Chapter III (1)

The Picture's tale. It was so well painted--that was why it could hear four hundred years ago. How its painter hungered and thirsted for its original, and _vice versa_. How old January hid in a spy-hole, to watch May, and saw it all. Of Pope Innocent's penetration. Of certain bells, unwelcome ones. How two _innamorati_ tried to part without a kiss, and failed. Nevertheless assassins stopped it when it had only just begun. But Giacinto got at January's throat. How the picture was framed, and hung where May could only see it by twisting. Of the dungeon below her, where Giacinto might be. How January dug at May with a walking-staff. How the picture was in abeyance, but loved a firefly; then was interred in furniture, and three centuries slipped by. How it sold for six fifty, and was sent to London, to a picture-restorer, which is how it comes into the tale. How Mr. Pelly woke up.

You ask me to tell you what is earliest in my recollection. I will do so, and will also endeavour to narrate as much as I can remember of the life of the lady I was painted from; whose memory, were she now living, would be identical with my own.

The very first image I can recall is that of my artist, at work. He is the first human being I ever saw, as well as the first visible object I can call to mind. He is at work--as I am guided to understand by what I have learned since--upon my right eye. It is a very dim image indeed at the outset, but as he works it becomes clearer, and at last I see him quite plainly.

He is a dark young man, with hair of one thickness all over, like a black door-mat, and a beautiful olive skin. As he turns round I think to myself how beautiful his neck is at the back under the hair, and that I should like to kiss it. But that is impossible. I can recall my pleasure at his fixed gaze, and constant resolute endeavour. Naturally I want him to paint my other eye. Then I shall see him still better.

I am not surprised at his saying nothing--for remember!--I did not know what speech was then. He had painted my mouth, only, of course, I did not know what to do with it. Needless also to say that I had not heard a word, for I had no ear at all. I have only one now, but it has heard all that has been spoken near it for four hundred years. I heard nothing then--nothing at all! I only gazed fixedly at the fascinating creature before me who was trying his best to make me beautiful too--to make me as beautiful as something that I could not see--something his eyes turned round to at intervals, something to my right and his left. What I recall most vividly now is my curiosity to know what this thing or person was that took his eyes off me at odd moments; to which he made, now and again, slight deprecatory signs and corrective movements with his left hand; from which he received some response I could not guess at, which he acknowledged by a full-spread smile of grateful recognition. But always in perfect silence, though I saw, when his brush was not in front of my incomplete eye, that his lips moved, showing his beautiful white teeth; and that he paused and listened--a thing I have learned about since--with a certain air of deference, as towards a social superior. Oh, how I longed to see this unseen being, or thing! But I was not to do so, yet awhile.

My recollection goes no farther than the fact of this young artist, working on in a strange, systematic way, quite unlike what I have since understood to be the correct method for persons of genius, until at the end of some period I cannot measure, he paints my other eye, and I rejoice in a clearer image of himself; of the huge bare room he works in; of the small window, high up, with its cage of grating against the sky; of the recess below it, in which, at the top of two steps, an old woman sits plaiting straws, and beside her a black dog, close shaved, except his head, all over. But I get no light upon the strange attraction that takes my creator's attention off me, until after a second experience, as strange as my first new-found phenomenon of sight--to wit, my hearing of sound. As he painted my ear, it came.

At first, a musical, broken murmur--then another, that mixes with it. As one rises, the other falls; then both together, or as the threads of a cascade cross and intersect in mid-air. Then a third sound, a sound with a musical ring that makes my heart leap with joy--a sound that comes back to me now, when in the early mornings of summer, I hear, through the window of this room opened outwards to let in the morning air, the voice of the little brown bird that springs high into the blue heaven, and unpacks its tiny heart in a flood of song. And then I think to myself that _that_ is the language in which I too should have laughed, had laughter been possible to me.

For what I heard then from behind the easel I stood on as the young artist painted me was the laughter of Maddalena Raimondi, from whom he was working; whom I may describe myself as being. For ought not the name written on the frame below me to be hers also, with the date of her birth and death? Are not my eyes that I see with now hers? Is not the nostril with the lambent curve--that is what a celebrated Art-Critic has called it--hers, and the little sea-shell ear hers that heard you say, but now, that my original cannot have been more than twenty?...

More than twenty! No, indeed!--for in those days a girl of twenty was a woman. And the girl that one day a little later came round at a signal from behind the panel, to see the portrait that I now knew had received its last touch from its maker, was one who at eighteen had been threatened, driven, goaded into harness with an old Devil of high rank, to whom she had been affianced in her babyhood; and who is now, we may hope, in his proper Hell, as God has appointed. Yet it may well be he is among the Saints; for his wealth was great, and he gave freely to Holy Church. But to Maddalena, that was myself--for was I not she?--he was a Devil incarnate.

