The Cardinal's snuff-box
In the Duchessa's face, perhaps, there flickered, for half-a-second, the
least perceptible light, as of a comprehending and unresentful smile.
But she went on, with fine aloofness.
“I rather envy you your river, you know. We are too far from it at
the castle. Is n't the sound, the murmur, of it delicious? And its
colour--how does it come by such a subtle colour? Is it green? Is it
blue? And the diamonds on its surface--see how they glitter. You know,
of course,” she questioned, “who the owner is of those unequalled gems?”
“Surely,” Peter answered, “the lady paramount of this demesne?”
“No, no.” She shook her head, smiling. “Undine. They are Undine's--her
necklaces and tiaras. No mortal woman's jewel-case contains anything
half so brilliant. But look at them--look at the long chains of
them--how they float for a minute--and are then drawn down. They are
Undine's--Undine and her companions are sporting with them just below
the surface. A moment ago I caught a glimpse of a white arm.”
“Ah,” said Peter, nodding thoughtfully, “that's what it is to have 'the
seeing eye.' But I'm grieved to hear of Undine in such a wanton mood. I
had hoped she would still be weeping her unhappy love-affair.”
“What! with that horrid, stolid German--Hildebrandt, was his name?”
cried the Duchessa. “Not she! Long ago, I'm glad to say, she learned to
laugh at that, as a mere caprice of her immaturity. However, this is a
digression. I want to return to our 'Man of Words.' Tell me--what is the
quality you especially like in it?”
“I like its every quality,” Peter affirmed, unblushing. “Its style,
its finish, its concentration; its wit, humour, sentiment; its texture,
tone, atmosphere; its scenes, its subject; the paper it's printed
on, the type, the binding. But above all, I like its heroine. I think
Pauline de Fleuvieres the pearl of human women--the cleverest, the
loveliest, the most desirable, the most exasperating. And also the most
feminine. I can't think of her at all as a mere fiction, a mere shadow
on paper. I think of her as a living, breathing, flesh-and-blood woman,
whom I have actually known. I can see her before me now--I can see
her eyes, full of mystery and mischief--I can see her exquisite little
teeth, as she smiles--I can see her hair, her hands--I can almost catch
the perfume of her garments. I 'm utterly infatuated with her--I could
commit a hundred follies for her.”
“Mercy!” exclaimed the Duchessa. “You are enthusiastic.”
“The book's admirers are so few, they must endeavour to make up in
enthusiasm what they lack in numbers,” he submitted.
“But--at that rate--why are they so few?” she puzzled. “If the book is
all you think it, how do you account for its unpopularity?”
“It could never conceivably be anything but unpopular,” said he. “It has
the fatal gift of beauty.”
The Duchessa laughed surprise.
“Is beauty a fatal gift--in works of art?”
“Yes--in England,” he declared.
“In England? Why especially in England?”
“In English-speaking--in Anglo-Saxon lands, if you prefer. The
Anglo-Saxon public is beauty-blind. They have fifty religions--only one
sauce--and no sense of beauty whatsoever. They can see the nose on one's
face--the mote in their neighbour's eye; they can see when a bargain is
good, when a war will be expedient. But the one thing they can never see
is beauty. And when, by some rare chance, you catch them in the act of
admiring a beautiful object, it will never be for its beauty--it will be
in spite of its beauty for some other, some extra-aesthetic interest it
possesses--some topical or historical interest. Beauty is necessarily
detached from all that is topical or historical, or documentary or
actual. It is also necessarily an effect of fine shades, delicate
values, vanishing distinctions, of evasiveness, inconsequence,
suggestion. It is also absolute, unrelated--it is positive or negative
or superlative--it is never comparative. Well, the Anglo-Saxon public
is totally insensible to such things. They can no more feel them, than a
blind worm can feel the colours of the rainbow.”
She laughed again, and regarded him with an air of humorous meditation.
“And that accounts for the unsuccess of 'A Man of Words'?”
“You might as well offer Francois Villon a banquet of Orient pearls.”
“You are bitterly hard on the Anglo-Saxon public.”
“Oh, no,” he disclaimed, “not hard--but just. I wish them all sorts of
prosperity, with a little more taste.”
“Oh, but surely,” she caught him up, “if their taste were greater, their
prosperity would be less?”
“I don't know,” said he. “The Greeks were fairly prosperous, were n't
they? And the Venetians? And the French are not yet quite bankrupt.”
Still again she laughed--always with that little air of humorous
meditation.
“You--you don't exactly overwhelm one with compliments,” she observed.
He looked alarm, anxiety.
“Don't I? What have I neglected?” he cried.
“You 've never once evinced the slightest curiosity to learn what I
think of the book in question.”
“Oh, I'm sure you like it,” he rejoined hardily. “You have 'the seeing
eye.'”
“And yet I'm just a humble member of the Anglo-Saxon public.”
“No--you're a distinguished member of the Anglo-Saxon 'remnant.' Thank
heaven, there's a remnant, a little scattered remnant. I'm perfectly
sure you like 'A Man of Words.'”
“'Like it' is a proposition so general. Perhaps I am burning to tell
someone what I think of it in detail.”
She smiled into his eyes, a trifle oddly.
“If you are, then I know someone who is burning to hear you,” he avowed.
“Well, then, I think--I think...” she began, on a note of deliberation.
“But I 'm afraid, just now, it would take too long to formulate my
thought. Perhaps I'll try another day.”
