The Romance Of Giovanni Calvotti Part 6

I spoke gravely then.

'My dear young friend, so surely as that is your work, so surely will you be a great artist if you choose.'

'You bet I choose,' this young genius answered. He would sooner have died, I suppose, than have put his emotions at that moment into words.

This is another characteristic of you English. You will sooner look like fools than have it appear that you feel. You wear the rags of cynicism over the pure gold of nature. This is a foolish pride, but it is useless to crusade against national characteristics.

I was a little chilled, and I said in a business tone--

'Well, we will see about selling this at once.'

'No,' he answered. 'I will not sell this.'

'No?' I asked.

'No,' he said again; 'not this picture,' And for one minute he regarded it, and then shook his head and once more said 'No.'

'Well,' I answered, not trying to persuade him, 'I will ask Mr. Gregory to look at it, and he will give you a commission for a work, and then you will be fairly afloat.'

'Oh, thank you, Calvotti. What a good fellow you are!'

I was unsettled for work. My praise was hysterical and hyperbolical. I could have wept whilst I uttered it. For though I had given up all hope, and though I was glad to find that in art he was worthy as in manhood he was worthy, yet it was still hard to endorse a rival's triumph and to cut out all envy and stifle all pain. And now I had to go home and to live beneath the same roof with Cecilia, and to see her sometimes, and to talk and look like a friend. If you resist the Devil, will he always fly from you? Is it not sometimes safer to fly from him? And is there anywhere a baser fiend than that which prompted me to throw myself upon my knees before her and tell her everything, and so barter honour for an impulse? Brave or not, I know that I was wise when that afternoon I packed up everything and went to say good-bye.

'I am ill,' so I excused myself, 'and I am a child of impulse. Impulse says to me "Go back to Italy--to the air of your childhood--to the scenes you love best." And I obey.'

'But you do not leave England in this way?' asked Cecilia.

'No, mademoiselle, I shall return. But, for a time, good-bye.'

They both bade me good-bye sorrowfully, and I went away. And whatever disturbance my soul made within its own private residence, it was too well-bred to let the outside people know of it.

And so it came to pa.s.s that I continue this narrative at Posilipo, in my native air, within sight of smoking Vesuvius and the glittering city and the gleaming bay--old friends, who bear comfort to the soul.

CHAPTER IV.--_NELLE CARCERI MUNIc.i.p.aLE_

How do I come to be writing in a prison? How do I come to be living in a prison? How is it that I, who never lifted a hand in anger against even a dog, lie here under a charge of murder, execrated by the populace of my native town?

I can remember that I wrote, when I took up my story, that it might, for anything I knew, be a year before I should go on with it. It is twelve months to-day since I set those words upon paper. I take it up again, here and now, in dogged and determined defiance to that Circ.u.mstance which has pursued me through my life, and which shall not subdue me even with this last stroke--no, nor with any other.

Let me premise, before I go on with my own narrative, that Charles Grammont, with whose murder I lie charged, developed a remarkable and unexpected characteristic. A reckless spendthrift whilst penniless, he became a miser when he found himself possessor of five thousand pounds.

He had returned to Naples, and had for some time engaged himself in drinking, to the exclusion of all other pursuits. But he drank sullenly and alone, and had dismissed from his society that disreputable compatriot of mine, Giovanni Fornajo, who had accompanied him to my room on the evening of our first meeting. When I reached Naples I had some trouble with this personage, who, with the peculiar faculty which belongs to the race of hangers-on and spongers, had somehow found me out, and came to borrow money. It was enough for his limitless impudence to remember that he had once been within my walls in London. I knew that to yield once would be to make myself a tributary to his necessities for ever. I refused him, therefore, and dismissed him without ceremony. He retired unabashed, and came to the charge again. I was strolling along the Chiaja, when I saw him and turned into the Caffe d'Italia to avoid him. He had seen me and followed. I professed to be absorbed in the contents of an English journal, but he sat down at the same table, and entered into conversation, or rather into talk, for I let him have it all to himself. He talked in English, which he really spoke very well, though with a marked accent. I paid but little heed to him, and only just made out that he complained of the conduct of his late a.s.sociate, who had, so he said, borrowed money of him when they were poor together, and had thrown him over now without repaying him.

'It comes to this,' he said, after a long and rambling discursion on his wrong; 'when I was the only man in Naples who could speak English and would have to do with him, he used me; and now that he is at home here, and can speak the language, and has plenty of money, he will have no more to do.'

