Part 1. Sister Maria Addolorata - Chapter 3

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_ PART I. SISTER MARIA ADDOLORATA
CHAPTER III

"IT is well," said Stefanone. "The world is come to an end. I will not say anything more."

He finished his tumbler of wine, leaned back on the wooden bench against the brown wall, played with the broad silver buttons of his dark blue jacket, and stared hard at Sor Tommaso, the doctor, who sat opposite to him. The doctor returned his glance rather unsteadily and betook himself to his snuffbox. It was of worn black ebony, adorned in the middle of the lid with a small view of Saint Peter's and the colonnades in mosaic, with a very blue sky. From long use, each tiny fragment of the mosaic was surrounded by a minute black line, which indeed lent some tone to the intensely clear atmosphere of the little picture, but gave the architecture represented therein a dirty and neglected appearance. The snuff itself, however, was of the superior quality known as Sicilian in those days, and was of a beautiful light brown colour.

"And why?" asked the doctor very slowly, between the operations of pinching, stuffing, snuffing, and dusting. "Why is the world come to an end?"

Stefanone's eyes grew sullen, with a sort of dull glare in their unwinking gaze. He looked dangerous just then, but the doctor did not seem to be in the least afraid of him.

"You, who have made it end, should know why," answered the peasant, after a short pause.

Stefanone was a man of the Roman type, of medium height, thick set and naturally melancholic, with thin, straight lips that were clean shaven, straight black hair, a small but aggressively aquiline nose and heavy hands, hairy on the backs of the fingers, between the knuckles. His wife, Sora Nanna, said that he had a fist like a paving-stone. He also looked as though he might have the constitution of a mule. He was at that time about five-and-thirty years of age, and there were a few strong lines in his face, notably those curved ones drawn from the beginning of the nostrils to the corners of the mouth, which are said to denote an uncertain temper.

He wore the dress of the richer peasants of that day, a coarse but spotless white shirt, very open at the throat, a jacket and waistcoat of stout dark blue cloth, with large and smooth silver buttons, knee-breeches, white stockings, and heavy low shoes with steel buckles. He combined the occupations of farmer, wine-seller, and carrier. When he was on the road between Subiaco and Rome, Gigetto, already mentioned, was supposed to represent him. It was understood that Gigetto was to marry Annetta--if he could be prevailed upon to do so, for he was the younger son of a peasant family which held its head even higher than Stefanone, and the young man as well as his people looked upon Annetta's wild ways with disapproval, though her fortune, as the only child of Stefanone and Sora Nanna, was a very strong attraction. In the meantime, Gigetto acted as though he were the older man's partner in the wine-shop, and as he was a particularly honest, but also a particularly idle, young man with a taste for singing and playing on the guitar, the position suited him admirably.

As for Sor Tommaso, with whom Stefanone seemed inclined to quarrel on this particular evening, he was a highly respectable personage in a narrow-shouldered, high-collared black coat with broad skirts, and a snuff-coloured waistcoat. He wore a stock which was decidedly shabby, but decent, and the thin cuffs of his shirt were turned back over the tight sleeves of his coat, in the old fashion. He also wore amazingly tight black trousers, strapped closely over his well-blacked boots. To tell the truth, these nether garments, though of great natural resistance, had lived so long at a high tension, so to say, that they were no longer equally tight at all points, and there were, undoubtedly, certain perceptible spots on them; but, on the whole, the general effect of the doctor's appearance was fashionable, in the fashion of several years earlier and judged by the standard of Subiaco. He wore his hair rather long, in a handsome iron-grey confusion, his face was close-shaven, and, though he was thin, his complexion was somewhat apoplectic.

Having duly and solemnly finished the operation of taking snuff, the doctor looked at the peasant.

"I do not wish to have said anything," he observed, by way of a general retraction. "These are probably follies."

"And for not having meant to say anything, you have planted this knife in my heart!" retorted Stefanone, the veins swelling at his temples. "Thank you. I wish to die, if I forget it. You tell me that this daughter of mine is making love with the Englishman. And then you say that you do not wish to have said anything! May he die, the Englishman, he, and whoever made him, with the whole family! An evil death on him and all his house!"

