A Likely Story

by William De Morgan

I will now tell you all I saw on that day of the last sitting, being now as it were full-grown and able to see and note all; besides being, as I have tried to show, able to feel all the lady Maddalena had felt and to follow her inmost thought.

When they were come to the end of the work I could see that both were heavy at heart for the parting that was to come; and I knew of myself that Maddalena had slept little, and I knew, too, that this was not because sua Eccellenza the Duke snored heavily all night, for had that been so, poor Maddalena would have been ill off for sleep at the best of times. No!—she had lain awake thinking of Giacinto; and he of her, it may be. But what do I know? I could see he was not happy: could you expect it? And his hand shook, and he did no good to me. And he would not touch my face and hands with the colour, and I well knew why.

Therefore, when he had tried for a little and could not work to any purpose, my lady la Duchessa says, as one who takes courage—for neither had yet spoken of how they must part—"Come, my Giacinto, let us be of better cheer, and not be so downcast. For who knows but the good God may let us meet again one happy day when His will is? Let us be grateful for the little hour of our felicity, and make no complaint now that it was not longer. But you cannot work, my Giacinto, and are doing no good to the beautiful picture. Leave it and come and sit here by me, and we will talk of the old days, the dear old time. And as for the old Marta, she is sound asleep and snoring; only not so loud as my old pig of a husband all last night!" Indeed, it was true of old Marta, but for my own part I think she was only pretending to be asleep, for my Maddalena had talked to her of how this would be the last time, and softened her, and given her ten Venetian ducats and a cap of lace. But, for the snoring of the old Duke, it had done some service; for the little joke about it had made Maddalena speak more cheerfully, and Giacinto could find a laugh for it, though he had little heart to laugh out roundly at anything. La Maddalena went near to make him, though! For she talked of how thirteen little puppies all came at once of three mothers, and she christened them all after the Blessed Apostles and Judas Iscariot, and every one was drowned or given away except Judas Iscariot; and how she would hold up Judas for Giacinto to kiss, saying he was a safe Judas this time, as how could he be else with that little fat stomach, and not a month old.

So I was finished, and Giacinto would have put his signature in one corner had he not thought it best to wait until sua Eccellenza the Duke had seen it, for who could say he would not have it altered? Messer Angelo Allori had finished a portrait of la Principessa Gonzaga, and just as he was thinking to sign it, what does her ladyship do but say she would rather have been painted in her camorra di seta verde; and thereat he had to paint out the old dress and paint in the new, for none might say nay to la Principessa. So that is how it comes that this picture—that I am—is unsigned; and that the Art Critics, for once, are not unanimous about who was the author.

But I know who that author was, and I can see him still as he sits at the feet of his lady, la Duchessa Maddalena, and his thick, black hair that had got him the nickname of Spazzolone; which is, or would be as speech goes now, the scrubbing-brush. And I can see his beautiful olive-tinted throat, more fair than tawny, like ivory, and his great black eyes, like an antelope's. I can see her, la Maddalena, seated above him—for he is on the ground—her two white hands encircling her knees, with many rings on them, one a great opal, the one you see on my finger now; and her face, with the red-gold hair, you see on my head, but somewhat fallen about it, for it had shaken down; and the face it hedged in was white—so white! It was not as you see me now; rather, indeed, the face of the sad Maddalena before ever she saw lo Spazzolone, than mine as I have it before you. Look awhile upon my face, and then figure it to yourself as it would be if the lips wanted to tremble, and the eyes to weep, but neither would do so, from sheer courage and strength of heart against an evil cloud. Then you will see la Maddalena as she sat there with eyes fixed on Giacinto, knowing each minute nearer the end; but all the more taking each minute at the most, as one condemned to die delays over his last meal on earth. The gaoler will come, and the prison-guard, and he knows it.

