THE TWIN SISTERS OF MARTIGNY feife FORTY YEARS AGO "What Shadows we are, what Shadows we pursue." EDMUND BURKE By THE REV. J. F. BINGHAM, D.D., L.H.D. Lecturer on Italian Literature, Trinity College, Hartford, Conn., Author of Francesca da Rimini, Canova's Bonanza, etc. BOSTON LEE AND vSHEPARD M DCCC XCIX COPYRIGHT, 1898 By J. F. BINGHAM All rights resewed DURING AND ENDURING THE CHANGEFUL YEARS ALIVE AS THE WIND-HARP TO MUSIC WITH MINE IN HOPES AND IN FEARS WHOM BEST OF WOMANKIND I KNOW AND LOVE (Co $et IS DEDICATED Remembrance LIST OF VIEWS I MART I G NY . . Frontispiece II CHAMOUNY AND AIGUILLES . Facing page I III GRANDS MULETS ...."." 5 IV HOSPICE COMING FROM MARTIGNY " " 26 V AOSTA GENERAL VIEW . . . " " 66 VI LA COMPAGNIA MISERICORDIA . " " 80 VII AOSTA OLD SOUTH GATE . . " IOO VIII " PRIORY OF S. ORSO . . " " IOQ IX " OLD ROMAN BRIDGE . " " III X COMO PUBLIC GARDEN . . " 221 XI MER DE GLACE . . . . " " 339 XII BERNESE ALPS . . . . " 365 XIII AOSTA TRIUMPHAL ARCH OF AUGUSTUS " 373 XIV " TOWER OF BRAMAFAM . " 3?6 LIST OF VIGNETTES PAGE I TRUMPET OF FRENCH ARMY . , 6 II CAPPELLA E CAMPOSANTINO , 9 III HOSPICE COMING FROM AOSTA . , 23 IV LA MADONNA S1STINA . . . 46 V SHADOW OF THE FIR-TREE. ... 68 VI VIGILO OMBROSINI . ' ,119 VII TETE NOIRE 137 VIII LEONCELLO DA MENTOVA . I&2 IX CASA OMBROSINI ... 169 X ALPINE SOLITUDE . . 183 XI ROAD TOWARD THE HOSPICE ... 195 XII ROAD TO MARTIGNY FROM CASA OMBROSINI 227 XIII NICODEMO OMBROSINI . . . 244 XIV THE TRYSTING-PLACE 270 XV THE RETRIEVER . . ... 280 XVI ROMAN CHALICE 3" XVII LONELY TURN IN THE ROAD TO MARTIGNY 324 XVIII GRENOBLE QUAY 37 XIX AT NAPLES . 37& (vii) I. THE trumpet rang clear and the notes rolled in echoes from the mountain-sides. My ear trained to the voice of the military bugle could not be deceived. " Ubi terrarum siimus ? " Where am I? What troops can be here ? The long, last note was hardly over, when I had gained sufficient consciousness (though still some- what clouded in mind and memory) to leap from my bed with an eager anxiety to reconnoitre the situation. Peeping over the short curtain which screened the lower half of the casement, I saw a squadron of dragoons formed in line across the greensward in front of me. They wore the French uniform of the second empire. In front of the line was an officer, whose dress showed him to be of very high rank, su- perbly mounted and attended by a numerous staff, which remained stationary, except the trum- peter who clung to him like a shadow, and a jun- ior officer who followed exactly behind him, as he presently turned and rode slowly up and down THE TWIN SISTERS the line, occasionally halting to examine a car- bine or look into a knapsack, and now and then wheeling so as to face the line and speaking, ap- parently in an inaudible voice, something which was immediately translated into ringing notes of the horn, and instantly obeyed by the men. The manoeuvres being presently over, the old officer turned toward me, and I could distinctly discern a weather-beaten face, a snow-white mus- tache, and a breast covered by the decorations of many orders. I had seen, I afterwards learned, a marshal of France. Was it Canrobert ? I never certainly knew. He retired, followed by his staff and the prolonged salute of the whole command. The junior, who until this moment had been merely tracking the steps of his superior, now dashed up in front of the line with the trumpeter at his side, and gave a few orders, which were trumpeted and obeyed as before. Then, with a spirited flourish of the trumpet, all started off at a gallop, and a moment later the whole vision had vanished. I wondered much that French dragoons, in a time of peace in this part of the world, should be in Switzerland and on the frontier of Italy ; and not much less, at so high an officer being so far outside the apparent route from France to the seat of war in the East. OF MARTIGNY I afterward learned that the great officer had a mission from his Emperor to meet Cavour at Turin ; that the squadron of dragoons was an escort of honor which had been detached from a large body of the same which, in fact, a few weeks before I myself had seen at Lyons on their way to a transport-ship at Marseilles, whence they would touch at Genoa, receive on board the marshal and his escort and sail direct for the Bos- phorus. He had come from Lyons to Geneva by the dil- igence^ had passed the time, till the arrival of the escort, at several Alpine resorts, and now met them for the first time at Martigny, whence he and his staff would immediately cross by the Great St. Bernard and meet them again at Aosta. There he and his staff would join the escort and they would thence proceed together to Turin. The events just described happened on Sun- day, August 6, 1854 (according to my diary), when I found myself at the Hotel de la Tour at Martigny. I had arrived in the darkness on the evening before from Chamouny by the Tete Noire, after a nine-hours mule-ride, which included a thorough drenching in a tremendous shower. Unusual fatigue had prolonged my slumbers well into the day. When the bugle awoke me, the glare of a midsummer sun was pouring into my 3 THE TWIN SISTERS little chamber through the slightly curtained casement, and the pillows about my head were bathed in a brightness with which they glistened like the mountain snowdrifts of which I had been dreaming. One of the most wonderful of the many won- ders of dreams is, I think, the extension of min- utes, or even seconds, into a seeming conscious- ness of hours' duration. This dream seemed to me to have been going on for an hour or two, at least, though I have reason to think that it did not really occupy five minutes. During a week's stay at Chamouny I had been reading, in the intervals of my own excursions (one of which was a bootless chamois-chase with the old hunter, Tairrez), Albert Smith's romantic description of his ascent of Mont Blanc, two years before. My fancy was full of his pictures, many of which I had myself just verified. The Glacier de Bossons rose before my mind with its scenes of " splendid desolation and horror." Its huge and ragged icebergs glittered, I thought, like pale emeralds in the rays of the broad moon which was just setting behind the Aiguille du Gofite". These emerald-mountains were perfo- rated by lofty arches overhung by pendent icicles and opening a distant perspective of fantastic masses beyond. Some of these distant masses 4 OF MARTIGNY seemed to be stupendous bridges crossing awful gulfs below ; others rose like embattled castles on projecting cliffs and commanded, in the view still beyond, valleys and gorges of boundless ice. At one moment I seemed to be sitting on the top of one of the Grands Mulcts, searching with the chamois : glass for game under the distant cliffs to right and left, and on the ragged edges of Montanvert ; and then to be scanning the vil- lages in the Val de Chamouny, which appeared like white atoms scattered along the spotted ground. At another moment, I was making the grand ascent, and was passing, around the precipitous flanks of the Rochers Rouges, with the Jardin, Monte Rosa, and the Col du Ge'ant, successively spreading out before me ; and then came that stupendous vista the vast undulating field of ice looking down the Glacier du Tacul toward the beginning of the Mer de Glace. Finally, after incredible fatigue and dazed with glory, I thought I stood on the Calotte itself the very cap of Mont Blanc, where there was nothing higher around me. The sun, coming swiftly up, was already tingeing the top of the Aiguille du Goute". The mists in the valleys were spread out like a " filmy ocean " on every side, and, pierced by the glittering tips of the higher Aiguilles, the 5 THE TWIN SISTERS tout-ensemble, tinted by the reflected sheen, lay before me and around me like an "archipelago of gold." The growing brilliance went on brightening at the horizon into a transparent crimson, merging away toward the upper sky through every color of the bow into the deepest violet at forty-five degrees, and a dark azure at the zenith. The liv- ing snow reflected in a paler tint every overhang- ing color ; and the Ddme du Gofiti stood in awful white with a rosy scarf around his waist. At the moment when the sun sprang above the horizon, and an indescribable conflict of direct and reflected rays confused me with a commin- gled and overpowering brilliance, I thought a strain of celestial music burst on my ear, as if ushering, with a flourish of angelic trumpets, the arrival of the king of day. This music awoke me ; and I recognized, as I have described, the notes of a bugler of French dragoons. OF MARTIGNY II. Hark, the Sunday-morning bell, Sweet music making, Ringing clear o'er wood and dell, To worship waking ! ' AS I finished my toilet a sound of many voices was becoming more and more audible abroad. I went again to the window and now threw open the casement. The dark-blue sky was unflecked. Trees, rocks, and sod, and even the unsightly houses of the poor town, after being washed by the shower which had drenched me and my beast the evening before, stood in Sun- day dress and seemed to be shining with a keen holiday joy. As often a woman, whom the world accounts plain, will brighten under some pleasing excitement so that we forget the disparagement of her attractions and declare that she is beauti- ful still, so I could not then help admiring homely Martigny " en /tat du plus beau jour." At this moment the bell of the little church was started, and began to send out its clanging 7 THE TWIN SISTERS peals. Under its magnetic influence, the scene soon became stirring and picturesque. The main road and several mountain footpaths grew alive with country-folk and village-folk. Man and maid, mother and babe, rollicking childhood and old age creeping on its staff, came converging toward the sanctuary. At a little distance in front of the leather-curtained door, on the green borders of the highway, or where a building, tree, or mossy bowlder offered a shade from the August sun, were ever-increasing groups in holiday attire. Waists and petticoats shone in all the hues of the Alpine bow. Ribbons as bright and varied floated from broad-brimmed hats of Livorno. Un- der these broad brims, oval cheeks, olive with Italian blood and dyed yet deeper by kisses of wanton wind and ardent sun, but faintly disguised the roses that bloomed and withered there, and eyes, black as ravens' wings, shot out their spark- ling rays dangerous enough within their humble range. Often these jaunty sombreros hung swing- ing from dusky wrists and forearms which no fur- ther exposure could darken. Below the bright petticoat, also, sometimes a dark-blue stocking, but oftener a sun-browned ankle, appeared, and then a queer, stout shoe. The males of all ages were clad of course in the infamous " Martigny brown." It was clean, how- OF MARTIGNY ever; and many a young man, and often an older, sported a jaunty ribbon on his hat. The bell ceased. The group about the church door disappeared. Other groups and individuals approached and entered. A few, however, re- mained without, absorbed in conversation, or even in some quiet amusement. CAPPELLA E CAMPOSANTINO. THE TWIN SISTERS III. The grave is still and deep ; Frightful its portals stand, The secrets safe to keep Of the unkenned land. No songs of Nightingale In those deep chambers sound ; And Friendship's roses fall Lone on the moss-grown mound. There Brides will wring and wound Their hands in helplessness ; Nor through the cold, deep ground Can plaints of Orphans press. 9 AN hour later, after my frugal colazione, I was seated in the neighborhood of these groups with my book in the attitude, but hardly in the act, of reading. The worshipers were now is- suing from the church and scattering in all direc- tions toward their homes. A few turned their pensive steps toward the cemetery. These, of whom, as far as I remember, there may have been a half-dozen, were all females. My attention, it is hard to tell why, was so earnestly arrested by the figure and bearing of one of these that I followed TO OF MARTIGNY and quietly, and I think unobserved, entered the open gates of the " Campo Santo," consecrated ground, where mortal bodies are planted for the harvest of immortality. After passing some time in respectful examina- tion of the very various and though rude yet often exceedingly touching memorials of the departed, I came upon a chair, e naturalibus, which stood be- side a grave on which many flowers were grow- ing. The spot at that hour lay gratefully beneath the shade of a wide-spreading beach-tree that grew outside the wall. I occupied that chair, not without a twinge of conscience in making a con- venience of a seat evidently sacred to mourning love and consecrated by sad and solemn medita- tions, I could not doubt, of death and immor- tality. All considerations of myself, however, were soon drowned by an absorption in the scenes transpiring around me. All or the most of those whom I had seen enter the enclosure were now kneeling at the head of one grave and another telling their beads. Among them I saw the figure that had interested me before, and had been the attraction which had drawn me to the spot. Motionless as a statue, it was kneeling at the head of two comparatively recent graves or, to speak more exactly, a double grave. The mounds THE TWIN SISTERS were barely distinguishable as two, so nearly did the adjacent sides coalesce in one curve. The headboard (for it was of wood), was painted white with lettering of black. After an old fashion, common enough in rustic graveyards, it was one piece, but divided at the top into two tangent semi-circles, each, in this instance, surmounted with a rudely cut cross. Properly speaking, there was no inscription. But on the right side was the letter L, and on the left, M. The letters were so large (I should think two feet in length) as to reach nearly over the whole height of the slab ; and there was no more, whether of epitaph or ornament, there. My position being directly in front, the face of the figure at first I could not see. But the cut and tone of apparel bespoke youth in the wearer. Her head also was uncovered, and an intermittent zephyr would now and then play with some fugi- tive lock which had broken loose from the glossy, black cable of braided tresses which it seemed certain could not yet have buffeted the storms of twenty Alpine winters. Besides, there was an indescribable apparent suppleness (though with- out any real movement) in the figure which seemed to express beyond mistake the trembling tenderness of still lingering girlhood. The forces of nature, however, seemed to sym- OF MARTIGNY pathize in my interest, and helped partially to relieve my curiosity. The sun, now past the meridian, soon began to encroach on the shade of the fir which had sheltered these graves dur- ing the morning hours; and the kneeling figure, turning to escape the advancing rays, offered unconsciously to the scrutiny of my glass, for ' I sat at a distance quite sufficient to forestall any scruples of improper intrusion on my part or any notice on hers a profile of strangely com- mingled and strangely attractive loveliness. With due allowance for the rudeness of the environ- ment, a fairer vision I never beheld. Religion, simplicity, beauty, sorrow were blended in that picture in a fascination which captivated me, soul and body, and which I had no inclination left to resist. My heart palpitated with emotion. I can feel its throbs at this moment. I used my glass in- dustriously many minutes, till every outline of her figure and every thread of her attire became indelibly registered in my memory. Upon the grass at her side lay a pair of clean but heavy shoes. A flat-brimmed hat of coarse black straw, trimmed scantily but very neatly with lus- terless black ribbons, depended by the tie-strings from a corner of the headboard above described and swung gently in the intermittent breeze '3 THE TWIN SISTERS which ever and anon puffed over the silent mounds and toyed with the tufted grass. Her eyes were closed. The long silken lashes lay trembling on the lids. Occasional crystal drops darted out, chased one another by leaps and starts across the olive cheek, and fell to the ground. Her face was sharply cut in features of a strik- ing outline and of exceeding beauty. Her hair of the deepest black was parted on a broad, low fore- head, and drawn smoothly back to be confined be- hind by one of those curious silver combs which are so often found among the better class of peasantry in most of the countries of Continental Europe inherited and handed down through many generations. Her feet were bare a matter, however, of no great note or significance, at that period, in her sphere of life and in that quarter of the world, though, I believe, the march of civilization and artificial life has now arrived and changed much of these primeval habits even there to-day. Notwithstanding this, her attire in general was distinctly above that of her class, that is to say, of the class to which I took her to belong, more subdued and refined in taste, with a nearer ap- proach to elegance, or, at least, to a suggestion of it in both cut and finish, even where the material 14 OF MARTIGNY was but the common stuff of the country. She wore a sleeveless bodice of some thin black fab- ric, deeply dtfcolleti 'over a chemisette of white dotted muslin, with sleeves of the same, frilled at the wrist. Upon the heart-shaped top of the bodice in front lay a curious rosette of black crape. From the waist flowed a narrow black skirt of a thicker material than the bodice, and longer than the usual habit of peasant-girls in Switzerland and Italy, just revealing, as she knelt, the soles of unshod feet. Her hands were clasped in front. On a pink coral rosary, which depended from them, ever and anon a bead would drop the record of a prayer recited. All the other figures except the object of my curious concern one by one disappeared from the consecrated spot. The worshiping congregation had long since vanished. Along the highway and on the far-off footpaths of the mountain-side the diminishing, twinkling, fading bright dresses had all dissolved away in the blue mist of empty dis- tance. Only we. two of living beings were in any quarter visible; and she was absorbed and uncon- scious of my presence. The village street was now noiseless and empty. High noon had taken possession of the world. The intermittent zephyr was dead. Not a leaf 15 THE TWIN SISTERS fluttered. Not a blade of grass nodded at my feet. Not a ripple passed over the golden surface of the neighboring grain-field. Not a cloud floated in the deep, silent sky. Changeless and motion- less the kneeling girl kept on with her voiceless prayers, and steadily the recording beads kept dropping. In that universal silence, time seemed to join hands with eternity. Sitting thus under the glittering stillness of that summer Sunday noon- tide, amidst a congregation of unknown dead, in speechless company with that young, beautiful, sad, saintly stranger, who, unconscious of my pres- ence, was conversing with heaven, I thought dreamily, yet sadly, too, of another graveyard, far away beyond the dreary ocean, where bodies dear to me also were sleeping their dreamless and un- waking sleep. Presently my reverie was broken. The scene assumed a more earthly but not less interesting aspect. The religieuse became again a shuliere. The haloed saint, hedged about by the sanctities of death and prayer, became again but a sweet, sorrowful girl, with a pitiful story, no doubt, to tell, and a woman's heart most assuredly hungry for sympathy. The figure moved. The rosary was replaced. The red crucifix rested on the white muslin that 16 OF MARTIGNY covered her rising and falling bosom. She crossed herself above and on either side of the sacred em- blem, then arose from her knees and sat at the foot of the fir-tree. Presently she reached after the suspended bonnet, with a slow precision fixed it on her head, and, taking the discarded shoes in her hand, arose and passed with hasty steps toward the cemetery gate. To her surprise and mine it was closed ; and though not locked (as it would not be till sunset, the great padlock hanging loose on the post), some ignorant or careless hand had turned a clumsy fixture which could be undone only from the outer side. To force the heavy timbers was impossible. The enclosing wall, built of rough but firmly ce- mented stones, might, with difficulty, be climbed. Indeed, there was now no other way of egress. I saw her turn and look anxiously along the line of the stony barricade to discover if there were any spot more feasible than another for such an ascent and the still more perilous descent on the opposite side. I had wished for a decent occasion to accost her. That opportunity had now ap- peared. I sprang up and ran towards her. She had already laid her shoes on the top of the wall, and set one foot on a projecting stone, when I was near enough to exclaim : 17 THE TWIN SISTERS " Mon enfant ! " for although I was convinced by what has been already mentioned, that she had passed a good way into the experience of the graver cares and sorrows of life, yet she seemed so tender and young that I could not force myself to give her a maturer title ''''Mon enfant, pardonnez-moi, mais certainement vous me permettrez de vous y aider" [Pardon, my child, let me help you.] " J'en vous remercie, monsieur, merci de bon coeur" [Thank you, thank you, sir, with all my heart] came back in timid but sweet tones. Nerved by a pleasurable excitement, I leaped or climbed (I know not how) over the uncouth wall, released the gentle prisoner, replaced the bars, and received a repetition of sweet thanks with an added 'Adieu,' as she started briskly for- ward. But desiring to prolong the agreeable meeting, I walked on by her side on the grassy bank of the highway. She observed my move- ment and gave me a sad smile, but nothing more. I knew not what to say to start a conversation that would be agreeable to her, and so for a little time we walked on in silence. At last, thinking I might be more sure to buy her favor and open the avenues to a genial ac- quaintance by a little gentle flattery, I said : "Mademoiselle, it seems to me a strange thing 18 OF MARTIGNY to see one so young and beautiful, whom every- body must be ready to please and make happy, looking so sad and lingering in so gloomy a place." But she only glanced on me another sweet smile and said nothing. After revolving it several times in my thoughts, and computing the probable consequences, I ven- tured to risk the question point-blank : "Mademoiselle, do you often come here?" " Yes, monsieur, on Sundays when it is clear." " And to these same graves ? " " Always, monsieur." " Dear ones must be sleeping there ? " " The dearest, monsieur." " Father and mother ? " " It is not they. Dear mother lies elsewhere. Babbo vive ancora, grazie a Iddio " [Papa lives yet, thank God]. Only the last part was in Italian, the rest in French, as usual. This surprised me, but afterwards it was explained. To my further questioning, "One is my sister," she replied, "the other I cannot tell I do not know who it is." " What ! " said I, " each of those graves holds one dearer to you than all the world beside, yet one of them you do not know who it is ! " " It is so." " That is very strange." 19 THE TWIN SISTERS "Alas ! it is too true. It is the saddest part of my sad lot. Oh, if I knew who it is ! " Her cheeks flushed crimson and tears stood in her lustrous eyes. Not without a sentiment of pity at the evident distress of the beautiful stranger, mingled with some alarm at the delicate ground on which I was treading, my curiosity pushed me on to insist : " Do explain to me this riddle, mademoiselle." " I am pressed," she replied, hurriedly, with her free hand brushing away the great teardrops that glittered in her eyes. No doubt, by all the rules of politeness and propriety, I ought to have been satisfied with this and bade my interesting companion a courteous ' Adieu.' A thousand times since, at the recollec- tion of it, I have felt twinges of mortification at my reckless impertinence. But I was young ; the girl was not only beautiful, but with that peculiar charm which instantly and powerfully inflames the masculine heart. The fact was, that I was unwilling to leave her. It would have cost me too severe a pang to break away from her mag- netic presence. And I did, also, vehemently wish, for its own sake, to get this revelation of the secrets of her sweet, maiden soul. For mystery was always OF MARTIGNY very attractive for me ; and I could not believe that in this instance it shrouded any guilt or shame on her part. In short, I selfishly resolved, by mere force of will, to overpower her resistance and ravish her secret for my own gratification. Assuming an insinuating gentleness, I per- sisted : " Your secret will be very safe with me, made- moiselle, for we shall never meet again." She merely replied, in an agitated tone : " I have far to go." " Whither, mademoiselle ? " " Four hours towards the Hospice." " Of St. Bernard ? " " Si Signore." Then, as correcting herself, " Oui, monsieur" It now flashed into my mind that she had made this slip again, unconsciously, into her vernacu- lar, and that, as her complexion and the fire in her eyes seemed to show, she was certainly an Italian perhaps an exile, and God only knows for what reasons perhaps political perhaps criminal. Who can tell into what a network of suspicion, arrest, imprisonment, I may be foolishly running ? Then a momentary vision of daggers and cups of poison and a grim phantasmagoria a la Cesar e Borgia shot through my soul. But a look into her pure and gentle face reassured me, THE TWIN SISTERS at least sufficiently so to make me adhere to my purpose. Yet I was not quite at ease. Such thoughts rushed through my mind as these : ' Is not this the way the Syrens always allure ? Am I not utterly alone here ? If I should be made 1 away with, dropped into some fissure of a gla- cier which she or some hidden accomplice could so easily do who would ever know what be- came of me ? Or, if left stark at the roadside, and picked up and buried in the strangers' lot, or put into the morgue of the Hospice, who would ever be the wiser as to how I met my fate ? ' In this way the courage of my passionate desire failed me a hundred times, and was a hundred times restored by another look into her dear face, which was always convincing, satisfying, irresistible. There had been some moments' silence, while this internal scuffle of ideas had been going on for me, when at last I dashed across the Rubicon with : " I was to go to the Hospice to-morrow. I would go to-day. Mightn't we walk in company? " "As monsieur pleases, but I must go quickly." " I think I can keep step, mademoiselle." " I think monsieur has never raced with an Alpine girl." I noticed the word and thought with myself, OF MARTIGNY for an instant, ' Is it possible that this sad creature is coquetting with my interest in her, and is verg- ing on fun ? is she preparing, perhaps, to play me a practical joke ? ' I could not believe it, but shaping my answer to meet her seeming chal- lenge, I replied: " If I succeed in the race, will you then tell me the riddle ? Shall it be the prize of my victory? " " I do not know if I shall be able," she said in a tone, I thought, of commingled indifference and sadness. " I will take that risk," I replied, and with a gay 'An revoir,' to which she responded with another, I flew to my lodgings to make the few needful preparations. HOSPICE OF ST. BERNARD, A. U. 1854. Coming from Aosta. 23 THE TWIN SISTERS IV. " She sings the wild song of her own native plains, Every note which He loved awaking, Ah, little they think who delight in her strains, How the heart of the Minstrel is breaking." MOORE'S IRISH MELODIES. IN a short half hour my brief arrangements were completed, and I was en route for the Hospice, hastening at my utmost speed, for together with the advantage of the start, I knew that the girl had shot on at a rate I could hardly hope to exceed. Leaving Martigny for the south, the road pres- ently parts into two great routes one leading to Geneva and France, the other to Turin and Italy, over the Pass of the Great St. Bernard. I took the latter, and with a few bounds, leaping like a boy, crossed the wooden bridge over the Drance and proceeded at a brisk pace, with the gurgling ice-waters on my left. The scene around me was grandly picturesque. In the stillness of the hour, the voices of nature, unmin- gled with artificial sounds, were melodizing in a 24 OF MARTIGNY kind of awful symphony that was enchanting. Elevated with a delicious excitement, in sympa- thy with the environments, I passed swiftly on, leaving the outskirts of the village quickly behind me. The road here is comparatively direct, yet nu- merous minor turns, suiting to the broken nature of the ground, or to the windings of the stream, continual sinuosities of the smoother parts of the surface, intervening bowlders, and occasional patches of larch, beech, or fir-forest, render the perspective of the passenger, in this part of the route, limited and uncertain. As I turned each bend of the way, or rounded a huge bowlder, or escaped some interposed bush or tree, I stretched my sight to catch a glimpse of the flying maiden, but in vain. And worse than this, I often imagined that I saw her in the distance before me, only to be deceived and disappointed. The object presently proved to be a rock, or bush, or shadow, or some other optical illusion. After many such little eminences had been sur- mounted in vain, many such turns in the road passed without discovery of the object of my search, many illusive hopes even, raised only to be dashed, at last my spirits began to sink, my courage began to fail. Was it not becoming evi- 25 THE TWIIf SISTERS dent that I had been deceived by that strange girl? Was it not more likely than otherwise, that this lovely, sad, and apparently so ingenuous creature, had started me on a false track to escape my annoying importunity ? Was n't she an Ital- ian? Shades of the Borgias! What better should I have expected ? My brain swam. The still summer air, the lonely highway, the silent landscape, the long vista down the valley of the Rhone, the stupen- dous gorges on either side, the amazing Galerie de la Monnoye, ever and anon the roar of distant avalanches, the reechoed sounds of falling or rushing waters, the presence of the snow-capped, glittering, unspeakable mountains standing so near and yet so far on every hand ; all these mighty inspirations, which ought to have invig- orated my soul, and contributed not more to my wonder than to a sentiment of serenity and joy, now operated, on the contrary, to disturb my peace, disorder my memory, excite my. forebod- ings, bewilder my thoughts. I began to doubt whether the maiden and her concerns had not been the phantoms of a dream or, if she were a reality, she had not put herself where I should not meet her again. Should I then proceed a step further ? I can- not fully describe my deliberations ; but with the 26 ? OF MARTIGNY suddenness of a thought, I faced about and began slowly to retrace my steps. As I repassed a detour in the highway, around a sparsely- wooded cliff, where the dismantled Cas- tle of the old Bishops of Sion comes into view high on the mountain-side to the right, I became conscious of an indistinct musical cadence which seemed to be floating in the air around me. I fancied that I could distinguish the higher notes of a female voice, though, except at brief and infrequent intervals, it was quite drowned in the multifold echoes from the distant mountain- sides, and in the absorbing immensity of the vast chasms. For a time this faint melody seemed to grow nearer and clearer. Then it suddenly ceased altogether ; and my own footfalls were painfully audible in that vast stillness, unbroken save by the soft twitter of some little bird sheltered in a neighboring bough, or the faint tinkle from a goat feeding hundreds of feet towards the sky on some well-nigh inaccessible rock, each drop- ping in with a melodious monotony upon na- ture's own soft, low, tremendous, eternal diapason. What was it to me, then, that I was surrounded by enrapturing prospects, and fanned by the breeze that had been cooled on the Bernese Alps, and brought to my ears, like perpetual minute- 27 THE TWIN SISTERS guns, the soft thunder of the distant Jung/raits incessant avalanches? What was it all to me? I lacked the mood to listen or to look, to be charmed or distracted. I was uneasy, disap- pointed, disconsolate. I sauntered slowly and wretchedly along on my mortifying return. Sud- denly the full, clear notes of a wild song burst, like a mountain-torrent, on my ear. The words I could not retain. The cadence and substance was as follows : At dawn I drank the breeze Gentle and clear and cool, Flowing beneath the trees, With soft refreshment full. I walked at midday there ; The blazing sun was hot, And through the sultry air His withering arrows shot. Ere fell the shades of even Dark storm-clouds downward poured, And through the dreary heaven A fierce tornado roared. Is this, is this the breeze That soothed me at the dawn, That whispered in the trees, And rippled o'er the lawn ? Has the soft zephyr, given For morn's refreshing breath, Before the fall of even Become the blast of death ? 