THE MASTERPIECES OF
GEORGE SAND

AMANDINE LUCILLE AURORE DUPIN,
BARONESS DUDEVANT

VOLUME VII

The Masterpieces of George Sand
Amandine Lucille Aurore Dupin, Baroness
Dudevant, NOW FOR THE FIRST
TIME COMPLETELY TRANSLATED
INTO ENGLISH THE PICCININO,
AND THE LAST OF THE
ALDINIS BY G. BURNHAM IVES

WITH TWELVE PHOTOGRAVURES AFTER PAINTINGS BY
ORESTE CORTAZZO.

VOLUME I

PRINTED ONLY FOR SUBSCRIBERS BY
GEORGE BARRIE & SON
PHILADELPHIA

EXAMINING THE ABBÉ'S PAPERS.

He opened and ran through several other papers which mentioned none but unknown names, and which Mila burned without looking at them.

CONTENTS

[INTRODUCTION]
CHAPTER
I. [THE TRAVELLER]
II. [THE TRAVELLER'S STORY]
III. [MONSIGNORE]
IV. [MYSTERIES]
V. [THE CASINO]
VI. [THE STAIRCASE]
VII. [A GLANCE]
VIII. [THE INTRUDER]
IX. [MILA]
X. [PROBLEM]
XI. [THE GROTTO OF THE NAIAD]
XII. [MAGNANI]
XIII. [AGATHA]
XIV. [BARBAGALLO]
XV. [ROMANTIC LOVE]
XVI. [CONCLUSION OF MAGNANI'S STORY]
XVII. [THE CYCLAMEN]
XVIII. [THE MONKS]
XIX. [YOUTHFUL LOVES]
XX. [BEL PASSO AND MAL PASSO]
XXI. [FRA ANGELO]
XXII. [THE FIRST STEP ON THE MOUNTAIN]
XXIII. [THE DESTATORE]
XXIV. [IL PICCININO]
XXV. [THE DESTATORE'S CROSS]
XXVI. [AGATHA]
XXVII. [DIPLOMACY]
XXVIII. [JEALOUSY]
XXIX. [APPARITIONS]
XXX. [THE FALSE MONK]
XXXI. [WITCHCRAFT]
XXXII. [THE ESCALADE]
XXXIII. [THE RING]
XXXIV. [AT THE FOUNTAIN]
XXXV. [THE COAT OF ARMS]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
THE PICCININO
VOLUME I

[EXAMINING THE ABBÉ'S PAPERS]
[THE CARDINAL'S ESCORT]
[THE BALL AT THE PALMAROSA PALACE]
[AFTER THE FÊTE]
[THE CONFERENCE WITH THE PICCININO]
[MILA SURPRISED AT THE FOUNTAIN]

[INTRODUCTION]

The Piccinino is an imaginary tale, which does not attempt either to depict any precise period of history or to describe accurately any country. It is a study in color, dreamed rather than felt, wherein correct strokes are few and, as it were, accidental. The scene of this romance might have been placed anywhere else under the skies of Southern Europe, and my sole reason for selecting Sicily was that I happened to have a collection of fine engravings before my eyes at that moment.

I had always been conscious of a longing to draw my little brigand chief, as others have done. The brigand chief who formed the principal motive of so many novels and melodramas under the Empire, under the Restoration, and even in romantic literature, always proved generally entertaining, and the principal interest always attached to that awe-inspiring and mysterious personage. It was most ingenuous on the part of the public, but so it was. Whether the type was terror-inspiring, as in the case of Byron's brigands, or, like those of Cooper, deserving of the Monthyon prize for virtue, it was enough that those heroes of despair should have legitimately earned the halter or the galleys, for every tender-hearted and virtuous reader to love them devotedly from the first page, and to offer up prayers for the success of their undertakings. Why, then, should I, on the pretext of being a reasonable person, have deprived myself of the pleasure of creating one of them according to my fancy?

Being fully persuaded that the brigand chief had become a part of the public domain, and belonged to every novelist, as do all other classical types, I determined to try at least to make that personage, occupying as he does so abnormal a position, possible and true to life in his character. Such a mystery envelops Byron's pirates that one would not dare to question them, and that one fears or pities them without knowing them. Indeed we may as well say at once that it is by virtue of that unexplained mystery that they appeal to us; but I am not Byron, and my novels are not poems. I desired, for my own part, to draw a perfectly intelligible character, encompassed by romantic circumstances, who is somewhat exceptional in himself, but with whom my indulgent reader can become acquainted, little by little, as with any ordinary mortal.

GEORGE SAND

Nohant, April 22, 1853.

THE PICCININO

TO MY FRIEND

EMMANUEL ARAGO

IN MEMORY OF A PLEASANT EVENING

I
THE TRAVELLER

The region called piedimonta, which surrounds the base of Ætna, and of which Catania forms the portion nearest the level of the sea, is, according to the declared opinions of all travellers, the loveliest country in the whole world. It is that fact which impels me to place there the scene of a story which was recently told me, but of which I was forbidden to reveal the real locus or the real characters. Therefore, dear reader, pray take the trouble to transport yourself in imagination to the district called Valdemona, or Valley of the Demons. It is a beautiful spot, which, however, I do not propose to describe in great detail, for a sufficiently good reason: namely, that I am not familiar with it, and one cannot depict very faithfully what one knows only by hearsay. But there are so many excellent books of travel that you can consult! unless, indeed, you prefer to go thither in person, which I would that I, too, might do, to-morrow, provided that it was not with you, reader; for, in presence of the marvellous beauties of that spot, you would rebuke me for having described it so ill, and there is nothing more disagreeable than a travelling companion who is constantly preaching at you.

In default of something better, my fancy is impelled to lead you rather far away, beyond the mountains, and to leave in peace for a time the quiet country districts wherein I usually like to frame my tales. The moving cause of this fancy is exceedingly puerile, but I propose to tell it to you.

I do not know whether you remember, assuming that you do me the honor to read me, that I placed before you last year a novel entitled The Sin of Monsieur Antoine, the scene of which was laid on the banks of the Creuse, and especially among the ruins of the ancient château of Châteaubrun. Now that château exists, and I drive thither at least once in every year, although it is about ten leagues from my own home. This year I was very coldly received by the old peasant woman who has charge of the ruins.

"Look you!" she cried, in her half-Berrichon, half-Marchois patois, "I don't think much of you; my name is not Janille, but Jennie. I haven't got any daughter, and I don't lead my master round by the nose. My master don't wear a blouse; you lied about him. I never saw him in a blouse, etc., etc. I don't know how to read, but I do know that you've been writing lies about my master and me. I have no liking for you now."

This harangue apprized me that there still lives, not far from the ruins of Châteaubrun, an old man named Châteaubrun, who never wears a blouse. That is all that I know about him.

But it proved to me that I must needs be most circumspect when writing of La Marche and Berry. That was at least the tenth time that something of that sort had happened to me, and every time persons bearing the name of some of my characters, or living in the localities I have described, have flown into a passion with me and accused me of slandering them, not deigning to believe that I took their names by chance, and that I did not know of their existence.

To give them time to become calm again, before I return to that region, I propose to make an excursion to Sicily. But how shall I avoid making use of a name that belongs to some inhabitant or some portion of that celebrated island? A Sicilian hero cannot be called Durand or Wolf, nor do I find on the map of the country any name which rhymes with Pontoise or Baden-Baden. I really must baptize my actors and my stage with names that have some rhyme in a, o or i. I will take those which are easiest to pronounce, so far as is possible, without much heed to geographical accuracy, declaring beforehand that I do not know a cat in Sicily, even by reputation; so that I cannot possibly intend to point at any particular person.

Having made this statement, I am free to choose, and the choice of names is the most embarrassing question that confronts a novelist who wishes to become sincerely attached to the characters he creates. In the first place, I need a princess who has a resounding name, one of those which give you an exalted idea of the person who bears it; and there are such lovely names in that country! Acalia, Madonia, Valcorrente, Valverde, Primosole, Tremisteri, etc.—they all ring true on the ear, like perfect chords. But if perchance there has ever happened in any of the patrician families which bear the names of those seignorial localities, an adventure like that which I am about to describe—a delicate adventure, I confess—why, I am sure to be accused once more of evil-speaking or calumny. Luckily, Catania is very far away; my novels do not, in all probability, pass the lighthouse of Messina, and I trust that the new pope will do in charity what his predecessor did without knowing why: that is to say, keep me in the Index; then I shall be entirely at liberty to speak of Italy, certain that Italy, and with still stronger reason Sicily, will never suspect it.

Consequently my princess shall be called the Princess of Palmarosa. I defy you to find sweeter sounds or a more flowery meaning in any name in any novel. And now for her Christian name, we must think of that. We will call her Agatha, because St. Agatha is the revered patron saint of Catania. But I will urge the reader to pronounce the name Agata, even if I should happen inadvertently to write it in French, otherwise he will miss the local coloring.

My hero's name shall be Michelangelo Lavoratori, but we must never confound him with the illustrious Michelangelo Buonarotti, who died at least two hundred years before my man's birth.

As for the period in which the events are supposed to take place—another unpleasant incident of the beginning of a novel—you are entirely at liberty to select it yourself, dear reader. But inasmuch as our characters will be actuated by ideas now in circulation in the world, and as it would be impossible for me to speak to you as I should like to do of the men of past ages, I fancy that the story of the Princess Agatha of Palmarosa and Michelangelo Lavoratori belongs somewhere between 1810 and 1840. Fix the precise year, day, and hour at which we begin our narrative to suit yourself; it is a matter of indifference to me, for my novel is neither historical nor descriptive, nor does it pride itself at all upon being exact in either respect.

On the day in question—it was in autumn and broad daylight, if you please—Michelangelo Lavoratori was descending diagonally across the gorges and ravines which alternate with each other from the slopes of Ætna to the fertile plain of Catania. He was coming from Rome; he had crossed the Strait of Messina, he had followed the highroad as far as Taormina. There, intoxicated by the grandeur of the spectacle which his eyes beheld in all directions, and uncertain whether to choose the seashore or the mountains, he had gone forward to some extent at random, torn between his impatience to embrace his father and sister, whom he had not seen for a year, and the temptation to go a little nearer the gigantic volcano, compared to which it seemed to him, as to Spallanzani, that Vesuvius is simply a parlor volcano.

