Giannella

by Mrs. Hugh Fraser

He seized the light and bent tenderly to uncover the throat. Ah, there it was, the original severance; the cement still clung to it where it had been attached to the beautiful but far less ancient figure which lay prone in mutilated grandeur in the trench, some twenty yards away. The Professor bent closer still over the perfect thing, touching the creamy marble with his cheek, with his tongue, while he rubbed the mould off his fingers with his coat tails, his shirt front, anything to leave their sensitive tips free to feel the marvelous surface, as different from that of the figure yonder as true old Sevres from modern imitation. Fra Tommaso was right; Bianchi could have told it in the dark, that touch of the creator's chisel during the one short period of perfect sculpture our world has ever known, the touch which made every atom of the marble its living vehicle, which gave the uneven yet flawless surface so closely resembling human flesh that the senses tell us it breathes and dimples with the very tide of life. Brought to Rome by Greece's conquerors, fitted to a body wrought, at the command of an imperious ignorant master, by a Greek sculptor in captivity, remembering through his tears the glories of Greece's past—here was an immortal crown to which the stately figure had served as a humble pedestal. What wonder that Carlo Bianchi, in his passionate reverence for true art, trembled and worshiped, and shivered with insane joy—while inch by inch the turbid waters of the Tiber rose on the floor of his fane, poured in from the ten great windows high in the wall a hundred feet away, covered the statue in the trench and crept up the hollow at the foot of the stairs, gurgling pleasantly on the steps as it reached them one by one.

When it had cut off retreat behind him it swam forward with a leap, broke over him where he knelt, drowned the white glory from his side and swept his extinguished lantern far beyond his reach.

Then indeed he sprang to his feet. But they slipped from under him and he fell forward, his hand landing on the cold, submerged face. In a moment he was up again, wading through the fast-rising flood, staggering towards the blackness which shrouded the stairway. But long before he reached it the shelving ground was letting him down, down into the water, and at last he turned and struggled back in the direction of the distant windows, gray blurs now upon an enormous pall of darkness, with something that caught a gleam of light flowing in and sliding over their edges. Again and again he fell, betrayed by the uneven ground and the swaying current. He was wet to the skin but he did not know it. For once in his semi-vitalized existence he was awake to all realities. He knew that unless he could attain to some higher level there would soon be another cold body lying among the antiquities in the crypt.

As he fell for the third time and scrambled up with his mouth and eyes full of water, another reality, forgotten in the joy of his discovery, and then in the fever of self-preservation, recurred to his mind. He remembered Giannella, his all but fraudulent concealment of her inheritance, his machinations to effect a marriage with her before she should learn of it. If he were to die (oh, horrid thought!) would not the Judge of souls ask him the same question that that brigand De Sanctis had asked, "What have you done with Giannella Brockmann's money?" Carlo Bianchi could certainly say "Domine Dio, it is all there I have not spent a penny of it yet. It is at interest in the Banco di Roma, three and a half per cent." Then the Lord would say, "All there, two hundred scudi, and you have not let that poor child have the shoes she needs so badly? You have let Mariuccia, who has saved you money for twenty years, continue to work hard and eat little so as to share her wages with Giannella Brockmann? Miser, idolater, begone! My good San Pietro, have the kindness to take this sinner away and send him to hell at once."

Then it would be all over; and Carlo Bianchi would have to roast, and gnash his teeth, and have nothing to look at for all eternity but ugly grinning devils. No beautiful angels with Greek heads and Roman—no, Græco-Roman, bodies. Would the wings be strong enough to carry all that marble? Good God, he was going mad. And the water was up to his waist. One more fight he must make for life, for nice dry clothes, for Mariuccia's golden fries, for his cigar and slippers and The Archæological Review after dinner. Also, of course, for the chance to undo the intended wrong to Giannella and get it erased from his account this side of judgment. He vowed miserably that if the mercy of God would but bring him safely out of this pit of destruction, his first act should be to tell Giannella everything and give her even the whole two hundred scudi to squander on shoes, ribbons, chocolates, theaters, anything she liked. And (yes, the water was certainly getting deeper) he would promise not to marry her unless she were quite willing. Higher than that, human nature could not rise.

When he had registered these generous vows he felt quite light-hearted as to eternity, and more confident of reaching physical safety. Now he was at the foot of the steps below the windows. Blessed steps. He had forgotten their existence. He scrambled up them and sank down on one, exhausted and dripping, but above the level of the flood. There was just enough daylight here for him to see the perils he had escaped. He shivered as he looked back on the expanse of black choppy water lost in the shadows from which he had come.

The sense of relief was great, but it was uncomfortably tempered by finding that a thin sheet of liquid was flowing over his cold seat, from the window above him, so he rose wearily and reached the window itself at last. Standing there clinging to the bars, he looked out at a changed upper world. The view seemed to embrace water everywhere. Well-known landmarks of old Ripetta, a pillar here, a battered statue there, a lamp-post all awry a little farther on—these seemed to be holding their own with difficulty in the shadow tossing stream which swept by, sending billow after billow through his opening and carrying past the strangest kind of flotsam in its course. An open umbrella came dancing towards him like an evil bird with claws to its wings; then a derelict hencoop from some poulterer's shop, followed first by a wicker cradle and then by a floating island of cabbages and carrots sustaining a pair of old boots. Not a human being was in sight, and the poor prisoner's heart sank within him, for he knew that only a speedy rescue could save him from the effects of the chill which already had him in its grip, causing his teeth to chatter pitifully.

Suddenly he gave a shout, and waved an arm wildly through the bars. Far down the street a boat had appeared, a boat with three or four men in it, surely one of the rescue parties which never fail to give aid in these periodical calamities. Heaven had taken pity on him; and at once he began to think that in his recent excitement he had promised Heaven too high a price for its mercies. Perhaps the arrangement would have to be revised; he must reflect seriously before permitting Giannella to embark on a course of extravagance and dissipation.

Again he waved his arms and shouted to the boat. Oh horror, it was turning round—he could see its side rocking in the swirl of the current—it was heading the other way! It was gone!