The Best Short Stories of 1920 Part 59

"What is happening to me? I am so cold!"

She sank down, amid billows of violet-colored silk, between Antonio's arms, before the fireplace. Her veil, confined by the band of pearls and amethysts, did not seem as white as her skin.

There was a hysterical babble of voices:

"She is dead! No, she has swooned! Bring vinegar! Rub her hands! Light the fire!"

Then ensued a jostling of guests and servants, who crowded forward to poke a dozen lighted candles at the brush-wood. In the midst of this confusion Fiammetta sat before the hearth, her eyes half closed, her head rolling against Antonio's shoulder, her throat, framed by the little ruff, palpitating like the breast of an expiring dove. She was in the throes of the emotions that had been at last transferred from our minds to hers and that she was doubtless on the point of comprehending.

The brush-wood caught fire. At that flicker her eyelids opened. She leaned forward. Under the brush-wood, already writhing in flames, was the fragment of a modern Italian newspaper. One plainly saw the t.i.tle, part of a head-line, and the date.

Fiammetta di Foscone read the date.

As Antonio and I, between us, lifted her into a chair, she kept repeating to herself, in a soft, incredulous voice, the date. And so badly had our wits been paralyzed by this catastrophe, that none of us could find one lying word to utter.

Antonio knelt before her, his arms clasping her knees, his head bowed.

He was weeping as if she were already dead. Her hands slowly stole forth to close around his face and lift it up.

"Whatever it is," she breathed, "I still have you."

As she gazed, half lifeless, but still fairer than an untinted statue, at his face, all at once her eyes became enormous. Pus.h.i.+ng him from her, she stood bolt-upright at one movement, with a heart-rending scream:

"A stranger!"

That scream was still resounding from the rafters when we saw her fleeing across the hall, her head thrown back, her arms outspread, her white veil and violet draperies floating behind her. Her jewels glittered like the last sparkle of a splendid dream that has been doomed to swift extinction. She vanished through the doorway leading to the tower staircase.

"After her!" some one shouted.

Antonio was first; but at the doorway he stumbled, and Leonello, who was second, fell over him. Vaulting their bodies, I gained the circular staircase that ascended to the tower. I heard Antonio bawling after me:

"She will throw herself from the roof!"

The staircase was black, and the wind whistled down its well. At each landing the heavy doors on either side banged open and shut. From overhead there descended a long wail, maybe her voice, or maybe one of the countless voices of the storm. As I neared the top, a door through which I had just pa.s.sed blew shut with a deafening report. I emerged upon the roof of the tower in a torrent of rain. The roof was empty.

I peered over the low battlements. Close below me swayed the tops of cypress-trees; beneath them everything was lost in the obscurity of the night. Soon, however, the darkness was lighted by torches which began to dart to and fro among the trees. By those fitful gleams I made out the crouching backs of men, the livery of the Manzecca with its black and vermilion device, helmets and sword-hilts, and finally upturned faces that appeared ruddy in the torch-light, though I knew that in reality they must be pallid. They called up to me, but the wind whipped their voices away. I made signs that she was not on the tower. The faces disappeared; again the torches wandered among the trees. Now and then I heard a shout, the barking of the greyhound, and a woman--perhaps old Nuta--in hysterics.

I began to descend the staircase. The last door through which I had pa.s.sed was so tightly wedged, from its slamming, that I could not open it. I sat down on the steps to wait till the others should miss me.

What thoughts!

"Can it be true? Yes, it has happened, and I have seen the end of it!

This will kill Antonio. But then, none of us will ever be the same again."

I was sure that my hair had turned white.

And she? A vast wave of pity and longing swept over me and whirled me away into the depths of despair.

Now, I told myself, they have found her. And I fell to shuddering again.

Now they have brought her in, unless what they saw, when they found her, scattered them, raving, through the woods. Now they are trying to soothe Antonio, perhaps to wrench a weapon from his hand. Now surely they have noticed my absence.

I cannot imagine what impulse made me rise, at last, and try the door again. At my first touch it swung open.