As he was alone and on foot, he had lost his way more than once in that wild region, intersected by vast streams of lava which form on all sides steep mountains and valleys filled with luxuriant vegetation. One travels far and makes very little progress when he must constantly ascend and descend over a distance quadrupled in length by natural obstacles. Michel had taken two days to travel the ten leagues, more or less, which lie between Taormina and Catania as the crow flies; but at last he was drawing near his journey's end, indeed, he had arrived; for, after crossing the Cantaro and passing through Mascarello, Piano-Grande, Valverde, and Mascalucia, he had at last left Santa-Agata on his right and Ficarazzi on his left. Therefore he was only about a mile from the suburbs of the city; if he had walked a quarter of an hour more, he would have reached the end of the adventures of a pedestrian journey, during which, despite the fascination and the enthusiastic admiration which such natural scenery inspires in a young artist, he had suffered considerably from heat in the ravines, from cold on the mountain-tops, from hunger, and from fatigue.

But, as he skirted the wall of a vast park, on the slope of the last hill which he still had to cross, and as, with his eyes fixed on the city and the harbor, he quickened his pace to make up for lost time, he stumbled over the stump of an olive-tree. The pain caused by the blow was most acute; for, after two days' travelling over sharp slag, and pozzuolana as hot as red-hot ashes, his shoes were sadly worn and his feet cruelly bruised and sore.

Being compelled to stop, he found himself in front of a niche in the wall, containing a madonna. This little chapel, sheltered by a stone projection and provided with a bench, offered a hospitable resting-place to wayfarers, and to beggars, monks, and others a convenient station at the very door of the villa, of which our traveller could descry the handsome buildings through the orange-trees planted in a triple row along an avenue of considerable length.

Michel, more annoyed than cast down by this sudden hurt, dropped his travelling satchel, seated himself on the bench, and rubbed his injured foot, but soon forgot it to lose himself in meditation.

In order that the reader may understand the reflections which his surroundings suggested to the young man, it is essential that I should introduce him somewhat more fully. Michel was eighteen years of age and was a student of painting at Rome. His father, Pier-Angelo Lavoratori, was a mere dauber, a decorator, but very skilful in his line. And, as is well known, in Italy the artisans whose business it is to cover walls and ceilings with frescoes are almost all genuine artists. Whether from tradition, or from natural good taste, they produce some very attractive decorations; and in the most modest abodes, even in wretched taverns, the eye is charmed by wreaths and rosework done in a fascinating style, or it may be by borders simply, the coloring of which is happily contrasted with the dull tints of the panels and wainscoting. These frescoes are sometimes executed as perfectly as our wall-papers, and they are much superior to them, in this respect, that one detects in them the greater ease of manner of work done by hand. Nothing can be more dismal than the stiff and regular decorations produced by machinery. The beauty of Chinese vases, and, indeed, of Chinese work in general, is attributable to that capricious air of spontaneity which the human hand alone can impart to its work. Grace, freedom, boldness, the unexpected, and even ingenuous awkwardness are, in decoration, elements of charm which we are losing day by day, as we depend more and more upon the resources of machinery and looms.

Pier-Angelo was one of the most rapid and ingenious of these decorators—adornatori. He was a native of Catania, and had reared his family there until the period of Michel's birth, when he abruptly left his province and settled in Rome. The reason he assigned for this voluntary exile was that his family was increasing in size, that there was too much competition in Catania, and that consequently his work no longer sufficed for his needs; wherefore he proposed to seek his fortune elsewhere. But people said under their breath that he had fled from the resentment of certain all-powerful patricians who were devoted to the court of Naples.

Everyone knows the bitter hatred of that conquered and down-trodden people for the government on the other side of the strait. The Sicilian, proud and revengeful, rumbles incessantly like his volcano, and sometimes erupts. It was whispered that Pier-Angelo had been involved in an attempt at a popular uprising, and that he had been obliged to fly, carrying with him his brushes and his household goods. To be sure, his social and kindly temperament seemed to contradict such a supposition; but the lively imaginations of the good people of the suburb of Catania must needs devise an extraordinary motive for the disappearance of one so loved and regretted by all his confrères.

At Rome he was hardly more fortunate, for he had the sorrow of losing all his children there except Michel; and ere long his wife died in giving birth to a daughter, whose young brother was her godfather, and who received the name of Mila, a contraction of Michelangela.

Having lost these two children, Pier-Angelo, albeit more melancholy, was much more at ease financially, and by dint of earnest work, he succeeded in giving his son an education far superior to that which he had himself received. He displayed a predilection for that boy which almost amounted to weakness, and Michel, although poor and obscure, was a veritable spoiled child.

Now, Pier-Angelo had spurred on his other sons to work, and had imparted to them early in life the ardor which was consuming him. But, whether because they had succumbed to excessive toil for which they had not received from Heaven the same aptitude and strength as their father, or because Pier-Angelo, finding his family reduced to three persons, no longer deemed it necessary to have assistance, it is certain that he seemed more anxious to handle tenderly the health of his last remaining son, than to provide him betimes with a means of livelihood.

Nevertheless, the child loved painting, and in play produced fruit, flowers, and birds, in which the coloring was exquisite. One day he asked his father why he never introduced figures in his frescoes.

"What do you say? figures?" replied the good man, who had an abundance of common sense: "one must paint very beautiful ones, or else let them alone. Figure painting is beyond such talent as I have been able to acquire, and whereas people think well of my garlands and arabesques, I should be very sure of making connoisseurs laugh if I should attempt to represent limping cupids or hump-backed nymphs dancing on my ceilings."

"Suppose I should try!" said the child, whom nothing daunted.

"Try on paper, and however successful you may be for your years, you will soon see that you must learn before you know."

Michel tried. Pier-Angelo showed his son's sketches to some connoisseurs, and to some painters too, who saw that the child had much talent, and that it would be well for him not to be confined too closely to the drudgery of mixing colors. Thereupon, Pier-Angelo determined to make a painter of him, sent him to one of the best studios in Rome, and relieved him entirely from preparing colors and daubing walls.

"One of two things will happen," he said to himself with good reason; "either the child will become a master, or, if he has only trifling talent, he will come back to the trade of decorating with knowledge that I do not possess, and he will be a workman of the first order in his line. In either case he will have a freer and more comfortable life than mine."

Not that Pier-Angelo was dissatisfied with his lot. He was blest with that improvidence, that recklessness, one might say, which are characteristic of the most laborious and most robust men. He always relied upon destiny, perhaps because he relied most of all upon his strong arms and his courage. But as he was a very shrewd and intelligent observer, he had already detected in Michel the gleam of a spark of ambition which his other children had never had. He drew the conclusion that the measure of happiness with which he had been content would not suffice for that more delicately balanced organism. Tolerant to excess, and thoroughly convinced that every man has aptitudes which no other man can estimate accurately, he respected Michel's impulses and inclinations as manifestations of the will of Heaven, and therein was no less imprudent than generous.

For that blind complaisance was certain to lead, and did in fact lead to this result—that Michelangelo became accustomed never to suffer, never to be thwarted, and to look upon his own personality as more important and more interesting than that of other people. He often mistook his caprices for desires, and his desires for rights. Moreover, he was attacked early in life by the disease peculiar to fortunate mortals, that is to say, the fear that they may not always be so fortunate; and in the midst of his progress he was often paralyzed by the fear of failing. A vague disquietude seized upon him, and as he was naturally energetic and bold, it sometimes made him sullen and irritable.

But we shall obtain a better conception of his character by following him in the reflections he made at the gates of Catania, in the little chapel in which he had taken his seat.

II
THE TRAVELLER'S STORY

I have forgotten to tell you, and it is important that you should know, why Michel had been separated from his father and sister for a year past.

Although he earned his living readily at Rome, and despite his happy temperament, Pier-Angelo had never been able to accustom himself to living abroad, far from his cherished fatherland. Like the genuine islander he was, he regarded Sicily as a land favored by Heaven in every respect, and the mainland as a place of exile. When the Catanians speak of the terrible volcano which overwhelms and ruins them so often, they carry love of country so far as to say: Our Ætna!—"Ah!" said Pier-Angelo, on the day that he passed near the lava fields of Vesuvius, "if you had seen our famous Catanian wave! that was grand and wonderful! You would never dare to mention yours again!" He referred to the terrible eruption of 1669, which sent a river of fire to the very centre of the city, and destroyed half of the population and buildings. The destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum seemed to him a jest.—"Psha!" he would say proudly, "I have seen bigger earthquakes! You should come to our home if you want to know what an earthquake is!"

In fact, he sighed incessantly for the moment when he could see again his dear furnace and its beloved gate of hell.

When Michel and Mila, who were accustomed to his cheerful humor, saw that he was pensive and downcast, they were grieved and disturbed, as always happens with respect to persons with whom mental depression is a rare phenomenon. Thereupon he confessed to his children that he was thinking of his native land. "If I were not in excellent health," he said, "and if I did not constantly argue with myself, homesickness would have killed me long ago."

But when his children spoke to him of returning to Sicily, he would wave his hands in a significant way, as if to say: "I cannot cross the strait again; I should escape Charybdis only to fall into Scylla."

Once or twice he inadvertently said to them: "Prince Dionigi died a long while ago, but his brother Hieronymo is still living." And when his children questioned him as to what reason he had to fear Prince Hieronymo, he shook his finger and said: "Hush! I should not even have mentioned those princes before you."

But it happened one day that Pier-Angelo, being at work in a certain palace in Rome, picked up a newspaper which he found on the floor, and showing it to Michel, who had looked in upon him on his way from the Museum of Painting, he exclaimed: "What a misfortune it is for me not to know how to read! I will bet that there is news from my dear Sicily in this paper. Look, look, Michel, what is this word here? I would swear that it was Catania. Yes, yes, I can read that name! Come, look and tell me what is going on at Catania in these days." Michel glanced at the paper, and saw that it was proposed to light the principal streets of Catania with hydrogen gas.

"Great Heaven!" ejaculated Pier-Angelo; "think of seeing Ætna by gaslight! How beautiful that will be!"

And he threw his cap up to the ceiling in his joy.

"There is more news," said the young man, looking over the paper. "The Prince-Cardinal Hieronymo of Palmarosa has been obliged to suspend the exercise of the important functions which the Neapolitan government has entrusted to him. His eminence has been stricken by paralysis, and his life is deemed to be in danger. Pending a definite decision from the medical profession concerning the mental and physical condition of that noble personage, the government has entrusted his functions temporarily to his excellency, the Marquis of——"

"What do I care to whom?" cried Pier-Angelo, snatching the paper from his son's hands with extraordinary excitement, "Prince Hieronymo is off to join his brother Dionigi in the tomb, and we are saved!"—Then, after trying to spell out Prince Hieronymo's name for himself, as if he feared that his son might have made a mistake, he returned the journal to him and bade him read the paragraph again, very carefully and very slowly.

When this was done, Pier-Angelo crossed himself devoutly.

