CHAPTER XI
How the picture spoke again. Abstract metaphysical questions,and no answers. How the Picture's memory was sharpened,and how Mr. Pelly woke up. Mr. Stebbings and Mrs. Buckmaster.The actule fax. Jack's resurrection, without anarm. Full particulars. All fair in love. How Mr. Pellyknew the picture could see all, and how Madeline had notgone to bed. Captain Maclagan's family. Fullerparticulars. General Fordyce and the Bart, not wanted.What the picture must have seen and may have thought.Good-bye to the story. Mere postscript.
It is scarcely fair play to make a merit ofpatience--isn't cricket, as folk say nowadays--when youare in a comfortable armchair before a warm fire,and are feeling drowsy. But, then, Mr. Pelly wasunder an entirely wrong impression on this point,and had scheduled himself as wakeful, but contentto bide his time. Yet he might reasonably havesuspected himself of drowsiness when James, theyoung man, coming to wind up the contents of theroom, and revise the shutters, retreated withapologies. For had he been really awake, he wouldcertainly have said, "All right, James! Come in.Never mind me!" As it was, he deferred doing soa fraction of a second, and the consequences werefatal. He remained wide awake, no doubt--peoplealways do. But he had not the slightest idea thatJames had gone, closing the door gently, when thepicture said to him from the chimneypiece, inexactly the voice he had heard before, "Is it all true?"
Mr. Pelly found that, mysteriously, he took it asa matter of course that this should be so. "Ipresume," he said, "that you are alluding to thesubstance of the manuscript we have just read. I amscarcely in a position to form an opinion."
"Why not?" said the picture. At least, shesaid "_perche_" and this translates "Why not?" inEnglish.
"Because I am conscious of a strong bias towardsaccepting it as true, occasioned by the details ofyour own Italian experience, which you were sokind as to give me--perhaps you will remember?--somewhile since--let me see?--before I went awayto see that niece of mine married at Cowcester.Now, this narrative of yours--so my Reasontells me; and I may add that I have alreadycommitted myself to this opinion when awake--canonly be regarded as a figment of my own imagination,based on a partial perusal of the manuscriptyou have just heard--that is to say, _would have_just heard had you been objective. I am borrowinga phrase from my friend, Professor Schrudengesser.I do not see that any harm can come of my speakingplainly, as if you happen to have an independentexistence you will appreciate the difficulties of theposition, and if you haven't, I don't see that itmatters."
"Mr. Pelly," said the picture impressively, "Ishould like, if you will allow me, to say a serious wordto you on this subject. I refer to the reality ofour existence, a subject to which the most frivolousamongst us cannot afford to be indifferent. Haveyou never considered that the only person of whoseexistence we have _absolute_ certainty is _ourself_?Outside and beyond it, are we not painfullydependent on the evidence of our senses? What is ourdearest friend to us but a series of impressions onour sight, touch, and hearing, _plus_ the conclusionwe draw--possibly unsound--that what we touchis also what we see, and that what we hear proceedsfrom both? Have you attached due weight to...?"
Mr. Pelly interrupted the voice. "You willexcuse me," he said, "but in view of the fact thatI may wake at any moment, is it not rather atempting of Providence to discuss abstract metaphysicalquestions? No one would be more interested thanmyself in such discussions under circumstances ofguaranteed continuity. But..." Mr. Pelly paused,and the voice laughed. The picture itself remainedunmoved.
"Circumstances of guaranteed continuity," itrepeated mockingly. "When have you ever hada guarantee of continuity, and from whom? If youwere suddenly to find yourself extinct, at anymoment, could you logically--could youreasonably--express surprise?--you who had actually passedthrough an infinity of nonentity before you, atany rate, became a member of Society! Whyshould not your nonentity come back again? Whathas been, may be."
Mr. Pelly's mind felt referred to sudden death,but his reply was, "Guaranteed continuity ofcommunication was what I meant." Then he reflectedthat perhaps sudden death might be only suspensionof communication--however, he had had no experienceof it himself, and could only guess. Thepicture continued sadly:
"That makes me think how hard it is that youshould wake to live in the great world I cannot joinin; to move about and be free, while I must needsbe speechless! Give me a thought sometimes, evenas the disembodied spirit, as some hold, may givea thought to one he leaves behind. Yet even thatone is better off than I; for may not he or sherejoin those that have gone before? While I mustgrow fainter and fainter, and be at last unseen andforgotten; or even worse, restored! Rather thanthat, let me peel and be relined, or sold at Christie'swith several others as a job lot."
