Little Novels of Italy Part 16

"Try, try, dear soul; it is all that I wish."

"He seemed not so to me when first we went to him, Amilcare."

Amilcare shrugged. "Eh, per la Madonna--!" he began, as who should say, "Being known for his brother's butcher, how should he be?" But he stayed in time. "He has many enemies," he added quietly.

IV

MARKET OVERT

Nona, little city of domes and belfries and square loggias, all in a cl.u.s.ter behind brown walls; with gates of Roman masonry, stolid Lombard church, a piazza of colonnades and restless poplar trees; of a splayed fountain where the Three Graces, back to back, spurt water from their b.r.e.a.s.t.s of bronze--Nona, in our time, is not to be discerned from the railway, although you may see its ranked mulberry-trees and fields of maize, and guess its pleasant seat in the plain well enough. It is about the size of Parma, a cheerful, leisurely place, abounding in shade and deep doorways and _cafes_, having some thirty churches (mostly baroque), a fine Palazzo della Ragione in the princ.i.p.al square, and the remains of a cathedral of the ninth century glooming behind a monstrous facade of the seventeenth, all whitewash, cornucopias, and sprawling Apostles.

Thus it seems now to the strayed traveller who, breaking his journey at Castel Bolognese, simmers for four hours in an omnibus along with priests, flies, fleas, and old women. The _cortege_ from Papal territory saw a vastly different city of it when it approached the gates in the early spring of 1494. The young leaf.a.ge shimmered like a veil of golden gauze, the poplar buds were pink and brown, the chestnuts had all their candles afire; larks by dozens were abroad in the clear sky. Below the old Rocca del Capitan Vecchio--a grizzled and blind block of masonry on a spur of limestone, which held not a few of Ezzelin's secrets--two miles from Nona, stood a company of boys and girls in white garments, their laps full of flowers. Their shrill song of welcome hailed the riders, and to the same hopeful music they went on. The towers were all standing in those days, the battlements intact; at every gate stood a guard. The Cathedral of the Santi Apostoli had no Apostles; its great front was a cube of unfinished brick; but colonnades ran in all the streets, row after row of beautifully ordered arches; over them were jutting cornices enriched with dancing children, sea monsters, tritons, dolphins, nymphs blowing conches, Nereus, Thetis, and all their sleek familiars, moulded in red clay. The fountain shone, the displayed Graces jetted their crystal store; from every window hung carpets, on every tower a gonfalon, from every church belfry came the riot of bells. The people were ma.s.sed at the gates, at the windows, on roofs and loggias and balconies--a motley of orange and blue, crimson and green. Soldiers lined the ways, priests with banners were on the steps of their churches. "Evviva, Amilcare! Evviva, Madonna Inglese!" ran like a river of sound from the gates about the streets, until, in the Piazza Grande, where the Signoria waited in the solemn estate of brocade and ermine, the volume of it had the throbbing roll of breakers on a cliff. Thud upon thud came "Evviva!" each with a shock which made pale Molly catch her breath; more than once or twice her eyes swam, and she felt herself wag helpless in the saddle. But Amilcare, snuffing wine, was in his glory, idol of a crowd he despised and meant to rule. Proud he looked and very greatly a ruler, firm-lipped, with a high head, and a flush on his dark cheeks.

At the steps of the Palazzo della Ragione he halted, cap in hand. The trumpeters shrilled for silence, the Secretary of the Republic read a Latin speech; everybody applauded what n.o.body understood. Amilcare, at the end of it, swung off his horse and ran up the steps. He embraced the orator, embraced the signori one after another; greetings flashed about, tears, laughter, clappings on the back. But he kept his head throughout: it was seen that he wished to present his wife. Present her! Enthusiasm grew frenzied; he had to battle his way down the steps to regain her side. He lifted her lightly down; hand in hand they went up the steps again. Molly excelled herself, was the wonder of the whole city. How she curtsied to their lordships--what a figure she had for that grace--how tall, how supple, and how slim! When she gave her rosy cheek to each in turn, there was a kind of caught sob audible in the crowd. The simplicity of the act brought tears to tender eyes: men laughed or looked haggard, according as the trouble took them; women, more at home with tears, clung to each other as they cried. A marvel all believed her--an angel clean from heaven; the kiss of peace, _la bocca della Carita_! A young Dominican became inspired; he showed the whites of his eyes, he spumed at the lips, began to mutter, with gurglings in the throat. At last his words broke strangling from him--"O mouth of singular favour! O lips of heavenly dew!" he stuttered, with a finger on high seesawing to the rhythm: "O starry eyes conversant with the aspect of angels!" He dropped down plump in a fit, barely heard at the palace door; but all the square surged with his cry--"O mouth of singular favour! O starry eyes! Evviva Madonna!"

