Part 14

"I am not so sure. Do you mean what you say, Ippolita?"

"Ah, Nannina!"

"Then you shall go. It so happens that I know one of those goatherds--a rough lout of a fellow called Petruccio. I could tell him that a youngster had got into trouble in the city and wanted to lie quiet for a week or two. I can do it, Ippolita."

"Oh! And will you, will you?"

"Corpaccio! If you mean business."

"I mean nothing else."

"Then it is done."

They clung together and kissed. Annina was to return the next evening at the same hour.

That night it was remarked on all sides that Ippolita's beauty had never been so disastrous, her eyes so starry bright, her colour so fire-flushed. Messer Alessandro, who loved her like a maniac, went shivering out alone into the moonlit garden to expostulate with Nature. "Thou hast formed, most cruel Mother," cried he, "an image of thy fatal self, whose eyes are sharp swords, and her breath poison of ineffable sweetness; whose consummate shape killeth by mere splendour; to whose tint of bright fire every arm must stretch as moth to flame, and by it be blasted. All this thou hast done, and not yet content, hast set this glory so low that all may reach for it, and yet so remote that none can touch. Burning-pure is my Beloved, at whose approach I faint. What hard miracle is this of thine, Goddess, that all must love and none be found worthy?" Thus we may reflect, as Alessandro beat his resounding forehead, to what a pass poetry may bring a youth, who buys for twenty ducats what twenty thousand cannot give him the use of. Pygmalion made a woman one day, moulding all her gracious curves as his experience taught him. There went his twenty ducats. But not he could warm that image into glowing flesh, however much he sang to it and hymned. That was another's affair. So here.

Annina came on the morrow full of secrecy and other things more equivocal still in appearance. Her burden proved, however, to be a bundle of rags which, she assured Ippolita, represented all that was necessary to the perfect goatherd.

"We will do what we can here, child," said she, "in the way of staining your skin, cutting off your hair, and such like. Then you shall veil and come into the garden with me; but whereas you shall come in as the Madonna of these heathens, you shall leave, per Dio, as Silvestro, who murdered the Jew in the Via della Gatta and has to hide in the hills. Do you remember him, Ippolita?"

"Of course I do," said Ippolita. "Have I killed that Jew, Annina?"

"It is to be understood, my dear. Now come, there is everything to arrange."

There was indeed. Del Dardo would have swooned to see how Annina handled his Unapproachable. Her burnished hair was off with a clip or two of the great shears; a mixture of soot and walnut-juice hid up her roses, and transformed her ivory limbs to the similitude of a tanner's. Ippolita did not know herself. Veiled up close, she crept into the garden with her confidante, and in a bower by the canal completed her transformation. Not Daphne suffered a ruder change. A pair of ragged breeches, swathes of cloth on her legs, an old shirt, a cloak of patched clouts, shapeless hat of felt, sandals for her feet, shod staff for her hand--behold the peerless Ippolita, idol of half Padua, turned into a sheepish overgrown boy in tatters, whose bathing could only have been in sweat, and the scent of his garments the rankness of goats. On the floor in a shining heap lay the silk robes, the chains and jewels, only witness with Annina of what had been done. That same Annina clasped in her arms the tall boy.

"Oh, my dear, my dear!" she said, half sobbing, "if any ill should come of this I shall kill myself."

"No ill will come, Nannina, believe me," replied Ippolita, quite calm. "You are sure they expect me?"

"I see them on the riviera now. Slip into the boat. I will put you across."

On the other bank, Ippolita was received by the herd-boys, all agog to see the champion who had killed the Jew.

"Addio, Silvestro," said Annina, keeping up the play.

"Addio, Nannina," said Silvestro, with a chuckle.

"Are we ready, boys?" Petruccio called out, turning about him. "We must be careful what we're doing."

"Hist, Silvestro," whispered one, with a nudge; "did he bleed much?"

"Cosa terribile--a flood!" Silvestro spread out his hands.

"Cristo! The glory of it!"

"Valentino, I scrag you, my man, if you speak of the Jew till we are out of the Porta San Zuan," growled Petruccio, the leader: "Avanti!" And the drab-coloured crew moved off towards the sunset.

SILVESTRO

The guard at the Porta San Zuan let them go unheeded; one ragamuffin more or less made no odds. The heart of the new-born Silvestro gave a great bound as they cleared the gate, and she saw before her the straight white road with its border of silver stems and the spreading tent-roof of golden green. These stems were so obviously like the pillars of a church that Silvestro ventured to remark as much to her neighbour--a broad-faced, thick fellow, not quite her own height, but twice as big in the girth. His mouth was large, his eyes were small and rather hot. He blinked a good deal, was very sulky, and met her advances with a grunt. "Chi lo sa?" was as far as he would go along with her in the matter of tree-trunks.

It was annoying. Every one had seemed friendly at first. But being free, she could not feel daunted long; and at the second bend of the road the hills sailed into full vision--the solemn hills in a long line of peak and hollow, velvety, dark, and brooding sleep, like a bank of cloud edging the pale sky. The frogs were singing vespers in the ditches, the sharp chorus of the cicalas shrilled on all sides. At the sight of this enormous calm Silvestro forgot rebuffs. For a murderer he was in a very cheerful humour; he began to sing; soon he had all the boys (except that blinker) rapt to attention. Andrea slewed round his bag and pipes and began upon a winding air; they all sang, going at a trot. The goats pricked up their ears; they too began to amble; it became a stampede. The sun went down behind Monte Venda, the bats came flickering out, the great droning cockchafers dropped on the road like splashes of rain. The night found them still far from Abano, but still talking and nearly all friends. Silvestro was hand in hand with Petruccio and another boy, called Mastino because he was heavy-jowled and underhung. Their tongues wagged against each other about nothing at all. Silvestro strengthened his position by hints and shrewd winks, but it was decided that the Jew should be kept for the night fire. That was too choice a morsel to be eaten on the road; that must be rolled on the palate, to get the flavours. It was a pity, certainly, about the pig-eyed boy, who snorted whenever the exploit was mentioned--but "Never mind him," thought Silvestro; "I have all the others."