by Ouida
‘Oh, Gesu, dear Gesu, smile on us!’ he said to it; and although it was still too dark to see more than its outline faintly, he thought he saw the mouth move in answer.
Holding it to him, he started homeward down the stony slope. He was thankful to be out of that ghostly place of tombs; he was thankful to have escaped from that scene of terror whole in limb, and uncursed if unpardoned; the tension of his nerves in the past hours had given place to an unreasoning and overstrung gladness. But for his reverence for the burden he carried, he could have laughed aloud.
Only once now and then, as he went, his conscience smote him. His poor mother! — he had forgotten her; he had displaced the mark set above her grave; no one would ever now be sure where she was buried. Did it hurt her, what he had done? Would she be jealous in her grave of the woman for whom he did it? Was it cruel to have come away without smoothing the rugged earth above her bed and saying an Ave for her?
But these thoughts, this remorse, were fleeting; his whole mind was filled with the heat of passion and its expectation. Fatigued and overworked and sleepless as he was, he almost ran down the paths of the hills in his haste, and tore his skin and his clothes as he pushed his way through the brushwood and furze, guarding only the Gesu from hurt as he went.
The day had now fully dawned, and the sun had risen; its rosy flush was warm over all the land and sky; the woodlarks and the linnets were singing under the bushes; the wild doves were dabbling in the rivulets of water; the hawks were circling high in the light.
On the wooded hillside all was peaceful with the loveliness of the unworn day; the air was full of the smell of heather and wet mosses and resinous pine-cones; rain was falling above where the church was, but in these lower woods there was a burst of sunrise warmth and light. None of these things, however, did he note. He went on and on, downward and downward, holding the silver image close against his breast, scarcely feeling the boughs which grazed his cheeks or the flints which wounded his naked feet.
When he came within sight of the place where he had left Santina the night before, he strained his eyes to catch a glimpse of her through the tangle of leaves and twigs and fronds. And true enough to her tryst she was there, waiting impatiently, fretting, wishing the time away, blaming her own folly in setting all her hopes of freedom and the future on a foolish, cowardly churl — for so she called him in her angry thought, as she crouched down under the chestnut scrub and saw the daylight widen and brighten.
She ran a great risk in hiding there; if any of her people or their carters saw her, their suspicions would be aroused and their questions endless. She would say that she came for mushrooms; but they would not believe her. She was too well known for a late riser and a lazy wench.
Still, she had imperilled everything to keep her word with him, and she waited for him seated on the moss, half covered with leaves, except at such times as her impatient temper made her cast prudence to the winds and rise and look out of the thicket upward to the hills.
She had made herself look her best; a yellow kerchief was tied over her head, her hair shone like a blackbird’s wing, her whole face and form were full of vivid, rich, and eager animal beauty. To get away — oh, only to get away! She looked up at the wild doves sailing over the tops of the tall pines and envied them their flight.
Caris saw that eager, longing look upon her countenance before he reached her, and he thought it was caused by love for him.
He held the Gesu to his bosom with both hands and coursed like lightning down the steep slope which still divided him from her; he was unconscious of how jaded, soiled, and uncomely he looked after his long night’s work and all his ghostly fears; his feet were scratched and bleeding, his shirt soaked in sweat, his flesh bespattered with the clay, his hair wet and matted with moisture; he had no remembrance of that, he had no suspicion that even in that moment of agitation, when she believed her errand done, her will accomplished, she was saying in her heart as she watched him draw nigh: ‘He has got them, he has got them; but, Holy Mary! what a clown! — he has all the mud of fifty graves upon him!’
He rushed downward to her, and held the silver image out at arm’s-length, and sobbed and laughed and cried aloud, indifferent who might hear, his voice trembling with awe and ecstasy.
‘It is the Gesu Himself, the Gesu — and I have brought Him to you because now you will believe — and my mother must be well with them in heaven or they never had wrought such a miracle for me — and such a night as I have passed, dear God! such things as I have seen and heard — but the Child smiles — the Child is pleased — and now you will believe in me, though I could not find the magic things — and I said to myself when she sees the Gesu she will believe — and she will be mine — mine — mine! The Lord forgive me, that has been all my thought, though heaven wrought such a miracle for me!’
