Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories - Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen (reading well TXT) 📗

more lifted the mind above itself, pointing the way into a great and glorious future. A vague dread was perpetually haunting him; he feared that Annunciata did not love him as he wished to be loved; that she regretted, perhaps, having bound herself to him and was not unwilling to break loose from him. But what was life to him without Annunciata? He must bide his time, and by daily kindness teach her to love him. That she was not happy might have other causes, unknown to him. Her vehement self-accusations and tearful protestations that she was not true to him might be merely the manifestations of a morbidly sensitive conscience.

Vincent in the meanwhile had changed his attitude completely toward the old masters. After his first meeting with Annunciata, his artistic sense had been singularly quickened. He might be seen almost daily wending his way, with a red-covered Baedeker under his arm, to the gate of a certain villa, where he would breathe the musty air of the deserted gallery for hours together, gaze abstractedly out of the windows, and sometimes, when he was observed, even make a pretence of sketching. Usually it was Monna Nina or Pietro who came to open the gate for him on such occasions, but, at rare intervals, it happened that Annunciata was sent to be his cicerone. She always met him with fear and trembling, but so irresistible was the fascination which he exerted over her, that he seemed to be able to change her mood at will. When he greeted her with his lazy smile her heart gave a great thump, and she laughed responsively, almost in spite of herself. If he scowled, which he was sometimes pleased to do when Monna Nina or Pietro had taken her place for several successive days, she looked apprehensive and inquired about his health. The costly presents of jewelry which he had given her, she hid guiltily in the most secret drawer of her chest, and then sat up late into the night and rejoiced and wept over them.

As for Vincent, it must be admitted that his own infatuation was no less complete. He had a feeling as if some new force had entered his life and filled it with a great, though dimly apprehended, meaning. His thought had gained a sweep and a width of wing which were a perpetual surprise to him. Not that he reasoned much about if he only felt strong and young and mightily aroused. He had firmly resolved to make Annunciata his wife, and he was utterly at a loss, and even secretly irritated at her reluctance to have their relation revealed to her parents. He could brook no obstacle in his march of conquest, and was constantly chafing at the necessity of concealment. He had frequently thought of anticipating Annunciata's decision, by presenting himself to her parents as a Croesus from beyond the sea, who entertained the laudable intention of marrying their fair daughter; but somehow the character of Cophetua was ridiculously melodramatic, and Annunciata, with her imperial air, would have made a poor job of the beggar-maid.

It was on the tenth of March, 186--, a memorable date in the lives of the three persons concerned in this narrative. Cranbrook had just finished a semi-æsthetic and semi-political letter to a transatlantic journal, in which he figured twice a month as "our own correspondent." It was already late in the night; but the excitement of writing had made him abnormally wakeful, and knowing that it was of no use to go to bed, he blew out his lamp, lit a cigar and walked out upon the _loggia_. There was a warm and fitful spring wind blowing, and the unceasing rustling of the ilex leaves seemed cool and soothing to his hot and overwrought senses. In the upper strata of the air, a stronger gale was chasing dense masses and torn shreds of cloud with a fierce speed before the lunar crescent; and the broad terrace beyond the trees was alternately illuminated and plunged in gloom. In one of these sudden illuminations, Cranbrook thought he saw a man leaning against the marble balustrade; something appeared to be unwinding itself slowly from his arms, and presently there stood a woman at his side. Then the moon vanished behind a cloud, and all was darkness. Cranbrook began to tremble; a strange numbness stole over him. He stood for a while motionless, then lifted his hand to his forehead; but he hardly felt its touch; he only felt that it was cold and wet. Several minutes passed; a damp gust of wind swept through the tree-tops and a night-hawk screamed somewhere in the darkness. Presently the moon sailed out into the blue space, and he saw again the two figures locked in a close embrace. The wind bore toward him a dear familiar voice which sounded tender and appealing; his blood swept like fire through his veins. Hardly knowing what he did, he leaped down the stairs which led from the _loggia_ into the court rushed through the garden toward the terrace, grappled for a moment with somebody, thrust against something hard which suddenly yielded, and then fell down--down into a deep and dark abyss.

When he awoke he felt a pair of cold hands fumbling with his shirt-collar; trees were all about him and the blue moonlit sky above him. He arose, not without difficulty, and recognized Annunciata's face close to his; she looked frightened and strove to avoid his glance.

"The Holy Virgin be praised, Signore Giovanni!" she whispered. "But Signore Enrico, he seems to be badly hurt."

He suddenly remembered what had happened; but he could bring forth no sound; he had a choking sensation in his throat and his lips seemed numb and lifeless. He saw Annunciata stooping down over a form that lay outstretched on the ground, but the sight of her was repulsive to him and he turned away.

