Gabriel Zimandy came to the princess one day with a very downcast mien.
"Our case makes no headway," he lamented, "and the reason is that your advocate is a Protestant. Now there are two ways to remedy this: either you must dismiss me and engage a Roman Catholic lawyer, or I must turn Roman Catholic myself. The latter is the shorter and simpler expedient."
Blanka thought him in fun, and began to laugh. But Zimandy maintained his solemnity of manner.
"You see, Princess," he went on, "I am ready to renounce the faith of my fathers and incur the world's ridicule, all to serve you. I am going this morning to the cardinal on whom the whole issue depends, to ask him to be my sponsor at the baptism."
The princess pressed his hand warmly in sign of her appreciation of his devotion.
In a few days the lawyer carried out his purpose and was received into the Church of Rome. The newspapers gave the matter considerable prominence, and it was generally expected that the godfather's present to the new convert would be a favourable decision in the pending divorce suit. And, in fact, a week later the decision was rendered. It was to the following effect:
The husband and wife were declared divorced, but with the proviso that the latter should never marry again, and the former not during his divorced wife's lifetime. Thus the coffin-lid was closed on the young wife, who was, as it were, buried alive; but in falling it had caught and held fast the bridal veil of the Marchioness Caldariva, who could not now hope to be led to the altar so long as the princess remained alive. Had there been in this some malevolent design to wreak vengeance on the two women at one stroke, the purpose could not have been better accomplished.
The further provisions of the decree of the Roman Curia were of secondary importance. Prince Cagliari was required to pay to Princess Zboroy—for Blanka retained her rank and title—an annuity of twelve thousand ducats, to give over for her use as a dwelling one wing of the Cagliari palace, and to restore her dowry and jewels. These latter terms were evidently to be credited to Gabriel Zimandy's generalship; for his client might have found herself left with neither home nor annuity. So the lawyer's conversion had met with its reward even in this world.
But Blanka's enjoyment of house and home and yearly income was made dependent on a certain condition: she was never to leave Rome. The nature of the decree rendered this provision necessary. As she was forbidden to contract a second marriage, her judge found himself obliged to keep her under his eye, to make sure that his mandate was obeyed; and no more delicate and at the same time effective way to do this could have been devised than to offer her a palace in Rome and bid her enjoy its possession for the rest of her life. This was surely kinder than shutting her up in a convent.
After the rendering of this decree Blanka lost no time in taking possession of that half of the Cagliari palace assigned to her, and in engaging a retinue of servants befitting her changed surroundings. Her own property yielded her an income equal to that which she received from the prince, and thus she was enabled to allow herself every comfort and even luxury that she could desire. Of the two wings of the palace, Blanka's faced the Tiber, while the other fronted upon the public square. Each wing had a separate garden, divided from its neighbour by a high wall of masonry, and the only connection between the two parts of the house was a long corridor, all passage through which was closed. What had once been a door, leading from the room which Blanka now chose for her bedchamber into the corridor, was filled in with a fireplace, whose back was formed by a damascened iron plate. This apartment the princess selected for her asylum, her hermitage, where she could be utterly shut out from the world.
The next day after the decision was rendered, Blanka was greeted by her bosom friend, the fair widow Dormandy, with the announcement of her engagement to Gabriel Zimandy. They intended to be married in Rome, she said, and then return to Hungary, whither the bridegroom's business called him. It was clear to Blanka now why her lawyer had been so ready to renounce "the faith of his fathers." It was more for the sake of winning the hand of Madam Dormandy, who was a devout Catholic, and of marrying her then and there, in Rome, than on account of his client's interests. Here let us take leave of the worthy man and let him depart with God's blessing, his newly married wife by his side, and his honorarium from Princess Blanka in his pocket.
Thus the divorced wife, who was yet hardly more than a girl, found herself left alone in Rome. She shut herself off entirely from the world, never venturing into society lest people should whisper to one another as she passed,—"la condannata!" She received no one but her father confessor, who came to her once a week. The sins which she had to confess to him were,—the doubting of providence, rebellion against human justice, forbidden dreams in waking hours, envy of others' happiness, aversion to prayer, and hatred of life—all sins for which she had to do penance.
