Chapter II: Part 2

"Accordingly no one who had been present on the occasion, ever ventured himself a rifle-shot from the last houses without taking his fire-arms with him, and such as had to go into the mountains always begged for two gendarmes as escort. Those were sad times, _amico mio_, and I even lost my pleasure in rhyming, for I knew that he had a special spite against me. Twice there were great expeditions undertaken against the bandits, but not much came of them, for they had their scouts posted everywhere; they knew every crag and cranny of the mountains as intimately as the devil does his own den, and they were merely driven for awhile a little further back into the Sabina.

"However when in the winter old Serone, Domenico's father, died from grief on his son's account, we had an interval of peace. Il Rosso, whom of course the fact reached, may perhaps have felt some remorse, for by nature, as I have said, he was not bad-hearted, only his unfortunate love had hardened and frenzied him. It really seemed as though he meant to keep quiet during his year of mourning, and until midsummer we heard no more of banditti. Whether they were at work further south, or how they kept themselves alive during this holiday, God knows. But when we took it for granted that our deliverance from them was final we reckoned without our host. Our neighbourhood began all of a sudden to be haunted again. My neighbour, Pizzicarlo, who had been one of us that night at the villa, was captured by these villains while riding his donkey to Nerni, dragged off into their haunts, and only released on payment of a considerable ransom. And so with others, whom they sadly maltreated. This could not go on. The gendarmes obtained reinforcements, the razzia into the mountains began anew, but not with much better success. At that time Barbarossa seemed to be everywhere and nowhere, terrible as a basilisk, and slippery as an eel, and far and wide mothers quieted their screaming children by saying: _Zitto_, Barbarossa is coming! But other stories were told too, more to his credit; how he behaved to the poor and defenceless like a knight in a legend, intent mainly on righting the defective justice of the world, though every now and then robbing the egregiously wealthy just to supply his own needs. As I have before said, he was to be pitied, and if he had not run up so heavy a score that the law could not possibly wink at it, perhaps an amnesty would yet have changed him back into a peaceable honest citizen.

"Under these circumstances we lived wretchedly enough, much like shipwrecked sailors on a plank, with a shoal of sharks around. Thirteen months had now passed since the captain's departure, and no one spoke of him, at least no one said any good of him, fearing to be overheard by somebody who might repeat it to Barbarossa. Imagine, therefore, my horror one afternoon. I had just opened a bottle of castor oil, and was thinking of nothing worse, when Signor Gustavo his own very self entered my room as though nothing had happened. '_Corpo della Madonna!_' I cried, 'What wind has blown you here? Are you so weary of life that you determine to make your villa your mausoleum?' Then he told me that he had not been able to endure either the East or West. Nowhere had he found any flavour in the wine, everywhere the women were tedious, and since he had fired at men, the chase of lions and hyenas had become insipid. And always too he had been pursued by the feeling that he had, like a contemptible coward, left the field to his foe, instead of waiting to measure his strength against him. And a short time back, when staying at some German Spa, he read a newspaper account of the Sabine mountains being again ravaged by banditti, and of Papal carabinieri having for months pursued the vagabonds, who seemed as inexterminable as toadstools after rain: why then he had found the monotonous elegant world in which he was living, simply intolerable, and taking an extra post, he had travelled day and night without halting, crossed the Alps, and got here. And now here he was again settled in the vineyard. Maddalena had been actually wild with joy, and he himself felt more at home than he had done for a year and a day. 'And what then was he going to do here?' asked I in horror and amazement. 'Oh!' said he, 'I shall have no lack of occupation; I shall join the patrol of gendarmes that are constantly on the mountains, and so as a volunteer and dilettante face my man. When I come to consider it, it was I who hung this mill-stone about your necks, and so it is only fair that I should try to help you off with it. Good-day, Angelo, pay me a visit in my mausoleum.'

"And away he went: he had grown so strangely restless--quite unlike his former self--that he could not stay long in any one place. What I felt about the whole affair, I leave you to imagine. Meanwhile it had never been my wont to play the coward, and indeed here it behoved me to take the initiative, on account of my old acquaintance with Signor Gustavo. So I boldly visited him in the villa, and found everything just as though he had never left it. Maddalena hobbling about as before, and busy enough now, gathering the grapes with her long arms; the dog, who had grown old and blind of one eye; and in the salon the marks of the bullets still visible, but the holes in Erminia's portrait had been carefully repaired. When I went in, the captain was walking up and down, smoking and reading, but on seeing me he laid aside his book--as usual verses by his English poet--and heartily shook my hand. He had spent the whole night between the rocks and woods, lying out to stalk his game, and only slept a little in the morning. At midnight he was going out again with three stout fellows who did honour to the Pope's uniform. If I liked I might go with him.

