by Henry James
“Ah, then, she must be so,” I said, “because, for your age, you are very intelligent.” And having delivered myself of this compliment I walked away and left the little girl counting her soldi.
I walked back to the hotel, wondering how I could learn something about the Contessa Salvi-Scarabelli. In the doorway I found the innkeeper, and near him stood a young man whom I immediately perceived to be a compatriot, and with whom, apparently, he had been in conversation.
“I wonder whether you can give me a piece of information,” I said to the landlord. “Do you know anything about the Count Salvi- Scarabelli?”
The landlord looked down at his boots, then slowly raised his shoulders, with a melancholy smile. “I have many regrets, dear sir— “
“You don’t know the name?”
“I know the name, assuredly. But I don’t know the gentleman.”
I saw that my question had attracted the attention of the young Englishman, who looked at me with a good deal of earnestness. He was apparently satisfied with what he saw, for he presently decided to speak.
“The Count Scarabelli is dead,” he said, very gravely.
I looked at him a moment; he was a pleasing young fellow. “And his widow lives,” I observed, “in Via Ghibellina?”
“I daresay that is the name of the street.” He was a handsome young Englishman, but he was also an awkward one; he wondered who I was and what I wanted, and he did me the honour to perceive that, as regards these points, my appearance was reassuring. But he hesitated, very properly, to talk with a perfect stranger about a lady whom he knew, and he had not the art to conceal his hesitation. I instantly felt it to be singular that though he regarded me as a perfect stranger, I had not the same feeling about him. Whether it was that I had seen him before, or simply that I was struck with his agreeable young face—at any rate, I felt myself, as they say here, in sympathy with him. If I have seen him before I don’t remember the occasion, and neither, apparently, does he; I suppose it’s only a part of the feeling I have had the last three days about everything. It was this feeling that made me suddenly act as if I had known him a long time.
“Do you know the Countess Salvi?” I asked.
He looked at me a little, and then, without resenting the freedom of my question—”The Countess Scarabelli, you mean,” he said.
“Yes,” I answered; “she’s the daughter.”
“The daughter is a little girl.”
“She must be grown up now. She must be—let me see—close upon thirty.”
My young Englishman began to smile. “Of whom are you speaking?”
“I was speaking of the daughter,” I said, understanding his smile. “But I was thinking of the mother.”
“Of the mother?”
“Of a person I knew twenty-seven years ago—the most charming woman I have ever known. She was the Countess Salvi—she lived in a wonderful old house in Via Ghibellina.”
“A wonderful old house!” my young Englishman repeated.
“She had a little girl,” I went on; “and the little girl was very fair, like her mother; and the mother and daughter had the same name- -Bianca.” I stopped and looked at my companion, and he blushed a little. “And Bianca Salvi,” I continued, “was the most charming woman in the world.” He blushed a little more, and I laid my hand on his shoulder. “Do you know why I tell you this? Because you remind me of what I was when I knew her—when I loved her.” My poor young Englishman gazed at me with a sort of embarrassed and fascinated stare, and still I went on. “I say that’s the reason I told you this—but you’ll think it a strange reason. You remind me of my younger self. You needn’t resent that—I was a charming young fellow. The Countess Salvi thought so. Her daughter thinks the same of you.”
Instantly, instinctively, he raised his hand to my arm. “Truly?”
“Ah, you are wonderfully like me!” I said, laughing. “That was just my state of mind. I wanted tremendously to please her.” He dropped his hand and looked away, smiling, but with an air of ingenuous confusion which quickened my interest in him. “You don’t know what to make of me,” I pursued. “You don’t know why a stranger should suddenly address you in this way and pretend to read your thoughts. Doubtless you think me a little cracked. Perhaps I am eccentric; but it’s not so bad as that. I have lived about the world a great deal, following my profession, which is that of a soldier. I have been in India, in Africa, in Canada, and I have lived a good deal alone. That inclines people, I think, to sudden bursts of confidence. A week ago I came into Italy, where I spent six months when I was your age. I came straight to Florence—I was eager to see it again, on account of associations. They have been crowding upon me ever so thickly. I have taken the liberty of giving you a hint of them.” The young man inclined himself a little, in silence, as if he had been struck with a sudden respect. He stood and looked away for a moment at the river and the mountains. “It’s very beautiful,” I said.
“Oh, it’s enchanting,” he murmured.
“That’s the way I used to talk. But that’s nothing to you.”
He glanced at me again. “On the contrary, I like to hear.”
“Well, then, let us take a walk. If you too are staying at this inn, we are fellow-travellers. We will walk down the Arno to the Cascine. There are several things I should like to ask of you.”
My young Englishman assented with an air of almost filial confidence, and we strolled for an hour beside the river and through the shady alleys of that lovely wilderness. We had a great deal of talk: it’s not only myself, it’s my whole situation over again.
“Are you very fond of Italy?” I asked.
He hesitated a moment. “One can’t express that.”
“Just so; I couldn’t express it. I used to try—I used to write verses. On the subject of Italy I was very ridiculous.”
“So am I ridiculous,” said my companion.
