The Beautiful Lady
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Booth Tarkington >> The Beautiful Lady
We came to our hotel in the soft twilight, with the air so balmy
one wished to rise and float in it. This was the hour for the
Cathedral; therefore, leaving Leonardo and his fresco for the
to-morrow, I conducted my uncomplaining ward forth, and through
that big arcade of which the people are so proud, to the Duomo.
Poor Jr. showed few signs of life as we stood before that
immenseness; he said patiently that it resembled the postals,
and followed me inside the portals with languor.
It was all grey hollowness in the vast place. The windows showed
not any colour nor light; the splendid pillars soared up into
the air and disappeared as if they mounted to heights of
invisibility in the sky at night. Very far away, at the other
end of the church it seemed, one lamp was burning, high over the
transept. One could not see the chains of support nor the roof
above it; it seemed a great star, but so much all alone. We
walked down the long aisle to stand nearer to it, the darkness
growing deeper as we advanced. When we came almost beneath, both
of us gazing upward, my companion unwittingly stumbled against a
lady who was standing silently looking up at this light, and who
had failed to notice our approach. The contact was severe enough
to dislodge from her hand her folded parasol, for which I began
to grope.
There was a hurried sentence of excusation from Poor Jr.,
followed by moments of silence before she replied. Then I heard
her voice in startled exclamation:
"Rufus, it is never you?"
He called out, almost loudly,
"Alice!"
Then I knew that it was the second time I had lifted a parasol
from the ground for the lady of the grey pongee and did not see
her face; but this time I placed it in her own hand; for my head
bore no shame upon it now.
In the surprise of encountering Poor Jr. I do not think she
noticed that she took the parasol or was conscious of my
presence, and it was but too secure that my young friend had
forgotten that I lived. I think, in truth, I should have
forgotten it myself, if it had not been for the leaping of my
heart.
Ah, that foolish dream of mine had proven true: I knew her, I
knew her, unmistaking, without doubt or hesitancy--and in the
dark! How should I know at the mere sound of her voice? I think
I knew before she spoke!
Poor Jr. had taken a step toward her as she fell back; I could
only see the two figures as two shadows upon shadow, while for
them I had melted altogether and was forgotten.
"You think I have followed you," he cried, "but you have no
right to think it. It was an accident and you've got to believe
me!"
"I believe you," she answered gently. "Why should I not?"
"I suppose you want me to clear out again," he went on, "and I
will; but I don't see why."
Her voice answered him out of the shadow: "It is only you who
make a reason why. I'd give anything to be friends with you;
you've always known that."
"Why can't we be?" he said, sharply and loudly. "I've changed a
great deal. I'm very sensible, and I'll never bother you again
-- that other way. Why shouldn't I see a little of you?"
I heard her laugh then--happily, it seemed to me,--and I
thought I perceived her to extend her hand to him, and that he
shook it briefly, in his fashion, as if it had been the hand of
a man and not that of the beautiful lady.
"You know I should like nothing better in the world--since you
tell me what you do," she answered.
"And the other man?" he asked her, with the same hinting of
sharpness in his tone. "Is that all settled?"
"Almost. Would you like me to tell you?"
"Only a little--please!"
His voice had dropped, and he spoke very quietly, which
startlingly caused me to realize what I was doing. I went out of
hearing then, very softly. Is it creible that I found myself
trembling when I reached the twilit piazza? It is true, and I
knew that never, for one moment, since that tragic, divine day
of her pity, had I wholly despaired of beholding her again; that
in my most sorrowful time there had always been a little, little
morsel of certain knowledge that I should some day be near her
once more.
And now, so much was easily revealed to me: it was to see her
that the good Lambert R. Poor Jr., had come to Paris, preceding
my patron; it was he who had passed with her on the last day of
my shame, and whom she had addressed by his central name of
Rufus, and it was to his hand that I had restored her parasol.
I was to look upon her face at last--I knew it--and to speak
with her. Ah, yes, I did tremble! It was not because I feared
she might recognize her poor slave of the painted head-top, nor
that Poor Jr. would tell her. I knew him now too well to think
he would do that, had I been even that other of whom he had
spoken, for he was a brave, good boy, that Poor Jr. No, it was a
trembling of another kind--something I do not know how to
explain to those who have not trembled in the same way; and I
came alone to my room in the hotel, still trembling a little and
having strange quickness of breathing in my chest.
