•4^ 
 
 
 I THE BALLET 
 . DANCER 
 
 II MATILDE SERAO 
 
 
 
Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive 
 
 in 2007 with funding from 
 
 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 littp://www.arcliive.org/details/balletdanceronguOOseraricli 
 
THE 
 
 m BALLET 
 DANCER 
 
 AND 
 
 ON GUARD 
 
 By 
 MATILDE SERAO 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 "THE LAND OF COCKAYNE" 
 
 "THE CONQUEST OF ROME " ETC. 
 
 [^ 
 
 HARPER &- BROTHERS 
 NEW YORK AND LONDON 
 PUBLISHERS - - 1901 
 
 HI 
 
iU 
 

 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 343 
 
Carmela Mining stood beside her chest of drawers 
 and counted over and over again the money that she 
 kept in a small worn purse, and she found always 
 the same sum, the same eighteen francs — three bills 
 of five and three of one franc — which she had found 
 the day before and also the previous week. She 
 pulled out of her pocket the tiny old portemonnaie 
 she always carried about with her, and in which she 
 kept a little change — a few pence — with which to 
 pay omnibus fares, a chair at Mass, and now and 
 then a glass of mineral water. In this receptacle 
 she found sevenpence, and, with a gesture at once 
 puerile and sad, she turned and looked anxiously 
 and despairingly round her room, as if from the 
 bare walls and the poor furniture, which consisted 
 of only a few absolutely indispensable objects, she 
 could, like a fairy, evoke an imaginary sum of money 
 with which to swell her insufficient capital. She 
 had had a dream of being able to carry this year a 
 wreath of fresh flowers to the tomb of her god- 
 mother and benefactress — a large wreath, all made 
 of the most beautiful flowers, with an inscription 
 also in flowers — an inscription composed of two or 
 
 1—2 
 
4 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 three words of remembrance, gratitude and affection. 
 For this purpose she had laid up some money in 
 the summer, putting by a penny at a time, and, by 
 depriving herself of many things, had managed to 
 scrape together forty-two francs, while, in her mind's 
 eye, the wreath assumed ever fairer proportions and 
 more vivid colours, and the thought of laying it with 
 her own hands on the tomb where Amina Boschetti 
 slept was sweet to her. 
 
 In order to facilitate this darling project, Carmela 
 Minino had signed an engagement to dance at Castel- 
 lamare, in August and September, in the dreary barn 
 called Stabia Hall, with its ceiling open to the sky, 
 and under the direction of Civillo Patalano, an 
 impresario who paid little, and that little irregularly, 
 and who often paid nothing at all. Carmela had 
 accepted the engagement, in spite of her doubts of 
 Patalano, because she did not wish to trench upon 
 the sum set apart for the wreath, and also because 
 she wished to increase it, if it were possible ; and 
 she had danced in the wooden theatre, in the open 
 air, perspiring in the hot August evenings until her 
 silk tights were glued to her skin, and she caught 
 one cold after another in the draughts which swept 
 over the stage. In vain did she wrap herself in her 
 black woollen shawl when she left it. And all this 
 pain and trouble for nothing ! 
 
 September had been cold and rainy, and all the 
 summer visitors had left Castellamare ; Stabia Hall 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 5 
 
 was deserted, and, notwithstanding the real curses 
 and feigned tears of the ballet-dancers, Civillo 
 Patalano had not paid them for the month of 
 September. Only here and there a girl who was 
 lucky enough to have an energetic father, and one 
 capable of swearing louder than Civillo Patalano, or 
 a brother whom she supported, and whose interest 
 was therefore involved in her being paid, or a girl 
 who had a lover who showed his fist to the im- 
 presario — only persons so protected succeeded in 
 wrenching a few francs from him. 
 
 Carmela Minino had screamed and wept, but all 
 to no purpose. She was alone, she had no de- 
 fenders, and Patalano did not pay her the forty-five 
 francs owing to her for the month of September, 
 although he had signed her contract at a franc and ' 
 a half an evening. It was a financial disaster for 
 the poor girl ; she had to pay half the rent of the 
 miserable room where she slept with Maria Civita, 
 another dancer, and an equally unfortunate one, 
 except that she had a lover in Naples who sent her 
 a postal-order for twenty francs. Then, Carmela 
 had to pay her board until the end of the month at 
 a small restaurant, and, finally, she had to return 
 to Naples, paying her third-class ticket herself, and 
 carrying with her the unpleasant consciousness that 
 her best silk tights were so stained by perspiration 
 as to be unwearable, and her two best pairs of satin 
 slippers utterly worn out by dancing on the rough 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 
 6 
 
 floor of Stabia Hall. Between this catastrophe and 
 a dull month of October, when she could get no 
 engagement, a large part of the savings which she 
 had set apart for the wreath of fresh flowers gradually 
 melted away, and Carmela Minino felt her heart 
 sink every time she took a franc out of her purse. 
 And thus it happened that on the morning of the first 
 of November she only had eighteen francs and thirty- 
 five centimes with which to honour her godmother's 
 tomb, and from this sum she was forced to deduct 
 a few pence for her supper, and for the journey to 
 and from Paggioreale on a day when all Naples goes 
 there, and cabs are enormously expensive. 
 
 * Flowers are so dear at this season !' she thought 
 within herself as she put on her hat to go out ; and 
 a secret bitterness swelled within her as she felt her 
 beautiful dream to be almost completely destroyed. 
 Out of doors the weather was cloudy, and when 
 Carmela had descended the four flights of steps 
 which led from her room in the Vicolo Paradiso to 
 the Pignasecca, she decided to go back again and 
 take her umbrella. She was dressed in black, 
 although her mourning for her mother had been long 
 laid aside ; she had wanted to go in a black gown 
 to pray for her benefactress, but in any case she 
 could not have afforded a new winter gown. The 
 weather was so uncertain. If it rained, the black 
 feather in her hat would be spoiled. It was an 
 ancient plume which had once been splendid, and 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 7 
 
 which Carmela wore all the year round, on summer 
 and winter hats, which were trimmed afresh accord- 
 ing to the season, while the feather was carefully 
 curled by her with the back of the scissors. Not- 
 withstanding all her care, the long feather was a 
 little worn — she had had it for five or six years! 
 Rain spoils feathers. 
 
 Full of uneasy presentiments, she went upstairs, 
 and felt more tranquil when she returned, carrying 
 pressed to her bosom the faithful old umbrella which 
 had for years protected her from summer and winter 
 rains, as she went to, and returned from, San Carlo. 
 With the light step of her profession, she passed on, 
 picking her way carefully, and saying a * Hail Mary ' 
 as she passed the Madonna of the Pignasecca. Ab- 
 sorbed in her sad thoughts, Carmela Minino reached 
 the street called Chiaia, where the best florists in 
 Naples are to be found. 
 
 The walls of Toledo and Chiaia were covered with 
 the advertisements peculiar to All Saints' Day. At 
 one place wax candles were advertised at three 
 francs a pound; at another wire wreaths, cheap 
 and lasting ; another advertisement bore the time- 
 table of the small branch railroad Nola Baiano, 
 which had a station at Paggioreale; there were, 
 further on, numberless advertisements of tapers, 
 wreaths, etc. ; and even that of a restaurant which 
 provided a hot dinner, with the white wine called 
 asprinia, at a place not far from the cemetery and 
 
8 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 on the direct route to it, so that people could refresh 
 themselves comfortably after having done their duty 
 to the dead. All the small dry-goods shops displayed 
 wreaths of v^^ire, of stiff tarlatan, of dried immortelles, 
 painted in various colours, and of pressed flowers, 
 and all were crowded with purchasers, who were 
 continually going in and coming out with small or 
 large wreaths, while quantities of private carriages 
 swept by, full of people dressed in mourning and 
 carrying wreaths of flowers. Some of these wreaths 
 were immense, superb, and Carmela's eyes filled 
 with tears as she thought of the miserable sum 
 which she held tightly in her hand — such a poor 
 little sum compared with her ardent desire to heap, 
 flowers on the tomb of the beloved being who had 
 been everything to her in life and in death. 
 
 The tears did her good, however, by producing a 
 reaction. Instead of hopeless depression, a sense of 
 exaltation, a firm resolution to conquer destiny for at 
 least that one day, took possession of her soul. And 
 in this spirit she unhesitatingly pushed open the 
 great glass doors which led to Lamarra's shop, 
 which was the finest in Naples, and, stepping lightly 
 over the damp marble floor, and past the crowds of 
 people who were buying, paying, ordering, Arriving, 
 and departing, she reached the counter where the 
 employes were making wreaths of tea-roses and 
 ferns, and crosses of double chrysanthemums, reposing 
 on a background of dark-green leaves, and, without 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 9 
 
 the slightest timidity, asked a tall, white-haired man, 
 who was directing the others : 
 
 * Please show me some wreaths of fresh flowers.' 
 
 * All these you see here are already ordered,' replied 
 the man with white moustaches, who was no other 
 than Lamarra, hardly deigning to look at Carmela 
 Minino while he spoke. 
 
 She was taken aback, and, flushing and paling 
 alternately, turned to look at the wreaths of chrysan- 
 themums and the cushions of roses, upon which 
 reposed crosses of small white flowers, which were 
 growing rapidly under the expert fingers of the 
 assistants. There was something inexpressibly sad 
 in all this floral abundance. 
 
 * About how much would a wreath cost ?' mur- 
 mured Carmela, swallowing her tears. 
 
 ' I can make you one for a hundred or two hundred 
 francs, as you like,' answered Lamarra, while he 
 handed change to a customer and wrote an order in 
 his book. 
 
 * But less — are there none for less than a hundred 
 francs ?' asked Carmela, turning as red as fire. 
 
 * Something for sixty or fifty francs,' answered the 
 florist abstractedly, absorbed in his affairs, and per- 
 ceiving that he had to do with a client of no conse- 
 quence. 
 
 Carmela was silent for a moment. How beautiful 
 they were, those wreaths of fresh flowers, the delicate 
 flowers which bloom in November, as if to adorn the 
 
lo THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 tombs of the departed on the day of commemoration ! 
 How fragrant with a soft, melancholy fragrance! 
 Lovely flowers! destined to exhale their sweetness 
 on the marble slabs of the composanto, and to 
 spend their brief existence in covering for two days 
 the hard, cold stones which had lain bare and aban- 
 doned for a year ! She took courage and said : 
 
 'What is the very lowest price for a handsome 
 wreath ? Please tell me.' 
 
 Lamarra looked her full in the face this time with 
 a contemptuous expression ; he found that this girl 
 was decidedly making him lose too much time, and 
 he answered curtly : 
 
 * Thirty francs.' 
 
 * Ah 1' she answered submissively. 
 
 Slowly Carmela turned and left the shop, a prey 
 to the most profound depression. Why had she 
 gone into the shop when she only possessed eighteen 
 francs ? Why had she wanted to see all those 
 flowers when she could not take them to Amina 
 Boschetti ? Why had she been so foolish ? — she, so 
 poor, so humble, so alone, with no earthly resource 
 but her dancing — dancing for which she was often 
 unable to obtain an engagement, although she had 
 no other means of earning her bread. And how 
 poorly it was paid ! — two francs and a half or three 
 francs at San Carlo, and less in the smaller theatres. 
 
 She walked slowly toward the lower part of the 
 Strada di Chiaia, reproving herself severely the while 
 
THE BALLET DANCER ii 
 
 for her pride, her arrogance, her great presumption. 
 Who was she, pray ? A poor ballet-dancer, plain, 
 ungraceful, without any redeeming quality but her 
 youth and her tireless energy. And she had dared to 
 think of taking a wreath of fresh flowers to the tomb 
 of Amina Boschetti ! To Amina Boschetti ? And 
 during her brief day had not the Boschetti been the 
 fairest, loftiest, most brilliant star of San Carlo, 
 unequalled and never to be equalled in excellence ? 
 Had she not been a very dream of grace and every 
 feminine charm, an airy phantom of delight in her 
 floating tulle robes, and the cunningly woven bodices 
 of silver and gold which had made her look like a 
 butterfly as she flitted about the stage ? 
 
 As she walked slowly onward, Carmela recalled the 
 ideal, poetic beauty of the great Boschetti in Neapoli- 
 tan costume, when she danced in the * Muta di Por- 
 tici ' ; she saw her lying on the ground, with her 
 arms forming an arch above her beautiful dark head ; 
 she remembered her smile — that ineffable, mysterious 
 smile, which gave a divine beauty to her lovely face. 
 Never to be forgotten, the evening when she saw her 
 first ! Carmela, though only ten years old, had felt 
 her heart swell with adoration for the lovely creature 
 who had seemed to her something unearthly ; she 
 had longed to kiss her tiny, flying feet. And now, 
 as recollections of the past crowded upon her — as 
 she thought of the creature who had been so marvel- 
 lously, so strangely beautiful, whose existence had 
 
12 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 been one of boundless luxury and limitless pleasure, 
 who had possessed palaces and villas of princely 
 splendour, and lovers by the score, and who yet had 
 been torn away from life in the fulness of her youth 
 and beauty — as she thought of all this, Carmela felt 
 an intenser, more burning desire to heap flowers — 
 masses of flowers — on her tomb ; the horror of her 
 poverty, of her helplessness, seized her. And she 
 turned round instantly, and went courageously back 
 to Lamarra. 
 
 * Listen ! listen !' she said hastily, as, panting and 
 pale with emotion, she touched Lamarra's arm. 
 * You ought to make me a wreath of fresh flowers for 
 fifteen francs.' 
 
 Lamarra, struck by the intense feeling she dis- 
 played, said in a friendly tone : 
 
 * My child, it is not possible.' 
 
 / Try — please try to make it for me,' she stammered, 
 more and more agitated, and repressing her sobs with 
 difficulty. 
 
 * Flowers are very dear,' observed Lamarra, already 
 relaxing a little the implacable dignity of the first 
 florist in Naples. 
 
 * Never mind ; you can make it smaller — for fifteen 
 francs — fifteen francs ' 
 
 * But must I contribute to it myself, perhaps ?' 
 cried Lamarra, with pretended anger, but moved, 
 in spite of himself, by the poor girl's pallor and 
 trembling voice. 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 13 
 
 * Yes, please ; be charitable. It is a great charity. 
 I have — only fifteen francs,' she added in the lowest 
 voice, dizzy v^ith mortification, feeling as if she were 
 really a beggar. 
 
 * Well — very well,' said the florist suddenly. 
 They were silent. Carmela leant against the wall 
 
 with downcast eyes, and as she took the fifteen francs 
 out of her poor little purse the keen eyes of the florist 
 noted that only three francs were left in it. 
 
 * Where shall I send it ?' he asked. 
 
 * I will take it. I shall carry it myself.' 
 
 * It is not made yet.' 
 
 * I will wait.' 
 
 He went into the other room, gave an order, and 
 returned. 
 
 * You have ordered it ? How have you ordered it V 
 she asked anxiously. 
 
 * Of white chrysanthemums.' 
 
 * Ah, that is right. Please put a few roses.' 
 
 * Monthly roses — yes, we can put a few.' 
 ' Yes, yes ; some roses, I beg of you.' 
 
 The florist went again into the room at the back 
 of the shop, and Carmela waited patiently, standing 
 on the damp, flower-strewn floor, and jostled con- 
 tinually by arriving and departing customers. The 
 air was full of the faint perfume of autumn flowers. 
 
 When he returned Lamarra passed close to Car- 
 mela in order to take out of the window a huge bunch 
 of white roses — magnificent hothouse roses — and he 
 
i 
 
 14 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 began to fasten them to a palm-branch, arranging 
 them with great taste and skill. 
 
 *This wreath is for your mother?' he asked 
 curiously, but with benignity. 
 
 * No,' said Carmela ; * it is for my godmother.' 
 
 * Oh ! You were very fond of her, then ?' 
 
 * Yes, very ; and I love her now as much as ever.' 
 
 * And she was old when she went to Paradise ?' 
 
 * No ; she was young and beautiful. She looked 
 like an angel,' she added with half-closed eyes, as if 
 to recall some radiant vision. 
 
 * What are we poor mortals ?' said the florist philo- 
 sophically. * Did she die lately ?' 
 
 * No, six years ago. I was eighteen ' and her 
 
 eyes filled with tears. 
 
 ' Don't think of it,' said the florist soothingly, as 
 he finished arranging the roses ; and taking up a 
 superb ribbon of white moir^-antique, knotted it 
 round the bouquet, leaving long floating ends, on 
 which was inscribed in gold letters : * Dearest Maria, 
 wait for me. — Carlo.' 
 
 Carmela, who watched everything with the closest 
 attention, exclaimed : 
 
 * Couldn't you put a ribbon or an inscription on 
 my wreath ?' 
 
 * Yes ; now we must write a letter on the wreath 
 all in flowers !' exclaimed Lamarra ironically. 
 
 * At least, her name — only her name,' persisted 
 Carmela, clasping her hands. 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 15 
 
 ' What was her name ?' 
 
 * She was called Amina Boschetti,' answered 
 Carmela, in a low voice. 
 
 * The name of our great dancer, Boschetti ?' 
 
 * It was she — she was my godmother,' said poor 
 Carmela, while two large tears rolled down her 
 cheeks. 
 
 Lamarra looked at her with surprise. She was so 
 miserably clad ; she held in her hands such an old, 
 old umbrella ; her poor black gloves were so white at 
 the seams that the florist, as he recalled the brilliant 
 goddess of the dance, upon whose every graceful 
 movement thousands had gazed in almost delirious 
 ecstasy, found it difficult to believe that the person 
 before him could have had any connection with so 
 dazzling a creature. 
 
 * She was my benefactress, in life and death,' said 
 Carmela, with an impetuous burst of gratitude, * and 
 I ought to remember her always.' 
 
 ' She was a grand lady, good, and beautiful, and 
 generous,' answered the florist. 
 ' You kuew her, then ?' 
 
 * Yes. The flowers I have taken to the theatre for 
 her on certain evenings ! I made a good deal of 
 money out of the men who went mad about her. 
 But she used to laugh at them all, I remember. 
 What evenings those were! She seemed a fairy 
 when she danced.' 
 
 * And now she is dead,' answered the girl, with a 
 
i6 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 breaking voice. * Since you knew her, I pray you to 
 write her name on the wreath, with the roses.' 
 
 The mid-day cannon was booming when Carmela, 
 joyously carrying her wreath, entered the railway- 
 station. After having thought over ways and means 
 with the profound consideration peculiar to people 
 of infinitely small means, who are obliged to count 
 every penny, she had decided that it would be better 
 for her to take the train. There are hundreds of 
 omnibuses which go to Paggioreale on All Saints' 
 Day, but they are crammed with people and go very 
 slowly. Carmela did not know whether she would 
 have been allowed to enter an omnibus with her 
 large wreath, which would have greatly incommoded 
 the other passengers. Again, on All Saints' Day 
 there are thousands of small and large cabs which go 
 to the cemetery, but the least they ask is five francs. 
 The wreath was so large and heavy that she could 
 not walk, as she would have done had she not been 
 so heavily burdened. Lamarra, as a homage to the 
 memory of the divinity of San Carlo, had made the 
 wreath so beautiful ! Within the border of white 
 chrysanthemums there was another of small pale 
 pink ones, and the words * To Amina Boschetti ' 
 were woven in pink rosebuds — modest, monthly rose- 
 buds, but fresh and dewy. Carmela did not feel the 
 weight of the wreath ; she walked on quietly, happy 
 in her sacrifice, and deeply touched by the kindness 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 17 
 
 of the florist who had deigned to accept her poor 
 fifteen francs ; she reflected that her godmother's 
 name had been the taHsman which had touched the 
 heart of Lamarra. Oh, not for her own sake ! Plain, 
 and ungraceful, and timid, notwithstanding her pro- 
 fession, perhaps even because of it, since it caused 
 her to feel her defects the more keenly, she was dis- 
 trustful of anything like flattery, and crushed by 
 the consciousness of her poor clothes and hopeless 
 poverty. 
 
 Carmela passed through the world alone, expecting 
 nothing, and so void of hope that a kind word or act 
 would move her to tears ; the miracle of having ob- 
 tained these flowers — which she thought magnificent 
 — seemed to her immense, and it was all because the 
 beloved name of the great artist had been pronounced 
 in the florist's shop. Absorbed in these thoughts, she 
 walked on quickly, looking to neither right nor left, 
 but as she passed Gambrinus's, the most fashionable 
 cafe in Naples, she happened to raise her eyes and 
 saw, standing before the door, Count Ferdinando 
 Terzi di Torregrande. He stood with his usual air 
 of haughty indiflerence, his magnificent blue eyes, as 
 cold and hard as steel, fixed on the gray November 
 sky, his hands plunged deep in the pockets of his 
 English coat, a Havana cigar between his lips. 
 Whether he waited for someone or was waited 
 for did not transpire from his manner or the 
 expression of his countenance, which was as cold 
 
 2 
 
i8 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 and immovable as marble. The exquisitely pure 
 lines of his face, the absolutely correct oval, the 
 perfect aquiline nose, the finely and firmly chiselled 
 chin, the broad brow, the large, well-opened blue 
 eyes, the classically beautiful mouth, with the full- 
 red lips and regular white teeth, the blond curling 
 hair and moustache — all formed an ensemble of in- 
 comparable beauty. But if the lines of his face were 
 beautiful they were hard and cruel as well ; the profile 
 was stern, the glance of the blue eyes cold and 
 indifferent, and sometimes full of contemptuous irony ; 
 the brow betrayed the presence of a constant pre- 
 occupation, veiled by the glacial pride, the cruel 
 disdain, which was the dominant expression of the 
 face. 
 
 Carmela Minino knew the Count di Torregrande 
 by sight. He was an annual subscriber to a place in 
 the front row of armchairs at San Carlo, and never 
 failed to come to the theatre, late every evening, 
 arrayed in irreproachable evening - dress, with a 
 gardenia in his button-hole, and a certain military 
 rigidity of demeanour which enhanced his native 
 elegance and distinction, and was a souvenir of the 
 time when he had been an officer in a cavalry 
 regiment. His face, therefore, was familiar to all 
 the ballet-girls, but was particularly so because he 
 was the protector of the beautiful Emilia Tromba, 
 the leader of the first row of dancers, who, though 
 she danced carelessly and never paid her fines (which 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 19 
 
 were numerous), always was sure of an engagement 
 because of her splendid beauty, and always had 
 money, jewels, and carriages in abundance. She 
 was a great favourite with the regular habitues at 
 San Carlo, notwithstanding her loud vulgarity, harsh 
 voice, and quarrelsome disposition. 
 
 Ferdinando Terzi di Torregrande sometimes, but 
 rarely, waited for Emilia at the wings. On such 
 occasions he never deigned to speak to any of the 
 dancers, but stood in haughty silence, glancing at 
 them with the proud eyes which at once fascinated 
 and repelled, shrugging his shoulders slightly when 
 he heard Emilia disputing in her parrot-like tones 
 with the dresser, the scene-shifter, or the fireman, as 
 the case might be, but never departing himself from 
 the impassibility of the grand seigneur — remaining 
 the grand seigneur in spite of his connection with the 
 more than vulgar Emilia. Nearly every evening his 
 coupe waited for her at the door of the theatre, but 
 it was almost always empty. 
 
 As she thought of these things, Carmela found 
 herself staring hard at the young nobleman ; but he, 
 naturally, did not see her, and turned and re-entered 
 the cafe. Involuntarily Carmela heaved a profound 
 sigh, and suddenly the way seemed long, and the 
 weight of the wreath of flowers she carried almost 
 intolerably heavy. But she conquered this moment 
 of discouragement; it was growing late, the sky 
 threatened rain, and if it should rain, she could not 
 
 2 — 2 
 
20 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 have opened her umbrella, as her hands were occupied 
 by her wreath. 
 
 When she entered the little station she found an 
 enormous crowd, and instantly perceived that she 
 would not find even standing-room in a third-class 
 carriage. She felt so oppressed, so weak and poor, 
 so wounded somewhere in the innermost depths of 
 her soul, that she forgot her usual anxious provident 
 economy, and bought a second-class ticket, paying 
 eighteenpence to go to Nola Baiano and return. 
 Even the second-class was jammed to suffocation ; 
 everyone was going to the cemetery. One carried a 
 package of candles to burn before the tombs ; another 
 a small wreath of false pearls ; another a wreath of 
 yellow immortelles, upon which was an inscription 
 in letters of black velvet; others carried flowers; 
 some people took nothing at all; but all — men, 
 women, and children — were dressed in black, and 
 nearly all were sad and silent ; many doubtless 
 oppressed by the recollection of long-passed sorrows, 
 others still wincing under the agony of a recent 
 wound; some grown mournfully indifferent, but 
 oppressed by the melancholy of the scene, the painful 
 journey, the gray, overhanging sky. 
 
 Most of the people who travelled by train that day 
 were small shopkeepers, or mechanics, or servants, 
 and not a few belonged to the religious congregations 
 which throng the chapels of Paggioreale, and which 
 form a vast association of mutual aid, an immense 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 21 
 
 burial society, to which belong most Neapolitans of 
 the lower class. 
 
 Carmela was silent ; she pulled her coarse black 
 veil over her face and bent down her head, oppressed 
 by the melancholy of her surroundings and her own 
 sad thoughts ; she felt so deserted and alone. 
 
 ^ Paggioreale ! Paggioreale !' shouted the con- 
 ductor, as they approached the little station; and 
 instantly the train was emptied, as if by magic, 
 and the travellers, carrying their offerings, hastened 
 to climb the hill leading to the cemetery. 
 
 The gate of the cemetery was surrounded by 
 vehicles of all kinds — omnibuses, caleches, char-a- 
 bancs, carts, coupes — all waiting, the horses eating 
 their fodder, the coachmen smoking and chatting 
 quietly, or looking for a restaurant in which to eat 
 and drink in comfort while their fares were away 
 on their lugubrious errand. Notwithstanding the 
 gloomy November day, and the gray, low-hanging 
 sky, the cemetery of Paggioreale (which occupies one 
 of the loveliest hills near Naples) still preserved its 
 usual aspect — that of a vast, blooming, and splendid 
 palace garden ; and the beds of brilliant flowers which 
 encircle the graves, the hedges of bay and yew which 
 border the shady walks and divide them from the 
 fields paved with mortuary slabs, the groves of trees 
 where the birds sing all day, the taller trees which 
 overshadow the tiny chapels and miniature churches 
 with which the cemetery is crowded — all this luxury 
 
22 THE BALLET DA NCER 
 
 of beauty and ornament preserves in all seasons an 
 aspect of grandeur and dignity, like an aristocratic 
 park, with here and there a pretty or a majestic 
 building. 
 
 Gardeners work all the year round in these 
 enclosures, under the direction of a person who loves 
 this beautiful cemetery, and here bloom the lovely 
 roses for which Naples is so famous, as well as 
 chrysanthemums of every shade. The whole vast 
 space — even the poorer quarter of the cemetery — is 
 enamelled with these charming flowers ; a sweet 
 spring smiles here in the very face of death, so that 
 Paggioreale is never sad in its blooming solitude. 
 But on All Saints' Day the avenues are crowded by 
 persons dressed in black. The doors of the various 
 mortuary chapels, churches, and large monuments 
 are all open, tapers gleam within, clouds of incense fill 
 the air with a perfume which mingles with that of 
 innumerable flowers, and the whole scene has some- 
 thing strange in it ; it is like — if such a thing could 
 be — a vast mortuary fair, or some mysterious function 
 for the dead to which all the world has been sum- 
 moned to assist. 
 
 Carmela joined the crowd, which climbed slowly 
 to the top of the hill, where the finest monuments 
 are to be found. The avenue through which they 
 passed was bordered by a low wall, covered with 
 marble slabs, and each slab was a monument, with 
 a date of some thirty, forty, or fifty years before. 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 23 
 
 Carmela read two or three inscriptions, and then had 
 a movement of indifference. What mattered it to 
 her that all these people — men, women, and children, 
 now dead — had died so long ago ? They were 
 nothing to her, and perhaps nothing to anyone 
 about her. Forty — fifty years ! Too long, surely, 
 for the dead to be remembered by the living. 
 
 Here and there, among the beds of roses and 
 cinerarias, and all those pretty, small, gray, lilac 
 and purple autumn flowers which God seems to have 
 created for the service of the dead, groups of two 
 or three persons busied themselves about the flat 
 tombstones, cleaning them with tender care, laying 
 wreaths upon them, and planting tall wax tapers in 
 the earth beside them, tapers which burned with pale 
 tongues of flame in the broad daylight. Every now 
 and then someone would kneel on the ground and 
 pray, regardless of passers-by, or the silence would 
 be broken by sobs from the mourners about some 
 recent grave, generally women closely veiled ; while 
 from every chapel, and church, and mausoleum rose 
 the strains of the * De Profundis ' and the ' Libera,' 
 and against the dark rocky walls within gleamed 
 the light of innumerable tapers, and the perfume of 
 incense floated in the air. 
 
 Carmela Minino, exhausted, feeling an unbearable 
 oppression in soul and body, could hardly proceed ; 
 a wild desire possessed her, a wild wish to throw 
 away her wreath, and to fall face downward on the 
 
24 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 earth and weep— weep until death came to take her 
 where she lay ! 
 
 Suddenly, as if by magic, the lofty monument 
 dedicated to Amina Boschetti rose before her. It 
 stood in a quadrangle bordered by tall cypress-trees, 
 and was surrounded by beds of fragrant flowers ; 
 opposite was the mortuary chapel belonging to the 
 princes of Santenero ; and on the left the memorial 
 church built in honour of the young Duchess of 
 Naja; but the dancer's mausoleum was larger and 
 grander than that of either of the two patricians. 
 The architecture was purely Egyptian, an exact 
 imitation of one of the tombs of the Pharaohs, built 
 in dark granite and shining gray basalt ; the bronze 
 doors, finely modelled and delicately finished, were 
 wide open, and so were the gates which enclosed 
 the flower garden. Looked at from a distance, the 
 Egyptian temple which enclosed the airy form of the 
 dancer looked heavy and clumsy, as, in fact, this 
 form of architecture always appears, even in the 
 land to which it belongs ; but a nearer approach 
 revealed the majesty and grandeur of the lines, and 
 the first glance at this splendid mausoleum sufficed 
 to tranquillize Carmela and give her courage. The 
 name 'Amina Boschetti,' inscribed in letters of 
 gilded bronze above the door, seemed to infuse 
 new life in her veins, and, as she gradually ap- 
 proached the magnificent temple where the wealth 
 and beauty and power of her godmother received 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 25 
 
 the consecration of a supreme triumph even in death, 
 a certain exaltation took possession of Carmela's soul, 
 which caused her little heart to swell with tender 
 pride. All her sad feelings were replaced by a 
 strange, inexplicable sensation, which yet was not 
 pain, as she entered the temple, piously crossing 
 herself. 
 
 The mausoleum was richly adorned in honour of 
 Amina Boschetti's memory. Four magnificent silver 
 lamps, in which votive oil was burning, suspended 
 by massive silver chains, hung from the ceiling; 
 four tall and richly-ornamented taper stands, sup- 
 porting huge wax tapers, were placed before the 
 small funeral altar, which had been arranged below 
 the stone which covered the body of the dead girl. 
 The floor and walls of the mausoleum were literally 
 covered by the freshest and rarest flowers. Loose 
 flowers covered the pavement and were heaped on 
 the tomb. A priest, assisted by two others, all 
 arrayed in the richest vestments compatible with 
 the ceremonies of the day, was celebrating the 
 twelfth Mass that had been said that day. He had 
 succeeded other priests, and other priests would 
 succeed him until three o'clock in the afternoon. 
 Two acolytes, meanwhile, swung silver censers, from 
 which rose clouds of perfume, and on either side of 
 the entrance stood, silent and motionless, two lackeys 
 in gorgeous livery — the livery of the banker Schulte, 
 who had adored the graceful ballet-dancer in life, 
 
26 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 had heaped wealth upon her, and now, faithful even 
 in death, in a strange mixture of love and mysticism 
 and cynicism, honoured her memory with all the 
 splendour allowed by the Catholic ritual. He had 
 come early to the mortuary chapel that day, had 
 arranged the flowers himself, and had prayed for 
 an hour. He could not console himself, nor forget. 
 One of the lackeys took Carmela's wreath, in order 
 to place it near the altar. 
 
 *0n the tomb — on the tomb itself!' she mur- 
 mured, trembling with an emotion which was not 
 all pain, which almost was not pain at all. 
 
 And when the wreath had been placed, leaning 
 against the marble monument, just where, behind 
 the cold stone, reposed the colder heart of Amina 
 Boschetti, her goddaughter knelt on the carved prie 
 dieu in front of the altar, and there, where Otto 
 Schulte had prayed an hour before, she buried her 
 face in her hands and wept. While the priest 
 prayed, pronouncing the solemn and mournful words 
 of the Mass for the Dead, while the cry of the 
 Christian soul, which implores mercy before the 
 eternal Judge, rose up in the old immortal words 
 of the liturgy, Carmela could not pray. Instead, 
 she saw before her, as vividly as in life, the fair 
 creature for whom that rich mausoleum had been 
 built, for whom lamps and tapers burned, and 
 flowers gave forth their perfume, and the priests 
 before the altar offered up the Mass. And she saw 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 27 
 
 a delicate, spiritual face, two large dark eyes, at 
 once smiling and thoughtful, a smile curving lips 
 exquisite in form and expression, a fascination 
 emanating from every movement — a fascination all 
 beauty, grace, youth, and poetry, something fugitive, 
 and airy, and ineffable, which seemed to flash and 
 glimmer as she moved in her floating draperies, and 
 which fascinated not only the old, but the young, 
 not only men, but women. 
 
 Amina Boschetti ! She shone upon the dim, over- 
 crowded theatres like a star ! Slight as a reed, her 
 small head crowned with masses of dark waving hair, 
 her delicate form clad in a glittering corselet and 
 clouds of white tulle, her tiny feet shod in pink silk 
 stockings and slippers, she scarcely touched the earth 
 as she danced, and moved with such airy lightness 
 that her feet seemed to be weaving mystic ciphers on 
 the flower-strewn stage. And she smiled the while 
 with eyes and lips, her flexible form swaying like a 
 flower in the wind. Fatigue never assailed her ; she 
 danced as if she had come to the earth for that, 
 and that alone. And the charm of her art rapt all 
 classes, all ages, in a common ecstasy. An adoring 
 public loaded her with gifts and offerings, hearts and 
 fortunes alike were laid at her feet, and she accepted 
 all — love and wealth, and jewels and lands — as if all 
 were hers by an imprescriptible right — the right of 
 the incomparable grace of her airy dance. 
 
 She had villas at Portici and Pausilippo, palaces 
 
 e 
 
 ^: J) 
 
28 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 in Naples, sumptuous furniture, the richest equipages, 
 jewels worthy of a reigning Sovereign, and she 
 accepted all and possessed all with the same girlish, 
 thoughtless grace, giving in return her beauty and 
 her art. Carmela Minino from infancy had admired 
 and loved her as a divinity. To Carmela all this 
 delirium of admiration seemed natural enough ; had 
 the whole world been thrown at Amina's feet, the 
 homage would, in Carmela's opinion, have been no 
 more than her due. 
 
 The Mass was drawing to its close. But Carmela, 
 though she was a humble and sincere Christian, had 
 not yet prayed for the soul of her godmother. She 
 had been absorbed in her recollections, and she 
 remembered how the beautiful ballet-dancer had 
 illumined her modest little life, so full of gloom and 
 poverty, and how she used to go to see her in her 
 magnificent palace at Naples or the lovely villa at 
 Portici, surrounded by gardens and looking out upon 
 the sea. 
 
 Carmela's mother, whose trade was that of a 
 mender of silk tights, had known the Boschetti. 
 When she was beginning her career, and later, when 
 she was in full glory, Bettina Minino received 
 from her her cast-off silk tights and stockings and 
 pink satin shoes. None of these things were much 
 worn, and Bettina used to sell them. At this time 
 Carmela was ten years old and had splendid dark 
 eyes and hair. She promised to be pretty, and 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 29 
 
 though this promise was never fulfilled, the eyes and 
 hair were still handsome. 
 
 When her mother was working for the Boschetti, 
 Carmela used to sit in a corner of the hall and wait. 
 Sometimes the Boschetti would flit past, clad in the 
 white woollen gowns she always wore at home. 
 Every time she passed she smiled at the little girl or 
 patted her on the head, and the child's eyes would 
 brighten at the radiant apparition. 
 
 * Eh ! Have her taught to dance ! have her taught 
 to dance !' said the Boschetti, when Bettina would 
 groan as she thought of her child's future. 
 
 * And if she should be ugly, Excellency ?' 
 
 * Let us hope not.' 
 
 * And if she should lose body and soul in the 
 theatre ?' 
 
 * What is lost can be found again,' replied the 
 Boschetti, laughing. 
 
 It ended by the Boschetti's paying twenty-five 
 francs a month for years, in order that Carmela might 
 be taught to dance. 
 
 Alas ! poor little Carmela lacked grace and light- 
 ness and animation. She studied hard, she worked 
 enormously, she was obedient, submissive to the 
 master's admonitions, but she lacked the qualities 
 necessary for a dancer. And when she was about 
 sixteen, instead of blooming out into a pretty girl, 
 she seemed to fade. Her complexion grew thick and 
 opaque, her lips pale, the lines about her chin and 
 
30 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 cheek-bones hardened. Perhaps she ate too little ; 
 perhaps she danced too much ; perhaps she suffered 
 from the lack of light and air, there being little of 
 either in the Vicolo Paradiso. But certain it is, hers 
 was a pale, faded youth, her only good points being 
 her beautiful eyes, both proud and sad, and her 
 superb hair — beauties which she shared in common 
 with all Neapolitans of the lower classes. 
 
 * My dear lady, she is ugly — ugly !' said Bettina 
 Minino to her benefactress, with many tears. 
 
 * Patience ! If she is ugly she will not lose her 
 soul,' answered the Boschetti, smiling. 
 
 And, owing solely to her powerful influence, Car- 
 mela Minino was accepted as a member of the corps 
 de ballet at San Carlo, but in the very last row, at 
 two francs and a half for every night she danced, and 
 with the condition of furnishing herself her silk 
 tights and slippers, tulle skirts and bodices ; obliged 
 also to come to the theatre with her hair well dressed, 
 or to have it dressed by the stage hairdresser — with 
 so many obligations, in short, that the two francs and 
 a half were reduced to nothing. In fact, her being 
 allowed to dance at San Carlo at all was esteemed 
 a favour, although she danced in the very last row, 
 because poor Carmela was ugly, and ugly dancers 
 were not wanted at San Carlo, and her face was so 
 dull ; she never smiled, and her eyes were so sad ! 
 Still, she danced, and with her own earnings and 
 those of her mother, and the twenty-five francs 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 31 
 
 allowed them by the Boschetti, they managed to get 
 on, when, suddenly, Amina Boschetti died. 
 
 The Mass was over; the priest, aided by two 
 assistants, sprinkled the tomb with holy water, and 
 instead of praying for her who for six years had slept 
 the eternal sleep of death beneath the granite mauso- 
 leum, Carmela thought of Amina Boschetti's death. 
 She had seen her dance for the last time in a magni- 
 ficent Egyptian ballet, * The Daughters of Cheops.' 
 
 The two daughters of Cheops were represented by 
 a tall, beautiful girl, Assunta Mezzanotti, afterwards 
 an actress of small reputation, and another sister, the 
 rival, was Amina Boschetti, the star of the piece. 
 For many nights, clad in an Oriental dress laden 
 with antique jewels, and with the golden ibis crown- 
 ing her dark hair, Amina Boschetti had danced, and 
 had done more : she had lifted the ballet to the rank 
 of a drama, almost a tragedy. 
 
 The daughters of Cheops were rivals in love, and 
 the younger, crossed in love, died by her own hand. 
 In the last scene she appeared at a sacred feast, 
 beautiful with a strange, fatal beauty, covered with 
 gold and precious stones, and with an ecstatic and 
 intoxicating smile upon her lips and the light of mad- 
 ness in her gleaming eyes. And then began the 
 religious dance with a serpent — the serpent sacred to 
 the Egyptian deities — which she wound round her 
 arms, her body, trifling and playing with it, and 
 
32 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 swaying in graceful curves as the serpent's head 
 approached her head and face, throwing it suddenly 
 aside in pretended terror, then winding the serpent 
 round her in a whirling dance. And as the passion 
 of the dance increased, Amina's thick hair fell upon 
 her shoulders ; she danced with mad intensity, as 
 if convulsed, until the supreme moment when she 
 placed the serpent's head on her bare bosom, was 
 bitten, and fell and died, amid the horror of the 
 spectators. 
 
 In this ballet, and especially in the last scene, 
 Amina Boschetti passed beyond the limits of a ballet- 
 dancer ; she became a really great tragic actress, and 
 profoundly moved her admiring audience. 
 
 Four days after the theatre was closed for the 
 season, and four days after her last brilliant triumph, 
 Amina Boschetti died suddenly, cut off in the heyday 
 of her youth and beauty by the rupture of an aneur- 
 ism. No one had known that her heart was affected ; 
 perhaps she alone had known it. 
 
 To Carmela's limited intelligence her fairy god- 
 mother had seemed a supernatural being — a thing of 
 dreams. And now the surroundings, the temple-like 
 mausoleum, the silver lamps, the incense, the flowers, 
 the ceaseless prayers, the love, the splendour which 
 that love had heaped upon Amina's grave — did not 
 all these things prove that she was an enchantress 
 still ? Was she not only unforgotten, but unforget- 
 able, like the supreme essence of poesy ? No new 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 33 
 
 artist had ever awakened the same ardent enthusiasm ; 
 she was still lamented whenever a new dancer ap- 
 peared at San Carlo ; her place was still empty there, 
 as in the heart of her lover. And no one, nothing, 
 had ever taken her place in Carmela Minino's poor 
 and obscure existence. And now, alone, kneeling 
 before the beloved name inscribed on the tomb, 
 Carmela promised and vowed to do always what her 
 dead godmother had wished her to do. Hers was 
 a hard, wearisome profession, full of dangers and 
 troubles, bringing her only hei: bare bread, leaving her 
 whole months without work, exposing her to the illu- 
 sions and humiliations and disappointments of the 
 horrible theatre, giving her the choice between starva- 
 tion and dishonour, destined, perhaps, to reduce her 
 to beggary or the hospital. But what did it matter ? 
 Amina had chosen it for her ; and Carmela bowed 
 her head in acquiescence, in a very delirium of 
 obedience and devotion, which overleaped death 
 and the grave. And in this fever of love and 
 sacrifice Carmela entirely forgot to pray. With the 
 childish simplicity so common in Neapolitans of the 
 lower classes, and the naive hopefulness of a passion- 
 ate heart, she told herself that she was certain that 
 the Lord had forgiven all Amina Boschetti's sins. 
 
