Marzio's Crucifix, and Zoroaster Part 11

"My dear boy," he answered, "those things are not done in a moment like roasting chestnuts. There are banns to be published. There is a civil marriage at the Capitol-"

"I should be quite satisfied with your benediction-a Pater Noster, an Oremus properly said-eh? Would it not be all right?"

"Really, Tista!" exclaimed the good man, holding up his hands in horror. "I had no idea that your religious education had been so neglected! My dear child, marriage is a very solemn thing."

"By Diana! I should think so! But that need not make it such a long ceremony. A man dies in a moment-paff!-the light is out!-you are dead. It is very solemn. The same thing for marriage. The priest looks at you, says Oremus-paff! You are married, and it cannot be undone! I know it is very serious, but it is only the affair of a moment."

Don Paolo did not know whether to laugh or to look grave at this exposition of Gianbattista's views of death and matrimony. He put it down to the boy's excitement.

"There is another reason, Tista. The law does not allow a girl of seventeen to be married without her father's consent."

"The law again!" exclaimed Gianbattista in disgust. "I thought the law protected Lucia from her father. You said so last night, and you repeated it this morning."

"Certainly, my boy. But the law also protects parents against any rashness their children may meditate. It would be no marriage if Lucia had not Marzio's consent."

"I wish there were no laws," grumbled the young man. "How do you come to know so much about marriage, Don Paolo?"

"It is my profession. Come along; we will talk to Marzio."

"What can we say to him? You do not suppose I will go and beg to be taken back?"

"You must be forgiving-"

"I believe in forgiveness when the other side begins," said Gianbattista.

"Perhaps Marzio will forgive too," argued the priest.

"He has nothing to forgive," answered the young man. The reasoning seemed to him beyond refutation.

"But if he says he has no objection, if he begs you to come back, I think you might make some advance on your side, Tista. Besides, you were very rough with him this morning."

"He turned me out like a dog-after all these years," said Gianbattista. "I will go back and work for him on one condition. He must give me Lucia at once."

"I am afraid that as a basis of negotiations that plan leaves much to be desired," replied Don Paolo, in a meditative tone. "Of course, we are all determined that you shall marry her in the end; but unless Providence is pleased to change Marzio's state of mind, you may have to wait until she is of age. He will never consent at present."

"In that case I had better go and take my things away from his house," returned the apprentice. "And say good-bye to Lucia-for a day or two," he added in a low voice.

"Of course, if you will not agree to be conciliatory it is of no use for you to come with me," said Don Paolo rather sadly. "Dear me! Here comes Maria Luisa with Suntarella!"

"Ah, dear Paolo, dear Paolo!" cried the stout lady, puffing up the stairs with the old woman close behind her. "How good you are! And what did he say? We asked if you had gone at the workshop, and they said you had, so Lucia went in to ask her father whether he would have the chickens boiled or roasted. Well, well, tell me all about it. These stairs! Suntarella, run up and open the door while I get my breath! Dear Paolo, you are an angel of goodness!"

"Softly, Maria Luisa," answered the priest. "There is good and bad. He has admitted that he will have to consider the matter because he cannot make Lucia marry without her consent. But on the other hand-poor Tista-" he looked at the young man and hesitated.

"He has turned me out," said Gianbattista. "He has given me an hour to leave his house. I believe a good part of the hour has pa.s.sed already-"

"And Tista says he will not go back at any price," put in Don Paolo. The Signora Pandolfi gasped for breath.

"Oh! oh! I shall faint!" she sobbed, pressing the handle of her parasol against her breast with both hands. "Oh, what shall we do? We are lost! Paolo, your arm-I shall die!"

"Courage, courage, Maria Luisa," said the priest kindly. "We will find a remedy. For the present Tista can come to my house. There is the little room Where the man-servant sleeps, who is gone to see his sick wife in the country. The Cardinal will not mind."

"But you are not going like tins?" cried the stout lady, grasping Gianbattista's arm and looking into his face with an expression of forlorn bewilderment. "You cannot go to-day-it is impossible, Tista-your shirts are not even ironed! Oh dear I oh dear! And I had antic.i.p.ated a feast because I was sure that Marzio would see reason before midday, and there are chickens for dinner-with rice, Tista, just as you like them-oh, you cannot go, Tista, I cannot let you go!"

"Courage, Maria Luisa," exhorted Don Paolo. "It is not a question of chickens."

"Dear Sora Luisa, you are too good," said Gianbattista. "Let us go upstairs first, to begin with-you will catch cold here on the steps. Come, come, courage, Sora Luisa!"

He took the good woman's arm and led her upwards. But Don Paolo stayed behind. He believed it to be his duty to return to the workshop, and to try and undo the harm Gianbattista had done himself by the part he had played in the proceedings of the morning. The Signora Pandolfi suffered herself to be led upstairs, panting and sobbing as she went, and protesting still that Gianbattista could not possibly be allowed to leave the house.