28 OF MARTIGNY Still blacker grows the storm, Reddening with Fury's flash! Woe, woe! a noble form Falls lifeless in the crash! When, when, like breeze of even, Soft flowing o'er the lawn, When, from a gentle heaven, Shall rise the changeless dawn ? I sank softly upon a bowlder at my side, and listened till the melody was over. Then, as I could not doubt who the singer must be, nor could she be far aside from the beaten track, nor from the spot where I was sitting, I quickly arose, and, again reversing my steps on the highway, began a careful examination of every plausible by-path, every shelving rock, every nook and corner that seemed possible to hide her from the notice of a careless passenger. I was at that moment at the top of a gentle eminence where the Val de Ferret opens into the Val d' Entremont. I had not taken twenty steps towards Osier es and the bridge which crosses the Drance for the third time to one coming from Martigny, when, looking always on this side and on that, I saw in the shade of a huge black bowl- der, a few paces on the left of the traveled path, and almost concealed behind a clump of ever- greens, my lost maiden sitting deeply absorbed on a kind of moss-cushioned sofa. 29 THE TWIN SISTERS V. Oh, do not dry Love's endless tears ; To the half-dried eye The world appears Empty and dead. For aye let tears be shed O'er love untasted ; They are not wasted. 3 AT the discovery of the maiden, one need not be told, my discontent was instantly gone ; and not only the end of my solicitude, but as well the interesting picture before me, would of itself have been sufficient to fill me on the instant with new cheer. She had sunk far down into the mossy seat, and, resting on her elbow, her face partly covered by her hand, she was gazing in- tently as in a reverie, far adown the village and the scenes we had left behind. Such was the tortuous winding of the road, that, as I approached from the opposite direction, she did not perceive my presence till aroused by the sound of my steps. Turning then, she saw 30 OF MARTI GNY me not six paces from her and cried, in a cheery and almost playful tone, at which I was sur- prised : " EC co il mio vagabondo ! " [Ah, my runaway]. Tear-marks were still on her cheeks ; nor had the moisture, from disappointment, anger, and shame, yet left the corners of my own eyes. She quickly rose and partially extended her hand. It may have been only an unconscious gesture of surprise or enquiry, but I seized and pressed it with the ardor of a sympathy as powerful as any other that ever touched my heart. The mystery of my losing her on so direct a route, which had been to me so strange and so annoying, was soon explained. She had hurried on and retired into this se- cluded nook to eat her slight luncheon and drink of the ice-water that trickled from a neighboring glacier into the little cup which she carried in her pocket and still held in her hand. There were, indeed, other reasons, faintly adumbrated in her song, why she chose to command the spot, for a time, alone. Fatigued and heated, she reclined upon the mossy bank and unexpectedly fell asleep. During her slumber I passed unobserv- ing and of course unobserved. Awaking, as she supposed, from a momentary forgetfulness, she still awaited my coming, but wondering and un- 31 THE TWIN SISTERS certain at my delay, was on the point of going on without me. She resumed her seat and I sat down near her on the same natural sofa. Presently she looked up wistfully into my face and said : "Ella t inglese?" [The gentleman is English]. I noticed, now for the third time, that when taken by surprise or carried off her guard by ex- cited feelings, she spoke in Italian, as if that were her vernacular ; and from this I was more than ever convinced that she was at least of Italian stock. With a view to furthering my own pur- pose, therefore, of drawing as deeply as possible on the secrets of her heart, from this time on, I used French no more, but spoke only in the lan- guage of Italy to her. She, too (but without seeming to observe the change), thereafter spoke to me only in Italian. To her question I re- plied: "Yes, Signorina, and no." " E dunque americano ! " [He is American, then]. "Yes, Signorma." " Ah, America, terra fortunata ! " [fortunate coun- try]. " I have heard that the people are happy there." I toyed with her remark a little with the view of drawing her out upon the Great Republic. I found the " American idea " in full force in her 32 OF MARTIGNY soul. The "happy country beyond the sea" seemed to her not much less than actually " flow- ing with milk and honey." She had seen letters telling of the great wages received for labor there, and describing the dainty food, "white bread and flesh meat had every day," and the nice clothing common to everybody there, such as " the peasantry of the old country could never dream of possessing for one day of their lives." To be sure, she said the letters might be ro- mancing, more or less, but she had herself seen such-a-one, returned on a visit, who came "in a hat alia moda and a silk gown and shoes and gloves, like a lady." Such-a-one had told her that she had, besides, a great m.z.ny fiorini saved up in the Cassa di risparmio [Savings Bank]. At last I replied : " Mia amichina [my little friend], sorrow is everywhere." " Yes, I know that must be so ; but is it not delightful to live in a country where the people choose their rulers, and make their own laws, and do in every way what they like ? " " Doing what they like, Signorina whether it would be the best thing or not is not quite true of America ; and the science of good government everywhere is a very difficult one. The selfish- ness and the passions of men are hard to manage. And worst of all, it seems impossible to tell what 33 THE TWIN SISTERS the result will be of any combination of political forces until it has been tried, and " And it may be too late to mend it then." " Not quite so, Signorina, but the old govern- ments have been tried for so long that their faults are well known ; and I must add their advantages also " "Advantages ? " she interrupted, with an incred- ulous tone, almost a sneer. " Yes, strength, in itself, as far as it goes, is an advantage." " 'As far as it goes' yes, if it does not go too far . . . and goes in the right direction," she said, now mournfully. " Perfection of administration is an advantage a great advantage the certain execution of the laws " " No matter how oppressive ? " she interrupted again, with a sigh. " Nobility has a certain advantage, both as a standard of taste and living for the lower orders, and as a glittering prize permanently held out to extraordinary heroism, or superlative benefit wrought for the country, or for humanity at large." " Yes, high and permanent examples ! . . . not seldom, of flunkeyism in procuring and of base living afterwards," she added, almost fiercely. 34 OF MARTIGNY " Painful exceptions must occur in all human combinations. A fly will be found in the sweet- est ointment." " Alas for humanity! " she groaned, twirling her hat on her thumb. " The largest and most inspiring patronage of the fine arts, is a very notable advantage. Your glorious galleries in Europe are the fruit of ages of monarchical government. Under republican institutions as they exist to-day, these, it is by no means likely, would ever have come into being." " Exactly, be it so. Is, then, the profit worth the cost ? " " We are only naming facts, Signorina, not de- ciding values." " Is n't liberty worth every cost ? " " I think you mean home-rule for Italy," I said, somewhat nettled at the turn she had given the conversation. "Yes, that is what I mean, appunto" [exactly]. " Then I think it is, properly limited and made permanent." She repeated my last words, and in an almost peppery tone, said : " Why do you distinguish so against Italy as compared with America ? " " I do not mean to disparage, nor predict, but Italy gives me the history of ages to judge from. 35 THE TWIN SISTERS America has no past. Our present is fairly satis- factory. We cannot say that there are not clouds hanging about in several quarters of our political horizon, yet the promise of the future seems bright." " All good men hope so, Signore." " We believe it, Signorina. But we may be mis- taken. We are still an experiment." " At all events, you have not and need not the dreadful army there." " True, there is nothing like the great armies of Europe there the registration, the conscrip- tion, the garrison-duty, the manoeuvres, the camp service." " And the people are safe enough without all this wretched, wretched thing?" she asked in a tone of heart-broken despair. " The ocean is, to be sure, a certain protection for us against foreign foes." " And the people have n't to be kept down with bayonets ? " " Not yet, Signorina." " O happy people ! What good luck to have been born there ! How contented the young women must be who have true lovers there ! " " I have no doubt they are. They ought to be. But will you not tell me that story now ? " " Let us go on," she said, rising and moving 36 OF MARTIGNY toward the highway. " I could n't tell you on that seat and under that rock." "That rock?" I said, doubtfully. Looking timidly over her shoulder, she added, "That rock has fearful shadows." We walked on then for two or three minutes in a silence which I did not venture to break, when the boom of an avalanche in the direction of the Bernese Alps, echoing ever softer and softer, as it rebounded from mountain-side to mountain- side, seemed to waken her from a momentary reverie, and almost in a whisper she began : " I was promised or thought I was to one I loved. I was married to him perhaps. Per- haps I am a widow his widow, now. ' Perhaps,' I say, for I do n't know what I am or whether I am anything to him or ever was." Here she paused as if she would say no more. "You do not explain," I said; "you do but in- crease the mystery." She stopped, and turning, pointed backward and rejoined in that strange voice of hers, soft, sweetly mournful, yet deeply thrilling : " Ecco, [see] the shadow of that rock lies there, like a solid thing, on the ground, though it is n't any- thing. That shadow is n't anything, yet all the same it's there. It is n't a mistake, nor a dream. It's real you know that you feel that though 37 THE TWIN SISTERS it is n't anything after all. You move about on the same ground as if it were n't there ; yet its chill may go into you and make you shud- der, and its dark silence may make you afraid. So my life is in a shadow. I move about in a shadow in three shadows. They are like what that black bowlder makes under the sun and under the moon and under the evening star." Casting about for some cheerful remark that might contribute toward quieting her disturbed feelings and disentangling her confused thoughts, I said : " Is there not much beautiful life in shadows even though they are done in monochrome, and black crayons at that? What lines of beauty, what pleasing movements, what delightful phan- tasmagoria, from the wiry figures of wintry boughs dancing in the moonlight, to the soft majesty of noonday clouds sailing over billowy grain-fields ! " " Yes," she said, " they were once delightful to me, but they are so no longer. They are sad and painful only sad and painful to me now." "Yet, you linger among them." " It is so. On the bright summer Sunday after- noons I come and sit there. I sit there and shud- der and weep, till the shadow of the rock grows 38 OF MARTIGNY with the slanting rays and finally becomes one with the shadow of the mountain. " Often and often of a summer evening while the moon was sailing clear down the valley, I have been sitting there within the gray, weird outline, musing mournfully, till the approach of the deeper darkness drove me home. " And often, in the moonless twilight, when I knew that the evening star was drawing the shadow-pictures of ten thousand happy lovers, I have been there within the faint rock-figure, talking tenderly to my lonely heart, till the star of love has sunk behind the snowy mountain-top. " And then I wonder I wonder if, perhaps perhaps for they say these stars are worlds, too if, perhaps, there are heart-broken ones there if we could see and hear their tears and sighs." " Would it comfort you to think so ? " I asked. "Perhaps it would," she replied, "but I should be almost ashamed of it, if it were so. I never thought of it in that way before." " You would not be alone," I said, " in that. I have had the same longing, as I have gazed up- ward and seen these beautiful orbs looking always so serenely down on me." I had in mind a strain which I had origi- nally composed in my own vernacular, and after- ward, though long before, turned into Italian 39 THE TWIN SISTERS and then recited, appearing to her, I suppose, to be improvising : I saw the Star of even Sail down the paling west And from the verge of heaven Drop to her silent rest. How peaceful moved she through The soft, decaying light, How lovely, pure, and true She looked her sweet " Good-night ! " Doth thus our planet move Through the high walks of space ? Is thus unmingled love Still mirrored on her face? Do the still spaces bar The sounds of human woe, Doth Earth shine soft afar As stars shine here below ? Ah, silent, silver orb, Sailing in peace along, Doth naught but joy absorb Your happy nations' song ? "How beautiful to think so," she said, "and if it be true what Dante in the Vision says " here she recited, in a soft swift monotone, a dozen lines from the Paradiso about PICCARDA, happy in the Moon " but we are still here and the gloom is so sad." " Fanciulla carina " [dear little maiden], I said, 40 OF MARTIGNY " if these earthly shadows are so painful to you, why look at them, or even go where they lie ? " " Ah, that, that is the great misfortune of it," she replied. " The explanation is not to be told in a word ; and I fear you would think me weak or mad. But " Suddenly stopping and looking up again wist- fully into my face, she added : " Tell me more about America beatissima [most blessed America]. Are there no such crazed, or foolish, broken-hearted there ? who " " No, mia buonina " [my good little creature], I interrupted, " I do not, cannot think you mad, or despise your grief. I, too, have been touched by the finger of the dark angel. I have been robbed of the being dearest to me in all the world." " Tell me about it, Signore. Tell me how it happened." I did not fail to observe that she was always postponing her own history, while endeavoring to draw out mine, or filling up the time with matters of far less interest to me. But I felt that the recital of my own sorrow, however painful to me, would be short, and that in my own inter- est it would be wisest to follow her humor. I therefore yielded and began : " I did not see her fade in my arms, like a wilt- ing flower. I did not hear her whisper in my 41 THE TWIN SISTERS ear a last 'adieu.' She did not give me a parting look of love, ere I closed her eyes forever. To my burning kiss her lips did not respond." " Alas ! how was it, then? " she softly sighed. " I led her to the altar in angelic beauty. The happy march which was to introduce us to the supreme felicity of earth closed its rapturous measures in one long, delicious wave of melody. Twice our hands were joined by the holy man. I feel the thrill this moment still. Her sweet voice made herself my own. I set the ring, sign and seal of our unending union, with ecstasy, on her fair finger. How soft and snowy- white it was ! How glad and proud I was to bestow on her all on earth I had to bestow ! We knelt for prayer and for the blessing of the man of God. Our heads were bowed upon the consecrated rail. The last ' amen ' was said, and all was still ah, yes, how still it was ! I feel that stillness yet. "She did not rise. She did not move, and seemed at prayer. The priest stood motionless with closed book, and eyes raised to heaven. The company waited in patient love for the dear girl to finish her virgin orisons. Alas ! they were already finished forever. The friends around her became sensibly disturbed. The assembly began to rustle. Every instant augmented the painful suspense. 42 OF MARTIGNY " At last I stooped to lay on her lips the bridal kiss. Her lovely form sank gently upon my bosom ; but, when my lips met hers, I perceived that they did not move ; and they never moved again. Her heavenly eyes were closed, and they never again were opened. Her dear bosom rose and fell no longer. Her sweet breath had fled. Her pulse was still. No heart-throb fell upon my bosom. Her angel-life had gone out. She was in Paradiso. " But I was here here alone here with her dear but lifeless body. I saw nothing else. I cared for nothing else. I bore it in my arms through the amazed and silent people. The or- gan, lately so loud in triumphant joy, and ready for a new triumphant peal, began softly to wail that tearful psalm : Dirige gressos meos ; and, as we rolled so sadly homeward, the bells, chimed for a marriage-peal, tolled out instead a mournful march ; and the crows in the tops of the old elms under which we passed, cawed down upon my head a funeral dirge. At last the dear body was laid in its deep bed under the oak tree in the old Campo Santo, where, as children, we sat and pledged our love with many a childish kiss. "The robins build their nests overhead and sing in^the boughs as they do here to-day. The 43 THE TWIN SISTERS breeze roars softly in the top, like the waves of the sea far away. Sweet all this was, while she sat on the sod at my side. But can I go there now ? Can I sit there alone ? No, indeed, I can- not. The sky seems so very high and open. The rattle of vehicles and the noises of busy men dis- tress and frighten me. The roar in the tree-tops makes me tremble, as if the world were rushing to destruction. Even the birds seem now to be singing mournful elegies, and the neighboring waterfall pours a perpetual dirge. <( They tell me that this dread will pass away, and that the time will come again when I shall love to revisit the spot. They tell me that I shall even find a solace for my loneliness in lingering among these buried memories and in courting the company of the ' empty shadows,' as you call them, of my vanished joys. " If this will ever be, I know not ; but surely I cannot bear them now. I fled across the ocean to escape from those reminders those duplicators of my grief. It is for this that I am here, Fanciul- lina [dear young lady], to-day. My heart is the heart of a child a sorrowful child. I could n't laugh I could n't smile at your sentiments whatever they were. But I can weep with you, and find comfort in your sympathy ; and it would console me to hear about your sorrow." 44 OF MARTIGNY " O, how sorrow makes us all partners ! " she said. " It is so," I replied, "and on this ground partly I urge my claim to know the secret of your grief." " Perhaps, then, you have a certain right ; but how can I bear to speak aloud this sad history ? " " How can telling me make it more sad to you?" " Ah, to speak it aloud to speak it aloud it will make my wounded heart bleed again." " Even so, perhaps it would go to lighten your load, Poz'erina " [poor little one]. " May be may be, it would," she almost whis- pered. " I'm sure it would ; and surely, it would go to console me." " I should, indeed, be glad to do that. But I fear " I saw the suggestion of a shudder pass over her frame, and interrupted : "Why should you fear? Would I betray any- thing? How could I, if I would? The ocean will soon be rolling between us and all our affairs." " I did n't mean that," she replied, now with a calm and solemn voice. " Duty and sin are everywhere the same. May be I was not was not without blame." "We are all human, Buonina mia [my dear, good girl]. We all have to be forgiven in heaven. 45 THE TWIN SISTERS Whatever it is, surely Maria Beatissima will inter- cede. I will tell the girls in America whom you think so happy. They will be sorry for you. They will pray to Our Lady for you." This last word proved to be the "efficient straw, etc." Did I do wrong to say it ? I did not know that one of my female friends in America prayed to the Blessed Virgin ; but I knew that she did ; and I was carried away with the desire to console a beautiful young creature, sobbing before me in heart-breaking sorrow, and pleading often in se- cret before the aureolated picture of the ever- sympathizing Madonna. LA MADONNA SISTINA. 4 6 OF MARTIGNY VI. " Can the Ethiopian change his skin ? Or the Leopard his spots? " BIBLE. TREBLING for a rosary of scarlet beads which 1 hung about her neck, and remaining silent a few seconds, as if conversing with heaven, or meditating how to arrange her thoughts, she started forward with a slow and pensive step, and entered upon the following curious and pathetic history. Her paternal ancestry, she said, was Italian of the Italians ; and as they had good cause to be- lieve (not only from certain physical peculiarities, but as well from a line of historic reasons), even Roman of the oldest stock. "My father," she said, "is of that tall and well- shaped frame as all his ancestors have been which we know is still found in the Trastevere at Rome. He glories in, and has taught us to speak with the Trasteverian accent and to know so many of those dear old words which have come down to us, though we lived for centuries within 47 THE TWIN SISTERS the dukedom of Tuscany. For our ancestors never would bend their tongues away from the masculine language of their fathers to babble in the lady-speech of Florence. So that I can have no doubt that the blood of one or more of the stolen Sabine wives flows in my veins." She went on explaining that during the perpet- ual political convulsions which kept poor Italy in ceaseless commotion throughout the middle centuries, when, too, the fearful names of Attila and of Caesar Borgia mingled terribly with the sad traditions of the family, political dangers for, at that time, they were of equestrian rank, and so exposed to all the buffets of civil strife drove them, stripped of nearly all but their lives, from their hereditary domicil in Umbria, on the sunny banks of the Anio, to the vine-clad hills of Tuscany. Here, ousted from official life, yet, in the culture of the vine and through commerce in wines, for hundreds of years they greatly pros- pered and acquired considerable Tuscan estates. " But," she said, "having espoused the losing side of the Medicean quarrel for the unquenchable flame of the Roman and especially of the Tras- teverian passion for liberta has always been the undermining influence upon the worldly fortunes of our family they were glad to escape from suspicion and arrest, from the prison, the torture, 48 OF MARTIGNY the gallows, and leaving almost everything to be confiscated behind, to come with their lives and a scanty property to the valleys of Lombardia still, though in a less notable degree, dealing with the vine. But, when in Babbos [papa's] early days the Austrian tyranny there became so accursed and diabolical, his Roman Trasteverian blood could endure it no longer, and he fled with his wife and almost empty hands to these bleak but free Alpine cliffs and valleys. " So, moving ever northward, from under the very walls of the Eternal City, and from Magis- tracies with landed estates in Umbria, we came to be movers of commerce and vine-dressers in Tos- cana and Lombardia, and finally, from desperate necessity, mountain-shepherds here." " It must have been dreadful tyranny," I said, " to drive your proud ancestry to make such sac- rifices of rank and property in such a descending scale for themselves and the prospects of their posterity." " It was, it was, indeed," she said, " and I am not sure whether it were greatest (considering the general rudeness of the earlier times) in the days of the Guelfs and Ghibelines, the Neri and Bianchi, the Piagnoni and Palleschi* etc., through all the sad ages of poor Italia 's history, or in comparatively recent years." 49 THE TWIN SISTERS "The world well knows," I said, "that the Aus- trian rule in Lombardy has always been severe. The gentle Silvio Pellico has given us a blood- curdling specimen of it in his Le Mie Prigwni." " Ah, do you know that ? " she said, " but what would you think if I should tell you that in the days of Babbos flight hither, not only men were so treated, but the infamous Austrian had come, not seldom, to use the rod upon the naked backs of reputable ladies who were guilty of nothing beyond entertaining and speaking sentiments of generous and honorable patriotism ! " " I never heard of such a thing," I said. " I will give you, then, an instance, if you care to have me do it." " I should be desirous, yet sorry to hear it, Sig- norina." " Many are troppo brutto [too ugly] to be told of. Here is one far from being the worst among many of the like. In Milano two young girls, one a visiting Fiorentina [girl of Florence] of eighteen years, the other a girl of twenty, from Cremona, were each condemned to fifteen stripes for hav- ing reproached a renegade Italian female who made an ostentatious display, in one of the win- dows of her apartments, of the colors of the Aus- trian flag black and yellow. "And when the poor girls were brought out so OF MARTIGNY into a public square, stripped for punishment, and bound to the whipping-post, and while inno- cent patriotism and virgin modesty were under- going the shame and torture of the executioner's strokes, all the proudest Austrian society in Mi/a/iff, from their windows and carriages, looked on with jokes and laughter at their fright and screams. "And for putting the greatest possible con- tempt on the Italian people, the Austrian author- ities caused it to be announced in the newspapers that the rods with which the two girls were whipped were bought in Vienna, and, together with all the other expenses of this wholesome and beautiful show, were to be paid for by the city of Milano" I expressed the utmost horror and amazement that such barbarities could happen and had hap- pened in the heart of a Christian civilization and within the memory of men still living. " It was necessary that you should know this," she said, " in order to understand what I am to tell you of my own history and my fortunes. Even our name must be explained to you for the same reason. " During some of those earlier centuries of our Italian life (it is uncertain which, or where), one of those terrific storms with lightning and thunder 51 THE TWIN SISTERS which occur in the heats of late summer, burst with unparalleled suddeness and fury through the valleys of the Appenines. " So suddenly did it arise that our ancestor and his young wife, who were abroad at some dis- tance from their home, were unable to gain any more available shelter than a shelving rock, over which hung a clump of firs. "The storm raged with violence for hours. Sheet after sheet of descending water, hurled by the fitful gusts, drenched and drenched again and again the forlorn young couple. The terrible in- tensity of the lightning and the terrific thunder threw the young wife into paroxysms of alarm. At last the skies cleared and the storm was for- gotten. "A long time after, when their eldest child came to them, it bore on its breast a mark which was thought to resemble a fir-tree over- hanging a dark rock. The same mark has appeared from time to time in successive gen- erations till now. According to one tradition less credible, indeed, than another which has been more generally adopted it was supposed to be this incident that suggested our family name Ombrosini [shadowy ones]." VII. Stat nominis umbra. (( I T was long, long ago," my companion pro- 1 ceeded, " though many centuries later than the earlier story. Milano was then entirely sur- rounded by the Naviglio Grande. The suburbs beyond this artificial and navigable water-course were a favorite quarter for the palaces of the great nobles. The lord of Milano had a superb villa outside the Porta Vercellina. The gardens of this villa were extraordinary even among the surrounding sumptuousness. Many statues of classic models, and many busts of distinguished Italians and especially of Lombard celebrities were interspersed among rare exotic trees and stretches of forest curiously trained and trimmed. "When the famous Giovanni Visconti became archbishop and lord of Milano, he summoned my ancestor and induced him to leave his own estates, which had now become considerable in Lombardia and come to the Milanese Court as Master of the Park. 53 THE TWIN SISTERS " His name, in the dialect of that region, is lost, but apparently from his very brown complex- ion (which mark of southern descent had been handed down through so many generations) in Milano he was called Brunetto. " He was a man of great but exceedingly eccentric talents. Perhaps the greatest of his many oddities, was a passion for evening land- scapes, and his astonishing management of moon- light shadows. "The prince, charmed by his genius, entered at length into his plans and caused a chamber which he named // Teatro [the Theatre] to be elegantly finished and furnished in one of the palace-towers. The front of this ' Theatre ' was one vast window, looking out upon a portion of the landscape which he called the Spettacolo [stage]. " Here and on every side, nigh and far, accord- ing to designs furnished by Brunetto, trees were trimmed into a thousand imitative, or beautiful, or wonderful shapes. Huge statues were reared and arranged in a thousand ingenious ways. Many other objects, in a great variety, were scattered about apparently, in unspeakable confusion and disorder, but really with the strictest eye to effect and in such a way that the tout-ensemble, under the moonlight, threw into view from the Teatro a 54 OF MAR TIG NY stage-full, in life-like shadows, of strange and beautiful figures. And as the moon passed on, the shadowy actors moved and changed positions and shapes in such a way as to represent with striking effect many beautiful, terrible, and ridiculous scenes. " These changes were provided for, not only during the hours of a single evening, but follow- ing the vicissitudes of the moon, continued from month to month, as the successive seasons went on. So that this Teatro in dumb-show offered a kind of endless ' season ' of natural theatricals. " It is said that the great poet, Petrarca, during his long residence at Milarw, often witnessed these spectacles with great delight ; and when Bocaccio visited him there he brought him to see the wonderful show. But it was after the death of Giovanni and the succession of his three nephews to his dominions that the fortunes of our ancestor rose to the zenith, and our name became fixed in the heraldry of our country. " When the elegant and learned Emperor, Charles IV, came with his Empress into Italy to be crowned at Rome, he was for a few days the guest of the three lords of Milano. On the second day after his arrival, he was entertained by his hosts with a review of their troops, which passed before him as he sat in state behind the great 55 THE TWIN SISTERS window of the Teatro. After dinner that even- ing, in the great hall, the gentlemen were escorted into the Teatro where the ladies were awaiting them. The Emperor in some surprise asked whether they would ride to the play, or whether perhaps they would walk through the palace to \h.Q proscenium. 