 Carmela reached Naples at five o'clock. It was 
 almost dark. This time, in order to reach home 
 more quickly, she turned away from the railway- 
 
 3 
 
34 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 station and crossed Via Cirillo and Via Faria. By 
 the time she reached the National Museum the rain 
 began to fall thick and fast, and fearing to spoil her 
 clothes, she turned into the arcade called the Galleria 
 del Principe di Napoli, where hundreds of other 
 people without umbrellas, or with worn-out um- 
 brellas, were waiting for the rain to pass. It was 
 late for Carmela to be out, and when the rain ceased 
 she went down the steps which led from the Galleria 
 to the Toledo, and as she passed noticed a superb 
 coup6 which stood before the arch of the Galleria. 
 Standing on the pavement, and leaning on the open 
 window of the carriage in such a way as to hide the 
 person within, stood a gentleman, talking earnestly 
 and listening to the replies he received as eagerly as 
 he talked. Although his back was turned, and he 
 had changed his dress, Carmela instantly recognised 
 Count Ferdinando Terzi. She knew already that 
 his relation with Emilia Tromba was only a mask for 
 a dangerous and violent passion for a young married 
 woman in his own rank of life, and instinctively she 
 stopped and tried to see the person who was sitting 
 in the coup6. She knew the name and the sweet, 
 thoughtful face of the young Marchesa who was 
 said to love Ferdinando Terzi with a passion which 
 equalled his own ; the ballet-dancers were all fond 
 of gossip about the love-affairs of the aristocracy. 
 Carmela was sure she should recognise her face in 
 a moment. But the rain was falling, the gray 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 35 
 
 November day was drawing fast to darkness, and 
 though Carmela passed round the carriage, she 
 could distinguish no one. She walked slowly along 
 the opposite pavement, turning once or twice. The 
 coupe stood still in its place. Ferdinando Terzi 
 turned once and looked round suspiciously, then 
 resumed his conversation. But at that hour, in such 
 weather, so far from the aristocratic quarter, on such 
 a rainy, dark evening, it was not likely that anyone 
 would recognise either the occupant of the coupe or 
 himself. In fact, no one did so but the humble 
 creature who, wet and weary from her long expedi- 
 tion to the cemetery, was trudging dinnerless to the 
 lonely room where a meagre supper awaited her. 
 
 A little further on, near Piazza Dante, at the door 
 of Gutteridge's shop, an amiable voice interrupted 
 Carmela's meditations. 
 
 * Oh, Signorina Minino, good-evening. Won't you 
 even bow to me ?' 
 
 * Good - evening, good - evening,' she answered, 
 startled, stopping for a moment, and instantly 
 regretting having done so. 
 
 * Come in a moment, signorina,' answered the 
 young man, moving away from the door. 
 
 * No, I cannot. Signer Gargiulo ; I am in a 
 hurry.' 
 
 * Always like this. And where do you come from, 
 always so nice and pleasant, and never nice and 
 pleasant to me ? Have you come from a rehearsal ?' 
 
 3—2 
 
36 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 ' At this hour !' she murmured. * No, I have been 
 to the cemetery.' 
 
 * Excuse me,' said Gargiulo, embarrassed, * are 
 you going home? May I come with you a Httle 
 way ?' 
 
 * No, no, thank you ; you have your shop to attend 
 to.' 
 
 * Oh, it is so late ; no more customers will come 
 this evening. I shall ask a friend to take my place at 
 the desk. May I come with you ?' 
 
 ' No, Signor Gargiulo, thank you. Good-evening,' 
 she answered, quickly moving away. 
 
 The young cashier was a little annoyed, but he 
 looked after Carmela's retreating figure with the 
 same fatuous smile which was his habitual expression. 
 He was tall and thin, olive-skinned, with a dark 
 moustache of which he was vain ; his black hair was 
 cut short and brushed back from his forehead, and 
 his meagreness was not devoid of a certain grace. 
 He was fluent and facile of speech, as clerks are apt 
 to be, and he had a certain varnish of good manners, 
 with long, well-kept nails, and a diamond on his 
 little finger, living with difficulty on his salary as 
 cashier, but always well dressed, as is usually the 
 case with young clerks, wearing even a smoking-suit 
 occasionally. He was a regular frequenter of all the 
 theatres and public halls, and had, in fact, a free pass 
 for the theatre, given by a friend who was a journalist. 
 With this same friend he sometimes went to see the 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 37 
 
 ballet-dancers leave San Carlo, and there he had 
 often seen Carmela Minino pass, invariably alone, and 
 he had spoken to her occasionally in order that he 
 too might seem to have a ballet-dancer under his 
 protection. 
 
 * Let her alone,' his friend had murmured in his 
 ear. * She is ugly, and she is an honest girl.' 
 
 * Are you certain of that ?' 
 
 * Absolutely certain. There are eight or ten of the 
 girls who dance at San Carlo who are still perfectly 
 honest women. The Minino is one of them.' 
 
 * Then it would be dangerous to have anything to 
 do with her ?' 
 
 ' Naturally.' 
 
 Nothing more had passed between them, but 
 whenever he met her Roberto Gargiulo never failed 
 to speak to Carmela, to make her marked compli- 
 ments, and pointed hints and allusions to his feeling 
 for her. She answered little or nothing, and always 
 managed to get rid of him and go away as quickly as 
 possible. But Gargiulo, who had made one or two 
 conquests in his own little world, was convinced that 
 if he persisted in courting her and were to give her 
 a present or two, Carmela Minino would end by 
 falling in love with him. Was it, however, worth 
 while for him to insist, now that he knew that she 
 was an honest girl ? worth while to risk the con- 
 sequences, to bear the chain of such a relation ? 
 Perhaps later — who knew ? And meanwhile, every 
 
38 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 time she cut short his pretty speeches he smiled the 
 fatuous smile of the seducer who does not insist. 
 
 Carmela quickened her steps toward Pignasecca. 
 She had shrugged her shoulders as she left Roberto 
 Gargiulo. She neither liked nor disliked him, but in 
 dealing with him she used the weapons of defence 
 usually employed by women who are afraid of loving 
 and going wrong. Believing herself even plainer 
 than she really was, she was instinctively and almost 
 savagely afraid of any attention from men. She felt 
 so convinced that such attentions were a mere trap 
 to make her fall, that she might be despised and 
 laughed at afterwards. Conscious of her own in- 
 feriority and insignificance in the great social system, 
 feeling herself a poor atom without strength or 
 courage, she felt vaguely that some day this would 
 happen. But meanwhile she struggled bravely on 
 from day to day, repulsing everyone alike, and 
 adopting all the means of defence in her power, 
 however puerile. She avoided the company of others, 
 or any chance of making new acquaintances, and 
 became daily more shy and ungraceful. She received 
 very little attention, being so plain and lonely and 
 badly dressed, and dancing always in the last row of 
 dancers without a single jewel or flower in her hair ; 
 but every now and then someone, Roberto Gargiulo, 
 or Don Gabriele Scagnamiglio, the Cavaliere Gabriele 
 Scagnamiglio, the rich druggist, an habitu^ of San 
 Carlo, who lived in the Piazza della Pignasecca, or 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 39 
 
 the son of the stage-director — one or other of these 
 personages would pursue her for a week, saying 
 always the same words, wanting the same thing, to 
 make her fall into sin, and, fallen, to abandon her 
 at once. 
 
 No, no, she would have none of them ; she 
 avoided them as much as she could, and cut short 
 their compliments without mercy. 
 
 * Good-evening, Donna Carmelina,' said a man's 
 voice as she entered the piazza of the Pignasecca. 
 
 * Here is the other,' murmured Carmela to herself. 
 * Good-evening, cavaliere.' 
 
 It was Don Gabriele Scagnamiglio, the rich drug- 
 gist, an unrepentant celibate, a famous admirer of 
 women, a man already more than fifty-five years old, 
 whose white beard was always well trimmed and 
 perfumed, who was always neat and well dressed, 
 wearing full dress every evening, knowing how to 
 talk to the fair sex, but cold and calculating to the 
 very depth of his soul. 
 
 * Donna Carmela, will you dine with me at Frisio 
 this evening ?' 
 
 * Thanks, cavaliere ; I have already dined.' 
 *Then we will go together to the caf6 concert, 
 
 Donna Carmela. What do you say to that ? After 
 midnight we will have supper.' 
 
 * Good-evening ; good amusement, cavaliere,' she 
 said hastily, walking on. 
 
 ' You are really and truly a goose. Donna Carmela ; 
 
40 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 you will repent it,' he answered, laughing, as he 
 called a cab to go to his dinner. 
 
 Ah ! when she was at home, in the damp room on 
 the fourth floor, a mortal weariness oppressed her. 
 With a great effort she dragged herself to the table, 
 where she lit a petroleum lamp, and with an equal 
 effort she went into the kitchen, lit a fire, and cooked 
 two eggs which she had in the house. She had 
 nothing else for supper, and would have died of 
 hunger rather than crawl down the four pairs of 
 stairs to buy herself something else. She was 
 mortally tired, and oppressed by a sense of moral 
 lassitude and secret melancholy; and as she ate 
 her meagre supper on a corner of the bare kitchen 
 table, and by the light of a smoky lamp, she thought 
 that she was a goose, as Don Gabriele Scagnamiglio 
 had said. But she did not regret it that evening. 
 
II 
 
 A BELL rang loudly, and continued to tinkle near 
 the little kitchen window. Carmela put her head 
 out, and looked down into the narrow, dark, damp 
 court, upon which all the other kitchen windows 
 opened. Down at the very bottom she saw a female 
 face looking up. 
 
 * Donna Carmela, is it time? Can I come up?' 
 said a rough female voice from the depths. 
 
 * Come up — come up, Gaetanella !' she replied. 
 She returned to her room, and took up the work 
 
 at which she had been toiling slowly and patiently, 
 although it was Sunday. This work was the careful 
 mending of her best pair of silk tights, which, to her 
 sorrow, was beginning to show signs of wear and 
 tear. 
 
 She possessed three pairs of tights, and had not 
 bought a new pair for a long time ; the oldest pair 
 was so worn and discoloured that by the light of the 
 footlights it looked quite white, and she could no 
 longer wear it. She still kept it, however, for 
 economical reasons. The second pair of tights was 
 still pink, but she no longer dared to wear it at San 
 Carlo ; she only used it in the summer, when she 
 
42 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 danced at Santa Maria di Capua, or Lecce, or 
 Catanzaro, provincial theatres where artists only go 
 for bare bread, and do not always get that. At San 
 Carlo, where the impresario, the ballet-master, and 
 the stage-director were all equally exacting and 
 brutal with regard to the dress of the ballet-girls, 
 the tights, the silk slippers, and the tulle skirts, 
 almost all things which the girls were expected to 
 pay for, Carmela did not dare to wear any but her 
 best tights, and she daily examined and mended 
 them with the most scrupulous care, trembling lest 
 she should have to buy a new pair at twenty-eight 
 francs ! Her mother had taught her her own poor 
 trade, that of a mender of silk tights — taught her, 
 probably, that she might not die of hunger. 
 
 Gaetanella, the hairdresser, entered without knock- 
 ing, and, after having saluted her client, let down the 
 white apron which she wore twisted round her waist, 
 and, taking a towel, spread it over Carmela's 
 shoulders, as she sat before an old-fashioned looking- 
 glass. 
 
 * So there is a ballet to-day, Donna Carmela ?' 
 
 * Yes, twice — a day and an evening ballet, my dear 
 Gaetanella.' 
 
 * What ! this very last Sunday in carnival ?' 
 'You know we dance twice a day the last four 
 
 Sundays of carnival. There are no holidays for us,' 
 sighed the dancer. 
 
 * To-morrow, too ? And the day after to-morrow ?' 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 43 
 
 said the hairdresser, as she shook out and combed 
 Carmela's long rich hair. 
 
 *The two last days of carnival. Double repre- 
 sentation,' murmured Carmela. * On such days we 
 just die of fatigue.' 
 
 They were both silent for a moment. The hair- 
 dresser was a young woman, short, pitted with 
 small-pox, with a coiffure which made her abundant 
 dark hair look like a helmet, with a little blue woollen 
 shawl crossed over her bosom, and a garnet-coloured 
 gown of coarse wool. She wore heavy, creaking, 
 high-heeled shoes. As she arranged Carmela's hair 
 with a mechanical rapidity which was marvellous, 
 her thin, brown, bony hands, laden with coarse 
 rings, were, in certain movements, grotesquely like 
 a monkey's paws. 
 
 *And this evening you get home late?' said 
 Gaetanella, as she tied a thick lock of hair with a 
 shoelace. 
 
 * About an hour after midnight.' 
 
 * All alone ? Are you not afraid V 
 
 * Yes, sometimes.' 
 
 All the misery of this return from the theatre late 
 at night, alone, by an unfrequented route, and through 
 a quarter of the city where she was exposed both 
 to danger and annoyance, was written on her 
 face. 
 
 * I would make some relation accompany me,' said 
 Gaetanella. 
 
44 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 ' I have not a relation in the world. Perhaps a 
 friend would accompany me if I would allow it, but 
 I cannot.' 
 
 *You do right,' responded Gaetanella promptly, 
 understanding what she meant. * May the Madonna 
 preserve you in the same disposition of mind.' 
 
 Gaetanella knew that the ballet-dancer was an 
 honest girl. In the Vicolo Paradiso, where she 
 lived, everyone knew that Carmela Minino always 
 returned home alone ; that she received no visits, 
 no letters, and no flowers; that she went alone 
 to the theatre and to church ; and that she was 
 so poor because she had no protector. From the 
 fruit - seller, a hideous witch who scolded from 
 morning till night, to the charcoal vendor, who, 
 with hands as black as the coal she sold, knitted 
 a dirty stocking at the door of her grimy shop ; from 
 the pastry-cook Don Santo, who sold ices in summer, 
 to the bootblack on the corner, a boastful rascal — 
 everyone praised Carmela's virtues. 
 
 The edifice which, in accordance with the reigning 
 fashion, the spare, alert hands of Gaetanella were 
 erecting on Carmela's head, began to take the tower- 
 like aspect then in vogue. 
 
 * Lift up the fringe, please, Gaetanella.' 
 
 The fringe covered half her forehead; it was 
 already rather out of fashion, but Carmela had 
 always worn it. 
 
 ' You will look very badly without the fringe,' said 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 45 
 
 Gaetanella, stopping, and looking at Carmela in the 
 glass. 
 
 *I know it!' exclaimed the coryph6e, sighing; 
 ' but on the stage no one wears it any longer. They 
 laugh at me because my coiffure is so old-fashioned.' 
 
 * Don't mind them ; they are envious.' 
 
 * Even the director of the ballet has scolded me. 
 Try to lift it up,' she repeated. 
 
 In fact, Gaetanella was already lifting up the 
 fringe with invisible hairpins. Carmela's forehead, 
 already too high, appeared bare and nude ; her long 
 face longer than ever. 
 
 * How much uglier I am with my hair like that !' 
 she said, as she looked at herself. Her tones were 
 as full of sincerity as of bitterness. 
 
 * Yes, you do not look well like that. Now I will 
 let down your fringe again.' 
 
 * Never mind,' said Carmela resignedly. * I prefer 
 not to be scolded.' 
 
 While Gaetanella put the last touches to the 
 coiffure by adding big glittering aigrettes and pins 
 of false pearls, emeralds, and diamonds, Carmela 
 looked in the glass again, and thought herself uglier 
 than ever. Her bare forehead seemed enormous. 
 She did not open her lips. The hairdresser had 
 finished. She pulled the fallen hairs out of the 
 comb, twisted them into a ball, which she placed 
 on the toilet-table; she blew into her hands, and 
 rolled the white apron anew round her waist. 
 
46 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 Carmela took fourpence out of her pocket, and 
 handed them to her in payment for her work. In 
 point of fact, Gaetanella usually was paid by the 
 month by all the women in the neighbourhood — 
 three or four francs a month, which reduced the 
 daily payment to twopence a head. But Carmela 
 arranged her own hair, except on ballet days, so 
 there was no question of a monthly payment for 
 her. As there was a ballet at San Carlo fifteen days 
 out of every thirty, it came to nearly the same thing 
 in point of expense ; but the poor coryphee preferred 
 to pay each time her hair was dressed ; the fourpence 
 did not then weigh so heavily upon her. Furlai, the 
 theatre hairdresser, asked six and often eight francs 
 a month. Carmela could not think of such a price 
 as that ; she had no protector, old or young. 
 
 * To-morrow — at what hour ?' said Gaetanella, on 
 the threshold. 
 
 * Always at two precisely, I beg of you.' 
 
 * Don't be afraid ; I will be here.' 
 
 The door closed. Carmela crossed the room to 
 look at an old silver watch which her mother had 
 left her; it was half-past two. She must hurry. 
 When there was, as to-day, a double representation, 
 the impresario compelled the ballet-girls to be at 
 San Carlo at three o'clock, the hour when the opera 
 began. If they did not arrive until half-past three 
 they were fined a franc ; after that hour they for- 
 feited the payment for their day's work. It was 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 47 
 
 cruelty, the girls thought, to oblige them to be there 
 three hours before the ballet began, in the bare, ill- 
 smelling rooms, warmed only by the gas-burners, 
 where four, eight, or twelve girls, as the case might 
 be, were forced to dress and undress in the same 
 room. But complaints, protests, and outcries were 
 alike useless ; there was no trifling with the rules of 
 the theatre. 
 
 On Sundays they were forced to be in the theatre 
 at three o'clock in the afternoon, and could not leave 
 it until an hour after midnight — thirteen hours of 
 hard work and wearisome, enforced idleness, shut in 
 with glaring gaslight and the evil odours of many 
 breaths, nasty cheap perfumes, and other smells, 
 more nauseating still. Many of the girls availed 
 themselves of the hour's rest allowed between the 
 morning and evening representations and ran home 
 for a few minutes. But was it not worse to dress, 
 undress, run home, and run back ? A dog's life, 
 truly, in carnival, when all the world amuses itself ! 
 
 So, with that monotony of gesture which indicates 
 long-established habit, Carmela put in a long narrow 
 pasteboard box her white tarlatan skirts. They were 
 new, and fresh, and floating, as tarlatan always is at 
 first ; but after one or two evenings how crushed and 
 faded they would be ! She added her pink satin 
 slippers, no longer new, alas ! and only wearable for 
 two or three more evenings ; and they cost four 
 francs ! She put in also two or three little china pots 
 
48 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 containing a little rouge, a little cold cream, a little 
 pearl-powder. With these she placed a semi-bald 
 little powder-puff and a hare's foot nearly bare of fur. 
 Was there nothing else ? No, nothing. Her forlorn 
 baggage of third-rate ballet-dancer, with a salary of 
 three francs and a half a day, was complete in its 
 perfect poverty. 
 
 Suddenly, for a moment only, she was overwhelmed 
 with melancholy. She thought of Emilia Tromba, 
 who, although only a dancer in the first row — nothing 
 more than a guide — simply because she was beautiful, 
 shameless, and insolent, could bring to the theatre a 
 necessaire of solid silver, with her monogram engraved 
 upon it. All the little pots and bottles in the neces- 
 saire were filled with the finest and rarest cosmetics, 
 which Emilia used liberally, laughing, screaming, 
 and cursing the while with the coarse, rough voice 
 which contrasted so strangely with her pure and 
 exquisite beauty; and had not this necessaire been 
 given by Count Ferdinando Terzi ? The gentleman 
 with the cold blue eyes which were so limpid and 
 proud, and who surveyed everything and everybody 
 with the same glance of superb indifference, had 
 presented this gift (costing more than a thousand 
 francs, it was said) to Emilia on her birthday, ap- 
 parently just to make the other ballet-dancers envious. 
 
 But it was late. Carmela called the son of the 
 portress, an urchin of twelve years old, and gave him 
 her box to carry. The boy carried it every day to 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 49 
 
 San Carlo and home again for a few pence a week. 
 Carmela would have been ashamed to carry this box 
 through the streets ; it would have been an adver- 
 tisement of her profession, and people would have 
 turned to look at her. 
 
 When the boy had gone, jumping down four steps 
 at a time, Carmela, reflecting on the thirteen hours 
 of imprisonment which lay before her, put two slices 
 of bread in a newspaper. The bread was spread 
 thickly with the Sunday ragout, which she had cooked 
 herself. To this she added a red apple and a knife 
 with which to peel it. She folded her lunch up 
 neatly, and prepared to carry it under her arm, glad 
 to have a mouthful to eat between the afternoon and 
 evening representations. She went towards the bed, 
 and repeated mentally an A ve Maria to the Madonna 
 of Pompeii which hung at the head of the bed ; three 
 Gloria Patris to Sant' Antonio, for whom she had a 
 special devotion on account of the graces obtained by 
 him — thirteen a day ; and finally she put her rosary 
 in her pocket from force of habit. 
 
 As she went to put on her hat before the glass she 
 saw a letter lying on the toilet - table. This she 
 opened and reread. The letter, written in a style 
 half romantic and half burlesque, was from Roberto 
 Gargiulo, the cashier of Gutteridge's shop. The young 
 man that winter had been often — too often — at San 
 Carlo, and hearing that all the regular habitues of 
 the theatre had each a chere amie among the ballet- 
 
 4 
 
50 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 dancers — hearing continually of the conquests of this 
 or that Don Juan, seeing Carmela dance every even- 
 ing, knowing that she had not a lover and was very 
 modest and reserved, without being absolutely un- 
 approachable, he had ended by making her declara- 
 tions of affection in prose and verse — the verses he 
 copied wherever he could find them — and he used to 
 wait for her at the door of the theatre. His dream 
 would have been to sit in a fauteuil in evening dress, 
 with a flower in his buttonhole, but he was only a 
 poor clerk in a shop ! Carmela persisted in saying 
 * No ' with the constant and desperate iteration of 
 the blindly obstinate, but the letters did not displease 
 her. And she obeyed an impulse of vanity in putting 
 Roberto Gargiulo's last letter in her pocket, a' letter 
 which she had not answered. 
 
 Whenever they had a few minutes' rest in the big 
 rooms where they dressed the ballet-dancers used to 
 read over the letters received from their admirers. 
 And at twenty minutes before three, punctual as a 
 soldier, Carmela Minino, shivering a little in her 
 black cloth mantle, and holding her package of food 
 carefully concealed under her arm, issued from the 
 door of the house, and with light, cautious, measured 
 steps, took her way to San Carlo. 
 
 They were eight in the large, oblong room — the 
 eight ballet-dancers of the third row : Checchina 
 Cozzolino, with a swelled, flabby face, black hair, 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 51 
 
 and little Chinese eyes ; she was the daughter of a 
 portress, and was protected by the physician of the 
 theatre ; she was full of presumption, but never had a 
 penny to buy even a package of pearl-powder. Rosina 
 Musto, forty years old, ugly, and rather awkward, 
 but always witty and cheerful, having for her pro- 
 tector a shopkeeper who dealt in groceries — Sam- 
 brini, who had a shop in the Via Baglivo Dries. 
 Carlotta Musto, her sister, younger by ten years, who 
 had married a machinist, separated from him, and 
 now had a mysterious jealous lover, whom no one 
 ever saw. Marietta Sanges, a blonde, with feet and 
 hands like those of a carter, and so tall that she 
 dwarfed the other dancers ; she had a notary as a 
 protector, and he generously allowed her a hundred 
 and fifty francs a month, most of which she prudently 
 saved, with a view to the time when the notary 
 should have taken flight. Giuseppina Mastrachio, 
 daughter of the second male dancer, small, thin, 
 cross, the mother of two children, whom she vainly 
 tried to impose upon her various lovers. Margharita 
 de Santis, a pretty, graceful, elegant creature, with 
 the pallor and white lips of the anaemic, always ill 
 and continually taking pills and powders ; fortunate, 
 however, in her protector, a rich leather merchant, 
 who supported her liberally. And, finally, Filomena 
 Scoppa. Filomena, though only eighteen, was pru- 
 dent as well as honest. She intended to marry, 
 and marry well, having small faith in troublesome, 
 
 4—2 
 
52 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 jealous, and avaricious lovers, who often abandoned 
 their mistresses without a word of preparation. 
 
 The six ballet-dancers already mentioned, who 
 were all more or less well provided with lovers, 
 affected to despise the two honest girls Carmela and 
 Filomena, and they, in their turn, looked down upon 
 the others. Carmela preserved a proud silence ; 
 Filomena was noisy and impertinent. She was a fat, 
 stupid girl, pretty as dimples and a pink and white 
 complexion could make her, but she was both dirty 
 and slovenly. 
 
 Now all the ballet-girls were dressing for the 
 * Excelsior,' and were doing so as noisily as possible, 
 laughing, shouting, screaming, upsetting chairs, and 
 producing an endless confusion. Most of them had 
 loud, harsh, nasal voices, some hoarse and low- 
 pitched, others sharp and grinding, and all vulgar. 
 The Neapolitan dialect was spoken almost without 
 exception, though here and there a Lombard or Pied- 
 montese accent was heard. 
 
 Curses, obscene words, flew about like hail in a 
 storm. All the girls were too nervous and hurried 
 to care what they said, though here and there some 
 of the more prudent ones affected to be shocked at 
 the others. 
 
 The dressing-rooms were little more than long, 
 lofty corridors with wooden floors, the boards of 
 which were so badly joined that the ballet-girls 
 frequently spoiled the wooden heels of their shoes, 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 53 
 
 as well as their pink satin dancing-slippers ; but as 
 the impresario did not furnish the shoes, he did not 
 care how many they spoiled. The walls of the 
 dressing-room were roughly whitewashed, and great 
 blotches of damp showed through the whitewash, as 
 if the walls were afflicted with an ignoble leprosy ; 
 three huge gas-jets projected above the dressing- 
 table, and flared broadly, heating the air to furnace 
 heat, and illuminating mercilessly a table which ran 
 the length of the room, and was the common 
 property of the eight dancers who inhabited it. It 
 was loaded with looking-glasses, washbowls, vases of 
 rouge, cold cream, pearl-powder, and brushes, hair- 
 pins, and false jewels. Before this table stood the 
 dancers, half dressed, painting and powdering them- 
 selves, rubbing their arms with cold cream, fastening 
 artificial flowers, or strass, in their hair, or tightening 
 their corsets to the point of suffocation. And all 
 this in a strange hurry and confusion, accompanied 
 by the protests and grimaces of the more modest 
 and ill-formed, who hated to dress and undress before 
 the others, while some of the girls boldly lounged 
 about in their chemises, complaining of the heat. 
 And, indeed, the dressing-room was as hot as a 
 furnace, and reeked with the odour of perspiration 
 and many breaths, and numberless cosmetics and 
 cheap perfumes. On the rickety chairs were thrown 
 the various costumes for * Excelsior ' ; the girls hung 
 their out-of-door clothes on nails which ran the 
 
54 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 length of the wall. Poor enough they were — partly 
 because those who had decent garments were afraid 
 of spoiling them if they brought them to the theatre, 
 but mainly because, as a rule, the poor things had 
 no decent clothes to wear, so poorly were they paid, 
 and often their lovers were anything but generous. 
 
 Marietta Sanges and Carlotta Musto, who had men 
 of substance for protectors, were comfortably clad, 
 with silk underskirts and coloured corsets ; the other 
 coryphees wore the coarsest cotton underclothes, and 
 knitted cotton stockings ; their corsets were those 
 which are sold for three francs and a half. 
 
 Filomena Scoppa, who was as remarkable for dirt 
 as for virtue, had hung up a petticoat which was 
 soaked in mud, and a pair of stockings which were 
 absolutely filthy. 
 
 *But you — you will wash your face, I hope!* 
 screamed Checchina Cozzolino, disgusted. 
 
 * Think of your own dirty doings !' replied Filo- 
 mena insolently. 
 
 They were all more or less nervous, and furiously 
 cross at having to dance on these carnival days, 
 when everybody was either resting or indulging in 
 some amusement. And, then, the being forced to 
 dance twice within twelve hours, only snatching a 
 mouthful of food between the morning and evening 
 representations, and fasting until long after midnight, 
 being forced to leave their homes and their lovers to 
 come and 'trip the light fantastic toe'! Ardently 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 55 
 
 did they hate the day representations, made for 
 children and their nurses, and for the families of the 
 smaller shopkeepers. From such a tiresome public 
 no solid benefit could be expected, and the ballet-girls 
 hated it accordingly. In the evening, when all the 
 fine gentlemen were in their stalls, there was some- 
 thing to look forward to, for there was always the 
 chance of acquiring protectors of importance, and 
 the triumph of tearing them away from the countesses, 
 duchesses, and marchionesses of the best society, who 
 were supposed to adore them. Many of the best 
 ballet-dancers stayed away altogether in the daytime. 
 In fact, a matinee of the * Excelsior ' was but the 
 shadow of the real thing. 
 
 * Concetta Giura is not here,' said Carlotta Musto 
 to her sister Rosina. ' Lucky girl to be able to stay 
 away !' 
 
 ' And you — couldn't you stay away just as well ? 
 Is it necessary for you to dance ?' 
 
 * Yes, it is — very,' answered Carlotta, who always 
 made a mystery of her affairs. 
 
 ' Meanwhile she is at Sorrento with the Duke 
 of Sanframondi. They won't get back until this 
 evening.' 
 
 * Does he spend much ?' 
 
 * A good deal ; but not as much as he used to do,' 
 answered Carlotta, who was always well posted. 
 
 Several of the girls sighed. Checchina Cozzolino, 
 who never had a penny in her pocket, grumbled : 
 
 K ^\3-:ix..- 
 
56 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 * The devil take my bad luck !' 
 
 A loud knock at the door startled them all ; it was 
 the signal to go on the stage for the first scene. 
 There was a general outcry ; no one was ready. 
 They all hurried out, one after the other, raising a 
 light cloud of dust, and giving a final touch to their 
 coiffure and airy tarlatan skirts as they ran along. 
 Carmela Minino was one of the first ; taciturn and 
 apathetic as she was, she was always ready — always 
 at her post. 
 
 After the first movement, they rushed hastily back 
 to the dressing - room to change, the accursed 
 * Excelsior ' requiring six changes of costume for the 
 entire corps de ballet; with the evening representa- 
 tion, this compelled them to dress and undress twelve 
 times. They had danced badly, carelessly, anything 
 being good enough for a matin6e. But the ballet- 
 master had scolded them roundly, brutally, as they 
 came off the stage. They answered with loud 
 complaints : 
 
 * What a dog's life !' 
 
 * Enough to kill one !' 
 
 'When will it be over? I should like to 
 know !' 
 
 * For my part, I would rather sweep the streets 
 than be a ballet-dancer !' 
 
 ' Lucky the people who don't have to dance for a 
 living !' 
 
 Carmela Minino was silent, but her poor heart 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 57 
 
 was oppressed by a vague, intense melancholy. She 
 felt profoundly the absolute forlornness, the hopeless 
 limitation, the absence of any possible amelioration 
 in the condition of those who followed her profession. 
 She was oppressed by its apparent gaiety and the 
 real wretchedness it concealed ; and she sighed 
 heavily as she thought of the corruption in which 
 propriety, virtue, honour, and modesty were almost 
 inevitably destined to succumb ; but she could see 
 no other possible future. What would she ever be 
 able to do but dance, in the third row, dressed as a 
 Japanese, a fairy, or a page ? What else did she 
 know how to do? And even that she did not do 
 well, but only barely well enough to earn her bread 
 and keep a roof over her head. 
 
 All the other ballet-girls had dreams of making a 
 brilliant marriage, or winning a fortune at the lottery, 
 or of having a rich and generous lover ; but Carmela 
 Minino had no such dreams. 
 
 * Emilia Tromba is not here, either !' exclaimed 
 the languid, fragile Margharita de Santis in an 
 injured tone. 
 
 * She is at Sorrento, too, with Concetta Giura,' 
 answered Carlotta Musto, who always knew all the 
 news. 
 
 * With Ferdinando Terzi, of course !' murmured 
 Marietta Sanges, the tall blonde, who hated her 
 protector, a notary sixty years old. 
 
 Carmela's eyes blinked once or twice, as if 
 
58 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 dazzled. Her hands trembled as she dressed for the 
 telegraph scene. 
 
 * Of course !' exclaimed Checchina Cozzolino, who 
 was as jealous as she was poor. * He never leaves 
 her. Emilia will spend all his fortune.' 
 
 * Because he chooses to spend it,' observed Carlotta 
 Musto, who was a person of experience, and was 
 listened to with respect. * He does not love her,' 
 she continued. 
 
 * He spends his very neck-bone !' 
 
 * I know it, but he does not care a straw for her. 
 He loves a lady, a married lady, with a husband as 
 jealous as a tiger.' 
 
 Carmela Minino sat down for a moment. She 
 knew all this, had heard the same things said a 
 hundred times, had listened greedily always, and 
 always with an emotion which she could not define ; 
 but now they were said oftener. 
 
 * With that jealous husband Ferdinando Terzi may 
 have terrible trouble some day,' said Carlotta Musto, 
 as she arranged the telegraphist's cap on her head, 
 and took the telegram in her hand. 
 
 * And Emilia Tromba will be abandoned !' shouted 
 Checchina Cozzolino triumphantly. 
 
 * God be praised !' screamed two or three others. 
 Had not the call-boy knocked at the door ? So 
 
 Carmela thought, and she rose and went out into 
 the corridor ; she was suffocated, and felt like fainting 
 in the great heat. No one had knocked; she was 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 59 
 
 mistaken. She breathed more easily in the corridor, 
 alone, leaning against the wall, and clasping the 
 imitation telegram to her bosom as if it had been 
 a lover's letter. In another moment she was again 
 on the stage dancing a furious galop, in which the 
 prima ballerma led off. Carmela felt faint and ill; 
 she danced badly, hit her head, and scratched her 
 hand on a nail as she came off the stage. 
 
 Eight o'clock. The matinee was over, had been 
 over for ten minutes, and the lights in the theatre 
 were lowered. The machinists were at work on the 
 stage preparing for * Lohengrin '; the wings were full 
 of workmen going through; dancers were hurrying 
 out for an hour's rest — confusion reigned everywhere. 
 Some of the dancers who remained sat in the wings 
 exhausted with fatigue, and gazing up at the ceiling 
 as if they expected Heaven knows what ! and others 
 were prosaically eating their supper. The two sisters 
 Musto had had their supper sent from home — lasagne 
 with a meat gravy made savoury with ricotta, 
 sausages, and slices of pumpkin. They had arranged 
 for themselves a corner of the dressing-table, and 
 they ate tranquilly, with a healthy appetite, which 
 was not in the least impaired by the neighbourhood 
 of wash-bowls full of dirty water, combs, brushes, 
 and pots of rouge and pomatum ; they were kindly 
 creatures, and had invited Checchina Cozzolino to 
 dine with them ; but though she had no dinner, and 
 
6o THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 no prospect of any, she was too anxious to conceal 
 her horrible poverty to be willing to accept, and had 
 refused curtly, saying that she was not hungry. 
 Filomena Scoppa was the next one invited, but she 
 had refused pleasantly, and had run to a little 
 restaurant, whence she returned with two sous worth 
 of bread and three of fried fish, which she devoured 
 greedily, throwing the bones on the ground, regard- 
 less of decency. 
 
 Finally the sisters Musto had pressed Carmela to 
 dine with them in the kindest manner, insisting that 
 she must taste at least one lasagne — their mother was 
 famous for this dish ; but Carmela had refused with 
 equal courtesy, declaring that she felt unable to eat 
 anything that evening; that another time, perhaps 
 she might, but now she really did not feel well enough. 
 And in order to avoid further pressing she went out into 
 the corridor and began to walk up and down. When 
 she returned to the dressing-room the sisters had 
 finished their lasagne and were eating great slices of 
 the famous Neapolitan polpettone (meat pounded to 
 a paste, mixed with bread-crumbs, hard-boiled eggs, 
 pine-nuts and raisins). Carmela cautiously took her 
 package of food from behind her hat, where it had 
 been concealed, and went softly out ; a mixture of 
 pride and timidity made her unwilling to eat where 
 she could be seen by the sisters Musto. She had re- 
 fused their invitation because she knew that she 
 never should be able to return their hospitality in 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 6l 
 
 any way whatever ; but she felt the need of food, 
 and going to the darkest corner she could find, she 
 began to eat her poor dinner. Various members of 
 the chorus, porters, workmen and scene-shifters, 
 passed by her, all looking at and speaking to her 
 with a rough familiarity engendered by a common 
 occupation, a common destiny, and each time she 
 reddened and stopped eating, mastered by an un- 
 conquerable shyness. When she had finished eating 
 everything the core of her apple remained ; she did 
 not know where to throw it, there were so many people 
 about. Finally she went to the very back of the 
 stage and, having rolled the apple-core in a newspaper, 
 threw both into a dark corner. As she approached 
 the wings again she met the errand-boy carrying 
 a tray with a decanter and glasses. She stopped 
 him and asked for a glass of water, handing him 
 a penny, which the boy returned, saying gallantly : 
 
 ' One does not pay for water.' 
 
 How slowly the hours crept by ! At least, while 
 the ballet was in progress, there was the excitement 
 of dancing, the hurry of dressing and undressing ; 
 it was the waiting which was so wearisome, so abso- 
 lutely intolerable ! Those aimless, listless, useless, 
 comfortless hours overwhelmed Carmela with a moral 
 lassitude. Sometimes she had brought her crochet- 
 work with her, for she, like most of the girls of the 
 lower classes, had formed the project of making a 
 crochet bed-quilt ; but her companions had laughed 
 
62 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 at her, and she had ended by leaving her work at 
 home. 
 
 Formerly, also, when her mind had been more 
 tranquil, she had been used to say the rosary ; she 
 would sit quietly in her corner with her hands in her 
 pocket, letting the beads slip through her fingers 
 while she repeated the Gloria Patri, the Pater Noster 
 and the Ave Maria with tireless devotion. Indeed, 
 in those days she had frequently repeated the double 
 rosary of fifteen decades, by which a soul is delivered 
 from purgatory, always repeating fervently the 
 glorious and the sorrowful mysteries at the begin- 
 ning of every decade. Alas ! now she could no 
 longer do this. For some time past she had been 
 restless and uneasy. She had lost the calm, the 
 steadfast attention of former years, her prayers were 
 dull and lifeless, her spirit cold and indifferent ; in 
 truth, profound bitterness had taken possession of 
 her soul. She was twenty-four years old ; and first 
 as a scholar, afterwards as a ballet-dancer, had been 
 twelve years in the theatre without the occurrence of 
 a single pleasant incident. Within the last six years 
 she had lost her mother, and her godmother and 
 patroness, and though, curiously enough, the latter 
 loss had been the greater of the two, the fact remained 
 that she had lost everything she loved. Twenty- 
 four years old ! Twelve years of hard work without a 
 sign of hope for the future ! How she longed some- 
 times, with a real physical longing, to rest, to sleep as 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 63 
 
 much as she wished, to eat her meals comfortably 
 and not in such a strangling hurry, to dress warmly 
 and decently, to live, in fact, like a human being and 
 not like a slave ! She was a good girl, and regarded 
 these rebellious thoughts as temptations of the devil ; 
 but they returned, they assailed her daily, caused 
 partly by the fact that she really needed rest and 
 better food, and partly by the sight of the luxuries 
 indulged in by the best ballet-dancers, all of whom 
 had lovers who were men of wealth and social dis- 
 tinction. How could Carmela say her rosary with 
 devotion in that crowded theatre, close to the stage, 
 which, as things were, was an evil market for youth 
 and beauty ? When she was younger, full of a faith 
 which had never been disturbed, with a reverent fear 
 of God, which was kept alive by her constant at- 
 tendance at Mass, and by the influence of her con- 
 fessor, Don Giovanni Parascandolo, a devout and 
 austere priest, then, calm, if not happy in mind, she 
 was able to say her rosary between the acts of 
 * Norma ' or * Faust,' and to say it devoutly without 
 distraction ; but now, when her hand touched the 
 beads and she began to say the prayers, she found 
 herself doing so mechanically, her restless thoughts 
 wandering the while uneasily, wandering to such 
 frivolities ! — to the letters of Roberto Gargiulo which 
 she kept and read, without caring much for the 
 writer ; to the silk petticoats belonging to Marietta 
 Sanges and Carlotta Musto ; to her own poor corset, 
 
64 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 bought of Carsona for two francs seventy-five cen- 
 times, every bone in which was now broken, and 
 which she could not therefore lace properly, though 
 it made her waist perfectly enormous ; and, finally, 
 to the dinner being given at Sorrento to Concetta 
 Giuro and Emilia Tromba by the Duke of Sanfra- 
 mondi and Count Ferdinando Terzi di Torregrande. 
 It would be a beautiful dinner she knew, gay with 
 flowers and spread on a table overlooking the blue 
 sea. The fare would be abundant and delicate, the 
 wines of the best. 
 
 And then her thoughts wandered again, this time 
 to Amina Boschetti, who had lived such a luxurious 
 life, who by her lover's command had been embalmed 
 like a queen, and now wore in her grave the wonderful 
 necklace of seven rows of pearls which had been that 
 lover's last gift to her, and had cost fifty thousand 
 francs. 
 
 Her meditations were disturbed by the blare of the 
 trumpets in * Lohengrin.' It was already nine o'clock ; 
 the ballet would only begin at eleven. Carmela rose 
 with a sigh, and advanced to the wings. She wore 
 her best gown of dark blue cloth, with a cream- 
 coloured lace scarf at her throat, fastened by a gold 
 pin — two hearts united by a chain — which the 
 Boschetti had given her when she was a little girl. 
 Carefully kept and daily rubbed bright with an old 
 glove, it was her greatest treasure, and typified to 
 her simple mind the union between her and her 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 65 
 
 beloved godmother. Carmela was heavily rouged, 
 but in spite of it she looked pale as she leaned 
 against the wall wrapped in her white knitted shawl. 
 Absorbed in her sad thoughts, she hardly heard the 
 rolling chords which announced the arrival of the 
 Swan, the miraculous Swan, who bore the Cavalier 
 of the Holy Grail. 
 
 Suddenly she started at the sound of a loud laugh 
 close by — a noisy, feminine laugh. The two missing 
 ballet-dancers, Concetta and Emilia, had returned 
 from Sorrento, and were ascending the stairs. They 
 arrived with flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes, and 
 told the stage-master with peals of laughter that they 
 had been ill all day, frightfully ill with a dangerous 
 illness ; the physician had never left them. And they 
 laughed and laughed again as they arranged the 
 flowers they wore in their bosoms. 
 
 ' Yes, yes, I know what sort of an illness you have 
 had, dear girls !' roared the director. * I will give 
 you a remedy — a forfeit of five francs each. Take 
 that for a healing plaster !' 
 
 * But we have got a terrible illness, the illness of 
 'ndi, 'ndoy wailed Concetta Giura. 
 
 * Five francs forfeit, my fine misses — five francs 
 each 1' screamed the director, furious at being mocked 
 by them. 
 
 * I will give you five francs as a present,' returned 
 Emilia Tromba, smelling her flowers. 
 
 The director shrugged his shoulders, and went off 
 
 5 
 
66 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 in order to avoid saying anything more to the two 
 insolent dehnquents. 
 
 Concetta and Emiha burst into a loud, shrill, 
 vulgar laugh. Concetta was really a beautiful 
 creature, dazzlingly fair, with rich, copper-coloured 
 hair and sparkling, steel-gray eyes. She was tall and 
 graceful, and though slightly freckled, the freckles 
 were not visible at night. Her hands and feet were 
 not pretty, although she took great care of them ; 
 but it did not matter : she was so beautiful, so young, 
 and fresh as a rose. She dressed almost always in 
 black — in lace and jet in summer, in velvet and silk 
 in winter, anxious to imitate the great ladies she saw 
 walking in the streets or sitting in their boxes in the 
 theatre. Especially did she wish to imitate the young 
 Duchess of Sanframondi, the wife of her lover. The 
 Duchess was young and beautiful, and an angel in 
 virtue, and when Concetta was silent, her beautiful 
 red lips pressed together, her large eyelids cast down, 
 she really looked comme it faut. But if she opened 
 her mouth, her harsh guttural voice with its coarse 
 inflections, and her language — which was the Nea- 
 politan dialect of the very lowest class, and often 
 frankly obscene — dispelled all illusions. And yet it 
 was said that it was this very brutality which had 
 made Sanframondi fall in love with her. When his 
 angelic wife had bored him to extinction with her 
 virtue, her chastity, and the serene resignation of a 
 Christian victim, he would go to Concetta and 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 67 
 
 implore her to talk to him in the filthy language of 
 Basso Porto. She pretended to protest, pretended to 
 be angry, but, knowing well that the secret of her 
 power over him lay not merely in her beauty but 
 in the vileness of her language, she always allowed 
 herself to be persuaded, and as the hideous words 
 fell from her lovely lips, Sanframondi would roar with 
 laughter and kiss her passionately, forgetting his wife 
 and children, his losses at play, and the debts which 
 were eating away his fortune. Concetta this evening 
 was looking particularly brilliant, dressed in the 
 richest black satin, and wearing a magnificent fermoir 
 of diamonds and sapphires, which Sanframondi had 
 given her. 
 