For mark you this: that all she had known I too knew, in my degree, so soon as ever I was completed. Else had I been a bad portrait. It all came to my memory at once. I remembered my happy girlhood, the strange indifference of my utter innocence when I was first told I was destined to marry the great Duke, whose vassal my father was, and how my marriage would somehow--I am, maybe, less clear about details than my original would have been--release my father from some debt or obligation to the Raimondi which otherwise would have involved the forfeiture of our old home. So ignorant was I that I rejoiced to think that I should be the means of preserving for my family the long stretches of vine-clad hills and the old Castello in the Apennines that had borne our name since the first stone was laid, centuries ago. So ignorant, innocent, indifferent--call it what you will!--that the moment I was told my destiny I went straight to Giacinto, the page, with whom I had grown from infancy, to tell him the good news, that he might rejoice too. But he would not rejoice at my bidding, and he was moody and reserved, and I wondered. I was but twelve and he thirteen. Although a girl may be older than a boy, even at those years, her eyes are not so wide open to see some things, and it may be he saw plainer than I. I know not.

This, then, was what had happened to the beautiful creature that came round into my sight on that day when I first saw and heard and knew her for myself, and hoped I was well done, and very like. And thus, also, it all came back to me, so soon as I was finished and was really Maddalena Raimondi, how the great Venetian artist, Angelo Allori, whom they called _Il Bronzino_, came to the Castello to paint my mother, and how he took a fancy to Giacinto, and would have him away to his studio, and taught him how to use brushes and colours, and how to grind and prepare these last, and to make canvas ready for the painter. And it ended by his taking him as an apprentice, at his own wish and Giacinto's. And they went away together to Venice, and I could recall now that Maddalena had not seen Giacinto after that for six years.

That is to say: she had not seen him till he came to the Villa Raimondi in the first year of her unhappy marriage, an unhappy bride with all the deadly revelation of the realities of life that an accursed wedlock must needs bring. The girl was no longer a girl; she knew what she had lost. And I knew it too, and all that she had known up to the moment of that last brush-touch, when Giacinto said, "Now, _carissima Signora_, you may come round and see!"

And the ringing laugh came round, and _she_ came round, that had been me. Then I too saw what I had been--what I was still. And after that, I will tell you what I saw and heard--but presently!

For I want you first to know what Maddalena was when her old owner told her that he had commanded a young Venetian artist, of rising fame, to come at once, under penalty of his displeasure, to paint her portrait in a dress of yellow satin brocade well broidered in gold thread, and a _gorgiera_ of fine linen turned back over it, that had belonged to his first wife, Vittoria Fanfani, who was much of the size and shape of la Maddalena, as who could tell better than he? And for this portrait she was to sit or stand, as the painter should arrange, in front of the tapestry showing Solomon's Judgment in the _Stanza delle Quattro Corone_; which is, as you would say, The Room of the Four Crowns, so called because it was said four Kings had met there in old days, three of whom had slain the fourth, which was accounted of great fame to the Castello Raimondi. And the time for this painting was to be each day after the sun had passed the meridian; for the room looked south-east, and one must study the sun. And Marta Zan would always be in attendance, as a serious person who would keep a check on any pranks such young people might choose to play. For as I too now knew and could well remember, it was a wicked touch of this old _birbante's_ character that he was never tired of a wearisome pretence that this young Maddalena, whose heart was truly broken if ever girl's heart was, was still full of joyousness and youth and kittenish tricks. And he would rally her waggishly before his retinue for pranks she had never played, and pretended youthful escapades she could have had no heart for. For in truth she was filled up with sorrow, and shame of herself and her kind, and intense loathing of the old man her master; but she was forced to reply to his unwelcome _badinage_ by such pretence as might be of gaiety in return. And this, although she knew well all the while that there was not a scullion among them all but could say how little she loved this eighty-year-old lord of hers; though none could guess, not even the women, what good cause she had to hate him.

But the sly old fox knew well enough; and when he made his edict that Marta Zan--an old crone, who had been, some said, his mistress in his youth--should keep watch and ward over his young wife's demeanour with this new painting fellow, he knew too that in the thick wall of the _Stanza delle Quattro Corone_ was a little, narrow entry, where one might lie hid at any time, approaching from without, and see all that passed in the chamber below. And so he would see and know for himself; for he knew Marta Zan too well to place much faith in her.

