The God of Love Part 13

When, after all the fine-sounding promises, I found you counted by gossip as the companion of Vittoria, you need not wonder if I was disappointed, and if my disappointment showed itself plainly on my averted face."

"Madonna," Dante began, eagerly, but the girl lifted her hand to check interruption, and Dante held his peace as the girl continued to speak.

"I know now that I was wrong in my reading of your deed; that what you did, you did for a reason that you believed to be both wise and good.

Though I do not think that it is ever well for a true man to play an untrue part, yet I know that you acted thus in the thought of serving me. So let it pa.s.s, and be as if it had not been."

She was silent, and for a little while Dante was silent too, staring at her beautiful face and clasping his hands tightly together, as one that has much to say and knows not how to say it. Once and again his lips that parted to speak closed again, for if he rejoiced greatly to stand there in her presence and be free to speak his mind unimpeded, yet also he feared greatly lest the words he might utter should prove unworthy of this golden chance given him by Heaven.

But at length his longing conquered his alarm, and he spoke quickly.

"Hear me, Beatrice," he pleaded. "My heart is young, and I will never be so vain as to swear that it is untainted by the folly of youth, or free from the pride of youth, or clean of the greed of youth. But now it is swept and garnished, made as a fair shrine for a divine idol, for a woman, for a girl, for an angel--for you!"

Beatrice looked very steadfastly upon the eager face of her lover while she listened to his eager words, and when he paused she began to murmur very softly the opening lines of one of the sonnets that Dante had written in those days of his secrecy:

"The lady that is angel of my heart, She knows not of my love and may not know--"

She stopped and looked at Dante as if she questioned him, and Dante answered her by carrying on the lines:

"Until G.o.d's finger gives the sign to show That I to her the secret may impart."

He paused for a moment, rejoicing to think that she had so far cherished his verses; then he went on, eagerly: "G.o.d's finger gives me the sign to-night, and I will speak, lest I die with the message of my soul undelivered. I love you." It seemed to him that she must needs hear the fierce beatings of his heart as he spoke these words.

Beatrice looked at him with a melancholy smile. "Is that the message of your soul?" she asked.

And Dante answered: "That is my soul itself. All my being is uplifted by my love for you. It has made a new heaven and a new earth for me: a new heaven whither you shall guide me, a new earth where I shall walk more bravely, and yet more warily, than of old, fearing nothing, for your sake, save only to be found unworthy to say, 'I love you.'"

If Dante spoke with a pa.s.sionate happiness in thus setting free his soul, there was happiness too, in Beatrice's voice as she answered him.

"I am, indeed, content to hear you speak, for your words seem, as words seldom seem in this city and in this world, to be quite true words. So when you say you love me, I feel neither agitation, nor flattered vanity, nor amazement--all which feelings, as I have read in books and heard of gossips, are proper to maidens in these hours. Only I know that I believe you, and that I am glad to believe you."

Dante interrupted her, crying her name with pa.s.sionate eagerness--"Beatrice!" But he kept the place where he stood.

The girl spoke again, finishing her thought. "And I think you will always be worthy to offer love and to win love."

Dante moved a little nearer to her, and he stretched out his hands as one that begs a great gift. "Beatrice," he entreated, "will you give me your love?"

The smile that was partly kind and partly wistful came again to the girl's face. "Messer Dante, Messer Dante," she said, "how can you ask, and how can I answer? A raw youth and a green girl do not make the world between them, nor change the world's laws, nor the laws of this little city, nor the laws of my father in my father's house. And my father's law is like a hand upon my lips, forbidding them to speak, and like a hand upon my heart, forbidding it to beat."

Dante protested very vehemently, in all the zeal and freshness of his youth. "The law of Love is greater than all other laws. The strength of Love is stronger than all strength. The sword of Love is stronger than the archangel's sword, and conquers all enemies."

Beatrice shook her head at her lover's fury, and her eyes shone very brightly in the moonlight. "Oh, Dante! Dante!" she said, softly, "if this were indeed so, the world would be an easier world for lovers. If you were to tell my father what you have told me, or if I were to tell my father what I have told you, he would twit us for a pair of silly children, and take good heed that we were kept apart. If you were to ask my father for me, he would deny you, and laugh while he denied; for my father is a proud man, and one that loves wealth and power very greatly, and will not give his child save where wealth and power abide. If he were to come upon us here, now, where we talk alone in the moonlight, he would raise his hand to slay you, and he has not a neighbor nor a friend but would say he did right. You know all this, even as I know it. Why, then, do you ask me to give what I cannot give?"