"I declined with thanks on this occasion, and did not remain long, for his manner, half fierce and half reckless--as though he were playing a game of chance--gave me an uncomfortable feeling. On my way home, I laid a kind of wager as it were with myself--that if seven days passed without his coming to a bad end, I would print my sonnets to Erminia at my own expense; if otherwise I would leave them in manuscript. And an end did indeed come, but whether it could be called good or bad, God knows, and so to the present day I am in doubt whether I won the wager or not.

"It was he himself who circumstantially related to me the way things fell out, so that you can receive my narrative as though you had it from his own lips. He began to wonder much, he said, that Barbarossa did not confront him, for his return was nothing else than a direct and open challenge. Twice when on his rounds with the gendarmes, he had stumbled upon suspicious-looking characters, but they had not held their ground--dived out of sight like frogs when the stork appears. He fancied they did this with the intention of drawing him on further into the mountains in order to attack him with less risk. So he was glad when an expedition on a large scale into the Sabina was planned, although not for the next night, but the next but one, for the soldiers were determined to get their fill of sleep first, so as to be all the fresher.

"But the captain could not remain so long inactive, and as he had no companions--his usual escort preferring a good night to an aimless ramble--he loaded his double-barrelled gun, called his dog, who seemed disinclined to follow him, and left his vineyard just as the moon rose.

"Fool-hardy as he was, he yet guarded himself against any unnecessary exposure. He wore a dark coat, and dark trowsers which he pushed into his high boots, and also a grey hat, one of those called, you know, _Comecipare_, in which attire, so long as he kept in the shadow of the oaks and chestnuts, it would have been hard even in the day-time to distinguish him from the trunk of a tree.

"Now it so happened that the night was still and beautiful, and he told me he had never so much enjoyed the gloomy forest, and had never had Erminia's form and face so vividly present and near to him as they then seemed. The dog silently and wearily crept on after him, and he himself was lost in dreams, having never hoped that on this occasion he should meet with his enemy, but being led on and on merely for the sake of exercise, and by the exquisite coolness of the night.

"He had he thought wandered thus--creeping and climbing alternately--for more than an hour, when the dog suddenly stood still and growled. Instantly the captain's hand was on his gun, but before he could look round, two shots were fired close to him, and he felt that he had received a wound in the leg. At the same moment he saw a fellow stand out from behind a great ilex and level a pistol, but he was beforehand with him, and took such good aim that he shot off the lock of the pistol and two fingers of the hand that held it; whereupon the villain took flight, and ran along the steep path with such speed that neither the dog--who to be sure was no longer so agile as he had been--nor the second barrel of the English gun reached him. The captain had paid dear for his night walk. The wound in his leg bled so much that the bandage he improvised with pocket and neck-handkerchief was of little use. So having re-loaded both barrels, he set out homewards, but contrived to lose his way, the moonlight confusing him, and it was only after much fruitless wandering about that he saw the roof of his villa shining above the vineyards, and he was then so exhausted with loss of blood and fatigue, that he sank down on a stone, and was obliged to rest awhile before he could rise and drag himself over the last hundred yards.

"But one there was past rising, and that was the dog. The second shot had wounded him more seriously than the first his master, and having limped after him thus far without a whine of complaint, his strength was spent, and he moaned away his faithful life. The captain told me he felt his blood run cold when he saw his old ally feebly wag his tail and then stretch out his four legs stiffly. He himself was hardly able to stand, yet he could not find it in his heart to leave his dead comrade there in the open plain where vultures would soon have found him out next morning. He wished to give him the honourable burial he had so well earned, in the vineyard at home, and so he took him up, supporting the weight with the stock of the gun--that gun itself being heavy enough for him in his present condition--and with tottering steps he reached the vineyard, and found the iron gate as usual locked from within. He opened it by a trick known only to him and Maddalena. But he was surprised that the sound of his steps should not have roused the wakeful creature: thought she had perhaps been drinking some strong wine which he had just had from the village, and as he passed the door of her room did not care to disturb her. The dog he laid down in the kitchen, and covered with an old straw mat, then he tottered up the steps that led to the upper room, feeling as if he should hardly live to reach his couch, and re-bandage his burning wound.

"But when he opened the door of the salon, he stood motionless on the threshold, turned to stone by what he saw. The moon was shining full upon the balcony and through the windows, and lit up the stand of fire-arms in the corner. In the middle of the room, his back to the light, erect and stiff as a marble pillar, arms crossed, and contemplating the picture of Erminia, stood Domenico Serone, Il Rosso. He no longer deserved this nick-name, however, for he had cut off his beard, and his long wild hair looked ashy grey against the old yellow straw hat that so shadowed his face nothing was to be seen but the white of his eyes. But Signor Gustavo knew him at a glance.