Meanwhile quite a different sort of life was being led in the other wing of the palace. She could not but hear, from time to time, sounds of mirth and gaiety in the adjoining garden, or even through the solid partition-wall of the house. Voices that she knew only too well, and some that she hated, penetrated to her ears and drove her from one room to another.
In due time, however, the malarial fever of the Italian summer came to her as another distraction. It was an intermittent fever, and for six weeks she was subject to its periodical attacks, which returned every third day with the constancy of a devoted lover. When at length she began to mend, her physician prescribed a change of air. Knowing that his patient could not absent herself from Rome and its vicinity, he did not send her to Switzerland, but to Tivoli and Monte Mario; and even before venturing on these brief excursions she was obliged to ask permission at the Vatican. The convalescent was allowed to spend her days on Monte Mario, but required to return to Rome at nightfall. Good morals and good laws demanded this.
Nevertheless, even this slight change—the drives to and from Monte Mario, and the mountain air during the fine autumn days—did the princess good, and eventually restored her health.
Meanwhile there was more than one momentous change in the political world, but Blanka heeded them not. What signified to her the watchword of the period,—"Liberty?" What liberty had she? Even were all the world beside free, she was not free to love.
It was the irony of fate that the mansion which had been assigned as a permanent dwelling-place to the woman condemned to a life of asceticism, had been originally fitted up as a fairy love-palace for a beautiful creature, possessed of an unquenchable thirst for the fleeting joys of this earthly existence. Over the richly carved mantelpiece in Blanka's sleeping-room was what looked like a splendid bas-relief in marble. It was in reality no bas-relief at all, but a wonderfully skilful bit of painting, so cleverly imitating the sculptor's chisel that even a closer inspection failed to detect the deception. It represented a recumbent Sappho playing on a nine-stringed lyre. The opening in the sounding-board of the instrument appeared to be a veritable hole over which real strings were stretched.
This painting Blanka had before her eyes when she lay down to sleep at night, and it was the first to greet her when she awoke in the morning. Nor was it simply that she was forced to see it: Sappho seemed able to make her presence known by other means than by addressing the sight alone. Mysterious sounds came at times from the lyre,—sometimes simple chords, and again snatches of love-songs which the princess could have played over afterward from memory, so plainly did she seem to hear them. Occasionally, too, the notes of a human voice were heard; and though the words were muffled and indistinct, as if coming from a distance, the air was easily followed. These weird melodies came to Blanka's ears nearly every evening, but she did not venture to tell any one about them. She tried to persuade herself it was all imagination on her part, and feared to relate her experience, lest she should incur suspicion of insanity and be consigned to a less desirable prison than the Cagliari palace.
One evening, as she was preparing to retire, and was standing for a moment before her mirror, the Sappho seemed to give vent to a ripple of laughter. The princess was so startled that she dropped the candle she held in her hand. Once more she heard that mysterious laugh, and then she beat a hasty retreat to her bed and buried herself in the pillows and blankets. But, peeping out at length and throwing one more glance at the picture, which was faintly illumined by her night-lamp, she heard still another repetition of the mysterious laughter, coming apparently from a great distance. Was this, too, an illusion, a dream, a trick of her imagination? If the painted Sappho was alive, why did she give these signs only at night, and not in the daytime as well?
November came, and with it rainy days, so that Blanka was constrained to suspend her drives to Monte Mario and remain in the house. Every evening she sat before her open fire with her eyes fixed on the glowing phœnix with which the back of the fireplace was adorned. It was the work of Finiguerra, the first of his craft to discard the chisel for the hammer. The many-hued feathers of the flaming bird were of steel, copper, brass, Corinthian bronze, silver, and gold. Especially resplendent was the bird's head, with its gleaming red circle around the brightly shining eye. This eye glowed and sparkled in the flickering light of the crackling wood fire until it seemed fairly endowed with life and vision.
One evening, as the princess was watching this glowing eye, it suddenly vanished from the bird's head and left a dark hole in its place. Then, as if not content with this marvellous demonstration, the phœnix next took flight bodily and disappeared, apparently up the chimney, with a rattling, rasping sound, as of the creaking of cogged wheels, leaving a wide opening where it had been. The coals which still glowed on the hearth presently died with a hissing noise, and only the soft light of the shaded lamp diffused itself through the room. Out of the mysterious depths of the fireplace stepped the white-clad form of a woman.
