The Serapion Brethren Volume Ii Part 32

Have a care of yourself, or I will blow the breath of life out of you!

that the mean actions you want to father upon the shoulders of the good, honourable, upright Pasquale may be put an end to at last."

To an accompaniment of the most furious curses and maledictions of the Capuzzi beneath, he on the stage proceeded to narrate one scurrilous story of him after another, finishing off by crying out: "Try if you dare, Pasquale--amorous old ape!--to interfere with the happiness of those two young people, destined for each other by heaven."

As he spoke, there appeared at the back of the stage Antonio Scacciati and Marianna, with their arms about each other. Shaky as the old gentleman was on his legs, fury gave him strength and agility. At a bound he was on to the stage, where he drew his sword, and ran at Antonio. But he felt himself seized from behind; an officer of the Papal Guard was holding him, and said, in a serious tone: "Consider a little, Signor Pasquale Capuzzi; you are on Nicolo Musso's stage.

Without being aware of it, you have been playing a most entertaining part this evening. You will not find Antonio or Marianna here." The two performers whom Capuzzi had taken to be them had come closer, with the rest of the actors, and he did not know their faces at all. The sword fell from his trembling hand; he drew a deep breath, like one waking from a fearful dream, clasped his forehead, forced his eyes wide open.

The dreadful sense of what had really happened flashed upon him, and he cried: "Marianna!" in a terrible voice, till the walls re-echoed.

But his calling could no longer reach her ears; for Antonio had carefully watched for the moment when Capuzzi, oblivious of everything, even himself, was contending with his counterfeit on the stage, had then cautiously made his way to Marianna, and taken her through the audience to a side door, where the Vetturino was waiting with the carriage; and away they were driven towards Florence as fast as they could go.

"Marianna!" the old man continued crying. "She has gone!--she has flown!--the villain Antonio has robbed me of her! Away!--after her!

Good people, have pity! Get torches; search for my dove! Ha, the serpent!"

And the old man was making off; but the officer held him fast, saying: "If you mean the pretty young girl who was sitting by you, I rather fancy I saw her slip out with a young fellow--Antonio Scacciati, I believe,--some considerable time ago, just as you were beginning that useless, silly quarrel with the actor who had on a mask something like you. Signor Pasquale, it is my duty to arrest you, on account of your behaviour, and the murderous attack upon the actor."

Signor Pasquale, with pale death in his face, incapable of uttering a word or a sound, was marched off by the very Sbirri who had come there to protect him from masquerading demons and spectres. Thus there fell upon him deep distress and sorrow, and all the wild despair of a foolish and deceived old amorous fool, on the very night when he looked to celebrate his greatest triumph.

Salvator Rosa Quits Rome For Florence. The End Of This Story.

All things here below under the sun are subject to constant change and fluctuation, but there is nothing that more deserves to be called fickle and fleeting than mankind's opinions, which keep rotating in an eternal circle, like Fortune's wheel. Bitter censure falls to-day upon him who yesterday gathered a grand harvest of praise; he who walks to-day a-foot may to-morrow ride in a gilded chariot.

Who was there in all Rome who did not scorn and mock at old Capuzzi, with his mean avarice, his silly amorousness, his crazy jealousy?--or who did not wish the poor tormented Marianna her freedom? Yet now that Antonio had succeeded in carrying her off, all the scorn and mockery suddenly turned to pity for the poor old fellow who was seen creeping about the streets of Rome, with bowed head, inconsolable.

Misfortunes rarely come singly. Soon after Marianna had been carried off, Pasquale lost his dearest bosom friends. Little Pitichinaccio choked himself with an almond, which he incautiously tried to swallow as he was in the middle of a _cadenza_; and a slip of the pen (of his own making) put a sudden period to the life of the renowned Pyramid-Doctor, Signor Splendiano Accoramboni. Michele's cudgelling had such an effect on him that he fell into a fever. He determined to cure himself by a remedy which he believed he had discovered. He demanded pen and ink, and wrote a recipe, in which, by putting down a wrong fever, he enormously increased the quant.i.ty of a very powerful ingredient; so that as soon as he swallowed the medicine he fell back upon his pillow and was gone; proving, by his own death, the effect of this final tincture of his prescribing in the most striking and heroic manner.

