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 v"^ 
 
 THE DEEAM LUMBERS.
 
 THE 
 
 DKEAM NUMBEES. 
 
 % MoM. 
 
 T. ADOLPHUS TEOLLOPE, 
 
 AUTHOR OP "la BEATA," ETC. 
 
 IN THEEE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON : 
 CHAPMAN & HALL, 193, PICCADILLY. 
 
 1868. 
 IThe Right of Translation is reserved.^
 
 LONDON ; 
 BRADBURT, ETAKS, AND CO , PRINTERS, WHITEFRIAES.
 
 
 8^Z 
 
 V.I 
 
 4 CONTENTS. 
 
 BOOK THE FIRST. 
 
 ox THE BAiq'KS OF THE SERCHIO. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. — ^AT THE DOOR OF LUCCA CATHEDRAL . . 1 
 
 ir. — SIGNOR MORINI'S DINNER PARTY . . . . 28 
 
 III. — ^A WALK AND A DRIVE 56 
 
 lY. — THE FAMILY AT UZZANO 77 
 
 '■** v.— THE FARM AT RIPALTA 107 
 
 ^l VI.— A DUET BY MOONLIGHT 129 
 
 V 
 
 „'i "^ YII. — A SUPPER AT RIPALTA 151 
 
 ^ VIII. — ^AFTER THOUGHTS 174 
 
 ^ IX. — THE SECRET DRAWER 206
 
 VI CONTENTS. 
 
 BOOK THE SECOND. 
 
 , AT TJZZANO. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. — carlo's night-wale: to uzzano . . . 235 
 
 II. — A FUXERAL AT TZZANO 251 
 
 III. — SEECHIO LX AN'GER 27-i 
 
 IV. — THE DREAM 317
 
 BOOK I 
 
 ON THE BANKS OF THE SERCHIO.
 
 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 AT THE DOOR OF LUCCA CATHEDRAL. 
 
 It was the 14tli of September at Lucca, 
 and it was mid-day ; a fact which was pro- 
 claimed on that 14th of September at Lucca, 
 not merely by the ordinary striking of the 
 city clocks from the numerous belfries, but by 
 a multifarious and merry, if not very melodious, 
 clanging and clashing of bells of every kind of 
 tone, for the 14th of September is the highest 
 day of all the year at Lucca. Fortunate in so 
 many other circumstances, Lucca is fortunate 
 also in having its great annual holiday, the festa 
 of the VoUo Santo, at so festal a period of the 
 year. 
 
 y VOL. I. B
 
 2 THE DEE AM NUMBERS. 
 
 The pretty and bright httle city, the prettiest 
 and the brightest perhaps in all Italy, possesses a 
 cathedral of very elegant Italian gothic, and an 
 archbishop of great and special dignity in the 
 Romish hierarchy to match. The whole chapter 
 of this pretty and picturesque church is one 
 specially privileged and dignified. The arch- 
 bishop at his installation has tow steeped in 
 spirits of wine burned on a gridiron before him, 
 while the choir chants Sic Transit Gloria Mundi 
 as the flame sinks, just for all the world as the 
 Holy Father himself has at Rome. And every 
 canon of the chapter wears a mitre, as if he 
 were a bishop ! What in the way of honour 
 can a bishop and chapter want more ? 
 
 And the pretty cathedral contains a treasure 
 worthy of so dignified and exalted a clerical 
 body. Indeed, it is probable that the posses- 
 sion of the treasure has led to the special 
 exaltation of the clergy to whose guardianship 
 so sacred a deposit is entrusted. This treasure 
 is nothing less than the Volto Santo, or original 
 impression of the features of the Saviour, which
 
 AT THE DOOR OF LUCCA CATHEDRAL. 3 
 
 remained, as the legend says, miraculously 
 impressed on the handkerchief with which 
 Saint Veronica piously covered that holy face. 
 The rehc is preserved in a little chapel or 
 tabernacle raised in the nave of the cathedral. 
 Though adorned by a statue of Saint Sebastian 
 the masterpiece of Civitale, at the back of the 
 altar, and by a series of golden lamps of immense 
 value in front of it, the little chapel must be 
 admitted to be an ugly building, wholly out of 
 character with the elegant gothic architecture 
 of the church, and a terrible eyesore in the midst 
 of the otherwise perfect nave. To this little 
 chapel, the holy of holies in the estimation of 
 the Lucchese peasant, devotees constantly throng- 
 on every occasion that appears to them to re- 
 quire special aid or blessing from heaven. And 
 on the 14th of September the crowd, in which 
 each man, woman, and child is waiting for his 
 turn to pass in front of the door of the taber- 
 nacle, fills the entire church with a dense mass. 
 Of course no worshipper is so poor as to come 
 empty-handed. Each drops his or her offering
 
 4 THE 1)1] EAM ^'UMBERS. 
 
 of hardly-earned money in vases exposed for 
 the purpose, as they pass in unceasing proces- 
 sion in front of the reHc ; and the sum netted 
 on that day is always large enough to be very 
 well worth the acceptance of the most dignified 
 chapter. 
 
 It was mid-day, and the crowd in the 
 cathedral was at the thickest. The steps and 
 broad stone terrace in front of the quaint and 
 picturesque west entrance of the church were 
 also thronged with people, almost entirely 
 " contadini ;" that is to say, '^ country people," 
 from the " contado,'^ or surrounding villages and 
 farms. The great western doors of the nave 
 were opened wide, allowing the glowing summer 
 light to stream into and far up the compara- 
 tively dark nave of the church. And two un- 
 interrupted streams of men and women — in 
 w^iich, however, the latter sex was the most 
 numerous — continued to pour into and out of 
 the church in the quiet, sauntering, unpushing 
 fashion of Itahan peasants. 
 
 They were there to accomplish a high re-
 
 AT THE DOOR OF LUCCA CATHEDRAL. 5 
 
 ligious duty, and to do honour to the highest 
 and hoHest occasion of the year. But those 
 whose experience of Hfe is hmited to Protestant 
 countries, and who have in their memories the 
 aspect and bearing of large gatherings of people 
 assembled for some religious object of high and 
 special import, will wholly fail to form for them- 
 selves out of such experience any correct idea of 
 the scene which is here intended to be presented 
 to the reader. The closest observer could not 
 have detected in any single case among the 
 throng the smallest mark either of spiritual 
 exaltation, or of ascetic gloom, or of self- 
 righteous sourness, or even of restrained and 
 serious bearing. All w^ere dressed in their 
 best ; all were lazily good-humoured, and ap- 
 parently thoroughly disposed to be pleased with 
 everybody and everything about them. If the 
 huge doors of the cathedral, through w^hich the 
 crowd kept lounging in and out, had been the 
 entrance to a dancing saloon, or a tavern, the 
 look and manner of the people could not have 
 been other than it was.
 
 6 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 All were dressed in their best, and their best 
 was better that what would be the best of a 
 similarly composed crowd in almost any other 
 part of Europe. The Tuscans generally are an 
 especially well-dressed people ; a larger portion 
 of the general income of the working classes 
 being expended probably on that department, 
 than is the case among any other European 
 population. And of all the Tuscans the Luc- 
 chesi, the inhabitants of Lucca and its environs, 
 are noted for being the most well-to-do. Most 
 of the leading Italian cities have an immemorial 
 sobriquet, by which their most marked charac- 
 teristic is popularly expressed. And "Lucca 
 la industriosa " is the well-merited style and 
 title of the bright little city, which preserved its 
 mediaeval republican independence the latest of 
 all the Itahan cities save Venice. Everything 
 in the appearance of the city, and more still of 
 the neighbouring country, declares very plainly 
 to the most careless observer the right of Lucca 
 to her special epithet. Nowhere do the people 
 seem so prosperous, so well-to-do, so good-
 
 AT THE DOOR OF LUCCA CATHEDRAL. 7 
 
 looking. The best and honestest servants at 
 Florence proverbially come from Lucca. No- 
 where is the soil so highly cultivated as in the 
 basin in which the city stands. Nowhere are 
 the crops so heavy, the farm-houses and 
 buildings so decent-looking, the weeds so few, 
 the cattle so fat, the face of the land so green. 
 The w^heat raised in the farms around the city 
 is so exceptionally fine that a large portion of it 
 is exported as seed. The}^ are a handsome 
 race, these Lucchesi, open eyed, clear com- 
 j)lexioned, clean limbed — much superior in all 
 physical characteristics to the denizens of 
 Florence. And there is a very high average 
 of beauty among the women. 
 
 And now all this contadina population had 
 thronged into the city ; and all were decked 
 out, as has been said, in their festa garments. 
 A man might have been effectually smothered 
 and buried alive in pearls, if after the manner 
 of the old classical fable, all the rows that en- 
 circled all the brown, but well-formed, necks of 
 peasant girls who that day passed those great
 
 8 THE DREAM 1? UMBERS. 
 
 church doors had been thrown upon him in 
 heaped-up contributions ! And if all the gold 
 in the huge, curiously worked ear-rings — very 
 similar in taste to those which have been found 
 in the tombs of the race who inhabited these 
 hills and valleys two thousand years ago — were 
 added to the heap, he would be greedy of gold, 
 indeed, wdio would be content to carry it ! 
 There were many strikingly pretty faces, and 
 fine, admirably built figures among the crowd 
 — mostly of the Diana type, in which strength 
 w^as blended with lightness — limbs the free 
 movement of which was not devoid of grace, 
 and whose clean, well-balanced stepping was 
 not without a certain expression of dignity and 
 pride. Very many of the girls w^ore nothing on 
 their heads save a small gaily coloured hand- 
 kerchief, folded into triangular form, and tied 
 over the back part of their abundant hair, wdiich 
 was always carefully dressed and arranged, 
 generally in large bands over the temples. 
 These wxre dressed mostly in petticoats of 
 blue or green serge, with bodices often of
 
 AT THE DOOR OF LUCCA CATHEDRAL. 9 
 
 scarlet, but more frequently of faultlessly white 
 lineu. But some, and these generally of the 
 more well-to-do sort — the daughters of the 
 comfortable farmers of the lowlands — wore silk, 
 and had the very large hats of fine Leghorn 
 straw, worn quite at the back of the head, 
 which are commonly seen in the neighboui'hood 
 -of Florence. 
 
 In one sense, the crowd about the church 
 doors was, as has been said, quiet. That is to 
 say there was no hustling or pushing, or hurry, 
 or excitement. Every body moved slowly, 
 lazily, and saunteringly. If anybody was at 
 any moment prevented by the throng from 
 advancing in the direction in which he purposed 
 to go, he was quite as well contented to stand 
 still, and wait patiently till the way was open. 
 In all the crowd there was not a tone to be 
 heard, or a gesture or a movement to be seen, 
 which could argue irritation, hurry, ill-humour, 
 or violence of any kind. 
 
 But in another sense the people were not 
 quiet at all. There was an abundance of
 
 10 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 chattering going on — more among the men 
 than among the women — numerous greetings 
 between country neighbours, and in some in- 
 stances interchange of kindly words between 
 the country folk and city friends. 
 
 " Oh, bravo ! there is Signer Morini, on the 
 look out for us, no doubt," said a burly farmer 
 to a very strikingly handsome girl, evidently 
 his daughter, who was following in his wake 
 through the crowd, coming out of the church. 
 
 The dress of the tall, stout, handsome old 
 man in question was more like that of a 
 ''fattore," as the class are called, who in Tus- 
 can}' fill a position something between a bailiff 
 and a land-steward, than a " contadino,'' pro- 
 perly so called — that is to say a cultivator of 
 the soil. He wore a square-cut, old-fashioned blue 
 coat with brass buttons, a scarlet waistcoat with 
 mother-of-pearl buttons, gray serge breeches, 
 and blue worsted stockings, thick shoes high on 
 the instep, and a white low-crowned hat with a 
 very broad brim. And all these habiliments 
 were in perfectly good condition. K evertheless.
 
 AT THE DOOR OF LUCCA CATHEDRAL. 11 
 
 and despite his splendour of attire, Signor 
 Giovanni Bartoli was in fact a contadino, though 
 one of the wealthiest of his class. The land 
 that he, and his father and grandfather before 
 him, had cultivated was situated in the rich 
 alluvial valley of the Serchio, some three or 
 four miles from Lucca, in the direction of the 
 world-celebrated Baths, which are situated four- 
 teen miles from the city among the mountains. 
 Signor Bartoli's land was at the foot of these, 
 protected from the dangerous Serchio by lofty 
 and well-kept dykes, which, while they pre- 
 vented the unruly river from, committing the 
 devastations for which it had in Dante's day 
 already a bad name, permitted its waters, ferti- 
 lising in the extreme, when thus mastered and 
 utilised, to be made serviceable at pleasure for 
 the purposes of irrigation. 
 
 " Qom.Q,figliiiola mia! there he is, on the top 
 of the steps on the side of the fountain. We 
 shall lose him again in the crowd, unless we get 
 on!" 
 
 " It will not so much matter if we did. We
 
 I'l THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 should find him at home quite time enough ! " 
 muttered the girl who was following him, with 
 a little toss of her proud head. " I only hope 
 that that insufferable bore, Signer Meo, is not 
 with him ! '^ she added, stepping forward how- 
 ever in obedience to her father's words. 
 
 I have said that the beauty to be observed 
 among the girls of the Lucchese is mostly of 
 the Diana type ; and truly Hegina Bartoli, the 
 only child of Signer Giovanni Bartoli, might 
 have sat to the most fastidious painter as a 
 model for the huntress goddess herself. She 
 was now in her nineteenth year exceedingly 
 beautiful. An immense wealth of hair of the 
 darkest shade of chestnut was braided above a 
 noble forehead, higher and with a larger 
 development than is ordinarily to be found 
 among the peasant classes of any part of the 
 peninsula. Her large frankly opened eyes of 
 dark hazel w^ere shaded by lashes of remarkable 
 length, and very full, black, and strongly arched 
 brows. But perhaps the mouth was the most 
 notably lovely, as it w^as the most expressive
 
 AT THE DOOR OF LUCCA CATHEDRAL 13 
 
 feature of her face ; — the mouth, which is 
 always the most tell-tale feature, as to the moral 
 qualities of which it is the expositor, in the 
 case of the beautiful Regina Bartoli gave in 
 clearly marked and very unmistakeably legible 
 characters the outlines of her character. The 
 remarkably short and admirably cut upper lip 
 was very beautiful in its upward curl ; — but it 
 was somewhat too evidently given to so curling. 
 Add to this observation the poise and turn of 
 the head on the noble column of the throat, 
 and the general bearing of the person, and the 
 least critical of observers would never have 
 imagined that the character of Regina Bartoli 
 was faulty on the score of too great a leaning 
 to humility. If ever high pride was legible in 
 outward semblance of a human being, it was so 
 in that of the beautiful Regina. It was to be 
 read in every passing expression of her face, in 
 every turn of her head, in every step of her 
 gait! 
 
 Nevertheless, the face w^as not one which 
 would prepossess unfavourably anyone who saw
 
 14. THE DEEAM NUMBERS. 
 
 it. It ^'as by no means an unamiable face. 
 The pride was not a pride of a bad sort. Those 
 who most complained of it were Regina's suitors ; 
 but then their name was legion ; and they all 
 agreed in swearing that Lucifer was a model of 
 meekness in comparison to her. But there 
 were categories of Regina's acquaintances, who 
 though they hardly ventured to deny that the 
 pride was there, did not find themselves hurt 
 by it, and accordingly made no complaints of 
 it. Her father could not altogether be reckoned 
 among these, though his Regina was as the 
 apple of his eye. For he did sometimes com- 
 plain that she treated all the marriageable 
 youths of their w^orld in such a fashion that 
 one would think she had made a vow to die an 
 old maid. And then Regina would declare 
 that as far as she could see, and for her part, it 
 would be about the wisest thing she could do to 
 make such a vow. 
 
 For all this Regina was a very general favourite. 
 She was a favourite with the old men, whom 
 her disdains did not hurt ; she was a favourite
 
 AT THE BOOR OF LUCCA CATHEDRAL. 15 
 
 with the girls, whose lovers she did not make 
 any attempt to captivate ; and she was a 
 favomite with the matrons, who had seen her 
 attendance on her mother, who had died when 
 Regina was seventeen, after a very long and 
 tedious illness. Since that time she had been 
 the mistress of her father's house ; and in this 
 capacity also, the matrons of the country side 
 knew how to appreciate her excellence. 
 
 As for the young men, it would be difficult 
 to say, that despite their complaints and 
 reproaches, Eegina was not a favourite with 
 them too. For they would not leave her alone. 
 Never was a girl who had had so many lovers I 
 And not all of them mere contadini either ! 
 Otherwise it might have been said, as indeed 
 for a long time it had been said, that the proud 
 and pretty heiress of Ripalta farm (that was 
 the name of the podere Giovanni Bartoli culti- 
 vated) could find no country lad good enough 
 for her, because she was ambitious of marrying 
 a citizen, and becoming a town lady. The 
 accusation did not seem to be a baseless one for
 
 16 THE DEEAM NUMBERS. 
 
 a time. But latterly it had come to pass that a 
 townsman, and he such an one, as most girls of 
 a rank and position in life considerably superior 
 to those of Eegina Bartoli would have con- 
 sidered a most acceptable wooer, had placed 
 himself on the list of Regina's suitors, and met 
 with no better treatment from her, than she had 
 accorded to his contadino predecessors. 
 
 What could the girl want ? 
 
 Eegina's town-bred admirer was the son of 
 Signer Giacomo Morini, the rich Lucca lawyer, 
 and old acquaintance and business connection of 
 Signer Bartoli. Young Bartolommeo Morini, 
 the lawyer's son, had recently returned from 
 completing his studies at the University of Pisa, 
 to take his seat and desk in his father's office. 
 At his father's house, on the occasion of one of 
 Signer Bartoli's frequent visits to Lucca, and to 
 his lawyer, the young graduate in law had seen 
 Kegina, and had forthwith fallen in love with 
 her. It was a great condescension on the part 
 of such a person to do so ; for what was Hegina 
 but a mere contadina after all \ But old Morini
 
 AT THE DOOR OF LUCCA CATHEDRAL. 17 
 
 knew all about Signore Bartoli's affairs ; knew 
 to a scudo how many of them he had placed 
 out at mortgage, and how many invested in the 
 exceedingly lucrative but not altogether avow- 
 able commerce, conducted by one Andrea 
 Simonetti in a little dark office in the " Via San 
 Michele,'' in Lucca, which was much frequented 
 by the poorer and less prosperous cultivators of 
 the neighbouring country, who often left the 
 worthy Signer Simonetti's den with still longer 
 faces than they had worn on entering it. All 
 this was well-known to discreet Signer Morini ; 
 and upon the whole, he did not disapprove of 
 his son's condescension in falhng in love with 
 this rich client's magnificent daughter, though 
 she was but a contadina. 
 
 Signer Bartoli, on the other hand, though he 
 would by no means have admitted that there 
 was any condescension in the matter, was not 
 displeased at the disposition manifested by the 
 young lawyer. For he too had some knowledge 
 of the old lawyer's affairs, though by no means 
 so accurate a one as the lawyer had of his. 
 
 VOL. I. C
 
 18 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 But now the gossips could no longer say that 
 Eegina Bartoli snubbed all her countr}^ admirers 
 because she was ambitious of becoming a town 
 lady. For here the object of such an ambition 
 ^\'as offered her in a very desirable form ; and 
 lo ! Regina was as scornful and untameable as 
 ever. 
 
 It was this unhappy Bartolommeo Morini, of 
 ^vhom the scornful beauty said to her father, as 
 they emerged from the dim cavern of the 
 cathedral nave into the blazing noontide summer 
 sunshine of the flagged steps, that she hoped 
 that Signer Morini, whom her father had 
 descried amid the crowd, was not accompanied 
 by " that intolerable bore, his son.*' 
 
 Signer Morini was in truth accompanied by 
 his son, as very speedily became apparent. 
 They had not yet descried Bartoli and his 
 daughter among the crowd ; but were standing 
 a httle out of the throng, looking out for them 
 as they should come out of the church, at the 
 northern end of the little flag-paved terrace at 
 the top of the steps which, equal in width to
 
 AT THE DOOR OF LUCCA CATHEDRAL. 19 
 
 the whole west front of the cathedral, lead to 
 the great entrance. 
 
 Eegina and her father did not make their 
 way to the spot where the lawyer and his son 
 were standing, without encountering sundry 
 greetings from acquaintances, mostly young- 
 men of their neighbourhood in the country, to 
 which old Bartoli for the most part replied by 
 a nod and a word of some sort, and Eegina by 
 a silent and generally very haughty and slight 
 bend of her stately neck. 
 
 " Eccoci ! Eccoci ! Here we are !" exclaimed 
 Lawyer Morini hurrying forward, as soon as he 
 caught sight of the farmer and his daughter, 
 " here we are ! We have been on the look out 
 for you for the last quarter of an hour ! We 
 thought we should be sure to miss you if we 
 came into the church. Your humble servant, 
 Signorina Regina !" 
 
 Signer Morini, the lawyer, was a brisk little 
 man, with black eyes, black stiff hair brushed 
 hog's-mane fashion, black beard, black garments, 
 and a shrewd weasel-like face. Ilis son, who 
 
 2
 
 20 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 was by his side, was of far more agreeable 
 exterior ; but he was without any of his father's 
 briskness of manner. He was a tall and not 
 ill-looking stripling, with curling chestnut hair, 
 and a handsome beard to match, dressed in gay 
 colours and in the height of Lucca fashion. 
 The expression of his face was one of simple 
 vacancy, lighted up by occasional pallid gleams 
 of self-complacency. 
 
 " Certainly, you would have missed us in the 
 church ! " replied the farmer ; " as well look for 
 one black bean in a field of white beans, as for 
 a man in that crowd. There's all the world in 
 the church, I think. The shop will make a 
 good thing of it this year, or the devil is in it 1" 
 
 La Bottega, the shop, was Signer Bartoli's 
 irreverent mode of designating the cathedral 
 clergy, and indicated that his opinions and 
 feelings with regard to the Church were those 
 which have long been prevalent in the towns of 
 Italy, but which are only beginning to be 
 general among Signer Bartoli's class in the 
 country ; opinions, however, which did not
 
 AT THE DOOR OF LUCCA CATHEDRAL. 21 
 
 operate to prevent him from visiting the metro- 
 pohtan church on the high festival of the Volto 
 Santo as his fathers had for many generations 
 done before him, or his daughter from dropping 
 a very handsome donation into the yawning sht 
 of the great tronc in front of the shrine. 
 
 " The shop will make a very good thing of 
 it, because the devil is in it 1" returned the 
 lawyer with a laugh, and a " what-would-you- 
 have" grimace and shrug. " Come along ! it is 
 past mid-day, and our colazione will be waiting 
 for us. My wife will think that the Signorina 
 Kegina's devotions have been protracted." 
 
 "Devotions! Bah! Altro die devozioni ! 
 She put the price of a couple of fat capons into 
 the tronc, I know ! That is the main part of 
 the devotions ! But what would you have I 
 Women will be women ! " said the farmer, the 
 main gist of whose speech was to boast of the 
 handsomeness of his contribution to the object 
 he affected to despise. 
 
 "Anyway, to your worship the price of a 
 dozen of fat capons, more or less, makes very
 
 2-Z THE DEE AM ^^ UMBERS. 
 
 little difiference !" said the lawyer, who well 
 understood the farmer's purse-proud humour ; 
 " but to think of all the money those black 
 cattle get out of poor devils, who have more 
 than enough to do to pay their way in the 
 world honestly ! I call it robbery !" 
 
 Thus discoursing the two seniors turned to 
 descend the steps of the church, and stroll 
 slowly towards the law^yer's house ; where, 
 according to annual custom, Signer Bartoli and 
 his daughter were to eat their midday meal on 
 that day. Their direct w^ay w^ould have led 
 them across the great square in front of the 
 huge palace, once the residence of the Dukes of 
 Lucca, now one of the forty or fifty useless 
 palaces of the King of Italy. But to cross this 
 open space in the noon-tide blaze of the mid- 
 September sun w^as not to be thought of by any 
 Italian ; especially as by passing through the 
 church of the Baptistery, which stands a little 
 to the north-west of the cathedral, and then 
 threading one or two shady back lanes, they 
 were enabled to reach the piazza of San Michele,
 
 AT THE DOOR OF LUCCA CATHEDRAL. 23 
 
 in the neighbourhood of Avhich was the dwelhng 
 of Signor Morini, ahnost without encountering 
 a ray of sunshine. 
 
 The young people were left to follow, as 
 Eegina had presciently known would be the case, 
 if Signor Bartolommeo were with his father, when 
 she had expressed the hope that that fate was 
 not in store for her. 
 
 " The holiday is a holiday indeed, signorina, 
 that brings you into town !" said Meo gallantl}^, 
 executing a very elaborate bow as he spoke. 
 
 " For my part there is nothing I hate so 
 much as coming into the city ! " said Regina, 
 very ungraciously. 
 
 " Your place is so beautiful ! And the heat 
 is very oppressive ! May I venture to offer you 
 my arm, signorina ! " 
 
 " I prefer walking alone ! " said Eegina, with 
 a look that might have frozen an army of more 
 appreciative swains. In fact the offer was by 
 no means convenahle in the eyes of a country- 
 bred damsel ; and even among citizens savoured 
 somewhat of new-fanoied manners.
 
 24 THE DEEAM NUMBERS. 
 
 Meo was obliged to content himself with 
 walking by her side therefore, while she took 
 care to keep as close behind her father and 
 his as possible. 
 
 " Did you not find it intolerably hot in the 
 church 1 " he asked. 
 
 " I did not go there for pleasure ! One must 
 attend one's religious duties ; at least we country 
 folk choose to do so. You preferred to remain 
 outside, I suppose ! " returned Regina. 
 
 " You went to worship the Volto Santo ; 
 I knew that if I waited at the door, my Volto 
 Santo would come out to me ! " said the Uni- 
 versity-bred youth with irreverent gallantry, 
 looking with a glance of intense admiration into 
 his companion's face as he spoke. 
 
 What he saw there might have sufficed to 
 teach him, if he had had the sense to read it, 
 that he was not taking the right way to make 
 himself agreeable to the object of his admira- 
 tion. The short and lovely upper lip was curled 
 into an eloquent expression of the most intense 
 scorn and disgust. The proud head was raised
 
 AT THE DOOR OF LUCCA CATHEDRAL. 25 
 
 a little more proudly, and the face was yet a 
 little more turned away from him than it had 
 been before. But this was all the notice she 
 condescended to take of his words. She would 
 not, if she could help it, let him perceive that 
 she had comprehended his meaning. It was 
 disgusting to her to be complimented on her 
 beauty by him. And though Regina was not 
 a specially devout Catholic — but few Italians of 
 any class or age, are so in these days ; — yet she 
 had sufficient reverence for sacred tilings and 
 sacred names, and sufficient natural good taste 
 to make the flippant and vulgar irreverence of 
 his words exceedingly distateful to her. 
 
 " 1 cannot tell you, Signorina Eegina," he 
 resumed, after walking some distance in silence, 
 " how anxiously I have been looking forward to 
 this holiday, knowing that you would be sure to 
 come in, and to visit us as usual ! " 
 
 Eegina thought that her father and Signer 
 Morini walked slower and slower. It seemed 
 as if the walk to the lawyer's house would never 
 come to an end ! And she was in purgatory as
 
 26 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 long as it lasted ! Being constrained thus to 
 listen to whatever Signer Meo chose to say to 
 her made him more hateful to her than ever, 
 and irritated her into rudeness, 
 
 *' I have no choice but to accompany my 
 father where he chooses to take me," she said, 
 speaking with the extremities of her all but 
 closed lips. " Not that I am not grateful to 
 your mother for her civility. She has always 
 been very kind to me,^' she added, with a little 
 compunction for the extreme rudeness of her 
 previous words. 
 
 *' You know that it is a festa for us all in our 
 house when you enter it, Signorina Regina. 
 And I think you know," he added, dropping his 
 voice almost to a whisper, " that it is so to me 
 more than to all the others.'^ 
 
 " I am sure I am ready enough to enter it 
 now," retorted Regina ; " for I am very tired of 
 my walk, and I wish it Avas at an end." 
 
 " It will be in a minute, worse luck for me," 
 rejoined Meo ; " see, here is the Piazza di San 
 Michele, we are close at home. Will you not
 
 AT THE DOOR OF LUCCA CATHEDRAL. 27 
 
 say one kind word to me, Regina, before our 
 walk is at an end '? " 
 
 But E-egina was gazing up at the fourfold 
 lines of quaintly ornamented arches and statues, 
 which tier above tier form the singular and 
 picturesque west front of the Church of San 
 Michele, in the piazza of the same name, which 
 they were crossing, and pretended not to hear 
 what her unwelcome suitor was pouring into 
 her unwilling ear. And in the next minute, all 
 four of them were standing at the lawyer's 
 door, while he drew from his pocket a key w^ith 
 wards at both ends of it, with which he pro- 
 ceeded to open the door, by applying either end 
 of it to two different locks in succession.
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 SIGNOR MOKINI'S DINNER PARTY. 
 
 House-rent is cheap in Lucca. Signer Morini 
 was a warm man ; and he therefore indulged in 
 the comfort and ostentation of occupying the 
 entirety of a small house. Having thus space 
 enough, he had his studio, or office, as we should 
 say, under the same roof with his dwelling, con- 
 trary to the more usual practice of men of his 
 profession in Tuscan}^ The studio occupied 
 three rooms on the ground floor on the right of 
 the entrance door. On the left of this, and of the 
 large roomy hall and staircase, the front room 
 was occupied by a miscellaneous litter of objects, 
 which would have sufficed at once to proclaim 
 the dwelling to be an Italian and a Tuscan one 
 to all such as had any knowdedge of the
 
 SIGNOR MORINI S DINNER-PARTY. 29 
 
 habits of the country. In one corner might be 
 seen a huge heap of flasks, the thin and extremely 
 fragile glass bulbs of which were duly protected by 
 their "breeching" (technical term) of flag-rushes. 
 
 Wine, oil, water, vinegar, milk, and indeed 
 any other liquid article of ordinary domestic use 
 is habitually stored for keeping, or placed for 
 present use, in these ubiquitous flasks of all work. 
 
 In another corner was a sack of flour, a saddle 
 on the floor by the side of it, and close to that 
 one of the tall brass Tuscan lamps of elegant 
 and suggestively picturesque form, a legacy, as 
 regards the peculiar fashion of them, from the 
 old, pre-historic Etruscan civilisation. Then a 
 litter of the great golden-hued ears of the 
 maize, or " gran' Turco," as it is called in Tus- 
 cany ; and a large quantity of the long, dried 
 leaves of the same plant tied up in a sheet by 
 the four corners, and reserved for the stuffing of 
 paillasses for the beds. 
 
 Behind this characteristically garnished room 
 was the kitchen, and other offices. The family 
 dwelt exclusively on the first floor ; and the
 
 30 THE DREAM Is^UMBERS. 
 
 second, half iinfurnislied and filled with an accu- 
 mulation of lumber, sufficed for servants' bed- 
 rooms in the other half. 
 
 La Signora Morini, who had run out as soon 
 as she had heard her husband's key in the door, 
 was standing on the first landing-place of the 
 open staircase to welcome her expected guests 
 as they entered. 
 
 She was a large, fair, comely woman, wdth a 
 good-humoured and pleasing expression of kind- 
 liness on her broad, fat face. She was dressed 
 in a very handsome black silk dress, with a 
 tippet — or whatever may be the more appro- 
 priate and modern name of the garment — of 
 fine wdiite lace, the product of no machinery, 
 however cunningly devised, but of yet cunninger 
 human fingers. On her large broad head she 
 wore a towering and wonderful structure of lace 
 and ribbons. For was it not the festa of the 
 " Volto Santo f And did it not become every 
 Lucchese to do honour to the day and the 
 miracle by the production of the very best bibs 
 and tuckers *? Over her handsome silk dress
 
 SIGNOR MOPJNIS DIXNER-PARTT. 31 
 
 Signora Morini had a coarse white hnen apron, 
 intended to protect its splendour during the 
 ante-company hours of domestic privacy ; but 
 which, with genuine Tuscan simphcity, she had 
 never thought of stopping to remove before 
 running out in a hurry to speak to her country 
 visitors the hearty welcome which she so genu- 
 inely meant. 
 
 The Itahans of the upper classes are rarely 
 hospitable in their city lives. They are more so 
 in the country. And the traditional habits of 
 life which have caused this disposition have 
 no doubt arisen from the fact that in the 
 cities of Italy almost all amusement, especially 
 all evening amusement, is of a public and 
 non-domestic character. The middle classes, 
 corresponding with what we should call the 
 lower half of the middle class, is generally more 
 disposed to hospitahty. But among them the 
 hospitality which is most commonly practised 
 consists not in mutual visiting between city 
 neighbours and friends, but in receiving friends 
 and connections from the country.
 
 SZ THE BREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 There is a good deal of rivalry and ostenta- 
 tion in intercourse of this sort ; the remaining 
 result of the old antithesis, once so strongly 
 marked in Italy, between the inhabitants of the 
 country and the denizens of the cities. The 
 prevailing feeling which prompts this sort of 
 show-off is not, " See how grand and great I, 
 A. B., am ! " — but, " See how superior our city 
 mode of life is to what you country folks are 
 used so ! " 
 
 And then there is much less of offensive vul- 
 garity in Italian ostentation than in that of 
 some other peoples. There is a frank, naive, 
 one might almost say childish, simplicity and 
 openness about it that well nigh saves it from 
 offence. The rich man delights in showing off 
 his own magnificence ; and the poor man de- 
 lio-hts in looking at it, with a pleasure as un- 
 alloyed by any feeling of shame at his own 
 poverty as the pleasure of the gallery-gods at a 
 theatre is in gazing at stage magnificence. In 
 the great and intensely Italian gala show, which 
 is called a cor so, the owner of splendid carriages
 
 SIGNOR MORINI S DINNER-PARTY. 33 
 
 and horses and liveries makes the utmost display 
 of them ; while next him in the line of equipages 
 shall be seen some utterly wretched and shabby 
 shandridan with its one meagre steed, and rusty 
 harness, the masters of which for the day are 
 enjoying the Cor so and its splendours to the 
 very full as much as Dives in his gilded coach, 
 without the faintest shadow of a thought of 
 shame at their own shabbiness, or perception of 
 the incongruity of their own appearance cheek 
 by jowl with their neighbour's wealth. There are 
 many other things which, to the disadvantage of 
 the Italian moral nature, are felt by Itahans to 
 be misfortunes without being, as our sterner 
 moral code declares them to be, disgraces. And 
 the same is true from the Italian point of view 
 more advantageously of poverty. It is a no 
 whit lesser evil than in our own estimation. But 
 it is not felt to be disgraceful. The rich man 
 displays his beautiful things for the gratification 
 of the poor man's eye, not with either the view 
 to, or the result of, crushing or depressing him. 
 There was much of ostentation in all that went 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 to the gala-day reception of their country friends 
 by the Morini family. But it was of the simple 
 sort. It was understood and admitted by both 
 parties to be ostentation, and was admired and 
 approved of as such. Signora Morini's grand silk 
 gown, and fine lace, and magnificent cap were 
 all assumed for ostentation, and most assuredly 
 not for the good dame's own personal comfort. 
 And at the fitting moment they would be dis- 
 played in all their unveiled splendour. But in 
 the mean time there was no feeling that 
 prompted her to dissemble the fact that these 
 superb possessions were to be carefully guarded 
 and preserved as such. And the fact that she 
 was seen by her visitors with a coarse linen 
 apron over her spotless silk dress, had no 
 tendency whatever to produce annoyance on 
 her part, or any depreciatory observations on 
 theirs. 
 
 " Here you are at last, the saints be 
 praised ! " she cried, from her place on the fixrst 
 landing-floor of the stairs, as soon as they 
 entered the hall door, " better late than never !
 
 SIGNOR MOEINIS DINNER-PARTY. 35 
 
 Welcome Signer Giovanni ! Welcome S'ora Re- 
 gina ! Co77ie sei bella ! Ma come ! You are 
 like the Campanile di Giotto ! Every time one 
 sees you, you seem more beautiful than the last 
 time ! My faith it is true ! I wanted Meo at 
 home this morning ! We had friends here ! 
 How I begged him to stay ! But lord ! I might 
 as well have spoken to the wind ! He must 
 needs be off with Morini to the Duomo to catch 
 the first sight of somebody. And I don't wonder 
 at him ! Come along ! Come up, Signer 
 Giovanni ! '^ 
 
 And the good dame turned to lead the way 
 into her sitting-room, where three or four other 
 guests had already assembled. 
 
 In the first place there was Signora Marta 
 Monaldi, the widow of a well-to-do wheelwright 
 from the same part of the country as the Bar- 
 tolis. Signer Monaldi had died in the prime 
 of life only four or ^yq months before that 14th 
 of September, and his widow was scrupulously 
 arrayed according to the proprieties of her 
 widowhood. The widow Marta had been a 
 
 D 2
 
 36 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 noted beauty, and still, at a year or two short 
 of forty, was a buxom dame of no inconsider- 
 able attractions, — attractions which were uni- 
 versally felt to be very considerable indeed, 
 when it was known that she was the entire 
 heiress of her late husband's very prosperous 
 business, and no insignificant amount of savings. 
 Of course it was felt that such a widow must 
 needs require a protector, and that she would 
 pi'obably not be insensible to the expediency of 
 selecting some fortunate man among the many 
 who were sure to be candidates for such promo- 
 tion as the successor to poor Giuseppe Monaldi, 
 and the manager of a business, which evidently 
 was not such as could be efficiently conducted 
 by a woman. As far as finding somebody to 
 act for her in this latter capacity, the widow had 
 already bestirred herself, and had asked her 
 friends to assist her. And it was very generally 
 felt that the person chosen for this purpose, if 
 not absolutely disqualified, would have long odds 
 in his favour as against any other candidate for 
 the great prize of the widow's hand. The selec-
 
 SIGNOR MORINl's DINNER-PARTY. 37 
 
 tion of a manager of the wheelwright's business 
 of Marta Monaldi, widow of Sponda Lunga, was 
 therefore a matter of greater interest in the 
 world than it would have been under other cir- 
 cumstances. 
 