"I am the Marchioness Caldariva," announced the unbidden guest.
The suddenness and the mystery of it all, as well as the name that greeted her ears, might well have startled the Princess Blanka. The strange visitor was of tall and slender form, and suggested, in her closely fitting gown of soft material, a statue of one of the pagan goddesses. Her thick blond hair was carelessly gathered into a knot behind; her complexion was pale, her blue eyes were bright and vivacious, and her coral lips were parted in a coquettish smile. Every movement was fraught with grace and charm, every pose commanded admiration. She followed up her self-introduction with a laugh—a laugh that sounded familiar to her listener. It was the Sappho's tones that she heard. Blanka gazed in wonder at the mysterious apparition. She thought she must be dreaming, and that this was but another creation of her own fancy.
"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the visitor, "an original way to pay a call, isn't it?—without warning, right through the back wall of your fireplace, and in négligé, too! But as you wouldn't visit me, I had to come to you, and this is the readiest communication between our apartments. You didn't know anything about it, did you? The back of your fireplace is a secret door. If you press on the green tile here at the left, the phœnix flies up the chimney, and then if you bear down hard on this one at the right, it returns to its place again. Do you see?"
As she spoke the white lady stepped on the tile last designated, and straightway the phœnix descended and filled the opening through which she had just made her entrance.
"On the other side," she continued, "is a piece of mechanism which will only work when a secret lock has been opened, and to effect this the bird's eye must first be pushed aside to make room for the key. Your ignorance of all this became apparent to me when I found both of the two keys in my room. One of them belongs to you, and I have brought it to give you. Without it you might be broken in upon most unpleasantly by some unwelcome intruder. But with the key in your possession, you can insert it in the lock whenever you wish to guard against any such intrusion."
With that the speaker handed over the key, and then went on:
"Now you will be able to visit me, just as I do you. One thing more, however, is necessary. You generally have a fire in your fireplace, and not every woman is a Saint Euphrosyne, able to walk barefoot over glowing coals. Here is a little bottle of liquid with which you can quench the flames at pleasure. It is a chemical mixture expressly prepared for this purpose. And in this other bottle is another liquid for rekindling the fire,—no secret of chemistry, this time, but only naphtha. Let us try it at once, for your room is cold and I have nothing on but this dressing-gown."
The flames were soon crackling merrily again in the fireplace. Blanka, much bewildered and still doubting the evidence of her senses, sank down on a sofa, while her unbidden guest seated herself opposite. The princess raised her eyes involuntarily to the Sappho over the mantelpiece. Again the familiar laugh fell on her ears.
"You look up at the Sappho," said the marchioness. "You have heard her play and sing and laugh more than once, haven't you? Well, you shall learn the secret of it all. A jealous husband once had the passage constructed which connects our two apartments. You know the story of Dionysius's Ear. Here you see it in real life. A hollow tube runs from the opening in the lyre directly to my room, and through this the jealous husband was able to hear every sound in his wife's chamber. Through it, too, you have heard me sing and play and laugh, and I have heard tones of sadness from your room, and exclamations in an unknown tongue, with no cheering word to comfort you and drive away your sorrow. Three days ago, about midnight, you began to sing, and that time I could follow the words,—'De profundis ad te clamavi, Domine.' Don't look so surprised. You are not dreaming all this, and I am really the Marchioness Caldariva, better known as 'the beautiful Cyrene.' I have intruded on you this evening, but to-morrow you will admit me of your own free will, and the day after you shall be my guest. We will signal to each other through the tube when we are alone and disengaged, and we shall soon be great friends."
Blanka started slightly at the bare thought of friendship with this woman.
"I am in love with you already," continued the Marchioness Caldariva. "For the past week we have been meeting every day. We kneel side by side in the same church, for I go to church regularly; but you have not noticed me, because you never raise your eyes from your prayer-book to look at your neighbours' bonnets and gowns. As for me, now, I watch you all the time I am praying. Daily prayers are a necessity with me. In the morning I pray for the sins I have committed the day before, and in the evening for those to be committed on the morrow. Another bond of sympathy between us is the similar lot to which we are both condemned,—a life unblessed by domestic happiness,—and we cherish therefore a common hatred of the world. You, however, show yours by leading a solitary life of mourning, I mine by amusing myself the best way I can. If I were strong enough to follow your example, I should do so, but I can't live without distraction. You are strong; I am weak. I admire in you your power to humble your enemies before you. You were told, weren't you, that I wrote that anonymous letter?"
