Vestigia. Vol. I.

The softest wind blew in his face and he did not feel it, the sunlight rested on him, the sky was blue and white; but he had ceased to look even at the passers-by. He felt like a man awakened from a dream, when a hand touched him, and a voice spoke in his ear, and he looked up and recognised the Marchese Gasparo.

'Hallo, old boy, are you asleep? are you dreaming? what the devil is the matter with you?'

They had met in front of the Giappone, the fashionable restaurant of Leghorn, where Gasparo had been breakfasting with a couple of his friends. The two other men strolled off a few paces and waited, smoking their long thin cigars, and eyeing Dino with a languid curiosity. Gasparo, too, looked at his altered dress with some exclamation of surprise.

'What is the meaning of that new toggery?' he demanded. 'I had to look twice to make sure it was you. What are you up to now, old fellow, eh? Is all that to oblige our good Andrea?' And then, without waiting for an answer: 'See here, Dino, you're the very man I want. But stop a moment. First of all, are you going anywhere in particular?'

'I am going to Drea's,' Dino said.

'To wish our pretty little friend good morning, eh, my Dino? Jove, how pretty that girl looked in the firelight singing! But never mind that. You can do something for me before you go there, can't you? Women are never the worse for being kept waiting; in fact, it does them good, and their hearts get softer with time, just as a peach softens when you leave it for a bit to ripen on the tree. I say, Dino, be a good obliging fellow for once. You are not really in a hurry?'

'No, sir.'

'Benissimo! Then you can go and do an errand for me. I want – Look here; it's a letter I want carried. Rather an important letter. It's – it's a love-letter, in fact,' said Gasparo, beginning to laugh, 'and I want it taken to the woman with the most beautiful eyes in Leghorn – the most beautiful? well, at least I thought so until yesterday. She is – her name is written on the envelope. But it is not to be taken to her house, you understand? She is at Pancaldi's this morning, at the Stabilimento. Go straight in to the platform where the baths are in summer; you'll find her there, looking at the waves.' He laughed, brushing up his moustache. 'So there you are; and now right about face – march! Why, man, what are you staring at? There's the letter; and I say, Dino, mind you give it to her quietly; just slip it into her hand, you know, as if it were the answer to some commission. Faith! they are pretty eyes, if they're not so bright as Italia's.'

Dino turned red; he drew his shoulder away from the Marchese's careless touch.

'I – You must excuse me, sir,' he said roughly. 'Get some one else to carry your letter. I won't go.'

'Hullo!' The Marchese threw back his head. 'Then – oh, go to the devil!' he said, and turned lightly on his heel.

He walked off for a pace or two and stopped, irresolute. It was really very awkward about that letter. He wanted it taken; he could not carry it himself, and to find another trustworthy messenger at a moment's notice – He turned back.

'I say, old fellow, don't you think this is treating me rather badly? It is not every one whom I'd ask to do this thing for me, but you – why, we've been boys together, you and I.' A smile lighted up his handsome face. 'I'd do as much for you any day, old Dino; for you and your sweetheart.'

Among all the men of his time, the young Marchese, Gasparo Balbi, was one of the most personally attractive. He was the most popular man in his regiment; he fascinated the very orderly who cleaned his boots, and all women and all children loved him. Wherever he went – in a ballroom, or in the streets, – people turned in the same way to look at him. His mere presence was an irresistible argument. When he talked it is possible that what he said was neither particularly fresh nor particularly new, but that did not matter; his silence and his speech were alike persuasive. He had all the qualities of a ruler and leader of men, – strong animal magnetism, an irresistible audacity, an implacable will. He was like one of the English Stuarts in his wonderful faculty of awakening passionate loyalty and enthusiasm in all who came into personal relations with him; perhaps he was still more like them in his power of using his friends, his capacity for charming and – forgetting.

He stood there now smiling in the sunlight, like a young prince whose good pleasure it is to explain when he need only command.

'Come, my Dino; I know you better than you know yourself. Surely you are not going to refuse to do this for me?' he said.

He smiled again as De Rossi went off with the letter. If the Contessa did not like it – well? He thought of her pleasantly, holding, as he did, the easy Italian creed that, if money is the root of all evil, women are at least its flower. Still, if the Contessa did not like it, if by any chance she cared to make herself disagreeable – she could get into a rage; that was certain – well? He adjusted his sword belt a little and strolled back to his friends, whistling softly in an undertone.