'We do not go to the play, your Majesty/ answered the lords, 'the play comes to us to- night.' "At that moment all the lights in the Teatro seemed to be suddenly extinguished by an invisi- ble hand, except two or three concealed tapers, which threw a dim glamour over the company. At the same moment began as if in the far dis- tance the soft music of a symphony, and the curtains slowly rose upon the shadowy scenes which were moving over the snow (for it was Christmas-tide), in the vast Spettacolo. The royal party, taken wholly by surprise, were wild with excitement. Even the Empress gave a sweet little scream of delight, which pleased the Em- peror exceedingly. "The fact was, that Fortune smiled on the whole affair. Brunetto, having received some weeks' notice of the coming event, had laid out his utmost skill, had, one might truly say, out- done himself, in the preparation. Even the as- 56 OF MARTIGNY tronomers of the University, in view of the unparalleled honor of an imperial visit, had as- sisted him with the nicest calculations upon the hourly position, progress, and path of the moon. The night proved cloudless. The silver lumi- nary was at her full. The figures came out with extraordinary distinctness and moved with elegance. The show was an unparalleled suc- cess. The Emperor was delighted ; the Em- press was in ecstacies. " Brunetto had contrived to represent the whole long line of Roman emperors, riding in chariots, and passing on far away into the distance. Charles, with his lovely Empress, came last of all, surrounded with every possible sign of pomp and glory. " Processions of church dignitaries and ecclesi- astics of every degree, squadrons and columns of military escorts, multitudes of happy people making frantic demonstrations of joy, banners waving from windows and poles, navies dressed with innumerable streamers, senates and courts of law and schools standing in rapt attention upon the scene, seemed to be laying the world at the feet of the latest successor of the Roman Caesars. " But the most wonderful feat of all was the putting of the Visconti coat-of-arms, in colossal proportions, at the foot of the panoramic picture, 3* 57 THE TWIN SISTERS like a seal of approval, from this powerful family, to the succession of the new^ emperor. This coat- of-arms was an extraordinary thing, and had been adopted by the Visconti from a Saracen banner, taken by one of their ancestors in Palestine dur- ing the wars of the first Crociata. The design was an enormous serpent swallowing a naked child, with the legend beneath, DEVORABIT [it will devour], which was understood to be a transla- tion from the Saracen Cabala, and to indicate how voraciously and irresistibly Time devours the works and the race of men, who are as helpless before its power as a new-born babe. " Gentle symphonies had been playing during the successive views, till, as the evening grew later and the more stirring scenes appeared, the music sympathized with the sentiment, growing ever louder, harsher, more daring, more defiant ; and, finally, as the closing scene came brighten- ing out, with its fearful legend, the cymbals crashed, the drums rolled, the trumpets blared ; and when, at the last moment, a park of a hun- dred cannons was fired, and a thousand rockets of every hue were shot into the sky, the Empress fell fainting with excitement and fright into the arms of the Emperor. "This last incident pleased his imperial Maj- esty beyond bounds. He called for the artist, but 58 OF MARTIGNY he could not be found. During the progress of the spectacle he had occupied a conspicuous seat, absorbed in the contemplation of his deploying figures. But now he had disappeared, whither no one knew. " Messengers were dispatched for him in every direction. The palace within was searched from end to end, in vain. It was at last discovered that somebody had seen him issue from the pal- ace and enter one of the serpentine walks which led toward the Spettacolo. " Lanterns soon glistened along every alley, lane, and walk ; for the moon had now set, and comparative darkness had settled over the witch- ery of the scene. Each exploring party carried a horn to be sounded on a discovery of the lost manager. The lights were long seen from the Teatro, flitting to and fro, and winding along the labyrinthian passages. At last the horn sounded at some point near the middle of the Spettacolo. The manager was found wandering among the figures, passing in front of one and another, mur- muring now a word of compliment, now an ex- pression of mortification or reproof, such as : " ' Ah, Juno, you stood every inch a queen. I was proud of you. His Majesty, too, I could see that he was impressed by you. Well, Venus, there's nothing to be said about you. The men 59 THE TWIN SISTERS stared at you finely. You always touch the blood. You, too, Psyche, and Daphne, and all you girls there you were ravishing. Socrates, what made you keep so much in the dark to-night ? Plato, and even Alcibiades, quite overshadowed you. O Hannibal ! there in the swamp, how is your eye to-night? I thought you seemed uneasy, but perhaps it was the waving of that swamp- willow over your head. By Jingo ! Julius Csesar, what ailed your horse's tail? I'll have those grooms beheaded, if that occurs again. And you, Commodus, how could you break that chariot- wheel ? It must be repaired at once. You Ce- dar of Lebanon up there, why didn't you nod lower when the Emperor went by? We'll trim your hair for you, to-morrow.' " Rapt in his reveries, he did not seem to doubt that the statues and trees heard and understood his words ; nor did he observe the approach of the messengers till they took him by the hand and began to lead him back to the palace. "When the story was told there with great glee, and naturally created more or less laughter among the spectators, the dazed manager not even then comprehended the true source of the merri- ment ; but, attributing it to some comic failure of the spectacle, he approached the Emperor with a countenance grave even to sadness, and 60 knelt before him, with eyes cast down like a culprit awaiting the sentence of his judge. " But, at a signal from the Emperor, there was a flourish of trumpets. Then came a discharge of the whole park of artillery at once, which shook the palace again ; and again the ladies, headed by the Empress, uttered a little scream. Then the Emperor arose, and, receiving from an officer of the Court a sword with trappings, which had been provided for the purpose, gently tapped with it the cheek of the kneeling mana- ger, saying, 'Arise, Signer e Coiite de Ombrosini.' Then, as the new Count arose, the Emperor threw the trappings over his shoulder, and or- dered the patent of nobility to issue, and that the crest should be 'a full moon breaking out of storm-clouds and throwing shadows into the foreground.' My ancestor then hardly awoke, as from a dream, under the congratulations of his friends ; and, dropping again on his knees, returned his warmest thanks to the Emperor. " The patent was issued, and has been relig- iously preserved and handed down. The blessed parchment is still safe in our cottage. The first Count' (Babbo is the thirteenth) was given estates near Vercelli, which were enjoyed by many gener- ations of his successors. " But, in the troubles that followed, our family, 61 THE TWIN SISTERS like so many others, became entangled, our prop- erty was confiscated, my ancestors were obliged to flee and remain unknown. Even our shadowy name was for long concealed, for, to reveal it in Lombardia or in Toscana, would have cost the head of the family his life, or a lifelong imprisonment. It is safe this side the boundary, and Babbo has revived it. " In this way we have lost everything but our name and the memories and sentiments which belong to it. Yet we are not alone, nor singular, in this misfortune. Higher and older titles than ours and not only the estates but even the names to which they belonged have been utterly lost. So that among the vineyard and mountain peas- antry hereabout, to-day, flows blood that was once historic, sunk now into an everlasting shadow. "Ah, Signer, will you doubt it? There still dwell in our bosoms the same sentiments, mem- ories, and aspirations which enlivened and ennobled the lives of our ancestors, though we have to feed our bodies with these coarse nutri- ments and clothe them with these poor garments, because and only because from our hands have fallen the slippery fortunes of their better days. " O Dio in cielo ! Where are now the jewels that glittered for centuries on the fair shoulders of my great great grandmothers and their daugh- 62 OF MARTIGNY ters for twenty generations in the palaces of Umbria, of Toscana, of Lombardia, and should have been the heirlooms of sister and me ? Where are they now? They are glittering on the neck of some English peeress. " Oh mia povera Italia sventurata ! [ Oh my poor, unfortunate Italy ! ] They were offered on the altar of thy destiny ! They were sold to bring gold to carry on the patriotic wars of thy enslaved sons and daughters ! They were plundered in thy defeats by foreign foes ! They were wrested from their gentle owners under the torture ! They were confiscated in thy internecine con- vulsions ! But O Italia, thou art mia Patria [ my fatherland] still. I love thee, poor, fallen, abused as thou art. I love thee as my life. I adore thee, bella, bella Italia ! " [beautiful, beautiful, Italy]. " No, no ! " I replied, " you have retained much more than you claim, Signorina. The witness of those better days, as you call them, did not pass away with those jewels. It is written on your every feature. I could swear to you that the patent of your nobility is engrossed on your countenance as with an angel's pen. That pre- cious parchment might be lost or destroyed, but the sentiments indwelling in your soul the heritage of a thousand years of noble lineage are always visible and are indelible." 63 TWIN SISTERS Her lustrous black eyes flashed up in my face for an instant, and then sailed away into the distance. A soft, sad smile languished on her lips, and she was silent. With a sudden impulse, I struck up the strain, America: " My Country, 'tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty, etc.", in the well-known Italian version, and after sing- ing one stanza ceased. She was gazing far away as I sang, and when I stopped, she made me begin again, and then her- self struck in. I was at first startled and won- dered at this. But I instantly remembered that it is also the National Melody of Germany, and that she must often have heard it in her home on the borders of Deutschland. At all events, she was at home in it, and the effect on me was electric. Her ringing, sympathetic voice, and the peculiar timbre of it, added to her powerful emotion at the moment, rolled like a rattling musical fusilade into the echoing stillness of that vasty natural concert-hall, and sent a thrill through my whole frame, not unlike what I have felt in hearing the fiery Marseillaise sung by a crowd of Lyonese peasants ; and when the last stanza was done, I was left in a kind of confused and indescribable mental exaltation. 64 OF MARTIGNY VIII. " I'll keep this secret from the world, As warily as those that deal in poison, Keep poison from their children." WEBSTER (Duchess of Malfy). THE ice being now pretty thoroughly broken, my companion presently went on to describe their home on the mountain side, the sheep and goat pens near the house, the patches of plow- fields scattered among the cliffs, the meadows for mown grass one a half-hour away on the other side of the river, and one a half-hour further up the mountain, on this side, and called by the family the Alto Prato [upper meadow], and finally, the Boschetto [little-forest] which was situated on the hillside in one of the broken valleys about an hour from their home. The family drew a part of their support from fire- wood which the Babbo cut there and sold in Martigny and at the Hospice. The chips and small twigs (what were not made into faggots for kindling and sold with the large wood), and barks, especially of the oaks, supplied the family fire. 65 THE TWIN SISTERS Many knots of firs and pines were shaped into tapers, for use in the house; and the bark of the birches was rolled into torches to be used outside on dark and stormy nights in winter. But per- haps the most profitable of all were the long, straight birchen twigs which, during the long winter evenings, the Babbo made into brooms and sold, a few in Martigny, but chiefly in Aosta, whither he went with several mule-loads of them every spring. Her mother, she said, was of a family of simi- larly decayed fortunes from Nismes (as also the grandmother had been), and was a distant kins- woman of her father. "They were many years married without children; but nineteen years ago when the ground was white with snow, on the festa of s. s. MARIA AND MARTHA a pair of little daughters were born to them; and were chris- tened Maria and Marta. I am Marta. People thought the babies exactly alike, and could never tell the one from the other. As we grew the resemblance became, if possible, still more per- fect. Our size continued always the same. Our complexion, hair, and eyes were of the same shade. Our voices were so perfectly alike, that out of their sight, our parents never knew which of us was talking or singing. " This resemblance was, of course, the cause of 66 OF MARTIGNY many entanglements; and in fact an insidious omen of sorrow yet to come. But it gave us no concern. We were rather amused by the mis- takes occasioned by it. Even when one was rewarded for a good action done by the other, or punished for the other's fault, as sometimes hap- pened, by a tacit agreement we accepted each alike, without explanation and without resistance. Habit so accustomed us to our lot, and we came to regard our affairs as so joined and mixed, that we retained no sentiment of pain or of injustice from it, whatever either of us enjoyed or suffered on the other's account. In short, we seemed to ourselves, as nearly as possible, one being in two bodies. " Besides all, as I believe is not uncommon in such cases, our natural resemblance was pleasing to our parents, and, instead of being in any the least way opposed, was favored and completed by them with a studied similarity of dress and treat- ment. This natural and innocent turn of parental love and pride fostered, however, our childish folly to an incredible pitch. We could not bear, nor be persuaded to allow anything pertaining to us to differ in the least particular. This exagger- ated whim often rendered us ridiculous, some- times wretched. We would, for example, soil our faces, tear our frocks, bang our bonnets, even 67 THE TWIN SISTERS scratch our hands or ankles the one by acci- dent, the other voluntarily to complete the corre- spondence both undergoing often, and always cheerfully, the punishment for the fault. " But, notwithstanding all, there was a con- cealed difference between us, and it was such that we could neither escape it, nor exchange it. This, too, became the turning-point of my fate. "I BORE, ALAS! THE INDELIBLE FAMILY MARK THE SO-CALLED SHADOW OF THE FIR-TREE ! " OF MARTIGNY IX. And night for each must close the cheerful day, The feet of each must tread the gloomy way. 5 HORACE. ^ /""^UR childish lives went smoothly enough \~s on for the first twelve years. There were moments and hours of childhood-grief, but the causes were trivial and the sorrow was brief. Our spirits were light and easily depressed ; but, commonly, a word or a kiss would cure our sadness, and a breath of mirth would easily blow away the flying cloud that was darkening our little souls. We were busy and petted and happy. " So our years flew by till our thirteenth birthday came. Our happiness had then risen to its zenith. But with it came our first great sorrow. It was winter. The whole ground was white. There came the /^/0 of s. s. MARIA AND MARTHA our festival day. We went to Mass then, as always, on that feast. This year it fell on a Sunday, The day was fine. The Bishop of Aosta was there. Maria and I were then confirmed ; 69 THE TWIN SISTERS and, by a special dispensation, received immedi- ately our first communion. Dear Mother had been preparing us ever since we could read, and we had been ready and waiting since we were ten years old. But no bishop had been at our little church for more than four years. This had been a great grief and constant anxiety to dear Mother. " Both she and Babbo received the communion also (as they always did at that fes/a), and we all went, on Saturday evening before, to Confession. It was very cold ; and dear Mother had toiled very hard to get our dresses ready and to make a feast for us at home. Oh, how happy we were at church that day, and at our little ban- quet in the afternoon ! "When the dinner was ended, but before we rose from the table, dear Mother tapped gently on her plate for sister and I were in almost a boisterous frolic over a funny picture on one of our presents and over the queer inscription under it. We instantly looked up into her sweet face and were still. " Then, in her soft, lovely way, she began : ' My dear, dear children, it is your birthday into this world of sin and sorrow. It was a blessing to us when you came. It was a blessing to you to be born. It is right to make festa over it. 70 OF MARTIGNY " ' We have delighted to feed your bodies with the perishable bread of earth, which one day you will need no longer. But to-day you have come to the table of your Great Father, and been fed with the bread that came down from heaven, which will nourish your immortal life for ever and ever. How should we make festa over that ! God and the Madonna be praised that I have lived to see this day ! ' Then she began, and we all joined with her in singing Ave Maria. I never felt so happy. But we were so near to Eternity ! "That night dear Mother was seized with dread- ful pains, in a few hours became very sick, and never had her reason more. She talked wildly of ' dear, warm France,' and of her girlhood there ; and said many times to Babbo, 'Ah, Jacques* rame- nez-moi a ma belle France ! ' [Ah, James, take me back to my beautiful France], and Babbo con- stantly replied, ' Sicuro, sicuro, M'amie ' [I will, I will, my dear]. "In a short week the promise was fulfilled. She was carried to sleep with her kindred under the warm sun of her native sky. We all, except Vigilo he was our great, dear sheep-dog went with her dear body to Nismes ; and we buried the precious treasure there in the Champ du repos, where a long line of her ancestors are sleeping by her side. 71 THE TWIN SISTERS " This journey to Nismes for Maria and me was the greatest event of our lives. We had never been there ; but from infancy we had heard so much about it both from our dear Mother and from Babbo. For was it not a foremost strong- hold of the old Romans from the first Caesar on ? And was it not morally certain, then, that both her Trasteverian ancestors and his had seen ser- vice there under the world-conquering eagles, had marched over those hills and through those ravines with the thundering host to the music of the trumpet and the horn, had manned those old fortresses, perhaps led as centurions, or tribunes, or even lieutenant-commanders, those old iron cohorts and legions, before the era of salvation ? " The thought of it made our child-blood tingle, and did something, even in our dreadful sorrow, to enliven the gloom of the sad journey. Dear Babbo availed of this motive to the utmost, and choking down his own unspeakable grief, spoke of every inspiring thing in this direction on the way, and planned to make the visit yield the most possible, both of comfort and of life- long profit, to his dear girls. For, in addition to his tender parental love for us, he never for a moment forgot that our heritage was noble, though now enveloped in so deep a shadow. 72 OF MARTIGNY " We arrived on the ninth day, and, approach- ing the city on the southeast side, were in the neighborhood of three convents the Dames de Besan$on, the Dames de I ' Assomption, and the Pe- tites Sceurs. At the latter house the family of my Mother was not unknown. For this and other reasons, our Babbo took us there and made known the sorrowful cause of our pilgrimage. " We were tenderly received by the lady Supe- rior and the sisters. The dear body was allowed to lie in the Cappella before the high altar ; and, on the morrow, a Requiem Mass, at which all the nuns assisted, was said by the padre who was charged with the worship in the Convent. " I had never heard such sweet singing as was done by the choir of sisters in the organ-gallery. I have since learned from travelers that such is heard when the nuns of the Dames du Sacr/ Coeur sing Vespers on Sunday nights at S. Trinita de' Monti in Rome. But I have never heard the like, before nor since. It seemed to waft our spirits on the bosoms of angels into the soft rest of Paradiso, where we hope the spirit of dear Mother is. " Maria and I were lodged in the Convent for three days and in a room near to that of the lady Superior. It was called a ' cella ' [cell] ; but as we had never been in a nun's ' cell ' before, we 73 THE TWIN SISTERS found it a very different room from what we had expected to see when the good abbess told us with the sweetest tones that ' we should sleep in Sister Angelica's cell.' " The good kind lady went on to tell us what she thought would at once instruct and please us of the good nun who had lived and died in that ' cell', fifty or a hundred years ago. But it frightened us and made our flesh creep, to hear how that holy woman went barefoot and prayed through the whole cold night and fasted and punished herself there; and when she was dead and her body lay there, how the sick and infirm people came and touched it and were made well and strong; and how it did not decay and they kept it there many months, doing such good work for the afflicted. "When, after supper, and a long pleasant talk in her room, the abbess took a candle and led the way to that ' cell/ I think our young rosy faces must have turned white, and I know that our hearts palpitated so that we could hardly breathe. We followed her a few steps along the echoing cement pavement of the lofty corridor, and in a moment she turned a key that grated harshly in the lock, and opened, slowly and carefully and it seemed to us almost timidly, a great heavy door, entered in the same subdued manner and 74 OF MARTIGNY placed the little twinkling light upon a high mantel-shelf. "We followed and stood in the middle of the 'cell,' looking about us with astonished eyes. What did we see ? whip and cord and hair- cloth jacket ? and we did n't know what other instruments of dreadful pain ? such as our terri- fied imagination had conjured up? or even coffins and corpses and skeletons, the shadows of which were dancing a fearful rout in our fancy ? Not at all. The opposite of all this. " There was, indeed, heavy iron grating at the two tall windows, so that no one could get out or in, even if they had not been a half-dozen metri from the ground on the outside; and as we could plainly see in the clear moonlight, they looked out upon a large garden which was surrounded on all the three sides by a high and smooth wall. There was, also, a very large, strong lock on the door all conspiring to the same purpose. But everything within was peaceful and pleasant as the parlor of a lady. "The room was large and high. A little fire was burning in the chimney-place; over which hung a beautiful picture of the Madonna. Several more large and beautiful pictures hung on the walls around such as a Pieta [the dead body of Jesus in the lap of His Mother or the like], a 75 THE TWIN SISTERS martyrdom of S. Antony, a Virgin exposed to wild beasts, and others which I do not now remember. " There were many pieces of furniture, plain but good. A carved writing-desk, an armchair with leathern seat, a heavy chest, a square table, a case of book-shelves full of ancient-looking books, a candle-stand, a prie-dieu, a footstool, a large crucifix on one side of the mantel-shelf, a statuette of S. Peter with the crook and keys on the other. In the middle of the shelf, stood a very large wax candle in a heavy carved candlestick. All these articles were of black oak, as well as the not very broad bedstead, which stood in the corner farthest from win- dows and door and was hung around with white curtains. On the cement floor were several rugs of thick, nappy carpeting and sheepskin mats. "The abbess saw us gazing around us with childish interest, but little divined the secret of our thoughts. Our child-idea of a holy nun's cell the narrow closet, the rough plank bed, the wooden stool, and little else save the imple- ments of bodily discipline, compared strangely with such a room as this. We were dazed with wonder to a degree, and our faces no doubt wore an expression to which she attrib- uted sentiments more exalted and devout than had really entered our minds. 