Blanka looked at the speaker with wide eyes of inquiry and wonder. She began at length to place confidence in her words.
"And you were told the truth, too," continued the other. "Oh, those two men are intriguers of the deepest dye. I was accused of upsetting their plan. I was told how mercilessly you had repulsed one of them. Really, that was a master stroke on your part. The fourteenth paragraph! He himself confessed the secret to me,—how he forged a note, some years ago, in the name of a good friend of his, who now holds the incriminating document in his possession. With it he can at any time crush his false friend and deliver him over to a long imprisonment. The trembling culprit wished to free himself at any cost from this sword of Damocles suspended over his head, and he proposed to me two ways to effect the desired end. One was for me to seduce the young artist and then, as the price of my smiles, cajole him into surrendering the fatal note."
The beautiful Cyrene threw at her listener a look full of the proud consciousness of her own dangerous charms. Blanka drew back in nameless fear under her gaze.
"The other way," proceeded the marchioness, "was to have him assassinated if he refused to give up the forged paper."
Blanka pressed her hands to her bosom to keep from crying out.
"Between these two plans I was asked to choose, and I rejected them both,—the first because I knew the young man adored you, the second because I knew you reciprocated his feeling."
The princess rose hastily and walked across the room, seeking to hide her tell-tale blushes.
"Come," said the marchioness, lightly, "sit down again and let us laugh over the whole affair together. You see, I would have nothing to do with either tragedy. I prefer comedy. Both of our arch-schemers have now taken flight from Rome; they were seized with terror at a street riot the other day, and they won't come back again, you may be sure, unless it be in the rear of a besieging army. So now we have the Cagliari palace quite to ourselves, and can sit and chat together all we please. But I must say good night; I've gossiped enough for one while, and I'm sleepy, too."
Once more the fire was extinguished and the phœnix made to yield a passage, after which Blanka found herself alone again. She shuddered at the thought of having lived for months with an open door leading to her bedroom. She debated with herself whether to stick her key in that door and leave it there permanently, while she herself sought another sleeping-room, or to yield to the charm of her unbidden guest and acquiesce in her plan of exchanging confidential visits. The strangeness and mystery of it all, and still more the hope that her neighbour might let fall an occasional word concerning Manasseh, at length prevailed over her fears and scruples, and determined her to receive the other's advances.
On the following evening she gave her servants permission to go to the theatre,—the play representing the defeat of the Austrian army by the Italians,—while she herself, after having her samovar and other tea-things brought to her room, took up her mandolin and struck a few chords on its strings. The reclining Sappho answered her, and a few minutes later there came a knock on the back of the fireplace.
"Come in!"
The phœnix rose, and the fair Cyrene appeared, this time in full toilet, as for a fashionable call, her hair dressed in the English mode, a lace shawl falling over her pink silk gown, from beneath which one got an occasional glimpse of the richly embroidered underskirt and a pair of little feet encased in high-heeled shoes.
"You were going out?" asked the princess.
"I was coming to see you."
"Did you know I was waiting for you?"
"I told you yesterday I should come, and I knew you were expecting me from your sending your servants away to the theatre."
"And you knew that too?"
"Yes, because they took mine along with them. So here we are all alone by ourselves."
The consciousness of being the only living creatures in a whole house has a delicious charm, fraught with mystery and awe, for two young women. Blanka took her guest's hat and shawl, and then proceeded to start a fire on the hearth. The fair Cyrene meanwhile caught up her mandolin and began to sing one of Alfred de Musset's songs, full of the warmth and glow of the sunny South. Presently the hostess invited her guest to take tea with her, and asked her at the same time her baptismal name.
The marchioness laughed. "Haven't you heard it often enough? They call me 'Cyrene.'"
"But that isn't your real name," objected Blanka. "You were not christened 'Cyrene.'"
