Part 6 (1/2)
THE STORY OF SALOME.
A few years ago, no matter how many, I, Harcourt Blunt, was travelling with my friend Coventry Turnour, and it was on the steps of our hotel that I received from him the announcement that he was again in love.
”I tell you, Blunt,” said my fellow-traveller, ”she's the loveliest creature I ever beheld in my life.”
I laughed outright.
”My dear fellow,” I replied, ”you've so often seen the loveliest creature you ever beheld in your life.”
”Ay, but I am in earnest now for the first time.”
”And you have so often been in earnest for the first time! Remember the innkeeper's daughter at Cologne.”
”A pretty housemaid, whom no training could have made presentable.”
”Then there was the beautiful American at Interlaken.”
”Yes; but--”
”And the bella Marchesa at Prince Torlonia's ball.”
”Not one of them worthy to be named in the same breath with my imperial Venetian. Come with me to the Merceria and be convinced. By taking a gondola to St. Mark's Place we shall be there in a quarter of an hour.”
I went, and he raved of his new flame all the way. She was a Jewess--he would convert her. Her father kept a shop in the Merceria--what of that?
He dealt only in costliest Oriental merchandise, and was as rich as a Rothschild. As for any probable injury to his own prospects, why need he hesitate on that account? What were ”prospects” when weighed against the happiness of one's whole life? Besides, he was not ambitious. He didn't care to go into Parliament. If his uncle, Sir Geoffrey, cut him off with a s.h.i.+lling, what then? He had a moderate independence of which no one living could deprive him, and what more could any reasonable man desire?
I listened, smiled, and was silent. I knew Coventry Turnour too well to attach the smallest degree of importance to anything that he might say or do in a matter of this kind. To be distractedly in love was his normal condition. We had been friends from boyhood; and since the time when he used to cherish a hopeless attachment to the young lady behind the counter of the tart-shop at Harrow, I had never known him ”fancy-free” for more than a few weeks at a time. He had gone through every phase of no less than three _grandes pa.s.sions_ during the five months that we had now been travelling together; and having left Rome about eleven weeks before with every hope laid waste, and a heart so broken that it could never by any possibility be put together again, he was now, according to the natural course of events, just ready to fall in love again.
We landed at the traghetto San Marco. It was a cloudless morning towards the middle of April, just ten years ago. The Ducal Palace glowed in the hot suns.h.i.+ne; the boatmen were cl.u.s.tered, gossiping, about the quay; the orange-vendors were busy under the arches of the piazzetta; the _flaneurs_ were already eating ices and smoking cigarettes outside the cafes. There was an Austrian military band, strapped, buckled, moustachioed, and white-coated, playing just in front of St. Mark's; and the shadow of the great bell-tower slept all across the square.
Pa.s.sing under the low round archway leading to the Merceria, we plunged at once into that cool labyrinth of narrow, intricate, and picturesque streets, where the sun never penetrates--where no wheels are heard, and no beast of burden is seen--where every house is a shop, and every shop-front is open to the ground, as in an Oriental bazaar--where the upper balconies seem almost to meet overhead, and are separated by only a strip of burning sky--and where more than three people cannot march abreast in any part. Pus.h.i.+ng our way as best we might through the motley crowd that here chatters, cheapens, buys, sells, and perpetually jostles to and fro, we came presently to a shop for the sale of Eastern goods. A few gla.s.s jars, filled with spices and some pieces of stuff, untidily strewed the counter next the street; but within, dark and narrow though it seemed, the place was crammed with costliest merchandise. Cases of gorgeous Oriental jewelry; embroideries and fringes of ma.s.sive gold and silver bullion; precious drugs and spices; exquisite toys in filigree; miracles of carving in ivory, sandal-wood, and amber; jewelled yataghans; scimitars of state, rich with ”barbaric pearl and gold,”
bales of Cashmere shawls, China silks, India muslins, gauzes, and the like, filled every inch of available s.p.a.ce from floor to ceiling, leaving only a narrow lane from the door to the counter, and a still narrower pa.s.sage to the rooms beyond the shop.
We went in. A young woman who was sitting reading on a low seat behind the counter, laid aside her book, and rose slowly. She was dressed wholly in black. I cannot describe the fas.h.i.+on of her garments. I only know that they fell about her in long, soft, trailing folds, leaving a narrow band Of fine cambric visible at the throat and wrists; and that, however graceful and unusual this dress may have been, I scarcely observed it, so entirely was I taken up with admiration of her beauty.
For she was indeed very beautiful--beautiful in a way I had not antic.i.p.ated Coventry Turnour, with all his enthusiasm, had failed to do her justice. He had raved of her eyes--her large, l.u.s.trous, melancholy eyes,--of the transparent paleness of her complexion, of the faultless delicacy of her features; but he had not prepared me for the unconscious dignity, the perfect n.o.bleness and refinement, that informed her every look and gesture. My friend requested to see a bracelet at which he had been looking the day before. Proud, stately, silent, she unlocked the case in which it was kept, and laid it before him on the counter. He asked permission to take it over to the light.
She bent her head, but answered not a word. It was like being waited upon by a young Empress.
Turnour took the bracelet to the door and affected to examine it. It consisted of a double row of gold coins linked together at intervals by a bean-shaped ornament studded with pink coral and diamonds. Coming back into the shop he asked me if I thought it would please his sister, to whom he had promised a remembrance of Venice.
”It is a pretty trifle,” I replied; ”but surely a remembrance of Venice should be of Venetian manufacture. This, I suppose, is Turkish.”
The beautiful Jewess looked up. We spoke in English; but she understood, and replied.
”_E Greco, signore_,” she said coldly.
At this moment an old man came suddenly forward from some dark counting-house at the back--a grizzled, bearded, eager-eyed Shylock, with a pen behind his ear.