"So long as you do not make me die, too!" exclaimed Sor Tommaso, with rather a pitying smile.

"Eh! To die--it is soon said! And yet, people do die. You, who are a doctor, should know that. And you do not wish to have said anything! Bravo, doctor! Words are words. And yet they can sting. And after a thousand years, they still sting. You--what can you understand? Are you perhaps a father? You have not even a wife. Oh, blessed be God! You do not even know what you are saying. You know nothing. You think, perhaps, because you are a doctor, that you know more than I do. I will tell you that you are an ignorant!"

"Oh, beautiful!" cried the doctor, angrily, stung by what is still almost a mortal insult. "You--to me--ignorant! Oh, beautiful, most beautiful, this! From a peasant to a man of science! Perhaps you too have a diploma from the University of the Sapienza--"

"If I had, I should wrap half a pound of sliced ham--fat ham, you know--in it, for the first customer. What should I do with your diplomas! I ask you, what do you know? Do you know at all what a daughter is? Blood of my blood, heart of my heart, hand of this hand. But I am a peasant, and you are a doctor. Therefore, I know nothing."

"And meanwhile you give me 'ignorant' in my face!" retorted Sor Tommaso.

"Yes--and I repeat it!" cried Stefanone, leaning forwards, his clenched hand on the table. "I say it twice, three times--ignorant, ignorant, ignorant! Have you understood?"

"Say it louder! In that way every one can hear you! Beast of a sheep-grazer!"

"And you--crow-feeder! Furnisher of grave-diggers. And then--ignorant! Oh--this time I have said it clearly!"

"And it seems to me that it is enough!" roared the doctor, across the table. "Ciociaro! Take that!"

"Ciociaro? I? Oh, your soul! If I get hold of you with my hands!"

A 'ciociaro' is a hill-man who wears 'cioce,' or rags, bound upon his feet with leathern sandals and thongs. He is generally a shepherd, and is held in contempt by the more respectable people of the larger mountain towns. To call a man a 'ciociaro' is a bitter insult.

Stefanone in his anger had half risen from his seat. But the wooden bench on which he had been sitting was close to the wall behind him, and the heavy oak table was pushed up within a few inches of his chest, so that his movements were considerably hampered as he stretched out his hands rather wildly towards his adversary. The latter, who possessed more moral than physical courage, moved his chair back and prepared to make his escape, if Stefanone showed signs of coming round the table.

At that moment a tall figure darkened the door that opened upon the street, and a quiet, dry voice spoke with a strong foreign accent. It was Angus Dalrymple, returning from a botanizing expedition in the hills, after being absent all day.

"That is a very uncomfortable way of fighting," he observed, as he stood still in the doorway. "You cannot hit a man across a table broader than your arm is long, Signor Stefano."

The effect of his words was instantaneous. Stefanone fell back into his seat. The doctor's anxious and excited expression resolved itself instantly into a polite smile.

"We were only playing," he said suavely. "A little discussion--a mere jest. Our friend Stefanone was explaining something."

"If the table had been narrower, he would have explained you away altogether," observed Dalrymple, coming forward.

He laid a tin box which he had with him upon the table, and shook hands with Sor Tommaso. Then he slipped behind the table and sat down close to his host, as a precautionary measure in case the play should be resumed. Stefanone would have had a bad chance of being dangerous, if the powerful Scotchman chose to hold him down. But the peasant seemed to have become as suddenly peaceful as the doctor.

"It was nothing," said Stefanone, quietly enough, though his eyes were bloodshot and glanced about the room in an unsettled way.

At that moment Annetta entered from a door leading to the staircase. Her eyes were fixed on Dalrymple's face as she came forward, carrying a polished brass lamp, with three burning wicks, which she placed upon the table. Dalrymple looked up at her, and seeing her expression of inquiry, slowly nodded. With a laugh which drew her long red-brown lips back from her short white teeth, the girl produced a small flask and a glass, which she had carried behind her and out of sight when she came in. She set them before Dalrymple.

"I saw you coming," she said, and laughed again. "And then--it is always the same. Half a 'foglietta' of the old, just for the appetite."