"I use it for my name, however, and no one but my father confessor calls me by my real name, so that now I never hear it without thinking that I must fall on my knees and repeat a dozen paternosters in penance. Besides, my name doesn't suit me at all. It is Rozina, and I am as pale as moonshine. You might far better be called Rozina, for you have such beautiful rosy cheeks, and I should have been named Blanka. I'll tell you, suppose we exchange names: you call me Blanka, and I'll call you Rozina."
The suggestion seemed so funny to Blanka that she burst out laughing, and a woman who laughs is already more than half won over.
"Now, then," continued the other, "we can chat away to our heart's content. There's no one to listen to us or play the spy—a good thing for you to know, Rozina, because all your servants are hired spies. Your doorkeeper and his wife keep a regular journal of who comes in and who goes out, what visiting-cards are left, whom you receive, where you drive,—which they learn from your coachman,—whom you visit, and even with whom you exchange a passing word. Your maid reads all your letters and searches all your pockets. Even your gardener keeps an account of all the flowers you order; for flowers, you know, have a language of their own. Be sure you don't buy a parrot, else it will turn spy on you, too."
"Who can it be that is so suspicious of me?" asked the princess, in surprise.
"Have you forgotten the strict terms of your uncle's legacy, and are you unaware how slight an indiscretion on your part might furnish your relatives with a pretext for contesting your right to a share of the property? Do you forget, too, how trifling an error might result in the cutting off of your allowance from Prince Cagliari?"
"Well, let them watch me, if they wish," returned Blanka, composedly. "I have no secrets to hide from anybody."
"A rash assertion for a woman to make," commented the other, as she poured herself a glass of water. "How warm this water is!" she exclaimed, after taking a sip.
Blanka sprang up and offered to bring some ice from the dining-room.
"Aren't you afraid to go for it alone?"
"Certainly not; the lamps are all lighted."
While the hostess was out of the room, her guest turned over Blanka's portfolio of drawings, and among them found her outline sketch of the Colosseum.
"You sketch beautifully," commented the marchioness, upon the other's return.
"It is my only diversion," replied the princess.
"This view of the Colosseum reminds me of one I saw at the Rossis'."
"The artist may have chosen the same point of view," returned Blanka with admirable composure.
"I called on him at his studio lately," proceeded the marchioness. "I had heard one of his pictures very highly praised. It represents a young woman sitting on the gallery railing in the Colosseum, with the sunlight streaming on her through a red umbrella. The warm glow of the sunbeams is in striking contrast with the deep melancholy on the girl's face. I offered the artist two hundred scudi for the piece, but he said it was not for sale at any price."
Blanka felt as powerless in the hands of this woman as a rabbit in the clutches of a lion. The beautiful Cyrene closed the portfolio and exclaimed:
"Rozina, these men are terrible creatures! They make us women their slaves. But the woman's first and dominant thought must ever be to find some escape from her bondage."
With that she jumped up and ran out of the room, as if taken suddenly ill. Her hostess followed to see what was the matter, and found her sitting in a corner of the adjoining apartment.
"You are weeping?"
"Not at all; never merrier in my life!"
Nevertheless, two tears were shining in the fair Cyrene's eyes.
Next she ran to the piano and began to rattle off "La Gitana," which Cerito had just made so popular throughout Europe.
"Have you the score?" asked the marchioness, turning to Blanka.
"No, but I can play it from memory."
"Then play it to me, please."
Blanka complied, and the other began to dance "La Gitana" to her playing. The spirit and feeling, the coquettish grace and seductive charm, which the dancer put into the movements of her lithe form, challenge description. If only a man could have seen her then! From sheer amazement Blanka found herself unable to control her fingers, which struck more than one false note.
"Faster! Put more fire into it!" cried the dancer. But Blanka could not go on.
"Ah, you don't remember it, after all."
"I can't play when I look at you," was the reply; and the Marchioness Caldariva believed her. "You could drive a man fairly insane."
"As long as the men will torment us, we must be able to pay them back." She took Blanka's arm and returned with her to the other room. "Woe to him who invades my kingdom!" she continued. "He is bound to lose his reason. Do you wish to wager that I can't drive all Rome crazy over me? If I took a notion to dance the 'Gitana' on the opera-house stage for the benefit of the wounded soldiers, all Rome would go wild with enthusiasm, and the people would half smother me with flowers."