You may guess, then, that Maddalena, when _il Duca_ first informed her of his gracious pleasure about the portrait, was little inclined to take an interest in that, or any other scheme of his Highness; but to avoid incurring his resentment, she was bound to affect an interest she did not feel, and in this she succeeded, so far as was necessary. But my lord Duke was growing suspicious of her; only he was far too wily an old fox to show his mistrust openly. Be sure that when, after Maddalena's first sitting with my young artist, he noticed that the roses had returned to her cheeks, and that her step was light again upon the ground, he said never a word to show his thought, and only resolved in his wicked old heart to spy upon the two young people from his eyrie in the wall.

It was little to be wondered at that Maddalena should show pleasure when she saw who after all was the young Venetian painter; who, still almost a boy, had climbed so high in fame that it was already held an honour to be painted by him. For he was her old friend Giacinto, and she in her languid lack of interest in all about her, had never asked what was the actual name of _lo Spazzolone_. For by this nickname only had he been spoken of in her presence, and it may easily be he was known by no other to the old _Duca_ himself, so universal is the practice of nicknaming among the artists of Italy. But he was Giacinto himself, sure enough!--only grown so tall and handsome. And you may fancy how gladly the poor Maddalena would have flung her arms round the boy she had known from her cradle, and kissed her welcome into his soul--only there! was she not a wife, and the wife too of the thing men called the Duke? What manner of thing was he, that God should have made him, there in the light of day?

But if it was difficult for Maddalena to keep her embrace of welcome in check, you may fancy how strong a constraint my young painter had to put on himself when he saw who the great lady was whom he was come to paint. For none had told him, and till she came suddenly upon him in all the beauty of her full and perfect womanhood, he had no idea that she would be la Maddalena--_la sua sorellaccia_ (that is, his ugly sister), as he would call her in jest in those early days--because there was no doubt of her beauty, and the joke was a safe one. Only mind you!--this would be when they were alone, as might be, in the court of the old Castello, looking down into the deep well and dropping stones to hear them splash long after, or gathering the green figs in the _poderi_ when the great heat was gone from August, and they could ramble out in the early mornings. When her sisters or brothers were there, she was _la Signorina_ Maddalena. _I_ can remember it all now! One does not lightly forget these hours--the hours before the ugly dawn of the real World. Nor the little joys one takes as a right, without a rapture or a thought of gratitude; nor the little pangs one thinks so hard to bear, and so soon forgets.

If you should ask me how it came about that the two of them should have so completely parted during all those six years, that La Maddalena should not even have known the nickname of the young painter, nor his fame, I must beg that you will remember that these were not the days of daily posts, of telegraphs, and railways; nor of any of the strange new things I hear of now, and find so hard to understand. Moreover, my own opinion is that the parents of Maddalena judged shrewdly that this young stripling was no friend to be encouraged for a little daughter that was to be the salvation of their property. The less risk, the less danger! The fewer boys about, the fewer fancies of a chit. They managed it all, be sure of that! It was for the girl's own best interest.

But--dear me![#]--if you know anything of life in youth, and of the golden thread of Love that is shot though it in the weft, and starts out somewhere always, here or there, whatever light you hold it in--if you know this, there is no more to be said of why, when they met again, in the _Stanza delle Quattro Corone_, each heart should leap out to meet the other, and then shrink back chilled, at the thought of what they were now that they were not once, and of what perforce they had to be hereafter. But the moment was their own, and none pauses in the middle of a draught of nectar because, forsooth, the cup will soon be empty. La Maddalena became, in one magic instant, a Maddalena whose laugh rang out like the song of the little brown bird I told you of but now, and filled the wicked old room with its music. And as for our poor Giacinto--well!--are you a man, and were you ever young? He could promise the withered old _Duca_ that he would make a merry picture of _la Duchessa_; none of your sinister death's-head portraits, but with the smile of _sua Altezza_. For all Maddalena's heart was in her face, and that face wore again the smile of the old, old days, the days long before her bridal. And you see that face before you now.

[#] Probably the words Mr. Pelly heard were "_Dio mio!_" which some consider the original of the English "Dear me!" Many of the expressions are evidently literal translations.--EDITOR.

Now, if only this old shrunken mummy will begone! If he will only go away to count over his gold, to rack his tenantry for more than his share of the oil-crop, to get absolution for his sins, or, better still, to go to expiate them in the proper place! If he will only take his venerable presence and his cold firm eye away--if it be but for an hour!...

He went--sooner than we had hoped. And then when he was quite, quite gone, and the coast was clear, then the laughter broke out. And Marta Zan wondered was this really the new _Duchessa_?--she who had brought from her bridal no smile but a sad one, no glance unhaunted by the memory or the forecast of a tear, no word of speech but had its own resonance of a broken heart. The beldam chuckled to herself, and saw money to come of it, if she winked skilfully enough, and at the right time. But in this she was wrong, for she judged these young people by her bad old self; and indeed they thought no harm, of her sort. Neither could she see their souls, nor they hers. But the laughter and the voices filled the place, and each felt a child again, and back in the old Castello in the hills.