Mr. Pelly endeavoured to console the speaker."You need not be apprehensive," he said. "Youare covered with glass, and in a warm and dry place.Nothing is more improbable than change, in anyform, at Surley Stakes. Indeed, the first baronet,over two hundred and fifty years ago, is said to haveaccepted his new dignity with reluctance, on thescore of its novelty. This library is three hundredyears old."
"And I," said the voice, "was over one hundredyears old when it was built. But tell me--tellme--was it not all true, the story? You know it was!"
"It rests on the intrinsic evidence of themanuscript. There is nothing to confirm it. And, asI have pointed out to you, your own narrative maybe a mere figment of _my_ imagination--you mustat least admit the possibility----"
"I will if you insist upon it; it is of smallimportance to me what others think, so long as I may hanghere undisturbed, and dream over the happy daysI must have passed, in the person of my original,four hundred years ago. But oh, to think of thathateful time of bondage, with my darling hidden inthe darkness underground, sore with manacles andstarved for want of food! Think of my joy whenI could see and feel his own dear face, all clammythough it was with the dungeon damps from below!Think of my exultation at his returning life--lifeto be lived for me! And believe me--for this Ican know, for I _was_ Maddalena, and now it comes,like a dim memory--that I shuddered when theytold me that the sodden old horror that had beenmy owner was well started on his flight to Hell,sent by the swift little knife-spike of my Marta. Ohhow often have I seen that little knife itself in thelong girth that could but just span the bloated carcassof the Ferretti!--for _he_ is a clear memory to me.And to think that that knife--_that knife_--wasto..."
Mr. Pelly felt constrained to interrupt. "Pardonme," he said, "if I venture to recall to you that theduty of Christians, of all denominations, is toforgive; and besides, entirely apart from that, all thisoccurred such a very long time ago."
"How long is needed, think you"--and as thevoice said this, it almost grew cruel in itsearnestness--"how long, for a girl, to forgive the utmostwrong God in His wisdom has put it in the powerof Man to inflict on Woman? Still, I did shudder--haveI not said it?--at what they told me; thoughthey showed me not the knife, and that was well.I _did_ shudder, it is true; but now, as you say, itis best forgotten. Better for me to think of our daysthat must have been, of the babes that were born tous that I never saw, of how we watched them growingin the happy passing hours, in the little old Castelloin the hills. Better for me to know, as I know now,that I, while this thing that I am now--this thingof paint and canvas--lay hid in a garret, even Icould be to him, my love, a slight half-solace for hisruined hand. How slight, who can tell who doesnot know what a lost right hand means to the artistwhose life is in his craft?..."
It seemed then to Mr. Pelly that the voicecontinued, though he heard it less distinctly, alwaysdwelling on the life of its prototype, as revealed toit by the manuscript, in a manner that thedream-machinery of his mind failed to account for. Hisimpression was that it continued thus for a verylong time--some hours--during the last half ofwhich it changed its character, becoming slowlymerged in that of another voice, familiar to Mr. Pelly,which ended by saying with perfect distinctness,"The Captain wished his arm to be broke gradualto his famil
y. 'Ence what I say!" And thenMr. Pelly was suddenly aware that he had droppedasleep for five minutes, and had been spoiling hisnight's rest. Also that he was now quite awake,and that Mr. Stebbings the butler had spoken thelast words to Mrs. Buckmaster the housekeeper;and that both were unaware that he was on the otherside of the large armchair-back--and, indeed, it waslarge enough to conceal something bigger thanMr. Pelly. He abstained from making his presenceknown, however; more, perhaps, because he thoughthe was scarcely awake enough for words than tohear what should come next. He fancied thecrushed hand incident of the dream had mixed itselfinto Mr. Stebbings' last speech, and made nonsenseof it. But then, how about the sequel?
"'His arm broke gradual,' Mr. Stebbings?"Mrs. Buckmaster repeated. And her perception ofthe oddity of the speech reassured Mr. Pelly, whobegan to suspect he might be awake. But he waitedfor the reply.
"Quite so, Mrs. Buckmaster. Broke gradual.From consideration for family feeling. And that,if an amanuensis, suspicion would attach, and, inconsequence, divulge."