 There was also in Signor Morini's sitting- 
 room a young man of some five-and-twenty, or 
 perhaps thirty, years of age, who would have 
 been called very good-looking by those of the 
 other sex, who have no gift of judging of looks, 
 save by the material form and colour of them ; 
 but who would probably have been deemed 
 singularly ill-looking by such as were endowed 
 with the faculty of more sesthetic perceptions. 
 This was Signor Andrea Simonetti, the son of 
 that capitalist of the same name, who has been 
 already mentioned as carrying on an industry 
 of a nature more lucrative than loudly avowable, 
 in a certain shady back street not far from the 
 piazza of San Michele, in the industrious city of 
 Lucca ; and to whom a portion of the hoarded 
 scudi of Signor Bartoli had been entrusted for 
 investment. There is no townlet of Italy so
 
 38 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 small as not to possess, unliappily, a providence 
 for the unfortunate, of the class to which Signer 
 Andrea Simonetti the elder belonged. The 
 public, ever ungrateful, call these benefactors 
 " strozzini." Now the verb strozzare, which i& 
 Italian of the purest Delia Cruscan mintage, 
 signifies to throttle, or cut the throat. Never- 
 theless, so many persons betake themselves to 
 these operators to have their throats cut, that 
 the business is generally a very lucrative 
 one. 
 
 Now Signer Andrea Simonetti the elder, the 
 ''strozzino" — not that anybody save an alto- 
 gether ruined and desperate client would ever 
 have dreamed of calling him such to his face — 
 was an old client and business connection of 
 Lawyer Morini. Such a friendship as that which 
 existed between the lawyer and Signer Simonetti 
 is always necessary to the members of the latter's 
 profession. And how can it be that those who 
 most constantly and habitually appeal to the 
 laws of their country, and most carefully square 
 their actions by them, can be otherwise than
 
 SIGNOR MORINl's DINNER-PAETY. 39 
 
 the best citizens ! Signer Morini and Signer 
 Simenetti were accordingly very old and very 
 close friends. 
 
 To this friendship had been due the intro- 
 duction of Signer Andrea Simenetti the younger 
 to the widow Monaldi. It had somehow or 
 other never occurred to the worthy lawyer to 
 bring these two friends of his together during 
 the lifetime of Signer Monaldi. It was not at 
 all likely that the thriving wheelwright would 
 have wished in any way for the acquaintance of 
 Signor Andrea Simenetti, either father or son. 
 Nor had the considerate lawyer seen any 
 reason for obtruding the elder gentleman on 
 the widow's notice. But very shortly after the 
 wheelwright's death he had found an oppor- 
 tunity of making the younger Simonetti ac- 
 quainted with his widow. He had not done so 
 till he had maturely considered the expediency 
 of submitting his own son to the widow's favour- 
 able notice. But in the first place Monaldi's 
 widow was, though no despicable prize, con- 
 siderably less worth having than Bartoli's
 
 40 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 daughter, supposing both ladies to be weighed 
 in the scales, which the lawyer was most 
 capable of using for the purpose of estimating 
 their respective merits. And in the second 
 place, Meo, his son, would not hear of any such 
 substitution in the object of pursuit proposed to 
 him. His admiration for the beautiful Regina 
 was a very sincere one. He was, indeed, 
 genuinely in love with her, with an infatuation 
 that was capable of going to the extent of 
 preferring her, even if she had been somewhat 
 the less wealthy of the two. 
 
 And under these circumstances Morini had 
 taken the earhest opportunity of starting young 
 Simonetti as his candidate for the widow's hand ; 
 and as a preliminary to that promotion, for the 
 managership of her business. 
 
 The latter object of ambition had been stated 
 to the lady in plain terms ; and the lawyer had 
 backed the young man's proposition with his 
 warmest recommendation. The widow, how- 
 ever, who had a head of her own, had asked for 
 a little time to think of the matter. And her
 
 SIGN OR MORINI'S DINNER-PARTY. 41 
 
 thinking, together with the results of certain 
 inquiries, which she had quietly made, and of 
 counsel which she had quietly asked in a quarter 
 to which ladies in her position are apt to- apply, 
 both in catholic and in protestant countries, had 
 not been favourable to the lawyer's recom- 
 mendation. Nevertheless, like a true Italian, 
 she had not declared her determination in an 
 open and decided manner. Perhaps she had 
 not altogether and definitively formed it. Pos- 
 sibly the handsome scampish-looking son of the 
 usurer recommended himself to the woman, more 
 favourably than the proposal of managership 
 recommended itself to the widow wheelwright. 
 Perhaps Marta Monaldi felt that she was a 
 woman, while she could not forget that she was 
 a wheelwright. At all events, she met the 
 aspirant to her favour very graciously at the 
 lawyer's house on the occasion in question ; 
 and behaved to him with marked kindness, 
 though she had come thither with the full inten- 
 tion of letting it be known that she had in fact 
 made an arrangement, which precluded an}^
 
 42 THE DEEAM NUMBERS. 
 
 further thought of Simonetti's becoming her 
 business manager. 
 
 " Well ! ^' said the mistress of the house, 
 unable to refrain for an instant from the 
 pleasure of telling the news on a subject of 
 so much general interest to the new comers, 
 " what do you think ? The Signora Marta has 
 found a manager for her business ! '' 
 
 " Who is it ? " 
 
 " Ah ! that is what I would give 3"ou a hun- 
 dred guesses to guess in, and you would be as 
 far as ever from the mark ! '"' 
 
 " I don't see why you should make such a 
 wonder of it," said the pretty widow, casting 
 her eyes down demurely ; " he is a connection 
 of my own. And blood is thicker than water, 
 you know, any way ! " 
 
 " Connection ! " retorted her friend. " Why 
 you knew nothing about him, and had never 
 heard of him a couple of months ago ! ^' 
 
 *' Heard of him ! Yes, Signora Maria," — that 
 was the name of the lawyer's wife, — "I had 
 heard of him, as far as that goes ! " pleaded the
 
 SIGNOE MOKINl'S DINNER-PARTY. 43 
 
 \vidow. " If I had never heard of my cousin s 
 husband, how could I have thought of making 
 inquiry for what I wanted there? Assunta 
 Benincasa was my mother's sister's child ; and 
 she was Francesco Caroli's first wife. She died, 
 poor thing — heigho ! '*' (the widow paused, and 
 passed her pocket-handkerchief before her eyes. 
 It was a passing acknowledgment of the uni- 
 versal monarchy of king Death, which was 
 felt to be no more than decent in a widow not 
 yet out of her weeds) — " she died, and her 
 husband — he was as good a husband to her as 
 ever man was — married again, and had a sou 
 by his second wife. That all happened when I 
 was quite a child ; for my cousin Assunta was 
 a good bit older than I was. But I had 
 always heard of Francesco Caroli from time to 
 time, and so I just thought I would ask him if 
 he knew of anybody who was likely to suit me. 
 That is all about it." 
 
 That was not, however, quite all about it. 
 And the widow had had some little hints to go 
 upon, beyond what she here thought proper to
 
 44 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 confess. However, all that she had said was 
 the truth, though it was not quite the whole 
 truth. 
 
 '' Well ! " said Signer Morini, who had left 
 home to go and look after the Bartolis at the 
 Duomo before the widow had arrived, and who 
 had therefore not heard the news ; " well, and 
 so, as I gather, your cousin by marriage was 
 able to recommend you a person likely to 
 suit ? " 
 
 " Well, 1 hope so ! " said the widow, again 
 dropping her handsome eyes to the floor with 
 a very demure look. " Signer Francesco has 
 proposed to me that his own son should come 
 and look after the business for me ! " 
 
 " His son ! '^ cried the lawyer, pursing up 
 his lips into the shape of a whistling " Whew ! " 
 
 " Well ! '' 23ut in old Bartoh, " since he is her 
 own relation ! what better could Signora Marta 
 do ? Blood is thicker than water, as she says ! " 
 
 " Not my own relation ! '' replied the widow 
 with rather marked promptitude and decision ; 
 " my connection ! — the son of my cousin's
 
 SIGNOR MORINl S DINNEE-PARTY. 45 
 
 husband by a second wife I There is no 
 relationship between us — between me and the 
 young man, that is ! " 
 
 " Well ! your connection then 1 " returned 
 Bartoli ; " so as he belongs to people you know 
 something of, and can have some hold on, that 
 is the main point, I take it ! I suppose he is 
 not a very young man — not a mere boy % " con- 
 tinued the farmer. 
 
 " Oh dear no ! not a very young man by any 
 means — not what I call a very young man ! " 
 replied the widow, with a slight increase of 
 colour in the smooth fair cheeks of her plump 
 and comely face ; " Carlo Caroli must be seven- 
 and-twenty, if he is a day ! " 
 
 " Seven-and-twenty ! Humph ! " rejoined 
 Bartoli ; " / call that a young man ! But then 
 we think of such things differently at your time 
 of life and mine, Signora Marta, don't we \ 
 Well, we'll hope he is one of them that comes to 
 steadiness early ! '' 
 
 "And where is this young man to come 
 from % '' asked the lawyer, swallowing and con-
 
 46 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 cealing his vexation as well as he could ; " no- 
 where hereabouts, I think ; or else I should 
 hardly have failed to hear of it. Carlo Caroli ! 
 I do not remember ever to have heard of the 
 name/' 
 
 " I believe that Sio'nor Caroli came from the 
 Val d' Elsa," returned the widow. " But when 
 my cousin died, he went to settle at Uzzano, 
 where his present wife has some propert3\" 
 
 " Uzzano ! Where is that ? Let me see — 
 Uzzano. That is somewhere in the Valdinievole, 
 isn't it 1 " said the lawyer. 
 
 "Yes, Signer Giacomo ; Uzzano is in the 
 Valdinievole, above Pescia," said the widow. 
 " I never was there ! '' she added rather hastily ; 
 '' and maybe I should never have heard of the 
 place, if my cousin by marriage had not settled 
 there." 
 
 " I know the place very well ! '' cried Signer 
 Bartoli ; " I have been there before now — 
 years ago. And a queer-looking place it is. 
 Such a tumble-down old ramshackle nest I 
 never saw ! . . . stuck up on a rock at the top of
 
 SIGXOR MOIUNIS DINNER-PARTY. 47 
 
 the mountain, with walls half-tumbled down, 
 and an old castle three-quarters tumbled down, 
 and half the houses in the place pretty nigh as 
 bad. Howsomever, there are some good ones ; 
 let's hope 3^our cousin's is one of them, Signora 
 Marta ; and some famous chestnut woods — as 
 fine trees as you would wish to see — round 
 about. But lord ! such a place to get to ! '' 
 
 " Uzzano ! Uzzano ! I have got the name of 
 the place in my head ! " said the lawyer. 
 " I think I have heard of it some time or other. 
 And when is this young man from Uzzano, who 
 is a connection but no relation, to make his 
 appearance at Sponda Lunga, Signora Marta ? " 
 
 " Well, Signer Morini, almost directly, I 
 believe. What was the use of waiting about it, 
 when the matter was once settled ? " said the 
 widow, with a manner that seemed to betray a 
 consciousness that the circumstances needed to 
 be excused — for which there was no apparent 
 occasion. 
 
 " Nay ! what use indeed, when the matter 
 was as you say once settled," coincided the
 
 48 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 lawyer. " I hope it may turn out for the best, 
 that is all." 
 
 A neat-looking servant girl here opened a 
 door communicating with an adjoining room. 
 
 " Now, Sigyiori ! In tavola ! In tavola ! " 
 cried the host, rising and motioning his guests 
 towards the dining-room, but without giving his 
 arm to either of the ladies present. 
 
 It was nearly one o'clock when they sat down 
 to dinner, and it was past three when the 
 dessert and the vin santo was reached. All the 
 intervening time had not absolutely been spent 
 in eating. For there were longer pauses be- 
 tween one portion of the feast and another than 
 is usually the case with us. But the talking 
 had been incessant, and the quantity of food 
 placed upon the table, and done ample justice 
 to by the company, was enormous. For was it 
 not the festival of the Volto Santo f At last 
 the ladies went to sit at the windows and look 
 out into the street, while the gentlemen took 
 their coffee. 
 
 Regina had of course been placed next to
 
 SIGNOR MORINl's DINNER-PARTY. 49 
 
 Meo Morini at dinner. She knew very well 
 before-hand that a couple of hours so passed 
 would have to be endured ; and she would 
 wilHngly have given up the holiday and its 
 visit to the city for the sake of escaping from 
 those hours, had the refusal to accompany her 
 father to Lucca on the festival of the VoltoSa7ito 
 been a thing at all possible to be thought of. Poor 
 Meo laboured hard to put his opportunity to the 
 best profit possible, and did his utmost to make 
 himself as agreeable to the proud beauty as he 
 could, — \\\i\\ no other notable result than that of 
 causing her to abominate him at the end of the 
 time somewhat worse than she had done at the 
 beginning of it. Nevertheless, she saw him on 
 this occasion to great and unwonted advantage. 
 For the comparison between him and Signer 
 Andrea Simonetti was all in his favour. So 
 much so, that had it not been for the conscious- 
 ness that he was making love to her, she would 
 have judged him to be a very tolerably harmless 
 bore in comparison with that far more obnoxious 
 individual. 
 
 VOL, I. E
 
 50 THE DEEAM NUMBERS. 
 
 Indeed the efforts of the disgustingly hand- 
 some young usurer to captivate the widow 
 might have afforded a very rich source of 
 amusement to an older and more cynically- 
 minded observer than Regina. But she had too 
 much of the pride of sex, and, like most of her 
 countrymen, too little of the sense of humour, 
 to find much amusement in what outraged her 
 sense of womanly dignity and propriety. The 
 widow, to do her justice, was in nowise disposed 
 to listen to the blandishments of Signer Andrea, 
 despite his snaky-looking, bright, black eyes, 
 brilHant teeth, and beautifully trimmed black 
 beard and moustache. But she was not at all 
 well skilled in repulsing them, especially 
 anxious, as she very evidently was, not to be 
 rude, or to risk giving offence, either to the 
 young man himself, or to her host, in doing so. 
 She was a mild, plump, gentle-eyed, and gentle- 
 voiced, little woman. And what with her 
 desire to be conciliatory to everybody, and what 
 with a way she had — whether it had, like Dog- 
 berry's reading and writing, come by nature ;
 
 SIGNOR MORINl's DINNER-PARTY. 51 
 
 or whether it was the result of habit, so invete- 
 rate that it had become second nature, I can't 
 say — a way of turning up and down, and right 
 and left, the gentle, timid glances of her fine, 
 large, liquid, hazel eyes, with an expression that 
 seemed to have an immense deal in it, it would 
 have been possible for a less coarsely obtuse and 
 brazenly self-confident nature than that of the 
 usurer's son to be deceived as to the sentiments 
 with which she listened to his vulgarly assiduous 
 love-making. 
 
 But the comedy of all this was lost upon 
 Regina. The odiousness of it only w^as appa- 
 rent to her. It made her sick to think that it 
 was within the bounds of possibility that simi- 
 larly loathsome incense might be offered to her. 
 And she felt that she should be in danger of 
 stabbing the man who should venture to 
 do so. 
 
 It was clear, as the young usurer perceived, 
 that the scheme of the managership of the 
 wheelwright business — which he would, indeed, 
 never have dreamed of undertaking, save as a 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
 
 52 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 means of approach to the rich widow — was out 
 of the question. But it did not at all follow 
 that the main object must therefore be aban- 
 doned. It was most probable that the widow 
 had engaged this apparently unseen connection 
 of hers simply and truly because she had reason 
 to think that it would be well for her business 
 interests to do so. The person in question 
 might very probably be the last man in the 
 world to turn out a rival in her affections. And 
 Signer Andrea, who was not at all disposed to 
 fear a rival, even if the new comer should turn 
 out to be such, had no thoughts of giving up 
 the game. 
 
 '' I am so glad,'' he whispered, leaning over 
 her with a hideous leer, till his hps were within 
 an inch of her ear — "I am so glad that you 
 have found somebody to take the bother of the 
 business off your hands." 
 
 ''Eh! gia! die mioleV' said the widow, with a 
 gently-bosom-heaving sigh, and casting a pen- 
 sive glance beneath her long silken lashes at a 
 morsel of anchovy and butter on her plate,
 
 SIGNOR MORmi S DINNER-PARTY. 53 
 
 which in truth was the object of all her imme- 
 diate thoughts. 
 
 " Such bores are not fitted for such as you ! 
 To think of such eyes as those poring over a 
 ledger ! or those white little hands blotting 
 themselves with ink in a counting-house ! Vi 
 pare 9 can it be thought of *? Ah, hellissima 
 Signora, when to the features of an angel a 
 woman joins the heart of one, the business of 
 angels is the only one fitted for her, and that is 
 love ! Is it not so, lovely Signora Marta '? Let 
 me help you to the turkey" (which was just 
 then carried round by the servant); "those 
 fairy little hands of yours cannot well manage 
 it!" 
 
 " Troppo buo7io, Signore ! I will take a sau- 
 sage with it, if you please," said the widow, with 
 a beaming look of gushing tenderness. 
 
 "Of course ! They are made on Sign or 
 Morini's own farm. Ah, bella Signora how the 
 man would be to be envied whose blessed lot it 
 should be always so to wait on you, and care 
 for you ! "
 
 54 THE DREAM KUMBEKS. 
 
 The ^Tidow lifted her large eyes to the ceihng 
 with a glance that a painter might have envied 
 for a Saint CeciKa, as she replied, " I think that 
 I should get tired of sausages every day." 
 
 " Bat not of the loving care, which would be 
 ever on the watch to prevent your tiring of any- 
 thing, — not of love, lovely Marta ! " (he thought 
 that he might venture to drop the Signora 
 under cover of the natural enthusiasm proper 
 to the sentiment) " you would never tire of love, 
 — such love as one heart that I know of could 
 offer ! '' 
 
 ''Eh, die mi canzona ! Vi imref How can 
 you think of such things ! All that is over for 
 me in this life ! What lovely salad ! It is a 
 pleasure to look at it. I think I will like a little 
 salad, if you please, Signer Andrea ! " returned 
 the lady, with an ceillade that might have 
 burned a hole in the cuirassed bosom of a 
 grenadier. 
 
 And all this did not prevent the j^lacid 
 widow from making a very good dinner, and 
 enjoying it very much ; while the much more
 
 SIGNOR MORINI S DINNER-PARTY. 55 
 
 timid proceedings of the young Pisan graduate 
 annoyed the more sensitive Regina to a degree 
 that made her feel it a great rehef when the 
 dinner at length came to a conclusion. 
 
 Shortly afterwards, Signer Bartoli, resisting 
 all the efforts of his host to induce him to pro- 
 long his visit, so as to allow his daughter to join 
 Signora Morini and the widow Monaldi in their 
 passeggiata, took his leave ; and seeking his gig 
 at the stahles where he had left it in the morn- 
 ing, set out with Regina by his side for Ripalta.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 A WALK AND A DRIYE. 
 
 '' I DO think neighbour Bartoh might have 
 been in a Httle less hurry to get back to the 
 farm, and have allowed Eegina to come to the 
 passeggiata with us ; and to-day the Volto 
 Santo, too, of all days in the year ! '' said 
 Signora Morini, as soon as the farmer and his 
 daughter had taken their departure. 
 
 *' Oh . . . Bartoh ! What would you have ? 
 Bartoli has got the scudi, — plenty of them \ 
 But a contadino is always a contadino. Go to 
 church — stare at the crowd — eat enough for 
 half-a-dozen, and then go home to sleep — that 
 is a contadino' s notion of a festa ! " returned the 
 lawyer. 
 
 " That is all very well I One understands it !
 
 A WALK AND A DRIVE. 57 
 
 I do not pretend that a contadino should turn 
 himself into a townsman. But for the sake of 
 Regina he might have sta^^ed long enough for 
 her to go to the passeggiata" returned his wife, 
 who would have liked to exhibit the wealthy 
 farmer s beautiful daughter under her wing, and 
 escorted by her son Meo, and had looked for- 
 ward to the passeggiata of the afternoon to be 
 made under these circumstances. 
 
 "BartoH would have stayed fast enough, if 
 Regina had asked him ! " said Meo, bitterly. 
 " But she had no mind for it. I think she gets 
 prouder and prouder every time I see her ! I 
 suppose we are not grand enough for her lady- 
 ship. I wonder whether there is anybody that 
 she does care for '? " 
 
 " Nobody in the world, I will answer for it, 
 Meo ! " said a young man, a clerk of Signer 
 Morini's, who had been invited to make up the 
 dinner party to the symmetrical number of 
 eight. He was a very smart and very good- 
 looking youngster, and had himself, once upon a 
 time, ventured to lift his eyes to the beautiful
 
 58 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 Regina, and been unmercifully snubbed for his 
 pains. Ladislao Doni his name was, commonly 
 called Lao. 
 
 *' Nobody in the world ! Regina has not got 
 it in her to care for anybody but herself! I 
 never knew one like her for coldness and up- 
 pislmess ! And I don't see what she has to be 
 so uncommon proud of." 
 
 " Oh, come, Lao ! That won't do neither ! " 
 said Meo, indignantly ; " what she's got to be 
 proud of! Why, of being out and away the 
 finest girl anywhere between here and Florence. 
 There is no denying that, any way." 
 
 " So she is, Meo, my son ! and them as can't 
 see it have not got eyes in their head ! " said his 
 mother. 
 
 " Oh ! she is very handsome, certainly ! " said 
 Widow Monaldi, "it can't be gainsaid. She is 
 just lovely ! All the men say she is so proud. / 
 don't see it. She is never proud to me. I know 
 when my poor dear man lay dying, one dark 
 rainy night, when we wanted to get the doctor 
 out from Lucca special — the poor fellow was
 
 A WALK AND A DRIVE. 59 
 
 suffering and tossing, and going on in such a 
 way we did not know what to do with him, and 
 there was nohody to send, for they'd all gone 
 here and there, one this way and t'other that ; 
 and we did not know whatever to do, Eegina 
 takes an umbrella and goes off afoot to Lucca 
 in the rain and the dark, and brings the doctor 
 out with her. Such a night as it was, too ! 
 Now that ain't proud, you know ! " 
 
 " Who knows what game she was up to, 
 making an excuse to be off to the city in the 
 dark hours, that way 1 " said young Simonetti, 
 with a loathsome sneer on his handsome face. 
 
 But he was put down at once by a chorus of 
 indignant protestations from Signora Morini, 
 Meo, and the widow. Even Lao Doni, the snubbed 
 one, essayed to recover the mistake he had made 
 by his previous attempt at disparagement, by 
 declaring that it was too bad to say such a word 
 as that of a girl of whom all the world knew 
 that, if she vras as proud as Lucifer, she was at 
 least as good as any saint in the calendar ! 
 
 " And I don't know a more dangerous job
 
 60 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 that anybody could be sent on than to hint any 
 such thing as that to old Bartoli ! " said the 
 lawyer ; " / would not do it for more crowns 
 than T will say." 
 
 " / don't want to say anything against the 
 girl ! I see nothing in her any way ! " said the 
 usurer's son, unabashed by the storm of dis- 
 approval he had raised. " Onl}^" he whispered 
 into the widow's ear, with a tender glance, 
 " only it provokes me to hear such a chit spoken 
 of as a none-such, by ^^eople wdio have at the 
 very time before their eyes something really 
 first-rate in the w^ay of beauty ! I should Hke 
 to know w^hat that girl has of either face or 
 figure comparable to those I am now looking 
 at ! " 
 
 The widow was certainly a woman of con- 
 siderable attractions, and may be fairly supposed 
 to have been sufiiciently aware of the fact. But 
 she knew^ that she had not beauty that could be 
 compared wdth that of Regina Bartoli, in the 
 primest flower of her youth. She knew also 
 that the man who addressed her was an ill-con-
 
 A WALK AND A DRIVE. 61 
 
 ditioned, worthless fellow, whose admiration, 
 even if it had been genuine, was not worth hav- 
 ing by any woman. She knew that the flattery 
 he was addressing to her was motived solely b}^ 
 the reputation of the scudi which her husband 
 had left her. And she knew, too, perfectly 
 well, that whatever might be the ultimate des- 
 tiny of these scudi, no one of them, as long as 
 she possessed the use of her senses, would go to 
 the enriching of Signer Andrea Simonetti, the 
 usurer's son. And yet she was so far pleased 
 by what the stupid coxcomb had said, that she 
 could not refrain from paying him for it by one 
 of the expressive glances of those magnificent 
 eyes, which were so habitually and constitu- 
 tionally given to lay a much greater emphasis 
 on the messages entrusted to them than the 
 mistress of them intended. 
 
 And Signer Andrea was convinced, accord- 
 ingly, that his wooing was prospering apace. 
 
 The two ladies went out to the fasseggiata, 
 escorted by Signer Andrea and the young clerk, 
 despite the disappointment of not having Regina
 
 62 THE DEEAM LUMBERS. 
 
 to accompany them. The widow, of course, 
 had the exclusive attentions of Signor Andrea, 
 while Lao Doni, having eaten his holiday dinner, 
 proceeded to pay for it duly by making himself 
 as agreeable as he could to the padrona. Ke- 
 gina, if she had not escaped back to her rustic 
 solitudes in such a saiivage manner, would have 
 had the advantage of Signor Meo's assiduous 
 attention. But as it was, when the ladies started 
 for their passeggiata, he lounged off with his 
 father to a cafe. 
 
 *' I don't see, father, that I make any progress 
 with Regina ! '' said he, as soon as they were in 
 the street together ; " I never saw such a girl ! 
 There is no pleasing her any way ! It is not as 
 if she was caring for anybody else. I never 
 heard tell of any girl like her." 
 
 " Pooh, pooh ! parcel of nonsense ! " returned 
 his father ; " Regina is a beauty, and a bit of a 
 spoiled child ; that is all. Just be patient, and 
 take it easy ! She^U come round. What can 
 she do better, I should like to know ? Besides, 
 her father means it ; and that is the principal
 
 A WALK AND A DRIVE. 63 
 
 point. And what neighbour Bartoli means, I 
 have observed, mostly comes to pass, specially in 
 his own family ; and I have known him these 
 five-and-twenty years. Let old Giovanni Bartoli 
 take his own time for bringing about what he 
 intends shall come about. I think I see Miss 
 Regina playing at whose head is hardest with 
 him ! " 
 
 The walking party meantime ascended out of 
 the streets of the city to the top of the ramparts, 
 which entirely surround it. This circle of walls, 
 constructed not after the mediaeval fashion of 
 those which enclose almost every other Italian 
 city, but according to the notions of fortifica- 
 tion of the Vauban school and period, afford one 
 of the most beautiful — perhaps the most beauti- 
 ful — city promenades in the world. The top of 
 the rampart, which is formed by a lofty brick 
 wall on the outside, but by a bank of earth 
 easily climbed by carriages in two or three 
 places, and by pedestrians in any part on the 
 side towards the city, is wide enough to admit 
 along its entire circuit of a considerable extent
 
 64 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 of turf, with some fine timber trees on it, besides 
 a handsome pathway and a road abundantly 
 large enough for carriages to pass each other. 
 The jutting bastions are laid out as gardens. 
 From the height of this bank a thousand pictur- 
 esque bits of city view are disclosed to the 
 eye, as the circuit of the entire city is com- 
 pleted. But the rare beauty which makes this 
 walk or drive matchless, is furnished by the view 
 outwards from the city. Lucca is built in a 
 well-irrigated plain of exceeding fertility, more 
 highly cultivated, and more rich in every varied 
 shade of greenery than any other district of the 
 peninsula ; and is surrounded by hills in no 
 part receding from the city more than a few 
 miles, and in most parts advancing to within a 
 mile or two from the walls. And these hills, 
 rising to the north and east to the dignity of 
 mountains, and generally during a large portion 
 of the year tipped with snow, are of every in- 
 finitely varied form and shape that can most 
 contribute to make beauty — beauty of outline, 
 beauty of incessantly varied light and shade,
 
 A WALK AND A DRIVE. 65 
 
 beauty beyond all words of colouring, beauty 
 of every kind that can most ravish the eye 
 and excite the imagination. And all round 
 the little hill-girt city the walker advances 
 as round a huge panorama, at every step 
 changing his point of view, and bringing 
 the infinitely varied objects in the land- 
 scape into fresh positions relatively to each 
 other. 
 
 At one point the eye plunges greedily into 
 the deeply shaded gorge between the wooded 
 hills, which the rail has taken advantage of to 
 make its circuitous way to Pisa, around the 
 base of the mountain, by reason of which, as 
 Dante says, Pisa cannot see Lucca. At- another 
 it follows less distinctly the opening between 
 the more distant hills, which the unruly Serchio 
 has found for itself; and at a third revels among 
 shining villas, embosomed in woods of chestnut 
 or beech, on the lower slopes of the capriciously 
 shaped hills towards the Baths of Lucca ; or is 
 raised higher — higher — higher yet, till it rests on 
 the dazzhng sun-gilded white walls and porticos
 
 QQ THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 of some monastery or oratory perched aloft 
 among their craggy summits. 
 
 It is all beauty ! — to the right — to the left — 
 where the shade is — where the light falls — where 
 the mountain velvet-clothed in emerald tints 
 pushes its swelling bosom into the plain — where 
 the folds of it fall back in black-green depths of 
 shadiest hollows, — all is beauty ! 
 
 It is not, perhaps, to be asserted that the 
 party of four from the house of Lawyer Morini 
 feasted their eyes on these beauties, to the ex- 
 clusion of a critical examination of the toilettes 
 of all the Lucca world, who at that hour, and on 
 that day, were assembled on the ramparts. But 
 it may be said that the Lucchese generally are 
 proud of the beauty of their city, and of the 
 singular loveliness of the promenade afforded 
 by its once militarily powerful walls. ' 
 
 The bastions, as has been said, have been 
 laid out as gardens, and on one of the largest 
 of them, in the midst of very pretty grounds, a 
 cafe has been built for the dispensing of ices, 
 lemonade, and sorbets to the beau monde of
 
 A WALK AND A DRIVE. 67 
 
 Lucca on occasions of festival, such as the 
 present. 
 
 Thither the partie carree from Signer Morini's 
 betook themselves ; and having selected a table 
 in the gardens under the shelter of a wide- 
 spreading Pawlonia imperialis, called for the list 
 of ices, and after prolonged examination, discus- 
 sion and consideration, gave their orders, and 
 proceeded to enjoy in perfection those dehghts 
 of the cool evening hour — fresh air, chat, and 
 the amusement of looking at, and being looked 
 at by a crowd — so dear to every Italian, whether 
 prince or peasant. 
 
 Farmer Bartoli was meantime driving his 
 daughter homeward in his light little bagarino, 
 drawn by a powerful iron-grey in prime condi- 
 tion, which would with ease have performed the 
 journey in half the time the farmer was allotting 
 to it, at the smallest hint of its being required 
 of him. 
 
 " I suppose you did not want to stay for their 
 passeggiata, figliuola miaf said the farmer, as 
 they passed out of the city by one of the gates 
 
 P 2
 
 68 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 by Tvliich the rampart is pierced, and over which 
 the promenade, that has been described, passes. 
 
 " No indeed, father ! I should have Hked the 
 passeggiata well enough in other company, but I 
 was only too glad to escape from the necessity 
 of making it under the escort of Signer Meo." 
 
 " And why not with Signor Meo 1 Other 
 company ! other company ! figliuola mia ! You 
 are travelling a path that I don't understand, and 
 that don't please me ! " grumbled the farmer, 
 not now for the first time. And Regina knew 
 very well all about it. " I should Hke to know," 
 he continued, " what other company you would 
 have ? What you would have, and what you 
 want, passes me !" 
 
 " But I am quite content, father ! I do not 
 want anything more than I have got, thank the 
 saints, and thank you ! '^ 
 
 *' Regina, my girl, you are talking nonsense, 
 — the more so, when you lump up me and the 
 saints in the same basket that way. I and the 
 saints have mighty little to do with each other, 
 I am thinking. You talk nonsense ! But I don't
 
 A WALK AND A DRIVE. 69 
 
 think much of that, for it is the nature of women 
 to do so ; but I wish I could understand what you 
 are after. There is not a lad in all the country 
 side but you might have had if you had chosen 
 — and some of them very good matches, too." 
 
 '' But you would not have me accept a hus- 
 band that I could not fancy, father 1 " remon- 
 strated the beauty. 
 
 " I don't say that, Regina ; but where the 
 devil s the man you do fancy 1 That is the way 
 I look at it. I don't blame you for holding your 
 head high. You have a fair right to do so. I 
 don't blame you for choosing to have nothing to 
 say to any of the country lads, that would have 
 given their ears for a kind word from you. You 
 look higher. You want to marry a Signore — a 
 gentleman of the city ! E sta bene ! It is all 
 right. You, as the only child of old Nanni Bar- 
 toli, of Ripalta, have a very good right to hold 
 your head high. You don't want to be a coiita- 
 dinds wife. Very good ! You choose to be a 
 city lady. Very good ! Let the country bumpkins 
 know that you are too dear for tlieir market.
 
 70 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 But now, here is one of the best matches in 
 Lucca ! And you are at your old ways again, 
 a-tossing 3^our [head, and a-snubhing, and a- 
 going on, and a-behaving as if flesh and blood 
 was not good enough for you. I don't under- 
 stand you, for my part ! " 
 
 " Oh dear ! oh dear ! Why surely, father, it 
 is not so difficult to understand that a girl 
 might not like Meo Morini, without being over 
 particular," said Eegina, with an air that 
 denoted that the subject was a very disagreeable 
 one to her. 
 
 " But I say that it is difficult to understand ! 
 Anyway, / can't understand it, figliiiola mia ! 
 I tell you that Meo Morini is one of the best 
 matches in Lucca. And you may trust me that 
 I know what I am talking of. I have known 
 Giacomo Morini as long as I have known any- 
 thing ; and I know pretty closely how many 
 figures there were in the last line at the bottom 
 of his book on the 31st of December. You 
 think because they don't hve in a newfangled 
 fashion, but keep a thrifty house like their father
 
 A WALK AND A DRIVE. 71 
 
 did before them, and because Maria Morini 
 wears a white apron over her silk dress, that 
 they are not so well off in the world as others 
 who cut a dash. Silly child ! To live as they 
 live is the way to be well off, and better off 
 than those that spend their money per fare 
 figura ! Can't you understand, silly one, that 
 the less figura the Morinis make now, the more 
 figura you will be able to make, when you are 
 Meo Morini's wife V 
 
 "God and Holy Mother forbid ! " ejaculated 
 Eegina, more to herself than to her father. 
 "But what signifies it, hiher, figura or nofigura, 
 if I can't endure Meo V she added aloud. 
 
 "Don't talk in that way, Regina, because I 
 am thinking that you'll have to endure him ! " 
 returned the farmer doggedly. "And what 
 better can you want V he added after a pause, 
 as if some feeling admonished him of the ex- 
 pediency of bringing the topic in hand back to 
 the ground of expostulation and argument, 
 instead of leaving it on that of such highhanded 
 menace as he had been betrayed by his irrita-
 
 72 THE DREAM KUMBEES. 
 
 tion into adopting. " What can you want 1 Is 
 not Meo a very tolerably well-looking fellow 
 .... as town-bred men go '? Has he not the 
 manners of a Signore di garho f Is he not a 
 scholar, if that is what you care for ; educated 
 at the University % Does he not show you 
 plain enough that he has nobody in his thoughts 
 but you, morning, noon, and night % What a 
 girl can want more I can't tell ! " 
 
 " I say again, father, that I want nothing. I 
 am very content as I am. Don't let us think 
 so much about marrying. There's plenty of 
 other things to think about." 
 
 " Once again, figliuola mia, I tell you that 
 you are talking nonsense ! I inherited from my 
 father all that he had ! I married a wdfe who 
 did not come to me empty-handed ! I have 
 worked hard all my life, and have made what I 
 had more — pretty considerably more ! Now if 
 you think that I am going to die and leave all 
 to a poor silly single woman, for the priests to 
 get hold of and do as they please with, you are 
 mistaken ! "
 
 A WALK AND A DKIVE. 73 
 
 " Priests, father ! I am sure you never knew 
 me to be specially fond of the priests, except 
 indeed our own, old Signore Curato ; and you 
 know he is not like the rest of them ! " 
 
 "All's one for that," returned her father. 
 '' 'Tisn't at your time of life that the women 
 run after the priests. But at forty, if a ^voman 
 has not a husband, and has money, the priests 
 are sure to be down upon her in a cluster as 
 the crows on a dead sheep on the hill-side ! 
 But let that alone. I don't mean, whether or 
 no, to die and leave you and all I have in the 
 world with nobody to look after you. You've 
 got to find a husband, Regina, my girl, as other 
 girls have ; only some find it more than a bit 
 difficult to do so ; and you have but to choose ! 
 That is all the difference ! But choose, you 
 must. And for the life of me I don't see how 
 you are likely to do better than Meo Morini." 
 
 " I hate Meo Morini I " said Eegina. 
 
 *' And wliy, pray ^ What is amiss with 
 him *? " asked her father. 
 
 " He is stupid, and vain, and tiresome, and
 
 74 THE DREAM LUMBERS. 
 
 self-satisfied ; and — and — and as for loving, if 
 he were to hear to-morrow that you were a 
 ruined man, I should never be troubled with 
 him again." 
 
 " No, I suppose not," said the farmer quietly, 
 and as if he were admitting the most natural 
 thing in the world. " And if we were to hear 
 that his father was ruined to-morrow, of course 
 he would hear nothing more of us. But it is 
 nonsense talking in that way. Nobody is going 
 to be ruined." 
 