 Emilia Tromba was very different, though she, too, 
 was as fair as driven snow. But her magnificent 
 waving hair was black as a raven's wing, her glorious 
 almond-shaped eyes were black also, her mouth 
 exquisite, her smile charming. Her nose was a high 
 aquiline, and spoiled the perfect regularity of her face, 
 but she was proud of it because it was aristocratic. 
 Her mother was a vegetable seller in the market ; 
 very possibly her father might have been a noble. 
 She was not tall, and was rather plump, but her 
 arms and shoulders were marvellously beautiful, and 
 when dancing she generally contrived to let her 
 splendid hair fall upon her shoulders. At such 
 moments she was incomparably lovely. She was 
 now dressed in silver-gray velvet, trimmed with 
 
 5—2 
 
68 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 chinchilla. She wore a black hat loaded with plumes, 
 and blazed with diamonds, earrings, bracelets, pins, 
 buckles, etc. In spite of all this splendour she con- 
 trived to look disorderly. She had upset champagne 
 on the front of her gown, and had crushed a chocolate 
 bonbon with her elbow. Thus attired, the beautiful, 
 noisy, shameless mistress of the elegant Ferdinando 
 Terzi approached poor Carmela, shivering in her 
 thrice-washed woollen shawl. 
 
 * Are we very late, Minino ?' 
 
 * They are finishing the first act of the opera, 
 Donna Emilia,' replied Carmela, with lowered eyes. 
 
 ' We have come too soon, Concetta !' screamed 
 Emilia. * We could have stayed away much 
 longer !' 
 
 ' Of course, what a shame ! Shall we go away 
 again ?' 
 
 * But no. With whom ? Where ? Ferdinando 
 and Luigi have gone away ; they will only come back 
 to take us when the opera is over. Did you come to 
 the matinee, Minino ?' asked Emilia. 
 
 * Yes, miss.' 
 
 *And why? Couldn't you take a holiday — a 
 holiday with someone who cares for you ?' 
 
 * I cannot take holidays ; five francs forfeit would 
 ruin me,' answered Carmela, who had become 
 mortally pale in spite of her rouge. 
 
 * But someone who is fond of you — couldn't he 
 pay the forfeit ?' 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 69 
 
 ' Someone who loves me, Donna Emilia ? Who 
 is there to love me ?' 
 
 An accent of pain was audible in her voice. 
 
 * Eh, someone must be fond of you. Do you mean 
 that you have no one ?' 
 
 Carmela had little vanity, but she felt stung. 
 
 * Someone, perhaps,' she murmured. * Yes, there 
 is — someone.' 
 
 * Eh ! Make up your mind, my child,' exclaimed 
 the corruptress maternally. ' Do throw propriety 
 overboard. What is the use of it ? Why are you so 
 good ? For Jesus Christ ? When the time comes 
 you can confess and repent, and die in the odour of 
 sanctity, as I mean to do. Are you good for what the 
 world says of you ? The world laughs at you for it, 
 and if you don't decide now, when will you ? You 
 are not beautiful. There is no use in telling lies — you 
 know it yourself ; and if you don't take a lover now, 
 you will never get one.' 
 
 In spite of all her efforts the large tears began to 
 roll down Carmela's cheeks, her bosom heaved with 
 sobs. 
 
 * Now what are you crying for ? What has 
 happened to you ?' screamed Emilia. 
 
 * Nothing — nothing !' stammered Carmela, amid 
 her sobs. 
 
 *Take this — take this to comfort you a little. 
 Ferdinando Terzi, my lover, gave them to me 
 to-day at Sorrento.' And, opening a bag of sweets, 
 
70 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 Emilia poured a handful of chocolate fondants into 
 Carmela's hand, saying : * Eat — eat, and don't think 
 of any troubles !' 
 
 Carmela went slowly toward the dressing-room, 
 carefully carrying the bonbons. She did not eat 
 them, and more than one tear fell upon them as she 
 folded them carefully in a piece of newspaper. 
 
 The ballet was over at a quarter to one o'clock, 
 and the coryphees dressed hastily. They were worn 
 out with fatigue, and wrapped themselves up as 
 warmly as they could, nodding a silent good-night 
 to their companions, and flitting away without 
 looking to right or left. Carmela descended the 
 stairs slowly, half dead with weariness, with aching 
 limbs, and a chill dread of the long, solitary walk 
 from the theatre to the Pignasecca. When she 
 reached the hall, she saw that Concetta Giura and 
 Emilia Tromba were waiting in a corner for their 
 lovers, who had not come for them, Sanframondi 
 having first to accompany the Duchess, and Ferdi- 
 nando Terzi the lady he loved, of whom Emilia was 
 prudent enough never to speak. Both Concetta and 
 Emilia looked rather tired, and Carmela stopped for 
 a moment to speak to them and to Mastracchio, who 
 was waiting for her father. 
 
 At this moment two carriages drove up, and two 
 gentlemen, wrapped in long fur pelisses, descended 
 from them and entered the theatre. They were 
 Sanframondi and Terzi. The former looked fright- 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 71 
 
 fully bored; the latter preserved the air of glacial 
 indifference which was habitual with him, and was 
 due partly to his aristocratic and finely-chiselled 
 features, and partly to the blue, cold eyes and the 
 beautiful mouth which never smiled. As soon as 
 the gentlemen appeared, Concetta and Emilia over- 
 whelmed them with reproaches for having kept them 
 waiting. 
 
 * Let us go at once, then,' said Sanframondi im- 
 patiently, twisting his face to keep his glass in his eye. 
 
 The couple drove away at once, after making an 
 appointment for the last day of carnival. 
 
 The others lingered. Emilia was looking into her 
 bag to see if she had all her jewels, and Ferdinando 
 Terzi, impassible, smoked a cigarette. 
 
 * Minino, did you see whether I wore my diamond 
 clover-leaves this evening ?' screamed Emilia. 
 
 * No, Donna Emilia, you did not,' replied Carmela, 
 advancing. 
 
 * Ah, thanks ! You have taken a load off my mind. 
 This is Carmela Minino, one of my companions, 
 Ferdinando.' 
 
 The Count of Torregrande scarcely deigned to 
 glance at the poor coryphee who stood trembling 
 before him, a prey to a strange, indefinable anguish. 
 
 * Listen, Ferdinando ;' and Emilia whispered 
 something in his ear, laughing loudly the while. 
 
 Carmela heard perfectly the words : ' Only think ! 
 she is a modest maid.' 
 
72 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 And Ferdinando Terzi, looking at her with his 
 contemptuous, cutting, icy glance, had replied scorn- 
 fully : * What a fool!' 
 
 Carmela felt the earth sinking under her feet. 
 Emilia took Terzi's arm (for she affected a great 
 familiarity with him in public) and approached the 
 carriage. Terzi courteously opened the door for 
 her, helped her in, and entered himself. The door 
 of the coup6 closed softly, the equipage rolled away, 
 and the measured trot of the thorough-bred horse 
 grew fainter in the distance. A mist gathered over 
 Carmela's eyes as she stood on the steps looking out 
 into the black night, but seeing nothing. 
 
 * Donna Carmela! Donna Carmela!' said a mas- 
 culine voice. 
 
 It was Roberto Gargiulo, who had waited for her 
 at the door of San Carlo, a door famous in the 
 history of Neapolitan gallantry. 
 
 * What do you want ? What is it, Don Roberto ?' 
 she stammered, breathless, weak, oppressed by a 
 strange, nameless pain. 
 
 * I wanted an answer. Why didn't you answer ?' 
 *What should I answer? Good -night, Don 
 
 Roberto,' said Carmela in a choked voice, trying 
 to tear herself away. 
 
 * No — no ! at least let me take you home ; it is so 
 late, and you are alone. I haven't the courage to 
 let you go alone at this hour,' answered Roberto 
 Gargiulo, who seemed, and was, much moved. 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 73 
 
 ' It isn't right — really it isn't right !' answered 
 Carmela, with a last effort of resistance. 
 
 ' You are so tired ! We'll take a carriage. Come, 
 Donna Carmela — come ! you will soon reach home 
 in a carriage. I will leave you at the door.' 
 
 * Let us go, then,' said Carmela, suddenly decided. 
 
Ill 
 
 * I WILL take you to supper somewhere this evening,' 
 said Roberto Gargiulo, when they had reached 
 Piazza San Ferdinando. 
 
 Carmela stopped short for a moment, greatly 
 annoyed. In point of fact, she detested these late 
 suppers, coming after the fatigue of the ballet, and 
 taken always in some restaurant frequented by other 
 couples of more than equivocal respectability. In- 
 deed, the more Roberto Gargiulo made public their 
 relation to each other, the more she suffered in the 
 depths of her heart from a sense of vague mortifica- 
 tion, a ceaseless dumb pain. Outwardly she was 
 calm and smiling, but inwardly she suffered from 
 a thousand nameless stabs. 
 
 * Where would you like to go ?' she said, without 
 showing the reluctance she felt. 
 
 * Alia Regina d'ltalia,' answered Roberto, as they 
 walked along the Corso Toledo. 
 
 * We won't stay long, will we ?' she returned in an 
 affectionate tone. 
 
 * Why ? Are you sleepy ?' 
 
 * For your sake, too. Don't you have to go early 
 to the shop to-morrow ?' 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 75 
 
 * Don't you remember that to-morrow is Sunday, 
 Lina?' 
 
 * Ah, yes ! you are right.' 
 
 And she sighed. She would have Hked to go to 
 dine with Roberto at some little country inn near 
 Posilippo, from which she could see the blue sea, 
 of which she got a glimpse but rarely, living as she 
 did in the very heart of Naples, and only going out 
 to rehearsals and to the theatre on ballet nights. 
 At these places in the country no one knew Gargiulo 
 or herself; there were no curious, no insolent glances 
 to dread. But after this late supper there was no 
 hope of a country outing on Sunday. Gargiulo was 
 not sentimental, and he was, above all, desirous to 
 display himself at semi-fashionable restaurants with 
 his mistress, in fine company, or what he called fine 
 company. He had very little money to spend, and 
 Carmela regretted even what he spent. It was a 
 good deal for him, and to her it seemed something 
 enormous. 
 
 * Are you hungry ?' said Roberto kindly. 
 
 *Yes, yes — rather,' she answered, anxious not to 
 appear ungrateful. 
 
 * We will have a splendid roast of mozzarelle^ Lina, 
 at the Regina d' Italia. They cook mozzarelle to per- 
 fection,' he continued, in the serious tone with which 
 the Neapolitan always speaks of culinary things. 
 
 * Yes, it is true. Will they have mozzarelle this 
 evening ?' 
 
76 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 * They always do ; it is a speciality. Last evening, 
 when I left you, I went there a moment to see who 
 was there, and Don Gabriele Scagnamiglia had just 
 ordered a second dish of mozzarelle,' 
 
 * Oh ! he was there, was he ?' 
 
 ' Certainly. With an actress — a Frenchwoman. 
 He is a regular old sinner !' 
 
 * He is rich, and a bachelor, so ' she said, in 
 
 an indulgent tone. 
 
 * He has always courted you a little, eh ?' said 
 Roberto, laughing. 
 
 *0h,' she answered, blushing through her rouge, 
 * as he does everyone.' 
 
 * But you didn't yield, like the others ?' 
 
 * No, no,' she answered quickly. * I swear it to 
 you,' she added, looking at him humbly. 
 
 * It isn't necessary to swear. I believe you. I 
 know you are a good girl. If it were not so, I 
 shouldn't care for you,' he concluded thoughtfully. 
 
 She looked up at the sky as they walked on silently 
 towards the restaurant. It was a starry April night 
 and very mild, a good many people were walking in 
 the streets. San Carlo had been open unusually late 
 that spring, and would be open but for a very few 
 days more. Carmela Minino would soon have her 
 vacation, a vacation which she at once desired and 
 dreaded, for though repose was pleasant, it meant 
 the cessation of her salary of three francs and a half 
 a day. There was some talk of a summer ballet in 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 77 
 
 June, July, and August at the Varieta, but she had as 
 yet had no engagement. 
 
 * It is hot to-night,' said Roberto, as they entered 
 the restaurant. 
 
 * Very hot,' she replied. 
 
 Their conversation, even in the tenderest moments, 
 was not more interesting than this. Roberto Gar- 
 giulo had a certain amount of gaiety, a certain imita- 
 tion of wit, but he only showed it among his boon 
 companions at the caf6 or in the theatre, or some 
 place of nightly revel. With Carmela Minino he 
 showed— in spite of himself — what he really was, a 
 placid bourgeois, rather slow of intellect, all the 
 more because the girl herself was quiet and sensible, 
 and incapable of making an indecent speech. This 
 at once pleased and annoyed Gargiulo ; privately he 
 rejoiced that Carmela was so simple and good a 
 creature, but these very qualities rendered it im- 
 possible for him to show off his mistress in public, 
 and in public he would have liked to see her bold, 
 and free and easy. He was extremely proud of 
 having been her first lover, but he would fain have 
 taught her the manner adopted by ballet-girls in 
 public when they accompanied their lovers to any 
 place of amusement. Instead of this, the presence of 
 any third person reduced Carmela to silence ; she 
 could only smile very sweetly and courteously. 
 Fortunately, she had a pretty smile. 
 
 The restaurant or trattoria of the Regina d' Italia 
 
78 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 is high up in the Corso Toledo, where it occupies the 
 whole of a rather lofty first floor, but the door is a 
 small one in the Vicolo Speranzella. It is a ivai- 
 toria almost of the third order, much frequented by 
 students, clerks, and commercial travellers. Break- 
 fast — that is, lunch — costs a franc and a half, and 
 dinner two francs ; but for that price one can dine 
 abundantly and relatively well, the above-mentioned 
 class of gentlemen being fond of their food, and keen 
 about having it of the best quality possible for the 
 price. The Regina d'ltalia therefore holds its own 
 successfully, while other restaurants of the same 
 class fail altogether. Part of this success is owmg 
 to the fact, not common in Naples, that it is kept 
 open far into the night, and thus is a rendezvous for 
 gamblers, reporters, police agents, detectives, and all 
 the other birds of night who are able to put on 
 evening dress and white gloves, and feign a certain 
 imitation of high life. Sometimes, very late, a gentle- 
 man may be seen there with an elegantly-dressed 
 companion, perhaps with the desire to do something 
 out of the way, perhaps because no other restaurant 
 is open so late. 
 
 Carmela and Roberto went up the marble stair- 
 case with its strip of warm cocco in the middle. It 
 was passably clean, but only passably. As they 
 entered the room above a tall man accosted them : 
 
 * Oysters ! oysters ! Fresh oysters !' 
 
 * Would you like a dozen oysters, Lina ?' said 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 79 
 
 Roberto magnificently, with the air of a rich 
 viveuY, 
 
 *No, no,' she answered quickly, passing on at 
 once. 
 
 In the entrance-room, which also opened into the 
 kitchen, the victuals were exposed to view on a long 
 marble counter — cutlets, fowls trussed ready for 
 roasting, various kinds of fish, a large ham, sausages, 
 mozzarelle, and a large Roman tart glistening with 
 sugar, and dripping with vanilla cream. All this 
 formed a very appetizing display, but Carmela passed 
 on quickly with lowered eyes. 
 
 * Did you see, Linuccia ? There were certain big 
 triglia — real loves ! We will order them cooked with 
 tomato-sauce, eh ?' 
 
 * They will be dear,' she ventured to say. 
 
 ' That does not matter to you,' he answered 
 instantly, and a little contemptuously. * This even- 
 ing we will have a feast.' 
 
 They passed on quickly through the various rooms, 
 all alike ornamented with white stucco, and furnished 
 with narrow divans of red reps placed against the 
 wall behind the tables. Gargiulo looked about to 
 see if any acquaintances were there to admire him. 
 He was, for an eye unaccustomed to a near view of 
 the real thing, a fair imitation of a gentleman, with 
 his white waistcoat, gold watchchain, and the silver 
 chain which held his keys and pencil hanging at his 
 side. Several of the rooms were empty, but in the 
 
8o THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 last but one was Rosine Musto with her protector. 
 She nodded affectionately to Carmela as she passed. 
 
 * She is always with Sambrini,' murmtired Gargiulo. 
 ' They say — they say that they have been married 
 
 in church,' answered Carmela. 
 
 * Oh !' he answered, in the coldest tone. 
 
 They were now in the last room, which has two 
 balconies on Toledo. Roberto looked about for a 
 table, and decided upon one in the corner, between 
 the window and the balcony. While they prepared 
 to sit down, Carmela took off her jacket, and 
 appeared in a gown of lilac cashmere, with lilac 
 velvet at the throat and wrists, a gift from Gargiulo 
 — cashmere, trimming and lining all complete, she 
 having only paid for the making, as she never 
 accepted a penny from him. The twelve francs lay 
 heavily upon her conscience, but she had said 
 nothing, he was so kind and generous. 
 
 * Why haven't you put on your new hat ?' he said, 
 examining her attentively. 
 
 ' One spoils everything in that theatre,' she re- 
 plied vaguely. 
 
 * Here we are not in the theatre,' observed her 
 lover. 
 
 * I didn't know — didn't know we were coming 
 here.' 
 
 She was very much changed in appearance. 
 Formerly she had carefully rubbed off rouge and 
 cold cream before leaving the theatre ; now she made 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 8l 
 
 up her face carefully, because Roberto wished it, 
 her eyes were outlined with kohl, and her lips 
 touched with carmine. He took a perverse pleasure 
 in making her paint and enamel her face, and 
 brought her himself all the cosmetics and unguents 
 and powders used for the purpose. She had a pair 
 of wearable gloves, a gold chain with a cross round 
 her neck, and a pair of earrings of false brilliants — a 
 very good imitation — in her ears. Roberto had given 
 her everything, from the gloves to the earrings. 
 The things were all imitations ; the gloves, much 
 shop-worn, cost a franc and a half, the gilt chain and 
 cross from five to six, the earrings fifteen, but he 
 was as proud of this as if he had accompanied a 
 woman loaded with diamonds. And now, as she 
 sat under the flaring gaslight, Carmela had quite 
 a new aspect : strangely embellished, a good deal 
 made up, only her superb hair and large dark eyes 
 unchanged, as was her gentle smile. Her hands, in 
 spite of glycerine, were thin and brown, and bore 
 traces of the work they had done for years. Roberto 
 had entreated her never to take her gloves off, 
 especially as he had not been able to give her any 
 rings. 
 
 They had hardly sat down before another couple 
 entered — a young man who was by birth a member 
 of the aristocracy of Naples, but who had utterly gone 
 to the devil, having devoured his fortune with cards 
 and women, and who had received the final blow at 
 
 6 
 
82 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 the hands of a certain Lodoiska, a Russian singer 
 born in Genoa. Now he Hved with Lodoiska, at her 
 expense ; it was said that he intended to marry her. 
 His distant relations — he had no near ones — moved 
 heaven and earth in order to get him out of Naples, 
 he had fallen so low, and they were so thoroughly 
 ashamed of him. He was a small, slight, well-made 
 fellow, with a handsome regular face, Arab in 
 contour, and with jet-black eyes and hair and 
 moustache. Lodoiska was tall and graceful, fair 
 and blond, with large blue eyes, one of which un- 
 fortunately looked in the wrong direction. She was 
 dressed in crimson, with a white hat loaded with white 
 plumes on her head, and magnificent diamond ear- 
 rings in her ears — earrings which must have cost at 
 least three thousand francs. Massamormile bowed 
 to Roberto, and Roberto blushed with pleasure ; he 
 was so vain of a bow from a noble, even a noble as 
 lost and degraded as Placido Massamormile. 
 
 Carmela and Roberto ate in silence. Lodoiska 
 scolded Placido in a loud harsh voice. She put up 
 with him, partly from habit, partly because she had 
 no one else in view, partly, perhaps, because she 
 was still fond of him ; but they quarrelled con- 
 tinually, irritated by their position towards each 
 other, but not able to free themselves. Placido 
 despised everything, beginning with himself, and 
 Lodoiska enjoyed everything in a conscienceless, 
 vulgar fashion. It was quite evident that he suffered, 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 83 
 
 though his handsome Arab mask of a face was ex- 
 pressionless ; still, it was clear that these scenes 
 pained him, and equally clear that the noisy 
 Lodoiska enjoyed life in her loud way. Roberto 
 Gargiulo envied Placido. What was that quiet, silent 
 sheep of a Carmela Minino compared to the brilliant 
 cafe-singer, who possessed a fortune of three hundred 
 thousand francs, which she had not earned on the 
 stage, and who perhaps would succeed in marrying 
 a noble ? The poorness, the insignificance of his 
 conquest humiliated Roberto Gargiulo every now 
 and then, and at such moments his glances at 
 Carmela were indifferent, and even a little bitter. 
 Did she understand this ? Perhaps. Ever since 
 Lodoiska's entrance she had sat with bowed head, 
 looking steadfastly at her plate, and mechanically 
 rolling pellets of bread, and had thereby succeeded 
 in violently irritating her lover, who would have 
 liked to see her gay, sparkling, and daring. 
 
 * What is the matter ? What has happened to 
 you ?' he said, in a hard voice. 
 
 * Nothing — nothing,' she answered, looking up, 
 startled. 
 
 * You are a funereal guest,' he answered rudely, 
 still more annoyed to see that her eyes were full of 
 tears. ' It would have been better if I had taken 
 you straight home.' 
 
 * I — I did not want to come,' she stammered, 
 strangling a sob. 
 
 6—2 
 
84 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 * I'll think better of it before I ask you another 
 time,' he answered dryly, beginning to divide the 
 tYiglia. 
 
 They were silent ; Carmela blinked away her tears, 
 composed herself, and pretended to eat. Several 
 people entered, among others. Carlo Altamura, a 
 money-lender, who would lend money for a few days 
 or a few hours, and who usually haunted gambling- 
 houses, where he had already ruined more than 
 one unfortunate player. With him came Gaetano 
 d'Amara, a huge, fat reporter, who was obliged to 
 sit up all night, and who had come in to supper 
 between one report and another. They were followed 
 by Don Gabriele Scagnamiglio, the rich, popular, 
 and gallant druggist of the Via Pignasecca. He, for 
 a wonder, came alone. It was not often that Don 
 Gabriele took supper alone. With his well-trimmed, 
 carefully - perfumed white beard, his red cheeks, 
 mischievous glances, and elegant attire, all complete, 
 from the flower in his buttonhole to the handsome 
 cane he carried in his hand, Don Gabriele was still 
 a handsome man, despite the fact that he had long 
 passed fifty-five years, and he enjoyed an immense 
 and incontestable popularity with women of all ages — 
 actresses, ballet-dancers, singers, whoever, in short, 
 was of doubtful reputation. As soon as he entered 
 he nodded affectionately to Roberto and Carmela, 
 with an air of extreme benignity, as if he were 
 bestowing a benediction. And when, a moment 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 85 
 
 later, Gaetano d'Amara called Roberto to go out 
 on the balcony in order to speak a word to him 
 apart, Don Gabriele came and sat down by Carmela. 
 
 * Oh, Donna Carmelina, you are growing more and 
 more beautiful !' he said in a low voice, with a smile. 
 
 * Your eyes are beautiful,' replied Carmela, giving 
 the usual Neapolitan reply to a compliment. 
 
 * Oh, I am old — old. Donna Carmelina. No one 
 wants to have anything to do with me.' 
 
 ' Don't say that — it is not true, cavaliere.' 
 ' And have you smiled on me ? Have you not 
 always said no ? And instead, like everyone else, 
 you have preferred a young man.' 
 
 He kept an eye on the balcony while he talked on 
 in a low voice, with a pleasant smile. She looked at 
 him, reddening and growing pale by turns, because 
 she was rather shy of this rich, generous, elegant 
 old man, who had had, she knew, endless adventures. 
 
 * What do you find in that young man ? Do you 
 love him ? Are you really in love ? — much, very 
 much in love ?' said Don Gabriele, growing more 
 and more aggressive. 
 
 ' Oh !' she exclaimed, much agitated. 
 
 * He gives you a good deal of money, perhaps ? 
 And who knows where he gets it ?' 
 
 'Not money — no money — never money!' she 
 answered quickly, with a note of anger and pride 
 in her voice. 
 
 * Don't be offended. Pardon me, Donna Carme- 
 
86 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 lina. Then he makes you die of hunger ? Or it is 
 for love of his beautiful eyes ? Some miserable little 
 present he gives every now and then ? I understand 
 it all, and I know that you have to spend your own 
 money, too.' 
 
 She trembled with mortification, because all that 
 Don Gabriele said was cruel, but absolutely true — 
 because it seemed a crime not to defend Roberto, 
 and brutal to allow this gay, unrepentant old sinner 
 to speak as he did. Everything was so true and so 
 painful that she leant back in her chair, feeHng faint 
 and ill. 
 
 * Don't be so unhappy, Donna Carmelina. I don't 
 like to see you so sad,' added the druggist. * But I 
 speak to you like the true friend I am, because I have 
 known you from childhood, and know you to be a 
 good girl ' 
 
 She shot an imploring glance at him. Don 
 Gabriele feigned not to see it, and proceeded : 
 
 * I tell you plainly : some day Roberto Gargiulo 
 will leave you. Perhaps the day is not far distant.' 
 
 * Perhaps the day is not far distant,' she repeated 
 mechanically, as if the phrase expressed her own 
 intimate conviction. 
 
 * And what will you do then ? Who will you 
 find ? Upon whom will you call, Donna Carmela ?' 
 
 *Who shall I call? Who can I find?' she 
 answered vaguely. 
 
 * You will find your old friend Gabriele, who is not 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 87 
 
 twenty-eight years old, with an imperial and curling 
 moustaches, but who is a reliable person, Donna 
 Carmelina. Call Don Gabriele, and Don Gabriele 
 will answer, with a military salute, " Present !" ' 
 
 And he rounded off his discourse with a gay laugh, 
 because Roberto Gargiulo was approaching. And 
 seeing that Carmela was flushed and evidently 
 agitated, Don Gabriele launched forth into con- 
 versation with many smiles. 
 
 ' Dear, dear Gargiulo, as you were rude enough 
 to leave this lovely lady alone, I, like a faithful 
 cavalier, have kept her company.' 
 
 *And you have been making love to her?' said 
 Roberto gaily, beginning his supper. 
 
 * Certainly ; I always make love to her — this 
 evening more than ever.' 
 
 * And with what result, cavaliere ?' 
 
 * I confess, to my shame, with no result at all,' 
 said the old sinner, giggling. 
 
 'You mortify me, cavaliere,' murmured Carmela, 
 who was now calm again, but still embarrassed. 
 
 * Take good care of this little woman, Gargiulo ; 
 she loves you ; she adores you ; she is a monster 
 of fidelity. I am an old rascal, but she is an 
 angel!' 
 
 Notwithstanding the slight tone of irony in these 
 words, and their manifest exaggeration, Roberto 
 Gargiulo was pleased. When Don Gabriele had 
 gone to another table, quite satisfied at having said 
 
88 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 to Carmela what he wished and intended to say, 
 Roberto stretched out his hand and patted hers. 
 
 * I beg your pardon if I was rude just now.' 
 
 * It doesn't matter — it doesn't matter!' she said, 
 again much moved. 
 
 When she climbed the stairs to her fourth floor 
 that night, Carmela panted with fatigue and nervous- 
 ness. When he left her at the street-door, Gargiulo 
 had asked her, as he always did, to let him come up 
 with her for half an hour. And she had refused, 
 obstinately, as she always did. She would not 
 allow him to visit her at her lodgings. Since she 
 had given herself to him, and everyone, alas ! had 
 known it, she had been ashamed to look her neigh- 
 bours in the face. She blushed as she passed them, 
 from the fruit-seller, a cross creature, who now 
 frowned when she saw Carmela, and murmured 
 insulting words, to the coal-seller, who shook her 
 head mournfully at her and sighed, while Don Santo, 
 the baker, groaned, * What are we — what are we, 
 poor creatures ?' as he cut off her portion of bread. 
 As for the young wine-seller, he no longer bowed to 
 her, and even Gaetanella the hairdresser, who now 
 dressed her hair every day, came with pursed-up 
 lips and a distant, prudent manner, while she made 
 cautious allusions to the young men who ruined 
 themselves in theatres and music-halls. Finally, 
 the porter looked at her insolently and meaningly 
 every time she went out at unusual hours. 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 89 
 
 No ! never would she receive GargiulcJ in the 
 house where she lived. She felt ashamed in the 
 presence of the inanimate objects in her room — 
 the Madonna suspended at the head of her bed, 
 the relics of Sant' Antonio, of everything which 
 reminded her of the time when she was pure and 
 chaste. She never spoke of this to Roberto, for 
 fear of being laughed at, but she was obstinate in 
 her resolve of not receiving him in the house. She 
 kept her room clean, but she knew that he would 
 despise its poverty ; she blushed at the very idea of 
 his seeing it. That evening, too, Roberto had been 
 persistent ; he was tired of going to meet her at a 
 third-class hotel in another quarter of the town ; 
 tired, too, of paying for such meetings — for the 
 poorest hotels are more or less expensive — while if 
 she had received him in the house where she lived 
 an occasional gift of fifty centimes to the porter 
 would have arranged everything. But she had 
 refused obstinately, with the donkey-like obstinacy 
 of the timid. Then he had offered to engage a 
 furnished room for her in another quarter of the 
 town. This also she refused, and, indeed, it would 
 have been very awkward for him had she consented, 
 as he could not have paid the rent. Forty or fifty 
 francs a month, a charwoman to pay, the porter, 
 a thousand other small expenses ! No, indeed ; he 
 would have been sorely upset had his offer been 
 accepted, because the bond between Carmela and 
 
90 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 himself would have been stronger than ever had 
 she entered upon a new mode of life in order to 
 please him. In fact, he had only made the proposi- 
 tion from a desire to show off, and was enchanted 
 not to be taken at his word. She had refused, 
 prompted by the sentiment of economy which was 
 the result of her poverty, and also by the horror 
 of change peculiar to all simple creatures who love 
 their poor houses and poor, humble ways. Never- 
 theless, Gargiulo had gone away angry. He was 
 convinced that Carmela adored him, and, knowing 
 her to be obedient to his lightest wish, certain (as he 
 thought) that she was under the fascination of his 
 love and generosity, was he not always making her 
 little presents ? — he was indignant that she dared to 
 rebel. 
 
 * So you are ashamed of what you have done ? 
 Then why did you do it ?' he said sharply. 
 
 * Because — because ' she answered, shaking her 
 
 head mysteriously. 
 
 Arrived at last at her own door, and having opened 
 it, she sank into the first chair she found, and buried 
 her face in her hands. She knew that Roberto 
 Gargiulo would have forgotten their quarrel when he 
 woke the next morning. But, alone in the darkness, 
 she felt so lost, wretched, and despairing that she 
 exclaimed aloud, as if addressing a third person : 
 
 * But what is the matter with me ? What has 
 happened to me ?' 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 91 
 
 Ah ! thinking over the past, alone in the deep 
 silence and darkness of the night, she saw plainly 
 what had happened to her. She had committed her 
 first error, and that the great one, which no woman 
 is ever able to repair, which God alone can pardon ; 
 and she had committed it, influenced neither by 
 passion, nor by love, nor by vanity, nor by interest, 
 but solely because she was a weak creature, without 
 force of will, incapable of resistance, incapable of 
 initiative. She had offended God and the Madonna ; 
 she had wounded the soul of her dear mother, who 
 was now perhaps in purgatory ; she was lost in the 
 opinion of all honest people ; she could no longer go 
 to Confession and Communion unless she repented, 
 and abandoned her present way of life. She was 
 bound — or felt herself to be so — to Roberto Gargiulo 
 by gratitude for his regard for her, for his kindness, 
 for his gifts, and she would wilHngly have made any 
 sacrifice to show him that she was grateful, but she 
 knew that she did not love, and had never loved 
 him. 
 
 * Why did I do it, then ? Why did I do it ?' 
 And as the night deepened and the cold chilled 
 her to the bone, she repeated the question which she 
 had asked herself in the winter nights as she lay 
 shivering under her threadbare coverlets, the question 
 so often asked by Roberto when they quarrelled, and 
 no response came from the inmost recesses of her 
 soul, where, nevertheless, something profound moved 
 
92 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 and lived. And as she had repented her sin as soon 
 as she had committed it, so she repented again, and 
 bitterly, as the dreary night crept on, and as she 
 lived over again the humiliation of that supper, 
 Roberto's reproaches and the terrible advice given 
 by Don Gabriele— advice which revealed clearly 
 enough the depth of her error, and the sad future 
 which awaited her. 
 
 Perhaps Roberto Gargiulo was really in love with 
 her ? No. Was not she plain in spite of her youth, 
 and her beautiful dark hair and eyes ? And was not 
 Gargiulo a handsome youth, who had had other 
 mistresses — so he said — a hundred thousand times 
 better-looking than she was ? What could he find 
 in her ? He forced her to rouge, to blacken her eyes, 
 to paint her lips, to load herself with false jewels, 
 to rub her hands with pate d'amandes, just because 
 he found her rustic, common, ugly, servile. Did 
 Gargiulo love her ? But no — but no ! She was not 
 the kind of woman men love, the good fortune of 
 inspiring a deep, sincere affection, a great passion, 
 was not reserved for her, but for the prima donnas 
 of the ballet, who were always fair and fresh, and 
 elegantly dressed with shining tights of finest rose- 
 coloured silk and crisp tulle petticoats, with white 
 hands laden with jewels. She was only a poor 
 dancer in the third row, with barely rags to cover 
 her. Gargiulo in love with her ? Never ! 
 
 * Why have I done this, then ? Why — why ?' 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 93 
 
 She repented bitterly. The physical joys of love 
 had never appealed to her temperament, which was 
 naturally and essentially chaste ; she submitted, but 
 did so with difficulty, and sometimes with invincible 
 repugnance. She was sentimental, with the mild 
 sentimentality of the south ; she would have liked 
 Gargiulo to write her long letters, to copy poetry for 
 her, to give her flowers, to be gentle, respectful, 
 perhaps a little distant, and he, having taken a 
 ballet-girl for his mistress, thought all this regard 
 and attention the proper thing for a fiancee, for 
 respectable young women in general, but absurd and 
 out of place where Carmela was concerned, and he 
 was superior, cynical, and slightly contemptuous 
 with her. He made her presents : a quantity of 
 things which she had never had, and of which she 
 had felt the want, and he bestowed them with the 
 benign and gracious air of a generous person. She 
 now had handkerchiefs of false batiste, stockings of 
 half silk, an under-petticoat of surah, bought second- 
 hand, several false jewels, and he had given her the 
 lilac gown for Easter, and promised a silk one — black 
 and white stripes — for the summer. He spent money 
 for little suppers after the ballet, for little lunches, 
 for carriages ; she had cost him perhaps three or four 
 hundred francs already in the two months they had 
 been together. But was not Carmela herself forced 
 to spend a great deal of money because of her 
 relation with Roberto ? She no longer cooked her 
 
94 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 own food, because he said that it ruined her hands. 
 She had now a charwoman to whom she paid eight 
 francs a month. Had she not been obHged to buy 
 a pair of low shoes, a new corset, a jacket which a 
 tailor had made for her, and which she had paid for 
 at the rate of two francs a week ? 
 
 On the fifteenth of May, which was Roberto's 
 birthday, she would be forced to spend at least thirty 
 francs on a silver cigar-case, he was so fond of chic. 
 Her finances were terribly out of order. Usually in 
 the winter season she saved some money, and this, 
 with what she earned for summer engagements, 
 helped her to live. But now, in two months she 
 had not been able to put aside a single penny. She 
 had spent everything in order to cut a figure with 
 Roberto, and she had some debts which made her 
 tremble with fear and worry. All her habits were 
 changed: she did not sleep enough, she ate food 
 which disagreed with her at unaccustomed hours, 
 she was always in a tremendous hurry and distressed 
 by being so. She no longer went, when she had a 
 free afternoon, to vespers in the parish church of 
 the Pellegrini ; she had changed the church of Santo 
 Spirito, in which she had been in the habit of hear- 
 ing Mass, for the Madonna delle Grazie, where no 
 one knew her. She no longer wore the scapulary of 
 the Virgine del Carmine, her patroness, invoked in 
 all moments of pain and trouble ; she had laid aside 
 the cord of the Third Order of St. Francis, because 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 95 
 
 she felt unworthy to wear it. She Hved in a state 
 of sin. On Easter Day she would not be able to 
 receive the Holy Communion. God is merciful, God 
 pardons, but to be forgiven one must not live in sin — 
 and she was living in sin. 
 
 * Why have I done it, then ? Why — why ?' 
 When she thought of the future she trembled with 
 fright and disgust. How long would her relation 
 with Gargiulo last ? She knew perfectly that he 
 was not bound to her by love of any kind. He was 
 vain of having seduced a girl who had before been 
 perfectly honest, and he liked to go to the theatre in 
 the evening and salute her with considerable ostenta- 
 tion when the figure of the ballet brought her near 
 the footlights. He was amiable, but not tender; 
 gallant, but not affectionate; sufficiently generous, 
 but in a way which served himself, making gifts 
 which showed off and enabled him to cut a fine 
 figure as an open-handed person ; but he never gave 
 Carmela anything really comfortable or useful, as a 
 real lover might have done. In fact, Roberto Gar- 
 giulo had moods which of late had made Carmela 
 very anxious, though she was too timid to ask what 
 ailed him when he was gloomy and troubled. Very 
 often he was thoughtful and preoccupied ; at other 
 times he inveighed furiously against his destiny, the 
 poverty of his condition, when he was born with 
 * princely instincts ' and refined tastes. He spoke of 
 rich people in general, and especially of his principal, 
 
96 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 who was already a millionaire, with spite and hatred. 
 Often, too, he mentioned the sums of money which, 
 as cashier, passed through his hands, in a strange 
 tone which frightened Carmela, as much as did the 
 silence which followed. She knew that in the 
 English shop they were both kind and considerate, 
 treating their clerks well, paying them regularly and 
 largely, giving invariably extra pay for extra work, 
 and handsome presents when affairs were in a 
 brilliant condition, but she also knew that in return 
 for all this they required intelligence, zeal, energy, 
 integrity, correct behaviour, and good habits. 
 Roberto had never told her what was really the 
 fact, that he had more than once been severely called 
 to account by his superiors, but Carmela had divined 
 it from some phrases he let fall at hazard. When 
 reprimanded Roberto always promised to change his 
 mode of life, and for two or three months he did so, 
 in appearance, at least, and in the sense that he 
 went rarely to the theatre, or to restaurants and 
 caf6s at a late hour, and that he never showed 
 himself in public in the company of light women; 
 but for the last three months he had been seen 
 everywhere in Carmela's company, giving himself 
 the air, as far as he could, of a fast man of the 
 world, and setting at naught the rules of the English 
 shop and its rigid principal. Yet he was often silent 
 and preoccupied. Perhaps he spent too much ? He 
 had saved some money, but he must have spent it 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 97 
 
 all. And what was he spending now ? On certain 
 days he was absolutely miserly : he would not take 
 a carriage even for half a course ; he would not enter 
 a caf^ with Carmela, but would offer her a glass 
 of syrup and water, price one penny. Perhaps he 
 was already in debt ? And as she thought of all 
 these things, which she noticed every day, as she 
 realized that her error weighed as heavily upon 
 Gargiulo's life as upon her own, she asked herself 
 with distress and fright : 
 
 * Why have I done it ? Why — why ?' 
 
 And the reason of her fall, the intimate cause, 
 was profoundly secret; hidden away in the darkest 
 recesses of her soul, she could never admit it to her- 
 self any more than she would have done so to others. 
 
 One day, not long after this, Carmela left the 
 Variety, where she had been going through a long 
 and tedious rehearsal, at five o'clock in the afternoon, 
 and, a little dazzled by the glaring sunlight in the 
 street, stood confusedly looking about her, and wait- 
 ing for Gargiulo, who had promised to come for her, 
 if he could leave the shop for an hour. But he 
 was nowhere to be seen. 
 
 * He hasn't been able to get away,' she murmured 
 to herself, as she turned into Via Pace, and 
 began to climb the hill which led to her quarter of 
 the town. The way was long, but she was light- 
 footed, and walked on quickly, holding up daintily 
 the striped white and black silk gown which Gargiulo 
 
 7 
 
98 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 had given her, and which he insisted on her wearing 
 whenever she was Hkely to be seen with him. When 
 she reached Piazza Martiri a messenger-boy accosted 
 her. * Gutteridge ' was stamped in gold letters on 
 his hat-band, and she recognised him as a boy who 
 had frequently brought her notes from Roberto. He 
 touched his hat, and handed her a letter, saying : 
 
 * This letter is for you, miss. There is no answer.' 
 Before she had time to open the letter he had 
 
 disappeared. She stopped in the gardens of the 
 Villa Nunziati, and just under the shadow of the 
 great gates, which were draped in blooming wisteria, 
 she read : 
 
 * My dear Carmela, 
 
 ' I have not the courage to come and say to 
 you what I am writing. It would distress me too 
 much to see you suffer. I am forced to leave Naples 
 for a time. Some enemies of mine have spoken 
 about our relation to each other to Signor Gutteridge, 
 and he has reproved me severely. I had to answer 
 that you and I had parted. If I had not done so he 
 would have dismissed me. Poor Carmela ! you will 
 cry when you read this letter, but just think : could 
 I endure to be dismissed when I have been twelve 
 years in the shop ? You would not have wished that, 
 would you ? As they did not believe my assertions 
 and promises (because I have promised before now, 
 and have failed to keep my promises), I was forced 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 99 
 
 to ask myself to be sent to Sarno for four or five 
 months. I shall be in the silk factory there ; the pro- 
 prietors are partners of my superior, Mr. Gutteridge, 
 and I am to do penance with them for my beloved sins. 
 Sarno is very near Naples ; but I shall be a prisoner 
 there until I can recover the esteem of Mr. Gutteridge. 
 Don't cry, Carmela ! We have passed some happy 
 hours together. I shall never forget, nor you either, 
 I am sure. I shall always think of you with affec- 
 tion, for you are a good girl, and deserve it. Un- 
 fortunately this is a wicked world, and I could neither 
 marry you nor continue to live with you without 
 ruining myself. Think of me in future as a friend, 
 who will always be glad to serve you when he can, 
 in memory of our past affection. I send you a sad 
 farewell kiss. 
 
 * Remember me kindly, 
 
 * Roberto Gargiulo.' 
 
 She did not cry. She was in a wide, fashionable 
 street, crowded with people elegantly dressed, and 
 she had sufficient self-command to walk on quietly, 
 crushing the open letter in her hand. When she 
 reached Chiaia, and began to climb the steps on the 
 right of the street, she read the letter over again 
 attentively. The phrases — vain and vague words of 
 a false regret — which Roberto Gargiulo had copied 
 probably from some romance, did not conceal the 
 cold cynicism of the man, who, having amused him- 
 
 7—2 
 
loo THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 self, threw aside the toy which had served his plea- 
 sure as soon as it had become wearisome. Once, at 
 the beginning of their acquaintance, all the pretty 
 things Roberto Gargiulo had written to her when he 
 wished to persuade her to love him had pleased her 
 little sentimental soul, but little by little she had 
 learned to know the emptiness of those phrases and 
 the hard, dry nature of the man ; and this last letter 
 so fully displayed the cynical coldness of a tempera- 
 ment given entirely to the sensual pleasures of life 
 that it completed the portrait of the man to whom 
 she had sacrificed her virtue. Ungrateful ! Yes, he 
 was ungrateful ; there was not a syllable in the letter 
 which breathed of real affection and appreciation. 
 
