My Friend Prospero

by Henry Harland

  I

  "Good morning, Prospero," said Annunziata.

  "Good morning, Wide-awake," responded John.

  He was in the octagonal room on the _piano nobile_ of the castle, wherehis lost ladies of old years smiled on him from their frames. He hadheard an approaching patter of feet on the pavement of the room beyond;and then Annunziata's little grey figure, white face, and big graveeyes, had appeared, one picture the more, in the vast carved and gildeddoorway.

  "I have been looking everywhere for you," she said, plaintive.

  "Poor sweetheart," he commiserated her. "And can't you find me?"

  "I couldn't," said Annunziata, bearing on the tense. "But I have foundyou _now_."

  "Oh? Have you? Where?" asked he.

  "_Where?_" cried she, with a disdainful movement. "But _here_, ofcourse."

  "I wouldn't be too cocksure of that," he cautioned her. "_Here_ is amighty evasive bird. For, suppose we were elsewhere, then _there_ wouldbe here, and here would be somewhere else."

  "No," said Annunziata, with resolution. "Where a person is, that isalways _here_."

  "You speak as if a person carried his here with him, like his hat," saidJohn.

  "Yes, that is how it is," said Annunziata, nodding.

  "You have a remarkably solid little head,--for all its curls, there's noconfusing it," said he. "Well, have you your report, drawn up, signed,sealed, sworn to before a Commissioner for Oaths, and ready to bedelivered?"

  "My report--?" questioned Annunziata, with a glance.

  "About the Form," said John. "I caught you yesterday red-handed in thefact of pumping it."

  "Yes," said Annunziata. "Her name is Maria Dolores."

  "A most becoming name," said he.

  "She is very nice," said Annunziata.

  "She looks very nice," said he.

  "She is twenty-two years and ten months old," continued his informant.

  "Fancy. As middle-aged as that," commented he.

  "Yes. She is an Austrian."

  "Ah."

  "And as I told you, she is visiting the Signora Brandi. Only, she callsher Frao Branta."

  "Frao Branta?" John turned the name on his tongue. "Branta? Branta?"What familiar German name, at the back of his memory, did it half evoke?Suddenly he had a flash. "Can you possibly mean Frau Brandt?"

  Annunziata gave a gesture of affirmation.

  "Yes, that is it," she said. "You sound it just as she did!"

  "I see," said John. "And Brandt, if there are degrees of unbirth, iseven more furiously unborn than Brandi."

  "Unborn--?" said Annunziata, frowning.

  "Not noble--not of the aristocracy," John explained.

  "Very few people are noble," said Annunziata.

  "All the more reason, then, why you and I should be thankful that weare," said he.

  "You and I?" she expostulated, with a shrug of her little greyshoulders. "_Mache!_ We are not noble."

  "Aren't we? How do you know?" asked John. "Anyhow," he impressivelymoralized, "we can try to be."

  "No," said she, with conclusiveness, with fatalism. "It is no goodtrying. Either you are noble or simple,--God makes you so,--you cannothelp it. If I were noble, I should be a contessina. If you were noble,you would be a gransignore.

  "And my unassuming appearance assures you that I'm not?" said he,smiling.

  "If you were a gransignore," she instructed him, "you would never besuch friends with me--you would be too proud."

  John laughed.

  "You judge people by the company they keep. Well, I will apply the sameprinciple of judgment to your gossip, Maria Dolores. By-the-by," hebroke off to inquire, "what is her Pagan name?"

  "Her Pagan name? What is that?" asked Annunziata.

  "Maria Dolores, I take it, is her Christian name, come by in HolyBaptism," said John. "But I suppose she will have a Pagan name, come byin the way of the flesh, to round it off with,--just as, for instance, acertain flame of mine, whose image, when I die, they'll find engravedupon my heart, has the Pagan name of Casalone."

  Annunziata looked up, surprised. "Casalone? That is my name," she said.

  "Yes," said John. "Yours will be the image."

  Annunziata gave her head a toss. "Maria Dolores did not tell me herPagan name," she said.

  "At any rate," said he, "to judge by the company she keeps, we maysafely classify her as unborn. She is probably the daughter of amiller,--of a miller (to judge also a little by the frocks she wears) inrather a large way of business, who (to judge finally by her cultivatedvoice, her knowledge of languages, and her generally distinguished air)has spared no expense in the matter of her education. I shouldn'twonder a bit if she could even play the piano."