I did not make any light; I did not wish it, for the precious
darkness of the Cathedral remained with me--magic darkness in
which I beheld floating clouds made of the dust of gold and
vanishing melodies. Any person who knows of these singular
things comprehends how little of them can be told; but to those
people who do not know of them, it may appear all great
foolishness. Such people are either too young, and they must
wait, or too old--they have forgotten!
It was an hour afterward, and Poor Jr. had knocked twice at my
door, when I lighted the room and opened it to him. He came in,
excitedly flushed, and, instead of taking a chair, began to walk
quickly up and down the floor.
"I'm afraid I forgot all about you, Ansolini," he said, "but
that girl I ran into is a--a Miss Landry, whom I have known a
long--"
I put my hand on his shoulder for a moment and said:
"I think I am not so dull, my friend!"
He made a blue flash at me with his eyes, then smiled and shook
his head.
"Yes, you are right," he answered, re-beginning his fast pace
over the carpet. "It was she that I meant in Lucerne--I don't
see why I should not tell you. In Paris she said she didn't want
me to see her again until I could be--freiendly--the old way
instead of something considerably different, which I'd grown
to be. Well, I've just told her not only that I'd behave like a
friend, but that I'd changed and felt like one. Pretty much of a
lie that was!" He laighed, without any amusement. "But it was
successful, and I suppose I can keep it up. At any rate we're
going over to Venice with her and her mother to-morrow.
Afterwards, we'll see them in Naples just before they sail."
"To Venice with them!" I could not repress crying out.
"Yes; we join parties for two days," he said, and stopped at a
window and looked out attentively at nothing before he went on:
"It won't be very long, and I don't suppose it will ever happen
again. The other man is to meet them in Rome. He's a countryman
of yours, and I believe--I believe it's--about--settled!"
He pronounced these last words in an even voice, but how slowly!
Not more slowly than the construction of my own response, which
I heard myself making:
"This countryman of mine--who is he?"
"One of your kind of Kentucky Colonels," Poor Jr. laughed
mournfully. At first I did not understand; then it came to me
that he had sometimes previously spoken in that idiom of the
nobles, and that it had been his custom to address one of his
Parisian followers, a vicomte, as "Colonel."
"What is his name?"
"I can't pronounce it, and I don't know how to spell it," he
answered. "And that doesn't bring me to the verge of the grave!
I can bear to forget it, at least until we get to Naples!"
He turned and went to the door, saying, cheerfully: "Well, old
horse-thief" (such had come to be his name for me sometimes, and
it was pleasant to hear), "we must be dressing. They're at this
hotel, and we dine with them to-night."
Chapter Six
How can I tell of the lady of the pongee--now that I beheld
her? Do you think that, when she came that night to the salon
where we were awaiting her, I hesitated to lift my eyes to her
face because of a fear that it would not be so beautiful as the
misty sweet face I had dreamed would be hers? Ah, no! It was the
beauty which was in her heart that had made me hers; yet I knew
that she was beautiful. She was fair, that is all I can tell. I
cannot tell of her eyes, her height, her mouth; I saw her
through those clouds of the dust of gold--she was all glamour
and light. It was to be seen that everyone fell in love with her
at once; that the chef d'orchestre came and played to her; and
the waiters--you should have observed them!--made silly,
tender faces through the great groves of flowers with which Poor
Jr. had covered the table. It was most difficult for me to
address her, to call her "Miss Landry." It seemed impossible
that she should have a name, or that I should speak to her
except as "you."
Even, I cannot tell very much of her mother, except that she was
adorable because of her adorable relationship. She was florid,
perhaps, and her conversation was of commonplaces and echoes,
like my own, for I could not talk. It was Poor Jr. who made the
talking, and in spite of the spell that was on me, I found
myself full of admiration and sorrow for that brave fellow. He
was all gaieties and little stories in a way I had never heard
before; he kept us in quiet laughter; in a word, he was
charming. The beautiful lady seemed content to listen with the
greatest pleasure. She talked very little, except to encourage
the young man to continue. I do not think she was brilliant, as
they call it, or witty. She was much more than that in her
comprehension, in her kindness--her beautiful kindness!
She spoke only once directly to me, except for the little things
one must say. "I am almost sure I have met you, Signor
Ansolini."
I felt myself burning up and knew that the conflagration was
visible. So frightful a blush cannot be prevented by will-power,
and I felt it continuing in hot waves long after Poor Jr. had
effected salvation for me by a small joke upon my
cosmopolitanism.
