He smiled, as though the matter were not worth a word; but she went on,--
"I say you are too good, dear friend. Never a day pa.s.ses, but you bring me something,--wine or fruit or some piece of dainty fare; and as for "Tista, there is nothing he does not owe to you! All he knows, you have taught him. We can never repay you."
"My dear Frau "Lora, who thinks of such things twice? Chut! But you look ill and over-tired this evening. You have been to the town again?"
"Yes."
"I thought so. You must lie here and rest now. It will get cooler by-and-by; and look, I have brought you some bunches of grapes and some peaches. They will do you good."
"Oh, Herr Ritter!"
"Don"t cry "oh, Herr Ritter!" in that reproachful manner, for this fruit really cost me nothing. It was given to me. Little Andrea Bruno brought it to me today."
"The fruit-seller"s child? Yes, yes, I daresay; but it was not meant for me! It"s no use trying to hide your good deeds, Herr Ritter! "Tista has told me how kind you were to Andrea"s little sister when she sprained her foot last month; and how you bandaged it for her, and used to go and read to her all the morning, when her father and Andrea were out selling fruit, and she would have been left alone but for you; and I know, too, all about poor crippled Antonia and Catterina Pic--. Don"t go away, I won"t say any more about it! But I couldn"t help telling you I knew; you dear, good Herr Ritter!"
He had half-risen, but now he reseated himself, and drew his chair nearer her couch. In doing this his eyes met hers, and he looked earnestly into them a moment.
"Lora, you have been weeping. What is the matter?"
She moved restlessly on her hard pillows, and dropped her gaze from his face, and I noted that a faint blush stole over her sunken cheeks and touched her forehead. With that tender glow, under the faded skin, she looked almost beautiful. She was young, certainly, not more than thirty at the utmost; but she was very poor and desolate, and there is nothing so quick at sapping the blood and withering the beauty of women as poverty and desolation. Nothing.
"Herr Ritter," she said, after a little pause, "I will tell you what is the matter. Perhaps you may be able to advise me; I don"t quite know what to do. You know how very, very much my "Tista wants to be a chemist, so I needn"t say anything about that. Well, he must be brought up to something, you know; he must learn to be something when the time comes for him to live without me, and I don"t think, Herr Ritter, it will be very long-- before--before that time comes, now."
I noted again that the old man did not contradict her. He only watched her drooping face, and listened.
"I have worked early and late," she went on in low, swift tones, "to try and lay by a little money towards getting him apprenticed to some chemist in the town. He has worked, too, poor child. But it is little--nothing--we could save between us; for we must live meanwhile, you know, dear friend, and there is the rent to pay.
Well, now I am coming to my story. When I was a young girl, I had a sister, ten years older than I. We were orphans, and an old aunt took care of us. I married--against my aunt"s wish, in the face of my sister"s warnings,--a poor improvisatore. We were poor enough, of course, before that, my sister and I, but we were not beggars, and the husband I took was below me. Well, my sister was very angry, dreadfully angry, but I was young and strong, and I was in love, so I didn"t care much about it then. My husband traveled from place to place, telling his stories and singing his rhymes, and I went with him, and soon lost sight of my sister. At last we came to Rome.
"Tista was born there, and soon after I got some news of my old home from a wandering pedlar, who had pa.s.sed through the village where I used to live. My aunt was dead, and my sister had married,-- married a rich inn-keeper; a match as far above our station as mine had been below it. Well, Herr Ritter, my husband was badly hurt in a quarrel one evening in one of the squares. Somebody insulted him before all the people as he was telling one of his stories, and his blood got up and he struck the man, and they fought; and my husband was brought home to me that night, half-murdered.
He didn"t live long. He had had a heavy fall, I think, in that fight, for the back of his head was cut open, and he took brain-fever from it. I did my best, but our money was scarce, and our child was too young to be left alone with a sick man, and I could get no work to do at home. So one day, at noon, my husband died. Poor Battista! I could not help it! I could not save him! Ah Jesu!
what a terrible thing poverty is! what a mournful thing it is to live!"