 As she turned mechanically into Toledo, and 
 passed through it to gain the Vicolo Paradiso and 
 the poor room — which she wished to God she had 
 never left — she felt a tide of bitterness sweep over 
 her soul. But she was not desperate, and her almost 
 slavish sense of the humility of woman's place in 
 the economy of the universe prevented her from 
 hating Roberto Gargiulo for the net he had spread 
 for her, the lie of his pretended affection, the 
 brutality with which he had ruptured their relation ; 
 she felt for him neither anger nor hatred. He had 
 played his game, as all men play it, to see whether 
 he could succeed ; it is a game in which women must 
 try not to lose ! The whole secret of the relation 
 between the sexes lies in this. There is a popular 
 
THE BALLET DANCER loi 
 
 Neapolitan saying, daily repeated to defenceless 
 young girls, to young women, and young wives 
 exposed to temptation — a saying alike wise and true 
 — * Man is a hunter J* 
 
 She ought never to have yielded to Gargiulo. 
 Now, what right had she to claim anything from 
 him ? When she had yielded she had imposed no 
 conditions, and he had made no promises. Marriage 
 had not been mentioned, nor a life in common, nor 
 eternal love, nor even a relation which should last 
 for years. What right had she, poor unfortunate 
 one, to be angry, and complain ? The source of her 
 
 misfortune was in herself. If she had not yielded 
 
 But she had done so, and now had no right to claim 
 redress from him. The reasons of her fall were 
 manifold, and were to be found in her weakness, her 
 isolation, her surroundings, the recollection of her 
 godmother Amina Boschetti, and of her own mother, 
 who had never been married. Roberto Gargiulo, 
 therefore, had only done what might reasonably 
 have been expected. She was neither angry nor 
 despairing, nor did she suffer the agony of dis- 
 appointed love ; but she was mortally sad, with the 
 bitterness of one who has drunk molten metal. No 
 tears fell from her dry eyes, and she walked on 
 steadily and composedly, though she was as pale as 
 death. To-morrow, or the next day, or the next day 
 after that, she would have to endure the sneers and 
 mocking pity of her companions of the corps de ballet. 
 
I02 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 As soon as one of them is abandoned by her lover 
 all her little world knows it, and remarks it cruelly, 
 because the other ballet-girls either have been aban- 
 doned in like manner or are sure to be. 
 
 As she entered the Via Pignasecca she was much 
 more agitated than when she had read Gargiulo's 
 cruel letter. It was humiliating to go home, to pass 
 all the people who had known her from childhood. 
 Involuntarily she cowered and blushed, for she had 
 little pride. In the piazza, in the doorway of his 
 spacious and elegant pharmacy, stood Don Gabriele 
 Scagnamiglio, looking at the passers-by, while one 
 of his subordinates watered and swept the pavement 
 in front of him. The cavaliere always remained from 
 five to eight in his pharmacy. He was jealous of his 
 interests, and looked after them carefully — in fact, 
 he well knew how to divide the hours of amusement 
 from those of labour. 
 
 * Oh, my pretty Donna Carmelina !' he exclaimed 
 gaily. * Whence come you, my pretty lady ?' 
 
 * From the rehearsal, cavaliere,' she replied, stop- 
 ping politely. 
 
 * And we shall soon see " Rolla " at the Variety ?' 
 
 * Next Saturday — three days from now.' 
 
 * I will come to applaud you, my little dear, and 
 I will send you some flowers. You are in the first 
 row at the Variety ?' 
 
 'Yes, I am leader of the first row,' she murmured, 
 with downcast eyes. 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 103 
 
 ' By Jove ! that is advancement !' 
 
 ' They are summer theatres, cavaHere ; all the 
 Variety theatres are summer theatres. There are 
 no prima donnas ' 
 
 * No, don't say that. I will come to applaud you, 
 and send you flowers. Gargiulo won't object, will 
 he?' 
 
 *No,' she answered, after a moment of hesitation. 
 
 He looked at her more closely, surveyed her with 
 the shrewd, keen eyes of a man who knows every- 
 thing, who can divine everything from a pause, from 
 the inflection of a voice. 
 
 *What is the matter, Donna Carmelina? Are 
 you ill ?' 
 
 * No, thank you. I am perfectly well, cavaliere.' 
 
 * Roberto Gargiulo has abandoned you,' he said 
 brusquely. 
 
 * How do you know ?' stammered the poor thing, 
 looking at him with frightened eyes. 
 
 *As if he himself had told me, Carmelina. It 
 could not be otherwise.' 
 
 * True,' she whispered in a choked voice. 
 
 ' Don't be too miserable, my dear girl. Too many 
 tears spoil a woman's looks and her digestion.' 
 
 * I have not been crying, cavaliere.' 
 
 He looked keenly at her, and said suddenly : 
 
 * Then you did not love him ?' 
 
 * No, cavaliere,' she answered, turning away. 
 
 ' Nor he, either ? He was not in love with you ?' 
 
104 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 * He ? Not in the least !' she replied. 
 'And, then . . . Why? . . . Why?' 
 
 * Why ? . . . And who knows why ? No one 
 knows why ! Good-day, cavaliere.' 
 
 * You are going away ? Stop ! Do you remember 
 what I said to you at the Regina d' Italia? Your 
 Don Gabriele is here for you. You are a dear girl. 
 I am very fond of you, and think you very nice ; 
 in fact, I am glad that you are free of that selfish 
 Roberto.' 
 
 ' Good - morning — good-morning, cavaliere,' she 
 interrupted, turning to go away, finding it insupport- 
 ably painful to hear what he said, and having until 
 now only listened from politeness. 
 
 * I will come to take you out this evening. Shall 
 we take supper together ? You will not ? But why 
 not ? I am an honest man and a gentleman. You 
 will soon see the difference between me and that 
 poor little counter-jumper. You won't? You are 
 still a little sad, eh ? You are going to shut yourself 
 up in the house for a little ? Good, good ! I will 
 wait. Don Gabriele is a patient man. My dear 
 girl, don't lose this piece of good fortune; you 
 won't have such chances every day.' 
 
 And he re-entered the pharmacy, inwardly irritated, 
 but outwardly calm and serene. 
 
 The evening that * Rolla ' was given for the first 
 time the little theatre was crowded with an audience 
 almost identical with that which frequented San 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 105 
 
 Carlo in the winter, because the Neapolitans belong- 
 ing to the beau-monde do not leave Naples until the 
 middle of July. 
 
 Don Gabriele Scagnamiglio was seated in the 
 very first row of armchairs, and the attention he 
 paid Carmela was so marked, his shouts of * Bravo, 
 Carmela!' so loud, the flowers he presented to her 
 so brilliant and fragrant, that the poor girl forgot 
 her sadness in her embarrassment and confusion. 
 The companions who had sneered at her for three 
 days now envied her, because for nearly all ballet- 
 girls Don Gabriele represented the ideal lover and 
 protector — old, rich, fond of women, generous, 
 occupied for several hours every day, and therefore 
 easily deceived. The two sisters Musto, who danced 
 in the first row with her, implored her to be sensible, 
 not to lose this splendid chance, to have a few days 
 at least of comfort and luxury, and to lay up a little 
 money for a rainy day. And was not Don Gabriele 
 a most attractive man — well dressed, perfumed ? 
 
 Carmela, confused and frightened, shook her head, 
 saying, * No, no I' hoarsely, determined to refuse, but 
 not knowing how to do so without being rude. And 
 so, only because she did not know how to say * No !* 
 and although she told him so frankly, she was per- 
 suaded to take supper that evening with Don 
 Gabriele at Santa Lucia Nuova in the new restaurant 
 Starita. 
 
 The restaurant Starita is situated on a tiny 
 
io6 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 peninsula between the mainland and the sea, on 
 which is also built the fortress called Ovo. The 
 peninsula is surrounded by the sea in a Httle artificial 
 port, where yachts, cutters and yolas ride at anchor. 
 All along the peninsula runs a row of low houses of 
 one story. Built originally for the sailors formerly 
 inhabiting the old street of Santa Lucia, this row of 
 houses is called Borgo Marinai, although the sailors 
 have not yet come there to live, because Santa Lucia 
 has not yet been entirely demolished. In the mean- 
 time, the little horgo is inhabited by operatives of 
 the very poorest class, and by all the people employed 
 in the neighbouring bathing establishments and cafe 
 chantants. 
 
 At the very end, where the peninsula juts out into 
 the sea, there are several trattorie and restaurants, 
 with tables temptingly spread under bright coloured 
 awnings, and with gaily-painted wooden balustrades, 
 from which one can lean over the blue sea below. 
 In the summer season these restaurants are crowded 
 all day long and far into the night. Among them 
 the restaurant Starita is the most chic, the most 
 aristocratic, as it is also really the best. Sitting on 
 the balcony of the Starita on the long summer 
 evenings, one can watch the lights in the yachts and 
 cutters glimmer above the darkening water, while in 
 the distance the electric lights in the two great hotels 
 shine far over the sea, and brilliant equipages drive 
 ceaselessly along the quays. 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 107 
 
 Behind, the dark fortress Ovo rears its sombre 
 walls — the very ideal of a tragic castle ; and beneath 
 its shadow, and with the exquisite beauty of the sea 
 smiling before them, the frequenters of the restaurants 
 can dine or sup as the case may be. Dishes of fish, 
 fish-soup, fried fish, are served here, as they were 
 once served at Posilippo, now out of fashion and 
 almost deserted, because three-quarters of an hour 
 distant from Naples, whereas Santa Lucia is in the 
 very heart of the city. 
 
 The restaurants are expensive, but the view is so 
 lovely that people do not quarrel about the price ; 
 and all the world goes there, especially all the men 
 of society. 
 
 On this particular evening, Don Gabriele Scagna- 
 miglio showed really exquisite tact in not alarming 
 Carmela in any way. It was quite enough for him, 
 as a beginning, that the girl should have accepted 
 his invitation to supper at the restaurant Starita, 
 where everyone would be sure to see her with him. 
 This was all he desired for the present. He was 
 not in the least in love with her ; at his age, as he 
 frequently declared, he was not stupid enough to fall 
 in love with every woman more or less young. 
 Perhaps he had never been in love in his life, feel- 
 ing, like the egoist he was, that such a sentiment 
 would have seriously disturbed the line of conduct 
 he had marked out for himself — that of a life 
 dedicated solely to pleasure. Carmela had always 
 
io8 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 pleased him, although she was neither beautiful, 
 lively, nor graceful. 
 
 ' She was young — she was ** new," ' he said to 
 himself; 'she had not learned all the deceitfulness 
 and perversity of the women who are accustomed to 
 see the worst side of life ;' and this was enough for 
 Don Gabriele Scagnamiglio. 
 
 It was not a conquest to be proud of, especially as 
 another lover had preceded him ; but at sixty years 
 old the gay druggist knew how to accept facts, and 
 he was almost glad that Roberto Gargiulo had pre- 
 ceded him, and that he could take his place without 
 self-reproach or remorse. Carmela had preferred 
 Roberto to him, it is true, but he was too thorough 
 a philosopher to be angry because a young man had 
 been preferred to him. And now that this poor 
 wounded soul had fallen into his hands, he treated 
 her with perfect tact and kindness, never speaking 
 of love. He knew well how to take women — 
 capricious, feeble, incomprehensible creatures, but 
 not incomprehensible to a man who has thought of 
 nothing but women for forty years. 
 
 He walked along the street by Carmela's side, not 
 giving her his arm, not talking sentimentally, but 
 amusing her by a hundred witty sayings and enter- 
 taining anecdotes of his travels, for though he worked 
 hard ten months of the year, he allowed himself a 
 hoHday of a month in the spring and a month in the 
 autumn. On such occasions he never remained in 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 109 
 
 Italy. He always went to other countries, oftenest 
 to Paris. As they passed under the dark shadow of 
 the fortress Ovo, he said to Carmela : 
 
 * Carmelina, I must take you to Paris some day.' 
 Carmela forced a smile. She knew that Don 
 
 Gabriele only said this from pure politeness ; she for- 
 bore to interrupt him for the same reason. Although 
 it was so late, the restauant Starita was crowded ; 
 its lighted lamps shone on tables surrounded by 
 groups of three, four or five Neapolitans; the waiters 
 ran hither and thither, having more to do than they 
 could well manage. 
 
 * Do you like it here, Carmela ?' 
 
 * Yes, it is pretty,' she answered, looking at the 
 city, the sea, and Vesuvius burning in the distance. 
 
 They found a little table, arranged for two persons, 
 near a much larger one, prepared for a party of 
 eight, and covered with plates of hors d'ceuvres, 
 pyramids of fruit, and bouquets of flowers. It had 
 been engaged since early in the morning, the waiter 
 said, and the guests would arrive in a few moments. 
 Don Gabriele, always inquisitive, asked who they 
 were, and the man named two or three of them. 
 
 *The Duke of Sanframondi, Count Ferdinando 
 Terzi, Count Althan ' 
 
 * All friends — all acquaintances,' said the druggist 
 joyously, infinitely happy to be in the neighbourhood 
 of such distinguished people. 
 
 Carmela Minino looked at him with imploring 
 
no THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 eyes; she felt an imperious desire to go away, but 
 she had not the courage to say so to her companion. 
 Rush away — but where ? What would Don Gabriele 
 Scagnamiglio think ? That she was a mad creature, 
 a fool. How could she say it to him ? What could 
 she say to him ? and why should she go away ? 
 There or in another place — would it not be the same 
 thing ? 
 
 She swallowed down the hot tears which rose to 
 her eyes, and remained in her place, on thorns, 
 answering Don Gabriele as well as she could when 
 he asked her what she would have for supper, and 
 sitting up straight and rigid in her black-and-white 
 striped silk, the only one which she possessed, and 
 looking the colour of clay, under her pale-blue gauze 
 hat — a hat which the milliner had insisted on making 
 for her, and which was frightfully unbecoming. It 
 was so near the other table ! And, in fact, after a 
 few moments the four couples arrived, and entered 
 with much loud talking and laughing on the part of 
 the women — Concetta Giura, Emilia Tromba, the 
 Spanish singer Mariquita, who had an engagement 
 at the Eldorado, and the beautiful pantomime 
 actress, Alina Bell. They sat down, still talking 
 and laughing noisily, beside the four silent gentlemen 
 who accompanied them. Carmela had not seen 
 Concetta and Emilia since the close of the season at 
 San Carlo, as these two young ladies allowed them- 
 selves the luxury of not dancing in summer. And 
 
THE BALLET DANCER in 
 
 although it was perfectly well known that Sanfra- 
 mondi was dead-tired of Concetta Giura, and that 
 Ferdinando Terzi had never cared for Emilia, and 
 only used her as a blind to deceive a jealous husband, 
 the two gentlemen took their mistresses everywhere, 
 giving them country jaunts, dinners or suppers, as 
 the case might be. In taking their places, it hap- 
 pened that Ferdinando Terzi sat down directly 
 opposite to Carmela. Nothing in his aspect was 
 changed ; he wore a white carnation in the button- 
 hole of his elegant evening smoking- jacket ; his 
 blond moustaches curled as softly as ever above the 
 red, sensual lips which never smiled ; the noble 
 profile, so rigidly aquiline that it seemed chiselled 
 in marble, was as beautiful as ever ; the large, light- 
 blue eyes as proud and glacial. For one instant he 
 fixed them on Carmela, then he turned to Emilia 
 with a question. Carmela knew that he was asking 
 about her, and the place and company in which he 
 found her. And when Emilia replied in a laughing 
 whisper, she knew that she was relating the story of 
 her fall. Still looking intently at her, he murmured 
 two words of reply to Emilia, with a contemptuous 
 curl of the lip. Carmela heard these two words : 
 
 'A fool!' 
 
 Carmela looked through the darkness at the city, 
 the sea, and the burning mountain. But she saw 
 nothing, and in her heart she felt that all was vanity. 
 
IV 
 
 It was New Year's Eve. At San Carlo a matinee 
 of the * Barber of Seville ' had been given, without a 
 ballet ; but in the evening ' Aida ' was to be given 
 with singers of the first rank, and with the ballet 
 * Dr. Cappelius,' a short, light ballet, well fitted to 
 follow a long, heavy opera like * Aida,' as well as to 
 show off the strength and agility of Maria Giuri', a 
 new prima donna ballet-dancer, with large eyes, who 
 was excessively thin, and who seemed formed of steel 
 springs. All the ballet-dancers, with their respective 
 protectors and families, were delighted. It was a nice 
 little half-way ballet, as they called it in the jargon of 
 their profession, with only three changes of dress for 
 the first row of dancers, and two changes for the 
 second and third rows, but little fatigue, or compara- 
 tively little, and the pay the same as for a long ballet. 
 Everyone, therefore, was pleased. But the Direction 
 had, of course, invented something to spoil their 
 pleasure : having insisted, and continuing to insist, 
 that twenty ballet-girls should come to the theatre 
 before the beginning of the opera — namely, at half- 
 past seven every evening — to dance in the second 
 and fourth acts of* Aida,' the sacred dance in the 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 1 1 3 
 
 temple of Ftha, while in the second part they had to 
 figure in the cortege which accompanied Rhadames 
 the victor. It had not been easy to find twenty ballet- 
 girls willing to sacrifice themselves in this manner, 
 from half-past seven in the evening to one o'clock in 
 the morning, dressing first in the Egyptian costumes 
 belonging to ' Aida,' with the golden ibis in the hair 
 and floating violet robes, and lastly in the German 
 costume for * Dr. Cappelius.' It was fatiguing work 
 — work for slaves, the ballet-girls said — and the 
 Direction had been compelled to accept the services 
 of the girls who danced in the second and third rows, 
 and who were the ugliest and most ungraceful, but 
 also the hardest workers. Carmela Minino was one 
 of these, she who could never say no when it was a 
 question of being useful in any way. 
 
 On this New Year's evening, although there was 
 an official reception at the Reggia di Napoli after the 
 ' dinner given at Court, and although there was a ball 
 at Palazzo Savignano, San Carlo was crowded. 
 The most fashionable people went there, either before 
 the royal reception or after it, on their way to the 
 ball at Palazzo Savignano. All the women were in 
 brilliant full toilets, blazing with jewels, and they, 
 too, divided their time between the royal reception, 
 the theatre, and the ball. As a background for this 
 distinguished and glittering public there was the 
 mass of people in general, who went neither to the 
 royal reception nor to Palazzo Savignano, either 
 
 8 
 
114 I^HE BALLET DANCER 
 
 because they were not of a rank to be admitted to 
 court, or had not been invited to the ball, but who 
 nevertheless wished to give themselves the air of 
 belonging to the beau-monde. The women of this 
 second public were also in full dress, as were the 
 men. Although the theatre was bitterly cold, the 
 caloriferes being inadequate to heat it, and although 
 there was a cold draught whenever the curtain was 
 lifted, there was such a tremendous crowd that the 
 women were flushed, and fanned themselves slowly 
 with their large fans of white ostrich plumes. 
 
 The ballet-dancers meanwhile were hastily fasten- 
 ing their golden corselets, that they might be ready 
 for the sacred dance round Amneris, the proud and 
 passionate daughter of the Pharaohs, and notwith- 
 standing the heat given by the many flaring gas- 
 lights, many of the girls trembled with cold. Chec- 
 china Cozzolino especially had a violent cold, and 
 could not succeed in whitening her red nose either 
 with paint or with cold cream and powder. Carmela 
 Minino meanwhile powdered her arms, those dark- 
 brown arms which looked like greenish clay when 
 contrasted with the violet skirts and golden corselet 
 she wore. Concetta Giura came to ask for some 
 vaseline, if anyone had it, for her hands were chapped, 
 and the rice-powder irritated them. While Rosina 
 Musto held the pot of vaseline for her, Concetta 
 tossed a piece of news to the eight girls who were 
 dressing ; 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 115 
 
 * Do you know what has happened ? A gentleman 
 has been killed ! a nobleman ' 
 
 * Who — who — who ?' screamed four or five of the 
 girls. 
 
 * And who killed him — who — who ?' screamed the 
 others, while the call-boy knocked and shouted at 
 the door. 
 
 * I don't know — I don't know !' she answered, 
 rushing away. ' If I find out, I will come and tell 
 you !' she screamed from the corridor. 
 
 * As you know,' said Rosina Musto, in a low voice, 
 but so distinctly as to be heard by all present, ' San- 
 framondi has abandoned Concetta.' 
 
 Nearly all of them knew it, even Carmela Minino. 
 She said nothing, but feigned to arrange the ibis in 
 her hair. She had become of late more reserved and 
 more gloomy, very abstracted and inattentive to what 
 she did. Whether she were dressed for the street or 
 for the ballet, she always kept in a corner where she 
 sat with downcast eyes, apparently unconscious of 
 all that passed around her. She had not attended to 
 what Concetta had said, but the words reached her 
 brain nevertheless. As the call-boy knocked for the 
 second time, she asked herself: Who could have 
 been killed in that great world where people were 
 too fortunate to want to kill themselves, where they 
 were only killed in duels ? A duel, perhaps ? 
 
 The dancers re-entered, having finished the sacred 
 dance, and they had now to wait until, at the sound 
 
 8—2 
 
ii6 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 of the famous march, they were called to follow 
 Rhadames. They walked up and down, chatting, 
 puUing their shoulder-straps with the gesture so 
 peculiar to ballet-dancers, who are apparently always 
 afraid that their waists will slip down. Some of 
 them touched up their faces, others arranged their 
 hair or blew on their cold fingers. No one sat 
 down, for fear of spoiling the pretty flimsy skirts. 
 Carmela Minino leaned against the door, her arms 
 hanging by her sides, her gaze fixed on vacancy. 
 
 * What are you thinking of — of the sheep you have 
 in Puglia ?' said Filomena Scoppa, laughing, and 
 using ironically the popular phrase for the preoccupa- 
 tion caused by great wealth. 
 
 * I have a headache,' answered Carmela, in a low 
 voice. 
 
 ' And you come here to dance ? Why did not you 
 stay at home ?' 
 
 ' At home ? I am so dull,' murmured Carmela 
 languidly. 
 
 * No /' exclaimed the other ironically, because since 
 Carmela had fallen she was despised by Filomena, 
 now the only honest girl in the corps de ballet. 
 
 At this moment the blonde Concetta Giura ran in, 
 panting. 
 
 * I made a mistake, I made a mistake ! They told 
 me one thing, and meant another ! He was not 
 killed, this gentleman, this nobleman ; he killed 
 himself; he committed suicide !' 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 117 
 
 * But who is he — who is he ?' screamed the girls, 
 forming a circle round Concetta. 
 
 * I don't know. No one knows as yet. They say 
 it is a young man who has killed himself; that's all 
 I know.' 
 
 ' For debt ?' 
 ' For love ?' 
 
 * Nonsense! Love! bah! love? Debts, of course !' 
 
 * I don't know anything,' she answered, open- 
 ing her arms. ' Some other news we shall have 
 assuredly.' 
 
 Carmela Minino had formed one of the circle 
 round Concetta Giura. Her head ached, perhaps in 
 consequence of the loud voices, and the ibis weighed 
 like lead. She did not say a word. All the noise 
 and chatter reached her ear like a vain, irritating 
 hum. And it was necessary to take her place in the 
 procession. Who could have killed himself? Poor 
 fellow ! Who knew how and why ? she said to 
 herself, but without dwelling on the thought. The 
 pain in her head was so great, there was such 
 a weight on all her limbs, and she felt unutter- 
 ably sad that evening, though she did not know 
 why. 
 
 The orchestra began the first notes of the march. 
 Concetta Giura, Carmela Minino, and the other girls 
 rushed to take their places. An icy wind blew from 
 the wings and made them shiver. So the impresario 
 wanted to send them all to the other world with 
 
Ii8 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 bronchitis, pneumonia, consumption ? Fortunately, 
 it would be warmer near the footlights. As they filed 
 along the stage Concetta, who was two rows in 
 advance of Carmela, turned and said : 
 
 * Carmela, look there in the palco dei nohili /' 
 This palco dei nohili was really that of the Club 
 Nazionale, a large proscenium box to the right of the 
 stage, where every member of the club makes a 
 point of appearing on theatre nights, if only for five 
 minutes, either because of an appointment with some 
 friend, or to glance round the house through the green 
 gauze screen in search of some lady, or to leave 
 paletot and cane in order to make visits in the 
 different boxes. From this vantage ground, too, the 
 clubmen can compliment the ballet-dancers or joke 
 with them, or even make appointments. 
 
 At Concetta's suggestion Carmela looked at the 
 box. There were three or four gentlemen at the back 
 of the box who were talking eagerly among them- 
 selves. Carmela recognised the Duke of Sanfra- 
 mondi and Count Althan. She could not distin- 
 guish the others, who were in deep shadow. While 
 she was looking they all left the box, which remained 
 empty for some time. Then appeared Inigo Assante, 
 a pale, slender youth, who sat down without even 
 glancing at the stage, and then hurriedly left the 
 box, as if he had been called from without. Mean- 
 while, the procession retired, and the ballet-girls 
 returned to their dressing-rooms, there to wait until 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 119 
 
 they were called to dance the sacred funereal dance 
 on the stone which covers the grave of the traitor 
 Rhadames. 
 
 An hour elapsed, which seemed an eternity to 
 Carmela Minino. Up to this time she had felt ill 
 and stupefied. Now a feverish energy supervened — 
 a wild desire to move, speak, and act. She longed 
 to leave her dressing-room and go to that of the 
 ballet-girls of the first row, in order to speak to 
 Concetta Giura. She wanted to ask her whether 
 she had seen Ferdinando Terzi di Torregrande in 
 the palco dei nohili — whether he were not one of the 
 two who stood in the shadow talking with Sanfra- 
 mondi and Althan. 
 
 As the moments passed, she wished more and more 
 to do this, but she was too shy. They said that 
 Terzi had abandoned Emilia Tromba in October, 
 and that she had already given him a successor in 
 the Marquis of Rivadedro, an old viveur who had 
 already devoured two fortunes, and, with Emilia's 
 help, was getting through a third. Of course, one of 
 the two noblemen who stood in the shadow must 
 have been Count Terzi, who was always with San- 
 framondi and Althan ; perhaps they were discussing 
 this suicide, which was a blow to them all. Perhaps 
 the unfortunate man had been a friend of theirs. 
 
 While waiting for the last act of ' Aida,' Carmela 
 revolved all these thoughts in her mind, but she 
 could not summon the courage to go and find Con- 
 
I20 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 cetta. Besides, Concetta was so fond of gossip that 
 she would have come at once had she heard anything 
 new. Notwithstanding the dull restlessness which 
 caused her to tremble internally, Carmela did not 
 move. The trembling was caused by her headache, 
 she thought, which now had transformed itself into a 
 series of sword-thrusts, which pierced her brain every 
 moment or two. She suffered acutely, but she was 
 silent, and so timid, that she never said anything 
 about her sufferings, either physical or mental, even 
 to persons of her own sex. At last the ballet was 
 called, and the girls ran out, adjusting their airy 
 skirts as they flew along. 
 
 The scene in the last act of ' Aida ' is divided into 
 two stages, upper and lower, the upper being the 
 temple of Ftha, where the funereal ceremonies and 
 mortuary dance are performed, and the lower the 
 crypt in which Rhadames and Aida sing their adieu 
 to earth and life, and in a delirium of love and death 
 see the heavens open to receive them. While the 
 dance is still going on in the temple, Amneris 
 appears, veiled in black and weeping. She passes the 
 dancers in their floating robes, approaches the tomb, 
 kisses it, lays a flower upon it, and kneels in prayer. 
 Meanwhile, the dance proceeds to the sound of the 
 mystic music chanted to Ftha. The ballet-girls 
 were divided into two groups, half placed in the 
 wings on one side of the stage and half on the other, 
 and they alternately advanced, receded, and crossed 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 121 
 
 each other, and then dissolved to form four immov- 
 able groups. 
 
 Concetta Giura issued from the wings at the right 
 of the stage, leading the line of ballet-dancers, and 
 Carmela Minino moved from the left, the two groups 
 dancing a languid Oriental dance. Towards the 
 close, when the figure of the ballet brought them 
 together, Concetta said in an agitated voice : 
 
 *You would never believe — no, you could never 
 believe — who it is that has killed himself !' 
 
 ' Who ?' stammered Carmela. 
 
 Concetta had no time to answer, because the move- 
 ment of the ballet divided them for five or six 
 minutes; then, as the music grew faster and they 
 were once more together, Concetta said : 
 
 * Ferdinando Terzi has killed himself — shot him- 
 self through the heart with a revolver ' 
 
 Carmela stopped short. Quivering from head to 
 foot, she retreated to the back of the stage, and 
 leaned against one of the imitation columns of the 
 temple. A crowd of priests and altar-servers passed 
 back and forth before her, and one of them, seeing 
 that she was pale and leaned her head against her 
 arm, said : 
 
 * What is the matter ? Do you feel ill, signorina ?' 
 She looked the man full in the face without 
 
 answering. She had not understood what he said, 
 as she understood no longer where she was, nor 
 what was meant by the shouts of the singers, the 
 
122 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 rolling music of the orchestra, the excited spectators, 
 the strangely-dressed actors, and the flying figures of 
 the ballet-girls, who turned every now and then an 
 inquisitive, but indifferent, glance upon her. 
 
 All this she saw through a mist, and it seemed to 
 her that she was nailed to that column of papier- 
 mache, that her legs in their silken tights were bound 
 to it with iron bands, that she struggled vainly against 
 these bands in an agony of desire to fly away — away. 
 Then the silent anguish became more intense, more 
 profound ; her will steadied itself and strained, as if 
 she were about to break an iron bar, and suddenly 
 she was free to go whither she would. 
 
 She rushed away from the stage while the scene 
 was closing, dashed into the dressing-room, and 
 began to tear the ibis from her hair, and unfasten 
 her glittering corselet, with trembling hands which 
 tore and broke everything they touched. The ballet- 
 girls entered in wild confusion, all talking about 
 the suicide, shouting, screaming, contradicting each 
 other, repeating the rumours already circulated in 
 the theatre and on the stage, disputing, and almost 
 coming to blows. 
 
 ' He killed himself at eight o'clock.' 
 
 * No, signora, at ten ' 
 
 * He killed himself in his own house.' 
 
 * But, no — his own house, no ! He had not been 
 home for twenty-four hours ' 
 
 * They thought he had left Naples.' 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 123 
 
 ' He had said that he was going to Rome.' 
 ' He killed himself in a hotel.' 
 'The Grand Hotel— the Grand Hotel !' 
 ' Not at all— at the Hotel Royal ' 
 
 * What are you saying ? How stupid you are ! 
 He killed himself at the Suisse, in the Via Molo.' 
 
 'A gentleman like him in that hole !' 
 ' But I tell you that it was at the Royal !' 
 ' At the Suisse — at the Suisse ! It seems he had 
 only five francs in his pocket.' 
 
 * But he has not killed himself for debts ' 
 
 * For love — for love !' 
 
 * What a pity ! Such a handsome young man 1' 
 
 * The handsorriest young man I ever saw. I could 
 have loved him.' 
 
 * Now he is dead — he is dead.' 
 
 * He did not please me ; he was too proud.' 
 
 * And Emilia Tromba — what will Emilia Tromba 
 say?' 
 
 * What does she care ? She has another already. 
 She has never loved anyone in this world.' 
 
 ' Except that coachman, who was her first love ' 
 
 * A coachman ? — a coachman ? And she had arrived 
 at Ferdinando Terzi ?' 
 
 *Yes, and how she has spent his money for 
 him ! She, too, has been one of the causes of his 
 death.' 
 
 * He has killed himself for that lady, you know ' 
 
 * What lady ?— what lady ?' 
 
1 24 THE BALLET DA NCER 
 * The Countess of Miradais ' 
 
 * The Countess of Miradais — yes, yes- 
 
 Carmela continued to undress, and instead of 
 turning away, as had been her habit, when she 
 stripped off her tights — for she was a modest crea- 
 ture — she tore everything off recklessly, and threw 
 it away from her, seizing her out-of-door clothes and 
 throwing them on with trembling hands, which were 
 incapable of tying strings, fastening hooks and eyes, 
 or slipping buttons in the button-holes. She heard 
 all that was said, with downcast eyes, compressed 
 lips, and an expression of ferocious anger on her face. 
 Seeing that she was dressed to go away : 
 
 * What are you doing ? Don't you remember 
 that we have to dance in " Dr. Coppelius " ?' asked 
 Filomena Scoppa. 
 
 Carmela looked at her without answering, and put 
 on her jacket. 
 
 * Are you going away ? — are you really going 
 away ?' said Rosina Musto. * Don't you feel well ?' 
 
 Carmela Minino put on her hat, pricking herself 
 with her hat-pins as she did so, glanced round 
 vaguely as she took up her gloves and bag, and left 
 the room without bidding anyone good-night. 
 
 * But what is the matter ? What has happened 
 to her ?' 
 
 ' Who knows ?' 
 
 * She has been like a crazy woman for some time.' 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 125 
 
 As Carmela walked with a quick, decided step 
 down the corridor which led to the grand entrance 
 she knocked against and jostled several people, but 
 she saw and heard nothing. Only when she reached 
 the portico she saw two or three gentlemen standing 
 and talking, wrapped in their fur paletots. 
 
 Some stray phrases caught her ear : 
 
 * Dead ! three hours ago.' 
 
 * The family has not been told yet.' 
 
 * There can be no religious services.' 
 
 The icy tramontana wind blew in Carmela's face, 
 but she did not feel it. She had rubbed her face 
 violently to take off the paint, and her cheeks burned. 
 She went down the steps and looked right and left 
 for a carriage. And at this moment Don Gabriele 
 Scagnamiglio appeared before her, comfortably 
 wrapped in his rich furred paletot, with his beautiful 
 white beard carefully brushed and perfumed, his 
 silver-headed ebony cane in his hand, and the usual 
 expression of jovial, careless, selfish enjoyment. She 
 started away from him with something like aversion. 
 
 * Where are you going, my pretty one ?' he asked, 
 not perceiving her agitation. 
 
 She had called an open carriage, and was getting 
 in as he spoke. 
 
 * But one may know where you are going,' said 
 Don Gabriele imperiously, in the tone of a master. 
 
 She had already taken her seat, and with downcast 
 eyes and grinding teeth she replied : 
 
126 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 * Wherever I please.' 
 
 ' Ah !' exclaimed Don Gabriele ironically. * Al- 
 ready ? And when shall we meet again ?' 
 
 * Never again,' she answered in a choked voice, 
 full of irrepressible scorn, as the carriage turned 
 towards Chiaia. 
 
 Don Gabriele shrugged his shoulders, and entered 
 the theatre. 
 
 When Carmela's cab reached the Grand Hotel it 
 wanted a quarter to twelve o'clock. The carriage 
 had come in ten minutes from San Carlo, because 
 the coachman, chilled by the tramontana, had beaten 
 his horse without mercy, urged thereto by Carmela, 
 who implored him to drive quickly if he wanted extra 
 pay. 
 
 The coachman glanced back at her occasion- 
 ally, and thought that she could not feel the cold, 
 whoever she was, as she did not turn up the collar of 
 her jacket, and looked continually right and left, at 
 the Villa Nazionale, looming dark in the dark night, 
 and at the black water, which beat and moaned 
 against the sea-wall. 
 
 The cab turned round the garden in front of the 
 Grand Hotel, and Carmela sprang hastily out. The 
 great door of the magnificent place was still open, 
 for forestieri were expected in the midnight train from 
 Rome, and others, already staying in the hotel, were 
 at the theatre. The majestic Suisse, gorgeous in full 
 livery, with his hat and gilt hat-band well pulled 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 127 
 
 down over his eyes, walked to and fro. Carmela 
 went directly up to him. 
 
 * Excuse me,' she said, looking him straight in the 
 eyes, * has a gentleman killed himself here ?' 
 
 * What do you say ? What do you mean, sig- 
 nora?' stammered the porter, stupefied with astonish- 
 ment at such a question. 
 
 * I want to know if Count Ferdinando Terzi di 
 Torregrande has killed himself here,' she repeated 
 distinctly. 
 
 The porter looked at her for a moment as if he 
 thought her mad. Then he answered politely : 
 
 * No, signora ; no one has committed suicide here.' 
 She hesitated for a moment, looking at him fixedly, 
 
 as if she wished to wrench a decided reply from him. 
 
 * Tell me the truth,' she murmured, with a trem- 
 bling voice — ' tell it to me ; I must know it ! If it was 
 here, tell me ' 
 
 She was now so agitated that the porter began to 
 understand, and he replied gently : 
 
 * I assure you, signora, that the gentleman did not 
 kill himself here.' 
 
 'Then please excuse me. Good-night and thank 
 you. Good-night.' 
 
 The porter saw her turn away with a firm step, 
 and, after saying a word to the coachman, she got 
 into the carriage again and drove away at a furious 
 pace along the Via Caracciolo, now absolutely de- 
 serted and sombre, with the dark sea rolling heavily 
 
128 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 on one side and the thick foHage of the Giardino 
 Nazionale on the other. 
 
 ' Quick, quick, for the love of God !' called Car- 
 mela to the coachman. 
 
 By this time the coachman had divined that some- 
 thing terrible had happened to the poor girl, and 
 turning every now and then, he looked curiously and 
 compassionately at her as she quivered with im- 
 patience and drove through the bitterly cold night 
 from one hotel to another. When they stopped at 
 the Hotel Royal in the Via Chiatamone the doors 
 were being closed ; even the porter had gone to bed, 
 and no one remained but the night-watchman, who 
 was lying on a bench in the hall. Carmela addressed 
 her strange tragic question to him. This night- 
 watchman was a Neapolitan. He looked at her with 
 an ironical smile and said : 
 
 * My daughter, someone has played a trick on 
 you.' 
 
 * No, the gentleman has really killed himself,' she 
 answered, looking round her with so pale a face and 
 such burning eyes that the watchman at once ceased 
 to joke. 
 
 * But not here — not here, God be praised !' 
 
 * Are you certain of that, good man — quite certain ?' 
 
 * As certain as death, my daughter.' 
 
 'Then good-night — good-night. I will go some- 
 where else.' 
 
 When she was once again in the street Carmela 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 129 
 
 felt utterly discouraged. The coachman waited, 
 looking at her attentively. 
 
 * It is not here, either,' she murmured to herself, 
 with an infantile expression of despair. 
 
 * But who are you looking for, signorina ? Who 
 are you looking for ?' said the coachman, glad to be 
 able to satisfy his curiosity. 
 
 *A person,' she stammered — *a gentleman who 
 has killed himself.' 
 
 ' Madonna del Carmine ! And he was something 
 to you, this gentleman ?' 
 
 She looked at the man without speaking. He 
 began to understand that the suicide was 'some- 
 thing ' to her. 
 
 ' And you don't know where ?' 
 
 'They told me two or three hotels, but he was 
 not there. I have not found him ' 
 
 * Did they tell you any others ?' 
 
 ' Yes — yes, the Suisse. Where is it ? At the 
 Molo, they told me.' 
 
 ' Who knows, signorina mia ? I have never heard 
 of such a hotel. Let us go to the Molo. Who 
 has a tongue in his head can go to Sardinia.' 
 
 They passed before San Carlo just as people were 
 leaving it ; but Carmela did not look round. It was 
 past midnight, and she feared that the Suisse might 
 be shut. They passed Piazza San Carlo, Piazza 
 Municipio, and drove along the Via Molo, while 
 they both looked in every direction for the Suisse. 
 
 9 
 
I30 
 
 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 Finally, in an angle between Via Porto and Via 
 Molo, in a corner where they were already beginning 
 to pull down the old part of Naples, they saw a 
 forlorn sign swinging in the wind. The light of a 
 street-lamp fell across it, and they read * Pension 
 Suisse.' 
 
 * It is there,' she breathed, looking up at the 
 balcony. The windows were shut, the lace curtains 
 closely drawn, but behind the curtains a light was 
 visible. 
 
 The door of the Pension Suisse was partly open — 
 a little way. Carmela slid in, and found herself in 
 a dark, damp hall, feebly lighted by a smoky petro- 
 leum lamp. 
 
 A shabbily dressed man, with a greasy, ragged 
 cap on his head, was walking up and down, and 
 whistling an air from * Cicuzza.' Carmela ap- 
 proached him ; the man turned his flabby face and 
 furtive eyes towards her, and looked at her sus- 
 piciously. 
 
 ' Is it here,' she said, repeating for the third time 
 her mournful query — 'is it here that Count Ferdi- 
 nando Terzi di Torregrande killed himself?' 
 
 ' Yes, for our misfortune,' grumbled the man in 
 reply. 
 
 * Ah !' she exclaimed, growing paler than before. 
 
 Suddenly she turned, went out of the door, opened 
 her purse and paid the coachman. He looked at her 
 with compassionate eyes. 
 
777^ BALLET DANCER 131 
 
 * You have found him, eh ?' he asked, in a tone 
 full of sympathy. 
 
 *Yes, I have found him,' answered Carmela, in 
 her dull, choked voice, adding a franc of pourboire 
 to the fare. 
 
 * Shall I wait for you, signorina? answered the 
 coachman, touched by the adventure and the franc. 
 
 * No, don't wait for me.' 
 
 She re-entered the door, but the porter barred the 
 way. 
 
 * Where are you going ?' 
 
 * To see the corpse.' 
 
 * Do you belong to the family ?' said the man, 
 looking at her steadfastly. 
 
 'No.' 
 
 * And, then, why do you want to go up ?' 
 
 * I am his servant,' she answered, slipping two 
 francs into his hand. 
 
 Fortunately she had two weeks' pay in her purse 
 — money which she had received that very day. 
 She felt her way upstairs — a narrow stair, at the 
 head of which a light burned. It was a feeble light, 
 and barely served to show the staircase, the dirty 
 walls, the forlorn landing, bare save for a shabby strip 
 of cocoa-matting. A manservant sat there, dozing 
 beside the table where the lamp burned. Carmela 
 at once understood, not only that it was a third-class 
 pension, but one of ill-fame ; the horrible rooms being 
 let for a day, half a day, two hours, or one hour, 
 
 9—2 
 
132 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 to people who arrived in haste and without luggage, 
 who paid in a hurry on arriving, and departed 
 hurriedly and silently, creeping away with downcast 
 eyes and noiseless steps. Three doors opened on the 
 ante-room ; two were closed, but the third, the one 
 opposite the staircase, was partly open — a pale ray 
 of light issued from it. 
 
 * I wish to see the corpse,' said Carmela abruptly, 
 looking at the door. 
 
 The waiter rubbed his eyes and said : 
 
 * Are you a relation ?' 
 
 * I am — a pensioner,' she answered, struggling to 
 repress the sobs which shook her from head to foot. 
 
 * No relations have come yet. Some friends, but 
 they went away immediately. We expect the pretore. 
 Go in.' 
 
 Carmela entered alone. The room was the largest 
 in the hotel, and occupied an angle of the building, 
 having one balcony on Via Molo and one on Via 
 Porto. Coarse lace curtains, which had been white, 
 but were now yellow with dust and time, were nailed 
 closely over the windows, and curtains exactly like 
 them, even to the marks of smoke and dirt, hung 
 from the cornice. A faded carpet, worn thin, covered 
 the floor ; an old-fashioned toilet with a dim greenish 
 mirror, a bureau with a marble top, a writing-table, 
 and four Vienna chairs completed the furniture of 
 the room, at once dirty and pretentious, which had 
 been the theatre of so many adventures. An enor- 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 133 
 
 mous bed stood at the end of the room facing the 
 door, beneath a baldachin of green serge. On the 
 bed, where he had killed himself, lay the body of 
 Ferdinando Terzi di Torregrande, awaiting the official 
 visit of the pretore. 
 
