The little acrobat: a story of Italy

by Janie Prichard Duggan

Ah! it was easy to remember all now, and after a breathless glance over his shoulder at Luigi, who was comfortably snoring, Natale slipped out of bed. Catching up his old hat and his shoes he stole softly over the brick floor and down the stone stairs as quietly as any mouse would have done.

Sora Grazia slept downstairs, but the door of her room was mercifully closed, and Natale knew that she often locked it at night. He turned his back upon it, therefore, with confidence, as he felt in the darkness for the balcony door. He exerted all his strength to raise the heavy bar of iron which guarded the door. Then he was very careful to keep his hold on the bar, as it swung downward, lest it should rouse the house with its usual clanging fall. The huge key was in the lock, and Natale succeeded in turning it with both hands, although this was much more difficult than raising the bar above the lock. It creaked dully as it turned, and Natale’s heart leaped into his throat, and a dozen noises buzzed in his ears.

Breathless, he stood with his hand on the latch, afraid to move lest the door behind him should open, and everything come to an end. But nothing happened, so he swung open the door, and without stopping to close it behind him, he again caught up his shoes, which he had had to set down, and ran along the balcony and out into the street, his feet pattering softly on the stones.

In his haste he did not stop to think of the direction he should take. His only impulse was to get out into the night somewhere, away from the houses and street. So he ran swiftly along in the shadow cast by wall and house, in just the opposite direction from that which would have led him past the church tower and through the village, out upon the downward road. Presently he crouched in a shadow to draw on his shoes, then fled onward again.

Once away, he lost his bearings utterly and hurried on without turning, past the small house with the Madonna painted on the wall, past the large house where the white tablet to “Pietro Pacioni” gleamed in the moonlight, and then downward, by a roughly paved path leading to the Campo Santo. Perhaps he would have kept on aimlessly along San Vito,—the fashionable promenade leading always higher along the mountain side till it ended in an open plateau high up above the valley,—if he had not heard steps approaching. Whether these steps came from behind or from ahead he did not stop to discover. The downward path offered safety, and a small pink villa threw a dark shadow across its entrance, so Natale lost not an instant in scudding down the friendly by-way.

On he trotted, past the shrine where the tiny Della Robbia Madonna sits under her arch, the moonlight touching the shining blue of her hood, the yellow of her robe and the pink of the baby on her knees with a radiance that was almost startling on the edge of the shadow. Now the path grew level, and the stones were left behind, and no more noise of footsteps disturbed the quiet.

A few rods more, and Natale stood in front of the small mortuary chapel outside the cemetery. The iron gates set in the wall of the cemetery were locked, as Natale found on gently shaking them. He had paused to peep through the slender grating into the inclosure where the moonlight touched the white tomb of the foreign gentleman buried close under the wall, and showed so plainly the numbers on the low stakes marking the graves of the nameless poor. The shadows of the cypress trees lay like long black fingers outstretched upon the wilds of weedy undergrowth, and the wind stirred dismally on the exposed hillside.

One day, Natale and Olga had wandered together as far as these iron gates. He remembered it now, and with the recollection he sprang away, eager to continue his journey,—then stood still, uncertain as to his path.

The way which had brought him downward came to an abrupt end with the little chapel, outside the gates. It would not do to lose himself among the chestnut woods in search of a path! Yet, how could he plunge down the pathless slopes among the great trees, with nothing to guide him but the murmur of the river far below? Still less was he willing to return to the road above and turn about to take his way through the village and so on out upon the road. He was almost sure that if he could only see to find his way, some downward path from where he stood would bring him to a river crossing, perhaps a long, long way below the arched bridge, and therefore much farther on his journey.

Bewildered and tired, he was almost ready to give up his flight, and to creep into the dark portico of the little chapel, and back into the shade beneath the picture of the Saint with the skull in his hand, and there end this strange night, which already seemed to him longer than any night he had ever known. But he roused himself to one more effort, and crept around to the back wall of the chapel. There, to his joyful surprise, he came upon a semblance of a path!