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Sunrise, a novel by William Black |
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Chapter 27. Kirski |
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_ CHAPTER XXVII. KIRSKI To this pale student from the Reading-room of the British Museum, as he stands on a bridge crossing one of the smaller canals, surely the scene around him must seem one fitted to gladden the heart; for it is Venice at mid-day, in glowing sunlight: the warm cream-white fronts of the marble palaces and casemented houses, the tall campanili with their golden tips, the vast and glittering domes of the churches, all rising fair and dream-like into the intense dark-blue of a cloudless sky. How the hot sunlight brings out all the beautiful color of the place--the richly laden fruit-stalls in the Riva dei Schiavoni; the russet and saffron sails of the vessels; the canal-boats coming in to the steps with huge open tuns of purple wine to be ladled out with copper buckets; and then all around the shining, twinkling plain of the green-hued sea, catching here and there a reflection from the softly red walls of San Giorgio and the steel-gray gleaming domes of Santa Maria della Salute. Then the passers-by: these are not like the dusky ghosts that wander through the pale-blue mists of Bloomsbury. Here comes a buxom water-carrier, in her orange petticoat and sage-green shawl, who has the two copper cans at the end of the long piece of wood poised on her shoulders, pretty nearly filled to the brim. Then a couple of the gayer gondoliers in white and blue, with fancy waist-belts, and rings in their ears. A procession of black-garbed monks wends slowly along; they have come from the silence of the Armenian convent over there at the horizon. Some wandering minstrels shoot their gondola into the mouth of the canal, and strike up a gay waltz, while they watch the shaded balconies above. Here is a Lascar ashore from the big steamer that is to start for Alexandria on the morrow. A company of soldiers, with blue coats, canvas trousers, and white gaiters, half march and half trot along to the quick, crackling music of the buglers. A swarthy-visaged maiden, with the calm brow of a Madonna, appears in the twilight of a balcony, with a packet of maize in her hand, and in a minute or two she is surrounded with a cloud of pigeons. Then this beggar--a child of eight or ten--red-haired and blue-eyed: surely she has stepped out of one of Titian's pictures? She whines and whimpers her prayers to him; but there is something in her look that he has seen elsewhere. It belongs to another century. From these reveries Mr. Gathorne Edwards was aroused by some one tapping him on the shoulder. It was Calabressa. "My dear Monsieur Edouarts," said he, in a low voice--for the red-haired little beggar was still standing there expectant--"he has gone over to the shipping-place. We must follow later on. Meanwhile, regard this letter that has just been forwarded to me. Ah, you English do not forget your promises!" Edwards threw a piece of money to the child, who passed on. Then he took the letter and read it. It was in French. * * * * * "Dear Calabressa,--I want you to tell me what you have done with Yakov Kirski. They seem unwilling to say here, and I do not choose to inquire further. But I undertook to look after him, and I understood he was getting on very well, and now you have carried him off. I hope it is with no intention of allowing him to go back to Russia, where he will simply make an attempt at murder, and fall into the hands of the police. Do not let the poor devil go and make a fool of himself. If you want money to send him back to England, show this letter, or forward it to Messrs. ----, who will give you what you want. "Your friend, George Brand. "P.S.--I have seen your beautiful caged little bird. I can say no more at present, but that she shall not suffer through any neglect of mine." * * * * * "What is that about the caged bird?" said Edwards. "Ah, the caged bird?" said Calabressa. "The caged bird?--do you see, that is a metaphor. It is nothing; one makes one's little joke. But I was saying, my dear friend, that you English do not promise, and then forget. No; he says, 'I will befriend this poor devil of a Kirski;' and here he comes inquiring after him. Now I must answer the letter; you will accompany me, Monsieur Edouarts? Ten minutes in my little room, and it is done." So the two walked away together. This Edwards who now accompanied Calabressa was a man of about thirty, who looked younger; tall, fair, with a slight stoop, a large forehead, and blue eyes that stared near-sightedly through spectacles. The ordinary expression of his face was grave even to melancholy, but his occasional smile was humorous, and when he laughed the laugh was soft and light like that of a child. His knowledge of modern languages was considered to be almost unrivalled, though he had travelled but little. When, in this little room, Calabressa had at length finished his letter and dusted it over with sand, he was not at all loath to show it to this master of modern speech. Calabressa was proud of his French; and if he would himself have acknowledged that it was perhaps here and there of doubtful idiom and of phonetic spelling, would he not have claimed for it that it was fluent, incisive, and