 " But that is not what I call loving, father. 
 If I loved a man well enough to think of mar- 
 rying him, I should stick to him if he were 
 ruined ten times over," said Regina with 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 "God forbid !" ejaculated the farmer, fervently. 
 "But I'll tell you what it \^,Jigliuola mia, there 
 would be a ruined pair of you to stick together. 
 For I will be — but don't let us talk about such 
 nonsense. I have been very patient with you, 
 my child ; as a father should be with an only 
 daughter, who has no mother — very patient I
 
 A WALK AND A DRIVE. 75 
 
 have been, while you have been turning up your 
 nose, and snubbing all the best young men all 
 round. But it must come to an end, you know, 
 Regina mia I I do not mean to try and make 
 you marry Meo Morini against your will. But, 
 mind you, I won't hear of your taking up with 
 some beggar, because he would stick to you if 
 you were another beggar, or any such nonsense. 
 In such a case your beggar friend would very 
 soon have to show whether he meant sticking 
 to you or not if you had never a soldo in the 
 world. Do you understand me, Eegiiia ? I 
 advise you to understand me, and to believe me 
 too. For by all the Saints and the Virgin, and 
 by the Volto Santo itself, I am in earnest ! So 
 I recommend you to see whether you can't 
 think a little better of Meo Morini. And now 
 go and see that all is as it should be in the 
 house, while I go round and have a look at the 
 home podere^ 
 
 They drove into the stable yard at Ripalta as 
 the farmer finished speaking. And Regina, 
 after performing the duty of a thrifty mistress,
 
 76 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 which her father had commended to her, went 
 to her o^Yn room to revolve those not very 
 pleasing thoughts which her father's w^ords had 
 been calculated to awaken in her mind.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE FAMILY AT UZZANO. 
 
 On that same 14th of September another 
 family group were discussing some of the mat- 
 ters which had formed the subject of conversa- 
 tion among the guests of Signer Morini, the 
 lawyer at Lucca. Francesco Caroli, and his 
 wife — that second wife, who had been the suc- 
 cessor of a cousin of the widow Monaldi — and 
 their son Carlo, were talking over the proposi- 
 tion which the widow had made, and which they 
 had accepted. The widow in her anxiety to 
 show that this son Carlo was old enough to be 
 discreetly entrusted with the position to which 
 she had invited him, had, as we have seen, de- 
 clared him to be " seven-and-twenty if he were 
 a day." Carlo's real age, however, was five-and-
 
 78 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 twenty. The little family were sitting en- 
 joying the fi-esco of the Ave-Maria hour, after a 
 very frugal supper in their house at Uzzano, as 
 they discussed in all its bearings the invitation 
 which Carlo had finally decided on accepting. 
 
 The widow Monaldi, desirous of representing 
 the man who had been her cousin's husband, 
 and his son who was going to be her managing 
 man, in the most favourable light, spoke of the 
 " property " possessed by Francesco by right of 
 his second wife, at Uzzano. But the possession 
 of the Carolis at Uzzano, would hardly have 
 seemed in the eyes of Signer Morini, or Signer 
 Bartoli, to justify the magniloquence of the 
 phrase. Francesco Caroli did possess a " pro- 
 perty ^^ at Uzzano. But it was one of those 
 properties that seem almost as if a man would 
 be richer without them. The " property " in 
 the first place was the cause, as the widow Mo- 
 naldi had said, of his living at Uzzano. And 
 surely anybody who had the use of his arms, 
 legs, and brain, would be better ofi" anywhere 
 else than at Uzzano. The description which
 
 THE FAMILY AT UZZAKO. 79 
 
 the recollections of Signer Bartoli had supplied 
 of the place was by no means an inaccurate one. 
 
 The entire place seems to be irrevocably 
 poverty-stricken. In one thing alone it is 
 wealthy, — a wealth shared by so many other 
 places, which possess nothing whatever besides, 
 — a wealth of beauty and picturesque material 
 for artistic studies. Perched high in air on a 
 crag, which raises itself on high out of the flank 
 of the chestnut forest- covered mountain around 
 it, its mellow brick walls may be seen gleaming 
 out from amid the thick leaves when the rays of 
 the sun are on them. At other times a traveller 
 passing below might easily fail to observe that 
 there was a town with its population high in 
 mid-air above him. 
 
 The old-world little town, whose first builders 
 evidently selected its site at a time when inac- 
 cessibility and not accessibility was the main 
 recommendation of the locality to be chosen for 
 human dwellings, is situated a few miles from 
 Pescia, the chief city of the lovely Valdinievole, 
 the garden of Tuscany. It lies on that side of
 
 80 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 Pescia which looks towards Pistoia and Florence. 
 And the high road to these cities passes at the 
 foot of the mountain on the summit of which 
 Uzzano is placed. Thousands, not only of 
 strangers, but of Italians, pass between the 
 flourishing cities of the plain, unconscious of the 
 existence of the mountain stronghold above 
 them, left behind and forgotten, as it has been, 
 not only by the stream of modern life, but by 
 the high road, wdiich is at once the means and 
 the symbol of it. 
 
 Yet time has been, w^hen Uzzano was a place 
 of fame. And to the student of history its 
 name is btill familiar, preserved, as it has been, 
 in that of one of the most remarkable of the 
 ancient Ghibelline chiefs and statesmen of me- 
 diaeval Florence, old Niccolo da Uzzano, the 
 Nestor of the aristocratic party, w^ho vainly 
 strove to oppose a barrier to the rising fortunes 
 of the Medici. 
 
 By the rambling hunter of the picturesque 
 who has chanced to light on it, — much as one 
 hears of South American explorers coming sud-
 
 THE FAMILY AT UZZANO. 81 
 
 denly on the ruins of forgotten cities, — Uzzano 
 will not readily be forgotten. 
 
 But what a path to get to it, as old Signer 
 Bartoli said, and might well say. The chestnut 
 woods come quite down to the foot of the hills 
 thereabouts, and are skirted by the high road. 
 And anybody who knows the place, or is on the 
 lookout for it, may discover a little path, — a go- 
 ing-nowhere-in-particular sort of a looking path 
 — stealing in among the trunks of the chestnut 
 trees, and appearing to the wayfarer along the 
 dusty road very inviting, as far as the little bit 
 that he can see of it goes. Very soon, however, 
 almost as soon as he who has entered it has lost 
 sight of the dusty white road, and is in the 
 midst of the green wood, with the mossy turf 
 and rusthng dry and prickly chestnut husks 
 beneath him, and the blue, blue sky above, the 
 little path begins to mount rapidly, and very 
 shortly assumes the appearance of a paved road. 
 The pavement is broken here and there, and 
 looks as if it had been untouched by the hand 
 of man for the last three hundred years, as is 
 
 VOL. I. O
 
 82 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 probably the real case. Similar paved tracks, 
 intended only for bridle traffic, are very common 
 among the hills covered with chestnut woods of 
 central Italy, leading to the numerous little 
 towns on the mountain tops, which were the 
 earliest sites of habitations, at a period when 
 the now famous cities of the plains and the 
 roads leading from one to another of them, were 
 not. These ancient bridle ways are for the 
 most part very steep ; and the paving of them 
 was necessitated by the danger that otherwise 
 the heavy rains and torrents from the melted 
 snow of the upper Apennines w^ould carry away 
 the soil, and turn the intended pathway into a 
 precipitous w^ater-course. 
 
 The narrow paved track that climbs from the 
 bottom of the valley of the stream of the Pescia 
 up to the eyrie, w^hich the founders of Uzzano 
 selected for their w^alled and fortified town, is 
 one of the steepest of these. For a long, long 
 >vay it climbs among the thick chestnut w^oods, 
 which prevent the traveller from seeing any- 
 thing: more than the stretch of sun-burnished
 
 THE FAMILY AT UZZANO. 83 
 
 white stones which gleams amid the dark 
 greenery for some hundred yards in front of 
 him. Here and there the course of a torrent is 
 jDassed, — torrent, often not fordable in winter ; 
 in summer a mere dry rock-and-stick-encum- 
 bered ravine. And from time to time some 
 opening of the wood or passage of the path 
 over some projecting rock, forming a vantage 
 point, enables the wayfarer to catch a glimpse of 
 forest-covered heights far above him, or more 
 extended views over the valley and its cities 
 which he has left behind him. 
 
 As he proceeds the way becomes steeper and 
 steeper, and the zig-zags more rapidly succeed 
 each other. At last, at the turn of one of 
 them, if the stranger chance to raise his head 
 from the difficulties of the path so much as to 
 bring his eyes to bear on the blue vault imme- 
 diately above him, he will see still far, far up, 
 some strange amorphous-looking crags of red 
 brick, partly overgrown with ivy. These are 
 the fast crumbling remains of the walls and bat- 
 tlements and gateways of Uzzano. Soon other 
 
 G 2
 
 84 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 zig-zags in the path bring him within sight of 
 larger masses of ivy-grown red brick wall ; of 
 gateways looking like the half-obstructed mouths 
 of caverns ; of partly-ruined towers, held 
 together by the strong arms of binding ivy 
 which, like a dead religion, first disintegrates 
 the social body in which it has its root, and 
 then still serves to hold its ruined parts for awhile 
 together. 
 
 Still all this is so far and so vertically above 
 his head, that it seems impossible that the path 
 he is treading can be intended to reach it. Soon 
 however, a few sharp turns of stair-like steep- 
 ness disclose other portions of what is discovered 
 to be — or rather to have once been — a consider- 
 able town. The towers of two ruined castles 
 are seen at the two extremities of the once 
 entirely walled space, at a considerable distance 
 apart, and the spire of a not yet ruined church 
 stands clear on a jutting corner of the rock, close 
 to one of them. And all this is embosomed in 
 the thick, all-embracing, all-conceahng chestnut 
 wood — the mao-azine of the food of the inha-
 
 THE FAMILY AT UZZANO. 85 
 
 bitants. For there still are inhabitants — some 
 thousand or more — and some still good, stone- 
 built houses, to boot, as Signer Bartoli had said, 
 among the number of ruined or half ruined ones, 
 houses which have been, and, indeed, perhaps 
 still are, patrician abodes, marked as such by 
 escutcheons handsomely carved in stone ; houses 
 which were called '' palazzi '' in their day, and 
 may, perhaps, be still called so at Uzzano, 
 with large stone-arched doorwa3^s, and window 
 cases with handsome ornamental stone mould- 
 ings. 
 
 There are still some good houses, as Signer 
 Bartoli had said ; but that of Francesco Caroli 
 w^as not, as Signer Bartoli had hoped, among 
 them. The house the Carolis lived in, and 
 which, together with a patch of hill-side bearing 
 so many carefully counted chestnut trees, and a 
 smaller patch of scarcely cultivable corn land, 
 and a tiny, hungry vineyard, formed that " pro- 
 perty " of his second wife which had caused 
 Signer Francesco to settle there, was indeed the 
 very picture of poverty. The Carolis were, in
 
 86 THE DREAM KUMBERS. 
 
 truth, very poor. Ever since Francesco tlie 
 father had come there, and during the entire 
 Hfe of Carlo, his only son, things had been going 
 from bad to worse with him and his. 
 
 There had been a succession of bad seasons 
 for the chestnuts, and in the hill villages of 
 central Italy, which burrow, hundreds of them, 
 among the chestnut woods, as mice in the cheese 
 they feed on, a bad chestnut harvest means 
 famine for a large portion of the inhabitants. 
 Thousands of these hill-folk never eat other 
 bread than chestnut-bread from year's end to 
 year's end ; and though the Carolis were some- 
 what removed from this lowest level in the 
 social scale, they were not in a position to make 
 failure of the chestnut crop other than a terrible 
 misfortune to them. 
 
 Then the miserable bit of cultivable land, so 
 called by courtesy, had for a long series of years 
 been becoming more and more exhausted. 
 Means for restoring it by manure were very 
 difficult to be come by on that hill top. Each 
 year the return for the labour expended on the
 
 THE FAMILY AT UZZAXO. 87 
 
 unthankful and jaded soil Tras less and less. 
 Francesco had had long months of illness. 
 Debt had followed, as well as diminished 
 strength. Some of the small heritage of chest- 
 nut trees had been necessarily sold. And alto- 
 gether things had for a long time been going 
 badly with the famil3^ 
 
 They had, however, amid their troubles, the 
 happiness of being an united and loving family. 
 Carlo was, and had ever been, an excellent son, 
 and he was now the main stay and prop of the 
 family. 
 
 To tell the truth, it was lamentable to see 
 such a man as Carlo Caroli throwing away the 
 prime years of his existence in leading such a life 
 in such a place. True, he was sustaining the 
 declining years of his parents, and therefore 
 could not justly be said to be throwing his life 
 away. But it was clear to everybody but him- 
 self that much was sacrificed to the duty -in 
 question. For Carlo was a man who, if his lot 
 had been thrown where Hfe did not stagnate so 
 utterly as it did in the bosom of the forest, on
 
 88 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 that remote mountain top, might have pushed 
 his fortunes on many a path of advance- 
 ment. 
 
 The inhabitants of these chestnut-clothed 
 hills of Tuscany are, for the most part, a 
 very fair race, endowed with physical advan- 
 tages far superior to those of the men of the 
 plains and valleys ; and Carlo Caroli was an 
 admirable specimen of the race. Fully six feet 
 in height, broad chested, long limbed, supple 
 jointed, and without an ounce of superfluous 
 flesh on the large frame, and the iron-hard 
 muscles which clothed it, he was the very per- 
 fection of strength, vigour, and activity. There 
 was a free and easy grace too in the lithe, un- 
 constrained movements of his limbs, which is 
 peculiar to the men of the hill and the forest, as 
 contrasted with the denizens of the valleys and 
 the cities. He stood like one of the figures in 
 Ghirlandaio's frescoes — with that absence of 
 self-consciousness and natural dignity wdiicli 
 makes all the creations of that artist, and of 
 some of his great contemporaries, look as if they
 
 THE FAMILY AT UZZANO. 89 
 
 were the records of a people who had hved 
 before the fall ! 
 
 Look at the young mountaineer as he stands 
 at the close of a long and hard autumn day's 
 work at the edge of the little bit of corn land, 
 carved out of the forest, from which the bread 
 of his parents and his own has to be won ! He 
 is leaning on the long-handled, shield-shaped 
 spade, with which the toil that is done by the 
 plough in more favoured lands has to be accom- 
 plished. The handle is some five feet long, and 
 serves to support his crossed arms, as he lingers 
 awhile before returning to his home in the town, 
 gazing at the gloriously setting sun, which is 
 gilding distant woods on other hills, and pro- 
 jecting long suggestively pointing rays into 
 misty distances, where the towers and cupolas 
 of famous cities have their place on the plain. 
 He stands as he has laboured through the day 
 in his white shirt of home-spun hempen yarn, 
 open around the bronzed but nobly-formed 
 neck. One foot is advanced; and, crossed in 
 front of the other leg, rests on the point of the
 
 90 THE DEEAM NUMBERS. 
 
 toe. The body is a little bent forward, resting 
 on the spade, as he gazes somewhat wistfully 
 into the distance. 
 
 Somewhat wistfully ! — for Carlo Caroli is not 
 without consciousness that he has that within 
 him that might win a place, and perhaps even a 
 name, among the thriving crowds of those dis- 
 tant cities, — more distant from him by the cir- 
 cumstances of his lot than by the space that 
 separated them from him. He was a man of 
 large natural intelligence, as are very many of 
 his class and race. Nor was he without culture. 
 When his father, Francesco, had had some twelve 
 or fifteen years less upon his shoulders, and when 
 things had been going somewhat better wdth the 
 family than they had latterly done. Carlo had 
 been sent for education to Pescia. 
 
 He had gone there wdth special recommenda- 
 tion from some friends at Uzzano, w^io had seen 
 that there was much promise in the handsome 
 lad. But the priest-ruled seminary to wdiich he 
 had thus been commended would, it may be 
 suspected, have done little to develope the
 
 THE FAMILY AT UZZANO. 01 
 
 power of original intelligence which then was 
 in him, had not fortune thrown him into the 
 way of one who was very pre-eminently 
 capable of doing what the Pescian priestly 
 schoolmasters could not have accomplished. 
 This was a foreigner, — a French-Swiss, — a man 
 of rare gifts and talents, who had been led by 
 the extreme beauty of the position of the little 
 city of Pescia to choose that retirement for the 
 prosecution of the literary labour which made 
 the business of his life. This gentleman was 
 an especial adept in the art of discerning in 
 what cases the bestowal of mental culture would 
 be likely to give a large return. He had thus 
 distinguished young Carlo Caroli ; and had 
 brought him into his house as half servant-of- 
 all-work, and half amanuensis ; — kept him 
 there from the age of thirteen to that of 
 sixteen ; and had thus given him more of what 
 really deserves to be called education than falls 
 to the lot of many young Italians, either in the 
 seminaries of the Church, or the universities 
 of the State.
 
 92 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 The necessities and increasing years of his 
 parents had made it necessary that he should 
 return to his mountain home at the end of the 
 period which has been mentioned. He had 
 thus brought away with him much less of com- 
 pleted knowledge than he might have done had 
 he remained with his kind patron a year or two 
 longer. But his mind had been enlarged. 
 Modes and worlds of thought had been opened 
 to him, though but in gUmpses, which civilised, 
 elevated, and poetised his mind and character 
 in a manner which, despite original gifts, could 
 not have been the case but for a chance so 
 exceptional as that which had befallen him. 
 
 When it became necessary, however, that he 
 should return to the little mountain home, to 
 the labour of extorting food from the unkindly 
 soil, and to the privation of all means of mental 
 culture, it seemed to him as if his lot had only 
 been made the harder to bear by means of the 
 knowledge which had been imparted to him. 
 He set to work, however, heartily ; and from 
 that time, — his sixteenth year, — to the present
 
 THE FAMILY AT UZZAKO. 93 
 
 time, his five-and-twentieth, had been ever in- 
 creasingly the sole comfort, stay, and support of 
 his now aged parents. 
 
 This had been the state of things when the 
 proposition from the widow Monaldi, that Carlo 
 should come and undertake the management of 
 her late husband's business for her, had taken 
 the Caroli family by surprise. It was a great 
 surprise, — and seemed to the little family to 
 require a great deal of thinking before any 
 answer could be made to it. To Francesco 
 Caroli the name of the late wheelwright, Signer 
 Monaldi, had naturally been well known. In 
 days long since gone by, when he had married 
 the cousin of that Marta, then a little girl of 
 some eight years old, now the widow Monaldi, 
 he had known his wife's cousin. And when 
 some years later she had at sixteen married the 
 well-to-do wheelwright he had been present at 
 the wedding ; and had continued on friendly 
 terms with the newly-married couple. About 
 two years later than this he lost his wife, after 
 ten years of marriage ; and had, after a short
 
 94 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 interval, married the Uzzano heiress, the mother 
 of Carlo, and had gone to live where her pro- 
 perty was situated. Under these circumstances, 
 he had continued for awhile to keep up his 
 acquaintance with the Monaldis, visiting them 
 from time to time in the neighbourhood of 
 Lucca, and on two or three occasions taking 
 little Carlo with him. Then things had begun 
 to go less prosperously with him ; and gradu- 
 ally the acquaintanceship was suffered to drop. 
 For awhile letters were occasionally written be- 
 tween Uzzano and Sponda Lunga, — the name 
 of the populous village in the environs of Lucca, 
 in which the thriving business of Signer Monaldi 
 was situated. But by degrees, these, too, were 
 discontinued ; and for several years Caroli and 
 his second wife, going gradually down in the 
 world, as they had been, had heard nothing- 
 whatever of their former friends. It may well 
 be that the Monaldis were not equally ignorant 
 of the fortunes of the Carolis, especially as the 
 wheelwright's business frequently took him to 
 Pescia. Nor is it at all improbable that mention
 
 THE FAMILY AT UZZANO. 95 
 
 of Carlo during the years that he passed with 
 his philanthropic friend in that city might have 
 reached Sponda Lunga of a sort, that being well 
 remembered, may have helped to decide the 
 widow to take the step she determined on when 
 it became necessary to find somebody on whom 
 she could entirely depend. 
 
 In the letter she had written to the Carolis, 
 however, she made no mention of anything of 
 the sort ; but confined herself to setting forth, 
 very briefly, the loss with which it had pleased 
 Providence to afflict her, the goodness of the 
 trade with which it had pleased Providence to 
 favour her, together with a few words recalling 
 the memory of old times, and a suggestion, that 
 it might perhaps suit all parties, if the little 
 Carlo whom she well remembered, and who 
 must now be a young man of some five or six 
 and twenty, would consent to come and under- 
 take the management of her business. '' It is a 
 difficult matter," wrote the widow, " for a poor 
 lone woman in my position to find anybody fit 
 to be trusted as I must trust him that takes
 
 96 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 this business in hand. I might think to 
 manage for myself, or perhaps might easier suit 
 myself with a manager, if I was a little further 
 on in life. But at thirty-five, and wdth the ill- 
 luck of not looking anything like that (you 
 remember what I used to be, Francesco, and I 
 am not a jot changed), it is difficult to know 
 what to do. There are plenty here who w^ould 
 jump at it. But, Lord ! I know what they are 
 after. There are friends in Lucca that would 
 ask nothing better than to put one of their own 
 choosing in the situation — one 3'oung man 
 specially, that I would no more think of trust- 
 ing with a lira of good money than I w^ould of 
 pitching it into the Serchio. So, turning and 
 turning the matter over in my mind (at such 
 times as thinking of my never-to-be-forgotten 
 loss would let me), it came into my head that 
 I could not find anyone that I could trust and 
 who would be likely to be such a comfort to 
 me as your Carlo ; while, maybe, I should be 
 doing him and you a good turn too. So please 
 to think of it, and let me have your answer at
 
 THE FAMILY AT UZZANO. 97 
 
 your earliest convenience. So no more at this 
 present writing from your loving friend, 
 
 "MA.RTA MOKALDI. 
 
 " P.S. — Poor dear Monaldi used many times 
 to be obligated to go to Pescia on business ; and 
 Carlo, if he takes it in hand, will have the same 
 calls. So that he might often have the chance 
 of seeing you and his mother." 
 
 This communication, as I have said, had 
 fallen like a bombshell in the midst of the little 
 family at Uzzano. The first thing that was 
 undeniably apparent was, that it was a very 
 good thing that was offered to their acceptance 
 — a good thing not only for Carlo himself, but 
 so good as to yield the means of considerable 
 amelioration in their position to his aged 
 parents also. As matters were going with 
 them up at Uzzano, there was the old house, to 
 be sure, over their heads, capable of affording 
 them shelter, and capable of affording equally 
 good shelter to a family three times as nume- 
 rous. But the daily struggle for the attain- 
 
 VOL. I. II
 
 98 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 ment of a sufficiency of daily food was an 
 incessant one, and was slowly but surely be- 
 coming constantly a severer one. In the 
 proposition now made to the family was in- 
 volved not only certainty of sufficient food for 
 Carlo, but the means of assisting his parents far 
 more effectually than by the labour of his 
 hands on the wretched patches of mountain soil 
 from which the means of keeping their souls 
 and bodies together had to be extorted. Be- 
 sides, there was the promise of a somewhat 
 brighter and more hopeful life for the young- 
 man, than that which seemed to stretch out 
 before him in dreadful monotony of weariness 
 at Uzzano. 
 
 And yet the proposal of Signora Monaldi 
 was by no means jumped at by the little 
 mountain family. It was, on the contrary, 
 the subject of much and anxious considera- 
 tion and discussion. It was a terrible thing to 
 the hearts of all the trio of persons concerned, 
 — this rending of the family in twain ; — 
 terrible to the old folks to think of thus losing
 
 THE FAMILY AT UZZANO. 99 
 
 the daily sight and companionship of their son, 
 and hardly less terrible to the young man of 
 five-and-twenty to think of quitting the father 
 and the mother and the roof-tree ^Yhich had 
 made all his life for all the years that he had 
 lived. 
 
 It will seem, probably, to English readers, 
 that such an amount of sentiment under such 
 circumstances is very exaggerated, — that it is 
 the ordinary every-day lot and destiny and 
 hope of sons to go forth into the world, and of 
 parents to see them so go forth, and to rejoice 
 in their going, if they go under fairly promising 
 auspices ; — and that this Uzzano family, if truly 
 represented, must have been very exceptional 
 people. But all this would be error, arising from 
 the supposition that a condition of moral senti- 
 ments, the product of one set of social circum- 
 stances, must resemble that of feelings which 
 have grown out of a wholly different phase of 
 society. The family tie, supposed to be in certain 
 respects notably weaker among the peoples of 
 Latin race than among ourselves, is unques- 
 
 H 2
 
 100 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 tionably much stronger in other respects. The 
 tie between parent and child is stronger, at least 
 in the outward manifestations of its power. An 
 English father would doubtless deny that any 
 Italian loved his boy better than he did his own 
 son ; — that this very love caused him to rejoice in 
 the pushing off of his lad into the great stream of 
 active life. Even a mother, with somewhat less 
 of cheerful courage, perhaps, feels the same. 
 But the Italian knows and feels nothing of the 
 needs and advantages of such pushing off into 
 the stream of life. The separation which it 
 entails is to him an unnatural disruption of 
 natural ties. The present writer has seen a 
 Tuscan family — father and mother and six 
 stalwart grown-up sons — all weeping hot tears, 
 because one of the young men was to leave for 
 the army ! 
 
 It was a matter of very serious debate, there- 
 fore, in the old half-ruined house at Uzzano, 
 whether the friendly proposition of Signora 
 Monaldi should be accepted or not. But the 
 proverb which declares that "Needs must when
 
 THE FAMILY AT UZZANO. 101 
 
 the devil drives ! " is no less true on one side of 
 the Alps than on the other. And the devil of 
 want, grimly staring in at the casementless 
 windows of the Uzzano household, was driving 
 the inmates very hard. 
 
 " We shall get nothing at all off the land if 
 Carlo goes ! " said his mother, in a whining tone 
 of lamentation. 
 
 " And I am sure, mother, that it is little 
 enough we get as it is, witli all I can do. 
 Things are worse and worse every year. The 
 land is worn out ! That's where it is," said 
 Carlo, shaking his head, sadly. 
 
 "And, God knows, I am good for little or 
 nothing now," said his father w^ith a sigh. " If 
 Carlo can get little or nothing out of the land, 
 with all the good will and industry he puts into 
 it, you may think what it will be when I have 
 no one to help me." 
 
 '' Alii ! povero mio Cecco ! how we are to 
 live at all if the boy leaves us, I do not see for 
 my part," said his mother, putting up the 
 corner of her apron to her eyes.
 
 102 THE DEEAM NUMBERS. 
 
 "You know whetlier I like the thought of 
 leaving you, mother," said Carlo, tenderly ; "but 
 it seems to me that you may be a deal better 
 off with the help I shall be able to send you. 
 As for father thinking of tilling that worn-out 
 bit of corn-land with his own hands, it is not to 
 be thought of. My notion is that we should 
 sell the corn patch . . . ." 
 
 "A hi! A hi! Ah! Misericordla ! Santa Ma- 
 donna ahhia pieta di noi ! Ah ! p)Overetti noi 
 meschini ! That I should have lived to see this 
 day ! Ahi ! Ahi ! AM ! Oh, Cecco, Cecco, 
 to think of the property that I inherited from 
 my mother, and that has been in the family 
 from time out of mind, all going to the dogs, 
 and lost for ever ! Oh, Carlo, my son, my son ! 
 that I should live to see your heritage pass away 
 from you ! " And Signora Barbara — that was 
 the name of Francesco Caroli's second wife — 
 broke forth afresh into a flood of garrulous 
 lamentation. 
 
 " But, dearest mother ! " said Carlo, gentl}^ " if 
 the land requires in labour more than it returns
 
 THE FAMILY AT UZZANO. 103 
 
 in food ? If to get anything from it at all, it is 
 necessary to spend one's life on tlie top of this 
 mountain, where it is impossible to put one's 
 time to any other profit '? " 
 
 " Uzzano was good enough for the Trendi to 
 live in from father to son, and from generation 
 to generation ! " (Barbara Caroli had been Bar- 
 bara Trendi when she had brought the Uzzano 
 " property " into the former family ;) " and, 
 though I don't say it to belittle your dear father, 
 as he knows, the Trendi were a better family 
 than the Caroli ever were. Thev held land in 
 Uzzano for hundreds of years, — before the flood, 
 I believe ! — and they always lived here and culti- 
 vated their own land, as sponsible and respected 
 people should do. But now the property is to 
 be sold, and we are to go out beggars and wan- 
 derers in our old age ! Alas ! that ever I should 
 have lived for this ! " 
 
 " Nay, mother ! I w^ould not have you leave 
 the old house on any account. But the bit of 
 corn-land, which really takes more worth of 
 labour than it brings in of produce, — and which.
 
 104 THE DREAM XUMBERS. 
 
 if I am to go away, we have no means of culti- 
 vating at all ; — surely it would be better for you 
 and father to have tlie comfort of a little bit of 
 money, if any can be got for it. Perhaps 
 neighbour Mecatti, the Gonfaloniere, whose land 
 lies all round it. and ^Yho has money, would give 
 us a price for it. I am sure anything would be 
 more than it is worth. And then there would 
 remain the bit of vineyard, and the chestnut 
 wood. The chestnut crop could be sold on the 
 trees, and father could make shift to manage 
 the little bit of vineyard." 
 
 " I think Carlo is right this time, as he mostly 
 is, Barbara mia ! '' said his father, with a feeble 
 and helpless shake of the head. " It is impos- 
 sible to refuse this offer, which is bread for us 
 all. And if he goes, svhat is to be done with 
 the corn-land, I do not know. We should be 
 richer now if it had been sold years ago ! I only 
 hope Mecatti ma^^ be willing to give anything 
 for it. Perhaps, as the boy says, I might manage 
 to look after the wine crop. But it's little 
 enough I am good for."
 
 THE FAMILY AT UZZAXO. 105 
 
 " It ^Yas a kind thought of Signora Monaldi, 
 to mention that I should be hkely to be often at 
 Pescia," said Carlo, anxious to dwell on any 
 feature of the affair which might render it less 
 painful to his parents. ''Of course I should 
 ncYer be there without coming up to pay you a 
 visit." 
 
 Signora Barbara coYered her head with her 
 apron, and gave way to prolonged lamentations, 
 mingled from time to time with fragments of 
 litanies, calling on great numbers of saints by 
 name to help her. And old Francesco, who 
 seemed too much habitually depressed and feeble 
 to be able to say or do aught to comfort her, or 
 argue with her, sate helplessly gazing from a 
 half-glazed window that commanded a magni- 
 ficent view over the wood-covered mountain 
 side, and the richly wooded tops of many a far 
 distant hill ; and ruefully shaking his head, till 
 he fell asleep. 
 
 Carlo applied himself with all the eloquence 
 he could muster to set before his mother the ad- 
 vantao-e of the scheme under discussion, care-
 
 106 THE DREAM NUMBEES. 
 
 fully avoiding any topics whicli might seem to 
 tend towards throwing discredit on Uzzano, and 
 its " properties/' but putting in the most seduc- 
 tive light all the comforts that he hoped his pro- 
 fitable sojourn in the plain would enable him to 
 procure for her and for his father. 
 
 And it was accordingly finally decided, as of 
 course it had to be decided, that the widow's 
 proposal should be accepted with thanks, and 
 that an early day should be fixed for Carlo's 
 arrival at Sponda Lunga.
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 THE FARM AT EIPALTA. 
 
 It was nearly six weeks after the festival of 
 the Volto Santo, and the vintage was at hand. 
 
 There are, unhaj^pily, sundry things in this 
 work-a-day world which are better heard about 
 than seen ; — -things over which the genius of 
 the poet or the imagination of the romancer has 
 thrown a gilding and a glamour, which they d© 
 not deserve, and which serve but to prepare a 
 disagreeable disillusion for those who have 
 accepted the pictures of poet or romancer as 
 veridical description of really extant facts. 
 Among these things is the vintage in the 
 southern countries of Europe. There is in 
 reality nothing pretty, nothing Arcadian, 
 nothing attractive about tlie real business of
 
 lOS THE DPvEAM NUMBERS. 
 
 getting in the grape crop. It is a sordid, 
 singularly dirty-looking process, which makes 
 it necessary for the drinker of mighty wine to 
 hold fast by the chemical faith, which affirms 
 the purifying virtues of fermentation. 
 
 But the aspect of an Italian wine-producing 
 district, a little before the vintage, is lovely in 
 the extreme, — wholly differing in this respect 
 from the wine-growing districts of France, 
 xs'othing can be uglier than a French vineyard, 
 and the excess of its ugliness seems to be in 
 proportion to the excellence of its produce. 
 The vines in the celebrated regions which 
 produce the choicest growths of wine are 
 pruned down till they resemble at a distance 
 rather dwarf gooseberry plants. The general 
 appearance of the country under this cultiva- 
 tion is brown, arid, unpicturesque in the extreme. 
 
 But in Italy, old conservative, unprogressive 
 Italy, they still cultivate their vines as Virgil 
 taught his contemporaries to cultivate them in 
 the Georgics. The vine is still " married to the 
 elm ; " — or if not to the elm, to the white
 
 THE FARM AT RIPALTA. 109 
 
 mulberry ; and the result of this method of 
 culture is a rural landscape of perfect and most 
 poetic beauty. The wine is not so good ; — will 
 never, it is asserted, be so good as long as this 
 style of cultivation is preferred to that adopted 
 in France. But if the palate loses, the eye has 
 all to gain. 
 
 The whole country is, at the time mentioned, 
 covered by an intricate network of garlands, 
 hanging in interminable festoons from tree to 
 tree, and loaded with the beautiful clusters of 
 yellow, green, red, and purple fruit. There is 
 a suggestion of infinite abundance, while at the 
 same time the entire arrangement of the crop 
 seems to have been adopted with a view to 
 beauty only, wiiich more than any other scene 
 on earth's surface carries one back in imagina- 
 tion to happy Saturnian times, when earth 
 yielded man her fruit to the sound of tabor and 
 fife and timely-beating feet, instead of to the 
 sweat of his brow. 
 
 Add to this decking of the earth, Italian 
 atmosphere, Itahan skies, Italian dawns and
 
 110 THE DREAM LUMBERS. 
 
 Italian sunsets ; and the heart must be dull 
 and care-benumbed indeed that does not revel 
 in the beauty ! 
 
 And there is no district in Italy in which 
 this beauty is seen in greater perfection than 
 around Lucca la industriosa. The soil is 
 naturally rich. Water is more abundant than 
 it is in most parts of the peninsula ; and the 
 land is cultivated like a garden. 
 
 The large farm at Ripalta was situated in the 
 very midst of this paradise ; — on the southern or 
 left-hand bank of the Serchio, some three or 
 four miles from the city. The Ripalta lands 
 were renowned for their great fertility, even in 
 that region of rich and fertile soil. But they 
 owed their superiority in this respect to circum- 
 stances of position, which had, — or in certain 
 contingencies might have, — their disadvantages 
 as well as their advantages. They were all 
 alluvial lands — those fat fields from which the 
 thick grass was mowed three or even four 
 times in the year, and from whose harvests 
 the grain was saved for sowing in less
 
 THE FARM AT RIPALTA. Ill 
 
 favoured soils. They were formed of the fertihs- 
 ing marl from the sides of the Apennine, brought 
 down, and spread out there for the purposes 
 of agriculture by the labours of the Serchio 
 during countless ages. But Nature, having 
 some ulterior projects in view besides the 
 formation of the farm of Ripalta, did not stop 
 the Serchio in his toils, when those fields had 
 been duly prepared, as it would have been more 
 desirable for the tillers and owners of them that 
 she should have done. Serchio kept on working 
 away as ever, eternally bringing down fresh 
 soil from the exhaustless magazines of the Apen- 
 nine ; and, though still the cultivation of those 
 fat lowland farms could not have afforded to 
 dispense with his presence altogether, his zeal 
 in the continuance of his old task became in 
 many respects rather a nuisance. For all that, 
 turbulent, busy Serchio could not have been 
 altogether dispensed with. For his rushing 
 lawless stream, more copious than is usual with 
 the rivers of this part of Italy, was all-important 
 in affording the means of constant irrigation.
 
 ]12 THE DEEAM NUMBERS. 
 
 Such a perennial stream is in these parched 
 countries the true Pactohis, roUing floods of gold I 
 Nor was it altogether otherwise tlian well, 
 that the river should carry its waters to the 
 neighbouring Tuscan sea through an artificial 
 channel, formed by huge dykes, the work of 
 many a generation of industrious tillers of the 
 Lucca plains. For thus the work of irrigation 
 was rendered more easy and practicable. The 
 wealth-bearing stream had but to be tapped, 
 and every little runlet which intersected the 
 neighbouring fields was filled with the precious 
 water. Nevertheless, as I have said, there were 
 disadvantages attending this arrangement of the 
 forces of Nature. The farmer of the fields on, 
 or rather under, the banks of the Serchio, 
 might have selected for the motto on his door- 
 lintel NE QUID KiMis as the most important 
 maxim in life. A sufiiciency of Serchio water 
 makes a man ; — too much mars him. A judici- 
 ously regulated supply is wealth ; — an excess is 
 ruin. And of such excesses there is always 
 danger in farms situated as that of Ripalta is.
 
 THE FARM AT RIPALTA. 113 
 
 Should a dj^ke break ! . . . . Farmer Bartoli 
 did not like to hear such things spoken of. 
 
 And in truth the dykes which protected the 
 low-lying farms on either side of the stream did 
 not look as if there were much danger to be 
 apprehended from their breaking. They are 
 huge solid masses clothed with verdure, topped 
 in many places w^th trees, — generally acacia- 
 trees, whose widely-spreading roots serve to 
 consolidate the earth of which the banks are 
 formed, — and generally affording space and 
 convenient site for a tolerably wide roadway. 
 
 The farm buildings of Ripalta were situated 
 very near to the foot of the dyke on the left- 
 hand bank, at a spot where the river curves its 
 stream, so as to cause the dyke, which closely 
 follows its course, to enclose a rounded nook, 
 well open towards the south, and the east. 
 The high road passes at some distance in front 
 of this curve of the river, forming the chord 
 of the arc so formed, and affording very con- 
 venient access to the dwellins; and farm of 
 Ripalta. 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 THE DEE AM NUMBERS. 
 