She was very calm and sad as she spoke, and the truth that was in her mournful words was not to be denied by Dante. But all the ardors of his being were spurred by his consciousness that he had made known his love for her, and that she, surely, had scarcely done less than confess her love for him, and while such sweet happenings hallowed the world, it did not seem to the poet possible that any mortal power could come between them. And in this confidence he addressed his beloved again, all on fire.

"Dear woman," he urged, "not all the fathers in Florence can bind our spirits. I love you now, I shall love you while I live--in hunger and thirst, in feasting and singing, in the church and in the street, in sorrow and in joy, in cross or success. My life and every great and little thing within my life is sanctified to a sacrament by my love for you. Cannot your spirit, that is as free as mine, uplift my heart with a word?"

So he pet.i.tioned her, ardently, and his warmth found favor in the girl's grave, watchful eyes.

"I have heard you praised highly of late," she said, "and men give you great promise. But, truly, I judge you with the sight of my own eyes, not with the sound of others' words. And I think you are indeed a man that a woman might be happy to love."

Dante's heart leaped to hear such sweet speech, and for very joy he was silent awhile. Then he said: "If I be indeed anything worth weighing in the scales of your favor, it is for your sake that I have made myself so, Madonna."

Beatrice laughed a little, very gently, at his words, and pretended to frown, and failed. "My cold reason," she a.s.serted, "tells me that I would rather you bettered yourself just for the sake of being better, and with no less unselfish intention; but, to be honest, my warm heart throbs at your homage."

Dante would have come closer, but she stayed him with a gesture. "You make me very proud," he murmured.

Beatrice went on. "Yet I know well that men have done greatly to please women that were not worth the pleasing, or merely for the lure of some grace of hand or lip. I should like to think that my lover would always live at his best for my sake, though he never won a kiss of me."

"Then here I swear it," Dante said, proudly, "to dedicate my life to your service, and to make all honorable proof of my devotion. But you, beloved, will you not give me some words of hope?"

Beatrice extended her hands to him, and he caught those dear hands in his, and held them tightly, and Beatrice was smiling as she spoke, although there were tears in her eyes. "So far," she said, "as a woman can promise the life that is guided by another's law, I give you my life, Dante. But my love is my own, to hold or to yield, and I give it all to you with all my heart, knowing that because you think it worth the winning, you will be worthy of what you have won."

Now, as I think, here my Dante made to take his lady in his arms, but she denied him, very delicately and gently, pleading with such sweet reason that the most ardent lover in the world could not refuse her obedience. For she would have it thus, that until their love could be avowed, as in time it might be, if Dante won to fame and honor in the state, until their love could be avowed there should be no lover's commerce between them, not even to the changing of a kiss. For she would not have him nor her act otherwise than in perfect honorability as befitted their great love. Because Dante did, indeed, cherish a great love for her, that was greater than all temptings of the flesh, he let it be as she wished. So this pair, that were almost as the angels in the greatness of their love, pledged their troths with the simplicity of children, and parted with the innocence of children, as gentle and as chaste.

XVII

A STRANGE BETROTHAL

What happened now happened after I had left the festival, but I heard all the facts later from eye-witnesses, so that I honestly think I can make it as plain a tale as if I had seen the things myself. Messer Maleotti, doing as he was told and rejoicing in the thought that he was making mischief, came into the feasting-hall where Messer Folco sat apart with certain old friends and kinsfolk of his, sober gentlefolk of age and repute, that made merry in their grave way and laughed cheerfully over the jests of yesteryear, and one of them was Master Tommaso Severo, that was Madonna Beatrice's physician. Now Maleotti, catching sight of a certain ancient servant of Messer Folco's, whom he knew well to be an honest man and one much trusted by his master, made for him and drew him a little apart, and whispered into his ear that very amazing message with which Messer Simone had intrusted him.

This message, bluntly and baldly stated, came to this: that Maleotti, taking his ease in the garden and wandering this way and that, came at last by chance beneath the walls of that part of the palace where Madonna Beatrice dwelt. There, on the loggia, very plain in the moonlight, he saw Madonna Beatrice in discourse with a man. Though the moonlight was bright and showed the face of Madonna Beatrice very distinctly, the man stood at an angle, as it were, and he could make nothing of him, face or figure. Such was the story which Maleotti, primed thereto by Simone, had to tell. At first the man to whom he told it seemed incredulous, as well he might be, albeit it chanced the tale was true, and then he became doubtful--for, after all, youth is youth and love love--and finally, upon Maleotti's insistence, he did indeed consent to go toward his master, and, plucking him by the sleeve, solicit the favor of a private word with him. Messer Folco, who was always very affable in his bearing to those that served him, and who had a special affection for this fellow, rose very good-humoredly from the table and the converse and the wine, and going a little ways apart, listened to what his old servant, who seemed so agitated and aghast, had to tell him.

