The Descent of Man and Other Stories

by Edith Wharton

  She sprang toward him with outstretched hands, but as he advanced her face changed and she shrank back abashed.

  “This is a misunderstanding—a dreadful misunderstanding,” she cried out in her pretty broken English. “Oh, how does it happen that you are here?”

  “Through no choice of my own, madam, I assure you!” retorted Tony, not over-pleased by his reception.

  “But why—how—how did you make this unfortunate mistake?”

  “Why, madam, if you’ll excuse my candour, I think the mistake was yours—”

  “Mine?”—“in sending me a letter—”

  “You—a letter?”—“by a simpleton of a lad, who must needs hand it to me under your father’s very nose—”

  The girl broke in on him with a cry. “What! It was you who received my letter?” She swept round on the little maid-servant and submerged her under a flood of Venetian. The latter volleyed back in the same jargon, and as she did so, Tony’s astonished eye detected in her the doubleted page who had handed him the letter in Saint Mark’s.

  “What!” he cried, “the lad was this girl in disguise?”

  Polixena broke off with an irrepressible smile; but her face clouded instantly and she returned to the charge.

  “This wicked, careless girl—she has ruined me, she will be my undoing! Oh, sir, how can I make you understand? The letter was not intended for you—it was meant for the English Ambassador, an old friend of my mother’s, from whom I hoped to obtain assistance—oh, how can I ever excuse myself to you?”

  “No excuses are needed, madam,” said Tony, bowing; “though I am surprised, I own, that any one should mistake me for an ambassador.”

  Here a wave of mirth again overran Polixena’s face. “Oh, sir, you must pardon my poor girl’s mistake. She heard you speaking English, and—and—I had told her to hand the letter to the handsomest foreigner in the church.” Tony bowed again, more profoundly. “The English Ambassador,” Polixena added simply, “is a very handsome man.”

  “I wish, madam, I were a better proxy!”

  She echoed his laugh, and then clapped her hands together with a look of anguish. “Fool that I am! How can I jest at such a moment? I am in dreadful trouble, and now perhaps I have brought trouble on you also—Oh, my father! I hear my father coming!” She turned pale and leaned tremblingly upon the little servant.

  Footsteps and loud voices were in fact heard outside, and a moment later the red-stockinged Senator stalked into the room attended by half-a-dozen of the magnificoes whom Tony had seen abroad in the square. At sight of him, all clapped hands to their swords and burst into furious outcries; and though their jargon was unintelligible to the young man, their tones and gestures made their meaning unpleasantly plain. The Senator, with a start of anger, first flung himself on the intruder; then, snatched back by his companions, turned wrathfully on his daughter, who, at his feet, with outstretched arms and streaming face, pleaded her cause with all the eloquence of young distress. Meanwhile the other nobles gesticulated vehemently among themselves, and one, a truculent-looking personage in ruff and Spanish cape, stalked apart, keeping a jealous eye on Tony. The latter was at his wit’s end how to comport himself, for the lovely Polixena’s tears had quite drowned her few words of English, and beyond guessing that the magnificoes meant him a mischief he had no notion what they would be at.

  At this point, luckily, his friend Count Rialto suddenly broke in on the scene, and was at once assailed by all the tongues in the room. He pulled a long face at sight of Tony, but signed to the young man to be silent, and addressed himself earnestly to the Senator. The latter, at first, would not draw breath to hear him; but presently, sobering, he walked apart with the Count, and the two conversed together out of earshot.

  “My dear sir,” said the Count, at length turning to Tony with a perturbed countenance, “it is as I feared, and you are fallen into a great misfortune.”

  “A great misfortune! A great trap, I call it!” shouted Tony, whose blood, by this time, was boiling; but as he uttered the word the beautiful Polixena cast such a stricken look on him that he blushed up to the forehead.

