Soldiers of Italy 
 and San Marino sat on the bridge each on their own par 
 ticular ground, however quietly smoking and chatting as 
 the party passed. A polite people are these Italian soldiers, 
 and they all arose as the party rode over, and gracefully 
 tipped their hats. 
 
 A few miles further, and the very excellent road became 
 so very steep that it was impossible to make head with their 
 horses, and oxen were substituted great mild-eyed, patient 
 white oxen, the very same that Virgil mentions : 
 
 " And the white bulls bathe in Clyteranestra s stream."
 
 454 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 A yoke of leather was fastened about the horns, and a ring 
 in the nose of the nearest ox, where a tall, splendid-looking 
 Republican led and drove. Their new driver was brimful 
 of spirits, and talked all the time as he walked along by the 
 carriage, and told them many new things about San Marino. 
 He was just coming of age, he said ; and then the General 
 asked him if he intended to vote the " straight out-and-out 
 Republican ticket ; " but he did not seem to understand. 
 
 At last the white oxen stopped at the base of an immense 
 mountain of stone, on which stood the immortal three towers. 
 The two ladies fairly groaned with vexation at the prospect. 
 They all protested. 
 
 " This is the end of the road," replied the man quietly, 
 " and I can take you no further." 
 
 And he tranquilly unloosed the oxen and led them to a 
 stall. 
 
 " Come ! " cried Mollie, " we will pick up and appropriate 
 
 some of these little Republican boys that lie around loose, 
 
 and load them with our shawls and overcoats and umbrellas." 
 
 A long easy grade by the best of footways led them in 
 
 half an hour right into the heart of the little town. 
 
 " Why in the name of common sense this little city is 
 perched up on the very top of the highest rock in all this 
 barren, broken and inhospitable region I cannot understand," 
 said the General. 
 
 " Every bit of food must be carried \ip this steep and ugly 
 mountain," added Mollie. 
 
 " Yet here these hardy people are ! here they have been 
 for fifteen centuries ! and here, from the fine health and 
 spirits they seem to possess, they will probably remain for 
 many centuries to come ! " said Murietta, looking over the 
 land and sea spread away below them. The town was small, 
 but neat and well built. They noticed that not a beggar was 
 to be seen. 
 
 Mrs. Wopsus asked for a doctor; but they said their only
 
 The Three Towers, 455 
 
 doctor was an old woman who sold herbs and drugs. And 
 they said they had not a lawyer in all their Eepublic. 
 
 The innkeeper, a fat, good-natured and intelligent man, 
 met them half way up the hill. Mollie was perfectly happy 
 when orders had been given for dinner ; and then the inn 
 keeper proposed to show them the town. 
 
 They first visited the little cathedral. There in the front 
 of the altar stood St. Marino, the founder of the Republic, 
 and round about the altar were many objects of interest, and 
 presents from Napoleon the Great to the little church. 
 
 After that, the good old landlord, who had twice been 
 President of the Republic, and was then Chief Justice, led 
 them into a little hall. 
 
 " In this hall, twice a year, can any citizen of the Repub 
 lic come and make his complaints to the Justice, who sits 
 and hears all that is said, without the intervention of coun 
 sel or any one," said the chief magistrate of the oldest Re 
 public in the world to the citizens of the newest. 
 
 " The president receives no salary whatever," he continued, 
 " and cannot be elected a second time till after the lapse of 
 three years." 
 
 On the table lay a large book, the unalterable laws of San 
 Marino. On the walls hung the pictures of the two Napoleons. 
 
 They now visited the great bell that sounds when all the 
 people are required to come together, for it can be heard 
 from one side of the Republic to the other. 
 
 " It is a very old affair," remarked Mollie, tapping it with 
 her plump little knuckles, " and heavy enough to make a 
 small cannon." 
 
 This bell hangs in one of the three towers, and under 
 neath this tower is the prison. 
 
 They found the jailor mending shoes at the door. He 
 seemed to be positively proud that he had a prisoner to show 
 them, and danced about with delight. He said it was the 
 first one he had had for a year.
 
 456 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 " And what will you do with him ? Hang him ? " asked 
 Mollie. 
 
 The man threw up his hands in horror. 
 
 " Hang him ! There has never been a man hung in all 
 San Marino ! " 
 
 " Then what do you do with bad men ? " put in the General. 
 
 " Well, we have no bad men." 
 
 " But if one man should kill another in cold blood ?" 
 
 " Why, then we would put him in prison three months, or 
 perhaps half a year, and then banish him forever." 
 
 " And is that all ? " 
 
 The jailor sat down in silence and took up his tools. At 
 last he jerked his head over his shoulder and said, sharply, 
 " Is it not enough, I should like to know, to be banished 
 from San Marino ? " 
 
 " What a fat, sleek-looking prisoner ! I think he must 
 be the pet of the place ! " said Mollie, looking in through the 
 bars and bowing in the most friendly fashion. 
 
 While they were there, some women came in, passed the 
 cobbler or jailor, who did riot look up from his work, and 
 handed the prisoner a whole basket of sweetmeats. This 
 kindness seemed to be contagious ; for, after that, Mollie, who 
 had left the bars of the prison, went up to the pigeon-hole 
 in the door and turtle-do ved till Carlton began to grow 
 jealous. 
 
 The prisoner s story was that he had committed no offence 
 whatever; that he had only, one cold night, taken another 
 man s cow into his own house, to keep her from freezing to 
 death. 
 
 Then the sentimental young lady gave him a franc as she 
 bade him a tender farewell ; and they turned away to visit 
 another tower, while all the time the old cobbler pounded 
 away at his knees and did not again look up. 
 
 These towers are small affairs and of little good, either as 
 battlements or arsenals ; but the views from them are splen-
 
 The Three Towers. 457 
 
 did. Besides, they may be seen for at least twenty miles up 
 and down the coast ; and from almost any point they look 
 quite as imposing as the castles of the Rhine. They were 
 built in the middle ages, and stand on the very edge of a 
 perpendicular granite wall of four hundred feet in height. 
 
 The old inn-keeper, ex-President and Supreme Judge, 
 made them a long speech about the wickedness and falsehood 
 of all the under world, and seemed to think that the only 
 happiness on earth was to be found in the little cold and 
 stony Republic here. 
 
 He pronounced bitterly against all newspapers, and ad 
 vised the party never to read them under any circumstances. 
 He added gravely that he had never read a newspaper in all 
 his life. He told them that but few men in all San Marino 
 ever dissipated in that way, and that there was probably not 
 a dozen papers taken in all the Republic. 
 
 " Of course," said he, " there is not anything of the kind 
 published in the commonwealth of San Marino." 
 
 " Happy little country !" sighed the General. " Let us 
 pause here, and contemplate an election in the Republic of 
 the West without one newspaper to hector the candidates or 
 call men names !" 
 
 At the further tower they were shown the flag of the 
 country, a great white banner, with designs peculiarly its 
 own, and the three towers. 
 
 Here were mounted two little brass mortars, pointing their 
 noses like little bull-dogs, scornfully out over all the world 
 below. They were the gift of the king of Italy, at the time 
 of ascending the throne of his re-uriited country. 
 
 "They are about as large as champagne bottles," said 
 Mollie, " though I should say they would be, when loaded, 
 hardly as effectual !" 
 
 " We have nine hundred soldiers," said the Supreme 
 Judge. 
 
 " O, that the pretty little fiction which we have so often 
 20
 
 45 8 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 read in the geography school-books, about the standing army 
 consisting of one man, should be so wide of the mark !" 
 murmured the General. " Nine hundred men V" 
 
 "Yes," continued the head judge, "and the military dis 
 cipline is severe, and, like that of Prussia, includes all classes. 
 The uniform is less showy, as you see, than that of Italy, and 
 the side-arm is a sort of sabre, and not at all like the short 
 Roman sword with its she-wolf on the hilt." 
 
 * Those three towers seem to crop out on everything," said 
 the contemplative artist. They blossom on the hat of the 
 policeman, on every gateway, on every wall, on the buttons 
 of every officer and soldier." 
 
 " Yes," said Carlton, " even on the only coin minted in 
 the Republic, the five centime piece, the three towers make 
 the one prominent feature." 
 
 As they walked along the brow of the mountain, towards 
 the inn, they saw a woman mowing grass on a very steep and 
 dangerous slope. She was bare footed, bare-legged; her hair 
 Imng down her back, blowing in the wind ; and she swung 
 her scythe with a strength and resolution that was refreshing 
 to see. A rope was tied around her waist, and above her, 
 on a safer spot, her husband held stoutly to one end, so as to 
 secure her if she should miss her footing. How she did 
 strike out and swing her long arms ! What perfect confi 
 dence she had in the truth and strength of that tawny-beard 
 ed republican ! 
 
 " One falls to wondering," said the General, very seriously, 
 " how many accidents there would be chronicled, if this sort 
 of work was necessary and general in the greater but newer 
 Republic ! " 
 
 Mollie wanted one of the party to go down and give the 
 man a franc ; but as he evidently had the best end of the 
 bargain, so far, at least, as himself and wife were concerned, 
 Carlton respectfully declined. 
 
 " But I am so hungry," at last cried Mollie.
 
 The Three Towers. 459 
 
 And this was the signal that the day s wandering was 
 done ; for this little Californian maiden was a tyrant in mat 
 ters of the table, who was not to be trifled with. 
 
 Their dinner was made up entirely of San M-arino products. 
 Tlie wine seemed to be the best they had found on the Adri 
 atic. The old man told them he had made it himself nearly 
 twenty years before, from grapes that had first been hung all 
 the winter to dry in his house. 
 
 Carlton filled his glass and emptied his bottle, vowing at 
 every glass he would reform to-morrow. 
 
 Then four bottles were opened simultaneously, and set out 
 before them on the snowy linen cloth of republican manu 
 facture, and the dinner was rated a glorious success. 
 
 They first drank a rousing health, and a long life to the 
 Republic. Then Mollie made a speech to the host on Woman s 
 Rights, which he did not in the least understand, and ended 
 by proposing the health of the man who held on to the rope 
 while his wife did the work. The men of the party protested, 
 but drank to the health of the women. 
 
 Then Carlton made a Four th-of- July speech about their 
 own great Republic, and again the glasses were baptised with 
 wine. 
 
 How the old host did enjoy it all ! and how he waddled 
 about as he brought them their food with his own hands, and 
 called them fellow citizens ! and how he rocked from foot to 
 foot, and shook his fat proportions as he stood behind their 
 chairs and waited for their orders. 
 
 At last the splendid dinner was nearly finished, and they 
 were very near to the bottom of their bottles. One more 
 glass remained to each. The General now arose, with a little 
 assistance, (the very least in the world!) and fired a speech 
 of thanks at the helpless old host, and then proposed his 
 health. 
 
 This was agreed to with a huzza, and each man seized his 
 bottle by its black neck, as if he would throttle it on the spot.
 
 460 T^he One Fair Woman. 
 
 The bottles were tilted, and then the golden, gleaming uii- 
 bottled sunshine that the fat old host had corked up twenty 
 years before, when he was perhaps neither so old nor so fat, 
 went whirling, eddying, bubbling and brimming in the 
 glasses. But in the centre of each little whirlpool there gath 
 ered a group of black little objects, as if bent on holding 
 a democratic convention there and then. 
 
 The ladies looked down into the glasses and giggled. But 
 the men were too glorious now to hesitate at trifles. 
 
 " I should like to interrupt you here, General," said Mu- 
 rietta, " long enough to suggest that it was perhaps the best 
 year for flies twenty years ago, when our good host bottled 
 his wine, that there had been for a long, long time ! " 
 
 Mollie said she had four, and proceeded calmly to fish 
 them out with her fork. Carlton tried to look straight into 
 his glass, but in vain. He remarked, however, that he thought 
 he had caught two, but that they swam around so fast he 
 could not count them. Then his mind took an anatomical 
 turn, and he gravely asserted that they were perhaps the best 
 preserved flies to be found outside of the Catacombs of Egypt. 
 
 The General, who was making his speech to the host, re 
 fused to be interrupted again, but kept firing his Fourth-of- 
 July sentiments right into San Marino, as represented by its 
 innkeeper, ex-president, and Supreme Judge. 
 
 The speaker, as he proceeded, became eloquent beyond 
 measure. He sailed the American eagle gloriously over the 
 broken crags of San Marino, and perched this garrulous bird 
 on every tower of the Repiiblic. And then, in a fit of enthu 
 siasm and burst of uncommon eloquence, forgetting all about 
 the flies, he drained his glass at a gulp and sat down, and 
 the dinner was done. 
 
 They took a siesta after that ; and, as the sun went down, 
 they stood again on the high natural battlements of San Ma 
 rino, preparatory to making the descent. 
 
 The sea seemed almost under them, although twenty miles
 
 The Three Towers. 461 
 
 away. There were a thousand sails in sight on the still blue 
 Adriatic, and they were sails of all colors and forms and 
 conditions. Nothing looks more beautiful on all the sea than 
 one of these Venetian vessels, with its great yellow sails and 
 its red cross in the centre. 
 
 What a barren and broken land is this of San Marino ! 
 If there is a single spot of ten acres in extent of decent level 
 land in all the Republic, you cannot see it ! and you can 
 easily see every foot of land within its lines from the high 
 tower-topped rocks. You see some flocks of goats and some 
 cows, and you see at the base of the great bluff some vines 
 and fruit ; but the ground seems a cold, heartless and in 
 hospitable soil. All the streets are walled and bedded in 
 masonry to prevent the soil from washing away ; and often 
 you see great walls built to keep the cold, blue and barren 
 ground from sliding clown the mountain sides. 
 
 Standing here, and looking toward the sea, one can easily 
 understand why this place kept its independence ; for this 
 one road must, nine-tenths of the year, be so muddy and 
 broken as to be impassable. 
 
 At first, the good old Saint Marino came here to escape per 
 secution, and took refuge in these high rocks. No doubt he 
 had some few followers with him. And then it may be 
 easily imagined that his gentle life and nature drew the rude 
 mountaineers around him ; and when his long life was 
 finished, his patriarchal form of government fell on some 
 worthy survivor ; and so on, till it took the shape of the 
 present system of government. 
 
 For the first few centuries there was certainly nothing 
 whatever to tempt the conqueror to San Marino ; and, finally, 
 when it had a little importance, its natural defences pro 
 tected it, till at last it became the fashion of the world to 
 respect it. And now it is perhaps the most secure and inde 
 pendent government in all the world ; for who would lay 
 hands upon, or give any law or direction to little San Marino ?
 
 462 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 These people imagine that it is their own wisdom and valor 
 and good management that has carried them so securely 
 through so many centuries ; and to talk with one of their 
 officers on this subject is the freshest and most amusing and 
 interesting thing. 
 
 Away out over the Apennines and Alps, at sunset, the 
 man pointed out a bridle-trail that led to Florence. This 
 and the wagon-road by which our party had entered were 
 really the only ways of reaching the capital of the oldest Re 
 public in the woi ld. 
 
 There was a little headache in the party, perhaps, as they 
 shook hands with the ex-President, the keeper of the good 
 inn, and the maker of old and excellent wine. But no one 
 complained. 
 
 Murietta could not help looking all the time, as they cork 
 screwed their way down the hill, away up the sea coast 
 towards Ravenna, where Dante lies buried, and where Byron 
 lived his happiest days and wrote his worst works. 
 
 Nearly thirty miles away, the strange old town, that has 
 retired from the sea. as if at last weary of life and labor, 
 lay like a white spot on the broad valley. 
 
 What sharp and constant contrasts one comes upon here in 
 this land of fruits and flowers ! Mountains to-day and val 
 leys to-morrow ; snows of the Alps at noon, and the soft 
 sweet summer of Como at night.
 
 CHAPTER LY. 
 
 A GONDOLA. 
 
 HE sun was setting down be 
 hind the ^Egean Hills, like a 
 great hemisphere of fire. Our 
 friends sat together on the 
 balcony of the Grand Hotel, 
 the artist, Carlton, Mollie, 
 and her parents. They were 
 silent, for there was majesty 
 in the scene. All Venice was silent. 
 Not a song was heard to float any 
 where on the salt flood street. They 
 sat on the balcony together ; where 
 Desdemona had sat and listened to 
 the wooing of the Moor ; for lo ! her 
 palace is now an hotel. A thousand 
 ships went to and fro and far away, 
 slowly and silent, under the gold and glory of the dying sun. 
 The full salt flood tide lapped and laughed in careless cadence 
 around the marble steps of the ancient palace, as people went 
 and came in and out of the dark side streets in their darker 
 gondolas, as if from caves of the sea. 
 
 Carlton was sitting close to the side of Mollie. The Gene 
 ral was running his mind down the grooves of his gridiron of 
 railroads, and Mrs. Wopsus was dreaming on in her negative
 
 464 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 and non-committal way, intent only on protecting her hands 
 and face from the insinuating blood-bites of the mosquitoes. 
 
 The great white cockatoo that Marietta had purchased in 
 Home, that it might absorb and receive to itself the wasted 
 affections of Miss Mollie, was also on the balcony, that he 
 might get a breath of fresh air with the rest of the family ; 
 but he hung and swung in Ids cage from his iron bar quite 
 unnoticed now. The little brown poodle, with its eyes quite 
 hidden in a mass of tangled hair, that came down over its face 
 as if it had been a monk in a cowl, went butting and bumping 
 its little head around against the marble banisters, marble 
 walls, marble seats, and marble ottomans, as if it was quite 
 neglected. What could all this mean ? Had Mollie found 
 something else to love ? 
 
 " The people are getting in from the station," said Mrs. 
 Wopsus, looking up the canal towards the depot, and wiping 
 her eyes. 
 
 This observation, which was neither very pathetic nor pro 
 found, though perhaps it embodied the length and breadth of 
 the views of this simple lady of California, was at once con 
 firmed by a number of gondolas now open, for the sun was 
 down just then rounding a turn in the Great Canal and 
 driving down upon the hotel. 
 
 Travellers are gregarious. Each season in each city, as a 
 rule, finds its own favorite hotel, and when the happy propri 
 etor finds the tide flowing to his doors, he may sit down, as 
 they too often do in Italy, and consider his fortune made. 
 
 The travelling world, for this season, had fallen upon the 
 Grand Hotel, and of course all new-comers went directly to 
 the palace of Desdemona, for there they knew they would 
 meet with fellow travellers. I 
 
 As the open gondolas with their great cargoes of Saratoga 
 trunks piled high in the stern, and men and women, travel- 
 stained and worn, looking up with wonder at the mighty 
 palaces drew near, Mollie arose, and with a hand on the
 
 In a Gondola. 465 
 
 shoulder of Cavlton, stood tiptoe, and leaning and looking as 
 if she was discovering a new world, cried : 
 
 " The pink Princess ! the pink Countess ! Bet your life ! " 
 And Mollie clapped her little rosy hands together, stumbled 
 over the little brown poodle, bumped her head against the 
 hanging cage of the discarded cockatoo, and darted down the 
 marble steps with outstretched hands, and her warm little 
 heart gushing with hearty welcome for the poor travel- worn 
 woman who was coming, as she supposed, to a strange house 
 filled only with strangers. 
 