"O Providence!" he cried, "Thou hast permitted old Pier-Angelo to witness the extinction of his persecutors, and to return to his native city! Embrace me, Michel! this event is of no less importance to you than to me. Whatever happens, remember that Pier-Angelo Lavoratori has been a good father to you!"

"What do you mean, father? Are you still in any danger? If you must return to Sicily, I will go with you."

"We will talk of that later, Michel. Meanwhile, silence!—Forget everything, even the words that have escaped me."

Two days later, Pier-Angelo folded his tents and started for Catania with his daughter. He would not consent to take Michel, despite the latter's earnest entreaties.

"No," he said, "I am not certain that I shall be able to settle at Catania, for I had the papers read to me again this morning, and they don't say that Cardinal Hieronymo is dead. They don't mention him at all. A personage so favored by the government, and so rich, could not recover or die without a great sensation. So I conclude that he is still alive, but that he is a little better. His temporary substitute is a most excellent nobleman, a true patriot, and a friend of the people. I have nothing to fear from the police so long as we have him to deal with. But if by a miracle this Prince Hieronymo should come back to life and health, I should have to return to Rome at once; and in that case what good would it have done to make you take this journey, which would interrupt your studies?"

"But," said Michel, "why not wait until this prince's fate is decided, before you start yourself? I have no idea what you have to fear from him and from your presence in Catania, father; for you have never chosen to explain yourself clearly in that respect; but it alarms me to have you start, all alone but for this child, for a land where you are not certain of being well received. I know that the police officials of absolute governments are suspicious and troublesome; and if you had nothing worse to fear than a temporary imprisonment, even then what would become of our little Mila, all alone in a city where you no longer have any acquaintances? Let me go with you, in heaven's name! I will be Mila's protector and defender, and when I see that you are comfortably settled and in no danger, then I will return to Rome and resume my studies, if you care to remain in Sicily."

"Yes, Michel, I know, I understand," replied Pier-Angelo. "You have no wish to remain in Sicily, and your youthful ambition would be ill-content with a long stay in an island which you believe to be destitute of all resources and monuments of art. You are mistaken; we have such noble monuments! Palermo fairly swarms with them. Ætna is the grandest spectacle that nature can offer to a painter, and we have painters, too. Morales filled our fatherland with masterpieces worthy to be compared with those of Rome and Florence!"

"Excuse me, father," said Michel, smiling, "Morales is not to be compared with Raphael, Michelangelo, or any of the masters of the Florentine school."

"What do you know about it? That is just like children. You have never seen his great works, his best pieces; you will see them in Sicily. And such a climate! such skies! such fruit! A veritable land of promise!"

"Very well, father, permit me to go there with you," said Michel. "That is precisely what I ask."

"No, no!" cried Pier-Angelo, earnestly. "I forgot myself in sounding the praises of Catania, and I do not want you to go there with me now. I know that your loving heart and your anxiety for us urge you to it; but I know also that your real inclination does not lie that way. I want the desire to come to you naturally, when the hour of your destiny has struck, and when you will kiss the soil of your fatherland with love, instead of treading it, as you would do to-day, with disdain."

"These reasons are of little weight, father, in view of the anxiety I shall feel during your absence. I prefer to be bored and waste my time in Sicily, rather than to let you go there without me and pass my time here dreaming of dangers and disasters."

"Thanks my child, and farewell!" said the old man, embracing him affectionately. "If I must tell you explicitly, I cannot take you. Here is half of all the money I possess; be careful of it until I am able to send you more. You can depend upon it that I shall not waste my time at Catania, and that I will work energetically to procure the means for you to continue your painting. I shall need time for the journey and to get settled; after which I shall find plenty of work, for I had many friends and patrons in my country, and I know that I shall find some of them there still. Do not dream of dangers and disasters. I will be prudent; and although duplicity and fear are not my ordinary failings, I have too much Sicilian blood in my veins not to be able to display the cunning of an old fox, at need. I know Ætna as well as I know my own pocket, and its ravines are deep enough to keep a poor fellow like me hidden for a long while. Besides, I have maintained friendly relations with my kinsfolk, as you know. I have a brother a Capuchin, who is a great man. Mila will find shelter and protection with them, if need be. I will write to you—that is to say your sister will write for me—as often as possible, and you shall not be left long in uncertainty as to our fate. Do not mention the names of the Princes of Palmarosa, unless we mention them to you first."

"And meanwhile," said Michel, "shall I not know what I have to fear or to hope from these princes?"

"You? nothing, upon my word," replied Pier-Angelo; "but you do not know Sicily; you would not have the prudence that is absolutely necessary in countries that are subjected to foreigners. You have the ideas of a young man, all the ardent ideas which circulate here in Rome, under the cloak of lax administration, but which, in Sicily, are hidden and held in reserve under the ashes of the volcanoes. You would compromise me, and they would manufacture a conspiracy against the court of Naples out of a single phrase thoughtlessly uttered by you in your fervent liberalism. Farewell once more; do not detain me. I must see my country once more! You have no idea what it means to me to have been born at Catania, and to have been away eighteen years; or, rather, you do not understand it, for it is true that you were born at Catania yourself, and that the story of my exile is the story of yours! But you were brought up at Rome, and you look upon Rome as your country, alas!"

A month later Michel received, by the hand of a mechanic who arrived in Rome from Sicily, a letter from Mila, which informed him that their journey was most successful; that they had been welcomed with open arms by their relations and former friends; that Pier-Angelo had found work and valuable patronage; but that the cardinal was still living, although not greatly to be feared, because he had withdrawn from the world and from public affairs. However, Pier-Angelo did not wish Michel to join him, for no one knew what might happen.

Until then Michel had been depressed and anxious, for he loved his father and sister dearly; but, as soon as his mind was at rest with respect to them, he involuntarily rejoiced that he was at Rome and not at Catania. His life there had been very pleasant since his father had permitted him to devote himself to painting. Favored by his masters, who were attracted to him not only because of his happy aptitude, but also because of a certain elevation of mind and of language above his years and his condition, received in the society of young men much richer and more aristocratic than he—and we must admit that he was much more accessible to their advances than to those of the sons of artisans, his equals—he devoted his leisure to the cultivation of his brain and the enlargement of his circle of ideas. He read rapidly and greedily, he frequented the theatres, he conversed with artists; in a word, he prepared himself wonderfully well for a free and noble existence, to which, however, he was by no means certain that he could properly aspire.

For the resources of the poor painter in distemper, who sent half of his wages to him, were not inexhaustible. Illness might put an end to them at any time, and painting is so serious and profound an art that one must study many years before one can hope to make profitable use of it.

This thought terrified Michel, and sometimes cast him into the deepest dejection. "O father!" he was saying to himself, when we met him at the gate of a palace near his native town: "Did you not, through excessive affection for me, do yourself as well as me a great injury, by urging me on in the pathway of ambition? I do not know if I shall succeed, yet I feel that it will be very hard for me to resume the life which you lead, and for which fortune destined me. I am not so strong as you; I am a degenerate in the matter of physical strength, which is the stamp of nobility of our race. I cannot walk, I am fatigued beyond measure by what would be simply healthy exercise for you, at sixty years of age. And here am I used up, wounded in the foot, by my own fault, by reason of my absent-mindedness or my awkwardness. And yet I was born among these mountains, and I see children running over these sharp lava beds as I would walk on a carpet. Yes, my father was right, this is a beautiful fatherland; one may well be proud of having issued like the lava, from the sides of yonder terrible mountain! But one should be wholly, not half worthy of such a glorious origin. He should be a great man and fill the world with peals of thunder and lightning flashes; or else he should be a stout-hearted peasant or a determined brigand, and live in the desert, without other resource than a carbine and a pitiless heart. That too is a poetic destiny. But it is too late for me; I have learned too many things, I know the laws, society and mankind too well. That which is heroism in these artless and uncivilized mountaineers would be cowardice and crime in me. My conscience would reproach me for having succeeded in attaining grandeur by genius and the gifts of civilization, and for having relapsed, from impotence, to a condition of brigandage. So I should have to live an obscure, insignificant life!"

Let us leave Michel for a little while to nurse and rub his aching foot, and inform the reader why, despite his love for Rome and the pleasant days he passed there, he found himself now at the gates of Catania.

From month to month his sister had written to him, at her father's dictation: "You cannot come yet, and we cannot make any decision concerning our own future. The sick man is as well as a man can be who has lost the use of his arms and his legs. But his head still lives and retains a remnant of power. Here is some money; be careful of it, my child; for, although I have all the work I want, wages are lower here than at Rome."

Michel tried to be careful of the money, which represented to him the sweat of his father's brow. He quivered with shame and dismay when his young sister, who worked at spinning silk—a very common industry in that part of Sicily,—secretly added a gold piece to her father's remittance. Evidently the poor child subjected herself to great privations to obtain for her brother the wherewithal to amuse himself for an hour. Michel vowed that he would not touch those gold pieces, but would save them and carry back to Mila all her little savings.

But Michel loved pleasure; he craved a certain amount of luxury, and he did not know how to save. He had princely tastes, that is to say, he loved to give, and rewarded handsomely any facchino who brought him a picture or a letter. And then too, painting materials are very expensive. Again, when Michel was in the company of wealthy young men, he would have blushed not to pay his scot like the rest. So that he ran in debt to a small amount, albeit very large for the budget of a poor decorator. There came a time when, the debt imitating the snow-ball, it became necessary for him either to fly in disgrace or to resign himself to take up some more humble occupation than historical painting. Trembling with rage and grief, Michel sacrificed the gold pieces which he had determined to carry back to Mila some day. But, finding that he was still far from solvent, he confessed everything in a letter to his father, blaming himself with something very like despair. A week later a banker forwarded to the young man the sum necessary to pay his debt, and to live some time longer on the same footing. Then came a letter from Mila, who said, still at Pier-Angelo's dictation: "A kind friend lent me the money I have sent to you; but I shall have to work six months to repay the loan. Try, my son, not to run in debt again until then, for if you do we shall have arrears of indebtedness which we can never discharge."

Although Michel had never been reprimanded by his father, he expected something in the nature of a rebuke this time. When he realized the excellent man's inexhaustible kindness and philosophic courage, he was heartbroken, and though unable to blame himself for errors into which his position had irresistibly led him, he did blame himself, as for a crime, for having accepted that too brilliant position. He formed a mighty resolution, and was assisted in carrying it out by the idea that he was consummating a great sacrifice, and that if he had not the making of a great painter in him, he had at all events the heroism of a great character. Thus vanity had much to say in this effort of his will, but it was an ingenuous and noble vanity. He paid his debts and bade his friends farewell, announcing his purpose to abandon painting and to work with his father at his trade.

Then, without informing his father of his coming, he packed in a bag a few choice clothes, a sketch-book, and a number of boxes of water-colors, not realizing that those symbols of luxury and art showed that he carried the thought of luxury and art with him; and he started for Catania, where we have seen him on the point of arriving.