76 OF MARTIGNY " ' Yes, dear children,' she said, 'this is indeed a holy place. Think how many prayers, how many self-mortifications, how many painful but victori- ous penances, how many exalted and beautiful meditations, how many holy vows and unearthly self-consecrations, have gone up like a cloud of sweet incense to the Saviour's throne ! None of the sisters, since Angelica s death, has been judged or felt herself worthy to occupy this room ; and it has never been slept in since.' " She meant it kindly, but this view of the case made us shudder. Somehow the sense of being the first to sleep in the holy death-chamber, coupled with the constant memory of dear Moth- er's body passing the night in the Cappella, came over our sore hearts with such an uncanny power at her words, though spoken so gently and with the sweetest tones, that Maria and I instinctively threw our arms about each other's neck, and burst into irrepressible sobs. " The face of the good abbess showed that she was distressed for us, but she said no more ; and going to the bed, kissing each of us tenderly as she passed, she ' made it down,' and added a hun- dred little pats and adjustments to the pillows and coverlets. Then she said sweetly, ' Blessed innocents, I am so glad you are to sleep here. I think holy angels will hover over you to-night, 77 THE TWIN SISTEKS the same that carried the spirit of your dear Mother in their bosom to Paradiso. Prepare yourselves for your slumbers quickly.' " While we were obeying, she went to a little recess at the side of the chimney-piece, which we had not before observed, and taking from there another tall wax candle, lighted it and set it upon the prie-dieu near the head of the bed. As soon as we were nicely between the sheets, she knelt at the prie-dieu and said some beautiful prayers for dear Mother and for us. "When she arose from her knees, she said, 'You shall have this candle burning here, my dears, during the night. I shall lock the door, so you will be quite safe; and you will hear the footsteps of the watching sister in the corridor as long as you are awake. I shall come to you in the morning before Ave Maria' Then she kissed us both like a mother, drew the bed curtains close, and went away. We heard the bolt and the footsteps of the watcher, as she had told us, and in a few minutes fell asleep till she opened the bed curtains in the morn- ing. This was repeated each of the three nights of our stay. " In the morning, true to her word, we were awaked by the loving abbess bending over us and singing softly, Ave Maria ; and we heard the 78 OF MARTIGNY bells of the convents and of the churches in the city ringing it out. We ate at the table with the nuns, one of us sitting on each side of the abbess, who sat at the head. She did not speak to us then, for there was no talking at the table, but one of the sisters read aloud from the Book of Martyrs. " We passed most of our time, when not at our prayers in the Capella (before and after the body of dear Mother was carried away), in the room of the abbess, who was all love and anxiety for us, constantly showing us interesting things in the house, and teaching us good and important things which we did not know before, both about reli- gion and about the worldly life. In short, from the moment when she first set her eyes upon us, she was to us like a mother who has found her long-lost children. We wondered greatly at this, till one day, long afterwards, it was explained to us. Then, alas, too late, how we wished we had known that secret before ! " Babbo and the animals found lodging with the family of the gardener of the Convent a little fur- ther outside the boulevard. But, though he came into the Convent but once, and then only for a moment on our first arrival, yet he spent many hours with us outside. "The first sad day was mostly passed in the 79 THE TWIN SISTERS Cappella, after the Requiem Mass, which was said early, in prayers and tears around the bier on which lay the dear, precious body that we were going to put away from our sight till the resur- rection morning. " The padre Cappellano del Convento [convent- chaplain] staid there with us and would now and again say another prayer sometimes for the dead, sometimes for us children, sometimes for poor Babbo. Oh, how dear Babbo groaned and wept ! We staid on our knees around the bier a long, long time. Babbo trembled and seemed so feeble that the sagrestano [chapel care-taker] brought us chairs, and we sat there silent and so sad till, as the bells were pealing evening Ave Maria, came the Compagnia della Misericordia 1 to bear away the dead. " Maria and I had never before seen their snow- white dress, with hood and veil of the same which covered them completely down to their feet, with only two small holes for their eyes. They came marching in a column, like soldiers, and chanting the psalm : Miserere mei Deus* " Four of them, taking up the bier and placing the poles upon their shoulders, (the rest, each bearing a lighted wax-candle, following in the 80 OF MARTIGNY same order as they came,) all went off chanting together to their measured tread : Ostende nobis Do mine. 9 " Babbo and the padre followed to the Campo Santo and saw the deposit made and finished there, but Maria and I took our last look as the proces- sion vanished from the door of the Cappella, and returned to wait and weep in the room of the abbess. "On the morrow, with the approbation and advice of the abbess, although in our over- whelming grief and melancholy we -both were disinclined to see or think of anything but the memorials of our sorrow, Babbo took us to visit some of the beautiful and wonderful things to be seen in this very remarkable city and its environs. " On the morning, then, of this second day we went through splendid squares and passed foun- tains, some with ancient Corinthian pillars and fragmentary remains of old Roman aqueducts, and came to the old amphitheatre with its very, very high walls and rows and rows of seats, where they told us more than twenty thousand people could sit, and its hundreds of arches and hundreds of exit-gates the whole built of huge, unmor- tared rocks, and all as sound and perfect as if the 81 THE TWIN SISTERS poor gladiators had been butchering each othei yesterday there, and the spectators had gone home but yesternight. "We went to the Maison-carree, which, we were told, was the finest and best preserved of all the old Roman temples anywhere now in the world, with its lofty steps, its Corinthian columns fluted and surmounted by exquisite capitals which, in the days of old Roman glory, stood, no doubt, in a forum surrounded by many other edifices of equal or greater splendor now gone forever. "We went to the Temple of Diana, with its arches and vaults and corridors and niches, filled now with sculptures and antiquities found there, and surrounded by ruins of aqueduct and reser- voir of which old Julius and his horses must have drank. "We went to the Tour Magne, the old, old, octagonal Roman ruin, built for a mausoleum, and twice as lofty still as Cczcilia Metella's on the Appian Way but, by whom and for whom was it built ? What thoughts it awaked in our child- ish souls ! "We went to the Porte d' Auguste [gate of Augustus] and gazed with wonder on its two large and two small archways built in that splendid reign. How many of our dear moth- er's ancestors had looked daily on that same 82 OF MARTIGNY sight for two thousand years ! How many of Babbos had marched under it, clad in bright armor, with shield and lance, in all the pomp of old Roman warfare ! And with many, many other such-like scenes and thoughts, we passed the day. " On the morning of our last day, while Babbo went to the Campo Santo to finish the last things about dear Mother's grave, the kind abbess sent two sisters with Maria and me to the Muse'e de Peinture to point out to us the more noted and important pictures and sculptures and engrav- ings treasured there. " From our books and from Babbo, we had learned the names of some of the very great art- ists of the world, especially those of poor, dear, glorious Italia. But here with wonder and delight we saw for the first time, and were dazed to think we were looking on the very work of their own hands. We trembled with wonder and surprise before the Holy Family by Rubens, the S. Agnes by Tintoretto, the Magdalen by Guido Rent, the Christ in Gethsemane by Correggio, the Madonna by Titian ; and I have a more indistinct yet beau- tiful memory of many, many more which I can- not name. "The last hours of the afternoon of this last day we spent in the Campo Santo. The day was 83 THE TWIN SISTERS clear, and the air, though it was winter, was soft and balmy there. Babbo had erected at the grave's head a cross of wood, heavy and well-lettered. We hung three wreaths of immortelles upon it one for the love of each of us. "We spent much time in prayers beside the grave. But at last we must go away and leave her alone in her own dear, 'warm France,' in- deed, but so far, far away from us whom she so loved and who loved her so. "Oh, the pang of the last look! I believe I could never have returned, but that I was brought away by Babbo aided by Maria, whose face was streaming with tears. I was tearless with agony. "When the abbess put us in bed that night, she lingered and kissed us over and over again and said many prayers, so that we were asleep before she left us. In the morning when Babbo came for us, in saying ' adieu ' to the abbess we saw how his chin quivered and his voice trembled ; and when she embraced us for the last time, her tears dropped upon our cheeks. " It was after dark on the tenth weary day when we arrived at our home ; and dear Vigilo was crouched outside the door ready to spring with a howl of delight into each of our faces, in turn." OF MARTIGNY X. "Nor last, forget the faithful dogs ; but feed With fattening whey the Mastiff's generous breed, And Spartan race, who, for the fold's relief, Will prosecute with cries the mighty thief, Repulse the prowling wolf, and hold at bay The mountain robbers rushing to their prey." VIRGIL GEORG. Dryderis translation. EMEMBER," said my companion, "that if 1 \ heirs of such ancestors, and getting some such great opportunites, yet Maria and I were real shepherdesses from our birth brought up with the flocks, and more intimately still with our dogs. So that I must say something of these, since they came to play a much larger part with our own destiny than with that of the flocks. "The first which I can remember was dear old Vigilo. He was a large, white, thoroughbred Calabrian sheep-dog, and was always with us children. While we were little, as soon as I can remember, Mother used, in summer, to take him and us with her to the upper pastures around and beyond the Prati [meadows] to tend the sheep 85 THE TWIN SISTERS during the day, and, at nightfall, he drove them home. The outgo in the morning was commonly without difficulty, but often the return was not so. In fact, in this matter without him we should have been helpless. " Babbo, having released our five or six goats with a bell on the neck of each, to take care of themselves on the rocks and steeper mountain- sides during the day, was busy with the mules in the fields or in the forest, or in going to the markets. On our return, we commonly found him at home ready to receive the sheep ; and while he milked them (with mother's help and often with mine), the dog went after the goats. They, especially if the kids had been kept in the fold, were usually not very far away, and in a short time, also, came trooping into their pen, to be milked and protected for the night." Being much more concerned to get on in the story than to know the particulars about sheep or goats or even dogs, I should have felt impatient under so many details, if I had not already seen that she was unlikely to waste any words on mat- ters not intimately connected with herself, and necessary for understanding what else she had to say. But I was not conscious of feeling, much less of showing, any sign of uneasiness at the drift of her discourse. Still, something of the 86 OF MARTIGNY sort must have appeared on my countenance or in my manner ; for, stopping in the chain of her narrative, she said : " It is true that it is a common thing for Alpine shepherds and herdsmen more especially in the Eastern Alps, where more cows are kept to send away the flocks and herds, often for a whole summer, among the upper valleys. I have known a young girl like me go with them, only with a a dog, and not return from early summer till the the frosts and snows of autumn drove her home. " They build a hut for her there, and she milks night and morning, and makes butter and cheese during the day, and pens the creatures at night. Her brothers, and often other young men, visit her every week or two, commonly of a Sunday. They go with the mules and carry to her loaves of bread, possibly some berries which grow in the lower valleys, sometimes a jug of broth, or part of a boiled fowl, or piece of mutton. They spend the day chatting, helping her in some bit of heavier labor, eating their simple dinner with her at noon, and at evening they return carrying with them the accumulation of butter and cheese to be marketed by the Babbo, or added to the stock in the buttery at home." ' But the long week through ! ' I could n't help but exclaim, ' and the loneliness ! ' 87 THE TWIN SISTERS " To be sure," she said, " if she were a giddy thing, or had nothing better than thinking her own foolish thoughts to do; and even so, loneli- ness is but one of the many dispiaceri [unpleasant- nesses] that must be endured in a life of poverty and toil. But work is a great alleviation of it. To be busy with hands and thoughts upon neces- sary or useful things makes the hours fly swiftly; and to see what has been accomplished at night- fall, or at the week's end, to an earnest person is a great reward." ' No doubt this is true, and the remark does you honor, Signorina ; but still that sentiment is, I think, not so common among the young as among older persons, and grows with our years.' " Signore, you are a man. Pardon me, if I tell you that women, young and old of course I speak only of those I know French and Italian women are more earnest and take life more seriously than the men." ' I never thought of it before, but a moment's reflection makes me think you are right, Signorina' " Si, Signore, the more you reflect on it, and the more you come to know of the Italian women especially, and indeed of French women, too, the more clearly and certainly you will see that it is so. We have, alas, too many careless men, but the careless woman is an exception. 88 OF MARTIGNY ' So far as my knowledge of the people of France and of Italy goes, I believe, Signorina, you are right. But connected with the loneliness I spoke of, there are dangers. What of the wolves ? and, worse than all, of the human . . . " We never knew or heard of any bad acci- dent happening to such a girl there. Around the great sheep-yard in which the hut stands the men make a fence of rocks or logs meant to be high enough and strong enough to keep out wolves and robbers at night. At all events, the dog will give notice of their coming, and she has a gun always loaded and a long sharp knife. Between them the wolf does not often come a second time for the best of all reasons; and a robber (if there were any hereabout) knows the Italian woman too well not to think three times before provoking her last resort. " But Babbo did n't and could n't use this plan. Our Upper Meadow was not so far away as to make a night stay necessary. Then, our pastures were small and scattered; so that there was no convenient common center for them, and not one nor two huts would have answered for them all. Even otherwise, Babbo would never have con- sented to the exposure. His hereditary pride forbade it. 89 THE TWIN SISTERS XL " Go abroad to hear news of home." OLD PROVERB. A FTER four years, the longing to revisit l\ dear Mother's grave had become so strong in all our three hearts, that Babbo took us there. It was early in the month of September. The expense by diligence for 500 chilometri we were unable to bear. We went on foot, carrying the greater part of our food with us ; and it was for us a nine-days journey. " We renewed the cross and wreaths and rebuilt the mound, and the season now permitting, we planted violets on it. " It was a great satisfaction to be there again and to do this. We grieved no longer as children. We knelt together around the grave and recited prayers for the repose of her dear spirit. Then, much comforted, though in quiet sadness, we started, on the third day after our arrival, upon our return. 90 OF MARTIGXY " But, beyond this mournful satisfaction, the visit was remarkable for revealing some very tender memories, and, to us children, some very interesting incidents in the lives of our parents, of which we had never before heard ; and now was cleared up for us a romantic mystery which had always hung around the name ' Cecilia ' (which was the second of my baptismal names, the first being that of my Mother), but, often as we had put the question, never before could we get it satisfactorily answered. Sometimes dear Mother had seemed to be beginning an explanation, when a look from Babbo made her silent. Now we heard it all, and wondered and rejoiced and pitied and wept. "Among the changes which four years had wrought at the Convent, was the passing away of the abbess whom we learned to know, and whose so tender kindness we enjoyed with wonder on our former visit. " She was now lying in the Campo Santo and not two steps from dear Mother's grave. It was, in fact, the nearest available space except that next dear Mother, bought and reserved for Babbo when his hour shall have come. And when that shall be, he will be awaiting the great sunrise with dear Mother on his left side, as they stood at the altar, and the good, kind abbess on his right. 91 THE TWIN SISTERS The abbess herself chose and secured this spot for herself immediately after dear Mother had been laid to her last rest. The mound was only distinguished now by a frail cross marked in black letters : SORELLA AGATA [sister Agatha]. " Our first wonder was why she should be laid, from choice, just there. The next was to see the inscription in Italian, instead of the language of the country, and especially of the Convent. This certainly showed that she was of Italian blood, and of a patriotism that could not bear to be sepa- rated forever from her dear patria not even by a foreign word over her body after her spirit was in Paradiso. " But the third and the greatest wonder of all was to see that her departure a stranger to him, so far as we knew should make our Babbo so very, very sad. For, when he first discovered the grave, he uncovered and bowed his dear white head, and kneeling before that little rude cross, whispered some prayers while big tears ran across his cheeks and dropped upon the ground. " Another thing that we wondered at for a mo- ment was, that there was no date on the cross. But we presently remembered that on our former visit, when we happened to ask one of the sisters how long she had been in the convent, or how Q2 OF MAR TIG NY long she had lived the religious and secluded life, we were astonished to hear her say 'she did not know.' And, not daring to press the question, nor being willing to show our surprise to the good sister, we reserved our enquiry for our even- ing talk and the teaching of the kind abbess, when we should be alone with her in her room. " Her answer, though it met the case exactly, was new and strange to us. For she said : ' We keep no memory of years. These belong to us no longer. Time measured by sun and moon with us is no more. Our existence is merged in God. Eternity with us is begun. The past is forgotten ; and there are no mile-posts on the road in the endless future.' ' Grazie a Dio' [thank God], she added, with a soft, sweet sigh. " Babbo also caused a heavy cross, exactly like dear Mother's, to be put in place of the frail board that was there, and to be marked below the sister- name : Her name in the world was CECILIA MARIA ELIA ATTILIO. Loveliest of the Lo~cely. F. O. " Then we wondered still more, and most of all, how he had known her worldly name. "When we returned to the convent for the night, the new abbess called us to her own room 93 THE TWIN SISTERS and conversed with us till the early hour of retir- ing came. Her manner was very gentle, and she asked us many things about both our secular and our religious life more especially, if we had ever contemplated leaving the vanities and sins of the world and becoming religieuses. " She told us then that the late abbess had left a written request that, if ever we came there again (as she expected one day we would, to re- visit our mother's grave), we should be received 'with especial kindness and consideration.' These were her own words. " The abbess thought from this that perhaps, on our former visit, we had talked with her about taking the vail. The more so, since she had made no such request for any others, though many vis- ited there ; and even some of these were rich. " We explained that we were the stay and com- fort of our Babbo, most of all since our Mother's departure ; and frankly confessed that we hoped one day, a great while in the future, to have hus- bands and children. " To this she replied with a sigh, ' So have many, many before you, and found the men untrue, and themselves deserted and broken-hearted ; and then fled from a wicked and vexing world to a pure and peaceful life of religion, and found in the Blessed Saviour a lover who will not deceive, 94 OF MARTIGXY and in Holy Church a refuge where the misfor- tunes of this world cannot reach. 'But,' she added, after a moment, with a sad emphasis, ' this life is not for all alas ! it is not suited for all. Be sure of yourselves be sure, mademoiselles, before you leave all worldly hopes behind.' As she uttered these last words, we saw her lips quiver and tears twinkle in the corners of her eyes. " I saw tears standing in Maria's eyes, and felt them starting in my own as I looked into the sweet, sad face of the abbess, and said in my thoughts, 'Who knows what heart-sorrow you have had, and whether, perhaps, too late, you found you had mistaken your refuge ? ' But that secret we never knew. u The third day after our arrival we started early on our return. We had left our home on a Monday and with our utmost endeavor had barely reached Avignon on Saturday evening, had been lodged over the Sunday at the Convent de S u . Ursule, and had arrived at our destination in Nismes on Monday evening. So that it was Thursday when we set out to return and could only reach Grenoble on Saturday evening. We found the usual welcome at the Convent S". Marie and passed the Sunday there. " Babbo would not under any circumstances less 95 THE TWIN SISTERS than imperative, continue our journey on Sunday, since he was always more careful than many are in the observance of the day; but now, with all our hearts so serious with fresh thoughts of dear Mother in Paradiso and our bodies so fatigued by travel, we were but too glad of the occasion to rest and hear high Mass with the heavenly music at the Cathedral. "The day was fine, and we did not return directly from the Cathedral to the Convent on the other side of the /sere, but after Mass saun- tered away from the church into the Cimetiere St. Roch. Here we spent a long while, wandering among the tombs and reading so many strange names, so many curious inscriptions, and some very touching ones, which made us feel what a world of sorrow this is, and in every country alike. "As the hours wore on, we withdrew to the adjoining Promenade de /' lie Verte and sat in the shade of those grand old trees, eating the light lunch which the kind nuns had provided and endeavoring to console one another with our conversation. " That morning, before Babbo came to the Con- vent for us (for he lodged with an acquaintance of his boyhood, near the swimming school, on the other side of the river and of the town), Maria 96 OF MARTIGNY and I had agreed to ask him about that name ' Cecilia ' which had been a mystery to us all our lives why it was put into my name, since we had no relations called so how he had known that it belonged to sister Agata in short, to tell us the whole story, while we had leisure, and were in a mood to hear it and to be comforted by it. For that there was a story we had long been sure from snatches of remarks we had heard between Babbo and dear Mother even from our infancy; and still more so by what we had seen and heard on this visit. " During our lunch I proposed the question to Babbo and Maria pressed it in her own gentle way. Taken by surprise, he at first tried feebly to escape it, saying : 'Why, children, I never thought it would be to the honor or benefit of anybody to rake up old follies of bygone days, but to let the dead past be buried decently and forever.' " But Marias great soft eyes looking so plead- ingly into his he could not resist, and presently he said: ' How can I, dear children, deny you any pleasure that is in my power ? and at best you have so little ! ' ' We have you, Babbo dear, and that is every- thing,' we both cried in one breath. 97 THE TWIN SISTERS ' You are angels from heaven,' he said with a tender trembling in his voice, ' but I don't know if this knowledge will make you happier.' Then, after a little pause, he began The Story of CECILIA ATTILIO. ' Forty-five years ago Cecilia Attilio was a fan- ciulla like you. Her father, Roberto, possessed a little property on the edge of the Val d' Aosta, ten or twelve chilometri from the Little St. Bernard. He used often to come to Aosta with the product of his garden and orchard and a patch of chest- nut and walnut forest, and on days of the fair he often had a baracca [stall or booth of boards or cloth or both] where his pretty daughter sold cakes and honey and milk and walnuts and boiled chestnuts and the like. ' There was always a crowd around this booth who paid their money quite as much for the pleasure of talking with her and of being served in her sweet wonderful ways which made the men frantic to take some little playful liberties with her, as they used to do with many of the handsome girls at the fair, but which she never for an instant allowed to anyone. ' She was always light-hearted and bright as the morning, but never foolishly frolicsome. She came to know hundreds of young fellows and older ones from all the country round; and when OF MARTIGNY she met them again after the year or six months, since the last fair, she would recognize each one so sweetly and enquire after their health and luck in their affairs (their sheep, or cattle, or vines, or silk cocoons, etc.), and even in some cases, where she knew it would please, after the betrothed (whose existence she only conjectured), and then would exult with the accepted and con- dole so comfortingly and inspiringly with the jilted "T is a shame for such a nice fellow as you ! but never mind, there 's a much pret- tier and better fanciullettina [sweet, pretty little maiden] waiting eagerly for you in her hiding- place hunt her up at once and come to me laughing next fair. ' Or, as she handed the glass to some demure lad, ' Well my fine fellow, how tall you are grow- ing ! I think you Ve gone up half-a-span since the last fair there must be a Signorinetta in the case by this time I know I congratulate you both.' Or to a rough, sturdy contadino [country ' chap '] with a broad-brimmed slouched hat, badly banged and brim turned up in front, holding a long, heavy whip stifly upright a la shoulder arms, ' Ecco, il mio padrone ! [Well done ! here is my honorable landed proprietor] I hear you are growing rich well, I'm glad of it you deserve it all only do n't get proud, and pity the poor ! ' 99 THE TWIN SISTERS ' Or to one newly married (of whom she knew nothing, but only guessed), ' Is it a bambino [boy- baby] Michele ? kiss him for me does he look grand like you ? or like his beautiful mother ? ' ' And so on and on, something different to each, always nice and pleasant to the happy, and always hitting the mark. 'Or if it were one whom she knew to have been struck by misfortune, or to be in trouble of any kind, she had a soft mournful word that went straight as an arrow carrying a thrill of sweet comfort to his heart; and as she spoke, her beau- tiful lips would tremble, and often a tear would start in the corners of her great lustrous eyes. ' In short, no matter who he was, or what joy's or sorrows he carried in his heart, the neighbor- hood of Cecilia's booth was always the pleasantest spot in all the fair. ' She and I used to meet regularly at the fair and often at other times from the time that I was twelve and she two years younger. At this early age, while our two fathers were busy, each with his own affairs in the market, we sometimes strayed together along the great central street looking at the shops; sometimes we wandered into the suburbs and gazed with wonder and childish remarks on the ancient wall and tower and the remains of old Roman days; or romped OF MARTIGNY for wild flowers in the meadows on the banks of the Dora-baltea. ' In many ways, as the years went on, we came to know each other so very well. We called our- selves by our Christian names, and " gave the tu to each other." I0 'She grew to be strangely beautiful. Her figure was perfect, her step as light as a ga- zelle. Her features had no irregularity, yet did not remind me of any other person. The quint- essence of sweetness lay upon her lips, and her skin wore the flush of roses reflected on snow. ' But it was, I think, the fiery softness of her coal-black eyes, coupled with her flaxen hair (which, when unbound, flowed in native ringlets far below her knees) a combination so rare as almost to be an unheard-of thing which so im- measurably exalted her beauty and distinguished her from every other woman I have ever seen ; and wherever she went, drew upon her the gaze of every eye. ' Of course, she began to have many and many admirers ; and, in her circumstances, it could not fail that she should be more or less exposed to designing and wicked approaches. But the breath of flattery passed over her like the blasts of win- ter over the drifts of snow. She seemed both un- conscious and careless of her marvelous loveli- THE TWIN SISTERS ness, and advances of that sort were as ineffect- ual as efforts to climb Mons Buet in icy December. ' But, as I grew older and came to know more and more of the world, she was more and more in my thoughts, and I became more and more anx- iously concerned for her safety. ' One day, during the time of the fair, when I was nineteen and she seventeen, it chanced, as had often happened before, that I had a baracca beside hers. We had met and talked together, for the snatch of a moment, at least, almost every hour, during the three days of the fair. It was early afternoon of the last day, when the scirocco sprung up with a sudden gust and whirlwind, which, in a moment, overturned both her booth and mine in a mingled heap of indescribable confusion. ' Happily, no one was injured. But I saw her falling, through fright and by the prodigious force of the wind. I leaped from my own tot- tering booth, and, seizing her in my arms, carried her to a place of safety. An instant later a heavy board fell upon the place where her head would have been. 'The gust was soon over. I helped restore her effects to order. Her sweet voice filled my ears with thanks and praises, till my soul was overflowing with emotion such as I never felt OF MARTIGNY before. She seemed to me an angel of heaven. She did not seem heavy in my arms ; but then and afterward, during the remainder of the day, I trembled from head to foot, as if I had been over-strained with too great a lift ; and the feel- ing of having her in my arms continued for sev- eral hours. ' That evening, when we all were packed and on the point of starting for our homes, feeling as if it would kill me to let her go out of my sight, I ran up to take leave of her, as on such occasions I always did, but instead of the usual "a rivederci" [good-bye till we meet again], I brought her hand (which trembled more than mine) to my lips and said, " io f' amo, to f adore!" [I love you, I adore you]. 'God only knew what happened. Her sweet countenance instantly seemed to change to an- ger. Her rosy color fled, and her face became snowy white. She dropped my hand without a word and ran from me. ' I know not how I reached home. I ex- pected my vitals would burst in my bosom from the thundering convulsions there, I knew not whether of rage or despair. ' After all these years of encouraged love, all these years of silent yet real and accepted heart-worship had I at last been jilted ? jilted 103 THE TWIN SISTERS by her ? by Cecilia ? the angel ? nearest of mortal women to the Madonna in heaven ? ' Was is possible that she cared nothing for my love ? despised the adoration of my soul ? hated my presence? wished me out of her sight ? ' Must I believe could I believe that she had been deceiving me all these years? Had it not been, in a manner, taken for granted that we should one day belong to each other? What had appeared to change it now ? Was there, per- haps, somebody else in sight ? Was her so rare beauty a fortune too big to share it with a mere shepherd? no matter what blood ran in his veins ? or oh Hell ! had its market value become too apparent not to refuse to sell it for less than a mountain of ready cash ! Could my Cecilia be a flirt a false coquette ? I could not believe it but I must believe it !' ' Like one worn out with labor, or smitten by disease, I barely found my way with difficulty to my bed. For many nights and days I neither slept nor received nourishment. My Mother (may Iddio and our Lady shed light and rest upon her spirit !) nursed me incessantly in every best way her love could invent. She made no trouble- some inquiries. It was not her way. Whether she suspected the true cause of my malady, I 104 OF MARTIGNY never knew. But one may suffer much from this disorder and live. It was so with me. My distress was extreme. Life lost its charm for me. Hope was dead in my breast. I was ready to die. Yet I lived. By slow degrees my strength returned. Again I slept and ate and worked. Still, it is true, like those diseases which can visit a man but once, and appear to consume from his constitution the aliment on which they feed, since the experience of that tremendous inflammation, I have never been quite the same. That unspeak- able glamour of love never returned to me. 