The Cardinal's Snuff-Box

XIV

And after that, for I forget how many days, Peter and the Duchessa did not meet; and so he sank low and lower in his mind.

Nothing that can befall us, optimists aver, is without its value; and this, I have heard, is especially true if we happen to be literary men. All is grist that comes to a writer's mill.

By his present experience, accordingly, Peter learned—and in the regretful prose of some future masterpiece will perhaps be enabled to remember—how exceeding great is the impatience of the lovesick, with what febrile vehemence the smitten heart can burn, and to what improbable lengths hours and minutes can on occasions stretch themselves.

He tried many methods of distraction.

There was always the panorama of his valley—the dark-blue lake, pale Monte Sfiorito, the frowning Gnisi, the smiling uplands westward. There were always the sky, the clouds, the clear sunshine, the crisp-etched shadows; and in the afternoon there was always the wondrous opalescent haze of August, filling every distance. There was always his garden—there were the great trees, with the light sifting through high spaces of feathery green; there were the flowers, the birds, the bees, the butterflies, with their colour, and their fragrance, and their music; there was his tinkling fountain, in its nimbus of prismatic spray; there was the swift, symbolic Aco. And then, at a half-hour's walk, there was the pretty pink-stuccoed village, with its hill-top church, its odd little shrines, its grim-grotesque ossuary, its faded frescoed house-fronts, its busy, vociferous, out-of-door Italian life:—the cobbler tapping in his stall; women gossiping at their toilets; children sprawling in the dirt, chasing each other, shouting; men drinking, playing mora, quarrelling, laughing, singing, twanging mandolines, at the tables under the withered bush of the wine-shop; and two or three more pensive citizens swinging their legs from the parapet of the bridge, and angling for fish that never bit, in the impetuous stream below.

Peter looked at these things; and, it is to be presumed, he saw them. But, for all the joy they gave him, he, this cultivator of the sense of beauty, might have been the basest unit of his own purblind Anglo-Saxon public. They were the background for an absent figure. They were the stage-accessories of a drama whose action was arrested. They were an empty theatre.

He tried to read. He had brought a trunkful of books to Villa Floriano; but that book had been left behind which could fix his interest now.

He tried to write—and wondered, in a kind of daze, that any man should ever have felt the faintest ambition to do a thing so thankless and so futile.

“I shall never write again. Writing,” he generalised, and possibly not without some reason, “when it is n't the sordidest of trades, is a mere fatuous assertion of one's egotism. Breaking stones in the street were a nobler occupation; weaving ropes of sand were better sport. The only things that are worth writing are inexpressible, and can't be written. The only things that can be written are obvious and worthless—the very crackling of thorns under a pot. Oh, why does n't she turn up?”

And the worst of it was that at any moment, for aught he knew, she might turn up. That was the worst of it, and the best. It kept hope alive, only to torture hope. It encouraged him to wait, to watch, to expect; to linger in his garden, gazing hungry-eyed up the lawns of Ventirose, striving to pierce the foliage that embowered the castle; to wander the country round-about, scanning every vista, scrutinising every shape and shadow, a tweed-clad Gastibelza. At any moment, indeed, she might turn up; but the days passed—the hypocritic days—and she did not turn up.

Marietta, the kind soul, noticing his despondency, sought in divers artless ways to cheer him.

One evening she burst into his sitting-room with the effect of a small explosion, excitement in every line of her brown old face and wiry little figure.

“The fireflies! The fireflies, Signorino!” she cried, with strenuous gestures.

“What fireflies?” asked he, with phlegm.

“It is the feast of St. Dominic. The fireflies have arrived. They arrive every year on the feast of St. Dominic. They are the beads of his rosary. They are St. Dominic's Aves. There are thousands of them. Come, Signorino, Come and see.”

Her black eyes snapped. She waved her hands urgently towards the window.

Peter languidly got up, languidly crossed the room, looked out.

There were, in truth, thousands of them, thousands and thousands of tiny primrose flames, circling, fluttering, rising, sinking, in the purple blackness of the night, like snowflakes in a wind, palpitating like hearts of living gold—Jove descending upon Danae invisible.

“Son carin', eh?” cried eager Marietta.