Men and women all told, Molly must have been forty times kissed. Twice forty times would not have sufficed for the candidates who jostled, strained, and prayed between the soldiers' pikes below the steps. It would be difficult to say which s.e.x her pretty artlessness pleased the more: she made the women cry, the old men prophesy, the young men dream dreams. Certainly, there was n.o.body who thought ill of her for a performance so glaringly counter to Italian ways, whose men kiss each other while they keep their women at home. The thing was so transparent, done in such pure good faith, there was no room for judgment in it. She went among that people as, in these days, a child still might go. To those bullet-headed captains, grim and shaven close; to those painted great ladies, whose bare necks looked the more naked for their jewels; to those cruddled, be-robed old men; to the dapper sons of them; to their stiff-laced daughters--Molly went blushing, smiling, shy, and glad, and to each she gave her fresh cheek and the balm of her English lips. O mouth of singular favour! O starry eyes! She bereft them of compliments by her speechless welcome, overcame policy by having none, led captivity captive. Amilcare might hover behind her with plots, a delighted and forgotten shade: Molly Lovel of Bankside was d.u.c.h.ess of Nona, and might have been Queen of Italy, if all Italy had stood in the Piazza Grande. She was throned at a banquet, escorted home by the Signoria bareheaded; she was serenaded all night by relays of citizens, by straining poets, by all kinds of music. She had not a wink of sleep till morning, nor the faintest idea what it was all about.

There was no withstanding the popular voice; the Nonesi went mad to be a Duchy, with Molly for d.u.c.h.ess. Amilcare might be thrown in. They besieged the Bagnacavallo _Cortile_; they wrote sonnets and madrigals, and sang them day in, day out. Amilcare, acting with admirable discretion, kept very much to himself; he sent his beautiful wife on to the balcony twice a day to be saluted, and (more sparingly) let her work for him among the higher sort with her lips, her blushes, and her friendly grey eyes. He was humble in the Council, sober beneath the heaped-up honours of the popular voice, stern only with his mercenaries.

A fortnight of this swept him to the top of his hopes. A deputation, with a laurel crown and the t.i.tle of _Dux_ in a casket, waited upon him.

He had expected it for a week, and carefully dragooned his Molly.

"I must refuse the thing," he told her, "for your dear sake, my angel.

The fatigues, the affairs of a Ruler of State are incredible. I will never let you bear them. The signori may pluck their beards out by the roots. I am resolved." Molly wept to hear him.

When the great morning came--a luminous April day of showers and warm wind--he was as good as his word. Molly, shining with pride in him (herself wearing the day's "uncertain glory"), saw him fold his arms in face of the pompous line of men his seniors, compress his mouth, shake his cropped head. The deputation was much taken aback, the crowd drove hither and thither; she saw head turned to head, guessed at wounds which certainly any one there was incapable of feeling. She, however, felt them, rose up from her chair, laid a hand upon her lord's arm: they saw her plead with him. Oh, lovely sight! with her they too began to plead: "Pieta di Nona, Signore! Pieta di noi, Madonna!" She was their graceful choragus; or rather, she, like some slim daughter of the Greeks--Iphigenia or another--voiced the protagonist's part; and they wailed after her, a chorus of elders. Finally, she knelt to him, wound her arms about his hips, put up her entreating face. The comedy was played out. Amilcare showed himself shaken; he stooped to her, lifted her in his arms, embraced her. "O mouth of singular favour!" etc. The convocation broke up in sobs, psalmody, and kisses on the cheek.

Amilcare and his wife were led to the broad window and out on to the loggia. There stood Molly in all the glow of her happy toil, quick-breathing, enraptured, laughing and afire. The crown was on her head, by her side her sceptred lord; and below the people cheered and howled. "Udite, citt adini, il vostro Capitano!" cried the heralds.