“No, my dear boy,” I answered, “we are not ridiculous; we are two very reasonable, superior people.”
“The first time one comes—as I have done—it’s a revelation.”
“Oh, I remember well; one never forgets it. It’s an introduction to beauty.”
“And it must be a great pleasure,” said my young friend, “to come back.”
“Yes, fortunately the beauty is always here. What form of it,” I asked, “do you prefer?”
My companion looked a little mystified; and at last he said, “I am very fond of the pictures.”
“So was I. And among the pictures, which do you like best?”
“Oh, a great many.”
“So did I; but I had certain favourites.”
Again the young man hesitated a little, and then he confessed that the group of painters he preferred, on the whole, to all others, was that of the early Florentines.
I was so struck with this that I stopped short. “That was exactly my taste!” And then I passed my hand into his arm and we went our way again.
We sat down on an old stone bench in the Cascine, and a solemn blank- eyed Hermes, with wrinkles accentuated by the dust of ages, stood above us and listened to our talk.
“The Countess Salvi died ten years ago,” I said.
My companion admitted that he had heard her daughter say so.
“After I knew her she married again,” I added. “The Count Salvi died before I knew her—a couple of years after their marriage.”
“Yes, I have heard that.”
“And what else have you heard?”
My companion stared at me; he had evidently heard nothing.
“She was a very interesting woman—there are a great many things to be said about her. Later, perhaps, I will tell you. Has the daughter the same charm?”
“You forget,” said my young man, smiling, “that I have never seen the mother.”
“Very true. I keep confounding. But the daughter—how long have you known her?”
“Only since I have been here. A very short time.”
“A w
eek?”
For a moment he said nothing. “A month.”
“That’s just the answer I should have made. A week, a month—it was all the same to me.”
“I think it is more than a month,” said the young man.
“It’s probably six. How did you make her acquaintance?”
“By a letter—an introduction given me by a friend in England.”
“The analogy is complete,” I said. “But the friend who gave me my letter to Madame de Salvi died many years ago. He, too, admired her greatly. I don’t know why it never came into my mind that her daughter might be living in Florence. Somehow I took for granted it was all over. I never thought of the little girl; I never heard what had become of her. I walked past the palace yesterday and saw that it was occupied; but I took for granted it had changed hands.”
“The Countess Scarabelli,” said my friend, “brought it to her husband as her marriage-portion.”
“I hope he appreciated it! There is a fountain in the court, and there is a charming old garden beyond it. The Countess’s sitting- room looks into that garden. The staircase is of white marble, and there is a medallion by Luca della Robbia set into the wall at the place where it makes a bend. Before you come into the drawing-room you stand a moment in a great vaulted place hung round with faded tapestry, paved with bare tiles, and furnished only with three chairs. In the drawing-room, above the fireplace, is a superb Andrea del Sarto. The furniture is covered with pale sea-green.”
My companion listened to all this.
“The Andrea del Sarto is there; it’s magnificent. But the furniture is in pale red.”
“Ah, they have changed it, then—in twenty-seven years.”
“And there’s a portrait of Madame de Salvi,” continued my friend.
I was silent a moment. “I should like to see that.”
He too was silent. Then he asked, “Why don’t you go and see it? If you knew the mother so well, why don’t you call upon the daughter?”
“From what you tell me I am afraid.”
“What have I told you to make you afraid?”
I looked a little at his ingenuous countenance. “The mother was a very dangerous woman.”
The young Englishman began to blush again. “The daughter is not,” he said.
“Are you very sure?”
He didn’t say he was sure, but he presently inquired in what way the Countess Salvi had been dangerous.
“You must not ask me that,” I answered “for after all, I desire to remember only what was good in her.” And as we walked back I begged him to render me the service of mentioning my name to his friend, and of saying that I had known her mother well, and that I asked permission to come and see her.
9th.—I have seen that poor boy half a dozen times again, and a most amiable young fellow he is. He continues to represent to me, in the most extraordinary manner, my own young identity; the correspondence is perfect at all points, save that he is a better boy than I. He is evidently acutely interested in his Countess, and leads quite the same life with her that I led with Madame de Salvi. He goes to see her every evening and stays half the night; these Florentines keep the most extraordinary hours. I remember, towards 3 A.M., Madame de Salvi used to turn me out.—”Come, come,” she would say, “it’s time to go. If you were to stay later people might talk.” I don’t know at what time he comes home, but I suppose his evening seems as short as mine did. Today he brought me a message from his Contessa—a very gracious little speech. She remembered often to have heard her mother speak of me—she called me her English friend. All her mother’s friends were dear to her, and she begged I would do her the honour to come and see her. She is always at home of an evening. Poor young Stanmer (he is of the Devonshire Stanmers—a great property) reported this speech verbatim, and of course it can’t in the least signify to him that a poor grizzled, battered soldier, old enough to be his father, should come to call upon his inammorata. But I remember how it used to matter to me when other men came; that’s a point of difference. However, it’s only because I’m so old. At twenty-five I shouldn’t have been afraid of myself at fifty-two. Camerino was thirty-four—and then the others! She was always at home in the evening, and they all used to come. They were old Florentine names. But she used to let me stay after them all; she thought an old English name as good. What a transcendent coquette! … But basta cosi as she used to say. I meant to go tonight to Casa Salvi, but I couldn’t bring myself to the point. I don’t know what I’m afraid of; I used to be in a hurry enough to go there once. I suppose I am afraid of the very look of the place—of the old rooms, the old walls. I shall go tomorrow night. I am afraid of the very echoes.
