Delphi Collected Works of Ouida

by Ouida

  We went homeward in silence, still along the shore and over our own bridge, to where the water was falling, pale and beautiful, in the deserted place.

  “Good-night, dear friend,” she said, softly, and her voice sounded to me unsteady and low, as if from tears.

  I went heavy-hearted to my nook in the street by my stall, where I slept. He had cast his glamour on her, and the poison had sunk into her, and of what use was the shield of Athene Ergane now?

  I sat by my little lamp, and the hours were sad to me.

  The echoes of the boisterous revelries came dully to me; the lights of the colored fires made the sky ruddy and golden above the dark domes and roof; over the bridge and down the street gay groups came dancing, — maskers with bladders and lutes in their hands.

  Genius has given her the clue and the sword, and what use would they be to her? I thought. She would give them away, throw them down at his feet, and so perish herself. The gods are weak, and men are cruel.

  For I grew stupid and sleepy with fatigue, and heavy-hearted with a vague sore dread; and my eyes closed, and I did not see who came out from the house on the bridge.

  Now, as afterwards I learned, when she went up the stairs it was quite dusky, and even dark, for the three-wicked lamp had only one burner lighted, and there was no fire on the hearth, either. Ersilia being a woman at all times very careful in such little matters, observing justly that the great things concerned the good God, but the little ones were all our own, as the good God sent the tempest, and there was no getting out of it, but if our sock or our smock were in rags the fault was our own, and easily to be mended with a needle.

  So, there being no light to speak of, she went forward without seeing anything except the dim outline of Hermes, and she was touched by the soft cool hands of Hilarion ere she had perceived that any one was there.

  “Abroad in this damp and chilly night!” he said, tenderly. “Is that wise for yourself or kind to those who care for you?”

  She started away from him, and stood silent.

  Her face was quite pale, her hair wet with the mists, her eyes were dim and dilated, coming out of the cold and the darkness.

  “Let us light the fire; you are chilled to the bone,” he said, softly taking her hands once more; but she withdrew them quickly. “Chills in our old Rome are dangerous. Who has been with you? Crispin? He should be wiser, with all his weight of years. I have had a wearying and stupid day: what is more stupid than the noise of crowds? I came hoping for an hour’s rest. Must I go away? I shall not go unless you force me.”

  And he bent down over the brush-wood and fir apples on the stone of the old open fireplace, and busied himself with making the flame rise, and lit the other wicks of the oil lamp, and threw before the hearth a rug of skins that he had brought up from his carriage a little before, and the light beginning to warm and glow in the chamber lighted up a great basket of roses that he had set on the floor.

  “Sit down,” he said, gently, and she obeyed him, sinking on the oaken settle, still quite silent, the mist of her damp hair like a pale circling nimbus around her head: she was used to see him there, and it did not seem strange to her.

  “These are the tea-roses that you like,” he went on, kneeling on one knee on the hearth, and putting some of the flowers on her lap. “These large crimson ones are the Marshal Bugeaud: how barbaric to give a name of war to so much fragrance! and this is the Belle Marguerite, and this the Narcissus, and this is Hymen; how golden and brilliant and fragrant it is! — and this so pure and white is my favorite of them all, the Niphétos; the Niphétos is like you, I think, as you look now, you are so pale. Did you think I did not see you in that little window this afternoon? The boy threw you camellias. I would not throw you blossoms that were for all the world. I would not even look at you, — being where I was. It would have been profanation.”

  All the color came back in a second into her face; her cheeks burned; her eyes dropped.

  “Why were you there, then?” she said, very low, but with a firm voice, then paused as if afraid.

  Hilarion smiled, stooping for more roses, so that she did not see the smile.

  “Because men are fools, my dear,” he said, gravely. “Because we are no wiser than the poor silly greenfinches that the Thuringian foresters net by no better trap than a little bit of mirror set among the river rushes. Past follies have present obligations, and old sins have long shadows —— But what do you know of those things? Believe me, I was weary enough — —”

  She looked at him, then looked away.