ornate? "My valued friend, it is not permitted me to answer your questions in precise terms; but he to whom you have had the goodness to extend your bountiful protection is well and safe, and under my own care. No; he goes not back to Russia. His thoughts are different; his madness travels in other directions; it is no longer revenge, it is adoration and gratitude that his heart holds. And you, can you not guess who has worked the miracle? Think of this: you have a poor wretch who is distracted by injuries and suffering; he goes away alone into Europe; he is buffeted about with the winds of hunger and thirst and cold: he cannot speak; he is like a dog--a wild beast that people drive away from their door. And all at once some one addresses him in gentle tones: it is the voice of an angel to him! You plough and harrow the poor wretch's heart with suffering and contempt and hopelessness, until it is a desert, a wilderness; but some one, by accident, one day drops a seed of kindness into it, and behold! the beautiful flower of love springing up, and all the man's life going into it! Can you understand--you who ought to understand? Were you not present when the bewildered, starved, hunted creature heard that gentle voice of pity, like an angel speaking from heaven? And if the beautiful girl, who will be the idol of my thoughts through my remaining years, if she does not know that she has rescued a human soul from despair, you will tell her--tell her from me, from Calabressa. What would not Kirski do for her? you might well ask. The patient regards the physician who has cured him with gratitude: this is more that gratitude, it is worship. What she has preserved she owns; he would give his life to her, to you, to any one whom she regards with affection. For myself, I do not say such things; but she may count on me also, while one has yet life. "I am yours, and hers, Calabressa." * * * * * The letter was handed to Gathorne Edwards with a proud air; and he read it, and handed it back. "This man Kirski is not so much of a savage as you imagine," he said. "He learns quickly, and forgets nothing. He can repeat all the articles of membership; but it is No. 5 that he is particularly fond of. You have not heard him go over it, Calabressa?" "I? No. He does not waste my time that way." "His pronunciation," continued the younger man, with a smile, "is rather like the cracking of dry twigs. 'Article 5. Whatever punishment may be decreed against any Officer, Companion, or Friend of the Society may be vicariously borne by any other Officer, Companion, or Friend who of his own full and free consent acts as substitute; the original offender becoming thereby redeemed, acquitted, and released.' And then he invariably adds: 'Why not make me of some use? To myself my life is nothing.'" At this moment there was a tapping at the door. "It is himself," said Edwards. "Enter!" Calabressa called out. The man who now came into the room was a very different looking person from the wild, unkempt creature who had confronted Natalie Lind in Curzon Street. The voluminous red beard and mustache had been cropped; he wore the clothes of a decent workman, with a foreign touch here and there; he was submissive and docile in look. "Well, where have you been, my friend?" Calabressa said to him in Italian. Kirski glanced at Gathorne Edwards, and began to speak to him in Russian. "Will you explain for me, little father? I have been to many churches." "The police will not suspect him if he goes there," said Calabressa, laughing. "And to the shops in the Piazza San Marco, where the pictures are of the saints." "Well?" "Little father, I can find no one of the saints so beautiful as that one in England that the Master Calabressa knows." Calabressa laughed again. "Allons, mon grand enfant! Tell him that if it is only a likeness he is hunting for, I can show him one." With that he took out from his breast-pocket a small pocket book, opened it, found a certain photograph, and put it on the table, shoving it over toward Kirski. The dim-eyed Russian did not dare to touch it; but he stooped over it, and he put one trembling hand on each side of it, as if he would concentrate the light, and gazed at this portrait of Natalie Lind until he could see nothing at all for the tears that came into his eyes. Then he rose abruptly, and said something rapidly to Edwards. "He says, 'Take it away, or you will make me a thief. It is worth more than all the diamonds in the world.'" Calabressa did not laugh this time. He regarded the man with a look in which there was as much pity as curiosity. "The poor devil!" he said. "Tell him I will ask the beautiful saint whom he worships so to send him a portrait of herself with her own hands. I will. She will do as much as that for her friend Calabressa." This had scarcely been translated to Kirski when, in his sudden gratitude, he caught Calabressa's hand and kissed it. "Tell him, also," Calabressa said, good-naturedly, "that if he is hungry before dinner-time there is sausage and bread and beer in the cupboard. But he must not stir out till we come back. Allons, mon bon camarade!" Calabressa lit another cigarette, and the two companions sallied forth. They stepped into a gondola, and presently they were being borne swiftly over the plain of light-green water. By-and-by they plunged into a varied and picturesque