III
MONSIGNORE

Despite this heroic renunciation of all the dreams of his youth, poor Michel experienced at that moment a sort of grief-stricken dismay. The journey had diverted his thoughts from the consequences of his sacrifice. The sight of Ætna had exalted his imagination. The joy he felt at the thought of seeing his excellent father and his dear little sister had sustained his courage. But this unlucky accident of a trifling wound in the foot, and the necessity of halting for an instant, gave him leisure for reflection for the first time since he had left Rome.

Moreover, that was an exceedingly solemn moment to his youthful mind. He saw before him the domes of his native city, one of the loveliest cities in the world, even to him who comes from Rome, and the one of all others whose location is most imposing to the eye.

This city, so many times devastated by the volcano, is not very ancient, and the style of the seventeenth century, which prevails in its buildings, has not the grandeur or the pure taste of earlier periods. Nevertheless, Catania, built upon an extensive plan and of antique spaciousness, is of a Greek type, taken as a whole. The sombre color of the lava from which it has risen again and again after being swallowed up by it, as if it had found the seeds of renewed life in its own ashes, after the manner of the phœnix, the open plain which surrounds it, and the cruel reefs of lava which have taken root in its harbor, as if to darken with their stern shadow even the shimmer of the waves—everything about the city is majestic and melancholy.

But it was not the aspect of the place that engrossed the thoughts of our young traveller. His own plight made it seem to him more gloomy and terror-inspiring than it had been made by the passage of the flames that belched forth from the cave of the Cyclops. He saw before him a place of trials and of expiation, in face of which a cold perspiration burst from every pore. It was there that he was about to bid farewell to the world of art, to the society of enlightened men, to unchecked reveries, and to the studious leisure of the artist summoned to an exalted destiny. It was there that he must resume, after ten years of a highly-favored existence, the artisan's apron, the hateful sizing-pot, the conventional festoon, the decoration of reception rooms and corridors. And, worse than all the rest, it was there that he would have to work twelve hours a day and go to bed exhausted, lacking time and strength to read or muse in a picture gallery; there that he must resign himself to do without other society than that of the Sicilian common people, so poor and so unclean that the poetic charm of his features and his intellect could scarcely penetrate the rags and degradation of poverty. In a word, the gate of Catania was, to that poor exile, the gate of the accursed city described by Dante.

At the thought, a torrent of tears, long held in check or turned aside, rushed from his eyes, and whoever had seen him thus, young, comely, pale, seated outside the gate of a palace, with his hand lying carelessly upon his injured foot, would inevitably have thought of the gladiator of old, wounded in combat, but weeping for his defeat rather than for the pain.

THE CARDINAL'S ESCORT.

The bells of a number of mules ascending the hill, and the appearance of a strange caravan coming directly toward him, forcibly changed the current of Michelangelo Lavoratori's reflections.

The bells of a number of mules ascending the hill, and the appearance of a strange caravan coming directly toward him, forcibly changed the current of Michelangelo Lavoratori's reflections. The mules were superb creatures, richly caparisoned and decorated with plumes. On their long purple saddle-cloths gleamed the insignia of the cardinalate, the triple cross of gold, surmounted by the little hat and tassels. They were laden with baggage and led by servants dressed in black, with gloomy, suspicious faces; then came abbés and other ecclesiastics, with black short-clothes, red stockings and large silver buckles on their shoes; some on horseback, others in litters. A very stout individual, in a black coat, with his hair in a bag, a diamond on his finger, and a sword at his side, rode gravely upon a magnificent ass. From his air of importance, somewhat more candid than the crafty expressions of the churchmen who surrounded him, he could readily be identified as his eminence's physician. He escorted his eminence himself, who was carried in a chair, or rather in a great box, by two powerful men, beside whom walked four relay bearers. The whole procession consisted of about forty persons, and the uselessness of each one of them could be measured by the rapt meditation and humility depicted on his face.

Michel, deeply interested in the passage of this procession which surpassed all that Rome had to offer in that direction, that was most classic and superannuated, rose and stood near the gateway, in order to obtain a nearer view of the principal personage's face. He was the better able to gratify his curiosity, as the bearers halted in front of the enormous gilded gate, while a sort of abbé, with a repulsive countenance, dismounted and opened the gate himself with an air of authority and a peculiar smile.

The cardinal was a man far advanced in years, who had once been corpulent and florid, but was now pale and emaciated, as the result of gradual and cruel decay. The skin upon his face, once tightly stretched, now relaxed, hung in innumerable folds, and imparted to the face a strong resemblance to a field furrowed by the passage of a torrent. Despite these ghastly evidences of decomposition, there was a trace of imperious beauty upon those lifeless features, which could not or would not make the faintest movement, but amid which two great black eyes still glowed, the last sanctuary of a stubborn vitality.

The contrast between the stern, piercing glance and the corpse-like face impressed Michel so strongly that he could not avoid a feeling of respect, and he instinctively bared his head before that feeble remnant of a powerful will. Everything that indicated a forceful, imperious nature produced its effect upon that young man's imagination, because he was himself ambitious of power and authority, and, except for the gleam of those tyrannical eyes, it is doubtful if it would have occurred to him to remove his straw hat.

But, as his modest garb and his dusty shoes indicated a man of the people rather than a great painter in embryo, the cardinal's people and the cardinal himself naturally expected to see him kneel, which he did not do, and his neglect scandalized them terribly.

The cardinal was the first to notice it, and as his bearers were about to pass through the gate, he made a sign with his eyebrows which was instantly read by his physician, who rode always beside him, and was ordered to keep his eyes always fixed upon those of his eminence.

The doctor had just enough wit to understand from the cardinal's expression that he wished to manifest some desire or other; so he ordered a halt, and advised Abbé Ninfo, his eminence's secretary, the same who had opened the gate with his own hand, and with a key taken from his own pocket. The abbé hastened forward, as he had done before, and placed his body in front of the door of the chair in such way as to conceal it from the rest of the procession. Thereupon there took place between his eminence and him a mysterious dialogue, so mysterious that no one could say whether his eminence made himself understood by speech, or simply by the play of his features. Ordinarily the paralytic dignitary uttered nothing more than unintelligible grunts, which became a frightful roar when he was angry; but Abbé Ninfo understood those grunts so well, when assisted by his eminence's expressive glance and his intimate knowledge of his character and designs, that he interpreted his master's wishes and ordered them executed with an intelligence, a rapidity and a careful attention to details which bordered on the marvellous. Indeed it seemed altogether too supernatural to be accepted as genuine by the other subordinate priests, and they declared that his eminence had retained the power of speech, but that by virtue of the most profound diplomacy, he preferred not to use that power except with Abbé Ninfo. Doctor Recuperati asserted however that his eminence's tongue was paralyzed as completely as his arms and legs, and that the only living portions of his being were the organs of the brain and of the digestion. "With those," he said, "a man may live to be a hundred years old, aye, and shake the world, as Jupiter shook Olympus, simply by contracting his eyebrow."

The result of the strange dialogue between Abbé Ninfo's sharp eyes and the eloquent eyebrows of his eminence, was that the abbé turned suddenly to Michel and motioned to him to draw near. Michel was strongly tempted to do nothing of the sort, and to compel the abbé to walk to him; but the Sicilian spirit suddenly awoke in him, and he stood on his guard. He recalled all that his father had told him of the dangers to be dreaded from the wrath of a certain cardinal, and, although he could not tell whether the man before him was paralyzed or not, it suddenly occurred to him that he might very well be Cardinal Hieronymo, of Palmarosa. Thereupon he determined to dissemble, and he approached the gilded, decorated chair adorned with his eminence's crest.

"What are you doing at this gate?" the abbé demanded in a surly tone. "Are you of the household?"

"No, your excellency," replied Michel, with apparent tranquillity, although he was tempted to strike his questioner. "I am passing by."

The abbé glanced into the chair, and apparently he was given to understand that it was useless to intimidate wayfarers, for he suddenly changed his tone and manner as he turned again to Michel.

"My friend," he said benignantly, "you seem unfortunate; are you a mechanic?"

"Yes, your excellency," said Michel, resolved to speak as little as possible.

"And you are fatigued? you have come a long distance?"

"Yes, your excellency."

"But you are strong for your years. How old are you?"

"Twenty-one."

Michel could safely risk that falsehood; for, although he had as yet no beard on his chin, he had attained his full growth, and his active and restless brain had already caused him to lose the first bloom of youth. In this last reply he complied with a special injunction which his father had laid upon him when they parted, and which came to his mind most opportunely: "If you come to Sicily to join me one day or another," said old Pier-Angelo, "remember that, until you have actually joined me, you must not say a word of truth in reply to people who seem to you curious and inquisitive. Tell them neither your name, nor your age, nor your profession, nor mine, nor whence you come, nor whither you are going. The police are more meddlesome than shrewd. Lie boldly and have no fear."

"If my father should hear me," thought Michel, after he had thus distinguished himself, "he would be satisfied with me."

"It is well," said the abbé, and he stepped away from the prelate's door, so that the latter could see the poor devil who had thus attracted his attention. Michel's eyes met the moribund's terrible glance, and he thereupon felt more distrust and aversion than respect for that narrow and despotic brow. Warned by an inward presentiment that he was in a dangerous position, he changed the customary expression of his face, and substituting sheepishness for pride therein, he bent his knee, hung his head in order to escape the prelate's scrutiny, and pretended to await his benediction.

"His eminence blesses you mentally," said the abbé, after consulting the cardinal's eyes, and he motioned to the bearers to go forward.

The chair passed through the gateway and proceeded slowly along the avenue.

"I would like well to know," thought Michel, as he looked after the procession, "whether my instinct deceived me, or whether that man is the enemy of my family."

He was about to continue his journey, when he observed that Abbé Ninfo had not followed the cardinal, but was waiting until the last mule had passed, in order to lock the gate and restore the key to his pocket. This strange caretaking on the part of a man so close to the cardinal was well calculated to make an impression on him, and the keen, sidelong glance which that unattractive personage stealthily bestowed upon him impressed him even more.

"It is evident that I am already watched in this unhappy country," he thought; "and that my father did not dream of the enmities against which he warned me to be on my guard."

The abbé motioned to him to come to the gate just as he withdrew the key. Michel, persuaded that he must play his part more carefully than ever, approached with an air of humility.

"Here, my boy," said the abbé, offering him a small coin, "here is something with which to refresh yourself at the first tavern, for you seem to be very much fatigued."

Michel repressed a thrill of indignation. He accepted the insult, put out his hand and thanked the abbé humbly; then he ventured to say:

"I am grieved that his eminence did not deign to give me his blessing."