  "No," agreed Annunziata, "that is very likely. But why"--she tiltedupwards her inquisitive little profile--"why should you think she is thedaughter of a miller?"

  "Miller," said John, "I use as a generic term. Her father may be alexicographer or a dry-salter, a designer of dirigible balloons or amanufacturer of air-pumps; he may even be a person of independent means,who lives in a big, new, stuccoed villa in the suburbs of Vienna, anddevotes his leisure to the propagation of orchids: yet all the while amiller. By miller I mean a member of the Bourgeoisie: a man who, thoughhe be well to do, well educated, well bred, does not bear coat-armour,and is therefore to be regarded by those who do with their noses in theair,--especially in Austria. Among Austrians, unless you bearcoat-armour, you're impossible, you're nowhere. We mustn't let youbecome enamoured of her if she doesn't bear coat-armour."

  Annunziata's eyes, during this divagation, had wandered to the window,the tall window with its view of the terraced garden, where the mimosabloomed and the blackcaps carolled. Now she turned them slowly uponJohn, and he saw from their expression that at last she was coming towhat for her (as he had known all along) was the real preoccupation ofthe moment. They were immensely serious, intensely concerned, and at thesame time, in their farther recesses, you felt a kind of flutteringshyness, as if _I dare not_ were hanging upon _I would_.

  "Tell me," she began, on a deep note, a deep coaxing note.... Then _Idare not_ got the better, and she held back.... Then _I would_ took hiscourage in both hands, and she plunged. "What have you brought for mefrom Roccadoro?" And after one glance of half-bashful, all-impassionedsupplication, she let her eyes drop, and stood before him suspensive, asone awaiting the word of destiny.

  John's "radiant blondeur," his yellow beard, pink face, and sea-blueeyes, lighted up, more radiant still, with subcutaneous laughter.

  "The shops were shut," he said. "I arrived after closing time."

  But something in his tone rendered this grim announcement nugatory.Annunziata drew a long breath, and looked up again. "You have broughtme something, all the same," she declared with conviction; and eagerly,eyes gleaming, "What is it? What is it?" she besought him.

  John laughed. "You are quite right," he said. "If one can't buy, beg, orborrow, in this world, one can generally steal."

  Annunziata drew away, regarded him with misgiving. "Oh, no; you wouldnever steal," she protested.

  "I'm not so sure--for one I loved," said he. "What would you have likedme to bring you?"

  Annunziata thought. "I liked those chocolate cigars," she said, her facesoft with reminiscence of delight.

  "Ah, but we mustn't have it _toujours perdrix_," said John. "Do you, byany chance, like marchpane?"

  "Marchpane?--I adore it," she answered, in an outburst of emotion.

  "You have your human weaknesses, after all," John laughed. "Well, Istole a pocketful of marchpane."

  Annunziata drew away again, her little white forehead furrowed."Stole?" she repeated, reluctant to believe.

  "Yes," said he, brazenly, nodding his head.

  "Oh, that was very wrong," said Annunziata, sadly shaking hers.

  "No," said he. "Because, in the first place, it's a matter of proverbialwisdom that stolen marchpane's sweetest. And, in the next place, I stoleit quite openly, under the eye o
f the person it belonged to, and shemade no effort to defend her property. Seeing which, I even went so faras to explain to her _why_ I was stealing it. 'There's a young limb o'mischief with a sweet tooth at Sant' Alessina,' I explained, 'whoregularly levies blackmail upon me. I'm stealing this for her.' And thenthe lady I was stealing from told me I might steal as much as ever Ithought good."

  "Oh-h-h," said Annunziata, a long-drawn _Oh_ of relief. "Then you didn'tsteal it--she _gave_ it to you."

  "Well," said John, "if casuistry like that can ease your conscience--ifyou feel that you can conscientiously receive it--" And he allowed hisinflection to complete the sentence.

  "Give it to me," said Annunziata, holding out her hands, and dancing upand down in glee and in impatience.

  "Nenni-da," said John. "Not till after dinner. I'm not going to be aparty to the spoiling of a fair, young, healthy appetite."

  Pain wrote itself upon Annunziata's brow. "Oh," she grieved, "must Iwait till after dinner?"

  "Yes," said John.

