by Ouida
“Is it true?” I ask him.
He looks me full in the face, and smiles a little — slowly.
“Is what true?”
“That my mother was not your wife?”
The smile lingers on his mouth. It is very cruel though so slight “What does it matter? Mariuccia thought her so; think you so if you like.”
My own voice seems to choke me as I say —
“Mariuccia thought so! Yet it was a lie. Is that your answer?”
He looks at me coldly, full in the eyes —
“She was a singer. I never married her. Why should I? You had never known it, had you been wiser and listened to your cousin. These things can be kept unseen in the same family. But with another there would be trouble; one would need to tell the truth. What can it matter? You have all you want You are called a great lady, and no one has looked too closely — yet. Some money I can leave you, and you are rich in jewels. For, in a way, I love you, ‘Nella; you are beautiful, as a picture is, and your wild grace is charming, and you fool men with true woman’s skill. But if you be wise, you will wed with your cousin. No questions then, and the old name your own, with no bar sinister. Mariuccia was a poor old purblind fool; she thought your mother was a wedded wife, and who should undeceive her? Pshaw! why look at me like that? I never told you any lie — not I. Go and marry with your cousin, and who will know it then? It rests with you.”
I am silent.
My father rises, with a certain trouble on his face that for once clouds its cool serenity. He tries to touch my hair, but I avoid him by a gesture that makes him shrink a little.
“Nay, ‘Nella, why take it to heart like that?” he says, with a tone in his voice that is half pity and half derision. “You thought your mother married; well, that was Mariuccia’s fault, not mine. I never told you so. And, indeed, to quiet her, she passed as my wife, to others, for most of the few short years she lived. What had you to complain of? — nothing surely. Most men would have put you in a convent or had you taught some useful trade, or left you as a model to your friends the painters. But I have dealt with you as though you were my heiress. And I — I promised your mother when she died — I have told no one, have told no one: not even your friend the vagabond player, when he upbraided me for my neglected duties with a furia only possible to a flame-tongued Italian. No one knows it, save your cousin; and he, you should be told, found it out long, long ago, from following you one night in old Verona, when you broke away from home and ran in mischief to the Veglione. You never saw his face that night, but he remembered yours. Now see you this, ‘Nella, if you be wise, your secret is his; wed with him. He has a great passion for you, and is sincere, — so far, — but if you cross him what can I do for you? — Nothing. He can strike you with that sole sure weapon — truth. And you will feel your fall. For you have wasted wealth as though you were an empress born; and you are one of those wild, wayward, graceful, useless, pretty things, with nothing but a picture of a face and a bird’s trick of song. You are one of those who will not like the world, carina mia, unless its soil be velvet to your foot Be wise while there is time, and rest a great lady always. Wed your cousin.”
And with that my father rises and leaves the chamber, already weary of a theme that has no pleasure in it. I stand in the red sunset light, looking out blankly on the glory of the oleander flowers that fill the open casement with their fire.
Is all the world a lie?
CHAPTER VII.
The broken Bubble.
WHAT is it I fedì I scarcely know. I act without knowing — only stung into a bitter, burning, all-corroding shame, that drives me like a whip of scorpions.
Oh, poor little fool, who sat upon the broken stairs shelling the beans at Mariuccia’s feet, and prattled of a great past and a great future alike allied to me by the golden and magic chain of birth! Oh, poor vain, baby dreamer, idler than the child that blows soap bubbles in the sun, who had come hither across the mountains, with my golden florins for all my store, doubting not that the purples of some mighty destiny would enfold me as soon as I should open the gates of the south!
Was ever anything more pitiful, more foolish, more pathetically lonely, more grotesquely fooled than I? Was ever any hapless idiot, thinking himself the sovereign of the world, under a crown of straw, more deluded and more desolate than I have been when I have played at greatness?
A withering shame consumes me; the humiliation clings to me like Glauce’s web of fire.