The words poured out of his mouth one over another like the rush of water let loose through a narrow channel. He was blind with his own excess of emotion, his own breathless desire; he did not see the changes which swept over the face of Santina in a tumult of wrath, wonder, fury, eagerness, suspicion, cupidity, as one after another each emotion went coursing through her soul and shining in her eyes, making her beauty distorted and terrible.
Her first impulse was fury at his failure to bring her what she wanted; the second was to comprehend in a flash of instantaneous insight the money value of that to which he only attached a spiritual merit.
She snatched the image from him, and in the morning light she saw the silver of it glisten through the earth which still in parts clung to it. It might be better, surer, more quick aid to her than the uncertain divining tools whereof she was ignorant of the full employ. Her rapid mind swept over in a second all the uses to which it might be put, and comprehended the superstitious adoration of it which moved Caris and made him control his passion for herself, as he stood gazing at it in her arms, his own hands clasped in prayer, and his whole frame trembling with the portentous sense of the mercy of heaven which had been made manifest to him.
She in a second divined that it had been part of some buried treasure which he had by accident disinterred, but she was too keen and wise to let him see that she did so; it was her part to humour and to confirm him in his self-deception.
She calmed the angry, gibing words which rose to her lips, she held back the exultant covetousness which flashed in her eyes and betrayed itself in the clutching grasp of her fingers; she gazed on the Gesu with a worship half real, half affected, for it was also a holy image to her, if its sanctity were to her outweighed and outshone by its monetary worth in precious metal.
‘Tell me how you found this?’ she asked, under her breath, as one almost speechless with awe before such a manifestation from on high.
She was really in genuine fear. He had been into precincts which none could enter without offending immortal and unseen powers. He had done it at her bidding. Who could be sure that the offending spirits would not avenge his sacrilege on her?
But through her fears she kept her hold upon the image, whilst she asked the question.
Tremblingly he told her how he had passed the awful hours of the night and failed to find his mother’s tomb, but in its stead found this.
‘And I brought it that you should know that I had been there,’ he said in conclusion, ‘that you might know I had been where you willed, and am no coward; and we will take it back together and give it to the holy man up yonder — and now — and now — and now — —’
His hands touched her, his breath was upon her, his timid yet violent passion blazed in his eyes and quivered all over his frame: he had dared all things for his reward, and he claimed it. But, quick as lightning, and merciless as dishonest, she put the holy image between her and him. The sacred silver froze his burning lips.
His arms fell to his side as though they were paralyzed.
‘Not while the Gesu is with us,’ she murmured in rebuke. ‘Let us not be unworthy — you say yourself a miracle was wrought
.’
‘But — —’
He stood before her, checked, daunted, breathing heavily, like a horse thrown back on its haunches in full flight.
‘Hush!’ she said, with a scared look. ‘There are people near; I hear them. We will take the Gesu back to the church, but that cannot be till dusk. I will keep Him safe with me. Go, you dear, and clean your skin and your clothes, lest any seeing you should suspect what you have done.’
‘I will not go,’ he muttered; ‘you promised — —’
‘I promised, oh fool!’ she said, with quick passion, ‘and my word I will keep, but not while the Gesu is with us. I love you for all you have braved. I love you for all you have done. I will be yours and no other’s. See! I swear it on the Holy Child’s head!’
And she kissed the silver brow of the babe.
He was convinced, yet irresolute and impatient.
‘Let us go back with it now, then,’ he muttered. ‘I did but bring him to show you in witness of what I had done.’
‘No,’ she said, with that imperious command in her voice and her gaze which made the resolve in him melt like wax beneath a flame. ‘You cannot be seen with me in such a state as you are. I will carry the Christ back to the church if so be that He rests uneasily in common arms like ours, and then — well, I will pass by your cabin as I come down. Dost complain of that, my ingrate?’
A flood of warmth and joy and full belief swept like flame through the whole being of Caris. Her eyes were suffused, her cheek blushed, her lips smiled; he believed himself beloved; he thought himself on the threshold of ecstasy; the minutes seemed like hours until he should regain his hut and watch from its door for her coming.