How long, do you ask me, did the pair sit thus, the eyes of each devouring the face of the other; the lips of each replying to the other in a murmured undertone I could not have heard from where I stood on my easel, had it not been that I too, myself, was la Maddalena, and spoke her words and heard his voice? I can only tell you the time seemed too short—though it was none so short a time, neither! But I do not know. I do know this, though—and I wish you too to know it, that you may think no thought of blame of my Maddalena—that never a word passed her lips that any young wife might not fairly and honestly speak to her husband's friend. And scarce a word of his in return that might not have been fairly and honestly spoken back; and for such a slight forgetfulness, as it seemed to me, of what was safe for both—will you not forgive the poor boy? Remember, he was but a boy at best, for all his marvellous skill. And was not his skill marvellous? For look at my lips, and see how they are drawn! Look at my eyes and say, have they moved or not—or will they not move, in an instant? Look at the little bright threads of gold in my cloud of hair! And then say, was he not a wondrous boy?

But a boy for all that! And to my thinking it was because he was a boy, or was only just a man having his manhood forced painfully upon him by sorrow, that he gave the rein for one moment to his tongue. And it was such a little moment, after all! Listen, and I will tell you, if you will not blame him. Promise me!

They had talked, the two of them—or of us, as you choose to have it—over and over of the old days at the Castello, of the old Cappellano who winked at all their misdeeds, and stood between them and the anger of her parents, many a time. How they had frightened him half to death by making believe they had the Venetian plague upon them, by dropping melted wax on their skins with little strawberries in the middle. And how Giacinto undeceived him by eating the strawberries. And what nasty little monkeys they were in those days, to be sure! That made them laugh, and they were quite merry for a while. But then they got sad again when la Maddalena told how Fra Poco—that was what they called il padre Buti the Cappellano, for he was a little man—was the only one of them all that had had a word to say against her marriage, and how he had denounced her father one day as for a crime, and invoked the vengeance of God upon the old Duke's head for using his power to defraud a young virgin of her life, and saying let him have the lands and enjoy them as he would, and rather go out and beg on the highways for alms than sacrifice his own flesh and blood. And how she had overheard all this speech of Fra Poco, and had said to herself that, come what might, she would save the old domain for her father and her brother. And how that very day her brother, who was but young, had beaten her with her own fan, and then run away with it; and little he knew what she was to suffer for him! But in truth she knew little enough herself, for what does a girl-chit know!

And it may have been her fault, too, or mine, for talking thus of her marriage, and none of the boy's own, that my Giacinto should have, as I say, half forgotten himself. For it was but just after she had spoken thus, and they had sat sad and silent for a space, that the big bells of San Felice hard by must needs clang out suddenly in the evening air, and then they knew their parting had come, too soon, and that then they might never meet again. And on that my Giacinto cried out as one whose heaviness of heart is too sore to be borne, "O sorellaccia mia! Mia carina—mio tesoro! Oh if it might but be all a dream, and we might wake and find it so, at the old Castello in the hills, and hear the croaking of the frogs and the singing of the nightingales when the sun had gone to bed, and be punished for staying out too late to listen to them! Oh, Maddalena mia!—the happy days when there were no old Dukes!..." But la Maddalena stopped him in his speech, saying, but as one says words that choke in his throat, "Enough—enough, Signore Giacinto! Remember what we are now—remember what I am!—what you are!" For this, said she, was not how sua Eccellenza the Duke should be spoken of in his own house. And then the great bells, that were so near they went nigh to deafen you, stopped jangling; but the biggest had something to say still, a loud word at a time, and far apart. And what he said was, that now the hour had come, and they should meet no more. And then he paused, and they thought he was silent. But he came back suddenly once again, to cry out "Never!" and was still.

Then comes the old Marta from her corner, rubbing her eyes, for she had been very sound asleep. And her mistress, as one who will not be contradicted, points her on in front, and she passes out, and her black dog. Then says my Maddalena to the painter, "And now, farewell, my friend," and holds out her hand for him to kiss, for is she not the Duchess? And he kisses it without speech, but with a sort of sob, and she gathers up her train, and turns to go. But as she reaches the door, she hears behind her the voice that tries to speak, but cannot.