 There was a cast of care on the face of Marietta at this 
 announcement. At almost any previous period of his life he, 
 too, had rushed down with the warm-hearted Mollie, or at 
 least followed her quietly, as did Carlton and her parents, and 
 stood on the marble landing to receive her, and make her 
 glad with cheering words of welcome. 
 
 But now he did not move to meet her. He was growing 
 older and a little more wise with woman. Perhaps he 
 recalled the last painful day in Rome, and her singular 
 behavior when he last had seen her. 
 
 At all events, whatever may have been his thoughts, he 
 only rose from his seat, walked out to the edge of the balcony, 
 laid his hands on the marble banisters, and, leaning a little 
 over, looked down into the approaching gondola. 
 
 There indeed was the pink Countess, settled back against 
 the high, black lifting cushion, with her little left hand 
 thrown out over the black arm of the seat into the sea, as 
 if she was a great rose, withering, thirsting for the water. 
 She did not lift her eyes. She was so languid, so weary, 
 and she seemed so helpless. She looked and behaved like 
 a little child that was being carried helplessly, it knew not 
 where. 
 
 Rose and pink and the rustle of silk under the black man 
 tle, that fell and trailed loosely from her half bare shoulders. 
 The same dress of perfect abandon and carelessness. The 
 20*
 
 466 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 same effort not to be beautiful, which only made her more 
 beautiful than before. 
 
 As the gondola drove down the salt flood street towards 
 the marble landing, Murietta held his breath with admiration. 
 She seemed to him to be herself the whole barge. She looked 
 like a great red rose, wide blown and drifting away on the 
 waves to the sea. 
 
 She seemed, soiled and worn as she was, as if she might 
 have been some great red rose that had been worn in the 
 breast of some god or Titan lover, till withered in the sun and 
 soiled, and then thrown carelessly in the tide to float away 
 and go God knows where. 
 
 On the seat before her sat, or rather reclined, half doubled 
 up, an old man with hair as white as wool. Close behind 
 this gondola came another. There was the little boy Sunshine 
 whom we have seen before, and beside him, with her arm 
 about his waist, was the lady s maid. But over and above 
 these, standing up, as if he encompassed them and kept them 
 for ever under his thumb, to the amazement and disgust of 
 Murietta, stood Guiseppe. This assassin, this reformed or uii- 
 refbrmed brigand, was acting the part of courier ; and, stand 
 ing there, was giving directions to the gondoliers of both craft 
 where to land and where to leave the baggage, and bearing 
 himself altogether in a manner which showed that he held 
 things much in his own hand. 
 
 It was with the greatest effort that the old man, by lean 
 ing on the arm of the General and holding the hand of 
 Mollie, could make the ascent of the steps. He was dying 
 indeed. The long delay and the anxiety at Rome had done 
 its worst. 
 
 Then, when the Countess whose face lighted up with its 
 old sad beauty, as she lifted her great brown eyes and saw the 
 face.s of her friends attempted to land, she almost fainted, and 
 nearly fell into the water from weakness and exhaustion. 
 
 And these two helpless people were in charge of this brigand,"
 
 In a Gondola. 467 
 
 this coward, and this tool of an association that was organized 
 to prey upon foreigners ! 
 
 Marietta was ashamed that he had stood aloof. He was 
 vexed with himself; and when the party had disappeared 
 under the balcony and entered the hotel, he paced up and 
 down, wondering why, at this particular time, when she so 
 much needed a kind word and the encouragement of familiar 
 faces, that he of all the party should have stood aloof, and 
 frowned from his high place of safety because she, too, had 
 come to Venice. 
 
 " I have been with her often, perhaps too often ; and now 
 that she comes here, a timid woman and a stranger, and in 
 the hands of a bad man, and helpless I, I am the man, and 
 the only man, to stand back on my high balcony and refuse 
 to reach her a hand from the land to whei-e she floats in the 
 troubled sea. I am an ass ! a consistent ass, and a coward ! " 
 
 Thus the man reflected to himself as he paced the balcony 
 in the twilight alone, and saw the stars come out and fall 
 through the great profound into the sea. 
 
 Then, as if to make amends and to appease his conscience, 
 he resolved to never again withhold his hand and his help from 
 any woman, come what might ; but to go on through life to the 
 end as he had lived in the teeth of the world. 
 
 Mollie and (Jarlton came on the balcony together soon ; and 
 the impulsive Murietta, rushing up to the former, enti-eated 
 her not to leave the Countess a moment, but to remain 
 with her, watch over her, take care of her as if she were her 
 sister. 
 
 Mollie promised to do everything that could be done or 
 that was necessary, and then turned to the cage and pretend 
 ed to be talking to the loud and garrulous cockatoo with its 
 lifted crest and yellow curve of gold, while in reality she was 
 talking to Carlton. 
 
 Murietta was in a mood again and half disgusted with 
 himself. He went down, took a gondola, entered the black
 
 468 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 little cabin, and taking out a roll of cigarettes, drifted away 
 with the retiring tide and dreamed of Annette and of his 
 near departure for Como, and prophesied and planned till the 
 morning star rose up from the Adriatic Sea and pointed like 
 a finger into the teeth of the lion of Saint Mark. 
 
 He slept late next day, as indeed did all of his party, as 
 well as the new arrivals, and, in fact, as did and does all 
 Venice at this season of the year. 
 
 The Countess did not appear at dinner ; but when the artist, 
 with a cigarette in his fingers, found his way, as was his cus 
 tom, rather late on the balcony, she rose to meet him, and 
 came forward in the old languid way, which in her was such 
 perfect grace, and gave her two hands, and greeted him as if 
 nothing had ever happened, as if that parting in the palace 
 had never been, and as if they had been the best of friends 
 for all the years of their lives. 
 
 Her father was there, too, and Sunshine ; and they were 
 all going, when the sun was down, in a little fleet of gondolas 
 down to the sea. 
 
 Murietta led the lady to her seat again, bad her welcome to 
 Venice, wished her pleasure in the proposed twilight excur 
 sion ; and then, shaking hands with her father, sauntered over 
 to the other side of the balcony, and, lighting his cigarette, 
 began to fire a double-barrelled volley of smoke across the 
 canal at the colossal figure of Fortune which tops the Dogana, 
 and holds its great golden scroll to the winds, and turns with 
 every passing breath like a true courtier of the changeful 
 time. 
 
 There was a rustle of rosy silk, and a small baby hand in 
 pearl and pink fluttered down to where his rested on the bal 
 cony, as if it had been a weary and a lonesome little dove of 
 Saint Mark seeking out its mate. 
 
 The artist turned his face to her, for he was not displeased 
 with her, but with himself. 
 
 " You will go with us," she said, in her soft dreamy way.
 
 In a Gondola. 469 
 
 " Father will have a gondola by himself, for he prefers to lie 
 down and be alone, and the courier will be in the boat to 
 take care of him, though I shall keep all the time in reach* 
 for I don t more than half like this Giuseppe ; and then Mol- 
 lie and Carlton will have a gondola ; and then the General 
 and Mrs. W. will have another, and so you see it will be 
 roomy and pleasant enough. Come, you will rest on the 
 water and be refreshed. 
 
 " I will go with you, Countess," he said, thoughtfully, turn 
 ing to her; "you see it is my disposition to be at your side 
 when you are fresh and free of care ; but to draw back and 
 stand aloof when you come to my house, as it were, weary 
 and worn, and in need of a kind word." 
 
 " No, no, not so ! I would not have thine enemy say so. 
 Pardon the poor quotation, but it is the truth ; besides, this 
 is the palace of Desdemona." 
 
 " You forgive me, then ? " 
 
 " With all my heart. There ! " 
 
 The little dove that had fluttered down on the balcony by 
 his hand fluttered up and lit on his extended palm ; and, press 
 ing it gently, he led her down the steps to where the sea-foam 
 floated about the marble steps at the landing, for the party 
 had already gone down and taken their places, and were 
 quietly pushing off and out toward the open sea.
 
 CHAPTER LVI. 
 
 DRIFTING. 
 
 STOOD in Venice on the Bridge 
 of Sighs," cried Mollie, looking 
 back over her shoulder at the 
 Countess, and showing her 
 pretty teeth as they pushed off. 
 " I propose a fine of a dozen 
 bottles," answered Carlton, " on 
 the first man, woman, or child 
 
 . who quotes or misquotes Byron 
 for the remainder of the even- 
 
 " 0, which were best, 
 
 To roam or rest, 
 Land s lap, or ocean s breast ? " 
 
 said Mollie, looking sideways under her falling 
 hair to the lover at her side, while her hand 
 trailed down in the warm sea water over the side of the little 
 gliding gondola. 
 
 Little Sunshine threw back his long hair and looked up at 
 the large bright stars, while the stars looked right down into 
 the bright, clear sea, as women look into a glass and see their 
 own beauty, and seemed glad and light, and ready to dance 
 with delight.
 
 Drifting. AJ \ 
 
 The old General sat planning a railroad in the sea, and 
 Mrs. W. wiped her eyes and looked at her delighted daughter, 
 and still maintained, without effort, her reputation for elo 
 quent silence. 
 
 The Countess seemed lost, as was her wont, in the flower 
 bed of rose and pink and pink and rose, and ever and anon 
 turned her face to her father, who very tranquilly rested at 
 full length on his lifted couch, as the little. fleet softly drifted 
 away to the sea, and the gondoliers kept time with their oars. 
 
 Then the great round moon, yellow and large and indolent, 
 rose up slowly behind the island of Saint Helen, and shad 
 owed its way along the billows of the Adriatic till it stood 
 above the waves, and then moved slowly through the masts 
 and ropes, and the thousand crossed and yellow sails that 
 marched and countermarched before the City of the Sea. 
 
 Cannon were booming from some distant battlement in 
 celebration of some great deed or day, and the water seemed 
 to tremble. Now and then a star would loosen from the 
 upper deep, and drop swift and silent through space as if 
 shaken loose, to either burn to death or drown itself in the 
 sea. 
 
 There were bands of music playing in the gardens on the 
 little islands as they passed, and now and then rockets and 
 Roman candles shot up, as if in answer to the signals sent 
 down from the upper world. 
 
 The oars of the gondoliers flashed fire and flamed with 
 phosphorescent light, even with the slightest touch of the 
 warm soft water, and little Sunshine leaned and trailed his 
 hands, and played as if with cloven tongues of fire. The 
 heart was full and satisfied. 
 
 " O ! that we could now drift and drive into the infinite. 
 I think that somewhere near, and very near, are the shores 
 of the eternal world, and that one might touch and land to 
 night, and never taste of death." 
 
 Murietta did not speak. His hand was touching hers, as
 
 472 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 if by accident. He opened his palm and took her hand in. 
 his, and pressed it for his answer. She drew her hand away, 
 and then they drifted on, and she did not speak again. 
 
 The little fleet drew around the convent of Armenian 
 monks on the little Isle of Cypresses, where Lord Byron 
 wrote the first cantos of " Childe Harold," and the Countess 
 beckoned a return. 
 
 " I must be pressing on for the Tyrol as soon as we have 
 had a day of rest," she said to Murietta, by way of apology 
 for the early return. 
 
 " And you are alone ; the Count is " The artist hesi 
 tated. 
 
 " The Count is still in Rome. He tells me it is impossi 
 ble for him to get away ; that his affairs, my affairs, in fact, 
 are too much involved for him to be able to get away till I 
 have paid an enormous sum of money, which is not just now 
 at my command. Oh, I had the hardest time to get away ! 
 Do you know that that old Admiral tried to prevent my es 
 cape from that hot and unhealthy city ? I really thought 
 we must all die in Rome. You see when I got all ready to 
 come, they pretended that I should and would be arrested if 
 I tried to go away without settling numerous bills and pay 
 ing incredible sums that no one ever heard of before." 
 
 " And how did you accomplish it finally ? " 
 
 " I simply gave the Count cheques, cheques for all I had, 
 and blank cheques to fill up at his pleasure." 
 
 " And so left Rome a ruined woman, so far as your fortune 
 is concerned," answered the artist emphatically. 
 
 " What chance had I ? We were dying in Rome. I 
 should have gone mad on the spot. Do you know, that after 
 yon came away, those bold, bad men, who were always drunk 
 in outer parts of the palace, actually entered my pai lor and 
 refused to leave?" 
 
 " But the Count, your husband ! Good heavens ! was he 
 helpless ? "
 
 Drifting. 473 
 
 " The poor gentle Count, my husband, was helpless. They 
 bullied him, told him he was allowing his American wife to 
 rule him, and really terrified him into breaking open my 
 doors and effecting an entrance into my private apart 
 ments." 
 
 " And, lady, what did you do poor child, with your Ita 
 lian husband and Count, who is so weak as to prefer his 
 boon companions and countrymen to his wife, and to take 
 side forever against her ? " 
 
 " What could I do ? I appealed to the authorities. I was 
 told that in this land the husband is lord and master of the 
 house, and all that is in it. and, too, can control every move 
 ment of his wife. My father, at last, dying as he was, man 
 aged to call in the consul. But nothing could be done. I 
 simply left my house in the possession of these men, and 
 by paying and still by promising these enormous sums, I 
 managed to get out of Rome alive." 
 
 " Well, lady, I struck your husband, I sprinkled his blood 
 on the floor and on the wall. I was ashamed of it then, but 
 I am not soriy now." 
 
 " There ! Do not speak of that. Never speak of that to 
 me again," said she. " You were wrong, you were brutal. 
 My husband, the Count, is a gentleman. He is not wicked. 
 He is weak, but he is not wicked." 
 
 " Woman ! woman ! woman ! " mused Murietta to himself, 
 as the party once more drew near the hotel. " Woman ! 
 woman ! woman ! I will never understand you, study you 
 and your motives as I may ! " 
 
 " Do you know my father still thinks we may meet with 
 my brother in the Alps somewhere," said she, suddenly 
 turning to Murietta just before landing. 
 
 k * Well, if it is a pleasure and a consolation to the old 
 man," answered the artist, " do not rob him of it. Nearly 
 all the pleasure of life is made up of delusions ; but you will 
 never see your brother any more."
 
 474 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 " But we may, Mr. Marietta," she urged. " It is not im 
 possible, you know." 
 
 " And how about the ring ? " 
 
 " Oil, it is the ring that gives us still hope. You see father 
 is a very wise man, with a cool practical head, and he says 
 that brother may have sent the ring to Koine, knowing that 
 in time it must fall in with Americans, and possibly with his 
 own people, or into the hands at least of some one who 
 knew him. " Yes," sighed the Countess, " father thinks he 
 is still in the Alps, in the hands of the bi igands, who hope 
 by a long silence to secure a still greater ransom for his 
 release." 
 
 " And what has been done with the ring? " 
 
 She opened her brown eyes and looked at Marietta as if 
 she was not quite certain that she had done a wise thing, and 
 was sorry for the fact she was about to relate. " Well," she 
 went on at last, " father said the ring belonged to the old 
 Admiral, who claimed to have bought it at an obscure shop 
 in a low street ; and as I could not have any rest about it, and 
 as they were tormenting my father about it all the time, weak 
 and dying as he was, I gave it up to the man." 
 
 " You gave it up to your brother s murderers ! " said 
 Murietta. 
 
 " God help us all," she answered, " there is much that I do 
 not understand. But I must take care of my father, and 
 keep them from tormenting him. They put him on the rack 
 to extort money or whatever they chose from me. O, if I 
 were only among my kind once more." 
 
 " Well, lady, you shall be among your kind again. Be 
 patient. Take care. Go to the Tyrol ; cross the mountains, 
 and then drop down the Rhine and cross the channel, and you 
 are safe." 
 
 " But I I have promised to not leave Italy. And do you 
 see that big, sleek ruffian who has been put in charge of my 
 boy ? "
 
 Drifting. 475 
 
 " In heaven s name, could you not choose your own servant 
 and courier ? " 
 
 " I ? I could take nothing but this man. I could not 
 take a step without consenting to keep this man constantly 
 with me, and solemnly promising not to leave Italy." 
 
 " But you shall leave Italy, nevertheless, if you like," 
 the artist whispered earnestly, " there is certainly enough 
 American manhood in Venice to help you through." 
 
 She turned to the artist. " Do you know what you are 
 saying ? You, Murietta, you are a dreamer, I know just 
 what you feel and believe. But, mark me ! you will find 
 that when a thing like this is to be put to the test, every man 
 is busy with his own affairs. Do you know what answer you 
 would receive, if you went to any man with my story and 
 asked his assistance and counsel ? " 
 
 " I do not," 
 
 " You would be referred to the lady s husband." 
 
 Just then the boat touched the marble landing, and the two 
 stood a moment on the step after leaving the gondola, before 
 following their party. 
 
 " We go in the morning early, before the sun is hot on the 
 plains of Verona," said the lady, " and I must now say good 
 bye, and I give you my hand in token of eternal friendship, 
 and I give you a thousand thanks for what you have done 
 aye, even what you have wished to do for my welfare." 
 
 She reached her hand as she spoke. He lifted it to his lips, 
 let it fall, said good-night, and returned to the gondola.
 
 CHAPTER LVII. 
 
 WE WILL KEFOKM TO-MORROW. 
 
 HE days were dull enough, 
 now that the Countess was 
 gone away and would never 
 come again ; and Murietta 
 wandered about over Venice, 
 feeding the doves of Saint 
 Mark now, and now winding 
 through the dark and lone 
 some passages so full of 
 strange, black-eyed, and mysterious 
 people. He was decidedly lonesome 
 now, for Carlton also had left him. 
 
 That young man, who was forever 
 reforming to-morrow, had displaced 
 the great white cockatoo and the 
 small blue poodle in the heart of 
 Mollie, and now the two lovers were perpetually drifting and 
 driving away in a gondola together. 
 
 At last, to the infinite relief of Murietta, the fifteenth day 
 of August was at hand. That was the day on which he had 
 decided to set out for Lake Como, where he had determined 
 to try his fortune, and win, if possible, the brave, true heart 
 of Annette. That day to him had become a sort of a Day 
 of Declaration.
 
 We will Reform To-morrow. 477 
 
 He was bidding Carlton good-bye one evening, as he stood 
 with the inseparable lovers on one end of the marble balcony, 
 while the General and Mrs. W. occupied the other end, and 
 looked out over the sea, or fed from their hands the doves 
 that fluttered about the balcony. 
 