This well-acted bathos dispelled the abbe's suspicions.

"Console yourself, my child," he said, in a nonchalant tone; "Divine Providence has been pleased to deprive our holy cardinal of the use of his limbs. Paralysis permits him to bless the faithful only with his mind and heart."

"May God cure and preserve him!" rejoined Michel; and he went his way, very certain now that he was not mistaken, and that he had had a lucky escape from a perilous meeting.

He had not taken ten steps down the hill-side when, as he turned a corner, he found himself face to face with a man who was close upon him before either of them recognized the other, so little did they expect to meet at that moment. Suddenly they both cried out at once and clung together in a passionate embrace. Michel was in his father's arms.

"O my child! my dear child! you, in this place!" cried Pier-Angelo. "What joy and what anxiety for me! But joy carries the day and makes me braver in spirit than I was a moment since. I was thinking of you and saying to myself: 'It is lucky that Michel is not here, for our affairs might well become serious.'—But here you are, and I cannot help being the happiest of men."

"Never fear, father," Michel replied; "I became prudent as soon as I set my foot on my native soil. I have just met our enemy face to face; he questioned me, and I lied in a way to do your heart good."

Pier-Angelo turned pale.—"Who? who?" he exclaimed; "the cardinal?"

"Yes, the cardinal in person, the paralytic in his great gilt box. It must be the famous Prince Hieronymo, who was the terror of my childhood, and who seemed to me all the more terrible because I did not know the cause of my fear. Well, dear father, I assure you that even if he still has the will to do harm, he has not the power, for all varieties of infirmity seem to have conspired together to crush him. I will tell you of our interview; but tell me first of my sister, and let us go at once and surprise her."

"No, Michel, no, the most important thing is for you to tell me how you happened to see the cardinal so close. Let us go into this clump of trees; I am not at all easy in my mind. Tell me, tell me quickly! He spoke to you, you say? Is it certain that he spoke?"

"Let me reassure you, father, he cannot speak."

"Are you sure of it? You told me that he questioned you."

"I was questioned in his behalf, I suppose; but, as I observed everything with perfect coolness, and as that caricature of an abbé who acts as his interpreter is too thin to conceal the whole interior of the chair, I saw plainly that his eminence spoke with his eyes only. Moreover, his eminence is stone deaf, for when I told my age, which the abbé asked me for some unknown reason, I saw the abbé lean toward monsignore and hold up his ten fingers twice over, and then the thumb of his right hand."

"Dumb, helpless, and deaf to boot! I breathe again. But how old did you say you were? Twenty-one?"

"You told me to lie as soon as I set foot in Sicily."

"It is well, my child; Heaven aided and inspired you in that encounter."

"I think so, but I should be much more certain of it if you would tell me how the cardinal can be interested to know whether I am eighteen or twenty-one."

"That question cannot interest him in any way," said Pier-Angelo, with a smile. "But I am overjoyed to find that you remembered my advice and that you have suddenly acquired this prudence, of which I didn't believe you to be capable. But tell me again, what did Abbé Ninfo—for it must have been he, I am sure; was he very ugly?"

"Frightful; he squints and has a flat nose."

"That's the man! What else did he ask you? your name, or your province?"

"No, no other direct question, except as to my age, and my brilliant reply to that seemed to satisfy him so entirely that he turned his back, promising me his eminence's blessing."

"And his eminence didn't give it to you? he didn't raise his hand?"

"The abbé himself told me a little later that his eminence was entirely deprived of the use of his limbs."

"What! that man spoke to you again? that fiend of hell came back to you?"

As he spoke, Pier-Angelo scratched the back of his neck, the only spot on his head where his restless hand could find any hair. It was a sign with him of great perturbation of spirit.

IV
MYSTERIES

When Michel had told the story of his adventure to the most trivial detail, and Pier-Angelo had admired and applauded his hypocrisy, the young man said:

"Now, father, pray tell me how it happens that you live here, without a mask and under your own name, without being molested, whereas I, immediately upon my arrival, must resort to stratagem and stand on my guard?"

Pier-Angelo seemed to hesitate a moment, then replied:

"Why, it is a very simple matter, my child! I was charged with being a conspirator long ago; I was put in prison, and probably escaped the gallows by flight. The formal prosecution had already been begun. That is all forgotten, and although the cardinal must have known my name and my face at the time, it would seem that I have changed greatly, or else his memory is much impaired, for he has seen me here, and must have heard my name mentioned, without recognizing me and without the faintest indication that he recalled the old affair; that was a test which I was resolved to make. I was summoned by Abbé Ninfo to work in the cardinal's palace; I went there boldly, after taking measures to ensure Mila's safety in case I should be cast into prison without process. The cardinal saw me and did not recognize me. Abbé Ninfo knows nothing about me; so that I am, or at all events I was, free from anxiety on my own account, and was just about to write you to come and see me, when it began to be rumored in the city, a few days ago, that his eminence was visibly improved, so much so that he was going to pass some time at his country house at Ficarazzi yonder; you can see the palace from here, on the hillside."

"Then the villa a few steps away, where I just saw the cardinal enter, is not his own residence?"

"No; it belongs to his niece, Princess Agatha. Doubtless he thought that he would make a détour and call upon her as he passed; but this same visit worries me. I know that she was not expecting it—that she had made no preparations to receive her uncle. He must have wanted to give her an unpleasant surprise, for he surely knows that there is no reason whatever why she should be fond of him. I greatly fear that this is a cloak for some wicked design. In any event, this sudden activity on the part of a man who, for a whole year, has only moved about in a wheeled chair up and down a gallery in his city palace, gives me food for thought, and I say that we must pay close attention to everything now."

"But after all, father, all this does not tell me what danger there can be for me personally! I was barely six months old, I believe, when I left Sicily; I fancy that I was not implicated in the conspiracy in which you were involved?"

"No, of course not; but new-comers are watched. Every man of the people, young, intelligent and from across the strait, is assumed to be dangerous, permeated with the new ideas. A single word from your lips, spoken in presence of a spy, or extorted from you by an informer, would be enough to put you in prison; and when I went to claim you as my son, it would be vastly worse if that wicked cardinal should by any chance be restored to health and to the exercise of power. Then he might remember that I was accused long ago, and he would apply to us, by way of sentence, the proverb: 'Like father, like son.' Now do you understand?"

"Yes, father, I will be prudent. Rely on me."

"That is not enough. I must be perfectly sure of the cardinal's state of health. I do not propose to let you enter Catania until I know what to expect."

"But what will you do to find out, father?"

"I will remain in hiding here with you until we have seen the cardinal and his procession start for Ficarazzi. It won't be long. If it is true that he is deaf and dumb, he will not have a long interview with his niece. As soon as we no longer run the risk of meeting him there, we will go to the Palmarosa palace, where I am at work now. I will conceal you in some corner; then I will go and consult the princess."

"Is the princess in your interest, then?"

"She is my most powerful and most generous patron. She employs me a great deal, and I hope that, thanks to her, we shall not be persecuted."

"Oh! father, was it she who gave you the money which enabled me to pay my debts?"

"Lent it my boy, lent it. I knew well enough that you would not accept alms, but she gives me so much work that I can pay her gradually."

"You may say: 'Soon,' father, for I am here! I have come to pay my debt to you; my journey has no other purpose."

"What, my dear child! have you sold a picture? have you earned some money?"

"Alas! no. I am not yet skilful enough or well enough known to earn money. But I have arms, and I know enough to paint frescoes for decoration. We will work together, my dear father, and I shall never again have to blush to think that I am leading the life of an artist, while you are wearing out your strength to gratify my misplaced tastes."

"Are you in earnest, Michel?" cried the old man. "You really mean to be a workman?"

"I am fully determined upon it. I have sold my canvases, my engravings, my books. I have given up my lodgings, thanked my teacher, bade farewell to friends, to Rome, to glory. It was a little hard," added Michel, feeling that his eyes were filling with tears; "but embrace me, father; tell me that you are content with your son, and I shall be proud of what I have done!"

"Embrace me, my dear boy!" replied the old decorator, pressing his son to his heart, and blending his own tears with his. "It is a fine thing, a noble thing that you have done, and God will reward you abundantly for it, I promise you. I accept your sacrifice, but let us understand each other: it is for a time only, for a time which we will make as short as possible by working rapidly to pay our debt. The experience will be useful to you, and your genius will grow instead of being extinguished. Between us, thanks to the excellent princess, who will pay us well, we shall soon have earned money enough for you to return to your real painting, without remorse and without imposing any privation on me. That is agreed. Now let us speak of your sister. She is a perfect prodigy of wit, that little girl. And how she has grown and how beautiful she is! so beautiful that it's enough to frighten a poor devil of a father like me."

"I propose to remain a workman," said Michel, "for with a modest but sure livelihood I can succeed in establishing my sister in life according to her rank. Poor dear angel! Think of her sending me her little earnings! And I, poor wretch, intended to bring them back to her and was forced to sacrifice them! Ah! it is horrible, yes, detestable, to try to become an artist when one has poor relations!"

"We will speak of this again, and I will find a way to revive your taste for your destiny, my child. But, hark! I hear the gate creaking—the cardinal is leaving the villa; let us not show ourselves; we shall soon see them going down on our right. You say that Ninfo opened the gate himself with a key that he had? It is very strange, and very disturbing too, to find that the good princess is not safe in her own house, that these people have false keys to violate her privacy unexpectedly, and that they evidently suspect her, since they spy upon her in this way!"

"But of what can they possibly suspect her?"

"Why, suppose it were only of protecting people whom they persecute! You assure me that you have become prudent, and in any event you will understand the importance of what I am going to tell you. You know already that the Palmarosas were entirely devoted to the court of Naples; that Prince Donigi, the oldest of the family, Princess Agatha's father, and brother of the cardinal, was the wickedest Sicilian that was ever known, the enemy of his fatherland and the persecutor of his compatriots; and that, too, not from cowardice, like those who go over to the side of the conqueror, nor from greed, like those who sell themselves; he was rich and fearless; but he did it from ambition, from his passion for domineering, in short, from an inborn wickedness that was in his blood and caused him to take the keenest delight in terrifying, tormenting, and humbling his neighbor. He was omnipotent in the time of Queen Caroline, and, until it pleased God to rid us of him, he inflicted all the harm he possibly could upon the patriotic nobles and the poor devils who loved their country. His brother continued that wrong-doing; but now he is going, too; and if the dying lamp still casts a faint gleam, it is simply a proof that it is dying. Then all the clientage of the Palmarosas, among the people of Catania, and especially in the suburb where we live, will be able to breathe freely. There are no more males in the family, and all the vast property, of which the cardinal still has the income of a large part, will fall into the hands of a single heiress, Princess Agatha. She is as good as her relations have been bad, and her heart is in the right place. She is Sicilian to the marrow and detests the Neapolitans! She will have great influence when she is entirely in control of her property and her acts. If God would permit her to marry and take into her house some worthy nobleman as right-minded as she, that would change the tone of the administration somewhat, and better our lot!"