"I will make no such wager with you," returned Blanka, "because I know I should lose."
The beautiful Cyrene changed the subject and invited the princess to attend one of her masked balls,—"a masquerade party," she explained, "of only forty guests at the most, and those the chief personages of Roman society. I ferret out all their secrets and can see through their masks; but I use no witchery about it. My guests are admitted by ticket only, and my major-domo, who receives these cards, writes on the back of each a short description of the bearer's costume. So I have only to go to him and consult his notes to learn my guest's identity."
"But cannot your guests also procure information from the same source—for a consideration?"
"Undoubtedly. My domestics are none of them incorruptible."
Blanka laughed, and Rozina hastened to take advantage of her good humour.
"And now just imagine among these forty masks one guest who comes neither through the door, nor through the major-domo's anteroom, so that no card, no personal description, no cab-number, no information of any kind, is to be had concerning her from my servants. She is acquainted with all the secrets of those around her, but no one can guess her secret, or fathom her mystery. Meanwhile a young painter has taken his seat in one corner behind a screen of foliage, and sketches the lively scene before him. He is the only one who, with beating heart, guesses the name of the mysterious unknown. What do you say,—will this bewitching guest from fairyland deign to figure as the chief personage on my young artist's canvas?"
"Before deciding, may I see a list of those whom you have invited?"
"Certainly—a very proper request." The marchioness handed over her fan, the ribs of which were of ivory, and served the owner as tablets. They were covered with a miscellaneous list of well-known names from all classes, and the last among them was Manasseh Adorjan's. "You can order a costume of black lace, spangled with silver stars," the fair Cyrene went on; "then, with a black velvet mask, you will be ready to appear as the Queen of Night."
Blanka offered no objection to this plan.
"I will admit you upon signal, through our secret passageway, into my boudoir, and from there you will pass, when the way is clear, into the ladies' dressing-room, and thence into the ballroom. With this fan of mine in your hand, you will, after some instructions from me, be able to puzzle and mystify all whom you address, while no one will be in a position even to hazard a surmise as to your identity. When you tire of the sport, come to me, pretend to tease me, and then turn and run away. I will give chase, and under cover of this diversion you will slip out of the room, and return to your own apartments by the same way you came, while I continue the hunt and summon all present to aid me in finding my mysterious guest."
Such was the speaker's influence over Blanka, that the latter could not give her a refusal. Accordingly, when the two parted, it was with the understanding that they were soon to see each other again at the marchioness's masquerade.
Blanka sat in her room, with closed doors, preparing her costume for the masked ball. Affairs in the world outside had moved rapidly during the past few days. In the feverish excitement of that revolutionary period, mob violence was threatening to gain the upper hand. Shouts of boisterous merriment reached the princess from the street. From the adjoining wing of the palace, too, other sounds, almost equally boisterous, fell on her ear at intervals. The fair Cyrene was entertaining a company of congenial spirits.
Gradually the noise in the street grew louder, until it seemed as if a cage of wild animals had been let loose before the Cagliari palace. Suddenly, as Blanka stood before her fire, all her senses alert, she saw the glowing phœnix rise from its position, and her fair neighbour stood in the opening.
"Put out your fire, and let me in," bade the marchioness. "I have emptied my extinguisher. Don't you hear the mob storming my palace gates? The soldiery who were summoned to restore order have made common cause with the rioters, and we are in frightful peril. Quick! Out with your fire, and let me and my guests through. We can make our escape by your rear door, and so gain the riverside in safety."
Blanka could not refuse this appeal. She opened the way for the marchioness and her motley company to pass out; then she herself, first closing the secret passage between the two wings of the palace, followed the other fugitives and, gaining the street by a wide détour, engaged a cab to take her to the Vatican.
"His Holiness receives no one this afternoon," was the announcement made to her at the door.
Almost in despair, and bewildered by the sudden turn of events which had thus cast her homeless on the streets, the princess returned to her carriage.
"Do you know where Signor Scalcagnato lives?" she asked the driver.
"Scalcagnato the shoemaker, the champion of the people? To be sure I do: in the Piazza di Colosseo. But if the lady wishes to buy shoes of him she should not address him as Signor Scalcagnato."