 Low as is the situation of the house ensconced 
 in this nook, and shut in by the river dyke to 
 the north and to the west, the view commanded 
 by the windows of it is a very pretty one. 
 There is an old terrace -walk running along the 
 north side of an enclosure, once a pleasure- 
 garden, from the house to a little chapel built 
 on the slope of the dyke, which commands 
 this view in perfection. This terrace-walk, 
 formerly paved with flagstones and enclosed 
 with balustrades, faces the Monte Pisano, and 
 the ravine immediately below it, through which 
 both the Serchio and the high road pass, the 
 one on its way to the sea, some ten miles 
 to the northward of the mouth of the Arno, 
 and the other to Pisa on the banks of the 
 latter river. To the eastward the towers 
 and spires of Lucca may be seen from this 
 happily-placed terrace, across the three or 
 four intervening miles of rich flat garden-like 
 country. 
 
 The special beauty of the views commanded 
 from this .spot had doubtless been the motive of
 
 THE FARM AT RIPALTA. J 15 
 
 the costly construction of this paved and balus- 
 traded terrace, at a day before Ripalta had 
 descended from the style and title of a " villa " 
 to that of a farm-house. In common with 
 many another dwelling in Tuscany, such had 
 been the destiny of Ripalta. Had it been, 
 like the generality of the farm-houses, its neigh- 
 bours, built originally for the purpose of a farm, 
 there would have been no balustraded terrace, 
 no ancient garden, and no chapel. These 
 aristocratic grandeurs had all belonged to it in 
 its better days, before the old Lucchese noble 
 family, which had owned it, and made it a 
 place of suburban delight, had in the common 
 process of Itahan social life during the latter 
 centuries become gradually ruined. Then, 
 when the lands had been sold to a rich absentee 
 Leghorn broker, Ripalta had become the resi- 
 dence of the farmer who cultivated them. 
 And of course under this regime, though Farmer 
 Bartoli might have well afforded to keep the 
 place in ornamental repair, if it had ever 
 entered his head to do so, the old aristocratic 
 
 I 2
 
 IIG THE DKEAM NUMBERS. 
 
 appurtenances and ornamentation fell into decay 
 and obsoleteness. 
 
 The little chapel was indeed still a chapel, some 
 ancient foundation having bestowed a certain 
 number of lire on a canon of the cathedral of 
 Lucca for performing mass there on a certain 
 day in the year ; so that his mitred reverence 
 saw to the more or less decent conservation of 
 the walls and door of the little building, and 
 sent a half-starved priest to mumble a mass on 
 the appointed day for the guerdon of one 
 Tuscan lira, value eightpence. But the place 
 was kept shut all the other days of the year. 
 
 And the terrace-walk, which had led to it 
 from the house, was in a sad state of dilapida- 
 tion. The balustrades were mostly broken, and 
 many removed. Some might still be seen, 
 built into the walls of the farm buildings at 
 some more recent day, when any alteration or 
 improvement had been needed, and any bit of 
 stone which lay to hand had been seized on for 
 the purpose. The flagstones which had once 
 neatly paved it were in many places broken,
 
 THE FARM AT EIPALTA, 117 
 
 loosened from their bed in more, and had here 
 and there shared the fate of the balustrades, 
 and disappeared altogether. 
 
 Nevertheless, the disused old terrace, leading 
 nowhere, save to the evei'-locked door of the 
 neglected chapel, had still one use. It was the 
 favourite haunt of Regina. She would fain 
 have persuaded her father to cause something 
 of repair to be done in the way of at least 
 arresting ruin, had she not well known that any 
 such proposal would have been deemed alto- 
 gether absurd and preposterous. As it was, 
 she had with* her own hands adorned the 
 fragments of balustrading, which here and 
 there remained upright in their places, with 
 pots of clove-pinks, carnations, and wall- 
 flowers. She had caused the worst parts of the 
 pavement to be a little mended alia meglio ; and 
 the old terrace with its charming view was, as 
 I have said, her favourite haunt. When origi- 
 nally built it had been effectually secured from 
 the intrusion of those who passed along the 
 top of the dyke above it, by a stone wall. But
 
 118 THE BREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 this was now ruinous in many places ; and at 
 the corner of the terrace, close to the chapel, 
 some roughly made steps in the bank opened 
 an illegitimate but abusively permitted com- 
 munication between the road at the top of the 
 dyke and the terrace, and consequently the 
 dwelling-house of Eipalta. 
 
 The house, which had once been a fair- 
 sized villa, had not suffered much more in 
 substantial repair than was the inevitable con- 
 sequence of the changed uses to which jDortions 
 of it had been degraded. Yet the extent and 
 quantity of the farm-buildings were such as, 
 one might have thought, would have rendered 
 such a degradation unnecessary. Tuscan farm- 
 houses almost invariably have what seems to 
 an English eye a luxuriously large quantity of 
 building about them. And Ripalta was specially 
 well supplied in this respect. JS^evertheless 
 what had once been a large dining-room, oc- 
 cupying nearly the whole of the ground floor of 
 the house, on one side of the huge central hall, 
 now served the purpose of a granary. The
 
 THE FARM AT RIPALTA. 119 
 
 great hall itself, occupying the centre of the 
 house, and the height of not only the ground 
 floor, but of the first floor also — a mode of con- 
 struction very common in Tuscan villas — was 
 surrounded at the level of the first floor by a 
 gallery, intended as a means of access to the 
 upper rooms. But now the greater j)art of the 
 front of this gallery, excepting wdiere at the end 
 of the hall opposite to the entrance the space 
 was occupied by an enormous w^ooden escutcheon, 
 on which w^as emblazoned the arms of the 
 whilom owner of the estate, was thickly hung 
 with various dried or drying produce of the 
 farm — shucks of beans in their long yellow^ 
 rattling pods, long ropes of onions, and bunches 
 of sweet herbs. In one corner of this great 
 hall, near the entrance, stood an old sedan-chair, 
 which stood there still because no human being 
 for the last hundred or hundred and fifty years 
 had thought it w^orth while to take the trouble 
 of moving it. Nor could it indeed be said to 
 be altogether useless where it was. For its no 
 longer black top served as a roosting-place for
 
 120 THE DREAM IsUMBEKS. 
 
 numerous fowls, and there was no snugger place 
 on the farm for hatching a brood of chickens 
 than the inside of it. 
 
 In the opposite corner of the hall the carro 
 matto always^stood. The " carro matlo " is a mas- 
 sive platform on two very strong wheels, which 
 is used for moving the lemon and orange trees in 
 their huge terra -cotta pots from their summer 
 stone stands in the garden, to the shelter of the 
 "stanzone," or orangery prepared for their 
 winter habitation. For the orange and lemon 
 will not endure the winter of Tuscany. In 
 November they must be moved to their winter 
 quarters, and in April they again come forth 
 into the sunshine. At Ripalta the lemon-trees 
 and the orange-trees had remained from the 
 days when the garden was a garden and the 
 house a " villa." Orange-trees and lemon-trees 
 are not ordinarily found on Tuscan farms. Nor 
 would they have been found at Eipalta, had 
 they not been remains of its more palmy state. 
 Nor would Farmer Bartoli have cared to pre- 
 serve them : but that thev are in the immediate
 
 THE FARM AT EIPALTA.. 121 
 
 neighbourhood of such a city as Lucca, suffi- 
 ciently profitable to make it worth while, having 
 them, to keep them. They were allowed to 
 stand, therefore, and sun themselves on their 
 old stone pedestals m the old garden, and were 
 somewhat grudgingly helped into their winter 
 home, when the first frosts came. Somewhat 
 grudgingly, for performed as the operation is in 
 Tuscany by sheer force of arms, without any 
 aid from machinery save that of the simple 
 carro matto, it needs some ten or twelve men to 
 move large plants, whose terra-cotta pots when 
 empty weigh some eight hundred weight, — such 
 plants as were the secular denizens of the old 
 garden at Ripalta. 
 
 On the other side of the great central hall 
 was a huge kitchen, and behind it a small room 
 once a " dispensa," or butler's pantry, now the 
 dining-room of the farmer's family. On the 
 first floor — the only upper floor, that is to say, 
 with the exception of some garrets in the low 
 roof, — one half of the space, that over the 
 former vast dining-liall, now granary, was un-
 
 122 THE DREAM IvUMBEES. 
 
 inhabited and in a state of great dilapidation. 
 The bedrooms of the family were on the other 
 side of the great hall, over the kitchen and 
 present dining-room. 
 
 The old garden was at the back of the house, 
 the side, that is to say, opposite to the entrance, 
 though it had in truth more pretension to be 
 called a front than the entrance side, in that 
 more attempt at ornamentation had been ex- 
 pended upon it. The two sides of the building 
 containing the rooms which have been specified, 
 together with some others, projected on the 
 garden side beyond the great hall, which occu- 
 pied the entire centre of the building. And 
 the space thus enclosed by these two projecting 
 wings was, by the addition of a roof and 
 columns supporting five round arches, turned 
 into that cardinal feature of an Italian dwelKng- 
 house, a loggia. This was repeated by a second 
 range of columns and arches on the first floor, 
 forming thus a second loggia on the upper 
 story. And the effect of this arrangement was 
 to give that side of the old house an extremely
 
 THE FARM AT EIPALTA. 123 
 
 picturesque appearance, as it had been in the 
 days of its villa-hood. Nobody would have 
 denied the old villa that praise. But as this 
 front of the old house was seen now-a-days — at 
 least at the time of year -wliich has been men- 
 tioned — opinions might more possibly have 
 differed. 
 
 There is a specialty which, in the Autumn, 
 imparts a very peculiar appearance to the 
 generality of farm-houses in the Lucchese 
 district. As one travels throuo;h the teemino- 
 vegetable wealth of those rich plains, every 
 farm-homestead — almost every one — gleams out 
 from the network of vine festoons, or white 
 mulberry-trees athwart which it is seen, like 
 a house of burnished gold. If the rays of 
 the sun strike on the surface in question, 
 especially when he is setting and his rays slant 
 towards an horizontal direction, the effect is 
 absolutely gorgeous. But the cause to wdiicli 
 this singular effect is due, is a very homely one, 
 which can scarcely be held to be adapted to the 
 enhancement of architectural beauty. The fact
 
 124 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 is, that every house, particularly on its southern 
 wall, is hung from the eaves to the ground with 
 long strings of the great golden ears of the 
 (jran turco — the maize— so closely packed as to 
 entirely cover the ^Yhole wall. The object of 
 the farmer is not to give himself the appearance 
 of living in a golden house, but simply to 
 thoroughly dry his corn. 
 
 That front of the house at Ripalta which has 
 been described, faced the south, and afforded an 
 admirably large surface for the purpose in 
 question. Every column in the loggia on either 
 floor was so clothed with this drapery that no 
 fragment of the stone was to be seen. The 
 arches were all equally hung with it, and the 
 entire wall-spaces were closely covered. The 
 whole shone in the setting sun as if the building 
 were literally of gold ! 
 
 It was just at the hour of the Ave Maria, 
 when the effect that has been described was 
 produced in all its glory of colouring by the last 
 rays of an October sun ; and Regina, having 
 completed her various household duties of the
 
 THE FARM AT RIPALTA. ' 125 
 
 day, had gone out to her favourite terrace, to 
 enjoy the cool hour of evening while waiting 
 for her father's return from Lucca to supper. 
 " Pujliare il fresco ! " To take the freshness, 
 as the Itahans say ; — the freshness of the evening 
 hour, after the heat and the labours of the day, 
 is truly a delight, which one must have felt an 
 Italian sun in his fierceness, and the delicious- 
 ness of an Italian gloaming to appreciate 
 ai'ight ! 
 
 The bells in the Lucca towers w^ere heard 
 pleasantly ringing the Ave Maria, as Regina 
 sauntered slowly along her favourite walk. The 
 moon, which was nearly at the full, was peeping 
 on to the scene of the pure blue sky, as if too 
 much in a hurry to play her part to wait till 
 her rival sun had fairly made his exit. Hegina, 
 stopping in her sauntering walk to gaze at her 
 as she w^as rising, had taken off one of the 
 large-leaved hats of Leghorn straw, w^iich the 
 contadina girls wear in that part of Tuscany, 
 and was carrying it hanging by its cherry- 
 coloured ribbon, on her arm. The wealth of
 
 126 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 hair that was exposed to view was dressed with 
 some care, and with some skill, as is generally 
 the case with Tuscan girls of Regina's station. 
 The glossy dark braids of it were rolled back 
 from the forehead and then carried round to 
 the back of the head, after having been sub- 
 jected to a twist which caused them to stand 
 high out from the temples in two shiny horns, 
 on which the slanting rays of the declining light 
 were reflected capriciously. The back hair, 
 extraordinarily abundant in quantity, was rolled 
 in large masses at the back of the head, and 
 fixed so high above the nape of the neck as to 
 avoid heating it, and at the same time with 
 the effect of showing to advantage the mag- 
 nificent carriage of the small head on the 
 graceful and statuesque throat. 
 
 She was dressed in a striped cotton petticoat, 
 and well-fitting white bodice, which ivas white, 
 with open sleeves falling loosely about half way 
 between the elbow and the wrist ; — a charmingly 
 pretty figure ; — with the additional aesthetic 
 charm of being in perfectly harmonious keeping
 
 THE FARM AT EIPALTA. 127 
 
 witli the local colouring and characteristics of 
 the scene, which made the setting of the pretty 
 picture. 
 
 It may be gathered from what has been seen 
 of Regina, when the reader first met with her in 
 her nineteenth year at the festival of the Volto 
 Santo, and from her conversation with her 
 father upon that occasion, that she then, in her 
 maiden meditation, walked as fancy-free as ever 
 maiden walked. It is not above six weeks from 
 that time, and she is now walking evidently in 
 ** maiden meditation '' of some sort. 
 
 She has paused in her walk, and, resting her 
 elbow on a remaining fragment of the terrace 
 balustrade, is looking up at the full moon rising 
 over the Pisan mountain. After gazing motion- 
 less for a minute or two, she resumed her 
 sauntering walk along the flagged terrace, and 
 gently swinging in her hand the large broad 
 hat, that hung from it by its ribbon, she began 
 to sing in a low chant, evidently intended for 
 no ear but her own, the well-known old 
 stornello —
 
 128 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 *' II mio amore e andato a soggiornare 
 A Lucca bella, e diventar Signore ! " 
 
 " My love is gone to live 
 In Lucca town so fine, 
 There to become a gentleman ! " . . . 
 
 — " A Lucca bella, e diventar Signore ! " — she 
 repeated in an absent manner, raising her voice 
 into a long plaintive wail. 
 
 She had been tempted by the sound of her 
 own clear notes in the silence of the evening to 
 let her voice swell into a greater body of sound ; 
 but the melody had been meant to meet no ear 
 but her own. That repetition of the latter bars 
 of it, however, had reached an ear, which had 
 come within hearing just as she uttered the 
 sounds. In the next moment a tall figure was 
 visible on the top of the embankment which 
 overlooked the terrace.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 A DUET BY MOONLIGHT. 
 
 Although the sun had by this time quite 
 gone down, and there was but httle hght save 
 that of the pale but wondrously clear moon- 
 beams, Regina at once recognised the new 
 comer. 
 
 The reader has seen the person in question 
 before ; but possibly would not have recognised 
 him so readily as Regina did, especially as, 
 when he was first presented to her acquaint- 
 ance, his appearance differed considerably from 
 that which characterised him now, and from 
 that which he had w^orn when Regina first saw 
 him. 
 
 It was Carlo Caroh. There was the tall 
 figure, the large easy movement of the Kmbs, 
 
 VOL. I. ^
 
 130 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 the long swinging step, the frank, bright face, 
 large dark honest eyes, and confidence-inspiring 
 mouth, with its brilhant white teeth behind its 
 genial smile. All this w^as the same, except 
 that there was much more of the smile, and a 
 greater expression of brisk elasticity in the 
 movements. But in all other respects of out- 
 ward semblance our friend Carlo was a changed 
 man. 
 
 The coarse though white shirt of homespun 
 hempen yarn, had been changed for one of 
 town-made materials, the collar of which, in- 
 stead of displaying the bronze-brown muscular 
 throat of the mountaineer, was buttoned and 
 encircled by a bright blue silk, loosely-knotted 
 handkerchief. The large straw hat had given 
 place to one of soft black felt, high and pointed 
 in the crown, broad in the brim, and bound 
 round by a shining ribbon more than an inch 
 wide. The breeches and blue stockings, which 
 displayed to such advantage the long well- 
 shaped powerful limbs, had been discarded and 
 replaced by a pair of tow^n-fashioned linen
 
 A DUET BY MOONLIGHT. 131 
 
 trowsers. The shirtsleeves were no lono;er 
 exposed to view, but covered by a short black 
 velveteen jacket, which, together with the white 
 trowsers, gave an air of considerable smartness 
 to the figure. 
 
 The girls of Lucca, — among whom he was 
 already w^ell known as " il bel montanaro della 
 Monaldil^ and who failed not to remark to each 
 other, with many a sly glance and malicious 
 gibe, that he would doubtless soon belong to her 
 by a closer tie than a mere business one, — the 
 girls of Lucca would have doubtless agreed in 
 thinking that he appeared to the greatest ad- 
 vantage as they now saw him, but a painter 
 would probably have preferred to take him for 
 a model as he stood spade in hand on his native 
 mountain. 
 
 He suddenly checked the quick step with 
 which he had been coming along the top of the 
 dyke, as he caught the sound of her voice, and 
 stopped in the hope of hearing more. But her 
 ear had also caught the sound of a footfall, and 
 she ceased. 
 
 K 2
 
 132 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 " Oh ! Signorina Regina ! is that you 1 I 
 guessed as much, when I heard the voice. May 
 I find my way down the bank 1 I have a h'ttle 
 bit of business with Signor Bartoh/' said Carlo, 
 coming forward, as soon as he found that ^lie 
 was going to sing no more. 
 
 " Grood evening, Signor Carlo. Yes, you may 
 come down, if you can without breaking your 
 neck. You will find some steps in the corner 
 there close to the chapel. They ought not to 
 be there, and father has often said that he would 
 have them destroyed ; for people have no right 
 to come down that way. But you may use 
 them for this once." 
 
 " Thanks, signorina,'^ said Carlo, who had 
 scrambled down the bank without much help 
 from the steps, and was now standing by her 
 side on the terrace. " Is Signor Bartoli at 
 homer' 
 
 " No. I am waiting for him. He will be 
 home to supper. He has gone to Lucca. I 
 thought he would have been at home before 
 this."
 
 A DUET BY MOONLIGHT. 133 
 
 " Then, if you will permit me, I will wait a 
 little till he comes. I have walked over from 
 Sponda Lunga on purpose. He sent us a mes- 
 sage to say that the oil-press was out of order 
 here. But the first thing is to have a look at it, 
 and see what it really requires. They are costly 
 things, oil-presses." 
 
 " Yes ; father often grumbles at the need 
 for repairs. I suppose it is difficult to make 
 them last.'^ 
 
 " No, I think not, if they are properly used. 
 The wheel is the costly part ; if that, as I sup- 
 pose, is in good order, the job cannot be a very 
 expensive one. I must examine it/^ 
 
 " Will you go to the press-house now directly? 
 There it is. You can go, if you like, without 
 waiting for father," said Regina, with no toss of 
 the head, or other of the airs we have seen her 
 give herself on other occasions, but with a 
 dropping of her eyes to the ground, and the 
 slightest possible increase of colour. 
 
 " Yes, signorina, I can go to the press-house 
 now directly without waiting for your father, if
 
 134. THE DEE AM NUMBERS. 
 
 I like. But the question is whether I may stay 
 here till your father returns, if I Kke that 
 better 1 It would be more satisfactory, you 
 know, that we should talk over what will have 
 to be done together." 
 
 If all the young men, or any one of the young 
 men, who had enjoyed for the last two or three 
 years any share of acquaintanceship with the 
 Signorina Regina Bartoli, comprising the law- 
 yer's son and the lawyer's clerk, and the usurer's 
 son, and young Cantini, the well-to-do farmer of 
 Le Canre, a rich farm adjoining that of Farmer 
 Bartoli to the southward, and several more, — if 
 all, or any of these, I say, could have overheard 
 the words in which this audacious new comer 
 from the mountains had dared to address Regina 
 Bartoli, they would have awaited with gratified 
 malice the awful annihilation which would 
 assuredly scathe him like angry lightning from 
 the flashing eye and curling lip of the proud 
 beauty. They all knew what sort of retribution 
 far more ceremoniously-worded attempts to pay 
 court to the haughty girl had brought down
 
 A DUET BY MOONLIGHT. 135 
 
 upon them. And great would have been the 
 surprise, and exceeding the exacerbation of the 
 mahce, if they could have marked what fol- 
 lowed. Instead of turning from the offender 
 with the attitude of a Diana cacciatrice, and an 
 expression of brow and lip that was enough to 
 make a mortal man sink into his shoes, the 
 magnificent Regina only hung her head a little 
 lower than before to conceal the increased 
 colour of which she was conscious, and swung 
 her hat from its ribbon with a mutine sort of 
 movement, as half turning from him, while yet 
 looking round at him from under her eyelashes, 
 she said, 
 
 " Of course you may stay on the terrace till 
 father comes, if you like that better. . . I suppose 
 that it is necessary that he should examine the 
 press with you." 
 
 "Oh, absolutely necessary, signer ina. It is 
 impossible for me to avoid waiting till he comes," 
 said Carlo, with a glance that would have sup- 
 plied a commentary on his words had Regina 
 been dull enough to need one.
 
 136 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 " I hope he will not be long, for your sake, 
 Signor Carlo. It is time he was home now." 
 
 " How kind of you, gentilissima signorina. 
 But I assure you that 1 am not the least in any 
 hurry. I should not care, as far as I am con- 
 cerned, if Signor Bartoli were detained in Lucca 
 till midnight,'' returned Carlo, in the same 
 tone. 
 
 And still Regina manifested no signs of dis- 
 pleasure. What was come to the girl that she 
 should be so changed ! It would seem that her 
 father's lecturing as to the inexpediency of 
 driving all the men away from her by her 
 haughty severity must have fructified at last. 
 
 " But indeed I should care very much, Signor 
 Carlo, for I w^ant my supper, and must wait 
 for it till father comes." 
 
 " In that case, I suppose I must hope too 
 that he will not be long. But it is very plea- 
 sant here. What a beautiful spot this is, and 
 what a pity that it should have been suffered 
 to go to decay so ! I could almost fancy the 
 old ivy -grown w^alls of Uzzano peeping out
 
 A DUET BY MOONLIGHT. 137 
 
 among the woods at the top of the mountain 
 yonder, just under the moonlight." 
 
 "There are some old ruined walls there, the 
 remains of a castello. I have heard father 
 say that it was built by the Pisa people against 
 the Lucchese in the time of the old republics. 
 Is Uzzano on the top of a mountain and in 
 the midst of the selva, like that 1" 
 
 Reo-ina used the term selva in the sense in 
 which it is always understood by the moun- 
 taineers, and indeed mostly by the inhabitants 
 generally of central Tuscany, to mean a chest- 
 nut wood exclusively of any other description 
 of forest. 
 
 " Yes," returned Carlo, with a tinge of 
 melancholy in his manner ; " yes, poor old 
 Uzzano is buried away out of sight of the 
 rest of the world in the thickest of the selva, 
 just like that ; and it is much higher on the 
 mountain.'^ 
 
 The tone in which Carlo had uttered these 
 words, caused Regina to look up inquiringly into 
 his face.
 
 138 THE DKEAM NUMBERS. 
 
 " You have no ill news from home, I hope ? " 
 she said, in a sympathising voice. 
 
 '' No, signorina, many thanks ; I believe that 
 all is much as I left it there." 
 
 " Because I fancied that in speaking of Uzzano 
 you seemed to ... to ... to speak sadly." 
 
 " Did I, signorina 1 Your ear is a delicate 
 one so to catch one's thoudits in one's accent. 
 It is a poor place — a poor, wild, out-of-the- 
 world place, is Uzzano ; and it sometimes makes 
 me a little sad to think of the old couple I have 
 left up there in the old house all alone." 
 
 " They live on their own property there, your 
 parents, do they not V 
 
 " Yes, signorina. They are proprietors, and 
 they live on their own property . . . such as it is ; 
 but it is not a very comfortable life," said Carlo, 
 with a shade of painful embarrassment in his 
 manner, and a slightly increased colour in his 
 brown cheeks. " The principal motive I had in 
 accepting the offer of Signora Marta to come 
 here was that I might be able to give them some 
 help — some better help than could be got from
 
 A DUET BY MOONLIGHT. 139 
 
 the labour of my own arms on our own little 
 bit of ground," said Carlo, not without an effort, 
 but looking into Regina's face as he spoke, with 
 an expression of proud determination to prevent 
 her from imagining that his social position was 
 a more brilliant one than the fact could justify. 
 
 Eegina looked up into his face for half a 
 moment with a look in which a very sharp 
 observer might have traced a shade of disap- 
 pointment and annoyance, but in the next 
 instant her face cleared, and she said : 
 
 *' It was very good of you, Signer Carlo ; for 
 I make no doubt that it was a sacrifice to you 
 to leave the mountains and the woods, and to 
 come down and live in the plain. They say 
 that you mountaineers are never happy away 
 from your own hills.^^ 
 
 " I accepted Signora Marta's offer because I 
 thought it was my duty to do so. But now . . . 
 now, signorina, mountaineer as I am, I should 
 be sorry to quit this neighbourhood and go 
 back to Uzzano." 
 
 "I am glad of that, Signer Carlo. That is
 
 140 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 mostly the case, I fancy, when one does one's 
 duty for duty's sake. I suppose you find your 
 home' at the Monaldi's pleasanter than you had 
 anticipated 1 " 
 
 " La Signora Marta is very kind." 
 
 " And you get on well together ... so well, I 
 am told, I have heard several of the neighbours 
 speak of it. The widow Monaldi is a very 
 pleasant woman, too ... a very pretty woman . . . 
 for her time of hfe." 
 
 " Is she ? " 
 
 " Do not you think so 1 She is generally 
 thought to be so, I believe, by all the people 
 hereabouts." 
 
 " Thought to be what '? " asked Carlo. 
 
 " Thought to be a very handsome w^oman. 
 Surely you must think her so. Signer Carlo 1 " 
 
 " Trul}^, I have never thought much about it. 
 Certainly she is a comely w^oman." 
 
 " Comely ! altro die, comely. What magni- 
 ficent eyes she has ! You can't deny that she 
 has magnificent eyes." 
 
 " Assuredly I will not deny it, signorina,
 
 A DUET BY MOONLIGHT. 141 
 
 . . . especially if you assert it," said Carlo, 
 demurely. 
 
 " All the world asserts it," returned Regina, 
 ■with just the smallest touch in the world of 
 pettishness in her manner ; " and some say, 
 too," she added, after a little pause, "that the 
 new manager not only very soon became aware 
 of the fact, but noted it quite as carefully as he 
 did any of the other circumstances of his new 
 position." 
 
 " Bah ! Le solite stupidissime chiacchere — 
 the usual stupid gossip. Very vulgar gossip, 
 Signorina Eegina, which is quite beneath your 
 attention . . . and mine," said Carlo, in a tone to 
 which Regina was not accustomed, and which 
 seemed almost to carry in the accent of it a 
 reproof to her for having lent her ear to such 
 idle talk. 
 
 " I am not usually in the habit of occupying 
 myself with vulgar gossip," returned Regina, 
 in a tone in which a little of her wonted 
 hauteur might have been detected. "But, I 
 was only jesting, as you surely must be aware.
 
 142 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 Signer Carlo/^ she added, in a more good- 
 humoured manner ; " there would be no great 
 harm in it if you had been struck by the good 
 looks of Signora Monaldi. She certainly is pretty/^ 
 
 " I am quite sure you meant no harm, 
 Signorina Regina, and perhaps it was silly in me 
 to be annoyed at such talk among the neigh- 
 bours. But somehow or other it does annoy 
 me, and I should be sorry if you were to 
 suppose that — that ... in short, if you could 
 imagine that there was, or was ever likely to 
 be, anything between Signora Monaldi and 
 me, beyond our business relationship." 
 
 " But you must not be vexed with me, 
 Signer Carlo," said Regina, speaking in a still 
 kinder tone. " People will talk, you know ; and, 
 putting all joking aside, the neighbours really 
 do suppose that you and the widow mean to 
 make a match of it. Of course they think so 
 all the more because he who becomes the 
 Widow Marta^s husband will find himself at the 
 head of a very good business, as well as of a 
 considerable amount of savings besides. I can.
 
 A DUET BY MOONLIGHT. 143 
 
 at all events, assure you that there are plenty, 
 not only hereabout, but signori henepAanti di 
 Lucca, who would jump at la Signora Monaldi's 
 hand if they could get it.'' 
 
 " They may talk as much as they will, and in 
 time they will find out their mistake. And I 
 hope that the Signora Marta may make a wise 
 choice among the well-to-do signori of Lucca 
 for her own sake. But it all matters very little 
 to me, if you will not suppose any such thing, 
 Signorina Regina." 
 
 Had poor Meo Morini ventured to address 
 such a speech as that to the Signorina Regina 
 Bartoli — which, to do him justice, it must be 
 admitted he had never done, — she would infal- 
 libly have told him that she was at a loss to 
 conceive how her ideas upon any such subject 
 could matter to him more than his notions 
 respecting anything connected with her affairs 
 could signify to her, which assuredly was not 
 the least in the world. But on the present 
 occasion she only drooped her pretty head 
 a little more on her bosom, and turning aside
 
 144 THE DEEAM NUMBEES. 
 
 with just the least possible movement of her 
 shoulders, which seemed to intimate a very 
 mild protest that her companion was talking 
 nonsense, she plucked a bit of wall-flower from 
 a garden-pot on the balustrade, and set herself 
 sedulously to examine the structure of it, as 
 she continued her stroll along the terrace. 
 
 " I wish father would come home,'' slie said, 
 presently ; " I cannot think what makes him 
 so late/' 
 
 " Are you in a great hurry for his return, 
 signorina ? " asked Carlo, in a low, pleading 
 voice. 
 
 " It is getting late, and he is usually home 
 before this. Besides, I told you, you know, 
 that I want my supper," she said, looking round 
 at him with a laugh in her eyes. " And then, 
 too, you have your walk home before you, and 
 father won't let you go without stopping to 
 eat a bit of supper with us, and you have got 
 to settle your business about the oil-press. 
 Signora Monaldi will think you have run away 
 home again to Uzzano."
 
 A DUET BY MOONLIGHT. 145 
 
 *' Never mind what Signora Monaldi thinks. 
 I did feel very much indined to run home 
 again after I had Hved at Sponda Lunga only a 
 few days, but I am not at all disposed to do 
 so now, signorina. And I have never felt less 
 inclined to quit the neighbourhood of Lucca 
 than this evening. What a lovely night it is I 
 Would you mind, signorina, as Signer Bartoli 
 tarries, and . . . and ... as we have the time before 
 us, — would you mind going on with the song I 
 was so unlucky as to interrupt when I was 
 passing along the top of the dyke ? I should so 
 like to hear you i^ing it. It is a favourite song 
 of mine, although our hill folk sing it somewhat 
 differently from your version of the melody." 
 
 '•So our contadini do here," said Regina, 
 " and I am not sure that I do not like our 
 country version the best. But I was singing it 
 just now as I heard a teacher of singing sing it 
 in Lucca." 
 
 " Will you not let me hear it ? " 
 
 " I will if you will sing it witli me. I heard 
 you sing, you know, that evening when we 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 140 THE DREAM KUMBEKS. 
 
 were at Signora Monaldi's, so I know that you 
 do sing." 
 
 " That was the first evening I ever heard you 
 sing, signorina. And I heard enough to teach 
 me that I can have no jDretension to sing with 
 such a voice as yours. I sing proprio come 
 cantano i montanari, tutti quanti — just as the 
 hill-people sing, every man of them. But you 
 sing like a lady of the cities." 
 
 It was true that E-egina had a fine voice, 
 that she was celebrated for it in her little rustic 
 world, and that her father had been tempted 
 to give her a few lessons from a teacher at 
 Lucca. 
 
 " Che ! City lad}^ davvero ! Vi pare f — I 
 have no wish to be a city lady, I assure you, 
 Signor Carlo. But I have no objection to try 
 ' // mio amove e andato a Lucca' if you will sing 
 it with me." 
 
 " Certainly I will not miss the opportunity of 
 having the honour of singing with la Signorina 
 Regina Bartoli/' said Carlo, with a low bow, half 
 intended for funnino; and half real obeisance.
 
 A DUET BY MOONLIGHT. 147 
 
 " You Avill excuse deficiencies of voice and 
 skill." 
 
 And then they sang the charming air, one of 
 the most popular of the Tuscan melodies, and 
 the two voices — for Carlo had a by no means 
 contemptible tenor — made very charming music 
 of the well-known song, each in singing adapt- 
 ing the genders of the pronouns and adjectives 
 to the sex of the utterer of the words, amid much 
 laughing and some little heightening of colour 
 occasionally on the part of the lady, and some 
 little expressive application of meaning on the 
 part of the gentleman. 
 
 At first they began rather sotto voce, singing, 
 as they were singing, only for each other, and in 
 the utter silence and tranquillity of the moonlit 
 terrace. But by degrees the sj^irit of the 
 melody took hold of them, and each of them, 
 exciting the other to emulation, they both gave 
 out the whole power of their voice, in such sort 
 that, while giving the stornello in excellent 
 style, they were perfectly audible to any ears in 
 the immediate neighbourhood of the house. 
 
 L 2
 
 148 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 And Carlo was just giving the concluding 
 ritornello of the melody, '' ed a me pare wn! 
 angioV vera, tera^' with all the concentrated 
 power of personal application that intense mean- 
 ing of voice and eyes could give to the words, 
 w^hen suddenly from the garden front of the 
 house, below the terrace, a clapping of hands 
 was heard, and a great burl}^ voice, which 
 cried out : 
 
 " Bravi ! bravi ! very well sung ! And if it 
 was after supper instead of before, I wouldn't 
 mind listening to some more of it ! But who 
 have you got there, Jigliuola ?}iia, to sing with 
 you at this time of night ? Come down, and 
 let's get in ; for I want my supper ! '^ 
 
 " There's my flither ! " said Hegina, with 
 some little appearance of confusion in her man- 
 ner. '* Come, Signor Carlo, and explain your 
 business to him at once. Perhaps he will like 
 to see to it before going to supper." 
 
 " Here is Signor Carlo Caroli, father," she 
 continued, as she came down some steps leading 
 from the terrace to the garden below, with
 
 A DUET BY MOONLIGHT. 149 
 
 Carlo by her side, " come to see what is 
 wanting to be done to the oil-press." 
 
 " Oh ! come to look at the oil-press, is he ? 
 Yes ! it needs looking to, as usual ; — needs it 
 every year, it seems to me ! There is no end to 
 the repairing of it. But it is rather late to 
 talk about oil-presses to-night. I want my 
 supper ! '' 
 
 " Yes, it is late, Signer Bartoli,'' said Carlo ; 
 " but I walked over this evening, after shutting 
 up at Sponda Lunga, to save breaking a day to- 
 morrow ; and, thinking that there would be 
 just half-an-hour's light to see to the matter, — 
 as there would have been, if I had had the luck 
 to find vou at home." 
 
 " But you had the luck to find me out in- 
 stead, eh 1 Well, come in to supper ! Hegina, 
 my child, I have brought Signer Meo home to 
 supper with us. See that we have a flask of 
 the old Chianti ! Come in, Signer Carlo. How- 
 is the Signora Mart a '? " 
 
 Regina perceived at once that her father, 
 notwithstanding his hospitable words, — which,
 
 150 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 as she w^ell knew, would not have failed if he 
 had found the Devil in person in his house at 
 supper-time, — was not well pleased at having 
 found the young wheelwright there, and engaged 
 as he had been, when the farmer surprised 
 them. It was not that there was any thing- 
 whatsoever to be objected to by the most cen- 
 sorious in anything that had taken place, or 
 that she had the least idea that her father 
 would for a moment suppose that there was so ; 
 but she understood perfectly well that he 
 should be annoyed that Meo Morini should find 
 her so engaged. As for herself, it was disa- 
 greeable enough to her to have her Lucca per- 
 secutor brought out there that evening, of all 
 evenings in the year. But for all that, she 
 could not help laughing a little quiet laugh 
 to herself, as she thought of Signer Meo's 
 discomfiture, and of her own determina- 
 tion not to permit the presence of Signer 
 Caroli to influence her to be one whit kinder 
 to the lawyer's son than was her ordinary 
 habit.
 
 A DUET BY MOONLIGHT. 151 
 
 " Buona sera, gentilissima Signorina Regina," 
 said Signer Meo, as she and Carlo descended 
 the terrace steps together ; " I was ravished at 
 the sound of your voice in that lovely melody ; 
 but I have heard it, I must say, to greater ad- 
 vantage alone ! '^ he continued, affecting to 
 speak aside to Regina, as if he was conscious of 
 being on terms of much greater intimacy with 
 her than so new an acquaintance as Signer 
 Careli. 
 
 *' It is a disappointment to me that you should 
 say that. Signer Meo, for I fancied that I had 
 sung particularly well to-night. For my own 
 part, I never liked the sound of my own voice 
 so well before,^' said Regina, speaking in a spe- 
 cially loud and ringing tone. " Signer Meo is a 
 great critic, like most ether city gentlemen, 
 Signer Carle," she continued, turning to Careli, 
 " and he did net like our countrified singing. 
 It is a great comfort that we were tolerably 
 well pleased with it ourselves." 
 
 " Is Si2:nor Meo a sin<2:er himself '? " said 
 Carlo, bowing politely to young Morini.
 