“Hum—yes—pretty enough,” he grudgingly acknowledged. “But even so?” the ingrate added, as he turned away, and let himself drop back into his lounging-chair. “My dear good woman, no amount of prettiness can disguise the fundamental banality of things. Your fireflies—St. Dominic's beads, if you like—and, apropos of that, do you know what they call them in America?—they call them lightning-bugs, if you can believe me—remark the difference between southern euphuism and western bluntness—your fireflies are pretty enough, I grant. But they are tinsel pasted on the Desert of Sahara. They are condiments added to a dinner of dust and ashes. Life, trick it out as you will, is just an incubus—is just the Old Man of the Sea. Language fails me to convey to you any notion how heavily he sits on my poor shoulders. I thought I had suffered from ennui in my youth. But the malady merely plays with the green fruit; it reserves its serious ravages for the ripe. I can promise you 't is not a laughing matter. Have you ever had a fixed idea? Have you ever spent days and nights racking your brain, importuning the unanswering Powers, to learn whether there was—well, whether there was Another Man, for instance? Oh, bring me drink. Bring me Seltzer water and Vermouth. I will seek nepenthe at the bottom of the wine-cup.”

Was there another man? Why should there not be? And yet was there? In her continued absence, the question came back persistently, and scarcely contributed to his peace of mind.

A few days later, nothing discouraged, “Would you like to have a good laugh, Signorino?” Marietta enquired.

“Yes,” he answered, apathetic.

“Then do me the favour to come,” she said.

She led him out of his garden, to the gate of a neighbouring meadow. A beautiful black-horned white cow stood there, her head over the bars, looking up and down the road, and now and then uttering a low distressful “moo.”

“See her,” said Marietta.

“I see her. Well—?” said Peter.

“This morning they took her calf from her—to wean it,” said Marietta.

“Did they, the cruel things? Well—?” said he.

“And ever since, she has stood there by the gate, looking down the road, waiting, calling.”

“The poor dear. Well—?” said he.

“But do you not see, Signorino? Look at her eyes. She is weeping—weeping like a Christian.”

Peter looked-and, sure enough, from the poor cow's eyes tears were falling, steadily, rapidly: big limpid tears that trickled down her cheek, her great homely hairy cheek, and dropped on the grass: tears of helpless pain, uncomprehending endurance. “Why have they done this thing to me?” they seemed dumbly to cry.

“Have you ever seen a cow weep before? Is it comical, at least?” demanded Marietta, exultant.

“Comical—?” Peter gasped. “Comical—!” he groaned....

But then he spoke to the cow.

“Poor dear—poor dear,” he repeated. He patted her soft warm neck, and scratched her between the horns and along the dewlap.

“Poor dear—poor dear.”

The cow lifted up her head, and rested her great chin on Peter's shoulder, breathing upon his face.

“Yes, you know that we are companions in misery, don't you?” he said. “They have taken my calf from me too—though my calf, indeed, was only a calf in an extremely metaphorical sense—and it never was exactly mine, anyhow—I daresay it's belonged from the beginning to another man. You, at least, have n't that gall and wormwood added to your cup. And now you must really try to pull yourself together. It's no good crying. And besides, there are more calves in the sea than have ever been taken from it. You'll have a much handsomer and fatter one next time. And besides, you must remember that your loss subserves someone else's gain—the farmer would never have done it if it hadn't been to his advantage. If you 're an altruist, that should comfort you. And you must n't mind Marietta,—you must n't mind her laughter. Marietta is a Latin. The Latin conception of what is laughable differs by the whole span of heaven from the Teuton. You and I are Teutons.”

“Teutons—?” questioned Marietta wrinkling her brow.

“Yes—Germanic,” said he.

“But I thought the Signorino was English?”

“So he is.”

“But the cow is not Germanic. White, with black horns, that is the purest Roman breed, Signorino.”

“Fa niente,” he instructed her. “Cows and Englishmen, and all such sentimental cattle, including Germans, are Germanic. Italians are Latin—with a touch of the Goth and Vandal. Lions and tigers growl and fight because they're Mohammedans. Dogs still bear without abuse the grand old name of Sycophant. Cats are of the princely line of Persia, and worship fire, fish, and flattery—as you may have noticed. Geese belong indifferently to any race you like—they are cosmopolitans; and I've known here and there a person who, without distinction of nationality, was a duck. In fact, you're rather by way of being a duck yourself: And now,” he perorated, “never deny again that I can talk nonsense with an aching heart.”

“All the same,” insisted Marietta, “it is very comical to see a cow weep.”

“At any rate,” retorted Peter, “it is not in the least comical to hear a hyaena laugh.”

“I have never heard one,” said she.

“Pray that you never may. The sound would make an old woman of you. It's quite blood-curdling.”

“Davvero?” said Marietta.

“Davvero,” he assured her.

And meanwhile the cow stood there, with her head on his shoulder, silently weeping, weeping.

He gave her a farewell rub along the nose.

“Good-bye,” he said. “Your breath is like meadowsweet. So dry your tears, and set your hopes upon the future. I 'll come and see you again to-morrow, and I 'll bring you some nice coarse salt. Good-bye.”