"They looked full at each other for a moment, those two deadly foes, Domenico, however, without changing his position, while the captain leant upon his gun, and called up his last remnant of strength to play the man, spite of his wound.

"'You are come at last then,' said Il Rosso, and his voice trembled. 'I have waited for you here, since I did not find you at home. You know that I have sworn to reckon with you, and the time is fully come. Tomorrow night you are going to make a great sally and surprise my band. Bravo! Set to! Only what you and I have to settle could be better done, I thought, by ourselves. Let your gun alone,' for the captain was about to stand on his guard. 'If I had chosen, you would have drawn your last breath long before this. Do you suppose I did not hear you outside when you were opening the iron gate, and had I wished for your blood I had but to shed it then and there. I own I was very near doing so. But I was not able. _She_ would not suffer it,' and he hurriedly pointed to the picture. 'If you have still the heart to love your life you may thank _her_ for it.'

"'Domenico,' said the captain, 'let there be an end to this. You are in my house, and I cannot tolerate your playing the master here, and acting as if I was at your mercy. I will have no gift from him who plotted to deprive me of the dearest thing I had on earth. You had no right to the girl, none--that she herself assured me. And as nevertheless you murdered her, and are now seeking after my life, why you are nothing better than a wild beast, and whoever renders you harmless does a good work. It is pure mercy on my part not to avail myself of my advantage, and shoot you down before you can lift your gun from the floor. But I feel sorry for you. I can understand how one might lose one's reason for that girl's sake, and not recover it after her death. Therefore I offer you honourable terms. Take up your gun. When I have counted three--one or both of us will have ceased to live.'

"Domenico never stirred. 'Do as you will,' he said, 'I shall not fire. If I were to kill you, what better should I be? I am a miserable man. I have murdered the fairest woman in the world, like a wild beast that I was; you do well to call me one. I thought I should be happier if I got you too out of the world. I was a fool. If you were to meet her again up yonder, rage and jealousy at not being able to part you any more, would devour my heart till I went down to hell damned beyond redemption. No, make an end of me as you said. See, I stand quite still. This gun,' he pushed it away from him with his foot, 'I will not touch. Fire, captain, and with my last breath I will forgive you. For by God's holy blood the life I have led was purgatory, and now it would be hell itself since I have seen _her_ again, and _you_ whom she loved.' While so speaking, his strength seemed to fail him, he fell on his knees before the picture, and hid his face in his hands, his whole body, as it were, convulsed.

"At last the conflict ended. He sobbed aloud, wailed and writhed like one mortally wounded, then trying to rise he groaned out, 'My God! My God! She is dead! Lord have pity upon her murderer!' and down he fell again as in a swoon and pressed his sobbing lips against the cold flags, and seemed to have utterly forgotten that any one stood by and saw it all.

"And meanwhile there was the picture on the wall standing silent and stately, and in its bloom of bliss and youth looking down upon the poor sinner.

"'Domenico,' said the captain, gently drawing near, binding over him, and laying a hand on his shoulder, 'neither of us can call her back, and what we have to do is to get through our remnant of life. If you will take my advice you will leave this country and cross the seas. There is war going on in Africa, and the French need brave men. Your crime--I forgive it, and there is One who weighs with other scales than we do, who sees your heart and knows how you repent and suffer. If I can help you in any way to get off, and fling your past behind you, tell me. You shall find a brother in me.'

"Il Rosso had meanwhile risen, and was now standing with face averted from the picture, gazing hopelessly into the night. At these last words of his rival he vehemently shook his head. 'It is over,' he replied. 'You and I are quits. The rest is my affair. You and I shall never meet again, that I swear to you by her shadow. But leave this house in which I can no longer protect you. With the others it is an affair of your money and your fire-arms, they hanker after them. If they hear that it was in my power to give you up to them, and that I have not done so, they will never forgive me, and there are some of them who still carry about the tokens of that first tussle we had. Take care of yourself, and good night to you. Yon have seen the last of me.'

"He bent down, picked up his gun, and with one last look at the picture that in serene beauty shone out in the moonlight, glided from the room.

"The captain heard him go slowly down the stairs, step by step, and when outside, open the iron gate and lock it again. Then the night was once more still as death. He required some time to collect himself. He felt, he said, as though he had been thrown down from a high tower and had reached the ground without broken limbs indeed, but unable to move from sheer giddiness. For awhile he lay half fainting on his couch, but the streak of blood on the moonlit floor reminded him of his wound. He roused himself to call Maddalena to bring him water and help him with his bandage. But no one answered, call as he would. So at last he tottered down the stairs and entered her room. There in a corner he saw the poor creature lying huddled up, bound hand and foot, and with a gag in her mouth. When he had unloosed her she fell half dead at his feet, and only recovered when he had sprinkled her well with water, and poured a little wine down her throat, and then crying and laughing, she began to kiss his hands and his coat. But there was no getting a single rational word from her; her fright when Il Rosso surprised her, and then her agony when she heard her master return and go up the steps at the top of which his enemy was awaiting him--these upset her poor mind completely, and during the remainder of her life, the years followed each other without her being conscious of any alternation except of heat and cold, hunger and repletion.