When Messer Folco heard what it was that his man had to say, Messer Folco frowned sternly, and expressed a disbelief so emphatic and so angry that there was nothing for the poor servitor to do but to call Maleotti himself, who, with great seeming reluctance and with many protestations of regret, that must have made him seem like a particularly mischievous monkey apologizing for stealing nuts, repeated, with a cunning lack of embellishment, the plain statement that he had made to the retainer. Thereupon, Messer Folco, in a great rage which it took all his boasted philosophy to keep under control, called to him two or three of his old cronies that were still lingering about the deserted tables. These folk were, indeed, also his kinsfolk, and it was from one of them that I had the particulars which I am about to set forth with almost as much certainty as if I had seen them myself.

Making hurried excuses to those few that remained at the table, Messer Folco and his friends quitted the room upon their errand of folly. And Maleotti, having done his devil's work, departed upon other business of his master's, that was no less d.a.m.nable in its nature and no less threatening to Simone's enemies.

Messer Folco and his friends hurried swiftly and in silence through the still, moon-lit gardens till they came to the gateway that Dante had opened and the little staircase whereby Dante had ascended. Pa.s.sing through this gateway and mounting those steps, Messer Folco and his friends came to the loggia and stood there for a moment in silence. Had they been less busy upon a bad and unhappy errand, they must needs have been enchanted by the beauty of all that lay before and around them in that place and on that night of summer.

The air was very hot upon the loggia, and the night was very still. All over the field of the sky the star-candles were burning brightly, and it scarcely needed the torches that certain of Messer Folco's companions carried to see what was to be seen. Those of Messer Folco's kinsfolk that stood huddled together about the entrance of the loggia, curious and confused at the suddenness of the unlovely business, could see that their leader looked very pale and grave as he crossed the pavement and struck sharply with his clinched hand at the door which faced him. In a little while the door opened, and one of Madonna Beatrice's ladies peeped out her head, and gave a little squeal of surprise at the sight of her lord and the rest of the company, the unexpected presence, and the unexpected torches. But Messer Folco bade her very sternly be still, and when Messer Folco commanded sternly he was generally obeyed. Then he ordered her that she should summon her mistress at once to come to him there, where he waited for her. When the sorely frightened girl had gone, there was silence for a little while on the loggia, while the perplexed friends stared at each other's blanched faces, until presently the little door opened again and Monna Beatrice came forth from it, and saluted her father very sweetly and gravely, as if nothing were out of the ordinary, though some thought, and Messer Tommaso Severo knew, that there was a troubled look in her usually serene eyes.

Messer Folco addressed her calmly, with the calmness of one that, being consciously a philosopher, seeks to restrain all needless, unreasonable rages, and he said, slowly: "Madonna, I have been told very presently by one that pretends to have seen what he tells, that you talked here but now with a man alone. The thing, of course, is not true?"

The question which went with the utterance of his last words was given in a very confident voice, and he carried, whether by dissimulation or no, a very confident countenance.

The look of confidence faded from his face as Madonna Beatrice answered him very simply. "The thing is true," she said, and then said no more, as if there were no more to say, but stood quietly where she was, looking steadily at her father and paying no heed to any other of those that were present.

The voice of Folco was as stern as before, though harder in its tone as he again addressed his daughter. "The thing is true, then? I am grieved to hear it. Who was the man?"

Madonna Beatrice looked at him very directly. She seemed to be neither at all abashed nor at all defiant, as she answered, tranquilly, "I cannot tell you, father."

For a little while that seemed a great while a dreary quiet reigned over that moon-bathed loggia. Father and daughter faced each other with fixed gaze, and the others, very ill at ease, watching the pair, wished themselves elsewhere with all their hearts.

While those that a.s.sisted reluctantly at this meeting wondered what would happen next, seeing those two high, simple, and n.o.ble spirits suddenly brought into such strange antagonism--before they, I say, could formulate any solution of the problem, a man stepped out of the shadow of the doorway and advanced toward Folco boldly, and the astonished spectators saw that the man was none other than Messer Simone dei Bardi.

However he may have revelled at the now ended festival, there were no signs of wine or riot about him now. He stood squarely and steadily enough, and his red face was no redder than its wont. Only a kind of ferocious irony showed on it as he loomed there, largely visible in the yellow air.

"What is all this fuss about?" he asked, with a fierce geniality. "I am the man you seek after, and why should I not be? Though why you should seek for me I fail to see. May not a man speak awhile in private to the lady of his honorable love, and yet no harm done to bring folk about our ears with torches and talk and staring faces?"