Sor Tommaso glanced at Stefanone in a meaning way, but the girl's father affected not to see him. Dalrymple nodded his thanks, poured a few drops of wine into the glass and scattered them upon the brick floor according to the ancient custom, both for rinsing the glass and as a libation, and then offered to fill the glasses of each of the two men, who smiled, shook their heads, and covered their tumblers with their right hands. At last Dalrymple helped himself, nodded politely to his companions, and slowly emptied the glass which held almost all the contents of the little flask. The 'foglietta,' or 'leaflet' of wine, is said to have been so called from the twisted and rolled vine leaf which generally serves it for a stopper. A whole 'foglietta' contained a scant pint.

"Will you eat now?" asked Annetta, still smiling.

"Presently," answered Dalrymple. "What is there to eat? I am hungry."

"It seems that you have to say so!" laughed the girl. "It is a new thing. There is beefsteak or mutton, if you wish to know. And ham--a fresh ham cut to-day. It is one of the Grape-eater's, and it seems good. You remember, Sor Tommaso, the--speaking with respect to your face--the pig we called the Grape-eater last year? Speaking with respect, he was a good pig. It is one of his hams that we have cut. There is also salad, and fresh bread, which you like. And wine, I will not speak of it. Eh, he likes wine, the Englishman! He comes in with a long, long face--and when he goes to bed, his face is wide, wide. That is the wine. But then, it does nothing else to him. It only changes his face. When I look at him, I seem to see the moon waxing."

"You talk too much," said Stefanone.

"Never mind, papa! Words are not pennies. The more one wastes, the more one has!"

Dalrymple said nothing; but he smiled as she turned lightly with a toss of her small dark head and left the room.

"Fine blood," observed the doctor, with a conciliatory glance at the girl's father.

"You will be wanted before long, Sor Tommaso," said Dalrymple, gravely. "I hear that the abbess is very ill."

The doctor looked up with sudden interest, and put on his professional expression.

"The abbess, you say? Dear me! She is not young! What has she? Who told you, Sor Angoscia?"

Now, 'Sor Angoscia' signifies in English 'Sir Anguish,' but the doctor in spite of really conscientious efforts could not get nearer to the pronunciation of Angus. Nevertheless, with northern persistency, Dalrymple corrected him for the hundredth time. The doctor's first attempt had resulted in his calling the Scotchman 'Sor Langusta,' which means 'Sir Crayfish'--and it must be admitted that 'Anguish' was an improvement.

"Angus," said Dalrymple. "My name is Angus. The abbess has caught a severe cold from sitting in a draught when she was overheated. It has immediately settled on her lungs, and you may be sent for at any moment. I passed by the back of the convent on my way down, and the gardener was just coming out of the postern. He told me."

"Dear me, dear me!" exclaimed Sor Tommaso, shaking his head. "Cold--bronchitis, pleurisy, pneumonia--it is soon done! One would be enough! Those nuns, what do they eat? A little grass, a little boiled paste, a little broth of meat on Sundays. What strength should they have? And then pray, pray, sing, sing! It needs a chest! Poor lungs! I will go to my home and get ready--blisters--mustard--a lancet--they will not allow a barber in the convent to bleed them. Well--I make myself the barber! What a life, what a life! If you wish to die young, be a doctor at Subiaco, Sor Angoscia. Good night, dear friend. Good night, Stefanone. I wish not to have said anything--you know--that little affair. Let us speak no more about it. I am more beast than you, because I said anything. Good night."

Sor Tommaso got his stick from a dark corner, pressed his broad catskin hat upon his head, and took his respectability away on its tightly encased black legs.

"And may the devil go with you," said Stefanone, under his breath, as the doctor disappeared.

"Why?" inquired Dalrymple, who had caught the words.

"I said nothing," answered the peasant, thoughtfully trimming one wick of the lamp with the bent brass wire which, with the snuffers, hung by a chain from the ring by which the lamp was carried.

"I thought you spoke," said the Scotchman. "Well--the abbess is very ill, and Sor Tommaso has a job."

"May he do it well! So that it need not be begun again."

"What do you mean?" Dalrymple slowly sipped the remains of his little measure of wine.

