Chapter VII: Part 7

"Yes, Florence. A friend of mine, a painter, went there to live three years ago, with his wife, a woman who would not perhaps be called beautiful, but who is really full of charm and grace. When my travels bring me in their neighbourhood I never miss an occasion to see them, for we are very old friends. He and I, you see, were young together for six months. He tells me everything, and I tell him many things. Philip, we will call him that, if you like, made a love match which, as it happened, was excellent from a worldly standpoint, too. They were the most utterly devoted couple for nearly four years. That is a long while. Eighteen months ago, on one of those journeys to Florence which you have noticed, I easily detected that Philip's wife had a lover. A young fellow, an Italian noble with a great name and a slender purse, beautiful as a young wild animal crouching for game--well dressed, though not as quietly as could be, with a pretty talent for sculpture, which he had the good sense never to mention. Their art had brought the two men together, and Alice--we will take the chances of calling Philip's wife by that name--had, I do not know exactly how, come under a new attraction, the strength of which increased as time, through the monotony of habit, blunted the formerly supreme charm of her husband.

"On his side, Philip had gradually returned to studio 'affairs,' giving as an excuse his research after forms, attitudes, and colours, during that relaxing of the body which follows the strain of the model's pose, and is like life after death. He confessed all this to me without reserve, obviously satisfied that his wife, whose 'angelic sweetness' and 'tact' he could not sufficiently praise--was willing to leave him a free field for his fancies.

"'I still love her!' he said, in all sincerity. 'But I have to think of my painting, do I not?'

"Giovanni, naturally, had a great admiration for Philip's talent, and made no secret of it. As for Alice, she regarded her husband as nothing less than a genius. When Philip was dissatisfied with his work he was frankly unbearable. He indulged in grumbling and complaining and bursts of anger, followed by long periods of depression. If, on the other hand, he had succeeded in satisfying himself, it was worse still, for then one had to endure the recital of the entire performance, down to the least trifling detail of composition or execution. At first one might listen with pleasure, or at least benevolence. But the wearisome repetition from morning until night finally became tedious, even exasperating, when Philip, with a childish insistence, invited replies, denials, the better to confound his opponent. The docile Giovanni and the sincerely admiring Alice lent themselves resignedly to these gymnastic exercises of patience, but when days and days had been spent in the occupation, both, exhausted by their efforts, must have longed in body and soul for a distraction more or less in accordance with current social customs. As might have been expected, they found it in each other, and from that moment peace descended upon the happy home.

"When I discovered the affair between Alice and Giovanni in the course of a visit to Fiesole, where I came upon them suddenly in such a state of blind absorption that they did not even raise their eyes at the sound of my footsteps, I judged that passion was at flood tide. They did not even trouble to conceal themselves, so that had I not been careful, I should not have escaped the annoyance of an encounter, the revelations of which could hardly have been blinked. I took the course of going often to see Philip at his studio, where he had an important piece of work under way, and I was able to leave town without disturbing the happy quietude of all concerned.

"On my return the following year it seemed to me at first that nothing had changed in the arrangement of which I had the secret. Still, Philip seemed to me less absorbed in his art. I often caught him with his eyes obstinately fixed upon his wife, who, while avoiding them, seemed troubled by the obsession of his gaze. Did he suspect something? I did not long entertain this idea, for he talked to me with such warmth about Alice, that I could not restrain an exclamation of surprise.

"'God forgive me, Philip,' I cried. 'You are in love! And with your wife! What has happened?'

"'Nothing' he said. 'I have never ceased to love her.'

"And one confidence leading to another, I learned that a flirtation by every rule was going on between the two. For a year they had been living in separate apartments. At first the doors had been on the latch, but later they had definitely been locked. One day, for no particular reason, Philip had wondered why, and found no answer. Alice, when questioned, had had nothing to say, but 'Not now--later,' which could not fill the function of reasons. That another should have won the heart which belonged to him could never have occurred to Philip. But as his mind and senses became insistent, sentiment woke up, too. So that the inconstant husband began a definite siege of the unfaithful wife.

