Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells

by William Dean Howells

  “Oh, Don Ippolito’s a pagan, I tell you; and I’m a painter, and the rococo is my weakness. I wish I could paint it, but I can’t; I’m a hundred years too late. I couldn’t even paint myself in the act of sentimentalizing it.”

  While he talked, he had been making a few lines in a small pocket sketch-book, with a furtive glance or two at Florida. When they returned to the boat, he busied himself again with the book, and presently he handed it to Mrs. Vervain.

  “Why, it’s Florida!” cried the lady. “How very nicely you do sketch, Mr. Ferris.”

  “Thanks, Mrs. Vervain; you’re always flattering me.”

  “No, but seriously. I wish that I had paid more attention to my drawing when I was a girl. And now, Florida — she won’t touch a pencil. I wish you’d talk to her, Mr. Ferris.”

  “Oh, people who are pictures needn’t trouble themselves to be painters,” said Ferris, with a little burlesque.

  Mrs. Vervain began to look at the sketch through her tubed hand; the painter made a grimace. “But you’ve made her too proud, Mr. Ferris. She doesn’t look like that.”

  “Yes she does — to those unworthy of her kindness. I have taken Miss Vervain in the act of scorning the rococo, and its humble admirer, me, with it.”

  “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, Mr. Ferris; but I can’t think that this proud look is habitual with Florida; and I’ve heard people say — very good judges — that an artist oughtn’t to perpetuate a temporary expression. Something like that.”

  “It can’t be helped now, Mrs. Vervain: the sketch is irretrievably immortal. I’m sorry, but it’s too late.”

  “Oh, stuff! As if you couldn’t turn up the corners of the mouth a little. Or something.”

  “And give her the appearance of laughing at me? Never!”

  “Don Ippolito,” said Mrs. Vervain, turning to the priest, who had been listening intently to all this trivial talk, “what do you think of this sketch?”

  He took the book with an eager hand, and perused the sketch as if trying to read some secret there. After a minute he handed it back with a light sigh, apparently of relief, but said nothing.

  “Well?” asked Mrs. Vervain.

  “Oh! I ask pardon. No, it isn’t my idea of madamigella. It seems to me that her likeness must be sketched in color. Those lines are true, but they need color to subdue them; they go too far, they are more than true.”

  “You’re quite right, Don Ippolito,” said Ferris.

  “Then you don’t think she always has this proud look?” pursued Mrs. Vervain. The painter fancied that Florida quelled in herself a movement of impatience; he looked at her with an amused smile.

  “Not always, no,” answered Don Ippolito.

  “Sometimes her face expresses the greatest meekness in the world.”

  “But not at the present moment,” thought Ferris, fascinated by the stare of angry pride which the girl bent upon the unconscious priest.

  “Though I confess that I should hardly know how to characterize her habitual expression,” added Don Ippolito.

  “Thanks,” said Florida, peremptorily. “I’m tired of the subject; it isn’t an important one.”

  “Oh yes it is, my dear,” said Mrs. Vervain. “At least it’s important to me, if it isn’t to you; for I’m your mother, and really, if I thought you looked like this, as a general thing, to a casual observer, I should consider it a reflection upon myself.” Ferris gave a provoking laugh, as she continued sweetly, “I must insist, Don Ippolito: now did you ever see Florida look so?”

  The girl leaned back, and began to wave her fan slowly to and fro before her face.

  “I never saw her look so with you, dear madama,” said the priest with an anxious glance at Florida, who let her fan fall folded into her lap, and sat still. He went on with priestly smoothness, and a touch of something like invoked authority, such as a man might show who could dispense indulgences and inflict penances. “No one could help seeing her devotedness to you, and I have admired from the first an obedience and tenderness that I have never known equaled. In all her relations to you, madamigella has seemed to me” —

  Florida started forward. “You are not asked to comment on my behavior to my mother; you are not invited to speak of my conduct at all!” she burst out with sudden violence, her visage flaming, and her blue eyes burning upon Don Ippolito, who shrank from the astonishing rudeness as from a blow in the face. “What is it to you how I treat my mother?”