"Duca! duca! Evviva Amilcare, Duca!" cried the throng. Then Amilcare pointed to the crowned girl. "Evviva la Madonna di Nona!" he brayed like a tube of bra.s.s. So as Madonna di Nona they knew her to the end.

Amilcare was crowned with his laurel wreath in the Santi Apostoli; _Te Deum_ was sung. Nona started on her new career--benevolent despotism tempered by a girl's kisses.

V

GRIFONE--AMATEUR OF SENSE

Grifone must now be lifted into the piece, Grifone the grey-eyed, self-contained little Secretary, whose brain seemed quicksilver, whose acts those of a deliberate cat, whose inches were few, whose years only tender. One of Amilcare's rare acts of unpremeditated humanity had been to s.n.a.t.c.h him, a naked urchin of nine, from Barga, when (after a night surprise) he was raining fire and sword and the pains of h.e.l.l upon that serried stronghold of the hills.

"Eh, Signore, Signore!" had whined the half-famished imp, padding by the condottiere's stirrup.

"Va via, vattene al diavolo!" a musketeer growled at him, and tried to club him down.

Amilcare looked, as one might idly glance at a shrew-mouse in the path.

He saw a brown body pitifully lean, a shock black head, a pair of piercing grey eyes. Further, he saw that the child had not on a st.i.tch of clothing, and that he was splashed to the knees with drying blood.

"What now, Baby?" he asked.

"Lift me into the saddle, Signore," said the boy, with a propitiating grin; "I am getting my feet wet."

The little dog had a humorous twist to his eyebrow, and it was true enough that the kennels were running red.

"Whose blood is that on your legs, my lad?" Pa.s.savente stayed his charger.

Grifone shrugged. "Misericordia! Who knows? My father's perhaps; my mother's more certainly, since my father ran away. My mother would have run too, but she had no time. Eh, take me up, Signore! I cannot swim."

Amilcare swung him up by the hand, so saved his life. Next day Grifone saved his.

They burnt a monastery in the plain and ransacked a chestful of correspondence.

"Death of Christ!" swore Pa.s.savente, "I can't read this Latin. Go and fetch me a monk and a rope."

The monk, a plausible rogue, began to read: little Grifone stood by the table. At a certain point he broke into the recital with an emphatic word: "Liar!"

"What the deuce does this mean?" fumed Amilcare in a rage.

"The monk is deceiving your Lordship," said Grifone; "the sense is the opposite of what he reports."

It seemed that the boy knew Latin--at any rate enough to hang a few monks. Hanged the poor devils were, and after that very much was made of Grifone. Amilcare took him through all his campaigns, had him well taught, gave confidence for confidence, and found by the time he was at Nona, making his "Gran Tradimento" of Farnese, that he could not get on without him. The accepted remedy for such a state of the case was to kill the youth at once. Amilcare did not do that, and at first was able to bless himself for his second forbearance. Grifone was privy to all his master's hopes and safeguards; Grifone wrought upon the Signoria, cajoled the clergy, bamboozled the _popolani_, descended even to the ragam.u.f.fins in the gutters, and taught them how to shout "Duca! Duca!"

when his master went proudly a-horseback, or to scribble his effigy in great chalk circles on the city walls. Though it may be true that Molly's graces brought Amilcare the crown of Nona, it must be added that neither Molly nor her Duke could have got in at all if Grifone had not been there to oil the hinges of the gates.

He had the soft purring ways of a cat, the tact of a Jesuit, the penetration of a money-lender, the sensibility of a musical amateur, and the morals of a maid-of-honour. He had extraordinary command over himself; he seemed able to do everything, and wishful to win nothing.

There never was a young man (as a matter of fact) who wanted so much or asked so little. It was the very boundlessness of his desires which reined him in. The appet.i.te of the Caesars would not have represented his, all the gratification they could have commanded would have been for him but a whet. If he had a weak side it was his own astuteness: he could not always see how unutterably foolish a man might be if he were let alone. Another foible he had--intellectual appreciation of beauty pushed to fainting-point. His senses were so straitly tied to his brains that to pluck at one was to thrill the other. Made on a small scale, he was pretty rather than handsome, had quiet watchful eyes, a smiling mouth, very little hands and feet. He seldom dressed out of black velvet, and if he wanted a man a.s.sa.s.sinated had the thing done at so many removes that it was always entered "private quarrel" or "love affair" in the reports of the City Watch. He generally chose friars for business of the sort, because they could be about at night without suspicion, and their hanging sleeves gave them such a pull. For cup or fruit work he found ladies the only possible agents. No one in Nona would dream of taking wine from a man; and as for presents of figs, Grifone was maturely of opinion that the last and present Pontiffs had exhausted that pretty artifice. Finally, you can easily understand how useful Duke Amilcare found a demure lad of this kind in the matter of moulding his new State.