"I took the captain to my house, and nursed him for a week until his wound had pretty well healed. The sortie against the banditti had to take place of course without him, but nothing more decisive was effected than the procuring us peace for about a couple of years. The only prisoner taken was a small boy whose father was one of the bandits, and who himself had sometimes joined them. Nothing could be made of him, so he was let go again. However one fact he did have to tell us: on the morning after the night in which Il Rosso had that reckoning with his enemy, a quarrel arose, and some of the party accused Domenico of being a traitor. At last knives were drawn, and before the cooler-headed could interfere, Domenico lay dead on the bare rock, the knife in his breast, almost on the very spot where he had met Erminia.

"As for Signor Gustavo he went to Naples, and thence sailed to Greece. Later I heard from an artist that he had been drowned there, swimming in the open sea. Possibly the wound in the leg was imperfectly healed, or it may have left some weakness behind it, for once he could, as he told me, have swum a match against that great Lord himself. But as to what became of the picture of Erminia, which the artist well remembered to have seen, I could learn nothing. I would gladly have given half my substance if only I could have got possession of it.

"And now, _amico mio_, you know the history of Barbarossa and Erminia."

END OF BARBAROSSA.

THE
EMBROIDERESS OF TREVISO.

THE
EMBROIDERESS OF TREVISO.

It was our third day of rain, and the wood and garden walks around the country house we were staying at, were turned into water-courses. On the first and second day, the party of guests had made it a point of honour to be as inexhaustible in good humour as the sky in clouds, and within the large five-windowed saloon, with the oleanders blooming before it, jests rained, laughter rippled, and witty repartees flashed uninterruptedly as the drops pattered on the terrace outside. On this third day, however, even the most genial in our ark became dimly conscious that the deluge might prove more persistent than their good spirits. True no one ventured to break the vow of enduring this visitation in common,--made the day before yesterday,--by slinking off to his room and sulking there on his own resources. But general conversation, games, spontaneous play of intelligence and wit, had somewhat failed since the professor who passed for a great meteorologist, had confessed that instead of the change to fair which he had promised, his glass actually showed a fresh fall of the mercury. He had procured a second barometer, and was now seriously investigating the causes of this discrepancy between two prophets. His wife meanwhile was silently painting in body colours on grey paper her sixth water-lily; at a second table, Frau Helena was setting up her men for a seventh trial of skill at chess, while Frau Anna sat in a corner beside her baby's cradle, fanning away the flies from it, while trying to guess the conundrums and charades in the old almanac open on her knee. The young doctor with whom Frau Helena was playing chess, saw in this interval of silence an opening for doing justice to a rustic anecdote, but suddenly broke off, remembering that he had told it the day before. The husband of Frau Anna, mindful of the elder Shandy's sagacious dictum, that all manner of mental distresses and perplexities are best endured when the body is in a horizontal position, had stretched himself out full length on an old leather sofa, and blew the smoke of his damped cigar up in slow blue circles to the ceiling.

In the midst of these more or less successful efforts to adapt oneself to one's fate, the off-hand cheery way in which a middle-aged man with arms locked behind, continued slowly pacing up and down the room, naturally arrested attention. Sometimes he would stand for an instant beside the chess-table, or look over the shoulder of the painter, or gently wave his hand in passing over the little brow of the sleeping child, but all this he seemed to do unconsciously, as if absorbed in some train of thought quite unconnected with the rainy Present, and fixed either on a sunny Past, or sunny Future.

"What can you be about, dear Erminus?" enquired Frau Eugenie, who had just returned from a housewifely excursion into the kitchen and store-closet. "Here we all are pulling faces in keeping with this horrible wet, and on yours there is actual fine weather, nay even a kind of sunshine, as though you had secretly got betrothed, or had written the last page of a book, or felt a toothache of four-and-twenty hours subsiding. Come now, confess at once what this means, or we shall suspect that it is nothing but most unholy exultation over us who do not--like you--come to the country for the exact purpose of shutting ourselves up in a room with books."

"I can satisfy you on that point, my good friend," answered, with a laugh, the one thus addressed. "This time there is no malice in the case, although I am enjoying myself; and your other hypotheses are, thank God, equally groundless, nay, one of them actually impossible; since I could hardly show a cheerful face if, after so long a freedom, I had pledged myself to submit once more to petticoat government. No, that which keeps up my equanimity, spite of our condition, is neither more nor less than a pretty story on which I accidentally lighted yesterday as I was looking over my old papers, and which now haunts me in the same way a favourite melody will sometimes dwell upon the ear, and constantly repeat itself."

