Chapter XV: Romantic Love

"But," said Michel to himself, "are the patricians all alike in this island? Does the age of gold still flourish in Catania, and do the servants alone retain the pride of prejudice?"

The majordomo had just passed and saluted him with a depressed and crestfallen air. Doubtless he had been reprimanded, or expected to be.

Michel was passing through the dressing-room, resolved to go home, when he saw Pier-Angelo holding the wadded great-coat of an old noble in a light wig, who was feeling about for the arm-holes, shaking as with palsy. Michel blushed at that sight, and quickened his pace. In his opinion, his father was much too good-natured, and the man who allowed himself to be waited upon thus gave an explicit contradiction to the conjectures in which he had just been indulging concerning the noble-hearted generosity of the great.

But he did not escape the humiliation he shunned. "Ah!" cried Pier-Angelo, "there he is, monsignor! Look, you were asking me if he was a handsome boy; look at him!"

"Ah! upon my word, the rascal is well turned, and no mistake!" said the old noble, standing in front of Michel, and eying him from head to foot, as he wrapped his coat about him. "I am much pleased with your decorative work, my boy; I noticed it particularly. I was just telling your father, whom I have known a long while, that you will deserve to succeed him some day in his trade; and if you don't go about town too much, you'll never land in the gutter. At all events, if you ever do get there, it will be your own fault. Call my carriage for me. Be quick; there is quite a cool wind to-night, and it's a bad thing when one has just been in such a suffocating crowd."

"A thousand pardons, your excellency," rejoined Michel, frantic with rage. "I am afraid of the wind myself."

"What does he say?" the old man asked Pier-Angelo.

"He says that your excellency's carriage is at the door," replied Pier, struggling hard to keep from roaring with laughter.

"Very good; I will hire him by the day, with you, when I have work for you."

"Oh! father!" cried Michel, as soon as the old nobleman had gone, "how can you laugh? That impertinent man treats you like a footman, and you accept such treatment with a smile!"

"It makes you angry," said Pier, "but why? I am laughing at your anger and not at the goodman's lack of ceremony. Didn't I promise to help the people of the house in every way? I happen to be here; he asks me for his great-coat; he is old, infirm, foolish--three reasons why I should take pity on him. And why should I despise him, pray?"

"Because he despises you!"

"According to your ideas, but not according to his conception of the things of this world. He is an old devotee, formerly a great rake. In the old days he seduced the daughters of the common people; to-day he bestows alms on the poor mothers. God will forgive him for his early sins, beyond any doubt. Why should I be more straitlaced than the good Lord! I tell you that the differences which social customs create among men are neither so important nor so real as you think, my child. They are all disappearing little by little, and if those who are inordinately sensitive would be a little less stiff, all those barriers would soon be nothing but empty words. For my part I laugh at those who consider themselves so much better than I am, and I never lose my temper. It is not in any man's power to humiliate me, so long as I am at peace with my conscience."

"Do you know, father, that you are invited to dine with the Marquis della Serra on the day after to-morrow?"

"Yes, that is understood," replied Pier-Angelo, coolly. "I accepted this invitation because he is not tiresome like most of the great nobles. Ah! what a price some of them would have to pay me to induce me to pass a couple of hours with them! But the marquis is a man of intellect. Do you mean to go there with me? Don't accept unless you choose, Michel; do you understand? You must not stand on ceremony with any one if you wish to retain your openness of heart."

There was evidently a wide difference between Pier-Angelo's idea of the honor conferred upon him by such an invitation and the idea that Michel had conjured up of his triumphal entrance into society. Intoxicated at first by what had seemed to him to be love on the part of the princess; then bewildered by the amiability of the marquis, which tended to diminish the force of the portent, but did not explain it; and, lastly, irritated by the insolence of the man in the great-coat, he did not know which way to turn. His theories concerning the victories of talent fell to the ground before the heedless simplicity of his father, who accepted everything--homage and disdain--with placid gratitude or satirical amusement.