"Alice appeared to be flattered by the homage, but held back by a sense of duty toward her lover. As for Giovanni, confident in the stability of his dominion, he was entertained by the performance in which his vanity saw nothing but an innocent game started by Alice for the sake of keeping him on the alert. It was Philip, and no longer Giovanni, who filled Alice's drawing room with flowers. Giovanni amusingly called my attention to this detail, with the fine confidence of a man sure of his power. He was, after all, fond of Philip, and pitied him for his wasted pains.

"I went to spend six months in Rome, and on my way back to Paris, stopped for a week in Florence. I was convinced at once and beyond a doubt that the legitimate betrayal had been consummated, and that the blind lover Giovanni was being cynically duped. Alice had become her husband's mistress. I must add, that though the factors were inverted, the sum of happiness appeared the same. Contentment continued to reign in Philip's household, as it had not ceased to do since his wedding day, thanks to the three successive combinations. I even judged that this time there was a chance of it becoming a settled condition, for Philip no longer bored us with his pictures, being completely absorbed in the business of making himself agreeable to his wife, for whom the pleasure of the conjugal affair was enhanced by the delicately perverse spice of the secret connected with Giovanni. The value of his conquest rose appreciably in Giovanni's eyes at sight of Philip in love, and he peacefully admired as his achievement the perfect contentment of the household. He was even beginning to cast his eyes about him, and I was not too greatly surprised when I saw him disposed to make love to me. Everybody's destiny was sealed. The divorce between Giovanni and Alice which, I suppose, already existed in fact, would soon be formally acknowledged.

"I was in the habit of going at nightfall to sit in the Loggia dei Lanzi to see all Florence pass on its way home, for has not the Piazza della Signoria for centuries and centuries been the town's general meeting ground? I have made curious observations there. After a glance at the Perseus, I used to go and sit on the upper one of the steps that make seats like those of an amphitheatre against the long back wall, and there, hidden in the shadow, screened from view by the famous group of the Rape of the Sabines, gaze about me, dream, and wait for chance to send an inspiration or a friendly face to tear me from my thoughts.

"One evening I had lingered in my hiding place. Darkness had come. Ammanati's Neptune and Gian Bologna's Cosimo peopled the night with motionless ghosts. Suddenly two shapes rose under the arches, a man and a woman with arms entwined. They glided whispering toward the Sabine voluptuously struggling in the arms of her new master, and there, out of sight of the rare passers, but fully in my sight, clasped each other in a long embrace. Finally I saw their faces. They were Philip and Alice, who, driven from home by Giovanni's presence, had come to hide in the public square and make love.

"'Giovanni must have been surprised,' Philip was saying, 'at not finding us in. But really, he is too indiscreet.'

"'Do you know what you ought to do?' asked Alice, after a silence, 'You ought to advise him to take a little journey to Rome--or elsewhere.'

"'A good idea. I will do so.'

"Two weeks later Giovanni came to see me in Paris, and made amorous proposals to me. I still have to laugh when I think of his discomfited face at the sweeping courtesy I made him. It happened only three days ago. What do you say to my story?"

"I should have to know the end of it."

"Nothing ever ends. Everything keeps on."

"Well, it is an exception, that is all I can say."

"I admit it. But out of what are rules made, if you please? Is it not out of exceptions when there are enough of them? I bring my contribution. You ought in return to tell me some fine story of absolute monogamic fidelity."

"Such things exist."

"Assuredly. I know a case. Never were two mortals more unhappy. Their whole life was one prolonged battle."

"From which you conclude----?"

"That we are all exceptions, my dear friend, and that we all establish our great intangible laws only for other people, reserving the right to take or to leave as much of them for ourselves as we choose. Good luck. Good-bye!"

XXIV

A HUNTING ACCIDENT

I again met the charming woman to whom I owe the story of the Florentine love affairs just related.

"What news of Don Giovanni?" I asked.

"I saw him yesterday, by chance. He confessed that he did not know the reason of his exile. I gently insinuated that the husband might have something to do with it. The idea made him laugh, and he answered: 'Anything is likelier than that!' which made me laugh in my turn."

"All blind, then?"

"And the result: Peace and happiness."

"And clear vision?"