‘You will go now?’ he asked eagerly.
‘At once,’ she answered, holding the Gesu to her as a woman would hold a sucking child.
Caris closed his eyes, dazed with her beauty and the wild, sweet thought of how she would hold to her breast some child of his on some fair unborn morrow.
‘Then go,’ he muttered. ‘The sooner we part, the sooner we shall meet. Oh, my angel!’
She gave him a smile over her shoulder, and she pushed her way upward through the chestnut boughs, carrying the Gesu folded to her bosom.
Watching her thus depart, a sudden and new terror struck him.
‘Wait,’ he called to her. ‘Will the priest be angered that I disturbed the graves, think you?’
‘Nay, nay, not when he sees that you give him the image,’ she called backward in answer.
Then she disappeared in the green haze of foliage, and Caris struck onward in the opposite direction, to take the way which led to his cabin on Genistrello. Her words had awakened him to a consciousness of his bruised, befouled, and tattered state.
He wished to avoid meeting anyone who might question him as to his condition.
He got as quickly as he could by solitary paths to his home, and was met with rapture by his dog. He entered the house, and drank thirstily; he could not eat; he washed in the tank at the back of the hut, and clothed himself in the best that he had: what he wore on holy and on festal days.
Then he set his house-door wide open to the gay morning light which, green and gleeful, poured through the trunks of the chestnuts and pines; and he sat down on his threshold with the dog at his feet, and waited.
It would be a whole working-day lost, but what of that? A lover may well lose a day’s pay for love’s crown of joy.
Hour after hour passed by, and his eyes strained and ached with looking into the green light of the woods. But Santina came not.
The forenoon, and noontide and afternoon went by; and still no living thing came up to his solitary house. The whole day wore away, and he saw no one, heard nothing, had no visitant except the black stoat which flitted across the path, and the grey thrushes which flew by on their autumn flights towards lower ground.
The long, fragrant, empty day crept slowly by, and at last ended. She had not come.
He was still fasting. He drank thirstily, but he could not eat, though he fed the dog.
He was in a state of nervous excitation almost delirious. The trees and the hills and the sky seemed to whirl around him. He dared not leave the hut, lest she should come thither in his absence. He stared till he was sightless along the green path which led down to the four roads. Now and then, stupidly, uselessly, he shouted aloud; and the mountains echoed his solitary voice.
The dog knew that something was wrong with his master, and was pained and afraid.
The evening fell. The night wore away. He put a little lamp in his doorway, thinking she might come, through shyness, after dark; but no one came. Of her there was no sign, or from her any word.
When the day came he was still dressed and sleepless, seated before his door; the flame of the little lamp burnt on, garish and yellow in the sunshine.
The sun mounted to the zenith; it was again noon. He went indoors, and took a great knife which he was accustomed to carry with him to Maremma. He put it in his belt inside his breeches, so that it was invisible.
Then he called the dog to him, kissed him on the forehead, gave him bread, and motioned to him to guard the house; then he took his way once more down the hillside to Massaio’s house.
If she had fooled him yet again, she would not live to do it thrice. His throat was dry as sand; his eyes were bloodshot; his look was strange.
The dog howled and moaned as he passed out of sight.
He went onward under the boughs tinged with their autumnal fires, until he came to the place where the house and sheds and walls of the wood merchant’s homestead stood. He walked straight in through the open gates, and then stood still.
He saw that there was some unusual stir and trouble in the place: no one was at work, the children were gaping and gabbling, the housewife was standing doing nothing, her hands at her sides; Massaio himself was seated drumming absently on the table.
‘Where is Santina?’ asked Caris.
They all spoke in answer, ‘Santina is a jade’ — Massaio’s voice louder and rougher than the rest.
‘She has gone out of the town and away, none knows where; and she has left a letter behind her saying that none need try to follow, for she is gone to a fine new world, where she will want none of us about her; and my brother says it is all my fault, giving her liberty out on the hills. And the marvel is where she got the money, for we and they kept her so close — not a stiver — not a penny — and it seems she took the train that goes over the mountains ever so far, and paid a power of gold at the station wicket.’