My poor poor mother too! In the scorch and fury of my own wretchedness tears well into my eyes as I think of her — think no blame; ah no! heaven forbid! Doubtless her fault of love was purer and more innocent by far than my rank greed of self.
My cousin’s hand puts asunder the oleander flowers. He comes and looks me in the face.
“Well?” he asks, softly. “You see I told you truth. Is it now yes or no?”
I turn on him as a leopardess turns on her pursuer. The longing thrills in me to strike him in the eyes, as I had done that winter’s day at dusk in the Verona streets.
“No!” I cry to him. “No! a million times! What! you think my fear is greater than my hate? Sir, — you mistake, then. No, I say. No, no, no. Do you hear? No — if I die for it.”
In that moment I am all again the passionate outraged child who had fled from him in the Veronese twilight The years, the dignities, the tranquil scorn of my late life drop from me; I become again only the fierce, fearless, thoughtless, haughty little waif and stray whom Pascarèl had rescued on the Veglione night.
I leave him standing there against the red oleander, dazed, as it were, with the fire of my eyes and speech; then, without another word, I sweep to my own chamber, lock myself in from him and every other, and tear off, like a frantic creature, the gold and red of my perfect masque-dress. The shining skirts fall in a crushed heap; the costly train is crumpled up like wind-blown leaves; I shake the jewels from my breast and hair; I pluck the great rose-diamond from above my ear.
The things are to me hateful, horribie, vile: my father’s gifts, indeed — ay, and so far justly mine; but they are accursed to me like the wages of my mother’s shame and death.
I do not reason; I can only feel.
As my father denied me when I stood before him with my poor little sceptre of the peacock’s plumes, so I deny him now.
There is no tie between us.
As the law yields me no rights on him, so I will yield him no rights on me.
My heart burns that I have ever eaten his bread and ever spent his gold.
A madness of determination comes to me. I will not stay for the smile and sneer of the women I have reigned over, of the men I have made my slaves. I will not stay an hour more in this, the second paradise of lies, that has lulled me to sleep sweet as the lotus, deadly as the upas.
I am useless; ay, indeed; but still I have my voice. It can charm courts, let it charm nations. I can be once more the people’s Uccello.
Ah, no! never again that. Never again the lighthearted and thoughtless child that sang to the listening Tuscans when the lùcciole lit the plains. The best that can be before me, if a life of triumph, yet must be a life of utter loneliness.
My heart grows sick with dread and longing.
I do not reason; I can only feel.
Between my father’s life and mine there is a deep gulf fixed. It is the darkness of my mother’s grave.
It is evening. The sun is gone. The shadow of night is here, even on these heights by Santa Margharità.
I leave aside every coin, every gem, every trifle of luxury or cost I ever have possessed. I leave aside all my splendid costumes and my priceless diamonds. I wrap myself in a dark cloak, and cast a veil about my head, and, without the value of a copperpiece upon me, I undo the bar of a side door that looks upon the gardens and pass out On the threshold I linger and look back.
Lights are burning in the wide chamber. The glittering things I have thrown down catch the reflection; sumptuousness, grace, ease �
� all are symbolised in them.
Am I unhappy because I leave them? No.
My whole life is on fire with shame, and my whole soul is sick with falsehood. But amidst it all a strange sweet thrill stirs; for I am free.
It has been but a gilded slavery, this grand and gorgeous pageantry of the great world.
I long for the breezy downs, and the wild hillsides, and the sweet liberty of untrammelled movement, and the peaceful sleep of healthful tired limbs. And yet — oh, God! I shudder as I think — my life will be alone, all alone always.
What beauty will the daybreak smile on me? What fragrance will the hill-side bear for me as I roam?
I shall see the sun for ever through my tears. Around me on the summer earth there will be forever silence. For Love has left me.
CHAPTER VIII.
The Lily and the Laurel.
I UNBAR the door and pass into the coolness of the early night. Down there where Florence lies it seems alive with fire. The people rejoice for their heroes.