  For a breathing-space she struggled. "Would it be bad of me," she asked,"if I begged for just a _little_ now?"

  "Yes," said John, "bad and bootless. You'd find me as unyielding asadamant."

  "Ah, well," sighed Annunziata, a deep and tremulous sigh. "Then I willwait."

  And, like a true philosopher, she proceeded to occupy her mind with afresh interest. She looked round the room, she looked out of the window."Why do you stay here? It is much pleasanter in the garden," sheremarked.

  "I came here to seek for consolation. To-day began for me with a tragicmisadventure," John replied.

  Annunziata's eyes grew big, compassionating him, and, at the same time,bespeaking a lively curiosity.

  "Poor Prospero," she gently murmured. "What was it?" on tip-toe shedemanded.

  "Well," he said, "when I rose, to go for my morning swim, I made anelaborate toilet, because I hoped to meet a certain person whom, forreasons connected with my dignity, I wished to impress. But it waslove's labour lost. The certain person is an ornament of the uncertainsex, and didn't turn up. So, to console myself, I came here."

  Annunziata looked round the room again. "What is there here that canconsole you?"

  "These," said John. His hand swept the pictured walls.

  "The paintings?" said she, following his gesture. "How can they consoleyou?"

  "They're so well painted," said he, fondly studying the soft-colouredcanvases. "Besides, these ladies are dead. I like dead ladies."

  Annunziata looked critically at the pictures, and then at him withsolemn meaning. "They are very pretty--but they are not dead," shepronounced in her deepest voice.

  "Not dead?" echoed John, astonished. "Aren't they?"

  "No," said she, with a slow shake of the head.

  "Dear me," said he. "And, when they're alone here and no one's looking,do you think they come down from their frames and dance? It must be asight worth seeing."

  "No," said Annunziata. "These are only their pictures. They cannot comedown from their frames. But the ladies themselves are not dead. Some ofthem are still in Purgatory, perhaps. We should pray for them." Shemade, in parenthesis as it were, a pious sign of the Cross. "Some areperhaps already in Heaven. We should ask their prayers. And others areperhaps in Hell," she pursued, inexorable theologian that she was. "Butnone of them is dead. No one is dead. There's no such thing as beingdead."

  "But then," puzzled John, "what is it that people mean when they talk ofDeath?"

  "I will tell you," said Annunziata, her eyes heavy with thought."Listen, and I will tell you." She seated herself on the big roundottoman, and raised her face to his. "Have you ever been at apantomime?" she asked.

  "Yes," said John, wondering what could possibly be coming.

  "Have you been at the pantomime," she continued earnestly, "when therewas what they call a transformation-scene?"

  "Yes," said John.

  "Well," said she, "last winter I was taken to the pantomime at Bergamo,and I saw a transformation-scene. You ask me, what is Death? It isexactly like a transformation-scene. At the pantomime the scene was justlike the world. There were trees, and houses, and people, common people,like any one. Then suddenly click! Oh, it was wonderful. Everything waschanged. The trees had leaves of gold and silver, and the houses werelike fairy palaces, and there were strange lights, red and blue, andthere were great garlands of the most beautiful flowers, and the peoplewere like angels, with gems and shining clothes. Well, you understand,at first we had only seen one side of the scene;--then click! everythingwas turned round, and we saw the other side. That is like life anddeath. Always, while we are alive, we can see only one side of things.But there is the other side, the under side. Never, so long as we arealive, we can never, never see it. But when we die,--click! It is atransformation-scene. Everything is turned round, and we see the otherside. Oh, it will be very different, it will be wonderful. That is whatthey call Death."

  It was John's turn to be grave. It was some time before he spoke. Helooked down at her, with a kind of grave laughter in his eyes, admiring,considering. What could he say? ... What he did say, at last, wassimply, "Thank you, my dear."

  Annunziata jumped up.

  "Oh, come," she urged. "Let's go into the garden. It is so much nicerthere than here. There are lots of cockchafers. Besides"--she held outas an additional inducement--"we might meet Maria Dolores."

  "No," said John. "Though the cockchafers are a temptation, I will stophere. But go you to the garden, by all means. And if you do meet MariaDolores, tell her what you have just told me. I think she would like tohear it."

  "All right," consented Annunziata, moving towards the door. "I'll seeyou at dinner. You won't forget the marchpane?"