When his master brought him a mistress he gave her great attention. Like all clever fellows, he was at first disposed to set down her simplicity to her credit; but after watching her for some time, he decided that here was actually a soul clear as gla.s.s--thing of inestimable value in a country where lying was an axiom of politics--and his respect for her quickened into something more. If she had been only beautiful she would never have attracted him as she did. There were plenty of women in Italy handsome enough for his needs (the flower of whose amours were mostly for the mind); but simpletons were rarer. This tall wistful girl told the truth--but told it incredibly! Think of this. Shortly after the coronation, Bentivoglio, the chalk-faced tyrant of Bologna, came with an army on his way to Forl. He had an old grudge against Nona. Finding himself within a league of its walls, his men l.u.s.ty and well-fed, his artillery in great train, Nona (as he judged it) in ferment--he blockaded the place, and in due time summoned it to surrender. Amilcare laughed at him, told his wife (in secret) that he would attack on the morrow, and went to the Council. While he was there came a new summons from Bentivoglio, a messenger with a white flag. Word was sent to the Duke; the Duke could not be found. "Oh," said one, "seek Madonna for answer." This was done.

"Tell the Lord of Bologna," says Molly, "that we attack to-morrow."

The man bowed himself away. You should have seen Amilcare's face when this was reported to him; he rated his lovely Molly like a fish-f.a.g.

Then he had an interview with Grifone; told him the whole story.

Grifone stared. "Ebbene, Monsignore," said he, "your Grace will do well to attack."

"Attack, man? when the fellow knows we are coming! Are you mad?"

"Not so, my lord," replied the Secretary. "Bentivoglio does not know you are coming. What he knows is that you have _said_ you are coming."

Well, at last Amilcare saw what Grifone had seen from the first, the mad results which might be won by a truth-telling d.u.c.h.ess. The Nonesi did attack. Bentivoglio, of course, not expecting them, was scattered over the maize fields, and never collected his force again until his own territory was reached. That was why he could not help the Lady of Forl.

"Per Bacco," said Grifone to himself, "truth in Italy is soused in the mud at the well's bottom; in England it seems to lie in a pan. This pretty creature is as shallow as a crystal cup, where you may study Truth, like a blue jewel, in an inch of water." He went about thoughtfully the rest of that day. This new-discovered quality of Molly's was a thing very beautiful in his eyes. The conclusion he came to was that he was about to fall in love with the lady. "And that, after all," was his comment, "might not be a bad thing, if (as is probable) it become necessary to make her my consort." Then he went happily to sleep.

Grifone's proposals to himself were still very simple. Shortly, they were to get a throne for his master in order that he might the more easily acquire one for himself. "My legs," he said frankly, "are too short to get up without a footstool." Amilcare was to have been the footstool. But then Molly came into play. At first she seemed to make the simple thing simpler. Amilcare was a strong man, but stiff. Grifone was sure he would bungle in his handling of Molly; this truth-telling beauty, this flawless jewel in a cup, would baffle him; he would neither see it the fine nor the delicate tool it was. He worked best with a bludgeon which, as it did brute's work, might be brutishly handled. So far well--he might trust Amilcare to wreck himself. Unfortunately, it seemed only too likely he might involve Molly in the mess. That danger was looming; already he set her to decoy-work which the girl herself (Grifone could see) did not relish. The ladies of Nona were gay and free--too free. Molly recoiled visibly, more than once. The men were worse. Incredible as it seemed to Grifone, they actually ravaged this tender honeysuckle spray to drench themselves with the scent. Molly, beautifully patient, courteous, meek as she was, cast a scared, paling face about the a.s.sembly now and again: some of the talk, too, cut her very deep. Grifone was already too much interested in her to stomach this. He decided to make discreet love to his d.u.c.h.ess by a way of his own. The Nonesi (gluttons!) abused her favours; he would refuse them. He would fast where Nona feasted, and be the only unkissed guest at her receptions.