As we have said, all who had previously laughed the most heartily at Capuzzi, and the most sincerely wished success to the brave Antonio in his undertaking, were now all compa.s.sion for the old man; and the bitterest blame was laid, not upon Antonio so much as upon Salvator Rosa, whom they all, with very good reason, held to have been at the bottom of the whole affair.

Salvator's enemies (of whom there were a goodly band) were not slow to stir up the fire to the best of their ability. "See!" they said; "this is Masaniello's worthy comrade, always ready to lay his hand to any evil trick, any robberish undertaking; if his dangerous stay in Rome is prolonged, we shall soon feel the effects of it heavily."

And, in fact, the ign.o.ble herd of those who conspired against Salvator succeeded in stemming the bold flight which his fame would otherwise have taken. One picture after another came from his hand, bold of conception, magnificent of execution, but the so-called "connoisseurs"

always shrugged the shoulder; said, now that the mountains were too blue; now, that the trees were too green, the figures too tall, or too stumpy; found fault with everything where there was no fault to be found, and made it their business to detract from Salvator's well-merited renown in every possible way. His chief persecutors were the members of the Academia di San Luca, who could never get over the affair of the surgeon, and went out of their own province to depreciate the pretty verses which Salvator wrote about that time, even trying to make out that he did not live upon the fruit of his own land, but pilfered the property of other people. And this, too, led to Salvator's being by no means in a position to surround himself with the splendour and luxury which he had formerly displayed in Rome. Instead of the grand, s.p.a.cious studio, where all the celebrities of Rome used to visit him, he went on living at Dame Caterina's, beside his green figtree.

And in this very restrictedness he, doubtless, soon found comfort and ease of heart.

But he laid the malignant conduct of his enemies more to heart than there was any occasion for; nay, he felt as though some creeping malady, engendered by annoyance and vexation, was gnawing at his inmost marrow. In this evil mood, he conceived and executed the great pictures which set all Rome in uproar. One of them represented the transitoriness of all earthly things; and in the princ.i.p.al female figure (which bore all the marks of a disreputable calling) it was easy to recognize the lady-love of one of the Cardinals. In the other was shown the G.o.ddess of Fortune distributing her precious gifts. But Cardinal's hats, Bishop's mitres, and decorations were falling down upon bleating sheep, braying a.s.ses, and other despised creatures; whilst well-favoured men, in tattered garments, looked up in vain for the slightest favour. Salvator had given the rein to his bitter mood, and those beasts' heads had very striking resemblances to sundry well-known characters. It may be imagined how the hatred of him increased, and how much more bitterly he was persecuted than before.

Dame Caterina cautioned him with tears in her eyes. She had noticed that as soon as it was dark, birds of evil omen--suspicious-looking characters--came slinking about the house, watching Salvator's every step. He saw that it was time to be gone; and Dame Caterina and her dear daughters were the only people he felt any pain in parting from.

Remembering the Duke of Tuscany's repeated invitations, he went to Florence; and there his mortification was richly compensated for, and the annoyances of tome lost sight of in the honour and fame--so richly merited--which were bestowed upon him in fullest measure. The Duke's presents, and the large prices which he got for his pictures, soon enabled him to occupy a large mansion, and furnish it in the most magnificent style. There he collected round him all the most famous poets and literati of the day; it is sufficient to mention amongst them Evangelista Torricelli, Valerio Chimentelli, Battista Ricciardi, Andrea Cavalcanti, Pietro Salviati, Filippo Apolloni, Volumnio Bandelli, Francesco Rovai. Art and science were joined together in a charming fusion, and Salvator Rosa had a manner of endowing the meetings with an element of the fanciful, which in a peculiar manner gave a stimulus to the thoughts and ideas of the company. Thus, the dining-hall had the appearance of a beautiful shrubbery, containing sweet-smelling bushes and flowers and gurgling springs; and the very dishes, served by singularly-attired pages, had a wonderful appearance, as if they came from some far-off enchanted land. These a.s.semblages of poets and _savants_ in Salvator Rosa's house were at the time known as the Academia de' Percossi.

