Little Novels of Italy Part 35

"Why not, girl? He was your enemy, I suppose?"

"I think he was, my lord."

"Think! Do you not know it? What did he want of you?"

"He wanted to make me bad, my lord."

"Ah! So you stabbed him, eh?"

"No, my lord."

"Come now, come now, girl. Look at your frock."

She did look and was silent.

"Well!" Borso continued, after a sharp glance at Angioletto. "Did your husband cut it off?"

"No, my lord, he wasn't there--but--"

"Well--but what?"

"He would have killed him, my lord."

"Oh, the devil he would! Why?"

"Because he loves me, my lord."

"H'm. Well, Miss Bellaroba, where's your hand?"

She held it out. "Here, sir."

"What a little one! Well, put it on your heart. Now, how does it feel?"

"It jumps, my lord."

"Does it burn you, child?"

"No, my lord; it's quite cold."

"Stand down, Bellaroba. Castaneve, come forward."

His face just now was a sight to be seen--crumpled, infinitely prim, crow-footed like an ivied wall; but extraordinarily wise; with that tempered resolve which says, "I know Evil and I know Good, and dare be just to either." He was thinking profoundly; every one could see it.

Best of the company before him Angioletto, the little Tuscan, read his thought. His own was, "Unless I fear Justice I need not fear Borso.

Dante saw the death of his lady to be just. Courage then!"

"Mistress Castaneve," said Duke Borso, "you declare yourself innocent?"

"Excellency, I do, I do! Ah, Mother of G.o.d!" The panic was creeping up Olimpia's legs, to loosen the joints of her knees.

The Judge turned half. "Mistress Bellaroba, you also declare yourself innocent?"

"Yes, my lord," she said.

"Diavolo!" muttered Angioletto, "he is not 'my lord'; he is 'Magnificence.' I must scold her for this afterwards."

"The position of affairs is this," said the Duke, aloud. "One of these prisoners is guilty of the deed, and the guilty one is the liar. Now, I will not put an innocent person to death if I can avoid it; and I will not put these women to the question, because I should wring a confession of guilt from each, and be no more certain than I was before. I may have my own opinion, and may have proved it on various grounds. That again, I do not care to obtrude. I do not see that I can better the precedent set me by a very wise man and patriarch, King Solomon of Zion.

Let the women judge each other. My judgment is that the innocent of these two shall hang the guilty."

The bystanders were silent, till one man shivered. The shiver swept lightly through the company like a wind in the reeds, and ran wider and wider till it stirred the farthest edge of the field. All eyes were upon the prisoners. Borso's blinked from below his s.h.a.ggy brows, young Teofilo Calcagnini's were misty, Angioletto's hard and bright. Bellaroba had been motionless throughout, except when her lips moved to speak; she was motionless now. But Olimpia was panting. The unearthly quiet was only broken by that short sound for ten minutes.

"Bellaroba," then said the Duke, "what say you? You declare that you are innocent. Will you hang the guilty and go free?"

For the first time she looked up, but not at her judge. It was at Angioletto she looked, Angioletto at her.

"No, my lord, I cannot," said Bellaroba in the hush. The wind shivered the reeds again, then fainted down.

"Castaneve," said the dry voice, "what say you? You declare that you are innocent. Will you hang the guilty and go free?"

The drowning Olimpia threw up her hands to clutch at this plank in the sea-swirl. Free! O G.o.d! The word turned her.

"Magnificence, I must, I must, I must!" She wailed, and fell a heap to the ground. Bellaroba covered her eyes. Teofilo Calcagnini shook the tears from his. Borso sat on immovably, working his jaws.

It is at this point that the conduct of Angioletto touches the sublime--a position never accorded by posterity to his verse. It proves him, nevertheless, the greater artist to this extent, that he was equally the slave of the Idea, though working in more intractable stuff: himself, namely; his own little heart throbbing in his own young body.

Therefore he deserves well of posterity, which finds his verses thin.

Said Angioletto: "Yes, Bellaroba is my adorable wife, loved beyond all women, deserving beyond all price. Yet if she killed the Captain she is guilty of death, and the sentence is just whoever perform it. And if, being guiltless, she is hanged by the guilty, the action will glorify her; for it is the price she pays for clean hands."

Then, in the midst of that waiting a.s.sembly, he called the girl to him by her name, took her face in both his hands and kissed it very tenderly, smiling all the time through his quick tears.

"My dear little heart," said he, "your husband is proud of you. All that you have done is admirable in this black business. In a very short time I shall see you again. Though it is a higher flight than the Schifanoia chimney, it is quicker done. Trust me, Bellaroba; you know I have never failed you yet."

He could say no more, but took her in his arms and held her there, speechless as he was with inspiration. She, seeming to burn in the fire that consumed him, lay quite still, neither sobbing any more, nor shivering. So they clung together for a little. Then Angioletto lifted up his face from her cheek, and put her gently away from him.

"Let justice be done, Excellency," he called out in his shrill boy's voice, "we have said our say to each other."

Borso spoke.

"Justice shall be done. The innocent has condemned the guilty: let that woman be hanged. We have learned the value of clean hands this day.

Mistress Bellaroba, you have a man in ten thousand; Angioletto, my friend, you have what you deserve, a woman in ten million. It is not fair that the worth of you two should be known only to me and the Blessed Virgin; you shall tell it now to a priest. Come along, and let me have the whole story with my breakfast."

Thus Duke Borso did judgment for his good town of Ferrara in times very remote from our own. The Ferrarese used to say that it needs a sound lawyer to know how to break the laws.

THE END