"A story and a pretty one too!" said the artist. "Then you must instantly let us have it as a matter of course. Have we not agreed to a community of goods of all kinds so long as the rain lasts, and would you keep a pretty story all to yourself? That would be a pretty story indeed!"

"Perhaps, however, it might not please you," replied Erminus, standing still beside her and twisting the long stalk of a water-lily into a loop. "I at least care so little for many stories that have a great run now-a-days, that I came long ago to the conclusion that mine was an old-fashioned taste, and that I did not advance with the age. But in my character of historian, I can console myself for this. We are not entirely dependent upon the latest novelty. And perhaps the sources I apply to for _history_, have spoiled my relish for stories as they are now-a-days written and admired. The difference between the wood-cut style of an old city-chronicle, and the photographic, stereoscopic, stippled minuteness and finish of a modern novel, is altogether too wide. In the one, all is raw material, blocks seldom sufficiently hewn, joints gaping, subjects so shaken together that only an expert or genuine amateur can pick out what answers his purpose. In our artificial modern days on the contrary, all is so smooth and polished, so conscious and premeditated, so reduced to mere form and style, that the subject often utterly vanishes, the _what_ is forgotten in the _how_, and owing to the very psychological finesse of the narrator we come to be almost indifferent to the human beings on whom he practises. I for my part still occupy so obsolete a stand-point, that in every story the chief interest for me lies in the story itself. One man may tell it better than another, but for that I hardly care. If an incident that has really happened or been evoked by imagination makes an impression on me in the rough and incomplete version of an old chronicle, I would rather not have it tricked out with any gewgaws of style, but trust to my own fancy to supply omissions. But you moderns," and here he threw a sarcastic glance at the chess-player and the smoker, "you are never satisfied till you have bestowed all conceivable ornamentation and decoration on any and every story whatsoever, even though it should be most fair when naked as God made it."

"Each age has its own style of attire, and _nolens volens_, we have to conform to fashion," said the recumbent figure on the sofa without disturbing itself further.

"And each age acts and relates its own stories," interpolated the chess-player. "So long as the right of the strongest prevailed, stories were decidedly material in their interest, from Achilles down to the noble knight of La Mancha. Since life has become more spiritual, and its incidents more internal, they can no longer be outwardly expressed by a few coarse strokes, as was the case with a middle-aged dagger-and-sword-romance. Mere outline with some light and shade no longer suffices; we want the whole range of colour, the most delicate gradations of tint, and all the charms of chiaroscuro, and as we ourselves have become in a great measure men of sentiment, the sentiment an author manifests either for or against his characters is no longer indifferent to us."

"Oh I know," returned Erminus, "little flesh, much soul, that is the motto of the present day. But I happen to be just a man of the unsentimental middle ages, though not in the romantic sense, and therefore I had better keep my story to myself, for its structure is by no means adapted to the attire of the present day, and while the poets now present might turn up their nose at its very decidedly old-fashioned form, I should fear to shock the ladies by its incidents, though I for my part consider it perfectly moral."

"Since you yourself are quite sufficiently moral for us," said Frau Eugenie, "this assurance will induce us to listen to your story without a scruple."

"Especially since there is no un-confirmed young lady present," added Frau Helena.

"With the exception of the little innocent here in the cradle," observed Frau Anna, "but she apparently intends to shut her eyes to it."

"As to that point then I may feel safe in venturing," said Erminus. "But now a sudden fear comes over me that this favourite of mine that pleased me so much in private, may show itself awkward and unattractive if I introduce it into such a fastidious circle. And my old chronicler from whom I copied these few unpretending pages merely for my own pleasure, was, I own, no poet like Boccacio and his companions, though in this story he came pretty near them."

"Do not let us waste more time on the preface," said the professor. "The worst that can happen to your story, is a poet's looking on it as merely raw material, and, if it rains for another fortnight, making a tragedy or a comedy out of it which may remain as a blot on the stage."

"So be it, then!" sighed Erminus, thus fairly driven into a corner, and off he went to fetch his tale.

Before long he returned, a portfolio under his arm, from which he drew a manuscript volume.

"The manuscript is twenty years old," he said, taking his seat in the window, and spreading it out on his knee. "I chanced at that time to be gathering materials for a history of the Lombard towns, and had come to Treviso, where I hoped to find both in the Civic Records and in the cloister-library treasures, which, alas! did not fall to my share. It was only at the Dominicans at San Niccolo that I stumbled on a remarkable chronicle, dating about the end of the 14th century, which I would gladly have bought from the good fathers. But all that I could attain to, was leave to copy out in their cool refectory, under the eyes of a brother Antonio, whatever I thought useful for my purpose. These sheets bear traces of the fragrant ruby-coloured cloister wine with which I now and then washed down the dust of the chronicle, till after many and many dry records, I lit upon the history of the fair Giovanna, which like a spring of water in an arid steppe, suddenly refreshed me more than any wine could do.

