Arethusa

"Could you inform me," proceeded the Venetian clerk, "whether that good man Kyrios Rustan Karaboghazji is now in the church at his devotions?"

The sacristan had a perfectly round head with a pair of very small round eyes; moreover, his snub nose was quite round at the end. He now pursed out his lips and made his mouth round, too, as if he were going to whistle. Intentionally or unintentionally, he made himself look like an idiot, and slowly wagged his bullet head as if he did not understand.

"The church is open," he said, at last. "You may see,"

Omobono now applauded himself for having asked and obtained a pa.s.sword, but he meant to be cautious in using it.

"Thank you," he said politely, and he went on, into the church.

The sun was low and cast a rich light through the open door, full upon the grating and closed gate of the sanctuary, and the gilt and burnished bars reflected and diffused the warm rays, like a glory before the unseen high altar. Omobono glanced quickly to the right and left as he pa.s.sed between the pillars, but he saw no one. Farther on, before him and under the wide dome, two women in brown were at their prayers, the one kneeling, the other prostrate, in Eastern fashion, her forehead resting on the marble pavement. There was no man in sight.

Omobono chose a clean spot, hitched up his cloak in front and knelt upon one knee. He crossed himself and said a little prayer.

"O Lord," he prayed, "grant wealth and honour to the Most Serene Republic and give Venice the victory over the Genoese. Bless Messer Carlo Zeno, O Lord, and preserve him from sudden death. Send bread to the poor. Give Omobono strength to resist curiosity. For ever and ever. Amen."

It was not a very eloquent little prayer and it lacked the set forms of invocation and doxology which devout persons use; but Omobono had made it up for himself long ago, and said it every day at least once, for it precisely expressed what he sincerely wished and intended to ask with due humility; and he was a good man, in spite of his besetting fault, and believed that what he asked would be granted. As yet, Venice had not triumphed over those unspeakable dogs of Genoese, though the day of glory was much nearer than even the Venetians dared to hope. But so far Carlo Zeno had been preserved from sudden death in spite of his manifest tendency to break his neck for any whim; for the rest, Omobono had more than once been the means of saving poor people from starvation, though at some risk of it to himself, poor man; and as for his curiosity, he had at least kept it so far in bounds as never to read his master"s letters until his master had opened them himself, which was something for Omobono to be grateful for. On the whole, he judged that his small prayer was not unacceptable, and he used it every day.

He knelt a moment after he had finished it, partly because he was a little ashamed of its being very short though he never could think of anything to add to it, and he did not wish people to think that he was irreverent and gabbled over a prayer merely as a form; for he was very sensitive about such things, being a shy man. And partly he remained on his knees a little longer because the gilded grating was very handsome in the light of the setting sun, and reminded him of the grating in Saint Mark"s, and that naturally made him think of heaven.

But presently he rose and went out.

The sacristan was still standing by the same pillar.

"Kyrios Rustan is not in the church," said Omobono, stopping again.

Once more the sacristan seemed to be about to purse his lips into a circle, and to put on an air of blank stupidity, and the clerk saw that the time had come to use the pa.s.sword.

"I must see him," he said, dropping his voice, but speaking very distinctly. "I beg you to direct me by four toes and five toes, so that I may find him."

The sacristan"s face and manner changed at once. His small eyes were suddenly full of intelligence, his mouth expanded in a friendly smile, and his snub nose seemed to draw itself to a point like the muzzle of a hound on a scent.

"Why did you not say that at once?" he asked. "Rustan left the church a quarter of an hour before you came, but he is not far away. Do you see the entrance to the lane down there?"

He pointed towards the place.

"Yes," said Omobono, "by the corner."

"Yes. Go into that lane. Take the first turn to the left, and then the second to the right again. Before you have gone far you will find Rustan walking up and down."

"Walking up and down?" repeated Omobono, surprised that the Bokharian should select for his afternoon stroll such a place as one might expect to find in the direction indicated.

"Yes." The sacristan grinned and winked at the Venetian clerk in a knowing way. "He is a devout man. When he has said his prayers he walks up and down in that little lane."

The man laughed audibly, but immediately looked behind him to see whether any one coming from within the church had heard him, for he considered himself a clerical character. Omobono thanked him politely.

"It is nothing," answered the sacristan. "A mere direction--what is it? If I had asked you for your purse and cloak by four toes and five toes, I am quite sure that you would have given me both."

"Of course," replied Omobono nervously, seeing that the reply was evidently expected of him. "Of course I would. And so, good-day, my friend."

"And good-day to you, friend," returned the sacristan.