'Meantime, while this agonizing transforma- tion was going forward in my soul, and my sad- ness and despair were subsiding more and more, to eventuate in a less jubilant, certainly, yet not less real and worthy life, there came a visitor to our home. My orphan half-cousin, Marthe Helene Marie Manivet from Nismes, came to my Mother, her only surviving aunt, and in fact only near relation in any degree, to spend an indefinite time. She had a little property in the Rente [national loan] but no home; and my Mother, as her nearest of kin, and with her mother-heart always open, invited her to come to us. 'You know the result for me. I loved again. Not with the frenzy of amorous madness. That, as I have said, was for me forever impossible, 105 THE TWIN SISTERS but a soft and peaceful flame was kindled in both our souls. A sober and steady affection, built on a true and firm friendship and an ever-growing mutual esteem, united our humble and chequered lives in one happy current, till it was struck by the Great Divider; and the chief comfort of my life now lies in looking forward to the reunion never again to be broken on the other side. 'But what of Cecilia? Ah, children, this is the cap-stone of my monumental grief. I was consoled in my misery, but not to the degree of being willing to revisit Aosta the field of my misfortune for many months. 'I was at length betrothed and I felt no de- sire to meet Cecilia again. In fact, my prevail- ing sentiment was decidedly the opposite. There were, however, some reasons which occasionally shook my resolve to avoid her forever. My anger at my assumed injury had gradually passed away, I was contented, why should I retain a grudge ? Besides, though perhaps not meaning so, had she not thrown into my arms a prize ? 'During these months, after my perturbation had passed away, as I calmly reviewed these events, my conduct came up to me often in a ridiculous light, and more than once I caught myself laughing aloud at my folly. Once this laughter in a dream awaked me from sleep. 106 OF MARTIGNY 'At last, one day it was suddenly borne in upon me, like a flash of lightning, What if it is / who have wronged her ? Had I not acted wholly on conjecture, and that most hastily taken up ? Was not my only ground, my own interpretation of her action one single act? Must I not admit that a different interpretation, if not probable, was, at the least, possible ? Had I not cut off all opportunity from her to explain? Perhaps an explanation would have healed my wounded self- love, if it did not satisfy my desires, and have saved my crimination of her, whom, surely, I would always wish to think incapable of wrong doing to me, or to any one. ' Remember, children, that I was then calm and happy in my love and betrothal of your lovely and blessed Mother. God forbid that I should ever say or think anything but thankfulness that His gracious Providence led her and not another to my heart and my home. But, I say, when the perturbation of my mind and heart was over, and I was safely moored in a sacred and happy haven of love, a desire arose to see Cecilia once mor%, and tell her of my new-found joy. ' If she had never felt for me (as I had, till the fatal day, wrongly supposed) the same passion which I felt for her ; and if, as I now hoped, she felt kindly toward me, at least as an intimate 107 THE TWIN SISTERS friend and playmate of childhood, I thought it would be an agreeable thing to her to meet me again and hear my story, and congratulate me on my fortune. 'Full of this thought, which, however, I con- cealed in my own bosom, at the time of the August fair I went again to Aosta and sought for the Attilio booth. I could not discover it, and I wondered at this. But it was still early in the first day. I conjectured that some hin- drance had occurred that would be removed, and the stall would appear before the evening. It did not appear that day, and I went home with my errand unaccomplished. ' I could not rest satisfied, however. There was now another problem to solve. Some impor- tant change I felt sure had occurred. Perhaps she was married perhaps to some rich man, or nobleman or in some other way had sold her glorious beauty and gone God knows where, but probably never to meet my eyes again. ' I was too much interested to abandon my pflrpose, and on the following day, I was there again making the same search. Hour after hour I moved among the crowded stalls, and once and again had perambulated the principal street of the town, and peered into every lane and shop ; but it was in vain. 1 08 AOSTA. PRIORY OF S. ORSO. OF MARTIGNY ' The forenoon was already nearly passed. I had visited every quarter and tried every means of search in my power ; but all without success. I had left the market-place and sauntered into the suburbs, meditating whether I would not give up the bootless chase and return home. As I approached the old tower, accidentally lift- ing my eyes, I saw before me a female figure which seemed to have issued from the Priory of S. Or so. ' Of course, my heart instantly throbbed with a new excitement. I seemed to recognize the figure as that of her whom I sought. She was moving slowly from me. There was the slender height, the fine proportions, the step no, the step was not hers. The grace, the life, the elas- ticity, so marked in her I sought, were not here. Then, as I came nearer, I observed that the dress was black a color I had never seen her wear. But, coming nearer still, I found a surer test. The hair was black, or else it had been drawn up close under a black silk cap. It- was useless to follow further, and, under some hidden impulse, I changed the direction of my steps, and wan- dered to the south gate and the tower of Brama- fam of uncanny memory. 11 ' I was resolved now to give up all further pur- suit ; and started by the nearest course for the 109 THE TWIN SISTERS highway and my return home. I had reached the crumbling walls of the ancient Teatro and the arcades of the Anfiteatro, and, making an abrupt turn to the right, I came suddenly face to face with the slender black figure, standing under an umbrella to shield her from the August sun ; and, at the instant that this vision met my eyes, a little scream smote my ears : " Mio Iddio in Cielo ! Filippo Ombrosini ! " ' I stopped, stunned as if struck by a thunder- bolt. That voice ! yes. Those eyes ! Ah, yes, their own indescribable languishing fire. That heavenly face! yes, but as white as the sheeted snow, only, for the moment, by the shock of surprise, tinged on the cheeks with just a reflection of the flush of dawn. ' All else, how changed ! The plump round- ness gone. The bones of the face and neck and hands projecting as from a skeleton. The whole figure so thin that the garments hung as on a skeleton indeed. ' I did not and could not speak ; nor did she utter another word. But, after a moment of silent gaze it seemed an eternity to me beckoning me with her free hand to follow, she turned and led me to the further side of a grove of aged chestnuts, which threw a deep shade over some moss-covered rocks on the OF MARTIGNY brink of a rattling brook which had almost ended its noisy, hasty chase to the Dora-baltea. 'Nature had prepared this retreat it was near the half -buried old Roman Bridge as if arrang- ing it especially for us. Two rustic armchairs, formed by conspiring rocks and roots, stood vis a vis. The spot was in full view of the great high- way, and within hearing of the hum of the busy fair ; yet it was sufficiently apart for the freest communications, without fear of disturbance or eavesdropping. She threw herself hastily into one of these seats. I sank mechanically and silently into the other. The little brook rippled and danced as in mockery of me. 'She had not spoken, and for a little space did not speak nor raise her eyes from her lap, where her fingers were toying nervously with the handle of her sunshade. 'Suddenly she raised those great eyes full of awful love and looked squarely into mine, with a glance that sent icy chills thrilling up and down my spinal marrow, and said with a voice as clear as the Ave Maria bell on that Convent of S*. Maria, yet that trembled and hesitated on every word : " So you did not love me ! you you you deceived me ! " ' I wished to say something, I do n't know, and I believe I did n't then know what, but a lump THE TWIN SISTERS swelled suddenly in my throat and made it im- possible. But she, seeing me trying to speak, sig- naled to me to be silent and went on: " Look at me, Filippo ! See what the fever has left me ! " Here she snatched off the black cap from her head. " Oh, mio Iddio ! " I threw up my hands and cried, for there was n't a hair visi- ble on her snow-white, shiny scalp ! 'I did not try to say more, but sat in silent agony, my eyes riveted on that horrible sight. She went on pausing a good while between her sentences : " Filippo Ombrosini, were we not children to- gether ? . . . Did we not chase one another through the streets of the fair ? . . . Did we not pelt one another with wild flowers in the meadows? . . . When I fell, who but my Filippo picked me up ... lifted me so gently . . . wiped the soil from my brow with the petals of wild roses . . . and . . . and kissed the spot to make it well ? " ' Here she paused, replaced the cap, and hid her face in her hands. I dared not speak, nor lift my eyes. For, not being able to bear her glance, I had dropped my eyes, at the first, on the ground, and my heart fluttered and pounded my side, like the windmills of Venezia in the gusts of Novem- ber. All was still again for a long, long time, which seemed to me would never end. 112 OF MARTIGNY \ 'At last she went on again: "As we grew older, how thoughtful you were of me how modest how careful how helpful. Then, that dreadful day when the Scirocco blew and you your arms carried me away to safety. Oh, how how grateful I I felt to you I thought I thought I I belonged I belonged to to you. Oh, how afraid I was afraid I should say should say say something some- thing a maiden a maiden must n't say. And that evening that evening when the great moon was looking down on us and and you told me told me and and my heart my heart was ready was ready to burst and and I was I was so frightened and and turned turned a little a little away and and I thought I thought you you would would follow and and claim and claim and take your rights and and you you did n't did n't love me truly and have, have loved another so soon oh, so soon ! and are are betrothed yes, are betrothed I have heard of it are betrothed yes, betrothed forever yes, forever and ever oh, oh ! what to a man to a man, is a woman's heart? a woman's heart? a woman's a woman's heart? oh, oh, oh!" Then she broke down in hysterical sobs. "3 THE TWIN SISTERS ' The truth was flashed upon me. How could I ever have distrusted her so ? At all events, how could I have been such a coward, not to take her by force? to take my kingdom of heaven by violence ? I knew not what to say, or do. In fact, there was nothing for me to say or do, but to endure the torture of conscious guilt in shame and in silence. ' " / had not loved her ! " Good Heavens ! God knows I had loved her with all the sentiments of my soul and all the energies of my body that my mind and heart, entendered by the truest friendship, and the most unbounded es- teem, were consuming in the fiercest flame of youthful passion. Not love her! To save her from a pang, or to gratify her most whimsical wish, I would have risked my life in a moment yes, I would have sold it, without a moment's hesitation. ' Yet I dared not I must not tell her this and how I had mistaken, in my mad love, the meaning of her conduct. The next thing would be to say I was sorry ; and that, at all hazards and in any event, I must not do. It would be treason to your loving and trusting mother, betrothed by my solemn words, to say so, or to allow myself for one moment to feel so. ' But what had I done ! What an innocent 114 OF MARTIGNY heart I had shamefully broken ! What an angel life I had damnably murdered ! The remorse of the Inferno rolled into my bosom. I felt the pangs and the desperation of hell in my soul. And the bitterest part of the bitterness was that I knew, I felt that I deserved it all. Yes, children, in all my happy life with your blessed mother, here has been a wound in my heart that never has healed. I have tasted the tor- ture of the "undying worm." ' Oh, during those moments, while I sat under her stinging words, how gladly would I have thrown myself at her feet ! how gladly would I have kissed the lowest hem of her garments ! Or, rather, what peerless joy it would have been to snatch her up in my arms and soothe her like an infant ! But alas, alas, I could not, I must not show a sign of sorrow, nor even of pity. It would, in a moment, have hurled me into the whirlpool of actual infidelity to your mother. ' I dared not remain a moment longer in her presence. God only knows what would have happened five minutes later. With a sudden spring, I rose and fled from her throwing back, however, over my shoulder, these three words: "/ did love you. / misunderstood your ac- tions. / have got hell in my soul!" "5 THE TWIN SISTERS ' I staggered home in the utmost anguish. My distress was far greater now than when I last passed over this track on my former sad return. Then I felt innocent, though injured. Now I knew and felt that I was a criminal. Every rock and bush at the roadside seemed con- scious of my baseness and to cry out against me. Nor could I do anything to atone for my fault. I must carry my guilt through life. Yes, I must carry it into the other world and how could I bear to meet her there ? 'It aggravated my anguish, if that were possi- ble, that I must bear it in secrecy and alone. For I dared not tell the facts to my mother, much less to my betrothed. The burden was again too much for my strength; and from the hour I entered my chamber, it was a month before I came out to breathe again the free air of heaven. ' Meantime my sufferings and the apparent danger that my reason would be unhinged, brought our whole family into great distress. My mother was nearly prostrated under her double anxiety not only for her son but as well for the dear girl whose prospects in life were thus balancing between hope and despair. 'As I afterwards learned from your mother, the two women dimly but surely divined the true cause of the mysterious malady by which I 116 OF MARTIGNY had been twice brought so low, having been each time attacked immediately upon a return from the fair at Aosta. Many private consulta- tions on the matter were held by them; and it was finally resolved that woman's tact should probe it to the bottom. 'This was accomplished. So skillfully was it done by masked approaches chiefly while the two alternated at the bedside, fanning me during the hot afternoons that I promised to tell my betrothed the whole story. This I did one Sun- day afternoon while my Babbo and Mother were not yet returned from the Mass at Martigny. 1 Did the dear girl upbraid me ? Did she load me with accusations of my guilt and folly? That angel ? No ! On the contrary, she entered into my trouble even as her own. She took part of the distress upon her own heart; and so helped me to bear my load. ' It was at her suggestion that I wrote a letter to Cecilia, not so much to exonerate myself as to do all that a craving of her Christian pardon for my foolish and guilty mistake, and the expression of utmost devotion to her service and sincerest interest in all her future, could do to soothe and cure her bruised heart. Much, in fact, of that letter was the dictation of my betrothed a dear woman's heart striving to console another dear "7 THE TWIN SISTERS woman's heart, with her profoundest sympathy and tenderest affection. Truly, they both were angelic souls. ' I received after many months, from the Con- vent of the Ursuline in Aosta, a brief but most Christian reply. " She was already dead to the world; and lived now only as Sister Agata." There were no accusations, in fact there was no discussion of her troubles. " The frankness of my letter comforted her. All was a leading of Providence. It was her duty and she hoped ever to make it her joy to delight in His will. My happiness was now her only earthly longing." ' " Her father's death before our last meeting had been the cause of the black dress which I saw her in; and which now she should never lay aside. Her little property she had given to the Convent. She made one request that after our marriage my wife might be brought to see her through the bars, and afterwards, that she might be permitted to see our children, and lay her hand on the head of each with her blessing." Her removal to another convent soon after made it impossible to gratify this wish. ' I have never told you, for I could not before, without explanations which I could not give, why the body of your mother lay during the night in the Chapel of the Convent, rather than in some 118 OF MAR TIG NY Church nearer the Campo Santo; and that a requiem was sung there by the nuns, while you and Maria were asleep.' " Hardly was this story done, while we were all three in tears, that Maria and I sprang up, and throwing our arms together around dear Babbos neck, sobbed for some minutes in silence. We wept on, without another word, most of the way back to the Convent. On the morrow, we started early to finish our return." VIGILO OMBROSINI. 119 THE TWIN SISTERS XII. "Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and whether the spirit of the beast goeth downward to the earth ? BIBLE (Revised Version), ECCL. iii, 21. <( A RRIVED at home, no Vigilo was lying be- t\ fore the door, but we found him on a mat in the kitchen partly covered with rags. He faintly wagged his tail and turned his languid eyes towards us as we entered. Maria and I bestowed on him the gentlest caresses, and did for him everything that could be done, but in two days he died. " This was one cost of our visit to dear Mother's grave ; and it, in turn, became again the link that drew upon us the dreadfulest grief of all. " We had been absent nearly three weeks. Babbo had employed a friendly old shepherd (who lived two hours from us, having a married son who could care for their own flock) to stay in our house and look after our affairs while we should be away. Age had crippled him so that the active care of the flocks rested mainly upon the poor dog. He was a noble fellow of a noble breed. OF MARTIGNY He seemed to understand and rise to the respon- sibility of the situation, and it was fidelity in the line of duty that finally cost him his life. " Being mostly alone with the sheep during the day, just what his experiences with them were, we do not know. But the old man said that on the second day the dog came in at night behind the flock with bloody ears and limping on one leg. All went well, however, till the evening be- fore our arrival, when there was trouble with a goat which had lost her kid and refused to be put into the pen. The old man was not active enough to give the dog much assistance. She finally leaped high in the air and shot like an arrow far afield. Vigilo was soon in front of her, however; and when she tried the same tactics again, she found the dog too quick for her. Their breasts struck together with a powerful shock ; but the goat being heavier than the dog, or standing on higher ground, the blow which threw her back- ward landed him on the edge of a loose bowlder which was balanced on the verge of a chasm. His weight and the shock dislodged the bowlder, which fell with him crushing him horribly. " It was in a grave near the door that we bur- ied this dear companion of our infancy with tears of real sorrow. Before anything was put to mark the spot, Maria and I often whispered together 121 THE TWIN SISTERS some strange thoughts you and other people may think them strange may be they were foolish but they were real to us. m "We could n't help connecting together our two great sorrows; and the more especially since one was at least the indirect cause of the other. There was a cross on one grave, why not would it be wrong to put one on the other ? Then the whole mystery came up to our minds. Do the dumb animals commit sin ? Certainly some seem to be very malicious and naughty, and others as benevolent and good. If not, why do they suffer ? If they do, did n't perhaps the Great Sacrifice suf- fice and atone for them, too, especially if they try to be faithful and good, as Vigilo did ? If so, what harm, or rather, how suitable to put over him the Great Sign ! But we did n't feel very sure of our ground ; and one day Babbo took out of the bed of the Drance a stone which we had often fancied looked much like Vigilo, as he used to lie crouched and sleeping on his paws, and brought and placed it on his grave. This became his monument ; but I have thought often and much about the other." OF MARTIGNY XIII. What if I choose to weep alone? For flowing tears are sweet Is not the secret pang my own ? The secret guerdon meet? 12 AFTER this introduction she had called it so of the parting with her canine friend, during some parts of which her lips quivered and her voice trembled, my fair companion became silent, changed her shoes into the other hand, then presently removed her hat and set the shoes deftly on her head, all without turning or alter- ing her gaze, which was fixed on the empty dis- tance ahead. I did not speak, for I seemed to see a shadow rising over her countenance which, like the black summer thunder-cloud, foretells a com- ing shower. I was not mistaken. The shower of tears came. Silently, but copiously, the drops fell upon a dress-front that rose spasmodically to meet them with very soft yet audible sighs. Silently we moved on for some minutes, I surely being unwilling, by a word or a look even, to in- 123 THE TWIN SISTERS fringe on this tribute to a sorrow still unknown to me. But I was not at ease. Much otherwise. My feelings, however, were confused. I dreaded that which I desired. For I was sure we were enter- ing now into the penumbra, at least, of that deep sorrow, the shadow of which hung so dark over her young life, and which she had been so back- ward to reveal. I was sure that before those eyes so steadily fixed on vacancy were passing shapes and doings which I was impatient to hear of, though I thought likely the recital would thrill me with a painful sympathy. I felt sure, however, of one thing, and I was much calmed and comforted by it; namely, that, whatever the source, her sorrow was not the fruit of vice or crime; that there was no illicit love in the story, no fruits of an unchaste passion, no vengeance wrought on a seducer, or traitor with dagger or pistol, etc., the everlasting staple of stories which in our day so many moral men and virtuous women strangely regale themselves with in secret. On the contrary, I was sure that the moral atmosphere about her was as pure as the clear, cool zephyr from the snowy top of the Jungfrau that was then playing with her unbound locks. In short, that the cause of her woe was of that class which may truly be called " an act of 124 OF MARTIGNY God," and justly claim the sympathy of every good man, and receive every consolation which the Church can offer, or Divine Revelation afford. Ere long her calmness returned. Her silent emotion had subsided. With bonnet swinging free on her arm, she quietly resumed: "It was in September that Vigilo died the month when JBabbo carried wood to the Hospice. He started early for the forest, loaded three mules two were our own and one was hired and arrived at the Hospice before noon. " He ate the luncheon (commonly a good piece of black bread and a nibble of goat-cheese), which he carried from home, and baited the mules with the bundle of hay which was tied on the top of the load of each; and after about two hours' rest, started on his return and was home again before dark. "One day while eating his luncheon in the cucina of the Hospice, as usual, he met there a young man from the Mantuan district who had brought up for the use of the monks some cases of choice wine. Divining from his accent whence he came, Babbo told him of our loss and enquired about the prospect of getting a dog of the Man- tuan breed. ' jBuon, buon per noi ! Benissimo per tutt' e due /' [capital, capital for us both] replied the young 125 THE TWIN SISTERS man. 'I have exactly the dog you need; and what is more, we are compelled to part with him.' 'Compelled to part with him ! ' interjected Babbo, ' has he ma'de some acquaintance that must be broken off ? ' ' No, nothing of the kind. He is the most orderly of animals.' ' Nor mastered and hurt some neighbor's dog?' ' No, sicuro, no ! We are too retired for that, and he never goes off the place.' ' Nor killed some nobleman's fox or boar mak- ing havoc among your vines ? ' ' He hasn't; for no such occasion has offered. I can't say what he would have done in such a case. He is a terrible fighter with wild beasts, and the most watchful and faithful of guardians when on duty.' ' And yet you will part with him ? ' ' We must. Mamma is dead, and mio Padre is too old to care for the sheep. I ' here he hesitated, Babbo said, and the color of his face came and went, but presently he went on, ' I have been conscripted, and shall be taken in two weeks into the barracks.' " Babbo, with his tender, fatherly heart, was so touched by his tones and manner that he forgot 126 OF MARTIGNY for the moment about the dog in his interest in the young man and replied: 'As the dependence of your father, have n't you good ground to press a claim for exemp- tion from the service ? ' ' Probably not, for, since Mamma is gone and we have a bit of property, and Padre is not con- fined to his bed ' ' But you might try ' 'If the cost were not so hard to bear, and the result so doubtful or hardly doubtful.' 'What, then, will you do? what is your plan ? ' ' There's but one course we can take. When I'm gone, the rents must be given up of the vineyard and pastures and everything but the cottage ; and Padre will have to live as carefully as he can on the little we 've laid by. It may last a year if there 's no rise in house rent or maccaroni. The war, they say 's likely to carry everything up.' 'What afterward?' ' I do n't know, if he lives, what will become of him unless to die allo spedale [in the hospital]. Here it is. Here it is. We would n't think of letting the dog go, if it were n't necessary to have the scudi for Padre to live on. For they are great friends; and Padre will be less safe and very 127 THE TWIN SISTERS lonely without him. But the dear brute must go, and we must find for him a good home. That is all we can do.' "The gentle manner and amiable face of our Babbo appeared to captivate the young man. He said that that day week he should g6 with wine to Martigny, and enquired if Babbo lived near his route. Babbo told him that we did ; and explained that there was at the roadside, opposite our home, a piccolo santuario delta Ma- donna [a little shrine of the madonna] which on that day would be decorated with fresh flowers. Babbo also requested him, if he felt so disposed, to bring the dog with him, for which, if we kept him, Babbo agreed to pay fifty scudi. " The young man having promised to be there with the dog at the appointed time, the con- versation turned to other matters and the busi- ness arrangement was not again referred to. " Another thing seemed to Maria and me ex- ceedingly strange and unaccountable. Babbo had not asked the name of the young man, nor told him his own. We were amazed at this, especially since it was so totally opposite to Babbo s usual scrupulously careful way. We could not and never did give ourselves a really satisfactory reason for it. But it seemed probable to us then and afterward, that Babbo was from the first 128 OF MARTIGNY smitten with such an admiration of him, and con- ceived such an unquestioning trust in him, so like an old and tried acquaintance, as not when in his presence, to think of his name. " But every way, the prospect of possessing the dog delighted us, and we were anxious that the young man should be so well pleased with us as to make the prospect a certainty. " Besides this, there was another very impor- tant element in our excitement which we did not confess even to our own hearts; and of which, probably, we were then really unconscious. This visit, though ostensibly and truly an affair of common business, would be a new adventure to Maria and me. " From the moment when Babbo came home with the news, our pulses quickened, our hearts pounded stronger and faster against our sides, and our breath sometimes seemed strangely choked. -Our fancy at once became busy in drawing a picture of the young man's looks. "That he was handsome was certain from Babbo 's description of his ' tall, straight figure, his abundant dark hair, his soft yet brilliant eyes, his broad shoulders, his deep chest, and his step as light and spry as a panther.' "That he was as brave and kind as he was strong, was plain enough, also, from the story 129 THE TWIN SISTERS which he told Babbo in explaining about the dog. 'About a year ago,' he said, 'three sheep had disappeared, one by one, from the flock in the mountain pasture, though they were always folded at nightfall and guarded by dogs during the day. No signs of wild beasts were apparent, and no unusual tracks of any kind had been left; but the sheep were never found. 