"At this time," (the chronicle refers to the first quarter of the fourteenth century) "a bitter feud existed between the town of Treviso and the neighbouring one of Vicenza, originating apparently in trivial public matters, but fed by secret jealousy, even as the unseen wind fans a feeble spark into flame. The inhabitants of Vicenza called the Venetians to their aid, and were thus enabled by a rapid man[oe]uvre to take possession, first of the castle of San Salvatore di Collatto, and next to conquer the very town of Treviso itself, and it was only after inflicting on it the utmost humiliation, and imposing a considerable tribute, that they consented to withdraw, encumbered with booty and hostages. As soon as these occurrences transpired--and the rumour spread as far as Milan--no one was more enraged than a noble youth belonging to our heavily-visited city, one Attilio Buonfigli by name, (son of the most distinguished of Treviso's citizens, and nephew to the Gonfaloniere Marco Buonfigli,) who had from early childhood been brought up as a page in the house of the noble Matteo Visconti, had at this time reached the age of twenty-five, and was thoroughly instructed and practised in all knightly arts. As soon as he learnt the misfortune that had befallen his beloved native town, he took an oath never to sleep except in his coat of mail, until he had revenged the insult; and accordingly he obtained leave of absence from his lord, and rode with some friends of his, all clad in armour, out of the gates of Milan. And since, young as he was, he had already made himself a proud name in the feuds of the Visconti, no sooner was his purpose known than adventurous youths from all sides flocked to swear fealty to him as to their Condottiere, against whatever foe he might choose to lead them.

"As soon, therefore, as he had secured a sufficiently large body of men to encounter the Venetians unaided, he sent secret messages to Treviso, to inform his father and uncle of his plans, and of the day when he purposed entering the gates of Vicenza to demand compensation for the wrongs endured. They were to hold themselves in readiness to support him, and with the help of God to place their feet on the necks of their enemies.

"And thus indeed it came to pass, and was all so judiciously and zealously carried out, that the men of Treviso succeeded in surprising the retreating troops on their homeward way to Venice and depriving them of their booty and hostages; while young Attilio, on the same day in a hot encounter on the small river Bacchiloni, proved himself victorious over the men of Vicenza. There was one thing only to trouble the joy of our good city. The youthful victor had received a deep wound in the throat from the sword of a Vicentine, and for some days his life hung on a slender thread. His own father, as well as his noble mother, nursed him in the conquered town's chief mansion, which belonged to its most leading citizen, Signor Tullio Scarpa, whose eldest son, named Lorenzaccio, had always been one of the bitterest foes of Treviso, so much so indeed, that while the wounded hero remained an inmate of the paternal abode, he never crossed its threshold. This only led to Attilio--although a foe to her city--being regarded with greater tenderness by the young Emilia, the only sister of Lorenzaccio; so that his father and mother became aware of her partiality, and began to found thereon a hope that through the union of the two leading families of both towns, the long-existing bad blood and mutual jealousy might be transformed into friendship and good will. And while his wound was healing, in a confidential hour Attilio was induced by his dear mother to entertain the idea, seeing that he had nothing to urge against it, as his own heart was perfectly free, and the young Vicentine a comely maiden. In secret, however, he felt a repugnance to take to wife a daughter of that city: even after their betrothal he held himself aloof from the girl, and would gladly have broken off altogether, but that he feared to sow the germs of fresh hate amidst the up-springing crop of peace. In this manner six or seven weeks passed by, and the leech declared that the wounded man would no longer be running any risk by mounting his horse and bearing shield and lance, even though he had better for a further season avoid the pressure of his steel haubergeon. Accordingly it was decided that he should set out for Treviso, whither, in the course of a few weeks, the bride with her parents was to follow, the rescued city being resolved to celebrate the marriage of their noble son and deliverer with all possible splendour. Meanwhile the good citizens had not lost the time spent by him on a sick bed, for they had prepared for their loved young hero, whose name was on every lip, an entry more triumphal than had ever yet been accorded to any prince.

"Amidst other offerings which the city meant to bestow upon him was a banner, which his own uncle was to make over to him in the name of the whole Council; a perfect marvel both as to material and skilful work. The pole of ten feet was of polished oak, ornamented by bosses of silver, the handle was set with rubies, and the point was gilt, so that when the sun shone it was dazzling to look upon. From this pole hung a heavy pennon of silver brocade, on which was represented a golden griffin--the crest of the Buonfigli crowned with the mural crown of Treviso--strangling a red serpent, whose coils were so natural, and covered with such fine gold scales, that you seemed to see a living snake writhing before your eyes. Above this was a Latin inscription in flaming letters, which ran 'Fear not, for I will deliver thee.'