But although Salvator occupied his mind in this manner with art and science, his inmost heart was cheered by his friend Antonio Scacciati, who was living a happy artistic life, free from care, with the beautiful Marianna. They used to think, sometimes, of the old deceived Signor Pasquale, and all that took place in Nicolo Musso's theatre. And Antonio asked Salvator how he had managed to interest not only Musso, but the wonderful Formica and Agli, in his affairs, to employ their talents on his behalf as they had done. Salvator said it had been an easy matter, inasmuch as Formica had been his most intimate friend in Rome, and always delighted to carry out upon the stage anything that he had suggested to him. Antonio declared that, much as he was unable still to help laughing when he thought of the occurrence which had made no happiness, he wished, from his heart, for a reconciliation with the old man, even although he should never touch a farthing of Marianna's fortune (which the old man had taken possession of), seeing that his art brought him money enough. Marianna, too, could often not restrain her tears at the thought that her father's brother would never till his dying day forgive the trick that had been played upon him; and thus Pasquale's hatred cast a sorrowful shadow upon her happy life. Salvator comforted them both with the thought that time cures much harder matters, and that chance might perhaps bring the old man to them in a much less dangerous manner than if they had remained in Rome, or were to go back there now.

We shall find that a spirit of prophecy dwelt in Salvator. A considerable time had elapsed, when one day Antonio burst into Salvator's studio, breathless, and pale as death. "Salvator!" he cried; "my friend! my protector!--I am lost unless you help me! Pasquale Capuzzi is here, and has got a warrant to arrest me for carrying off his niece."

"But what can Pasquale do to you now?" asked Salvator. Has not the Church united Marianna and you?"

"Alas!" answered Antonio, in despair, "even the Church cannot save me here. Heaven knows how he has accomplished it, but the old man has managed to get the ear of the Pope's nephew; and it is this nephew who has taken him under his protection, and given him hope that the Holy Father will declare our marriage void; and not only that, but give him a dispensation to enable _him_ to marry his niece."

"Stop!" cried Salvator. "Now--_now_ I understand the whole matter. It is that nephew's hatred for _me_, Antonio, which threatens to ruin everything. This nephew--this conceited, raw, boorish fellow--is one of those beasts which the G.o.ddess of Fortune is overwhelming with her gifts in that picture of mine. That it was I who helped you to your Marianna--more or less indirectly, of course--is known not only to this nephew, but to every one in Rome. Season enough to persecute you, since they cannot specify anything against _me_. Even were it not for my affection for you, Antonio, as my best and dearest friend, I could not but stand by you if it were for nothing else than that it is I who have brought this mischance upon you. But, by all the saints, I do not see how I am to set about spoiling the game of your enemies."

As he said this Salvator, who up to this point had been working away at a picture without interrupting himself, laid his brushes, palette and mahlstick down, got up from his easel, and, folding his arms across his breast, strode 'several times up and down, whilst Antonio, in deepest thought, contemplated the floor with fixed glance.

Presently Salvator halted before him, and cried, laughing: "Antonio, there is nothing that _I_ can accomplish as against your powerful enemies; but there is _one_ who can, and will, help you; and that is Signor Formica."

"Alas!" cried Antonio; "do not jest with an unfortunate, for whom there is no further salvation."

"Still determined to despair?" cried Salvator, who had suddenly risen into the highest spirits. He laughed aloud: "I tell you, Antonio, friend Formica will help in Florence quite as well as he did in Rome.

Go quietly home. Comfort your Marianna, and await the course of events quite tranquilly. All I expect of you is that you will be ready and prepared to do whatever Signor Formica--who happens to be here at this moment--may require of you." Antonio promised obedience with all his heart, hope and confidence at once beginning to glimmer up within him.

Signor Pasquale was not a little astonished to receive a formal invitation from the Academia de' Percossi. "Ha!--indeed!" he cried.

"One sees that Florence is the place where they know how to esteem merit; where a man endowed with such gifts as Signor Pasquale Capuzzi di Senegalia chances to possess, is properly appreciated."