At the doors of the palace Michel met Magnani, who was also going away. But, after walking a few steps, the two young men, revived by the morning air, determined, instead of going to bed, to skirt the hill and watch the rising of the sun, which was just beginning to whiten the sides of Ætna. They paused on a small hill, about the half height of Ætna itself, and seated themselves on a picturesque spot, having at their right the Villa Palmarosa, still gleaming with light and echoing with the strains of the orchestra; on their left the towering cone of the volcano, with the vast slopes forming an amphitheatre of verdure, rocks and snow to the summit. It was a strange and superb spectacle. Everything was ill-defined in that boundless expanse, and the _piedimonta_ could hardly be distinguished from the upper belt, called _nemorosa_ or _silvosa_. But while the dawn, reflected in the sea, suffused the lower portion of the picture with a pale, vague light, the bold, jagged edges and immaculate snow of the peak were sharply outlined against the transparent atmosphere of the night, which was still a deep blue and studded with stars about the giant's head.

The sublime tranquillity, the imposing serenity of the towering peaks, presented a marked contrast to the commotion all about the palace. The music, the shouts of the servants, the rumbling of the carriages, seemed, in the presence of placid, silent Ætna, a satirical epitome of human life as compared with the mysterious abyss of eternity. As the light grew stronger the peaks became less distinct, and the gorgeous streamer of reddish smoke that had cut the deep blue sky became blue itself, and wound upward like an azure serpent against an opal background.

Then the picture changed, and the contrast was reversed. The commotion and noise rapidly subsided about the palace, and the horrors of the volcano became visible; the formidable inequalities of its surface, its yawning chasms, and all the marks of desolation it had left upon the soil from its crater to its base, even beyond the point from which Michel and Magnani were gazing at it, even to the very seashore, where Catania lies, imprisoned by countless blocks of lava as black as ebony. That awe-inspiring marvel of nature seemed to be defied and insulted by the joyous airs which the orchestra was playing, softly now, and by the fast-dying illuminations which crowned the main façade of the palace. Now and again the music and the candles seemed to make an effort to revive. Evidently some indefatigable dancers compelled the musicians to shake off their torpor. Perhaps the burnt-out candles set fire to their collars of pink paper. One would have said, watching that brilliant and echoing structure, that the heedless gayety of youth was struggling against the prostration of sleep or the languor of sensual desire, while the undying scourge of that sublime country sent its blazing smoke into the air, a menace of destruction which could not always be defied with impunity.

Michelangelo Lavoratori was absorbed by the spectacle of the volcano, Magnani's eyes were fixed more frequently on the villa. Suddenly he uttered an exclamation, and his young friend, following the direction of his glance, saw a white figure which seemed to be floating in space. It was a woman walking slowly on the high terrace of the palace.

"She, too," cried Magnani, involuntarily, "is watching the sun rise over the mountain. She, too, is musing, and, it may be, sighing!"

"Who?" queried Michel, whose mind had hardened itself somewhat to eject its own chimera. "Are your eyes sharp enough to see from here whether it is Princess Agatha or her maid who is taking the air on the terrace?"

Magnani hid his face in his hands and made no answer.

"Come, my friend," said Michel, obeying a sudden inspiration, "be frank with me. The great lady with whom you are in love is the Princess Agatha?"

"Well, why should I not admit it?" rejoined the young mechanic, in a profoundly sorrowful tone; "it may be that I shall soon repent of having confided to a child whom I hardly know a secret which I have never allowed those who should be my best friends to suspect. There must be some fateful reason for this longing to unbosom myself which has suddenly drawn me toward you. Perhaps it is the late hour, the fatigue, the excitement caused by the music and lights and perfumes; I do not know. Perhaps, rather, it is because I feel that you are the only person here who is capable of understanding me, and that you are mad enough yourself not to be too severe upon my madness. Well, yes, I love her! I fear her, I hate her, and I adore her all at once--that woman who is unlike all other women, whom no one knows, and whom I do not know myself."

"I certainly shall not laugh at you, Magnani; I pity you, I understand you and I love you, because I think that I can detect a certain similarity between you and me. I, too, am excited by the perfumes, the intense brilliancy of that ball, and the noisy dance-music, in which my imagination detects such an undertone of gloom and melancholy through its false liveliness. I, too, feel over-excited and a little mad at this moment. I fancy that there is some deep mystery in our sympathetic feeling for each other."

"Because we both love her!" cried Magnani, beside himself. "Why, Michel, I guessed it from the first glance you bestowed upon her; you, too, love her! But you are loved by her, or will be, and she will never love me!"

"Loved, I shall be loved, or am already! What are you saying, Magnani? you are raving!"