"And was it really you, Giacinto? You, your very self--the little Giacintino grown so great a man! _Dio mio_, how great a man you have grown!"

"And was the _Duchessa_ then _la nostra Maddalena_, grown to be a great Signora! Was it all true?"

And then old Marta scowled from the steps below the window, for was not this saucy young painter bold enough to kiss the little hand her mistress let him hold so long; and most likely she was ready enough to guess that the poor boy had much ado to be off kissing the lips that smiled on him as well. But then, when the Maddalena saw through his heart, and saw all this as plain as I tell it you now, she flinched off with a little sigh, and a chill came. For now, she said, they were grown-up people, responsible and serious, and must behave! And Marta Zan would not be cross; for look you, Marta _cara_, was not this Giacinto, her foster-brother, and had they not been rocked to sleep in the same cradle? And had they not eaten the grapes of a dozen vintages at her father's little castle in the hills, and heard the dogs bark all across the plain below in the summer nights?

So Marta, though she looked mighty glum over it, kept her thoughts for her own use, with due consideration how she might get most profit from what she foresaw, and yet keep her footing firm with her great Duke. She was a cunning old black spot, was Marta, and quick to scheme her own advantage, for all she was near seventy. But she saw no reason for meddling to check her young _Duchessa's_ free flow of spirits, and she invented a good apology for letting her alone. _She_ was not going to mar the portrait by making the sitter cry and look sulky: red eyes and swelled cheeks were no man's joy. So she told her employer. And she thought to herself, see how content the old man is, and how clever am I to hoodwink him so!

Be sure, though, that she did not know how he was passing his time, more and more, in that little chapel of knavery in the wall, but a few yards from the two happy young folk, as they laughed and talked over their old days. Only, in this you may believe me, that never a word passed between them--for all that so many came to the lips of both and were disallowed--that might not have been spoken, almost, in the presence of the gracious Duke himself--nay, quite!--if he had not been so corrupt and tainted an old curmudgeon that he would have found a scutch on the leaf of a lily new-blown, and read dishonour into innocence itself. So there he sits in his evil eyrie, day by day, hatching false interpretation of every word and movement, but all silence and caution, for come what may he will not spoil the portrait. It will be time enough when it is quite done. Time enough for what? We shall see. Meanwhile, as well to keep his eye on them! Small trust to be placed in Marta Zan!

So, all this while, I grew and grew. And the laugh that you see on my lips is Maddalena's as she sat looking down on her young painter, and the joy and content of my eyes are her joy and content; and the loose lock of hair that ripples, a stream of golden red, over the red-gold of the brocaded gilliflower on the bosom of my bodice, is the lock of hair Maddalena had almost told Giacinto he might cut away and take, to keep for her sake. But she dared not, because of that dried old fig, old Marta, and the grim eye of her owner. Yet she might never see Giacinto again! She suspected, in her heart, that he would be schemed away from her once more, as before.

But I grew and grew. And now the hour is near when no pretence can prolong the sittings that have been the happiness--the more than happiness--of six whole Autumn weeks. How quick they had run away! Could it be six weeks? Yes, it was. And there was an ugly, threatening look in the Duke's old eye; but he said little enough. No doubt _Messer il Pittore_ knew best how long was needed to paint a portrait; but he had said three weeks, at the outset. So it must needs be. And this, to-day, was the last sitting; and the picture--that was I--would be complete, and have a frame, and hang on the wall in the great room of state, where already were hanging the two portraits of the former wives of his Excellency; whereof the last one died three years before, and left the old miscreant free to affiance himself to the little Maddalena, who was then too young to marry, being but fourteen years old. So at least said her mother, and his Excellency was gracious enough to defer his nuptials, in spite of his years. And our most Holy Father Pope Alexander was truly convinced by this that the charge of the Duke's enemies made against him of having poisoned his second wife was groundless. For with so young a bride in view, would not any man have deferred poisoning a lady who was still young and comely, at least until the object of his new passion was old enough to take her place? So said his Holiness, and for my part I think he showed in this his penetration and his wide insight and understanding of his fellow-men. For Man is, as saith Scripture, created in the Image of God, and it is but seemly and reasonable that His Vicar on Earth should know the inner secrets of the human heart; albeit he may have small experience himself of Love, as is the manner of Ecclesiastics.

