"But I have closed to myself forever that world where I might find my equals and my fellows. I can enter only through the secret doors of intrigue, and, if I wish to appear there in broad daylight, I can do it only on condition of being followed by the mystery of my past, that is to say, by a sentence of death always hanging over my head. Shall I leave the country? It is the only country where the trade of bandit is more perilous than dishonorable. Anywhere else I shall be asked for proof that I have always lived in legitimate society; and if I cannot furnish it I shall be classed with the most degraded creatures who wallow in the sloughs of their pretended civilization!
"O Mila! how completely you have filled with grief and dismay this heart upon which you have shed a ray of your sunlight!"
XL
DECEPTION
Thus did that man, so ill-placed in life if we compare his intellectual powers with his social position, torture himself with vain reflections. Mental culture, which was his greatest enjoyment, was also his torment. Having read everything that fell into his hands, without method and without selection, and allowing himself to be impressed by everything in turn, he was as learned in evil as in good, and he was insensibly drawing near that scepticism which no longer believes absolutely in either good or evil.
He returned to his house to take certain precautions with respect to Abbé Ninfo, so that, if the unexpected should happen, and his domicile be invaded, there should be no traces of violence. He put the narcotized wine out of sight, and filled the decanter with unadulterated wine, in order that he might safely pretend to experiment upon himself at need. He placed the abbé on a couch, extinguished the lamp, and swept up the ashes of the papers Mila had destroyed. No one ever entered his house in his absence. He had no regular servants, and the spotless neatness which he himself maintained did not cost him much trouble, for he occupied only a few rooms, and even those few he did not enter every day. He worked in his garden, in his leisure moments, to keep himself in condition, and to be consistent with his assumed rôle of peasant. He had himself applied to all the issues of his abode a simple but substantial system of fastening, calculated to resist for a long time any attempt to force an entrance. Finally, he released two enormous and savage mountain dogs, fierce beasts who knew nobody but him, and who would infallibly have strangled the prisoner if he had tried to escape.
Having taken these precautions, the Piccinino washed and perfumed himself, and, before going down to the city, showed himself in the village of Nicolosi, where he was highly esteemed by all the people. He conversed in Latin with the priest, under the vine-clad arbor of the vicarage. He exchanged sly jests with the pretty girls of the village, who ogled him from their doorsteps. He held several consultations on agriculture and general affairs with men of sense who appreciated his intelligence and his extensive knowledge. As he left the village he fell in with an officer of campieri, with whom he walked for some distance, and who informed him that the Piccinino still succeeded in eluding the pursuit of the police and the municipal brigade.
Mila, eager to tell all her secrets to the princess, and to avail herself of the mysterious prince's permission to ascertain their meaning, travelled as quickly as Bianca was able to descend those steep and dangerous slopes. It did not occur to her to hold the mule back; she was too deeply absorbed in her meditations. Persons of pure heart and tranquil mind must have noticed that, when they communicate their mental disposition to perturbed and agitated minds, their own serenity is diminished in proportion. They give only at the price of running in debt themselves to some extent; for confidence is a matter of exchange, and there is no heart so richly endowed and so powerful that it does not risk something in gratifying its beneficent impulses.
Gradually, however, pretty Mila's terror changed to joy. The Piccinino's conversation had left an echo as of sweet music in her ears, and the odor of his bouquet kept alive the illusion that she was still in that rustic garden, under the shade of the black fig-trees and pistacias, walking upon carpets of moss strewn with mallow, orchids and fraxinella, sometimes catching her veil on the aloes and the twigs of the thorny smilax, from which her host quickly detached it with respectful courtesy. Mila had the simple tastes of her class, added to the tendency to romance and poesy born of her intelligence. If the marble fountains and statues of Villa Palmarosa appealed to her imagination, the vine-clad arbors and wild apple-trees of Carmelo's garden spoke more loudly to her heart. She had already forgotten the bandit's oriental boudoir; she had not felt at her ease there as she had under the arbor. He had been cold and satirical almost all the time in the boudoir, whereas, among the flowering shrubs and beside the silvery spring, he had displayed an artless mind and a tender heart.
How did it happen that this girl, who had just seen such strange and distressing things, a queen's boudoir in the house of a peasant, and the ghastly scene of Abbé Ninfo's lethargy, no longer remembered what must have impressed her imagination so profoundly? Her surprise and her fright had vanished like a dream, and her mind was engrossed by the final tableau, fresh and unsullied, where she saw naught but flowers, greenswards, birds chattering among the leaves, and a handsome young man who guided her through that enchanted labyrinth, conversing with her in chaste and charming language.
When Mila had passed the Destatore's cross, she dismounted, as Carmelo had advised her to do, as a measure of prudence. She fastened the reins to the saddle-bow and waved a switch about Bianca's ears. The intelligent beast started back at a gallop toward Nicolosi, needing no guidance to return to her stable. Mila continued her journey on foot, avoiding the neighborhood of Bel-Passo; but, by a veritable fatality, Fra Angelo happened to be returning just then from the Della Serra palace to his convent by a by-path, so that Mila suddenly found herself face to face with him.