Imaginary Conversations and Poems: A Selection
pretending querulous fear in the midst of petulant approaches.
_Eugenius._ Is it of pigeons thou art talking, O Filippo? I hope it
may be.
_Filippo._ Of Abdul's pigeons. He was fond of taming all creatures;
men, horses, pigeons, equally: but he tamed them all by kindness. In
this wilderness is an edifice not unlike our Italian chapter-houses
built by the Lombards, with long narrow windows, high above the
ground. The centre is now a bath, the waters of which, in another part
of the enclosure, had supplied a fountain, at present in ruins, and
covered by tufted canes, and by every variety of aquatic plants. The
structure has no remains of roof: and, of six windows, one alone is
unconcealed by ivy. This had been walled up long ago, and the cement
in the inside of it was hard and polished. 'Lippi!' said Abdul to me,
after I had long admired the place in silence, 'I leave to thy
superintendence this bath and garden. Be sparing of the leaves and
branches: make paths only wide enough for me. Let me see no mark of
hatchet or pruning-hook, and tell the labourers that whoever takes a
nest or an egg shall be impaled.'
_Eugenius._ Monster! so then he would really have impaled a poor
wretch for eating a bird's egg? How disproportionate is the punishment
to the offence!
_Filippo._ He efficiently checked in his slaves the desire of
transgressing his command. To spare them as much as possible, I
ordered them merely to open a few spaces, and to remove the weaker
trees from the stronger. Meanwhile I drew on the smooth blank window
the figure of Abdul and of a beautiful girl.
_Eugenius._ Rather say handmaiden: choicer expression; more decorous.
_Filippo._ Holy Father! I have been lately so much out of practice, I
take the first that comes in my way. Handmaiden I will use in
preference for the future.
_Eugenius._ On then! and God speed thee!
_Filippo._ I drew Abdul with a blooming handmaiden. One of his feet
is resting on her lap, and she is drying the ankle with a saffron
robe, of which the greater part is fallen in doing it. That she is a
bondmaid is discernible, not only by her occupation, but by her
humility and patience, by her loose and flowing brown hair, and by her
eyes expressing the timidity at once of servitude and of fondness. The
countenance was taken from fancy, and was the loveliest I could
imagine: of the figure I had some idea, having seen it to advantage in
Tunis. After seven days Abdul returned. He was delighted with the
improvement made in the garden. I requested him to visit the bath. 'We
can do nothing to that,' answered he impatiently. 'There is no
sudatory, no dormitory, no dressing-room, no couch. Sometimes I sit an
hour there in the summer, because I never found a fly in it--the
principal curse of hot countries, and against which plague there is
neither prayer nor amulet, nor indeed any human defence.' He went away
into the house. At dinner he sent me from his table some quails and
ortolans, and tomatoes and honey and rice, beside a basket of fruit
covered with moss and bay-leaves, under which I found a verdino fig,
deliciously ripe, and bearing the impression of several small teeth,
but certainly no reptile's.
_Eugenius._ There might have been poison in them, for all that.
_Filippo._ About two hours had passed, when I heard a whir and a crash
in the windows of the bath (where I had dined and was about to sleep),
occasioned by the settling and again the flight of some pheasants.
Abdul entered. 'Beard of the Prophet! what hast thou been doing? That
is myself! No, no, Lippi! thou never canst have seen her: the face
proves it: but those limbs! thou hast divined them aright: thou hast
had sweet dreams then! Dreams are large possessions: in them the
possessor may cease to possess his own. To the slave, O Allah! to the
slave is permitted what is not his!... I burn with anguish to think
how much ... yea, at that very hour. I would not another should, even
in a dream.... But, Lippi! thou never canst have seen above the
sandal?' To which I answered, 'I never have allowed my eyes to look
even on that. But if any one of my lord Abdul's fair slaves resembles,
as they surely must all do, in duty and docility, the figure I have
represented, let it express to him my congratulation on his
happiness.' 'I believe,' said he, 'such representations are forbidden
by the Koran; but as I do not remember it, I do not sin. There it
shall stay, unless the angel Gabriel comes to forbid it.' He smiled in
saying so.
_Eugenius._ There is hope of this Abdul. His faith hangs about him
more like oil than pitch.
_Filippo._ He inquired of me whether I often thought of those I loved
in Italy, and whether I could bring them before my eyes at will. To
remove all suspicion from him, I declared I always could, and that one
beautiful object occupied all the cells of my brain by night and day.
He paused and pondered, and then said, 'Thou dost not love deeply.' I
thought I had given the true signs. 'No, Lippi! we who love ardently,
we, with all our wishes, all the efforts of our souls, cannot bring
before us the features which, while they were present, we thought it
impossible we ever could forget. Alas! when we most love the absent,
when we most desire to see her, we try in vain to bring her image back
to us. The troubled heart shakes and confounds it, even as ruffled
waters do with shadows. Hateful things are more hateful when they
haunt our sleep: the lovely flee away, or are changed into less
lovely.'
_Eugenius._ What figures now have these unbelievers?
_Filippo._ Various in their combinations as the letters or the
numerals; but they all, like these, signify something. Almeida (did I
not inform your Holiness?) has large hazel eyes....
_Eugenius._ Has she? thou never toldest me that. Well, well! and what
else has she? Mind! be cautious! use decent terms.