 The bed had not been made up — a coverlet of 
 green serge had been spread over the mattress ; 
 sheets there were none, but the pillows were in their 
 white under-covers, edged with crochet lace. The 
 green serge coverlet was stained with blood, and the 
 carpet at the side of the bed where the Count had 
 killed himself was soaked with it ; the shirt-front was 
 dyed deep red. Ferdinando had been in full evening 
 dress when he had killed himself, and an exquisite, 
 stainless gardenia was still in his buttonhole. His 
 furred paletot lay on a chair at a distance. The right 
 hand, with which he had shot himself straight through 
 the heart, had fallen by his side, and now lay on 
 the bed, still holding a small silver revolver, finely 
 chiselled, and somewhat tarnished ; the left hand 
 clutched the coat over the heart, and the fingers and 
 back of this hand were bathed in blood. But with 
 this exception there was no sign of pain — nothing in 
 the least distressing in the aspect of the body, which 
 was stretched out at full length in an easy attitude 
 of repose, as if awaiting sleep. The head of the 
 corpse rested calmly on two pillows, which were 
 quite unruffled ; the composed tranquillity, now the 
 dominant expression of the face, had evidently pre- 
 
134 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 ceded death. The beautiful, blond, chestnut hair, 
 parted in the centre in the Russian fashion, was 
 smooth and undisturbed; the exquisite mouth showed 
 its finely chiselled red line under the silky blond 
 moustache; the pure, austerely perfect profile stood 
 out in undiminished beauty; the round, firm chin 
 was as sternly resolute as ever. The lids were 
 lowered over the large blue eyes ; the metallic light, 
 the keen glance, now indifferent, now proud, now 
 contemptuous, was extinguished. And notwith- 
 standing the degraded aspect of the Pension Suisse 
 and the low, ignoble room — notwithstanding the 
 bloodstains on the breast and hand of the dead, and 
 on the bed and carpet — notwithstanding the hoirible 
 manner of his death, the dead man still preserved 
 the noble beauty which had come to him from the 
 hand of his Maker, the result of race and education 
 and taste and surroundings, and which neither his 
 sins nor his tragic end could do away with. On the 
 contrary, death had given an added charm to the 
 noble countenance — something purer, more simple, 
 more youthful, the origina Inoble beauty, before the 
 world soiled it. 
 
 Standing at the foot of the bed, and resting her 
 clasped hands on the footboard, Carmela gazed long 
 at the dead man. She had sought him far and wide 
 that night, rushing madly through Naples to the 
 grandest hotels, and she had found him finally, alone, 
 in this wretched tavern, unwept, unwatched, save for 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 135 
 
 the dozing waiter in the hall. Now she could gaze 
 her fill upon him, solace her tearless, burning eyes, 
 while she clasped her hands over her heavily beating 
 heart. 
 
 She had found him. Ferdinando Terzi's mother 
 was not there yet. Ever since her widowhood she 
 had lived at her castle in Puglia. His married sister, 
 the Marchesa di Vallicella, was not there either ; no 
 one had dared to tell her as yet. And the dark and 
 brilliant Marchesa di Miradais, his love, was absent 
 also, still ignorant of her loss. Only Carmela was 
 there, and she contemplated Ferdinando Terzi as she 
 had never dared to do in his lifetime, devouring with 
 her eyes the face which death had rendered more 
 noble and beautiful than ever. The magnificent 
 eyes were closed for ever, but she knew their glance 
 so well that she had but to imagine them open and 
 fixed on a distant point of vision, and the face before 
 her was alive once more, only even more beautiful 
 than in life. 
 
 The door opened, and several persons entered ; 
 but before they had a chance of seeing her, Car- 
 mela glided behind the curtains which hung loose 
 before the windows, as probably the dead man him- 
 self had arranged them, in order to protect himself 
 from the curiosity of the neighbourhood. The 
 persons who had come in were the pYdore^ with his 
 clerk, the landlord, the head waiter, the Duke of 
 Sanframondi, and Count Althan. From the hiding- 
 
136 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 place where she stood, holding her breath, Carmela 
 saw and heard the gloomy formalities which accom- 
 pany a death by suicide. The^r^^or^, evidently in- 
 tensely annoyed at having been obliged to come out 
 in the bitter cold at that late hour, threw himself 
 puffing and panting into the only easy-chair the room 
 afforded. Though only thirty years old, he was 
 already fat and heavy, and the rickety chair creaked 
 and groaned beneath his weight. The pretore's 
 clerk, a small, thin man, with eyes reddened by want 
 of sleep, shivered in the cold night air, and kept his 
 shabby coat-collar turned up as he sat down to write. 
 And the following deposition was taken : 
 
 *The two gentlemen here present, Duke Leopold 
 Caracciolo Rossi di Sanframondi and Count Francisco 
 Federici di Althan, personal friends of the deceased, 
 declare and swear that the person who has com- 
 mitted suicide is none other than Count Ferdinando 
 Terzi di Torregrande, eldest son of the late Count 
 Giovanni Terzi di Torregrande and of Donna Maria 
 Angela di la Puiserage. They also recognise his 
 clothes, his jewels, his furred paletot, and the revolver 
 with which he has killed himself. 
 
 * The director of the Pension Suisse declares and 
 swears that the aforenamed Count Ferdinando Terzi 
 di Torregrande presented himself at the hotel at 
 seven o'clock this evening, and engaged a rocsm 
 in which to pass the night. Seeing that he was 
 a person of distinction, Raffaele Scarano, director 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 137 
 
 of the aforesaid Pension Suisse, did not ask him 
 his name or place of residence, nor why he was 
 without luggage. He did not know the gentleman's 
 name until later, after the suicide. Count Ferdi- 
 nando Terzi paid the price of the room — the best in 
 the Pension Suisse — four francs and a half, and did 
 not accept the change for the five francs he offered 
 in payment, and said that he would return to the 
 hotel a little later. The above-named gentleman 
 never before came to the Pension Suisse. 
 
 'The waiter at the Pension Suisse, Domenico 
 Quagliolo, declares and swears that he caught a 
 glimpse of Count Ferdinando Terzi when he was 
 engaging the room and talking with the director, 
 but did not look closely at the Count, being accus- 
 tomed to look as little as possible at the travellers 
 who stopped in the hotel, in order not to annoy 
 them. Later, at about nine o'clock, the Count 
 returned to the hotel alone. The landlord being 
 away in another part of the hotel, the Count asked 
 Domenico Quagliolo to show him his room. As he 
 entered it, he stopped for a moment on the threshold. 
 The waiter immediately told him that there were no 
 sheets on the bed, but that it could be made up in 
 a moment. The Count answered that it did not 
 matter for the moment, because he might perhaps 
 go out again. He was perfectly calm, and lighted a 
 cigarette. He then dismissed the waiter, saying 
 that he would call him later. The door was shut. 
 
138 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 but not locked. The waiter heard the Count moving 
 about the room, but quite quietly. Perhaps half an 
 hour had passed when Quagliolo heard the noise of 
 the revolver, and rushed into the room. Count 
 Ferdinando Terzi lay gasping on the bed. He did 
 not say a word, but opened and shut his eyes, and 
 looked round as if seeking for something. Quagliolo 
 insisted upon this fact. The Count died instantly, 
 in Quagliolo's arms ; one of his sleeves was still wet 
 with blood. The landlord rushed in at once, with 
 two commercial travellers who were staying in the 
 house and the porter, and sent for Dr. Gaetano 
 Marotta, who came instantly from the pharmacy 
 Cirro in Via Porta. The doctor found the Count 
 already dead, and wrote the necessary certificate. 
 On the night-table by the bed had been found a 
 card on which was engraved, " Count Ferdinando 
 Terzi di Torregrande." On this card was written 
 in pencil, " I kill myself because I choose to do so," 
 with his signature. The death had been immediately 
 announced at San Carlo at the box belonging to 
 the National Club, where, it was supposed, some 
 friends or relations of the deceased might probably 
 be found.' 
 
 This affair of official declaration lasted at least an 
 hour ; the pretore, after he had received the sworn 
 depositions, dictated them to the clerk. The two 
 gentlemen stood silently by, evidently deeply moved 
 and distressed by the death of their friend, but also 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 139 
 
 as evidently profoundly annoyed to be mixed up in 
 the matter of the official declaration. When the 
 pretore asked them a passing question as to the 
 cause of the suicide, they avoided a direct reply and 
 made a vague sign, evading all closer inquiry. He 
 felt a certain respect for their distress, and did not 
 insist further. Besides, the fact of suicide was 
 clearly proven ; the doctor's certificate was correct 
 and legal ; and the pretore well knew that Raffaele 
 Scarano and Domenico Quagliolo, landlord and 
 waiter of the Pension Suisse, had but too much 
 reason to fear justice for private reasons of their own, 
 and were therefore sure to have told the truth on 
 this occasion, when they happened to be innocent. 
 He therefore hurried the writing of the declaration 
 as much as he could. He was dropping with sleep, 
 and dying of cold ; his poor clerk's teeth were chatter- 
 ing ; the landlord and waiter were restless, mortally 
 worried by the event, which would long cast a sinister 
 shadow on the ill-reputed Pension Suisse. The dead 
 man alone, lying quietly on the bed wet with his 
 blood, was unmoved by the emotions to which his 
 death had given rise. He had entered into the in- 
 finite repose by his own hand, and for some profound, 
 unknown reason. He was untroubled, but behind 
 the curtains a human being suffered and panted, with 
 the impatience of desperation. 
 
 At last all the formalities were concluded. The 
 pretore and his clerk left the room, accompanied by 
 
I40 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 the landlord and waiter, who were heard entreating 
 and imploring them to do something. The Duke of 
 Sanframondi and Althan remained in the room, talk- 
 ing together in a low tone, and looking at the dead 
 body from time to time ; the most prudent thing, 
 they thought, was to leave it there, in order not to 
 make a tumult at Casa Terzi in the middle of the 
 night. In the early morning Sanframondi would 
 take charge of the transportation of the body to Casa 
 Terzi, and Althan would inform the Marchesa di 
 Vallicella. 
 
 Religious functions were not to be thought of at 
 that hour, in that place ; they would attend to all 
 that in the morning. They spoke low, in broken 
 phrases, alluded in vague terms to a potent cause for 
 the suicide. Yes, there remained nothing for their poor 
 friend to do but kill himself. And they went away 
 themselves, giving fifty francs to Raffaele Scarano 
 for whatever might be necessary, and five to the 
 waiter, begging him to watch through the night. 
 After another glance at the body, they retired on 
 tip-toe. 
 
 The landlord confided the care of the body to the 
 waiter and left the room, grumbling at his ill-luck, 
 notwithstanding the fifty francs. Who would ever 
 take the room now that a man had killed himself 
 there ? The journals would talk of it ; he was 
 ruined. 
 
 With a great sigh of relief, Carmela issued from 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 141 
 
 her place of concealment. The waiter, who had 
 forgotten her, looked at her with surprise. 
 
 * Go and sleep ; I will watch with him,' she com- 
 manded, pointing to the door. 
 
 ' But— but ' 
 
 * There are five francs. Stay in the next room, 
 but don't come in.' 
 
 * You — certainly could not be anyone he loved V 
 he said, looking at her from head to foot, and evi- 
 dently comparing her — so plain, so poorly dressed — 
 with the dead man, supreme in beauty and elegance 
 even in death. 
 
 * No, I could not be anyone he would love,' she 
 answered in a strange tone. ' Go away, therefore.' 
 
 He went away unwillingly. She closed the door, 
 but did not lock it. At last — at last she was alone 
 with the dead ! No one would come until the morn- 
 ing ; the dead man was hers. From behind the 
 curtains she had heard everything, while she was 
 dying with impatience ; neither Sanframondi, nor 
 Althan, nor any of his friends would come before 
 morning. The physician and pretore had done what 
 they had to do, and were gone; the landlord and 
 waiter had also disappeared. The dead man was 
 hers for one whole night, in a remote, unknown 
 room. She looked at him with intense reverence 
 and pity, and moved softly across the room to take 
 two candles, which she lighted and placed on the 
 night-table close by the corpse. In order to do this 
 
142 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 she was obliged to approach it very closely, and she 
 gazed at it as if fascinated by this spectacle of 
 funereal beauty lying bathed in blood. 
 
 Mechanically she put her hand in her pocket ; she 
 found her rosary, and, taking it out, she kissed the 
 medal and crucifix attached to it. Cautiously, and 
 with infinite delicacy and gentleness, she wound the 
 rosary round the hand which clutched the dead heart 
 of Ferdinando Terzi, allowing the crucifix and medal 
 to rest upon his breast. In order to do this, she had 
 not only been obliged to approach the corpse very 
 nearly, but also to bend over it and to touch the 
 frozen hand. Twice she started back, as if about to 
 faint. But that pale face fascinated her ; she looked 
 round. She was alone. The night was far advanced ; 
 the silence was profound ; and slowly she bent over 
 the dead man, and pressed her lips, ever so lightly 
 and softly, on the cold, proud brow. 
 
 The icy touch dissolved the horrible tension which 
 bound her heart and throat, and Carmela fell on the 
 ground, on her knees, near the bed and on the blood- 
 stained carpet, weeping, sobbing, and calling on the 
 dead: 
 
 *Oh, my love! — oh, my only love, my beautiful 
 love! — you are dead, you are dead, and I live! 
 Oh, beautiful one ! — oh, my heart of hearts ! — it is 
 only dead that I could kiss you ! Who would ever 
 have told me — who — who — that I should see you 
 dead ? Oh, my love ! why do I live ? I ! Why 
 
THE BALLET DANCER 143 
 
 does anyone live on this earth where you have 
 died ?' 
 
 So, in the cold winter night, began the funeral 
 dirge of Ferdinando Terzi, Count of Torregrande, 
 in the lurid, blood-stained room of the Pension 
 Suisse ; and she who wailed and lamented his fate, 
 with tears and sobs, and broken words of love and 
 sorrow, was only Carmela Minino, a third -rank 
 ballet-dancer at San Carlo. 
 
ON GUARD 
 
 10 
 
That brilliant, warm afternoon the Naples land- 
 scape had been sleeping a long time, deserted, silent, 
 and motionless under the lion-like August sun. In 
 the long siesta, from mid-day till four o'clock, not 
 the shadow of a man had been seen, going or coming, 
 on the great green plain of Bagnoli or on the broad 
 white road to the left that comes from Posilipo, 
 grazing the lowest slope of the hill, which forms a 
 cape also — a wide road that is the joy of all who 
 love Naples, both foreigners and natives of the place. 
 There was not a cart or carriage on the straight 
 road called Fuorigrotta, which takes its first angle at 
 Bagnoli, turning to go to Pozzuoli, Cuma, and Baia ; 
 there was not a ship going past Posilipo's lovely cape 
 on its far-off journey over the sea — a black thread- 
 like line, with a pretty feather of smoke over it ; no 
 white sail in the Procida strait, nor boat hovering 
 around Nisida's green island, the whole length of 
 which can be seen from the gentle shore at Bagnoli. 
 At the time of the siesta the sea-bathing establish- 
 ment on the shore was deserted, showing empty 
 cabins through the doors and shutters thrown wide 
 open to the west wind. The Bagnoli inn, a resort 
 
 10 — 2 
 
148 ON GUARD 
 
 of pleasure-seekers, duellists, and lovers, had thrown 
 open all its windows and doors to the terraces. Not 
 a song came up — not a cry or sound. Even the 
 sea seemed struck motionless with the great slumber 
 of men and things, except that the west wind had 
 been blowing for a time from the sea on to the 
 land, raising up whirlwinds of dust on the Posilipo 
 road and Fuorigrotta, bending over and raising the 
 scattered poppies on the green coast, making little 
 spirals of brown sand twirl at the water-edge and 
 the Venetians on the white houses flutter, taking the 
 leaves off the passion-flower creeper on the balcony 
 lattice in the Bagnoli inn. But the west wind, as is 
 well known, serves with its rustling to rock to sleep 
 the drowsy Neapolitan landscape. It is a chant 
 that soothes the sleep of people, houses, and trees. 
 
 But the afternoon was fading into the long summer 
 twilight, spreading a great calmness around. A 
 sailor's wife, tall, thin and dark, with bronze- 
 coloured legs and bare feet, came out of the bathing- 
 place and began to gather the sheets drying in the 
 sun from the poles they hung from. She wore a 
 wide, often wetted, broken-in straw hat, trimmed 
 with red ribbon, and she sang joyously. Every now 
 and then, as she went on gathering a heap of sheets, 
 under which her lengthy form disappeared, she 
 looked towards Carrano villa, as if she was expecting 
 someone. Indeed, a crowd of little boys and girls 
 came out of the villa — lovely little English children, 
 
ON GUARD 149 
 
 escorted by a governess and maid — who were laden 
 with bags, food, and baskets. 
 
 The bathing-woman stood still, shading her eyes 
 with her hand, having thrown the whole weight of 
 the sheets on to one shoulder. The babies, when 
 they reached her, rushed round her, jumping on the 
 wooden platform, making their pretty light hair that 
 hung over their shoulders dance, and kicking their 
 legs about, in spite of the governess's reproofs in 
 English. The bathing-woman laughed with her 
 wide mouth, showing strong teeth all streaked with 
 black. Three or four cabins were shut, and after 
 ten minutes the whole tribe of boys and girls went 
 off swimming boldly between the gentle Bagnoli 
 shore and Nisida island, puffing, crying out in queer 
 guttural tones, and holding out their hands for the 
 bathing-woman to throw them cakes from the top of 
 the wooden platform. The whole shore seemed to 
 laugh with the bathing-woman and children. 
 
 From the Fuorigrotta road a cart was coming up, 
 going straight towards Pozzuoli — a gardener's cart, 
 empty; all the tomatoes and green-stuffs had been 
 sold in Naples that he came in loaded with in the 
 morning. Then came vintners' carts with empty 
 casks that had put down their load of Monte di 
 Procida wine in the town. The carters, seated on 
 narrow boards outside the carts, with legs hanging 
 down and jacket thrown over one shoulder, went 
 trotting along, the empty carts jumping up and down 
 
ISO ON GUARD 
 
 to the lively whistle of their song, which kept time 
 to the quick trot. A long narrow cart passed, too, 
 with round-bellied jars of earthenware, closed by a 
 cork bung, the Naples mammere, still wet and sharply 
 scented with the mineral water they had taken into 
 the town. The carter was in white Hnen shirt and 
 breeches, bare-legged, with a long, dull-coloured cap 
 and a short sailor's pipe in his mouth. 
 
 Some vehicles were coming along on the Posilipo 
 road also ; but these were cabs laden with country 
 folk come to Naples for sea-bathing. They carefully 
 went to see the neighbourhood, though they got no 
 pleasure out of it ; but they wished to be taken for 
 foreigners. The cabman stopped at the shore, ex- 
 plaining that that was the Bagnoli parade-ground, 
 where the soldiers came in the morning, at sunrise, 
 to drill, and that the island was called Nisida, 
 Niseta. 
 
 * Very fine, very fine !' the country folk exclaimed, 
 looking at the green island, lightly mirrored in the 
 sea, which had already become lead-coloured. 
 
 The cabman shrugged his shoulders as he drove 
 on, turning by the Fuorigrotta road, and taking his 
 fare under the grotto. Or there was some private 
 carriage appearing on the Posilipo road, conveying 
 a pretty fashionable lady who had stayed at Naples 
 by arrangement, out of sulkiness, or for caprice, 
 giving up the joys of summer travel. The coachman 
 went along slowly, and the great white parasol lined 
 
ON GUARD 151 
 
 with red encircled with its aureole a thoughtful 
 head. This carriage also stood by the shore, to gaze 
 at the lovely island Nisida, and while it went slowly 
 on its way towards Fuorigrotta, returning to town, 
 the lady puzzled over what that shiny, very luminous 
 point was that her good eyes had discovered amidst 
 the green on the top of Nisida island. 
 
 All the inn-windows now were thrown wide open 
 towards the sea, on to the Bagnoli plain and Fuori- 
 grotta road. On the large covered terrace of lattice- 
 work, with passion-flower creepers climbing over it, 
 two very countrified waiters, still sleepy -headed, 
 drew out rough tables with black painted legs, and 
 spread cloths over them, putting salt-cellars in the 
 middle, and placing tumblers of thick greenish glass 
 upside down. At one window two people were 
 looking out at the sea : a fair young woman, colour- 
 less and delicate-looking, dressed in a very plain 
 dark-blue linen frock, and a man about forty, a 
 handsome, thoughtful fellow. Twice the lady had 
 bent towards him, asking him something with a 
 smile, lightly leaning her hand on his arm. He 
 seemed to answer vaguely, and be thinking of some- 
 thing else. The lady left him at the window without 
 his making any remark, and came on to the terrace 
 to look at the English children who were shrieking 
 cheerfully in the water. She stripped a large passion- 
 flower from the lattice-work, and tore off its petals 
 with her teeth ; then, as if fascinated, she came back 
 
152 ON GUARD 
 
 to the man at the window, spoke to him in a whisper, 
 pointing out Nisida island lingeringly; and he 
 listened, shaking his head, smiling a little, as if 
 agreeing to a queer story telling about a dream. 
 
 The sea, too, in the soft summer twilight, seemed 
 to have wakened from the drowsiness of its mid-day 
 siesta. Near the shore the voices of children bathing 
 rose shrilly, as they went splashing and laughing, 
 and the bathing- woman, standing towards the shore, 
 called out at large: *Aniello! Aniello!' Now three 
 fishing-boats had passed the Procida strait and were 
 coming towards Pozzuoli, following each other, run- 
 ning off under the rising breeze. One could not see 
 the continuous movement of letting down the sciabica 
 into the sea, the great net of these large boats, 
 which are held by sailors and fishermen in partner- 
 ship. 
 
 Suddenly, behind two washerwomen who were 
 coming back from Naples by Fuorigrotta road, bearing 
 great bundles of linen on their heads, the dull trot of 
 a horse was heard lifting its feet in cadence ; it came 
 from Naples also, by the straight, dusty road. It 
 was a very dark, long carriage, entirely closed in ; 
 not at all like the royal post-ofiice van, with its 
 little coup6 in front, nor the van sick soldiers are 
 taken about in ; it was quite a black one, all shut in, 
 with wooden windows high up, like the municipal 
 van that takes the dead to the burial-ground in times 
 of epidemics, one which good Naples folk never see 
 
ON GUARD 153 
 
 passing, day or night, without crossing themselves 
 and saying a prayer in a whisper or muttering a 
 charm. 
 
 But it was not the dead folk's van. The waggon 
 passed quickly under the Carrano villa and Bagnoli 
 inn. An old English single lady who was reading 
 at the villa door, waiting for her nephews and nieces 
 to come back from the bathing, put her eyeglasses 
 more steadily on her nose to see the black carriage 
 better ; the little fair woman at the window drew back 
 as if alarmed. But curiosity carried it ; she leant 
 out again to follow the dull vehicle with her eyes, 
 first threading her arm through her lover's, as if 
 needing protection. It went past the little bathing- 
 stand, where the woman was now sweeping the 
 wooden path in front of the cabins ; but astonish- 
 ment made her stand motionless, with the thick 
 handle of the broom in her hands. The children 
 lying down in their knitted bathing-suits on the 
 warm sands rose up, surprised. The black van had 
 stopped on the sands at a little distance from them ; 
 the back-door, its only one, was opened, and first 
 one man of the military police and then another 
 got down from it, and a third red plume could be 
 seen in the dull half-light of the van. 
 
 Patiently the carabineers waited, standing on the 
 sand ; they cautiously glanced now and then towards 
 Nisida. One of them, the head man, leant towards 
 the still open door to talk with those yet inside the 
 
154 ON GUARD 
 
 van. He parleyed for two or three minutes, with 
 his head lowered into the black opening ; then 
 went a little way off. Another policeman got 
 down, and finally a man came out, a young fellow, 
 in one single leap, without touching the step, 
 and stood straight, motionless, and silent between 
 the military police, who formed a close triangle 
 round him. From Carrano villa, the inn, Posilipo 
 and Fuorigrotta roads and the bathing-place every- 
 one was gazing intently. Suddenly, when the man 
 appeared, there came a great hush around, and 
 a mortal pallor took the colour out of all things 
 Gin land and sea, as if the wide landscape and its 
 inhabitants had been overcome by a deep shudder 
 of emotion. 
 
 He was a young fellow of twenty-five, tall, strong- 
 built, with rather round shoulders ; his face was very 
 colourless, with a fixed, opaque, milky whiteness, 
 the delicate complexion that red-haired men have ; 
 and in the colourless face with not a hair on the 
 pure skin, blotched only by some rare freckles, he 
 had a pair of blue eyes of a tender azure — great, 
 serene, almost candid eyes, like an innocent child's. 
 Clad in old greenish trousers, all stained and ravelled 
 at the edges, in an old maroon jacket, through which 
 one could see the white shirt, for he had. no waist- 
 coat, with a black greasy cap that let the red tawny 
 mane be seen, he stood quietly in that mean garb 
 of wretchedness and breathed up strongly the sea- 
 
ON GUARD 155 
 
 breezes, as if he was happy to get that air. Only his 
 hands were chained, not, indeed, with handcuffs, 
 which the pohce call in their slang castagnoli, the 
 sort that press the thumbs together, nor the common 
 sort that fasten the wrists tight ; they were chained 
 by a real proper chain that went twice round the 
 wrists, and was shut by a heavy padlock, a kind of 
 doleful prison locket. 
 
 The eyes of all looking on this scene — old men and 
 children, women and lads — invariably turned to that 
 chain. Still he did not seem to mind it ; he did not 
 look at his hands or try to raise them ; he kept 
 quiet, giving himself up evidently to the pleasure of 
 breathing, for he had come from a close and suffoca- 
 ting stone prison. If that chain had not been there, 
 perhaps the people round would not have looked at 
 him long, but that twist of iron, strongly soldered, 
 that went round his wrists, attracted them all. He 
 might have been a man like everyone else, free, con- 
 tented, come there on some prison business with the 
 police ; he might have been a clerk, a time-expired man, 
 a witness, or a relation of someone living over there. 
 
 But the chain that bound him in its invincible 
 iron ring was his description, his name, and story 
 — the chain is the sentence and the word that ex- 
 presses the mystery. It did not matter his being 
 young, strong, with a colourless, refined face, and 
 blue eyes like a child's that knows no evil ; that he 
 stood quietly without looking at anyone or challeng- 
 
156 ON GUARD 
 
 ing them, overcome by the mildness of the landscape; 
 his simple, peaceful aspect did not serve him, as he 
 glanced now and then at Nisida island with innocent 
 curiosity. It did him no good, for that chain was 
 the fierce bloody tragedy; it told everyone that 
 he was a harmful, evil being, condemned by man's 
 justice and by the law. 
 
 The chain — the chain ! It was that that made the 
 children's laughter, the bathing- woman's hoarse voice, 
 the fishermen's lively cries to each other, the fair 
 lady at the window's loving speeches, the cabmen's 
 lively cracking of their whips as they came along to 
 Pozzuoli, the songs of the carters going at a foot 
 pace, all sink into silence. The chain ! It weighed 
 on everyone, that relentless chain that kept the man 
 motionless ; he was a thief — a murderer, perhaps. 
 The whole green flowery countryside around, the 
 lovely deep brilliant sea that surrounds Nisida like 
 a poetic lake, and the island itself standing out of 
 the water like a fresh green flowery grove, seemed 
 from the sudden sadness that had struck them to 
 suffer from the suffocation of that encircKng chain ; 
 things seemed soiled, deprived of their innocence, for 
 ever, disturbed and corrupted by that apparition of 
 wickedness and cruelty, by the shameful presence of 
 a murderer. 
 
 But a boat left the flowery island shore, and came 
 towards the Bagnoli sands, rowed by two boatmen 
 dressed in dull blue with black caps. Quietly, with- 
 
ON GUARD 157 
 
 out saying a word, the men bent on the oars that 
 cut into the waves almost noiselessly, and they 
 landed quickly with a dull thump. First two of the 
 military police got in, then the prisoner, with a firm 
 step and careless air, then the third policeman. 
 Hardly had the boat left Bagnoli shore when the 
 black van, waiting for the embarkation, turned round, 
 and quickly disappeared by Fuorigrotta road towards 
 Naples. Now the boat with its load was going 
 away to Nisida, going much slower, though the 
 boatmen bent lower over the oars ; it looked as if 
 they found the load very, very heavy. 
 
 By that fine sea sighed for by lovers and poets, the 
 joy of sailors and fishermen, that lovely sea that is 
 the delight of children and poor folk, the condemned 
 man's boat went along, dull and silent, more so than 
 if it had carried a corpse. The conscientious military 
 police seated round him never lifted their eyes off 
 him for a minute, more careful and zealous than ever, 
 dreading that unsafe crossing over the sea in a boat, for 
 perhaps he might try to throw himself into the water ; 
 they looked him straight in the eyes, as if experience 
 had taught these simple soldiers that a man's most 
 secret inclinations always are shown by a quick flash 
 in his eyes. 
 
 But the prisoner decidedly did not think of flight ; 
 he kept his coolness on the water as he had done 
 when he got down from the van. Indeed, he looked 
 round him with some satisfaction, as if pleased at 
 
158 ON GUARD 
 
 that sea voyage in the open air, with the boat's 
 rocking motion. He kept his chained hands in his 
 lap, just as if he had crossed them in a natural 
 attitude, only he said nothing, because of the silence 
 of the military police and the prison boatmen. 
 Every other boat that crosses that lovely sea — 
 pleasure boats, pink from the flaming domes of 
 women's parasols, or rough working boats — are full of 
 joyous voices of women, children, or fishermen ; this 
 one only was dull and silent, for it bore in it a 
 prisoner and his dumb and sulky escort ; it was carry- 
 ing off to punishment a living tragedy. ' Here we 
 are,' said the prisoner, as if to himself. The boat 
 had bumped against the island's little stone landing- 
 place ; the boatmen held it straight, keeping it tight 
 against a strong pile of the pier. The escort got 
 down, still in the same order as they got in, keeping 
 the prisoner in the middle of them. 
 
 * We will be back in a short time,' said the sergeant 
 to the head boatman. 
 
 * Very good,' he replied. , 
 
 The climb on to the island began on the broad, 
 steep road amongst the trees — a great shady avenue, 
 full of birds singing at sunset. Though down there 
 at the landing-place it was getting dark already, as 
 they continuously went up and up, they still found 
 the light of the upper spheres. The prisoner raised 
 his head ; all these voices of Nature seemed to make 
 him tipsy. The way was long, for it went up easily 
 
ON GUARD 159 
 
 to the highest point in the island ; it took a gentle 
 slope like the broad avenue of a park, as if it was 
 leading up to a castle, a seat of luxury and pleasure. 
 Only, sometimes, amidst the thickets of trees and 
 rose-bushes, something sparkled; but the prisoner 
 did not notice it. He was looking in front of him, 
 delighted with that long country walk; for he had 
 been pacing between four stone walls lately, like an 
 animal in a cage. Only, all of a sudden, as he went 
 along, almost without caring about his escort, he heard 
 a slight motion amongst the trees ; the prisoner's sharp 
 ear caught it, and he guessed what it would be. He 
 grew pale, knowing that it was a sentinel, understand- 
 ing that the shimmer was on the barrel of a musket. 
 He got deadly pale, and shook his head, as if a happy 
 delusion had fled. Perhaps for a minute, in spite of 
 the chain, in spite of the escort, deceived by that 
 country walk, he had thought he was free — for one 
 moment. He could keep up this dream no longer. 
 They had come to an enclosure wall, to a great iron 
 gate, barricaded and guarded by a sentinel. The 
 sergeant showed a paper ; the sentinel put down his 
 musket, and went to open all the great heavy chains 
 of the iron door. It fell open with a metallic hiss, 
 and shut heavily again behind prisoner and escort. 
 Now they were in a small square, surrounded by little 
 one-storied houses, the offices of the Royal Penal 
 Prison of Nisida. The sergeant, who was familiar 
 with the place, turned towards a house in the middle 
 
i6o ON GUARD 
 
 that had two stories, and went into an office on the 
 ground floor. It was sparsely furnished, with two 
 desks, a couch, some chairs, a crucifix, and the 
 King's portrait. A lean, sickly clerk, with hardly any 
 hair left, and wretchedly dressed, was sitting writing 
 in a big register before him. 
 
 * Is the Governor not present ?' asked the sergeant. 
 
 * He is coming just now,' replied the clerk. And 
 he went on writing again without even bestowing a 
 glance on the convict. 
 
 The Governor came in. He was a man about 
 forty, strong, tall, with a good-natured but grave 
 face. The military police saluted him. He returned 
 the salute, gave a side-glance at the convict, and 
 went to sit at the second desk. The sergeant gave 
 him the charge-sheet. 
 
 * What is your name ?' the Governor asked the 
 convict, for the purpose of identifying him. 
 
 * Rocco Traetta,' he answered in a low voice. 
 
 * Have you any nickname ?' 
 
 * I am called Sciurillo.^ 
 
 ' Where do you come from ?' 
 ' From Naples.' 
 ' How old are you ?' 
 
 * I am twenty-six.' 
 
 ' You are the son of the late ?' said the 
 
 Governor, raising his head. 
 
 * Son of the late Gennaro,' said the convict, without 
 a tremor. 
 
ON GUARD i6i 
 
 *You are convicted as a parricide,' remarked the 
 Governor, bending his head a Httle, as if he was 
 shuddering. 
 
 Rocco Traetta did not answer ; he was waiting for 
 another question. Meanwhile the clerk had regis- 
 tered the new convict. 
 
 ' Is it for life ?' the clerk asked the Governor in- 
 differently. 
 
 * Yes, it is,' was the short answer. 
 
 'Number 417, a red cap,' wrote the clerk on a 
 sheet of paper. 
 
 The Governor rang a bell. A man dressed in 
 gray, with a black cap, came forward. 
 
 * Take him to the clothing department,' the 
 Governor said, giving him a paper and pointing to 
 the convict. 
 
 Rocco Traetta went out behind the warder; the 
 military police stayed in the office. Now he was alone 
 with the warder, but the man was going on in front, 
 reading the paper as if he took no interest in the 
 convict. They passed through the prison streets, 
 broad ones with wide pavements. There were some 
 acacia-trees already in flower. On each side rose 
 buildings of one or two stories, not higher. The 
 windows were decorated with flowers behind the iron 
 gratings. They turned several street corners, the 
 warder still in front. At last they went into a large 
 room, which was dark already ; a great kitchen fire 
 was burning at the back of it, and two smiths were 
 
 II 
 
i62 ON GUARD 
 
 beating on an anvil. Another warder was sitting on 
 some sacks. Rocco Traetta's toilet was done in a 
 moment ; he got a thick linen shirt, trousers, vest, and 
 jacket with a thread stripe of dark brick colour, and 
 a bright-red cap, all being stamped with the figures 
 417. To dress him they took off the chain from his 
 hands and threw it in a corner. But the soldering 
 of his convict's chain which was fixed round his 
 ankle was rather a long business. Squatted on the 
 ground, the two smiths hammered the hot iron time 
 about. 
 
 * It is not too tight ?' one of them asked Rocco 
 Traetta. 
 
 * No, it is just right,' he said, already feeling an 
 unbearable weight. The chain was more than a 
 yard long. * Am I to be chained to anyone else ?' 
 he asked, pretending not to care. 
 
 * No,' replied the warder. * You can hang the 
 chain from your belt.' 
 
 In fact, there was a hook in the trouser-belt ; 
 still, even hung in this way, the chain weighed a 
 great deal, and its iron ring, soldered round the foot, 
 gave a sharp, continuous, intolerable sensation. 
 ****** 
 
 When at nine o'clock the bugles went for silence, 
 it was a profound, gentle, starry night over Nisida 
 island. That crowd of convicts Rocco Traetta fell 
 in among mechanically had received him with 
 invincible suspicion, holding aloof from him, not 
 
ON GUARD 163 
 
 answering the few questions he asked them, looking at 
 him squintingly ; some had received him with an icy 
 indifference. The two great instinctive points of that 
 crowd of guilty men — the two animal, brutal points 
 — are just fear, a vague, indistinct fear, of all and 
 everyone, and a low, dull, cruel selfishness. He had 
 gone with them to church, a great bare chapel newly 
 whitewashed, where that throng had sat down on 
 wooden forms. About half of them, one may say, 
 were praying, some with fervid faith, raising the 
 voice occasionally, as if overpowering emotion urged 
 them to it ; some with the enthusiasm of hypocrisy, 
 which could be made out on their pallid faces, thin 
 mouths, and squinting glances. 
 
 In church the green caps and red ones, with that 
 number sewed on in white which is the convict's 
 only name, were off, and the early evening light fell 
 on hundreds of deformed malefactors' heads. But 
 the warders, in spite of the sanctity of time and 
 place, were standing stiffly, watching sharply, always 
 dreading a surprise ; and in the great silence could 
 only be heard, together with the old priest's thin 
 voice giving the benediction, the mutter of the men 
 praying, and a monotonous tinkling of chains moving 
 every minute, Hfted up with difficulty, sometimes 
 falling with a great clash of iron. 
 
 Huddled up in a corner, Rocco Traetta felt over- 
 come by a great timidity; he was neither praying 
 nor speaking, and had no other sensation, acutely, 
 
 II — 2 
 
i64 ON GUARD 
 
 but the unbearable weight of the iron ring at his 
 ankle, and so as not to let it shriek, not to hear the 
 annoying sound, he kept his hand at his belt where 
 it hung from. A growing depression came down on 
 the nerves of that strong, easy young fellow who 
 had been so delighted to leave San Francesco, at 
 Naples, a stone prison, to be taken to a fresh, open, 
 laughing island. How did that prayer concern him ? 
 The very clash of all that iron being rattled jarred 
 on him. He felt each convict was borne down by 
 what was now a part of his life, inseparable from 
 it ; he saw that they all shook themselves, tormented 
 by the weight, to try and lighten the torture of it ; 
 and seized by a great agony he could not under- 
 stand, Rocco Traetta, the parricide, stood motion- 
 less, swallowed up by depression. He felt no sensa- 
 tion in his robust young body, except in the ankle 
 bound with iron. 
 
 Suddenly, after a few moments of expectant 
 silence, the priest raised the Holy Sacrament, to 
 bless* these thieves and murderers, and the convicts 
 all threw themselves down, kneeling. The clash of 
 iron was as if a forge had been thrown down. 
 Drawn by the movement, Rocco Traetta cast him- 
 self down, too, and the chain jumping back, fell on 
 him, heavy and cold against his leg and side. 
 
 Ah, no ! Rocco Traetta was not fanciful, he was a 
 primitive cruel being, ignorant and ferocious ; but as 
 the Saviour, from the shining gold sphere, circled 
 
ON GUARD 165 
 
 round in the priest's quivering hands, he felt he was 
 covered by that chain, taken, conquered thoroughly 
 for ever until death ; and an imperious desire for 
 flight — that idea that is at the bottom of all con- 
 sciences, even the most desperate — rose up in his 
 soul like a prayer. Why not ? As they went in to 
 supper in the great hall, whilst they were eating the 
 potatoes boiled with tomatoes, taken out of a great 
 tub, in porringers, greedily, like so many wild beasts, 
 he thought that he must escape, of necessity find a 
 means — play some trick at night ; throw himself 
 down into the sea, and so escape. The Nisida roads 
 seemed so slightly guarded — he had neglected to 
 notice the great height of the island that first day — 
 so that the dream of flight went growing in his 
 mind, as if it could not be diflicult for him, a strong 
 young fellow and very acute, with audacity and 
 cunning to attempt escape. 
 
 Taken by this burning desire, all the time they 
 were walking about in a large court after supper, he 
 went round and round, dragging his chain, without 
 noticing how hurriedly he was walking, for he was 
 eaten up by his idea of flight. Up above, over the 
 courtyard, the soft, starry night shone; he turned 
 his eyes there, and felt a sharper, more insane mania 
 for liberty. 
 
 The bugles went for silence. By squadrons, going 
 along Nisida's deserted roads, all gazing in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Bagnoli and Pozzuoli, which sparkled 
 
i66 ON GUARD 
 
 with lights, the convicts went back to their dormi- 
 tories. It was just so : the long room where Rocco 
 Traetta had been allotted a bunk, mattress, and two 
 thick sheets, had a wide window, whence one could 
 see the starry sky and phosphorescent sea — a big 
 window that was almost always kept open, or the 
 smell from these human bodies would have been too 
 unbearable with the heat. When the gas was put 
 down, and the second bell for silence was rung, many 
 of the convicts in the room were snoring already. 
 Rocco Traetta gazed from his bed at that bit of sky 
 and sea. As usual, the chains jingled at every move- 
 ment the convicts made — the now invisible chain, an 
 icy bedfellow, and this noise excited Rocco Traetta's 
 fancy. How easy it would be to escape by that 
 window ! 
 
 But suddenly, in the far distance, a voice was 
 heard, feeble but distinct : 
 
 * Be on the alert, sentinel !' (*A11' erta, sentinella !') 
 A little nearer, after a minute, another voice 
 said: 
 
 *0n the alert, sentinel !' ('All' erta, sentinella!') 
 Still nearer, a third voice, sonorous and strong, 
 called out : ' 
 
 'On the alert, sentinel !' ('All' erta, sentinella !') 
 Then quite close a voice cried : 
 ' On the alert, sentinel !' ('All' erta, sentinella !') 
 At last the voice burst out under the window 
 where Rocco Traetta should have been sleeping, and 
 
ON GUAkD 167 
 
 after that others were heard further off, feebler, 
 making the round of the island. Then anew, for 
 answer, the voices sent back resoundingly this 
 answer : 
 
 *I am alert!' (* All' erta sto !') 
 
 Then all was silent. Rocco Traetta dejectedly 
 tried to patch together the torn edges of his dream. 
 But hardly had he sought in the darkness to take 
 courage again, when, in the far distance, after a 
 quarter of an hour, the first voice began again : 
 
 'On the alert, sentinel !' ('All' erta, sentinella !') 
 
 And the long-resounding, quiet voices went on 
 time about, passed again under Rocco Traetta's great 
 window, went further off, and, in the distance, after 
 making the round of the island, the answer rang out 
 clear and shrill : 
 
 'I am alert!' C All' erta sto !') 
 
 Every quarter of an hour — every quarter of an 
 hour. Like a nightmare. When these voices called 
 and answered each other one heard the noise of the 
 chains as the convicts tossed in their sleep on their 
 hard beds. But Rocco Traetta was not sleeping — no, 
 he jumped up every quarter of an hour. The soldiers' 
 honest, faithful voices said : * We are watching ; we 
 are here, armed and ready, with quick eyes ; we will 
 never let anyone escape — never ; we watch ; nothing 
 can silence our voices.' He shivered, in the dark, 
 with helpless rage ; the nightmare weighed on him. 
 Every quarter of an hour, it was terrible. On the 
 
i68 ON GUARD 
 
 Starry night, over the sea, the voices lengthened out 
 — clear, strong, faithful. He would never escape — 
 never. And in the middle of the night, conquered, 
 prostrate, hearing the voices always, the murderer's — 
 the parricide's — hard heart broke, and he wept. 
 
II 
 
 Stretched out on his easy-chair, after dinner, the 
 Governor of the Royal Prison was reading a news- 
 paper carefully from top to bottom, as slowly as if 
 he wanted to imprint it on his memory. He read it, 
 tasting it and pondering over it as people do who 
 live far from great centres, isolated, but not indifferent, 
 exiled from all society, but inquisitive about any 
 movement of life. Sometimes, however, the worthy 
 Governor, whose honest face lost its cold look in 
 private life, and only kept its natural great good- 
 nature, shook his head, as if he was reading bad 
 news. He had been an ardent patriot, a brave 
 soldier, his courage and enthusiasm still kept warm 
 in that penal servitude prison, where they had sent 
 him to wear out his energies, after the two fatalities 
 of Lissa and Custoza. These days were evil ones 
 for Italy ; her star seemed to be setting. He shook 
 his head ; he was in low spirits, for he could not 
 fight in 1866 as he had done in i860. He thought 
 any work was good, even living among convicts, if 
 used as a means of serving his country ; but he would 
 have preferred risking his life at that time for his 
 country in the field rather than quiver with helpless 
 
I70 ON GUARD 
 
 rage in Nisida. He felt melancholy, as all those who 
 are born for war and are candidly and ferociously in 
 love with it feel when they have to live off martial 
 memories, or far-off hopes of action. 
 