 " And so you leave us in the morning for Como," sighed 
 Carlton, with an effort. 
 
 " Oh ! won t it be jolly, Carlton," chimed in the merry- 
 hearted Mollie. " Everybody will be at Como but us. I 
 declare it is too bad ! Come, let us go to Como, too." 
 
 " I have not the least objection to going to Como, my dear, 
 as your gallant knight ; but what will the General say ? " 
 
 " Ask him ! " answered the mischievous Mollie, looking 
 up sideways from under her little sailor s hat. 
 
 " Ah ! that s what I have been thinking about for a month. 
 I declare I have got real thin over the agony and the anxiety. 
 Ask him ! yes, that s easily said." 
 
 " Shall I ask him for you ? " said Marietta kindly. 
 
 " No, but we will do it together. Come ! all three of us 
 abreast," laughed Mollie. 
 
 With Carlton supported between them, they moved down 
 upon the General, who sat there feeding the doves of Saint 
 Mark from his hand, and forgetting for the nonce all about 
 his gridiron of railroads. 
 
 " There now ! softly, you young people, and don t frighten 
 them. There now ! See what you have done ! I had three 
 of them feeding out of my hand at once." 
 
 "Most potent, grave, and reverend seignior," began Carl- 
 toii at last, in a faltering voice. 
 
 " Go on, go on," whispered Mollie, as she punched him 
 affectionately with her elbow, " go on, that s all right ; that s 
 bully, bet your life ! that s just the thing, for this is Desde- 
 mona s palace, where the bloody Moor told his piteous tale." 
 
 " Most potent, grave, and reverend seignior," again faltered 
 Carlton, " rude am I in speech "
 
 478 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 " Now don t frighten my doves, do " 
 
 " And but little gifted with the set phrases of- 
 
 " Why what in the name of sense does the man mean to 
 frighten away my doves ? " 
 
 " Well go on." 
 
 " I mean, General, that I want this particular dove of yours 
 for my own." 
 
 "The great railroad man fell into a brown study. At last 
 he raised his head and said, " Well, I reckon I had better 
 give her to a Saxon poet than a Latin prince. But how, my 
 dear Carlton, about your fondness for wine? " 
 
 " General," said Carlton earnestly, " I will reform to-mor 
 row ; won t I, Mollie ? " 
 
 The innocent, light-hearted girl from the great West looked 
 up through her tears, half laughing, from under her sailor s 
 hat, and leaning affectionately on Carl ton s arm as she turned 
 her eyes to his, said saucily, " Bet your life ! "
 
 CHAPTER LVIII. 
 
 COMO AT LAST. 
 
 MUST have a house on Lake 
 Como," wrote Pliny, " but I 
 dare not have any windows in 
 it that look out upon the lake, 
 for if I do I shall never be able 
 to do any work." 
 
 There lies the long thin sheet 
 of peaceful water, pointing like 
 a long finger from out of the 
 rugged heart of the Alps, right 
 down into the great level plain of Lombardy. 
 
 This hand that points this long thin finger is 
 half doubled up at Bellagio, which is about 
 midway ; and one finger, the lesser one, points 
 off at an obtuse angle to the soiith. 
 
 In the forks of this long thin lake, where the 
 fingers divide, stands Bellagio, the centre of the 
 earth, and of which we shall see more by and by. 
 
 On the extreme end of this long thin finger, pointing down 
 and out of the Alps straight into the great plain of Lom 
 bardy, has grown a great wart. This wart is called the City 
 of Como. It is as old, perhaps, as Jerusalem. It was 
 founded by the Greek colonists before Rome was thought of. 
 You can see the Greek in the faces of the people ; particu-
 
 480 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 larly in the faces of the wonderful women. On the old cathe 
 dral, storm- stained and eaten by the tooth of time, and washed 
 into channels and furrows by the rains of heaven, as if the 
 faces of the marble men had really wrinkled from age, you 
 see the statues of the two Plinys. 
 
 Old, very old indeed, is this town of Como, and yet only 
 yesterday they erected a great fountain in their great square, 
 and last year built a hundred houses that look like palaces. 
 The old town, like a hundred others in Italy, is being galva 
 nized into new life by the gold of English and American 
 travellers. Tell an Italian this, however, and he will be 
 sorely offended. He will insist that Italy is full of re 
 sources, that she does all this herself, and does not at all need 
 the money of the stranger. He will tell you that Italy has 
 always been great, a power, and the centre of the earth. 
 Let an American dare to dispute this, and the proud Italian 
 will strike an attitude, and say to him, " Why, we discovered 
 you ! " 
 
 It was the fashion at this particular season of which we 
 write, to sit down at or near Bellagio. Como, the town of 
 Como and its immediate neighbors, had but little business 
 this season, save as depots of arrival and departure ; all 
 pushed on up the long, lovely lake, to where it divided, and 
 there gathered about the forks. 
 
 " How much it is like the Mississippi River," thought 
 Murietta to himself, who had left the train at Como and was 
 now running up the lake to the great-little centre of Bellagio. 
 " it would be precisely like that wide, clear, crooked river of 
 the West, but for these overhanging mountains and these 
 noble palaces on the edge of the wave, with their feet in the 
 cool sweet water, as if to cool in this sultry season," said the 
 man to himself, as he rolled another cigarette and elbowed his 
 way through the dense crowd of passengers to the other side 
 and looked up, away up through the white fleecy clouds, at a 
 beautiful old place of worship perched like a great grey eagle
 
 Como at Last. 481 
 
 of tlie Rocky Mountains on the topmost crag. " Nay, it is 
 just like the Columbia," he said, as he looked again, " for 
 there drift the sunny clouds, there lift the toppling crags, and 
 here are the mossy rocks in the water s edge and there the 
 wild foliage on the steep and stupendous shore of lifted and 
 rifted mountains." And then he forgot the crags and clouds 
 above, and looked down into the thousand little pleasure 
 boats that moved and wound across and about, and bore little 
 flags and light hearts and happy uplifted faces that looked 
 cuiiously into the crowd of travellers for friends and fellow 
 tourists. 
 
 Of these flags one half were the Stars and Stripes, a great 
 number were English, and not a few Italian. It was notice 
 able that there was not a craft afloat without a Saxon face 
 somewhere to be seen among the passengers or seekers of 
 pleasure. 
 
 Over and across, from side to side, the little steamer shot 
 from town to town, and took in or set down tourists ; and 
 made at least forty calls on one side of the long lake or the 
 other, wedged down there between the walls of the Alps, be 
 fore it touched at Bellagio. 
 
 As they neared this town, cutting across the narrow lake 
 from Cadenabbia, Murietta stood out on the prow } and kissed 
 his hand, once, twice, thrice, and very fervidly, at the beauti 
 ful Bellagio, for it was there he knew he should once more 
 meet the grand and wonderful woman, Annette. 
 
 As you near this town, coming up the long narrow lake 
 that points straight out through the Alps into the great 
 plains of Lombardy, you will see that the lake is much wider 
 above you, and you can see where a high and lifted mountain 
 pushes its nose abruptly into the lake, and splits it in two. 
 
 On the north side of this steep and pine-topped little 
 
 mountain stands Bellagio, a little town of only two or three 
 
 thousand souls of mixed Greek and Italian blood ; and these 
 
 mostly keepers of shops, chop houses, and wine shops, besides 
 
 21
 
 482 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 an unreasonable number of priests in black and grey, and 
 brown, and tall, fine-looking fishermen and boatmen ; and 
 then, too, an intolerable number of hard-looking Italians, 
 who can safely be set down as brigands and assassins, who 
 are quite ready for any job, from acting as courier and inter 
 preter for parties abroad who have more money than know 
 ledge, up to stealing a stranger s child, or assassinating their 
 own great king. 
 
 It is remarkable that here, at the north base of this little 
 round pine-crowned mountain, lifting up abruptly in the 
 forks of the lake, and almost surrounded by its waters, stand 
 two of the most beautiful hotels in all Europe. They stand 
 almost quite down at the edge of the water, with only room 
 enough for little walks, through woods and flowers as beauti 
 ful as paths through paradise. All along the edge of the 
 lake there stand double rows of sycamore trees ; and under 
 these trees, on the stone benches, sit tourists by hundreds in 
 the cool fresh mornings of the summer time, whipping the 
 lake with their fish-lines, and fishing their breakfasts of fish 
 from the populous lake. 
 
 Boats with lovers go by in perfect little fleets all the time, 
 and at night they hang them with many-colored lamps ; and 
 it is said that lovers meet on the waters of this lake of all 
 lakes by preconcerted signals made of these many-colored 
 lamps, which they alone can read and understand. 
 
 Murietta knew that Annette and her people were at the 
 Hotel Grande Bretagna. Therefore he went to the Hotel 
 Grande Bellagio. 
 
 If you have a poor opinion of the world, you should go to 
 Como, sit down at Bellagio for a month, and rest there. 
 After that you will be quite satisfied that there is upon earth 
 at least one place where there is beauty, and beauty only ; 
 peace, and perfect peace. 
 
 But if you will have a courier with you, who is constantly 
 keeping you in hot water by his thefts and extortions j if you
 
 Co-mo at Last. 483 
 
 will travel with a lot of loud people at your heels, who do 
 not know what rest is ; and, finally, if you will insist on put 
 ting up at the Grande Hotel Bellagio, instead of going to 
 an old-established and less extortionate house why, do not 
 blame Bellagio if you do not rest, but blame yourself. 
 
 Another man, of course, would not for a moment have 
 thought of any other hotel than the one where the queen of 
 his heart was staying. The artist would sooner have camped 
 under one of the sycamore trees by the side of the lake. He 
 loved this woman so devotedly. He feared to trust himself 
 in her presence, perhaps. Perhaps he feared that he might 
 disturb her by his presence. In truth, had he been asked 
 the reason why he so determinedly sought another place to 
 put up at, he could not have answered at all. Then do not 
 expect us to answer for him. We must be content to state 
 the fact. There may be those who themselves have loved as 
 this man loved, and they will understand. 
 
 He stood on the high balcony of his hotel, and looked 
 down the lake to the Hotel Grande Bretagna, and kissed his 
 hand to it. Further down the lake, along the lane of syca 
 more trees, stood the palace of the Duke of Lodi, whose 
 family had been dignified by that title by the little Corsican 
 on the battle-field of Lodi. Across the lake, in savage gran 
 deur, lifted the Alps, where the Russians attempted to pass, 
 and perished ; and these Alps had little cities all along their 
 base on the ed^e of the water, and little white churches 
 
 O * 
 
 about their rugged brows, where blew white clouds perpe 
 tually like wreaths and puffs of battle-smoke blown from the 
 battlements of Titans. 
 
 Peace, and the perfect summer. Cool waters, and music 
 all the time floating on the waters from under the banner 
 of strange lands. People coining and going away. Beauti 
 ful Saxon women, and tall, half Greek fishermen. Citizens 
 sitting in the cool of the trees by the water. Clouds blowing 
 against the blue sky. White snow peaks flashing afar off in
 
 484 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 the sun. Fruit at your hand and flowers at your feet. 
 Peace in the air. Comeliness everywhere. This was Como. 
 
 Inconsistent as it may seem, Murietta could scarcely rest, 
 could not dine at all till he had stolen down to the other 
 hotel and quietly asked the clei k if the one fair woman and 
 her friends were there. He was certain of this before. He 
 was just as certain that they were at the one hotel as he was 
 that he was at the other. But he could not help stealing 
 down and asking after her with studied indifference. Those 
 who can understand the first action will understand this. 
 
 But his inquiry was not without results. He found that 
 they were not actually in this house, but in a dependence of 
 this hotel, up on the top of the little pine-topped mountain 
 with its nose pushed into the forks of the lake, before 
 described. He had, in fact, been kissing his hand at the 
 wrong house. 
 
 He walked up towards this dependence, lifted so high above 
 him, sitting there among the pines and ruins, looking down 
 on the whole water-locked world, and the Alps wedging the 
 lake, but -was stopped at a gate by an old woman, who 
 demanded either a ticket or money to enter. 
 
 " Good ! " thought the artist to himself. " She is shut in 
 from the mob. This is right. The world shall not look 
 upon her. Perhaps fewer men will see her now. But this 
 is near enough for to-night. I will come nearer to-morrow." 
 
 As he turned down towards his hotel, he saw the retreat 
 ing figure of the old Admiral. He was gorgeously dressed, 
 tnd walked as if he owned the town. 
 
 Whose death did the presence of this terrible shark in 
 these waters portend ?
 
 CHAPTER LIX. 
 
 SITTING BY HER SIDE AT LAST. 
 
 OW one can sleep, and sleep, and 
 sleep at Como ! And how perfectly 
 
 you do rest ! Every muscle relaxes. 
 
 " 
 
 3 The mind sleeps. It seems to enter 
 a paradise of repose and rest on a bed 
 of roses, till the body, at noon-day, 
 comes and calls back, wakes up, the 
 mind. No wandering of the soul in 
 to the infernal regions. No dreams 
 of death. No strife. Nothing but 
 peace and repose. 
 
 The artist waited a long time for a 
 fit hour to call the next day. At least it 
 seemed to him a very, very long time. At 
 last he passed the little iron gate and began 
 to ascend the long steep steps that led to the lofty 
 abode of the beautiful woman. He looked at 
 his watch as he neared the house in the pines and ruins, and 
 fearing he was too early and might reveal some haste and 
 eagerness if he presented himself, then turned off to the left, 
 and took a walk through the two or three miles of little paths 
 that wound over and through and about this rugged pine- 
 topped mountain with its lofty nose pushed into the middle 
 of the lake. 
 
 He drew nearer the house once more. There was the 
 sound of carriage wheels. lie stopped in the dense foliage,
 
 486 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 till at length he heard the carriage drive away. He thought 
 that it might be Annette, about to drive out in the shadow of 
 the mountain in the cool of the afternoon, and he would not 
 think of detaining her a moment. Perhaps he was glad of an 
 excuse to wait a few minutes longer. The truth is, this man 
 had a great deal rather have climbed up a mountain all bris 
 tling with red-tongued cannon and faced them and attempted 
 to answer back their thunder, than advance upon this 
 woman in her lovely, leafy hermitage. He stood back in 
 the wood, a coward. 
 
 Then he stood out in the clearing, looked down the steep, 
 corkscrew carriage road under the ruins and pines, and saw 
 in the retreating carriage, Annette. 
 
 After that he advanced boldly enough, and came up to 
 the cool-shaded fountain before the house, and spoke to the 
 good-natured block of chiselled midnight who stood there 
 grinning as he advanced ; and then he really felt that he 
 had done a great deal and advanced his cause quite sufficient 
 ly for that day ; and so, after talking with the black man 
 about the big magnolia tree that stood there, and the many 
 beautiful plants and flowers familiar to the South, he went 
 back to his hotel a very happy man. The old Admiral, he 
 found, was at this hotel. 
 
 The evening was dull enough. There was but one person 
 in all the region of Como that he cared to see, and he dared 
 not call on her after dark. In fact, it was quite as much as 
 he could accomplish in the daytime. 
 
 It is true there were boat races and rockets. And then 
 there was a fine Italian band playing before nearly every 
 hotel on the lake till there was a perfect discord of music, 
 but these had not charms for Murietta. His mind had been 
 strung to a higher note than any instruments there could 
 reach. 
 
 He sauntered out alone, and as usual found his way to 
 the old and humble parts of the place. A dark narrow street
 
 Sitting by her Side at Last. 487 
 
 it was, and it reached steeply up the hill, and over-arched iu 
 places by coverings reaching from one palace to another. 
 This kept out the light of the large bright stars, and made it 
 dark indeed. A great lamp hung here, and under this lamp 
 was set a table, around which were grouped a party of Italian, 
 gamblers. 
 
 The little black-eyed, threadbare doctor with the retreat 
 ing moustache, whom we have seen in Rome, sat there on 
 the edge of the crowd, looking now at the game and now at 
 the passers-by. 
 
 Murietta saw this man and tried to escape unnoticed, but 
 the black restless eyes were too quick for him, and the little, 
 nervous, black-eyed Italian arose and followed. 
 
 The artist quickened his pace, after slipping a knife up 
 his sleeve, so as to be prepared for any emergency, and did 
 not stop to turn around till he stood in a more wide and 
 open street, where respectable Christian faces were more fre 
 quent. 
 
 The doctor was right upon his heels, and had his hat in 
 his hand and his hand on his breast, and was bowing very 
 humbly, even as he turned around. 
 
 " Every one comes to Como, signer, at this season ; and 
 I am delighted to meet you here, and trust we may be friends, 
 or at least not enemies, for I am certain I can serve you." 
 
 " And how the devil do you propose to serve me ? " 
 savagely and contemptuoxtsly asked the artist. 
 
 "By not serving the Admiral," answered the doctor sharply. 
 
 "Well, as to that, perhaps, you had as well remain with 
 your old master. Don t betray him. Honor among thieves, 
 you know. At all events, I have no use for you whatever ; 
 you have only to keep out of niy way. 
 
 The artist turned on his heel as he spoke, and went on 
 through the town by the great gray stone church, that is for 
 ever and ever clanging out of tune and oi\t of time, as if de 
 termined that no one shall ever rest in Bellagio.
 
 488 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 He gave no thought to this man further than to suppose 
 he only wanted to get a few francs, which he did not care to 
 give him. He certainly looked in want of money. And 
 then beggars beggars of all kinds are so plentiful in Italy, 
 that you soon learn to instinctively button up your pockets 
 the moment you see a man approaching you. 
 
 Yet it was a little inconsistent that the old Admiral should 
 be shining in gold, like a pawnbroker s clerk, while his friend 
 and fellow robber was so destitute and threadbare. 
 
 Putting all concern or care behind him, and thinking only 
 of the lady on the little mountain of pines and ruins, the 
 artist slept well, and awakened only when the long, light 
 finger of the sun reached in and pointed to the Swiss clock on 
 the mantel, which had just struck twelve. 
 
 At two o clock he was walking alone among the pines and 
 ruins, and waiting for the tardy hour of four to turn round, 
 so that he should present himself at the throne of his queen. 
 
 Three ! It seemed that four would never come. He 
 walked and walked, time after time, every foot of the wind 
 ing, pleasant way, around and over and through the hollowed 
 mountain-top, till weary enough. Then the noisy old grey 
 stone church shouted out the hour, and in a little time the 
 black man was leading him to her parlor. 
 
 The same quiet welcome, that had no utterance in words. 
 The same silent eloquence of the soul. The great eyes that 
 understood you too well, and made you tremble for yourself, 
 unless you felt something of manhood in your make-up, and 
 felt your own integrity. All these were here. 
 
 The General had drifted out on his dreamy battle-cloud, 
 and now hung under the magnolia-tree fast asleep in his ham 
 mock, with his half-finished cigar in his fingers. 
 
