Part 1 (2/2)
”Of course,” he said, ”you will not allow it.” His sister looked round quickly.
”That is rude,” she said. In a moment her brother was by her side.
”Forgive me, Diana mia; you know I did not mean it. But you see I think she is beautiful, and that is everything, after all.”
”Yes,” answered she, ”I suppose it is everything, now. But philosophy is not everything. Put her out of your head, dear boy, and do not say any more rude things.”
Marcantonio had the power to avoid being rude, but he was not able to follow the other piece of advice. He could not put her out of his head.
On the contrary, he went out and shut himself up in his own rooms and thought of her for a whole hour.
He was not at all like his sister in appearance, though he resembled her somewhat in character. He was of middle height, sparely built, dark of skin, and aquiline of feature; neither handsome nor ugly, but very decidedly refined,--gentle of speech and kind of face. Without any more vanity than most people, he was yet always a little more carefully dressed than other men, and consequently pa.s.sed for a dandy. Altogether, he was a pleasant person to look at, but not especially remarkable at first sight.
As regards his position, he bore an ancient name, dignified with the t.i.tle of marquis; he was an only son, and his parents were dead; he owned the fine old palace in Rome and a good deal of land elsewhere; he never gambled, and was generally considered to be rich, as fortunes go in modern Italy. Of course, he was a good match, and many were the hints he received, from time to time, to the effect that he would be very acceptable as a son-in-law. Nevertheless he was not married, and he did not particularly care for the society of women. In truth, women did not find him very amenable, for he would not marry, and could not play adoration well enough to please them. So they left him alone. Grave old gentlemen nodded approvingly when they spoke of him, and his uncle the cardinal regarded him as one of the mainstays of the clerical party. As a matter of fact, he did not aspire to anything of the kind, and was merely a very honest young n.o.bleman of good education, who had not made for himself any interest in life, but who nevertheless found life very agreeable. Possessing many good qualities, he yet knew very well that he had never been put to the test, nor required to show much strength of character; and he did not wish to be put into any such position. His sister was very fond of him, but she sometimes caught herself wis.h.i.+ng he would do something a little out of the everlasting common round of social respectability. He was twenty-nine years old, and she was a year younger.
Of late, however, it had become apparent that Marcantonio, Marchese Carantoni, had not only found an interest in life, but had also discovered in himself the strength of will necessary to its prosecution. The dull regularity of his existence was shaken to its foundations, and out of the vast social sea a figure had risen which was destined to destroy the old order of things with him, and to create a new one. There was no doubt about it; not so much because he himself said so, as because his whole manner and being proclaimed the fact. He was seriously in love. Worse than that, he was in love with a lady of whom his sister did not approve, and he evidently meant to marry, whether she liked it or not.
He was seriously in love; and, indeed, love ought always to be a serious thing, or else it should be called by another name. There is a great deal of very poor nonsense talked and written about love by persons only vicariously acquainted with it; and it is a great pity, because there is absolutely no subject so permanently interesting to humanity as love, whether in life or in fiction. And there is no subject which deserves more tenderness and delicacy, or which requires more strength in the handling.
The relation of brother and sister is unlike any other. It represents the only possible absolutely permanent and platonic affection between young men and young women. Its foundation is in ident.i.ty of blood instead of in the spontaneous sympathy of the heart, and even when brother and sister quarrel they understand each other. Lovers frequently do not understand each other when they are on the best of terms, and the small difference of opinion grows by that misunderstanding until it makes an impa.s.sable gulf. Brothers and sisters may be estranged, separated, divided by family quarrels or by the b.l.o.o.d.y exigencies of civil war, but if once they are thrown together again the mysterious attraction of consanguinity shows itself, and their life begins again where it had been broken off by untoward fate.
Madame de Charleroi was inclined to be angry with Marcantonio, and when he was gone she sat by the fire, wondering what he would be like when he should be married. Somehow she had never thought of him as married, certainly not as married to a pernicious young English girl, with all sorts of queer ideas in her brain, and a tendency to sympathise with the dynamite party. He might surely have chosen better than that. Donna Diana was not a woman of narrow prejudices, but she really could not be expected to be pleased at seeing her brother, a Catholic gentleman, bent on uniting himself to a foreign girl with no fortune, no beauty--well, not much--and a taste for explosives. He might surely have chosen better.
Donna Diana thought of her father, and fancied what he would have said to such a match, the strict old n.o.bleman. And so, between her thoughts and her memories the afternoon wore on, and she bethought herself that it was time to go out.