"Help me, Signore Giovanni," she begged in a hoarse whisper. "He may be dead and there is no one to help him."

Half mechanically he stooped down--gracious heavens! It was Vincent! In an instant all his anger and misery were forgotten.

"Hurry, Annunciata," he cried; "run for a doctor. Great God! what have you done?"


VI.


Six weeks later two young Americans were sitting on the deck of the Cunarder _Siberia_, which had that morning left the Queenstown harbor.

"Jack," said the one, laying his hand on the other's shoulder in a way that expressed an untold amount of friendliness, "I don't think it is good policy to keep silence any longer. I know I have committed my monumental piece of folly, as you prophesied, but I need hardly tell you, Jack, that I didn't know at the time what--what I know now," he finished, hurriedly.

"I never doubted that, Harry," answered the other with a certain solemn impressiveness. "But don't let us talk. I have not reached the stage yet when I can mention her name without a pang; and I fear--I fear I never shall."

They sat for a long while smoking in silence and gazing pensively toward the dim coast-line of Europe, which was gradually fading away upon the eastern horizon.

"Jack," began Vincent abruptly, "I feel as if I had passed through a severe illness."

"So you have, Harry," retorted Cranbrook.

"Oh, pshaw! I don't mean that. That little physical suffering was nothing more than I deserved. But a fever, they say, sometimes purifies the blood, and mine, I think, has left me a cleaner and a wiser fellow than it found me."

The steamer kept ploughing its broad pathway of foam through the billows; a huge cloud of fantastic shape loomed up in the east, and the vanishing land blended with and melted away among its fleecy embankments.

"Are you perfectly sure, Jack," said Vincent, throwing the burning stump of his cigar over the gunwale, "that the experiences of the past year have not been all an excursion into the 'Arabian Nights'? If it were not for that fine marble relief in my trunk which I bought of that miserable buffoon in the Via Sistina, I should easily persuade myself that the actual world were bounded on the east by the Atlantic and on the west by the Pacific Ocean. I was just considering whether I should try to smuggle it through the custom-house, or whether, perhaps, it would be wiser to give Uncle Sam his due."

"And what does the relief represent?" asked Cranbrook, half indifferently.

"It is a copy from an antique one. Agamemnon robbing Achilles of his--"

Cranbrook gave a start, and walked rapidly toward the other end of the boat. In half an hour he returned, stopped in front of Vincent, grasped his hand warmly and said:

"Harry, let us agree never to refer to that which is passed. In your life it was an episode, in mine it was a catastrophe."

Since that day, Annunciata's name has never passed their lips.

There is, however, an epilogue to this tale which cannot well be left untold. In the winter of 187-, ten years after their first Italian sojourn, the two friends again visited Rome together. One beautiful day in February, they found themselves, perhaps not quite by accident, in the neighborhood of the well-remembered villa. They rang the bell at the garden gate and were admitted by a robust young man who seemed to be lounging among the overgrown hedges in some official capacity. The mossy Triton was still prosecuting his thankless task in the midst of his marble basin; the long stairs to the terrace were yet as damp and slippery as of old, and the noseless Roman senator was still persevering in his majestic attitude, although a sprig of maiden-hair was supporting its slender existence in the recess of his countenance which had once been occupied by his stately nose. Vincent and Cranbrook both regarded these familiar objects with peculiar emotions, but faithful to their agreement, they made no comment. At last they stopped before the sarcophagus--and verily Babetta was still there. A clean and chubby-faced Italian baby with large black eyes rose out of its marble depth and hailed them with simple, inarticulate delight. Cranbrook gazed long at the child, then lifted it up in his arms and kissed it. The young man who had opened the gate for them stood by observing the scene with a doubtful expression of suspicion and wonder. As the stranger again deposited the child on the blanket in the bottom of the sarcophagus, he stepped up before the door and called:

"Annunciata!"

A tall, comely matron appeared in the door--and the strangers hastened away.



UNDER THE GLACIER.

I.


In one of the deepest fjord-valleys on the western coast of Norway there lives, even to this day, a legend which may be worth relating. Several hundred years ago, a peasant dwelt there in the parish who had two sons, both born on the same day. During their infancy they looked so much alike that even the father himself could not always tell one from the other; and as the mother had died soon after their birth, there was no one to settle the question of primogeniture. At last the father, too, died, and each son, feeling sure that he was the elder, laid claim to the farm. For well nigh a year they kept wrangling and fighting, each threatening to burn the house over the other's head if he dared to take possession of it. The matter was finally adjusted by the opportune intervention of a neighbor who stood in high repute for wisdom. At his suggestion, they should each plant side by side a twig or sprout of some tree or herb,