I will now tell you all I saw on that day of the last sitting, being now as it were full-grown and able to see and note all; besides being, as I have tried to show, able to feel all the lady Maddalena had felt and to follow her inmost thought.

When they were come to the end of the work I could see that both were heavy at heart for the parting that was to come; and I knew of myself that Maddalena had slept little, and I knew, too, that this was not because _sua Eccellenza_ the Duke snored heavily all night, for had that been so, poor Maddalena would have been ill off for sleep at the best of times. No!--she had lain awake thinking of Giacinto; and he of her, it may be. But what do I know? I could see he was not happy: could you expect it? And his hand shook, and he did no good to me. And he would not touch my face and hands with the colour, and I well knew why.

Therefore, when he had tried for a little and could not work to any purpose, my lady _la Duchessa_ says, as one who takes courage--for neither had yet spoken of how they must part--"Come, my Giacinto, let us be of better cheer, and not be so downcast. For who knows but the good God may let us meet again one happy day when His will is? Let us be grateful for the little hour of our felicity, and make no complaint now that it was not longer. But you cannot work, my Giacinto, and are doing no good to the beautiful picture. Leave it and come and sit here by me, and we will talk of the old days, the dear old time. And as for the old Marta, she is sound asleep and snoring; only not so loud as my old pig of a husband all last night!" Indeed, it was true of old Marta, but for my own part I think she was only pretending to be asleep, for my Maddalena had talked to her of how this would be the last time, and softened her, and given her ten Venetian ducats and a cap of lace. But, for the snoring of the old Duke, it had done some service; for the little joke about it had made Maddalena speak more cheerfully, and Giacinto could find a laugh for it, though he had little heart to laugh out roundly at anything. La Maddalena went near to make him, though! For she talked of how thirteen little puppies all came at once of three mothers, and she christened them all after the Blessed Apostles and Judas Iscariot, and every one was drowned or given away except Judas Iscariot; and how she would hold up Judas for Giacinto to kiss, saying he was a safe Judas this time, as how could he be else with that little fat stomach, and not a month old.

So I was finished, and Giacinto would have put his signature in one corner had he not thought it best to wait until _sua Eccellenza_ the Duke had seen it, for who could say he would not have it altered? Messer Angelo Allori had finished a portrait of _la Principessa_ Gonzaga, and just as he was thinking to sign it, what does her ladyship do but say she would rather have been painted in her _camorra di seta verde_; and thereat he had to paint out the old dress and paint in the new, for none might say nay to _la Principessa_. So that is how it comes that this picture--that I am--is unsigned; and that the Art Critics, for once, are not unanimous about who was the author.

But _I_ know who that author was, and I can see him still as he sits at the feet of his lady, _la Duchessa_ Maddalena, and his thick, black hair that had got him the nickname of _Spazzolone_; which is, or would be as speech goes now, the scrubbing-brush. And I can see his beautiful olive-tinted throat, more fair than tawny, like ivory, and his great black eyes, like an antelope's. I can see her, la Maddalena, seated above him--for he is on the ground--her two white hands encircling her knees, with many rings on them, one a great opal, the one you see on my finger now; and her face, with the red-gold hair, you see on my head, but somewhat fallen about it, for it had shaken down; and the face it hedged in was white--so white! It was not as you see me now; rather, indeed, the face of the sad Maddalena before ever she saw _lo Spazzolone_, than mine as I have it before you. Look awhile upon my face, and then figure it to yourself as it would be if the lips wanted to tremble, and the eyes to weep, but neither would do so, from sheer courage and strength of heart against an evil cloud. Then you will see la Maddalena as she sat there with eyes fixed on Giacinto, knowing each minute nearer the end; but all the more taking each minute at the most, as one condemned to die delays over his last meal on earth. The gaoler will come, and the prison-guard, and he knows it.

How long, do you ask me, did the pair sit thus, the eyes of each devouring the face of the other; the lips of each replying to the other in a murmured undertone I could not have heard from where I stood on my easel, had it not been that I too, myself, was la Maddalena, and spoke her words and heard his voice? I can only tell you the time seemed too short--though it was none so short a time, neither! But I do not know. I do know this, though--and I wish you too to know it, that you may think no thought of blame of my Maddalena--that never a word passed her lips that any young wife might not fairly and honestly speak to her husband's friend. And scarce a word of his in return that might not have been fairly and honestly spoken back; and for such a slight forgetfulness, as it seemed to me, of what was safe for both--will you not forgive the poor boy? Remember, he was but a boy at best, for all his marvellous skill. And was not his skill marvellous? For look at my lips, and see how they are drawn! Look at my eyes and say, have they moved or not--or will they not move, in an instant? Look at the little bright threads of gold in my cloud of hair! And then say, was he not a wondrous boy?