The horses spun along the streets through the crisp golden air, and now and then a ray of the lowering sun caught them as they dashed through some open place on the way, making them look like burnished metal. And the light touched Madame de Charleroi's beautiful face and auburn hair, so that the people stood still to look at her as she pa.s.sed,--for every Roman knew Donna Diana Carantoni by sight, just as every Roman knows every other Roman, man, woman and child, distinguis.h.i.+ng lovingly between the Romans of Rome and the Romans of the north. By and by the carriage rolled through the iron gates of the Pincio, and along the drive to the open terrace where the band plays, till it stood still behind the row of stone posts, within hearing of the music. The place has been absolutely described to death, and everybody knows exactly how it looks. There are flowers, and a band-stand, and babies, and a view of St. Peter's.
The first person Donna Diana saw was her brother, standing disconsolately by one of the short pillars and looking at each carriage as it drove up. He was evidently waiting for some one who did not come.
His black moustache drooped sadly, and his face was so melancholy that his sister smiled as she watched him.
Marcantonio was soon aware of her presence, but he had no intention of showing it, and studiously kept his head turned towards the drive, watching the line of carriages. Madame de Charleroi was quickly surrounded by a crowd of men, all dressed precisely alike, and all anxious to say something that might attract the attention of the famous beauty. Presently they bored her, and her carriage moved on; whereupon they pulled their hats off and began to chatter scandal amongst themselves, after the manner of their kind. They nodded to Marcantonio as they pa.s.sed him in a body, and he was left alone. The sun was setting, and there was a purple light over the flats behind the Vatican, recently flooded by a rise in the Tiber. There was no longer any object in waiting, and the young man sauntered slowly down the steps and the steep drive to the Piazza del Popolo, and entered the Corso.
To tell the truth, he was disappointed, bored, annoyed, and angry, all at once. He had fully expected to see her, and to find consolation in some sweet words for the hard things his sister had said to him. Perhaps also he had enjoyed the prospect of exhibiting himself to his sister in the society of the lady in question,--for Marcantonio was obstinate, and had just discovered the fact, so that he was anxious to show it. Men who are new in fighting are sure to press every advantage, not having yet learned their strength; but in the course of time they become more generous. Marcantonio was therefore grievously chagrined at being cheated of his small demonstration of independence, besides being a little wounded in his pride, and honestly disappointed at not meeting the young lady he meant to marry. In this state of mind he strolled down the Corso, looked up at her windows, pa.s.sed and repa.s.sed before the house, and ultimately inquired of the confidential porter, who knew him, whether she were at home. The porter said he had not seen the signorina, but that one of the servants had told him she was indisposed. The marchese bit his black moustache and went away in a sad mood.
CHAPTER II.
Miss Leonora Carnethy was suffering from an acute attack of philosophical despair, which accounted for her not appearing with her mother on the Pincio.
The immediate cause of the fit was the young lady's inability to comprehend Hegel's statement that ”Nothing is the same as Being;” and as it was not only necessary to understand it, but also, in Miss Carnethy's view, to reconcile it with some dozens of other philosophical propositions all diametrically opposed to it and to each other, the consequence of the attempt was the most chaotic and hopeless failure on record in the annals of thought. Under these circ.u.mstances, Miss Carnethy shut herself up in a dark room, went to bed, and agreed with Hegel that Nothing was precisely the same as Being. She thus scattered all the other philosophies to the angry airts of heaven at one fell sweep, and she felt sure she was going to be a Hindoo.
This sounds a little vague, but nothing could be vaguer than Miss Carnethy's state of mind. Having agreed with Mr. Herbert Spencer that the grand main-spring of life is the pursuit of happiness, and that no other motive has any real influence in human affairs, it was a little hard to find that there was nothing in anything, after all. But then, since her own being was also nothing, why should she trouble herself?
Evidently it was impossible for nothing to trouble itself, and so the only possible peace must lie in realising her own nothingness, which could be best accomplished by going to bed in a dark room. It was very dreary, of course, but she felt it was good logic, and must tell in the long run.
It had happened before. There had been days when she had reached the same point by a different road, and had been satisfactorily roused by a flash of intelligence shedding enough light in her darkened course to give her a new direction. To-day, however, it was quite different. She had certainly now reached the absolute end of all speculation, for she was convinced of the general nothingness of all created strength and life.
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