The Romance Of Giovanni Calvotti Part 1

The Romance Of Giovanni Calvotti.

by David Christie Murray.

CHAPTER I.--IN THE ATTIC.

I live in an attic. I am in the immediate neighbourhood of a great tavern and a famous place of amus.e.m.e.nt. The thoroughfare on which I can look whilst I sit at my window is noisy with perpetual traffic. In the midst of London I am more of a hermit than is that pretentious humbug who waves his flag at pa.s.sing steamers from his rock in the aegean. I am not a hermit from any choice of mine, or from any dislike of men and women. I am not a hermit because of any dislike which men and women may entertain for me. In my time I have been popular, and have had many friends. If I could find it in my heart at this moment to face some one of those friends, the necessity for a continued hermitage might pa.s.s. If I could find it in my heart to write to one of them I might close this lonely vigil to-morrow. Let me confess the truth. I am ashamed of myself, and I can appeal to n.o.body for a.s.sistance. I have gamed away the whole of my substance, and I am a broken man. It would be possible to do something better for myself if I could venture into the streets. But my sole possessions in the way of outer clothing are one pair of too-ancient trousers, one pair of tattered slippers, one fez, and one poor old dressing-gown.

My estimable Uncle round the corner has the rest. Perhaps I am less a hermit than a prisoner--a prisoner over whom that sternest of janitors, Poverty, holds the key.

I am a little proud of my English, and I do not think you can have yet discovered from my style of expression that I am not a native of this country. Permit me to describe myself.

I am an Italian and a gentleman, and my age is thirty. My main fault is, that I am able to do much in too many directions. I play admirably upon several instruments, and my little original compositions are admitted to show great undeveloped talent. My verses in four languages are also admitted to show great undeveloped talent. As a painter or a sculptor I might have made fame certain. I am merry and generous, and slow to offence, an unmeasured braggart, careless about money matters, without dignity, but the soul of honour. I am also your obedient servant. Permit me so to subscribe myself--Your obedient servant, Giovanni Calvotti.

My attic is uncarpeted, and its general aspect is sordid. It contains a bed, a table, a chair, a chest of drawers, a grand piano, a violin, a violoncello, my pipes, my tobacco, my writing materials, and--me. Stay!

Hidden for the moment from my glance beneath the grand piano are the tools by which I live: my easel, my porte-couleur, my palette, canvas, and brushes. My estimable uncle round the corner is not a judge of art.

It is my weakness that I cannot paint bad pictures. I linger sometimes for a whole day hungry--sometimes even without tobacco--touching and again touching the ripened beauties of my canvas child, before I can dare to leave it. I am a hungry amateur, but that is no reason why I should be false to the principles of art. Like my playing upon four instruments, and like my verses in four languages, my painting is admitted to show great talent--as yet only partially developed. Upon each of my works my estimable uncle advances me the sum of twelve shillings and sixpence. I paint one picture per week. In consideration of the restricted character of my wardrobe, my landlady is so obliging as to send my works to the only dealer with whom I can at present do business. I had never known until this morning who it was that acted as my amba.s.sador. I have told you already that I am of a merry temperament.

I snap my fingers at evil fortune. I despise the G.o.ddess Circ.u.mstance.

Seeking to do me an evil turn this morning she has benefited me, and I am contented in spite of her. Good gracious! Is a man to lose everything because his stomach is empty? The G.o.ddess Circ.u.mstance shall not keep my heart empty, let her keep my shelves as bare as she will. My Lady of Circ.u.mstance, Giovanni Calvotti proffers to you a polite but irrevocable defiance!

This morning my canvas child was a landscape. This afternoon it was an inglorious smudge. It is now on its way back to the landscape condition, and will have revived all its glories by to-morrow. It was noon when I rang my bell.

'Madame,' I said to my landlady, in my cheerful Italian manner, 'will you again extend to me your courtesy?'

My landlady is not an educated woman, but she is a good creature, and has a delicate and refined susceptibility. She recognises in me a gentleman. She reveres in my person a genius to which I make no pretension. I am not a man of genius. A man of genius does one thing supremely well. Some men of exceptional talent do many things admirably, but nothing supremely well. I am a man of exceptional talent. Pardon the modest candour which is compelled to a.s.sume the garb of egotism.

My landlady looked at my canvas child, and then at me, and laughed.

'To Mr. Aaron's, sir?' Asking this, she put her hands upon the edges of the framework of the canvas.

'Yes, madame,' I answered, for we have always the same formula on Fridays at noon. 'To my estimable uncle round the corner.'

'Anything more than usual?' my landlady asked me.

'No, madame,' I answered. 'A loaf, a pound of coffee, half a pound of bird's-eye tobacco, the ticket from my estimable uncle, a receipt for the week's rent, and the change.'

My landlady laughed again and said, 'Very good, sir.' Then she went downstairs with the picture, and I felt unhappy when my canvas child was gone, and was fain (an idiom employed by your best writers) to solace myself with my violin. So far there was nothing to mark this Friday morning from any other Friday morning for the last nine weeks. It is now nine weeks that I have been a hermit. I was very hungry, and was glad to think of the coffee and the loaf. I should have told you that my habits are very abstemious, and that I am admirably healthy on a low diet.

My native cheerfulness, my piano, my violin, my violoncello, my canvas children, and my pipes, all nourish me like meat and wine. I played upon my violin a little impromptu good-bye to my landscape--a melodious farewell to a sweet creation. The time seemed long before my landlady returned, and when I put back my violin in its case, I heard a sound of crying on the stairs. I opened the door and looked out, and there was a little English angel, whom I had never before seen, sitting upon the topmost step, close to my attic door, crying as if her heart had broken.