Mr. Stebbings's style assumed that if he used theright words, somewhere, it didn't matter what orderthey came in. It didn't really matter; hisrespectability seemed more than a makeweight forslighted syntax.
Mrs. Buckmaster was a venerable and sweetinstitution of forty years standing, that spoke toevery member of the household as "my dear";and conveyed an impression, always, of having inher hands a key with which she had just locked astore-room, or was going to unlock one. Or, rather,not so much a key, as a flavour of a key.Mrs. Buckmaster was a sort of amateur mother of severalcounty families, whose components all but acknowledgedher, and paid her visits in her private apartmentswhen they came to call at the Stakes. Herreply to Mr. Stebbings now was, "Merciful Heaven!And the girl nursed him. And she a Dutch woman!"
Mr. Pelly roused himself. His sensitive consciencerecoiled from further eavesdropping. "What's allthat, Stebbings? What's all that, Mrs. Buckmaster?"he said, becoming manifest, and evokingapologies. Mr. Stebbings had had no idear!
Mrs. Buckmaster said: "Well, now--to think ofthat!" then, collecting herself, added, "TellMr. Pelly, Thomas, what you know. Thomas will tellyou, sir, what he knows."
Thomas perceived distinction ahead, and bracedhimself for an effort. "Respecting the actule fax,sir, they are soon told. After the lamentabledisaster to both armies at Stroomsdrift, accompaniedwith unparalleled 'eroism on both sides, the Captain'shorse became restive, and ensued. No longer underthe Captain's control, having received a bulletthrough the upper arm--unfortunately the right,but, nevertheless, in the service of his country.Wonderful to relate, he retained his presence ofmind"--Mr. Stebbings's pride in this passage wasindescribable--"and arrived without furtherdisaster, though unconscious...." It was perhaps aswell that the Baronet called Mr. Stebbings away atthis point, as Mrs. Buckmaster knew the wholestory.
"Why on earth couldn't Stebbings begin at thebeginning?" said Mr. Pelly rather irritably. "IsCaptain Calverley alive or dead?--that's what _I_want to know. And who's that outside, talking toSir Stopleigh and the General?"
"It's the Captain himself, sir," said Mrs. Buckmaster."Looking that well--only no arm! Hisright, too." And then she cleared matters up, bytelling how, after the battle, the young soldier,badly wounded in more places than one, had, nevertheless,contrived to keep his seat on a half-runawayhorse he could scarcely guide, which carried himaway in a semi-conscious state to a lonely farm onthe veldt, tenanted only by a Dutch mother anddaughter. These two, hating _roineks_ in theory,but softening to a young and handsome one inpractice, had kept the wounded man and nursed himround, but could get no surgical help advancedenough to save his arm, which he had been obligedto leave in South Africa. The daughter hadevidently regarded the Captain as her property--a fairprisoner of war--and had done her best to retainhim, writing letters to his friends for him at hisdictation, which were never despatched in spite ofpromises made, and heading off search-partiesthat appeared in the neighbourhood. Mrs. Buckmastercondemned this conduct on principle, butsaid: "Ah, poor girl--only think of it," inpractice.
That was really the whole of the story, so far.But like a continuous frieze, it would bear anyquantity of repetition, as the Captain's reappearancealways suggested his first departure, five monthsago, and led to a new recital. The frieze, however,was not to remain unbroken; for Mrs. Buckmasterwas balked of her fourth _da capo_ by the reappearanceof the Baronet, with General Fordyce, both of themalso knee-deep in recapitulations. Sir Stopleigh wasin a state of high bewilderment.
"Just listen to this. Uncle Kit.... Oh, youknow--Mrs. Buckmaster's told you. Never mind,General, tell us again how it happened--it has beenqueer! Tell Mr. Pelly how you came to hearof it."
"It was like this," said the General, who wascollected. "A month ago I was knocked over byreceiving this telegram. Here it is." He producedit from a pocket-book and read: "'Am alive andwell if news that am marrying Dutch girl contradictotherwise keep silent till I come Jack.' Well,George, I saw nothing for it but to bottle up, andI assure you I was pretty well put to it to keep myown counsel. However, I really hadn't any choice.Very well, then! That goes on till ten days ago,when another wire comes from Madeira, 'Passengerby _Briton_ in London this day week Jack.' Andsure enough my young friend bursts into mychambers four days ago, with, 'Tell me about Madeline--isshe engaged?' 'Not that I know of, my dearboy,' said I. 'And I think I should know if shewere.' Then says he, 'Oh, what a selfish beast Iam! But you'll forgive me, General, when youknow.' However, I didn't want to know, but forgavehim right off."