"Clear vision would simply mean tragedy, because of each one regarding his own infidelities as unimportant, only to reach the unexpected conclusion that those of his partner are unforgivable crimes. Not logical, but very human."

"And do you not think that conjugal fidelity is human, too?"

"Excuse me, I expressly told you that I had once seen a case of it."

"And might one hear the story of this solitary case?"

"An uneventful drama. Nothing is less romantic than virtue. You must be aware of that."

"But does happiness lie in romance?"

"That I cannot say. Possibly, because the reality will never equal the dream. At all events, my faithful pair were the most unhappy mortals I have ever known."

"Do tell me about them."

"Oh, it is very simple. You know that I was brought up in England, near the little town of Dorking. I still have friends there whom I visit occasionally, when I want a change from Italy. Surrey is a picturesque region, where lazy rivers wind their way to the sea between green banks, through wide, fertile valleys at the foot of wooded hills. Everywhere woods and streams, and ravines crested with yews and ancient oaks. Pale, misty skies spread a mother-of-pearl canopy over the wide expanses of thick grass. It is a fox hunting country, and I humbly confess that there are to my mind few pleasures in life equal to the wild intoxication of a mad, aimless gallop, in which, what with hedges and ditches, rivers and precipices, one risks breaking one's neck a hundred times a day. You will from current pictures of it get a fairly good idea of the sport. It is a headlong rush to get--one does not clearly know where. Nothing stops one, nothing furnishes a sufficient reason for turning back. Onward, and still onward! The horses themselves are infected with the general madness. Accidents make no difference. A fallen horse scrambles to his feet again, an unseated rider gets back into the saddle. Some are carried home on stretchers. At night the fallen are counted. In three curt words their friends sympathize with them for having to wait three weeks before going at it again.

"A few years ago, in one of these hunting tumults, I stopped to get my breath after a long gallop on my cob. I was on a wide heath overlooking the valley that ends at the red spires of Dorking. A silvery river, whose name I forget, and a sprinkling of pools set patches of sky in the vast stretch of flowering green. At the horizon a tower is seen, famous in the district, a memorial of the whimsey of a pious personage, who had himself buried there head downward so as to find himself standing upright on the day of the resurrection, when, it seems, the world will be upside down.

"I stood wondering at this ingenuous monument of human simplicity, when I heard behind me the noise of frantic galloping. Before I could move or cry out, a hunter and a maddened horse burst from the wood, within gunshot, and plunged headlong down the steep bank that ended abruptly at the gaping pit of an old quarry. What filled me with unspeakable horror was that the rider was desperately spurring and lashing his horse, who would have been unable anyhow to stop himself in his dizzy descent toward death. In the twinkling of an eye the ground appeared to swallow them both. Nothing was to be seen but heaven and earth smiling at each other with the imperturbable smile of things that never end.

"I finally regained the use of my senses. I jumped from my saddle, and I know not how, reached the bottom of the quarry. The horse had been killed outright. In a red pool lay a gasping, shattered man. It was an old friend of mine, who had been kind to me in my early days in Dorking. I called him. He opened his eyes.

"'What!' he cried, 'it is not over?'

"I questioned him in vain.

"'It is not over! It is not over!' he repeated in vain despair, 'I shall have to go through with it again!'

"Not knowing what to do or say, I climbed to the top of the bank and called for help. A farmer hastened to the spot. With infinite care, the wounded man was lifted into a cart. By some miracle he had escaped without mortal injury. Two months later he was in full convalescence. He suspected before long that I had witnessed his leap, and my embarrassment when he questioned me about our encounter at the bottom of the quarry only confirmed him in his idea. One day, he could no longer keep from speaking.

"'You do not believe it was an accident, do you?' he said, looking me squarely in the eyes.

"'What do you mean?' I asked, avoiding the question.

"'I mean that I must have passed close by you on my way to the quarry.'

"'Yes,' I said, with a sudden resolve to tell the truth.

"'You know my secret. I am sure, my dear child, that you will keep it. Death would not take me. I shall go on living. But since there is now one human being before whom I can pour out the overflow of my misery, and since that one is yourself, for whom I have so long felt the warmest friendship, I will tell you all.'