Descending the staircase, I re-entered the hall.

They were all seated at the supper-table, which was now decorated with flowers, with baskets of fruit, with plates of bonbons, and with favors in the form of dolls tricked out like little ladies of the Renaissance.

The servants wore tail-coats and white-cotton gloves. Leonello and Leonardo, Lina and Laura, even Antonio, had on the evening-dress appropriate to the twentieth century. But my brain reeled indeed when I saw Fiammetta, her hair done in the last Parisian style, her low-neck gown the essence of modern chic.

The company looked at me with tolerant smiles.

"Well," exclaimed Antonio, "you have certainly taken your time! We waited ages for you, then decided that the food was spoiling, and fell to. There is your place, old fellow. I'll have the relishes brought back."

I dropped into my chair with a thud. Leonardo, reaching in front of Lina, took the fabric of my antique costume between thumb and finger.

"Very _recherche_," was his comment. "Do you wear it for a whim?"

"He is soaking wet," announced Lina, compa.s.sionately. "I think he has been looking at the garden."

"A botanist!" cried Laura, clapping her hands. "Will you give me some advice, signore? What is the best preservative for damask roses?"

"Water them with credulity," Leonello suggested.

And they all burst out laughing in my face, with the exception of the beautiful Fiammetta.

Antonio, rising and bowing to me, spoke as follows:

"My friend, the sixteenth century bequeathed to us Florentines a little of its cheerful cruelty and something of its pleasure in vendettas.

Casting your thoughts into a less remote past, you may retrieve an impression of your last performance before your departure from the Florence of our youth. Need I describe that performance? Its details were conceived and executed with much talent. It made me, who was its b.u.t.t, the laughing stock of our circle for a month. Did we children of Boccaccio impart to you that knack for practical joking? Remember that the pupil does not always permanently abash his teacher. But come, let us make a lasting peace now. If after all these years I managed to catch you off your guard, you will never again catch me so. Let us forget our two chagrins in drinking to this pleasant night, which, though I fancy the fact has escaped you, happens to be the First of April."

While I was still trying to master my feelings, he added:

"I have forgotten to explain that Lina is the wife of Leonello, our new Michael Angelo, who did that portrait of me in the wig and costume of the Renaissance. Laura, on the other hand, is the wife of Leonardo. As for our heroine, Fiammetta, she is the bride of your unworthy Antonio.

She has been so gracious as to marry me between two of her theatrical seasons; in fact, we are here on our honeymoon. Why the deuce have you never married? A wife might keep you out of many a laughable predicament."

Leonello hazarded, "He is waiting to marry some lady who can describe, in her trances, the cuisine of Nebuchadnezzar's palace, or the home-life of the Queen of Sheba."

"Do no such thing," Antonio implored me. "And hereafter avoid the supernatural like the plague. May this affair instil into your philosophy of life a little healthy skepticism. There is no better tonic than laughter for one who has caught the malaria of psychical research.

But even Nuta, my wife's old dresser at the theater, will tell you that laughter is precious. You have given her to-night the first out-and-out guffaw that she has enjoyed in years. She says it cured her of a crick in the neck."

The fair Fiammetta, however, made a gesture of reproof, then held out her warm hand to me.

"No, Antonio," she protested, "you have not been clever, after all, but wicked. The worst of revenge is this: that it invariably exceeds its object. To what do you owe this triumph? To his solicitude for you, to his trust in you, which you have abused. Also, as I suspect, to his pity for Fiammetta di Foscone, which I have ill repaid. In fine, we owe the success of this trick to the misuse of fine emotions. That was not the custom of Messer Giovanni Boccaccio." And to me, "Will you forgive us?"

All the others looked rather chop-fallen. But Antonio soon recovered. He retorted:

"If you could have seen what an a.s.s he made of me that time, you would not at this moment be holding his hand. Look here, old fellow, she has a sister who rather resembles her, and whose hand I have no objection to your holding as long as you wish. We will introduce you to-morrow. Ah yes, we will make you forgive us, you rascal, before we are done with you!"