 152 THE DEEAM NUMBERS. 
 
 " Ob, no ! not a note ! Do you, Signer 
 Meo 1 But that makes liim all the more fitted 
 to criticise other people, you know/' 
 
 " If you can't sing, Meo, my boy, I rather 
 fancy that we know something you can do, that 
 is likely to go a deal further in putting the 
 cheese on the maccheroni, eh 1 '' 
 
 " Well, sir, I should rather hope so. It 
 would be a poor stor}^, I'm thinking, if I could 
 not," said Meo, with a chuckle, that sounded 
 infinitely odious in Regina's ears. 
 
 *' We'll see if we can't manage to settle our 
 little bit of business, dark though it be, Signer 
 Caroli," said the farmer. " I should be sorry 
 that you had your w^alk for nothing. We'll get a 
 light, and go and have a look at the press, while 
 Regina is getting the supper on the table. Meo, 
 my lad, you stay and help her ; carry the lamp 
 for her while she gets up the right flask from 
 the cellar. We shall be back in no time. Come, 
 Signer Caroli." 
 
 So Carlo, not without a discontented look, 
 which w^as somewhat comforted by that which
 
 \ 
 
 A DUET BY MOONLIGHT. 153 
 
 met it, was obliged to follow the farmer to the 
 press-room, leaving his rival to make such hay 
 as he could, while his sun shone.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 A SUPPER AT EIPALTA. 
 
 "I HOPE you won't, for a moment, suppose, 
 gentilissima Signorina Regina," said ^leo, in his 
 most insinuating manner, as soon as the farmer 
 and Caroli had gone out into the moon-ht night, 
 carrying with them one of those tall hrass 
 Etruscan-shaped lamps still peculiar to the 
 inhabitants of the old Etruscan soil, — " I hope 
 3^ou won't suppose, from what I said to your 
 father, that I do not appreciate the charms of 
 music, specially when it is made by your voice 
 — the sweetest in all the world. *^ 
 
 Ptegina turned away to the already spread 
 table to make some alteration in the arrange- 
 ments, without saying a word, and yawning rather 
 ostentatiously as she did so.
 
 A SUPPER AT EIPALTA. 155 
 
 "Ah ! you want your supper, signorina mia; 
 yawning is a sign of an empty stomach. But 
 as I was saying, when I ventured to remark 
 that I have had the privilege and delight of 
 hearing your voice on other occasions to greater 
 advantage than I heard it to-night, I did not 
 mean to imply that you were singing less 
 admirably than ever, but that the rough tones 
 of that contadino were not fitted to mingle 
 with yours. Pray understand that." 
 
 " Oh, yes, signer ; I understand. That is 
 the exquisiteness of your lordship's city taste. 
 But then I am a contadma, you know, and I 
 thought Sign or Caroli's voice charming.^' 
 
 " Come now, Signorina Regina, you couldn't 
 think that ! But I know what that is said for. 
 That is merely to vex me !" 
 
 " Vex you, signer '? I do not understand 
 you ! " said Regina, turning on him with one 
 of her most magnificently crushing looks of 
 unutterable contempt. " Why should it vex 
 you that I think Carlo Caroli's voice a 
 charming one 1 I assure you that, for my part.
 
 156 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 it is entirely indifferent to me \vhether you 
 think it good or bad 1 '' 
 
 " It is very cruel of you to say so, signorina," 
 returned Meo, whiningly, and with a leer that 
 was intended to express ineffable tenderness, 
 " when you know how I worship every w^ord 
 that falls from your lips." 
 
 " I should be very much obliged to you, 
 Signer Meo, if you would reserve that sort of 
 language for the city ladies of your acquaintance, 
 who will, no doubt, appreciate it. I am but a 
 contadina, as I said just now, and I do not 
 understand it . . . and do not like it. If you will 
 excuse me, I will go and get the wine my father 
 wished for." 
 
 Meo seized the lamp from the table, and pre- 
 pared to accompany her. " I have my orders, 
 you know, signorina, — orders from your father, 
 to carry the lamp for you and escort you to the 
 cellar. Ah ! what a lucky fellow I should be, 
 if when we tw^o are alone together in that deep 
 old cellar, the door of the stair should bang, and 
 we should be locked up there together for heaven
 
 A SUPPER AT PJPALTA. 157 
 
 knows liow long ! Perhaps for ever ! The 
 longer the better, T should say, so long as 
 we are together — always together, bellissima 
 Regina ! '* 
 
 Regina vouchsafed no word of reply to this, 
 but stepped in silence, ver}^ majestically and 
 scornfully, towards a door, which, in the neigh- 
 bourhood of the great kitchen, opened under the 
 main staircase, at the top of a long dark flight 
 of stairs, that led to a deep and large vaulted 
 cellar, extending under the entirety of the great 
 central hall. She suffered Meo to accompany 
 her with the lamp, and to make immense demon- 
 strations of holding it low, and holding it high, 
 now on this side, and now on that, to illuminate 
 and guard against the supposed dangers of the 
 sundry steps, and corners, and doorways which 
 abounded in the old house, as they are apt to do 
 in buildings where they have had time, as it 
 would seem, to develope themselves. 
 
 All this Regina permitted without a word; 
 and Meo was in high glee at the interesting 
 office intrusted to him ; till, as the}' passed the
 
 15 S THE DEE AM NUMBERS. 
 
 door of the kitchen, his companion called, 
 " Caterina ! '' and Signer Bartoli's old house- 
 keeper answered with a prompt, " Si, sig- 
 norina ! '^ 
 
 Caterina came to the door of the kitchen as 
 she spoke, a brisk, active, dried-up-looking little 
 old woman, with bare feet and very short scarlet 
 petticoats, a clean coarse shirt very open at the 
 bosom, and a bright yellow handkerchief on her 
 head. 
 
 " Caterina, anima mia, father wants a flask of 
 the old Chianti ; you know where to find it. 
 This gentleman has kindly promised to carry 
 the light for you. I wouldn't mind going 
 myself without any light at all ; but as the 
 gentleman promised father to carry the light, 
 you had better go with him." 
 
 " SU signorina. The old, old Chianti, in the 
 furthest cellar, eh "i I know. Lascia fare a 
 me! Come along, signor, since you are so 
 pohte ! " 
 
 And so ]\Ieo, tacitly cursing his fate, and the 
 old woman, and his mistress's scornful humour,
 
 A SUPPER AT RIPALTA. 159 
 
 found himself obliged to bestow his light and 
 his guarding care on the steps and the bare 
 ankles of old Caterina. 
 
 Before he came back again from his subter- 
 ranean excursion, the farmer and Signer Caroli 
 had returned from their investigation of the oil- 
 press. 
 
 " Signer Carlo thinks that he will be able to 
 make a job of it, without touching the wheel,'' 
 said the farmer, coming in. " And now for 
 supper. Where is Signor Meo *? '' 
 
 " Gone for the wine, father, as you told him. 
 Here he comes." 
 
 " Gone for the wine, girl I But I told you to 
 go with him. How should he know where to 
 find what is wanted 1 " 
 
 ".Caterina knows very well where all the 
 wine is, and she went with Signor Meo. He 
 was kind enough to light her." 
 
 Here Caterina, with the desired flask in her 
 hand, and Signor Meo, carrying the lamp with 
 a very ludicrously crest-fallen air, came into the 
 supper-room.
 
 160 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 ''Mille sense! SignorMeo!*' cried the farmer. 
 " I never meant to ask you to hold a candle 
 to old Caterina. I told this young lady here 
 to go to the cellar, and that is not altogether 
 the same thing ! But I suppose her ladyship 
 has grown too grand to go to the cellar, to 
 fetch her father a flask of wine. Your mother 
 would not ha grudged going to her own 
 cellar, if it was ten times a-day ! But I don't 
 know what the girls are coming to now-a- 
 days, not I.'' 
 
 " I would not have minded going to the 
 cellar alone, father," said Regina, with quiet 
 decision of manner. 
 
 " Oh ! that is the way the cat jumps, is 
 it ? " grumbled the farmer between his teeth ; 
 but he said nothing further at the time. 
 
 They sat down to supper at a square table, 
 Regina sitting opposite to her father, and their 
 two guests opposite to each other. 
 
 " Now, Meo, my boy, the first glass of the 
 flask for you ! I am sure you deserve it ! You 
 will find that it is worth fetching, anyway ! "
 
 A SUPPER AT RIPALTA. 161 
 
 Signer Bartoli took the portly flask in his 
 hand, and first withdrawing from its slender 
 neck a httle wad of straw loosely inserted into 
 it, merely to prevent the dust from falling in, or 
 perhaps to prevent the rats from getting at the 
 oil beneath, which forms the real and perfectly 
 efficient closing of the flask, he proceeded to 
 remove this hermetical sealing. When a Tuscan 
 flask has been filled with wine, about a large 
 thimble-full of olive-oil is poured into the neck, 
 which it occupies for a depth of perhaps an 
 inch or thereabouts. This floats upon the top 
 of the wine, and closes the flask, and preserves 
 the wine far more eflectually than any cork 
 could do. When the wine is to be used, town- 
 bred folks, and those who have not learned the 
 knack of it, remove the oil by inserting a piece 
 of tow, which absorbs it, and is then with- 
 drawn. But this does not effect the object 
 nearl}^ so thoroughly and cleanly as the true 
 old method, which consists of tossing the oil 
 out by a sudden jerk of the wrist, which holds 
 the flask. One to the manner born will do this
 
 16^ THE DEE AM NUMBERS. 
 
 SO successfully that every drop of the oil is 
 ejected without the loss of any appreciable 
 quantity of the wine. It may be, how- 
 ever, that some particle of oily matter may 
 remain in the neck of the flask. It is, 
 therefore, a point of good breeding, when 
 any one has thus opened a flask of wine, to 
 pour a little into his own glass, or on the 
 ground, before helping his friend or neigh- 
 bour. 
 
 Of course this mode of proceeding does not 
 contemplate the possibility of a carpet in the 
 apartment in which it has to be performed. 
 Those who drink on carpeted floors have butlers, 
 and decanters, and other such devices of civiliza- 
 tion. Farmer Bartoh never dreamed that the 
 bricks of his dining-room could be any the 
 worse for a small anointing with good olive oil I 
 So he tossed out the oily closing of the choice 
 flask with a rapid twist of the wrist, performed 
 in the most gnostic fashion, half-filled his own 
 tumbler, and then hospitably filled that of Signer 
 Meo, amid the protestations de rigueiir of the
 
 A SUPPER AT EIPALTA. 163 
 
 latter, that the farmer had designs on his 
 sobriety. 
 
 Then BartoH passed the portly flask, — holding 
 the contents of very nearly three ordinary wine- 
 bottles — to Signer Caroli ; and he having first 
 poured a little wine into Regina's glass, half- 
 filled his own. 
 
 " Does the widow's wine need as much water 
 as all that. Signer Carlo '? " laughed the farmer. 
 " This don't, I can tell you. Give it a fair trial, 
 man, before drowning it with water ! So I hear 
 you and the widow get on famously together, 
 eh 1 You are going to cut 'em all out ! Ho ! 
 ho ! ho ! " And the farmer laughed a great 
 side-shaking laugh. 
 
 " Going to '? " said Carlo, pretending not to 
 understand what he very well knew to be the 
 drift of the farmer s speech ; " say rather that I 
 have cut them all out ! since I have got the 
 situation ; and, as you say, and as far as I know, 
 Signora Monaldi and I are very well contented 
 with each other." 
 
 " Ah, yes 1 Butter would not melt in your 
 
 M 2
 
 1G4 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 mouth, young man ! Of course not ! We know 
 all about it, don't we, Signor Meo '? " said the 
 farmer, with a horse-laugh. 
 
 " I suppose Signor Caroli knows his own 
 affairs best himself! But I take it the world 
 hereabouts will be surprised if there is any such 
 person known a year hence as the widow 
 Monaldi, wheelwright," said Meo, with delicate 
 raillery. 
 
 " You mean that the widow will marry again ; 
 and that in such a case I should most probably 
 lose m}' position/' said Carlo, quietl}^ ; " it is, of 
 course, by no means improbable, at the Signora 
 Marta's time of life, and being such as she is. 
 Of course I have thought of all that ; and am 
 aware of the precariousness of my situation 
 accordingly." 
 
 " Just as if you could not be yourself the 
 husband that is to turn out the manager ! And 
 just as if you did not mean to be ! Bah, bah, 
 bah ! we were not born yesterda^^, noi altri 
 Lucchesi ! " said Farmer Bartoli. 
 
 " I'll tell you what, Signor Bartoli, you may
 
 A SUPPER AT PtlPALTA. 165 
 
 be born before the Campanile of Giotto for 
 aught I know ; but I can certify that you are 
 talking of what you know nothing about. At 
 all events, I have to tell you that I have no such 
 meaning as you say I have ; and I shall be 
 obhged to you if you will put it out of your 
 head ; or at least out of your talk," said Carlo, 
 speaking seriously. 
 
 " And you really mean to say that you do 
 not intend to go in for the hand of the widow 
 joking apart "? " said Meo Morini. 
 
 Carlo looked at him for a minute, as if doubt- 
 ing whether he would condescend to give him 
 any answer at all, and then said, with a cold 
 sternness, intended to warn Signer Meo, that he 
 was not disposed to tolerate any raillery from 
 him on this subject, 
 
 " I really mean to say. Signer Morini, that 
 which I have already said ; — as I usually 
 do." 
 
 " Then you do not know which side your 
 bread is buttered, young man, and there is a 
 fine chance left open for somebody who does
 
 166 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 know better 1 That is all I can say ! " cried the 
 farmer. 
 
 " That is for me to judge, Signer Bartoli. 
 But I must remind you that 3^ou are talking as 
 if it were in my power to make the Signora 
 Monaldi marry me for the asking of her ; while 
 in truth there is not the slightest reason for 
 imagining anything of the kind. I have every 
 reason to be grateful for the kindness which the 
 Signora Marta has shown me since I have been 
 with her. And it would be a very bad return 
 to speak of her, or to hear others speak of her, 
 in the terms you have been using." 
 
 " Ah, bah — bah — bah — bah ! Widows are 
 widows, and will be widows ! " said the far- 
 mer. 
 
 " Or rather ivont be, you mean, Signor 
 Giovanni, any longer than they can help it ! 
 Haw ! haw! haw ! " laughed Signor Meo, loudly; 
 while Regina, who had remained perfectly silent 
 during all this conversation, thought to herself 
 that she would a thousand times rather become 
 a bare-footed nun of the severest order that
 
 A SUPPER AT RIPALTA. 167 
 
 ever wore sack-cloth, and starved on lettuce, 
 than marry Meo Morini. 
 
 Shortly after this Carlo said that it was high 
 time that he should be setting out on his walk 
 home to Sponda Lunga. The distance which 
 separated the large village, so called, from Signor 
 Bartoli's farm, was not much more than a couple 
 of miles, and the road lay chiefly along the top 
 of the northern or right-hand dyke of the Ser- 
 chio. It was a magnificent moonlight night, 
 and Regina told him that she envied him his 
 walk. Signor Meo, too, said that he must be 
 thinking of going. The farmer had promised 
 him that he would send him in his bagarino, as far 
 as the city gates, from which Ripalta was distant 
 four or five miles. So Cecco Lungo, a long- 
 legged, shambling, slipshod lad, who seemed to 
 live in the stables and farm-yard at Ripalta, 
 much on the same terms as the fowls, and the 
 pigs, and the dogs did, and whose only known 
 surname of " Lungo " referred solely to his own 
 physical characteristics, without any reference 
 whatever to any father he might ever have had,
 
 168 THE DEEAM NUMBERS. 
 
 — Cecco Lungo was hurried up out of his lair, in 
 the stable straw, and told to bring the bagarino 
 to the door for Signer Morini. 
 
 Carlo and Regina were left together in the 
 supper room for a minute or two, while the 
 farmer, followed by Signer Meo, went out to 
 give the above order. 
 
 " What an odious oaf it is ! " said Regina, with 
 a sigh of relief. " He is my special aversion ; 
 and the more I abominate him, — w^hich means 
 the same thing as saying the more I see of him, 
 — the more my father seems to like him ! " 
 
 " He seems a rather ill-bred blockhead ; but I 
 do not suppose that there is anything worse 
 than that to be said of him." 
 
 " That seems to me about enough. What 
 worse could you say of a man 1 " 
 
 " Unhappily there are plenty of men of whom 
 much worse than that may be said without 
 wronging them." 
 
 " I think you seem rather inclined to take 
 Signer Meo's part, and to think that I am very 
 unreasonable in not hking him. Shall I try to
 
 A SUPPER AT PJPALTA. 169 
 
 be a good girl, Signor Carlo, and make up my 
 mind to find Signor Meo as charming as my 
 father considers him." 
 
 " I don't think that there would be any use in 
 your trying, signora ! You would not succeed/' 
 
 " And why not, pray 1 They say that when 
 a girl cares for no one in particular, it is not so 
 difficult to like according to the bidding of 
 fathers or mothers." 
 
 " Ah, yes ! when a girl cares for nobody, that 
 may be possible ; and many other things may 
 be possible to her. It is a bad thing, Signorina 
 Regina, to care for nobody," said Carlo, in a 
 melancholy voice, and with a wistful look into 
 his companion's eyes. 
 
 " Is it such a bad thing, signor mio /^ " said 
 she, returning his look not unkindly ; " I am not 
 so sure about that," she added, dropping her 
 eyes under cover of her long eyelashes. " I have 
 never tried the other plan, to be sure ; that is 
 one thing. ' E se non avvo dami, staro sola,'' ' * 
 
 * And if I have no lover, 
 I'll live sinde.
 
 170 THE DEE AM NUMBERS. 
 
 she warbled in the words of a favourite old 
 stornello. 
 
 " And no one can find fault with that resolu- 
 tion/' said Carlo, laughingly ; " but you will not 
 have that excuse, at any rate, signorina, for re- 
 maining single/' 
 
 " Eh ! gia, non mancono i dami ! ma . . . ." and 
 she completed the sentence by a look and ges- 
 ture most eloquently expressive of the utter re- 
 pulsiveness to her of those who had hitherto 
 presented themselves to her notice in that cha- 
 racter. 
 
 " But it is not fair, signorina, to condemn all 
 for the .... the unworthiness of some. Is it 
 impossible that you should ever be induced to 
 care for any body 1 " 
 
 " Chi lo sa ! Who knows ! I suppose that 
 would depend on who it might be that 
 tried," said Regina, hanging her head, but 
 with a pouting smile on her lips, and an 
 under glance of rustic coquetry, performed 
 with a perfection of skill, which assuredly 
 was not due to practice ; for Eegina had cer-
 
 A SUPPER AT RIP ALT A. 171 
 
 tainly never bestowed such a look on living 
 man before. 
 
 " I must say good-night/' continued Carlo, 
 hurriedly ; " here comes Signer Bartoli/' 
 
 He took her hand as he spoke, as if simply to 
 bid her adieu, and she made no difficulty of 
 frankly placing her little hand in his. But no 
 sooner had she done so, than, as though the 
 touch of it had taken from him all self-control, 
 he covered it with sudden kisses, while he whis- 
 pered the parting words into her ear, — lo 
 famo ! lo iamo ! Regina, io t'amo piil die la 
 vita, piu die Vanima mia ! ^' 
 
 Signer Bartoli and Signer Meo returned to 
 the room at that instant — the latter to say his 
 good-night to Regina. 
 
 " Felice sera, sigiiore ! " replied Regina, with 
 her usual cold stateliness, bowing slightly as she 
 spoke, and at the same time drawing back, so as 
 to avoid taking the hand he held out to her. 
 There was considerably more colour in the 
 cheeks, however, than was usual with her. 
 Meo did not fail to observe it, and despite
 
 172 THE DREAM NUMBEES. 
 
 the haughty reserve of manner to which he 
 was so much accustomed, thought to himself, 
 that his assiduities that evening had at last 
 begun to produce some effect on the proud 
 beauty. 
 
 Carlo was meantime bidding the farmer good- 
 nio-ht, and arran2;ino; when he should come over 
 with the workmen to put in hand the repair of 
 the oil press. 
 
 " Will it be necessary for you to come over 
 yourself, Signer Carlo ? " said the farmer. 
 " Bringing you here — half a day at least — will in- 
 crease the expense of the job, you know." 
 
 " Oh, no, Signer Bartoli. I should not think 
 of charging you my time. But it is more satis- 
 factory to see after the men. It is always better 
 for our own credit. Perhaps I will look up to 
 see how they are getting on in the evening, after 
 work hours." 
 
 " Well, then, do it that way. You shall have 
 your supper, and we'll cry, quits ! " said the 
 farmer, with a great haw-haw laugh. 
 
 " Very wtH, I shall be content wath the bar-
 
 A SUPPEH AT RIPALTA. 173 
 
 gain. Good-night ! Good-night I " And Carlo 
 went out into the moonb'ght, crossed the garden 
 to the ste23S leading to the terrace, sprang up 
 the contraband path leading from that to the 
 top of the djke, and stepped out on his walk 
 homewards.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 AFTER THOFGHTS. 
 
 Meo's short drive under the bright moonlight 
 to the gloomy, cavern-looking old gateway of 
 the city, pierced through the thick ramparts, 
 and under the promenade, was a very pleasant 
 one. It was not so much that the soft sweet 
 air of the Italian October night was caressing 
 his cheek, or that the vine festoons through 
 which his road lay were infinitely and fantas- 
 tically lovely in the capricious moonlight, or 
 that the chaos of mountains to the northward, 
 from among which Serchio finds his devious way 
 into the plain, looking in the pale weird hght 
 like the ghosts of a dead world of hills, were 
 pregnant with fanciful suggestion to an imagi- 
 nation capable of being excited by the poetry of
 
 AFTER THOUGHTS. 175 
 
 nature. Meo, like his countrymen in general, 
 cared for none of these things. The satisfaction 
 that made his drive a pleasant one came from 
 "within. He had supped well ; the good Chianti 
 had done its office of making glad the heart of 
 man, and Meo's meditations were very satisfac- 
 torily roseate in their hue. 
 
 What a delightful place Eipalta was ! Just 
 the right distance from the city ! It would not 
 cost so much, after all, to put the old house into 
 proper villa-like order. Morini di Ripalta] It 
 sounded very well ! How lovely Regina looked 
 as she stood tossing her head at the top of the 
 cellar stairs, when she played him that trick ! It 
 was not to be expected that she would trust her- 
 self in the cellar with him, especially after those, 
 perhaps, indiscreet words of passion into which 
 the occasion had betrayed him. He was not 
 sorry that he had uttered them however. It 
 was clear that he had made progress with her 
 that evening. She had never blushed like that 
 before when taking leave of him ! Evidently 
 the right way to woo her was to catch her
 
 176 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 quietly here, at home in her own house. 
 Evidently, too, a few words of warmer admi- 
 ration than he had hitherto been in the habit 
 of venturing to address to her, could do no 
 harm. Oh, yes I She would come right 
 enough in time ! Besides, was not her father, 
 old Bartoli, there 1 Kot the sort of man to 
 suffer himself to be baulked in his schemes 
 and wishes, as Regina would find when the 
 push came to the push, in case she should 
 show herself inclined to be skittish. But Meo 
 did not think that she would. The old terrace 
 must be repaired, and the garden put into order. 
 And what mao'nificent cellarao-e ! He had had 
 no idea that the old farm-house had ever been 
 so much of a place. He certainly should not 
 keep the farm in hand. No ! what had he to 
 do with farming ? And what need would there 
 be ? Old Bartoli had put together a very tidy 
 sum of money, as the lawyer's son well knew. 
 Then, was he not his own father's only child ? 
 And had not the old lawyer been adding crown 
 to crown by every sort of means, half a point to
 
 AFTER THOUGHTS. 177 
 
 the windward of the law, for more years than he 
 could remember ! No, no ! no farming for 
 him ! He would make vita beata [i.e., in Tus- 
 can phrase, live without any sort of occupation 
 whatever in the world). He would keep a 
 smart little hagarino — not such an one as that 
 of the old farmer's, which was now carrying 
 him — and a fast-trotting horse, that would run 
 him into Lucca in half an hour. He would have 
 a box at the opera ! A close carriage would be 
 needed for bringing Regina into town. But 
 upon the whole, would it not be better to avoid 
 that expense 1 Might it not be wiser not to 
 have the means at hand for Regina to be run- 
 ning into the city constantly ^ She was verj^ 
 beautiful ! Very attractive ! Would make 
 quite a sensation in the fashionable Lucca 
 world ! But would it not be wise, after having 
 exhibited her sufficiently to enjoy the triumph 
 and glory of this, not to encourage her to fre- 
 quent the city 1 That notion of the opera box 
 was scarcely a prudent one ! On second 
 thoughts, it would be best to join some other 
 
 VOL, I. N
 
 178 THE DEEA:\r NUMBERS. 
 
 men, whom lie knew, in an omnibus box, for 
 male occupation only. Yes! That would be 
 safer for Eegina ! It was a good thing that 
 Regina had all her life been used to a father 
 who had known what authority meant. No- 
 thing like haying a wife, and ruling a wife ! 
 He ruling Eegina ! A passing thrill of mis- 
 giving came over him at the thought thus 
 presented to his mind. But he reassured him- 
 self, that out there at Eipalta there would be 
 facilities greater than in the city. After all, he 
 should be the master ! Master, to lock up every- 
 thing save bread and water, and be off for a 
 week or ten days. Yes ! there were ways for 
 the taming of a haughty spirit ! And certain 
 recollections connected with sundry phases of 
 his courtship, inspired the triumphant lover 
 with a feehng which made this contemplated 
 process of taming, when performed with a due 
 and comfortably sufficient preponderance of 
 power, well assured and out of the reach of im- 
 pertinent interference, not a disagreeable subject 
 of meditation.
 
 AFTER THOUGHTS. 179 
 
 Leaving the farmer's hagarino at tlie city 
 gate, Meo walked home through the quiet and 
 almost empty streets of the city, and reached 
 the lawyer's house just in time to tell his father 
 and mother, before they went to bed, that his 
 evening had been a most successful one, and 
 that he had reason to think that E-egina was 
 beginning to come round. 
 
 " Come round ! " said his father. " Of 
 course, she will come round fast enough ! Did not 
 I tell you so % Girls generally do come round 
 to such offers as ours. You stick to her ! 
 Gently does it, mind, till you have got her in 
 the shafts ; and then 3^ou may drive your own 
 pace, you know!" 
 
 There had been a little talk between the 
 farmer and his daughter, after their guests had 
 left them ; but it had not been so pleasant in 
 its character as Meo's one-sided reveries. 
 
 "Now, Regina, my girl," the farmer began, 
 "I want to know what that youngster from 
 Signora Monaldi's came here for this evening'? " 
 
 " Why, don't you know, father, what he came 
 
 N 2
 
 180 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 here for ? And if you had not known all ahout 
 it before, did not he tell you what he came 
 for ? But you expected him, did you not, to 
 look at the oil-press ? And it is never too soon, 
 for we shall be gathering the crop early this 
 year." 
 
 " To the devil with the oil-press ! What has 
 mending an oil-press got to do with singing 
 storiielli out there on the terrace, I should like 
 to know ! " 
 
 " Why shouldn't I sing a stornello, or he sing 
 one with me, if I like ? There was no w^asting 
 of time. I had done all my house -work, and 
 was out on the terrace waiting for you to come 
 home. He came along the top of the dyke, 
 and happened to hear me singing a verse of a 
 song to pass the time. He came down from 
 the dyke and asked me to finish the song. I 
 said I would, if he w^ould sing it wath me, for I 
 know that he can sino; well. So we sano; it 
 together, and you came home and overheard 
 us. And where w\as the harm of that ? " 
 
 " Humph ! where was the harm of that ? — I
 
 AFTER THOUGHTS. 181 
 
 (lid not say there was any harm in that ! But 
 do you mean to tell me that when you went out 
 to the terrace you did not know that he would 
 be coming along the dyke presently '? That is 
 where it is 1 " 
 
 " Father ! / know that he was coming along 
 the dyke ! '' returned Regina, flashing upon him 
 one of those looks wdierewith she was wont to 
 annihilate her lovers. " How should I know 
 when he was coming 1 Besides, had I not 
 evei'y reason to think that you would have been 
 at home before the time that he came here. I 
 went out to the terrace only thinking of when 
 you were coming home to supper, and wondering 
 what kept you so late ! " 
 
 " Humph ! '^ grunted the farmer again, dis- 
 contentedly. " I'll tell you what it is, Regina ; 
 this young Carlo is all very well in his way ; — a 
 steady sort of chap he seems, with a head-piece 
 of his own ; and the widow Monaldi is lucky in 
 having suited herself with such a one. If he is 
 not a born fool, he will marry her, and have the 
 business for himself He may have her for the
 
 182 THE DEEAM NUMBERS. 
 
 askino- I know ! And of course he will ask 
 her, and have her. And it will be a very good 
 thing, and suit all parties very well. Bid. . . . 
 it is just as well to remind you of what I said 
 to you coming home from the ]\[orinis that 
 evening of the Volto Santo a bit ago. One 
 would have thought, to see you with those two 
 young men at supper to-night, that you was a 
 deal better inclined to take up with that stranger 
 fellow than with the man that is intended to be 
 your husband." 
 
 '' K"onsense, father, about being better in- 
 clined ! " said Regina, colouring up, and then 
 colouring more with vexation at the conscious- 
 ness of it. " It was easier to be decently civil 
 to Signer Caroli than to the other, because he 
 did not persecute me as Signer Morini does. 
 But I told you, father, that other day, when 
 you spoke to me, I told you that I could 
 never think of Meo Morini. I abominate 
 him ! He is odious to me ! You cannot 
 really think, father, of wishing me to marry 
 a man towards whom I feel as I do, and as
 
 AFTER THOUGHTS. 183 
 
 I have always told you I do, towards Meo 
 Morini ! " 
 
 Farmer Bartoli remained silent for awhile, 
 frowning heavily, and slowly moving his large 
 heavy browed head up and down as he revolved 
 his daughter's words. 
 
 " As for what I can't think of/' he said at 
 last, repeating her words, "you know well 
 enough that I have been thinking of nothing 
 else for this year past. Girls must be married. 
 'Tis the nature of things that they should ! 
 And good girls marry according to the wishes 
 and the sense of their parents. And bad girls 
 do t'other thing. In my judgment, I could do 
 no better for you, figliuola mia, than to give 
 you to a man who will be as well off as Meo 
 Morini, — a good man, and a sponsible. You 
 can't give any reasonable reason, try as you 
 will, why you shouldn't think well of it. There 
 is not a girl in your position in all the country 
 that would not jump at such a match. But,'' 
 added the farmer, bitterly, and changing his 
 position as he spoke, so as to confront his
 
 184 THE DEE AM ^' UMBERS. 
 
 daughter, who was standing with one hand 
 leaning on the still unremoved cloth of the 
 supper-table, and removing his hands from the 
 pockets of his breeches, in order to hold up the 
 finger of his right hand, in comminatory em- 
 phasis, — " hut I know that I cannot make you 
 marry Meo Morini if you are stupid enough and 
 wicked enough to fix your mind on not doing 
 it. One man can lead a horse to water, but 
 twenty cannot make him drink ! But mind 
 you this, figliuola mia, I am not going to let 
 you marry a beggar ; — I don't say this one or 
 that one ; — be it who it ma}^ I shall not give 
 my consent to your giving yourself and my 
 property to some ne'er-do-weel, who would make 
 up to you for the sake of what you have got. 
 I don't think that it has come to that with you 
 yet, that you would make a marriage a gran '"* 
 
 * A common plirase among the uneducated contadino classes of 
 Tuscany, by which they mean dandcstino, i. e., a marriage con- 
 tracted by suddenly appearing before a priest, and mutual declara- 
 tion of being man and wife ; a marriage ecclesiastically and legally'- 
 valid, but punished by the civil law. What the meaning attached 
 by the peasantry to the words " gran dcstino " may be, it is diffi- 
 cult to imagine.
 
 AFTER THOUGHTS. 185 
 
 destino ! I don't think you capable of that ! 
 And in no other way will you ever marry a 
 man who is not in a position fairly to pretend 
 to marry my daughter. And don't talk to me 
 the stuff you talked the last time I spoke to 
 you ; — that you don't want to marry anybody, 
 — that you will live a single life, and the like 
 stupid nonsense. I am not going to leave the 
 money I have earned to a silly ; — well, never 
 mind that, — I shall not leave my property to a 
 single woman. You may trust me that I mean 
 what I say ! Perhaps you are thinking that 
 the law will give you what I leave if I don't. 
 But you may make sure of this, if there is 
 nobody that I like to leave what I die worth, 
 I shall not die worth much. Now go to bed, 
 figliilola mia, and think over what I have said 
 to you." 
 
 And Regina did go ; but somehow or other, 
 instead of thinking of what her father had 
 been saying, — though she knew him quite well 
 enough to be sure that he was in earnest in 
 every word he had uttered, — she fell to thin
 
 186 THE DEEAM NUMBERS, 
 
 ing of the extraordinary conduct of which 
 Carlo CaroH had been guilty during those two 
 or three minutes that she had been left alone 
 with him, while the farmer and Meo had gone 
 to look after the hagarino, and of those mon- 
 strously audacious words which he had whispered 
 in her ear in accents that seemed as if he were' 
 pouring his whole soul out with them ! 
 
 What would Eegina Bartoli have done, said, 
 or looked, if any other man on earth had ad- 
 dressed her in such language 1 What, indeed ? 
 And that was a question which any one of her 
 legion of admirers might have asked, if they 
 could have guessed that any man had been bold 
 enough to utter such words. But it was not a 
 question which Regina addressed to herself It 
 seemed to her, without any conscious thought 
 upon the subject, that there was, and could be, 
 no sort of comparison between the cases. It 
 was a different thing altogether. There was 
 nothing in common between this stranger and 
 all the other men she had known. If this were 
 a man, they were not men. If they were men.
 
 AFTER THOUGHTS. 187 
 
 this new-comer must be a god I There did not 
 appear to her to be any question of audacity in 
 the words he had uttered. They seemed to have 
 a different sense and meaning from what they 
 would have had in the mouth of another ; to 
 be of the nature of a revelation, which had the 
 power of disclosing as much of her own heart 
 to herself as of his feelings as regarded her. It 
 seemed as if she had been made by those words 
 to perceive and to comprehend that she loved 
 him, quite as much as that he loved her ! And 
 the revelation was one which seemed to have 
 the power of the sunbeam — the power of gilding 
 and glorifying all the world around her. 
 
 It had the powel' of so causing her thoughts 
 and fancy to walk in fairy-land, that all that her 
 father had said to her, was pushed back out of 
 ken into an outer world, from which the new 
 happiness that had dawned upon her was safely 
 fenced off. 
 
 And yet there was assuredly matter for 
 serious meditation in what the farmer had said ; 
 and it was to be feared that that fencing out of
 
 18S THE DREAM LUMBERS. 
 
 it from her romance world might not prove so 
 effectual as for the nonce it seemed. 
 
 But if this was a cloud big with trouble, it 
 was trouble for another day. For the present 
 Regina was happy, with a happiness not only of 
 a degree, but of a kind that was wholly new to 
 her. 
 
 And Carlo Caroli, also, as he walked along 
 the top of the dyke, homewards, to Sponda 
 Lunga, carried with him in his heart something 
 new to him, something that had the effect of 
 changing the aspect of all around him, including 
 his estimate of himself and his place in the 
 Avorld. He had not passed in the course of that 
 one evening through all the -stages that divide 
 indifference from a state of being utterly, irre- 
 trievably, in love. He had already seen Eegina 
 on several occasions, and had passed more than 
 one evening in her company. And each time 
 he had seen her, and spoken with her, had done 
 something towards the final and complete en- 
 thralment of his heart. 
 
 But it was not till the evening of which I
 
 AFTER THOUGHTS. • 189 
 
 have been speaking, that he had dared to hope 
 that Regina in any degree reciprocated his sen- 
 timents. He had perceived, indeed, that Eegina 
 had behaved to him in a manner markedly dif- 
 ferent from that in which she treated the rest of 
 the young men who buzzed around her. But he 
 had attributed that entirely to the fact that he 
 did not behave towards her as they did ; that he 
 did not persecute her with coarse gallantries, or 
 so conduct himself as to make it necessary that 
 she should keep him at a distance. He could 
 not but admit to himself that his own intelli- 
 gence and culture were more on a level with 
 hers than those of the generality of her rustic 
 and citizen admirers. And he felt that there 
 had already grown up a bond of friendliness and 
 good understanding between them that did not 
 exist between her and any of the other j^oung 
 men around her. But still there was a long way 
 between this and love. And there was a certain 
 Diana-like touch-me-not sort of regal carriage 
 about Eegina, that seemed to hold out but small 
 encouragement to wooing. Had falling in love
 
 190 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 been a thing that we can decide upon doing or 
 not doing, as one does ujDon walking to the left 
 or to the right, Carlo Caroli would certainly 
 have decided that it would be better and wiser 
 not to fall in love with Regina Bartoli. Even 
 supposing that it should come to pass that she 
 should not remain indifferent to him, what good 
 could be likely to be got out of such an attach- 
 ment ? Was it likely that the wealthy farmer, 
 Bartoli, who, as was well known, was bent on 
 seeing his daughter become a city lady, should 
 ever consent to her marrying him f He pictured 
 to himself the burly, rich, lowland farmer, ac- 
 customed to sweep into his barns and granaries 
 the produce of the fat fields of the plains two or 
 three times in the year, introduced to an acquaint- 
 ance with the "property" of the Trendi at 
 Uzzano ; the meagre, hungry, ungrateful corn 
 patch, now sold, by the bye ; the strip of chest- 
 nut wood, and the little mountain vineyard ! 
 None of the people now around him in his new 
 Lucchese home, knew how poor he and his were 
 up in their mountain home. And he thought of
 
 AFTER THOUGHTS. 191 
 
 tlie scorn with which Giovanni Bartoli would 
 repel the advances of such an one as he, when 
 his position in this respect should be really 
 known. 
 