Little sleep visited me that night. The darkness of my room was
luminous and my closed eyes became painters, painting so
radiantly with divine colours--painters of wonderful portraits
of this lady. Gallery after gallery swam before me, and the
morning brought only more!
What a ride it was to Venice that day! What magical airs we rode
through, and what a thieving old trickster was time, as he
always becomes when one wishes hours to be long! I think Poor
Jr. had made himself forget everything except that he was with
her and that he must be a friend. He committed a thousand
ridiculousnesses at the stations; he filled one side of the
compartment with the pretty chianti-bottles, with terrible
cakes, and with fruits and flowers; he never ceased his joking,
which had no tiresomeness in it, and he made the little journey
one of continuing, happy laughter.
And that evening another of my foolish dreams came true! I sat
in a gondola with the lady of the grey pongee to hear the
singing on the Grand Canal;--not, it is true, at her feet, but
upon a little chair beside her mother. It was my place--to be,
as I had been all day, escort to the mother, and guide and
courier for that small party. Contented enough was I to accept
it! How could I have hoped that the Most Blessed Mother would
grant me so much nearness as that? It was not happiness that I
felt, but something so much more precious, as though my heart-
strings were the strings of a harp, and sad, beautiful arpeggios
ran over them.
I could not speak much that evening, nor could Poor Jr. We were
very silent and listened to the singing, our gondola just
touching the others on each side, those in turn touching others,
so that a musician from the barge could cross from one to
another, presenting the hat for contributions. In spite of this
extreme propinquity, I feared the collector would fall into the
water when he received the offering of Poor Jr. It was
"Gra-a-az', Mi-lor! Graz'!" a hundred times, with bows and
grateful smiles indeed!
It is the one place in the world where you listen to a bad voice
with pleasure, and none of the voices are good--they are harsh
and worn with the night-singing--yet all are beautiful because
they are enchanted.
They sang some of our own Neapolitan songs that night, and last
of all the loveliest of all, "La Luna Nova." It was to the
cadence of it that our gondoliers moved us out of the throng,
and it still drifted on the water as we swung, far down, into
sight of the lights of the Ledo:
"Luna d'ar-gen-to fal-lo so-gnar--
Ba-cia-lo in fron-te non lo de-star. . . ."
Not so sweetly came those measures as the low voice of the
beautiful lady speaking them.
"One could never forget it, never!" she said. "I might hear it a
thousand other times and forget them, but never this first
time."
I perceived that Poor Jr. turned his face abruptly toward hers
at this, but he said nothing, by which I understood not only his
wisdom but his forbearance.
"Strangely enough," she went on, slowly, "that song reminded me
of something in Paris. Do you remember"--she turned to Poor
Jr.--"that poor man we saw in front of the Cafe' de la Paix
with the sign painted upon his head?"
Ah, the good-night, with its friendly cloak! The good, kind
night!
"I remember," he answered, with some shortness. "A little
faster, boatman!"
"I don't know what made it," she said, "I can't account for it,
but I've been thinking of him all through that last song."
Perhaps not so strange, since one may know how wildly that poor
devil had been thinking of her!
"I've thought of him so often," the gentle voice went on. "I
felt so sorry for him. I never felt sorrier for any one in my
life. I was sorry for the poor, thin cab-horses in Paris, but I
was sorrier for him. I think it was the saddest sight I ever
saw. Do you suppose he still has to do that, Rufus?"
"No, no," he answered, in haste. "He'd stopped before I left.
He's all right, I imagine. Here's the Danieli."
She fastened a shawl more closely about her mother, whom I, with
a ringing in my ears, was trying to help up the stone steps.
"Rufus, I hope," the sweet voice continued, so gently,--"I
hope he's found something to do that's very grand! Don't you?
Something to make up to him for doing that!"
She had not the faintest dream that it was I. It was just her
beautiful heart.
The next afternoon Venice was a bleak and empty setting, the
jewel gone. How vacant it looked, how vacant it was! We made not
any effort to penetrate the galleries; I had no heart to urge my
friend. For us the whole of Venice had become one bridge of
sighs, and we sat in the shade of the piazza, not watching the
pigeons, and listening very little to the music. There are times
when St. Mark's seems to glare at you with Byzantine cruelty,
and Venice is too hot and too cold. So it was then. Evening
found us staring out at the Adriatic from the terrace of a cafe'
on the Ledo, our coffee cold before us. Never was a greater
difference than that in my companion from the previous day. Yet
he was not silent. He talked of her continually, having found
that he could talk of her to me--though certainly he did not
know why it was or how. He told me, as we sat by the grey-
growing sea, that she had spoken of me.