 The lady led the artist out on the balcony overlooking the 
 two lakes, or rather, the two branches of the one lake, that lay 
 almost together under them. The sun went down suddenly, 
 as if he had lost his way, and fallen asleep in the Alps ; and
 
 Sitting by her Side at Last. 489 
 
 then they sat in the matchless twilight, that was made alone 
 for lovers. 
 
 He was utterly silent. He was satisfied. He was grate 
 ful to God. He did not ask any more than this. lie never 
 had asked more than to sit before her. To see her untold and 
 unutterable beauty, and to breathe the air wherein she moved. 
 
 " You will come again," said the mother. And he came 
 again. Sometimes he found himself talking rapidly in his 
 half-a-dozen visits in the fortnight of perfect days that fol 
 lowed, and then he would stop half frightened, and feeling 
 very awkward, sit and look at the strangely beautiful lady 
 before him, and listen to her few words so well chosen, so 
 light and pure, and so exalted, with a devotion that only few 
 upon earth can understand. 
 
 Murietta had never yet thought of marriage. That to him 
 was a secondary matter. Marriage to him seemed a sort of 
 selfishness. Yet he was forever determining to tell, and he 
 often and often attempted to tell her how he had worshipped 
 her, how he had first seen her in his dreams ; how he had painted 
 her. How he had first met her in society, and knew her at 
 a glance. How he had followed her to Italy, to Naples, to 
 Home, to Como, to tell her the story of the flowers in her 
 path, the picture, and could not summon the courage to do so 
 not even to begin. 
 
 One evening, this last evening, she had spoken of the 
 picture herself. 
 
 " There is a little story about this picture, you know, and 
 I have waited for it and waited for it. You promised it to 
 me, you remember; promised me the story and the picture 
 at Como." 
 
 There was earnestness and candor, a touch of entreaty in 
 her voice and manner, as she leaned a little forward and said 
 this to the artist, tinder the great stars of Italy, and over the 
 twin lakes lying there under them like two lovers, divided 
 and undivided. 
 21*
 
 4QO The One Fair Woman. 
 
 The artist was encouraged. Could it be possible that she 
 she, the companion of princes she, the most matchless and 
 magnificent of women in all the world, should or could care 
 for him, his picture, or his story ? 
 
 He arose, stood up before her ; clasped his hands, looked 
 away to the lakes to the right and the left, the many-coloured 
 lamps with the boats bearing lovers, weaving and winding 
 and binding love-knots over the breast of the beautiful water, 
 but could not speak. His lips were as still as the fathomless 
 lake below them, and his soul was as deep with love. 
 
 She put out her hand. It touched his clasped hands, and 
 thrilled him with a sensation that was new to him and beauti 
 ful and holy. 
 
 He took her hand in his and lifted it to his lips, with his 
 head bent low as if in devoutest worship. 
 
 Then dropping the hand gently, he lifted his eyes and, look 
 ing the lady in the face, tried again to speak. 
 
 He could only say " good night ; " and with that he bowed 
 low and was turning to pass thi-ough the saloon and out to 
 the presence of the magnolia. 
 
 " And my picture ? " asked the lady in a low voice, as he 
 was about to disappear. 
 
 He returned to her and took her hand in both of his, and 
 he bowed before her, 
 
 " Lady. O lady ! so exalted, as of an upper world. To 
 morrow, to-morrow at this time I will bring you the picture 
 of yourself. I will tell you the story of the picture and of 
 the flowers in your path on the mountain of fire. And then 
 you will despise me, and my story, and my picture ; and you 
 will put me away from you, and I will never see you any 
 more in all the weary world." 
 
 Murietta ? " 
 
 There was balm and hope and healing in the utterance of 
 his name ; a gentleness, a half regret at his prophecy, which 
 he dared believe meant much to him.
 
 Sitting by her Side at Last. 491 
 
 He said " To-morrow," kissed her hand again, and was gone. 
 
 O Love, thou art blind indeed. 
 
 To-morrow ! 
 
 It was all there. In the folds of that day, the day that 
 ever runs before, the mysterious to-worrow, with all its 
 secrets held bound up in the sheaves for him, woodbine or 
 flowers. Flowers or woodbine ? 
 
 Could he wait ? He heard the noisy clock in the old grey 
 tower clang every hour of the night. He heard the hissing 
 little steamers come and go with their loads of tourists, and 
 people pass up and down all the time ; but he thought only 
 of the to-morrow, and what that day might bring. He was 
 not overpleased : he was even sorry that this had been pre 
 cipitated. He was perfectly certain that he should only be 
 laughed at, and the beautiful delusion of his life destroyed. 
 
 As the sun rose up, he took his picture from its place and 
 began to arrange it for his lady. He had not closed his eyes. 
 The to-morrow now was his. It was no longer to-morrow ; 
 it was now to-day. 
 
 " What will my lady say ? Will she understand me ? She 
 has never suffered. She has never gone on through the 
 hard wide world alone, as I have lived. She has never been 
 crucified in soul, and made to fast and pray in the wilderness. 
 Will she understand me ? And if she understands me, will 
 she not despise me ? " 
 
 He paced the floor excitedly as he said this, and then he 
 stopped and suddenly put up his hand to his brow. 
 
 " No ! What has she said to me ? What assurance have 
 I that she cares a withered fig for me or mine ? She has 
 said nothing ; done nothing. A thousand men may kiss her 
 hand, or any lady s hand. A thousand men have worshipped 
 her before. Has she slept last night ? Nay, she has not 
 watched and watched and waited for to-morrow as I have 
 waited. Shall I be laughed at ? No, I will pitch this picture 
 into Softly ! I have promised to take it to her and tell her 
 its history, and I will do it."
 
 CHAPTER LX. 
 
 THE OLD ADMIRAL PROPOSES. 
 
 T was ten o clock ; and the boat 
 from Colico, at the head of 
 Lake Como, which brought 
 down the hosts of tourists from 
 the Engardine and other places 
 of resort in the Swiss Alps, was 
 whistling off the little wharf. 
 
 The arrival and departure of 
 this boat were the events of 
 the day. This Bellagio was the 
 great half-way place between the Alps and 
 Milan. Everybody stopped here at least a day 
 to rest ; many stopped months. But it was on 
 this boat that travellers came who had been in 
 the Tyrol or the Alps ; and it was on this boat 
 that tourists took passage for the nearest point 
 on the railroad, which was at Como, who wished to return 
 to France, England, America. 
 
 Hence the coming and going of this boat was a great event ; 
 and there was meeting, and greeting, and good-bye, and all 
 that, all the time, from the moment people began to land till 
 she had taken on her load of down passengers, and pushed off 
 into the lake for the edge of the plains of Lombardy. 
 
 [fe
 
 The Old Admiral Proposes. 493 
 
 The artist, wishing to forget for a moment the task before 
 him the fortunes or misfortunes that lay hidden away from 
 him in the folds of the next few hours, stood out on the 
 great balcony of the hotel that looked over the lake, and 
 watched the coming and the going of the people, the excite 
 ment, the embraces, the farewells, the hurry and bustle 
 about the boat which had just arrived and was about to de 
 part. 
 
 There was a very sick man being carried on the boat in a 
 litter. 
 
 " Poor fellow ! " sighed the artist ; " he has come to Italy 
 for his health and found his death. He will never live to 
 see old England again ; the long ride through the hot towns 
 of France will kill him." 
 
 A carriage was driving tardily down from the hotel to the 
 wharf. 
 
 The boat whistled, a bell rang, the rope was cast loose, the 
 boat pushed off. Then a lady was seen to rise up excitedly in 
 the carriage, cry out in terror, wave her handkerchief, and 
 call to the boat. She had been left behind. 
 
 The lady sank back in the carriage ; and then a little boy 
 put his arms about her neck, and they wept together. The 
 crowd which had hidden the carriage and all bvit the face of 
 the lady now melted away, and the artist started with amaze 
 ment. It was the lady in pink, the Countess Edna. 
 
 He hastened down stairs as soon as he could catch up his 
 hat and cane, and was on his way to her side before he took 
 a second thought. This man was not accustomed to take a 
 second thought when he found any one in trouble. Had he 
 reflected here he might have been less demonstrative, but it 
 is doubtful if he had deviated the least bit in his course, or 
 in any of his conduct which followed his meeting with this 
 woman in this unfortunate condition at this most inopportune 
 time. 
 
 Her little hand was fluttering with excitement as it reached 
 to receive him.
 
 494 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 " We have been left. My poor father is gone, and gone 
 only with that miserable Italian servant to attend him." 
 
 " And, dear lady, how could you allow them to separate 
 you?" 
 
 " There is something wrong : there has been all the time. 
 I tell you some one is at the bottom of this. I suspected it 
 this morning. I told the proprietor of the Hotel Grande 
 Belkgio." 
 
 " And you were at the Grande Bellagio ? Why, I am 
 there also." 
 
 " I knew it, I knew it. We only arrived last night 
 rested all night, and were trying to post on to England, for 
 father is ill indeed, and wants to go home to his native land. 
 Yes, I heard you were there ; but as we had only sickness and 
 trouble to tell you about, I did not care to trouble you." 
 
 She leaned her head over to the artist, and whispered 
 
 " I promised not to leave Italy, but 1 must. I must get my 
 father to England. I cannot remain here without him ; and 
 it is not right that he should travel the long and dreadful 
 journey without me." 
 
 " Well, well ! It s too bad. But you can t sit here in the 
 hot sun. Now what is to be done ? Tell me what I can do 
 and I will be glad to do it." 
 
 " When can I go on ? " 
 
 " Not till the evening boat. Your father, by that time, will 
 be in Milan, and " 
 
 " Merciful heaven ! " sighed the lady, and she put up her 
 little helpless baby hands as if to hide her eyes from the sight 
 of the strutting and pompous old Admiral before her. 
 
 " I am rough but honest," said a great voice ; and a man 
 with many jewels came forward and put out his hand to the 
 Countess, which somehow she felt compelled to take. " Yes, 
 I am a rough but honest sailor, and I have come upon the 
 ground to help you." 
 
 " Can you help me, Murietta ? Will you, will anyone,
 
 The Old Admiral Proposes. 495 
 
 help me and get me out of the clutches of these treacherous 
 men that seem to hold my very life in their hands ? " 
 
 " Countess ! " thundered the old man, coming forward and 
 stroking his great chin and pulling his long gray moustache 
 right and left, " I can help you, and I will help you." 
 
 " Only let me get to my father, get to America. I will 
 give you money ; heaps of money." 
 
 " Good ! Now we will get on, now we will xinderstand 
 each other," said the man, lifting his hat and laying his 
 hand on his heart. 
 
 " Get back to the hotel," said Murietta, " and out of the 
 sun, or you will be ill, and then make such arrangements as 
 yoii can to join your father. He will certainly await you in 
 Milan, and telegraph you from the first station." 
 
 The old Admiral stood there as if waiting to take possession 
 of the Countess so soon as the artist stepped aside. 
 
 " Will you please sit by me ? Take a seat here," she said 
 to Murietta, as her little pink hand nervously drew back the 
 rose and pink and silks at her side, as if she was frightened 
 almost to death at the bold attitude of the Admiral. 
 
 The artist stepped into the carriage ; ordered the man, who 
 was evidently in the pay of the Admiral from the glances 
 they exchanged, to drive back to the hotel; and, sitting there 
 as the carriage turned up the hill, he saw the doctor and the 
 old Admiral talking together in that loud and belligerent voice 
 and manner common only among low Italians. 
 
 The lady returned to her apartments, and the proprietor 
 of the hotel smiled as she entered again, as if he had really 
 done a good piece of business by detaining her. 
 
 " Now let us see what is to be done," said Murietta cheer 
 fully, as he sat down opposite her in her saloon, and saw how 
 terribly she had been worn by her trials and troubles in the 
 Tyrol, and how she was now shaken up by this new trouble. 
 
 " Think it out, Mr. Marietta, and tell me what to do and 
 how to do it. I do not know. Father could give the direc-
 
 496 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 tions and I could take care of him, and that is the way we 
 managed it. But here I am now alone with my little boy, 
 quite broken down myself, and quite at the mercy of these 
 wretches that surround me." 
 
 Murietta knew perfectly well that the case was just about 
 as bad as it could be; but he pretended to laugh at it all, and 
 assured her that she would be able to get off by the evening 
 boat and join her father at Milan that night. Thus it was 
 agreed to wait for the evening boat, since nothing else could 
 be done ; and Murietta went out and down in the walk of 
 trees by the water. 
 
 " Now, sir, I am a plain, blunt man. One word with you. 
 You remember I told you all about the Brothers of the Altar 
 on the Pincian Hill in Rome," began the Admiral gruffly, as 
 he met the artist face to face in the walk, where he had evi 
 dently followed him. " Well now, sir, I told you bluntly 
 and plainly the truth, and implored you to become a member 
 of the order. You did not choose to do so. Very well, that 
 was your own business. I refer to this only to call to your 
 mind that I very bluntly and plainly told you a great truth 
 at that time, which you saw fit to fall in a passion about and 
 threatened to tumble me over the wall. Very well ; now I 
 have another great truth to tell you, and a proposition to 
 make." 
 
 The artist attempted to pass on down the narrow walk of 
 yew wood, but the great monster of a man still stood before him. 
 
 " 1 have a proposition to make. You are a friend of the 
 Countess; she will do just as you tell her. Now, sir, you 
 wish to serve her. She wishes to get out of Italy with her 
 father." 
 
 " Yes, and will get out of Italy with her father, without 
 either your assistance or mine. And now do you stand aside 
 orl- 
 
 " Do it. Please do it ; and I will put you in prison, and 
 take possession of the Countess myself, body and soul."
 
 The Old Admiral Proposes. 497 
 
 " You insufferable old villain ! What do yoxi mean ? " 
 
 " I mean just what I say. I carry my heart in my hand, 
 1 am a rough but honest man. And now, sir, since you will 
 not oblige me by knocking me down, you will perhaps listen 
 to my proposition. It is this." Then the old Admiral stop 
 ped a moment, sighed, reflected a time, and then went on, 
 " I have not lived the most regular life, I admit ; I was born 
 a gentleman, a poor Italian prince. Youthful indiscretions 
 drove me to the sea. My brothers usurped my title and small 
 estate. I have been a very unfortunate man, but now I have 
 saved some money and am getting old and wish to retire." 
 
 " Then, old man, why not reform and retire, and leave off 
 persecuting a helpless woman and a dying man ? " 
 
 " Because because I cannot leave that woman. Because 
 because I love her." 
 
 Murietta clutched him by the throat for a second, but let 
 go and pushed him from him. 
 
 " Please to choke me, sir. Please to do it, and I will lock 
 you up and have the field for myself, and get damages for the 
 assault besides. But listen to me. You are a man of the 
 clouds. I am a practical man. You see what I can do. I 
 knew the Countess must come this way. There are but two 
 roads out of the Tvrol. I came here with my men. I waited. 
 You see what I have done. I have sent her old father off 
 alone in charge of one of my men. She cannot leave Italy 
 without my consent. Now, sir, her weak and silly husband, 
 the Count, who dares not disobey a word of my commands, is 
 and will remain in Home till I give him leave to come away. 
 Now I wish to get out of all these meshes of orders and asso 
 ciations, that are no longer either creditable or pleasant. I 
 swear to God I will reform. I wish to go to America and 
 there settle down and end my days in peace. The Countess 
 can take me with her. Go to her, tell her to take me with 
 her out of tne country. I can escape, under the pretence that 
 I am still watching her, for you see I am watched as well as
 
 49 8 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 others, and watched by my own men. Tell her to take me 
 and I will treat her honorably. I will never say an impure 
 word to her now, but will win her love by my devotion to 
 her interest and her pleasures. Tell her that if she refuses 
 me this, she shall not leave Italy. No ! her boy will be taken 
 here, her father there, and she will be so tormented that she 
 will wish a thousand times that she had taken even the vilest 
 of my propositions." 
 
 Murietta had stood there with his arms folded up and 
 doubled in, lest he should be tempted to strike this monster, 
 and thereby only involve the Countess in deeper trouble. 
 Then, as the man finished, he turned away without a word 
 and went down the other end of the walk. 
 
 " You will not serve the Countess, then, by delivering my 
 proposition ? " The artist did not answer or look around. 
 
 " Well, then," thundered the man down the avenue of dark 
 wood, " her blood and the blood of her father and her child 
 be on your hands."
 
 CHAPTER LXT. 
 
 CHILD-STEALING. 
 
 T was nearly evening, and the 
 Countess was walking in the 
 little wood by the lake waiting 
 the arrival of the boat. She 
 was quite ready for her depar 
 ture. Murietta had done what 
 little there was to do, so as to 
 put everything beyond the 
 reach of accident ; and now, 
 all ready to step into the boat, 
 she was walking up and down in the little 
 avenue on the edge of the lake. The child 
 had wandered off, only a few steps, to the 
 edge of the vineyard. 
 
 A man, a bare-headed man, with enormous 
 ears and a red face, came up out of the grape 
 vines, spoke to Giuseppe, the courier who had 
 charge of the child, and then, darting forward, caught it under 
 his arm, and turned to fly. There was a struggle and a 
 scream, and the thief stumbled and fell there as he looked 
 back, for Murietta was upon him. 
 
 The kidnapper dropped the child and escaped into the 
 vines. The little thing was terribly frightened and fearfully 
 bruised about the head. Life seemed extinct.
 
 500 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 The boat came and went, but the Countess sat all the time 
 by a little bedside, with her hands wrung together, and weep 
 ing through her falling hair as if her heart would break. 
 
 Who should stand by her side at such a time ? This man, 
 who had waited for this present hour, saw it go by. He saw 
 his promise broken, as he sat there alone with the lady and 
 the little black-eyed villain of a doctor, whom they had 
 called in as the only person present bearing the name of doc 
 tor, and watched with the little unconscious child, whose life 
 flickered like a dying lamp on the edge of eternity, and did 
 not speak of Annette, even to himself. 
 
 The little sufferer sat up the next morning and spoke to 
 its mother. The danger was over; and the little doctor, once 
 more in the good favor in which his skill had placed him, 
 tried to approach Murietta on a subject uppermost in his mind. 
 
 Italians advance directly upon nothing. If they wish to 
 talk about paradise they begin about purgatory. 
 
 The doctor stood before Murietta, washing his hands in the 
 morning sunlight, on the little balcony before the lady s par 
 lor. 
 
 " The old gentleman, her father," she began, (( will not stop 
 long in Milan. It is too hot. Besides, he is dying ; and dy 
 ing men are never satisfied anywhere. If he lives he will push 
 on to England at once. But then he will die when he comes 
 to the end of the journey by the great sea, for the excitement 
 of traA r el will be over. There will be a reaction, and then the 
 man will die." 
 