'What is the matter, my poor little maid?' I asked very tenderly, for I know that young girls are easily frightened by strangers.

She looked up with eyes like the skies I was born under. The pretty pale cheeks were all wet, and the pretty red lips were trembling, and those beautiful blue heavens were raining as no blue skies ought to rain.

'Ah, come, my child,' I said to her; 'how can I help you if you do not tell me what is the matter?'

'Oh, signor,' she said, with many sobs and tears, 'I have spoiled your beautiful picture.'

She held it up--my canvas child--all besmeared with mud. I could not resist one exclamation of sorrow. The news was too sudden for my self-possession to remain. But when I saw that the little English angel began to weep afresh at this exclamation, I longed for one moment to be able to get out of my own body, that I might chastise a poltroon so un-philosophical. I took her by the hand instead, and led her into this room and made her sit down, and, whilst I sponged the picture with cold water, made her tell me how the accident had happened. For I thought, in my Machiavellian Italian way, 'If she should go away without having quite familiarised herself with this unhappy incident, she will always be afraid of me.' Therefore I lured her on.

'Mrs. Hopkins asked me to take the picture to Mr. Aaron's,' she began, still sobbing. 'I was just pa.s.sing the corner when a gentleman leaped out of a cab. The cab was moving at the time, and I did not expect to see anybody jump from it. The gentleman missed his footing and stumbled against me. I fell down and the picture fell face downwards on the pavement, and a man who was pa.s.sing by trod upon it.'

Now, I invite you to observe that these sentences are in no way remarkable. Yet I felt compelled to say--

'Most admirably and succinctly put!'

For the little girl was very pleasing, and she looked very pretty and innocent and distressed. And if you had employed a professional orator to make the statement, he would have been a thousand miles behind her in grace and straightforwardness, and in everything that makes human speech beautiful and admirable. When I had removed the mud from my canvas child I found that its countenance was badly scratched. So I busied myself in putting up my easel and in setting my palette.

'Oh, signor,' said the poor child, 'I am so sorry.'

Then she cried again.

'Mademoiselle,' I replied, with charming gaiety, 'it is not your fault at all. It is the doing of another lady, an old enemy of mine. The other lady has been trying to spite me, mademoiselle, for several years. She is powerful; she has hosts of servants. She plunges me into all manner of terrible sc.r.a.pes, and for all this I laugh at her and snap my fingers--So.'

By the time I had said 'So' and snapped my fingers she had done crying, and being very intelligent she understood my parable, and when I laughed she smiled. I will tell you exactly what her smile was like. I was painting: in the Welsh hills three years ago, with plenty of money in my pocket, and a very great enthusiasm for art in my soul. I strayed out from the hotel I was staying in one beautiful moonlight night. I had rambled far, when it began to rain and grew very dark with clouds. I sat under a rock upon a big stone by the side of a little lake, and lit my pipe and waited for the rain to cease. And while it was still raining a little, the clouds divided for one second, and the moonlight swam down the lake from one end to the other. That was her smile; and when I saw it I seemed to see the lake again, and to hear the rain and the rustling of the trees, and smell the scent of the dead leaves. The moonlight stayed on her face only a second. She grew grave and sad again, and came timidly to me where I was at work. 'Will it be much trouble to you to mend it?' she asked. 'Will it take long?'

'Not long, mademoiselle,' I answered; 'I shall finish it to-day.'

I am gifted by nature with a delicate organisation. It is not possible for a man to be a gentleman without something of the quality I desire to indicate. I observe intuitively. I saw that my distressed companion desired to say something, and I saw also that what she desired to say would be embarra.s.sing to me. It was also plain to my refined observation that she would be happier if she could only go gracefully. I relieved her of this trouble--

'We will challenge Madame Fortune again in the morning, mademoiselle.

You and I will beat her this time. We will co-operate again.'

'Oh yes,' she said, 'do let me take it in the morning. I _will_ be careful.'

'And now,' I said, 'you will think me an ogre, and will fancy that I am going to imprison you unless I let you go.'

I opened the door, but she lingered, struggling with that embarra.s.sment which feared to embarra.s.s me. For she is a lady just as certainly as I am a gentleman, and fine natures understand each other. I could see her make up her mind, and I resolved therefore not to be embarra.s.sed.

'But, signor,' she said, with more firmness than I had expected, 'the tobacco and the coffee and the loaf?'

'Mademoiselle,' I said, 'the coffee and the tobacco and the loaf loom dimly from the future. They will come in good time.'

But, oh, the little girl was brave and tender-hearted and honourable.

She was a little Englishwoman, with beliefs in duty. And yet she would sooner have faced ten lions than me, with my Italian courtesy and my uncomplaining good temper.

'Mrs. Hopkins,' she said, 'will lend me a--a shilling, and I----'

From that moment I respected her.

'Mademoiselle,' I answered, 'you are a lady, I am a gentleman. We have both the misfortune to be poor. We have both the admirable good fortune to be proud and honourable. You are brave and good, and your instincts are delicate. You will permit me to ask you not to humiliate yourself.'

'But, signor,' she urged, 'it is very hard for you to go----'

'My good-hearted, dutiful little English lady,' I took the liberty to say, for I was very much in earnest,' it is not at all hard for me to go without the coffee and the tobacco and the loaf. Above all, I do not lose my self-respect or touch my pride when I go without the coffee and the tobacco and the loaf. And now, mademoiselle, since it is our scheme to rout my lady enemy in the morning, we will despoil her of her triumph now by not caring for her or it, and by snapping our fingers at her--So.'

Whilst we had talked I had closed the door, and now I crossed over to my picture and began to work again. She still lingered, watching me whilst I painted.

'Are you fond of pictures?' I asked her, to divert her thoughts.