"And then I suppose he told you all he's beentelling us downstairs--about the Dutch girl and thefarmhouse on the veldt?"
"Yes, he seems to have known very little fromthe moment he was struck until his senses cameback to him at the farm. I must say they seem tohave behaved wonderfully well to him...."
"I can't say I think burning his letters and cuttinghim off from all communications was exactly goodbehaviour." Thus the Baronet. But the Generalseemed doubtful.
"We-e-ell!--I don't know. I shouldn't quitesay that. Remember it was only this poor girl thatdid it, and one sees her motive. No--no! All'sfair in love, George. I'm sorry for her, with all myheart."
Mrs. Buckmaster murmured under her breath:"What was I saying to Mr. Christopher?" andthereon Mr. Pelly felt in honour bound to testifyto her truthfulness. "Yes--Mrs. Buckmasterthought so." Nobody was very definite.
"But did he come here with you, General?"asked Mr. Pelly, who was gradually toning down tosane inquiry-point. Mixed replies said that theCaptain had not been long in the house. LadyUpwell was interviewing him--they were, in fact,audible in the distance. The General suppliedfurther information.
"You see," he said, "Master Jack and I had justarranged it all beautifully. I was to come here tolet it out gently and not frighten Miss Upwell, andalso to find how the land lay. Because, you seeafter all, they were not engaged...."
"Oh no! They were not _engaged_." This wasa kind of chorus; after which the General continued:
"Anyhow, Miss Upwell might have picked upwith some other young fellow. However, shehasn't. Well!--I was to come here and take thesoundings, and his ship was to follow on; hemeanwhile going down to inflict a full dramatic surpriseon his own family at Granchester Towers. He saidtheir nerves were strong enough, and it would dothem good. He was to come on as soon as he could,unless he heard to the contrary. And then, as hewas riding through Sampford Pagnell on his wayhere, what must be come upon but a man of his owncompany, who had been invalided home afterenteritis, who had been drinking and got into a row.He stopped to see him out of his difficulties--hadto go bail for him--and then came on here. Butit made him late. And I should have been heresooner myself, only something went wrong with thetrains. It made me so late that I almost made upmy mind, if Jack wasn't here, to go back to the innat Grewceham, so as not to frighten you all out ofyour wits."
"There's my wife coming up. I wonder whatthey've settled." Thus the B
aronet.
Then her Ladyship came in, and following her,in tiptoe silence, the young soldier himself. Butalas!--it was all true about the arm. There was theloose right sleeve, looped up to his coat. But itssurvivor was still in evidence, and Mr. Pelly, ashe took the hand that was left in his own, wonderedif he was not still dreaming, so full was his mind ofthe story of that other hand, lost four hundred yearsago. He could not dismiss the picture from histhoughts; and as he stood there talking with theyoung soldier, in whom he could see the saddeningof his terrible experience through all the joy of hisreturn, he was always conscious of its presence,conscious of its eyes fixed on all that passed beforeit--conscious of its comparison between the lot ofits original, and Madeline's. And it made the oldgentleman feel quite eerie and uncomfortable. Sohe resolved to say good-night, and did so as soon asa pause came in an earnest conversation asidebetween the Baronet and his Lady, who seemedto be enforcing a view by argument. Mr. Pellyheard the last words:
"I have told this dear, silly fellow Mad mustspeak for herself. I won't say anything....No--not to-morrow; she had better be told and comedown now." Here a subcolloquy. "Wouldn't shehave gone to bed? Oh no, Eliza said not. Besides,she could slip something on." And then themainstream again. "You must give me a little time totell her, you know. One o'clock, isn't it? Thatdoesn't matter. Just think if it was a party!You'll find I'm right, George." For when LadyUpwell is pleased and excited she calls her husbandby his Christian name without the Sir.
When she had departed the General went backon a previous conversation. "But we can't makeout yet, Jack, how we came not to get any wireabout it--as soon as it was known you were alive.It ought to have been in the papers a month ago."
"Nobody knows out there yet, except HeadQuarters. Don't you see? As soon as I was fitto get on a horse, I rode all night across the veldt,and reported myself in the early morning. I beggedthem to keep me dark for a bit, and old Pipeclaysaid he could manage it...."