"'Some other day. Later on.'

"'No, let me speak. In the first place, let me reassure you, there is no crime in my life.'

"'What an idea!'

"'No, I am merely unhappy. And my unhappiness is of a kind for which there is no help. It seems to you that I have everything, does it not? Wealth, a happy family life, beloved children. My wife, I am sure, seems to you----'

"'The best in the world.'

"'Doubtless. And yet, she exactly is the cause of my wretchedness. She loves me, and I hate her. It is horrible.'

"'Oh, come. You do not hate your wife. That is impossible.'

"'I repeat it. I hate her. I loved her when I married her. I was in love at that time, for she was very beautiful. She has been a faithful wife, and a good mother. What have I to complain of, except that she mechanically has confined herself to the narrow performance of her duties, and while doing it, has allowed us to become strangers? Is she above or beneath me? What does it matter? We are not on the same mental plane. I have by my side an inert, submissive creature, with an exasperating sorrow in her eyes, for although she has never formulated any complaint, she naturally holds me responsible for the misunderstanding which has never been expressed in words. You look at me as if you did not understand. You think me mad, probably. Shall I be more explicit? Very well, I no longer love her. There you have it in a nutshell. Gradually, habit and her flatly commonplace mind made her indifferent to me. There is no sense in blaming her. Be the fault hers or mine, I was estranged from her. What remedy was there for the brutal fact? I had loved her, and I loved her no longer. We cannot love by order of the sheriff or of the Bible. It is as if you should reproach me with having white hair instead of blond, as I once had. What have you to say to it?'

"'Nothing at all, my dear and unhappy friend. If you wish me to speak frankly, the idea had occurred to me that the lack of pleasure you took in your excellent wife might come from the possibly unconscious pleasure you took in someone else.'

"'Your imagination anticipates the facts. As you suspect, I have not finished my story. Since you call for an immediate confession, let me tell you, that having been strictly brought up in the discipline of the Church, I came to marriage with the perfect purity required by Christian morality. Let me also tell you that, for whatever reason you choose--ignorance of the strategy of intrigue, or timidity, or fear of losing my self-respect--I have remained guiltless of the least departure from the strictest marriage laws. I no longer loved my wife, but I was her husband, her faithful husband. You will readily guess at the wretched lapses into weakness confessed in that statement, followed by a reaction of shame, and even of repulsion, which in spite of my best efforts I could not disguise.

"'I thought of going on a long journey. A year or two in India might, or so I supposed, have brought me back to the woman from whom proximity was daily separating me more widely. But she, not understanding this, raised the most serious of all objections: the children needed my oversight.

"'Take us with you,' she stupidly suggested.

"'The die was cast. We remained where we were: chained together, each horribly distressing the other, and, with each spasm of pain, deepening our own hurt and that of our companion in irons. She, unfailingly angelic, and I, unbalanced, full of whims, and doubtless unbearable. Who knows? If it had been possible to her nature, a clap of thunder might have scattered the contrary electric currents between us, and have restored peace. But no. We were enemies always on the point of grappling, with never the relief of a word or a gesture of battle. My nerves were on the point of giving way, when the inevitable romance came into my life.'

"'You are still far from strong. Do not tell me any more to-day.'

"'Nay, chance has forced this confession. Let us go through with it to the end. After this, we will never refer to it again. The romance you have guessed at was connected with a lovable and light-hearted girl. She was a little intoxicated with her own youth, and full of the exquisite charm which illusion had once lent to the woman I married, and in which she was to me so lamentably lacking now. What shall I say? I loved and was loved. Our passion was an ideal one, very sweet, very pure, carrying with it no remorse. Were I to tell you the story of it, it might even seem childish to you. It contained, however, the two happiest years of my life. Two years that passed like a flash. Two years of silent delight, ending one day in a definite avowal. No sooner had we uttered the words, than fear of the sin we glimpsed assailed us, and we fell back aghast into the depths of despair. Our only kiss was the kiss of eternal farewell.