She gave him a derisory little nod--and in a minute was well up the
lawn, towards the castle.
Peter glared after her, his fists clenched, teeth set.
“You fiend!” he muttered. Then, turning savagely upon himself, “You
duffer!”
Nevertheless, that evening, he said to Marietta, “The plot thickens.
We've advanced a step. We've reached what the vulgar call a
psychological moment. She's seen my Portrait of a Lady. But as yet, if
you can believe me, she doesn't dream who painted it; and she has n't
recognised the subject. As if one were to face one's image in the glass,
and take it for another's! 3--I 'll--I 'll double your wages--if you
will induce events to hurry up.”
However, as he spoke English, Marietta was in no position to profit by
his offer.
XIII
Peter was walking in the high-road, on the other side of the river--the
great high-road that leads from Bergamo to Milan.
It was late in the afternoon, and already, in the west, the sky was
beginning to put on some of its sunset splendours. In the east, framed
to Peter's vision by parallel lines of poplars, it hung like a curtain
of dark-blue velvet.
Peter sat on the grass, by the roadside, in the shadow of a hedge--a
rose-bush hedge, of course--and lighted a cigarette.
Far down the long white road, against the blue velvet sky, between the
poplars, two little spots of black, two small human figures, were moving
towards him.
Half absently, he let his eyes accompany them.
As they came nearer, they defined themselves as a boy and a girl.
Nearer still, he saw that they were ragged and dusty and barefoot.
The boy had three or four gaudy-hued wicker baskets slung over his
shoulder.
Vaguely, tacitly, Peter supposed that they would be the children of some
of the peasants of the countryside, on their way home from the village.
As they arrived abreast of him, they paid him the usual peasants'
salute. The boy lifted a tattered felt hat from his head, the girl
bobbed a courtesy, and “Buona sera, Eccellenza,” they said in concert,
without, however, pausing in their march.
Peter put his hand in his pocket.
“Here, little girl,” he called.
The little girl glanced at him, doubting.
“Come here,” he said.
Her face a question, she came up to him; and he gave her a few coppers.
“To buy sweetmeats,” he said.
“A thousand thanks; Excellency,” said she, bobbing another courtesy.
“A thousand thanks, Excellency,” said the boy, from his distance, again
lifting his rag of a hat.
And they trudged on.
But Peter looked after them--and his heart smote him. They were clearly
of the poorest of the poor. He thought of Hansel and Gretel. Why had he
given them so little? He called to them to stop.
The little girl came running back.
Peter rose to meet her.
“You may as well buy some ribbons too,” he said, and gave her a couple
of lire.
She looked at the money with surprise--even with an appearance of
hesitation. Plainly, it was a sum, in her eyes.
“It's all right. Now run along,” said Peter.
“A thousand thanks, Excellency,” said she, with a third courtesy, and
rejoined her brother....
“Where are they going?” asked a voice.
Peter faced about.
There stood the Duchessa, in a bicycling costume, her bicycle beside
her. Her bicycling costume was of blue serge, and she wore a jaunty
sailor-hat with a blue ribbon. Peter (in spite of the commotion in his
breast) was able to remember that this was the first time he had seen
her in anything but white.
Her attention was all upon the children, whom he, perhaps, had more or
less banished to Cracklimbo.
“Where are they going?” she repeated, trouble in her voice and in her
eyes.
Peter collected himself.
“The children? I don't know--I didn't ask. Home, aren't they?”
“Home? Oh, no. They don't live hereabouts,” she said. “I know all the
poor of this neighbourhood.--Ohe there! Children! Children!” she cried.
But they were quite a hundred yards away, and did not hear.
“Do you wish them to come back?” asked Peter.
“Yes--of course,” she answered, with a shade of impatience.
He put his fingers to his lips (you know the schoolboy accomplishment),
and gave a long whistle.
That the children did hear.
They halted, and turned round, looking, enquiring.
“Come back--come back!” called the Duchessa, raising her hand, and
beckoning.
They came back.
“The pathetic little imps,” she murmured while they were on the way.
The boy was a sturdy, square-built fellow, of twelve, thirteen, with
a shock of brown hair, brown cheeks, and sunny brown eyes; with
a precocious air of doggedness, of responsibility. He wore an old
tail-coat, the tail-coat of a man, ragged, discoloured, falling to his
ankles.
The girl was ten or eleven, pale, pinched; hungry, weary, and sorry
looking. Her hair too had been brown, upon a time; but now it was faded
to something near the tint of ashes, and had almost the effect of being
grey. Her pale little forehead was crossed by thin wrinkles, lines of
pain, of worry, like an old woman's.
The Duchessa, pushing her bicycle, and followed by Peter, moved down
the road, to meet them. Peter had never been so near to her before--at
moments her arm all but brushed his sleeve. I think he blessed the
children.
“Where are you going?” the Duchessa asked, softly, smiling into the
girl's sad little face.
The girl had shown no fear of Peter; but apparently she was somewhat
frightened by this grand lady. The toes of her bare feet worked
nervously in the dust. She hung her head shyly, and eyed her brother.
But the brother, removing his hat, with the bow of an Italian
peasant--and that is to say, the bow of a courtier--spoke up bravely.
“To Turin, Nobility.”
He said it in a perfectly matter-of-fact way, quite as he might have
said, “To the next farm-house.”
The Duchessa, however, had not bargained for an answer of this measure.
Startled, doubting her ears perhaps, “To--Turin--!” she exclaimed.
“Yes, Excellency,” said the boy.