But a boy for all that! And to my thinking it was _because_ he was a boy, or was only just a man having his manhood forced painfully upon him by sorrow, that he gave the rein for one moment to his tongue. And it was such a little moment, after all! Listen, and I will tell you, if you will not blame him. Promise me!

They had talked, the two of them--or of us, as you choose to have it--over and over of the old days at the Castello, of the old Cappellano who winked at all their misdeeds, and stood between them and the anger of her parents, many a time. How they had frightened him half to death by making believe they had the Venetian plague upon them, by dropping melted wax on their skins with little strawberries in the middle. And how Giacinto undeceived him by eating the strawberries. And what nasty little monkeys they were in those days, to be sure! That made them laugh, and they were quite merry for a while. But then they got sad again when la Maddalena told how Fra Poco--that was what they called _il padre_ Buti the Cappellano, for he was a little man--was the only one of them all that had had a word to say against her marriage, and how he had denounced her father one day as for a crime, and invoked the vengeance of God upon the old Duke's head for using his power to defraud a young virgin of her life, and saying let him have the lands and enjoy them as he would, and rather go out and beg on the highways for alms than sacrifice his own flesh and blood. And how she had overheard all this speech of Fra Poco, and had said to herself that, come what might, she would save the old domain for her father and her brother. And how that very day her brother, who was but young, had beaten her with her own fan, and then run away with it; and little he knew what she was to suffer for him! But in truth _she_ knew little enough herself, for what does a girl-chit know!

And it may have been _her_ fault, too, or mine, for talking thus of her marriage, and none of the boy's own, that my Giacinto should have, as I say, half forgotten himself. For it was but just after she had spoken thus, and they had sat sad and silent for a space, that the big bells of San Felice hard by must needs clang out suddenly in the evening air, and then they knew their parting had come, too soon, and that then they might never meet again. And on that my Giacinto cried out as one whose heaviness of heart is too sore to be borne, "_O sorellaccia mia_! _Mia carina--mio tesoro_! Oh if it might but be all a dream, and we might wake and find it so, at the old Castello in the hills, and hear the croaking of the frogs and the singing of the nightingales when the sun had gone to bed, and be punished for staying out too late to listen to them! Oh, Maddalena _mia_!--the happy days when there were no old Dukes!..." But la Maddalena stopped him in his speech, saying, but as one says words that choke in his throat, "Enough--enough, Signore Giacinto! Remember what we are now--remember what I am!--what you are!" For this, said she, was not how _sua Eccellenza_ the Duke should be spoken of in his own house. And then the great bells, that were so near they went nigh to deafen you, stopped jangling; but the biggest had something to say still, a loud word at a time, and far apart. And what he said was, that now the hour had come, and they should meet no more. And then he paused, and they thought he was silent. But he came back suddenly once again, to cry out "Never!" and was still.

Then comes the old Marta from her corner, rubbing her eyes, for she had been very sound asleep. And her mistress, as one who will not be contradicted, points her on in front, and she passes out, and her black dog. Then says my Maddalena to the painter, "And now, farewell, my friend," and holds out her hand for him to kiss, for is she not the Duchess? And he kisses it without speech, but with a sort of sob, and she gathers up her train, and turns to go. But as she reaches the door, she hears behind her the voice that tries to speak, but cannot.

Then she turns, and her despair is white in her face. And Giacinto's eyes are in his hands--he dares not look up. But she goes back and he hears her, and his name as she speaks it. And then he looks up, and see!--they are locked in each other's arms, as though never to part. And then Maddalena knows, and I know with her, what Love is, and what Life might have been. To think now, at such a moment, of the abhorred caresses that must be endured, later! no, my Maddalena, nothing to be thought of now, nothing said, nothing seen nor heard, just for those few moments that will never come again!

That was so, and therefore neither of these imprudent young people heard the gasp or snarl of anger that came through the little slot in the wall above. Down comes my Lord, unheard; reaches the room, unheard. But not alone! For there are behind him two of his retinue, rough troopers, buff-jerkined and morion-capped with steel, ready for any crime at their master's noble bidding. So silently have they come that the first sound that rouses the young artist and his _sorellaccia_ from their little moment of rapture--for which I for one see little reason to blame them--and brings them back to conscious life and the knowledge of their lot, is the slight ring of the short sword-dagger one of them draws from the scabbard. Their eyes are opened now, and _lo Spazzolone_ sees his executioners; while Maddalena and I see a cold, hard old face to which all pleading for mercy--if there had been a crime--would have been vain; and which would make a crime, inexorably, of what was none, from inborn cruelty and jealous rage. It is all over!