  “Be careful,” said the Count, in a low tone. “Though his Illustriousness does not speak your language, he understands a few words of it, and—”

  “So much the better!” broke in Tony; “I hope he will understand me if I ask him in plain English what is his grievance against me.”

  The Senator, at this, would have burst forth again; but the Count, stepping between, answered quickly: “His grievance against you is that you have been detected in secret correspondence with his daughter, the most noble Polixena Cador, the betrothed bride of this gentleman, the most illustrious Marquess Zanipolo—” and he waved a deferential hand at the frowning hidalgo of the cape and ruff.

  “Sir,” said Tony, “if that is the extent of my offence, it lies with the young lady to set me free, since by her own avowal—” but here he stopped short, for, to his surprise, Polixena shot a terrified glance at him.

  “Sir,” interposed the Count, “we are not accustomed in Venice to take shelter behind a lady’s reputation.”

  “No more are we in Salem,” retorted Tony in a white heat. “I was merely about to remark that, by the young lady’s avowal, she has never seen me before.”

  Polixena’s eyes signalled her gratitude, and he felt he would have died to defend her.

  The Count translated his statement, and presently pursued: “His Illustriousness observes that, in that case, his daughter’s misconduct has been all the more reprehensible.”

  “Her misconduct? Of what does he accuse her?”

  “Of sending you, just now, in the church of Saint Mark’s, a letter which you were seen to read openly and thrust in your bosom. The incident was witnessed by his Illustriousness the Marquess Zanipolo, who, in consequence, has already repudiated his unhappy bride.”

  Tony stared contemptuously at the black Marquess. “If his Illustriousness is so lacking in gallantry as to repudiate a lady on so trivial a pretext, it is he and not I who should be the object of her father’s resentment.”

  “That, my dear young gentleman, is hardly for you to decide. Your only excuse being your ignorance of our customs, it is scarcely for you to advise us how to behave in matters of punctilio.”

  It seemed to Tony as though the Count were going over to his enemies, and the thought sharpened his retort.

  “I had supposed,” said he, “that men of sense had much the same behaviour in all countries, and that, here as elsewhere, a gentleman would be taken at his word. I solemnly affirm that the letter I was seen to read reflects in no way on the honour of this young lady, and has in fact nothing to do with what you suppose.”

  As he had himself no notion what the letter was about, this was as far as he dared commit himself.

  There was another brief consultation in the opposing camp, and the Count then said:—“We all know, sir, that a gentleman is obliged to meet certain enquiries by a denial; but you have at your command the means of immediately clearing the lady. Will you show the letter to her father?”

  There was a perceptible pause, during which Tony, while appearing to look straight before him, managed to deflect an interrogatory glance toward Polixena. Her reply was a faint negative motion, accompanied by unmistakable signs of apprehension.

  “Poor girl!” he thought, “she is in a worse case than I imagined, and whatever happens I must keep her secret.”

  He turned to the Senator with a deep bow. “I am not,” said he, “in the habit of showing my private correspondence to strangers.”

  The Count interpreted these words, and Donna Polixena’s father, dashing his hand on his hilt, broke into furious invective, while the Marquess continued to nurse his outraged feelings aloof.

  The Count shook his head funereally. “Alas, sir, it is as I feared. This is not the first time that youth and propinquity have led to fatal imprudence. But I need hardly, I suppose, point out the obligation incumbent upon
you as a man of honour.”

  Tony stared at him haughtily, with a look which was meant for the Marquess. “And what obligation is that?”

  “To repair the wrong you have done—in other words, to marry the lady.”

  Polixena at this burst into tears, and Tony said to himself: “Why in heaven does she not bid me show the letter?” Then he remembered that it had no superscription, and that the words it contained, supposing them to have been addressed to himself, were hardly of a nature to disarm suspicion. The sense of the girl’s grave plight effaced all thought of his own risk, but the Count’s last words struck him as so preposterous that he could not repress a smile.

  “I cannot flatter myself,” said he, “that the lady would welcome this solution.”