"Listen to me; I must tell you how this disease took possession of me, and perhaps you will understand what is taking place in yourself. Five years ago my mother was ill. The doctor who attended her, for charity's sake, had almost given her up; her case seemed hopeless. I was sitting with my face in my hands, weeping bitterly, at the gate of our little garden, which opens on a street which is almost always deserted, and which ends in the fields on the outskirts of the town. A woman wrapped in a cloak passed the gate and stopped: 'Young man,' she said, 'why do you grieve so? what can I do to lighten your sorrow?'--It was almost dark and her face was hidden; I could not see her features, and her voice, which was extremely sweet, was unfamiliar to me. But her pronunciation and her manner convinced me that she did not belong to our class.

"'Signora,' I replied, rising, 'my poor mother is dying. I ought to be with her, but, as she is fully conscious and I have reached the end of my courage, I came outside to weep, so that she should not hear me. I am going back to her, for it is cowardly to weep like this.'

"'Yes,' she said, 'we must have enough courage to lend some to those who are struggling in the death agony. Go back to your mother; but tell me first if all hope is lost? has she no doctor?'

"'The doctor has not been to-day, and I understand that he can do nothing more.'

"She asked me the doctor's name and my mother's, and when I answered, she said: 'What! has she grown so much worse during the night? he told me last evening that he still hoped to save her.'

"These words, which she involuntarily let fall did not lead me to think that it was the Princess of Palmarosa who was speaking to me. I did not then know what many people do not know to-day, that that charitable woman paid several doctors to attend the poor of the city, the suburbs, and the country; that, without ever appearing in person, unwilling to receive the reward of her good works in the esteem and gratitude of others, she gave the most assiduous and careful attention to all the details of our hardships and our necessities.

"I was too much engrossed by my grief to pay the same attention to her words that I afterwards paid to them. I left her; but when I entered my poor invalid's room, I saw that the veiled lady had followed me. She approached my mother's bed without speaking, took her hand and held it a long time, leaned over her, looked into her eyes, listened to her breathing, and finally said in my ear: 'Young man, your mother is not so ill as you think. She still has some strength and vitality. The doctor did wrong to give up hope. I will send him to you and I am sure that he will save her.'

"'Who is this woman?' my mother asked in a feeble voice; 'I do not recognize you, my dear, but I recognize everybody else here.'

"'I am a neighbor of yours,' replied the princess, 'and I came to tell you that the doctor is coming soon.'

"She went out, and my father at once exclaimed: 'That woman is the Princess Agatha! I recognized her perfectly.'

"We could not believe my father; we supposed that he was mistaken, but we did not have time to discuss the question much. Mother said that she felt better, and the doctor soon arrived, ordered other remedies, and left us, saying that she was saved.

"And so she was; and since then she has always insisted that the veiled lady she saw at her death-bed was her patron saint, who had appeared to her just as she was praying to her, and that the breath of that blessed spirit had restored her life as by a miracle. We cannot disabuse my dear mother's mind of that pious and poetic idea, and my brothers and sisters, who were children then, share it with her. The doctor always pretended that he didn't know what we meant when we talked about a woman in a black _mazzaro_, who had just entered the house and gone out again, saying that he was coming, and that my mother was saved.

"They say that the princess requires absolute secrecy from all those whom she employs in her good works, and indeed they go so far as to say that her modesty in that respect amounts to a mania. Her secret was kept for many years; but the truth always comes out at last, and now many know that she is the hidden providence of the unfortunate. But see the injustice and absurdity of human judgments! Some of our people declare that she once committed a crime, and made a vow to atone for it; that her noble and saintly life is a self-imposed, terrible penance; that in her heart she hates all mankind so bitterly that she will never exchange a sympathetic word with those whom she assists; but that the fear of everlasting punishment impels her to devote her life to works of charity. Isn't it horrible to form such judgments? And yet that is what I have heard said, in a very low tone, it is true, by old women who have called to see my mother in the evening, and it is sometimes repeated by younger people, who are impressed by these extraordinary conjectures. For my own part, I was fully convinced that I had not seen a phantom, and although my father, fearing lest he might lose the princess's good-will if he betrayed her incognito, dared not repeat that it was she who had appeared to us, he said it at first so naturally and so confidently that I could not doubt it.

"As soon as my mother was convalescent, I went and offered to pay the doctor for his services; but he refused my money, as did the druggist. They replied to my questions according to the lesson that had been taught them, that a secret association of wealthy and devout people paid them for their trouble and outlay."