"Those nuns!" exclaimed Stefanone, instead of answering the question. "What are they here to do, in this world? Better make saints of them--and good night! There would be one misery less. Do you know what they do? They make wine. Good! But they do not drink it. They sell it for a farthing less by the foglietta than other people. The devil take them and their wine!"

Dalrymple glanced at the angry peasant with some amusement, but did not make any answer.

"Eh, Signore!" cried Stefanone. "You who are a foreigner and a Protestant, can you not say something, since it would be no sin for you?"

"I was thinking of something to say, Signor Stefanone. But as for that, who does the business for the convent? They cannot do it themselves, I suppose. Who determines the price of their wine for them? Or the price of their corn?"

"They are not so stupid as you think. Oh, no! They are not stupid, the nuns. They know the price of this, and the cost of that, just as well as you and I do. But Gigetto's father, Sor Agostino, is their steward, if that is what you wish to know. And his father was before him, and Gigetto will be after him, with his pumpkin-head. And the rest is sung by the organ, as we say when mass is over. For you know about Gigetto and Annetta."

"Yes. And as you cannot quarrel with Sor Agostino on that account, I do not see but that you will either have to bear it, or sell your wine a farthing cheaper than that of the nuns."

"Eh--that is soon said. A farthing cheaper than theirs! That means half a baiocco cheaper than I sell it now. And the best is only five baiocchi the foglietta, and the cheapest is two and a half. Good bye profit--a pleasant journey to Stefanone. But it is those nuns. They are to blame, and the devil will pay them."

"In that case you need not," observed Dalrymple, rising. "I am going to wash my hands before supper."

"At your pleasure, Signore," answered Stefanone, politely.

As Dalrymple went out, Annetta passed him at the door, bringing in plates and napkins, and knives and forks. The girl glanced at his face as he went by.

"Be quick, Signore," she said with a laugh. "The beefsteak of mutton is grilling."

He nodded, and went up the dark stairs, his heavy shoes sending back echoes as he trod. Stefanone still sat at the table, turning the glass wine measure upside down over his tumbler, to let the last drops run out. He watched them as they fell, one by one, without looking up at his daughter, who began to arrange the plates for Dalrymple's meal.

"I will teach you to make love with the Englishman," he said slowly, still watching the dropping wine.

"Me!" cried Annetta, with real or feigned astonishment, and she tossed a knife and fork angrily into a plate, with a loud, clattering noise.

"I am speaking with you," answered her father, without raising his eyes. "Do you know? You will come to a bad end."

"Thank you!" replied the girl, contemptuously. "If you say so, it must be true! Now, who has told you that the Englishman is making love to me? An apoplexy on him, whoever he may be!"

"Pretty words for a girl! Sor Tommaso told me. A little more, and I would have torn his tongue out. Just then, the Englishman came in. Sor Tommaso got off easily."

The girl's tone changed very much when she spoke again, and there was a dull and angry light in her eyes. Her long lips were still parted, and showed her gleaming teeth, but the smile was altogether gone.

"Yes. Too easily," she said, almost in a whisper, and there was a low hiss in the words.

"In the meanwhile, it is true--what he said," continued Stefanone. "You make eyes at him. You wait for him and watch for him when he comes back from the mountains--"

"Well? Is it not my place to serve him with his supper? If you are not satisfied, hire a servant to wait on him. You are rich. What do I care for the Englishman? Perhaps it is a pleasure to roast my face over the charcoal, cooking his meat for him. As for Sor Tommaso--"

She stopped short in her speech. Her father knew what the tone meant, and looked up for the first time.

"O-e!" he exclaimed, as one suddenly aware of a danger, and warning some one else.

"Nothing," answered Annetta, looking down and arranging the knives and forks symmetrically on the clean cloth she had laid.

"I might have killed him just now in hot blood, when the Englishman came in," said Stefanone, reflectively. "But now my blood has grown cold. I shall do nothing to him."

"So much the better for him." She still spoke in a low voice, as she turned away from the table.

"But I will kill you," said Stefanone, "if I see you making eyes at the Englishman."

He rose, and taking up his hat, which lay beside him, he edged his way out along the wooden bench, moving cautiously lest he should shake the table and upset the lamp or the bottles. Annetta had turned again, at the threat he had uttered, and stood still, waiting for him to get out into the room, her hands on her hips, and her eyes on fire.