Without any thought or measure of what may befall to me, or whither I, penniless and defenceless, may hereafter go, — I leave the gardens by the path that passes through the olive woods, and once more drifting like a snapped flower on the wind, I set my face towards the city.
The night is perfect.
All the hillside is hushed to an intense stillness. The olive woods upon Arcetri are white as silver in the moon. The hills are steeped in radiance. The roses underneath the vines are bright as in the day.
From the depth where the massed lights of the town are shining there come sounds of music, outcries of the populace, deep shouts that rise and lose themselves like echoing thunder amongst the mountains lying round. Florence rejoices in her strength; to her, as her dower, Hercules gave the dragon’s teeth, and she has sown them on her sacred soil, and they have sprung up armed men who have held her own again and again against the world, and have, not failed her now.
I go down the old green familiar ways; the field-mice run from my feet amongst the tulip roots; just so, down this very path stole Lucrezia to Fra Lippi, but I am alone — all alone.
They will think I am safe in my chamber. They will not seek for me to-night And by morning I must be away somewhere; away seeking for work.
I have nothing even to buy bread with on the morrow.
It is no worse with me than it was in this very city when under the old trees I had sat and wept my heart out because I was a beggar. And yet how much poorer I am! for then I had all my dreams, and all things were possible to me. But now I have nothing, not even a hope, only a dead rose on my heart that I shall ask them to bury with me as old Giùdettà asked.
Fifty years she lived with one memory shut in her soul, darning the dancers’ magliè, and thinking of the love of her youth. Oh, God! — is that all the Future holds for me?
I tremble and grow sick with fear as I thread the olives and vines to the city.
But I never pause and look back, not once; I seem to hear Mariuccia say in the still cool night, “Live on the shame and the sorrow of your mother? nay, anima mia, be strong and die first.”
Is it a folly that? — I do not know. I do not think, I say; I only feel; and I keep my face straight to the city.
The masque dress I threw aside was put on for a palace festa. The whole town is wild with jubilee. The shouts roll deep like the war-cry of lions.
All down the water side the lamps and the torches burn by millions. The bridges are lines of fire. Great Vecchio glows like a lighted beacon against the clouds. The river is a sea of flashing colour, from the many-hued globes of the illumined boats. Laughter and music, and the ring of choruses, and the call of trumpets, and the surge-like sound of an ever moving mass of men grow nearer and nearer, as I pass through the gates, and into the Street of the Maytime.
Everywhere the night is bright as the day. Long garlands swing from one side of the street to the other.
The old grim iron-bound houses are hidden in flowers and foliage. Under the feet are dropped blossoms, and above head is a maze of roses. Not a single casement, not the poorest, but has hung out its basket of flowers; great lilies, wild poppies, tuberoses, coils of vine, trails of ivy, leaves of arums, everywhere in the streets they are shedding their sweet woodland dews on the stones.
The reign of feasts and of flowers has followed the season of death. All Florence is out to-night, drunk with freedom and crowned with victory.
Everywhere the great arched house doors stand open. Everywhere groups of soldiers are drinking or dancing. Arms are piled in the squares. Women waltz down the grim passage-ways singing.
Conscripts war-stained and dust-covered tell tales to a wondering crowd.
Tables are spread under the stars; under the garlands that the wind tosses hither and thither.
Bells are pealing; cannon are firing; great sheaves of coloured fires are launched to the clouds. In the churches they chaunt orisons. In the palaces they will dance till the dawn.
In the woods by the river the troops are bivouacked; and there in the fields the men and the maidens reel and spin, and leap and laugh, to the wildest mirth and melody.
For in the Field of Flowers, for the hundredth time, they have planted the Laurel.
The gladness makes me colder and wearier as I go. The light and laughter would drive me homeward in desolation, had I a home to shelter me.
Vaguely I feel that the people look upon me in wonder. I, a dark, veiled, shivering thing, a blot on the endless radiance — Ginevra, in her cere-clothes, amidst the mad masquing of an universal Carnival.