 * Is it bad news ?' asked his wife, who was working 
 on a baby's shift near the dining-room balcony. 
 
 * It is very bad,' he replied, without adding 
 more. 
 
 She bent her head over her work and asked no 
 more questions. She had asked that one, not 
 because she was interested in politics or war, but 
 to make som3 remark showing interest in her good 
 husband — to break the silence that had already 
 lasted too long. She was a young woman, with a 
 thoughtful, oval face, rather worn by her mother- 
 hood. She had a sHght figure, clad in a plain black 
 cloth dress. She often glanced tenderly towards the 
 baby, who was seated on the ground on a bit of 
 carpet, quietly cutting out the pictures from the 
 Emporio Pittoresco. 
 
 He was a palHd child of three years old, with soft 
 curly chestnut hair and a gentle, thoughtful look 
 like his mother's. A very quiet child, in love with 
 pictures, delighted when he could cut out any with 
 his little scissors. He did it very neatly, without 
 spoiling the figures or pricking his fingers. He kept 
 quiet for whole hours, alone, seated on the ground, 
 surrounded by scattered pages of illustrated news- 
 papers. 
 
ON GUARD 171 
 
 ' Mario !' his father called out, after gazing at him 
 some time with affectionate interest. 
 
 ' Yes, papa. What is it ?' the little son answered, 
 raising his big chestnut eyes, shining with good 
 temper, to his father. 
 
 * What are you cutting out ?' 
 
 * I am cutting out soldiers.' 
 
 * Are they handsome ones ?' 
 
 * Yes, they are lovely.' 
 
 * Come and give me a kiss.' 
 
 The child got up at once. He was tall for his age, 
 but thin — thin, like his father. He came up and 
 held out his arms to embrace him ; then, letting go, 
 he leant his head against his knee as if he wanted 
 to sleep. The little white face settled there as lightly 
 as a flower. 
 
 * Is he ill ?' Captain Gigli asked his wife. 
 
 * No, he is not,' she said at once. 
 
 * Send him outside,' he suggested. * Why does 
 he not go out every day ? Gennaro Campanile set 
 Mario's perambulator right, did he not ?' 
 
 * Yes, he did,' she said in a faint voice. 
 
 * And has he brought the bookshelf he was to have 
 had ready some days ago ?' 
 
 * Yes, he has brought it.' 
 
 * I do not see it.' 
 
 * Grazietta and I were not strong enough to lift it 
 and hang it on the wall. We are not a bit strong,' 
 she added, with a sickly smile. 
 
172 ON GUARD 
 
 * You might let Gennaro Campanile do it ; he is 
 quite strong and fit. He made the shelf; he can 
 put it in its place.' 
 
 His wife looked intently at him, and a pink flush 
 rose to her forehead. He, too, gazed at her, not 
 understanding what she meant. 
 
 * We will try to put it up ourselves,' she muttered 
 then, as if she was mortified at his forgetfulness and 
 her blush. 
 
 *You will tire yourself uselessly, girl,' said her 
 husband, with fatherly good-nature. * Send for 
 Gennaro Campanile this very day. He will come at 
 once and put up the shelf — there, to the right.' 
 
 * No, no,' she said hurriedly ; * I prefer to tire 
 myself.' 
 
 He gazed at her, now making out her meaning, 
 and a sadness came over his loving face. 
 
 *You dislike having a convict in the house?' he 
 then asked slowly. 
 
 She turned beseeching eyes to him, as if asking 
 pardon for this abhorrence. 
 
 * They are always coming about,' the young woman 
 murmured in a feeble voice. 
 
 * Do they give you a shudder ?' 
 
 * Yes; I can't bear them,' she said still more feebly. 
 ' You are not very charitable,' he said, making an 
 
 attempt to speak harshly to her. 
 
 ' I acknowledge that I am not,' she replied, putting 
 down her head, quite ashamed. 
 
ON GUARD 173 
 
 * They are men and fellow Christians, Cecilia.' 
 ' They have robbed and committed murder.' 
 
 * They are men and fellow Christians,' he repeated 
 firmly. 
 
 She said no more. She sewed feverishly, to hide 
 the trembling of her hands, and a slight pink like a 
 flame burned her cheek. The child, during that 
 silence, raised his little head and gazed at his father 
 and mother, then stretched out his arms to pull his 
 father's head towards him to kiss him. 
 
 * Do you hate the convicts, too ?' the father asked, 
 feeling moved suddenly, and petting the child's head. 
 
 His little son looked at him innocently ; he did 
 not understand the question. 
 
 ' The convicts are unhappy fellows,' his father said 
 in a whisper. 
 
 * They are unhappy fellows,' the child repeated in 
 a compassionate tone. 
 
 Now Captain Gigli folded the newspaper and shut 
 it up, putting it back in its place methodically, for 
 everyone who leads an isolated, monotonous life gets 
 to be methodical. He took a brush to dust his coat ; 
 it was time to go to his office. The child stolidly 
 followed him about. He came up to his wife to kiss 
 her, and she said to him hurriedly : 
 
 *Tell Gennaro Campanile to come, then. Send 
 him at once — about the shelf.' 
 
 * No, no ; if you don't like it, my dear,' he said, 
 petting her as if she were his daughter. 
 
174 ON GUARD 
 
 * I don't mind it — -I assure you I don't mind,' 
 Cecilia replied, pnitting a great restraint on herself. 
 
 * Leave it alone — leave it alone ; it does not 
 signify.' 
 
 ' I will go out ; I will go over the island with 
 Mario, so only Grazietta will see him.' 
 
 * That will be all right,' he said, as he went off. 
 But when her good, loving /husband had gone off 
 
 to his tiresome duty, again to live, an honest clean 
 man, among these thieves and murderers, she bent 
 her head over her child's, bathing his neck with her 
 tears. She rarely wept, only shed a few burning tears. 
 She had started bravely enough on her life as wife 
 and mother, amid these queer surroundings, where 
 deep solitude was varied by throngs of scoundrels. 
 She was a poor girl, an orphan, with no dower, who 
 lived with an old aunt and worked at home, earning 
 her own living barely enough. Captain Gigli had 
 married her for herself out of loving compassion, 
 for he had a large heart. 
 
 Had she not known that she was coming to live in 
 an island amongst convicts ? She knew it, she had 
 agreed to it, thinking she would be isolated from 
 them, and brought nearer to that good generous 
 man, who would make up to her for everything. 
 She had a woman's delicate, sensitive temperament, 
 influenced instantaneously by sorrow or tenderness ; 
 but there was a spiritual force in her soul also, the 
 strength good simple minds have. She had come to 
 
ON GUARD 175 
 
 the island with child, near her last month, and she 
 shut herself up in the house at once to avoid sights 
 that made her shudder. But no closing of doors 
 and windows had failed to shut out the nocturnal 
 voices of the watching sentinels. How many sleep- 
 less nights did she have, hearing that long, long 
 challenge repeated every quarter of an hour, in- 
 sistent, continuous, unfailing ! 
 
 In the small house that she liad decorated in a 
 simple style she sat in the evening hours, stretching 
 her ears, listening to the murmuring of the sea; 
 then she could think she was on an island, on the 
 lovely island she really lived in, between sky and sea, 
 among flowers growing on the green slopes, and 
 perfumes rising from the shore ; but an insistent, 
 implacable voice scattered her dream, telling her: 
 * Take care, this is a prison !' 
 
 What nights she had ! While Captain Gigli slept 
 placidly, taking the rest of a man who has worked 
 hard, she lay awake with open eyes waiting for the 
 sentinel's call, gazing at the feeble light of a lamp, 
 which sketched out the most frightful visions for her. 
 It was on one of these long, long nights that "little 
 Mario was born, a fragile little son, who had all her 
 delicacy of constitution, and by his pallor showed 
 traces of the nightmare — the nocturnal terrors she 
 had gone through. A part of the poetry that a son 
 brings into the house was lost ; the little one was 
 born in a prison, a place of penal servitude, among 
 
176 ON GUARD 
 
 convicts. When his mother caught him up to kiss 
 him, there was something desolate in her kisses ; she 
 seemed to want to make up to him for that sad 
 recollection, for this sorrowful stain ! Vainly, vainly 
 she tried to isolate herself; she could find no means 
 of avoiding contact with the convicts, for her son, 
 or herself. 
 
 The cradle Mario slept in had come out of the 
 carpenter's workshop that these unhappy men were 
 employed in ; his first shoes, the blessed first shoes that 
 make every mother's heart quiver with tenderness, 
 had come from a convict boot factory. What could 
 be done? The captain had not a large salary; he 
 could not always be sending to Naples, and goods 
 from the factory cost at least a third less than in 
 Naples. She, out of delicacy, with great care, tried 
 to hide her repulsion, depression and fears. When, 
 from behind the window, she smiled on her husband 
 leaving the house, and saw him at once surrounded 
 by convicts — a group come to make some appeal — 
 she got a pain at her heart ; she pressed her son in 
 her arms convulsively. The convicts were looking 
 the Governor in the face anxiously, begging some 
 favour from him. They knew that he was the best 
 of them all ; he was cold but gentle, severe but 
 never cruel. However, she read threats and anger 
 in these eyes. Alas ! nothing would ever convince 
 her that the men had lost the habit of shedding 
 blood ; she would not be persuaded that they had no 
 
ON GUARD 177 
 
 knives up their sleeves. She never let her child go 
 out with Grazietta — never. She always thought 
 that in revenge for being shut up there — from an 
 animal thirst for blood, an instinct for murder — one 
 of these assassins would kill him one day. She 
 used to go out, carrying him in her arms like a humble 
 woman of the people, without feeling the fatigue, 
 and when she met a convict she cast down her eyes. 
 They bowed to her, pulling off their caps, stopping 
 to look at the pretty little fellow, yielding to the sweet 
 paternal instinct that is in the heart of the greatest 
 scoundrels. But she hurried on, frightened, almost 
 running off with the child. One convict she was 
 always meeting on the road was a great, robust 
 young fellow, with a colourless face, very womanly 
 blue eyes, and red hair : she was always meeting this 
 life-sentenced man in a red cap. It seemed almost 
 as if he waited for the young mother and child — 
 that tall convict, with the gentle eyes ; and when she 
 passed, gazed and gazed, standing still, until she had 
 turned the corner of the long road. 
 
 Time went by ; she managed to subdue her fears, 
 but never to conquer them. Fragile and pensive, 
 she gently tried to get over her low spirits, and her 
 husband always found her affectionate and patient at 
 home. She was ashamed to own to her disgust, 
 ashamed of her fears ; she feared it was a reproach 
 to the good, generous man who had taken her out of 
 wretchedness, from an uncertain future, only to cast 
 
 12 
 
178 ON GUARD 
 
 her into prison. He got a glimpse of this feeling of 
 repulsion sometimes, and tried to conquer it ; he was 
 grieved, and had a vague feeling of remorse. So his 
 wife's heart closed as if it was smothered. 
 
 Only sometimes Cecilia was struck by a vague 
 remorse. She really was a very good woman, 
 religiously devoted to her duty, compassionate of 
 all wickedness, and when she managed to subdue 
 her repulsion and fears she called herself to account 
 for her own injustice and cruelty. Convicts were 
 human creatures as well as herself; her husband 
 often told her so. He had a just heart, though 
 he was severe with them ; he told her gently this 
 truth : that they were men and Christians, perhaps 
 more unlucky than guilty. Full of grief and repent- 
 ance, Cecilia made up her mind to bear the sight of 
 them calmly when walking on the island, and to bow 
 to them when they took off their caps. For a short 
 time, alas ! — only for a short time ! If on the leafy 
 slopes, where she set her baby down to pick daisies 
 with his innocent fingers, she got enchanted, gazing 
 at the stretch of sea, whilst Mario now and then gave 
 a happy shriek, because he had caught an insect — 
 if in that dreamy forgetfulness a man suddenly 
 appeared dressed in brick-red, dragging heavily a 
 thick chain, she kept down a frightened shriek at 
 being brusquely drawn out of her peaceful dreams ; 
 she grew pale, as in fear of death, and took the boy 
 hurriedly from the ground to carry him off. That 
 
ON GUARD 179 
 
 countryside, the sea, the flowers, the whole land- 
 scape, branded all of a sudden by the presence of an 
 assassin, made her shudder. What was to be done ? 
 It was stronger than herself. Only in her husband's 
 presence, as much as she could, she held in her 
 feelings, knowing that she was ungrateful — that she 
 indirectly insulted him. She respected him as the 
 very model of justice and goodness, but she was a 
 poor weak woman, with no courage, imprisoned, 
 shut up on that island, in that land of shame, 
 sorrow, and punishment, where everything was 
 spoilt by the terrible society — country and home, both 
 her wifely and maternal love. 
 
 But just that day she was more full of remorse 
 than ever. In regard to her husband she had been 
 ungrateful, almost reproaching him with his kindness 
 to her. He had spoken, not harshly, but seriously. 
 How much better he was than herself! Her few 
 burning tears — tears of repentance — had wet her 
 baby's neck, and he, accustomed to these lonely 
 outbursts of his mother's, and himself a fragile, 
 melancholy child, went on saying in a whisper, 
 petting her with his cool little fingers : 
 
 ' Don't cry, mamma — don't cry !' 
 
 *No, I am not crying,' said she, drying her eyes 
 and getting up. * Now mother will take Mario out 
 walking.' 
 
 * Take me in the go-cart, mother — in the go-cart !' 
 shouted the child, catching hold of Cecilia's petticoats. 
 
 12 — 2 
 
i8o ON GUARD 
 
 * Yes, dear, in the go-cart,' she repeated, keeping 
 back a sigh. 
 
 For it was a rough child's perambulator, made 
 coarsely by convict joiners and smiths, with more iron 
 than wood in it, and noisy, like the chains they wore 
 joined to the ankle and belt — a cart that was heavy 
 and difficult to push, going crooked every moment. 
 When he was in it, little Mario was so happy he 
 never wanted to get out again ; he was thin, rather 
 weak on the legs, and was delighted to lie on the 
 cushions that his mother had stuffed herself to make 
 them soft. He was happy, getting himself taken 
 along in the cart for whole hours, all over the large 
 island, half shutting his eyes, slumbering in the felt 
 hood which kept his ears warm. The mother, being 
 delicate, got tired after a little, but baby wakened at 
 once from his half-sleep, and shouted : 
 
 * Push, mother — push ! ' 
 
 *Wait a moment, Mario,' she said, breathing 
 deeply. 
 
 She stood leaning her hands on the iron bar, 
 resting ; but at once, in a beseeching tone, the baby 
 began again : 
 
 * Push, mother — push ; please do !' 
 
 She set on her way again courageously, without a 
 sigh. She never would have dared to send Mario 
 out alone in the go-cart with Grazietta the servant, 
 and it was impossible for both to go with him. 
 Work had to be done in the house; also she was 
 
ON GUARD l8i 
 
 rather afraid to leave it empty. So that day, as on 
 many others, she had the heavy cart carried down the 
 steps in front of the door, where the child got into 
 it with a merry leap, and threw himself down, full 
 of delight. His mother put on cape and gloves, 
 and threw a rug over the child's knees. Grazietta, 
 a maidservant of forty, a silent woman, stood look- 
 ing on. 
 
 * Gennaro Campanile is coming to put up the 
 bookshelf,' said her mistress, with an effort. * Be 
 careful ; keep watch !' 
 
 The woman gave a slight smile; she knew her 
 mistress's fears. Grazietta was a convict's wife ; 
 he had slain a man in a brawl ; and, quietly faithful, 
 she had followed him everywhere, from Portolongo 
 to Ischia, from there to Nisida, making unheard-of 
 efforts to take service in the same island, and always 
 managing it in some queer way, by a miracle of 
 strong will and obstinacy. So whatever she earned 
 she made use of to give to her husband. Thus two- 
 thirds of her food went to him, and this sacrifice was 
 carried out silently, almost in an underhand way, 
 she was so much afraid of being sent away from the 
 island. The convict, a black-visaged man with a 
 ferocious air, came cautiously to the kitchen-grating, 
 carried off a covered plate of bread and fruit, and 
 went off into a corner to devour it greedily. She 
 came in from him quite happy, content almost to 
 fast herself; and when her mistress, involuntarily, 
 
i82 ON GUARD 
 
 showed her fear of the convicts, Grazietta shook her 
 head. As a woman of experience, she pitied the 
 lady's timid youth, being convinced that murderers 
 were unlucky and not guilty — convinced that the 
 misfortune might happen to anyone. 
 
 'Where do you wish to go?' CeciHa asked the 
 child before starting. 
 
 * Over there — there,' said he, pointing in front of 
 him. 
 
 The Nisida roads were as broad as any in a 
 small town, with levelled pavements, shaded here and 
 there by acacia-trees, which in October were still 
 green. The houses — abodes of officials, contractors, 
 heads of workshops, and warders — of one or two 
 stories high, had a pretty appearance, like coquettish 
 country nests ; the great body of the general prison 
 — dormitories, dining -halls, galleries, infirmaries, 
 prisons — stood in the middle, tall and dark, like a 
 rock overshadowing all these villas. Sometimes in a 
 bend of the road that surrounds Nisida, among the 
 houses and trees, there was a long view of the sunny 
 sea — a fresh, smiling vision. The little boy stretched 
 out in the go-cart opened his eyes wide, almost 
 laughing, and muttered vaguely : 
 
 * Go there . . . there.' 
 
 His mother pushed the perambulator slowly ; she 
 was seized by an overwhelming nervous excitement. 
 She bowed mechanically to some official's wife, a 
 contractor's daughter, and passed on, still slowly, 
 
ON GUARD 183 
 
 gazing at the sea, which was her child's dream too. 
 Sometimes a soldier passed, or some convicts — the 
 ones that could go about freely. She acknowledged 
 their greetings, bending her head a little ; the child 
 touched his cap and smiled. But just at one place 
 her faintness overpowered her ; she had to let go the 
 handle of the cart, and sit down on a stone seat, 
 nearly fainting. It was an almost deserted place 
 where the houses ended and the country part of 
 Nisida began. The child looked at his mother, 
 seeing her so pale and her eyes half shut ; he hardly 
 dared to murmur in rather a cowed and frightened 
 way : 
 
 ' Push, mamma — push the cart !' 
 
 * In a little,' she said in a low voice ; it was like 
 a sigh, and Mario did not hear her. 
 
 * My lady, may I wheel the go-cart ?' said a humble 
 but manly voice. 
 
 Where had that convict with the fair complexion 
 and gentle blue eyes come from so suddenly ? What 
 was he asking ? What did he want ? She looked at 
 him in a dreamy way, frightened, as if he were a 
 ghost. 
 
 * Your little boy is heavy,' muttered the convict, 
 still more humbly, * and so is the go-cart. My lady, 
 I can wheel it.' 
 
 She understood then. Getting pallid again, with 
 lips pressed together, she said : 
 
 * No, you may not.' 
 
i84 ON GUARD 
 
 He looked at her, said nothing for a minute, then 
 began again humbly but obstinately : 
 
 * It is not work for your hands. Let me carry the 
 little chap.' 
 
 * No, you are not to,' she said again angrily. 
 
 * Please forgive my boldness ; I could carry him 
 without tiring him. Don't be afraid,' he ended up 
 by saying, in such a gentle voice it seemed full of 
 tears. 
 
 * I am not afraid of anything,' she said dryly, 
 getting up; *but I don't want you to carry my 
 child.' 
 
 She got up resolutely, beginning again with a heroic 
 struggle to wheel the go-cart. He gave his arm a 
 wave, which made the chain hanging from his waist 
 clatter disagreeably ; but he said nothing, watching 
 the mother and child go off. She was still quivering 
 with anger, as if the very humility with which the 
 convict had offered his services was an insult to her. 
 Now they were right in the country, in a lane among 
 fields, where two or three officers' horses came to 
 graze among the cart-horses used for bringing up 
 provisions from the shore. 
 
 * Mother,' said the baby reflectively. 
 
 * What is it, dear, that you wish ?' 
 
 * Why did you say *' No " to that convict ?' 
 ' Just because I chose to.' 
 
 The child said no more ; he felt that his mother's 
 voice was troubled. 
 
ON GUARD 185 
 
 *Now you are tired of wheeling me, mother,' he 
 remarked in a little. 
 
 * No, dear, I am not.' 
 
 * Lift me out, mother ; put me down.' 
 
 * Stay in the cart, dear — stay in it. We are going 
 further on ; I will take a rest then.' 
 
 They went on a bit, still in silence; they had 
 passed already two or three sentry-boxes. The baby 
 always looked at the soldiers, and smiled to them. 
 ' Mamma,' he said again. 
 . * What is it, dear ?' 
 
 * That convict wanted to carry me about, far away 
 — you know.' 
 
 * Yes, yes, I know.' 
 
 * He is an unhappy fellow,' Mario remarked, looking 
 her in the face. 
 
 * Who said that to you ?' 
 
 ' Father told me,' he replied triumphantly. 
 
 She held down her head, without making any 
 remark. 
 
 'Are the soldiers unhappy fellows, too, mother?' 
 asked the baby, after thinking it over. 
 
 *The soldiers are honest men,' she answered 
 quickly. 
 
 * So,' said the httle one, ' convicts are unhappy 
 fellows and soldiers are honest men. What am I, 
 mother ? Am I a little chap ?' 
 
 * You are my dear little boy,' she said, embracing 
 and kissing him tenderly. 
 
i86 ON GUARD 
 
 They had come to quite a green field, fresh and 
 full of flowers ; a little wall that rose half a man's 
 height divided it from the other field at the side. 
 Cecilia stopped, utterly tired, and sank down to sit 
 on the grass. The baby looked at the grass, flowers, 
 and sea, as if he were thinking : he was too thoughtful 
 and solemn for his age. A sharp scent of flowers was 
 in the air — these roses that grow in the four seasons, 
 they bud in a day, and live passionately for one day 
 only — also a smell of mint, the most common wild 
 herb in Nisida. 
 
 Cecilia recovered from her weariness, while the 
 child in the cart half slumbered. 
 
 * What a scent of flowers !' she said, as if to herself. 
 
 There were some in the field they were in, but 
 there must have been more in the field alongside 
 which the wall kept them out of; perhaps it was a 
 garden, as a partition had been put up. Taken with 
 curiosity, she got up. To her first of all astonished, 
 then frightened, eyes a sight, sad at first, then terrible, 
 appeared. It was a great sloping field, badly en- 
 closed by a little wall of building material, thrown 
 over here and there and become a heap of rubbish, 
 eaten into by weeds that had taken root in it, cor- 
 roded by the rain, beaten down by the wind — in 
 short, a miserable barrier that no longer prevented 
 men or animals from getting in, and perhaps no 
 longer marked the limits of the field. The grass was 
 growing in irregular tufts on curiously uneven ground; 
 
ON GUARD 187 
 
 it swelled out in places and fell in again in waves, 
 like the sea in a storm ; among the grass grew the 
 perennial rose, but the summer poppies were over, 
 only the black crackling berry of the soporific was 
 left on the thin stem. There was a sharp perfume of 
 wild flowers, weeds, and roses — the strong smell 
 neglected fields have where no one goes for months 
 and years, where vegetation gets soured and spreads 
 out in a solitary way, dying, coming to life again, dying 
 down, free, forgotten, neglected, accursed perhaps. 
 Cecilia gazed at it with astonished eyes ; she searched 
 well and better, trying to understand the mystery of 
 that field, so curiously moved about, like sea waves, 
 surrounded by a wall, but still abandoned by men. 
 She saw, noticed, that at every little distance, at 
 four or five points in the deserted field, stood a 
 small wooden cross that had once been black, but 
 time and rough weather had discoloured and twisted 
 it. A dirty yellow card was tied to some of these 
 crosses, on which, written by hand, in large, ill- 
 formed characters, were two initials and a cipher — 
 the one the dead had carried about in life, the cipher 
 man's justice had assigned him instead of a name. 
 
 The crosses seemed thrown down pell-mell, as if 
 by the wind's caprice or man's forgetfulness ; per- 
 haps, having once fallen down, and been found on 
 the ground, they were put up again by chance, 
 where the body they ought to have covered with 
 their little sacred shadow no longer existed perhaps. 
 
i88 ON GUARD 
 
 But Cecilia was still looking, as if a secret presenti- 
 ment of grief and terror told her there was still 
 something to be seen. Looking intently, she saw 
 — saw distinctly — among the yellow earth and green 
 grass, white as a bit of ivory, some human bones. 
 Carelessly buried, slightly covered with earth over 
 the ill-made coffins, by the natural movement of 
 the ground bearing increase, by the frightful motion 
 of decomposition, the dead were coming out anew on 
 the earth, and their white bones sparkled in the sun. 
 The convicts* graveyard had no sexton. Beside the 
 fragrant odour of wild thyme, the big roses with 
 falling petals, these queer human sprouts came up ; 
 no merciful spade put them back again in the ground. 
 She saw them in every direction ; so all-powerful, 
 they seemed to have pierced through the ground 
 forcibly; so overflowing, the fearful eye dreaded to 
 see the entire outhned skeleton rismg from the 
 ground. 
 
 Cecilia gazed with wide-open eyes at this horrid 
 vegetation of dead folk, on this chastisement of the 
 world's, that smites even after death, that does not 
 allow a murderer's corpse even the mercy of a deep 
 grave, the care any other corpse gets; denies even 
 the last repose to bones that are bare of flesh. The 
 convicts' graveyard did not even have the care of a 
 convict gardener ; the corpse was put in hastily, 
 enclosed in four unconnected planks ; no one came 
 to work or to pray there ; the dead came out as if 
 
i89 
 
 these' prisohers' boiies^imci kept a final, bit^ longing 
 for liberty. - 
 
 (yecilia, besides feeling the md^^agonizing, pity, 
 had a frightful vision in that,.^itude of herself, her 
 husband 'and child beinfaead and buried in that 
 fi^ld, that seemed accursed by God and man — buried 
 'without compassion or proper care, amid wild vege- 
 tation, in that land beaten on %;;Btrn-an<i wind. She 
 jliad a vision of three neglected corpses rising up 
 * again, bringing their bones to light amongst those of 
 thieves and murderers. A loud cry of grief and fear 
 formed in her breast, but it did not come out ; it was 
 choked ; and she fell down, like lead, along the wall, 
 her face in the grass. 
 
 When she started up and opened her (eyes, , amid 
 the great silence, she only heard a rustling. Her 
 infant was still lying in his go-cart/ but his eyes were 
 ^open and he was smiling all over at that great ^> tall' 
 ionvict with the red hair and fair complexion. Who 
 was lying on the grass, fanning him with a big vine- 
 leaf for coolness and to keep off the flies. As the 
 vine-leaf passed, the little boy half shut his eyes and 
 opened them again, giving a silent giggle. Twice 
 looking at his mother, lying at full length, he saidi 
 * Hush ! mother is sleeping.' 
 
 So the convict shook the vine-leaf more gently 
 over\the baby's face, not to make a noise. That 
 great body, dressed in reddish linen, stretched on 
 the grass, looked as if it belonged to a good-natured 
 
 -^ 
 
190 ON GUARD 
 
 childish giant. Further away, among the flowers, 
 was thrown his red cap that bore the figures 417 ; 
 it looked like a poppy — a big, late poppy. 
 
 Cecilia felt nothing but great weariness when she 
 woke ; she leant on her elbow and looked at her 
 son and the convict without anger or fear. Rocco 
 Traetta got to his feet and stood embarrassed, rolling 
 the vine-leaf between his fingers. The remembrance 
 of what she had seen came back to her entirely, but 
 without making her tremble ; only a slight quiver 
 came over her flesh. 
 
 * Let us go on,' she said, getting up. 
 
 And with a gentle air she pointed at the go-cart 
 to Rocco. He picked up his hat quickly and began 
 to wheel the cart joyfully. She came behind, weakly 
 letting herself go. She was conquered, subdued. 
 
Ill 
 
 Slowly, speaking to each other in a low voice, 
 Captain Gigli, Governor of the Royal Penal Estab- 
 lishment of Nisida, and the Royal Inspector of 
 Prisons, Signor Colonna, were going over the island 
 roads that November mid-day. The inspector was 
 staying at Nisida for three or four days, living in the 
 Governor's own house. He was a Piedmontese of 
 about fifty, very methodical and scrupulous. He 
 carried out his work rather in a bureaucratic way, 
 asking very minutely about everything, wanting to 
 discuss everything, analyzing the smallest things. 
 Gentle and patient, submissive to a will-power he 
 deeply respected. Captain Gigli never left the in- 
 spector, giving him all the information and explana- 
 tions he required, providing him with registers and 
 accounts, so that his report on Nisida should be a 
 complete bit of work. 
 
 * Taking things generally, you seem to me to be 
 satisfied,' the inspector remarked in his guttural tone 
 of voice, that was pleasing enough, too. 
 
 ' Fairly so, sir. Everything seems easier if you 
 put your heart in it.' 
 
 * You are quite content to stay here, then ?' 
 
192 ON GUARD 
 
 * As long as they leave me here,' he muttered 
 rather vaguely. 
 
 * I think that your wife is not so well satisfied to 
 be here,' Colonna remarked. 
 
 * That is the case, poor thing,' replied Gigli, with 
 a softening of his voice. * She is rather delicate in 
 health and fanciful. To begin with, she found the 
 surroundings unbearable.' 
 
 * Is she accustomed to them now ?' 
 
 ' She is, rather, I think. Of course, it is impos- 
 sible I could make a change in a naturally melan- 
 choly temperament. Now she seems to me sadder ; 
 but she is resigned, poor girl ! She is very good- 
 hearted.' 
 
 * Perhaps she should be sent to Naples,' the in- 
 spector remarked, without taking notice of the words 
 which showed emotion. 
 
 * My means will not allow of it,' Captain Gigli 
 said shortly. 
 
 They said no more. They had come to a little 
 square where a new building was springing up, 
 erected by the convicts themselves. They were going 
 and coming, carrying pails of lime, bending under 
 stones, climbing the ladders quickly. 
 
 * Do they work willingly ?' Colonna asked. 
 
 *Not all of them. I have about fifty men, the 
 most ungovernable and dangerous ones, that I have 
 found it impossible to get any work out of.' 
 
 * Did you make use of coercion ?' 
 
ON GUARD 193 
 
 * I did. It made them more bitter, but it did not 
 subdue them.' 
 
 ' What can be the reason of that ? Can you think 
 of any cause ?' 
 
 * They are the prisoners that have always led a 
 vagabond life, living off theft and rapine. For them 
 work is an intolerable thing. I will call up one of 
 them.' Turning to a convict sitting on a stone 
 munching a bit of bread, he called to him : ' Calama !' 
 
 He did not turn round, not even at the second call. 
 Gigli repressed an impatient shrug. 
 
 * Ingannalamorte ' (Cheat death). 
 
 Then the convict got up. He was little and fat, 
 with a protruding stomach and mean, short legs ; 
 his head was big, his nose flat, and his hair like the 
 bristles of a brush, standing straight up from the 
 forehead ; his eyes were colourless. He kept his 
 cap on, and went on eating, not at all put out by 
 Gigli and the inspector's presence. 
 
 * What is your name ?' the inspector asked in a 
 severe tone. 
 
 ' Ingannalamorte,' the convict said in a hoarse 
 voice. 
 
 ' Have you no other name ?' 
 
 ' The other is of no account,' said he contemptu- 
 ously. 
 
 * How is it that you will not work ?' 
 
 ' Ingannalamorte never has worked !' ' 
 
 * However, the law sentenced you to hard labour.' 
 
 13 
 
194 ON GUARD 
 
 * The law can force me to stay here — that can't be 
 helped. But it must come to an end, by God !' 
 
 ' Do not blaspheme. You are bound to work.' 
 
 * To stay here is all right ; I can't avoid it. I 
 have to carry this chain, too ; it is the watch that 
 Vittorio makes us a present of. But wear myself 
 out, by Gad ! — no, never !' 
 
 This was said with sulky energy. 
 
 * It might get you good marks if you worked,' said 
 Colonna. 
 
 ' What is the use of good marks ? I still have 
 twenty years to serve. But who knows if I will do 
 it all ?' he added in a challenging tone. 
 
 ' How so ?' 
 
 * Oh, so many things may happen ! I may die ; 
 I might escape, too.' 
 
 * There is no escaping from Nisida,' Captain Gigli 
 said to him, very gently, but firmly. 
 
 * Men do escape,' said the convict triumphantly — 
 * or one may die. But you know, sir, one did escape.' 
 
 The inspector questioned the Governor with a 
 look. He gave an assenting glance. 
 
 * Only one, of course,' the haughty convict went 
 on ; ' but where one gets through, so can another. 
 It all depends on not being carrion, as they all are 
 here — on making a great leap. And then, will this 
 law always last ? Will this Government last ?' 
 
 * That is enough !' said the inspector severely. 
 The man shrugged his shoulders, and went off. 
 
ON GUARD 195 
 
 ' He is ungovernable — quite,' said Captain Gigli. 
 ' I have at least fifty like that.' 
 
 * Have they never risen in revolt ?' 
 ' Once they did.' 
 
 * Once only, was it ?' 
 
 * They all think themselves great men ; they scorn 
 the law and the sentence passed on them ; and 
 among them everyone wants to take the lead, so 
 that they do not easily agree to act together. That 
 gives me a weapon against them.' 
 
 * Still, they did rise in revolt ?' 
 
 * Yes, they did.' 
 
 * Was the revolt put down at once ?' 
 
 * No, it was not.' 
 
 * Did anything happen ?' 
 
 * I was wounded by a stone on the head.' 
 
 * You went down among the mutineers, then V 
 
 * Yes ; it was my work,' Captain Gigli said simply. 
 ' How did you induce them to submit ?' 
 
 * I spoke to them ; I let them speak. They wished 
 to see their families oftener — once a month instead 
 of every two months. It was a just request, so I 
 granted it.' 
 
 * You did right. Do their families come often V 
 
 * Very seldom, and very few of them at all. There 
 are convicts belonging to far-off provinces who never 
 have a visitor ; others, Naples men, see their people 
 every six months ; some committed murder in their 
 own family, so no one comes, of course. There is 
 
 13—2 
 
196 ON GUARD 
 
 Rocco Traetta, called Sciurillo, who killed his 
 father ; he is a well-behaved young man ; he is 
 always writing to his mother, entreating her to 
 come and see him. His letters go through my 
 hands ; sometimes they are heartrending.' 
 
 * Has his mother ever come ?' 
 
 * No, never. She has not even answered the con- 
 vict's letters.' 
 
 * That is natural,' said the stern Piedmontese. 
 
 * Who knows ?' said Gigli thoughtfully. ' Mothers 
 are so queer, and unnatural sometimes in their 
 maternal love. I, too, thought for a time that 
 she would come. Her son still thinks so ; he sup- 
 poses that his letters have gone astray, or that his 
 mother has to work and can't come ; that she has 
 no money to get to Nisida, or that she is just on the 
 point of coming.' 
 
 * Does Traetta tell you all that ?' 
 
 * He tells my child,' replied Gigli, smiling. 
 
 * What ! he tells your child ?' 
 
 * Yes ; Traetta is always about him, with the 
 fidelity and love that big dogs have for children.' 
 
 * Do you leave your child with him ?' 
 
 * Yes ; I think it is always better to treat them 
 as men and Christians. Who can do harm to an 
 innocent child ? The baby, too, gets more humane ; 
 it is a way of making him courageous.' 
 
 * You have queer notions,' the inspector observed, 
 with an incredulous smile. 
 
ON GUARD 197 
 
 They had got to a door of the great prison building ; 
 they had to visit the infirmary, which was on the last 
 floor. As they were going up, they still met convicts, 
 holding tumblers and plates. 
 
 ' I appoint them to serve the sick in the little 
 hospital.' 
 
 ' Do you think that is a good plan ?' 
 
 * They understand each other better. The con- 
 tinual presence of the warders exasperates the 
 quietest. With the sick I try to avoid it.' 
 
 ' You will have lots of sham invalids.' 
 
 * Very often ; but it is a sham easy to detect.' 
 The convicts' hospital consisted of one single 
 
 large room, with four big windows opening on to 
 the sea ; the floor was of beaten earth, very black ; 
 the wal)s simply whitewashed ; but the beds were 
 more comfortable than the ones that the healthy 
 men had ; there was not the usual sack with blue 
 and white lines, swollen out with rusthng maize 
 leaves, but a thin woollen mattress and not such 
 coarse sheets. Eight or ten convicts were lying sick, 
 motionless, and silent in their beds, gazing at the 
 sea, which could be seen from all the windows, 
 with rather dreamy eyes. One of them, a scraggy, 
 yellowish man, called the Governor in a feeble voice. 
 ' Sir, why do you not do me the kindness of order- 
 ing a bit of meat for me ? I have not eaten any for 
 such a long time !' 
 
 * You will get it if the doctor orders it. 
 
 .'<^: 
 
 iV//l^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 -■( 
 
 
 /^0D\^^^'^ 
 
198 ON GUARD 
 
 * Do me another favour. Have me placed opposite 
 the sea, so that I can see it ; my back is turned to 
 it, and I feel an oppression — a weighing on me.' 
 
 He complained in a thin little voice, groaning and 
 sighing, repeating his requests, repeating the words, 
 shaking his lean head. The other sick men, who 
 were saying nothing, looked at him with rather 
 astonished, bored eyes. The inspector, saying 
 nothing, wandered round the beds, looking at every- 
 thing, while the whimpering convict still asked for 
 something, insistently. 
 
 'Not to be able even to smoke a pipe with this 
 fine sea air, to digest these four beans they give us !' 
 
 * Have you no tobacco ?' Captain Gigli asked him, 
 with fine patience. 
 
 * Who would give it to me — who will give it to 
 me, poor chap ? If I had even that good soul, my 
 wife, she would think of sending me some sous !' 
 
 * If you behave well — if you don't complain, as you 
 do, from morning to night, whether you are well or 
 ill — I will buy some tobacco for you.' 
 
 ' Have I not good reason to complain, sir ?' the 
 convict went on groaning. * You are kind, that can't 
 be denied ; but does this seem a life for a Christian ? 
 And then, this chain that we can never take off — 
 never, even when the Lord chastens us by making 
 us ill ! This chain, this chain ! Would that an angel 
 might come and take it from me !' 
 
 He was still groaning, but when he mentioned the 
 
ON GUARD 199 
 
 chain a deep sigh came from all these breasts that 
 had the cold contact of the iron against their flesh. 
 
 * He is very tiresome,' said Captain Gigli, * but he 
 is always ill ; I give him some privileges because of 
 that.' 
 
 ' Did his wife die when he was here ?' asked the 
 inspector, as they were going downstairs on their 
 way out. 
 
 ' He killed her himself. He was a snow-seller of 
 Caserta — they call him Ciccio, the snow-man. To 
 break the lump of snow, these people use a broad, 
 thin-edged hatchet, with which they strike, giving 
 frequent blows. It was with that he nearly cut off 
 his wife's head.' 
 
 * Was it out of jealousy ?' 
 
 * Yes, of a corporal. He was arrested at once. 
 When he heard she was dead he wept like a child. 
 Here, too, he cries sometimes, and shouts out that 
 he would have done better to forgive her; that he 
 does forgive her ; that he would like to bring her to 
 life, and always keep together.' 
 
 * He must be an awful bore,' remarked the in- 
 spector, as they took the road for returning to the 
 controlling offices again. 
 
 They were silent, walking slowly. A great twilight 
 calm was around them. The grayish November day 
 was wearing away to its last hours. 
 
 * What a lot of windows looking on to the sea !' 
 said Colonna, as if speaking to himself ; ' the whole 
 
200 ON GUARD 
 
 island seems so easy to land at and get away from. 
 How is it that the convicts don't think of escape?' 
 
 ' They all do think of it,' said Gaptain Gigli in 
 a low voice ; ' the quietest, most industrious, in- 
 different, the most absent-minded and hypocritical, 
 think of it constantly. You understand, they feel as 
 if they were free, for I let them go and come ; they 
 wander about everywhere. You always find some of 
 them rapt up gazing at the sea, and I guess from 
 their absorption and drawing their eyebrows together 
 that they are calculating the distance in their minds, 
 the depth of the water, how far it is' to Bagnoli, how 
 far to Procida.' 
 
 ' Still, the island seems little guarded.' 
 
 ' It may seem so,' said the Governor, smiling ; 
 * but come and look at the height of it.' And guiding 
 him, after crossing two streets, he led him to the 
 very edge. The height of it made one dizzy ; the 
 sea beneath seemed an abyss. * It is like that all 
 round and round,' he said, ' and every hundred paces 
 there is a sentinel, night and day. At night more 
 are put on. Every quarter of an hour they challenge 
 each other. Running away seems the easiest thing 
 in the world to these unhappy fellows till they get 
 to the edge ; there they have to throw themselves 
 down into the sea. They are too much afraid to 
 leap. Once one was found in a swoon in the grass.' 
 
 ' Still, flight has been attempted ?' 
 
 ' Yes, there have been eight or ten of them who 
 
ON GUARD 20I 
 
 have tried it, of whom at least half were caught by 
 the sentinel before they threw themselves down ; the 
 other four carried it out to the very end, but there 
 was only one who was successful.' 
 
 * Was he not caught ?' 
 
 * No ; he was a Naples sailor, of Santa Lucia, of 
 the kind who from their childhood go to the bottom 
 of the sea to pick up bits of money — even sous. 
 They are divers from infancy, called sommozzatori. 
 We never got him again. He must have gone to 
 some foreign country on a merchant ship, and 
 stayed there.' 
 
 * What about the other three ?' 
 
 ' All of them were killed. A sentinel told me that 
 the cry he heard, as one of them went down, was so 
 agonizing, he knew at once that the man escaping 
 was dead. In fact, we have always found them next 
 day dead on the rocks.' 
 
 ' That would be a healthy example for the others.' 
 ^ We brought up the smashed bodies, which caused 
 great horror. But what does it matter ? they are 
 always dreaming about making their escape. What 
 we oppose to it is just the fear of death. They have 
 a horror of dying here in the prison, all of them. I 
 must say that our cemetery gives one a shudder. In 
 spite of all my efforts, I have not found a convict — 
 I have not induced either a convict or a soldier to 
 take charge of the little graveyard. The wall has 
 fallen in most places ; not one of the bricklayer 
 
202 ON GUARD 
 
 convicts will set it up again. I punished them, but 
 it was no use. It gives the soldiers a shudder, too. 
 They are in low spirits, at any rate, from the gaoler's 
 life they lead here ; I do not want to oblige them to 
 do sadder work. I would like to be authorized by 
 my superiors to go to the expense of a cemetery- 
 keeper — any sort of peasant ; but I never get a reply 
 to my letters on this subject. I assure you, sir, that 
 the very sight of this frightful graveyard makes the 
 convict's slightest wish of running away pass for a 
 time. You ought to interest yourself about it in 
 your report.' 
 
 * I will see — I will see,' replied Colonna vaguely. 
 
 On the house balcony, whence, between two 
 buildings opposite, one saw a corner of the sea, 
 they had spread a linen awning carefully to shelter 
 it from sun and damp. When little Mario was taken 
 at times with the great indolence that came from 
 weakness, when he refused everything, and would 
 not play, walk, sleep, or go in the perambulator, 
 and got buried in melancholy, taciturn ponderings 
 over things that not even his mother could make 
 out, then they carried him in his easy-chair, with his 
 toys and book of pictures, on to the balcony, where 
 striped carnations, heartsease, flaming red geraniums, 
 sweet-smelling marjoram and sweet basil bloomed in 
 pots. They could leave the child alone, too, on the 
 balcony for whole hours ; he did not call for anyone. 
 
ON GUARD 203 
 
 He kept quiet, turning over now and then, with a 
 white, almost transparent, hand, his book of pictures, 
 or sat looking at the sea, dumb and motionless. 
 