"This wondrous achievement of a skilful needle had, during the six weeks that Attilio was laid low by his wound, proceeded from the hands of one maiden only, whose talent for executing such work in gold, silver, and silken thread, was renowned far and near. This maiden was named Gianna--that is, Giovanna--the Blonde, for her hair was exactly like bright spun gold, so that she had actually worked a church banner for the Blessed Virgin, in the chapel of San Sebastiano, with nothing but her own tresses. She had cut them off in her excessive grief when her betrothed, who was, called Sebastian, a brave and handsome youth of the district, had died of small-pox a few weeks before their marriage. At that time she was eighteen years old, and the object of so many secret wishes and so much open wooing, that she had often to hear people prophecy that before her hair had grown again her bridegroom would have a successor--agreeably to the proverb, Long hair, short care. To speeches like these she would answer neither yea or nay, but calmly look down upon her work like a being whose ear and mind were closed against the idle sayings of this world. And in point of fact she falsified all these prophecies, for she continued to live as if by her votive offering of her hair to the Madonna she had vowed herself to perpetual maidenhood, and never meant that any man should uncoil the plaits which she again wound round her head, or twine their soft gold about his fingers. Many thought that she would go into a convent, because she preferred working church vestments and altar cloths, and kept aloof from all public amusements. But she even contradicted this opinion, and seemed to grow more cheerful as time went on, though still more ready to listen than to speak; and after the early death of her parents she removed to a small house in a turret on the city walls, which had a wide view over the peaceful meadows that are watered by the streams Piavesella and Rottiniga. There with an old deaf woman, her nurse, she lived above comment or censure, during a space of ten years, and no one entered her home except a neighbour now and then, or one of the noble ladies of the city who came to order some piece of work. Often, too, one of the spiritual fathers of the town might be seen to raise the knocker of her door. On these occasions she would call her nurse into the chamber while she received her visitors, and thus she contrived to keep malice at bay. Although it was only on Saints' Days that she allowed her needle to rest, and although she went but little out of doors, she kept her beauty so unimpaired, that if she ever took a Sunday walk in the cool of the evening on the walls, or in the neighbouring woods, accompanied by her old servant, everyone who saw her large black eyes look out calmly from between their fair lashes stood as it were transfixed, to gaze after her; and even strangers and distinguished noblemen who did not know her nature, and would not credit the reports concerning her, made her many overtures, hoping to lead her to renounce her single state. But she gave the same answer to each and all of them, namely, that the life she led was dear and familiar to her, and that she had no intention of changing it for any other.

"Thus she had already attained her thirty-second year when the feud between the two neighbouring towns broke out, and as she was a loyal daughter of Treviso, she so bitterly felt all the misery and humiliation that had befallen it, that its deliverance by the valiant arm of a young fellow-citizen on whom her eyes had never rested, impressed her as a supernatural portent, and the deliverer himself as an angel with a flaming sword. Never had she more gladly undertaken a task, or executed it with more skill and industry, than she did this banner which the city meant to offer its triumphant son on his entry; and when the festal day came, and everybody in Treviso who was not on a sick-bed, sought themselves out a spot on market-place or street, at gate or window, nay even on the very house-tops, from whence to shower down flowers and congratulations on Attilio Buonfigli, even the fair Gianna could no longer endure her narrow dwelling, though indeed she might from the turret window have seen the procession from Vicenza well enough. She procured herself a seat on a gaily decorated tribune near the town hall, that she might see the hero quite closely, and she dressed herself in her best attire, a bodice of silver tissue trimmed with blue velvet, and a skirt of fine light blue woollen material, her hair being according to the fashion of the time, richly intertwined with ribands, so that even an hour before the entry, there was a rush in the streets, and many exclamations of amazement when she, thus arrayed, was seen to take her place by the side of a female friend. But before long the eyes of the crowd were diverted from her, and fixed impatiently on the street up which the hero was to ride. Part of the town council had ridden at least a mile beyond the gates to meet and honourably welcome him and his parents. His uncle, the Gonfaloniere, remained standing with the rest on the steps of the town hall, which was covered with costly red cloth, from whence a broad stripe of the same led across the market-place to the door of the cathedral, a manner of preparing the way hitherto reserved for consecrated and anointed personages only.