"Why not?"
"Because he will ask half as much more for them than if he were called plain Citizen Scalcagnato."
After this gratuitous bit of information the coachman whipped up his horse and rattled away toward the Colosseum with his passenger.
Arriving at the shoemaker's shop, Blanka was received by a little man of lively bearing and a quick, intelligent expression.
"Pst! No words needed," was his greeting. "I know all about it. I am Citizen Scalcagnato, il calzolajo. Take my arm, citizeness. Cittadino Adorjano lives on the top floor, and the stairs are a trifle steep. He is out at present, but his studio is open to you."
The young lady was reassured. The honest cobbler evidently did not suspect her of coming to meet his tenant by appointment, but took her for an artist friend on a professional visit, or perhaps a customer come to buy a picture. The shoemaker took the artist's place, in the latter's absence, and sold his paintings for him. Perhaps, too, the artist sold his landlord's shoes when that worthy was abroad.
Thus it was that Blanka took the offered arm without a misgiving, and suffered the cobbler to lead her up the steep stairway to the little attic chamber that served her friend for both sleeping-room and studio. It was as neat as wax, and as light and airy as any painter could desire. A large bow-window admitted the free light of heaven and at the same time afforded a fine view of the Palatine Hill. Leaning for a moment against the window-sill, in mute admiration of the prospect before her, the princess thought how happy a woman might be with this view to greet her eyes every day, while a husband who worshipped her and was worshipped by her worked at her side—or, rather, not worked, but created. It was a picture far more alluring than any that the Cagliari palace had to offer.
"Pst!" the cobbler interrupted her musing; "come and let me show you the portrait."
So saying, he conducted her to an easel on which rested a veiled picture, which he uncovered with an air of pride and satisfaction.
The feeling of rapture that took possession of Blanka at sight of her own portrait was owing, not to the fact that it was her likeness,—radiant though that likeness was with youth and beauty and all the charm of an ideal creation,—but to the thought that he had painted it.
"The price is thirty-three million, three hundred and thirty-three thousand, three hundred and thirty-three scudi, and not a soldo less!" announced the shoemaker, with a broad smile. Then he laid his fingers on his lips. "Pst! Not a word! I know all. It will be all right."
Blanka saw now that he had recognised her the moment she entered his shop.
"The citizen painter is not at home," continued the other, "but he will turn up at the proper time where he is wanted. Sun, moon, and stars may fall from heaven, but he will not fail you. No more words! What I have said, I have said. You can now return home, signorina, and need give yourself no further uneasiness. Whatever occurs in the streets, you need not worry. And finally"—they had by this time reached the ground floor again—"it will be well for you to take a pair of shoes with you, to make the coachman think you came on purpose for them. Here's a good stout pair, serviceable for walking or for mountain-climbing. You can rely on them. So take them along; you may need them sometime."
"But how do you know they will fit me?" asked Blanka.
"Citizeness, don't you remember the stone footprint of our Lord in the church of Domine quo vadis? And may not the footprint of an angel have been left in the sand of the Colosseum for a devout artist to copy in his sketch-book? Such a sketch is enough for the Cittadino Scalcagnato to make a pair of shoes from, so that they cannot fail to fit."
The princess turned rosy red. "I have no money with me to pay for them," she objected. "A footman usually accompanies me and pays for all my purchases; but to-day I left him at home, and I neglected to take my purse with me."
"No matter; I understand. I'll charge the amount. Here, take this purse and pay your cab-fare out of it when you reach the square. Don't go home in a carriage, but on foot. You needn't fear to do so, with a pair of shoes in your hand. If your gold-laced lackey were with you, you might meet with insult and abuse; but walking alone with the shoes in your hand, you will not be molested, and you will find all quiet at home by this time. Now enough said. I know all. You can pay me back later."
With that the little shoemaker escorted his guest to her carriage and took leave of her with a polite request—intended for the cabman's ear—for her further patronage.
Following the mysterious little man's directions, Blanka reached home unharmed, and found everything there as she had left it. Whatever violence the rioters may have allowed themselves in storming the marchioness's quarters, her own wing of the palace, for some reason that she could only vaguely conjecture, had been spared. After assuring herself of this, the princess tried on her new shoes, and found that Citizen Scalcagnato was no less skilful as a shoemaker than eminent as a politician and a party-leader.