  She sank back again upon the cushions, and opening the fan with a clash swept it swiftly before her.

  “Florida!” said her mother gravely.

  Ferris turned away in cold disgust, like one who has witnessed a cruelty done to some helpless thing. Don Ippolito’s speech was not fortunate at the best, but it might have come from a foreigner’s misapprehension, and at the worst it was good-natured and well-meant. “The girl is a perfect brute, as I thought in the beginning,” the painter said to himself. “How could I have ever thought differently? I shall have to tell Don Ippolito that I’m ashamed of her, and disclaim all responsibility. Pah! I wish I was out of this.”

  The pleasure of the day was dead. It could not rally from that stroke. They went on to Strà, as they had planned, but the glory of the Villa Pisani was eclipsed for Don Ippolito. He plainly did not know what to do. He did not address Florida again, whose savagery he would not probably have known how to resent if he had wished to resent it. Mrs. Vervain prattled away to him with unrelenting kindness; Ferris kept near him, and with affectionate zeal tried to make him talk of the villa, but neither the frescoes, nor the orangeries, nor the green-houses, nor the stables, nor the gardens could rouse him from the listless daze in which he moved, though Ferris found them all as wonderful as he had said. Amidst this heavy embarrassment no one seemed at ease but the author of it. She did not, to be sure, speak to Don Ippolito, but she followed her mother as usual with her assiduous cares, and she appeared tranquilly unconscious of the sarcastic civility with which Ferris rendered her any service. It was late in the afternoon when they got back to their boat and began to descend the canal towards Venice, and long before they reached Fusina the day had passed. A sunset of melancholy red, streaked with level lines of murky cloud, stretched across the flats behind them, and faintly tinged with its reflected light the eastern horizon which the towers and domes of Venice had not yet begun to break. The twilight came, and then through the overcast heavens the moon shone dim; a light blossomed here and there in the villas, distant voices called musically; a cow lowed, a dog barked; the rich, sweet breath of the vernal land mingled its odors with the sultry air of the neighboring lagoon. The wayfarers spoke little; the time hung heavy on all, no doubt; to Ferris it was a burden almost intolerable to hear the creak of the oars and the breathing of the gondoliers keeping time together. At last the boat stopped in front of the police-station in Fusina; a soldier with a sword at his side and a lantern in his hand came out and briefly parleyed with the gondoliers; they stepped ashore, and he marched them into the station before him.

  “We have nothing left to wish for now,” said Ferris, breaking into an ironical laugh.

  “What does it all mean?” asked Mrs. Vervain.

  “I think I had better go see.”

  “We will go with you,” said Mrs. Vervain.

  “Pazienza!” replied Ferris.

  The ladies rose; but Don Ippolito remained seated. “Aren’t you going too, Don Ippolito?” asked Mrs. Vervain.

  “Thanks, madama; but I prefer to stay here.”

  Lamentable cries and shrieks, as if the prisoners had immediately been put to the torture, came from the station as Ferris opened the door. A lamp of petroleum lighted the scene, and shone upon the figures of two fishermen, who bewailed themselves unintelligibly in the vibrant accents of Chiozza, and from time to time advanced upon the gondoliers, and shook their heads and beat their breasts at them, A few police-guards reclined upon benches about the room, and surveyed the spectacle with mild impassi
bility.

  Ferris politely asked one of them the cause of the detention.

  “Why, you see, signore,” answered the guard amiably, “these honest men accuse your gondoliers of having stolen a rope out of their boat at Dolo.”

  “It was my blood, you know!” howled the elder of the fishermen, tossing his arms wildly abroad, “it was my own heart,” he cried, letting the last vowel die away and rise again in mournful refrain, while he stared tragically into Ferris’s face.

  “What is the matter?” asked Mrs. Vervain, putting up her glasses, and trying with graceful futility to focus the melodrama.

  “Nothing,” said Ferris; “our gondoliers have had the heart’s blood of this respectable Dervish; that is to say, they have stolen a rope belonging to him.”

  “Our gondoliers! I don’t believe it. They’ve no right to keep us here all night. Tell them you’re the American consul.”

