Consider how through the centuries this little republic shut the gates of her sanctuary in the face alike of Moslem and of Christian; how she defied now the Turk, now the Servian, even the mighty power of Venice at its zenith. Neither friend nor foe coming to her for shelter was refused. She protected Stephen Nemanja, who fought her allies of the Byzantine Empire; she opened her gates to Queen Margarita, and defended them against the King of Dalmatia. The "winged lion" writes no shame upon her citadel. She fell at last, not to man, but to the very earth which opened and swallowed her up. There was never a history of Ragusa after that fateful year 1667. The great earthquake ended a story—Napoleon wrote but a sorry epitaph.
What a cosmopolitan company is that which gathers every day within the tremendous walls of this fallen citadel. All the colours of the Balkan peoples are to be seen here—the flag and turban of the Turk; the white breeches of the Albanian—Joseph's coat upon the back of the son of the Black Mountain. Servians are here: Bosnians and men of Herzegovina; Italians who have drifted down from northern towns; Austrians in possession. Crimson clashes with the sky-blue tunics of the Austrian officers—there are deep reds and glowing tints of orange—all moving in kaleidoscopic splendour through streets which the extended arms may measure; by churches and palaces, which are matchless in their art. A city girded by the libidinous foliage of the south; a city of half-lights and shaded cloisters; of a fortress running out into the blue Adriatic, lifting mighty walls to the caress of the kindly seas.
II
Louis de Paleologue had taken up his abode in a veritable hole in the wall near the Dominican monastery. The place was dark and cavernous, and might have been (but for its monstrous stones) a booth in an Eastern bazaar. When he worked it was in the cool of the monastery gardens, the monks stealing looks over his shoulder at wonderful forms in bewitching négligé—or even at terpsichoreal advertisements of pills and powder. For despite his sixty-two years, and the fact that he was a prince in his own country, Louis still earned his living by the advertisers, and was held to be the cleverest draughtsman at the business.
One grievance he had, and one joy—his daughter Maryska, nineteen upon her last birthday, and still a child. Maryska like her father (and another celebrity who has had a statue raised to him) never grew up. She was the youngest woman of nineteen in the whole wide world, and when father and daughter went for "a rag" together, it was wonderful that anything at all was left in the Cantina—as he had named the house.
Such days they passed! Louis, prone in the sun with a cigarette in his mouth; Maryska, flitting about the scene like a schoolgirl at play! They went hand in hand everywhere like sworn friends in an academy for young ladies. What money they earned would be sometimes in his pocket, sometimes in hers. They quarrelled babyishly—the man shedding tears more often than the girl. Yet he would have put his knife into the heart of any who did her injury, with as little thought as he would have killed a stray dog at his door. There had been one such tragedy at Zara—the body was found in the harbour some days afterwards.
Maryska was a cosmopolitan. She had starved in New York, in London, in Paris, in Berlin. Now she starved in Ragusa—except upon those splendid occasions when a cheque came from England. Then the Austrian banker would be fetched out of bed or café to cash it. They were rare days, for Louis would knock down the bottles like ninepins, and never turn a hair whatever their number. Maryska drank just as much as she could, and then fell asleep. He used to shout and swear because she would not wake up to draw another cork for him.
Latterly, it had been the devil to pay at the Cantina. Louis had lived in prospective upon six disorderly nymphs—all décolleté—who were to have proclaimed the merits, urbi et orbi, of a new suspender for ladies of fashion. These drawings were quite wonderful. The prior of the monastery who no doubt, may have imagined that they were part of a scheme for a stained glass window, thought very highly of them. The Austrian officers begged for copies of the paper. The governor laughed and had a fit of coughing. He wanted to know where the models came from. Louis would not tell him that, except to say that they were memories of Paris and New York. He rarely drew the beautiful dark face of Maryska—but there is a portrait of her in the church of St. John the Divine in London, and many would swear it is a madonna of an old master. Louis painted it for the priest, who used to tell him he was a scoundrel. It was so very true.
Well, the pictures were drawn and dispatched to London; and then a dreadful thing happened. The firm, which understood the female mysteries so well, treated the financial verities with a contempt which quickly ended in Carey Street. No cheque came to that hole in the wall at Ragusa. Squat-legged and patient, Louis smoked his cigarette and listened to Maryska's wholly unmelodious music. There was bread in the house, but no wine. Well, wine would come presently.
Wine did not come, but in its place came John Faber. For a moment, Louis thought that a customer had crossed the seas to buy his pictures. Then he said that the firm, which was suspended because of its suspenders, had sent an embassy with the cash. However it might be, he determined to borrow five crowns of the stranger, and saluted him with princely politeness.