THE STORY OF IDA.
PART I.
A week ago yesterday, I looked for the last time on her who has been, for so long, at once a care and a help to me.
I feel that her life has left a great peacefulness in mine, that will be a long time before it quite fades away, like the light which remains so long after sunset on a summer evening; and while I am yet, as it were, within her influence, I have wished to write down a little of what I remember of her, that so beautiful a life and death may not be quite forgotten.
It is now nearly four years ago, that a school-teacher, who had been long a friend of mine, came to ask that I would interest myself for one of her scholars, who was about to pass a difficult examination, that she might obtain a diploma of Maestra Communale. Giulia—that was the young girl’s name—was a pleasant, fresh-looking girl, with honest, bright blue eyes, and dark hair that curled lightly about her forehead. Her voice and face interested me at once; and I soon found out that her history also was an interesting one. She was one of a family of fifteen children, then all dead but three; her father was advanced in life, her mother was an invalid, and they were all very poor. There was a sad story also in the family. One of Giulia’s elder brothers had been married, and lived happily for some years with his wife. She died, leaving him with four little children; and such was the violence of his grief, that his mind gave way,—not all at once, but little by little. Gradually he began to neglect his work, his language and behaviour were agitated and unlike his usual self, he wandered much about without an object,—and one day the report of a pistol was heard in his room, and that was the last! The grandparents had taken home all the poor little orphans, and it was to assist in supporting them that Giulia wished to be a teacher.
She had been studying very hard—so hard that she had finished in six months the studies which should have occupied a year! She was an energetic little body, made bold by the necessities of the children; and she went about to the various offices, and had all the needful papers made out, and obtained introductions to all those persons whom she thought likely to help her in her object. Of course I was too happy to do what I could—very little as it happened—and Giulia’s youth, and hopefulness, and bright spirit, were like sunshine in my room. She was much there in those days, talking over her prospects, and what was to be done. One day she came with a very beautiful companion, a little girl of sixteen: “I have brought my sister; she wanted to see you,” she said, by way of apology; and that was how I came to know Ida.
She was very lovely then; I do not think that any of the pictures which I afterwards took of her, were quite so pretty as she was. Let me see if I can describe her. She was a little taller than Giulia, and perhaps rather too slight for perfect beauty, but singularly graceful both in form and movement. Such a shape as the early painters used to imagine for their young saints, with more spirit than substance about it; her hair was dark, almost black, quite straight, as fine as silk, soft, heavy, and abundant; and she wore it turned back from her face, as was the fashion just then, displaying to the best advantage a clear, broad, intellectual forehead. She had a regular oval face, rather small than large; with soft black eyes of wonderful beauty and gentleness, shaded by perhaps the longest lashes which I ever saw—with a pretty little straight nose (which gave a peculiar prettiness to her profile), and a mouth not very small, but beautiful in form and most delicate in expression. Her teeth were very white, brilliant, and regular; her complexion was dark, without much colour, except in her lips, which were of a deep red. When she was a little out of breath, however, or when she was animated in talking, a bright glow used to come up in her cheeks, always disappearing almost before one knew that it was there. She and I made great friends during that first visit: she liked me, as a matter of course, because Giulia liked me; and on my part, it would have been impossible that I should not love anything so beautiful and innocent and affectionate. I did not let her go until we had arranged that I should take her likeness; and from that time forward, as long as Ida lived, I was almost half the time employed either in drawing or painting her. It was seldom that I could keep any picture of her for more than a little while: every one used to ask me where I had found such a beautiful face.
It is pleasant to me now to look back at those days, before any shadow came over that peaceful and most innocent life. Those long happy mornings in my painting room, when she used to become so excited over my fairy stories and ballads, and tried to learn them all by heart to tell to Giulia; and when she, in turn, confided to me all the events and interests of her short life. One thing I soon discovered,—that she was quite as beautiful in mind as in person. If I tell all the truth of what Ida was, I am sure that it will seem to any one who did not know her as if I were inventing. She seemed, even in those early days, like one who lived nearer heaven than other people. I have never quite understood it myself; she had been brought up more in the world than is usual with Italian girls, for (as I have said) her parents were poor, and her mother sickly, and she had been obliged, even from early childhood, to work hard for her daily bread. It seemed almost impossible that no bad influence should ever have come near her; but if it ever did, it passed by without harming her, for there was nothing in her on which it could take hold. Her mind seemed to turn naturally to everything that was good and beautiful, while what was evil made no impression on her, but passed by her as if it had not been.
She lived in a dismal old house, up a great many stairs, in one of the poorest streets of the city. All this does not sound very pleasant: but what did Ida see there? Any one else would have seen, looking from the windows there, dirty old houses out of repair, crammed full of poverty, broken windows, leaky roofs, rickety stairs, rags hung out to dry from garret windows, pale, untidy, discouraged women, neglected children. Ida saw the bright sky, and the swallows that built under the eaves, and the moss and flowers that grew between the tiles on the old roofs. And from one window she could see a little far-away glimpse of the country, and from another she could look down into a garden. She saw the poor neighbours besides, but to her they were all people to be loved, and pitied, and sympathised with. Whatever there was, good, in any of them, she found it out, and ignored everything else. It was a peculiarity of my Ida, that all the people with whom she was intimately acquainted were, in some way or other, “very remarkable.” She never admitted that they had any faults. One old woman whose temper was so fearful that nobody could live with her, was “a good old woman, but a little nervous. She had been an invalid for many years, and was a great sufferer, and naturally she had her days when things worried her.” An idle, dirty old fellow, who lodged in the same house,—who lived principally by getting into debt at one eating-house until the owner would trust him no longer, and then going to another,—she described as “an unfortunate gentleman in reduced circumstances, who had been educated in high life, and consequently had never learnt to do anything. Besides, he was a poet, and poets are always peculiar.” A profane man, who talked atheism, she charitably said was probably insane. Poor little Ida! The time came when her eyes were opened by force; when she saw sin in its ugliness in the person of one who was very dear to her,—and then she died.
But that was some time afterwards. I am writing now of that first happy winter, when I was coming, little by little, to know what my companion was. All that she was, I never knew till after she was gone. Ida was a little seamstress, and she was then only beginning to earn money. Thirty centimes a day[1] was what she gained when she worked for a shop, and for this she used to sit at the sewing machine until past midnight. Sometimes she used to sew for ladies at their houses, and then she earned a franc a day or more.