  “I’d rather not try my dignity on these underlings, Mrs. Vervain; there’s no American squadron here that I could order to bombard Fusina, if they didn’t mind me. But I’ll see what I can do further in quality of courteous foreigner. Can you perhaps tell me how long you will be obliged to detain us here?” he asked of the guard again.

  “I am very sorry to detain you at all, signore. But what can I do? The commissary is unhappily absent. He may be here soon.”

  The guard renewed his apathetic contemplation of the gondoliers, who did not speak a word; the windy lamentation of the fishermen rose and fell fitfully. Presently they went out of doors and poured forth their wrongs to the moon.

  The room was close, and with some trouble Ferris persuaded Mrs. Vervain to return to the gondola, Florida seconding his arguments with gentle good sense.

  It seemed a long time till the commissary came, but his coming instantly simplified the situation. Perhaps because he had never been able to befriend a consul in trouble before, he befriended Ferris to the utmost. He had met him with rather a browbeating air; but after a glance at his card, he gave a kind of roar of deprecation and apology. He had the ladies and Don Ippolito in out of the gondola, and led them to an upper chamber, where he made them all repose their honored persons upon his sofas. He ordered up his housekeeper to make them coffee, which he served with his own hands, excusing its hurried feebleness, and he stood by, rubbing his palms together and smiling, while they refreshed themselves.

  “They need never tell me again that the Austrians are tyrants,” said Mrs. Vervain in undertone to the consul.

  It was not easy for Ferris to remind his host of the malefactors; but he brought himself to this ungraciousness. The commissary begged pardon, and asked him to accompany him below, where he confronted the accused and the accusers. The tragedy was acted over again with blood-curdling effectiveness by the Chiozzotti; the gondoliers maintaining the calm of conscious innocence.

  Ferris felt outraged by the trumped-up charge against them.

  “Listen, you others the prisoners,” said the commissary. “Your padrone is anxious to return to Venice, and I wish to inflict no further displeasures upon him. Restore their rope to these honest men, and go about your business.”

  The injured gondoliers spoke in low tones together; then one of them shrugged his shoulders and went out. He came back in a moment and laid a rope before the commissary.

  “Is that the rope?” he asked. “We found it floating down the canal, and picked it up that we might give it to the rightful owner. But now I wish to heaven we had let it sink to the bottom of the sea.”

  “Oh, a beautiful story!” wailed the Chiozzoti. They flung themselves upon the rope, and lugged it off to their boat; and the gondoliers went out, too.

  The commissary turned to Ferris with an amiable smile. “I am sorry that those rogues should escape,” said the American.

  “Oh,” said the Italian, “they are poor fellows it is a little matter; I am glad to have served you.”

  He took leave of his involuntary guests with effusion, following them with a lantern to the gondola.

  Mrs. Vervain, to whom Ferris gave an account of this trial as they set out again on their long-hindered return, had no mind save for the magical effect of his consular quality upon the commissary, and accused him of a vain and culpable modesty.

  “Ah,” said the diplomatist, “there’s nothing like knowing just when to produce your dignity. There are some officials who know too little, — like those guards; and there are some who know too much, — like the commissary’s superiors. But he is just in that golden mean of ignorance where he supposes a consul is a person of importance.”

  Mrs. Vervain disputed this, and Ferris submitted in silence. Presently, as they skirted the shore to get their bearings for the route across the lagoon, a fierce voice in Venetian shouted from the darkness, “Indrio, indrio!” (Back, back!) and a gleam of the moon through the pale, watery clouds revealed the figure of a gendarme on the nearest point of land. The gondoliers bent to their oars, and sent the boat swiftly out into the lagoon.

  “There, for example, is a person who would be quite insensible to my greatness, even if I had the consular seal in my pocket. To him we are possible smugglers; [Footnote: Under the Austrians, Venice was a free port but everything carried there to the mainland was liable to duty.] and I must say,” he continued, taking out his watch, and staring hard at it, “that if I were a disinterested person, and heard his suspicion met with the explanation that we were a little party out here for pleasure at half past twelve P. M., I should say he was right. At any rate we won’t engage him in controversy. Quick, quick!” he added to the gondoliers, glancing at the receding shore, and then at the first of the lagoon forts which they were approaching. A dim shape moved along the top of the wall, and seemed to linger and scrutinize them. As they drew nearer, the challenge, “Wer da?” rang out.

