“Is she, then, a great lady at home?”
“As great as a princess in other places. You didn’t know? Well, I don’t suppose it will make much difference to you, but that’s the truth. She is what we call a great Squire in England. You know what that means?”
“Yes; I know what that means.” Pandolfini looked at him with a half-smile, yet sigh. What difference could it make to him? He had never thought of putting himself on a level with that beautiful princess, of securing her to be his—his housewife, his chief possession. All that he had thought of was the pleasure of being with her, looking at her, like poor Snodgrass. Now here was something which put a still greater difference between them, and removed her out of his sphere. Was it not an irony of fate that before one woman only the doors of his heart should have flown wide open? and that she should be so entirely out of his sphere? A slight vague smile came upon his face, half at himself and his evil fortune—half with a tremulous and painful pleasure that she should be so rich, so magnificent, so secure of everything that was good. Whatever happened, that was always well: that she should be a kind of queen, regnant, and safe from all straits and contradictions of fortune in the outer world as well as in the hearts that loved her. But he sighed. Why was it that the world was so made that the beautiful was always beyond reach, that love must be never more than a dream? He murmured over a verse or two of Leopardi, as he went upon his way, with that smile and sigh.
“O natura, o natura,
Perchè non rendi poi,
Quel che prometti allor? perchè de tanto,
Inganni i figli tuoi.”
Nothing more pathetic or more poignant than that sense of tantalised anguish and pleasure—supremest good held before the eyes, but ever inaccessible, giving happiness and suffering together, without blame of any one, or wrong, can be. And Pandolfini was not the kind of man who rails at fortune. He went away melancholy along Arno: yet smiled while he sighed.
Somehow or other this passing and temporary life of the English visitors in the foreign town had become too serious, too securely established and certain with all of them, being as it really was an affair of a few weeks or months at the utmost, and incapable of extension. Perhaps this was Diana’s fault. Arriving in March, she had no more than six or seven weeks before her, a mere temporary visit—but the temporary was uncongenial to her nature. She established herself half unconsciously, involuntarily as if she had been at home. She made her piano nobile in the old palace assume a certain resemblance to herself, just as she, on the other hand, perhaps unconsciously too, perhaps with a touch of that fine vanity which disguises itself under the semblance of taste, suited herself to her dwelling-place, and put her dress and all her surroundings into conformity with it. If Diana had not had the kind of lofty beauty to which utter simplicity of toilet is becoming, probably it might not have occurred to her to leave the new dress from Paris, before which Mrs. Norton and Sophy had rendered homage, hanging in her wardrobe, and put on the old velvet gown, which, as Sophy indignantly remarked, “she had worn all last winter!” But this was what she did: though in some lights the long sweeping folds of the velvet, which was of a very dark Venetian blue, looked somewhat faded, at least in the eyes of her friends. “I never thought Diana would be like that: wearing out her old dresses, when she can afford to have as many new ones as she pleases!” Sophy cried, almost weeping at the recollections of all M. Worth’s poufs and plissés. “It does not matter for us,” Mrs. Norton added, with serious vexation, “we know her and look up to her in any dress; but among strangers!” Thus her friends were annoyed by her supposed frugality: and perhaps Diana, if her French toilet had been more becoming to her, would not have felt the necessity of conforming her dress to the style of those great rooms, so pathetically faded, so noble and worn, and independent of all meretricious decoration.
She did other things, which perhaps were less justifiable still, and which excited the displeasure of another section of her friends. In a country practically unconverted to the laws of political economy, she was but too glad to forget them, and gave alms with a largeness and liberality which, I suppose, is quite indefensible. She was even so misled as to allow the shameless beggars about to come to her for weekly pensions, putting them on their honour, and talking to them in friendly, if somewhat solemn Italian—slow as Pandolfini’s English, and from the same cause. “Giving to all those beggars,—I can’t imagine what Miss Trelawny can be thinking of,” cried the rector; “surely she must know that she is helping to demoralise them: destroying all the safeguards of society.” “So far as that goes, I don’t think Diana will do them much harm; but I object to have the staircase haunted by Peppino and Company,” said Mr. Hunstanton. “I must talk to her, and you had better talk to her, Snodgrass. As for demoralising, you know, they’re past that. I defy you to demoralise Peppino. You can’t blind a man who has no eyes; can you, now?” But this will be enough to show that Diana gave dissatisfaction on both sides: only Pandolfini and the curate stood by with silent adoration, and thought everything she did and was, the noblest and the fairest that ever were made visible to eyes of men.
It must be allowed, however, that neither the disapproval nor the adoration affected Diana. She went on her way calmly, indifferent to what was said, laughing, though gently, at Mr. Snodgrass’s serious remonstrance, and at the half-crying appeal of Sophy. And everything seemed to conspire around her to give the air of stability and everlastingness which seemed natural to her life. She acquired for herself, without knowing it, a distinct position, which was partly by her beauty, no doubt, partly even by her height and dignity of person, and partly from the individuality about her, and her modest indifference to ordinary rule. There is an immodest indifference which gives distinction of a totally different kind; but Diana—who did not come for pleasure as commonly so called, who appeared seldom at public places, and whose enjoyment of her strange habitation was that of an inhabitant, not of a tourist—Diana became known in Pisa as scarcely ever forestiera had been before. Pandolfini felt that he could divine why, believing, as was natural at once to a patriot and a lover, that his race was quick to recognise supreme excellence, and that it was natural that all who knew her should bow down before her. But anyhow, in her retirement, in her quietness, she became known as if by an instinct of sympathy. The beggars in the piazzas asked nothing of her, but blessed her with bold extravagance as she passed. The people uncovered right and left. Quant’ è bella! they said, with that unfeigned and heartfelt admiration which is pure Italian, not loudly, to catch her ear, nor yet in whispers, as if they were ashamed of it, but in their ordinary tones, all being natural, both the popular worship and its object. The curate when he became aware of this grew red, and clenched his fist, with an English impulse “to knock down the fellow;” but Pandolfini, who knew better what it meant, followed her steps at a distance with glowing eyes, and was proud and happy in the universal homage. He quoted lines out of the “Vita Nuova” to his stupid faithful companion. Not always to his listener’s edification. “How do you suppose I can understand that stuff?” growled the Rev. William through the beard he was growing, and the Italian ceased to throw about such pearls.
But it may be imagined what a thunderbolt fell into this peaceful little society when there began to be consultations among the leaders of the party about going away. “Our time will soon be up, you know,” Mr. Hunstanton said one evening, rubbing his hands; “May is a very nice month to get home in. A week or two in Switzerland; perhaps a week or two in London, if my wife has good accounts of the children. That’s what I like. After May it’s sultry here and uncomfortable, eh, Pandolfini? Off in November, home in May, that’s my rule—and if you like to take it old style, you know, as they do in Russia, so much the better. That’s my regular rule.”
“W—what?” said Mrs. Norton, who sometimes tried to persuade herself that she was rather deaf, and would not hear anything that was unpleasant; but she had scarcely self-possession for this little trick, being too much aghast at the idea thus presented to her mind, which it seemed incredible they should all have ignored till now.