  The truth and strength of her own nature made her doubt; the innocence and candor of her own nature made her believe. And of sophism such as his she had no conception, and from such a subject, vague as it was to her, she shrank by instinct.

  “You did not seem weary,” she said, with an aching pain in her voice.

  Hilarion smiled.

  “My child, do not take the face of a man for more than a mask, — in public. When he is alone, look in his eyes and trust them.”

  “But Amphion said that you — loved her!” She spoke very low and with a sort of shame. Hilarion’s face grew dark.

  “Does he prate, — the Greek boy? Let him keep his breath for his flute. What more did he tell you?”

  “Not much more. Only that you would be with her there to-day, — as you were.”

  “And was that why you went?”

  “I wished to see her.”

  Her face grew paler again and resolute, and her mouth had its curve of scorn, which Maryx had not put into his Nausicaa’s. She was not aware of all that she expressed by that wish. She only said the truth, as she always said it when she spoke at all.

  Hilarion busied himself with his roses. Then, kneeling there, he took one hand of hers between his own, and rested them with the roses on her lap.

  “Perhaps I loved her as I have loved many, with passions that you cannot guess, so vile they are, and poor, and base; for men are made so. Do you despise me that I own it?”

  “I do not know,” she murmured. Her color changed, she trembled from head to foot, she did not look at him. She did not know what she felt; only it hurt her like a stabbing knife that he should speak so. And how, she marveled, could Love be ever base?

  For of Philotes she knew nothing.

  “Do you think I love her now?” he said, and looked up at her in the dim firelight, the dewy leaves of the roses and the brilliance of his own eyes close to her drooping face in the soft shadows.

  Her heart beat violently; her limbs shook; she was terrified, — she could not have told why. She rose, and sprang upon her feet, letting the flowers fall, and taking her hands away.

  “What do you think?” he said, with soft insistence, still kneeling there, and watching all the tumultuous pain of her with pleasure.

  She stood, white and still, with her heart so beating that he could hear it in the silence of the chamber.

  “What can I tell?” she muttered. “Love, — is it not always Love? It cannot change, I think; and you were there to-day.”

  He smiled, and his eyes had a gleam in them that was half derision and half regret.

  “Dear, men have many loves; their true names are or vice, or vanity, or feebleness, or folly, or many another that is not fitting for your ears. But the love you think of, that comes but seldom, and comes to few. I wrote of love all my life long, nothing knowing of it, — till I came to you. Are you cold to me, — are you against me, — that you stand so still and pale?”

  And all the while he knew so well!

  Her eyes dilated like a hunted stag’s; her breath came fast and loud; a mortal fear possessed her; she put her hands to her heart.

  “I am afraid!” she cried, and trembled, as though with the cold of the night.

  Hilarion stooped his head where she knelt, and kissed her feet softly.

  “Afraid? Of me?”

  “Of myself!” Then, with a wonderful light and glory quivering on all her face, and changing it
as the break of day changes the earth and sky, she stretched her arms out to the shadows round her, as if in an oath to some great unseen god.

  “It will be all my life!” she said, with a sob in her throat, yet the glory of the morning in her eyes.

  He understood.

  He rose, and kissed her on the mouth.

  CHAPTER XVIII.

  EARLY in the morning of the next day I was sitting at my stall, working by such grim light as there was, for it was a gray and gusty day, and the fountain sounded cold and chill, and Palès shivered despite all the straw, and there was a discordant blare of trumpets somewhere near that made one think of Seneca and his sore trouble in the showman’s bugle-playing.

  There was not a creature astir near me: people were tired after the night’s frolicking, and were lying abed to begin their capers afresh with spirits when noontide should be passed. I worked on in silence undisturbed, a few flakes of snow falling on the heads of Crispin and of Crispian above mine.

  Suddenly, a little figure running fast down the Via Giulia paused by me: it was a pretty figure, all in a Carnival disguise of mediæval minstrelsy, shivering sadly now, and splashed with mud.