"But why did you want it kept dark?"
"I'll tell you directly. When I had settled that,I made a rush for Port Elizabeth, and just caughtthe _Briton_. Do you know, I was so anxious nobodyshould know anything about it till I knew aboutMadeline that I travelled as Captain Maclagan.And when I got to Southampton there was aMrs. Maclagan and two grown-up daughters inquiringfor me! So really no one knew anything at allabout me till you did."
Then the Baronet would know more of Jack'stwo months of nursing at the Dutch farm. Hethought he could understand about the girl; andhe wouldn't ask any questions. But why had Jackthought Madeline was engaged to Sir DoyleyChauncey? _He_ was engaged to another girl? Yes,he was; but that was just it! It _was_ anothergirl, of the same name--another Madeline. MasterJack coloured and was rather reserved. Then hespoke:
"I'll tell you if you like. I told the General." Whonodded. "But you mustn't blame poor Chris.Remember she was brought up a Boer, though shehad some English education. It was a newspapernotice--Court and Fashionable game--'A marriageis arranged between Sir Doyley Chauncey of LimpCourt, Gloucestershire, and Miss Madeline...' andthere the paper was carefully cut away between thelines with scissors--one can always tell a scissor cut.I was sure poor Chris had done it, for her own reasons.I had told her all about Mad. There was no humbuggingat all."
"But you silly boy," said the General, "don'tyou see what I told you is true? If she had seenthe name Upwell, on the next line, she _wouldn't_have cut it. Of course, she wouldn't leave the nameFarrant--it's Lina Farrant, George; old Farrant'sdaughter at Kneversley--man thinks Bacon wroteShakespeare----"
"Of course not! I see that all now. But oneisn't so cool as one might be sometimes. I gotquite upside down with never hearing, and, of course,I couldn't write myself. I was quite dependent onpoor Chris. But I was going to tell why I wantedto keep it dark that I was alive. You see, if Mad_had_ got engaged--to _anyone_--well, I don't exactlysee how to tell it...." He hesitated a good deal.
"Well, then..."
"Well, then what?"
"Do you know, I think I would almost soonestnot try to talk about it. But there was nothing_wrong_, you know, anywhere."
"Oh no! Nothing wrong. We quite understand."
"Only when a girl has nursed you like that--even if..."
"Even if you don't love her--is that it?"
Jack was relieved. "Yes--that's about it! Allthe same, if Madeline _had_ been engaged, I _might_have gone back and married her--to do the poorgirl a good turn."
"In spite of her squelching your letters?" saidSir Stopleigh.
"Why, ye-es! Look at why she did it!"
"There, they are coming down," said the General."Come along, George! We aren't wanted here.Good-night, Jack!"
And then off they go, leaving the young manalone, pacing backwards and forwards betweenthe door and the picture. There is but one lampleft burning, on a small table near, and it is goingout. He picks it up and holds it nearer to seethe picture. But his hand shakes; one can hearit by the tinkle in its socket of the ring thatcarries an opal globe that screens the light. Andhe does not see much, for he can hear, a long wayoff, Madeline's voice and her mother's--a meremurmur. Then the murmur flashes up a littlelouder for a moment, and the voices of the Baronetand the old General are bidding each other good-night,a long way off. Then a girl's footstep onthe stair.
The tinkle of the lamp stops as the young soldierputs it back on its table. That lamp will go outvery soon. But a log on the fire, that seemed dead,breaks out in a blaze, and all the shadows it makeson the walls leap and dance in its flicker. For thelamp is making haste to die.
That is a timid touch upon the handle of the door.The young soldier's face of expectation is a sight tosee, a sight to remember. His one hand is bearingon the table where he placed the lamp--almost asthough he were for the moment dizzy. Then, in thewavering light he can see the loose, many-floweredrobe of Madeline, such a one as she wears for thetoilette, and her white face, and her cloud of beautifulhair that is all undone. They are all there in theleaping light of the fire, and he hears her voice thatsays, "Oh Jack---oh Jack---oh Jack!" and cansay no more. And he, for his part, cannot speak,but must needs grieve--oh, how bitterly!--for theloss of the one strong arm that is gone. How hewould have drawn her to him! But he still has one,and it is round her. And her two white arms areround his neck as their lips meet, even as those armsin the picture must have met round the neck of_her_ beloved, even as their lips must have met, whenthe dungeon closed again on the dead gaoler andits prisoners, in that castle in the Apennines, fourhundred years ago!