She shrouded her face in her hands, but not to weep, for when, after a little silence, she raised her large dark eyes again to meet the old German"s compa.s.sionate gaze, I saw that they were calm and tearless.
"After that, I used to leave little "Tista in the care of a woman, next door to me, while I went out as a model. I was handsome then, the painters said, and my hair and my complexion were worth something in the studio; but not for long. My color faded, and my hair grew thin, for I pined and sorrowed day and night after the husband I had lost, and at last no one would give two scudi for me, so I took "Tista and left Rome to tramp. Sometimes I got hired out in the vine-harvest, and sometimes I sold fruit, or eggs, or fish in the markets, till at last I got a place as a servant in a big town, and "Tista went to school a bit. But seven months ago my mistress died, and her daughters wouldn"t keep me, because I had become weak and couldn"t do the work of their house as well as I used to do it.
And n.o.body else would take me, for all the people to whom I went said I looked halfway in my grave, and should be no use to them as a servant. So I gave it up at last, and came on here and got this cottage, almost for nothing, though it"s something to me; but then they give me so little for my work, you see, in the town.
Well, Herr Ritter, I daresay you think my story a very long one, don"t you? I am just near the end of it now. I went into the town today, and while I was standing in the shop with my needlework, a lady came in. The shop-woman, who was talking to me about the price of the things I had done, left me when the lady came in, and went to serve her. So I had to stand and wait, and when the lady put back her veil to look at something she was going to buy, I saw her face. Oh, Herr Ritter! it was my sister, my sister Carlotta! I was certain of it! I was certain of it! Nevertheless; after she had gone, I asked the shop-woman some questions about the lady.
She did not tell me much, for I fancy she thought me inquisitive; but she told me, at least, all I had need to know. Her customer, she said, was the wife of a very rich inn-keeper, and her name was Carlotta Nero. She is lodging, the woman told me, at the Casa d"Oro.
I didn"t go to see her then, of course, because she could not then have reached home; but I want to go tomorrow, if I can manage to walk so far, for I think she would like to see me again, and I am sure I should like to see her. And, shall I tell you what else I am thinking about, Herr Ritter? It is that, perhaps,--perhaps, her husband, being so rich, he might be able to put "Tista in the way of doing something, or of getting me some work, so that we could save up the money for his apprenticeship by-and-by. What do you think of it now, Herr Ritter? My sister, you know, is the only friend I have in the world, except you, kind, dear Herr! and I don"t think she would mind my asking her this, though we did part in anger; do you? For that was ten years ago."
She paused again, and Herr Ritter gazed tenderly at the poor sharp face, with its purple eyelids and quivering parted lips, through which the heavy rapid breath came every moment with a sudden painful shudder, like a sob. I think he was wondering, pityingly, what such a feeble, shattered creature as she could have to do with work, at least, on this side of death.
"Herr Ritter! Herr Ritter!" cried "Tista, bursting open the door of the little chamber, in a state of great delight; "look what Cristofero has just given me! These beautiful roses! Will you have them?"
"Not I, "Tista, thank you. Gay colors and sweet odours are not for me. Put them here in this cup by your mother"s side. Now, Frau "Lora, I will not be contradicted!"
"Won"t you have one of them, Herr Ritter?" asked the boy, wistfully, holding out towards the old man a spendid crimson bud.
He answered hurriedly, with a gesture of avoidance.
"No, no, "Tista! I never touch roses! See here, I"ll take a cl.u.s.ter of this, "tis more in my line a great deal." He turned away to the lattice as he spoke; rather, I thought, to conceal a certain emotion that had crossed his face at the sight of the roses than for any other reason, and laid his hand upon me.
"Why, that"s nightshade!" cried the boy in surprise.
