I awoke the following morning in the House of Gellias. Gellias was a rich citizen of ancient Agrigentum. He was equally celebrated for his generosity and for his wealth; and he endowed his native city with a great number of free inns. Gellias has been dead for thirteen hundred years; and nowadays there is no gratuitous hospitality among civilised peoples. But the name of Gellias has become that of a hotel in which, by reason of fatigue, I was able to obtain one good night’s sleep.
The modern Girgenti lifts its high, narrow, solid streets, dominated by a sombre Spanish cathedral, upon the side of the acropolis of the antique Agrigentum. I can see from my windows, half-way on the hillside towards the sea, the white range of temples partially destroyed. The ruins alone have some aspect of coolness. All the rest is arid. Water and life have forsaken Agrigentine. Water—the divine Nestis of the Agrigentine Empedocles—is so necessary to animated beings that nothing can live far from the rivers and the springs. But the port of Girgenti, situated at a distance of three kilometres from the city, has a great commerce. “And it is in this dismal city,” I said to myself, “upon this precipitous rock, that the manuscript of Clerk Alexander is to be found!” I asked my way to the house of Signor Michel-Angelo Polizzi, and proceeded thither.
I found Signor Polizzi, dressed all in white from head to feet, busy cooking sausages in a frying-pan. At the sight of me, he let go the frying-pan, threw up his arms in the air, and uttered shrieks of enthusiasm. He was a little man whose pimply features, aquiline nose, round eyes, and projecting chin formed a very expressive physiognomy.
He called me “Excellence,” said he was going to mark the day with a white stone, and made me sit down. The hall in which we were represented the union of the kitchen, reception-room, bedchamber, studio, and wine-cellar. There were charcoal furnaces visible, a bed, paintings, an easel, bottles, strings of onions, and a magnificent lustre of coloured glass pendants. I glanced at the paintings on the wall.
“The arts! the arts!” cried Signor Polizzi, throwing up his arms again to heaven—“the arts! What dignity! what consolation! Excellence, I am a painter!”
And he showed me an unfinished Saint-Francis, which indeed could very well remain unfinished for ever without any loss to religion or to art. Next he showed me some old paintings of a better style, but apparently restored after a decidedly reckless manner.
“I repair,” he said—“I repair old paintings. Oh, the Old Masters! What genius, what soul!”
“Why, then,” I said to him, “you must be a painter, an archaeologist, and a wine-merchant all in one?”
“At your service, Excellence,” he answered. “I have a zucco here at this very moment—a zucco of which every single drop is a pearl of fire. I want your Lordship to taste of it.”
“I esteem the wines of Sicily,” I responded, “but it was not for the sake of your flagons that I came to see you, Signor Polizzi.”
He: “Then you have come to see me about paintings. You are an amateur. It is an immense delight for me to receive amateurs. I am going to show you the chef-d’oeuvre of Monrealese; yes, Excellence, his chef-d’oeuvre! An Adoration of Shepherds! It is the pearl of the whole Sicilian school!”
I: “Later on I will be glad to see the chef-d’oeuvre; but let us first talk about the business which brings me here.”
His little quick bright eyes watched my face curiously; and I perceived, with anguish, that he had not the least suspicion of the purpose of my visit.
A cold sweat broke out over my forehead; and in the bewilderment of my anxiety I stammered out something to this effect:
“I have come from Paris expressly to look at a manuscript of the Legende Doree, which you informed me was in your possession.”
At these words he threw up his arms, opened his mouth and eyes to the widest possible extent, and betrayed every sign of extreme nervousness.
“Oh! the manuscript of the ‘Golden Legend!’ A pearl, Excellence! a ruby, a diamond! Two miniatures so perfect that they give one the feeling of glimpses of Paradise! What suavity! Those colours ravished from the corollas of flowers make a honey for the eyes! Even a Sicilian could have done no better!”
“Let me see it, then,” I asked; unable to conceal either my anxiety or my hope.
“Let you see it!” cried Polizzi. “But how can I, Excellence? I have not got it any longer! I have not got it!”
And he seemed determined to tear out his hair. He might indeed have pulled every hair in his head out of his hide before I should have tried to prevent him. But he stopped of his own accord, before he had done himself any grievous harm.
“What!” I cried out in anger—“what! you make me come all the way from Paris to Girgenti, by promising to show me a manuscript, and now, when I come, you tell me you have not got it! It is simply infamous, Monsieur! I shall leave your conduct to be judged by all honest men!”
Anybody who could have seen me at that moment would have been able to form a good idea of the aspect of a furious sheep.
“It is infamous! it is infamous!” I repeated, waving my arms, which trembled from anger.
Then Michel-Angelo Polizzi let himself fall into a chair in the attitude of a dying hero. I saw his eyes fill with tears, and his hair—until then flamboyant and erect upon his head—fall down in limp disorder over his brow.
“I am a father, Excellence! I am a father!” he groaned, wringing his hands.
