There was another pause. This aspect of the necessary suffering the poor had to undergo was so new to Mark that he required some time to grasp it. The visits of noble ladies to his village had not been so frequent as to cause the malign effects to be deeply felt.
* * * * *
Acting upon this advice so far as he understood it, Mark pursued the same system of education with the little Highnesses as he had followed with the village children; that is, he set them to read such things as he was told they ought to learn, and encouraged them to do so by promising to relate his histories and tales if they were good.
It is surprising how much the same human nature remains after generations of different breeding and culture. It is true that these princely children had heard many tales before, perhaps the very ones the little schoolmaster now related, yet they delighted in nothing so much as hearing them again. Much of this pleasure, no doubt, was due to the intense faith and interest in them shown by Mark himself. He talked to them also much about God and the unseen world of angels, and of the wicked one; and, as they believed firmly that he was an angel, they listened to these things with the more ready belief. Indeed, the affection which the little boy formed for his child-tutor was unusual. He was a silent, solemn child; he said nothing, but he attached himself to Mark with a persistent devotion.
Every one in the palace, indeed, took to the boy: the pages left off teasing him; the Signorina petted him in a manner sufficient to deprive her numerous lovers of their reason; the servants waited on him for love and not for reward; but the strangest thing of all was, that in proportion as he was kindly treated—just as much as every one seemed to love him and delight in him—just so much did the boy become miserable and unhappy. The kinder these people were, the more he felt the abyss which lay between his soul and theirs; earnestness and solemn faith in his—sarcasm and lively farce, and, at the most, kindly toleration of belief, in theirs.
Had they ill-treated or wronged him, he would not have felt it so much; but kindness and security on their part, seemed to intensify the sense of doubt and perplexity on his.
It is difficult to realise the effect which sarcasm and irony have upon such natures as his. They look upon life with such a single eye. It is so beautiful and solemn to them. Truth is so true; they are so much in earnest that they cannot understand the complex feeling that finds relief in sarcasm and allegory, that tolerates the frivolous and the vain, as an ironic reading of the lesson of life.
The actors were particularly kind to him, though their grotesque attempts to amuse him mostly added to his misery. They were extremely anxious that he should appear upon the stage, and indeed the boy's beauty and simplicity would have made an excellent foil.
"Herr Tutor," said old Carricchio the arlecchino to him one day, with mock gravity, "we are about to perform a comedy—what is called a masqued comedy, not because we wear masques, for we don't, but because of our dresses. It consists of music, dancing, love-making, joking, and buffoonery; you will see what a trifle it is all about. The scene is in the garden of a country-house—during what in Italy we call the Villeggiatura, that is the month we spend in the country during the vintage. A lady's fan is found by an ill-natured person in a curious place; all the rest agree not to see the fan, not to acknowledge that it is a fan. It is all left to us at the moment, all except the songs and the music, and you know how delightful those are. If you would take a part, and keep your own character throughout, it would be magnificent; but we will wait, if you once see it you will wish to act."
No one, indeed, was kinder to Mark, or seemed more to delight in his society than the old arlecchino, and the two made a most curious sight, seated together on one of the terraces on a sunny afternoon. Nothing could be more diverse in appearance than this strangely assorted pair. Carricchio was tall, with long limbs, and large aquiline features. He wore a set smile upon his large expressive mouth, which seemed born of no sense of enjoyment, but of an infinite insight, and of a mocking friendliness. He seldom wore anything but the dress of his part; but he wrapped himself mostly in a long cloak, lined with fur, for even the northern sunshine seemed chilly to the old clown. Wrapped in this ancient garment, he would sit beside Mark, listening to the boy's stories with his deep unfathomed smile; and as he went on with his histories, the boy used to look into his companion's face, wondering at the slow smile, and at the deep wrinkles of the worn visage, till at length, fascinated at the sight, he forgot his stories, and looking into the old man's face appeared to Mark, though the comparison seems preposterous, like gazing at the fated story of the mystic tracings of the star-lit skies.