  The Count’s manner became increasingly ceremonious. “Such modesty,” he said, “becomes your youth and inexperience; but even if it were justified it would scarcely alter the case, as it is always assumed in this country that a young lady wishes to marry the man whom her father has selected.”

  “But I understood just now,” Tony interposed, “that the gentleman yonder was in that enviable position.”

  “So he was, till circumstances obliged him to waive the privilege in your favour.”

  “He does me too much honour; but if a deep sense of my unworthiness obliges me to decline—”

  “You are still,” interrupted the Count, “labouring under a misapprehension. Your choice in the matter is no more to be consulted than the lady’s. Not to put too fine a point on it, it is necessary that you should marry her within the hour.”

  Tony, at this, for all his spirit, felt the blood run thin in his veins. He looked in silence at the threatening visages between himself and the door, stole a side-glance at the high barred windows of the apartment, and then turned to Polixena, who had fallen sobbing at her father’s feet.

  “And if I refuse?” said he.

  The Count made a significant gesture. “I am not so foolish as to threaten a man of your mettle. But perhaps you are unaware what the consequences would be to the lady.”

  Polixena, at this, struggling to her feet, addressed a few impassioned words to the Count and her father; but the latter put her aside with an obdurate gesture.

  The Count turned to Tony. “The lady herself pleads for you—at what cost you do not guess—but as you see it is vain. In an hour his Illustriousness’s chaplain will be here. Meanwhile his Illustriousness consents to leave you in the custody of your betrothed.”

  He stepped back, and the other gentlemen, bowing with deep ceremony to Tony, stalked out one by one from the room. Tony heard the key turn in the lock, and found himself alone with Polixena.

  III

  THE girl had sunk into a chair, her face hidden, a picture of shame and agony. So moving was the sight that Tony once again forgot his own extremity in the view of her distress. He went and kneeled beside her, drawing her hands from her face.

  “Oh, don’t make me look at you!” she sobbed; but it was on his bosom that she hid from his gaze. He held her there a breathing-space, as he might have clasped a weeping child; then she drew back and put him gently from her.

  “What humiliation!” she lamented.

  “Do you think I blame you for what has happened?”

  “Alas, was it not my foolish letter that brought you to this plight? And how nobly you defended me! How generous it was of you not to show the letter! If my father knew I had written to the Ambassador to save me from this dreadful marriage his anger against me would be even greater.”

  “Ah—it was that you wrote for?” cried Tony with unaccountable relief.

  “Of course—what else did you think?”

  “But is it too late for the Ambassador to save you?”

  “From you?“ A smile flashed through her tears. “Alas, yes.” She drew back and hid her face again, as though overcome by a fresh wave of shame.

  Tony glanced about him. “If I could wrench a bar out of that window—” he muttered.

  “Impossible! The court is guarded. You are a prisoner, alas.—Oh, I must speak!” She sprang up and paced the room. “But indeed you can scarce think worse of me than you do already—”

  “I think ill of you?”

  “Alas, you must! To be unwilling to marry the man my father has chosen for me—”

  “Such a beetle-browed lout! It would be a burning shame if you married him.”

  “Ah, you come from a free country. Here a girl is allowed no choice.”

  “It is infamous, I say—infamous!”

  “No, no—I ought to have resigned myself, like so many others.”

  “Resigned yourself to that brute! Impossible!”

  “He has a dreadful name for violence—his gondolier has told my little maid such tales of him! But why do I talk of myself, when it is of you I should be thinking?”

  “Of me, poor child?” cried Tony, losing his head.

  “Yes, and how to save you—for I can save you! But every moment counts—and yet what I have to say is so dreadful.”

  “Nothing from your lips could seem dreadful.”

  “Ah, if he had had your way of speaking!”

  “Well, now at least you are free of him,” said Tony, a little wildly; but at this she stood up and bent a grave look on him.