 He stopped talking, stopped washing his hands, and waited 
 for the artist to answer. But he did not answer. He lifted 
 his face up towards the little pine-topped mountain, and a 
 house there with a balcony looking down on the two lakes, 
 but did not speak. 
 
 The low-browed, black-eyed Italian doctor began again to 
 wash his hands, and to wag his tongue. This time he moved 
 a little nearer to the subject of his thoughts.
 
 Child Stealing. 501 
 
 " The Admiral wishes to get out of Italy, I think," said the 
 doctor cautiously, and washing his hands very slowly. " You 
 see he has got all the money, and he intends to keep it. He 
 got at least a hundred thousand francs from the Countess 
 when she left Rome ; and here ! just look at my clothes. 
 Not a centime ! No, sir ! not a sou did I get out of all that 
 sum! I have followed him, sir. He intends to try to cross the 
 border. He lingers about the edge of Italy, with the pretence 
 that he must follow the Countess, and keep her from reveal 
 ing the secrets of the order of the Brothers of the Altar." 
 
 "Well! well !" said Murietta sharply, as he turned upon 
 the man, for he was not in a mood for diplomacy, " come to 
 the point. What do you propose ? What do you want " ? 
 
 " Signer, I want money. If I cannot get what is really 
 mine from the Admiral ; if he persists in keeping me in rags 
 and wretchedness, I shall enter the service" of some one who 
 will be more just and generous. Aye ! even enter the ser 
 vice of the State of Italy ! " 
 
 " Very well, I certainly have no use for knaves. Enter the 
 service of the state, or the state prisons for aught I care ; " 
 and Murietta turned back to the Countess, who had just re-en 
 tered the saloon. 
 
 " I have just dismissed Giuseppe and my maid," she be 
 gan. I have paid them off and paid their ways to Rome. 
 They were in a league against me, and I am certain were in 
 the pay of the old Admiral. Now I am a little more free," 
 she said, coming forward, and half smiling at some remark of 
 the little invalid, who was sitting up in bed and playing with 
 a lot of toys. 
 
 " Dismissed them both ? And how, then, do you expect to 
 get on your journey ? exclaimed Murietta, for he knew full 
 well that these dismissed servants would now make mischief. 
 
 " Well ! " exclaimed the lady, " I could not get on my 
 journey with them ; and if I cannot get on my journey with 
 out them, I shall certainly be no worse off, and possibly a
 
 502 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 great deal better. At all events I cannot afford to have 
 thieves and spies and kidnappers about me longer. It is done ; 
 they are gone, and thank God for it." 
 
 " Yes, if they only are gone, " answered Marietta. 
 
 " Do not frighten me. Pray do not t righten me, " pleaded 
 the Countess, leaning her head in her little baby hands as she 
 sank upon the sofa. " I am not strong, and I must keep 
 up. " 
 
 " No, no, you are not to break down now. Do not fear. 
 It is but a little way to Milan. There you can get other ser 
 vants, and put yourself under the protection of the American 
 consul," said Murietta, cheerfully, and again stepped out in 
 the fresh morning air on the balcony. 
 
 A servant entered bearing a letter on a great silver plate. 
 It was a large square envelope bearing the arms of the City 
 of Bellagio, and was otherwise embellished. There was an 
 officer of the city just visible at the head of the stairs in the 
 great hall. This letter was addressed to Murietta, and he 
 hastened to break the seal. 
 
 He started back. It was a summons from the syndicate to 
 appear and answer, and show cause why Giuseppe, the cou 
 rier, should not carry the child to Home, as he had been 
 engaged and employed to do by its father. 
 
 " Now what upon earth does all this mean ? " said the 
 man to himself. "What have I to do with the coming or 
 going of this party, or the affairs of this family in any respect. 
 And so I am to go into court, and have the rabble at my 
 heels, and be the talk of the little town ! And Annette ! " 
 
 He went in and spoke kindly to the Countess, who was 
 still bowing under the weight of her troubles. The man was 
 in earnest now, and severe. He was gentle, but it was a 
 sort of iron gentleness. He did not hint to her of this new 
 trouble ; but said he was going out for a moment, and would 
 return as soon as possible. He left her alone, with the 
 little black-eyed doctor hovering around like a hawk, and
 
 Child Stealing. 503 
 
 hastened out at the head of the stairs, for he knew the polite 
 officer was not over-patient at his delay. 
 
 They walked through the hotel together, on their way to 
 the open street, and Murietta smiled bitterly at the perfect 
 refinement of the manner of making an arrest in Italy. 
 
 " Ha, ha ! " he laughed to himself, as they drew near the 
 open gate that led into the street, " I suppose if a man was 
 to be sentenced to death in Italy, they would send him the 
 sentence in a sweetly perfumed envelope, borne on a silver 
 plate by a beautiful page." 
 
 Sure enough, and just as the troubled and now half-wild 
 artist had feared, the mob of fishermen and old women and 
 other idlers, who knew the officer, fell in and followed to the 
 office of the mayor, where they stood outside tiptoeing up, 
 peeping over and under, and passing their rough, humorous 
 remarks on the appearance and bearing of the prisoner. 
 
 Giuseppe stood Tip in the midst of his cunning countrymen, 
 and told a terrible story about how this artist had beaten his 
 master, a devout Catholic, in Home. He told that this lad s 
 heretic mother was trying to take him away from its 
 Catholic father and escape from Italy to England, where 
 it would be brought up a heretic, contrary to its father s 
 expressed wish. 
 
 How the revengeful Italian did gloat over the agony of 
 Murietta as he stood up there and had the ears of the syndi 
 cate and the sympathy of the mob. How he did lie about 
 his mistress, as he stood there with his hand on the Holy 
 Cross. He was having his revenge for being dismissed and 
 disgraced. Then he showed certificates of his unimpeachable 
 character, from Italian priest down to Italian princes, and the 
 syndicate was perfectly satisfied. 
 
 Murietta was called upon to answer. He replied that it 
 did not concern him in the least, any more than it should 
 concern any gentleman who saw a countrywoman in trouble 
 in a strange land ; that he was not on trial for striking the
 
 504 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 Count in Rome ; that he had not interfered with the affairs 
 of either the Count or the Countess ; that he thought the 
 lady had a right to be allowed to join her father at once, or 
 go out of or enter into free Italy without let or hindrance, 
 and without regard to the question whether she was a 
 catholic or a Protestant; and finally, he bluntly stated that 
 he believed this Giuseppe to be a villain whom no lady could 
 trust. 
 
 As he stood there on trial, a carriage that was passing be 
 came blocked and interrupted by the mob which filled the 
 narrow street at the door. 
 
 As the carriage Stopped before the door, the occupant, with 
 a woman s curiosity, looked in. It was Annette. She saw 
 Marietta standing in the prisoner s stall, and on trial. 
 
 The syndicate, in a very graceful speech, summed up the 
 case, and decided very promptly that Giuseppe had been 
 employed by the child s father to take it on a tour through 
 the Alps, and then back to Rome ; and that he must do this 
 whether the mother willed it or not ; that this man repre 
 sented the father ; and the mother could not, or any one else, 
 take the child from his charge without the father s consent. 
 As for Murietta and he was profuse here in his flowing 
 apologies he was very sorry that he had been brought to 
 answer ; but Justice was blind, and could not always see 
 clearly without first hearing the evidence. But since he 
 found that he had nothing to do with the matter, the court 
 was very happy to say that he had nothing to answer for. 
 
 Giuseppe was radiant with his triumph. He dispensed 
 speeches in the noisy court room right and left ; he pulled 
 his moustache and puffed his cheeks, and leered in the face 
 of Murietta with an audacity that meant more than words 
 could express. 
 
 The artist did not even thank the magistrate. He did not 
 look right or left, or lift his head. His soul was filling with 
 a stubborn strength, the strength of a lion or a bull; a
 
 Child Stealing. 505 
 
 sort of mad strength that is blind and dangerous to deal 
 with. 
 
 The syndicate spoke to Giuseppe, and Murietta looked back 
 over his shoulder as he was trying to elbow his way through 
 the crowd to the door. 
 
 " You have no right to remain here or elsewhere outside of 
 Rome ; you are dismissed from the service of the Countess; 
 therefore you cannot serve her, but must return at once to 
 the Count. You will take the child and set out for Rome on 
 the steamer to-morrow morning. That is the judgment of 
 the court. " 
 
 Giuseppe bowed almost to the stone floor. As Murietta 
 passed out of the door, a man with a very coarse voice said 
 to him with an oath : "What did I tell you? There ! do 
 you not see that the Countess cannot leave Italy or join her 
 father again without my consent? See what you have 
 done for her ! Now, sir, if you are her fiieud, go and tell 
 her to take me for her courier. And if she is her father s 
 friend, and wishes to see him again, she will take me for her 
 lover." 
 
 This was the Admiral. He followed Murietta, and hissed 
 this proposition in his ears ; for the artist would not stop or 
 listen or look back, for fear he should be forced to knock the 
 man s teeth down his throat and so find himself again be 
 fore the syndicate. 
 
 He went back at once to the Countess. The woman had 
 arrayed herself in pink and rose. Her hair of gold was 
 down about her shoulders, and there were roses in her hair. 
 She was playing gaily at the piano, and singing a merry song. 
 The little child sat in bed still playing with the toys, and 
 pale and silent. The Countess sang louder than before when 
 she saw the artist enter, and smiled at him, with her pretty 
 baby face turned half around over her shoulder. Her mind 
 was surely shaken by her troubles. 
 
 The artist wanted a moment to reflect. He went down, 
 22
 
 506 
 
 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 stood under the shady trees ; and, leaning over the wall, 
 watched the shining fishes come, and listened to the music 
 floating on the waters from under the great canvas canopies 
 out there in the middle of the lake, with the American Stars 
 and Stripes floating from the masts of the pleasure boats.
 
 CHAPTEE LXII. 
 
 LOVE, OR DUTY? 
 
 HESE men, whoever they may 
 be, who float that barge and 
 fly that banner, must now 
 assist this woman. I have 
 done all I can do. I have 
 sacrificed everything and 
 achieved nothing. I am not 
 a patient man. I shall now 
 go to older and abler heads, 
 and tell them just how this lady is 
 situated. I will get up a feeling 
 among her countrymen in her fa 
 vor that will bear her right along 
 lightly and safely over all this sea 
 of trouble." So musing, the man 
 passed through the gate, stepped 
 into a boat, and drove with double oarsmen across the lake 
 to Menagio. 
 
 He met a party of young Americans under the trees, be 
 fore the half primitive house known as the Victoria Hotel. 
 He told them at once the story of this unfortunate lady ; and, 
 all the time leaving his own name out, asked them what 
 should be done. 
 
 " Wall," answered the Yankee spokesman, " send for her 
 husband ; let her send for her husband. Or else go down to 
 Rome with the courier. If she has been with him through al 1
 
 508 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 the Alps, she can certainly go the two days ride to Rome with 
 him, and not hurt herself. As for her father, I reckon the 
 old man is of age, and can take care of himself." 
 
 " Yes," said another sovereign from the great Republic, 
 " Let her go down to Rome where her home is. Let her go 
 to her husband if he won t come to her. If the mountain 
 will not come to Mahomet, let Mahomet go to the moun 
 tain. They say she s about half crazy any how, and a fellow 
 don t like to get mixed up with a crazy woman ; bad enough 
 when they are in their senses." 
 
 " And so you have heard something about this poor lady 
 already ? inquired Murietta. 
 
 " Heard about her ! Wall now, I guess we have : guess 
 everybody has. It s the talk all over the lake. You see 
 she s got a fellow with her that s about as crazy as she is, and 
 that makes the thing a great deal worse. If she d pitch him 
 into the lake, and give some other fellow the full swing, she 
 might get on. But I guess she d better go back to her hus 
 band, the Italian Count." 
 
 Murietta had stepped rapidly down into his boat, as the 
 man began to drawl out this speech, and reveal to him the 
 current stories that the cunning Italians had set afloat and 
 made the gossip of the lake ; and, lifting his hat, did not wish 
 to hear the conclusion. 
 
 His boat touched at Cadenabbia, as the craft with the 
 broad canvas and canopies, with its bands of music and 
 pleasure party, drew in to the shore. He had resolved to 
 make one more appeal to simple manhood. 
 
 As the gay party stepped ashore, he was delighted to see a 
 man here that he had met in Rome. It was McCreavy, the 
 Irish porter of San Francisco and the millionaire, who had 
 purchased the new antiquities in Rome. 
 
 The Irishman extended his hand with a voluble welcome 
 to Como, and a pressing invitation to the artist to remain and 
 make one of his party at dinner.
 
 Love, or Duty? 509 
 
 " Yis, yis, ye must remain wid me and dine, and meet the 
 Prince of Lodi. That is the Prince of Lodi, a walking wid 
 me wife into me hotel." 
 
 The Irishman pointed with his thumb over his shoulder, 
 and stooped his back as he did so, as if he was bearing a 
 trunk upstairs. 
 
 And then he went on to talk about this wonderful Princo 
 of Lodi in the most garrulous way ; and about every other 
 word was sandwiched in between " the Prince of Lodi." 
 
 A wonderful boy was this young Prince of Lodi. The 
 Irishman was full of anecdotes and adventures of and concern 
 ing this Prince of Lodi. Not that he had ever been in war, 
 or even in the saddle, or out of Italy, or even long out of the 
 hands of his nurse ; but still a wonderful man was this Prince 
 of Lodi. 
 
 " I will present ye." 
 
 "No, do not disturb him." 
 
 " But he will not mind," urged the Irishman, who perhaps 
 for the first time had found himself the companion of a 
 Prince, and was quite carried away, "he will not mind it in 
 the least." 
 
 " Look here ! Mr. McCreavy ; I am busy," said Murietta 
 earnestly. " I have a matter on my mind and hand, and 
 have come to see you about it, and at once. Hang your 
 Prince ! What harm have I done that I must be bored by 
 this idiotic and stripling prince ? What good has he done 
 that he has a right to my time ? Why, he is a helpless toy. 
 I am weary with toil in the world. I am covered with the 
 scars of battle ; and yet you would make this man my com 
 panion and my equal, and condemn me to tolerate him. 
 Now, come ! Here is a matter worthy of the attention and 
 the strong arm of a prince of nature. Will yoxi assist me ? " 
 
 " Wid all me heart, ban-in your poor opinion o the 
 Prince of Lodi. " 
 
 " Spoken like a brave, warm-hearted Irishman," cried the
 
 510 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 artist, reaching his hand. " Now, sir, here is a work that 
 the most chivalrous knight ought to be proud to strike a 
 blow to promote." 
 
 " And ez it a Californy gold mine, or an oil well ? " asked 
 the shrewd ex-porter. 
 
 " It is a lady in trouble," replied Murietta gravely. And 
 then he proceeded to tell the whole story of the day and the 
 day before to the Irishman, as they sat on an iron seat under 
 the shade of the great sycamore trees by the lake. 
 
 " Come now," said Murietta, as he concluded, "you sail the 
 largest craft on this lake that carries the American colors." 
 
 " Yis, yis, I carries the flag o me country ; but what has 
 that to do wi the Countess? " 
 
 " Only this. She is an American, you are an American. 
 Since these Italians are so clannish against strangers in the 
 land, let Americans be a little clannish, too, and stand by 
 each other. This woman will have her child taken from her 
 to-morrow morning. That child will not be taken to Rome, 
 I am certain, but will be carried off to some hiding-place by 
 these brigands in disguise, and kept there till ransomed by 
 her money. Now, sir, what I ask is this. Send your boat 
 and your men under your flag, and take that lady and her 
 child to Como to night." 
 
 The Irishman rose up, stooped, picked up a pebble, pitched 
 it into the lake, and then turned to the artist and laughed in 
 his face. 
 
 " Take her to Como," pleaded Murietta. " From Como to 
 Milan it is but one hour ; and at Milan she will be under 
 the protection of the American Consul ; and even the British 
 vice-consul will not see her separated from her child. Nay, 
 there is not one Englishman in ten outside of a shop-keeper 
 but would put his shoulder to the wheel and see her through 
 it all, if he saw this case and understood it as I see and un 
 derstand it." 
 
 " The Prince of Lodi " gan the Irishman.
 
 Love, or Duty? 511 
 
 " Will you, can you assist the Countess to get to Milan 
 to-night ? " 
 
 "The Prince of Lodi " 
 
 " Hang the Prince of Lodi ! " cried the artist, furious at 
 tlie thought of having to entreat this vulgar fellow to do the 
 the simplest service for a lady in trouble, " will you do this 
 or not ? " 
 
 The Irishman shook his head, stooped, picked up another 
 pebble, tossed it into the Jake; and then said he thought it 
 would hardly pay. 
 
 " No. You are right, it will not pay," answered Murietta, 
 as he entered his boat in despair, and now pushed off with 
 the prow toward the Grand Hotel Bellagio. " I forgot," he 
 continued, talking to himself, " it really will not pay him. 
 he is only a porter still ; I mistook him for a gentleman." 
 
 " You have left me alone all day. You knew how lonely 
 I was here, and yet here I have been left without a friend, 
 left with that terrible little monster of a doctor, who would 
 poison us all for a penny." The Countess was bitter in her 
 reproaches. The poor spoilt child ! She had never been so 
 alone before. She did not even have her keepers about her 
 now. 
 
 " 1 have got another doctor," she said, leaning over the 
 balcony and looking down at a fine young fellow leading the 
 little child in a walk slowly up and down the avenue of trees 
 by the lake. " Here, take this roll of money and go find the 
 other doctor and pay him off." 
 
 The beautiful woman was severe and imperious, but 
 Murietta had too much on his mind to heed anything she 
 said or did. He had resolved now to see her through this 
 peril at every hazard. The insinuations, the sneers, and the 
 cold caution of those to whom he had appealed had maddened 
 him. He was now desperate with this resolution, and heeded 
 nothing but that which either facilitated or retarded his con 
 templated enterprise. He therefore took the money as if he
 
 512 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 had been a courier or sort of upper servant, and went down, 
 found the doctor, paid him liberally, and came back. 
 
 The lady had just received a telegram from her father. He 
 was at the Royal Hotel, Milan. 
 
 Poor lady ! She walked the floor, half wild again. Yet 
 she did not dream of the greater trouble that now encom 
 passed her, and Marietta did not dare tell her. He feai-ed 
 she would break quite down under it, and he did not see the 
 good that would come of reciting the unpleasant truths. 
 
 Giuseppe did not put in an appearance at the Grand Hotel 
 that day. He was a coward, every inch of him, and the 
 recollection of the little encounter in the ante-camera of the 
 palace in Rome no doubt had something to do with keeping 
 him aloof from the presence of Murietta. 
 
 " I like the looks of that new doctor," said Murietta to the 
 Countess, attempting to divert her thoughts. 
 