_Filippo._ Somewhat pouting lips.
_Eugenius._ Ha! ha! What did they pout at?
_Filippo._ And she is rather plump than otherwise.
_Eugenius._ No harm in that.
_Filippo._ And moreover is cool, smooth, and firm as a nectarine
gathered before sunrise.
_Eugenius._ Ha! ha! do not remind me of nectarines. I am very fond of
them; and this is not the season! Such females as thou describest are
said to be among the likeliest to give reasonable cause for suspicion.
I would not judge harshly, I would not think uncharitably; but,
unhappily, being at so great a distance from spiritual aid,
peradventure a desire, a suggestion, an inkling ... ay? If she, the
lost Almeida, came before thee when her master was absent ... which I
trust she never did.... But those flowers and shrubs and odours and
alleys and long grass and alcoves, might strangely hold, perplex, and
entangle, two incautious young persons ... ay?
_Filippo._ I confessed all I had to confess in this matter the evening
I landed.
_Eugenius._ Ho! I am no candidate for a seat at the rehearsal of
confessions: but perhaps my absolution might be somewhat more pleasing
and unconditional. Well! well! since I am unworthy of such confidence,
go about thy business ... paint! paint!
_Filippo._ Am I so unfortunate as to have offended your Beatitude?
_Eugenius._ Offend _me_, man! who offends _me_? I took an interest in
thy adventures, and was concerned lest thou mightest have sinned; for
by my soul! Filippo! those are the women that the devil hath set his
mark on.
_Filippo._ It would do your Holiness's heart good to rub it out again,
wherever he may have had the cunning to make it.
_Eugenius._ Deep! deep!
_Filippo._ Yet it may be got at; she being a Biscayan by birth, as she
told me, and not only baptized, but going by sea along the coast for
confirmation, when she was captured.
_Eugenius._ Alas! to what an imposition of hands was this tender young
thing devoted! Poor soul!
_Filippo._ I sigh for her myself when I think of her.
_Eugenius._ Beware lest the sigh be mundane, and lest the thought
recur too often. I wish it were presently in my power to examine her
myself on her condition. What thinkest thou? Speak.
_Filippo._ Holy Father! she would laugh in your face.
_Eugenius._ So lost!
_Filippo._ She declared to me she thought she should have died, from
the instant she was captured until she was comforted by Abdul: but
that she was quite sure she should if she were ransomed.
_Eugenius._ Has the wretch then shaken her faith?
_Filippo._ The very last thing he would think of doing. Never did I
see the virtue of resignation in higher perfection than in the
laughing, light-hearted Almeida.
_Eugenius._ Lamentable! Poor lost creature! lost in this world and in
the next.
_Filippo._ What could she do? how could she help herself?
_Eugenius._ She might have torn his eyes out, and have died a martyr.
_Filippo._ Or have been bastinadoed, whipped, and given up to the
cooks and scullions for it.
_Eugenius._ Martyrdom is the more glorious the greater the indignities
it endures.
_Filippo._ Almeida seems unambitious. There are many in our Tuscany
who would jump at the crown over those sloughs and briers, rather than
perish without them: she never sighs after the like.
_Eugenius._ Nevertheless, what must she witness! what abominations!
what superstitions!
_Filippo._ Abdul neither practises nor exacts any other superstition
than ablutions.
_Eugenius._ Detestable rites! without our authority. I venture to
affirm that, in the whole of Italy and Spain, no convent of monks or
nuns contains a bath; and that the worst inmate of either would
shudder at the idea of observing such a practice in common with the
unbeliever. For the washing of the feet indeed we have the authority
of the earlier Christians; and it may be done; but solemnly and
sparingly. Thy residence among the Mahomedans, I am afraid, hath
rendered thee more favourable to them than beseems a Catholic, and thy
mind, I do suspect, sometimes goes back into Barbary unreluctantly.
_Filippo._ While I continued in that country, although I was well
treated, I often wished myself away, thinking of my friends in
Florence, of music, of painting, of our villeggiatura at the
vintage-time; whether in the green and narrow glades of Pratolino,
with lofty trees above us, and little rills unseen, and little bells
about the necks of sheep and goats, tinkling together ambiguously; or
amid the grey quarries, or under the majestic walls of modern Fiesole;
or down in the woods of the Doccia, where the cypresses are of such a
girth that, when a youth stands against one of them, and a maiden
stands opposite, and they clasp it, their hands at the time do little
more than meet. Beautiful scenes, on which heaven smiles eternally,
how often has my heart ached for you! He who hath lived in this
country can enjoy no distant one. He breathes here another air; he
lives more life; a brighter sun invigorates his studies, and serener
stars influence his repose. Barbary hath also the blessing of climate;
and although I do not desire to be there again, I feel sometimes a
kind of regret at leaving it. A bell warbles the more mellifluously in
the air when the sound of the stroke is over, and when another swims
out from underneath it, and pants upon the element that gave it birth.
In like manner the recollection of a thing is frequently more pleasing
than the actuality; what is harsh is dropped in the space between.
There is in Abdul a nobility of soul on which I often have reflected
with admiration. I have seen many of the highest rank and
distinction, in whom I could find nothing of the great man, excepting
a fondness for low company, and an aptitude to shy and start at every
spark of genius or virtue that sprang up above or before them. Abdul
was solitary, but affable: he was proud, but patient and complacent. I