'At last a strict watch was determined on. There was on one side, commanding a view of the pasture, an old shepherd's hut, no longer used, but built, as usual, in the shape of a long, low beehive of reeds and mud, just long enough and high enough for a man to stretch himself under, with his head at the opening which looked toward the valley. Throwing bushes over this opening to give the place still more the ap- pearance of disuse and neglect, the young man undertook to make a strict watch from this concealment till something should be discovered. ' Day after day and week after week passed by in constant watching, but without any important result. At last on the fourth week, one hot after- noon, when the flock was somewhat scattered, and individual sheep had strayed into the cooler nooks and shades of the hazel bushes and birches and projecting rocks, and when shepherds are 130 OF MARTIGNY more often inclined to be dozing, or at least neg- lectful, the dog, who had been quietly observing the sheep from his sentinel-post, in front of the bushes at the hut's mouth except that now and again he would dart off and drive in a sheep which was straying too far into some thicket or ravine, and then trot leisurely back and lay his great head down again on his paws came back from one of these sallies in a state of great ex- citement, looking wildly every way, now hold- ing his nose high up in the air, now coming and looking through the overspread bushes into his master's face with almost human enquiry, all the while emitting a low, savage growl. ' Nothing unusual was to be seen, and nothing heard, yet the shepherd knew too well the in- fallible instincts of the dog, not to be roused to the keenest suspicions. He immediately with- drew with the dog, in the utmost silence, to a place among the rocks, where, without being seen below, he could overlook every part of the flock. For a considerable time nothing ap- peared, though the dog could in no way be pacified. He looked constantly into his mas- tter's face, and trembled in every limb. 'At last a slight rustle was audible, as if in some thicket not far away. Still for some minutes nothing could be seen. Later a clump THE TWIN SISTERS of hazel bushes seemed agitated by the wind, though there was not a zephyr blowing. The next minute, surely enough, the expected game hove in sight. Creeping on all fours towards a fine buck that lay quietly chewing the cud 'under a shelving rock, came slowly on a huge specimen of the mountain robber. ' He was bareheaded, and having stripped him- self for work by throwing off his raw sheepskin coat, he was naked to the waist. The enormous muscles of his great arms puffed up, like a woman's bosom, on each shoulder. His bushy beard, which covered almost every part of his face, hung far down upon his dark-brown skin and hairy breast. ' He wore the common calzoni corti [shepherd's breeches] made of raw sheepskin with the wool outward, hanging loose at the knee and belted at the waist with a strong leathern strap, from which hung a long sheath-knife, a large pistol, and a short, knotty club. 'With his wool-coat on, which would reach a little below his belt, he would pass for a shep- herd, and might even be seen on the road carrying a lamb or sheep on his shoulder with- out arousing suspicion in any he should meet, un- less one should notice the heavy boots he wore, which reached to the knees and did not belong, 132 OF MARTIGNY surely, to a shepherd's outfit, but served to pro- tect his lower legs from the briers through which his profession would cause him often to travel. ' Without making a sound, the young shepherd rolled himself over the side of the knoll on which he was lying, followed by the dog crouching like a feline beast in the act of springing on its prey. Having quickly cut a bundle of osiers in the valley, and fastened it with one of them upon his shoulder, he passed noiselessly around, out of the sight of the villain, and came with the dog at his heels, upon the top of the overhanging rock under which the thief was creeping for his prize. ' The dog took in the situation and awaited the motions of his master. Presently a slight dis- turbance was heard below. The next instant the accoutered thief emerged with the struggling, bleating buck on his shoulder. He was two metri below the shepherd and the crouching dog who lay motionless on the rock and ready for a spring. ' The next instant the signal was given. The dog leaped from his height down full upon the back of the robber. The force of the spring and the weight of the dog, coming with such an unexpected shock, in addition to the struggles of the buck, tumbled the scoundrel forward heavily upon his face, while the frightened buck ran away bleating toward the sheep. THE TWIN SISTERS 'The robber had scarely uttered an awful blasphemy when the dog had him by the throat. The next instant the shepherd was on his back, and thrust his head several times violently down upon the rock. Having drawn the sheath-knife while the robber was still held by the dog, he threatened to sever his head from his body if he moved hand or foot except as ordered. ' The first order was to throw his hands behind his back. It was done; and he firmly bound them there with three withes made from the osiers which he had cut in the valley. Then he stripped his prisoner of the heavy boots and of the calzoni corti with all the artillery attached to them. Finally, having withed his ankles together in such a way that he could take very short steps, he made him rise, and driving him thus with a heavy mule whip (which he had brought with him, and which he had occasion to use many times with great severity on the obstinate but helpless and naked rogue), he arrived safely at the Carcere di citta [city prison] in the edge of the evening. ' Women of the lower class were no longer in the streets to witness his humiliation and shame ; so that the prisoner escaped, in this regard, a mortification Which such villains in our country feel acutely. The gathering darkness which had 134 OF MAR TIG NY also sent home most of the " small boys " of the street protected him from many indignities and little unmentionable outrages. As it was, only a little mob of a half-dozen gamins surged round him, like a swarm of wasps, pelted him with mud and even with small stones, and filled his ears with gibes and yells. ' The dog marched behind as a rear-guard, car- rying the great boots in his mouth, and with his high-lifted head seemed to enjoy the triumph of the capture and punishment of the gigantic rogue quite as much as his master. ' The prison-gate at last closed upon the thief, and the young man saw him no more. But the next day his young wife was found in the street, with a babe at her breast, without food, without shelter, without a friend. ' It came to the ears of the young shepherd against whom the crimes had been committed. He knew very well how it often happens in such cases, that the woman is not only a concealed partner in guilt, but, being the more intelligent party, has been, in fact, the chief planner and promoter of the crime. But he knew, also, as well, that not seldom it is wholly different that the wife is the unsuspecting victim of deception. Confiding in the false statements of her husband, whom she is taught by nature to trust and love, THE TWIN SISTERS she becomes an indirect promoter and party to crimes of which she has no knowledge nor sus- picion. ' How the truth lay in this case he could not with certainty know. But, save her intense in- terest in the prisoner, and her readiness to run into danger for his sake, to undergo suffering and to risk everything in order to see him and to try to save him from punishment and what differ- ent from this, as a good wife, could she do, or ought she to do? and she would not believe him guilty or, even if he were, should she forsake him in his trouble ? aside from this, there was no evidence against her. ' He gave her the benefit of the doubt he hoped of the certainty of her innocence. While all others treated her and the infant with harsh- ness or indifference, he who alone had suffered from the crimes of her husband, spoke kindly to her, brought her and the child to his house, gave her food and money, and sent them to her rela- tions in Urbino.' " Here my companion took breath and a draught of ice-water from the stream at our side. I had offered her but she declined it some Lacrima Christi out of my belt-flask. I had brought a few bottles in my luggage from Sicily. Though not superstitious, I was unwilling to drink to her 136 OF MARTIGNY happiness in water. So, after her draught, I borrowed her little cup and drank her health alone in that peculiarly Italian and, by those who affect such a wine, much-prized liquor. TETE NOIRE. 137 THE TWIN SISTERS XIV. Why, now, Casella mine, I said, Has so much anxious waiting fled ? 14 WHEN I heard of that expected visit, above mentioned, and thought of that fine young fellow, so worthy in himself, and enveloped in such a pity-inspiring environment of solicitude not unmingled with danger ; and when I remem- bered the unspeakable tenderness native to the female heart ; and in particular the evident un- usual susceptibility of these two sentimental young souls born, too, not of the stupid peas- ant races of the Swiss and Piedmontese Alps, but of a line drawing the hottest passions of central Italy from Sabinian Trastevere commingled with the infinitely piquant blood of Southern France such native susceptibilities now harrowed and quickened by their own grief, and made still more hungry and thirsty for sympathy by the loneliness of their mountain-home ; my own heart could not but divine the possibilities, or 138 OF MAR TIG NY rather imminent probabilities of the near ap- proaching future, and was overshadowed by a haze of gloomy anticipations. I foreboded, I know not what of uncanny cir- cumstances. "Ah ! what a fearful thing," I said to myself, " is that mysterious magnetism which slumbers in the bosom of every young son and daughter of Adam ! Gentle and beautiful to see, yet as perilous as the terrible bolt of heaven ! " And from this moment, a new, undefined dis- tress on her account came over me ; and we walked on again in a pensive silence which I dreaded to break, though I desired as much as I feared to hear the words that were to come. " Sister and I," she at last began, " did, as you will imagine, all that lay in our power to make our home look attractive and the luncheon pleas- ing to the stranger. We made everything as neat as wax within ; and outside, not a little pol- ishing was done. " The space in front, around the pens and sta- ble, was carefully cleared ; the litter was piled in the best manner ; every loose stone and stick, every tall weed and thistle on the way from the house to the road, was taken away ; here and there an overhanging bough of the larch and chestnut trees was lopped off ; and the footpath was swept. 139 THE TWIN SISTERS "With our busy preparations and our busier thoughts the week wore away. At last the day of days arrived. The expected would ap- pear. Would our fancies be verified? Would our trembling hopes be realized? "We were up and at work before the light. Bread of wheaten flour was baked ; cheese of the nicest was brought out ; apples of the fairest were selected ; the largest hazel-nuts were cracked ; the brightest chestnuts were boiled ; a foaming pitcher of goats' milk was set in the window of the mountain-ward pantry to cool. " The table was covered with snow-white linen which dear Mother spun and wove while she and Babbo were only promessi. The bright knives she brought from France were laid beside her wed- ding plates. The silver spoons which were also a part of her dowry glittered near the various dishes. A flower-vase in the form of a group of S. S. Maria and Martha sitting at the feet of the Saviour (a copy of a marble in the Uffizi Gallery), cut in alabaster, which Babbo bought of a travel- ing artist from Firenze and gave to our Mother the year we were born, stood as a center-piece, and was filled with fresh flowers from our win- dow-boxes ; for the frosts had already begun out- side. From the same source also we filled the vase of our Lady in her little chapel on the oppo- 140 OF MARTIGNY site side of the highway, as Babbo had promised, and before noon all was waiting-ready. " Babbo, who helped us in everything, usually so calm and silent, was that day strangely excited. Could it all be caused by the not quite certain prospect of buying a new dog ? Would it have been the same, if the dog had belonged to a dif- ferent owner? perhaps an old and married mountaineer? or if Babbo were not the father of two marriageable daughters with hearts yet free ? " True, he said little, as was natural for him, but he bustled around in a way that was most uncommon. There seemed also to be a new ex- pression on his face, which was able, we thought, to mean much or little. We could not decide what it meant, but neither Maria nor I thought it boded any ill. He did not appear worried. On the contrary, he seemed pleased with his own thoughts, and much of the time to be lost in a gentle reverie. " But what was he thinking of ? what was it that so fixedly and not unpleasantly absorbed his meditations ? We spoke of it to each other, but did not suggest any answer to one another, though perhaps the heart of each whispered a possible answer to herself. Maria's countenance looked to me wondrous wistful that morning, and it may 141 THE TWIN SISTERS be mine looked the same to her. Who could tell ? ' Ah, the dear girl ! ' I said to myself, ' how truly and how much we all live alone in this world even in the midst of our closest intimacies ! ' " Soon after midday Babbo put on his Sunday clothes and sat in the shade of the great chest- nut tree at the roadside, and Sister and I scam- pered up to our chamber to put ourselves in the best order we could. We braided and tied our hair with ribbons Maria with blue, I with pink. We had silver combs which were quite the same to look at, but Sister's was far more precious to us, because it had been dear Mother's. It had been an heirloom of the eldest daughter for I do n't know how many generations. The other was a gift, we never certainly knew by whom. " Some months before dear Mother left us, an unknown gentleman overtaken in a storm, had begged a lodging and had been entertained as best we could in our home. Sister and I gave up our chamber to him. During the evening we had playfully bantered each other which of us would get married first in order to be dowered with Mother's silver comb which happened to be lying on the table. The gentleman took up the comb and examined it ; and when he laid it down, he looked at us with a curious smile, but said nothing. Who he was or where he lived, we 142 OF MARTI GNY never knew ; but not many weeks afterward, it was the next Christmas Eve, a match to the heir- loom comb came with the post, and we guessed, but this was all we knew. After dear Mother was gone, by Babbo's wish we drew lots, and the stranger comb fell to me. So the dower was ready for each, but, alas, was never needed. " We put our best gowns on, which were of the same purplish-gray woolen cloth, cut alike and not distinguished from each other, except by the rosettes at the top of the bodice in front Maria's was blue, mine of a pale rose color." Putting her hand to her neck, and lifting the white kerchief that was pinned at the bosom with a silver brooch, she added, " I wore this pink rosary and sister one of blue. Babbo gave us these the day we were confirmed. "Of course, each of us tried to make herself look as agreeable, and to say the truth, as desira- ble, as possible ; and we honestly tried to help each other do it. It was a competition cer- tainly an unselfish competition, if there is such a thing and in our girlish hearts we hoped I do n't know what we hoped and then we descended together and sat down at the win- dow, knitting and eagerly looking for the com- ing of the expected visitor. " Needles rattled, tongues chattered, stockings THE TWIN SISTERS grew, but no visitor came. Babbo rose from his seat many times, walked a piece up the road, straining his sight in the direction of the Hos- pice, and returning sat down again to wait as before. " After a time, enforced idleness became unen- durable to Babbo. He pulled from his pocket a roll of strands cut from the tanned skin of a pole- cat, and having fastened one end to the rough bark of the tree, he began to braid them into the lash of a mule-whip. He worked on excitedly, his arms twitched nervously, and the work grew apace. He did not once look up, neither along the road, nor toward the house. "At last our balls of yarn became small, our stockings became large, and Babbtfs lash was finished, but no visitor appeared. Babbo trimmed the ends of the strands, cut his work loose from the tree, rolled and rubbed it smooth, and folded and put it in his pocket. The shadows were already growing long. The slanting sun was glistening across the Tete Noire upon the white top of Mons Buet and reddening the Aiguilles about Mont Blanc. Babbo started up with a spring and came briskly toward the house, with his eyes on the ground as if in deep meditation. " As he burst open the door he exclaimed : ' Well, girls, we have been finely fooled. I don't 144 even know his name the slippery rogue. It may be a good joke for him. It will be a nice piece of fun, to make merry over with his com- rades. But I would n't have believed it of him. I would have trusted him a hundred times as much. He seemed such a frank and earnest lad. Besides, there was just a little sadness in his manner, that made one pity and be the more ready to believe him. But but the Old Scratch is always ready to steal the other liv- ery to do his own pranks in.' " I had often heard of the practical jokes sometimes very serious, indeed, played by the Lombard travelers in their journeys on country- men and on one another, so that my intellect sup- ported the suspicions of Babbo. But my heart, all the same, revolted against the thought. I could n't allow the pleasant pictures of my fancy to be so pitilessly wiped out worst of all that my profoundest sentiments and serious interests should be turned into a comedy so ridiculous. " ' Is n't it possible, Babbo dear,' I said (for I must find some reply), 'is n't it possible that you mistook the day ? ' ' I thought of that,' he said, but no, it is n't possible. The young fellow said to me plainly, "This is Tuesday /# festa della Nathnta della Beata Maria [the feast of the Nativity of the B. V.]. H5 THE TWIN SISTERS Next week Thursday I shall be here again. That will be the festa della Sacre Stimmate [feast of the Imprinting of the Wounds of Our Lord on the body of S. Francis]. 15 I am to bring here some special wine, as the Bishop of Aosta and the Prior of St. Orso are to visit the Hospice on that day. I shall get here the night before. On the day of the Stimmate I shall go to Mar- tigny." Is n't it Thursday to-day, and is n't it the feast of the Sacre Stimmate? Did n't the priest say so, at Mass, last Sunday? How can there, then, be any mistake about the time ? ' " I was silenced in that direction. ' But,' I persisted, ' he may be sick.' ' I don't think so,' he replied, ' for the prom- ised wine must be sent, in that case, by another ; and if he were an honorable youth, the other would be required to stop on his way and inform us.' 'The other may have forgotten it,' I still insisted. ' That can't be,' he said, ' for I have sen- tinelled the road since eleven o'clock, and no such person has passed.' 'Why, Babbo dear,' I replied, ' Maria and I saw several parties go by, though we were too far away to distinguish who they were.' 'To be sure,' he answered, 'two companies of English travelers with mules and guide went 146 OF MARTI GNY toward Martigny before I came in to dress, and three German men and a Fraiilein went by together on foot toward the Hospice while I was sitting by the roadside.' ' Could n't something have escaped you while you were dressing ? ' ' Sicuro no! for besides that I have kept a constant watch with ears and eyes, I have ex- amined the road for tracks. There are none, except those of the Englishman's party going toward Martigny.' " This was unanswerable ; and we stood awhile in silence around the hearth, looking at the smoking embers. At last Maria, who had n't spoken, though her cheeks were ablaze, and her soft, dark eyes, swimming with vexation and anxiety, had been lifted and fixed on me while I was pleading for the young man, but were now again staring into the embers, murmured almost in a whisper and without moving her eyes from the fire : ' Could n't he have fallen into the water at the Liddes' bridge ? the flood, you know, about two days ago, might ' ' Mon dieu ! ' I screamed, ' I had n't thought of that he might ! he might ! ' ' Peace, child ! ' said Babbo, firmly. ' Of course, it 's possible, but the water there is n't above a 147 THE TWIN SISTERS metro deep except, may be, in the holes and eddies and he is an uncommon large, strong youth though the mule might yes, he might slip on the smooth stones, or catch his hoof be- tween the rocks one way and another, he might stumble and fall on his rider, and the load might come uppermost of all certo, certo, the young fel- low's head might sicuro, it might strike one of those sharp rocks and then to be sure, even at this season, he might get benumbed by the wet- ting so near the glaciers of Monte Velano the water there must be cool yes, Maria, it is possi- ble the more I think of it, the more possible I do n't know but I might say the more likely it seems.' " The fact was, and we knew it well, though till then it had made no impression upon us, that two days before this it had rained for a day and a night and the melted snow had swollen the streams into torrents, and had carried away the bridge, about a half hour beyond our home." The peculiar danger of this place at this time was (as my fair companion explained), that, in building the bridge, in order to meet squarely a bend in the channel, and to secure rocky but- tresses at each end, the structure had been placed by its whole breadth up the streamfrom the line of the beaten track of the road ; and during the 148 OF MARTIGNY drier parts of the summer, when the stream was low, only foot-passengers turned to go over the bridge, while all vehicles and animals went straight across by the ford. The worn track, therefore, led directly down to the water on either side, and the stream spread out so wide there, and the banks had so gentle a slope, that it was sure to appear to a stranger, even when swollen to the highest, to be a safe and constantly-used ford, though it was, at such times, exceedingly dangerous, both on account of the jagged rocks at the bottom, and because of several deep fissures or pits just below the trav- eled path. " As soon as all this occurred to our thoughts," she continued, " we all admitted the danger, and felt alarmed for the safety of our delaying guest. A moment of silence followed, during which we all mechanically strayed toward the window which looks up the road in the direction of the bridge, and Babbo repeated with much emphasis : ' You are right, Maria it is possible it is possible.' ' Could n't you ? could n't you go ? and and see ? Babbo dear before before dark ? ' Maria stammered out, softly. ' Yes, yes, Babbo, do,' I eagerly blurted in, ' do take ' 149 THE TWIN SISTERS " But while I was speaking, Babbo suddenly laid one hand on my shoulder, and, with the other pointing up the road where, making a sharp turn, the track first comes into view, interrupted me with : 'There! there ! he's coming now, I do believe.' "We looked and saw something coming, but the distance was too great clearly to distinguish what it was. ' He can't get to Martigny to-night,' Maria whispered. ' We can give him our chamber,' I added. ' Hush, hush ! girls,' Babbo exclaimed at that moment, ' Dio in cielo! what is this ? ' "At that instant we began to distinguish a man walking towards us at the top of his speed. As he came nearer, we could see that he carried his broad-brimmed hat in one hand, which he was swinging in great circles through the air, and with the other hand was making a huge walking- stick take three league strides along the path, while his unbuttoned coat sailed out behind him in the stiff breeze he was partly facing. A min- ute later, Babbo recognized the figure, and saying ' 'Tis one of the German men who passed here since noon,' hurried out of the house and down the footpath to the road, followed by us both. 150 OF MARTIGNY " We were hardly arrived on the margin of the highway, when the stranger, fifty metri away, without any salutation, and panting heavily, jerked out to us : ' Es gibt ein ungliichlicher Zufall zu der Briicke ' [there's an accident at the bridge] " At this verification of our foreboding conject- ures, our hearts rose into our throats. The truth was flashed upon us, and for the moment we were too dazed to speak. ' Sie miissen fort und Ihr Maulthier mit ' [you must go there with your mule], he contin- ued, in pushing past us, not waiting for permis- sion or reply, making for the stable to get the mule. " We all hurried back with him in silence, and amidst his frantic pantomime, harnessed and led out Nicodemo, our oldest mule, and driving him on before us, started with the stranger rapidly up the road. " Walking on every side of him, pell-mell, we soon began to shower upon him answerable and unanswerable questions, while he was ever and anon goading and slapping the poor Maulthier, and himself puffing so powerfully that we made out nothing at first from his talk. By degrees he became more composed, and at last gave us an intelligent story. Of course, like every Tedeseo, 151 THE TWIN SISTERS he lingered on unnecessary details, while we were frantic to hear two or three important words. " He and his companions, on arriving at the bridge, found it carried away. A temporary structure for crossing was in sight. But, since the passage for travel opened up to it was by a detour around a considerable bend in the stream, through a fir forest on a rather steep acclivity, it became a matter of some hindrance and difficulty to reach it. "Accordingly, they went to the buttresses of the old bridge, hoping to find some way by which foot-passengers, at least, might get over without taking the long circuit on the hillside. While standing there, looking up and down the stream, one of the party observed something whirling in a frothy eddy and held from going down-stream by the stones and bushes on the lower side. Alarm was given. With much difficulty, being a heavy object and lying nearer the farther bank, it was at last pulled upon dry ground. It proved to be a case of Mantuan ' Rosolio? 16 The case was marked Luigi Donati. This name in itself meant nothing to us, for we had not heard it before. Nevertheless, it startled us and seemed to clinch our gravest fears. Searching now further down the bank, another similar case was found, and 152 OF MARTIGNY with it a piece of the strap by which it had been hung over the back of the beast. " Curiosity now gave place to alarm. Search- ing up and down the stream, and shouting to one another from time to time, as some new sign ap- peared, or some new thought was suggested, a rustling was heard in the twigs at some distance from the bank. " Thinking the owner of the wine had now been found and possibly in some sorry plight the men left the Fraiilein below with the cases, and clambered up the hillside in the direction of the noise. Coming to an eminence which looked down into a little ravine, they saw a mule below them grazing. The beast was covered from head to haunch and from haunch to hoof with dried mud. It was plain that he had been drenched in the stream and had rolled himself in the dust of the road-track. But where was the rider, or rather the driver ? for the mule had been fully loaded. ' We had n't suspected before,' said the man, ' that any really serious accident had happened I mean,' he added, ' that it was a matter of life and death ' l Mein Gott!' I shrieked, 'tsf er nun todtt' Maria, meantime, sobbed and moaned softly. 153 THE TWIN SISTERS 'I didn't say he was todt ' [dead], continued the man, ' but the mule was all we found there ' San Martina ! ' I exclaimed, ' you did n't give it up so ! ' ' 'Scht ! Kindlein ' [baby], said the man, gruffly, I was going to tell you that we went off searching again, Fraiilein and all, looking everywhere, push- ing into the bushes, and peering into every nook. Suddenly the Fraiilein said : ' Stille, stille ! ich bilde mir ein dass ich ein s to /men gehort habe' [I think I heard a groan]. 'Then we all came close to her and listened for the groaning she fancied she had heard. But we heard nothing save the rushing of the water and a soft roaring of the wind in the tops of the fir-trees. Suddenly she cried out again : ' J a i J a n ch einmal habe ich es gehort ' [Yes, yes! I heard it again]. Still, neither of us men could distinguish anything of the kind. Presently she almost screamed : ' Ja wohl, ja ivohl, noch einmal! Da geht es ! Es tont driiben ! ' [Yes, indeed, there it goes again over there], and pointing in a direction further back from the stream, she began to run thither. " Then the man went on to describe how they all followed the Fraiilein up a knoll sparsely set with mountain oaks and with many large bowl- ders lying around. Presently they all could dis- 154 OF MARTIGNY tinctly hear a feeble groaning, but no one could tell exactly from whence it came. Sometimes it seemed to come from the tree-tops, and they went straining their sight up into the thick boughs, in vain. Again they were sure it came from among the rocks, and finally with this conviction they separated, each undertaking separately one part < of the knoll to search thoroughly. ' It was not long,' said the man, 'before I heard the groans growing nearer and clearer at every step. I now felt sure of the game. Pressing on almost in a certainty of presently making the great discovery, I came to a very large bowlder. It was almost a cliff. Here the sounds died wholly away. I seemed to have approached and to be very near to the spot whence the sounds proceeded, but it was not apparent how I could approach nearer and I was perplexed. 'The rock on the side where I approached it was precipitous. The two faces on either hand slanted gradually to the ground, so that although the flattened top was very high, it could all be seen from a little distance away ; and surely there was no hiding-place upon it. The rear, however, that is to say, the side most distant from where I stood, seemed to project far over like a shelf, but the ground in that direction was so steep and broken that I could not approach it directly. I THE TWIN SISTERS retraced my steps, therefore, a considerable piece, and in making the necessary circuit, I fell in with a well-worn sheep-path which ran winding along in the direction I was seeking to go. Following this track, the sounds were soon renewed, and the growing distinctness of them convinced me that I was coming near the object of my search. As I turned a corner of the projecting rock, I saw in another minute that the groans did not proceed from a human voice ' ' Himmel sei Dank ! es ist ein verwundener wolf gewesen ' [Thank heaven ! 