 " He is a gentleman," she answered, as she came up and 
 looked down and threw a kiss to the little one at his side ; 
 " he is a born gentleman, the only one I have seen in all this 
 place. I should have died but for him to-day." 
 
 The artist felt the bitter taunt, but quietly went down and 
 joined the little party in the walk. Then the Countess came 
 down ; and, as they stood there by the lake, the boat from up 
 at Colico with the travellers from the Alps and the Tyrol 
 came and discharged her load of tourists for Bellagio, and 
 took in her load for France, England, and America. 
 
 " Oh, why can I not go too ? " cried the Countess, as she 
 saw the boat push off. " Why did you not tell me to get 
 ready to go ? I could get into the boat, go to Como, drive 
 to the station, take a ticket, and be in Milan with my father 
 before morning. I can do it. I will go on the very next " 
 
 The old Admiral was walking up and down through the 
 cypress avenue on the hill side above them ; and, as the lady 
 saw him, she stopped suddenly and bowed her head, and hid 
 her face in her hands, and trembling sank into a seat.
 
 Love, or Duty? 513 
 
 The young doctor was greatly affected. He saw that 
 something was certainly wrong here ; and he, though a 
 Frenchman just from school, made a pretty shrewd guess 
 at the cause of the trouble. 
 
 " I must get away from here, and soon, or I shall go mad," 
 said the Countess, lifting up her face and looking through the 
 cypress avenue for the cause of her terror. 
 
 " Lady, I am arranging to go to-night," said the artist. 
 
 " To-night! Can we go to-night ? Oh, let us go to-night, 
 now ! Come, let us go ! " 
 
 " Soft, soft ; mind what you say. These very trees have 
 ears. The old Admiral is on the watch. He has sworn that 
 you shall not go without taking him." 
 
 The lady looked at him with her great eyes wide open, and 
 helpless as any babe. He had seen fit to tell her this much 
 in order to put her on her guard, and make her the more 
 cautious in getting away. But he dared not tell her the 
 cruel judgment of the syndicate. 
 
 The sun went down, and the party retired to prepare for 
 dinner. The young doctor kept the child constantly by his 
 side, for he had been engaged by the Countess to remain with 
 her, unless called away by a case of most urgent necessity. 
 As he was a young man and a stranger, it was not likely that 
 that event would happen for a long time. 
 
 It was ten o clock at night. Fire-rockets and Roman 
 candles were going off in every direction. It was like a 
 great battle-field. These vulgar hotel-keepers, forgetting 
 that people came there for peace and rest, took this means of 
 advertising their respective houses. 
 
 " I wish to take the Countess and her child out of this 
 noise for an hour," said Murietta to the proprietor. " Is 
 there not a place around the forks of the lake on the other 
 side of the little pine-topped mountain where there are no 
 hotels with rockets and fireworks ? " 
 
 The man answered that thei^e was; and also told the artist, 
 22*
 
 514 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 that on the other side of the little mountain there was a 
 famous echo that the Countess would certainly be pleased to 
 hear. 
 
 " Give me a boat with four oarsmen, and the best young 
 men to be found ; for the Countess has been sorely tried, and 
 must have some diversion." 
 
 The man promised the boat should soon be ready, and also 
 that he should have the best men in Bellagio to pull him and 
 his party around the mountain ; and the artist withdrew to 
 his room. 
 
 He rolled up a picture that was there, with his face 
 averted. He did not look at it. He did not dare to. He 
 rolled it up tight, tied it, and then taking up his brush wrote 
 " It is finished." 
 
 Then he went down and stood by the side of the Countess, 
 on the balcony. The doctor and his little charge were watch 
 ing the lights with great pleasure and interest from another 
 balcony within call. The artist left the Countess a moment, 
 stepped to the doctor, whispered in his ear, after making 
 sure that no spies were at that moment watching them, and 
 then went back to the Countess. 
 
 " It is all right. He will be with us as far as Como. He 
 does not know all the trouble that surrounds us ; you do not 
 know, perhaps I do not know ; and, after all, it is not best to 
 know. But we are off in half an hour, and you must not say 
 one word till safe away on the water." 
 
 " Safe away ! O God J And you will see me through it 
 all ? " 
 
 "I will see you through it all, God helping me," the man 
 said with a trembling voice ; for his face was lifted to the hill 
 and the house in the pines, where his heart should be left for 
 ever behind him. 
 
 " Murietta," said the lady, " I know what it costs you to 
 go away with me to Milan." 
 
 " Do you know ? " he asked, looking in her beautiful
 
 Love, or Duty? 515 
 
 childish and helpless face. " Do you know what it costs 
 me?" 
 
 " Oh, yes. I know what it costs you to leave here and go 
 with me down to hot and dusty Milan. I know you want to 
 stay in Como for a month still, and to rest here and be quiet. 
 Instead of that, you must go down just in the flush of the 
 season to dull, dusty Milan, and all only to oblige me. You 
 see I know what it costs you. I appreciate what you are 
 about to do, and Heaven will reward you, for I cannot." 
 
 " O woman ! woman ! woman ! " sighed Murietta, as he 
 once more and for the last time, lifted his face to the house, 
 hidden away among the pines and ruins on the woody little 
 mountain. 
 
 He had come to the forks of his road of life, and he must 
 now choose the right or the left hand. On the one hand lay 
 love, the other duty.
 
 CHAPTER LXIII. 
 
 A BOAT RACE ON LAKE COMO. 
 
 LL ready, signor." 
 
 " Very good. Say that we 
 will be there presently," said 
 Murietta to the man. And the 
 man bowed low and withdrew. 
 
 " No, no ; leave that," whis 
 pered the artist to the Countess, 
 as they were passing out together, 
 and she caught up a shawl which 
 she began to throw over her 
 " Leave every thing just as it is in 
 Touch nothing. Take nothing with 
 you. Tt is too sultry at this hour for shawls and 
 wraps ; and, however much you may need them 
 to-night, they must be left behind. This is a 
 desperate game, and it must be played reckless 
 of cost." 
 
 "O that she was in Milan, beyond the. jurisdiction of 
 that cursed syndicate. She does not e/en dream that the^ 
 will tear her child from her arms to-morrow. And, by 
 heaven, if I live, they shall not ! " Murietta muttered this 
 half savagely to himself as he stooped, took the little boy in 
 his arms, and stepped hurriedly down to the quay. 
 
 The party entered the boat and pushed off, and drove hard 
 for half an hoiir up the lake and around the little high pine- 
 topped mountain with its nose pushed into the forks. They
 
 A Boat- Race on Lake Como. 517 
 
 were going just in the opposite direction from the point they 
 so desired to reach, for Marietta knew that the eyes of the 
 old Admiral were on them. 
 
 " What a beautiful night for a ride to Como," exclaimed 
 the Countess, as if in a spirit of banter. 
 
 "Beautiful!" answered Murietta ; "but you would get 
 very weary of it before you rode that distance." 
 
 " Would I ! Not half so weary as you, my dear artist." 
 
 " Try it and see." 
 
 " Try it and see ! Do you dare me ? " 
 
 " Well, I think I can endure almost as much boat-riding 
 on Lake Como as the fair Countess that is all." 
 
 " Captain, how much to Como and back, and without 
 touching land all the way down, or stopping to rest, or doing 
 anything by which my friend the artist can find other diver 
 sion than sitting in the boat ? " 
 
 It was indeed a dangerous enterprise. Two people of this 
 party were attempting to deceive Italians. 
 
 The Captain of the boat spoke to his fellows in the patois 
 of the country ; and then he answered politely, " Fifty francs, 
 Senora Countess, at night with four oars." 
 
 " But you would get out as we neared the hotel, would you 
 not ? " she said, turning to Murietta, with a well-assumed air 
 of banter. 
 
 " Try me, and see. I think I can sit here certainly as long 
 as your ladyship." 
 
 " Oh ! I will npt give you a chance to leave us. You shall 
 not even be in hail of Bellagio again till we return from 
 Como." 
 
 " Captain ! Como ! " cried the beautiful woman, half rising 
 with excitement, and acting her part with a skill that amazed 
 Murietta. 
 
 " It will be fifty francs, Senora Countess, and the sum that 
 we were to have for the excursion besides." 
 
 " You shall have it ; and bono mana also."
 
 518 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 The Italian boatman bowed and smiled in acknowledg 
 ment, and the little craft spun around, and the prow was 
 pointed down the water toward the plains of Loinbardy. 
 
 It was a moment of intense anxiety as they came opposite 
 Bellagio on their way over the still, warm water. What if 
 the wily Italians suspected something, and should make some 
 excuse to pull in to get their coats, a little wine, anything ? 
 
 No ! the boat did not veer from its course. Not an oar 
 lost a note. The tall, handsome, half-Greek fellows kept 
 time, and they shot ahead with a speed that was surprising. 
 
 The artist sat silent, and with folded arms. He had not 
 slept for the past two nights ; but even now his brain was at 
 work, and he was wide awake and watchful : he had done 
 what he knew to be his duty. Yet, sitting there, he knew 
 that on the morrow men and women would couple his name 
 with that of the Countess in a way that would cover his head 
 with shame. He had sacrificed all, everything. He had 
 sacrificed more to serve this woman by his side, to help her 
 through a trouble, than most men ever possess. He had 
 counted down his good name, broken his idol, left his heart 
 with all his broken hopes on the pine and vine-clad hill at 
 Bellagio. 
 
 Yet for all this that he had done, he sitting there with 
 folded hands knew perfectly well there could, among men, 
 be but one reward the reward of a ruined name. He was 
 not regretting anything now : he was simply sitting there 
 looking back at the ugly fact, and sometimes asking himself 
 if he could not have done otherwise ; and all the time answer 
 ing that he could not have done otherwise, and had his own 
 respect. 
 
 This, then, was the outlook : he had lost the world s good 
 opinion, but had retained his own. After all, if he had been 
 compelled, at any time of his stormy and troubled life from the 
 date of his discretion, to choose which should be sacrificed 
 and which retained, the world s good will or his own, he never
 
 A Boat- Race on Lake Como. 519 
 
 would have hesitated or had two opinions for a moment. 
 He had been driven to. the wall- here, and had been compelled 
 to choose : he had made his choice and did not regret it. 
 Yet it was so hard, so very hard, to leave her, and disgraced. 
 He was thinking that if he had died then it had been so very 
 much better. She then would perhaps have thought of him 
 at least with respect : now, she would never think of him but 
 with shame. 
 
 " And this is the woman the One Fair Woman of my 
 life ! the light that I have followed, the lady I saw on the 
 mountain of fire, and in whose path I strewed roses. This 
 boat is bearing me from her presence, and in eternal dis 
 grace." 
 
 It was a sultry evening. Away down the long narrow lake 
 there was a great waterfall plunging down from the high 
 savage mountain into a little bay at the left of the weary 
 oarsmen. 
 
 They asked permission to rest a moment in the cooling 
 spray ; and the kind Countess, who was now light-hearted 
 and full of hope, cheerfully allowed the boat to lie still for a 
 few moments and rock and rest at will. 
 
 The bold, strong fellows soon pushed on again, for a wind 
 was springing up ahead, and the fair face of the lake began 
 to grow wrinkled, as if gathering up a storm. 
 
 The air was chill now as the wind blew in, and the doctor 
 took off his cloak and folded it around the Countess and her 
 child. 
 
 Murietta sat there silent and still. His pliable and easy 
 nature had at last been intensified ; and now he was as a man 
 of iron. 
 
 There was a sound of oars. A man leaned over the boat 
 and listened. The artist drew a pistol, cocked it , and said, 
 " Pull ! pull for your lives ! Double pay if yo\i reach Como 
 before them ! " And then he lifted his shining steel in the 
 moon, " Death if you do not ! "
 
 520 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 " Is it oh, is it the Admiral ? " asked the Countess. 
 
 The doctor looked terrified, and tapped the plank in the 
 boat with his boot, and sat very restless in his seat. 
 
 Singularly enough, the captain and his men only smiled 
 with pleasure at the lifted pistol and the promised double 
 pay. These fellows had seen run-away affairs before. They 
 now leaned to their oars and entered into it with heart 
 and soul. They thought this was a love affair, and laughed 
 to see how cleverly it had been managed ; for Como has long 
 been famous for its many adventures in this field. These 
 fellows supposed that the artist was stealing the Countess, and 
 they liked his dash and daring, and particularly liked the pro 
 mise of double pay. 
 
 Notwithstanding the promise of the proprietor of the Grand 
 Hotel that the boat and the men should be the best on the 
 lake, this was now doubtful, for the pursuers were gaining at 
 every stroke. They were now almost within a pistol shot. 
 
 The doctor crouched down, so as not to catch the wind ; 
 and the Countess, with her child in her arms, lay almost flat 
 on the seat, while Murietta turned his face to the boat that 
 followed, took another pistol from his side, and calmly waited 
 results. 
 
 " Yoii will take notice, Captain, and all of you, that the 
 doctor here and the Countess have no hand in this matter. 
 It is all my own affair. If any of these men are killed who 
 come after me, remember it is I, and I alone, who did it," 
 said the artist, with an iron expression in his voice, as he 
 lifted a pistol towards the pursuers. 
 
 It was now breaking day, and the boats began to leave the 
 little towns along the edge of the water, and put out on the 
 lake, for business or pleasure, and cross to other towns. 
 
 They were now nearing the city of Como. The boat that 
 followed hailed, but had no answer. Murietta sat silent as 
 a man of stone, waiting his opportunity to send the Admiral 
 into eternity. He had endured quite enough. He was now
 
 A Boat- Race on Lake Como. 521 
 
 desperate. His heart was really set on the death of this man. 
 His mind was full of murder. 
 
 It is a sad but a true confession, that this man the artist 
 sitting there, with his menacing pistol, was really wishing 
 that the boat was only a little closer, so that he could send 
 the bullet to his heart with perfect precision. He had 
 determined to kill him, and to kill him with his own hand. 
 Having once made up his mind to this, he was impatient for 
 the moment to come. 
 
 It was unfortunate that the doctor was in the boat. Every 
 pound of weight was now telling against our party. The 
 men were bold, strong fellows, and, no doubt, faithful enough, 
 but they had been on the water at least an hour before the 
 pursuers had taken their oars, Besides, when the Admiral 
 determined to make chase, he had the pick of the best and 
 swiftest boat in Bellagio. Then, besides all that, there was an 
 officer in the boat that followed, armed with the authority of 
 the magistrate to take the child. The presence of this officer 
 strengthened the arms of one party, but weakened the arms 
 of the other. 
 
 The Italians were pulling indeed for life. They had seen 
 how settled and determined was the artist, and they knew 
 that blood must flow if they were overtaken. For very good 
 reasons they wished to avoid anything serious, and were there 
 fore making the best possible use of their strength. 
 
 The pursuers were dangerously close. They could almost 
 pierce the boat of the Countess with a pike. The artist had 
 been too anxious to kill this old Admiral ; his mind had been 
 too determinedly set on murder to exhibit his pistol as he 
 drew near. He even held it low down in the edge of the 
 boat, as a sportsman holds his gun out of sight, when coy 
 game is coming near. He was only waiting for a dead cen 
 tre shot to the heart. 
 
 There was a boat putting sharp across the lake in front and 
 at right angles. It was driving straight across their course.
 
 522 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 It whistled, but our boatman did not heed. Closer and 
 closer they drew together. The steamer and the little boat 
 were closing in, bow to bow. 
 
 Once, twice, thrice, the steamer whistled, but the Italians 
 were desperate. To stop then, would be to give themselves 
 over to the pursuers. 
 
 " Stop, in the name of the law ! " cried the officer in the 
 pursuer s boat, as he held up a paper. 
 
 Marietta lifted a pistol in each hand, and half arose. " I 
 will shoot the first man who dares slacken a muscle ! " 
 
 " But the boat ! the boat ! the steamer ! " cried the terri 
 fied oarsmen. 
 
 " On ! and under her ! On, I say ! " 
 
 The men sprang to the work as if they had been springs of 
 steel. 
 
 Right under the prow they shot, with barely room for their 
 oars ; and, as they came out and darted on from the other side, 
 and shot for the shore, there was a shout of admiration from 
 the steamer s deck, and a waving of handkerchiefs from fair 
 hands, that showed how the reckless deed had been appre 
 ciated, even by those who had been about to run them down. 
 
 As they touched the shore and climbed into a carriage, 
 they looked back, but the boat of the pursuers was not to bo 
 distinguished. Other craft were crossing the lake, and per 
 haps it was confounded with them. 
 
 Then, as they drove further away, and \ip the plain toward 
 Milan, they saw that the steamer had turned about on the 
 lake and was lying there quite still. It was not yet fairly 
 dawn, and they dashed away toward Milan, in doubt of what 
 had become of the Admiral or his men. The Countess won 
 dered why the vessel had stopped in the middde of the lake 
 and was resting there. Perhaps she was picking up the pur 
 suers, who had fallen under her wheels.
 
 CHAPTER LXIY. 
 
 IN MILAN. 
 
 T is one hour or more from 
 Como to Milan by rail ; but yon 
 can drive it in three hours. 
 It is a lonesome ride through a 
 bare and not over fertile land, 
 considering that it is the plain 
 of Lombardy. 
 
 You pass through a dozen 
 ">r two poor tumble-down 
 towns, all with one long street 
 and all paved with cobble-stones, over which 
 your carriage bumps and thumps in the most 
 agonizing manner you can imagine. 
 
 The wondering doctor had been left with 
 the dismissed boatmen, who were mad with 
 delight at their accidental feat and their trebled 
 pay ; and the Countess held her child in her 
 lap and sat looking with her great brown eyes at Murietta, 
 who scarcely spoke the whole weary way to the gates of the 
 city of the plain. 
 
 There lies Milan. A wall of five miles girdle, and wide 
 enough for a small army to march abreast upon. This wall 
 is the great drive of the great city. It is called the Bastion, 
 and is planted with double rows of broad trees. This was 
 built by the Spaniard.
 
 524 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 In the centre of this city stands a little mountain of marble 
 in a low and uncomely site. This mountain of marble is 
 topped by a forest of barren and boughless pines, and all 
 are as white as if wrapped in perpetual rime and snow. 
 
 If you wish to see and enjoy the great cathedral of Milan, 
 keep away from it. At all events never enter it. It is a 
 lonesome place inside. It is so large you may get lost. And 
 then the famous silver bishops and popes are not solid silver 
 at all. Tap them with your finger, and you will find them 
 hollow and as thin as tin. 
 
 Down stairs, for five francs, they will show you the black 
 and ugly bones of a good man, who deserves a better fate 
 than this foul exhibition of his decaying corpse. And that 
 is about all there is to be seen inside, save the cunning 
 frescos away up in the arches overhead, and some stained 
 windows. There is nothing here to compensate you for the 
 disappointment you feel on entering, after you have contem 
 plated the beauty and airy proportions from without. 
 