When Don Paolo had parted from the two women an hour earlier, they had not gone home as he had supposed, but, chancing to meet old a.s.sunta near the house, the three had gone together to make certain necessary purchases. On their return they had inquired for Paolo at the workshop, as Maria Luisa had explained, and Lucia had entered in the confident expectation of finding that the position of things had mended considerably since the early morning. Moreover, since the announcement of the previous evening, the young girl had not seen her father alone. She wanted to talk to him on her own account, in order to sound the depth of his determination. She was not afraid of him. The fact that for a long time he had regarded favourably the project of her marriage with Gianbattista had given her a confidence which was not to be destroyed in a moment, even by Marzio's strange conduct. She pa.s.sed through the outer rooms, nodding to the workmen, who touched their caps to the master's daughter. A little pa.s.sage separated the large workshop from the inner studio. The door at the end was not quite closed. Lucia went up to it, and looked through the opening to see whether Gianbattista were with her father. The sight she saw was so surprising that she leaned against the door-post for support. She could not believe her eyes.

There was her father in his woollen blouse, kneeling, on the brick floor of the room, before a crucifix, his back turned towards her, his hands raised, and, as it seemed from the position of the arms, folded in prayer. The sunlight fell upon the silver figure, and upon the dark tangled hair of the artist who remained motionless, as though absorbed in devotion, while his daughter watched him through the half-open door. The scene was one which would have struck any one; the impression it made on Lucia was altogether extraordinary. She easily fancied that Marzio, after his interview with Don Paolo, had felt a great and sudden revulsion of sentiment. She knew that the priest had not left the studio many minutes before, and she saw her father apparently praying before a crucifix. A wonderful conversion had been effected, and the result was there manifest to the girl's eyes.

She held her breath, and remained at the door, determined not to move until Marzio should have risen from his knees. To interrupt him at such a moment would have been almost a sacrilege; it might produce the most fatal results; it would be an intrusion upon the privacy of a repentant man. She stood watching and waiting to see what would happen.

Presently Marzio moved. Lucia thought he was going to rise from his knees, but she was surprised to see that he only changed the position of the crucifix with one hand. He approached his head so near the lower part of it that Lucia fancied he was in the act of pressing his lips upon the crossed feet of the silver Christ. Then he drew back a little, turned his head to one side, and touched the figure with his right hand. It was evident, now, that he was no longer praying, but that something about the workmanship had attracted his attention.

How natural, the girl said to herself, that this man, even in such a supreme moment, should not forget his art-that, even in prayer, his eyes should mechanically detect an error of the chisel, a flaw in the metal, or some such detail familiar to his daily life. She did not think the worse of him for it. He was an artist! The habit of his whole existence could not cease to influence him-he could as soon have ceased to breathe. Lucia watched him and felt something like love for her father. Her sympathy was with him in both actions; in his silent prayer, in the inner privacy of his working-room, as well as in the inherent love of his art, from which he could not escape even when he was doing something contrary to the whole tenor of his life. Lucia thought how Don Paolo's face would light up when she should tell him of what she had seen. Then she wondered, with a delicate sense of respect for her father's secret feelings, whether she would have the right to tell any one what she had accidentally seen through the half-closed door of the studio.

Marzio moved again, and this time he rose to his feet and remained standing, so that the crucifix was completely hidden from her view. She knocked at the door. Her father turned suddenly round, and faced the entrance, still hiding the crucifix by his figure.

"Who is it?" he asked in a tone that sounded as though he were startled.

"Lucia," answered the girl timidly. "May I come in, papa?"

"Wait a minute," he answered. She drew back, and, still watching him, saw that he laid the cross down upon the table, and covered it with a towel-the same one in which it had been wrapped.

"Come in," he called out "What is the matter?"

"I only came for a moment, papa," answered Lucia, entering the room and glancing about her as she came forward. "Mamma sent me in to ask you about the chickens-there are chickens for dinner-she wanted to know whether you would like them roasted or boiled with rice."

"Roasted," replied Marzio, taking up a chisel and pretending to be busy. "It is Gianbattista who likes them boiled."

"Thank you, I will go home and tell her. Papa-" the girl hesitated.

"What is the matter?"

"Papa, you are not angry any more as you were last night?"

"Angry? No. What makes you ask such a question? I was not angry last night, and I am not angry now. Who put the idea into your head?"

"I am so glad," answered Lucia. "Not with me, not with Tista? I am so glad! Where is Tista, papa?"

"I have not the slightest idea. You will probably not see Tista any more, nor Gianbattista, nor his excellency the Signorino Bordogni"

Lucia turned suddenly pale, and rested her hand upon the old straw chair on which Don Paolo had sat during his visit.

"What is this? What do you tell me? Not see Tista?" she asked quickly.