"'I was left more broken and bleeding by the horrible fall than when you found me on the stones of the quarry. She went away, and if I am to tell the whole miserable truth, she has found comfort, she is married to a boor, who, they say, makes her happy. Why should I care to appear better than I am? I often regret the imbecile heroism prompting me, when to save that shallow creature I made myself into the victim of an atrocious fate. I spared her, and consequently am dying, while she, in the arms of her hod carrier----Do not misjudge me. I have suffered. She had sworn to love me forever. She is happy, and I--I who could have taken her and broken her and made of the eventual harm to her an overwhelming joy, while it lasted, have not even the right to proclaim her unworthy of my foolish pity. I curse her, and I love her still.

"'And my wife, my blameless wife, who guessed everything, I am sure, and forgave it, either from incapacity to resent an outrage, or from insulting pity for me, my wife to whom I owe this double disillusion in love, who unwittingly tortures me, and whom I equally torture, I execrate her, I hate her with all the intensity of my misery. Had I yielded to the moment's temptation I might have returned to her sated with happiness, or disenchanted, or remorseful.

"'In my deepest misery I shall never forgive her the look of silent anguish wherewith she stabs me. I shall never forgive her resignation, the quiet submission which, together with her interest in her duties, makes our tormented life bearable to her. She is not unaware, you may be sure, that I have a hundred times thought of seeking oblivion in death. She was no more taken in than you were by the accident on Dunley Hill. She will never betray it by a word. She offers herself as a sacrifice, and this magnanimity which fills me with despair constantly aggravates the intolerable anguish of our daily association. I no longer love the woman who loves me; I still love the one who loves me no longer. I have committed no sin, I am even blameless. Will you deny that if I had given myself cause for remorse I might also have suffered less, might have even had chances of happiness?'"

With a far-away look in her eyes, the narrator ended her story abruptly.

"And what did you answer?" I questioned.

"I answered that pain wears itself out no less than joy, that it is our nature to regret the things that might have been, because they are so different from reality. I answered that patience to live is the greatest among the virtues."

XXV

GIAMBOLO

I, too, have known the joys of travel! I, too, have left the easy slopes of home for the steep ascents of foreign lands! Like many another simpleton, sated with the familiar, I have enthusiastically crossed frontiers in search of that something or other which might give me unexpected sensations.

After being tossed and jolted and bruised in the hard sleeping cars, I have fallen into the hands of porters, or "_traegers_" or "_facchini_," who bewildered me with their violent pantomime accompanied by anti-French sounds, obliged me to follow them by going off with my wraps and bags, and after an extortionate charge flung me on to the sympathetically dejected cushions of the hotel omnibus, amid strange companions. Next, a hideous rattling of iron and window glass, while a gold-laced individual asks me simultaneously in three different languages to account for my presence here, and say how I mean to spend my time, telling me in the same breath the great advantage there would be in doing something quite different from what I intend to do. Presently the torture changes. A gigantic porter in an imperial great coat transfers me to silent automata in black broadcloth and white tie, who hand people and luggage from one to the next as far as the elevator. Nothing more remains but to answer the chambermaid's investigations as to my habits and tastes, my theory of existence, while by an error of the hall boy my luggage is scattered in neighbouring rooms, and I am burdened with someone else's. All is finally straightened out. Alone, at last!

Then comes a discreet knock at my door. It is the interpreter, the guide, the cicerone, the indispensable man, who with touching obsequiousness places his universal knowledge at my disposal for to-day, to-morrow, or all time. Here follows a long enumeration of what custom imposes upon the stranger. There is no question of breaking away from tradition. There stand the monuments, and here are the roads leading to them. One may begin the round by one or another. My liberty is limited to the order in which I shall see them. The rest does not concern me. Here is such and such a picture, there stands such and such a piece of statuary. We shall cross the street or the square where such and such an event took place. A date, the year, and month, and day, are supposed to stamp the facts on my memory. Why did the men of the past choose this precise spot to make history? I have no time to inquire, for in three turns of the wheel I am in another and still more memorable place, where other dates and other names are dextrously driven into the quick of my memory. Galleries follow upon galleries, trips to rivers, to mountains. A glimpse of a cool garden tempts me. How sweet to rest there for a while, and dream! But where is one to find the time, when interpreter and coachman are growing impatient because there is no more than time to go to the Carthusian monastery, and get back before nightfall?