The house was now still and deserted, although the sounds of riotous excess were faintly audible in the distance. The servants had evidently fled at the same time that Blanka and the marchioness left the palace. Looking out of her rear window, the princess noticed that her garden gate was open; it must have been left swinging by her domestics in their flight. She was hastening down-stairs to close it, when a man's form appeared before her in the gathering gloom, and she cried out in sudden terror.
"Do not be alarmed, Princess." The words came in a firm, manly voice that thrilled the hearer; she recognised the tones. Manasseh Adorjan stood before her. "I could not gain admittance by the front door," he explained, "so I went around to the garden gate."
"And how is it," asked Blanka, "that you have come to me at the very moment that I was seeking you?"
"I wished, first, to bid you farewell. I am going home, to Transylvania, for my people are in trouble and I must go and help them. As long as they are happy I avoid them, but when misfortune comes I cannot stay away. War threatens to invade our peaceful valley, and I hasten thither."
"Has the hour come, then, when you feel it right to kill your fellow-men?"
"No, Princess; my part is to restore peace, not to foment strife."
Blanka's hands were clasped in her lap. She raised them to her bosom and begged her fellow-countryman to take her with him.
The colour mounted to his face, his breast heaved, he passed his hand across his brow, whereon the perspiration had started, and stammered, in agitated accents:
"No, no, Princess, I cannot take you with me."
"Why not?" asked Blanka, tremulously.
"Because I am a man and but human. I could shield you against all the world, but not against myself. I love you! And if you came with me, how could you expect me to help you keep your vows? I am neither saint nor angel, but a mortal, and a sinful one."
The poor girl sank speechless into a chair and hid her face in her hands.
"Hear me further, Princess," continued the other, with forced calmness. "I have told you but one reason why I sought you here to-day. The other was to show you a means of escape from this place, where you cannot remain in safety another day. You must leave Rome this very night, and that will be no easy thing to accomplish now that all the gates are guarded. But I have a plan. Above all things, you must find a lady to take you under her protection, and that, I think, can be effected. Citizen Scalcagnato issues all the passports for those that leave the city by the Colosseum gate. From him I have learned that the Countess X—— is to leave for the south to-night. I have obtained a pass for you, and you have only to make yourself ready and go with me to the Colosseum gate, where we will wait for her carriage. She is a good friend of yours and cannot refuse to take you as her travelling-companion. Do you approve my plan?"
"Yes, and I thank you."
"Then a few hours hence will see you on your journey southward. I shall set out for the north, and soon the length of Italy will separate us. Is it not best so?"
Blanka gave him her hand in mute assent.
An hour later Manasseh and Blanka stood in the shelter of the gateway by which the countess was expected to leave Rome. They had not long to wait: the sound of an approaching carriage was soon heard, and when it halted under the gas-lamp Blanka recognised her friend's equipage. The gate-keeper advanced to examine the traveller's passport, and as the carriage door was thrown open Blanka hastened forward and made herself known.
"What do you wish?" demanded the liveried footman.
The princess turned and looked at him. Surely she had seen that face and form before in a different setting, but she could not recall when or where. So much was evident, however, that the speaker was more wont to give than to receive orders. Blanka turned again to the open carriage door and plucked at the cloak of the person sitting within.
"You are fleeing from Rome, too, Countess," said she. "I beg you to take me with you."
But the carriage door was closed in her face.
"Countess, hear me!" she cried, in distress. "Have pity on me! Don't leave me to perish in the streets!"
Her petition was unheeded. The footman drew her away and, as he turned to remount the vehicle, whispered three words in her ear:
"È il papa!"
It was the Pope, and he was fleeing! The spiritual ruler of the world, the king of kings, Heaven's viceroy upon earth, was flying for his life. The judge fled and left the prisoner to her fate. Blanka felt herself absolved from all her vows. She plucked from her bosom the consecrated palm-leaf, tore it to pieces, and threw the fragments scornfully after the retreating carriage. Then she turned once more to Manasseh.
"Now take me with you whithersoever you will!" she cried, and she sank on his bosom and suffered him to clasp her in a warm embrace.