Thus the thought of the amount of artistic knowledge which he possessed, and of the honours which were being paid to him in consequence, overcame the repugnance which he would otherwise have entertained to an a.s.semblage which had Salvator Rosa, at its head. The Spanish state costume was brushed more carefully than usual; the steeple-crowned hat adorned with a new feather; the shoes set off with fresh bows of ribbon; and Signor Pasquale made his appearance in Salvator's house glittering like a golden beetle, with a countenance of radiant sunshine. The splendour around him--Salvator himself (who was much more finely dressed than he had been wont to be)--inspired him with reverence; and--as is usually the case with shallow souls, which are puffed-up at first, but at once fall down into the dust when they perceive any distinct superiority over them--Pasquale was all deference and humility towards that Salvator whom he was for ever lording over in Rome.

So much attention was paid to Signor Pasquale on all hands; his opinions were so unconditionally appealed to; so much was said as to his artistic merits, that he felt himself a new man; nay, it seemed to him that a special spirit came to life within him, so that he really spoke much more sensibly on many subjects than might have been expected. As, in addition to all this, he had never in all his life partaken of such a splendid dinner, or tasted such inspiring wine, his enjoyment necessarily mounted higher and higher, and he forgot all about the wrongs done him in Rome, and the unpleasant business which had brought him to Florence.

In a short time the bushes at the bottom of the hall began to get in motion, the leafy branches opened out apart, and a little theatre came into view, with its stage, and some seats for an audience.

"All ye saints!" cried Pasquale Capuzzi, in much alarm. "Where am I?

That is Nicolo Mussos's theatre!"

Without paying attention to his outcry, two gentlemen of dignified appearance--Evangelista Torricelli and Andrea Cavalcanti--took him by the arms, one on each side, and conducted him to a seat in front of the stage, taking their places on either side of him.

No sooner were they seated than there entered on to the stage, Formica, as Pasquarello!

"Accursed Formica!" cried Pasquale, springing up and shaking his clenched fist towards the stage. Torricelli's and Cavalcanti's grave looks of disapproval, however, constrained him to silence and quietness.

Pasquarello sobbed, wept, and cursed his fate which brought him nothing but grief and misery; declared he did not know how he should manage to laugh, were it but ever so little, and concluded by saying that, in the excess of his despair, he would most certainly cut his throat, were it not that the sight of blood always made him faint; or throw himself into the river, if he only could help swimming when in the water.

Here Doctor Graziano entered and inquired the cause of his grief.

Pasquarello asked him if he did not know what had been happening in his master's, Signor Pasquale Capuzzi di Senegaglia's, house?--whether he had heard that an abandoned ruffian had run off with his master's niece, Marianna?

"Ha!" murmured Capuzzi, "I see what it is, Signor Formica. You think you will exculpate and excuse yourself; you desire my forgiveness.

Well, we shall see."

Doctor Graziano expressed his sympathy, and thought the ruffian must have been very clever to have evaded Capuzzi's search after him.

Pasquarello told the Doctor not to allow himself to imagine that the rascal Antonio Scacciati succeeded in getting the better of the deep and clever Signor Pasquale Capuzzi, supported as he was, moreover, by influential friends. Antonio was in prison, his marriage declared void, and Marianna again in her uncle's hands.

"Has he got her?" cried Capuzzi, beyond himself; "has he got her again, the good Capuzzi? Has he got his little dove again; his Marianna? Is the scoundrel Antonio in prison? O most blessed Formica!"

"You take too lively an interest in the piece, Signor Pasquale," said Cavalcanti very seriously. "Pray allow the actors to speak, and do not interrupt them."

Signor Pasquale, abashed, sat down in his place again.

Pasquarello went on to say that there had been a wedding. Marianna had repented of what she had done; Signor Pasquale had obtained the necessary dispensation from the Holy Father, and had married his niece.

"Yes, yes," murmured Pasquale, aside, whilst his eyes shone with delight; "yes, yes, my dearest Formica! He marries the sweet Marianna, the lucky Pasquale! He always knew the little dove loved him; it was but the devil that led her astray."

In that case, Doctor Graziano said, everything was well, and there was no cause for lamentation.