The interminable road unfolds before me while I delve into my Baedeker for the history of the monastery. Suddenly the coachman stops, points with his whip at the horizon, and makes an emphatic, incomprehensible speech. A battle was fought there in the time of the Risorgimento. His little cousin's brother-in-law was wounded there, not mortally, though his corporal had his leg cut off. How should one not be proud of such memories? My guide says that his father was fond of telling that he had seen it all from the top of a tower. He begins another version of the story, which is interrupted by our arrival at the monastery, and taken up again on the return journey. Next day in the train I shall have leisure to think over all these things, if the complete confusion in my memory leaves me capacity for anything but stupefaction.

When we try to get at the reason for these extraordinary performances, people offer different explanations. This one will call it "taking a holiday." The other will say that he has had an unhappy love affair and needs distraction. For the most part, people will confess that they are trying to forget something--their wife, their children, their business. All seem tormented by the same desire for novelty. What they are seeking from men and monuments and places in foreign lands is something not yet seen, a fresh enjoyment, a virgin impression which shall draw them outside the circle of outworn sensations. It is something to rouse a happy wonder, and fulfil a hope of pleasure that always keeps ahead of any pleasure experienced. Do they find it? Everyone must answer for himself. Many probably never ask themselves the question, lest they be obliged to confess a weary disappointment.

Before this procession of churches, statues, and pictures, where shall we stop, what shall we try to retain? How shall we disentangle the significance of things, the meaning and power and expressiveness of which can only be grasped by deep study? It would be too simple, if one need merely open one's eyes in order to understand. The work of art speaks, but we must know its language. Not only is time wanting, knowledge of the need of knowledge is wanting in most passers by, who will never do anything but pass by. Their pride is satisfied when they can say: "I have seen." That is the most definite part of their harvest of pleasure. It is apparently a conscientious scruple that obliges them to go out of their way to obtain it.

"I am going to Rome," said a young Englishman to Miss Harriet Martineau, "oh, just so as to be able to say that I have been there."

"Why don't you say so without going?" was the simple reply.

It is upon Italy particularly that the crowd hurls itself. Wherever you may go in that classic land, you will be surrounded by an ever-rising flood of the natives of every known continent, all seeking under new skies for self-renewal. Silent, tired, their eyes straining at invisible things, they file past with their shawls and veils and parasols, levelling field glasses, marking maps, asking senseless questions, and emitting exclamations expressive of an equal admiration for everything they see. I have always pitied these poor people, dragged from their native land by a force which their simple minds are unable to analyze. They will never express their disappointment, most of them will never realize it. But I feel it for them, and I pity their wasted effort.

It was a consolation to me to find one day that there are people who turn homeward satisfied, with the object of their desires attained, and the happiness secured of having seen and felt what it is granted only to a chosen few to see and feel.

I was quite alone on the platform of the bell tower of Torcello, from which the entire Venetian lagoon is visible at a glance. Sea, air, and sky, all luminous and transparent, melted into one another, building a vast dome of light. In the distance, bluish spots--islands, or perhaps clouds--what cared I for names! Do clouds have names? Boats loaded with fruit and vegetables streaked the bright mirror of the sea, and alone reminded one of the reality of the earth. Not a sound. The desert calm of sky and sea imposes silence. The lagoon has no song.

I stood there, as if transfixed in the crystal of the universe, admiring without reflection, when lo!--a group of Germans arriving, led by the fever-shaken cicerone whose aid I had a little earlier refused. Here was his chance for revenge. Immediately, without preamble, he gathers his audience in a circle, and begins to "exhibit" the horizon. With outstretched arms he throws at every point of the compass names, and names, and then more names. From the top of the peaceful tower fly sonorous sounds to the spots where his imperious gesture firmly fastens them. Mountain, island, tower, village, indentations of the coast line, everything has its turn, visible objects and objects that might be visible. Men, women, and children, all Germany hangs upon the lips of the voluble showman. At each name, as if at a military command, all glances follow the pointing finger and take an anxious plunge into space. For one must be sure to see the designated spot. Otherwise what is the good of coming? But as soon as the eyes are settling down to feed upon the sight just announced, a new command drags them all in another direction. That blue line, that white gleam have a name, a history--this is the name, and here is the history. Now let us go on to the next thing.