'twas a wounded wolf], broke in our Babbo. ' How many times I've been cheated so by one of these wounded villains. These beasts will imitate the groans of a man to perfection. I've thought, then, may be 't was the soul of some scoundrel whom even DANTE did n't tell of. May be they hunted and worried the sheep of the Great Shepherd and have been put into the bodies of the beasts they imitated before they are shut down in the Inferno, but did you kill him ? did you slay the rascal ? ' " You may wonder how Babbo could so easily forget the anxious errand we were on and be- come so interested in the matter of a wounded wolf. The fact is, that there is nothing like the name or thought of a wolf the cruel and ever- pursuing foe of the defenceless creatures his 156 whole life is given up to feeding and protecting no other idea which sets him so beside himself with fear and rage, as the bare suspicion that there may be a sheep-slayer, or a gang of them abroad in the neighborhood. ' Wasfiir ein Wolf ist es ? ' [what wolf] rejoined the man, impatiently. ' What have I said about a wolf? I saw just before me a huge, shaggy, grizzly-white dog, lying with his head on his fore paws and groaning like a dying man. ' Just back of the dog, under the overhanging rock, the wind had piled deep windrows of leaves. Roused by the noise of my steps, the dog lifted his head, glared on me for an instant, then with a tremulous yell bounded over the windrows to the further end of the chasm ; then, throwing his head back upon his shoulder towards me, stood stark as a statue with nose pointed to the sky, emitting a swift stream of mournful, piercing notes that ran irregularly up and down to the extreme limits of the canine gamut. ' I had no longer any doubt that I had found the master, and I at once gave a shout that was answered by my companions, and ran to the dog, who with paws and snout was swiftly opening a windrow of leaves, which flew high about him in the wind, and ere I arrived where he stood, he had uncovered a man's body ' 157 THE TWIN SISTERS ' Was he alive ? does he still live ? ' we all broke in together. " Disregarding our queries, the man went right on : ' His eyes were closed and we could n't by word or touch get any sign of consciousness from him ' 'Was he really already dead? were you sure ? did you try ? ' we all broke in again together, but he went on regardless : ' The body was still warm ' we interject- ing : ' Did n't he breathe ? did his heart beat ? " But the man quietly continued : 'And we could n't certainly tell, but we thought he breathed very, very gently, and I was sure I felt a soft throbbing in his breast ' Himmel set Dank ! ' softly sighed Marie and I, while Babbo almost screamed : ' Aquavite ! Eau de vie! Branntwein!' or did n't you have any along?" "The imperturbable German, without trying to answer our questions, or even seeming to no- tice our interruptions, proceeded : ' The Fraiilein was sent back to the luggage that is, the knapsacks which we slipped off and left at the bridge and charged to open and bring whatever she thought would be useful for the sufferer. 158 OF MARTIGNY ' We men carried the body quickly into a sunny nook among the rocks and laid it on the soft, warm sod. We stripped it of the wet clothing, and without waiting an instant for anything else, we swiftly set about drying it with our ker- chiefs and chafing it with our woolen blouses ; and as soon as the Fraulein returned with sup- plies, we wrapped it in a traveling blanket, put a spoonful of brandy into the mouth, put plasters on the bruises, and tied up with a kerchief the battered face. ' The greatest difficulty of all now stared us in the face how to replace the soaked and muddy clothing with sufficient covering warm and dry. Neither of us had any extra clothing in our packs. We dared not carry the body merely wrapped as it was into the chilly wind that swept along the traveled road-track. There was no house within an hour's time going and returning. The slant- ing sun of the late afternoon warned us that what- ever was done must be done quickly. ' While we were holding an anxious consulta- tion, without saying a word, the Fraulein disap- peared and in five minutes returned, waving in her hand a blue flannel petticoat, and saying, as she laid it at the feet of the body, " Could n't this be used in some way ? " She presently added, " I 159 THE TWIN SISTERS have a warm hood in my pack," and again disap- peared in the direction of the luggage. ' We men took a hint from her example ; and before she returned, the patient was wearing an underwrapper and a cardigan with stockings and long, knitted leggins, contributed partly by my companion and partly by me. The petticoat was afterward put on and the blanket pinned tightly about from shoulders to feet. The Fraiileins hood was soon added, and the whole burden and outfit was laid on a bed of fir-boughs, with a bun- dle of twigs for a pillow. ' This extemporized hospital was put in charge of the Fraiilein, with brandy and water to put a spoonful from time to time to the lips. It re- mained to gather up the scattered and broken parts of the harness, to make an ambulance of boughs, and put the demoralized mule in order for renewing the march. This I left Dietrich to do, and started after the first man and mule to be found for moving the poor fellow to some shelter.' " After a moment's pause, while we were silent in the first shock of doubt, he added : ' He'll need it, too ja wohl [yes, indeed] God knows how long if ever he pulls through at all which heaven grant he may.' ' He must he must be brought to our home,' said Maria, softly, and with a little hesi- 160 OF MARTIGNY tation. I had thought the same, yet hesitated to say so, and Babbo now added with great em- phasis : ' Yes, surely, he must come to us.' ' Maria and I, then,' I said, 'had better turn back now for why should we go further and get things ready there.' "fa, ja, that's a prudent Fraulein,' said the man. " Turning to Babbo, I asked : ' Put him in the Salotto [reception-room], I suppose ? ' This rather grand name we gave in playful irony to the tiny sitting-room directly under our bedroom. ' Sicuro, sicuro,' said Babbo, 'where else? Bring down the cot from the garret and your blessed Mamma's French rocker from your chamber. You won't need it there while he is with us.' ' Nor will he need it much below, I fancy, for some while yet,' I said. ' But watchers may,' he replied. " As we started to return, Maria, looking over her shoulder, said : ' Where is the dog ? ' " Her soft voice was n't heard, and I repeated the question : ' Where is the dog ? ' ' He'll be with his master, you may depend,' replied the man, throwing the answer over his 161 THE TWIN SISTERS shoulder after us, for we were already twenty steps away, and he and Babbo were swiftly hur- rying on with the mule. "We held it now for a certainty who the wounded master must be, and our hearts were full of conflicting emotions, but the matter even then was too sacred to each of us, even us sisters, to talk of ; nor had a word been said to the man, of our relations with the youth or his dog." LEONCELLO DA MENTOVA. 162 OF MARTIGNY XV. ' ' God hath chosen the things that are not to bring to naught things that are." BIBLE. ^ r^vISREGARDING, for this once, the hasty I/ injunction of Babbo about the cot, after some deliberation we brought, instead, from our eyry-chamber in the roof, the bed on which Maria and I slept, and put it in order in the Salotto be- low. We had our own reasons for this which we deemed imperative. " This bedstead was a beauty and had a history. It had once stood for many years in the Salotto with a small bureau and a little table. All were of beautifully figured French-walnut. A large ebony-framed mirror hung on the wall opposite to where we now placed the bed. All these ele- gant pieces came to my grandfather in a mys- terious way which has never yet been fully ex- plained. " About the time the French King and Queen were murdered, an unknown gentleman came and lived for more than a year in that room with a 163 THE TWIN SISTERS glorious lady who was his wife. They came with- out any servant, and arrived in the evening after it was dark. " The gentleman had plenty of gold in his pock- ets, and the lady many jewels. The furniture came as mysteriously as the persons. One morn- ing when my nonnino [grandpapa] first opened the door to go to the flocks, these articles and some others were standing there on the sod. "These gentle guests revealed nothing what- ever about themselves. So far as was known, they wrote no letters, nor received any; and they never went abroad, except into the mountain glens on pleasant days. It has been fancied that the place was chosen both on account of its re- moteness and because it was so near the frontiers of three nations. But why they needed to be hid was never known. " At last, one morning in autumn, a messenger on horseback, in the uniform of a French officer of high grade, came with a letter and a packet. There came with him also a servant in a livery of black and silver, a pair of gray nuns in a covered char, and an empty-saddled horse caparisoned with the accoutrements of a general officer. " Very quickly the great lady entered the char with the sisters, the man-servant sprang to his seat beside the driver, the gentleman and the 164 OF MARTIGNY officer mounted and rode behind. In this fashion the company started away, leaving everything behind them and never returned, nor were ever seen or heard of afterwards. " The lady when she said ' adieu' handed to our grandmother a little casket containing two rings, one set with a rose-colored stone, the other with a stone sky-blue. When Maria and I were born, after so many years, these rings remained still in the house, and, as they were going to be ours, dear Mamma chose these colors for her new-born babies pink for me, and azure for Maria. When we were christened one of these rings was hung about the neck of each with a thread of the same color, and was christened with us. On the Sun- day of our first Communion they were given to us for our own and we wore them on our fingers for the first time at the supper that evening and afterwards kept them preciously among our treasures. "Among the pieces of furniture left by the strange gentleman and lady, besides a willow easy-chair in which the former slept, since, hav- ing a difficulty of breathing, he never lay down, and the lady's elegant French-walnut bedstead, curiously carved, there was a large picture painted by the gentleman at intervals during his stay and not wholly finished. 165 THE TWIN' SISTERS " It was a night scene. Far away on one side were the tents and banners of an army, partly hidden behind the hills. On the other side was a lake at the foot of a precipitous mountain. The moon, near her setting behind the mountain and just emerging from a dark cloud, threw across the whole foreground the shadows of two figures which were themselves hid behind the brow of the mountain. "One of these was clad in mail from head to foot and had on a helmet with a plume. He stood very straight with arms folded across his breast and scowled under his deep eyebrows, The other who was speaking to him wore no hat nor shoes; and was scantily clad in a sort of sleeveless shirt, with something like a blanket wrapped carelessly about him. His hair and beard were shaggy and long, and blown out roughly in the gusty wind. "We children, who from infancy well knew that our destiny as well as our name was shadowy and enveloped in shadows, though we never could guess the gentleman's meaning in the pic- ture used often to stand gazing in silence before it, folded in each other's arms, and absorbed in our dreamy thoughts till our hearts would palpi- tate audibly, and not seldom tears would roll across our cheeks, while the real cause of these 166 OF MARTIGNY sentiments was as indistinct and uncertain to us as the shadows themselves. " On the margin below the picture the gen- tleman had also written its name, or motto in English, the sentiment of which having been explained to us by a visiting padre exercised our hearts not less than the picture itself. We learned it by heart, and often discussed its mean- ing with one another. It was: ''Coming events cast their shadows before.' Now we somehow con- nected, though very indistinctly, that past mystery with the coming one. " We dressed the bed with the snow-white linen which our blessed Mother spun and wove during her young maidenhood before she came to visit our home, in her 'warm and beautiful France/ and brought to Babbo with her dot. We covered all with her famous figured counterpane. " This counterpane was a curious thing which we held above all price. It was covered with scenes in the Siege of Firenze 1T and the other wars of the Medici ; views in old Siena '* with her she- wolf-surmounted pillars and fountains, her black and white Duomo, her gorgeous annual Palio, the Mangia and the Fontebranda. Babbo bought it for dear Mother in the Fair at Aosta and brought it to her on their tenth wedding day. These things were all kept in the carved oaken chest in which 167 THE TWIN SISTERS they came with the other articles of her dot. This chest served for a seat in the eyry-chamber near our bed. "As you may well suppose, the Salotto was a dear room to us, for all these memories and treas- ures. Here too Maria and I were born. Here dear Mother died. We had now kindled a blaze of fir-wood in the little fireplace. The tiny room looked lovely; and the fragrant fir- wood gave out an agreeable odor. All this cheered our spirits a little; but, alas, it was quite lost on the coming occupant of the room. " The last rays of the setting sun were glisten- ing on the peaks of the highest Aiguilles and the stars were already beginning to twinkle over the valley, when Maria, after having gone down to the road for the twentieth time, came running back and called to me, in her soft, sweet way: ' They 're coming M'amie, sure, they 're com- ing now.' " We both ran down to the road. Dark objects could be seen approaching over the brow of the hill. We did not go toward them,, nor speak a word, but our hearts beat audibly, and we held each other by the hand and trembled in every limb. " Presently, as the path wound along the hill- side, we could distinguish Babbo by his hat and 1 68 OF MARTIGNY his gait, moving slowly along holding a bridle- rein. Two mules followed one a long distance behind the other with some kind of a cradle or litter swung between them. A large dog paced solemnly at the heels of the last mule. But neither Germans nor Fraiildn appeared. " Maria and I stood in silence till the cavalcade was within a few paces of our gate. Then with- out unclasping our hands we turned and led the procession up to our door. CASA OMBROSINI. 169 THE TWIN SISTERS XVI. " We will play no more, beautiful Shadows ! A fancy came solemn and sad, More sweet, with unspeakable longings, Than the best of the pleasures we had." EDWIN ARNOLD. Indian Song of Songs. r three 'lowered the litter gently, gently to the ground, and lifting the body upon a sheet, Maria and I grasping each a cor- ner, supporting the head, and Babbo the two at the feet, we laid the unconscious form, wrapped like a mummy, upon the bed. " We proceeded immediately to undo the wrap- pings. Softly and silently we set ourselves at work in indescribable anxiety. Was he still living? We lifted the blue kerchief which had been laid over the face. There was the bandaged head done up in white kerchiefs. The eyes were closed. Some drops of sweat stood on the cold forehead. Babbo bent his ear to the breast. The heart was beating very, very softly. He touched the folded hands. The skin was warm. He felt the wrist and found a gentle, irregular pulse. 170 OF MARTIGNY We administered brandy immediately and saw the chest rise and fall in respiration. " We were all thoroughly exhausted, physically and mentally, yet thankful to be so far relieved from the strain of a terrible fear. But for me there was another shock awaiting far more shat- tering than anything I had met before. In the next few moments that prophetic shadow, which had followed me from infancy, must rise before me again, like a ghost from the Inferno. Alas ! why must I, by this unwilling and unavailing presentiment, twice drink each bitter cup of my destiny ! "After we had arranged the patient in the bed as best we could, I went to stand for a moment in front of the fire. I laid my hand caressingly on the head of the great dog who had come into the room unbidden and unre- garded, and seated himself at the further end of the hearth. He neither resented nor welcomed my caresses, turning his head every few seconds to and fro, seeming to be dividing a thoughtful regard between the merrily dancing blaze and the sad bed whereon his master was stretched. " Presently I fancied that the dog looked more frequently and wistfully toward the bed. My back was turned in that direction, but accident- ally lifting my eyes toward the mirror, I caught THE TWIN SISTERS a sight which shot through my breast like a stream of fire. " Maria was sitting at the bedside half-turned toward the fire. The jolly blaze, as if in grim mockery, was casting her shadow with that of the young man upon the opposite wall together. The mirror reflected the picture with an exaggerated glamour upon my horror-stricken sight. I shud- der still at every recollection of her trembling profile resting upon the shivering shadow of his bandaged head. The fire in my bosom suddenly changed to a mountain of ice. A strange chill crept around my heart of hearts. I went imme- diately out of the room and endeavored Here the voice of my companion faltered and the shoes dropped at her feet. I saw that her face was deathly pale, and that she was be- ginning to fall. I seized and guided, or rather carried her to the roadside and supported her drooping head upon the grassy bank. In an- other instant I had filled my traveler's cup from the little stream at our side, and applied the icy water to her temples. The faintness was short. Her eyes soon opened ; and raising herself into a more convenient posture, she said : " Alas ! I ought not to have spoken of this. Sometimes the thought of it makes me faint. But you will easily believe now however it OF MARTIGNY came about that we are rightly named Ombro- sini. It is not true, however, that all our family have had as much to do with shadows as I ; nor that their business with them has always been as uncanny as mine. " But are you not willing to believe, Signer, that our holy Mother, the Church, cares for us, her children, in this world as well as in the next? Are you not willing to believe that she works be- fore us and upon us her perpetual miracles, and teaches us to see through the thin veil and recog- nize much that is going on in the world of spirits ? But ah, Signor, do you Protestants, so rich and so learned, really believe in any supernatural world at all? For my part, I would die sooner than come to that yes, sooner than flee from her pro- tecting shadow. But stop. I am not trying to convert you to religion, but to give you a story. " When I fled, unable to bear it, from the scene I have described, I continued saying to myself, notwithstanding, ' What can there be fearful in the shadow of a shadow?' But my only re- lief came in occupation and in other cares ; and, happily, these were plain and pressing. " On entering the common room, my first duty stared in my face. That table set out with so much anxiety and anticipation in the morning was now to be put away untouched. It was a 173 THE TWIN SISTERS gloomy task that replacing by a pine torch- light those plates and bright knives that re- folding of the white table-cloth and returning it to the dowry-chest in the loft that removing of the uncut cheese and bread and apples and nuts, and storing them back in their places. In some circumstances, this would have been a pleasure, but doing it now, not as in the morning, thinking pleasant thoughts, and chatting gaily with Maria, but in silence and alone, and with that hideous shadow-picture, which I could not banish, hang- ing continually before my fancy and and Maria, dear Maria sitting at the bedside ! "When all was cleared away, I did not re- turn to the sick room, but built a new fire and was busied for an hour or more in preparing the family supper. Maria refused to leave the young" man alone, though there was then really nothing to be done for him or to allow me to take her place at the bedside. "So Babbo and I sat down without her at the table; and Babbo then said that the cases of wine appeared to be unhurt, and he should carry them to Martigny in the morning; and he should, he believed, be able to bring back a surgeon, since there would surely be found more than one among the pleasure-and-health-seeking travelers who passed through there every day; and if not, OF MARTIGNY on his return he would go over to Aosta and get one of the city surgeons from there. ' Ma Babbo caro ' [but Papa dear], I said, ' how can we bear the cost of that ? ' ' In every way,' he replied, ' it must be done. But five lire, I think, will be ample from Martigny and ten from Aosta j and the wine (not to speak of my service in forwarding and delivering), will be worth fifty.' " He looked thoughtful a moment, then he smote the table with his fist and exclaimed, as he rose : ' There, there ! by San Martina ! how strange I should have forgotten it the young man told me, when we met at the Hospice, that he had an appointment to meet there to-day, yes, this very day, an Italian surgeon, Dr. Carlo Ferrenti, a dis- tinguished alunno of the University of Siena, his own maternal uncle, who was at present attached to the household of the Conte Crocini di Monte- pulciano who had a palace in Siena, where he had by accident become acquainted with the young student, admired his talents, fallen in love with the qualities of his heart, and remained his friend and patron. 'This nobleman had been soaking for some months at the Leukerbad, and was now on his way to the hotter and stronger waters of Aix-la- 175 THE TWIN SISTERS Chapelle. The party would be stopping for a week at the Hdtel de la Poste, because suitable accommodations could not be engaged with so short notice at la Tour, The wine was for the use of this nobleman by special prescription.' "A very early breakfast was arranged and Babbo assumed the charge of the invalid for the night. After esconcing Babbo in the great willow- sleeper at the bedside, Maria and I made our- selves a bed in our own loft-chamber, and soon locked in each other's arms, both, as each believed of the other, fell asleep. But for me it was only snatches of unconsciousness and the night was filled with waking dreams, built of possibilities and impossibilities, pleasing and painful, which sometimes brought an involuntary smile to my lips, sometimes sent a cold shiver streaming over my whole body. " Not long after midnight I awoke from a troubled slumber. The Moon, in her last quarter, hanging over Monte Velano, was pouring a flood of silver light through the room. I looked for Maria. She was gone. I sprang from the bed. Turning in the direction of the casement, I saw her, partly enveloped by a bed coverlet, reclin- ing in an armchair near the dower-chest on which her feet were laid. Her head was leaned back upon a pillow, and she was soundly sleeping. 176 OF AIARTIGNY "It was a lovely sight. Her unbound hair streamed over the snowy pillow. Her deeply exposed bosom rose and fell with her slow and silent breathing. Involuntarily I stooped and softly, softly kissed her smooth, fair brow. Lift- ing my eyes, the next instant, I saw her beautiful profile clearly drawn on the opposite wall. But, under the pale, quivering sheen of the moonlight, growing every moment more faint and dim, as the sinking luminary approached nearer and nearer the horizon, and in the deep stillness, broken only by the soft basso of the mountain cascades, the sight fell on my excited fancy as another prophetic shadow of helplessness, disap- pointment, despair. " Fearing on many accounts to leave her sleep- ing in that exposed and insecure position which I had reason to believe, from her previous habits, she had taken in a somnambulistic state, I led her gently back to the bed without awaking her; and soon myself fell asleep again. "After another uncertain period of disturbed and unrestful slumber, I again awoke. Morn- ing twilight had not yet begun. The Moon had set. The stars were shining in an un- clouded sky. Maria was sleeping. I felt im- pelled to rise, and slipped softly from her side. "As I passed our window, which looked toward 177 THE TWIN SISTERS the west, I saw the Swan sailing down the Milky Way. Just below her left wing, ready to drop behind the Col de Ferret, glorious Lyra was shin- ing so brightly across that snowy mountain top, as to throw a shadow very faint, to be sure, yet a perceptible shadow of my loosely robed figure over my sleeping sister. The radiance of the constellations had brightened her countenance, and just the suggestion of a smile lay on her lips, as if she were in some pleasing dream, or, I thought, as if her spirit, while the body slept, were listening to the music of that celestial harp. But when the shadow of my form crossed her face, the smile disappeared; her brow was con- tracted, and it seemed to me that a spasm of anguish shot across her troubled countenance. I said to my trembling heart, ' Is this shadowy pro- phecy tripled upon her and upon me ? What can it forbode ? Is it that my destiny is fated to conflict with hers? Are the stars in the sky interested in us ? and informed, perhaps, of our future ? or is it true, as the story said, that there live our guardian angels ? ' " 178 OF MAR TIG NY XVII. " Love is a pearl of purest hue, But stormy waves are round it, And dearly may a woman rue The hour when first she found it." Miss LANDON. A S the dawn was coming on, I crept silently /Y down into the Salotto. The patient had so far improved during the night as to swallow readily, and Babbo was giving him, at frequent and regular intervals, milk and wine. There was a twitching about the eyes, though the lids were closed, a clenching and unclenching of the fingers, an uneasy working of the toes, and a low moaning which returned from time to time. " Babbo now gave over the care of him to me ; and proceeded to carry out his plan about the wine and the surgeon expecting to have re- turned before mid-afternoon. Maria was to be out with the flocks at that season, however, only during the few warmer hours of the day. Velloso [old shaggy], as from his shaggy coat, we then called the dog, not knowing his real name, would THE TWIN SISTERS not go with her to the sheep, nor, in fact, could be persuaded for a moment to lose sight of the bed. If we attempted, however gently, to get him out of the room, he would growl horribly and gnash his teeth. When the moaning sea- sons came at intervals on the injured man, he would go and stand at the bedside looking now at his master, now up into the face of the watcher, whining piteously. ''Maria, having dispatched the indispensable duties of the household, departed with her charge up the mountain-side. Having been consoled by a good breakfast, Velloso stretched his great, shaggy body at full length on its side with ex- tended legs before the smouldering fire. His suspicions now seemed to be quieted, his ner- vousness gone ; and as I seated myself at the bedside, he seemed, as plainly as canine signs could express it, to entrust his master, without further scruple, to my care. " After once and again repeating his survey of the surroundings, and appearing to find every- thing satisfactory, he laid his great head down on one of its ears, as for a secure and comfortable sleep, into which he presently fell. " The door remained open into the larger com- mon-room. All was still, except the ticking of the cuckoo-clock or its chirping out the hours, i So OF MARTIGNY the loud breathing and occasional whine of the sleeping dog, and the heavy respirations and now and then the moans of the unconscious invalid. "As the day wore on, the hours seemed to me to grow ever longer and longer. I became intensely lonely and at last alarmed my com- panions an unknown, perhaps a dying man, and an unknown dog the stillness, on which ever and anon rose the cawing of crows in the neighboring woods, the roaring of the wind through the treetops, the rattling of the au- tumnal gusts against the window-panes, and the moans at the crevices of the casements. " My blood tingled and my heart palpitated with an undefined apprehension as I thought it must be another hour, perhaps more, before Babbo could arrive with the surgeon ; and Maria certainly would not come till nearly nightfall. Who could tell what might any moment happen ? " It had been more than willingly that I as- sumed the duties of day-nurse. Nor was I, at first, alarmed or displeased at the thought of being left alone in the house with that respon. sible charge. I occupied the first hours agreea- bly enough, sitting with my sewing at the win- dow, fulfilling from time to time the order about nourishment, now and again moving noiselessly about the room, replacing disorders, removing 181 THE TWIN SISTERS litter and dust, straightening the ever-gathering folds of the coverlet, smoothing out the wrinkles from the snowy linen, and returning to sew a little, but much more to gaze abstractedly up into the autumnal sky, where bright clouds were sailing swiftly along over the tops of the singing fir trees. " Later in the day a strange thing happened to me, which, if it had not caused, greatly aggra- vated, my nervous distress and alarm. Several times, on returning to full self-consciousness from one of those musing abstractions, I had, with surprise, found myself standing at the bed- side with a sort of pleased anxiety, gazing on the unconscious sufferer. I was alarmed and uneasy at it because I felt in my heart that, beyond my pity, which was really unselfish and keen, there was an attraction for me there which I could not extinguish, though I trembled while I was held fast in admiration of the noble form, the broad forehead, the gentle and lovely mouth in short, a tout ensemble of manliness to ravish any maiden's heart. "Oh, if I had had a mother then! how I would have pillowed my head on her bosom and wept in silent relief ! Nay, lone orphan as I was, how gladly would I have fled to our loft- chamber and buried my face in the pillows ! But 182 OF MARTIGNY I was pinioned and alone. I must stay. I dared not leave the room. At all hazards, I must regu- larly approach and administer the orders. At the price of his life, I must again and again direct my eyes where I should receive charge after charge of that mysterious magnetism which made me quiver in every fibre." ALPINE SOLITUDE. 