"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.