 Climb to the top of this awful edifice, and you will find 
 that the figure of a mountain with a forest is not altogether 
 inappropriate. You will find a garden of flowers there, all 
 of marble. In fact, every plant of Italy, even to the most 
 common vegetable of the garden, is fashioned out and set up 
 there for you to walk through and admire. 
 
 There is something more here on these little spires, and in 
 this marble garden of plants and flowers, than all that. On 
 one of these spires is a hen on her nest. It is made very 
 beautiful, singular as it may seem, and is much admired. 
 
 Away yonder in an obscure corner, looking down into the 
 crowded street, stands a statue of Adam. He is leaning on 
 his mattock, and seems weary of life. His face is a blended 
 face of Christ and Cain. It is the best of all the thousands 
 of statues here. 
 
 Our little party of three reached the Hotel Royal, in the 
 heart of Milan, at last, worn and exhausted.
 
 In Milan. 525 
 
 The Countess had been so overcome by the agony and 
 intense excitement of the past few days, that she had to be 
 borne from the carriage to her rooms. 
 
 There lay Milan in the middle of the great plain, teeming 
 in yellow corn, covered with fruit and flowers and vines, and 
 literally steaming in the intense heat. It was intolerable. 
 The old father of the Countess had pushed on the next day 
 for England, leaving kind messages and most urgent letters 
 for her to follow at once, for he was dying. 
 
 It was impossible for our party to move that evening, 
 eager as they were to leave the burning town Italy, every 
 thing while all seemed clear and open for the flight. The 
 Cou7itess was prostrated, and must remain till to-morrow. 
 
 They rested. Yet long before the Countess had opened 
 her eyes, the artist was, next morning, down in the court of 
 the old palace, which was now converted into a hotel, quietly 
 arranging for the departure. He somehow felt certain that 
 the end was not yet. Where was the Count ? "What had be 
 come of the Doctor with the retreating moustache and the low 
 brow ? And had the Admiral and his crew of followers really 
 perished ? Certainly not, else the event had been chronicled 
 in the journals of Milan. The artist looked them eagerly 
 through. He found no tidings there ; nothing to tell him 
 the fate of those who had followed that fearful night of the 
 flight from Como. 
 
 Then if the old Admiral was not dead he was alive. If 
 alive, he would be upon the track of the Countess, and that 
 soon, again. That big chin of his would brook no delay, or 
 hesitate at nothing. It had the iron energy of an engine, 
 and the man was now moved with a sort of desperation and 
 hate, that must find vent either in the capture of the Count 
 ess or the death of Marietta. 
 
 The sun was just rising in sultry Milan. It was but a few 
 minutes walk to the great cathedral, where there was room 
 and plaqe to breathe in the great open space surrounding it.
 
 526 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 The artist stood on the steps in the fresh morning shade 
 cast by the gveat marble edifice, and had not yet entered the 
 cathedral. The people were as thick in Milan, even at this 
 early hour, as in a Roman Carnival. You could hardly move 
 along. Standing there on the marble steps, Murietta could 
 scarcely see the ground for the moving masses of people. 
 Italy is so very populous. 
 
 There was a heavy hand laid on his shoulder. The artist 
 started, for he was still nervous from the excitement of the 
 past few days, and backed against the wall. 
 
 " Shake hands. Come ! let us be friends. I carry my 
 heart in my hand. I am a rough but honest man, and you 
 will yet live to see it. Take it ! Take my hand, it is the 
 olive branch of peace. I offer it to you now for the last time. 
 Will you not take my hand ? " 
 
 Murietta had backed close against the wall, and the old 
 Admiral stood there reaching out his hand and offering him 
 his friendship. The artist only shook his head, and looked 
 the old monster in the face. 
 
 " Very well, very well. But you shall remember this. I 
 will bring this back to your mind some day, and in a way and 
 in a place that you will little suspect." 
 
 Then the old Admiral, black with passion, pulled at his 
 long grey moustache, and twirled it about his stained finger. 
 
 At last he began again, standing all the time boldly before 
 Murietta, as if to prevent his escape, and pulling mercilessly 
 at his long grey moustache with his stained fingers. "If I 
 prove to you that I really want to leave Italy, and that it is 
 necessary for me to leave Italy, and to leave in the company 
 of the Countess; and if I take the place of courier, or even of 
 a common servant, will you not advise her to take me ? Think, 
 think, before you answer. She must get on, if she ever sees 
 her father alive again. You see what I have done, and you 
 know what I can do. It was only an accident that pulled 
 you through at Como. Now, sir, if you wish to serve this
 
 In Milan. 527 
 
 lady, if you really are the bold, chivalrous, and disinterested 
 friend that you profess to be, take me with you. I will go 
 as a common servant. Nay, more, I will pay you to let me 
 go with you ; to go in disguise. Come ! I can prove to you 
 that I am, at least, honest in this matter. I must leave 
 Italy. I knew you woiild come to the cathedral. I have 
 stood here all night waiting for you. I offer you my hand 
 once more. Is it war or is it peace ? " 
 
 Murietta was not the least part of a patient man. He had 
 stood there pushed back against the wall with this old villain s 
 vile breath in his face as long as he could bear it. He sprang 
 forward, pushed him aside, and returned to the hotel. 
 
 All over the city wei e posted great red posters, headed 
 with this tempting announcement : " Fifty thousand francs 
 reward." People were reading these posters eagerly. They 
 had just been put lip. They were still wet and warped from 
 the fresh paste. The artist stopped and read one of them at the 
 portal of the hotel as he returned. It was a reward offered 
 for the arrest and conviction of forgers of Italian currency. 
 
 " Ah," cried the English clerk of the hotel, who had seen 
 the artist reading this bill, " they should have made the re 
 ward at least half a million. Italy is full of it. Look here ! 
 The prettiest forged paper you ever saw. It is really better 
 then the original, finer than the genuine. That is the way 
 we detect it." 
 
 " There is a gentleman waiting to see you, sir, and he says 
 his business is urgent," said a boy with a silver plate in his 
 hand to the artist as he passed on up to his rooms. 
 
 It was the black and low-browed doctor. He was dressed 
 up now, and looking very smart. His fee for healing had 
 healed his threadbare dress, and but for his villainous face he 
 might now have been quite presentable. 
 
 He stood bowing before the artist, twirling his hat in his 
 hand, and looking nervously around him as if he half suspected 
 he was watched.
 
 528 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 " You wish to get rid of the Admiral," began the visitor, 
 twirling his hat faster than ever. 
 
 " And you propose to poison him for me, you dog ; is that 
 what you are here for this morning ? " 
 
 " No, no, no. Really, signor, you do me a great wrong. 
 Nothing of the kind. I told you I should leave the service 
 of the Admiral, and enter the service of my country." 
 
 " Well, go on, get done with what you have to say, and 
 then get out of my sight, and soon." 
 
 " Well, signor. If I should have the Admiral locked up 
 in the prison of Milan, so that he will never again be free, how 
 much money will you pay me ? " 
 
 " Not a sou. It that all you have to say ? " 
 
 "No, signor, not quite all." The hat twirled in the 
 nervous hands faster than ever. 
 
 " Well, you had better go. If you must betray your 
 friends, you must take them to some other market. I am a 
 poor man. Besides that, I would not bribe you ; nor could 
 I trust you if I should." 
 
 " But will signor listen one moment more ? You have 
 seen the immense reward that is offered. Good ! You have 
 noticed the stained finger ends of the Admiral. Good ! 
 Signor, listen to me. All the plates for printing Italian 
 money were made in America, with a few exceptions. Why ? 
 because this new Italy could not trust her own men. She 
 was afraid if these plates were made at home that there would 
 be duplicates made also. Very good. These plates were 
 made abroad, and duplicates are now made, notwithstanding 
 the precaution of the new Italy." 
 
 "Well, this is very tiresome; and what has it all to do 
 with locking up the Admiral ? " asked the artist im 
 patiently. 
 
 " Ah, that now is the point, that is the pith of it. The 
 Admiral is a miser. He is worth a million. He has loads 
 of money, and he has starved me for years. I want my
 
 In Milan. 529 
 
 revenge. He pretends to despise me. I will show him ! I 
 will show him ! " 
 
 " Come, fellow, come to this point you speak of. What is 
 it you propose ? " 
 
 " Signor, I come to you. I say, give me twenty ten 
 five thousand francs. Give me that sum, and I will lock up 
 the Admiral, and you can go on your ways uninterrupted. 
 You refuse. Very good. You will not give me money. 
 No matter. I will have that which is dearer to an Italian 
 than money, or fame, or estate. I will have revenge ! Re 
 venge, signor ! Revenge ! Revenge ! " 
 
 Murietta beckoned the man to the door. He did not 
 move, and the artist stepped to the bell. 
 
 One moment, signor. The government offers fifty thou 
 sand francs. But I do not like the government. I there 
 fore ask you but five thousand francs. You refuse a single 
 sou. Very good. I accept the offer of the government. I 
 turn State s evidence. The Admiral will follow you no fur 
 ther. Signor, I wish you a very good day." 
 
 The black-eyed, narrow-browed doctor bowed himself out, 
 and the artist stood there alone, wondering what the fellow 
 really meant. 
 
 Fifty thousand francs reward ! The old Admiral worth a 
 million ! Counterfeit currency ! The stains on the Admi 
 ral s fingers ! His eagerness to get away in the company of 
 respectable travellers, if even in disguise ! Putting this and 
 that together, the artist began to feel pretty certain that 
 there was really something in the wind, and that the mission 
 of the dark-browed doctor that morning meant something 
 more than to beg for money. 
 
 23
 
 CHAPTER LXY. 
 
 A VERY UNFORTUNATE MAN. 
 
 HE Countess could not leave 
 her bed all that day. Still 
 there was hope that if no 
 further trouble was encoun 
 tered they could leave sultry 
 Milan the next day. 
 
 It was nearly midnight 
 when the doctor, walking be 
 tween two officers, called to 
 see Murietta. The Italian s face was 
 black and red and white by turns. 
 He was pulling his retreating mous 
 tache with all his might. 
 
 " It is not me, Signor Murietta, 
 that is a prisoner. It is not me. 
 It is the Admiral. And it is all as 
 You can leave Italy to-morrow, but 
 the Admiral will never leave Italy. Revenge. Ha, ha! 
 Revenge, and fifty thousand francs ! No, no, no, I am not a 
 prisoner at all. These officers are sent with me till I find 
 bail to appear on the trial. But I will appear. Do not fear 
 that. Even if I do not find bail, I can walk about with 
 these officers, my friends, and be quite happy till the day of 
 
 1 told yon it would be.
 
 A very Unfortunate Man. 531 
 
 trial. You would see the prisoner in the morning ? Good. 
 A little present, Signor Marietta, and one of the officers will 
 lead you to the prison in the morning." 
 
 " And the Admiral is really under lock and key ? A bi 
 man with a great chin," queried the artist of one of the 
 officers. 
 
 " A big man with a big chin and a long gray mous 
 tache," answered the officer politely. " He made flight and 
 fight also. He leapt over the bastion at last, and then swam 
 the canal, and at last, when brought to bay, he fought like a 
 wolf." 
 
 The artist took a long breath of relief. He walked to the 
 window, looked out, and felt a sense of satisfaction that he 
 had not known for days. There was even a smile on his 
 face as he handed the officers each a red Italian note. After 
 all, this man was very hitman, and perhaps enjoyed this al 
 most as much as the revengeful Italian. Yet his was an 
 unselfish satisfaction. This meant the freedom of the Count 
 ess and the end of her persecutions. 
 
 "I shall have a few hours to spare in the morning before 
 the express leaves for Paris, and I want one of you to come 
 and take me to the old Admiral in prison," said the artist, as 
 he opened the door and wished his visitors good-night. 
 
 They bowed all the way down stairs, and promised to call 
 at sharp eight in the morning. 
 
 You cannot tear up the heart by the roots and let it dio 
 like a flower, try as you might. Murietta had so often and 
 so devoutly wished he could, for his heart was all the time 
 turning back to Como, and hovering there like a lost bird at 
 night over the pine and vine-covered mountain that rose up 
 in the forks of the beautiful lake. 
 
 He was an older man now. He looked in the glass next 
 morning, as he stood waiting for his promised visitor to lead 
 him to the prison, and there saw that a tinge of frost was on 
 his temples. Snow had fallen there in the terrible storm and
 
 53 2 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 struggle of the heart in the days just past; snow that only 
 the wings of Death should brush away. 
 
 How sober this man was now ! He was as a monk that 
 had renounced the world. Yet for all that he could not keep 
 his heart in Milan, do what he might. 
 
 A savage sense of duty, an iron independence, and a pretty 
 clear sense of what was right at the bottom of things, no 
 matter what the world might say, had led him into terrible 
 straits. However, these same qualities will lead a man 
 through to the pure white light and up to the shining hills 
 of heaven. 
 
 You have only to persevere. The straight road, even 
 though it be out of the great highway and popular road of 
 life, will lead you finally to the right place, though you be 
 torn by thorns and set upon by wild beasts in the new way. 
 The only danger in the whole matter is that you may get dis 
 couraged and attempt to turn back or reach the high road, 
 when in the midst of thorns and beasts, instead of pushing 
 ahead. 
 
 The officer came as he had promised, and soon the artist 
 stood before the prison. And such a prison ! 
 
 "With the most splendid edifice that Christianity has ever 
 reared, Milan has, under its very shadow, as it were, the worst 
 prison that the barbarian ever built. 
 
 The city has been destroyed time and again. More than 
 once it has been levelled to the ground. Yet this old, ugly, 
 massive heap of stones crouching down there under the bas 
 tion has never been touched save by time. It crouches down 
 there as if it were ashamed of its own ugliness. The light of 
 the sun refuses to touch it. 
 
 How the old ruin groaned as the great doors swung open ! 
 Chains, and bolts, and great rusty rings in the iron-bound 
 windows and in the black stone floors. The place was damp 
 and even cold. It was more terrible than the tomb. 
 
 At last they came to the narrow stone cofiin where the
 
 A very Unfortunate Man. 533 
 
 Admiral was confined. It was a miserable little cell, but 
 better than many of the others, for this one really had a 
 window. 
 
 The daylight came in at this window, but timidly. It 
 came in as if it was afraid, was not used to the place, and 
 was very doubtful about the propriety of being there at all. 
 
 There was a row of stout rusty bars, drawn up like a file 
 of grenadiers on guard, across this window, through which 
 the sun came into the prison. And it did not pass unchal 
 lenged, for a mimber of black spiders were very busy mend 
 ing a broken web right across the front of this file of iron 
 grenadiers, as if to shut it out altogether. 
 
 The Admiral sat there on a stone bench with his head 
 bowed down toward the door, and his hands dragged down 
 between his legs by the weight of the rusty chain. Or, more 
 properly, one hand was drawn down, for but one hand and 
 one foot were bound in irons. lie lifted his eyes, but did 
 not lift his head as the artist and officer entered. 
 
 " I am a very unfortunate man." 
 
 He said these words very slowly, and one at a time, as if 
 to himself. They came out of his throat as if jerked out one 
 at a time by fish-hooks, and from very deep down. 
 
 He moved his hands as he spoke, and the chains clinked 
 and chimed in between the words as sometimes do the bells 
 between the prayers in the service. 
 
 " I am a very unfortunate man." 
 
 The old audacity was gone. The dash and dare-devil cha 
 racter which this man had assumed and played, and played 
 very well, for perhaps half a century, had quite forsaken him 
 now. He was now drawing from his true nature, and he 
 found that, once thoroughly conquered, he was the veriest 
 coward alive. 
 
 Prick a child s balloon, and you can hold it between your 
 thumb and finger. 
 
 The old Admiral sat there on the stone bench, with his head
 
 534 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 down ; and he kept picking at find rubbing the ends of his 
 stained fingers as if he found them burning him now. 
 
 He was utterly overthrown, and could only keep rubbing 
 and picking his fingers, and still slowly repeating his brief but 
 mournful story, " I am a very unfortunate man." 
 
 " Well, Admiral, I have come to see you, to make sure that 
 you were here ; and now, finding you, I must say good-bye." 
 
 The sun kept hesitating and hanging about the iron row of 
 sentinels up in the narrow window, and the spiders kept 
 busily weaving at the broken web. What had broken that 
 web ? There was a mark of a man s hand on the high win 
 dow-sill, in the dust. A link of the chain had touched there 
 also. One of the iron sentinels had the rust rubbed off about 
 his waist. It was the middle sentinel. The rust on these 
 bars was scaling off like the bark of a tree. A chain had 
 certainly been passed round the rusty waist of this iron guar 
 dian. What had the Admiral been doing at that window all 
 the night ? He certainly could not have hoped to escape 
 through it. It was not large enough to admit half his body 
 through. 
 
 It was very pitiful. The conquered old man was utterly 
 crushed. His utterly forlorn and helpless state at last 
 touched the heart of the artist. 
 
 " Can I do anything for you to make you more comfortable 
 here ? " he asked, as he turned toward the door. 
 
 " Nothing, nothing, nothing. It is all over. They have 
 betrayed me at the last moment. And now that you are kind 
 enough to come to see me," said the prisoner, for the first 
 time lifting up his head, " I wish to say to you that I was 
 perfectly sincere in what I proposed. I really wished to get 
 away and live a better life." 
 
 The old man s throat was dry, and his voice was husky. 
 He turned his head mournfully to Marietta. 
 
 " They will not let me have any wine. They have taken 
 away all my money, and no one comes near me now or sends
 
 A very Unfortunate Man. 535 
 
 me a glass to refresh my bruised and broken body and 
 mind." 
 
 " Bring a flask of wine and a case of cigars, and keep the 
 change for your trouble." The officer soon returned with a 
 large flask, a glass, and a case of cigars. 
 
 The Admiral took up the glass, tilted the flagon, filled the 
 glass to the brim, and drank it off at a draught. lie drank 
 like an American, and not at all like an Italian, for the latter 
 only sips his wine and never drinks it. 
 
 He filled the glass again as before, and emptied it as be 
 fore. Then, taking a cigar, he drew a long breath, looked up 
 and about his cell, up at the busy spiders in their conspii-acy 
 to keep out the last bit of daylight, then taking a light which 
 the officer had brought him, he began to resume the old 
 devilish look and air of audacity. 
 