 His pallid mother stared then, with uneasy eyes, 
 at her low-spirited infant, and sometimes, seized by 
 a strange fright, she came to kneel in front of his 
 chair, surrounding him with her loving motherly 
 arms, and questioned him anxiously. 
 
 * What is the matter with you ?' 
 
 * I have nothing the matter with me, mother.' 
 
 * Do you feel ill ?' 
 
 * No, mother, I do not.' 
 
 * Really, do you not feel ill ?' 
 
 * Not a bit, mother,' replied the Httle fellow, smiling 
 with angelic patience, like a big, wise, loving lad. 
 
 * Are you pleased, Mario ?' 
 
 * Yes, I am, quite.' 
 
 * You would like to go to Naples, would you not ?' 
 
 * Yes, I would, mother.' 
 
 * Oh, my darling — my darling !' she said, kissing 
 him despairingly. 
 
 * But it is nice here, too — here as well,' the child 
 repeated, embracing his mother, and leaning his 
 cheek on her shoulder. 
 
 ' Poor darling ! poor dear !' — as if a great grief for 
 the child was wringing her heart. 
 
 * It is very nice here,' he said mechanically, like a 
 good, reasonable lad that does not want to put any- 
 one about. 
 
204 ON GUARD 
 
 But his mother was not quite convinced. Every 
 time that she saw her son palhd and silent a sharp 
 grief went through her ; she always thought : ' It is 
 the prison, the fault of the prison.' No, no, nothing 
 could prevent her from dwelling on this frightful 
 thought. Her youth, gaiety, her withered illusions 
 were gone for ever. She would never enjoy again 
 a single hour of giddy happiness, the great simple 
 time that is granted to the humblest destinies, the 
 hour of fervent youth. But what did it matter about 
 herself now ? Her agony was for that little son, a 
 delicate flower born in a convict atmosphere, grow- 
 ing up amidst that cruel endless tragedy of hundreds 
 of chained men ; a poor flower, for ever blighted 
 by a poisonous atmosphere. Of course, the child 
 guessed it ; his melancholy, so sad in a child, the 
 blight on his health, was caused by that. ' It is the 
 gaol,' the mother thought to herself. Still, as the 
 father wished it, as the child himself sometimes was 
 amused by him, she allowed Rocco Traetta to wheel 
 the go-cart, to keep the child company on the 
 balcony, and try to mend his broken toys. Silent 
 and humble, Rocco Traetta slid through the house, 
 keeping the chain tight against his leg not to let it 
 chink, taking up as little room as possible, keeping 
 out of Cecilia's way, for he could feel her dislike. 
 He always went after the child like a shadow, gazing 
 in his eyes so fixedly and tenderly, his glance was 
 like a woman's — a mother's. Every day he came to 
 
ON GUARD 205 
 
 the Governor's house and stood at the door, without 
 going in or knocking, waiting like a dog that is to 
 have a bone thrown to him, but dare not ask for it, 
 having to trust to man's merciful remembrance. 
 Sometimes Grazietta passed and told him : 
 
 * Come in.' 
 
 Sometimes no one went by, and he stood an hour 
 there, stiff as a statue. He was very happy when 
 Cecilia, going on to the balcony, saw him, and, 
 knowing that he had been there some time, said, 
 keeping down her natural dislike to him : 
 
 * Come up, then.' 
 
 That strong young fellow's imploring glance, ask- 
 ing dumbly, as a favour, to see the little one, to be 
 allowed to stay beside him, affected her. When he 
 got the word, he reddened with delight, went up 
 quickly, making no noise, and passed by her, with 
 his cap off and eyes down. He went to find the 
 child at once, and held him up in the air, which set 
 him chattering. They spent hours out on that 
 balcony. The convict sat on the ground, the chain 
 lying across his knees, and a queer conversation took 
 place between Mario and Rocco Traetta, with long 
 silences between. 
 
 ' Who made that dress for you, Sciurillo ?' 
 
 * It was Government.' 
 
 * Did you get the cap, too ?' 
 
 * Yes, sir, I did.' 
 
 * Government is very kind,' said the boy. 
 
2o6 ON GUARD 
 
 The convict looked at him, but said nothing. If 
 the boy had said in full daylight that it was night, 
 he would have said, * Yes, it is dark.' 
 
 Then, after a little, the child began again : 
 
 * What did they give you to eat, Sciurillo V 
 
 * Bean broth, sir.' 
 
 ' What was the second dish ?' 
 
 * Just bean broth.' 
 
 ' What had you for fruit ?' 
 
 * I had beans,' said the convict, laughing. 
 Then they both laughed. 
 
 The boy suddenly got thoughtful. 
 
 * I had macaroni, Sciurillo,' he said reflectively. 
 
 * May it do you good, sir !' said Sciurillo, laugh- 
 ing. 
 
 * Do you like macaroni ?' 
 ' Yes, I do.' 
 
 * The next time I will eat less of it ; I will keep a 
 plateful for you.' 
 
 * It does not signify, sir,' said the convict, quite 
 touched. 
 
 ' Yes, yes, you will have to eat it,' shouted Mario, 
 rather in a rage. 
 
 *Yes, sir — yes, sir — don't get angry,' Rocco 
 Traetta answered at once in alarm. 
 
 The child, in a fretting way, turned over his 
 picture-book. 
 
 * Read what is written under there,' he said to 
 Sciurillo, pointing out a sentence under a little figure. 
 
ON GUARD 207 
 
 ' Do you not know how to read ? How stupid you 
 are!' 
 
 * If I could read, I would not be here,' said Rocco 
 Traetta sadly, after thinking a time. 
 
 *You are here because you are a scoundrel,' said 
 the child, laughing. 
 
 ' Yes, sir,' muttered the convict. ' But those who 
 know how to read don't go to gaol.' 
 
 ' You are a scoundrel, that is why you were put in 
 gaol,' Mario insisted angrily. 
 
 * Yes, sir — yes, sir,' Sciurillo murmured meekly. 
 They said no more. The boy looked at the striped 
 
 carnations which were still flowering, in spite of it 
 being November ; the balcony was so much in the 
 sun. A film of dust covered all the plants. 
 
 * Should I water them ?' asked the convict, guess- 
 ing the boy's thoughts, and getting up off the ground. 
 
 * Yes, but don't put much water on, Sciurillo.' 
 The convict, still with his silent bearing, slipped 
 
 through the room, and went to the kitchen to fill the 
 watering-pot. 
 
 ' There are the copper pots to rub,' said Grazietta, 
 who was glad to put off her work on the convict. 
 
 * In a little ; young master wants me to water the 
 flowers just now,' Sciurillo said patiently. 
 
 Out on the balcony he made the water shower 
 gently on the rather burnt-up earth in the pots. The 
 child followed the work with great attention. 
 
 * Water the leaves a little, Sciurillo.' 
 
2o8 ON GUARD 
 
 ' Yes, sir, I will.' 
 
 A little water was left in the pot. Sciurillo threw 
 it down on the balcony in a circle, to freshen it. 
 
 * Pull a carnation for me, Sciurillo.' 
 
 The convict broke off a carnation carefully, and 
 handed it to Mario. 
 
 * I want to give this to mother,' said the boy 
 thoughtfully. 
 
 * Do you, sir ?' 
 
 * Go and take it to her.' 
 
 The convict looked at the child with an alarmed 
 air. 
 
 * Go at once !' the boy commanded. 
 
 * Sir,' he said hesitatingly, * why don't you give it 
 yourself?' 
 
 * Why should I ?' 
 
 * It would be better, you know, little sir, to give 
 the carnation yourself. From you it gives pleasure, 
 sir.' 
 
 His voice shook so much that even the child under- 
 stood his emotion. 
 
 Mario looked at him fixedly. 
 
 *Your mother can't bear us,' said the convict, 
 ' because we are all scoundrels. She is quite right,' 
 he added very humbly. 
 
 ' She is quite right,' replied the child. And, rising 
 on his rather weak little legs, for they were so thin, 
 he went into the house again, calling out : * Mamma, 
 mamma 1' 
 
ON GUARD 209 
 
 A great chirrup of kisses followed, and the convict 
 smiled to himself. Now he was taking the dry 
 leaves off the plants, and thinking that Grazietta 
 had told him to rub up the copper pots in the 
 kitchen. But the child showed again at the balcony 
 window; he came and threw himself down, with 
 a tired air, on his easy-chair, and turned over the 
 picture-book with slow fingers, his eyes vaguely 
 staring as if he did not see. Then the book fell off 
 his knees on to the ground ; the convict ran to pick 
 it up. 
 
 * I don't want it,' said the child, looking dis- 
 pleased. 
 
 ' What is it that you want, sir ?' 
 
 * I don't want anything,' said Mario, shaking his 
 head. 
 
 * Do you wish me to tell you a story ?' 
 
 * No ; they are ugly ones.' 
 
 * Would you like me to sing you a song ?' 
 
 * Yes, sing something,' said the baby, smiling. 
 So the convict began cheerfully : 
 
 ' Si iesco da cck dinto carcerato.' 
 
 He sang in a low voice, but cheerfully, the prisoner's 
 threatening song : he wants to set fire and flame to 
 everything when he gets out of prison. 
 
 * That is too cheerful. Sing me another one,' said 
 Mario languidly. 
 
 So the convict very softly began again, singing a 
 
 14 
 
2IO ON GUARD 
 
 sad old song, which he knew from the time he spent 
 two years in San Francesco prison at Naples, wait- 
 ing for his sentence — a sad, lengthy song, with a 
 queer metre and fantastic rhymes : 
 
 * A San Francesco, Gia ssona la sveglia.' 
 
 He sang in a low voice, holding his knees with 
 his hands, shaking his red-capped head. The boy 
 listened, half shutting his eyes. He had twice or 
 thrice nodded his head to the queer slow chant. 
 The convict took up the verses again — the ode that 
 invokes freedom. The child went to sleep. Rocco 
 Traetta still sang on at the sad prison chant to lull 
 an innocent child to sleep. 
 
IV 
 
 All night Captain Gigli had been much agitated. 
 His wife, a very hght sleeper, who could never 
 slumber deeply because of the sentinels' voices call- 
 ing to each other every quarter of an hour, noticed 
 at once that her husband was turning over and over 
 in his bed, that he sighed sometimes like a man 
 oppressed. 
 
 * Are you feeling ill ?' she asked him two or three 
 times, half opening her eyes in the darkness. 
 
 ' No, no,' he said with eagerness ; ' sleep quietly. 
 I am all right ; it is only I am not sleepy.' 
 
 She put down her head obediently, trying to go to 
 sleep — to fall into the slight slumber of her shaken 
 nerves ; but, half asleep and half awake, she still 
 made out that her husband was restless. 
 
 Captain Gigli got up very early in the morning, 
 when it was hardly dawn, and said to his wife, who 
 looked up at him with wide-open eyes, astonished : 
 
 * Sleep, sleep, poor darling ! I am going to take a 
 walk — a long walk.' 
 
 At dinner-hour he came back, looking rather pale ; 
 he was silent and nervous. He went up and down 
 close to the window looking on to the road that 
 
 14 — 2 
 
212 ON GUARD 
 
 came up from the shore to Nisida, and gazed at the 
 Bagnoli shore to see if any boat was coming off. 
 Then he sat down to dinner, distracted and silent. 
 At one time he asked : 
 
 ' It is the sixth of November, is it not ?' 
 
 * Yes, it is,' repHed CeciHa. 
 
 ' Why do you ask, father — why ?' demanded the 
 child, who always asked questions, obstinately, with 
 a little boy's persistent curiosity, which shows intelli- 
 gence in them. 
 
 * I will tell you later on, dear,' said his father, 
 becoming silent again. 
 
 After dinner, about three o'clock, he had all the 
 newspapers of the last few days brought, and he 
 read them feverishly. But suddenly his agitation 
 quieted down. A telegraph-boy from Naples came 
 in, and handed Gigli a telegram. His hand shook 
 as he opened it, so that Signora Gigli trembled too, 
 with ignorant emotion, and she could hardly sign 
 the receipt. 
 
 * There is the express and the boat to pay for,' 
 said the telegraph-boy. 
 
 * How much is it ?' asked Cecilia. 
 
 * Two francs and a half.' 
 
 She counted out the money, keeping an eye on her 
 husband. Captain Gigli had got as pale as death. 
 He kept his eyes fixed on the telegram, although he 
 had finished reading it ; he seemed turned to stone. 
 
 * There is your money,' said Signora Gigli. 
 
ON GUARD 213 
 
 * Give him five francs, Cecilia, and a glass of 
 wine,' said Captain Gigli in such a changed voice 
 it made his wife start. ' He has brought good news 
 — very good news !' 
 
 Signora Gigli gave the money ; then rang the bell 
 to call Grazietta, who took the lad to the kitchen for 
 the wine. Clinging to his father's knees, the child 
 said: 
 
 * Father, give me the telegram ; give it to me !' 
 
 * In a little — in a little,' said his father gently. 
 
 As soon as they were alone. Captain Gigli turned 
 towards Cecilia solemnly, took her by the hand, and 
 said slowly : 
 
 * Cecillia, this telegram brings great news, very 
 important news. This morning Victor Emanuel 
 made his entrance into Venice. Venice is ours; 
 it is Italian !' 
 
 He said no more. He was a soldier; but his 
 brown skin, dulled and hardened by sun and weather, 
 was mortally pale ; his proud eyes, that had looked 
 cheerfully on fields of battle, were veiled with tears. 
 His wife, admiring his good heart, courage, and 
 most noble emotion, said nothing; she was very 
 white herself. 
 
 ' Venice is part of Italy,' Captain Gigli said again. 
 
 'Venice is part of Italy!' repeated the little one's 
 small voice. His father lifted him up in his arms, 
 and kissed him frantically. 
 
 'Venice is Italian! Venice is Italian!' shouted 
 
214 ON GUARD 
 
 little Mario, laughing, kissing his father, shuffling 
 about, quite trembling with joy. 
 
 ♦ * Dear lad — dear lad !' said Gigli, pressing his 
 child hard in his arms. 
 
 Cecilia looked on at this scene, smiling. She was 
 feeling one moment of pure delight, knowing how 
 the soldier's Italian heart was beating. 
 
 From that moment Captain Gigli had no peace. 
 He went backwards and forwards through the house, 
 giving orders to Grazietta, begging his wife to do 
 this and that. He repeated, absent-mindedly, the 
 same phrase three or four times. Then he raised 
 the child in his arms, who began to shout out every 
 time cheerfully, in his small voice : 
 
 ' Venice is Italian ! Venice is Italian !' 
 
 Captain Gigli went down to his office, and for a 
 couple of hours there was a going backwards and 
 forwards, a moving about of people getting orders, 
 setting off running, and coming back at a run. 
 Boats went and came several times from Nisida 
 shore to Bagnoli, and from Bagnoli to the island. 
 There was a great movement set on foot there. 
 Everywhere, all over the island, the convicts deserted 
 their work. In the forge the continuous hammering 
 had stopped, the workshops had emptied, and every- 
 where groups of soldiers and convicts had formed. 
 At one time, as Captain Gigli was going up again to 
 his office-room, his child came out on the balcony 
 and called out to him, waving his handkerchief: 
 
ON GUARD 215 
 
 * Venice is Italian !' 
 
 At four o'clock a roll of drums was heard all 
 through the island. Out of barracks, houses, and 
 ordnance workshops soldiers and officers had gone 
 on to the large square in front of the Governor's 
 house. They were all in full dress, as on the day 
 of the Statuto, and soldiers were still coming up a 
 few at a time — anyone who had lost time poHshing 
 his belt-buckle or putting buttons on his gaiters. 
 A great, lively whispering was heard everywhere. 
 Then, slowly, by squadrons, two by two, came up 
 the convicts, led by the sergeants and warders. 
 As they came on to the great square, they fell 
 into order line above line evenly, and by degrees 
 pushed forward a little. The soldiers formed a 
 square in front of the Governor's house, the 
 officers keeping in the middle. Behind the soldiers 
 stretched out long rows of convicts, with red caps 
 and green ones, colourless faces, and faces reddened 
 by vitiated blood, that not even prison abstinence 
 and life in the open air could correct. 
 
 The convicts spoke in whispers among them- 
 selves, but with animation, and the clinking of the 
 chain rose in the air, slight but acute — that iron 
 tinkling that is the characteristic noise in convict 
 prisons. 
 
 Suddenly among the soldiers and convicts a very 
 deep silence fell, and the square of soldiers, being 
 pushed by impatient convicts wishing to get nearer 
 
2i6 ON GUARD 
 
 to see and hear better, drew together a Httle. Captain 
 Gigh had appeared, dressed in uniform, which gave 
 him a stronger, more robust, and sterner look. On 
 his breast he bore three medals — one for civil bravery, 
 the other for military ; the third commemorated the 
 campaign of 1859-60. He carried in one hand a 
 telegram ; in the other he led the child, his little son, 
 dressed in white, his curly hair coming out beneath 
 a white woollen cap. When the child had seen his 
 father in uniform, he clutched his knees, screaming, 
 because he wished to insist on going out with him ; 
 and his kind father, in that hour of satisfaction and 
 tenderness, had not said no to him. Cecilia in haste 
 and flurry had to dress him in his fine white frock, 
 which gave a festive air to his gentle face under the 
 white cap he was so proud of. The small boy was 
 triumphantly hanging on to his father's hand, and he 
 often looked at him, his eyes shining with love, 
 proud of being led about, well dressed, as if he was 
 a little man. His mother's hands trembled as she 
 quickly dressed him, that solemn hour moved her so. 
 Before she saw him off, holding his father's hand, 
 she gave him a kiss on the forehead among the 
 chestnut curls — a kiss that seemed a thought she put 
 into the child's mind. Then while husband and son 
 went downstairs to the square, she half shut the 
 balcony Venetians and hid behind them to see the 
 spectacle herself unseen. She got a sort of shock, 
 and almost drew back with a sensation of fear. The 
 
ON GUARD 217 
 
 vast square, the largest in Nisida, was full ; the people 
 overflowed it, even on to the slopes towards Bagnoli. 
 In the middle the square of soldiers had pressed 
 together still more, and formed a dull blue streak 
 from their cloaks. All around was the large popula- 
 tion of convicts, a great crowd, dressed in rough 
 linen in all shades of brick-red, bright, dull, and 
 faded ; then all the officials on the island and prison 
 contractors, those who live on and for the convict 
 prison. In one corner, trying to keep away from 
 that queer crowd, was a group of women, officers' 
 and contractors' wives. While in the square there 
 arose an indistinct rustle from the great crowd 
 assembled there, one guessed and felt that all the 
 rest of the island — city and country, houses and 
 prisons, streets and squares — was empty, without a 
 soul ; one felt that the whole life of Nisida was con- 
 centrated in that square, and that all the rest was 
 deserted land. 
 
 On Captain Gigli's appearance there was a universal 
 hush ; the square of soldiers widened out a little, and 
 he went into it, still holding his child by the hand, 
 and stood there, isolated, looking the whole crowd in 
 the face, whilst officers, soldiers, and convicts, every 
 one, respectable and disreputable, honest and criminal, 
 turned their faces to him, almost blanched suddenly 
 from waiting for a great moment. He made a sign ; 
 the standard-bearer came out from the ranks and 
 went to stand on his left, unfolding and slightly 
 
2i8 ON GUARD 
 
 raising the flag of Italy. Captain Gigli, before speak- 
 ing, turned and saluted it, putting his hand to his 
 cap ; the soldiers presented arms, and gradually all 
 the convicts, in green and red caps, uncovered their 
 heads, and stood thus bareheaded in front of the 
 Italian flag fluttering in the breeze. Last of all, the 
 child, slowly, looking in his father's eyes, took off his 
 vv^hite cap, and stood bareheaded in the middle of 
 the square. A great breath of emotion passed over 
 all, and Captain Gigli's face got pale as he opened 
 his lips to speak. All were looking at him — all. 
 
 Cecilia, from her balcony, seeing that her husband 
 was about to speak, drew back a little. That great 
 crowd of people, looking so intently at the Governor ; 
 that deep hedge of bareheaded convicts, which out- 
 numbered and pressed closer and closer on the little 
 square of soldiers ; and the child in the middle, 
 making a short white blot, all made her shiver. But 
 more than anything it was the very great, the pro- 
 found, silence. 
 
 * Officers and men,' Captain Gigli began, in a 
 strong but rather subdued voice, * to-day to Nisida 
 island, as to every city in Italy, great news has come. 
 Our King, our General, the head of our army, Victor 
 Emanuel, to-day has made his entry into Venice. 
 Venice is ours.' 
 
 To the tremor of his sonorous voice, to his 
 emotion, a great shout replied, come from the 
 mouths of soldiers and officers ; there was a single 
 
ON GUARD 219 
 
 word, said distinctly and sharply, amidst other con- 
 fused ones, a word that always came up again — 
 
 * Venice ' — ' Venice.' 
 
 * We have a right to feel carried away, all of us,' 
 Captain Gigli went on as the noise quieted down, 
 
 * for the great dream of Italian unity, for which 
 thousands of men gave their whole hearts and minds, 
 for which thousands of men put down their lives on 
 the field of battle, for which we would all give it still 
 — all of us, survivors and new men, old and young 
 — because, you see, the great dream of unity goes 
 on coming true, with a newer, stronger force. Oh, 
 Venice — Venice! You were the country's sorrow. 
 She mourned for you ; you were not dead, but you 
 were stolen ; you were her cross — you, lovely, great, 
 glorious, a miracle of art and an Italian fortress, 
 were in the hands of the enemy. No one could 
 mention you without weeping inwardly ; all hearts 
 flew to you ; our women bore on their breasts the 
 black pearl necklaces called lacrime di Venezia, 
 To-day no one thinks of you without a quiver of affec- 
 tion, or says your name, Venice, without a feeling 
 of deep happiness at being soldiers and Italians.' 
 
 A loud murmur of approval ran through officers 
 and men. The standard-bearer waved the flag. The 
 convicts looked on bareheaded and taciturn ; they 
 were thoughtful, as if waiting. 
 
 * I think,' Captain Gigli proceeded to say more 
 slowly, * that all of you, civil servants and officials. 
 
220 ON GUARD 
 
 who work in an obscure but worthy way for our 
 country, you who do not scorn, since any service 
 nobly carried out is noble, to be at the call of punitive 
 justice — I think you, Italian patriots, come from all 
 the provinces of Italy to this lonely spot, which is a 
 place of punishment — I believe you all rejoice that 
 Venice is ours. The telegram that announces the 
 glad news adds that Victor Emanuel's march into 
 Venice was a touching, magnificent sight ; men of 
 Venice shouted and wept with emotion ; women 
 held out their babes to the King of Italy, to Victor 
 Emanuel, for himi to bless them. What a grand 
 thing, my friends, is this that has happened to-day ! 
 You, of course, cannot hear it without happy pride 
 bringing tears to your eyes.' 
 
 All eyes around gave applause. Cecilia, behind 
 the Venetians, holding on to the bars not to fall, kept 
 a handkerchief at her mouth to choke her sobs. 
 There was a minute's pause and something like a 
 surging among the crowd ; soldiers and officers 
 seemed to be crushed round Captain Gigli ; the 
 convicts pressed forward, dumbly, their eyes wide 
 open, fixed on the Governor of the prison. He was 
 gazing at them, or, rather, with a single glance 
 round he looked at them all, as if wanting to guess 
 the secrets of their souls. 
 
 'Oh, convicts!' he said in a sonorous voice, that 
 had an echo in all ears and hearts — 'convicts, I 
 wished that you also, standing in front of the Italian 
 
ON GUARD 221 
 
 flag, should hear that Venice is ours. Everywhere, 
 in cities and villages, hamlets and towns, peasant 
 huts and ballad-singers' homes, wherever there is an 
 Italian, rich or poor, there will be joy to-day ; and 
 everywhere, in far-off countries of Europe, in the 
 distant lands of America and Australia, near the Pole 
 and under the tropics — everywhere wherever there is 
 an Italian heart, lost on the sea or wandering in the 
 deserts, there will be joy when the news comes that 
 Venice is ours. Oh, convicts ! I did not want to 
 exclude you from the common law of thankfulness. 
 You are murderers and thieves ; you have slain with 
 steel and poison ; you have committed arson, stolen, 
 changed your men's hearts to the crooked instincts 
 of brutes. The law of the land wisely, in the name of 
 King and people, punishes you by its magistrates; 
 punishes you, taking you out of the society of honest 
 people, and putting you in irons — putting you out 
 of the way of doing more harm ; it punishes you, 
 condemning you to hard labour, wisely seeking to 
 make you penitent by chastisement. But where the 
 law of the State ends the humane Christian law 
 begins — an indulgent, merciful one. We are severe, 
 not inhuman. Penitence purifies, so does repentance. 
 Every day more that you spend in the prison, work- 
 ing and suffering, blots out a part of your sin. Many 
 of you will leave this in three years, ten, or fifteen ; 
 you will go bearing with you, conquered by severe 
 penitence and the habit of daily repentance, a 
 
222 ON GUARD 
 
 humane and pitiful heart. I believe you can all 
 become good men ; I believe also that those who will 
 have to stay here all their lives may become so. 
 Their sin has been great, but Divine mercy and 
 human mercy are so great ! I think the power of 
 goodness is great enough to change you altogether ; 
 I believe in all the miracles of sentiment. Well, 
 to-day I forget the past — I forget the law, the stern 
 judgment. There should be no dissatisfied hearts 
 here to-day. This is a great day. Forget the past 
 and your black sin ; forget that you are outside 
 the law and society ; forget your remorse and peni- 
 tence. Consider to-day a national festival ; your 
 own country's conquest made by your native land. 
 You are Italians, too. Forget everything but that 
 you are Italians, every one of you.' 
 
 He stopped speaking, and the panting of a hundred 
 breasts could be heard in the deep silence ; some 
 were sobbing, holding their heads down. Behind the 
 Venetians Cecilia was crying silently ; big warm tears 
 fell. With a vague gesture. Captain Gigli stopped 
 speaking, looking now at the flag fixedly. But above 
 the panting of troubled breasts, the uncontrollable 
 sobs, a feeble, thin, small voice shouted : 
 
 * Hurrah for Venice !' 
 
 It was the child crying out at his father's side, 
 waving his white cap. With his short, pale face 
 and great shining eyes, he was rising on tiptoe, 
 waving his arms, to let himself be seen and heard. 
 
ON GUARD 223 
 
 The child in white had given the word. Every one 
 of them, soldiers and officers, clerks, and staff, all 
 the convicts, sentenced for life or a term, young or 
 old, assassins, thieves, incendiaries — all of them 
 shouted with the small boy in white ; they shouted 
 with all their hearts, making a thundering noise that 
 spread all over the island and seemed to shake it to 
 its foundations — * Hurrah for Venice !' 
 
 As the first hours of darkness fell on Nisida the 
 illuminations began. There were small lanterns made 
 of transparent paper, with a tiny light inside, some 
 were of three colours — white, red, and green — others 
 were arranged in groups of three — one white, one 
 red, another green — forming the national colours. 
 There were some everywhere in lines, festoons, and 
 clusters ; along the balcony railings, hung at window 
 projections, under door arches, and cornices of gate- 
 ways; they were tied to acacia boughs along Nisida's 
 streets, and even to iron gratings of the windows 
 of the prison, where convicts were sent as a punish- 
 ment; that was on the side of the island looking 
 towards Bagnoli. On a high pole, made of small 
 lamps in three colours, was the Star of Italy. It 
 needed two or three hours' work to set the illumina- 
 tions in their place ; convicts and soldiers had 
 fraternized to do it, going up ladders, standing on 
 window-sills, climbing like squirrels, carrying around 
 long boards covered with already lighted lanterns, 
 
224 ON GUARD 
 
 or pulling up from the second floor baskets full of 
 illuminations. Nothing was heard but cheerful 
 shouts giving directions, and long bursts of laughter 
 when a convict or a soldier slipped or fell along a 
 gateway arch ; it was a merry clamour that ended in 
 a great burst of applause when the whole of one side 
 of a house got illuminated. By eight in the evening 
 the whole island sparkled like a jewel rising out of 
 the sea ; it looked like an immense raft going placidly 
 over the bay some holiday evening, all lighted up 
 with the patriotic three colours, which threw clear, 
 lively tints on the whitewash of the buildings and 
 blackness of the country part — a lighted-up raft 
 whence in the silence of the night came songs and 
 music. 
 
 Indeed, the music began at eight o'clock; it 
 was the band of the soldiers quartered at Nisida ; 
 which happened to be short of five or six bandsmen, 
 but they had been summoned from Naples, from the 
 Pizzofalcone Barracks, on purpose to add to it for 
 that evening. The band was posted on the great 
 square ; a crowd of soldiers and convicts surrounded 
 it ; all were at liberty that evening. Captain Gigli 
 had had double rations served out to the soldiers 
 and double allowance to the convicts, and he gave 
 orders to officers and warders to look after the 
 soldiers and convicts, but to let them amuse them- 
 selves. Whenever the band came on to the square, 
 cheerful shouts greeted them : ' The Royal March ! 
 
ON GUARD 225 
 
 Royal March !' * The National Hymn ! National 
 Hymn !' 
 
 About twenty times the Royal March, so resound- 
 ing in its first trumpet-calls, which sound like a 
 summons to war, one that grows so in force when 
 taken up again, came time about with Garibaldi's 
 Hymn, that intoxicating, thrilling melody. Each 
 time that the Royal March and Garibaldi's Hymn 
 sounded on trumpets and drums a great yell came 
 from these throats, and spread out resoundingly all 
 over the island. Sometimes they shouted, * Long live 
 Victor Emanuel !' or, with a rumble like thunder, 
 came the other shout, ' Hurrah for Garibaldi !' Then 
 the boom began again, with hundreds of voices shout- 
 ing, * Hurrah for Italy !' 
 
 Only after an hour's playing were the trumpets 
 allowed from fatigue to give over sounding the Royal 
 March and Garibaldi's Hymn. They began to play 
 popular pieces with variations founded on warlike or 
 familiar songs, a style much in fashion then. Groups 
 of soldiers and convicts accompanied the band as it 
 played * Bella Gigogin,' or * Fenesta che Lucivi,' all 
 beginning to sing together ; some even managed to 
 make their voices ring out splendidly, and when they 
 got to the still famous * Addio, Rosina, addio !' there 
 was a concert in unison with voices in the upper and 
 lower chords, some singing in their throats, without 
 saying the words, as if playing accompaniments. 
 
 'Again ! again!' they shouted when they wanted 
 
 15 
 
226 ON GUARD 
 
 to hear a piece a second time. Sometimes one of 
 the bandsmen disappeared and went into the 
 Governor's house, to the kitchen, where Grazietta 
 gave him a glass of wine ; then he went back to the 
 square, to play with more energy. There was no 
 wine given to the soldiers and convicts, but they 
 were all excited by the lights, open air, music and 
 singing, their own voices, and they seemed taken 
 with a queer intoxication. Suddenly the band played 
 a polka. 
 
 * Hold me up! hold me up!' the child said to 
 Sciurillo. 
 
 Hanging on to Rocco Traetta's hand, the child 
 had followed the whole progress of the illuminations, 
 clapping his little hands for joy before the Star of 
 Italy, in three colours. He wandered all over the 
 island without getting tired, coming back frequently 
 under his mother's balcony. She appeared, and he 
 called up to her : 
 
 ' Mamma dear ! mamma dear !' 
 
 * Are you coming up ?' 
 
 * No, no ; I am going away. Sciurillo is carrying 
 me.' 
 
 ' Have no fear : I am taking care of him,' said the 
 convict. 
 
 Sometimes, as he was carrying him about, Rocco 
 Traetta asked him : 
 
 * Are you not cold, sir ?' 
 
 * I am quite warm,' said the boy. 
 
ON GUARD 227 
 
 When they were singing in the square, he, too, 
 raised his head and thin Httle voice : he repeated the 
 chorus of * Bella Gigogin ' and ' L' armata se ne va ' ; 
 but when he heard the sound of the polka, he began 
 to say insistently : 
 
 ' Sciurillo, Sciurillo, lift me up !' 
 
 Rocco Traetta, thinking that he was tired, lifted 
 him up in his powerful arms, balancing him on one 
 shoulder, high up, where Mario laughed and kicked 
 his little feet against his breast. 
 
 * Make me dance, Sciurillo !' 
 
 Then, trying to make room with his elbows, still 
 holding the boy up, Rocco Traetta began to wheel 
 round slowly, slowly, to the sound of the polka. This 
 was the signal. Couples of soldiers quickly started. 
 They held each other by the waist, very tight ; one 
 of them clutched his friend's cloak at the back, 
 holding it tight in his fist. They danced with know- 
 ing slowness, their legs rather wide apart, the cap 
 thrown back off the forehead, the chin resting on the 
 other man's shoulder. To begin with the convicts 
 did not join in ; they only looked on. However, as 
 Rocco Traetta was still triumphantly carrying the 
 child, who was laughing, straight on, some convict 
 couples started, sliding queerly into the polka. 
 Some young fellows had led a fast life in Naples, 
 and knew how to dance quite well. They did not 
 mind their chain, though it was heavy and jangled ; 
 no one heard the iron clatter. Other convicts formed 
 
 15—2 
 
2i8 ON GUARD 
 
 into rings and wheeled round, laughing, shouting, 
 dancing, rising on tiptoe, as the band still quickened 
 the time. Over the heads of them all, the child 
 wheeled about, held high in Sciurillo's arms, and 
 the white-clad boy gave light claps on the man's 
 red hair, laughing in the clamour and bright light of 
 that night. 
 
In the half-darkness of the Httle room — for the 
 shutters were nearly closed — the mother was telling 
 a fairy tale, leaning over the small invalid's bed, 
 speaking in a whisper only — a breath of a voice. 
 The sick child listened, his eyes wide open, burning 
 with fever, his scarlet, rather swollen, dry lips apart, 
 his breath coming out of them in a wheezing 
 way. 
 
 For five days diphtheria had clutched at his 
 swollen throat, which was covered with malignant 
 white pustules. Twice a day, sometimes even thrice. 
 Dr. Caracciolo came to see the child; he gave him 
 quinine and valerian to try to bring down the high 
 degree of fever, and went on burning his throat 
 with caustic to remove the white spots, which drew 
 sorrowful cries from the small patient. 
 
 Cecilia stood by at the operation, white, dumb, 
 and rigid. She bit her lips not to cry out. Only 
 now and then she said, with great pity in her 
 voice : 
 
 ' My darling ! my darling son !' 
 
 However, an hour after the operation, when the 
 
230 ON GUARD 
 
 smarting of the caustic had gone off a little, the child 
 breathed more freely, the heat of the fever went 
 down, he slumbered without that whistle in his 
 breathing that agonized his mother's heart. He 
 demanded something to drink and asked eagerly for 
 food. They gave him strong soup with beaten eggs 
 and a glass of marsala : for the new medical theory 
 is that in acute blood-poisoning the strength of the 
 body is to be kept up. It was a comfort to his 
 mother to see him eating voraciously and drinking 
 with eager thirst, and when he sank to sleep again 
 she leant her head on the white pillow where her little 
 one's was. 
 
 He would sleep for an hour quietly enough, his 
 mother counting over the minutes of that refreshing 
 sleep, feeling happy if it lasted long. She thought 
 even a quarter of an hour, half an hour more was 
 a sign of recovery. Suddenly the child opened his 
 eyes again placidly, and felt for his mother's face 
 with his little perspiring hands. 
 
 * Here I am, dear. How do you feel ?' 
 
 'Quite well,' he invariably answered, smiling a 
 little. 
 
 Then they said no more. Cecilia dried the child's 
 moist forehead and hands with her fine handkerchief, 
 patting his hands and kissing them gently. The 
 little hand rested in his mother's for a long time, 
 and deep silence was in the room. 
 
 ' Tell me a story, mother,' said the child feebly. 
 
ON GUARD 231 
 
 Very softly, leaning over his bed, Cecilia told him 
 a fairy tale. Always varying it, sometimes she in- 
 vented even, with the heightened imagination of an 
 uneasy mother. She made up queer medleys about 
 old fairies and little queens which made the small 
 invalid open his eyes wide; it amused him immensely. 
 Sometimes, while the mother was telling her son a 
 fairy tale, the father came in. He went in quietly, 
 and came to lean over the bed at the top, trying to 
 get accustomed to the darkness. Mario smiled to 
 him silently in the shadow, getting his mother to 
 finish the story. Gigli listened to that wonderful 
 story too, not daring to interrupt ; and accustomed 
 now to the darkness, he gazed in his sick child's 
 eyes. With the triumph of beauty and virtue, the 
 punishment of ugliness and ill-conduct, the story 
 ended, and the child nodded his head, satisfied and 
 pleased. 
 
 * How is he now ?' Captain Gigli asked his wife. 
 
 * I am well,' the little boy answered, before his 
 mother could do so. 
 
 * He always says that, poor little fellow !' said 
 Cecilia, petting his moist curls. ' He says it to make 
 us keep up heart.' 
 
 * But is he not doing well ?' asked his father 
 anxiously, more uneasy in his mind than appeared. 
 
 * Just so-so,' said the mother, arranging the 
 pillows. 
 
 They stood there silent and in low spirits. Gigli, 
 
232 ON GUARD 
 
 being in anguish himself, guessed at a part of her 
 agony. 
 
 ' You would like to carry him off, would you not ?' 
 he asked her, so as to get her out of her silence, 
 for she seemed more crushed and knocked down than 
 her sick child. 
 
 * Yes, I would.' 
 
 'The doctor says that it can't be done,' the 
 husband remarked timidly. 
 
 * He can't be moved, I know,' she replied, flinging 
 up her arms desperately. 
 
 * I am quite well here, mother,' said Mario. 
 
 ' Poor little chap ! poor chap !' said his father. 
 Cecilia went up close to her husband and said to 
 him in a whisper : 
 
 ' Promise me — promise ' 
 
 * I promise you anything, Cecilia dear.' 
 
 * Promise me that whenever he is better — when- 
 ever we can move him — you will let me go with him 
 to Naples. Promise.' 
 
 ' Yes, my dear, I will,' said Gigli, petting her as he 
 did the child. 
 
 * Do you promise me ?' 
 ' Yes, I do.' 
 
 For he understood that in this serious illness of 
 the child's her invincible horror of the prison had 
 risen again in her heart. 
 
 In the evening the child indeed got worse, as all 
 sick of sharp or lingering illnesses are apt to do. 
 
ON GUARD 233 
 
 His throat got contracted, his breathing laboured; he 
 became heated, uneasy, and rolled about continually. 
 Again on the red membrane of the throat the white 
 blotches came rising slowly, forming again after the 
 evening application of caustic. He hardly had a 
 moment's peace ; his mother shared his uneasiness. 
 The voices of the watching sentinels, calling and 
 answering each other, made the little body, burnt 
 up by fever, give a start. She got nightmare again 
 from these voices unfailingly breaking the silence of 
 the night : they troubled the repose of tired folk and 
 the light slumbers of the sick. It got to be that 
 when she felt that * All' erta, sentinella !' was coming, 
 she even put her hands over the little one's ears, not 
 to let him hear. 
 
 * It doesn't matter, really,' he said, turning round 
 and round, getting no repose. 
 
 ' Oh, this prison — this prison !' she said, half to 
 herself. 
 
 * It does not matter,' the child insisted, fanning his 
 burning little body with the sheets. His nights were 
 so bad and so long. 
 
 Cecilia would not move a hair's-breadth from her 
 son's bed. Although her husband begged and en- 
 treated her to let him watch himself, and Grazietta 
 offered frequently to sit up, it was no use. Cecilia 
 refused to move ; her whole life was concentrated on 
 that sick child's bedside. Pallid, dumb, in a dark 
 gown tied at the waist by a nun's girdle, in slippers 
 
234 ON GUARD 
 
 SO as to make no noise, she stayed, seated beside 
 the bed, not answering her husband's or Grazietta's 
 imploring requests. 
 
 * I am resting here,' she only answered, pointing 
 out the boy's white pillow. 
 
 They had to leave her. They went off, shaking 
 their heads — Captain Gigli troubled in his fatherly 
 heart, the servant full of instinctive, motherly pity. 
 But what nights they were ! The fever got stronger ; 
 often the child, feeling suffocated, asked to be lifted. 
 Cecilia wrapped him in blankets and sheets, and 
 lifted him to sit straight up in her arms ; he could 
 breathe when he leant his head on his mother's 
 shoulder. She carried him up and down, singing, 
 poor thing ! as desolate mothers do, vainly trying to 
 soothe a sick child. Sometimes the little fellow, 
 still lying in her arms, went off into a light sleep. 
 
 Although she saw that he had gone to sleep, she 
 dared not lay him in the bed yet, and went on 
 walking up and down with him slowly, the child 
 leaning heavily on her shoulder. Then, fearing to 
 let him sleep thus, sitting up in an uncomfortable 
 attitude, in case it did him harm, she came, softly, 
 close to the bed, and bent over to lay him down ; 
 but at the first movement the child made a little 
 complaint in his light sleep. 
 
 * No, no !' she said, getting up, beginning to walk 
 about again. 
 
 Sometimes she managed to lay him very carefully 
 
ON GUARD 235 
 
 in the bed, and he let his head down on the pillow 
 so much at random, still with his eyes shut, that the 
 mother shivered with terror almost, at a frightful 
 idea. If he went on sleeping, she put down the 
 lamp further, and went back to the bed to lean her 
 head on the pillow, quite worn out. She did not 
 sleep — no, it was only a troubled half-sleep which the 
 sentinels' shouts interrupted, a snooze begun again 
 by starts. Meanwhile the baby, being uneasy, 
 wakened, but, seeing his mother sleeping, said 
 nothing ; he kept silent, his eyes wide open, gazing 
 at the shadows on the ceiling. Only when the 
 choking came on worse he began to whimper and 
 cry, raising himself in bed as if to drink in the air he 
 was losing. At once she wakened up in a great 
 state, thinking that she had slept too long, almost 
 asking her child's pardon. 
 
 * Darling — my darling !' 
 
 She could say nothing else to comfort him or to 
 relieve him. How long these nights were ! She 
 longed for dawn with all her strength, so that the 
 child's long torture and her own would be over, 
 so that the lugubrious voices of the prison-watchers 
 should cease. 
 
 The air got cold about five in the morning, some 
 streaks of light began to show behind the shutters, 
 and the child fell into a deep stupor. She kept 
 looking at him, stock-still, as if magnetizing him, so 
 that he should sleep quietly, sleep longer. From 
 
236 ON GUARD 
 
 this intensity of will-power her motherly eyelids got 
 tired ; she laid down her head, but still started up, 
 trembling, two or three times, thinking she had 
 heard her child cry. But, half asleep and half 
 awake, she still saw him, slumbering deeply, and 
 she herself fell into the profound, intense sleep 
 people get into who have used up their moral and 
 physical strength to an exceptional extent. 
 
 When, at eight o'clock. Dr. Caracciolo came, on 
 his morning round, he found mother and son asleep 
 close to each other, both pale. 
 
 'How did he pass the night?' asked the doctor, 
 as he made his preparations for applying the 
 caustic. 
 
 * He has had a bad night,' said the mother. 
 
 * He was sleeping just now.' 
 
 * Yes, but he was ill until five o'clock.' 
 
 The doctor put his head down a little, getting 
 ready the brush. 
 
 ' It is this prison !' said the despairing mother. 
 
 * No, no,' the doctor went on telling her ; * there 
 is diphtheria at Naples, too.' 
 
 What did it matter to her ? She gave the blame 
 of all her anguish to the prison, so that from the 
 first day of Mario's illness she gave Grazietta orders 
 not to let any convict into the house, forbade it in 
 such a burst of anger and grief that Grazietta was 
 frightened ; and to be able to give her husband, the 
 convict, a little dinner, she told him not to come to 
 
ON GUARD 237 
 
 the kitchen grating as usual, but to wait for her at a 
 certain place in the island, and she would bring him 
 food in a covered dish. 
 