The clerk went away, devoutly hoping that no unknown person would suddenly accost him and demand of him his cloak in the name of four toes and five toes, and he wondered what in the world he should do if such a thing happened to him. He was quite sure that he should be unable to hide the fact that he knew the magic formula, for he had never been very good at deception; and if the words could procure such instant obedience from such a disagreeable person as the sacristan had at first seemed to be, some dreadful penalty was probably the portion of those who disobeyed the mandate.

Thus reflecting, and by no means easy in his mind, the clerk crossed the square and entered the lane. He had supposed that it led to a continuation of the Bokharian quarter, but he at once saw his mistake.

Even now a man may live for years in Constantinople and yet be far from knowing every corner of it, and Omobono found himself in a part of the city which he had never seen. It was in ruins, and yet it was inhabited. Few of the houses had doors, hardly any window had a shutter, and as he pa.s.sed, he saw that in many lower rooms the light fell from above, through a fallen floor and a broken roof above it.

Yet in every ruined dwelling, and almost at every door, there was some one, and all were frightful to see; all were in rags that hardly clung together, and some could scarcely cover themselves modestly; one was blind, another had no arms or no legs, another was devoured by hideous disease--many were mere bundles of bones in scanty rags, and stretched out filthy skeleton hands for alms as the decently dressed clerk came near. Omobono stood still for a moment when he realised that he was in the beggars" quarter, where more than half the dying paupers of the great city took refuge amidst houses ruined and burnt long ago when the Crusaders had sacked Constantinople, and never more than half repaired since then.

The clerk stood still, for the sight of so much misery hurt him, and it hurt him still more to think that he had but very few small coins in his wallet. The poor creatures should have them all, one by one, but there would be few indeed for so many.

[Ill.u.s.tration: He was talking with an old beggar woman.]

And then, as he took out a little piece of bronze money, he heard sounds like nothing he had heard before; like many hundred sighs of suffering all breathed out together; and again, like many dying persons praying in low, exhausted voices; and again, like a gentle, hopeless wail; and through it all there was a pitiful tremor of weakness and pain that went to the clerk"s heart. He could do very little, and he was obliged to go on, for his errand was pressing, and the people were as wretched at one door as they would be at the next, so that it was better not to give all his coins at once. He dropped one here, one there, into the wasted hands, and went on quickly, scarcely daring to glance at the faces that appeared at the low doors and ruined windows. Yet here and there he looked in, almost against his will, and he saw sights that sent a cold chill down his back, sights I have seen, too, but need not tell of. And so he went on, turning as the sacristan had instructed him, till he saw a tall, thin man in a brown cloth gown edged with cheap fox"s fur, and having a tight fur cap on his head. He was talking with an old beggar woman, and his back was turned so that Omobono could only see that he had a long black beard, but he recognised Rustan, the Bokharian dealer. The house before which the two were standing seemed a trifle better than the rest in the street; there were crazy shutters to the large lower windows, which were open, however; there was a door which was ajar, and an attempt had been made to sc.r.a.pe the mud from the threshold. For the street was damp and muddy after the spring rains, but not otherwise very dirty. There was no garbage, not so much as a cabbage-stalk or a bleaching bone; for bones can be ground to dust between stones and eaten with water, and a cabbage-stalk is half a dinner to a starving man.

In spite of the prayer he had recently offered up against his besetting fault of curiosity, Omobono could not help treading very lightly as he came up behind the Bokharian, and as the mud was in a pasty state, neither hard nor slimy, his heavy boots made hardly any more noise in treading on it than a beggar"s bare feet. In this way he advanced till he could see through an open window of the house, and he stood still and looked in, but he made as if he were politely waiting for Rustan to turn round. Either the old beggar woman was blind, or she thought fit not to call the Bokharian"s attention to the fact that a well-dressed stranger was standing within a few feet of him. The two talked volubly in low tones and in the Bokharian language, which Omobono did not understand at all, and when he was quite sure that he could not follow the conversation he occupied his curiosity in watching what was going on inside the house. The window was low, having apparently once served as a shop in which the shopkeeper had sat, in Eastern fashion, half inside and half out, to wait upon his customers. During half a minute, which elapsed before Rustan turned round, the clerk saw a good deal.

In the first place his eyes fell on the upturned face of a woman who was certainly in the extremity of dangerous illness, and was probably dying. She had been beautiful once and she had beauty still, that was not only the soft shadow of coming death. The wasted body was covered with nameless rags, but the pillow was white and clean; the refined face was the colour of pure wax, and the dark hair, grey at the temples, had been carefully combed out and smoothed back from the forehead. The woman"s eyes were closed, and deeply shadowed by suffering, but her delicate nostrils quivered now and then as she drew breath, and her pale lips moved a little as though trying to speak.