'Been giving that young fellow a rating, eh, Gasparo? He looked at you at one moment as if he would not be sorry to measure the length of his knife against your ribs,' remarked one of the men who had been waiting for him.

'I was only giving him a commission. He's my foster-brother, by the way, that chap, and would go through fire and water to serve me. So much for your powers of discrimination, my Nello,' said Gasparo carelessly.

He linked his arm in that of his friend, and they lounged slowly away together through the crowded street.

Dino meanwhile was walking down the empty parade, on the farther side of that straggling, weather-beaten row of trees which stands between the Passeggiata and the low sea-wall. It was the same ground which he had trodden the night before in his despair, and now he was being sent over it again to carry a note at Gasparo's bidding. It was as if Fate had determined to ridicule each turn of his fortunes. He was tasting that experience which is common to all people who get into the way of considering their lives from the outside, – dramatically, as it were – the experience of those who, having many gifts, yet lack simplicity. He contemplated and criticised any mental crisis in which he found himself involved until it lost all sense of reality and became a situation. He was, if possible, too clever, too sensitive. He frittered his attention away on the by-play of life. As he walked along in the sunshine of that morning, beside the blue and placid sea, it was still very much of an open question with Dino what real rôle he was to enact in life; it would depend so much upon whom he met; upon association and circumstance; perhaps chiefly upon some secret pressure of influence; the gift or the curse of some unconscious soul.

He walked slowly, but it was not far to the entrance of the Stabilimento. Two men were lounging in the gateway. One of them looked hard at Dino, at his preoccupied face, and the careless workman's dress.

'Here! Give me your letter and I'll take it in for you, giovane mio, he said good-naturedly.

Dino threw back his head with an involuntary expression of annoyance.

'I carry my own messages,' he answered shortly.

'A thousand pardons! Evidently the Signor – the Signor Carpenter, shall I say? or the Signor Facchino? – evidently he wishes to pay for his entrance, then? For let me tell you that Pancaldi's is like the gate of Paradise; you don't go in without a proper lasciapassare.'

'Nay, can't you let the fellow alone, Beppi? Can't you see that he is carrying a message? Let him in, you idiot, else we shall have the Padrone himself down upon us,' the other man added in a voice like an intermittent growl. He moved back a step or two, making room for Dino to pass. 'Come in, come in, bel giovane. You need never mind my comrade here; you cannot quarrel with a dog for barking at his own gate. Via,' he said, with a wave of his hand, 'put up your purse, my lad. Save the money to buy your sweetheart a fairing. Nay, if you won't believe me, you can read, I suppose? and there it is written up on the board in front of you, Children and servants, admittance free. And so put up your money, I tell you.'

'And pray who the devil told you that I was a servant?' demanded Dino, thrusting his hand into his pocket and drawing out a crumpled bit of paper. It was the last five-franc note he had in the world; he tossed it contemptuously across the wooden ledge in front of him. 'Pay yourself, and try to know a gentleman the next time you see one, will you?'

'Ah, a fine gentleman, truly,' said the man called Beppi, picking up the note and contemplating it with a sneer.

'Perdio,' added his companion, 'a man with money is a man in the right. So put that in your pipe, amico mio, and smoke it. Ay, money, it's like one's other blood; a man with empty pockets, 'tis but a dead man walking.'

'Oh, that's all very fine, but I like consistency. A gentleman's a gentleman, I say. It never was so much of a world to boast of at the best, and when it comes to a new tax upon the wine, and not so much as the prospect of half a day's holiday just to make a feast for the blessed Madonna of Monte Nero, – and common workmen who go about throwing five-franc notes in your face, as if the world had gone mad. I like consistency, that's what I say,' retorted Beppi, in a voice which grew gradually lower as he looked from the note between his finger and thumb at Dino's receding figure.

It was scarcely more than a moment before De Rossi had come upon the object of his search. He recognised her immediately; indeed he had often before seen her passing in her carriage, a beautiful impassive figure, wrapped in her costly Russian furs. She was alone now, leaning over the balustrade with her eyes fixed vaguely upon the changing ripples of the sea. At any other moment Dino might have felt a certain timidity in approaching her; but the irritation of that challenge at the gate was still strong upon him. This woman here was only another of those aristocrats whose privileged existences made life intolerable. Was it intolerable by conviction of its injustice, or only by force of contrast?