  “No, I am not free,” she said; “but you are, if you will do as I tell you.”

  Tony, at this, felt a sudden dizziness; as though, from a mad flight through clouds and darkness, he had dropped to safety again, and the fall had stunned him.

  “What am I to do?” he said.

  “Look away from me, or I can never tell you.”

  He thought at first that this was a jest, but her eyes commanded him, and reluctantly he walked away and leaned in the embrasure of the window. She stood in the middle of the room, and as soon as his back was turned she began to speak in a quick monotonous voice, as though she were reciting a lesson.

  “You must know that the Marquess Zanipolo, though a great noble, is not a rich man. True, he has large estates, but he is a desperate spendthrift and gambler, and would sell his soul for a round sum of ready money.—If you turn round I shall not go on!—He wrangled horribly with my father over my dowry—he wanted me to have more than either of my sisters, though one married a Procurator and the other a grandee of Spain. But my father is a gambler too—oh, such fortunes as are squandered over the arcade yonder! And so—and so—don’t turn, I implore you—oh, do you begin to see my meaning?”

  She broke off sobbing, and it took all his strength to keep his eyes from her.

  “Go on,” he said.

  “Will you not understand? Oh, I would say anything to save you! You don’t know us Venetians—we’re all to be bought for a price. It is not only the brides who are marketable—sometimes the husbands sell themselves too. And they think you rich—my father does, and the others—I don’t know why, unless you have shown your money too freely—and the English are all rich, are they not? And—oh, oh—do you understand? Oh, I can’t bear your eyes!”

  She dropped into a chair, her head on her arms, and Tony in a flash was at her side.

  “My poor child, my poor Polixena!” he cried, and wept and clasped her.

  “You are rich, are you not? You would promise them a ransom?” she persisted.

  “To enable you to marry the Marquess?”

  “To enable you to escape from this place. Oh, I hope I may never see your face again.” She fell to weeping once more, and he drew away and paced the floor in a fever.

  Presently she sprang up with a fresh air of resolution, and pointed to a clock against the wall. “The hour is nearly over. It is quite true that my father is gone to fetch his chaplain. Oh, I implore you, be warned by me! There is no other way of escape.”

  “And if I do as you say—?”

  “You are safe! You are free! I stake my life on it.”

  “And you—you are married to that villain?”

  “But I shall have
saved you. Tell me your name, that I may say it to myself when I am alone.”

  “My name is Anthony. But you must not marry that fellow.”

  “You forgive me, Anthony? You don’t think too badly of me?”

  “I say you must not marry that fellow.”

  She laid a trembling hand on his arm. “Time presses,” she adjured him, “and I warn you there is no other way.”

  For a moment he had a vision of his mother, sitting very upright, on a Sunday evening, reading Dr. Tillotson’s sermons in the best parlour at Salem; then he swung round on the girl and caught both her hands in his. “Yes, there is,” he cried, “if you are willing. Polixena, let the priest come!”

  She shrank back from him, white and radiant. “Oh, hush, be silent!” she said.

  “I am no noble Marquess, and have no great estates,” he cried. “My father is a plain India merchant in the colony of Massachusetts—but if you—”

  “Oh, hush, I say! I don’t know what your long words mean. But I bless you, bless you, bless you on my knees!” And she knelt before him, and fell to kissing his hands.

  He drew her up to his breast and held her there.

  “You are willing, Polixena?” he said.

  “No, no!” She broke from him with outstretched hands. “I am not willing. You mistake me. I must marry the Marquess, I tell you!”

  “On my money?” he taunted her; and her burning blush rebuked him.

  “Yes, on your money,” she said sadly.

  “Why? Because, much as you hate him, you hate me still more?”

  She was silent.

  “If you hate me, why do you sacrifice yourself for me?” he persisted.

  “You torture me! And I tell you the hour is past.”

  “Let it pass. I’ll not accept your sacrifice. I will not lift a finger to help another man to marry you.”