 But now it was too late for any consideration 
 of this sort. Despite all his consciousness that 
 for him to fall in love with Regina Bartoli was a 
 very unwise and imprudent proceeding, he had 
 done it ! He had done it, and done it so 
 thoroughly that he knew that it could never be 
 undone again. And though assuredly the 
 thought that it was so, the thought that 
 henceforward the love of that tall, dark-eyed 
 girl, whom a twelvemonth ago he had never 
 seen or heard of, was the one thing necessary to 
 him in this world — the thing without which all 
 that he had hitherto lived for was blank, stale, 
 flat, and savourless ; the loadstar of his life, the 
 hope and aim failing which life itself was into- 
 lerable ; — though the thought of this was not un- 
 accompanied by a sensation of terror, it was yet 
 beyond all words delicious, and inspired a buoy- 
 ant feeling of triumph, which imparted an extra
 
 192 THE DKEAM NUMBEES. 
 
 elasticity to his step, and an unusual fire to his 
 eye. 
 
 For he believed — he thought that he felt 
 almost sure — that Eegina loved him ! There 
 had been no time for her to make any response 
 to that sudden, uncontrollable outburst of pas- 
 sion, with which he had, without preparation, 
 preface, or management told her that he loved 
 her better than his own soul. She could not, 
 without openly rebuking him before her father 
 and Meo, have replied to it either in one sense 
 or in another. He had poured his lava-flood 
 of passion into her ear, and in tlie next instant 
 she had been constrained to assume, as far as 
 was within the capacities of her jDowers of self- 
 control, a bearing, a tone of voice, and a coun- 
 tenance of complete indifference. Nevertheless, 
 he felt that his love was returned. There had 
 been an instant — a half-instant — during which 
 their eyes had met, even while he was speaking 
 those headlong words ! Then there was the 
 meeting of their hands at parting — that precious 
 meeting of palm to palm, the electric touch of
 
 AFTER THOUGHTS. 193 
 
 which seemed to be yet vibrating all along each 
 nerve that joined the extremity with the heart 
 as he thought of it — that inestimable moment 
 of contact, which seemed to those who stood by 
 so common-place and unmeaning, but in which 
 such volumes of meaning were expressed ! Oh, 
 no ! He could never doubt any more that 
 Eegina loved him! 
 
 Carlo was so intently occupied with all these 
 emotions, and with reviewing every word that 
 had been uttered, and every look that had been 
 looked by Eegina during the evening, that he 
 almost ran against a man w^io was coming along 
 the top of the dyke in the opposite direction to 
 him. Hastily stepping aside, he spoke some 
 word of apology, and in the same instant per- 
 ceived that the other moonlight traveller was 
 Signer Andrea Simonetti, the son of the usurer 
 of Lucca. 
 
 The two men had met once or twice before, 
 since Caroli had come to take the management 
 of the widow Monaldi's business, and neither of 
 them had felt at all inclined to like the other. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 194 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 The reader has already seen enough of Simo- 
 netti to be quite sure that he was not the sort 
 of man that Carlo Carol! was likely to find 
 much to his taste ; and it is intelligible enough 
 that Simonetti, with his views on the widow, 
 should not look with much complacency on the 
 man who had been preferred to him as a can- 
 didate for the employment he had desired, and 
 who, as all the little Sponda Lunga world ima- 
 gined, was about equally to cut him out in his 
 pretensions to the widow's hand. Caroli, more- 
 over, was just the sort of man whom such an 
 one as the usurer's son is sure to hate, even had 
 there been no such special motive for his hatred. 
 He possessed just all those qualities calculated 
 to recommend him to the liking of men and the 
 love of women, which Simonetti was devoid of. 
 Carlo was specially frank and simple in his 
 manner and in his nature — qualities which are 
 rarely found in the Italians of the large cities, 
 but which are far from uncommon among those 
 of the country — and there is nothing more 
 odious to a cunning, secret, and treacherous
 
 AFTER THOUGHTS. 195 
 
 nature, than the frank simphcity of such a 
 man as Caroh, especially when it is united 
 with that kind of fearless, lofty bearing which 
 seems to say aloud, that all the machinations 
 of the subtlest cunning are as odious to its 
 moral nature as contemptible to its superior 
 strength. 
 
 Andrea Simonetti, accordingly, ah^eady hated 
 Carlo with the bitter hatred that such natures 
 as his are wont to feel ; and Carlo thoroughly 
 disliked Simonetti. 
 
 " Is that you. Signer Simonetti ? I beg your 
 pardon ; I did not mean to push you into the 
 Serchio, as I am afraid I Avas near doing." 
 
 " I am not so easily pushed out of my path, 
 Signer Caroli ! But you are right to be in a 
 hurry. You are waited for at home ! " 
 
 " There will be no need to wait much longer," 
 said Carlo, carelessly. " Good night, Signer 
 Simonetti." 
 
 " Good night, signer ! " said the other, pass- 
 ing him with a scowl. 
 
 Carlo pushed on, and in a few minutes more 
 
 o 2
 
 196 THE DKEAM NUMBERS. 
 
 \Tas at the door of the wido^Y's house in Sponda 
 Lunga. 
 
 It was true, as Simonetti had scoffingly said, 
 that he had been waited for ; true, also, as 
 Caroli might have gathered from the fact that 
 Signer Andrea was able to give him that in- 
 formation, had he given the matter a moment's 
 thought, that the usurer's son had been visiting 
 Signora Monaldi. Carlo had not, however, 
 given the matter a moment's thought, his mind 
 having been fully occupied with other medita- 
 tions. It mattered exceeding little to him how 
 often Signer Simonetti visited the widow. Not 
 but that he would have been very sorry to see 
 the Signora Marta commit so suicidal an act as 
 to give herself and her scudi, and her thriving 
 business, into the power and keeping of such a 
 man as Andrea Simonetti. But he was very 
 tolerably well persuaded that the pretty widow 
 was quite able to take care of herself in this 
 matter. 
 
 It was between ten and eleven o'clock when 
 Carlo tapped at the door of the widow's house. 
 
 J
 
 AFTER THOUGHTS. 197 
 
 His own lodging .was on the opposite side of a 
 yard on which the back door of the house 
 opened, and which was occupied by the various 
 appurtenances of the wheelwright business, as 
 was also the building over which his chamber 
 was situated. He might thus have gone to his 
 room directly, without disturbing any of the 
 inmates of the house, in case they should have 
 gone to bed. The inmates, indeed, consisted 
 only of the widow and an old servant woman, 
 who both slept on the upper floor of the little 
 house. 
 
 It was a very small one, though the out- 
 houses and buildings, needed for the carrying 
 on of the business, were extensive. On one 
 side of the entrance hall, which seemed a great 
 deal larger than could be either needed for such 
 a dwelling, or in any due proportion to the rest 
 of it, was a room in which the widow habitually 
 lived, and on the other an apartment which 
 used to be the " scrittoioj' as it was called, of 
 her late husband — his writing-place, office, or 
 counting-house, as we should say. This room.
 
 19S THE DREAM KUMBERS. 
 
 together with the key of an old escritoh'e in it, 
 had been formally consigned to Carlo on his 
 first arrival, that it miglit serve him in the con- 
 duct of the business for the same purposes. 
 But he had, in fact, scarcely ever used it for 
 that object. There was a little ante-room to 
 the room lie slept in over the workshops, which 
 he had found more convenient for the purpose, 
 and he did all the writing he had to do there. 
 So that the room on the opposite side of the 
 entrance to that in which the widow lived had 
 come to be almost deserted. There was a 
 kitchen and scullery and staircase at the back 
 of these rooms. 
 
 Over the great entrance hall was a room 
 hned with walnut-wood presses, all full of im- 
 mense quantities of house hnen, the pride and 
 joy of Signer a Monaldi's heart. There must 
 have been at least ten times as much as such a 
 household could have consumed in half a cen- 
 tury on the most lavish scale of expenditure. 
 But la Signora Marta was very careful of her 
 store, and was continually adding to it. Open-
 
 AFTER THOUGHTS. 199 
 
 ing out of this room was a good room on either 
 side, over the two corresponding rooms below ; 
 and in one of these the widow, and in the other 
 the old servant slept ; the former occup^dng the 
 chamber over the habitual living-room, and the 
 old woman that over the ci-devant counting- 
 house. Over the kitchen and scullery was a 
 garret, filled with miscellaneous lumber. And 
 this was the whole house. At the back, under 
 the disproportionately large staircase, was a 
 door which opened on to the yard. 
 
 It was at this door that Carlo tapped, on his 
 return from Ri]3alta ; and it was opened to him 
 by the widow herself 
 
 And exceedingly pretty the widow Marta 
 looked, as she stood in the full moonlight in the 
 doorway, attired in that coquettish rendering of 
 her widow's costume, which the length of time 
 since the death of the departed wheelwright 
 now rendered permissible. She had cast aside 
 the cap altogether — at least she had done so in 
 the privacy of her own house. And the smooth 
 black shining bands of her rich hair, bound in
 
 200 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 broad simple braids around her small and well- 
 shaped head, formed her sole head-dress, and 
 glistened in the capriciously reflected moon- 
 hght. Her dress was a black silk gown, made 
 quite plain, but very accurately fitting the still 
 neat and graceful outlines of the plump, but not 
 as yet too voluminous bust. Over her shoul- 
 ders was a plain white crape handkerchief, the 
 corners of which were very demurely crossed 
 in front of her bosom, but the texture of which 
 w^as so delicate that the artistically judicious 
 arrangement of it permitted a discreet portion 
 of the snowy base of the well-formed column of 
 the neck to be revealed in the unveiled pleni- 
 tude of its charms. 
 
 " Misericordia, Jesu, Maria ! " exclaimed the 
 widow, holding up two white plump hands 
 above her head, though one of them held the 
 small brass lamp in it, and lighted the passage. 
 " What a time is this to come home ! And I 
 waiting for you in such a state of anxiety I 
 Waiting, and waiting, and the supper too ; and 
 I all alone, for Sunta is gone to bed awhile
 
 AFTER THOUGHTS. 201. 
 
 since ! Oh, Signer Carlo, wherever have you 
 been 1 I thought for certain that you had 
 fallen into the Serchio. And such a nice 
 supper, too ! A frittata di animelle, and the 
 loveliest lettuce you ever saw ! And I all 
 alone ! ... at least I should have been if Signor 
 Andrea Simonetti had not kindly looked in and 
 supped with me," added the widow, dropping 
 beneath their long silken lashes, the large liquid 
 eyes, which had, till that last clause of her 
 discourse, been directing a fusillade of mildly 
 reproachful glances, more in sorrow than in 
 anger, at the truant. 
 
 The widow Monaldi would have imparted to 
 her looks, had she been able to do so, an 
 expression of disquietude and anxious alarm. 
 But this was beyond the capacity of the 
 features nature had assigned to her. She could 
 not look otherwise than placid. Her large dark 
 eyes would beam with liquid glances of mild 
 bovine tenderness, but utterly refused to be- 
 come the exponents of any hurried, ungentle, or 
 agitating emotion of any kind. She sighed
 
 202 THE DEEAM NUMBEES. 
 
 when she spoke of the sweetbreads and salad ; 
 and the sigh sufficed to communicate a gently- 
 swelhng movement to the white crape handker- 
 chief and the snowy bosom beneath it. But it 
 was so dehberately performed and so gently 
 regulated a sigh, that it did not seem rheto- 
 rically available to any other purpose than that. 
 
 " I thought you knew, Signora Marta, that I 
 had to go over to Ripalta about their oil-press, 
 which requires mending," said Carlo. 
 
 " Yes, Signer Carlo, I knew that. But who 
 could have dreamed of you not coming back till 
 this time '? Santa Madonna ! And you have 
 had no supper ! " 
 
 " Yes ; that, in fact, was what kept me so 
 long. I had a long time to wait for Signer 
 Bartoli ; he had gone to Lucca. Then, when 
 he did come, he insisted on my staying to sup 
 with them. That was how I came to be so 
 late. I am so sorry that you should have 
 waited for me, Signora Marta." 
 
 " And all alone, Signer Carlo !" reiterated 
 the widow, with a glance that would have
 
 AFTER THOUGHTS. 203 
 
 liquefied a block of Wenliam Lake ice ; ..." at 
 least I should have been, but for young Simo- 
 netti ! And you know whether that made up 
 for your absence, Signer Carlo ! You know I 
 can't abide him. And he ate up every morsel 
 of the sweetbreads. But what could I do '? 
 He came in and found the cloth laid for supper. 
 And . . . ahem ! . . . I did not like, you know, 
 when supper-time was long past, to go on 
 waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and he a 
 sitting there a looking hard at me all the time, 
 and knowing well who I was a waiting for ! Td 
 have kept the sweetbread and the salad for you, 
 Signer Carlo, only I ... I felt ashamed like. It 
 might make people talk, you know. Signer Carlo." 
 
 " I am so sorry you waited ! " said Carlo 
 again, for want of anything better to say. 
 
 " Oh, never mind that, if you like better to 
 sup at Ripalta. I dare say ^^ou liked it 
 better ! " 
 
 " I assure you, Signora Marta, there was 
 nothing so nice as frittata of sweetbreads 
 there ! " replied Carlo, somewhat jesuitically.
 
 20 i THE DREAM NUMBEES. 
 
 " And it is not every one that can fry them 
 as I do ! " returned the widow, with a look of 
 kilhng tenderness. " Old Caterina, at the Bar- 
 tolls, is not much of a cook at the plainest 
 thing. And as to la Signorina Regina, I don't 
 suppose she knows one end of a frying-pan 
 from the other ! " said the widow, speaking- 
 rapidly. She had been prevented by some 
 feeling from alluding before to Regina by name. 
 But she could not abstain from doing so, 
 tormented as she w^as by doubts whether it 
 really w^ere the fact that, sweetbreads or no 
 sweetbreads, Carlo preferred supping at Ripalta 
 in company with Regina rather than with her 
 at Sponda Lunga. She took nothing by her 
 motion, how^ever. For Carlo simply answered, 
 
 " I hastened home as fast as I could, as soon 
 as they would let me go. And I knew that 
 you had had Signer Simonetti w^ith you ; for I 
 met him on the top of the dyke, as I came 
 along, putting my best foot foremost ; and, 
 fiiith, I nearly knocked him into the river." 
 
 " It is a pity you did not quite do it ! How
 
 AFTER THOUGHTS. 205 
 
 I hated him when he sat there a eating up the 
 sweetbreads I had fried for you, Signer Carlo ! " 
 
 " You are too good to me, signora ! But, at 
 all events, I must not keep you up any longer. 
 It is late enough in all conscience ! " 
 
 " Yes ! I suppose it is time to say good- 
 night I " returned the widow, with a look which 
 seemed very plainly to intimate that it was a 
 great pity that any sucli ceremony should be 
 necessary between them.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE SECRET DRAWEE. 
 
 If the oil-press at Ripalto was not repaired 
 in a thoroughly good and satisfactory manner 
 on this occasion, it was not for want of zeal 
 and care in the superintendence of the work. 
 Again and again Carlo had walked over to 
 Eipalta to see that the work was done as it 
 ought to be done. Signer Bartoli was very fond 
 of driving into Lucca in his hagarino in the 
 evenings, when the w^ork and the heat of the 
 day were over ; and it w^as at the sweet evening 
 hour that Carlo was best able to leave his avo- 
 cations in the yard of the wdieelwright widow. 
 
 The farmer had very unjustly accused Regina 
 of having loitered on the terrace-w^alk, below the 
 river-dyke, for the express purpose of meeting
 
 THE SECRET DRAWER. 207 
 
 Carlo Caroli ; and Regina, in conscious inno- 
 cence, had very indignantly repudiated the 
 accusation. Now we have all heard of cases, in 
 which father confessors, deeming it to be their 
 duty to inquire of their penitents whether they 
 had perchance been guilty of some sin, of which 
 they had never before heard or dreamed, have 
 found that, on subsequent occasions, the en- 
 lightened sinner was no longer able to reply to 
 the same question with the former satisfactory 
 assurances of innocence. Perhaps it would be 
 trustino; too much to the o'uilelessness of human 
 nature to suppose that, if the farmer had never 
 spoken to his daughter of meeting Carlo on the 
 terrace it would never have entered into her 
 head to do so ; but, at all events, it is certain 
 that, whereas, when first accused, she had been 
 wholly guiltless of anything of the sort, she by 
 no means continued to be so afterwards. 
 
 Indeed, as Carlo came along the top of the 
 dyke of an evening, bent on examining the state 
 of progress of the oil-press towards complete 
 restoration, he generally heard a sweet voice
 
 208 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 singing lowly, lowly. But the singer had lost 
 all sense of rhyme and rhythm, apparently ; for, 
 very generally, the song gently w^arbled would 
 run — 
 
 A Lucca bella 
 
 a new version, in which the sound was very 
 palpably sacrificed to a sense, which was deemed 
 well worthy of the sacrifice, by both singer and 
 audience. 
 
 And thus, during many a delicious, never- 
 more-to-be-forgotten twihght stroll, Regina had 
 begun by pardoning the monstrous audacity of 
 that first sudden declaration of Carlo's love, had 
 next unmistakeably encouraged the repetition of 
 the offence, and had ended by being guilty of 
 well-nigh similar conduct herself 
 
 The conversations, however, between Regina 
 and her lover had not been all of them wholl}'' 
 roseate in their hue. Regina could vow that 
 she would listen to words of love from no man 
 under the sun save Carlo ; but she could not 
 undertake to marry liim without the consent of
 
 THE SECRET DRAWEU. 209 
 
 lier father. The paternal governments of Italy 
 very jealously backed up Avith their authority 
 the domestic paternal government in these 
 matters ; and, for a decent girl to marry in the 
 teeth of her father's prohibition, was hardly a 
 thing to be thought of Without the consent 
 of her father, nothing could be hoped for for the 
 lovers. And what hope was there of obtaining 
 that consent ? These considerations led to the 
 discussion of the social standing and position of 
 Carlo's family between him and Regina. 
 
 " But your people are in a superior position 
 to mine,'^ argued Regina ; " they are proprie- 
 tors, and I suppose, indeed, noble." 
 
 " Yes, I fancy so ; on my mother's side, at 
 least ; if that will do any good. The Trendi, I 
 take it, were nobles in our country once upon a 
 time ; and I am now the only representative of 
 the old stock ; and there is an immense coat of 
 arms, painted on a bit of wood, large enough to 
 make a dinner-table six times too big for all the 
 remaining members of the family, hanging up 
 on the wall in our old house, if that could at all
 
 210 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 help US. But I am afraid, anima mia, that your 
 father does not much care for any scudi except 
 silver ones ^'ith royal arms on them," said 
 Carlo, with a melancholy smile ; " and of those, 
 Regina mia, ^ve have very few — very few, 
 indeed.'' 
 
 " But, in fact, you are proprietors," said 
 Regina. 
 
 " Proprietors ! Yes ; we are proprietors ! 
 There is the old house, a good one once upon 
 a time ; but now little better than a ruin. 
 And there is the little bit of chestnut wood, 
 and the poor little stony vineyard ; and the 
 corn patch ... no, that is gone ; that has been 
 sold since I came away, because we were too 
 poor to get on without the little bit of money 
 it brought. That is the extent of our pro- 
 prietorship I Why, my place as Signora Mo- 
 naldi's manager is worth ever so much more 
 than all the Trendi property ! And / have 
 had the audacity to fall in love with the 
 daughter of Signer Giovanni Bartoh, of 
 Ripalta ! "
 
 THE SECRET DRAWER. 211 
 
 " Why were you guilty, then, of such audacity, 
 signor mio f " said Regina, looking up with 
 laughing eyes into his. 
 
 " Because I could not help myself, signorina" 
 returned Carlo, in the same tone. " Indeed, 
 indeed, I did not go to do it." 
 
 " Ah ! that was just my case. I could not 
 help myself. I would if I could. It is a bad 
 job, is it not, Signor Carlo '? " she said, with a 
 mock sigh. 
 
 " Darhng ! darling ! darling ! it is the best 
 job that ever came to me yet. If you will love 
 me, tesoro mio, come what will, nothing can 
 make me otherwise than proud and happy ; and 
 good will come, somehow or other, if we are true 
 to each other.'' 
 
 " That is what I tell myself, Carlo. I have 
 faith in you. If you have very little money 
 now, you will get money. You will win some 
 position which will satisfy my father. But, Carlo, 
 my father always declares that you certainly will 
 marry Marta Monaldi, — that she is quite ready, 
 — and that you must be the biggest fool in the 
 
 p 2
 
 212 THE DREAM LUMBERS. 
 
 world if you do not make her your wife. When 
 I hear him talking so, I am half pleased at 
 thinking how much better I know you . . . and 
 then half inclined to be jealous of the widow, for 
 fear you should think as they all seem to 
 think." 
 
 " Now, that last half of your mind is too bad, 
 Regina mia ! Come ; I think you know me 
 better than that ! " said Carlo, remonstrating : 
 " I marry the widow ! " 
 
 " Well ! she is very pretty ; and very kind ; 
 and very rich ; and veri/ fond of you — as I am 
 told." 
 
 " Now, Regina, darling, do not talk such 
 nonsense ! " 
 
 " But, why is it nonsense ? Is not Signora 
 Monaldi all that I have said '? And is she not 
 very fond of you 1 " persisted Regina, with just 
 the least touch of truly feminine jealousy at the 
 bottom of her heart. 
 
 " She is very kind to me, and does all she 
 can to make my position with her agreeable to 
 me.
 
 THE SECRET DRAWER. 213 
 
 " Now, come, tell the truth, amico mio. Have 
 you any doubt that she would be delighted to 
 marry you to-morrow, if you would ask her 1 " 
 
 " Nay, that is not fair. I have no right to 
 speculate on what she might do, when it is 
 quite certain that I shall never ask her to do 
 anything of the kind." 
 
 " Has she any idea, do you think, that . . . 
 that . . . that you . . . that there is anybody 
 that you care about anywhere else 1 " 
 
 " Sometimes I think she does suspect it a 
 little. I wonder she is not quite sure of it. She 
 knows that I frequently see you ; and she ought 
 to know that it is not likely that I could do 
 that and not love you, Regina mia^ 
 
 " Hark ! I hear the wheels of the bagarino. 
 You had better go. You were here last night 
 to look after the oil-press, you know." 
 
 " May I come to-morrow ? " asked Carlo, 
 hurriedly, and speaking in her ear, while one 
 arm, thrown round her, pressed her pliant figure 
 for an instant to his side. 
 
 " Not to-morrow ; father will be at home.
 
 214 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 The next evening. I will be here on the terrace, 
 and will give you notice. But even if father should 
 be at home, you might come again* by that time, 
 to look after the oil-press, you know." 
 
 " Good night, my own, my only love ! " 
 
 " Good night ! Good night ! There, that is 
 enough." 
 
 And so Carlo sprang up the steps in the 
 bank that led to the top of the dyke, while 
 Eegina went down to the farm-yard gate to meet 
 her father. 
 
 It was one fine evening early in November, 
 that Carlo, returning from one of these visits to 
 Ripalta, found Meo Morini and Andrea Simonetti 
 sitting in the widow's parlour with her. He had 
 returned from Eipalta on this occasion in time 
 for supper, and he was quite sure that la Signora 
 Marta was wishing her two visitors at Jericho, 
 that she might have the coast clear for getting 
 the evening meal ready, and partaking of it 
 tete-a-tete with him. For, be as discreet in his 
 admissions to others as he might, and as modest 
 with regard to the widow's estimate of him, it
 
 THE SECRET DRAWER. 215 
 
 had become impossible for him not to be aware 
 that the Signora Marta specially affected these 
 sociable suppers in the company of her manag- 
 ing man. Carlo, for his part, would rather have 
 preferred that the two men should persist in 
 staying till the widow w^as compelled to ask 
 them to supper. For though he did not much 
 like either of them, and had an especial anti- 
 pathy to Simonetti, he did not like the tete-d- 
 tete suppers so w^ell as the widow did. It is 
 intelhgible that it may be disagreeable to be 
 exposed in single defencelessness to the attacks 
 of a pretty widow, very decidedly bent on 
 setting her cap at you, when you are very 
 thoroughly in love wdth another person. Carlo, 
 to tell the truth, rather dreaded these tete-a-tete 
 suppers, but he knew w^ell how^ impatiently the 
 widow was waiting for her visitors to leave her. 
 " Signer Meo Morini has kindly driven over 
 from Lucca to bring me a sum of money that il 
 Signer Dottore''' has received for me. Signer 
 
 * In Tuscany an attorney is always so styled.
 
 -IG THE DEE AM NUMBERS. 
 
 Carlo, and he has brought Signor Simonetti with 
 him. How much did you say the sum was, 
 Signor Meo ?" 
 
 " Five hundred scudi, signora. Father thought 
 that he would send out an even sum. There 
 remain a few scudi in his hands, I beheve, which 
 3'ou can take wdien you balance accounts." 
 
 " I am sure I am much obliged to you, Signor 
 Meo, for taking the trouble of bringing it your- 
 self," said the widow, graciously. 
 
 " Oh, father never sends important sums like 
 that by any other hands than mine or his own. 
 He told me to ask you, Signora Marta, if you 
 had made up your mind about the investment 
 of this money ; and, in case you had not, I 
 thought that I would bring Andrea here with 
 me as the best person to give you a profitable 
 word of advice on the subject.^' 
 
 '' And you may guess, Signora Marta, whether 
 I did not jump at the chance of coming. Kot 
 about the dirty scudi. Hang the scudi ! I 
 jumped at the chance of an opportunity of 
 seeing you, Signora Marta V
 
 THE SECRET DRAWER. 217 
 
 "I am sure it was very kind of you, sir," 
 said the widow, as drily as was possible to her. 
 
 '• And now, Signer Andrea, that you are here," 
 said Meo Morini, " what advice have you got to 
 give the Signora Marta about this bit of 
 money V 
 
 " Well, there's always mortgages, five and a- 
 half per cent, on land,'' said the usurer's son ; 
 " but what's five and a-half per cent. '? What's 
 five and a-half to propose to a client, when 
 one's heart feels towards that client as mine 
 does towards you, carissima Signora Marta ! " 
 
 '' Five and a-half is not so bad," said the 
 widow, throwing up her fine dark eyes, with a 
 gentle sigh. 
 
 " And a mort2:ao:e on land is a safe invest- 
 ment," put in Meo. 
 
 "Safe!" reiterated the young usurer, con- 
 temptuously, " of course anything that I should 
 propose to the Signora Marta would be safe ! 
 But ah, divina domia ! how can one look into 
 those lovely eyes, and think of less than ten 
 per cent. V
 
 218 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 The widow liacl no liking for Signor Andrea 
 Simonetti — rather the reverse — and she was 
 perfectly well aware that, as far as the invest- 
 ment of her money went, the usurer was there 
 to do a stroke of business in the way of busi- 
 ness ; and that if she entrusted her money to 
 his father, he would give her as little for it as 
 she could be persuaded to take. Nevertheless, 
 when Signor Andrea talked of eyes, and rolled 
 his own at her, from sheer habit, and the innate 
 nature of her, the widow could not help firing 
 into him a full broadside of hquid glances, 
 melting with the most inane and meaningless 
 tenderness, as she rephed that ten per cent, was 
 hardly to be expected in these days. 
 
 "For others — for the world in general — it 
 may be so, gentUissima Signora Marta," re- 
 turned the young man; "but not for those 
 whom I would serve as it would be my delight 
 and my happiness to serve you ! I would gua- 
 rantee you ten per cent, for that bit of money 
 in an investment as safe as any mortgage ; and 
 here is our friend Meo ready to draw up a bit
 
 THE SECRET DRAWER. 219 
 
 of a memorandum of agreement between the 
 parties. Ah ! Signora Marta, if you would but 
 consent to that other contract between us, that 
 I proposed to you, it would be an affair of cent, 
 per cent.'' 
 
 " Oh, Signer Andrea, one contract at a time is 
 quite enough for a poor woman like me," said the 
 widow, rolling her eyes from one to the other of 
 the young men, and then, turning them on Carlo, 
 who had sat by in silence all this time, listening 
 to the foregoing dialogue, half in amusement, 
 half in disgust, she continued — 
 
 " What would you advise. Signer Carlo ? I 
 leave all matters of business to Signor Carlo, 
 now, gentlemen. It is such a comfort to have 
 somebody one can completely trust ! and Signor 
 Caroli is good enough to look to these matters 
 for me." 
 
 " Oh, indeed ! " said Signor Simonetti, w^ith a 
 scowl under his eyebrows at Carlo. " I should 
 not have thought that the gentleman had ever 
 had much experience in the managing of 
 money.''
 
 220 THE DREAM [N^UMBERS. 
 
 " Faith, I have scarcely ever had any ex- 
 perience in that kind at all," said Carlo, with a 
 frank smile. *' But I think I know where I 
 could make some inquiry,'^ he added, seriously, 
 " that would be satisfactory. I think, Signora 
 Marta, that I would not be in such a hurry about 
 it. My own notion is that a good mortgage 
 is the most satisfactory investment, even if it 
 brings in rather less.^^ 
 
 " It is all very well to talk about not being in 
 a hurry, signer," snarled Simonetti ; "but I think, 
 begging your pardon, that you are talking of 
 what you do not much understand. Here is the 
 money in hard cash. What is to be done 
 w^ith it ? I won't take the responsibihty of its 
 remaining here all night." 
 
 " Oh, I will take the responsibility of that, so 
 far as that goes, signer," said Carlo, quietly. 
 
 " Oh, yoii will take the responsibihty, signer!" 
 sneered Simonetti, with a glance of hostility 
 and malice ; " and of course, if anything should 
 happen, you would be equally ready to make 
 good the sum \ "
 
 THE SECRET DRAWER. 221 
 
 " La ! Signer Simoiietti, ^yhat should happen 
 to the money ?" said the widow. " Why poor 
 dear Monaldi used to keep bigger sums than 
 that in the house. Many and many's the time 
 he has had may be a matter of a thousand scudi 
 at a time in the escritoire in that room there. 
 Signer Carlo has the key of it. And there is a 
 secret drawer, that the devil himself could not 
 find the secret of, unless he was showed it. The 
 money wnll be safe enough there.'' 
 
 "Oh, just as you please, signora ! I only 
 spoke from that anxiety for your interest, which 
 you know is dearer to me than it can be to any- 
 body else." 
 
 " Well, I don't know that, Signer Andrea," 
 put in the w^idow, mildly ; " you are very 
 kind ; but perhaps there's others equally 
 so." 
 
 '' And since this responsible gentleman makes 
 himself answerable for the money, and seems to 
 be anxious that it should be confided to him . . ." 
 said Simonetti. 
 
 " Let us have a look at the escritoire," said
 
 222 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 Meo Morini ; " if Signor Monaldi used to keep 
 his money there ..." 
 
 ' " To be sure he did — more than a thousand 
 scudi at once, many a time, as I tell you,'^ said 
 the widow, getting up and going to the door of 
 the parlour, while the three young men all fol- 
 lowed her into the opposite room on the other 
 side of the entrance hall. 
 
 " Where is the key, Signor Carlo *? " she said, 
 as she put down on the top of the piece of fur- 
 niture the lamp which she had brought in from 
 the other room. 
 
 " Here it is, signora," said Carlo, taking it 
 from the breast-pocket of his jacket. " I always 
 carry it in my pocket, for it is the only lock-up 
 place there is. Not that there is anything in it 
 but a few business papers — estimates, and ac- 
 counts, and such like." 
 
 The widow took the key, and opened the old- 
 fashioned piece of furniture with her own plump 
 fair hand. It was one of those writing tables 
 with sloping covers, made in such sort, that 
 w^hen opened the flap was turned oyer on its
 
 THE SECRET DRAWER. 223 
 
 hinges, in such a manner, that the side with 
 the key in it, which was uppermost, became 
 undermost, and projected over the floor so as to 
 form a writing table. In this position the key 
 fell out of the key-hole on the floor ; and Signer 
 Simonetti promptly stooped to pick it up. The 
 widow, meantime, not heeding the fall of the 
 key, proceeded to show them the secret of the 
 concealed drawer. 
 
 " I do not think you knew of this place. 
 Signer Carlo,'' she said, " though you have used 
 the escritoire all the time you have been 
 here ! " 
 
 " No, indeed ! And I do not think anybody 
 would find it out without being shown. It is 
 one of the best managed things of the sort I 
 ever saw ! " 
 
 "I would defy anybody to hit upon the 
 secret of that, without being told ! " said Meo ; 
 " nobody in the world would guess there was 
 anything there. Why, if anybody was told 
 beforehand that there was a secret drawer in 
 the escritoire, they would never be able to find
 
 ?.24 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 out ^Yllere it ^vas. I think the money will be 
 safe there, Signer Andrea/' he added ; " that is, 
 if the Signora Marta makes up her mind to put 
 off deciding on the investment of it." 
 
 " Yes ! I dare say it will be safe enough ; 
 and then . . . since the Signer Caroli al\ya3^s 
 carries the key about him ! . . . Only ten per 
 cent, is not to be had every day, Signora Marta ; 
 that is all ! '^ said Simonetti, somewhat sulkil3^ 
 
 " Well, I think I will take a little time to 
 consider about it, since that is what Signer 
 Carlo advises me,'^ said the widow. 
 
 " Here goes then ! "' said Meo Morini, who 
 had all this time kept the heavy rouleaux of the 
 five hundred scudi in his hand, putting them 
 into the secret recess, as he spoke. ''All 
 sealed by father himself, and marked with the 
 amount, and signed with his name ;" said Meo, 
 pointing out these particulars as he placed the 
 rouleaux in their hiding place. " If you would 
 like to count them ..." he added. 
 
 " Che ! VI pare ! — can you think of such a 
 thing ! '' said the widow, closing the secret
 
 THE SECRET DRAWER. 225 
 
 drawer with her own hand as she spoke ; " now 
 where is the key ? " she added. 
 
 " Here it is, signora ! it fell out of the key- 
 hole on the ground ! '' said Simonetti, handing 
 her the key. 
 
 " Thank you, Signer Andrea ! There ! " said 
 the widow, turning the key ; " here is the key, 
 Signer Carlo. That is safe enough. Til go 
 bail!" 
 
 The party all returned to the widow's sitting- 
 room ; and then the two visitors, perceiving 
 apparently either that there was not going 
 to be any supper that night in the widow's 
 house, or that, if there were, she was not 
 minded to invite them to partake of it, began 
 to say that it was time for them to return 
 to Lucca, and that they must take their 
 leave. 
 
 Just as they w^ere doing so, Sunta, the 
 widow's old servant, came into the room with a 
 " letter " in her hand, which, she said, the carrier 
 from Pescia had just brought for Signer Carlo. 
 He had been charged to forward it from
 
 226 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 Lucca to Sponda Lunga as quickly after his 
 arrival at the latter town as possible, and he 
 had brought it himself. 
 
 The post-office in Tuscany before the revolu- 
 tion had no monopoly of letter-carrying. From 
 almost every town in Tuscany a " procaccia,^' 
 or carrier, used to come to Florence, who did 
 the commissions and transacted all sorts of 
 business for his provincial clients. These useful 
 agents used to have letter-boxes posted in 
 various parts of the city for the reception of 
 letters to be conveyed by them ; and the bulk 
 of the population used to give these private 
 posts a ver}^ decided preference over the 
 slightly more costly, and equally slow and un- 
 sure Grand-ducal post-office. 
 
 Caroli changed colour as he hurriedly took 
 the letter from the old woman's hand, and 
 recognised his mother's handwriting. 
 
 Instead of hastening their leave-taking, as 
 English people would probably have done under 
 similar circumstances, the two young men 
 paused evidently to see what might be the
 
 THE SECRET DRAWER. 227 
 
 nature of the news thus specially forwarded, 
 with that readiness to make the interests and 
 affairs of other people their own, which is so 
 remarkably characteristic of Italians. The two 
 young men in question, it may be said, were 
 neither of them hkely to be models of delicacy 
 and good breeding. But their conduct on this 
 occasion was not due to any special deficiency 
 in this respect. Any others would have done 
 the same, as did the wddow herself, and old 
 Assunta, the servant, who remained in the room 
 evidently to hear what might be the contents of 
 the letter. 
 
 Carlo became deadly pale as he read the few 
 lines his mother had written, blotched with her 
 tears. 
 
 " Good God ! " he cried, " my father is ill — 
 is not expected to live ! Oh, Signora, I must 
 go ! I must hurry to my poor mother ! What 
 will become of her ! 
 
 " 0, misericordia ! Santa Madonna ! Pove- 
 rino ! poverino ! " said the widow, wringing her 
 hands. 
 
 Q2
 
 228 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 The old servant, though she had never seen 
 the man who was ill, and had never even heard 
 of him before, and had never seen the younger 
 man, with whose grief she was so suddenly 
 called on to sympathise, a few w^eeks ago, began 
 to weep genuine tears. She w^ould not care a 
 straw about the event the next morning. But 
 emotion is so catching to these southern 
 natures, that at the moment old Assunta^s 
 lamentations were as genuine as if the grief 
 w^ere her own. 
 
 The " procaccia " had by this time come in 
 as far as the door of the parlour, and stood 
 there with his whip in his hand joining in the 
 chorus of "0, poverino ! die disgrazia ! " un- 
 accused of impertinence in the inmost thoughts 
 of any of those present. 
 
 " What shall you do. Signer Carlo ? " said 
 Meo ; " there is the rail in the morning ; but 
 there is no train for Pescia to-night." 
 
 " The first train from Pisa does not pass till 
 eight in the morning ! You might be at home 
 before that ! " said Simonetti.
 
 THE SECRET DRAWER. 229 
 
 *' Yes ! I cannot wait till to-morrow morning ! 
 I must go at once ! I must leave you to-night, 
 signora ! " said Carlo to the widow. 
 
 " But how will you go ! Povero mio Carlo /'* 
 said the widow, looking at him with moist 
 eyes ; " there is no horse to be had here. You 
 must go to Lucca ! " 
 
 " I can carry the sign ore back to Lucca," 
 said the carrier ; " there's Morino at the door 
 with the hagarino. I won't let him sleep over 
 the ground, though he has done his day's 
 work." 
 
