Dorothy, and Other Italian Stories

by Constance Fenimore Woolson

Mr. Tiber came with a rush. Maso took him up, and confided to him, in the dog language, all his profound plan. Mr. Tiber approved of it highly.

The fifty francs carried the two through a good many days. Mr. Tiber, indeed, knew no change, for he had his coroneted bed, and the same fare was provided for him daily—a small piece of meat, plenty of hot macaroni, followed by a bit of cake and several lumps of sugar. When there were but eight francs left Maso went to Pisa. Mr. Waterhouse, who was very careful about money affairs, had paid all his pupil's bills up to the date of his own departure, and had then sent the remainder of the money which Mrs. Roscoe had left with him for the summer to her bankers at Pisa. Maso, as a precaution, carried with him the unmailed letter which contained the receipt for this sum. But he hoped that he should not be obliged to open the letter; he thought that they would give him a little money without that, as they knew him well. When he reached Pisa he found that the bank had closed its doors. It had failed.

Apparently it was a bad failure. Nobody (he inquired here and there) gave him a hopeful word. At the English bookseller's an assistant whom he knew said: "Even if something is recovered after a while, I am sure that nothing will be paid out for a long time yet. They have always been shaky; in my opinion, they are rascals." The bank, in truth, had never been a solid establishment; during its brief existence its standing had been dubious. But Violet Roscoe had her own ideas about banks, and one of the first was that she should be treated "with civility"; she was immensely indignant if her personality was not immediately recognized. Generally it was; she was such a charmingly pretty woman that bankers' clerks all over Europe remembered that personality without trouble, and handed out her letters eagerly through the windows of their caged retreats, stretching their heads through as far as possible to anticipate her slightest wish. But once, at one of the old banks in Pisa, she had presented a check on Paris, and had been asked to bring some one to identify her.

"Such a thing has never happened to me before!" she said, throwing back her head proudly.

This was true. But, again, it was her appearance, her beauty, and personal elegance which had helped her; risks had been assumed now and then simply from these. "She goes it on her face, doesn't she?" had been the private comment of one clerk to another in a bank at Rome. Upon this occasion at Pisa Violet had swept out of the place before the older official had time to find out what the new man was doing at the outer counter. Soon after this Mrs. Roscoe had selected this smaller establishment as "much nicer." "The office is so handsome, and they have such nice chairs, and all the illustrated papers. And then they are polite; they know their business, which is to be civil; there they see what I am!" They did see, indeed.

Maso went back to the Bagni. In the bewilderment of his thoughts there was but one clear idea: "'T any rate, mother sha'n't know; she's got to stay away four whole months; the doctor said so."

IV

AFTER a day of thought, Maso decided that he would leave the Bagni and go down to Pisa, and stay at Casa Corti. Madame Corti would not be there (she spent her summers at Sorrento), and officially the pension was closed; but Giulio would let him remain, knowing that his mother would pay for it when she returned; he had even a vision of the very room at the top of the house where Giulio would probably put him—a brick-floored cell next to the linen-room, adorned with an ancient shrine, and pervaded by the odor of freshly ironed towels. It would be no end of a lark to spend the summer in Pisa. Luigi would be there; and the puppet-shows. And perhaps Giulio would take him up on Sundays to the house on the hill-side where his wife and children lived; he had taken him once, and Maso had always longed to go again. But when he reached Pisa with his dog and his trunk he found the Palazzo Rondinelli wearing the aspect of a deserted fortress; the immense outer doors were swung to and locked; there was no sign of life anywhere. It had not been closed for twenty years. It was the unexpected which had happened. Maso went round to the stone lane behind the palace to see Luigi. It was then that he learned that his friend had gone to live in Leghorn; he learned, also, that the Casa Corti servants, having an opportunity to earn full wages at Abetone for two months, had been permitted by Madame Corti to accept this rare good-fortune; the house, therefore, had been closed. Maso, thus adrift, was still confident that the summer was going to be "huge," a free, banditlike existence, with many enjoyments; pictures of going swimming, and staying in as long as he liked, were in his mind; also the privilege of having his hair shaved close to his head, of eating melons at his pleasure, and of drinking lemonade in oceans from the gayly adorned, jingling carts. Of course he should have to get something to do, as his money was almost gone. Still, it would not take much to support him, and there was going to be an exciting joy in independence, in living in "bachelor quarters." He found his bachelor quarters in the Street of the Lily, a narrow passage that went burrowing along between two continuous rows of high old houses. The Lily's pavement was slimy with immemorial filth, and, in spite of the heat, the damp atmosphere was like that of an ill-kept refrigerator. At the top of one of the houses he established himself, with Mr. Tiber, in a bare room which contained not much more than a chair and a bed. Nevertheless, the first time he came out, locked his door, and descended the stairs with the key in his pocket he felt like a man; and he carried himself like one, with a swagger. The room had one advantage, it contained a trap-door to the roof, and there was a ladder tied up to the high ceiling, its rope secured by a padlock; the boy soon contrived means (this must have been his Yankee blood) to get the ladder down when he chose; then at night he went up and cooled himself off on the roof, under the stars. There were two broken statues there, for the old house had had its day of grandeur; he made a seat, or rather a bed, at their feet. Mr. Tiber was so unhappy down below that he invented a way to get him up also. He spread his jacket on the floor, made Mr. Tiber lie down upon it, and then, fastening the sleeves together with a cord, he swung the jacket round his neck and ascended with his burden. Mr. Tiber enjoyed the roof very much.