  The gondoliers eagerly answered with the one word of German known to their craft, “Freunde,” and struggled to urge the boat forward; the oar of the gondolier in front slipped from the high rowlock, and fell out of his hand into the water. The gondola lurched, and then suddenly ran aground on the shallow. The sentry halted, dropped his gun from his shoulder, and ordered them to go on, while the gondoliers clamored back in the high key of fear, and one of them screamed out to his passengers to do something, saying that, a few weeks before, a sentinel had fired upon a fisherman and killed him.

  “What’s that he’s talking about?” demanded Mrs. Vervain. “If we don’t get on, it will be that man’s duty to fire on us; he has no choice,” she said, nerved and interested by the presence of this danger.

  The gondoliers leaped into the water and tried to push the boat off. It would not move, and without warning, Don Ippolito, who had sat silent since they left Fusina, stepped over the side of the gondola, and thrusting an oar under its bottom lifted it free of the shallow.

  “Oh, how very unnecessary!” cried Mrs. Vervain, as the priest and the gondoliers clambered back into the boat. “He will take his death of cold.”

  “It’s ridiculous,” said Ferris. “You ought to have told these worthless rascals what to do, Don Ippolito. You’ve got yourself wet for nothing. It’s too bad!”

  “It’s nothing,” said Don Ippolito, taking his seat on the little prow deck, and quietly dripping where the water would not incommode the others.

  “Oh, here!” cried Mrs. Vervain, gathering some shawls together, “make him wrap those about him. He’ll die, I know he will — with that reeking skirt of his. If you must go into the water, I wish you had worn your abbate’s dress. How could you, Don Ippolito?”

  The gondoliers set their oars, but before they had given a stroke, they were arrested by a sharp “Halt!” from the fort. Another figure had joined the sentry, and stood looking at them.

  “Well,” said Ferris, “now what, I wonder? That’s an officer. If I had a little German about me, I might state the situation to him.”

  He felt a light touch on his arm. “I can speak German,” said Florida timidly.
r />   “Then you had better speak it now,” said Ferris.

  She rose to her feet, and in a steady voice briefly explained the whole affair. The figures listened motionless; then the last comer politely replied, begging her to be in no uneasiness, made her a shadowy salute, and vanished. The sentry resumed his walk, and took no further notice of them.

  “Brava!” said Ferris, while Mrs. Vervain babbled her satisfaction, “I will buy a German Ollendorff to-morrow. The language is indispensable to a pleasure excursion in the lagoon.”

  Florida made no reply, but devoted herself to restoring her mother to that state of defense against the discomforts of the time and place, which the common agitation had impaired. She seemed to have no sense of the presence of any one else. Don Ippolito did not speak again save to protect himself from the anxieties and reproaches of Mrs. Vervain, renewed and reiterated at intervals. She drowsed after a while, and whenever she woke she thought they had just touched her own landing. By fits it was cloudy and moonlight; they began to meet peasants’ boats going to the Rialto market; at last, they entered the Canal of the Zattere, then they slipped into a narrow way, and presently stopped at Mrs. Vervain’s gate; this time she had not expected it. Don Ippolito gave her his hand, and entered the garden with her, while Ferris lingered behind with Florida, helping her put together the wraps strewn about the gondola.

  “Wait!” she commanded, as they moved up the garden walk. “I want to speak with you about Don Ippolito. What shall I do to him for my rudeness? You must tell me — you shall,” she said in a fierce whisper, gripping the arm which Ferris had given to help her up the landing-stairs. “You are — older than I am!”

  “Thanks. I was afraid you were going to say wiser. I should think your own sense of justice, your own sense of” —

  “Decency. Say it, say it!” cried the girl passionately; “it was indecent, indecent — that was it!”

  — “would tell you what to do,” concluded the painter dryly.