These people, marvellously disciplined, listen in admiring attitudes. A student is taking notes, so as to impart his learning when he gets home. But the end is not yet. The cicerone, suddenly silent, one hand shielding his eyes, appears hypnotized by something at the horizon. The attitude, the fixed stare, particularly the silence, keep the spectators in suspense. The man has drawn from his pocket a battered opera glass which, possibly, in the last century, contributed to the delight of some noble dame at the Fenice. Its lenses acquire from being dextrously rubbed with an accurately proportioned mixture of saliva and tobacco, and then dried with a handkerchief reminiscent of fish fried in oil, and of polenta, the unique property of making infinitely small objects at the horizon visible--objects smaller than any other optical instrument could enable one to see. The man brandishes the apparatus.

"To-day Giambolo is visible," he says. "I am going to show you Giambolo."

Everyone exclaims joyously: "What! Is it possible? He is going to show us Giambolo!"

And the man on the bell tower of Torcello is as good as his word. Pushing aside the German field glasses with a scornful gesture, he thrusts his precious instrument upon the group.

"Do you see, just above the horizon line, something white that seems to move in a burst of light? Half close your eyes, in order to see farther. By an uncommon piece of luck Giambolo is visible to-day. You cannot help seeing it. I can even see it with my naked eye. But of course I know where to look for it."

The rigid German, ankylosed at his glass, suddenly straightens up.

"Yes, yes, I saw it very well. It is all white, and there is something shining."

"That is it," answers the man of Torcello, satisfied.

Then everyone took his turn. The women all saw it at the very first glance; they even gave detailed descriptions of it. The student alone could not see Giambolo. He confessed it with genuine humiliation, and was looked upon with pitying disdain by all the others.

"What is it like?" he asked of everyone. And everyone gave his own description. There was a slight vapour at the top. A streak at the right, said some, some said at the left; there was nothing of the kind, according to the _pater familias_ who had had the distinction of being the first to see Giambolo.

The unfortunate student tried again and again, and went on exclaiming in despair: "I can see nothing! I can see nothing!"

The Italian shrugged his shoulders with a placid smile, the meaning of which obviously was that some people had not the gift.

"But," cried the exasperated youth, "what is Giambolo, will you tell me? Is there any such thing, really, as Giambolo?"

A unanimous cry of horror went up at this blasphemy. How could one see a thing that did not exist? When half a dozen human beings have in good faith seen Giambolo and are willing to swear before God that they have, no further discussion is possible.

"Then tell me what it is, since you have seen it."

With a gesture the Italian checked all forthcoming answers.

"Giambolo is Giambolo," he pronounced, with imposing solemnity. "One cannot, unless one is mad, argue about it. Only, it is not granted to everyone to see it."

There was evidently on the bell tower of Torcello no one bereft of reason, for silence followed this speech, and no one seemed inclined to dispute a settled fact. Groaning under the weight of his shame, the unfortunate young man who had not seen Giambolo gave the signal for moving on, and the descent was made in the contented repose of mind that attends the happy accomplishment of an act above the common.

On the lowest step, the good Torcellian reaped in his discreetly outstretched cap an abundant harvest of silver coins. It is hardly possible to be niggardly with those who have shown one Giambolo.

A few days later, on the roof of the Milan Cathedral, amid the thick forest of statues which makes the place surprising, I saw a mustachioed guide hurling at the marble multitude augmented by a flock of Cook's tourists the names of the snowy summits composing the Alpine range along the horizon. The memory of Torcello was so recent that I could not but be struck by the identity of the scene. The same motions, same accent, same voluble emphasis. The session was near its end. I was about to pass on, when the man, after a moment's silent scrutiny, drew forth an opera glass through which perhaps, in her day, Malibran was seen at the Scala; he signified by a gesture that he had a supplementary communication to make. All Cook's flock drew near, grave, anxious, open mouthed. Oh, surprise! Like the man of Torcello, the Milanese had caught sight of something not usually to be seen. With an authoritative gesture he called upon the elements to deliver up their mystery, and extending a finger with infallible accuracy toward a point known only to himself, cast upon the wind a name the sonorous vibrations of which spread through space. Was it an illusion? It seemed to me that the name was Giambolo.

