In the first place his eyes fell on the upturned face of a woman who was certainly in the extremity of dangerous illness, and was probably dying. She had been beautiful once and she had beauty still, that was not only the soft shadow of coming death. The wasted body was covered with nameless rags, but the pillow was white and clean; the refined face was the colour of pure wax, and the dark hair, grey at the temples, had been carefully combed out and smoothed back from the forehead. The woman's eyes were closed, and deeply shadowed by suffering, but her delicate nostrils quivered now and then as she drew breath, and her pale lips moved a little as though trying to speak.
There were young children round the wretched bed, silent, thin, and wondering, as children are when the great mystery is very near them and they feel it. In their miserable tatters one could hardly have told whether the younger ones were boys or girls, but one was much older than the rest, and Omobono's eyes fixed themselves upon her, and he held his breath, lest the Bokharian should hear him and turn, and hide the vision and break the spell.
The girl was standing on the other side of the sick woman, bending down a very little, and watching her features with a look of infinite care and sorrow. One exquisite white hand touched the poor coverings of the bed, rather than rested on them, as if it longed to be of some use, and to relieve the woman's suffering ever so little. But the clerk did not look at the delicate fingers, for his eyes were riveted on the young girl's face. It was thin and white, but its lines were beautiful beyond comparison with all that he had ever seen, even in Venice, the city of beautiful women.
I think that true beauty is beyond description; you may describe the changeless, faultless outlines of a statue to a man who has seen good statues and can recall them; you can perhaps find words to describe the glow, and warmth, and deep texture of a famous picture, and what you write will mean something to those who know the master's work; you may even conjure up an image before untutored eyes. But neither minute description nor well-turned phrase, neither sensuous adjective nor spiritual simile can tell half the truth of a beautiful living thing.
And the fairest living woman is twice beautiful when gladness or love or anger or sorrow rises in her eyes, for then her soul is in her face. As Omobono looked through the window and watched the beggar girl leaning over her dying mother, he hardly saw the perfect line of the cheek, the dark and sweeping lashes or the deep brown eyes—the firm and rounded chin, the very tender mouth, the high-bred nostrils or the rich brown hair. He could not clearly recall any of those things a few minutes later; he only knew that he had seen for once something he had heard of all his life. It was not till he dreamt of her face that night—dreaming, poor man, that she was his guardian angel come to reprove him for his curiosity—that the details all came back, and most of all that brave and tender little mouth of hers, so delicately womanly and yet so strong, and that unspeakable turn of the cheek between the eye and the ear, and that poise of the small head on the slender neck—the details came back then. But in the first moment he only saw the whole and felt that it was perfect; then, for an instant, the eyes looked at him across the dying woman; and in a moment more the Bokharian turned, caught sight of him and came quickly forward, and the spell was broken.
Rustan Karaboghazji held out both hands to Omobono, as if he were greeting his dearest friend, and he spoke in fluent Italian. He was a young man still, not much past thirty, with dark, straight features, stony grey eyes, and a magnificent black beard.
'What happy chance brings you here?' he cried, immediately drawing the Venetian in the direction whence the latter had come. 'Fortunate indeed is Friday, the day of Venus, since it brings me into the path of my honoured Ser Omobono!'
'Indeed, it is no accident, Kyrios Rustan——' began Omobono.
'A double fortune, then, since a friend needs me,' continued the Bokharian, without the slightest hesitation. 'But do not call me Kyrios, Ser Omobono! First, I am not Greek, and then, my honoured friend, I am no Kyrios, but only a poor exile from my country, struggling to keep body and soul together among strangers.'
While he talked he had drawn Omobono's arm through his own and was leading him away from the house with considerable haste. The Venetian looked back, and saw that the old woman had disappeared.