mass of shipping, and touched land again in front of a series of stores. The gondola was ordered to await their return. Calabressa passed without question through the lower floor of this particular building, where the people were busy with barrels of flour, and led the way up-stairs until he stopped at a certain door. He knocked thrice and entered. There was a small, dark man seated at a table, apparently engaged with some bills of lading. "You are punctual, Brother Calabressa." "Your time is valuable, Brother Granaglia. Let me present to you my comrade Signor Edouarts, of whom I wrote to you." The sallow-faced little man with the tired look bowed courteously, begged his guests to be seated, and pushed toward them a box of cigarettes. "Now, my Calabressa," said he, "to the point. As you guess, I am pressed for time. Seven days hence will find me in Moscow." "In Moscow!" exclaimed Calabressa. "You dare not!" Granaglia waved his hand a couple of inches. "Do not protest. It may be your turn to-morrow. And my good friend Calabressa would find Moscow just about as dangerous for him as for me." "Monsieur le Secretaire, I have no wish to try. But to the point, as you say. May one ask how it stands with Zaccatelli?" Granaglia glanced at the Englishman. "Of course he knows everything," Calabressa explained instantly. "How otherwise should I have brought him with me?" "Well, Zaccatelli has received his warning." "Who carried it?" "I." "You! You are the devil! You thrust your head into the lion's den!" The black-eyed, worn-faced little man seemed pleased. An odd, dry smile appeared about the thin lips. "It needed no courage at all, friend Calabressa. His Eminence knows who we are, no one better. The courage was his. It is not a pleasant thing when you are told that within a certain given time you will be a dead man; but Zaccatelli did not blanch; no, he was very polite to me. He paid us compliments. We were not like the others, Calabressa. We were good citizens and Christians; even his Holiness might be induced to lend an ear; why should not the Church and we be friends?" Calabressa burst out laughing. "Surely evil days have fallen on the Pope, Brother Granaglia, when one of his own Cardinals proposes that he should at last countenance a secret society. But his Eminence was mad with fear--was it not so? He wanted to win you over with promises, eh? Idle words, and no more. He feeds you on wind, and sends you away, and returns to his mistresses and his wines and his fountains of perfume?" "Not quite so," said the other, with the same dry smile, "His Eminence, as I say to you, knows as well as any one in Europe who and what we are, and what is our power. The day after I called on him with my little message, what does he do--of his own free-will, mind you--but send back the daughter of old De Bedros to her home, with a pledge to her father that she shall have a dowry of ten thousand lire when she marries. The father is pleased, the daughter is not. She sits and cries. She talks of herself getting at him with a stiletto." He took a cigarette, and accepted a light from Calabressa. "Further," he continued, "his Eminence is so kind as to propose to give the Council an annual subsidy from his own purse of thirty thousand lire." "Thirty thousand lire!" Calabressa exclaimed. But at this point even Granaglia began to laugh. "Yes, yes, my friend," he said, apparently apostrophizing the absent Cardinal. "You know, then, who we are, and you do not wish to give up all pleasures. No; we are to become the good boy among secret societies; we are to have the blessing of the Pope; we are to fight Prince Bismarck for you. Prince Bismarck has all his knights and his castles on the board; but what are they against an angelic host of bishops and some millions of common pawns? Prince Bismarck wishes to plunge Europe again into war. The church with this tremendous engine within reach, says, No. Do you wish to find eight men--eight men, at the least--out of every company of every regiment in all your _corps d'armee_ throw down their rifles at the first onset of battle? You will shoot them for mutiny? My dear fellow, you cannot, the enemy is upon you. With eight men out of each company throwing down their weapons, and determined either to desert or die, how on earth can you fight at all? Well, then, good Bismarck, you had better make your peace with the Church, and rescind those Falk laws. What do you think of that scheme, Calabressa? It was ingenious, was it not, to have come into the head of a man under sentence of death?" "But the thirty thousand lire, Brother Granaglia. It is a tremendous bribe." "The Council does not accept bribes, Brother Calabressa," said the other, coldly, "It is decided, then, that the decree remains to be executed?" "I know nothing to the contrary. But if you wish to know for certain, you must seek the Council. They are at Naples." He pulled an ink-bottle before him, and made a motion with his forefinger. "You understand?" "Yes, yes," Calabressa answered. "And I will go on to Naples, Brother Granaglia; for I have with me one who I think will carry out the wishes of the Council effectively, so far as his Eminence the Cardinal is concerned." "Who is he?" said the other, but with no great interest. "Yakov Kirski. He is a Russian." _ |
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