There were young children round the wretched bed, silent, thin, and wondering, as children are when the great mystery is very near them and they feel it. In their miserable tatters one could hardly have told whether the younger ones were boys or girls, but one was much older than the rest, and Omobono"s eyes fixed themselves upon her, and he held his breath, lest the Bokharian should hear him and turn, and hide the vision and break the spell.

The girl was standing on the other side of the sick woman, bending down a very little, and watching her features with a look of infinite care and sorrow. One exquisite white hand touched the poor coverings of the bed, rather than rested on them, as if it longed to be of some use, and to relieve the woman"s suffering ever so little. But the clerk did not look at the delicate fingers, for his eyes were riveted on the young girl"s face. It was thin and white, but its lines were beautiful beyond comparison with all that he had ever seen, even in Venice, the city of beautiful women.

I think that true beauty is beyond description; you may describe the changeless, faultless outlines of a statue to a man who has seen good statues and can recall them; you can perhaps find words to describe the glow, and warmth, and deep texture of a famous picture, and what you write will mean something to those who know the master"s work; you may even conjure up an image before untutored eyes. But neither minute description nor well-turned phrase, neither sensuous adjective nor spiritual simile can tell half the truth of a beautiful living thing.

And the fairest living woman is twice beautiful when gladness or love or anger or sorrow rises in her eyes, for then her soul is in her face. As Omobono looked through the window and watched the beggar girl leaning over her dying mother, he hardly saw the perfect line of the cheek, the dark and sweeping lashes or the deep brown eyes--the firm and rounded chin, the very tender mouth, the high-bred nostrils or the rich brown hair. He could not clearly recall any of those things a few minutes later; he only knew that he had seen for once something he had heard of all his life. It was not till he dreamt of her face that night--dreaming, poor man, that she was his guardian angel come to reprove him for his curiosity--that the details all came back, and most of all that brave and tender little mouth of hers, so delicately womanly and yet so strong, and that unspeakable turn of the cheek between the eye and the ear, and that poise of the small head on the slender neck--the details came back then. But in the first moment he only saw the whole and felt that it was perfect; then, for an instant, the eyes looked at him across the dying woman; and in a moment more the Bokharian turned, caught sight of him and came quickly forward, and the spell was broken.

Rustan Karaboghazji held out both hands to Omobono, as if he were greeting his dearest friend, and he spoke in fluent Italian. He was a young man still, not much past thirty, with dark, straight features, stony grey eyes, and a magnificent black beard.

"What happy chance brings you here?" he cried, immediately drawing the Venetian in the direction whence the latter had come. "Fortunate indeed is Friday, the day of Venus, since it brings me into the path of my honoured Ser Omobono!"

"Indeed, it is no accident, Kyrios Rustan----" began Omobono.

"A double fortune, then, since a friend needs me," continued the Bokharian, without the slightest hesitation. "But do not call me Kyrios, Ser Omobono! First, I am not Greek, and then, my honoured friend, I am no Kyrios, but only a poor exile from my country, struggling to keep body and soul together among strangers."

While he talked he had drawn Omobono"s arm through his own and was leading him away from the house with considerable haste. The Venetian looked back, and saw that the old woman had disappeared.

"I have a message from my master," he said, "but before we go on, I should like to----" he hesitated, and stopped in spite of Rustan.

"What should you like to do?" asked the latter, with sudden sharpness.

Omobono"s hand felt for the last of the small coins in his wallet.

"I wish to give a trifle to the poor people in that house," he said, summoning his courage. "I saw a sick woman--she seemed to be dying----"

But Rustan grasped his wrist and held it firmly, as if to make him put the money back, but he smiled gently at the same time.

"No, no, my friend," he answered. "I would not have spoken of it, but you force me to tell you that I have been before you there! I take some interest in those poor people, and I have just given enough to keep them for a week, when I shall come again. It is not wise to give too much. The other beggars would rob them if they guessed that there was anything to take. Come, come! The sun is setting, and it is not well to be in this quarter so late."

Omobono remembered how the sacristan had winked and laughed, when he had spoken of Rustan"s walks in the dismal lane, and the Venetian now proceeded to draw from what he had seen and heard a mult.i.tude of very logical inferences. That Rustan was an utter scoundrel he had never doubted since he had known him, and that his domestic life was perhaps not to his taste, Omobono guessed since he had seen the red-haired negress who was his wife. Nothing could be more natural than that the Bokharian, having discovered the beautiful, half-starved creature whom Omobono had first seen through the window, should plot to get her into his power for his own ends.