But when he went to see her on the morrow, she was grazing peacefully; and she ate the salt he brought her with heart-whole bovine relish—putting out her soft white pad of a tongue, licking it deliberately from his hand, savouring it tranquilly, and crunching the bigger grains with ruminative enjoyment between her teeth. So soon consoled! They were companions in misery no longer. “I 'm afraid you are a Latin, after all,” he said, and left her with a sense of disappointment.

That afternoon Marietta asked, “Would you care to visit the castle, Signorino?”

He was seated under his willow-tree, by the river, smoking cigarettes—burning superfluous time.

Marietta pointed towards Ventirose.

“Why?” said he.

“The family are away. In the absence of the family, the public are admitted, upon presentation of their cards.”

“Oho!” he cried. “So the family are away, are they?”

“Yes, Signorino.”

“Aha!” cried he. “The family are away. That explains everything. Have—have they been gone long?”

“Since a week, ten days, Signorino.”

“A week! Ten days!” He started up, indignant. “You secretive wretch! Why have you never breathed a word of this to me?”

Marietta looked rather frightened.

“I did not know it myself, Signorino,” was her meek apology. “I heard it in the village this morning, when the Signorino sent me to buy coarse salt.”

“Oh, I see.” He sank back upon his rustic bench. “You are forgiven.” He extended his hand in sign of absolution. “Are they ever coming back?”

“Naturally, Signorino.”

“What makes you think so?”

“But they will naturally come back.”

“I felicitate you upon your simple faith. When?”

“Oh, fra poco. They have gone to Rome.”

“To Rome? You're trifling with me. People do not go to Rome in August.”

“Pardon, Signorino. People go to Rome for the feast of the Assumption. That is the 15th. Afterwards they come back,” said Marietta, firmly.

“I withdraw my protest,” said Peter. “They have gone to Rome for the feast of the Assumption. Afterwards they will come back.”

“Precisely, Signorino. But you have now the right to visit the castle, upon presentation of your card. You address yourself to the porter at the lodge. The castle is grand, magnificent. The Court of Honour alone is thirty metres long.”

Marietta stretched her hands to right and left as far as they would go.

“Marietta,” Peter enquired solemnly, “are you familiar with the tragedy of 'Hamlet'?”

Marietta blinked.

“No, Signorino.”

“You have never read it,” he pursued, “in that famous edition from which the character of the Prince of Denmark happened to be omitted?”

Marietta shook her head, wearily, patiently.

Wearily, patiently, “No, Signorino,” she replied.

“Neither have I,” said he, “and I don't desire to.”

Marietta shrugged her shoulders; then returned gallantly to her charge.

“If you would care to visit the castle, Signorino, you could see the crypt which contains the tombs of the family of Farfalla, the former owners. They are of black marble and alabaster, with gilding—very rich. You could also see the wine-cellars. Many years ago a tun there burst, and a serving man was drowned in the wine. You could also see the bed in which Nabulione, the Emperor of Europe, slept, when he was in this country. Also the ancient kitchen. Many years ago, in a storm, the skeleton of a man fell down the chimney, out upon the hearth. Also what is called the Court of Foxes. Many years ago there was a plague of foxes; and the foxes came down from the forest like a great army, thousands of them. And the lords of the castle, and the peasants, and the village people, all, all, had to run away like rabbits—or the foxes would have eaten them. It was in what they call the Court of Foxes that the King of the foxes held his court. There is also the park. In the park there are statues, ruins, and white peacocks.”

“What have I in common with ruins and white peacocks?” Peter demanded tragically, when Marietta had brought her much-gesticulated exposition to a close. “Let me impress upon you once for all that I am not a tripper. As for your castle—you invite me to a banquet-hall deserted. As for your park, I see quite as much of it as I wish to see, from the seclusion of my own pleached garden. I learned long ago the folly of investigating things too closely, the wisdom of leaving things in the vague. At present the park of Ventirose provides me with the raw material for day-dreams. It is a sort of looking-glass country,—I can see just so far into it, and no farther—that lies beyond is mystery, is potentiality—terra incognita, which I can populate with monsters or pleasant phantoms, at my whim. Why should you attempt to deprive me of so innocent a recreation?”

“After the return of the family,” said Marietta, “the public will no longer be admitted. Meantime—”

“Upon presentation of my card, the porter will conduct me from disenchantment to disenchantment. No, thank you. Now, if it were the other way round, it would be different. If it were the castle and the park that had gone to Rome, and if the family could be visited on presentation of my card, I might be tempted.”

“But that would be impossible, Signorino,” said Marietta.