But they part in reverence before me, and are a little quiet as I pass them; they think that I mourn some dead soldier lying in the maize-fields beneath the shadow of the Alps. I mourn the dead, indeed; dead days, dead love, dead liberty.
But my dead I slew with my own hand, all witting what I did. That I am now alone is just — quite just.
But justice is hard.
It presses on my life like lead. I shut my eyes to shut out from me the frolic and the brilliancy around, and stumble on with little thought or purpose across the river and into the heart of the city.
What can I do? I know no more than knew Ginevra; homeless and denied, with every heart and every house closed against her. But Ginevra had one refuge — I have none.
As I go the throngs grow thicker, they push more eagerly. Their passionate dark faces glow; their voices pour forth torrents of joyous words; their holiday dresses gleam gaily against the shadows and the stone fronts of the buildings; they dash the tears from their eyes for the dead; they laugh with proud joy in the living. And from mouth to mouth, as in the night of the Carnival Fair, one name runs more audible than any other: —
“Pascarèl! — Il Pascarèllo!”
I catch the flying skirts of a woman as she hurries by me.
“He is here! Pascarèl?”
She twitches her garments from me in good-humoured haste.
“Ay! He talks to the people on the Place of the Signoria. He has done great things in the war, they say.”
Without well knowing what I do, I too follow with the pressing crowds who are hastening under the Arches of the Uffizii, where the red and white banners are tossing as in the midnight of the Carnival Fair.
As we go under the arcades we pass a little contadina in all the bravery of festal ornament; great beads glitter at her throat; golden pins shake in her hair; all colours vie as in the rainbow in her skirts; she laughs, and shows her white teeth, grinning as she sets them in the velvet skin of a peach; she pushes a young slim stripling before her, and scolds him with shrill laughter, mocking at a tremor that shakes his limbs, and a pallor that blanches his cheek.
“To let a look at his face unman you like that, you simpleton!” she cries; and drives him before her, crushing out the juice of the peach between her rosy lips.
It is Brunétta.
So well goes life with the Unfaithful.
I draw my veil closer about my head, and am
borne by the strong swift tide of the hurrying crowd into the Place of the Signoria, by the Loggia of the Lances, under the Palace of the People, where the baby Cellini used to sit throned on his servant’s shoulders, to sing his little song and pipe his little carol to the grave ears of the great Gonfalonière.
The square is packed close with a listening people. Their faces are all upturned like the ears of wheat that a strong wind lifts to heaven. All the lines of the mighty building are traced out by running lines of fire. Jets of flame, and garlands of flowers, and blazonries of shields, and folds of standards, all shine together against the moon.
On the steps of Orcagna’s Loggia, whence of old the magistracy were wont to harangue the city, with their faces set to the mountains, and the keen hill winds blowing their robes of office, on the steps betwixt the two lions, Pascarèl stands, and speaks to the Florentines.
There is the red-cross banner above his head; he wears the simple garb of the Tuscan volunteer, on his chest there is the cross of valour, and on the stones at his feet there lie laurel crowns and clusters of lilies that the people have flung to him.
The moon shines upon his delicate dark face; his straight, poet-like brows; his dreaming eyes, that have at once the scholar’s sadness and the soldier’s passions.
The multitude is hushed to perfect stillness. They love him too well to lose a single word.
He is telling them a legend in that fantastic humour which has flashed for so many centuries from beneath the tri-cornered hat of Tuscan Stenterello.
Dear to them before, he is now to them sacred; he who has come forth from the heat and the dust of those fields of bloodshed with the splendour of great and daring deeds to lend their lustre to his name, and twine the bay-leaves of the patriot round the harlequin’s wand of the player.
I crouch down in the deepest shadow on the lowest step, and gaze upward at him, and drink in the sweet and silver sounds of his voice, until the love I bear him, and the loss of him, make me mad as’Dino’s Pazza was, calling for ever on the grave to yield her dead.