"You will kill me?" she asked, just as he was opposite to her. "Well--kill me, then! Here I am. What are you waiting for? For the Englishman to interfere? He is washing his hands. He always takes a long time."

"Then it is true that you have fallen in love with him?" asked Stefanone, his anger returning.

"Him, or another. What does it matter to you? You remind me of the old woman who beat her cat, and then cried when it ran away. If you want me to stay at home, you had better find me a husband."

"Do you want anything better than Gigetto? Apoplexy! But you have ideas!"

"You are making a good business of it with Gigetto, in truth!" cried the girl, scornfully. "He eats, he drinks, and then he sings. But he does not marry. He will not even make love to me--not even with an eye. And then, because I love the Englishman, who is a great lord, though he says he is a doctor, I must die. Well, kill me!" She stared insolently at her father for a moment. "Oh, well," she added scornfully, "if you have not time now, it must be for to-morrow. I am busy."

She turned on her heel with a disdainful fling of her short, dark skirt. Stefanone was exasperated, and his anger had returned. Before she was out of reach, he struck her with his open hand. Instead of striking her cheek, the blow fell upon the back of her head and neck, and sent her stumbling forwards. She caught the back of a chair, steadied herself, and turned again instantly, at her full height, not deigning to raise her hand to the place that hurt her.

"Coward!" she exclaimed. "But I will pay you--and Sor Tommaso--for that blow."

"Whenever you like," answered her father gruffly, but already sorry for what he had done.

He turned his back, and went out into the night. It was now almost quite dark, and Annetta stood still by the chair, listening to his retreating footsteps. Then she slowly turned and gazed at the flaring wicks of the lamp. With a gesture that suggested the movement of a young animal, she rubbed the back of her neck with one hand and leisurely turned her head first to one side and then to the other. Her brown skin was unusually pale, but there was no moisture in her eyes as she stared at the lamp.

"But I will pay you, Sor Tommaso," she said thoughtfully and softly.

Then turning her eyes from the lamp at last, she took up one of the knives from the table, looked at it, felt the edge, and laid it down contemptuously. In those days all the respectable peasants in the Roman villages had solid silver forks and spoons, which have long since gone to the melting-pot to pay taxes. But they used the same blunt, pointless knives with wooden handles, which they use to-day.

Annetta started, as she heard Dalrymple's tread upon the stone steps of the staircase, but she recovered herself instantly, gave a finishing touch to the table, rubbed the back of her head quickly once more, and met him with a smile.

"Is the beefsteak of mutton ready?" inquired the Scotchman, cheerfully, with his extraordinary accent.

Annetta ran past him, and returned almost before he was seated, bringing the food. The girl sat down at the end of the table, opposite the street door, and watched him as he swallowed one mouthful of meat after another, now and then stopping to drink a tumbler of wine at a draught.

"You must be very strong, Signore," said Annetta, at last, her chin resting on her doubled hand.

"Why?" inquired Dalrymple, carelessly, between two mouthfuls.

"Because you eat so much. It must be a fine thing to eat so much meat. We eat very little of it."

"Why?" asked the Scotchman, again between his mouthfuls.

"Oh, who knows? It costs much. That must be the reason. Besides, it does not go down. I should not care for it."

"It is a habit." Dalrymple drank. "In my country most of the people eat oats," he said, as he set down his glass.

"Oats!" laughed the girl. "Like horses! But horses will eat meat, too, like you. As for me--good bread, fresh cheese, a little salad, a drink of wine and water--that is enough."

"Like the nuns," observed Dalrymple, attacking the ham of the 'Grape-eater.'

"Oh, the nuns! They live on boiled cabbage! You can smell it a mile away. But they make good cakes."

"You often go to the convent, do you not?" asked the Scotchman, filling his glass, for the first mouthful of ham made him thirsty again. "You take the linen up with your mother, I know."

"Sometimes, when I feel like going," answered the girl, willing to show that it was not her duty to carry baskets. "I only go when we have the small baskets that one can carry on one's head. I will tell you. They use the small baskets for the finer things, the abbess's linen, and the altar cloths, and the chaplain's lace, which belongs to the nuns. But the sheets and the table linen are taken up in baskets as long as a man. It takes four women to carry one of them."