But he troubled himself with no such inquiry as he went up to her. He lifted his hat: 'Pardon my disturbing you; but I bring a message – a letter – from the Signor Marchese Gasparo Balbi,' he said.

She was a tall young woman, nearly as tall as himself; that was the first thing he noticed. He saw her gloved hand start and shut more closely over the railing of the balcony at the first sound of his voice. But that was the only sign of surprise which she gave. There was not a quiver of perceptible emotion on the pale inscrutable face which she turned so slowly towards him.

'Bene. You may give me the letter. Thanks.'

She held out her gauntleted hand with a gesture of superb indifference, and then, as her dark glance rested for the first time upon Dino, she raised her perfect eyebrows with a slight expression of wonder. She had expected to see Gasparo's soldier servant. She turned her face away from him.

'Madame Helwige!'

A little old woman dressed in black, who had been quietly seated in a sunny corner, reading a Tauchnitz novel under the shade of a large parasol, rose quickly and came forward at this call.

'The Signora Contessa desires – '

'My purse. Yes. I want some money,' the young woman said impatiently. She made no secret of the letter she had received, holding it by one corner, and tapping the top railing with it to the measure of an inaudible tune.

'Then, if I can do nothing more for you, I will go. I have the honour of wishing you good morning,' added Dino quietly, turning away.

'Stop a moment. This lady will give you something for your trouble. Or – stop! Who are you? What is your name?'

'Bernardino de Rossi.'

'Ah. The Marchese Gasparo's foster-brother. That explains. I have heard him mention you: he says you are one of the discontented people, – a radical, a red republican, que sais je, moi? Is it true?' she asked calmly, fixing her large disdainful eyes upon the young man's face.

He bowed gravely. 'Since the Signora Contessa does me the honour to inquire. I am a radical; that is my belief.'

'Really? And you think we are all equal? We are all equally discontented, 'tis true enough; mais après?' She struck the balustrade lightly with her letter. 'Do you see the water beating against that wall of rock, Signor de' Rossi? Twice a day the tide comes in, and before the waves can climb half-way up the cliff, twice a day the tide goes out. 'Tis the same way with the people's anger – ebb and flow. And the greatest storm can only wet the rocks; it can't uproot them. What do you Italians know about such things? But I, I am a Russian, and I know.' She looked out to sea again. 'When the waves beat too fiercely against the shore the rock breaks them,' she said.

Then she looked at Dino tranquilly. 'I have heard the Marchese Gasparo speak of you; he takes an interest in you. It would be a pity if you should disappoint him,' she added, and moved away slowly with a careless bend of her head.

Dino stood as she had left him for a long moment, holding his hat in his hand, the wind just ruffling the thick hair on his forehead, gazing fixedly out to sea. He stood like a man under the influence of some spell. Then, as he looked up and caught the curious glance of the Countess' companion fixed full upon him, he hastily replaced his hat and turned away.

Just outside the gate he came upon Valdez with a roll of music in his hand, going about his work. Dino nodded to him; he would not stop to speak. The older man slackened his pace, looking at him rather sadly, as if he were sorry for something, then passed on. Afterwards it struck Dino that they had never happened to pass one another in this silent way before. He stopped, looking down the long street at the old familiar figure. But what had they to say to each other now, even if he should turn and overtake him? Dino was like a man under sentence of death; all the minor obligations of life seemed annulled and suspended; where they clung still it was by force of habit, like the withering tendrils of a vine cut down at the root.

A great impatience of trouble had fallen upon him: he wanted no more emotion, no more effort. There was a clear fortnight, perhaps three weeks, before – before he would be sent to Rome. Well! he wanted that time to himself, and he intended to have it, he intended to be happy. The first great shock of the surprise was over: his nature had already re-adjusted itself to these new conditions with the supple strength of youth. And in this fixed interval of quiet – this interval, which seemed all the longer by very reason of its being fixed, – all the light, joy-loving instincts of his age were alert within him, making music in his heart, like the rapturous song of birds between two storms. The habit of life, its careless young incredulity of the end, had never been more strong upon him; he had never felt more irresponsible; had never looked, perhaps had never been more like his father, than on that morning, as he turned down from the broad sunny Passeggiata towards old Drea's house on the quay.