"Is the princess a young woman?"

"Yes, still young, and might marry as well as not; but she has always refused to do it thus far, in the fear, so far as I can understand, that she would not be free to choose for herself.—But here we are close to the park," added Pier-Angelo; "we may meet somebody, so let us talk of indifferent matters only. I urge you, my child, to use here nothing but the Sicilian dialect, which we very wisely used at Rome so long. You have not forgotten your native language, I trust, since we parted?"

"No, indeed," replied Michel.

And he began to talk Sicilian with great volubility, to convince his father that there was nothing about him to indicate the foreigner.

"That is very good," said Pier-Angelo; "you have not the slightest accent."

They had made a détour and entered the park by a gate at a considerable distance from that at which Michel had encountered Monsignore Hieronymo; the gate was open and the numerous marks on the gravel indicated that many men, horses, and wagons habitually passed in and out.

"You will see here a great hurly-burly, most contrary to the ordinary habits of the household," said the old painter to his son. "I will explain it to you. But let us say nothing yet, that is the safest way. Do not look about you too much, nor have the surprised air of a new-comer. And, first of all, hide that travelling-bag among the rocks near the waterfall; I shall remember the place. Rub your shoes in the grass, so that you won't look like a traveller. Why, I believe you are limping, are you hurt?"

"Nothing, nothing, a little fatigue."

"I am going to take you to a place where you can rest without being disturbed by anyone."

Pier-Angelo made several détours in the park, leading his son through shady paths, and thus they reached the palace without meeting anyone, although they heard a great deal of noise, which increased as they drew near. They entered a corridor on the lower floor and walked rapidly by an enormous room, filled with workmen and materials of all sorts, assembled there for some incomprehensible purpose. The men were so busy and making so great an uproar that they did not notice Michel and his father. Michel had no time to understand what he saw. His father had instructed him to follow him step by step, and he walked so fast that the young traveller, utterly exhausted as he was, found it difficult to keep pace with him in the narrow halls and steep stairways.

Their journey through that labyrinth of secret passages seemed very long to Michel. At last Pier-Angelo took a key from his pocket and opened a small door on a dark corridor. Thereupon they found themselves in a long gallery, adorned with statues and pictures. But the blinds were drawn everywhere, and it was so dark that Michel could distinguish nothing.

"You can take a nap here," said his father, after he had carefully locked the little door and removed the key; "I am going to leave you here; I will return as soon as possible, and then I will tell you what we are to do."

He walked the whole length of the gallery, and, raising a portière embroidered with armorial bearings, pulled a bell-cord. In a few seconds a voice answered inside, and a dialogue followed, in so low a tone, that Michel could not hear a word. At last, a mysterious door was partly opened, and Pier-Angelo disappeared, leaving his son in the darkness, chill, and silence of that great empty room.

At times, however, the echoing voices of the men at work below, the sound of the saw and the hammer, snatches of song, laughter, and oaths reached his ears. But the noises gradually died away as darkness approached, and, after two hours, the most absolute silence reigned in that unfamiliar abode in which Michel found himself imprisoned, dying of hunger and weariness.

Those two hours of suspense would have seemed very long to him if sleep had not come to his aid. Although his eyes had become accustomed to the darkness of the gallery, he made no attempt to inspect the objects of art which it contained. He had dropped upon a rug, and fell into a sort of lethargy, interrupted sometimes by the tumult below, and the uneasiness which one feels when sleeping in a strange place. At last, when nightfall was followed by the cessation of the work, he slept soundly.

But a strange cry, which seemed to come from one of the rose-shaped openings which supplied the gallery with ventilation, woke him abruptly. He instinctively raised his head and fancied that he saw a faint light on the ceiling. The figures painted thereon seemed to move for an instant. Another cry, fainter than the first, but so peculiar that Michel was perturbed by it and moved to the lowest depths of his being, sounded over his head. Then the light vanished. The silence and darkness became so intense that he wondered if he had not dreamed.

Another quarter of an hour passed, during which Michel, excited by what had just happened, did not think of going to sleep again. He feared that his father was in some danger which he could not define. He was horrified at the thought that he himself was a captive and unable to assist him. He examined all the doors and found them all securely locked. He dared not make any noise, for, after all, it was a woman's voice that he had heard, and he could not understand what connection there could be between that cry and his own situation or Pier-Angelo's.

At last the mysterious door opened, and Pier-Angelo appeared, carrying a candle whose flickering light imparted a fantastic appearance to the statues upon which it fell one after another. When he stood beside Michel, he said in a low voice: "We are saved; the cardinal is in his dotage, and Abbé Ninfo knows nothing of our affairs. The princess, for whom I was compelled to wait a long while, because she had people about her, is of the opinion that we should make no sort of mystery about you. She thinks that that would be worse than simply to announce your return without any affectation. So we will go back to your sister, who is undoubtedly anxious because I am so late. But we have quite a little walk, and I suppose you are dying of hunger and thirst. The steward of the household, who is very kind to me, told me to take you to a little buttery, where we shall find something to eat."

Michel followed his father to a room which had on one side a glass door with a curtain covering the glass outside. This room, which was in no wise remarkable, was lighted by several candles, a fact which astonished Michel somewhat. Pier-Angelo, observing his surprise, said that it was a room where the princess's first lady's-maid came every night to superintend the preparation of her mistress's supper. With that he unceremoniously began to open cupboards and take out cold meats, preserves, wine, fruit, and innumerable delicacies which he placed helter-skelter on the table, laughing at each new discovery he made in those inexhaustible cupboards—all to the unbounded amazement of Michel, who failed to recognize his father's customary discretion and pride.

V
THE CASINO

"Well," said Pier-Angelo, "don't you propose to help me? You sit there with your arms folded and allow your father to wait on you! Do at least take the trouble to eat and drink yourself!"

"Excuse me, dear father, you seem to me to do the honors of the house with a self-possession which I admire, but which I should not dare to imitate. You also seem to me to be very much at home here."

"I am more comfortable here than at home," rejoined Pier-Angelo, nibbling at the wing of a chicken, and offering the other wing to his son. "Don't expect me to give you such suppers often. But make the most of this one without false shame; I told you that the majordomo authorized me to do this."

"The majordomo is simply a higher servant who pilfers like all the others, and invites his friends to make themselves comfortable at his mistress's expense. Excuse me, father, but this supper is distasteful to me; my appetite has all disappeared at the thought that we are stealing the princess's supper; for these Japanese plates filled with delicious sweetmeats were not intended for our mouths, nor even for that of his highness the majordomo."

"Well, if I must tell you, that is true; but it was the princess herself who bade me eat her supper, because she is not hungry to-night, and she supposed that you would have some reluctance to sup with her servants."

"Your princess is extraordinarily kind," said Michel, "and shows a most exquisite delicacy of feeling with respect to me! I confess that I should not care to eat with her lackeys. But, father, if you do it, if it is the custom of the house, and a necessity of my new position, I will be no more fastidious than you, and will accustom myself to it. But how did it ever occur to the princess to spare me that petty annoyance to-night?"

"Because I spoke to her about you. As she is particularly interested in me, she asked me many questions about you, and, when she learned that you were an artist, she declared that she would treat you as an artist, and that she would find an artist's work for you in her house, in short, that she would show you all the consideration you could possibly desire."

"She is a very generous and very thoughtful lady," rejoined Michel, with a sigh, "but I will not abuse her good-nature. I should blush to be treated as an artist, side by side with my father the artisan. No, no, I am an artisan myself, neither more nor less. I prefer to be treated like my fellows, and if I eat here to-night, I propose to eat to-morrow where my father eats."

"It is well, Michel; those are noble sentiments. I drink your health! This Syracuse wine gives me courage, and makes the cardinal seem no more formidable than a mummy to me! But what are you looking at so intently?"

"It seems to me that that curtain behind the glass keeps moving. There is certainly some prying servant there who doesn't like to see us eating such a delicious supper in his place. Ah! it will be very disagreeable to have to deal with those people all the time! They must be carefully handled, of course, for they can do us an ill turn with their masters, and deprive an honest artisan, who happens to offend them, of a good customer."

"That is true, generally speaking, but there is nothing of the sort to be feared here. I have the princess's confidence; I deal with her directly and without any orders from the majordomo. And, then, her servants are excellent fellows. Come, eat in peace, and don't keep looking at that curtain, which the wind is blowing."

"I assure you, father, that it isn't the wind, unless Zephyr has a pretty little white hand with a diamond ring on the finger."

"In that case it must be the princess's first lady's-maid. She must have heard me tell her mistress that you were a well-favored youth, and she is curious to see you. Sit round this way, so that she can gratify her curiosity."

"I am much more anxious to go and see Mila, father, than to be seen by her ladyship the first lady's-maid. I have eaten my fill; let us go."

"I will not go until I have applied once more to this excellent wine for courage and strength. Drink with me again, Michel! I am so happy to be with you, that I would get drunk if I had the time!"

"And I am happy too, father; but I shall be still more so when we are at home with my sister. I do not feel so much at ease as you do in this mysterious palace: it seems to me that I am watched, or that some one here is afraid of me. There is a silence and solitude here which do not seem natural to me. People do not walk and show themselves as they do in other places. We are stealthy in our movements, and we are being stealthily watched. Anywhere else I would break a pane of glass to see what there is behind that curtain—and just now, in the gallery, I had a terrible shock. I was awakened by a cry, such a cry as I never heard before."

"A cry, really? How does it happen that I heard nothing of the sort, although I was very near you, in the same part of the palace? You must have dreamed it!"

"No! no! I heard it twice; a faint cry, it is true, but so vibrating, so peculiar that my heart beats fast when I think of it."

"Ah! that is just like your romantic mind! Now I recognize you, Michel; it delights my heart, for I was afraid that you had become too reasonable. However, I am sorry, for the sake of your adventure, to be obliged to tell you what I think about it, which is that her highness's first lady's-maid must have seen a spider or a mouse as she passed through one of the corridors that surround the great gallery of paintings. Whenever she sees one of those creatures, she utters frightful shrieks, and I take the liberty of laughing at her."

This prosaic explanation annoyed the young artist a little. He hurried his father, who was inclined to forget himself over the Syracuse wine, and half an hour later he was in his sister's arms.