  “Amphion!” I called out, in amaze, as Palès began snarling at his slender ankles.

  It was indeed the lad, — jaded and tremulous, very cold, and very pitiful to see.

  “He has turned me out!” he moaned, like a child of seven years old. “Without a word, without a sign, — only told me to go, and never dare return. What have I done? Oh, what have I done?”

  “You have angered Hilarion?” I asked him, not surprised, for very often his caprices ended thus; and I remembered the poor dog he had killed.

  “I do not know !” the boy sobbed. “I have done nothing! Nothing, nothing! When he came back last night, it was very late, — he had told me to wait for him, so I had not dared undress, — he looked at me-just looked! but it was like the blue lightning, just as cruel and as cold; then he put his hand on my collar, and led me out of the great doors. ‘Go out of Rome, and never dare return;’ that was all he said. He put a roll of money in my vest, — here it all is, — but not another word did he ever say, but shut the doors himself upon me. It was nearly dawn. It was snowing. It was so bitterly cold! I came to you. I do not know where to go, what to do. I have no friends! — —”

  I looked at the money; it was a roll of notes for a heavy sum, — enough to keep the lad a year or more.

  “You must have displeased him,” I said; “and it is very like him to do so. He never wastes words on what displeases him. But it was cruel. He can be cruel.”

  Poor little Amphion was sobbing all the while, his gay dress all splashed and torn, his dark curls tumbled, his olive cheek blue with cold.

  It was of no use to press him more: if he knew or guessed what had caused his expulsion, he would not say it; he was a Greek. All one could do was to shelter him, and take care of the money, and send him back to his own home.

  As for speaking to Hilarion, past experience told me the uselessness of that.

  Yet of course I tried it: when ever did the known futility of anything prevent one from essaying it, or when ever was past experience enough deterrent?

  I warmed and fed the lad in the little den near the fountain, which I had taken to sleep in since giving up my Hermes chamber; then I went and sought Hilarion.

  He was at those rooms in one of the old palaces of which the boy had spoken. There was difficulty in seeing him. They brought word first that he was not there, and then many very various excuses.

  Not being easily baffled, and being convinced that there he was, I said nothing, but sat down on the steps to watch his coming out.

  There were a grand staircase, and old stone lions, and a lovely little green garden, then all in a golden glow with oranges, and with one of the few palms of Rome burning under its green diadem in their midst. Along one side of it ran a frescoed casino like the one of Rospigliosi, in which Aurora and the rosy Hours are.

  After waiting a long time, I saw him in that casino. I made straight to him. It might be fancy, but I thought he turned paler and looked guilty as his eyes lighted on me. Evidently he would have avoided me, but he could not do so.

  “Perhaps I have no right to speak to you; but I cannot help myself,” I began to him. “That poor little fellow whom you call Amphion, — is his offense so great?”

  It did not strike me at the time, but I remembered later that his face cleared and he looked relieved as of some apprehension of annoyance.

  “Dear Crispin,” he said, with a little smile, “that is so like you! Why waste your morning and disturb your peace? Has the boy been to you?”

  I told him, and begged for the poor little culprit with the best eloquence I knew.

  Hilarion heard indifferent, — patient out of courtesy to me, but I could see no yielding in his face. He was looking at the frescoes on the wall near him, and pulling the orange-blossoms.

  He heard me till my breath and my zeal both paused, panting. Then he spoke:

  “The boy has nothing to complain of. I have given him enough money to keep him for two years. I have done with him. That is all. If you are his friend, put him in the first vessel that sails for Greece. Only take care he come near me no more. Do you know these frescoes are disputed? But I am nearly sure they are Masaccio’s. He was in Rome, you know.