"She liked you, she liked you very much," he said. "She told me
she liked you because you were quiet and melancholy. Oh Lord,
though, she likes everyone, I suppose! I believe I'd have a
better chance with her if I hadn't always known her. I'm afraid
that this damn Italian--I beg your pardon, Ansolini!--"
"Ah, no," I answered. "It is sometimes well said."
"I'm afraid his picturesqueness as a Kentucky Colonel appeals to
her too much. And then he is new to her--a new type. She only
met him in Paris, and he had done some things in the Abyssinian
war--"
"What is his rank?" I asked.
"He's a prince. Cheap down this way; aren't they? I only hope"
--and Poor Jr. made a groan--"it isn't going to be the old
story--and that he'll be good to her if he gets her."
"Then it is not yet a betrothal?"
"Not yet. Mrs. Landry told me that Alice had liked him well
enough to promise she'd give him her answer before she sailed,
and that it was going to be yes. She herself said it was almost
settled. That was just her way of breaking it to me, I fear."
"You have given up, my friend?"
"What else can I do? I can't go on following her, keeping up
this play at second cousin, and she won't have anything else.
Ever since I grew up she's been rather sorrowful over me because
I didn't do anything but try to amuse myself--that was one of
the reasons she couldn't care for me, she said, when I asked
her. Now this fellow wins, who hasn't done anything either,
except his one campaign. It's not that I ought to have her, but
while I suppose it's a real fascination, I'm afraid there's a
little glitter about being a princess. Even the best of our
girls haven't got over that yet. Ah, well, about me she's right.
I've been a pretty worthless sort. She's right. I've thought it
all over. Three days before they sail we'll go down to Naples
and hear the last word, and whatever it is we'll see them off on
the 'Princess Irene.' Then you and I'll come north and sail by
the first boat from Cherbourg.
"I--I?" I stammered.
"Yes," he said. "I'm going to make the aged parent shout with
unmanly glee. I'm going to ask him to take me on as a hand.
He'll take you, too. He uses something like a thousand Italians,
and a man to manage them who can talk to them like a Dutch uncle
is what he has always needed. He liked you, and he'll be glad to
get you."
He was a good friend, that Poor Jr., you see, and I shook the
hand that he offered me very hard, knowing how great would have
been his embarrassment had I embraced him in our own fashion.
"And perhaps you will sail on the 'Princess Irene,' after all,"
I cried.
"No," he shook his head sadly, "it will not happen. I have not
been worth it."
Chapter Seven
That Naples of mine is like a soiled coronet of white gems,
sparkling only from far away. But I love it altogether, near or
far, and my heart would have leaped to return to it for its own
sake, but to come to it as we did, knowing that the only lady in
the world was there. . . . Again, this is one of those things I
possess no knowledge how to tell, and that those who know do
know. How I had longed for the time to come, how I had feared
it, how I had made pictures of it!
Yet I feared not so much as my friend, for he had a dim, small
hope, and I had none. How could I have? I--a man whose head
had been painted? I--for whom her great heart had sorrowed as
for the thin, beaten cab-horses of Paris! Hope? All I could hope
was that she might never know, and I be left with some little
shred of dignity in her eyes!
Who cannot see that it was for my friend to fear? At times, with
him, it was despair, but of that brave kind one loves to see --
never a quiver of the lip, no winking of the eyes to keep tears
back. And I, although of a people who express everything in
every way, I understood what passed within him and found time to
sorrow for him.
Most of all, I sorrowed for him as we waited for her on the
terrace of the Bertolini, that perch on the cliff so high that
even the noises of the town are dulled and mingle with the sound
of the thick surf far below.
Across the city, and beyond, we saw, from the terrace, the old
mountain of the warm heart, smoking amiably, and the lights of
Torre del Greco at its feet, and there, across the bay, I
beheld, as I had nightly so long ago, the lamps of Castellamare,
of Sorrento; then, after a stretch of water, a twinkling which
was Capri. How good it was to know that all these had not taken
advantage of my long absence to run away and vanish, as I had
half feared they would. Those who have lived here love them
well; and it was a happy thought that the beautiful lady knew
them now, and shared them. I had never known quite all their
loveliness until I felt that she knew it too. This was something
that I must never tell her--yet what happiness there was in
it!