The next day Michelangelo Lavoratori was installed with his father at the Palmarosa palace, to work industriously there the rest of the week. The work in progress was the decoration of the enormous ball-room constructed of wood and canvas for the occasion, adjoining the peristyle of that beautiful country-seat, and opening on the gardens on every side. The princess, who ordinarily lived in strict retirement, was about to give a magnificent fête, in which all the wealthy and noble inhabitants of Catania and of the neighboring villas were to take part. Her reason for this departure from her usual mode of life was as follows:

Every year the first society of that neighborhood co-operated to give a subscription ball for the benefit of the poor, and each proprietor of a spacious house, whether in the city or the country, was supposed to lend it in his turn, and to pay a portion of the expenses of the fête when the circumstances would permit.

Although the princess was exceedingly charitable, her taste for seclusion had led her to defer offering her palace; but her turn had come at last. She had most generously assumed the whole burden of the fête, agreeing to pay all the expenses of the ball, including the decorations of the ball-room, music, etc. By reason of her generosity, the sum realized for the poor promised to be quite handsome, and, as the Villa Palmarosa was the most superb residence in the province, and all the preparations were on a magnificent scale, the fête promised to be the most brilliant one ever seen.

The house was full of workmen, who had been at work a fortnight on the ball-room, under the direction of Barbagallo the majordomo, a man of wide experience in such matters, and under the preponderating influence of Pier-Angelo Lavoratori, whose taste and skill were already well known and highly esteemed throughout the province.

On the first day, Michel, true to his agreement and resigned to his lot, made garlands and arabesques with his father and the apprentices in his employ; but his probation was confined to that day, for on the following morning Pier-Angelo informed him that the princess wished him to undertake the painting of allegorical figures on the ceiling and canvas walls of the ball-room. The selection and size of the subjects was left to his discretion; he was requested simply to make haste and to have confidence in himself. That task did not require the care and finish of a durable work; but it opened a wide field to his imagination, and when he realized that he was in possession of that vast space, upon which he was at liberty to cast his fancies without restraint, he had a moment of genuine bliss, and he was more intoxicated than ever with his profession of artist.

His enthusiasm for the commission was greatly increased when the princess sent word to him, through his father, that, if his work was simply passable, it would be accepted as full payment of the sum lent to Pier-Angelo for him; but that, if it earned the praise of connoisseurs, he should be paid double.

Thus Michel was on the point of becoming free in any event, and perhaps rich for a year to come, if he displayed any talent at all.

A single apprehension, but a very weighty one, chilled his joy; the day for the ball was fixed, and it was not in the princess's power to postpone it. A week remained, only a week! For an experienced decorator that was enough, but for Michel, who had never done anything of the sort on a large scale, and who could not refrain from looking upon it as a matter in which his self-esteem was deeply involved, it was so little that he shuddered at the bare thought.

Luckily for him, having worked with his father in his boyhood, and having watched him work a thousand times since, the processes of water-color work were familiar to him, as well as the geometrical principles of decoration; but when he attempted to select his subjects, he was oppressed by the superabundance of his ideas, and the prodigality of his imagination put him on the rack. He passed two nights drawing his compositions, and all day on his scaffolding, adjusting them to the space at his command. He did not think of sleeping or eating, or even of improving his acquaintance with his young sister, until his work was definitely laid out. At last it was done, and he transferred his labors to the courtyard of an old ruined chapel in the centre of the park, where his canvas ceiling, forty feet long, was stretched on the ground. There, assisted by several zealous apprentices, who handed him his colors all ready for use, and walking barefooted over his mythological sky, he prayed to the muses to impart to his trembling hand the necessary skill and boldness; and at last, armed with a gigantic brush, which might fitly have been called a broom, he sketched his Olympus and worked with so much fire and hope that the canvas was ready to be put in place two days before the ball.

He had still to superintend its removal and installation, and to retouch such parts as were necessarily damaged in that process. And then he also had to assist his father, who, having been delayed by him, still had many borders of wainscots and cornices to finish.

That week passed like a dream to Michel, and the few moments of repose in which he indulged seemed to him delicious beyond words. The villa was wonderfully beautiful inside as well as outside. The gardens and the park gave one an idea of the earthly paradise. Nature is so teeming in that country, the flowers so beautiful and sweet, the vegetation so luxuriant, the streams so clear and swift, that art has little to do in order to create fairyland around the palaces there. Not that blocks of lava and vast fields of ashes do not, here and there, present the image of desolation beside the Elysian Fields. But those horrors add to the charm of the oases which the volcanic flames have spared.

Villa Palmarosa, situated on the slope of a hill whose rugged summit was exposed to the ravages of Ætna, had existed for centuries amid continual disasters which it had been privileged to contemplate undisturbed. The palace was very old, of a graceful type of architecture, borrowed from Saracen models. The ball-room, which now concealed the façade of the ground-floor, presented a striking contrast to the dark coloring and severe decorations of the upper floors. Within, the contrast was even more striking. While all was uproar and confusion on the ground floor, all was tranquillity, order and mystery on the floor above, where the princess lived. At meal times Michel entered that silent portion of the mansion, for the little room with the glass door, where he had supped with his father on the first evening, was reserved for him, as a special and mysterious favor. They were all alone there, and if the curtain moved again, the movement was so slight that Michel could not be certain that he had inspired a romantic passion in the first lady's-maid's breast.

The palace being built against the cliff, the princess's apartments were on a level with terraces embellished with flower-beds and fountains; and by descending a narrow flight of steps, boldly cut in the lava, one could reach by that means the park and the open country. Once Michel wandered into those Babylonian flower-gardens suspended over a terrifying abyss. He saw the windows of the princess's boudoir, which was two hundred feet above the main entrance of the palace, and yet she could go out of doors to walk without descending a single step. Such boldness of conception and such charm in the construction of a dwelling made him giddy both physically and mentally. But he never saw the queen of that enchanted abode. At the times when he went up to her apartments she was taking a siesta or receiving visits from her intimate friends in the salons on the second floor.

This Sicilian custom of living on the upper floors, to enjoy the fresher air and more perfect quiet, is found in several Italian cities. These private apartments, generally small and quiet, are sometimes called the Casino, and, with their private gardens, form, as it were, a distinct dwelling above the main palace. This of which we are speaking was set back from the front and side walls of the lower building by the width of a very broad terrace, so that it was concealed, and, as it were, isolated. At the back it formed a building of a single story, on the level of the flower-garden, since the lower edifice was built against the cliff. Viewing it from that side, one would have said that a stream of lava had flowed against the palace and hardened there, and had blotted out one whole side of it up to the level of the Casino. But the villa had been constructed in that way to avoid danger from fresh eruptions. Looking at it from the direction of Ætna, one would have taken it for a small summer-house perched on top of a rock. Not until you had made the circuit of that mass of volcanic débris did you discover a magnificent palace, consisting of three great structures, one upon another, and climbing the hill backward, so to speak.

Under any other circumstances Michel would have been curious to know if this lady, who was said to be lovely and gracious, was, poetically speaking, worthy to inhabit so noble an abode; but his imagination, engrossed by the hurried work which had been entrusted to him, paid little heed to other things.

He felt so fatigued when he laid aside his rough brush for an instant, that he was compelled to fight against drowsiness in order not to prolong his siesta beyond half an hour. Indeed, he was so afraid that the zeal of his companions might abate, that he took that brief interval of rest by stealth in the gallery of paintings, where his father would lock him in, and where it seemed that no one ever set foot. Two or three times he lacked courage to go and pass the night in the suburb of Catania, although his house was among the first on the road from the villa, and he consented to allow his father to procure a bed for him in the palace. When he did return to the wretched hovel where Mila bloomed like a rose under glass, he neither saw nor comprehended anything that took place about him. He confined himself to kissing his sister and telling her that he was glad to see her, but he had no time to scrutinize her or to talk with her.

The day before the fête was a Sunday. It only remained to give a last glance and a finishing touch to the work. He determined to dress with some care and to stroll about the city after escorting Mila to the evening service. He soon learned the location of the principal churches, squares, and buildings. Lastly, his father introduced him to several of his friends and relations, who welcomed him cordially, and with whom he strove to be amiable. But the contrast between that environment and the society he had frequented at Rome made him sad in spite of himself, and he retired early, longing for the morrow; for, in presence of his work, and under the spell of the noble edifice in which he labored, he forgot that he was of the common people, and remembered only that he was an artist.

At last that day of hope and dread arrived, the day on which Michel's work was to be applauded or ridiculed by the élite of Sicilian society.

VI
THE STAIRCASE

"What! no farther advanced than this?" cried the majordomo, in despair, rushing in among the workmen. "Great God! what are you thinking of? The clock will strike seven in a moment; at eight the carriages will begin to arrive, and half of this room is not yet draped!"

As this apostrophe was addressed to no person in particular, no one replied, and the workmen continued to work with more or less speed, each according to the measure of his strength and his skill.

"Room, room for the flowers!" cried the controller of that notable branch of the establishment. "Put a hundred boxes of camellias in rows along the benches!"

"How do you expect to arrange your boxes of flowers before the carpets are down?" queried Master Barbagallo, with a profound sigh.

"And where do you expect me to put my boxes and flower-pots?" retorted the head gardener. "Why haven't your upholsterers finished their work?"

"Ah! there you are! why haven't they?" said the other, in a tone of intense indignation.

"Room! room for my ladders!" cried another voice; "the orders are that everything must be lighted at eight o'clock sharp, and that doesn't give me any too much time to light so many chandeliers. Room, room, I say!"

"Painters, take away your ladders," cried the upholsterers, in their turn; "we can do nothing as long as you are in the way."

"Such confusion, such an uproar, it's a second Tower of Babel," muttered the majordomo, wiping his brow. "I did all that I could to see that everything was done at the proper time; I warned everyone more than a hundred times; and here you are, all in a muddle, disputing the ground with one another, in one another's way, and making no progress at all. It is hopeless! it is disgusting!"

"Whose fault is it?" said the man with the flowers. "Can I put my wreaths on bare walls and my flowerpots on rough boards?"

"And can I climb up to the ceiling," said the man with the candles, "if my ladders are taken away to lay carpets? Do you take my men for bats, do you want me to make thirty honest fellows break their necks?"

"How do you expect my men to lay their carpets," said the chief upholsterer, in his turn, "if the painters don't take away their ladders?"

"And how do you expect our ladders to be taken away if we are still on them?" shouted one of the painters.

"The fault is all yours, you daubers!" cried the frantic majordomo; "or, rather, your master is the only culprit," he added, noticing that the young man whom he addressed glared fiercely at him at the epithet of dauber. "It's that old madman of a Pier-Angelo, who is not even here to direct you, I'll wager. Where can he be? At the nearest wineshop, I'll stake my head!"