 " You have saved my life, sir, and I thank you. You are, 
 after all, a very kind-hearted man," said the prisoner from be 
 hind a cloud of smoke as he again emptied the glass. " Now 
 sir, look here ! I am a blunt but honest man. Ah ! you 
 smile at this. You seem to think you have heard it before. 
 No matter. Some day you will come this way in your jour 
 neys through the woi ld, and you will find my tombstone. 
 Write above the dust of the old Admiral, rough but honest. " 
 
 The old nature was rising under the flask of wine which he 
 had nearly emptied. He kept the cigar burning like a fur 
 nace. It was nearly up to his grey and grizzly moustache. 
 He filled his glass again ; and, glancing up at the window, 
 with its row of rusty sentinels and the busy spiders, he said, 
 as he again looked at Marietta : 
 
 " Your health, Signer Marietta, and a pleasant jouraey to 
 Paris, and a long and a pleasant life with the Countess." 
 
 Murietta bit his lips, but said nothing. 
 
 " You may find trouble at Turin," continued the old Ad 
 miral, as if he again held matters in his hands, and was about 
 to dictate terms of surrender. " Yes, you may find trouble
 
 536 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 at Turin, for the Prince Trawaska is stationed there with 
 Giuseppe. You see the order cannot allow so wealthy a lady 
 as this to leave the country. Besides, there are certain Catho 
 lics interested in keeping this little boy in the creed of the 
 Church." 
 
 " Trawaska and the knavish courier at Turin ? " 
 
 " Yes, yes, I do not mind telling you, and doing you any 
 service in my power, since they all have deserted me, and 
 some of them have betrayed me. If they hear of my arrest 
 they will be the last to trouble you. But if not they will still 
 go on under my orders given them last night, and will surely 
 intercept you before you touch the line of France." 
 
 The man again emptied his glass, and then blew the last of 
 his cigar through his grey and unkempt moustache. 
 
 The artist stepped up to take his leave of the old man, and 
 now civilly, and very respectfully, offered his hand. 
 
 " You have won ! " said the Admiral. " You have won ! 
 But it was not my fault. If men had been true to me, I 
 should have landed you in hell ! " And then the dreadful 
 man laughed a terrible laugh, that sounded as if it came up 
 from the abode of the damned. 
 
 The artist said good-bye, and was going. The old Admiral 
 arose and said, looking down at the chain about his legs, with 
 that perfect Italian politeness, and a bow that was courtly 
 and elegant, " You will excuse me for not seeing you to the 
 door." 
 
 " Certainly, Admiral." 
 
 ft Signor Marietta," called out the prisoner. 
 
 " Well ! " answered the artist, turning back. 
 
 " I will not ask you for money, but I must ask of you one 
 little favor, since my friends do not come near me, and I am 
 almost dead from pain and trouble." 
 
 " What can I do ? " 
 
 " A little more wine. And, Signor Marietta, you wear 
 a rich red sash about your waist."
 
 A very Unfortunate Man. 537 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 " Will you not give me that sash as a keepsake ? I will 
 wear it as long as I live." 
 
 The artist hastily unwound the sash, stepped back, handed 
 it to the man, and then leaving a note with the officer for 
 another flagon, hurried away to the light of the sun. It was 
 the red Mexican sash which had once so frightened the 
 Countess, and which she said meant blood, which he had given, 
 to the old Admiral. 
 
 23*
 
 CHAPTER LXVI. 
 
 VIS-A-VIS WITH TWO MONKS. 
 
 HERE was not the least rip 
 ple of trouble, as tlie little 
 party took their seats iu the 
 express train for Paris. 
 
 The Countess had received 
 a telegram from England. 
 Her father had reached the 
 shore of the great sea that 
 lay between him and his home. 
 
 " For the first time in five years," 
 said the lady, as the train shot away 
 over the fertile fields of Lombardy, 
 and over the great battle-field of 
 Magenta, " for the first time in five 
 years I feel like a free woman. I 
 am no longer watched." 
 
 She did not know the fate of the old Admiral. She still 
 fancied he might be at the bottom of Lake Como, and 
 thought their troubles over all. Yet she was not cheerful, 
 but unusually sad. 
 
 As they neared Turin, and looked up at the little Campo 
 Santo on the hill, with its tombstones and monuments shin-
 
 Vis-a vis with Two Monks. 539 
 
 ing in tne setting sun, she suddenly turned to Murietta and 
 said, " It seems to me, if Count Edna, my husband, were 
 here, and going home with me, I should be almost perfectly 
 happy." 
 
 Murietta looked out at the white tombstones, as they shot 
 past, tapped the butt of a pistol, just visible under his waist 
 coat, and said to himself, wondering, " And still she loves 
 him ! She is certainly past finding out." 
 
 It was raining at Turin, and dark, as they changed cars 
 for the Mont Cenis Tunnel. 
 
 * You will remain, here in this coupe, you and your little 
 boy together, and you will remain locked up. It is just big 
 enough for you two. I will have a seat in the car adjoining. 
 I entreat you, do not move," said Murietta ; " we may have 
 trouble yet." 
 
 He turned, and two monks with immense cowls were look 
 ing over his shoulder at the Countess and her little boy. 
 
 He stepped into the adjoining car, after handing the con 
 ductor a liberal present, and took his seat. The monks in 
 stantly followed and sat together opposite. 
 
 Around the rocky spurs of the Alps, under arches, over 
 bridges that those perfect Italian engineers have made for the 
 world to wonder at, and the line of France was near at hand. 
 The monks whispered together. In half an hour they 
 would be at the station where you are expected to show your 
 passport, or bribe the officer. This latter is, perhaps, the 
 most common, as well as the most convenient way. The little 
 boy had no passport. As the monks whispered together, one 
 of the cowls was brushed by a sudden lurch of the car, and 
 the large red ears of the wearer were uncovered. 
 
 Murietta caught his breath, but said nothing. By a sort 
 of inspiration he then at once knew that these monks were 
 Prince Trawaska and the courier Giuseppe, and he knew 
 that the last struggle would be made at the little mountain 
 town where you are expected to pay or show a passport.
 
 540 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 " I am sick of this pistol practice ; it is getting monoto 
 nous. But come, my little iron bull-dogs, you may have to 
 bark at these men, and bite and bite even, to the death." 
 
 He cautiously drew his hands under his cloak, and hitched 
 his pistols around where they could be pulled iu a flash. 
 
 " Trawaska ! " 
 
 The man in the monk s cowl and gown sprang up, only to 
 find a pistol pointed into his face. 
 
 " Sit down, sir ! There, that will do. Your hands behind 
 your head. There, fasten them there. Lock your fingers in 
 gether behind the back of your neck. There ! so ! The mo 
 ment a hand comes down, by heaven, you die ! " 
 
 " Giuseppe ! " 
 
 Giuseppe did the same without being told in words. He 
 understood the signs. 
 
 " There ! you will both keep your hands in that position 
 till we pass this station. I will see about your passports. 
 Fifty francs will settle the whole matter. No, no ! Take 
 care ; take care there ! You see I should be perfectly de 
 lighted to kill you both. It would sound so well to have the 
 name of a Polish prince and an Italian Colonel mixed up in 
 a matter of this kind. Child-stealing, eh ! A valiant busi 
 ness, indeed ! And then, an Italian colonel to be found in 
 the car in monk s clothes with a bullet through his head. 
 How would it sound, Trawaska ? Just let me kill you to see 
 what a sensation it would produce. Or even let me just 
 mention the matter to the next officer we meet, either civil 
 or military. Let me turn you over to him in your monk s 
 clothes ! Bah ! my brave man ! An Italian colonel and a 
 Polish prince have obtained leave of absence to go child- 
 stealing in monk s clothes. Soft there ! " 
 
 The men were trembling in their seats, and suffering from 
 their painful positions. 
 
 " Come, we will vary this a little. Here is another pistol ; 
 one for each of you. Yes, it hurts you, I know, to hold
 
 Vis-a-vis with Two Monks. 541 
 
 your hands there ; it affects the spine finally, and stupefies 
 you. If you were to take down your hands now, you would 
 find them helpless ; the blood and the strength is gone out of 
 them. Take down your hands and try them, Giuseppe, if 
 you like ; you will find them as useless as the hands of the 
 dead man you hid away in the dark vault at Home." 
 
 The train stopped for an instant, and a man ran along on 
 the rail at the side of the cars, taking money and glancing 
 up at passports, or old letters and the like which men saw fit 
 to hold up for a second, still folded, before his face. 
 
 Murietta sprang to the window, looking back over his 
 shoulder at the motionless men. A pistol was in his right 
 hand, and held down behind him. 
 
 He hurriedly drew a fifty-franc note from his vest pocket 
 with his left hand and held it out to the officer. 
 
 " These good fathers do not need passports. The lady and 
 the little boy are my friends, and go to England in my charge. 
 Take this, and drink our healths and a happy voyage." 
 
 The officer was perfectly satisfied, and hurried on. 
 
 In less than an hour they crossed the line and were in 
 France. The two men were pale and overcome with pain and 
 disappointment. 
 
 " Now you can get out and go about your business ; or 
 would you prefer to be handed over to these French officers 
 in this garb ? " 
 
 Murietta stepped out on the platform as the train was 
 about to move off, and the two men with great effort followed 
 him. Then, turning about, he returned to the car and took 
 his seat alone as it shot out of the station, and left the two 
 men standing there, helpless together.
 
 CHAPTER LXVII. 
 
 IN THE BLESSED ISLES. 
 
 HE work was done. Noth 
 ing was now required but 
 time and patience to com 
 plete the journey, which had 
 been begun and carried thus 
 far under such fearful diffi 
 culties. 
 
 They reached England, and 
 found the old father there 
 waiting for his child. 
 
 He put out his hand to his daugh 
 ter, and said faintly, 
 
 " I am waiting here : I am waiting 
 to cross the great sea and go home." 
 
 The countess, pale now with travel 
 and trouble, turned to Murietta, for 
 her heart was bleeding at sight of this. 
 
 " Oh ! " said she, " it is not the great sea that he will 
 cross to go home ; it is the great dark river of death." 
 
 And it was so. Still talking of home, and rest, and peace, 
 under the cool trees on the other side of the great deep, he 
 folded his hands and died. 
 
 And now the poor, beautiful, but broken-hearted woman 
 was more alone than ever before. She fell down and wished
 
 In the Blessed Isles. 543 
 
 to die and be buried, and be at rest from it all. Then for 
 many days she was very, very ill, and was wild and out of 
 her mind with a fever. 
 
 Marietta watched with her then, and did all a brother 
 could do all that a father could do, for now he was, indeed, 
 old. He was as old at heart and almost as cold as the old man 
 he had just seen borne to his grave. 
 
 While he watched by the bedside of the Countess, who 
 was now almost recovered again, he i-eceived a package of 
 papers from the consul at Milan. 
 
 There was one, an illustrated paper with a frightful pic 
 ture. It was the picture of a man, a large man, hanging by 
 his neck to the bars of his cell. A cord, a rich silk sash, 
 the paper stated, had been passed around the middle bar, and 
 by this the man had hung himself, and was found dead the 
 second day after his imprisonment. 
 
 The old Admiral, the founder of the order of the Brothers 
 of the Altar, was dead. Murietta thought of the red sash, 
 and then remembered how that once on the banks of the 
 Tiber the Countess had shuddered at the sight of it, and said 
 that it looked like blood. Carlton s prophecy had been 
 fulfilled. 
 
 During her illness the Countess had spoken more than once 
 about her husband. Would he come to her ? Could he come 
 to her? Then she would begin to talk of the Admiral, and 
 say that it was impossible, and that he loved his clannish 
 companions better than his family. 
 
 Murietta had noticed this, arid had not been idle. But 
 now that he knew the Admiral was no more, he at once de 
 cided what to do, and acted acordignly. 
 
 Soon the Countess was able to be wheeled into her parlor. 
 She seemed more beautiful than ever, yet more sad than ever. 
 Murietta tried in vain to rouse her and call her spirits back 
 again to the beautiful tilings of the world. 
 
 One day she was standing by the window with her little
 
 544 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 boy, as the artist entered. She was nearly well now ; and he, 
 still weary, still worn from toil and trouble and thought, had 
 come to say good-bye ; for he wanted to get away, to be alone 
 to go up into the mountains and pray, as it were. 
 
 " I have written to the Count," she began, smiling sadly, 
 " and and I have written him a long letter to-day. Perhaps 
 you had better read it." 
 
 " I read your letter, lady ! " 
 
 " Well, no, not that. But you understand how things are 
 better than I do, and perhaps you might help me a little." 
 Then she hesitated, drooped her great brown eyes, lifted 
 them up again, and said, "At all events, I want to send 
 him some money. Send him plenty of money. Send it at 
 once by telegraph to-day now." 
 
 " Countess, I have sent him money. All the time that 
 you have been ill you spoke of it, and he has not been left in 
 want." 
 
 "The brown eyes were again on the carpet, and then look 
 ing up and opening them very wide, she asked : 
 
 " Do you not think he would like to see his family? " 
 
 " Certainly I do." 
 
 " But no, no, no ; he cannot come. That oath, that order, 
 that terrible man, the Admiral. Ah ! I shall go mad at 
 last ! " 
 
 "As for the old Admiral, he will trouble you no more. 
 He is dead," answered the artist solemnly. 
 
 She clasped her little hands, and (shall it be told ?) said 
 Thank God ! " 
 
 She held her head down a long time in thought and in 
 tears. At last, looking up, she said : 
 
 " You will send for Count Edna for me at once. Send at 
 once send by telegraph and say he is needed here. Say 
 anything, only so that he leaves that country and comes to 
 me, to a Christian land." 
 
 " Lady, I have already sent for him."
 
 In the Blessed Isles. 545 
 
 " What ! Have you ? " 
 
 " I sent for him clays ago, and have had answers, and he 
 is on his way to join you." 
 
 " Heaven is merciful ! And when will he arrive ? " 
 
 " This evening this hour." 
 
 She sank in a chair and bowed her head, and hid her face 
 in her hands as if in prayer. Murietta stood up before her, 
 and was very still. Her delicate foot tapped nervously on 
 the floor in the old way, as she looked up, half smiling through 
 her tears, and with a brighter face than she had shown for a 
 long, long time. 
 
 " I have come to say good-bye, for I am going away. I 
 shall return now to my work, and busy myself once more 
 with creatures of imagination," said the artist calmly at last. 
 
 Her little fingers were winding themselves up in the tas 
 sels of her crape shawl. At last she put out her round, soft, 
 baby hand. She looked down into her lap, with her great 
 brown eyes half hidden under the drooping lashes, and 
 said: 
 
 Good-bye." 
 
 Murietta did not speak. He leaned forward, bowed above 
 the beautiful woman, kissed her tenderly on the fair brow 
 kissed her for the first and last time and was gone. 
 
 He had done what he conceived to be his duty. He had 
 done this at a countless cost. What she thought of it now 
 was another matter. What the world thought of it was 
 nothing to him now. He left her with her husband, and 
 went on his way alone. He was satisfied with himself, and 
 that was his recompense. 
 
 * * * * * * * 
 
 Murietta had returned to Italy. Fair Italy ! With all her 
 faults, the finest land upon earth. Gentle Italians with all 
 their follies, the only real artists saving the exceptions in 
 all the world. 
 
 He felt that he was in disgrace in the great cities, and kept
 
 546 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 well away. He had a studio in Perugia, and worked there 
 very faithfully. He was a silent man, and as abstemious as a 
 monk. His hair was turning gray, and yet his heart was 
 warm to the pure and the beautiful, and people came to un 
 derstand that this man, hiding away among them, and grow 
 ing prematurely old, had a history. 
 
 There was a beautiful picture of a beautiful woman in his 
 studio ; and the Italian artists, who sometimes came to visit 
 him, often stood before it with silent admiration. This was 
 the picture of a lady looking back over her shoulder. On the 
 back of this picture was written, " It is finished." 
 
 He had never again attempted to see Annette. He dared 
 not even inquire after her. Yet he had somehow learned 
 that she, with her old father, often left Rome and its whirl 
 of fashionable life, and wandered away together into the Alps, 
 to the old dilapidated cities there ; and, like himself, sat down 
 to rest and to dream among the picturesque and primitive 
 people. 
 
 The artist had been here nearly a year, alone and quietly, 
 and in a measure contentedly at work. Two people climbed 
 up to the lofty studio, with its windows looking out on 
 the Upper Tiber. He did not look up from his work. He 
 supposed them some other artists who had more leisure than 
 he, and that they knew how to make themselves at home. He 
 went on with his work. He Avas dreaming. And this man 
 was dreaming now of Annette, the One Fair Woman. In 
 fact, it would have been difficult to find a moment in his life 
 now when he was not dreaming of her, and her only. The 
 world took no part of his time or attention. He thought 
 only of his beautiful real ideal, and went on with his work. 
 
 There was a rustle of robes, and a gentle hand touched hi^ 
 own. He turned his eyes, and then he dropped his brush, 
 lie could not realize it at first, but stood gazing into the face 
 of the wonderful being before him, mute and quite over 
 come.
 
 In the Blessed Isles. 547 
 
 Then he thought it was a vision, for he had been thinking 
 of her; but there was the dreamy old General behind her, 
 and he was looking at a picture on the wall close by. 
 
 " Why, Annette, here is the most perfect likeness of my 
 child that was ever painted." 
 
 How gentle, how like a dream she was ! yet how match 
 less and magnificent. All the man s life came tiding back to 
 his veins again, and the blood mounted to his face in con 
 fusion. Her great eyes were still full of the warm soft 
 South. 
 
 He did not reach his hand to her. He could not speak. 
 He was stooping to pick up his brush. 
 
 " No, no," she said, laughing pleasantly at his confusion ; 
 "let your brush lie there on the floor. Let it lie there for a 
 time, at least, and let us reach hands over the dead year 
 that is gone." 
 
 He extended his hand, and, looking in her face, said 
 earnestly : 
 
 " Beautiful woman, is it best to reach hands over the gulf 
 that rolls between us? You see I am satisfied here tranquil 
 at least half content. Why shall I suffer myself to return 
 again to the rack and torture ! Fate decided against me 
 at Como. I accept the verdict. 
 
 "At Como you were a simpleton." The lady laughed and 
 he looked puzzled. " You are the veriest child in the world. 
 Why did you not come to me with that poor lady s misfor 
 tunes instead of applying to strangers ? Do you not know 
 that I should have been proud tj help her through it?" 
 
 " And then you know all and understand all ? " 
 
 He looked in her face as he spoke ; and, holding her hand, 
 drew her close to his breast, and called her his own in a 
 whisper ; and she did not shrink away, as he held her hand 
 but listened to what he chose to say of scattering roses in 
 her path of life now, even to the end. 
 
 " No, do not think women blind," she said at last. " Men
 
 548 The One Fair Woman. 
 
 do not deceive women as often as they suppose, either for 
 good or evil. I undei-stand you better than you understand 
 yourself. Had you flinched from your duty to that lady 
 when she needed your help, I should have hated you, my 
 hero." 
 
 THE END.
 
 DATE DUE 
 
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