Still Giambolo! Giambolo, visible from all heights. And the same scene was enacted as on the lagoon at Venice.

The magical glass passed from hand to hand; exclamations of joy and surprise followed one another. Everybody wished to see and saw Giambolo. They exchanged their impressions.

"Did you see the little puff of vapour?"

"Something white."

"Yes--blue."

"No--gray."

"That is it! You have seen it!"

And there was inexpressible delight. Only a few silent individuals showed by their dejected attitude the humiliation they felt at not being sure of what they had seen, or whether they had seen it. But no one took any notice of this in the tumult of commentary.

I looked at the happy group. Laughing faces, bright eyes, all the weariness of travel wiped out. Some of the women grew quiet, the more consciously to taste their joy. The men, more communicative, exchanged opinions. They had seen Giambolo, and could not get over the wonder of it.

They had not come to Italy in vain. Which opinion was shared by the excellent Lombardy guide, weighing in his palm the money accruing to him from the sight of Giambolo.

A week had passed without any notable event other than meeting everywhere those pilgrim bands who spoil all pleasure in beautiful things by the obsession of their ready-made admirations. From the outer rotunda of the convent in Assisi I was letting my gaze wander over the plain of Umbria, all the world in sight being an expanse of billowing greenness. As if through a trap door a man sprang up at my side, then two, then ten, then what seemed a thousand, for the platform on which I had a moment before been walking alone under the sky was turned into a clamorous ant hill.

Voices on all sides exclaimed: "Here it is! Here is the place from which we can see. Over there, there, the towers of Perugia. And the railway!"

"What! The railway that brought us?"

"Yes, really!"

"How strange!"

"Can you tell me, sir," said a fat man, puffing, "the name of yonder village?"

"No, sir."

"Ah, and that other one?"

"No, sir."

There was a cry. Everyone rushed in the direction whence it came. I feared that someone had fallen over the parapet. Not at all, it was the call of the cicerone who had something to impart. As soon as he had obtained silence:

"Ladies and gentlemen," he began in ringing tones, "the day is exceptionally favourable to show you, far away, beyond Perugia, something which few travellers have had the good fortune to see from here."

The greasy opera glass came into sight, wrapped in a red handkerchief together with cigarettes and divers odds and ends. The entire audience was aquiver with suspense, keen to the point of anguish.

"You shall now see," he cried.

I fled. But I had finally begun to see the philosophy of the phenomenon. In a word, Giambolo was a reality, since it was the thing that all these people came in search of. What exactly was it? There was no advantage in knowing, since, if Giambolo were within reach, all joy in it would be lost. Giambolo stands for that which cannot be grasped. Giambolo stands for the beyond--it is the door leading from the known to the Infinite.

We leave our country, our home and friends, all to whom we give the best of ourselves, all for whom we spend ourselves, and we go to foreign lands in quest of that fascinating Giambolo which we do not find at home, where strangers sometimes come in search of it. We wear ourselves out in the quest. When we reach home again, we claim to have seen it. Sometimes we are not sure of having done so. A monument, a statue, a picture is too close. We can always, taking the word of fame, make believe to discover what we in reality do not. But if we succeed in deceiving others, it is harder in good faith to delude ourselves. Whereas, from a height, through the blurred glass of faith, the little white light, beyond the edge of the visible world, by which we are enabled sincerely to see what we do not see brings us the surest realization of human hope.

And, kind readers, if any one of you ever has any doubts, even though you sit in your armchair at home, follow the advice of the guide on the Venetian lagoon: "Half close your eyes----" and you will see Giambolo.

THE END

* * * * *

THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS
GARDEN CITY, N. Y.

* * * * *

_Books by the Same Author_

THE STRONGEST
LE GRAND PAN
AU FIL DES JOURS
ETC.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Surprises of Life, by Georges Clemenceau