 * Neither your husband, nor Gennaro Campanile, 
 nor Rocco Traetta — no one, no one!' Cecilia cried 
 out, as if she feared the evil-eye. 
 
 Still, Rocco Traetta, from the day that the boy's 
 illness began, wandered constantly round the house. 
 He tried to get in the first day, but Grazietta told 
 him, roughly and harshly : 
 
 ' The signora wants no convicts in the house 1' 
 
 He stood in the doorway, dazed. 
 
 ' But how is he — how is the little one ?' he asked, 
 with a sob in his voice. 
 
 * Very ill. We are praying to God to make him 
 well.' 
 
 *We must pray to God,' replied Rocco Traetta 
 humbly. 
 
 Morning and evening he ran away from the work 
 that he was set to do, and wandered round the 
 child's house, waiting till someone came to make 
 inquiries from. Punishment after punishment was 
 showered on his head : he did not care ; he forgot 
 to eat and sleep just to be able to look at that 
 balcony with the doors half shut in the daytime, 
 to see a ray of light filtering through in the evening. 
 
 * How is he ? how is he ?' he said to Grazietta 
 every time that he came across her, by lying in wait 
 for her. 
 
238 ON GUARD 
 
 ' Sometimes he is better, then he gets worse ; one 
 can't make it out. We must hope in the Madonna.' 
 
 * I trust in the Madonna.' 
 
 One day he accosted Dr. Caracciolo also. Rocco 
 Traetta had never been ill, so that the prison doctor 
 had had no opportunity of treating him. And, all 
 of a sudden, Rocco stood in front of him, and said 
 in a low voice : 
 
 ' How is little Mario ? how is he now ?' 
 
 * What does it matter to you ?' said the doctor, 
 who was rather bluff, and in the habit of treating 
 the convicts roughly. 
 
 * I was his servant, sir ; I was little master's 
 servant !' 
 
 Really, as he said so, he was so humble and in 
 earnest that the doctor examined him narrowly, not 
 being much accustomed to observe such feelings in 
 convicts. 
 
 * He is so-and-so,' he then said in a grumbling 
 way. 
 
 * But does he get better ? You ought to make 
 him well, sir.' 
 
 *That is what I hope to do,' said the doctor, 
 passing on. 
 
 But Rocco Traetta's great agony was not getting 
 into the house. Every time Signora Gigli showed 
 behind the balcony windows, he appeared at a 
 corner of the square, came forward, pulling off his 
 red cap, and bowed two or three times, turning such 
 
ON GUARD 239 
 
 an imploring glance on her that any indifferent 
 person would have been affected by it. But she did 
 not see him, or did not choose to, for she turned 
 her head another way and drew back at once, as 
 if called for from within. He went away slowly, 
 as if he were keeping guard round the house. 
 
 One day, the third or fourth, not able to bear it 
 any longer, he had gone into the head office, where 
 Captain Gigli was sitting writing. Captain Gigli 
 was very pale, and he was writing in a nervous 
 way. Rocco Traetta, cap in hand, waited till the 
 Governor had finished writing; and he went on 
 for some time, putting aside the letters he wrote 
 without raising his eyes. At last Captain Gigli, 
 noticing there was someone in the room, gave over 
 writing. 
 
 * Is it you, Rocco Traetta ? What do you want ?' 
 
 * I would like to know, sir,' said the convict in a 
 low voice — * I want to know about . . . the little one.' 
 
 * Poor little fellow !' said the father, much touched ; 
 ' he has a cruel illness ; he suffers a great deal.' 
 
 * Holy Virgin ! Holy Virgin !' Rocco Traetta ex- 
 claimed sadly. 
 
 * Poor little chap ! he is so patient,' said Gigli in a 
 low tone, half to himself; * his mother is always 
 beside him.' 
 
 * But he will soon be well ? When will he re- 
 cover ?' 
 
 ' It will need some days yet — still some days.' 
 
240 ON GUARD / 
 
 The convict stood silent, confused ; it was evident 
 that he wanted to say something', and -that he dared 
 not. Then, as he had come for the purpose, he said : 
 
 * . . . And can he not see anyone ?' 
 
 Captain Gigli raised his eyes to that guilty face, 
 and saw a great longing and anxiety impressed in it. 
 
 * For the present, no,' he replied, after thinking a 
 little. * He is jiervous, pfoor little fellow ! and people 
 in the room bother him.' 
 
 'At one time, when he was with me, I could 
 amuse him.' 
 
 * That is true ; but you must wait to see him. The 
 doctor has given these orders also.' 
 
 * Well, how long must I wait — to-morrow or the 
 day after ?' - 
 
 'Longer than that — longer; he needs rest,' said 
 Gigli vaguely, embarrassed by Rocco Traetta's ob- 
 stinacy. 
 
 Again there was silence. Rocco Traetta twirled 
 his red cap in his fingers, not making up his mind 
 to go away, still having something to say. Captain 
 GigH, feeling embarrassed, not knowing how to 
 answer such pressing questions, wished to send hint 
 off. He put his head down and began writing 
 again. 
 
 ' Your Excellency, you are so good as to bear with 
 me ; will you do me a kindness ?' 
 
 ' Say what it is,' said Gigli, rather bbthered. 
 
 'Greet him from me— the little chap. Tell him 
 
' ON GUARD 241 
 
 that Sciurillo sends him many greetings. Please, sir, 
 don't forget it.' 
 
 'Very well,' said the Governor; * I will be sure to 
 tell him.' 
 
 r 
 
 The convict murmured, * Many thanks to you, sir,' 
 and went out slowly, followed by a look from Cap- 
 tain Gigli. 
 
 Nothing could astonish him — neither extreme 
 ferocity nor extreme humility, neither good nor evil 
 — for he had lived in that convict prison for six or 
 seven years ; but often human nature showed itself 
 in such a queer way it gave him a start. Rocco 
 Traetta had killed his father at one blow over a 
 question of money ; he was a parricide of the most 
 frightful kind, from the motive, time, and the whole 
 circumstances. ^ Still, that man, who for ten minutes 
 in his life had been more murderous than a wild 
 beast, was shivering with grief, speaking of a sick 
 child. Captain Gigli knew — for he knew everything 
 that took place on the island — that Rocco Traetta 
 wandered round his house trying to get in ; but he 
 knew, too, that his wife's tender soul became im- 
 placable when confronted by these hateful objects. 
 She wished no convicts in the house. She told 
 Grazietta so, even before Captain Gigli. And none 
 came in — not one. When Nisida,. the prison, and 
 the convicts were mentioned to heir by chance, as 
 naturally happened, she half shut her eyes, to hide a 
 flash of ragCj to try not to say what her heart told 
 
 16 
 
242 ON GUARD 
 
 her, and she bent over her child's bed to kiss 
 his thin, hot cheeks and soft hair, saying, with 
 infinite compassion in her voice : * My dading ! my 
 darhng !' 
 
 So, not even Captain GigH, frightened, shaken, 
 and inwardly despairing over the boy's illness and 
 his wife's dumb desperation — not even he dared 
 remind her that there was a soul in torment, wander- 
 ing round the house. Silently, trying not to let 
 himself be seen, not let himself be heard, like a 
 thorough evildoer, Rocco Traetta passed his day in 
 the little lanes round the square, walking about if he 
 saw anyone appearing, sitting on the ground when he 
 was alone ; he wandered about distractedly, rushing 
 away from the court the convicts fed in, taking 
 his lump of bread and the relish with him. He 
 rebelled silently against whatever scolding or punish- 
 ment the warders gave him. He did not shout out 
 or quarrel, but he always ran off as soon as he 
 could. He thought out all sorts of tricks, and on 
 his return bore threats and punishments dumbly, so 
 long as they let him stay outside. On two nights 
 he got away from the dormitory even, where the 
 oversight was so strict, and spent the night under 
 the feebly-lighted balcony. He came in again at 
 dawn, not having slept at all, and was met by 
 the very warder sent to search for him in great 
 alarm. 
 
 A report was made to Captain Gigli. It almost 
 
ON GUARD 243 
 
 looked as if Rocco Traetta was trying to escape, 
 said the warder in his report. Captain Gigli replied 
 that he did not believe that it was an attempt at 
 escape ; Rocco Traetta was to be treated rather in- 
 dulgently. Gigli's heart was doubly moved ; he felt 
 pity for the suffering child and also a little for that 
 wretched, tortured man who had no peace. But in 
 Cecilia's heart — in her deep motherly heart — nothing 
 existed but one single sympathy, and it was for her 
 child. She saw and heard nothing of what went on 
 around except the pain of that bad throat, red with 
 inflammation, white with blisters, that always came 
 back again inexorably. 
 
 She had chased everyone out of that room, and 
 she only thought of the world she lived in, to hate it 
 and believe it to be the cause of the child's illness. 
 She thought of it in the long night hours, when the 
 sentinels' voices prevented her son from sleeping ; they 
 reminded her that she lived in a penal settlement. 
 But, except for that, her affection, her kindness, all 
 a mother's strongest feelings were summed up in her 
 son alone. It mattered not to her who might go 
 round the house uneasy about the child's state, or 
 ask affectionately for him, she did not care who 
 might be in an agony to see him. She, the mother, 
 mystically endowed, stood between his world and 
 the child ; her magnetic force, her impetuous love, 
 her burning will would alone be able to save him. 
 Her soul was sunk in continual, despairing prayer ; 
 
 1 6 — 2 
 
244 ON GUARD 
 
 she was altogether an invocation to God. Nothing 
 else — God, and no one else. 
 
 ***** 
 
 The child had had changes of getting better and 
 worse for eight days. Sometimes the swelling in 
 the throat got milder, its redness faded, the white 
 blisters taken away by the touch of caustic did not 
 form again, and the high fever that burnt up the 
 poor boy went down ; he seemed on the way to be 
 cured. His mother's heart opened at once to a great 
 hope. Only Dr. Caracciolo's face kept always the 
 same, not disturbed, but grave. The system of cure 
 went on in all its harshness : the burning with 
 caustic two or three times a day, with strong doses 
 of quinine and a full diet. For relapses came 
 suddenly. That appearance in the throat of large 
 corroding, suffocating pustules by some unexpected 
 fatality began again ; the fever flamed up, stronger, 
 more scorching ; the child raved and raved, putting 
 his little hands to his throat, his despairing eyes 
 going round in his worn face. The mother was 
 stunned and confused by the unexpected relapse ; 
 she lost all her treasury of hopes in a minute; 
 she was seized all at once by black terror. She 
 stammered, calling him by name, repeatedly asking 
 him how he felt ; she shivered, holding him in her 
 arms, to cradle and soothe him ; her choked voice 
 could no longer sing the usual little song. 
 
 So from day to day, from night to night, her heart 
 
ON GUARD 245 
 
 leapt frdmvjo)^© grief, from hope to desperation. 
 Her husbanh, often consumed in the night by a 
 mortal un^asiness\ did not sleep, but walked up and 
 down in his wido\vn^d r(pom. Sometimes he crossed 
 the two ro^ms on tiptoe, gently opened the door of 
 the little ropm, andUoaked in. He was very happy 
 if he could Ifind his Wi and son in one of their few 
 moments of tepose, aV<liwent away silently, quietly, 
 rather comforted, thiftking that that rest was a 
 refreshmek^t fdr the tw© Vriartyrs. But often, in the 
 small room, ink mother^ W'eary shadow was going 
 up and dofwn, hdJdir>g hefi complaining child in her 
 arms bourtd up iA blanket sV letting a tired, emaciated 
 face be seen. \ \. 
 
 ' Is he -^ors^?' h\e askQ4 W^ Vhisper. 
 
 * Muchjthe /feame,\ sha rqpli^ in the same tone, 
 gomg on ivitb her wal 
 
 * My poor son !' the fa!her always said in a low voice. 
 After gazing on that sad piVbare a minute he went 
 
 away. He could not rest eilfeer, thinking of that 
 desolate, "Tnotherly shadow going; up and down the 
 room. Tbie twelfth day, espbcially, the child got 
 rather wc^e; nor^even the tqucmng with caustic in 
 the evening relieved him, though Dr. Caracciolo did 
 it with scrutinizing attention and the greatest care. 
 He was always asking for something to drink, then 
 he could hardly swallow it, and he lamented and 
 wept- — yes, cried with pain, which tore Cecilia's 
 heart. She gave him little bits of ice, which re- 
 
246 ON GUARD 
 
 freshed him for a moment, but the heat and burning 
 began again ; that feeble, tossing body could not be 
 kept down. The doctor had gone away, thoughtful 
 as usual, but not alarmed. 
 
 In the evening, as Cecilia was sitting beside the 
 bed and Captain Gigli was leaning against the top 
 of it, the boy began to quiet down a little. 
 
 * How do you feel ?' his father asked. 
 
 ' I feel better,' said the child in his small voice. 
 After a silence, he opened his eyes, and, looking at 
 his father and mother, he asked them : 
 
 * Do you love me very much ?' Both of them got 
 a start at this question, and looked each other in the 
 face dumbly. * Do you love me very much ? You 
 ought to love me a great deal, papa and mamma,' 
 said he, shutting his eyes again. 
 
 * My darling, my darling !' said his mother, hardly 
 keeping back her tears. 
 
 * I love you so much — so much,' muttered his 
 father, choking also. 
 
 But the beginning of the night was better; the 
 child was pallid and worn out, but he did not rave 
 or feel choked as in the daytime. Indeed, he often 
 went to sleep quietly, with his head thrown back on 
 the pillow and arms stretched along his body. He 
 wakened up again, but not uneasily ; he looked 
 round, without saying anything. 
 
 * He is not so ill, I think,' said Captain Gigli to his 
 wife as it got late. 
 
ON GUARD 247 
 
 * He seems to be resting,' she whispered ; * go and 
 sleep.' 
 
 * I will come back,' he said. 
 
 In fact, at about two o'clock he came back very 
 softly. The boy's sleep had got heavier, and his 
 breath whistled in his throat ; sometimes he had a 
 guttural sort of wheezing. But, except for that, he 
 was resting. 
 
 * He is sleeping,' whispered Gigli, below his breath. 
 
 * He is sleeping,' the mother repeated. 
 
 Again he went away. Cecilia bent her head in 
 sleep, when a breath wakened her. It was the 
 child's voice. 
 
 * Mother, where is the lamp ?' 
 
 * Is it too high ? Should I put it down ?' she 
 asked, leaning over his bed. 
 
 'No ; it is that I don't see it.' 
 
 She did not quite understand. She made out that 
 the light was too low, and went to move the lamp so 
 that the light went full in his eyes. 
 
 * Is that right now ?' 
 
 He smiled slightly, nodded yes, and shut his eyes 
 as if to go to sleep. 
 
 About four o'clock the little fellow opened his 
 eyes again and looked round frightened. He almost 
 thought that he had been left alone, but with a 
 struggle he lifted his head from the pillow and 
 saw that his mother was still there, resting. He 
 gazed at her with his lovely big eyes, enlarged by 
 
248 ON GUARD 
 
 fever, then his head fell on the pillow again, ex- 
 hausted by the effort. The lamp fully lighted up the 
 little worn face that the breath was coming from 
 with a struggle. He did not call out or say a 
 word ; only he lifted a tiny hand and lightly put it 
 on his mother's cheek. She felt the touch, perhaps, 
 and without opening her eyes said : 
 
 ' My darling !' 
 
 Then he made a motion with his head at his 
 mother's voice, and shut his eyes. The tiny hand 
 stayed on his mother's cheek as a caress, and to 
 rest it. 
 
 ***** 
 
 He was gone ! 
 
 He was on high 
 
VI 
 
 There was a light knock at the door. Captain 
 GigH, who was seated by the Httle table, alone, his face 
 between his hands, raised his tearful eyes, and said : 
 
 * Come in.' 
 
 Grazietta came in, and silently handed her master 
 a bit of white paper. He opened it, and read this 
 writing, in pencil, in a trembling hand : * Remember 
 your promise.' 
 
 It was his wife's writing ; that was all that was in 
 the note. What he was to remember did not come 
 back at once to Captain Gigli's confused mind. He 
 looked at Grazietta dreamily, as if wishing to ques- 
 tion her. She threw up her arms to show she did 
 not know. 
 
 * Remember your promise.' So Cecilia had written 
 from the dead child's bedside. What could the de- 
 spairing mother want ? What could she be asking 
 for? Suddenly, amid a medley of dark thoughts, 
 the recollection darted into the father's mind. He 
 was not able to bear it, and said to Grazietta : 
 
 * Tell your mistress that I am coming — I am 
 coming to her.' 
 
 In fact, in a few minutes he went through the 
 
V /' 
 ^ -^ .< 
 
 oX^ J -Mo ON GUARD 
 
 o^^ ' ' ■> / 
 
 little parlour; its doors were wide open, but there 
 was no life in it. He got to the door of the small 
 room the child was in ; a slight scent of herbs and 
 flowers, a feeble light of wax candles, came out. 
 And the soldier of the War of Independence, who 
 had seen death on fields of battle and in hospitals 
 without being moved, dared not go into the boy's 
 room. He waited a minute, then called out : 
 
 * Cecilia!' 
 
 Slowly, in her black dress, her hands hanging list- 
 lessly down, the mother came out. A livid pallor 
 covered her cheeks, and she had the staring eyes of 
 one vainly trying to fix her thoughts. She stood 
 motionless in the doorway, turning round sometimes, 
 as if she was called for. 
 
 * Poor soul ' he began, putting his hand on her 
 
 head. But he could bear no more, and big tears 
 rolled down his brown cheeks. 
 
 * Don't cry — don't cry!' she said in a monotonous 
 voice, that had no expression left in it. * I am not 
 weeping. Will you keep your promise ?' 
 
 * Now ? Would you wish it now ?' 
 
 * Yes, I do,' she said obstinately. 
 He looked at her, not daring to question her. 
 
 * I wish to take away the child,' she said harshly. 
 
 * Take him away ? Thus ?' 
 
 * Yes, even now,' she said sternly. * He was born 
 in a prison ; he died in it. I wish to take him to 
 Naples, where there are no convicts.' 
 
ON GUARD 251 
 
 * To Naples ?' 
 
 ' To the Naples cemetery, where there are no 
 convicts, to lie among the good, honest dead.' 
 He looked at her, and took her by the hand. 
 
 * There will be difficulties,' he said. 
 
 * If I had to carry him in my arms, I would take 
 my baby away !' she said obstinately, harshly. 
 
 * You are right,' he said, conquered, convinced. 
 
 * Everything must come from Naples, Luigi — 
 everything, you understand ?' she said imploringly. 
 * For love of him, nothing from here, you know — 
 nothing !' 
 
 * There will be nothing got here, dear — nothing.' 
 She turned round to watch over the dead child, 
 
 with the same wandering eyes which after the 
 strain was over could not fix on anything. Em- 
 ployment came to distract the father's deep grief; 
 there were all the tremendous difficulties of taking 
 anything from Nisida to Naples, of getting per- 
 mission and authorization to do so. The whole 
 day long there were telegrams sent backwards and 
 forwards between Pozzuoli, Naples, and Nisida, 
 messengers left and others arrived — a feverish 
 activity, by which the father's grief found an outlet, 
 a relief. Those going and coming had the miserable 
 look of people doing a sad bit of work unwillingly, 
 out of affection or duty; they only said what was 
 required, speaking in a whisper, as if they feared 
 to disturb someone's rest. The father listened in 
 
252 ON GUARD 
 
 rather an absent-minded, confused way ; he thanked 
 them with a look. If a new difficulty arose, he at 
 once set himself again to give orders, write, and 
 telegraph. 
 
 But all this was in his office. In the house with 
 the wide-open doors there was a profound hush, and 
 only Grazietta was going about on tiptoe, often drying 
 her eyes with her blue apron. Something was being 
 got ready hurriedly. From the square could be seen 
 the ghastly waxlights in the child's room. In the 
 office there was a string of people, men and women, 
 asking the Governor if it was possible to see the 
 child. This was the Southern custom. When there 
 is a death, all doors are opened and the people come 
 in. Then, if it is a dead child, everyone comes also 
 for the purpose of securing its protection, for they 
 piously believe the child can take all their prayers 
 to God. But Gigli replied to them all : 
 
 * Later on, later on.' 
 
 For twice, when he called Cecilia to tell her this, 
 she replied * No ' obstinately. 
 
 * I will not have it,' she said dully. 
 
 * Oh, Cecilia, allow them to pray for him.' 
 
 * The child is on high ; he does not need their 
 prayers.' 
 
 The second time, rather moved by her husband's 
 entreaties, she said : 
 
 ' Not now, not now ; afterwards.' 
 
 They all went away sure of coming back later. 
 
ON GUARD 253 
 
 Only Rocco Traetta stayed on in a corner of the 
 office, seated on a wooden form in the passage, hold- 
 ing his cap in his hand with his head down. In the 
 morning he had called to Grazietta from the kitchen 
 grating to get news of the little chap, and she, burst- 
 ing into tears with her head hid in her apron, said 
 to him : 
 
 ' The little one has gone to Paradise.' 
 
 Traetta stood there stupefied. 
 
 * The little one ! What ! the little one ?' he said. 
 From that moment he had gone into the office lobby 
 
 and sat huddled up in a corner not asking any ques- 
 tions. Twice or thrice in passing Captain Gigli saw 
 him, but he did not stop, for he felt embarrassed by 
 Traetta's presence. Only, the third or fourth time, 
 Traetta got up and said to him : 
 
 * Your Excellency, do me the kindness of letting 
 me see the little one.' 
 
 * Later on, later on,' said Gigli hastily. 
 
 * Tell the lady ; tell her that I never went in when 
 he was ill, because she did not wish it. Say to her 
 she ought to do me this kindness now.' 
 
 * I will tell her that.' 
 
 He went away, but after an hour he was again in 
 the office lobby, waiting with the invincible patience 
 of a broken heart. At last, towards evening, when 
 Captain Gigli, worn out, was going from the office 
 on his way home, he said to him : 
 
 * Come to-morrow morning before we start.' 
 
254 ON GUARD 
 
 The convict looked at him, astonished, then he 
 bowed his head. 
 
 * Thank you, sir.' 
 
 When he went upstairs Gigli had his wife called 
 into the passage. She was still the same, always 
 with that sudden turning back, as if someone were 
 calling her. 
 
 * Everything is done,' said Captain Gigli, with a 
 struggle. 
 
 ' At what time is it to be ?' 
 
 * To-morrow, at mid-day.* 
 
 Only when the hour was fixed on, only when that 
 definite, last, closing word was said by her husband 
 in a low voice, only then that woman with the heart 
 turned to stone reeled ; a frightful sob seemed to 
 rend her breast, and she fell into her husband's arms, 
 crying out and weeping, seized by a convulsion of 
 sorrow, broken down, like a tree that quivers from' 
 its roots, in such a passion of grief that the man, a 
 soldier, was afraid, and held her in his arms, silent, 
 frightened, dumfounded, thinking that perhaps she 
 would die that very moment, and he could do 
 nothing to save her. 
 
 It was on a mild November morning that the 
 filing past of those come to greet the dead child 
 began from the wide-open doors of the Governor's 
 house. From Naples had come the thick candles of 
 wax which were burning — a symbol of the Christian 
 soul burnt up by faith ; thence came the bunches of 
 
 I 
 
ON GUARD 255 
 
 fresh flowers with which his bed and room, the 
 house and stairs even, were scattered ; from there 
 came the white garment and the shoes that the httle 
 one was to take his last journey in ; from Naples, 
 finally, came his last bed, a coffin lined with silk. 
 
 The first to go into the little room was Rocco 
 Traetta ; he went in very softly, almost sliding over the 
 floor. The mother dressed in black, her hair rather 
 loose on her neck, was seated at a little distance 
 from the bed, holding her knees with her hands. 
 She looked at the convict as if she did not see him ; 
 her eyes had no expression in them. Rocco Traetta 
 knelt down beside the bed, leaning his head against 
 the edge, and stayed there a long time, not weeping 
 or saying a word. He cautiously took hold of one 
 of the little child's waxen hands, kissed it, and put 
 something in it. The mother kept motionless ; at 
 one point she looked at the convict icily, as if she 
 would chase him away. He got up and left the 
 room ; but he stayed in the corridor, standing in the 
 shadow, seeing a lot of people pass in front of him — 
 women, children, soldiers, officers — all those who, 
 from a feeling of compassion, a melancholy sort of 
 curiosity about death, went into the sweet-smelling 
 room where the little dead one lay. 
 
 No one asked what the paper was, closed and 
 sealed like a letter, that the child held in its fingers. 
 When a young child dies in the Southern provinces, 
 those who go to see it, or the relations themselves, 
 
256 ON GUARD 
 
 put In its hands, in the girdle or folds of the 
 dress, some tiny letter ; it is almost always a prayer 
 to the Lord or the Virgin, asking a favour, which the 
 child carries with it to Paradise. So Rocco Traetta 
 had put in the peccerillo's fingers a letter directed to 
 the Virgin, Our Lady of Sorrows, asking her to do 
 him the favour. He saw the people pass; they went 
 in, knelt down, and prayed, without feeling the 
 courage to say anything to that dark figure of a 
 mother turned to stone. Nor did she tremble when 
 Captain Gigli called her outside, and, trembling all 
 over, said to her : 
 
 * We ought to go now.' 
 
 * Very well,' she said resolutely, going towards her 
 room, like a machine, to get a cloak and bonnet. 
 
 They were to go with the dead child to Naples : 
 and of course it was not such an agonizing wrench 
 as if they had had to see him carried off and stay 
 themselves in the house. They were going out ; 
 they were going together ; this doleful journey would 
 assuage the agony. The husband tried to detain his 
 wife in the room, not to let her hear the noise of the 
 coffin being nailed down. It was soldiers who did 
 the work, delicately, making as little noise as possible. 
 She saw and heard nothing. Rocco Traetta and 
 Grazietta were present. The servant shed tears, 
 silently, seeing the little corpse settled in its coffin 
 as in a bed, its tiny head resting on the silk pillow. 
 The convict was dumb ; he did not shed tears, but 
 
ON GUARD 257 
 
 his eyes were burning, as if a rush of bloody tears 
 had gone over them. On the bier and over it were 
 flowers, and all around. Other soldiers carried 
 more wreaths behind. The coffin was carried down 
 silently, and in the square, around the bier, stood 
 those who wished to follow it, at least as far as the 
 iron gate. There were officers, their wives, and the 
 clerks. The bier stood in the midst of them, borne 
 by soldiers, and was covered with flowers. It was 
 a large, sweet-smelling heap of flowers. 
 
 The mother and father went down a little later. 
 She had a black veil over her head, but the full light 
 and the little crowd alarmed her. She searched for 
 her child's face, and only saw the coffin. 
 
 ' Luigi, Luigi !' she said, as if she was praying. 
 * He is inside there, is he not ?' 
 
 ' Yes, he is.' 
 
 * But I will see him again. At Naples you will 
 show him to me ?' 
 
 * Yes, dear — at Naples.' 
 
 On foot, slowly, the procession moved on. Im- 
 mediately after the coffin came the father and 
 mother, then the officials. She was walking, leaning 
 on her husband's arm, her eyes fixed on the bier, 
 swinging about as it went down the slope. Then 
 Rocco Traetta came behind — the last one. The 
 landscape had got a little bare, but a mild sun lit it 
 up, as it was mid-day. The party seemed to be 
 
 17 
 
2S8 ON GUARD 
 
 going away, leaving the island for ever, with no 
 thought of ever returning to it. At the great iron 
 gates there was the leave-taking. Everyone pressed 
 Captain Gigli's hand, saying some comforting word 
 to him. The iron gate opened wide and shut again. 
 From there two soldiers carried the bier. The 
 dead child's father and mother, two officers and two 
 civilians, went on also down to the shore with it, 
 and the rest of the httle crowd, including Rocco 
 Traetta, went up into the island again. But he, 
 though no one noticed it, stood still on the woody 
 slope, looking at the procession, appearing and dis- 
 appearing among the bushes, still going aown. He 
 was gazing at the vivid colours of the flowers that 
 covered and fell down from the little coffin, gazing 
 at the little chap who was going off for ever. 
 
 Suddenly, at an angle of the road going down to 
 the little beach, the procession was hidden from him, 
 and he stood some time without seeing it. But he 
 waited patiently. Perhaps there, in the island, they 
 were searching everywhere for him, but he was 
 forgetful of everything. He narrowed . his eyes 
 intently to see if the burial-party would show again. 
 As a fact, it did, on the shore. The large boat wait- 
 ing for it had no signs of mourning ; indeed, it had 
 flowers at the bottom and thrown on to the seats. 
 The two sailors saluted by raising their oars. In a 
 minute the boat was loaded with wreaths, and in 
 
ON GUARD 259 
 
 the middle, among the loose flowers and wreaths, 
 the coffin was placed. Nothing but flowers could 
 be seen. At the prow sat the father and mother, 
 pallid figures in black ; alongside of them was the 
 funeral party, forming a group. So the boat went, 
 laden with flowers, through the blue sea slowly, as 
 if a happy party were being borne along. Thus 
 Rocco Traetta saw it go, bright and sweet-smelling, 
 sliding over the quiet waves with an indistinct 
 movement. 
 
 On* the deserted Bagnoli shore that November 
 morning only the outline of two carriages could be 
 seen. No one stopped to look at the boat laden 
 with flowers that came forward slowly, perhaps in 
 obedience to a word from the mother. So the dead 
 child went away for ever, among flowers, over the 
 blue sea — went away from the prison, the convicts, 
 off to freedom. 
 
 So Rocco Traetta saw him go off. He had not 
 been able to see him or greet him while yet he 
 lived, and now he greeted him dead. He spoke in 
 a whisper, as if speaking to him, as if the boy could 
 still hear him, calling him the peccerillo, the bonny 
 boy, and asking his help to get the favour he wished 
 from the Virgin, reminding him of the letter he had 
 put in his hands, which had been enclosed in the 
 coffin. The boy was far off. He was getting out of 
 the boat now ; they were putting him in the carriage, 
 
 17 — 2 
 
26o ON GUARD 
 
 still among flowers; the father and mother got in 
 with him ; the others went in the second carriage. 
 The child was very far off ; the carriages drove away 
 quickly ; they disappeared on the Fuorigrotta road. 
 All was ended. The child was dead ; he had dis- 
 appeared. 
 
VII 
 
 There was no moon that night. The thin veil of 
 autumn mist that had covered the sky in the day- 
 time had become in the evening a thick bank of 
 clouds. A black sky rested on the blackness of the 
 sea, on the profound darkness of Nisida ; but it did 
 not look like a hurricane or as if rain was coming ; 
 there was great quietness in the air, rather, and all 
 around, so that the sentinels standing up under the 
 arch of their sentry-boxes questioned the shadows 
 absent-mindedly. Some sentinel had lighted a small 
 lantern at the bottom of the sentry-box — for all the 
 lamps on the island had gone out — but its feeble light 
 was covered by the soldier's body; he stood right 
 in front of his wood and iron hut. There was pro- 
 found shadow and quietness ; only, as always, every 
 quarter of an hour the summoning voice began at 
 one end of the island, producing another, slowly, 
 regularly, up to the further end, and turning back, 
 round and round, with the answer : 
 
 ' Be on the alert, sentinel !' ('All' erta, sentinella!') 
 ' On the alert I am !' (' All' erta sto !') 
 The questioning voice was liveliest — it sounded 
 like an alarm — while the answering voice was quiet. 
 
262 ON GUARD 
 
 peaceful, almost serene, in its confidence of watching. 
 The quiet was so profound that night. Only, about 
 two o'clock^n the depth of the night, that is to 
 say — the sentinel guarding the sharpest angle of the 
 island towards Pozzuoli gave d: start. He had heard 
 no noise, but a sort of electric shock told him that 
 the solitude around was broken by a man or an 
 animal. Sometimes, in a dark room, in a court- 
 yard, a street, or countryside, where one is perfectly 
 sure of being alone, one gets suddenly an absolute 
 certainty that there is someone about. You don't 
 see or hear anything, but you feel that an empty 
 space has been filled up by a body. It was so 
 with the sentinel. He peered into the darkness, 
 but he could make out nothing. Thinking that it 
 was the nearest-posted sentinel come to ask him for a 
 match to light his pipe, he said, rather in a whisper : 
 
 * Who goes there ?' 
 
 He got no answer ; he shook his head, thinking 
 that he had been mistaken. But he came from 
 Calabria; he was accustomed to walk at night on 
 dangerous roads, looking out not to be surprised; 
 and he went on watching, taking a few steps 
 cautiously round the sentry-box. Again there was 
 profound quiet. But half an hour had not gone by 
 when, for the second time, he had exactly the same 
 idea of someone moving about thirty paces off, a 
 little higher up, in a hedge that covered steps down 
 from the island. Instead of answering the challenging 
 
ON GUARD 263 
 
 sentence that was sounding then — ' Be on the alert, 
 sentinel !' — he levelled his gun and fired. Imme- 
 diately two long, agonizing cries were heard, and all 
 around, all over the island, wherever there was a 
 sentinel, the furious, stormy, shrieking words sounded : 
 
 * To arms ! To arms 1 To arms ! ' 
 
 Three^ or four gun-shots rang out together, bring- 
 ing out others round the island ; there was a circle of 
 lowered guns firing towards the sea blindly, because 
 the word of command was to fire down towards 
 where the fugitives were going — the unknown fugi- 
 tives. There was a wreath of fire and smoke round 
 the island in the night, and at once, amidst the 
 tumult of the awakened prison, of soldiers led by an 
 officer who were running to the search, the sharp 
 clatter of guns being reloaded was heard. Tumultu- 
 ouslyj-the warders in the dormitories had the convicts' 
 names called over to see who was missing, while an 
 orderly ran s'^ftly to the bottom of the island to 
 start off two boats to make a search. Everywhere 
 the lamps were lighted again, the whole of Nisida 
 was on foot. 
 
 Half dressed, pale, frightened at his responsi- 
 bility, the Under- Governor who took Captain Gigli's 
 place in his absence, after having gone through the 
 guard-house, went to attend the convicts' roll-call 
 in the dormitories. They, already dressed, alarmed, 
 did not hear the roll-call or answer in time, and 
 there was a yelling and cursing by the warders, a 
 
264 ON GUARD 
 
 shouting by convicts, punishments raining down. 
 At every dormitory that was found to be full the 
 ghastly-looking Under- Governor gave a sigh of relief. 
 Who could tell ? Perhaps not one was missing 
 — perhaps it was a false alarm of the sentinel's 
 towards Pozzuoli. But outside every now and then 
 an isolated gun-shot sounded, people were search- 
 ing about, calling each other, and there was a sharp 
 clatter of guns being reloaded. The roll-call in the 
 prison went on. Sometimes a convict answered to 
 his name in a melancholy way : 
 
 * I am here — I am here. Lucky chap that has 
 escaped !' 
 
 Yes, they all envied the unknown men who had 
 escaped. One saw it in their faces, by their whispered 
 conversations and malicious smiles. The warders 
 were raging. It was in the last dormitory, where 
 there were sixty convicts, that fifty-eight only were 
 found. The warder, driven desperate, went over the 
 roll-call three times, thinking that he had made a 
 mistake ! but there were fifty-eight, still fifty-eight — 
 two were wanting. Turning to the Under-Governor, 
 who had got clay-colour, he said : 
 
 * Two have escaped.' 
 
 * Who are they ?' 
 
 * Giacomo Calama, called Ingannalamorte.' 
 ' Who is the other ?' 
 
 ' Rocco Traetta, called Sciurillo.' 
 ' Are they young fellows ?' 
 
ON GUARD 265 
 
 * Yes, they are.' 
 
 The Under-Governor bit his hp to keep back an 
 oath ; then he went away hurriedly to organize the 
 search better. 
 
 All over the island the two names Ingannala- 
 morte and Sciurillo were spreading from mouth to 
 mouth, repeated and commented on by everyone. 
 There were lights running about among the bushes, 
 among the cliffs ; people at the base of the island 
 were coming and going ; everywhere officers' sabres 
 were clinking. Some lights were lit even on the 
 Bagnoli shore opposite. It took an hour before the 
 boats could be set in motion. Their huge lanterns 
 left a sort of bloody track of light on the sea ; they 
 went round slowly, exploring every grotto, going into 
 every little bay in the island. In the boats the 
 barrels of the soldiers' guns sparkled, reflecting the 
 red lantern light. Every now and then, from some 
 hallucination of a watching sentinel, a gun-shot was 
 heard, and the Under-Governor, who was going 
 backwards and forwards much agitated, stood still, 
 thinking it was the signal that the fugitives had been 
 retaken. The convicts had all been sent back to 
 bed, but none of them were sleeping ; they were 
 chattering, and it was impossible to keep them silent ; 
 some of them made vows out loud for the deserters 
 not to be taken. But the tumult and searching did 
 not cease till morning, when the report was made to 
 the Under-Governor about the escape. Two chains 
 
266 ON GUARD 
 
 had been found, with their rings neatly filed, in the 
 grass near the. bushes where the Calabrian sentinel 
 had felt the, fugitives' presence. Giacomo Calama, 
 called Ingannalamorte, could not be found, alive or 
 dead, by sea or land, neither at Bagnoli, Pozzuoli, 
 nor in the abyss — nowhere. Declared escaped. Rocco 
 Traetta, called Sciurillo, had been found lying on the 
 rocks, his skull fractured — dead. 
 
 THE END 
 
 BILLING AND SONS, LTD.j PRINTERS, GUILDFORD 
 
A 
 
 THE LAND OF COCKAYNE 
 
 By MATILDE' SERAO • 
 
 Some ipresa ©pinions 
 
 The Pall Mall Gazette. — It is long since we have read — and, 
 indeed, re-read — any book of modern fiction with so absorbing an 
 interest as "The Land of "Cockayne," the latest book by Matilde 
 Serao (Heinemann), and surely as fine a piece of work as the genius 
 of this writer has yet accomplished. It is splendid t -Powers of the 
 highest order, an intensity of feeling almost painful in its acuteness, 
 a breathless vigour that carries the reader off his feet and- away, like 
 some turbulent mountain stream — these are but some of th^ qualities 
 manifest in this astounding epic of superstition, sorrow, and shame. 
 We can think of no other writer who has given us so startling and, 
 at the same time, so true an insight into Neapolitan life and thought, 
 while throughout the whole, like the ever-recurring notes of a leit- 
 motif, comes the influence, in one shape or another, of the inborn 
 gambling craze. Peculiarly pathetic, though slight in its relation 
 to the whole story, a mere feature in the grand general scheme, is 
 the love-t^le of the rough peasant-born Dr. Amati and Donna 
 Bianca Maria — poor hypersensitive, wasted flower of humanity. 
 The ruin that comes on the good bourgeoise Fragalas ; the love-lorn 
 factory girl, who beggars herself in order to play, play, play, so that 
 her handsome, good-for-nothing lover may swagger as a " gentle- 
 man," and possibly marry her. An umbo ! oh, for an ambo ! It is 
 the recurring cry from first to last — from the old Marquis, the father 
 of Bianca Maria, to the hunchbacked shoeblack ; all meet on a 
 common ground, are bound by a common wish. The character- 
 drawing is subtle and convincing ; every touch tells. Take, for 
 instance, the sketch of the sisters Donna Caterina and Donna Con- 
 cetta, the one who owns the " small game " and the other who lends 
 the money to stake with to the infatuated crowd, thus playing into 
 each other's hands, while they draw in and suck under their dupes 
 like a veritable human Scylla and Charybdis. Yet these sisters are 
 (after their fashion) both just and pious women ; they warn their 
 clients not to gamble, and give of their substance to the saints a^d 
 to the poor. Such books as " The Land of Cockayne " are epoch- 
 making, voices that cry aloud in the wilderness of modern " litera-, 
 ture," and will be heard while others only cackle.' 
 
 The Spectator. — ' An elaborate and ruthless study of the gambling 
 instincts as developed by State lotteries in modern Italy. The tragic 
 consequences of indulgence in the gambling mania are traced out 
 with a wealth of convincing detail. " The Land of Cockayne " is a 
 great novel, with a most laudable purpose, the lessons of which, 
 mutatis mutandis, should not be thrown away on English readers. 
 One can only regret that the theme has never been adequately 
 treated by an English writer of equal genius to that of Madame 
 Serao.' 
 
Some ipre96 Q^inione— continued 
 
 The Bookman. — ' Zola has never written a more terrible account 
 of a social evil than Madame Serao's tales of Neapolitan lotteries. 
 Save that we seem to see concentrated in her pages all the evil in its 
 awful variety of forms, there is no exaggeration. Every several tale 
 is true, and every one tells of the same poisoning of the life of the 
 people by the two contending forces, locked there in a deadly 
 alliance of poverty and the lust of gambling.' 
 
 The Speaker.-^' Matilde Serao has great gifts, perhaps the 
 greatest : she is simpatica. To translate this quality into an English 
 epithet baffles my vocabulary, but it amounts to this : that we like 
 Matilde Serao in her writings. Also, she is well informed in a 
 certain sphere, and within that sphere her books move. Out of the 
 fulness of the memory, the imagination, the observation, the heart, 
 does the true modern novelist's mouth speak. Who loves Naples 
 
 ill find what he loves in Naples happily seized, and his curiosity 
 in the Siren City nourished and yet continued.' 
 
 The Academy. — ' Matilde Serao has the direct, impersonal manner 
 that belongs only to the efficient. In her books are no asides, no \ 
 pauses, no extraneous interpolations. The story moves in the un- 
 interrupted fashion of life. Having set out to deal with such and 
 such a subject, Matilde Serao does that, and nothing else, the un- 
 wavering concentration of her methods rendering the average 
 English novel, with its slipshod construction and frequent digres- 
 sions, like so many 'prentice efforts by comparison.' 
 
 The Daily Chronicle. — ' This is an absorbing and, on the whole, 
 a very persuasive book. Cockayne is Naples in these pages — Naples 
 given over to the lottery, crazed, debauched and beggared by it. If 
 the colouring is high, the outline is unmistakably true. Matilde 
 Serao's fascinating book has, however, another side, and those who 
 know anything at all of the city which it describes will delight in the 
 countless incidental sketches of social life — high, middle, and low.' 
 
 The Pilot. — ' It is not the Naples of the forestieYi, a city builded 
 of sun-warm colours between blue of sea and sky, which ,the well- 
 known Italian novelist gives us in " The Land of Cockayne." 
 Beneath the surface fairness of that Southern world of vineyards, 
 olive-groves, and palms, Matilde Serao reveals the volcanic? forces 
 of smouldering fumes and devastating flame. The book is a tragic 
 presentment of the popular passion for the lottery and its disinte- 
 grating effect upon individual and civic life. The studies are 
 mercilessly realistic, both of social types and their suggestive set- , 
 ting. "The Land of Cockayne," in its knowledge of the people, 
 their passions and their weaknesses, and the insidious influence of 
 the lottery upon them, rises to the dignity of a social document. 
 The translation is admirable, ^giving the\U];ious hardness of the^ 
 author's style, the sharp etching qf outline, tiqsoftened by i^nter- 
 vening atmosphere.' 'x x' I 
 
 The Scotsman. — ' It bears ©very trace of being drawn from the 
 life, of being a mercilessly faithful transcript of certain aspect's and j 
 phases of Neapolitan society. It has many marks of genius, andlt / 
 has had the good fortune to be well translated.' 
 
 
/ - / 
 
14 DAY USE 
 
 ROTUKN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORKOWBD 
 
 LOAN DEPT. 
 
 This book is dae on the last date stamped below, or 
 
 on the date to which renewed. 
 
 Renewed books are subject to immediate recaU. 
 
 N0V10J965 
 
 REC'D 
 
 OCT 23 '65 -4 PM 
 
 -f 
 
 LD 2lA-60m-3,'65 
 (F2336sl0)476B 
 
 General Library . 
 University of California 
 Berkeley 
 
•• ' . :ti.