 " Thanks, friend ! " said Carlo ; " I will go 
 with you as far as the bridge ; and then I will 
 cut across into the high-road. It will be 
 quicker than going to Lucca ! " 
 
 "But how will you get to Pescia, figliuolo 
 mio!" cried the widow; "there won't be a 
 soul stirring at this time of night." 
 
 " I shall walk it ! " rephed Carlo ; " it is not 
 above a dozen miles ; I shall do it quicker so ! 
 I shall be at Pescia before midnight," he added, 
 looking at his watch.
 
 230 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 " AJii me! poverino! AM, Santa Madonna! " 
 cried the widow, in dismay at the idea of such a 
 night journey. 
 
 " Dear Signora Marta, the walk is nothing ; 
 I am only anxious to be on my way ! My poor 
 mother has no one to help or to comfort her ! 
 I will write you a line, signora, to tell you how 
 I find things, and when I can hope to be back 
 again. The job at Ripalta is finished. You 
 might let them know at the farm what has 
 happened, and that I have been called away." 
 
 The widow gave a little toss of her head at 
 this recommendation. 
 
 " They won't mind when you are gone, so 
 their job is done ! '' she said. 
 
 Carlo understood it all, and said no more on 
 that head. " Cecco knows what is to be done 
 at Farmer Pertini's,'' he continued ; " I don't 
 know that there is anything else specially to be 
 attended to. Adieu, signora ! " 
 
 " Addio, povero mio Carlo ! the Madonna 
 keep you, and give your father the grace to get 
 well ! "
 
 THE SECRET DRAWER. 231 
 
 " Now then, friend, if you are ready ! " said 
 Carlo to the carrier. 
 
 Meo and Simon etti said their good-nights, and 
 got into their bagarino at the same time that 
 Carlo mounted that of the carrier. But though 
 Morino did his best, as his master had promised 
 he should do, the lawyer's fast trotting mare 
 carrying Meo and his friend back to Lucca soon 
 left Carlo and the carrier behind. 
 
 They reached Lucca quickly, and Meo having 
 dropped his friend at the corner of a street near 
 the usurer's dwelhng, proceeded quietly to his 
 own home, and having put up the mare, went to 
 enjoy telling his news to the old lawyer and 
 his mother. 
 
 But Andrea Simonetti, as soon as Meo and 
 his bagarino were out of sight, instead of pro- 
 ceeding to his home, walked as quickly as he 
 could to a neighbouring mews, and having 
 obtained a light bagarino, and a fast horse, with 
 a disregard to a few francs more or less very 
 unusual witli him, left Lucca by a different 
 gate from that by which he had just entered it,
 
 232 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 and drove through the moonhght at a spanking 
 pace along the white level road towards Pisa, — 
 which is just in the opposite direction to 
 Pescia.
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 AT UZZANO.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 carlo's night-walk to uzzano. 
 
 Between eleven and twelve o'clock that 
 night — the night that Meo Morini had brought 
 the five hundred scudi to the widow Monaldi, 
 and that Carlo had received the news of his 
 father's dangerous illness — Andrea Simonetti 
 the younger was driving into an inn-yard in 
 the suburbs of Leghorn, much about the same 
 time that Carlo Caroli was pushing on up the 
 steep mountain road through the chestnut 
 forests that led to Uzzano. 
 
 It will be necessary in due time that the 
 reader should be made acquainted with the 
 nature of the business that so suddenly took 
 the former to Leghorn. But it will be more 
 conducive to the clear telling of the story that
 
 r23(3 THE DKEAM NUMBERS. 
 
 has to be told, that for the present our attention 
 should be given to the latter. 
 
 Carlo had done the distance between Lucca 
 and Pescia, as he said he would, in less than 
 three hours, but he still had the most laborious 
 part of his journey to jDerform, the climbing of 
 the steep paved path that led to his mountain 
 home. It was an eerie walk throu2;h the thick 
 chestnut woods at that still hour of the night. 
 The hoary stones of the old pavement shone out 
 ghastly white in the moonlight, making strong 
 contrast with the gloom and blackness of the 
 closely surrounding wood. The growth of the 
 chestnut tree is, when aged, more fantastic and 
 strange in its forms than that of any other tree 
 of the forest. And the aged trunks, bent and 
 cankered into every imaginable shape of de- 
 formity, and the gnarled boughs twisting them- 
 selves into all sorts of grotesque semblances, 
 formed thousands of quaint and weh^d combina- 
 tions of shapes, which seen in the capricious 
 lio;ht and shadows of the cold moonbeams 
 might have sufficed to startle the imagination
 
 carlo's night-walk to UZZANO. 237 
 
 with all kinds of gloomy fancies. They might 
 have done so in the case of one nurtured from 
 childhood on the sombre imaginations of the 
 awe-cultivating and wonder-loving north. But 
 to the southern man, whose superstitions, if he 
 be not too material-minded to be altogether 
 void of such, are of a more prosaic and sun-and- 
 daylight-haunting character, the walk through 
 the shape-peopled forest produced no fancies of 
 the kind. 
 
 But Carlo's mind was filled with anxious 
 thoughts and forebodings of a more real nature. 
 He had very little doubt that his father's hour 
 had come. The old man had been very visibly 
 failing for some time past, and the manner of 
 his mother's letter had left him very little doubt 
 upon the subject. The question was whether 
 he should be in time to receive his father's 
 blessing before he died. 
 
 Pushing his breast against the mountain-side, 
 he laboured on through the forest till he came 
 to a well-known spot in the path, where the 
 paved track made a sharp zig-zag, crossing at
 
 238 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 the same time the com-se of a little mountain 
 torrent by a bridge constructed of three or four 
 masses of rock, which a small degree of move- 
 ment from the positions in which the operations 
 of Nature had placed them, had sufficed to 
 arrange into the required means of passing the 
 stream. 
 
 From this spot the remains of a red-brick 
 tower over one of the ancient gateways of the 
 once-walled town first becomes visible among 
 the trees to one climbing from the plains below, 
 still much above him, but directly in front of 
 him, after the change of direction in the path 
 which has been described. The ravine which 
 the little torrent has formed, and the bottom of 
 which it still occupies, like the last scion of a 
 decayed house inhabiting the mansion, a world 
 too wide for him, which was raised by his fore- 
 fathers in the days of their wealth and power — 
 the ravine and the torrent take their rise in a 
 fold of the hill formed by the crescent shape of 
 the crest of it ; and all along this crescent- 
 shaped crest, which unites two culminating
 
 carlo's night-walk to UZZANO. 239 
 
 points where the mountain rises to a somewhat 
 greater height, runs what may once have been 
 the high street of the town. The old gateway, 
 which has been mentioned, is on one of these 
 points ; and the one church, still in good repair 
 and in full exercise of its functions, stands near 
 it ; and a little higher and further back on this 
 same point of the hill, are the ruins of an 
 ancient castle. On the other point, which is 
 separated from that horn of the crescent just 
 described by the whole length of the whilom 
 high street, and on which the traveller turns his 
 back when the zig-zag path crosses the ravine, 
 there is another now nearly disused church, and 
 the less important remains of another castle. 
 
 From the little half-natural bridge, if the 
 traveller look up following with his eye the 
 direction of the ravine, a considerable portion of 
 the crescent, with its line of buildings, now 
 more or less broken and interrupted by ruin 
 and decay, is visible. The opening through 
 the woods caused by the ravine renders it so. 
 A little further on in the path, or a little before
 
 240 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 the bridge is reached, do such intimation 
 of human habitations near at hand is to be 
 discovered. 
 
 As Carlo knew full well, the windows of his 
 own paternal dw^elhng could be seen from the 
 bridge. And the memory of all the many, 
 many times in past years that he had looked up 
 from this spot when returning from Pescia — 
 specially in the days when he had been living 
 and picking up there what culture he had in the 
 house of his Swiss friend and benefactor — 
 looked up to catch the first glimpse of a light 
 placed in the window as a beacon of welcome : 
 all these memories rushed into his mind, as 
 such memories will rush at moments when some 
 catastrophe breaking the tenor of our lives 
 causes us to look back on the path we have 
 passed, as a sudden disruption of the road he is 
 travelling makes the wayfarer pause to look 
 behind and around him. 
 
 Carlo looked up wdstfuUy, knowing well in 
 the darkness exactly where the window should 
 be, and was somewhat surprised to see a light
 
 carlo's night-walk to uzzano. 241 
 
 where the light used in bygone years to be. 
 The window visible was not that of the room 
 where it w^ould be hkely that his father was 
 lying. It was the window of a back room on 
 the ground floor of the house, which was used 
 as the family sitting-room, chosen as such for 
 the view it commanded over the forest and the 
 mountain side. 
 
 The augury of the light seemed to him an 
 evil one. Why should there be a light at that 
 dead hour of the night '? If his father were 
 still lying ill up-stairs it was not likely that his 
 mother would be sitting in that down-stairs 
 room all by herself If — if his father were 
 dead — if all were over — it might be that the 
 restless widow was wearing out the night 
 watches there, fearing to go to her solitary rest. 
 
 He pushed on, increasing his speed, passed 
 beneath the gateway of the decayed town, 
 where now neither gate nor gatekeeper barred 
 the way either by day or by night, passed the 
 foot of the wall which supported the terrace 
 piazza in front of the church, and entered the 
 
 VOL, I. U
 
 242 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 ruined main street, straggling along the curved 
 crest of the hill with its broken pavement and 
 half-ruined tenements, divided from each other 
 by gaps where houses now quite ruined had 
 once stood. 
 
 It was now past midnight, and not a living 
 creature met the eye or a sound met the ear in 
 all the place. All the inhabitants might be 
 dead for any evidence of life that reached the 
 senses. He had to pass about half the entire 
 length of the street before he reached what had 
 once been known in Uzzano as the " Palazzo 
 Trendi." The large round archway, formed of 
 handsomely moulded stone-work, with its heavy 
 stone escutcheon bearing the armorial devices 
 of the house of Trendi above it, was closed by a 
 simple unpanelled and unpainted door of planks 
 now ashen grey with time and weather. 
 
 No condition of morality, however advanced, 
 has yet been known of equal efficacy in the 
 prevention of robbery to the entire absence of 
 anything worth stealing. There are no thieves 
 at Uzzano. If there were, the Uzzano people
 
 CARLOS NIGHT-WALK TO UZZANO. 243 
 
 would sing as gaily as ever in their presence. 
 And for the same reason there are no locks to 
 the doors. 
 
 Carlo, on reaching the door of the Palazzo 
 Trendi, had but to raise the latch and walk in. 
 He did so, and made directly for the sitting- 
 room at the back of the house, in the window of 
 which he had seen a light. 
 
 As he neared the door he was surprised to 
 hear voices within ; the voices, as a moment's 
 listening assured him, of a couple of women, of 
 wliom his mother was one. He pushed open 
 the door of the chamber, and in the next 
 moment knew that all was over with him, whom 
 he had so greatly wished to see yet once more 
 in life. 
 
 He recognised the woman, who was with 
 his mother, as a certain Sibilla Gralli, the 
 housekeeper of the curato — the rector, as we 
 should say — or principal priest at Uzzano. 
 Carlo knew that this woman was a gossip of 
 his mother's ; and he had always felt a dislike 
 to her. It seemed however kind and natural 
 
 Ji 2
 
 244 THE DREAM NUMBEES. 
 
 enougli that she should be with her friend 
 Signora CaroK at such a time ; — save that it 
 appeared strange to Carlo that she should be 
 there at that hour of the night. 
 
 He was not left an instant in doubt as to the 
 state of things in the house. Both the women, 
 on his opening the door, began to pour forth 
 a deafening torrent of vociferous lamentations, 
 invoking " Jesu Maria," the " Santa Madonna," 
 the " Misericordia di Dio," and most of the 
 saints in the calendar in shrill rivalry of each 
 other. 
 
 " When did he die 1 " asked Carlo, as soon 
 as he could make himself heard amid this out- 
 pouring of voluble sorrow. 
 
 " Yesterday evening at the Ave Maria — for 
 I heard the blessed bell a-going as I stood by 
 his bed-side, and he like a blessed angel was a- 
 breathing his last breath ! " said the widow 
 with a fresh burst of tears. 
 
 " But what I say," whined the other woman, 
 " is, what a blessed grace and privilege to pass 
 at such a moment, and with such sounds in your
 
 CARLOS NIGHT- WALK TO UZZANO. 245 
 
 ears ! And all the sacraments received beauti- 
 ful that very morning. Fd as lief as twenty 
 mortuary masses, die like that with the Ave 
 Maria bell a-ringing, as I went ! That's what I 
 say." 
 
 "But I only got your letter, mother, this 
 evening at Sponda Lunga ! I came away 
 directly, and have not stopped once till I got 
 here. How came it that the news did not reach 
 me sooner 1 " 
 
 " The blessed saint went off within an hour 
 after I sent away my letter ! What could I 
 do. Carlo figliuolo miof I sent neighbour 
 Tagliaferri's boy with the letter down to Pescia 
 yesterday evening. He gave it to the "^ro- 
 caccia " with his own hands ; and the " pro- 
 caccia " went away the next morning ! I had 
 no more idea that he was so near his end, 
 when I wrote, than I think you are now, God 
 forgive me for saying such a thing ! " 
 
 " Well, mother, there is no help for it ; but I 
 would fain have spoken to him once again ! " 
 said Carlo.
 
 246 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 " AM ! figliuolo mio ! it is very little good 
 speaking would have done ! The poor dear 
 saint was not himself for the last two days or 
 more! Ahi ! Dio mio ! Madonna mia I abbia 
 pieta di me I Madonna Santa! Santissima! '^ 
 
 " Poverina ! " whined the priest's house- 
 keeper, " say an Ave Maria and a Pater or 
 two ; it will comfort you ! I will say them 
 with you ! " 
 
 And uplifting her voice to its utmost power, 
 in a sort of cracked shout, which is well 
 known to all acquainted with the popular 
 practices of southern devotion, she led off a 
 vigorous imitation of the chant as given in the 
 churches, " Ave Maria, gratia plena" kc, while 
 the widow joined in more plaintive and some- 
 what less gratingly harsh tones. 
 
 Carlo waited patiently till the ''Ave" and 
 the following " Pater " had heen duly recited ; 
 but then finding that they began again at the 
 beginning without the slightest abatement or 
 intermission, he left the room and stepped out 
 again into the silent street.
 
 CARLOS NIGHT-WALK TO UZZANO. 247 
 
 He strolled up and down before the door, a 
 dozen paces or so to the right of it and 
 a dozen to the left, now stopping to gaze up 
 at the silent stars in the clear sky, and now 
 resuming his sentinel-like walk with a sigh, 
 as his thoughts kept straying from the days 
 past in connection with the father he had lost, 
 to the days before him in connection with the 
 love he had left at Lucca, and all the time 
 watching the door to see when Signora Sibilla, 
 the priest's housekeeper, should leave the 
 house. He was anxious to have an oppor- 
 tunity of speaking to his mother without the 
 importunate presence of this antipathetic old 
 woman ; but still she did not come out of the 
 house. Carlo wondered, and began to think 
 that his mother and her friend were going to 
 make a night of it, and would chant litanies 
 till sun-rise. Then the idea occurred to him 
 that perhaps she was intending to sleep there, 
 in order that his mother might not be left to 
 pass the night in the lone house in perfect 
 solitude. The dead body was no longer there.
 
 248 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 In accordance with Italian custom, it had 
 been removed to the church very shortly after 
 the death, although the interment was not to 
 take place till the morrow. 
 
 As soon as this idea struck him Carlo re- 
 entered the house, and hearing no further sound 
 of chanting again went to the sitting-room at 
 the back of the house. And there to his sur- 
 prise he still found the Signora Sibilla Gralli in 
 close conference with his mother. The litanies 
 had ceased, having to all appearance been 
 resorted to merely as a pastime while his 
 presence prevented the two old women from 
 conversing. At least it had very much 
 the appearance of this ; for again they evi- 
 dently ceased speaking on the subject which 
 had previously engrossed them as soon as he 
 entered the room. 
 
 " I thought you had gone up-stairs to bed, 
 figliuolo mio,^^ said his mother, with a certain 
 degree of embarrassment in her manner. " You 
 must be right well ready for your bed, poverino ! 
 You will find all ready in your own usual
 
 CAELO'S NIGHT-WALK TO UZZANO. 249 
 
 chamber. Signora Gralli must be going home 
 too ! It is very kind of her to come and keep 
 me company awhile — very kind ! But now I 
 have got you, I shall not need to be a burthen 
 on her. Good night, my son." 
 
 Carlo went up to bed, leaving the two 
 women together, as it had evidently been his 
 mother's intention that he should do. The room 
 he went to — the same that he used to inhabit 
 before he had left Uzzano to take the situa- 
 tion ofiered him at Sponda Lunga — was imme- 
 diately over that in which he left his mother 
 and Sibilla Gralli. He did not go immediately 
 to bed. For though tired, he did not feel as if 
 he could sleep. So he sat himself down by the 
 open window enjoying the cool night air blow- 
 ing over the chestnut woods, while his reverie 
 continued to blend past memories and future 
 hopes, as one quarter after another was rung- 
 out from the church tower, beneath which his 
 father's body was lying awaiting its sepulture. 
 And still as he sate he could hear the two women 
 talking in the room below — no longer singing
 
 250 THE DEE AM NUMBERS. 
 
 Aves and Paters, but continually in close and 
 apparently earnest conversation. 
 
 It seemed odd ; and it displeased him, because 
 he had, reasonably or unreasonably, a prejudice 
 against the Signora Sibilla Gralli. She was of 
 course, as the priest's housekeeper, a person of 
 the most unblemished respectability ; and it 
 was rather creditable than otherwise in the eyes 
 of the society of Uzzano, that the female friend 
 who promptly came forward to afford to the 
 widow Caroli the comfort and support of her 
 presence and friendship in the hour of her distress 
 should be the housekeeper of the Signer Curato. 
 And Carlo, after a little wondering, which was 
 set to rest by the reflection that there was no end 
 to the amount of gossip which women would 
 indulge in, when any excuse was to be found 
 for indulging in it, went to bed and to sleep, 
 leaving the women still chattering beneath 
 him.
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 A FUNERAL AT UZZANO. 
 
 Carlo Caroli had, during the time he had 
 been living at Sponda Lunga, written frequently 
 to his mother — more frequently than Italians in 
 his rank of life are usually in the habit of cor- 
 responding with absent friends. Carlo was a 
 ready penman ; and a letter was not so great 
 and difficult an undertaking for him as it is for 
 many Italians in stations even superior to his. 
 It was the first time he had ever been lono; 
 absent from his parents ; for during his stay as 
 a boy at Pescia he had rarely been many days 
 without seeing them, and frequent communica- 
 tion with the home, which had hitherto been 
 his entire world, had been a comfort and almost 
 a necessity to him.
 
 252 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 In these letters he had told the old couple in 
 their mountain home all about his new course 
 of life, and the persons with whom he had been 
 thrown into contact. In the earlier letters Sig- 
 nora Monaldi occupied the most prominent 
 place. Then there came other notices of new 
 acquaintances. There was a graphic account of 
 Meo Morini ; the usurer's son, young Andrea 
 Simonetti, was daguerreotyped ; then came de- 
 tails of Farmer Bartoli and his lovely daughter 
 — eno-ao-ed as he had been told. Carlo said in 
 one of his earlier letters, to Signor Meo Morini, 
 the only son of one of the richest lawyers in 
 Lucca. Then there came mentions of this beau- 
 tiful Regina Bartoli in every letter ; gradually 
 she became the most prominent figure in his 
 correspondence. And before he had owned the 
 fact, his mother had shrewdly guessed that 
 Regina Bartoli was, or would very soon become, 
 the most important object on earth to her son. 
 
 The letter which had mentioned the report 
 that the beauty of Ripalta was engaged to Bar- 
 tolommeo Morini, the lawver's son* was con-
 
 A FUNERAL AT I ZZANO. 253 
 
 tradicted in the next ; the beautiful farmer's 
 daughter, it was written, was yery proud, and 
 held her head very high, and was the despair of 
 all her suitors. Then came detailed accounts of 
 his acquaintance with this haughty beauty ; 
 of their growing intimacy, of their meetings on 
 the terrace, of the injustice of calling Regina 
 proud and haughty ; he had never found her 
 so. Then at last, in reply to close questionings 
 from his mother, came the confession of his great, 
 his unalterable love. 
 
 And to the mother all this history, thus 
 gradually unfolding itself, appeared very good 
 and acceptable. She had quite understood from 
 Carlo's earliest letters that the young lady in 
 question was " a great match " in point of those 
 worldly goods, the lack of which was so plentiful 
 at Uzzano. Of course no girl could refuse her 
 heart to her Carlo ; he had but to go forth to 
 see and to conquer. Then was he not a Trenda, 
 with an ancestral palace and family tree of his 
 own ! Farmer Bartoli would of course be only 
 too proud of such an aUiance I
 
 254 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 But then came letters, in which Carlo spoke 
 of his love, and the object of it, in a very differ- 
 ent tone from that which had seemed so natural 
 to his mother ; letters written in dejection, 
 in which his own poverty was spoken of des- 
 pairingly ; the greed and ambition of Farmer 
 Bartoli dwelt on as forming an insurmountable 
 barrier to all his hopes of happiness. In short, 
 the poor mother was, when the sudden death of 
 her husband called her son home, very accu- 
 rately aware of all the circumstances of his posi- 
 tion in his new home ; and felt more bitterly 
 than ever the evils of the poverty which seemed 
 thus fatally to stand in the way of her son's 
 happiness, as well as of his worldly advance- 
 ment. 
 
 There was one point, however, in the situa- 
 tion of matters at Sponda Lunga, which the 
 Signora Caroli was not acquainted with. It had 
 never come into her head to guess that her son 
 might have the widow Monaldi, and all the 
 Monaldi savings, and the wheelwright business 
 for the asking — and Carlo's letters had never
 
 A FUNERAL AT UZZAIs^O. 255 
 
 given her the shghtest inkhng of any such facts. 
 Had she been aware of this, it is to be feared 
 that Barbara CaroH might not have been so 
 anxious for the removal of an}^ obstacle in the 
 way of her son's marriage with the rich heiress 
 of Ripalta. For though in point of wealth the 
 farmer's daughter w^as a much more valuable 
 prize than the wheelwright's widow, still it pro- 
 bably would have seemed better to the anxious 
 mother that the impoverished scion of all the 
 Trendi should seize the prize wdiich was imme- 
 diately and certainly within his grasp, rather 
 than continue a pursuit that by his own account 
 seemed to promise to be a hopeless one. 
 
 The Signora Caroli knew nothing of these 
 possibilities, however ; and was immensely 
 anxious that her son should succeed where he 
 had placed his affections. 
 
 Naturally, it was not long before the conver- 
 sation between the mother and son, on the 
 morning after his arrival at Uzzano, fell upon 
 the subject of Regina and his love. The mother 
 asked an infinity of questions about Ripalta, the
 
 256 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 extent of the farm, the amount of the farmer's 
 supposed wealth, &c., &c. ; and Carlo answered 
 her with an infinity of particulars respecting the 
 colour of Regina's eyes, and other similar points. 
 Still, however, the burthen of his complaint was 
 the hopelessness of ever inducing Farmer Bartoli 
 to consent to a marriage between his daughter 
 and so poor a man as himself 
 
 His mother, however, persistently refused to 
 acquiesce in any such view of the case. Not 
 only would she insist on looking at the matter 
 hopefully, but in reply to the arguments of 
 Carlo, which went to show how wholly dispro- 
 portioned was his own worldly position to that 
 of Regina Bartoli, she kept on throwing out un- 
 intelligible, if not altogether unmeaning hints, 
 that after all there might not be found to be 
 any such very wide difference between the 
 Trendi and the Bartoli. And when Carlo 
 sought for an explanation of such enigmatical 
 utterances, all he could get his mother to say 
 was, that there was no knowing what might 
 turn up; that we never knew the good
 
 A FUNERAL AT UZZANO. 257 
 
 the saints had in store for us, and the 
 hke. 
 
 This was not in accordance with the Signora 
 Barbara's usual tone of mind. Instead of un- 
 duly anticipating good, she was generally dis- 
 posed unreasonably to anticipate evil. She was 
 on ordinary occasions a confirmed pessimist, 
 taking the gloomiest possible view of past, pre- 
 sent, and future. Her son, therefore, was the 
 more surprised at the unaccountably couleur de 
 rose hue which she persisted in throwing over 
 his prospects of ultimately winning and wearing 
 the beautiful heiress of Ripalta. 
 
 The funeral service was fixed to take place on 
 the evening of that day, at eight o'clock. Carlo 
 told his mother that he would remain with her 
 that night, and until noon on the following day. 
 There was a train that passed Pescia on its w\ay 
 to Lucca, at two o'clock, and he determined to 
 return at that hour. 
 
 In communicating this intention to his mother, 
 Carlo had armed himself with a variety of argu- 
 ments — none of them drawn from his impatience 
 
 TOL. I. S
 
 258 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 to see Regina again —to prove the necessity of 
 his quitting Uzzano without longer delay. He 
 had anticipated that his mother would have 
 opposed his going, and have striven to induce 
 him to prolong his stay. But in this matter, 
 also, he found her unlike her usual self. She 
 admitted at once the necessity for his quick re- 
 turn, and seemed indeed quite pleased that he 
 should go. Carlo could not make it out. 
 
 It had been a lovely night as Carlo had, on 
 the preceding evening, walked up through the 
 woods to Uzzano. And it was so still, w^hen, 
 having gone up to his bedroom, he sat himself 
 down at the open window to enjoy the "fresco" 
 and to think. But as he sat there looking out 
 over the neighbouring forest-covered hills, the 
 sky had gradually become overcast ; large, heavy 
 banks of clouds came drifting up from the direc- 
 tion of Leghorn — the south-west. It was evi- 
 dent that there was a strong "libeccio" blowing 
 in the higher strata of the atmosphere ; and 
 when Carlo shut his window and at last went 
 to bed, there had not been a star to be seen ;
 
 A FUNERAL AT UZZANO. £59 
 
 tlie wind had begun to moan with moody 
 menace among the chestnut trees, and there was 
 every appearance of a coming storm. 
 
 The next morning that which these tokens 
 announced had arrived; the wind had fallen, 
 and the rain was descending in torrents. Much 
 had already fallen, and there was every prospect 
 that it would continue steadily. Carlo foresaw 
 that the ceremony in the evening would have to 
 be attended in the wet, and that he should in 
 all probabihty have a wet walk down the moun- 
 tain the next day. It was the autumnal break- 
 up of the fine weather, which often comes in 
 Tuscany in a very copious outpouring of rain. 
 
 As for the funeral, it was simply the going to 
 the church through the wet — for the absolute 
 interment would take place afterwards, without 
 the attendance of any mourner. It was merely 
 at the religious service in the church that the 
 relatives and friends of the deceased were to 
 attend. 
 
 The rain continued unintermittingly during 
 the whole day. Carlo, however, with that dis- 
 
 s 2
 
 260 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 regard of a wetting which is common to most 
 mountaineers, took an umbrella, and went to 
 have a look at the little bit of vineyard, respect- 
 ing the care of which it was necessary to make 
 some arrangement, if he was to go back again 
 to Lucca. 
 
 When he returned to the house he again 
 found Sibilla Gralli in close talk with jiis 
 mother. She, too, had disregarded the rain 
 sufficiently to come down the street from the 
 house of the curato, close to the church, with 
 her thick black cloak and huge yellow oil-cloth 
 umbrella. Carlo felt sure that there was some- 
 thing being discussed between the two women, 
 which w^as kept a secret from him ; and it 
 puzzled him much to imagine wdiat it could be 
 that was so evidently occupying his mother's 
 thoughts ; nor could he help connecting it in 
 his mind with his mother's odd and unusually 
 easy acquiescence in his early departure. 
 
 The talk between the two women was very 
 evidently brought to an immediate end as soon 
 as he entered the house, and La Sibilla took
 
 A FUNERAL AT UZZANO. 261 
 
 her umbrella and walked off through the rain. 
 Then there was more talk between Carlo and 
 his mother about the past and the future ; 
 long egotistical lamentations respecting her own 
 lot, past, present, and future, mixed with eager 
 anticipations of fortune and happiness for her 
 son, on her part ; and never-ending descriptions 
 of Regina's beauty and goodness on his part — 
 and so the long hours of the day wore away till 
 the time for going to the church came. 
 
 The building stands, as has been described, 
 on one of the culminating points of the moun- 
 tain in which the crescent-shaped crest of the 
 hill ends. A jutting rock, so situated as to form 
 a small terrace, large enough for the church and 
 a little piazza in front of it, looking to the south, 
 and raised perpendicularly to the height of some 
 ten or twenty feet above the gate and the 
 houses of the town immediately beneath it, has 
 been turned to account as a vantage ground for 
 the sacred edifice. The view from this piazza 
 is superb, commanding large spaces of the sur- 
 rounding forest with the neighbouring hill sides,
 
 262 THE DEEAM NUMBERS. 
 
 and glimpses of far-off valley distances. This, 
 however, in fine weather ; not on such a day as 
 that on which old Signer Francesco Caroli was 
 to be laid to his rest. On that day nothing was 
 to be descried from the little piazza athwart the 
 driving rain torrents save mysterious mist-filled 
 abysses, across which surging cloud-banks of 
 moisture might be seen drifting from time to 
 time, as the wind blew in gusts from the higher 
 summits down the ravines which seam the sides 
 of the mountains. 
 
 In fine weather this little piazza, with its 
 broad parapet wall just high enough to make a 
 commodious seat, is, as in most others of the 
 many similarly situated hill towns of central 
 Italy, the favourite resort of the townsmen. 
 On festa days, especially, they may be seen 
 congregated there in great numbers, showing 
 their best clothes to each other, and enjoying 
 that never-failing Tuscan delight, a lounge in 
 the open air, and a chat, both sexes after the 
 mass, and the men during the performance of 
 it also.
 
 A FUNERAL AT UZZANO. 263 
 
 But on the day in question there was not a 
 soul on the bleak, rain-beaten piazza. It looked 
 as mournful and desolate a spot as the imagi- 
 nation could conceive. But if such was the ap- 
 pearance of the sometimes thronged and sunny 
 terrace to the south of the church, much more 
 oppressively dreary and dismal was the aspect 
 of the little burying-ground to the north of it. 
 This is situated on a turfy slope, rising from 
 behind the church to the somewhat higher level 
 on which the ruins of the old mediaeval castle 
 stand ; large chestnut trees, the singly placed 
 advanced sentinels of the forest, stand around 
 it and overshadow it. The gloomy donjon 
 keep of the old fortress frowns down upon it. 
 And there " the rude forefathers of the townlet 
 sleep," in sparsely scattered graves, rarely 
 marked otherwise than by a little quickly- 
 perishing cross of wood. 
 
 In English churchyards a kindly old super- 
 stition, surviving in the minds of the people 
 from catholic times, points out that part of the 
 churchyard through which the village path to
 
 264) THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 church passes, as the most desirable resting- 
 place for the departed. The old faith sug- 
 gested that, being thus in the way of frequent 
 passers-by, the tenants of the graves would 
 more readily recall themselves to the memory 
 of the living, and thus demand from them the 
 piety of a prayer, or a sprinkling of holy water. 
 And a more imperishable natural sentiment still 
 prompts the man of northern race so to choose 
 the last resting-place of his dead, that the sight 
 of it shall frequently recall them to his thoughts. 
 But this is a manifestation of northern sen- 
 timent. The southern likes not the sight of 
 death, or of the memorials of it. Graves and 
 graveyards are to him unsightly and odious 
 blotches on the smiling face of nature, to be 
 thrust out of the way and out of sight of the 
 living, as far as may be. Duty, indeed, is 
 largely recognised with respect to those who 
 have, as the old Roman phrased it, " gone over 
 to the majority.'' Masses are to be said, 
 anniversaries are to be instituted and observed, 
 money even is to be paid on their behoof. But
 
 A FUNERAL AT UZZANO. 265 
 
 all these observances are avowedly admitted and 
 felt to be disagreeable and painful things to be 
 done, indeed, for the sake of our own souls, and 
 the souls of those whom we have loved, but to 
 be got rid of as soon as possible, to be carefully 
 confined to churches, and church times and 
 occupations, all recognised as gloomy and dis- 
 agreeable, if necessary evils, and to be rigor- 
 ously prevented from showing their ill-omened 
 faces at living, laughing nature's banquet-table. 
 In obedience to sentiment of this sort, the 
 graveyard at Uzzano has been thrust out of 
 the w^ay behind the church, as has been de- 
 scribed. In its way the spot is one of no ordi- 
 nary beauty, and the profound shadiness of it is 
 exceedingly delicious when the hot Italian sun 
 is high in the heavens. The deep rich turf, of 
 a brighter green than could be found in the 
 valleys, is always soft and fresh ; the birds are 
 always twittering in the ivy which drapes the 
 old castle walls ; and the deep stillness of the 
 place is broken only by some far-distant cattle- 
 bell, or by the sough of the wind gently wan-
 
 266 THE DREAM XUMBERS. 
 
 dering over the vast extent of forest around 
 and beneath. Were Uzzano inhabited by a 
 people of Anglo-Saxon race, this graveyard 
 would not be an unfrequented spot. But the 
 Southrons shun it. 
 
 The rain continued to fall without ceasing 
 during the whole day, and was still falling heavily 
 when the time for going to the church came. 
 The Signora Sibilla GraUi came, however, to the 
 Palazzo Trendi to accompany the widow thither. 
 And Carlo walked with the t\YO women through 
 the deserted and half-ruined street. The house 
 of the curate stands at one corner of the piazza, 
 on the front or southern side of the church. 
 And as the little party of mourners were cross- 
 ing the piazza, having come up the flight of 
 steps which led to it from the lower level of 
 the street, they met the priest stepping across 
 to the church in his surplice, while the sacristan 
 was holding a huge umbrella over his head. 
 This ofiicial was also dressed in his official cos- 
 tume — a long white, or would-be white, smock- 
 frock descending to his heels.
 
 A FUNERAL AT UZZANO. 267 
 
 " Good evening, Signora Caroli ! '' said the 
 priest. '•' I am glad to hear from La Sibilla 
 that you have been enabled to accept the chas- 
 tisement of the Lord in a good and humble 
 spirit." 
 
 " A hi! Signore Curato, to think that I should 
 have to survive him ! He was ..." 
 
 " Yes, yes ! si sa, si sa ! we all know it. 
 But, Santa Madonna ! what a night to be out 
 in ! We shall all catch our deaths ! Come, 
 let us proceed to the funzione at once. It is 
 not good to remain here longer than can be 
 helped. Signer Carlo, good evening to you ! 
 Will you stand there at the head of the corpse, 
 if you please," said the rector, pointing to the 
 end of the bier nearest to the high altar, as it 
 stood on the damp pavement of the cold deso- 
 late-looking church. 
 
 " Queste Signore will stand one on each side. 
 Give them the candles, Cecco, and let us 
 begin ! " he added, addressing himself to the 
 sacristan. 
 
 That worthy servant of the church — a lame
 
 268 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 and one-ejed young man, of that remarkable 
 hideousness which seems, by some strange dis- 
 pensation of providence, to be the special attri- 
 bute of all these lay servitors of the ecclesias- 
 tical establishment in Italy — put a huge wax 
 candle, some four feet long, into the hand of 
 each of the three mourners, handed a book to 
 the priest, who took his station at the foot of the 
 bier, and placed himself by the side of his supe- 
 rior, holding in his hand a once elegantly- 
 shaped and delicately chased, but now filthily 
 dirty and battered, brazen pot, with some holy 
 water in it, and a brazen handled brush, almost 
 worn down to the stump, for the sprinkling 
 of it. 
 
 These simple arrangements having been com- 
 pleted, the priest commenced the service with a 
 startling suddenness, shouting at the top of his 
 voice in a sort of monotonous recitative, which 
 waked the echoes in every distant nook and 
 corner of the large and empty church, and 
 made the rafters of the unceiled roof ring again. 
 He went at a tremendous pace, and reached
 
 A FUNERAL AT UZZANO. 2G9 
 
 apparently the conclusion of some supplication 
 within half a minute of starting. For the ugly 
 sacristan shot into the course of his chant an 
 " -Amen," as short, sharp, and loud as the baik 
 of a terrier, and continued to repeat this at 
 yery short intervals. Presently the priest, 
 without stopping for an instant in his vocifera- 
 tion, took the brush from the holy water pot, 
 and walked round the bier, sprinkling'the lustral 
 water on it with a short sharp jerk of the wrist, 
 that seemed to challenge admiration for the 
 workmanlike smartness of the action. Then 
 the brush was handed first to Carlo, and then 
 to the two w^omen, one after the other, and 
 each performed the tour of the bier, holding 
 their long candle in one hand, and sprinkling 
 with the other, while the priest made play, 
 without a moment's pause, hurrying on to the 
 end of his work. 
 
 It w^as soon reached. The one-eyed sacristan 
 received the book from the hands of the priest 
 before the concluding w^ords were out of his 
 mouth, took the candles from the hands of the
 
 270 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 mourners while shouting out his own last 
 " Amen " with extra vigour, threw them into a 
 long deal box prepared for the purpose, and 
 turning sharp round hobbled down the nave 
 behind his superior, to resume the umbrella 
 which he had left in the church porch. 
 
 And thus the funeral of poor Francesco 
 Caroli was performed quite to the satisfaction 
 of his family, to whom the utter absence of any 
 shadow of a pretence of anything like reverence 
 or religious feeling did not appear at all offen- 
 sive, or, as indeed it was not, anything at all 
 unusual. 
 
 The priest, with a brief *' Good night " at the 
 church door, scuttled back to his adjoining 
 house, and the mother and son, La Sibilla still 
 accompanying them, returned to their bereaved 
 home. 
 