"But who is able to describe the truly marvellous and unutterably solemn impression made on all, when at length Attilio, in advance of his escort, came riding up the street on his crimson-caparisoned bay charger, he himself in plain attire, a steel coat of mail thrown over a tabard; for the rest unarmed, with the exception of the sword that hung from his girdle, his head adorned merely by its dark brown curls. His chin and cheeks were shaded by a light beard, through which on the left side the broad red scar of his wound was visible. And although his management of his fiery charger proved his strength, a slight pallor still lingered on his cheeks, over which every now and then a modest blush flitted when he looked around him and saw on all sides white heads bend reverently before his triumphal youth, or mothers hold up their children the better to see the deliverer of their native city. But what crowned the whole was the shower of flowers falling so thickly from window and roof upon the hero, that his form was at times actually lost to view beneath a many-coloured veil; and his good horse, accustomed in battle to quite different missiles, pricked his ears, shook his mane, and mingled his shrill neighing with the shouts of triumph and the clamour of bells.

"As soon as the whole procession had gathered in front of the town hall, Attilio leapt from the saddle and hastened up the steps to kneel before his noble uncle, to receive from him the banner, and to kiss the hand that bestowed so high an honour. But as he rose from his knees and prepared to descend the steps and tread the way to the cathedral, he started as though from some sudden pain of body or mind, and required three minutes at least to regain consciousness of where he was, and of the many thousand eyes riveted upon him. The fact was he had seen on the tribune to his right, a face that, like a vision of paradise, seemed to ravish him away from earth; and when the large black eyes looked fixedly at him from under their blonde lashes with an indescribable expression, half sweet, half melancholy, the blood suddenly rushed to his heart, he grew pale as though an arrow had smitten him in the breast, and had he not been holding the banner, against the pole of which he was able to lean, he must a second time--but this time involuntarily--have fallen upon his knees. Those who stood nearest to him and noticed his faintness, attributed it to his wound, and to the fatigue of so long a ride upon a hot day, no one divining the real cause; and at last Attilio collected himself, and forcing his eyes away from the enchanting face before him, trod the path to the cathedral without once turning round his head to where the women sat.

"All the people now streamed after him, and the tribunes emptied themselves rapidly. The last who rose--and then only at the suggestion of her neighbour--was Gianna the Blonde, who as if lapped in dreams, or like one who gazes after the track of a falling star in the sky, followed the young man with her eyes, till the deep shadow of the cathedral portal swallowed up his lofty form. Her friend prepared to follow the rest and be present at the high mass, but Gianna pleaded indisposition, said she had sat too long in the sun, and with bent head took her solitary way to her own home. One of the flowers with which the streets were strewn, she picked up to carry back as a memorial; it was a red carnation trodden down by a horse's hoof. This flower she placed in a glass of water, and secretly settled with herself what it should be held to betoken if it were to revive.

"Her old nurse who had been gazing at the procession through one of the port-holes of the city-gates, overflowed with praises and admiration of Attilio, of the modest way in which he had looked about him, he, an immortal hero at such an early age! dwelling on all the honour and fame he was sure to win in the future, making the name of his native town great amongst all the cities of Italy, perhaps indeed greater than even Florence or Rome! Then she fell to speaking of his betrothed, whom all ladies must needs envy, and to wondering whether she was worthy of him, and not by chance like her brother Signor Lorenzaccio, who stood in the worst repute with the inhabitants of Treviso, the women more especially. To all these remarks the fair Gianna replied nothing, or at least very little, and much to the old woman's surprise, sat herself down to her embroidery frame as though it were a common working-day, only raising her eyes from time to time to look at the flower in the glass. When afternoon came, and with it the rest of the amusements, racing, dancing, and beautiful fireworks, she still remained quietly seated, while the servant went out to enjoy the general hilarity. It was indeed only late in the evening that she returned, tired to death and covered with dust, but still with plenty to tell, and full of tender pity for her mistress, who had lost so much by her sad headache. The fair Gianna listened with a calm countenance, not joyous indeed, yet not sad, as though she had no part in what was going on. Meanwhile she had added a large piece to the stole she was working, and apparently had never moved from her chair. But the carnation in the glass was now in full bloom.

"By this time night had come, and after the women had got through their silent supper, old Catalina, whose sexagenarian limbs had toiled hard during the day, betook herself to her bed in the kitchen. Her mistress remained up, looking at the rising of the moon above the broad plain, and the flow of the Rottiniga; and now instead of the festal sounds from the city, which had gradually died down, a nightingale who had her nest under the window, began to sing so sweet and amorous a strain, that tears came to the eyes of the solitary maiden as she listened. She felt her heart so heavy and oppressed that she rose, put out her light, and threw a dark cloak over her shoulders. Then she went down the steep and narrow stair, opened the house-door, and stepped into the empty street just to take a few steps in the cool night air, and quiet her beating pulses. But lost in her own thoughts as she was, she forgot to draw her hood about her head, so that although the moon did not shine into the street, she was easily to be recognized by any passer-by. And now, through a chance which, like all else that is earthly, obeyed a higher will, she encountered the very one her thoughts--like moths about a candle--had been fluttering round the whole day through.