The picture still hangs over the chimney-shelf inthe library at Surley Stakes, and you may see itany time if you are in the neighbourhood.Mr. Stebbings will show it to you, and give you anabstract of the _cinquecento_ in Italy. But hesometimes is a little obscure; so our recommendation toyou is, to ask for Mrs. Buckmaster, who can nevertire of talking about it, and who will strike you asbeing the living image of Mrs. Rouncewell in "BleakHouse." Make her talk freely, and she will tell youhow whenever "our young lady," otherwise LadyCalverley--for our friend Jack unexpectedly cameto the inheritance of Granchester Towers two yearssince--visits the Stakes she always goes straight tothe picture and looks at it before anything else.And how she tells little Madeline, her eldest girl,who is old enough to understand, that pictures canreally see and hear; and, indeed, has told her thestory of the picture long ago. Of which the crownand summit of delight to this little maid of fourseems to have been its richness in murder. Chiefestof all, the impalement of the old Raimondi onMarta's knife. You will gather that requests aremade for a recital of this part of the story at untimelymoments--coming home from church on Sunday,and so on. She is going to tell it to Baby herselfas soon as he is old enough. But he isn't one yet;he has to be reckoned in months. To think of thejoys there are before him!
Mrs. Buckmaster will tell you too--if you workher up enough--of the Dutch girl, and the milesof veldt Sir John bought and gave her as a weddingpresent.
But to get at all this you must first gether out of the library, for while she is there she cantalk of little but the picture.
"I always _do_ have the thought," she will verylikely say, as she has said it to us, "that the picturecan as good as hear us speak, for all the world as ifit was a Christian, and not an inanimate object.Because its eyes keep looking--looking. Likereading into your mind, whatever Mr. Stebbingsmay say! We must all think otherwise, now andagain, and Mr. Stebbings's qualifications as a butlernone can doubt." Mrs. Buckmaster will then tellyou of the three different Artists three separateeminent critics have ascribed it to. But there canbe no doubt that the family incline to Boldrini, onthe strength of Mr. Pelly's dream. To be sure,no such artist is known to have existed. But isnot the same true of the _nipote del fratello di lattedel Bronzino_, whom the Coryphaeus of these ArtCritics invented to father it on?
Anyhow, there hangs the picture, night and day.If it sees, it sees its owners growing older, year byyear. It sees their new grandchildren appearmysteriously, and each one behave as if it was thefirst new child in human experience. It sees aone-armed soldier keen on organization of territorialforces, and a beautiful wife who thinks himthe greatest of mankind. And it sees, too, nowand again, a very old, old gentleman whom Deathseems to overlook because he is so small and dry;whom you may see too, by-the-by, if you look outsharp at Sotheby's, or Wilkinson's, or Puttick's,or Simpson's, or Quaritch's, or the Museum ReadingRoom. Some believe Mr. Pelly immortal.
If it hears, it hears the few sounds the silentnorth has to show against the music and the voicesof the south. It can listen to the endless torrentof song from its little brown-bird outside above themeadow, poised in the misty blue of a coming day,or the scanty measure of the pleading of thenightingale, heard from a thousand throats among theApennines in years gone by, welcome now as amemory that brings them back. It can hear thegreat wind roar in the chimney at its back throughthe winter nights, and the avalanches in miniaturethat come falling from the roof above when theworld awakes to fight against its shroud of snow.But there is one thing it heard in our story it maylisten for in vain--the bark of the great dog Caesar.For Caesar died of old age at eighteen, the age atwhich many of us fancy we begin to live, and thegreat bark shakes the Universe no more. Otherdogs eat small sweet biscuits now from the hand ofthe mistress who loved him, with precisely the sameprevious examination of them, with the identicalappearance of condescension in taking them at all.But Caesar lies--his mortal part--in a good-sizedgrave behind the lawn, where it can be pointed outfrom the library, and his _hospis comesque corporis_may be among the shades, may have met for anythingwe know the liberated soul of Marta's poodle,and they may have considered each othersententiously, and parted company on the worst ofterms. Caesar never could have stood that poodle,on this side.
But the picture is there still, for those who arecurious to see it. Whether it would not hang morefitly in the little Castello in the hills, if it could beidentified, is matter for discussion. If pictures couldreally speak, what would this one say?
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