  “After all,” he went on, “there is no life like a Roman prince’s, — like life at all in these grand old palaces of yours. Even the motley modern world gains grandeur from them, and even modern society itself looks like a pageant of the Renaissance when the ambassador or the noble receives it in his great galleries rich in Raffaelle’s and Guido’s and Guercino’s frescoes, and with all the lustre of that splendid age still lingering on the sculptured walls and on the velvet dais, and all its light and laughter hiding with the Cupids among the flowers on the paneled mirrors, and all its majesty still abiding in the immense domes and stairs and halls where kings might marshal their armies or the very archangels summon their heavenly hosts. Oh, there is no life like it, in these cool marble chambers, with their lovely pale frescoes, and their open courts, and their fountains, and their gardens. It is not difficult to forget the time we live in, and to think that Lucrezia is going by with her two hundred ladies, and their horses, and their cavaliers, or to shut the shutters and light the lamps, and in these noble rooms, where floor and ceiling and wall and casement are all masterpieces of the arts, think that Bernardo Accolti is reading aloud to us by torchlight with his guard of honor round him. Oh, there is no life like the life of Rome! a woman going to her ball looks on these stairways like Veronica Gambara herself, and when you look in the glass, a little Love of Mario dei Fiori throws roses at you from it, and when you open your window you see a palm, or a god, or a lion of Egypt under a colossal arch, and the stars shine through the orange-leaves, and the lute in the street sounds magical, and the gardener’s daughter crossing the court looks like a pale sweet Titian of the Louvre. There is no life like the life in Rome. I shall purchase this palace.”

  “But what could a little lad so young have done?” I argued, foolishly, and having no patience to hear his picturesque discursive talk.

  Hilarion played with the orange-flowers.

  “Have you anything more to say to me? for I am going to Daïla, and am pressed for time.”

  “But he is so young, and all alone — —”

  “Dear Crispin, when I am tired, I am tired; and I am tired of flute-playing: that is all. There is no more to be said. Ask me anything for yourself, and you know I am glad to grant it always. But leave my own affairs to my own fancies. I think I shall buy this place, if only for the sake of these frescoes: the damp is hurting them. And there are some Overbecks up-stairs in the great hall, dry and cold and joyless, but still very fine in drawing. Walk up and look at them; and forgive me if I seem rude to hurry from you — —”

  And so he went, seeming desirous to escape my importunity, but co
urteous and even kindly, though quite unyielding, as I had known him twenty and twice twenty times before.

  I did not go and look at the Overbecks. I went back vexed and dispirited, having wasted my forenoon, as he had said.

  I found the poor little flute-player warming himself over my brazier.

  “You had best go seaward, and get home,” I said to him, sadly.

  But the boy set his small pearly teeth tight.

  “No. I will stay in Rome, but he shall not know it.”

  “How can you do that?”

  “I have enough money.”

  “But it is his money; you can hardly do what he forbids with that.”

  “What do you mean?” said Amphion, with an evil gleam in his soft dark indolent eyes. “When any one has given you a blow, it does not matter whether it is their own knife or not that you take out of their girdle to give it back with; at least so they say where I come from — —”

  “Give back a blow? Hush, hush! what vengeance should you take, my poor little girlish lad? And, besides, those are evil thoughts, Amphion, and he is only a patron, and capricious; such men always are.”

  He clasped his slender hands about the brazen vessel with the ashes in, and his pretty face looked pinched and sullen and changed.

  “In those tales she read me,” he said, slowly, “the hero slew twelve of their enemies to please his dead friend; and she thought that right and great; and it was a Greek did it. I know what I know. I can wait.”

  I thought it boyish prattling, and thought that it would pass; so let him be.

  But there was more purpose in him than I thought; for that very night, without saying anything to me, he slipped off his gay clothes, and cut his dark curls, and made himself look like any other of the little brown half-clad fisher-lads swarming about the bank of the populous Tanners’ Quarter, and hid his money heaven knew where, and hired himself out, as if he had none, to a fisherman of the Rione, who spent life watching his girella and pulling his skiff to and fro between the arches of Ponte Sisto and Quattro Capi.