All over! Yes, for any chance of life for Giacinto, for any chance of happiness for la Maddalena for the rest of her term of life. But it may give pleasure to you to know--as it gives me pleasure--however little!--that our young painter, who was strong and active as a wild cat, got at the old man's wicked throat and wellnigh choked him before his assassins could cover the three or four steps between them; and before the one whom Maddalena did not stop--for she flung herself bodily on the man with the sword--could strike with a mace he had. And the blow fell on the olive-tinted neck I had loved so well, and the poor Giacinto fell with a thud and lay, killed or senseless. But the old Devil had felt his grip with a vengeance, and the two men-at-arms looked pleased, and lifted up and bore away the seeming dead Giacinto with admiration. The old man choked awhile, and la Maddalena remained marble-white as a new cut block at Massa Carrara, and as motionless, until her old owner had drunk some wine and done his choking; and then he pinched her tender white wrist savagely--I could show you where he made his mark, but I cannot move--and drew her away, saying, "You come with me, young mistress!" But first he goes and stands opposite the picture, still gripping her wrist. Then says he, "_Non c'e male_"--not bad--and leads her away, dumb. And they leave me alone in the _Stanza delle Quattro Corone_, and I hear the door locked from the outside. And the night comes, and I hear the voices of the frogs in the flat land, and think of the boy and girl that heard them together in that other old Castello I remember so well, but have never seen. And the sun comes again and shines upon some blood upon the floor. It is not Giacinto's--it is Maddalena's, where she cut herself on the man with the sword.

After that I remember no more till two men came to measure for the frame I now have on. They came next day, accompanied by the old Marta, who unlocked the door. But her little dog came with them, too, and no sooner had he run once all round the room, to see for cats or what might be else, than he goes straightway to the blood-mark on the floor. And so shrewd is he to guess what it is--remember, he had gone away with Marta when all the riot came about--that he looks round from one to the other for explanation, and tries hard to speak, as a dog does. Whereat each of the three also looks to the other two, and makes believe the dog is gone mad, to be making little compassionate whines and cries, and then, going to each one in turn to tell of it, touching them with his fore-paws, and then back again to the blood. But none would give him a good word, and as for la Marta, she must needs slap him, to the best of her withered power, on his clean-shaved body; which very like hurt but little, but the poor dog cried out upon the injustice! For he knew well this that he smelt was blood. As I believe, so did the three of them; however, in that household each knew that blood, anywhere, was best not seen by whoever wished to keep his own in his veins. So they took the measure for my frame, and went their way. And presently, when they have gone back, comes the old woman, but no dog, and brings with her burnt wood-ash, such as the fire leaves in the open grate, quite white and dry. And she makes a heap on the blood-stain with it, and water added, and goes away again and locks the door without, as before. After which the sun goes many times across the brick floor, stopping always to look well upon the blood-spot; and the night comes back, and I see a little sharp edge of silver in the sky, beyond the window-grating, and I remember that it was the new moon, in the days of the old Castello; and I say to myself, now I shall see it grow again, as it grew in those old days when Giacinto watched it with me. And it grows to be a half-moon before la Marta comes again and gathers up the ashes, and leaves the floor clean. But then I know they will soon come with the frame. So it happens; and then I am in my frame and am carried away to the great old Castle in the Apennines, and hanged upon the wall in the State banqueting-room; and after a while, I know not how long, the old Duke comes to see, and is pleased to approve. And my Maddalena comes, or rather he leads her, stark dumb, and white as the ashes that dried up the drops of her blood upon the floor.

And then day follows day, and each day my lord leads a thinner and a whiter Maddalena to the head of his board, and each day she answers him less when he speaks to her, which he does with an evil discourtesy when none other is there to check it; and a courtesy, even worse to bear, when they are in the presence of the household, or of noble guests on a visit. He sees, as I see, that her eyes are always fixed on me, as I hang behind his chair, for well he knows she would not be giving him her eyes--not she! So he tells the _primo maggiordomo_, who is subservient, but dropsical, and goes on a stick, to see that I am moved to a place in a bay to the left of his mistress; the old Devil having indeed chosen this place cleverly so that la Maddalena might not easily see me by turning her eyes only; but when she gives a little side turn to her head as well, then she may see me plainly. And, of course, it fell out as the cunning fox had foreseen, and the poor Maddalena's eyes wandered more and more to her picture, and then, as they came back, they would be caught in the cold gaze that came at her from the other table-end, and would fall down to look on the food she was fain to send away untasted. This goes on awhile, and then my Duke speaks out when they are alone. _He_ knows, he says, what all these sly glances mean--all this furtive peeping round the corner--we are hankering after that old lover of ours, are we not? And there are things it is not easy to forget--ho, ho! And he laughs out at the poor girl and her sorrow. But she is outspoken, as one in despair may well be, and says to her old tormentor that if he means by the word "lover" that she has in any way whatever made light of her wifely duty to his lordship, it is false, and he knows it; for the boy was no more to her than any foster-brother might have been, brought up with her from the cradle. Only, let him not suppose, for all that, that she held him, husband as he was, and all his lands and hoarded wealth, and titles from his Holiness the Pope, one tithe as dear as the shoelace or the button on the coat of the boy he had murdered. On that his _Eccellenza_ sniggered and was amused. "I should have thought so much," says he, "from the good round buss you gave him at parting. But who has told you your so precious treasure is dead? None has said so to me, so far. When last I heard of him, he was down below, beneath your feet, '_con rispetto parlando_,'" which is a phrase folk use in Tuscany, not to be too plain-spoken for delicacy about feet and the like.