I stood close to the railing, with a rambling gaze over this
enchanted earth and sea and sky, while my friend walked
nervously up and down behind me. We had come to Naples in the
late afternoon, and had found a note from Mrs. Landry at our
hotel, asking us for dinner. Poor Jr. had not spoken more than
twice since he had read me this kind invitation, but now I heard
a low exclamation from him, which let me know who was
approaching; and that foolish trembling got hold of me again as
I turned.
Mrs. Landry came first, with outstretched hand, making some talk
excusing delay; and, after a few paces, followed the loveliest
of all the world. Beside her, in silhouette against the white
window lights of the hotel, I saw the very long, thin figure of
a man, which, even before I recognized it, carried a certain
ominousness to my mind.
Mrs. Landry, in spite of her florid contentedness, had sometimes
a fluttering appearance of trivial agitations.
"The Prince came down from Rome this morning," she said
nervously, and I saw my friend throw back his head like a man
who declines the eye-bandage when they are going to shoot him.
"He is dining with us. I know you will be glad to meet him."
The beautiful lady took Poor Jr.'s hand, more than he hers, for
he seemed dazed, in spite of the straight way he stood, and it
was easy to behold how white his face was. She made the
presentation of us both at the same time, and as the other man
came into the light, my mouth dropped open with wonder at the
singular chances which the littleness of our world brings about.
"Prince Caravacioli, Mr. Poor. And this is Signor Ansolini."
It was my half-brother, that old Antonio!
Chapter Eight
Never lived any person with more possession of himself than
Antonio; he bowed to each of us with the utmost amiability; and
for expression--all one saw of it was a little streak of light
in his eye-glass.
"It is yourself, Raffaele?" he said to me, in the politest
manner, in our own tongue, the others thinking it some
commonplace, and I knew by his voice that the meeting was as
surprising and as exasperating to him as to me.
Sometimes dazzling flashes of light explode across the eyes of
blind people. Such a thing happened to my own, now, in the
darkness. I found myself hot all over with a certain rashness
that came to me. I felt that anything was possible if I would
but dare enough.
"I am able to see that it is the same yourself!" I answered, and
made the faintest eye-turn toward Miss Landry. Simultaneously
bowing, I let my hand fall upon my pocket--a language which he
understood, and for which (the Blessed Mother be thanked!) he
perceived that I meant to offer battle immediately, though at
that moment he offered me an open smile of benevolence. He knew
nothing of my new cause for war; there was enough of the old!
The others were observing us.
"You have met?" asked the gentle voice of Miss Landry. "You know
each other?"
"Exceedingly!" I answered, bowing low to her.
"The dinner is waiting in our own salon," said Mrs. Landry,
interrupting. She led the way with Antonio to an open door on
the terrace where servants were attending, and such a forest of
flowers on the table and about the room as almost to cause her
escort to stagger; for I knew, when I caught sight of them, that
he had never been wise enough to send them. Neither had Poor Jr.
done it out of wisdom, but because of his large way of
performing everything, and his wish that loveliest things should
be a background for that lady.
Alas for him! Those great jars of perfume, orchids and hyacinths
and roses, almost shut her away from his vision. We were at a
small round table, and she directly in opposition to him. Upon
her right was Antonio, and my heart grew cold to see how she
listened to him.
For Antonio could talk. At that time he spoke English even
better than I, though without some knowledge of the North-
American idiom which my travels with Poor Jr. had given me. He
was one of those splendid egoists who seem to talk in modesty,
to keep themselves behind scenes, yet who, when the curtain
falls, are discovered to be the heroes, after all, though shown
in so delicate a fashion that the audience flatters itself in
the discovery.
And how practical was this fellow, how many years he had been
developing his fascinations! I was the only person of that small
company who could have a suspicion that his moustache was dyed,
that his hair was toupee, or that hints of his real age were
scorpions and adders to him. I should not have thought it, if I
had not known it. Here was my advantage: I had known his
monstrous vanity all my life.
So he talked of himself in his various surreptitious ways until
coffee came, Miss Landry listening eagerly, and my poor friend
making no effort; for what were his quiet United States
absurdities compared to the whole-world gaieties and Abyssinian
adventures of this Othello, particularly for a young girl to
whom Antonio's type was unfamiliar? For the first time I saw my
young man's brave front desert him. His mouth drooped, and his
eyes had an appearance of having gazed long at a bright light. I
saw that he, unhappy one, was at last too sure what her answer
would be.