"That must be very inconvenient," said Dalrymple. "I should think that smaller ones would always be better."

"Who knows? It has always been so. And when it has always been so, it will always be so--one knows that."

Annetta nodded her head rhythmically to convey an impression of the immutability of all ancient customs and of this one in particular.

Dalrymple, however, was not much interested in the question of the baskets.

"What do the nuns do all day?" he asked. "I suppose you see them, sometimes. There must be young ones amongst them."

Annetta glanced more keenly at the Scotchman's quiet face, and then laughed.

"There is one, if you could see her! The abbess's niece. Oh, that one is beautiful. She seems to me a painted angel!"

"The abbess's niece? What is she like? Let me see, the abbess is a princess, is she not?"

"Yes, a great princess of the Princes of Gerano, of Casa Braccio, you know. They are always abbesses. And the young one will be the next, when this one dies. She is Maria Addolorata, in religion, but I do not know her real name. She has a beautiful face and dark eyes. Once I saw her hair for a moment. It is fair, but not like yours. Yours is red as a tomato."

"Thank you," said Dalrymple, with something like a laugh. "Tell me more about the nun."

"If I tell you, you will fall in love with her," objected Annetta. "They say that men with red hair fall in love easily. Is it true? If it is, I will not tell you any more about the nun. But I think you are in love with the poor old Grape-eater. It is good ham, is it not? By Bacchus, I fed him on chestnuts with my own hands, and he was always stealing the grapes. Chestnuts fattened him and the grapes made him sweet. Speaking with respect, he was a pig for a pope."

"He will do for a Scotch doctor then," answered Dalrymple. "Tell me, what does this beautiful nun do all day long?"

"What does she do? What can a nun do? She eats cabbage and prays like the others. But she has charge of all the convent linen, so I see her when I go with my mother. That is because the Princes of Gerano first gave the linen to the convent after it was all stolen by the Turks in 1798. So, as they gave it, their abbesses take care of it."

Dalrymple laughed at the extraordinary historical allusion compounded of the very ancient traditions of the Saracens in the south, and of the more recent wars of Napoleon.

"So she takes care of the linen," he said. "That cannot be very amusing, I should think."

"They are nuns," answered the girl. "Do you suppose they go about seeking to amuse themselves? It is an ugly life. But Sister Maria Addolorata sings to herself, and that makes the abbess angry, because it is against the rules to sing except in church. I would not live in that convent--not if they would fill my apron with gold pieces."

"But why did this beautiful girl become a nun, then? Was she unhappy, or crossed in love?"

"She? They did not give her time! Before she could shut an eye and say, 'Little youth, you please me, and I wish you well,' they put her in. And that door, when it is shut, who shall open it? The Madonna, perhaps? But she was of the Princes of Gerano, and there must be one of them for an abbess, and the lot fell upon her. There is the whole history. You may hear her singing sometimes, if you stand under the garden wall, on the narrow path after the Benediction hour and before Ave Maria. But I am a fool to tell you, for you will go and listen, and when you have heard her voice you will be like a madman. You will fall in love with her. I was a fool to tell you."

"Well? And if I do fall in love with her, who cares?" Dalrymple slowly filled a glass of wine.

"If you do?" The young girl's eyes shot a quick, sharp glance at him. Then her face suddenly grew grave as she saw that some one was at the street door, looking in cautiously. "Come in, Sor Tommaso!" she called, down the table. "Papa is out, but we are here. Come in and drink a glass of wine!"

The doctor, wrapped in a long broadcloth cloak with a velvet collar, and having a case of instruments and medicines under his arm, glanced round the room and came in.

"Just a half-foglietta, my daughter," he said. "They have sent for me. The abbess is very ill, and I may be there a long time. If you think they would remember to offer a Christian a glass up there, you are very much mistaken."

"They are nuns," laughed Annetta. "What can they know?"

She rose to get the wine for the doctor. There had not been a trace of displeasure in her voice nor in her manner as she spoke. _

Read next: Part 1. Sister Maria Addolorata: Chapter 4

Read previous: Part 1. Sister Maria Addolorata: Chapter 2

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