The voice of Caris crossed his in a loud, bitter cry. ‘She sold the Gesu! As God lives — she sold the Gesu!’
Then the blood rushed from his nostrils and his mouth, and he fell face downwards.
VII
A few days later he was arrested for having violated and robbed the tombs in the burial-grounds of St. Fulvo. The pickaxe and the spade had been found with his name burned on the wood of them; he was sentenced to three years at the galleys for sacrilege and theft.
When the three years were ended he was an old, gray, bowed man, though only twenty-nine years of age; he returned to his cabin, and the dog, who had been cared for by the charcoal-burners, knew him from afar off, and flew down the hill-path to meet him.
‘The wench who ruined you,’ said the charcoal-burners around their fire that night, ‘they do say she is a fine singer and a rich madam somewhere in foreign parts. She sold the Gesu — ay, she sold the Gesu to a silversmith down in the town. That gave her the money to start with, and the rest her face and her voice have done for her.’
‘Who has the Gesu?’ asked Caris, hiding his eyes on the head of the dog.
‘Oh, the Gesu, they say, was put in the smelting-pot,’ said the charcoal-burner.
Caris felt for the knife which was inside his belt. It had been given back to him with his clothes when he had been set free at the end of his sentence.
‘One could find her,’ he thought, with a thrill of s
avage longing. Then he looked down at the dog and across at the green aisles of the pines and chestnuts.
‘Let the jade be,’ said the forest-man to him. ‘You are home again, and ’twas not you who bartered the Christ.’
Caris fondled the haft of the great knife under his waistband.
‘She stole the Gesu and sold Him,’ he said, in a hushed voice. ‘One day I will find her, and I will strike her: once for myself and twice for Him.’
A LEMON-TREE
I
It was a small lemon-tree, not more than forty inches high, growing in its red earthen vase as all lemons are obliged to be grown further north than Rome. There were many thousands and tens of thousands of other such trees in the land; but this one, although so little, was a source of joy and pride to its owner. He had grown it himself from a slender slip cast away on a heap of rubbish, and he had saved his pence up with effort and self-denial to purchase, second-hand, the big pot of ruddy clay in which it grew, now that it had reached its first fruit-bearing prime. It had borne as its first crop seven big, fragrant lemons, hanging from its boughs amidst leaves which were as fresh and green as a meadow in May. He had watched its first buds creep out of the slender twigs, and swell and swell gradually into sharp-pointed little cones, which in their turn became pale yellow fruit, ‘fit for a princess,’ as he said, patting their primrose-coloured rind. They seemed so many separate miracles to him, coming as by some magic out of the little starry white flowers on the glossy twigs.
He was a poor, ignorant man, by name Dario Baldassino, known as Fringuello (or the Chaffinch) to his neighbourhood and fellow workmen. He lived on the south side of the ferry of Royezano, and dug and carted the river-sand; a rude labour and a thankless, taking the sinew and spirit out of a man, and putting little in return into his pocket. The nave or ferry is a place to please an artist. All the land around on this south side is orchard — great pear-trees and cherry-trees linked together by low-growing vines, and in the spring months making a sea of blossom stretching to the river’s edge. The watermills, which were there centuries ago, stand yellow and old, and cluster like beavers’ dams upon the water. The noise of the weir is loud, but the song of the nightingale can be heard above it. Looking along westward down the widening, curving stream, above the fruit-trees planted thick as woods, there arise, two miles off, the domes and spires of the city of Florence, backed by the hills, which here take an Alpine look upon them when the sun sets beyond the rounded summits of the more distant Carrara range; and the spurs of the Apennines grow deeply blue with that intense transparent colour which is never seen in northern lands. To the north also lie the mountains, and on the east; and late into May the snow lingers where the day breaks above Vallombrosa and Casentino. All the vale is orchard, broken now and then by some great stone-pine, some walnut or chestnut tree, some church spire with its statue of its saint, some low, red-brown roofs, some grey old granary with open-timbered lofts. It is a serene and sylvan scene — at sunset and at sunrise grand — and the distant city rises on its throne of verdure, seeming transfigured as Dante, exiled, may have seen it in his dreams.