Part 8 (2/2)
”Mana.s.seh!”
Startled surprise and gladness spoke in that word, which slipped out ere the speaker's discretion could prevent it. The young man turned quickly.
”Princess!” he exclaimed, ”where did you drop from?”
”I was not looking for you,” she stammered, thus betraying that she had been seeking him and was rejoiced, heart and soul, at the chance that had led her to him.
Mana.s.seh smiled. ”No, not for me, but for the painter wrestling with the Colosseum from this lofty roost. I saw you yesterday attempting the same task from below.”
”And you recognised me--so far off?”
”I have very good eyes. I also saw that you were dissatisfied with your attempts, for you tore out one leaf after another from your sketch-book and threw them away.”
”Did you find them again?” asked Blanka, breathlessly.
”I made it a point to do so, Princess,” was the reply.
”Oh, then give them back to me, please!”
”Here they are.”
No creditor ever did his distressed debtor a greater favour in surrendering to him an overdue note than did Mana.s.seh in restoring the lost leaves to their owner. She replaced them carefully in her sketch-book, a.s.suring herself, as she did so, that the missing address was on the blank side of one of them. What if it had caught the young man's eye? How would he have explained its presence there?
She sat down to rest a moment on the stone railing of the gallery, her back to the arena and her face toward Mana.s.seh,--an arrangement that very much interfered with the artist's view of what he was painting. The sun shone directly in her eyes, and she had no sunshade, having left hers in the carriage. The arena was so shaded that she had needed none there. Mana.s.seh adjusted his umbrella so as to s.h.i.+eld the princess, and the rosy hue which its red fabric cast on her face reminded him of the _Horae_ that precede the sun-G.o.d's chariot at dawn, their forms glowing with purple and rose-coloured tints in the morning light.
”I am very glad I happened to meet you,” said Blanka, speaking more sedately this time. ”The party I came with is down below listening to an archaeological lecture on the _cunei_, the _podium_, the _vomitorium_, and heaven knows what all, in which I am not interested. So I have time to discuss with you, if you will let me, a point which you raised the other day and which I have been puzzling over ever since. You said that where you used to live revenge is unknown; and that, though you were suffering under a grievous injury and had the means to exact full satisfaction, yet you would not take your revenge. I too am suffering in the same manner, and that is why I am now in Rome. I have pondered your words and have imitated your example. Possessing the means of revenge, I refused to use them. I loosed my enemy's hands when they were bound. Did I do well?”
”Yes.”
”No, I did not. I should have taken my revenge. Revenge is man's right.”
”Revenge is the brute's right,” Mana.s.seh corrected her. ”It never repairs an injury that has once been done. In this I and the handful of my fellow-believers differ from mankind in general. In our eyes war is revenge, the duel is revenge, capital punishment is revenge, revolution is revenge. Those who profess themselves followers of Jesus too often forget that when he was dying on the cross he said, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.'”
”That was said by Jesus the man; but Jesus the G.o.d has ascended into heaven, whence he will come to judge the quick and the dead. And that is revenge.”
”That conception of the Judgment is one that I cannot entertain,”
returned Mana.s.seh. ”Man has made a G.o.d of the n.o.blest of men, and has made him like those earlier divinities who slew Niobe's innocent children with their arrows.”
Blanka was sitting so far back on the stone railing that the artist felt obliged to warn her of her danger.
”Oh, I am protected by guardian angels,” she replied, lightly. She wished to learn whether one of those angels was then before her. ”I received this morning an anonymous letter,” she continued, ”and as it contains certain facts which only you could know, my first thought was that you had written it.”
”I a.s.sure you, I have never written you a letter,” declared Mana.s.seh.
”Please read it.” She handed him the letter.
How quickly the young man's calm face flushed and glowed with pa.s.sion as he read! The martyrs of old could forgive their enemies for the tortures inflicted on them; but could they also pardon the inhumanity shown to their loved ones? Mana.s.seh crumpled the paper in his hand with vindictive energy, as if he had held in his grasp the authors of that detestable plot. Yet what right had he now to take vengeance on a man whom he had refrained from punis.h.i.+ng on Anna's behalf? Anna was his own sister, and as such a beloved being. Her life had been spoiled by this man, yet her brother had been able to declare, ”We do not seek revenge”--although this revenge was easily in his power. And what was Blanka to him? A dream. And did this dream weigh more with him than the sorrow that had invaded his own family?
He returned the letter to its owner. ”Just like them!” he muttered between his teeth.
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