A voice, still full and resonant, broke forth at the highest point of the ceiling with the refrain of an old ballad, and, on looking up, the wrathful majordomo saw the glistening bald head of the decorator-in-chief. Evidently the old man was laughing at the majordomo, and, being master of the field, proposed to put the finishing touches to his work at his leisure.

"Pier-Angelo, my friend," said the other, "you are making sport of us! That is too bad of you. You act like an old spoiled child, as you are; but we shall lose patience at last. This is no time to laugh and sing your drinking-songs."

Pier-Angelo did not deign to reply; he simply shrugged his shoulders as he talked with his son, who was even higher up than he, shading the dress of a dancing-girl of Herculaneum, who swam in a blue canvas sky.

"There are enough figures, enough folds and shading!" cried the majordomo, beside himself. "Who in the devil will ever look up there, to see if there's anything wrong with your divinities in the firmament? The general effect is there, and that's all that is necessary. Come, come down, you old fox, or I'll shake the ladder you are standing on."

"If you touch my father's ladder," exclaimed young Michel, in a voice of thunder, "I will crush you with this chandelier. No jests of that sort, Signor Barbagallo, or you will be sorry for them."

"Let him talk, and go on with your work," said old Pier-Angelo, calmly. "Disputing takes time; don't waste your breath in empty words."

"Go down, father, go down," said the young man. "I am afraid that in this confusion they may give you a fall; I shall finish in a moment. Go down, I entreat you, if you expect me to retain my presence of mind."

Pier-Angelo descended the ladder slowly; not that he had lost, at sixty years of age, the strength and agility of youth, but in order to make the time that his son required to complete his work seem less long.

"What folly, what trifling!" said the majordomo to the old man. "You work over these temporary canvases as if they were to be exhibited in a museum, whereas they will be rolled up and stored in a garret to-morrow, and will have to be covered with different figures for the next fête! Who will thank you for it? Who will pay the slightest attention to them?"

"Not you; everybody knows that," retorted the young painter, contemptuously, from the top of his ladder.

"Hush, Michel, and attend to your work," said his father. "Everyone takes pride in doing the best he can," he added, looking at the steward. "There are some who take pride in claiming the credit of all our labors! Come! the upholsterers may begin. Give me a hammer and some nails, you fellows! As I have delayed you, it's no more than fair that I should help you."

"Always a good comrade!" said one of the upholsterers, handing the old painter some tools. "Come, Master Pier-Angelo, let art and trade lend each other a hand! One must be mad to get into trouble with you."

"Oh! yes," grumbled Barbagallo, who, contrary to his customary reserved and courteous habit, was in a savage humor that evening; "that's the way everybody pays court to the obstinate old fool, and he doesn't care a fig how much trouble he makes for others."

"Instead of grumbling, you ought to help at the nailing, or by lighting the candles," said Pier-Angelo, with a mocking air. "But, psha I you are afraid you might spoil your satin breeches and tear your ruffles."

"Master Pier-Angelo, you are altogether too familiar, and I swear that I will never employ you after to-day."

"God grant it!" retorted the other with his accustomed phlegm, accompanying himself with sturdy, measured blows of the hammer upon the nails which he drove in quick succession; "but, on the very next occasion, you will come and implore me, and say that nothing can be done without me; and I, as usual, shall forgive your impertinence."

"Well!" said the majordomo to Michel, as he came slowly down his ladder, "is it done at last? That is very fortunate! Quick! quick! help the upholsterers, or the gardeners, or the lamplighters. Do something to make up for lost time."

Michel eyed the majordomo with a haughty air. He had so entirely forgotten even the idea of becoming a mere workman, that he could not imagine how that subordinate could venture to order him to take part in tasks unconnected with his special duties; but, just as he was about to make a sharp retort, he heard his father's voice calling him.

"Come, Michel, bring us some nails here, and help these good fellows, who won't finish in time without us."

"Nothing can be fairer," the young man replied. "I may not be very skilful at that work, but I have good strong arms for stretching. Come, what must I do? Tell me, you fellows!"

"Good!" exclaimed Magnani, a young journeyman upholsterer, outspoken and full of animation, who lived next door to the Lavoratori family in the suburb. "Be a good comrade like your father, whom everybody loves, and you will be loved as he is. We have been told that, because you had studied painting at Rome, you were inclined to be a little conceited, and you certainly do go about the city in a coat that is hardly fitted for an artisan. You have a very pleasing face, to be sure, but people blame you for being ambitious."

"Where would be the harm?" rejoined Michel, working industriously beside Magnani. "Who is not entitled to be ambitious?"

"I like the frankness of your reply, but every man who wishes to be admired should begin by winning affection."

"Am I hated, pray, in this country, where I have just arrived, and where I know no one as yet?"

"It is your own country; you were born here, your family is well known here, and your father highly esteemed; and the very reason that everybody has their eyes fixed on you is that you have just arrived. People think you a comely fellow, well dressed and well built. So far as I am able to judge, you have talent, the figures you have sketched and colored up yonder are not mere vulgar daubs. Your father is proud of you, but that is no reason why you should be proud of yourself. You are still a child, you are several years younger than I; you have almost no beard on your chin; you have never had an opportunity to furnish proofs of courage and virtue. When you have suffered a little because of the hardships of your condition in life, without complaining, then we will forgive you for carrying your head high and swaying from your hips up as you cross the street, with your cap over one ear. Otherwise we shall tell you that you are trying to impose on us, and that if you are not an artisan, but an artist, you had better ride in a carriage and not look the young men of your own rank in the face; for, you see, your father is a workman like us; he has talent in his line, and it may be more difficult to paint flowers, fruit, and birds on a cornice than to hang draperies at a window and arrange colors to harmonize in furnishing a room. But the difference isn't so great that we are not cousins-german in trade. I do not think that I am any better than the carpenter or mason; why do you think yourself above me?"

"I have no such thought," Michel replied; "God preserve me from it!"

"In that case, why didn't you come to our artisans' ball last night? I know that your cousin Vincenzo wanted to bring you, and you refused."

"Do not form a bad opinion of me for that, my friend; it may be that I am of a melancholy and unsociable temperament."

"I don't believe it. Your face says the contrary. Forgive me for speaking to you without ceremony; it is because I like you that I reproach you in this way. But our carpet is all nailed here; we must go somewhere else."

"Two or three of you to each chandelier!" cried the head lamplighter to his men; "you will never finish if you scatter so!"

"I say! I am all alone!" cried Visconti, one of the lighters, a stout fellow and fond of the bottle, who, having a little wine in his brain already, did not hold the lighted match within two inches of the candle. Michel, impressed by the lesson Magnani had given him, placed a stool under the chandelier and attempted to assist Visconti.

"Ah! that is right!" said the latter; "Master Michel's a good fellow, and he will have his reward. The princess pays well, and moreover she wants everybody to enjoy themselves in her house on fête days. There will be a supper for us after the dessert of the nobility's supper, and there'll be no lack of good wine. I have already had a little on account as I passed through the pantry."

"And so you are burning your fingers!" said Michel, with a smile.

"Perhaps your hand won't be as steady as it is now, two or three hours later," retorted Visconti; "for you will come to supper with us, won't you, young man? Your father will sing us his old ballads, which are always good for a laugh. There'll be more than a hundred of us at table at once! Ah! what a lark we will have!"

"Make room, make room!" cried a tall footman, with gold lace on all the seams of his livery; "the princess is coming to see if everything is ready. Make haste, stand aside! Don't shake the carpets so hard, you raise a dust. I say! you lighters up there, don't drop the wax so! take away your tools, make a passage!"

"Well," said the majordomo, "now you will hold your peace, I trust, you workmen! Come, make haste; if you are late, at least act as if you were hurrying. I won't be responsible for the rebuke you are going to receive. I am very sorry for you. But it's your own fault; I can't justify you. Ah! Master Pier-Angelo, this time you have no excuse for coming to beg for compliments."

These words reached young Michel's ears, and all his pride reawoke in his heart. The idea that his father could beg for compliments and receive reproaches was intolerable to him. If he had not as yet been able to see the princess, he could fairly say that he had made no attempt to see her. He was not one of those who run eagerly at the heels of a wealthy and powerful person, to feast that person's eyes with the spectacle of puerile and servile admiration. But this time he stooped as he stood on the stool, seeking with his eyes that haughty personage who, according to Master Barbagallo, would in a moment humiliate an assemblage of intelligent and willing mechanics with a gesture or a word. He remained in that position, considerably above the level of the crowd, in order to see better, but all ready to jump down, rush to his old father's side, and answer for him if, in a spasm of too great affability, the heedless old man should allow himself to be insulted.

The vast apartment which they were hastening to complete was nothing more than an immense garden terrace, covered on the outside with such a wilderness of foliage, garlands and streamers, that one might have taken it for an enormous bower after the style of Watteau. Within, movable floors had been laid on the gravel. Three great marble fountains, decorated with mythological characters, were not at all in the way in that extemporized ball-room, but formed its most beautiful decoration. There was sufficient room to promenade and to dance between those graceful piles. They discharged their jets of limpid water into veritable thickets of flowers, beneath the resplendent glare of the great chandeliers, which spangled them with sparks of light. Benches, arranged as in an ancient amphitheatre, dotted with rose-bushes here and there, provided numerous seats for the guests and did not impede the circulation.

The ceiling was so high that the main stairway of the palace, an admirable piece of architecture, adorned with antique statues and jasper urns of the most beautiful patterns, was wholly within the ball-room. The white marble stairs were newly covered with a purple carpet, and the lackeys who preceded the princess having swept back the crowd of workmen, there was a solemn void about the foot of the staircase. Everybody instinctively held his peace in anticipation of a majestic spectacle.

The workmen, impelled by a feeling of curiosity, ingenuous and respectful in some, mocking and indifferent in others, all fixed their eyes on the great carved doors at the top of the staircase. Michel felt that his heart was beating fast, but it was with anger no less than with impatience. "Who in God's name are these nobles and wealthy mortals," he said to himself, "that they walk so proudly over the altars and platforms that our degraded hands construct for them? A goddess of Olympus would hardly be worthy to appear in such state, at the summit of such a temple, to the base mortals prostrate at her feet! Oh! insolence, falsehood and mockery! It may be that the woman who is about to come forth before my eyes is a woman of narrow mind, of ordinary parts; and yet all these bold, strong men, uncover at her approach!"

Michel had asked his father very few questions concerning Princess Agatha's tastes and character; and even those few questions Pier-Angelo had answered, especially of late, in an absent-minded way, as his custom was when anyone introduced a subject foreign to the train of thought induced by his work. But Michel was proud, and the thought that he was about to be brought face to face with some one prouder than himself aroused a feeling of anger and something like hatred in his heart.

VII
A GLANCE