He continued, sobbing:
“My son Rafael—the son of my poor wife, for whose death I have been mourning fifteen years—Rafael, Excellence, wanted to settle at Paris; he hired a shop in the Rue Lafitte for the sale of curiosities. I gave him everything precious which I had—I gave him my finest majolicas; my most beautiful Urbino ware; my masterpieces of art; what paintings, Signor! Even now they dazzle me with I see them only in imagination! And all of them signed! Finally, I gave him the manuscript of the ‘Golden Legend’! I would have given him my flesh and my blood! An only son, Signor! the son of my poor saintly wife!”
“So,” I said, “while I—relying on your written word, Monsieur—was travelling to the very heart of Sicily to find the manuscript of the Clerk Alexander, the same manuscript was actually exposed for sale in a window in the Rue Lafitte, only fifteen hundred yards from my house?”
“Yes, it was there! that is positively true!” exclaimed Signor Polizzi, suddenly growing calm again; “and it is there still—at least I hope it is, Excellence.”
He took a card from a shelf as he spoke, and offered it to me, saying,
“Here is the address of my son. Make it known to your friends, and you will oblige me. Faience and enameled wares; hangings; pictures. He has a complete stock of objects of art—all at the fairest possible prices—and everything authentic, I can vouch for it, upon my honour! Go and see him. He will show you the manuscript of the ‘Golden Legend.’ Two miniatures miraculously fresh in colour!”
I was feeble enough to take the card he held out to me.
The fellow was taking further advantage of my weakness to make me circulate the name of Rafael Polizzi among the Societies of the learned!
My hand was already on the door-knob, when the Sicilian caught me by the arm; he had a look as of sudden inspiration.
“Ah! Excellence!” he cried, “what a city is this city of ours! It gave birth to Empedocles! Empedocles! What a great man what a great citizen! What audacity of thought! what virtue! what soul! At the port over there is a statue of Empedocles, before which I bare my head each time that I pass by! When Rafael, my son, was going away to found an establishment of antiquities in the Rue Lafitte, at Paris, I took him to the port, and there, at the foot of that statue of Empedocles, I bestowed upon him my paternal benediction! ‘Always remember Empedocles!’ I said to him. Ah! Signor, what our unhappy country needs to-day is a new Empedocles! Would you not like me to show you the way to his statue, Excellence? I will be your guide among the ruins here. I will show you the temple of Castor and Pollux, the temple of the Olympian Jupiter, the temple of the Lucinian Juno, the antique well, the tomb of Theron, and the Gate of Gold! All the professional guides are asses; but we—we shall make excavations, if you are willing—and we shall discover treasures! I know the science of discovering hidden treasures—the secret art of finding their whereabouts—a gift from Heaven!”
I succeeded in tearing myself away from his grasp. But he ran after me again, stopped me at the foot of the stairs, and said in my ear,
“Listen, Excellence. I will conduct you about the city; I will introduce you to some Girgentines! What a race! what types! what forms! Sicilian girls, Signor!—the antique beauty itself!”
“Go to the devil!” I cried at last, in anger, and rushed into the street, leaving him still writhing in the loftiness of his enthusiasm.
When I had got out of his sight, I sank down upon a stone, and began to think, with my face in my hands.
“And it was for this,” I said to myself—“it was to hear such propositions as this that I came to Sicily! That Polizzi is simply a scoundrel, and his son another; and they made a plan together to ruin me.” But what was their scheme? I could not unravel it. Meanwhile, it may be imagined how discouraged and humiliated I felt.
A merry burst of laughter caused me to turn my head, and I saw Madame Trepof running in advance of her husband, and holding up something which I could not distinguish clearly.
She sat down beside me, and showed me—laughing more merrily all the while—an abominable little paste-board box, on which was printed a red and blue face, which the inscription declared to be the face of Empedocles.
“Yes, Madame,” I said, “but that abominable Polizzi, to whom I advise you not to send Monsieur Trepof, has made me fall out for ever with Empedocles; and this portrait is not at all of a nature to make me feel more kindly to the ancient philosopher.”
“Oh!” declared Madame Trepof, “it is ugly, but it is rare! These boxes are not exported at all; you can buy them only where they are made. Dimitri has six others just like this in his pocket. We got them so as to exchange with other collectors. You understand? At none o’clock this morning we were at the factory. You see we did not waste our time.”
“So I certainly perceive, Madame,” I replied, bitterly; “but I have lost mine.”
I then saw that she was a naturally good-hearted woman. All her merriment vanished.
“Poor Monsieur Bonnard! poor Monsieur Bonnard!” she murmured.
And, taking my hand in hers, she added:
“Tell me about your troubles.”
I told her about them. My story was long; but she was evidently touched by it, for she asked me quite a number of circumstantial questions, which I took for proof of her friendly interest. She wanted to know the exact title of the manuscript, its shape, its appearance, and its age; she asked me for the address of Signor Rafael Polizzi.
And I gave it to her; thus doing (O destiny!) precisely what the abominable Polizzi had told me to do.
It is sometimes difficult to check oneself. I recommenced my plaints and my imprecations. But this time Madame Trepof only burst out laughing.
“Why do you laugh?” I asked her.
“Because I am a wicked woman,” she answered.
And she fled away, leaving me all disheartened on my stone.
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