But now I must tell you something the old miscreant meant when he said this, and pointed down below the great table, which else might be hard to understand. For this great table stood over a trap or well-hole in the floor, and this well-hole went straight down to the dungeons under the Castle, where, if all tales told were true, there was still living a very old man who was first incarcerated forty years since, and had lived on, God knows how! And others as well, though little was known of them by those above in the daylight. But this old man had made some talk, seeing that he was first confined there in the days of the old Duke, our Duke's father, a just man and well-beloved, for a crime committed near by, on the evidence of his wife and his brother. Of whom, having lived some while _par amours_, the brother having died by poison, and the woman having died in sanctity as Mother Superior of the nuns of Monte Druscolo in Umbria, it was known that the latter made confession on her death-bed that her paramour was truly, but unknown to her, the author of the crime for which his brother was condemned. Now, this came to her knowledge by a chance, later. On which she, learning with resentment the concealment of this from herself; and seeing that the victim of this crime had been a young girl under her care and charge, had compassed the death of the real culprit for justice' sake, but had not thought it well to proclaim the truth about her husband's innocence, for she might have found it hard to look him in the face. So he was left where he was, the more that it was thought he might die if brought out into the sun; and, indeed, he was very old, and the Holy Abbess in extreme old age when she made her confession. But he is not in my tale, nor she, and I speak of him only because of the chance by which he made known to me the existence of this same well-hole beneath my lord's dining-table. For it was the telling of this story at the banquet that caused it to be spoken of, and also how in old days its use was to be opened after the meal, that the guests might of their _gentilezza_ throw what they had not cared to eat themselves to the prisoners below. And the Prince Cosmo dei Medici, who was graciously present, was pleased to say it would have been a pretty tale for Boccaccio--or perhaps even the great Lodovico Ariosto might not scorn to try his hand upon it?

But now you may see, plain enough, what the wicked old man meant when he pointed down in that way. He thought to make his young wife believe that her lover--as he would call him; though he knew the word, as he used it, was a lie--was still living, and that, too, underground, where a ray of light might hardly penetrate, at high-noon; and almost surely, too, the victim of starvation and tortures she shuddered to think of; even for witches or Jews--aye, even for heretics! She could see the whole tale in the cruelty of her princely husband's eyes; except, indeed, his victim was really dead, slain by the cruel blow she herself had seen; and seeing it, what wonder was it that she longed only to know that he was dead; for then she could die too? But to slip away and leave Giacinto still alive!--in a damp vault with the old bones of those who had died and been buried there, so that none should know of them; and neither day nor the coming of night, but only one long darkness, and not one word from her, and ignorance of whether she herself still lived or died. Surely, if she were to die and leave him thus in ignorance, her ghost would rise from the grave to be beside him in the darkness of his dungeon; and then how her heart would break to speak with him, and be--as might chance--half-heard, and serve only to add a new terror to his loneliness.

Such things I could guess she felt in her heart. I could not feel them now myself, not being la Maddalena as she was at this moment. I am still, as I was then, the Maddalena as she laughed back, from the daïs she sat on, her delight in response to the pleasure in her young painter's eye; and all she became after is--to me--like a tale she might have heard, or some sad pretty ballad one gives a tear to and forgets. But I can fancy, and maybe you can too, how her whole young soul was wrenched as she flung herself at her old tormentor's feet, and besought him in words that I would myself have wept for gladly--had God not made me as I am--to tell her truly, only to tell her, was he living or dead? She would ask no more than just that much of his clemency. What wrong had she done him?--what had Giacinto?--that he should make her think the sun itself a nightmare; for it would shine on her, but never reach the black pit below them, where, for all she knew, Giacinto might be now, at this very moment? Oh, would he not tell her? It was so little to ask!