"No matter," answered the old German, breaking off my blossom-head, and tucking its stalk into the b.u.t.tonhole of his rusty coat; "I like it, it suits me. Belladonna is not to be despised, as you ought to know, Master Chemist!" Then, in a softer tone, "I shall come and see you tomorrow morning, Frau "Lora, before you start. Goodnight."
He went out, shutting the door behind him gently, and I went with him.
He did not walk very far. About half-a-mile from the town there stood three or four old-fashioned houses, with projecting gables and low green verandahs sloping over their wide balconies, and it was in the first of these houses that Herr Ritter lodged.
He had only one room, a little dark, studious-looking apartment, scantily furnished, with a single window, opening on to the balcony, and in one corner a deep recess, within which was his bed. There were some shelves opposite the window, and upon these several ponderous old tomes in faded covers; a human skull, and a few fossils.
Nothing else at all, except a tiny picture, hung upon the wall above the head of his couch; but this I did not see at first.
Later, when he had taken me out of his coat, and put me in water, in a little gla.s.s bowl, I was able to turn my great yellow eyes full upon the painting, and I saw that it was the miniature of a beautiful young girl, dressed in a very old-fashioned costume, and wearing upon her fair bosom a knot of crimson roses. "Ah," I said to myself, "there has been a romance in this old German"s life, and now there is--silence."
Chapter II.
Very early the next morning Battista came to see Herr Ritter. In his hand the boy carried a large clay flowerpot, wherein, carefully planted in damp mould, and supported by long sticks set crosswise against each other, I beheld my own twining branches and pendulous tendrils; all of myself, indeed, that had been left the day before outside the cottage window. Battista bore the pot triumphantly across the room, and deposited it in the balcony under the green verandah.
"Ecco! Herr Ritter!" cried he, with vast delight. "You see I don"t forget what you say! You told me yesterday you liked the belladonna, so when you were gone I went and dug up its root and planted it in this pot for you, that you may always keep it in your balcony, and always have a bunch to wear in your coat. Though, indeed, I can"t think how you can like it; it smells so nasty! But you are a strange old darling, aren"t you, Herr Ritter?"
Battista had set down his pot now, and was looking into the old German"s face with glistening eyes.
"Child," answered the Herr, smiling very gravely and tenderly, as one may fancy that perhaps a Socrates or a Plato may have smiled sometimes; "your gift is very welcome, and I am glad to know you thought of me. These are the first flowers I have ever had in my little dark room; and as for the scent of them, you know, "Tista, that is a matter of taste, isn"t it, just like color."
"Yes," quoth "Tista, emphatically, "I like roses!"
But Herr Ritter interposed hurriedly.
"Tista, how is your mother today?"
"That is one of the things I came to talk about. She is ill; too ill to rise this morning, and she wants to see you. Will you come back with me, for I think she has something particular to say to you?"
"Yes, "Tista, I will come."
He took down his old velvet cap from its peg behind the door, and stooping over the little gla.s.s dish in which he had placed the spray of my blossoms the preceding day, lifted me carefully out of the water, wiped the dripping stem, and fastened me in his coat again.
I believe he did this to show the boy a pleasure.
But a little while after this, and Herr Ritter sat again in the old wooden chair by the widow"s couch. Early that morning she had written to her sister a long letter, which she now put into the old German"s hands, begging him to carry it for her to the Casa d"Oro, and bring her in return whatever message or note Carlotta Nero should give him. "For," said the poor woman, with anxious eyes, and pallid lips that quivered under the burden of the words they uttered, "I do not know for how long my sister may be staying here, and perhaps I shall never meet her again. And since I am not able to go myself into the town today, and I fear to miss her, I thought, dear friend, you would not mind taking this for me; and, perhaps, if my sister should ask you anything, saying you know me, and--and--"Tista?"
She faltered a little there, and the old man took her hand in his with the tender, pitying gesture we use to little children.
"Be at ease, dear "Lora," he murmured, "I will bring you good news.
But the hour is early yet, and if I start so soon, your sister may not be able to receive me. So I"ll go back and take my cup of coffee at home before I set out."