183 THE TWIN SISTERS XVIII. " Imogen, The dream's here still ; even when I awake, it is Without me as within me ; ' SHAK. CYMB. ACT iv, sc. 2. AFTER a long silence, my companion resumed: " When I came to myself, I was on a cot in our loft chamber and partially bewildered. The surroundings were in general familiar enough, but the cot on which I lay, with head-and-foot- boards of polished walnut, certainly was not. There was also a stand of the same material, a rocker and a footstool which I had never seen before. These, as I afterwards learned, had been sent by the surgeon from Martigny. "Although free from pain, my strength was gone. It was only with the utmost exertion of will that I could lift my hand to my head. I wondered what had happened to me. Gradually I gathered some scattered memories, but these were so faint and uncertain that I doubted whether they were facts or impressions of a dream. Excepting these, the intervening space 184 OF MARTIGNY was a void; nor, if these few memories had a reality behind them, could I tell whether they belonged to a day or a month or a year ago. But presently exhausted by these efforts, I fell again into slumber. "When I again awoke, it was high-day. An unclouded sun was shining brightly over a daz- zling world. The mountainside opposite the window glittered back from the tiny glacier- threads and the tinier rivulets. The casement was open. The soft, sweet breeze of a fine autumnal noon lisped in the leaves and blew gently over my brow. The fragrant air was filled with the droning of a few 'industrious bees who had been drawn from their snug quarters by the genial warmth of the noonday hour, and were now humming around some clusters of very sweet but late ripening grapes that still hung on a vine which sister and I had trained over our window with the view mainly of getting a grate- ful protection, especially during the midsummer heats, against the afternoon sun. The vine was almost leafless now, but the shriveled clusters perfumed our chamber, and afforded a little occupation to the honey-seekers who in these last days of the season hardly ventured into the vicinity of the glaciers, and found but scanty attractions in the valley. 185 THE TWIN SISTERS "I found myself alone. Near my head on that polished walnut stand stood several phials, and beside them lay two or three ominous look- ing little folded papers. I knew then that a physician had been in attendance and wondered more than ever why and how long I had lain there. "I endeavored to rise but was unable. The movement of the coverlet dislodged a spoon from the stand which fell on the floor with a sharp ring. Immediately Maria appeared at the door. Her soft eyes glistened and her face was wreathed in smiles as she instantly addressed me in French. "The language itself had a meaning a pecul- iar meaning for us, I mean which I must ex- plain to you. Like all the people here, living in this corner between the three nations, where there is no distinct national language, of course we knew and spoke, with exactly the same com- mand and facility, the three languages of the nations around us yet this, not quite indiscrim- inately. We always made a kind of instinctive and almost unconscious choice in using them. I mean that under certain conditions, one of these languages, under certain others, another, .and again' under others still, the third language would always burst from our lips, without any 1 86 OF MARTIGNY especial intention or thought about it. But in this involuntary and unconscious determination, there was a curious unthought-of motive guid- ign our tongues. "The always acknowledged fact was that we venerated and loved, best of all, the language of Italia, Italia carissima e sempre adorata [Italy, dearest and ever adored Italy], the speech of our own nation, our home, our Patria the mellifluous speech that bore to the breezes, through all the ages, the huzzas and the groans of her sons and daughters in the days of their glory and of their shame the speech through whose rippling periods come down the thrilling pages of her tumultuous, heart-rending, unparalleled history the speech whose sonorous and beautiful syllables name out to the world her own dear name, her rivers and lakes, her mountains and valleys, her cities and palaces, her villas and vineyards and unmatchable wines the speech that was prattled in the mirth of their infancy, was filled with the glorious thoughts and visions of their manhood, and was whispered in the sighs and agonies of their departure by heavenly Dante and elegant Bocaccio, by Petrarca and Ariosto and Tasso, by Copernico and Galileo and Colombo and Ricardo, by Raffaele and Michelangelo and Guido, by Manzoni and Leopardi and Foscolo and Pellico " 187 THE TWIN SISTERS As the girl uttered these passionate words and whirled off a catalogue of which these above given are but the greater and represent- ative names, she straightened up with a sort of mournful pride, her former almost child- like voice assumed a declamatory tone, and her countenance beamed with a lofty intelligence at which I was at once astonished and fascinated. When this rhetorical flourish was over, and her countenance had assumed its normal expression, she added in her ordinary tones and with the first smile I had seen on her face : " Of course, the very sounds were music to our ears ; and Babbo never spoke in any other lan- guage to us, nor we to him. " But Mother, as I have said, was from France, and learned our Italian after she came to our home. The language of her own country always lay deepest in her heart. To her it was the lan- guage of love, of tenderness, of every private, domestic, family sentiment. Naturally, or rather necessarily, it was the lullabies of that language, sung by her over our cradle, under which we sank to our baby slumbers ; and our first infant prattle and our childish epithets of tenderness and affection, were taught us by her in her own tongue. " Of course, the effect of this infantile training 188 OF MARTIGNY was prodigious one might say extinguishing upon every other language in this field. Of course, no other words ever could sound to our ears so naturally tender, so full of meaning, so powerfully picturing every emotion and voicing every passion. With Mother we children never used any other ; and generally in private, always in our tenderest moments, we used our Mother's language with each other. Its very accent to our ears meant love and passion. " Of the German, I need only say that we spoke it only of necessity and with strangers of that uncouth nation. " You will understand now how much meaning there was in it, and how sweet it was to hear, when Maria, coming now to the bedside, and see- ing my eyes open, exclaimed, in great excitement, yet hardly above a whisper : ' J/ 'amt'e, tn'amie, ma chere enfant, est-ce-quil y a long temps que tu f es dveille'e ? ' [dear child, have you been long awake ?] ' No, M'amie' I replied, ' I have but this min- ute awoke. But am I sick? Have I lain here long ? Who brought these phials and papers here and all these other things ? What does it mean, Maria dear ? Tell me tell me everything.' 'Yes, dear, don't you remember,' she said, 'when they brought you up here?' 189 THE TWIN SISTERS ' No, certainly I don't not a thing about it. When was it ? why was it ? what was it ? ' ' You don't remember the Medico ? ' ' No, indeed, nothing of the kind at all.' ' That is very queer. You were talking to him all the time as fast as you could jabber.' ' What did I say ? ' (for I was frightened at that). " Maria made no other reply, but laid her hand softly on my forehead and smiled sweetly down on me, saying : ' It's so good to look into your dear eyes again, Marta! " Though I was n't distinctly conscious of any chapter of secrets in my thoughts which I need be terrified at having unconsciously divulged, still there was a dark cloud hanging over my mind which seemed to me to envelop some piece of history and, I felt, an uncanny history, too but the particulars of which I could not at all recollect, and therefore my heart did trem- ble with timidity at what of proper or im- proper privacy that field of darkness without memories might have contained and exhibited. So I persisted : ' What did I say ? ' ' Nothing worth thinking of now,' she said. ' But I must know now, now,' I insisted. 190 OF MARTIGNY 'Well, dear, I can't remember it all, there was so much, I only remember that you seemed in great excitement and the words / ' enfant cher ' [the dear fellow] came over a good many times. But there was nothing for a good gjrl to blush at, dear. So be quiet, Martettina [dear little Martha], and tell me if you can take some brodo [broth] now.' ' What am I to take brodo for ? Am I sick ? I feel as well as ever, only so weak.' 'It's two days ago this afternoon that the Medico came and gave you one of those pow- ders,' she pointed to the little papers that lay on the stand, 'and we've given them as he directed, and kept you asleep till now.' ' But what's the matter with me ? ' ' The Medico didn't say ; but he will come every day till you are better. He came yester- day, felt your pulse, put his glass under your tongue, listened at your chest, asked me thir- teen of the queerest questions, ordered one more powder, and said you should wake up to-day. He will surely be here this afternoon. Now I must bring the brodo. He told me to feed you with it as soon as you awoke. I made it this morning. It needs a minute over the fire.' " With this she slipped quickly away to bring the broth. Being again alone, my thoughts wandered 191 THE TWIN SISTERS back to the events of my last remembrance, and became occupied with a hundred conjectures, wishes, fears. Then, I wondered Maria had n't alluded to the young man. One wouldn't have known, from her words or actions, she had ever heard of him. ' What had become of him ? Was he already dead and gone ? Or was he so much bet- ter as to be removed to the hotel in Martigny with his uncle ? Should I never see him again ? My heart was breaking to hear about him. But I could n't ask Maria. Why could n't I ask her ? -Oh, oh!' "At this point in my uneasy meditations, Maria came sailing in with the brodo. It was in one of dear sainted Mother's blue and white china tea cups which she brought in her dot from Nismes. Kneeling down at the side of my pillow Maria fed me very slowly with a bright silver spoon which the unknown lady had left, and it had the arms of France upon it. Between every spoonful sister leaned forward and gave me a kiss. " When my meal was over, she remained for a time, moving softly about the chamber as blithe as a butterfly, as lovely as an angel. She spoke but little and her tread was as light as the step of a kitten. I thought I had never seen her soft eyes so bright; and her face seemed to be shining in a halo of sweetness, like Venus at her full. 192 OF MARTIGNY This new radiance, thought I, whence comes it ? It must emanate from some secret joy. "When every little service of renovation and preparation throughout the room had been thus noiselessly accomplished, she came and knelt again at my pillow showering upon my hot cheeks gentlest kisses. That act of pity was too much. I could endure my silent thoughts no longer. My pent feelings burst forth like a new spring on an August noon from the foot of a glacier; and the tears streamed across my cheeks upon the pillow, like the torrents of the Val d' Entremont, with irresistible sobs. " Distressed at this new symptom of my malady and ignorant of its real cause, my sister reached and took from the stand one of the strange phials and, gently wiping the tears from my cheeks, cautiously brought the loosened stopper near my nostrils. The sensation was new to me, delight- ful and refreshing. I was about to excuse my sobbing, and with some difficulty between the spasms, begun: ' I did n't mean to cry, but ' 'Yes, yes, M'amie,' she interrupted, 'I know it how very weak your nerves are, but ' 'No, no not that but' I began again when she gently pressed over my mouth the fazzoletto [handkerchief] with which she was still 193 THE TWIN SISTERS absorbing the rivers that continued to overflow my cheeks, saying, hurriedly, ' Sta bene, sta bene, benissimo, M'amie [It 's all right, it 's all right, dearest]. Don't talk now. Sobbing so will harm you. We must keep you quiet. The Medico insisted on this. I won't tidy up again till you are stronger. I see, I see that your poor nerves could n't bear my bustling round so.' " Then turning her face up toward the window, she added, softly: 'Oh look at the clouds, M'amie how beauti- ful and peaceful they are now ! It will soothe you.' " I lifted my eyes and looked through the open casement into the soft, autumnal sky. Masses of bright white clouds of every con- ceivable form were sailing slowly down the valley. At this instant, I thought I heard a sound as of a slight movement below. Maria rose from her knees and slipped down the stairs, saying in a whisper as she went: ' Dans un moment, M'amie, je serai de man retour.' [I'll be back in a moment, dear.] " I continued gazing quietly and pleasantly into those clouds. Wonderful figures presented them- selves to my fancy. I saw there seas and islands, mountains and forests, fruitful fields and desert 194 OF MARTI GNY wastes, horrid battle-grounds and carnage and devastation, peaceful landscapes filled with the busy activities of animal and of human life, the bird twittering to his mate on a leafy bough, lovers in shaded grottoes embracing, mourners in churchyards beneath the sad cypress burying their dead all noiseless as the step of Silence, moving steadily across the scene, in the van of other yet similar multitudes pushing them for- ward into the abyss of immensity. My brain finally swam, and before the promise of Maria was fulfilled I was again asleep." ROAD TOWARD THE HOSPICE. 195 THE TWIN SISTERS XIX. Romeo. Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace ; Thou talk'st of nothing. Mercutio. True, I talk of dreams. SHAKSPEARE. THOUGH well nigh beyond the credence of our cold Teuton souls, stiffened by the chill fogs of the north, still the fact stands of a faculty of improvisation wonderful improvisation in- herent in Italian blood; and what, for example, Madame de Stael has pictured in her Corinne, so far from being a touch of overcoloring in that brilliant romance, is a reality which can be matched not unfrequently to-day among that warm-blooded people. In fact, my young com- panion, with an exterior so rustic and an environ- ment so bleak, yet with a thousand years of Roman equestrian blood tingling in her veins, was a genuine specimen of it. " In a dream of that sleep," she said, "if it was a sleep or was it a vision brought to me by my guardian angel ? kindly sent, perhaps, for my enlightenment and warning, by the august and 196 OF MARTIGNY loving patroness of my sister, Maria beatissma ? in short, whatever it was, I seemed, at a wish, to rise into the lofty air and to be borne swiftly along", propelled and guided only by my will. " Do you remember," she said, " the words of our glorious Dante, in the beginning of the Para- diso, where he describes his own introduction to a knowledge of the upper spheres." And then she quoted: And suddenly upon the day arose Another day, as with a second morn And second sun th' Omnipotent Dispenser chose The heaven with double brilliance to adorn. Here where soft Luna's silver cycle reels, Beatrice stood in glorious light embowered, With eyes fast fixed upon the eternal wheels ; My own on her from heaven itself I lowered. ' Why wonder,' said she, that thou can'st ascend, (Now free from fetters), as thou dost aspire ? 'Tis native, as the torrents to the valleys tend, Or upward soars the flame of living fire. 19 In repeating these lines, which in common with all the better class of peasantry throughout Tus- cany and beyond, I could not doubt, she had been familiar with from infancy, the feminine timbre of her voice changed again into a full orotund, declamatory tone, her figure straightened to its utmost height, her step fell with a regular cadence, 19? THE TWIN SISTERS and her countenance beamed with a subdued radiance of I know not what to say of awe, intelligence, passion. I was amazed beyond expression. She whom I had looked on merely as a specimen certainly an interesting yet not quite wonderful specimen of sentimental girlhood, now aroused in me something more than interest, more than aston- ishment, something rather like a mixture of Sibylline and angelic reverence. "I seemed," she went on, in that strange, exalted strain, gathering new inspiration with every word, " I seemed in my flight to pass over cities, villages, hamlets, and wide plains sparsely studded with human habitations. I saw moving below me, as in a vast panorama, the multifarious occupations of mankind, the numberless varieties of existence, all the vicissitudes of human life. " I heard for my faculty of hearing seemed equally extended in compass with my faculties of sight and of locomotion and correspondingly intensified in delicacy I heard the song of infantile glee and the wail of infantile woe; the shouts of youthful sport and the laughter of care- less mirth; the coarse jests of swinish revelers; brawling oaths of the impious; the fawning and flattery of slaves, parasites, false-traders, and seducers; threats of hardhearted masters and 198 OF MARTIGNY defiant yells of the down-trodden; hurrahs of the full-fed and gasps of the famishing; lovers' pledges, wedded vows, the soft hum of domestic joys, the howling of the madman, the sighing of the deserted, natal festivities, burial obsequies. " Over all these and over me, the twinkling stars looked down in solemn silence. The fickle Moon came and saw and went and returned per- petually her changing face, as if in cold uncon- cern, or in scorn. The glorious Sun, like a Monarch, mindful only of exalted duty, shone, with beams of health and joy, alike on the evil and the good. "As I passed thus swiftly along, conducting myself I knew not whither, there hove into view a troop of etherial forms passing also swiftly in a direction to the front, but obliquely across my own. The leader was a short space in advance of his company, an old man whose snowy hair flowed far upon his shoulders; and an equally snowy beard fell far down his breast. His head was uncovered and a lofty forehead towered above the most benignant countenance I ever beheld. The whole company were robed in drapery that sailed far out behind, though so enveloped in a nebulous diffusion, that no more was clearly defined than I have described of the leader. Their uncovered heads were youthful and their 199 THE TWIN SISTERS beardless faces wore a look of seriousness verging on anxiety. In a moment I was already so near that I in- voluntarily paused lest I should collide with them at the point where our paths were about to inter- sect. Even then the nebulous garments of the leader brushed my own ; and as he passed, with- out turning his head, he said, in a soft and silvery voice : ' Follow, if you will ! ' " Without a thought or a reason, I turned my course and fell into the train, almost abreast of him on his left hand. " Presently, without turning his head, he said again : ' Whither bound ? ' ' I know not,' I replied. ' Seeking what ? ' he continued. ' Knowledge and rest,' I answered. ' Follow in my company,' he said 'and if wor- thy, you shall be satisfied.' " A day and a night, as it seemed to me, we sailed on. The sun disappeared in a shadow and returned in glory. The moon sank behind the mountains and rose again over the valley. The stars, ever above the horizon, glistened and glided on. in the dark blue depths of heaven, like an army with bayonets and banners interminable. OF MARTIGNY Meanwhile, by day and by night, our company was evermore growing in numbers ; for, as we were continually meeting and passing other groups and individuals moving in every direc- tion, all of whom were greeted by our leader, as I had been, with the same soft and silvery invitation, one and another turned into our course and became part of our company. " At last we alighted on a bald, rocky moun- tain-top, on the verge of an immense circular island, which sloped down on every side, in the distant horizon, to the blue waters of the sea. On the face of these waters, which were perpet- ually rolling in tremendous billows, lay through- out the whole circuit black storm-clouds, on the bosom of which forked lightnings were always playing, and the sharp reports of continuous thunders, like an incessant cannonade, filled the sky with everlasting echoes. " There was no other access to this island since the surrounding sea was absolutely unnavi- gable than by the rocky mountain pass, whence an enormous staircase, cut in the solid rock, descended from the summit on which we and all others must alight to the broad plain below. But across the head of this staircase rose a lofty iron grating pierced by two narrow gates. Be- tween these two gates and extending backward THE TWIN SISTERS from the top of the stairs to the brink of the stormy sea, rose also another iron grating through which all could be seen, but with no passageway. " I now observed, as our company gathered on one side of this impassable barrier, that we were all of my own sex, and I saw that the similar company gathering on the other side were all of the other sex. I also noticed that the most of those on either side were busy grooming them- selves, often with great labor and ingenuity ; were much occupied in surveying each other through the impassable grating ; and occasion- ally a pair, one on either side, came together and exchanged tender greetings across the bar- rier. I observed, however, that such conduct did not meet with general approval, but was some- times made the subject of ridicule and sometimes of frowns and scorn. I saw, too, that this severe rule sometimes caused much grief and shame ; and when the delay was long, caused not a few to mope in loneliness and discontent. More than once or twice I saw, with unutterable horror, sometimes one only, sometimes both leap from the rock and disappear in the billowy sea. " I pressed eagerly forward to our gate, and finding it firmly locked, I stood surveying the sea-bound and storm-bound enclosure through the openings before me. The scene teemed with OF MARTIGNY animated beings. The breezes that swept over it were fragrant with a thousand delicious odors from flowery gardens and fruitful fields; and on their balmy bosom rose a confused murmur of happy voices and varied occupations. " Shading my eyes from the bewildering bright- ness, I could discover, by closer scrutiny, men and women walking arm in arm on the shining sands of the roaring sea. Others were reclin- ing on the shoulders of their companions, under the shade of some tree, whose luxuriant foli- age drooped about them in solemn majesty or waved high over them with plumes of joy. Others still, in native grottoes, through which ran rivulets, like threads of silver, were em- bracing with impassioned kisses. " I observed immediately, that throughout this whole region the inhabitants were in couples, and all were wholly engrossed with their own part- ners in this respect, differing much from many of the pairs already alluded to outside the gates, whose tendernesses were of shorter duration, and whose partners were often exchanged. "I had almost failed to notice, amidst the stirring scenes more immediately before me, in the far distance where the lights and shadows were less distinctly marked, a pair with whitened locks, seated in rustic arm-chairs, under the danc- 203 THE TWIN SISTERS ing shadows of a weeping willow, who seemed by their gestures for the old man would often stretch out his trembling arm in one direction and another, which was followed by the earnest gaze of the ancient dame to be recalling the more lively scenes which lay in the far distant foreground. " The attention of our company was now aroused by the soft and rapid notes of a silver horn. Presently we saw three venerable men whom we understood to be Homer, Plato, and Virgil taking seats upon a kind of tribune. We began crowding toward them to secure for ourselves each a passport which, delivered to the gate- keeper, would send him quickly to undo the bolts of the narrow gate and usher the fortu- nate holder into the sequestered paradise. "We could see that similiar proceedings were going forward on the masculine side of the grated 1 division. The tribune there, however, was occu- pied by three feminine figures, of a grave and commanding yet surpassingly beautiful presence the representatives, it was reported, of Fidelity, Philosophy, Passion, namely Penelope, Aspasia, Sappho. "As each applicant approached the judges, it was necessary to pass through a narrow passage, grated on either side, and of such length that 204 OF MARTIGNY the words spoken while the trial was going on were inaudible, save to the parties concerned though every movement was visible to all. " I gladly remained in the background, pre- ferring to see how others would fare, before putting my own destiny at stake. The process in every case was quite uniform, though the results were various. Each candidate, on enter- ing the narrow passage, received from the porter a blank passport to be laid before the judges, each of whom in turn propounded a single ques- tion, and according to the answer returned, either signed his name to the document and passed it on to the next judge, or crumpled it in his fist and threw it under the tribune when the rejected candidate was conducted beyond the tribune and was seen no more. I ought to add that, as each question was asked, the judge raised something like a telescope to his eye, directing it against the breast of the candidate. It was said that the glass revealed the truth whatever the answers might be. " All the others of my company had passed on, experienced their various fortune and left me in the candidate's lodge alone, when I took from the porter my blank and moved toward the judge's seat. I trembled in every limb. I had seen many a one turned sadly away. What hope 205 THE TWIN SISTERS could I have to fare better ? for I did not know, in the least, what those three tremendous ques- tions were, on which my fate must turn. " I was, however, greatly encouraged and com- forted, when looking through the grated gate, I saw the fortunate applicants gaily descending the great staircase within. Almost all were busily pairing; or being already paired, were descend- ing, arm in arm, to the happier plains. " Arrived at the tribune, I laid my blank pass- port with a trembling hand before the judge who sat on the right. Homer, if it was he, without lifting his glass, and with fixed eyes, as if looking with second sight, demanded: ' Damsel, swear to me, hast thou rejected a once accepted lover ? ' ' No ! ' I answered with a trembling but em- phatic tone. "He waited for some moments, but without uttering another word, then took the judicial pen, wrote his name across the face of the passport and handed it with the pen to his neighbor. Then Plato, if it was he, lifting the glass to his eye, demanded: ' Maiden, swear, hast thou scorned the affec- tion of a youth, or encouraged a hopeless passion, or sported with the semblance of the all-powerful sentiment without possessing the reality ? ' 206 OF MARTIGNY ' No indeed, no ! ' I answered with greater emphasis and less trembling than before; and he, quickly laying aside the glass, lifted the pen, wrote his name below the other, and passed the paper on. Then Virgil, if it was he, lifting the glass said: 'Child, tell me true, hast thou an offer of love ? ' " This stung me to the quick. I was ashamed to confess the truth. But seeing the glass aimed at my breast, revealing, I had no doubt, my secret thoughts, I dared not deny, or prevaricate. Hanging my head and with burning cheeks, I said softly: ' No.' 'Child,' he replied, while he crushed and threw away the passport, ' these fields are not for thee to-day. Go, and some other day thou may'st return, and if found worthy, enter these gates of delight.' " The next instant a crash of thunder seemed to burst from the zenith down upon my head. I sprang at the shock and awoke. " The sash had closed. The next moment Maria came flying into the room as on the wings of the the wind. I was sweating with exhaustion and fright." 207 THE TWIN SISTERS XX. Death you must surely delay; My beautiful journey is far from its goal, 1 have hardly set out on my way; Of the o'er-arching elms that emborder the whole, I but passed the first columns to-day. O death, I 'm not ready to rest ! At the banquet of life (yet hardly begun), But an instant my lips have been pressed To the brim of the cup I have tasted but one Oh, how sweet was the soul-thrilling zest ! 20 ANDRE CHENIER. ^ /*"\H, M'amie!' exclaimed sister, seeing the V^ drops on my forehead, 'you were fright- ened, were n't you ? ' 'Yes, M'amie,' I said. But the truth was, I was yet more surprised at seeing her looking so happy and beautiful. " Presently she began bathing my face with a soft towel moistened in water perfumed from one of the new bottles on the stand. I was familiar, as I have said, with Aqua di Felsina, but this ravishing odor was different from any- thing I had ever smelled. Years before I remem- 208 OF MARTIGNY bered something comparable to it though not the same. It came about in this way: " I once went with Alpine flowers to a great lady who was sick at Aosta in the Albergo della Posta. Her footman, a few days before, had stopped at our home, enquiring where such flow- ers could be found for his padrona who was ill and longed for some. She used to gather such here in her girlhood; and Babbo then promised to send them to her. " Maria and I well knew where to look, and picked a lovely mazzolino [little bunch] and put it in a little basket made of small vine-stalks and fir-twigs, with the softest and prettiest mosses cool and damp from the edge of the glacier near our house laid delicately around. It was very beautiful indeed, and smelled very, very sweet when I handed it to the maid, who gave it into the hand of the lady, who was reclined among great pillows and silken cushions on something like a chair and a bed all in one. "As soon as she saw the basket and the fragrance reached her (for it soon filled the room), she opened wide her beautiful eyes and spoke, in a soft, clear voice: '' 'A A, che questo / odore soavissimo ! ' [Oh, how very delicious this fragrance is]. " Then, as she put out her little hand, as white 209 THE TWIN SISTERS as the snow in winter, and the fingers covered with rings of gold and glittering with stones white and red and green, a little fazzoletto dropped upon the carpet, being flung by the quick move- ment of her arm near to me but some distance from her chair. I stooped and handed it to the maid. It was perfumed with a wonderful odor; and I could n't help whispering: ' Oh, celeste ! ' [heavenly]. ' Is that perfume agreeable to thee, Piccio- letta ? ' [dear little girl] said the lady, setting the basket down on a pillow at her side. ' St, Vostra Altezza' [yes, your Highness], I said just above a whisper (for I was much fright- ened at her), ' I do think it must be like the per- fumes in Paradise, for it is sweeter than the incense at the Mass for the dead.' ' JBuona Piccioletta /' [good, little dear], she replied, 'thou shalt have it then to aid thy prayers.' " Then she took this from her own neck [here my companion pointed to the pink coral rosary hanging about her neck] and handed it to the maid. The crucifix is a bottle also. ' Lapp