'My good friend,' I said, breaking in, 'I will have no more to do, since you prefer to put it so, I am tired of you. I do not desire to know you.

Oblige me by not knowing me in future.'

'Maledizione!' he said. 'But you are impolite, Signor Calvotti.'

'And you, Signor Fornajo, are only unbearable. I have the pleasure to wish you goodbye.'

He rose and retreated, but returned.

'Signor Calvotti,' he said, reseating himself, 'I shall ask you to do me a favour. You know Grammont and you know his friends. He will listen to you where he will not look at me. Will you do me the favour to speak for me to ask him to pay me?'

I thought I saw a way to be rid of him.

'How much does he owe you?' I asked him.

'Cento franchi,' he answered.

'Very good. Bring me pen, ink, and paper.'

He called one of the camerieri and ordered these, and I read quietly until they came.

'Now,' I said, 'write to my dictation.'

He took the pen and wrote--

'I have this day informed Signor Calvotti that Mr. Charles Grammont owes me the sum of One Hundred Francs, and in consideration of this receipt Signor Calvotti has discharged Mr. Grammont's debt.'

This he signed, and I gave him a bank-note for the amount.

'Now,' I told him, 'I do not in the least believe that Mr. Grammont owed you anything, and if you come near me again I will use this doc.u.ment. I have a great mind to try it now.' 'Ah, signor, sapete cosa vuol dire la fame?' I own that touched me. I _have_ known what hunger is, and I could guess what it would do with a creature of this kind. 'Go your way,' I said, 'and trouble me no more'--he bowed his head and spread out his hands in a.s.sent--'but remember!'

'Signor Calvotti,' he said, 'I thank you, and I will trouble you no more.'

Young Clyde had written to me saying that he was tired and overworked, and that he needed a month's holiday, and meant to take it. He had never been in Italy, and naturally proposed to join me in Naples. During the whole ten months which had gone between my farewell to England and my receipt of this letter from Arthur, I had striven, and not unsuccessfully, to banish from my mind all painful and regretful thoughts of Cecilia. Love is a great pa.s.sion, but, like everything else but fate, it is capable of subjection by a resolute will. That soul, believe me, is of a barren soil indeed, wherein the flower of love has once been planted, if the flower wither or can be rooted up. But a man who gardens his soul with resolute and lofty hopes can train the first poor weed of pa.s.sion to a glorious bloom, whose perfume is not pain but comfort. This is a base thing, that a man shall say he loves a woman too well to be happy whilst she can be happy with another. For me, my divine Cecilia looks down upon me in my waking hours and in the dreams of sleep, a thing so far away that I can but worship without a hope of ownership, or any longer a desire. I am content, I have loved, and I have not been unworthy. O mia santissima, mio amore no longer--my saint for ever, my love no more--so you were happy, I were happy. But there are clouds about you, though you know them not.

Arthur had come to Naples by one of the boats of the Messagerie Imperiale, and had come to share my little house at Posilipo. He brought with him kindest remembrances from Cecilia and from her sister. I had mentioned them both freely in my letters, and had sent little things through his hand to both of them now and then. My old patron, Mr.

Gregory, had given Arthur two or three commissions, and one of his works had been hung on the line at Burlirgton House, side by side with mine.

In his old, frank, charming way he said--

'If those old buffers on the committee had laid their heads together to please me, they couldn't have done it more successfully than by hanging me next to you, old man. When I went in and saw it there, I was better pleased at being next to you than I was at being on the line. I'm painting Gregory's portrait for next' year--a splendid subject, isn't it?'

I took him to walk that morning to the scene I had painted in the work he spoke of,' He recognised it with enthusiasm, and we walked back together full of friendship and enjoyment. He had one or two commissions for Charles Grammont from his sisters, and asked me to help in finding him. When I learned that the young Englishman was living in the Ba.s.so Porto I was amazed, and when Clyde saw the place he was amazed also.

'Has he got through all his money already,' Arthur asked me, 'that he lives in a hole like this?'

'I am told,' I said, 'that he has become a miser, spending money on nothing but drink, and living in a continuous sullen debauchery.'

Clyde faced round upon me as we stood in the doorway of the house together.

'I haven't seen the fellow for years,' he exclaimed, 'but can you fancy such an animal being a brother of Cecilia's?'

'Odd, isn't it?' said an English voice from the darkness of the stairs.