10th.—She has the most extraordinary resemblance to her mother. When I went in I was tremendously startled; I stood starting at her. I have just come home; it is past midnight; I have been all the evening at Casa Salvi. It is very warm—my window is open—I can look out on the river gliding past in the starlight. So, of old, when I came home, I used to stand and look out. There are the same cypresses on the opposite hills.
Poor young Stanmer was there, and three or four other admirers; they all got up when I came in. I think I had been talked about, and there was some curiosity. But why should I have been talked about? They were all youngish men—none of them of my time. She is a wonderful likeness of her mother; I couldn’t get over it. Beautiful like her mother, and yet with the same faults in her face; but with her mother’s perfect head and brow and sympathetic, almost pitying, eyes. Her face has just that peculiarity of her mother’s, which, of all human countenances that I have ever known, was the one that passed most quickly and completely from the expression of gaiety to that of repose. Repose in her face always suggested sadness; and while you were watching it with a kind of awe, and wondering of what tragic secret it was the token, it kindled, on the instant, into a radiant Italian smile. The Countess Scarabelli’s smiles tonight, however, were almost uninterrupted. She greeted me—divinely, as her mother used to do; and young Stanmer sat in the corner of the sofa— as I used to do—and watched her while she talked. She is thin and very fair, and was dressed in light, vaporous black that completes the resemblance. The house, the rooms, are almost absolutely the same; there may be changes of detail, but they don’t modify the general effect. There are the same precious pictures on the walls of the salon—the same great dusky fresco in the concave ceiling. The daughter is not rich, I suppose, any more than the mother. The furniture is worn and faded, and I was admitted by a solitary servant, who carried a twinkling taper before me up the great dark marble staircase.
“I have often heard of you,” said the Countess, as I sat down near her; “my mother often spoke of you.”
“Often?” I answered. “I am surprised at that.”
“Why are you surprised? Were you not good friends?”
“Yes, for a certain time—very good friends. But I was sure she had forgotten me.”
“She never forgot,” said the Countess, looking at me intently and smiling. “She was not like that.”
“She was not like most other women in any way,” I declared.
“Ah, she was charming,” cried the Countess, rattling open her fan. “I have always been very curious to see you. I have received an impression of you.”
“A good one, I hope.”
She looked at me, laughing, and not answering this: it was just her mother’s trick.
“‘My Englishman,’ she used to call you—’il mio Inglese.’”
“I hope she spoke of me kindly,” I insisted.
The Countess, still laughing, gave a little shrug balancing her hand to and fro. “So-so; I always supposed you had had a quarrel. You don’t mind my being frank like this—eh?”
“I delight in it; it reminds me of your mother.”
“Every one tells me that. But I am not clever like her. You will see for yourself.”
“That speech,” I said, “completes the resemblance. She was always pretending she w
as not clever, and in reality—”
“In reality she was an angel, eh? To escape from dangerous comparisons I will admit, then, that I am clever. That will make a difference. But let us talk of you. You are very—how shall I say it?—very eccentric.”
“Is that what your mother told you?”
“To tell the truth, she spoke of you as a great original. But aren’t all Englishmen eccentric? All except that one!” and the Countess pointed to poor Stanmer, in his corner of the sofa.
“Oh, I know just what he is,” I said.
“He’s as quiet as a lamb—he’s like all the world,” cried the Countess.
“Like all the world—yes. He is in love with you.”
She looked at me with sudden gravity. “I don’t object to your saying that for all the world—but I do for him.”
“Well,” I went on, “he is peculiar in this: he is rather afraid of you.”
Instantly she began to smile; she turned her face toward Stanmer. He had seen that we were talking about him; he coloured and got up—then came toward us.
“I like men who are afraid of nothing,” said our hostess.
“I know what you want,” I said to Stanmer. “You want to know what the Signora Contessa says about you.”
Stanmer looked straight into her face, very gravely. “I don’t care a straw what she says.”
“You are almost a match for the Signora Contessa,” I answered. “She declares she doesn’t care a pin’s head what you think.”
“I recognise the Countess’s style!” Stanmer exclaimed, turning away.
“One would think,” said the Countess, “that you were trying to make a quarrel between us.”
I watched him move away to another part of the great saloon; he stood in front of the Andrea del Sarto, looking up at it. But he was not seeing it; he was listening to what we might say. I often stood there in just that way. “He can’t quarrel with you, any more than I could have quarrelled with your mother.”
“Ah, but you did. Something painful passed between you.”
“Yes, it was painful, but it was not a quarrel. I went away one day and never saw her again. That was all.”