 This continued presence of the priest's house- 
 keeper was very distasteful to Carlo. There 
 was something about his mother's manner to 
 him that he could not make out. She seemed 
 thoroughly pleased to hear all about E-egina,
 
 A FUNERAL AT UZZANO. 271 
 
 and her son's love for her ; returned again and 
 again to the subject of Farmer Bartoli's wealth, 
 and alwa3^s with, as it seemed to Carlo, utterly 
 wild and baseless anticipations of the success of 
 his suit for the rich man's daughter's hand. But 
 with all this she seemed as if she rather wished 
 to avoid much conversation with him ; it almost 
 seemed as if she kept this woman Sibilla Gralh 
 with her purposely to prevent all opportunity for 
 it. And yet that mother and son should have 
 much to say to each other on such an occasion 
 seemed so natural. There had always been much 
 more of close sympathy and similarity of nature 
 between Carlo and his father, than between 
 him and his mother. But their intercourse had 
 always been perfectly loving and affectionate. 
 Indeed, his mother's manner to him could not 
 be said to be otherwise now, except in so far as 
 she seemed to have no wish to talk to him. 
 Carlo was annoyed and thoroughly mystified. 
 
 He perceived that there was not going to be 
 any chance that he and his mother would be 
 left alone together that evening. So after eat-
 
 272 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 ing his supper^ and reminding his mother that 
 lie should be obliged to start on his return to 
 Lucca at mid-day on the morrow, and re- 
 ceiving her ready assent to his doing so, he 
 went up stairs, again leaving the two women 
 together. 
 
 When he got up the next morning there was 
 no change in the w^eather. 
 
 "Nocte pluit tota ; redeunt spectacnla mane." 
 
 The rain w^as still descending in bucketsful, 
 as the phrase is. And very many must the 
 bucketsful have been that had fallen in that 
 part of central Tuscany during the last six-and- 
 thirtv hours. 
 
 None the less for this, however, did Carlo 
 start down the mountain on his return to Lucca 
 at the time he had named ; rather before it, 
 indeed ; for it was necessary that he should 
 catch the train at Pescia, and he calculated that 
 the state of the mountain after all the rain that 
 had fallen might be such as to make his walk 
 into Pescia take more time than it might other-
 
 A FUNERAL AT UZZANO. 273 
 
 wise have done. It was little more than half- 
 past eleven when he bid his mother good-by ; 
 and without any attempt on her part to detain 
 him, set out on this not very agreeable journey. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 SERCHIO IN ANGER. 
 
 It was still raining hard when Carlo started 
 on his walk down the mountain. He had, of 
 course, made up his mind for a thorough wet- 
 ting ; but that was no great matter to one who 
 from his childhood ujDwards had lived the hfe of 
 a contadino of the mountains. 
 
 He soon, however, became aware that he had 
 done w^isely in allowing himself an extra half 
 hour for his walk to Pescia. The storm, accom- 
 panied as it had been by more w^ind than is 
 usual in these countries, had made great havoc 
 in the forest. Trees had been blown down in 
 many places, and huge boughs stripped from 
 them, and hurled about with much damage to 
 their neighbours in many more. In many places
 
 SERCHIO IN ANGER. 275 
 
 also the paved pathway had been turned into 
 the semblance of a torrent. And the wisdom 
 of those who had many centuries ago, long 
 before the high roads in the valleys had been 
 made, undertaken the very considerable labour 
 of paving these mountain tracks, was explained 
 and manifested. For had no such precaution 
 been taken, every semblance of a pathway would 
 have been torn away by the waters in their 
 headlong course towards the rivers which thread 
 the lower valleys. 
 
 Carlo, however, encountered no serious ob- 
 struction till he reached the bridge at a sharp 
 angle of the zig-zag road, which has been de- 
 scribed in the last chapter. There all trace of 
 a bridge had disappeared ; not because the 
 rocks which formed it had been carried away ; 
 — they were too huge and heavy for that ; — 
 but because the water had submerged them, so 
 as to form a roaring cataract in the ravine 
 beneath the path. A huge chestnut tree had 
 fallen across the ravine, a little below the 
 bridge ; the broken branches of other trees had 
 
 T 2
 
 276 THE DUE AM LUMBERS. 
 
 been arrested by its mighty trunk as they were 
 being washed down the mountain, and had, in 
 their turn, closed the passage against a vast 
 mass of stones, earth, and rubbish, sticks, dry 
 leaves, and masses of couch grass and weeds ; 
 and had thus formed a complete dam, con- 
 verting the bottom of the ravine above it into a 
 small lake. The size of the lake thus formed 
 was increasing every instant ; and Carlo was 
 obliged to retrace his steps up the steep slope of 
 the ravine till he could find a place where it 
 was feasible to cross it. Then he had to 
 descend again amid the pathless wreck of the 
 woods, till he could rejoin the paved way lower 
 down. Similar obstructions occurred again and 
 again before he reached the valley and the high 
 road along it from Florence to Pescia. And 
 when he reached this point, still a mile or two 
 from, the latter city, it was very near the time 
 at which the train was due at the Pescia 
 station. 
 
 He passed on, however, at the best speed he 
 could make, fully purposed to do the distance
 
 SERCHIO IN" ANaER. 277 
 
 on foot, if he should be too late. Press on as 
 he might, however, it was ten minutes past the 
 time at which the train was due, when he 
 reached the station. But it had not yet arrived ; 
 — and he was saved, therefore, from the neces- 
 sity of walking the journey before him. There 
 were other persons waiting at the station, and 
 as the train still did not come, speculation began 
 to be rife among them as to the probability of 
 delay caused by '' questo stravagante tempo,'' — 
 this extravagant weather, as Tuscans always call 
 any deviation from the ordinary sunshine and 
 gentle showers of their genial climate. 
 
 There is no part of the line in the immediate 
 vicinity of Pescia which was likely to have 
 suffered from the water, — none between that 
 city and Serravalle. But under the village, so 
 called, the towers of whose ruined castles, still 
 standing on the crest of the ridge which sepa- 
 rates two valleys, explain and justify the name, 
 the rail passes through a tunnel, and then leaves 
 the great valley of the Ombrone in which Pis- 
 toia stands, to enter the Valdinievole, of wdiich
 
 278 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 Pescia is the chief city. Now those who were 
 acquainted with the country on the farther side 
 of the Serravalle ridge and tunnel shook their 
 heads ominously at the delay of the train. They 
 knew that the Ombrone, though not liable to 
 such dangerous fits of sudden fury as its more 
 violent neighbour the Serchio, was apt in a more 
 lazy and sluggish fashion to decline the labour 
 of conveying its waters into the Arno, when- 
 ever they were suddenly increased beyond 
 measure by such weather as had prevailed for 
 the last two or three days. They feared that a 
 portion of the line in the Ombrone valley must 
 be under water ; and if it were . . . what was 
 likely to be the case in the Lucchese lands in 
 the valley of the Serchio "? 
 
 The train arrived, however, about twenty 
 minutes after its time. The conductor reported 
 that in fact the Ombrone had broken its banks, 
 and that a wide tract of country was under 
 water. No great damage, however, beyond the 
 inevitable results of the submersion, had been 
 done as yet. The water on the line was in no
 
 SERCHIO IN ANGER. 279 
 
 place above three or four inches deep ; but it 
 was feared that if this weather were to continue 
 many hours longer, much worse mischief must 
 ensue. 
 
 There was naturally great enjoyment in tell- 
 ing all this, with an air of much authority, to a 
 crowd of people who knew nothing at all 
 about it, and the conductor did not scruple to 
 delay the train some ten minutes longer while 
 he enjoyed it. Of course punctuality was out 
 of the question in such a tempo stravagante 
 as this, and with the waters out, too ! And ten 
 minutes more or less were under such circum- 
 stances of no moment. So the train was at 
 least half an hour behind its time, when it left 
 Pescia. 
 
 When it reached the next station on the way 
 to Lucca, at Altopascio, matters were looking 
 much worse. 
 
 The village of Altopascio, — a name of ill 
 omen in Florentine story, as having been the 
 scene of one of the greatest defeats suffered by 
 Florence, fighting against her sister republic of
 
 280 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 Lucca, — the village of AltojDascio is situated on 
 a knoll surrounded by vast plains. The view 
 from it stretches far away towards the foot of 
 the Mont Pisano, where the Bientina lake, half 
 lake and half swamp, collects the drainage of a 
 great part of the lowest districts of the Agro 
 Pisano. And now, almost all this vast extent of 
 flat country was under water ; showing that the 
 Arno had in its turn also been overtaxed by 
 the body of waters conveyed into it by its tri- 
 butaries, coming down all of them like torrents 
 from the flanks of the upper Apennines. It 
 was a scene of wide-spread desolation, as far as 
 the eye could see. 
 
 The railway, however, though all this wide 
 extent of country is seen from it, passes itself 
 in this part of its course over rather higher 
 ground, sufiiciently so to keep it out of the 
 reach of the flood. The Lucca lowlands are 
 not yet visible from this part of the line. 
 
 One more station, that of Porcari, intervenes 
 between Altopascio and Lucca ; but that place 
 is situated among slight eminences which hide
 
 SERCHIO IN ANGER. 281 
 
 from it the wide extent of the irrigated flats 
 around Lucca. At Porcari, however, rumours 
 began to be heard of probable disasters in the 
 valley of the Serchio. Some declared that that 
 river had already broken its banks in more than 
 one place, Others maintained that as yet no 
 mischief had been done ; that there was every 
 reason to fear, from one moment to another, 
 that a catastrophe might happen, especially if 
 the w^eather continued as it was. 
 
 And the rain still descended in a steady 
 dense out-pour which gave no hope of any im- 
 mediate change. People said that such a rain- 
 fall had not been known for the last twenty 
 years, — not since the year when Serchio had 
 carried away every bridge in the valley, save 
 the wonderful hog-backed Devil's Bridge, the 
 w^ork if not of the devil, at least of builders 
 who believed in God and devil some five hun- 
 dred years ago ! There was not an inch, not a 
 glimmer of blue sky to be seen in all the 
 extent of the heavens ! Not even the indigo - 
 coloured clouds, which usually are the rain-
 
 282 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 bearers in this region, could be seen. All 
 seemed one thick mist. The outlook skywards, 
 and the outlook towards the horizon, presented 
 one and the same appearance of sight-baffling 
 mist. 
 
 Once again the train, now a good forty 
 minutes late, moved on towards Lucca ; while 
 men belonging to the district, — men returning, 
 perhaps, to wives and families in solitary farm- 
 houses, — began to look anxiously into each 
 other's eyes, and to crane eagerly from the 
 windows for the first sight of the Lucca plains. 
 It was at Porcari that the first idea of danger 
 to his friends at Ripalta or Sponda Lunga 
 dashed with the suddenness of a lightning 
 flash into Carlo's mind. Still he did not 
 imagine that there could be any real ground 
 for alarm on that personal score. Ripalta was 
 situated, it is true, at one of the lowest points 
 of the plain, as indeed the name of the spot 
 indicates, — the highness of the banks which 
 has been found necessary for the restraint of 
 the stream, being of course the measure of the
 
 SERCHIO IN ANGER. 283 
 
 lowness of the level of the land below that 
 of the surface of the river. But the bank, 
 which was specially high at Ripalta, was also, 
 or seemed to Carlo's judgment to be also, 
 specially strong. There was no point in all the 
 dykes, as he reflected, which seemed more 
 massively constructed, in better condition, or 
 more capable of bidding defiance to the floods. 
 Carlo reflected on these facts, and told him- 
 self again and again that there could be no 
 danger, at least for the house at E^ipalta, even 
 should other parts of the farm sufier. 
 
 At Sponda Lunga the chance of danger was 
 evidently still less. The village so called stands 
 on slightly rising ground on the convex side of 
 an elbow of the stream. Be it where it might 
 that the furious river should break its banks, it 
 could hardly be there. 
 
 In a few minutes after leaving the station at 
 Porcari the great plain of Lucca came in sight. 
 And a deeply -breathed " ah " of relief escaped 
 from several lips, as it was perceived that no 
 extensive inundation had as yet taken place
 
 284- THE DEEAM KUMBERS. 
 
 there. The small canals which traverse the 
 wide, richly cultivated fields in every direction 
 for the purposes of irrigation, had in many 
 places formed wide pools of some hundred feet 
 or more in extent. But that ^vas nothing more 
 than was frequent at the wet season of the year, 
 and was no great misfortune. There was no 
 extended, no general inundation as yet. 
 
 Carlo w^ould have given much to have been 
 able to leave the train some little distance 
 before it reached Lucca ; for he would thus 
 have been able, by cutting across the country, 
 to reach the spot where his heart was sooner 
 than he could do by being carried on to Lucca. 
 But this of course was impossible. At last he 
 reached Lucca ; and like others who had come by 
 the train, made eager and instant inquiry of the 
 people at the station as to the state of the river, 
 and the opinion as to the probability of disaster. 
 
 Ko mischief of importance had as yet taken 
 place. But it was thought that a catastrophe 
 could not be avoided if the rain should continue a 
 few more hours. There w^as the greatest danger
 
 SERCHIO IN ANGER. 285 
 
 that the banks might give way from moment to 
 moment. There were men on watch along the 
 dykes on both sides of the river. It was 
 thought that unless the weather should change 
 before nightfall, of which there was no prospect, 
 it would almost have been better that the bank 
 should have given way before, so that the cala- 
 mity might have occurred by daylight. For it 
 was considered certain that if the rain continued 
 the river must break its bounds before morning ; 
 and the terrible calamity would be enhanced by 
 its taking place in the darkness. And now it 
 was getting near nightfall, darkened as the sky 
 was by the utter absence of any gleam from sun, 
 moon, or star. 
 
 Carlo inquired hurriedly whether any fears 
 had been felt for any locality more than another. 
 
 "Fears V said the man he addressed, 2ifattore 
 of the district, who had come to the station to 
 meet his wife, who was in the train, and with 
 whom Carlo had some slight acquaintance ; — 
 " Fears ! There isn't a man who owns or sows a 
 rood of land from the mountain-foot to the
 
 286 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 coast that isn't all fear ! And reason enough 
 in such weather as this. There is not an inch 
 of the plain safe betwixt here and Leghorn. I 
 expect you may row in a boat from the Serchio 
 to the Arno to-morrow morning, if you are 
 minded for the trip ! '' 
 
 " You do not happen to have heard, signer, 
 whether there was thought to be danger at 
 Ripalta 1 " asked Carlo. 
 
 " I tell you, Jic/Huolo mio, that there is danger 
 everywhere !^' returned the ^iowifattore, looking 
 scared and anxious. " Ripalta '? What, old 
 Bartoli's 1 " he continued. "Oh, lie can take 
 care of himself, if anybody can ! What would 
 the loss of every grain, grape, and olive of the 
 year's crop be to old Giovanni Bartoli ? He is 
 rich enouoh not to feel it. The water won't 
 carry away his scudi ! I did hear somebody 
 say just now that the dyke at E-ipalta was 
 showing signs of a leak; but oftentimes that's 
 nothing. Anyway, old Bartoli is out with more 
 than twenty men. He won't be caught asleep ! " 
 
 Carlo hurried away from the station, rather
 
 SEECHIO IN ANGER. 287 
 
 comforted than otherwise, by what the fattore 
 had said. His whole thought seemed to be of 
 danger to the land and its produce. Nobody 
 seemed to think anything about danger to per- 
 sons. Carlo, a mountaineer, to whom floods, 
 and inundations, and the misfortunes incidental 
 to them, were quite new experiences of life, had, 
 since the first idea of calamity as a consequence 
 of the weather had flashed across his mind, been 
 picturing to himself only the possibihty of dan- 
 ger to Regina ! There was nobody in all the 
 country-side who could better aff'ord to lose the 
 harvests of a year than old Giovanni Bartoli. 
 And Carlo owned to himself that, if it mattered 
 not very much to Signer Bartoli whether such a 
 loss fell upon him or not, it mattered still less 
 to him, Caroli ! Still he was not easy about 
 Regina. Wholly ignorant as he ^vas of the 
 manner in which floods produce their disasters, 
 and of the nature and kind of the dangers to 
 be apprehended from them, he could not help 
 tormenting himself with imaginations of Regina 
 environed by every kind of danger from w^ater.
 
 288 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 He had some twitcliings of conscience, too, 
 which suggested that it was his duty to the 
 widow Monaldi to give her the benefit of his 
 presence and protection at such a season as the 
 present. But he could not make up his mind 
 to abstain from betaking himself at the utmost 
 speed to Ripalta. He quieted his conscience, 
 therefore, with the consideration that Sponda 
 Lunga must be perfectly out of danger. Besides, 
 though Ripalta was not on the way from Lucca 
 to Sponda Lunga — not on the shortest way, that 
 is to say — it might be taken on the way, by 
 one following the course of the river and the 
 dykes all along. He would go to Sponda Lunga 
 therefore, passing by Ripalta. 
 
 What he wanted to do, when he was there 
 he would have been puzzled to say ; simply to 
 look at the old house, it would seem, and satisfy 
 himself that the walls which held his treasure 
 were still standing safely in their proper place 1 
 
 He started from the station at Lucca at a 
 quick walk, which soon becam^e a run, making 
 for the nearest point of the river banks.
 
 SERCHIO IX ANGER. 289 
 
 Notwithstanding the weather, and the rain 
 which did not cease for an instant, the whole 
 population — the whole male population, at least, 
 and a good part of the female population also — 
 seemed to be afoot and out of doors. Had it 
 been the loveKest summer day that ever festa 
 w^as favoured with, the people could not have 
 been abroad in greater numbers. The interests at 
 stake were too general, and the anxiety anent 
 them too intense, to admit of the poor people 
 remaining quietly at home. 
 
 When he reached the top of the dyke the 
 numbers of people assembled were greater still. 
 Men were running to and fro anxiously scanning 
 the outside of the banks, measuring from time to 
 time the height to which the water had reached, 
 marking each result w^ith ominous shakings of 
 the head, and anxiously scanning from time 
 to time the horizon towards the mountains. 
 Others were bringing faggots and brushwood, of 
 which a great quantity had already been col- 
 lected, to the top of the dyke. Some were pre- 
 paring sharpened stakes, and huge sheets of 
 
 VOL.
 
 290 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 canvas, ready to be used in the stopping of any 
 partial giving way of the dyke. 
 
 Many also were employed in moving to and 
 fro on the top of the dyke, busy in keeping a 
 strict watch on the proceedings of their neigh- 
 bours. It is one of the great evils of such a 
 state of things as is produced by the condition 
 of very many of the great rivers of Italy, which 
 have been walled in by dykes ever growing 
 higher from generation to generation, as the 
 bed of the river is raised by the deposit of the 
 earth it brings with it from the mountains, — it 
 is one of the greatest evils of this state of things, 
 I say, that it results in a keen perception by 
 the dwellers on the banks that in such time of 
 danger as has been here described, one man's 
 misfortune may be his neighbour's salvation. 
 When the river is in such a state of flood that 
 there is no longer any hope that its banks will 
 be able to contain the waters, and when every 
 man is fearing that the imminent breakage will 
 be on his land, and every village community is 
 fearing that their commune will be the one to
 
 SERCHIO m AXGEE. 291 
 
 be OYerwhelmecl, it is impossible that it should 
 not occur to those watching the rising flood, that 
 if the press of waters were to be reheved by a 
 breakage at any one point, the lands at all other 
 points would be all the safer. And from wishing 
 such a thing to happen, to aiding it to happen is 
 but a step, and a very short one ! Hence has not 
 unfrequently arisen the crime of tapping the 
 banks of the threatening stream ; and always 
 arises the suspicion and fear that such a mea- 
 sure may be resorted to. And, of course, the 
 amount of neighbourly ill-feeling and suspicion, 
 the quarrelling, and often the violent riots and 
 broils that arise from this source, are very great. 
 And on every occasion of danger from flood 
 great vigilance is exercised for the mutual pre- 
 vention of such a crime. 
 
 On the immense dykes between which the Po 
 is conducted in an artificial channel raised above 
 the level of the broad, rich plains of lower Lom- 
 bardy, practices such as those alluded to are 
 more known than in Tuscany. And fierce 
 
 broils and battles between commune and com- 
 
 u 2
 
 2dZ THE DREAM Iv^UMBEKS. 
 
 mune have occurred in those districts from this 
 cause. But on the occasion of the more than 
 usual danger from the swollen Serchio, in the 
 well-rememhered autumn here spoken of, similar 
 suspicions were rife in men's minds, and the 
 ^Yllole river-bordering population was on the 
 alert, to see that no man attempted to escape 
 his own share of the common misfortune, b}^ in- 
 volving his neighbours in ruin. 
 
 As Carlo drew near to Ripalta, he got the 
 most contradictory answers to his repeated 
 questions from the people on the djdvc. The 
 river had made a breach at this or that point, 
 and the lands of Ripalta were all under water ! 
 The dwelhng-house was safe ! The dwelhng- 
 liouse was submerged up to the first floor ! 
 No breach had yet taken place in the dyke, 
 but was expected from moment to moment ! 
 Che, die ! Ripalta was in no danger ! The 
 Ripalta dykes were the most solid in the 
 country ! 
 
 Rumour was active, and, as ever, mendacious 
 in exact proportion to its activity. It w^as clear
 
 SERCHIO IX ANGER. 293 
 
 that no real information was attainable. Carlo 
 pushed on with increasing anxiety, elbowing his 
 way through the crowds gathered here and 
 there at the points where immediate danger was 
 specially apprehended. 
 
 At last he came in sight of that part of the 
 dyke, which was immediately over the garden 
 terrace, sacred to him from so many memories, 
 and over the house of llipalta. The first thing 
 that he could see was that a large crowd was 
 gathered on the spot. It was a bad sign. The 
 people were there either because mischief was 
 urgently apprehended, or because it had already 
 occurred. Carlo dashed in among the thickest 
 of the crowd. Nothing had yet happened. 
 There was the terrace, there was the little 
 chapel, the farm-yard, and the house, and the 
 home fields, all as he had last left them, save 
 that then they were basking in sleepy sunshine, 
 and were now seen through the thicklj^-beating 
 rain, and under the iiiorne light of a starless 
 twilight, which was rapidly becoming dark 
 night.
 
 294 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 The river was rushing and roaring more 
 fearfully, Carlo thought, than at any spot of its 
 course along which he had passed. The 
 foaming waters heavily charged with earth, and 
 continually bringing down evidences of all sorts 
 of havoc, worked higher up the valley, reached 
 to within a foot of the top of the dyke. And 
 they were rising ever}^ minute ! 
 
 " Is it thought that there is danger of the 
 dyke breaking here 1 " asked Carlo breathlessly 
 of a man who appeared to be carefully mea- 
 suring the rise of the river with his eye. 
 
 The man looked up at him surprised. 
 
 " Ah ! you are a stranger in these parts ! " 
 he said. " But I should have thought that any 
 child could see that with half an eye ! Danger 1 
 Look at that river ! In a quarter of an hour 
 it will be running where that house stands, as 
 it is running here now ! " 
 
 '' Good God ! " exclaimed Carlo, turning pale. 
 '• Where is Farmer Bartoli '? Is he here 1 " 
 
 " Do you know him ? IIum23li ! He is down 
 at Saint Martin's sluices. Word was brouo;ht
 
 SERCHIO IN ANGER. 295 
 
 that the river had broken bank there ; and he 
 went off to see what could be done to save the 
 cattle in Saint Martin's meadow/' 
 
 " The dyke has given way at Saint Martin's 1" 
 asked Carlo. 
 
 "I don't think so. I think the news was 
 false," said the man he was speaking to ; " for 
 there has been no fall of the water here ; and 
 there would have been for awhile, at least, if 
 the bank had been broken below." 
 
 " "Would it not be better to send after him, 
 and call him here '? " 
 
 " Humph ! I suppose he knows his own 
 business best. It depends which he values most, 
 his bullocks or his daughter," said the man, with 
 a gruff laugh. 
 
 " Gracious heaven ! Is the Signorina Bartoli 
 in the house there, and nobody with her '? " cried 
 Carlo, aghast with terror. 
 
 " Why where should she be '? I suppose she 
 has got old Caterina with her. All the men folk 
 are on the dyke, of course ! If the Signorina 
 Regina wanted people to think of her when she
 
 296 THE DREAM NUMBEES. 
 
 was in trouble, she should ha' thought more of 
 them at other times ! " said the fellow, sulkily. 
 
 " God in heaven ! And the waters may be 
 over the house in another minute ! " cried Carlo, 
 springing forward as he spoke, to bound down 
 those steps in the side of the dyke, close by the 
 little chapel, by which he had so often descended 
 in a very different mood of mind. 
 
 But as he was in the act of throwing himself 
 down the side of the embankment, he was 
 seized by a powerful arm, whether that of the 
 man who had just before been speaking to him, 
 or another, he did not know, and plucked 
 violently backward. 
 
 " Here it comes ! " 
 
 " The dyke is going ! The dyke is going ! " 
 
 " Look to yourselves, all of you ! '' he heard, 
 amid the outcry of a hundred voices. 
 
 " Come all to this side ! All here ! and be 
 ready with a hand to the sheets and the fag- 
 gots ! '^ called out above the din the same voice 
 that had been speaking with Carlo. 
 
 And in the same instant, before he could
 
 SERCHIO IX AXGER. 297 
 
 recover himself from the impulsion of the force 
 ^vith which he had been dragged backwards, 
 Carlo found himself in the midst of the crowd, 
 and saw the top of the dyke dissolve itself, as it 
 were, so as to open a passage to the water. At 
 first only a channel of the depth of a foot or 
 two below the surface of the water w^as opened ; 
 and through this the w^aters poured as through 
 a mill sluice, rushing down on to the terrace 
 walk and garden below. 
 
 Great efforts w^ere made by means of the 
 brushwood and faggots that had been collected, 
 and by spreading across the breach the great 
 canvas sheets, to dam up this channel, and, 
 if possible, to prevent it from becoming larger. 
 But it was very soon evident that this latter 
 hope w^as vain. The waters rushing through 
 the breach with terrible violence, opened a 
 larger outlet for themselves from moment to 
 moment. And it became very clear that all 
 the means provided were utterly insufficient for 
 the end in view. The garden, the farm-yard, 
 the out-buildings of Ripalta were evidently
 
 298 THE DPvEAM NUMBERS. 
 
 doomed, as far as submersion could avail to 
 destroy them. 
 
 Then it became a question how far the house 
 itself was in dano-er. Some said that the house 
 would stand safe enough ; that the ground-floor 
 would be water-logged ; but that there was no 
 possibihty that the waters should reach the 
 upper floor. But then some one who knew the 
 house spoke of the vast cellarage under it. 
 This would, of course, be entirely filled, and 
 there was great probability — almost a certainty, 
 indeed — that the water would burst up the 
 vaulting of the range of cellars. And it might 
 be doubtful whether the injury to the old fabric 
 caused by this violence might not be sufiicient 
 to render the foundations unable to resist the 
 pressure on them. 
 
 Carlo had, when the dyke first began to give 
 way, strenuously laboured to assist in the 
 attempt to stem the torrent by means of fag- 
 gots and canvas. All such scenes and matters 
 were new to him. But in the excitement of the 
 moment, and in that eager desire to do some-
 
 SERCHIO IN ANGER. 299 
 
 what to meet the clanger, which men are so apt 
 to feel in such cases, he had thrown himself 
 with fury into the work in w^hicli he saw others 
 engaged. Then, when it became evident that 
 all the efforts were unavailing, and the crowd 
 ceasing from them stood with excited faces 
 gazing at the devastation which they were 
 powerless to check, Carlo heard such specula- 
 tions as the above as they passed from mouth 
 to mouth, and felt as if turned to stone at the 
 thought of Regina's position, as he heard 
 them. 
 
 The breach in the dyke was by this time 
 sufficiently large to admit the passage of a body 
 of water equal in volume to a small river, 
 and the torrent rushed with terrible violence 
 into the low ground, foaming, raving, and 
 dashing itself into spray against the w^alls of 
 the old house. Already the farm-yard and 
 garden around it were turned into a lake, the 
 waters of which were rapidly rising every 
 instant. 
 
 For a few moments he remained wildly
 
 300 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 gazing at the scene, and striving to bring his 
 mind to bear ^Yith some approach to cahiiness 
 on the question what best could be done for the 
 extrication of Regina from her position. 
 
 But any such calm thinking was impossible 
 to him. The circumstances, the danger, the 
 extent of it, the nature of it, were all ;iew to 
 him. He was ignorant of the proper means of 
 dealing with or struggling against it. He was 
 like a landsman in a time of danger at 
 sea. 
 
 To remain standing there inactive, looking at 
 the waters as they raged round the house, 
 rising higher and higher every instant, knowing 
 that one a thousand times dearer to him than 
 himself was shut up within that prison ; that 
 she was there alone with none to help ; that 
 she was perhaps even then thinking of him and 
 washing that his arm was there to save her — to 
 stand there inactive while she was within a few 
 hundred yards of him, and with these thoughts 
 whirling through his brain, became impossible 
 to him.
 
 SERCHIO l^^ ANGER. 301 
 
 He had, however, sufficient self-command and 
 perception of the natm^e of the phenomena 
 around him to know that to have any chance of 
 reaching the house, he must avoid the imme- 
 diate rush of the stream, which was now 
 billowing througn the breach of the dyke with 
 the violence and body of water of a mill-race. 
 He ran up the dyke, therefore, a few yards to 
 the spot w^iere it overhung the extremity of the 
 terrace walk, and there, regardless of the out- 
 cries and warnings of the crowd, he dashed 
 down the side of the embankment into the 
 w^ater. He was wholly unable to swim, and 
 had the w^ater been already out of his depth, 
 must inevitably have been lost. It was not so 
 as yet, how^ever, though rapidly increasing in 
 depth. But it w^as already fully up to his 
 chest, and it w^as with the utmost difficulty that 
 he could keep his feet. The difficulty of doing 
 this was the greater from the circumstance that 
 he was altogether unprepared for it. He had 
 no idea of the degree in wdiich water in violent 
 movement and heavily charged with earthy
 
 302 THE DEE AM NUMBEES. 
 
 matter is capable of puzzling and baffling even 
 a strong man struggling with it. 
 
 With much difficulty he reached the door of 
 the house. The water reached more than half 
 way to the top of it. An attempt had been 
 made hastily on the first threatening of danger 
 to defend it in some degree by a rapidly raised 
 wall of bricks laid on each other edgeways with 
 plaster of Paris cement. It was impossible to 
 open the door. Carlo managed to ring the 
 bell ; called aloud, and beat at the upper 
 portion of the door, while holding on by one of 
 those huge iron rings, which are often found by 
 the side of the entrances to old Italian houses. 
 
 Presently he heard the Yoice of old Caterina 
 speaking to him from an upper window ; and in 
 the next instant saw Regina herself at the same 
 window. 
 
 " Carlo ! Carlo ! Is it possible '? Is it you ? 
 Thanks be to God and to the blessed Madonna, 
 for your coming here ! My good Carlo ! If 
 everybody forgot your poor Regina, you would 
 not forget her."
 
 SEECHIO m AIs^GEE. 303 
 
 " How is it possible to get to you, Regina 
 mia, tesoro del mio cuore ? How can I get 
 into the house % " 
 
 " If you could get round to the garden side, 
 the water will be less deep there than here. 
 Then you could climb into the loggia. With a 
 rope to help you, it would be easy. If only you 
 can get round." 
 
 But Carlo was already making the attempt. 
 He got to the angle of the house very well, but 
 there, in consequence of a sudden difference in 
 the level of the soil, so violent a current was 
 sweeping along the side of the house, in such 
 sort as to meet him as he tried to round the 
 corner, that he was taken off his legs ; and had 
 it not been for the bars of a window, by which 
 he was fortunately holding on by his hands, it 
 would have gone hard with him. By this help, 
 however, he made his way against the current 
 round the corner of the building, and having 
 accomphshed that, found less difficulty in the 
 remainder of the task of reaching the loggia, 
 lookinof into the garden. From this, Eegina,
 
 304 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 aided by old Caterina, had already thrown 
 a rope made fast round one of the coknnns; 
 and thus assisted, Carlo found little difficulty 
 in clambering into the loggia. 
 
 " We are all alone/' said Regina, as he landed 
 himself on the floor of the loggia, " father has 
 o'one to St. Martin's meadow to look after the 
 cattle. He never guessed that there was any 
 danger in this part of the dyke. It was thought 
 to be the strongest bit of dyke anywhere about. 
 Oh ! how thankful I am to you for coming to 
 us ! I thought you were at Uzzano. I dare 
 not ask you for news of your journey/' 
 
 " It was all over, dearest, hours before I got 
 there. My poor dear father died very shortly 
 after my mother wrote. But those are subjects 
 for another time. The question now is, what 
 can be done to get you away from this place ? " 
 
 " Get me away, Carlo ! " replied she, looking 
 at him with great surprise, " what do you 
 mean '? What can you be thinking of \ Why 
 should I go away *? Indeed, how could I leave 
 the house till the water subsides '? "
 
 SERCHIO IK ANGEE. 305 
 
 " You must come away, and that at once ! 
 Dearest Regina, you are in great danger here — 
 a danger increasing every moment ! " 
 
 " You frighten me, Carlo ! What danger can 
 there be to any one in this house '? " 
 
 '*' Danger to the house itself, Regina — danger 
 that the house may be borne down from its 
 foundations by the waters." 
 
 " Che ! che ! amico mio ! It is not so bad as 
 that. This old house is sohd, built as they used 
 to build in the old time. There can be no 
 danger here." 
 
 " Dearest, you deceive yourself ! The im- 
 mense cellars will be filled with water — are, no 
 doubt, full now. Then the still rising water 
 will in all probability burst up the vaulting, and 
 then who knows whether the old walls would 
 resist the pressure ? '' 
 
 " Dice bene, il Signor Carlo ! " put in the old 
 servant ; " Pur troppo, the cellars are full of 
 water ! I went down . . . ." 
 
 " Hark ! " cried Carlo, raising his finger^ 
 " hark ! What is that 1 '' 
 
 VOL. I. X
 
 306 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 E-egina turned very pale as, one after the 
 other, three dull-sounding reports were heard, 
 as it seemed to them immediately under their 
 feet. The sound was like that of a cannon 
 heard at a great distance. And each report was 
 followed by a noise like that of water disturbed 
 by large masses thrown into it. But the sensa- 
 tion was far more terrible than the mere sound. 
 The vibration caused by the shock was very un- 
 mistakeably felt, and the entire building seemed 
 to tremble to its foundations. 
 
 " Sa7ita Madonna ! abbia pieta di not ! Mise- 
 ricordia ! '' cried old Caterina, falling on her 
 knees, and vociferating as she crossed herself 
 again and again. 
 
 " It is the bursting up of the vaults ! It is the 
 danger I was telhng you of, Regina. You must 
 come away at once ! '' said Carlo, hurriedly, in 
 an under voice, as if he feared to be overheard 
 by the malicious power that was working this 
 evil. 
 
 ^y Santa Madonna auitaci ! '^ cried Regina, 
 who seemed, however, to put her practical trust
 
 SERCHIO IN ANGER. 307 
 
 in Carlo rather than in the Madonna, for she 
 cowered up close to his side, and seized his arm 
 with both her hands. 
 
 " Regina ! anima di mia vita ! my Hfe ! my 
 love ! '' cried Carlo, passing his arm round her 
 waist, and pressing her to his side, " do not be 
 terrified. I am here ! I am with you ! But 
 there is no time to lose. You must come away 
 from the house at once.'^ 
 
 " But how, Carlo mio f How can I go 
 through that water % I shall be drowned ! " 
 
 " I can get you through. I will support you. 
 It is not so deep. The difficulty is to keep your 
 feet; and two are better than one for that. 
 We shall help each other. Come, dearest, come 
 at once." 
 
 *' But how can we get out of the house % It 
 is impossible to open the door ! " 
 
 " We must go as I came. You must chng to 
 the rope, and let yourself down into the water. 
 I shall be below to catch you. If you fall, it is 
 not like falling on land ; you will fall on the 
 water, and not hurt yourself Anything is 
 
 X 2
 
 308 THE DREAM Is^UMBERS. 
 
 better than staying to be crushed under the 
 ruins of the house. Come, dearest — dearest 
 Regina ! " 
 
 He led her to the column of the loggia to 
 which the rope he had climbed up by still re- 
 mained attached, and showed her how to hold 
 it, and to assist herself by it in descending into 
 the water — a distance of not more than eight or 
 nine feet. And then he took the rope in his 
 hands, to help himself down by it. 
 
 " But you won t leave me, Signer Carlo ! 
 You won't abandon me, all by myself, to be 
 drowned in this house, like a rat in a hole ! " 
 whimpered poor old Caterina. 
 
 " Somebody shall come for you. If nobody 
 else comes first, I will come back for you. I 
 promise you that I will. But it is impossible 
 for me to take two at a time. Do not be afraid, 
 Caterina, poveriiia ! I swear to you that you 
 shall be brought aw^ay I " 
 
 And so saying, Carlo easily jumped down 
 into the \Yater, which w^as, on that side of the 
 house, not more than four feet deep. But, as
 
 SERCHIO IN ANGER. 809 
 
 he noticed, it had been less when he had 
 reached the house. 
 
 Eegina got safely on to the cornice outside of 
 the parapet wall of the loggia, holding fast by 
 the rope. But having accomplished that much, 
 she was at a loss what to do next, and stood 
 looking down at Carlo in the thick muddy water 
 below, and hesitating to make the jump. 
 
 " If the rope puzzles you, dearest, let it go, 
 and simply jump into the water, you will not be 
 hurt. But we have no time to lose ; it is 
 getting deeper every minute. Jump, dearest ! 
 I will catch you." 
 
 Just at that moment another explosion was 
 heard from the cellar, less violent than the pre- 
 ceding ones ; but it had the effect of deciding 
 the frightened girl to make the needful jump. 
 Quitting the rope, and stretching out her arms 
 towards Carlo, she sprang, and, falling into the 
 water close by his side, received no other harm 
 than a complete wetting. He had not been able 
 to prevent her from so falling, as for a moment 
 to be plunged over her head into the water.
 
 310 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 But the next moment he had her standing up 
 by his side, with his arm round her waist. The 
 over-head-and-ears plunge, however, the motion 
 of the water all around her, the tendency of it 
 to take her legs from under her, the newness of 
 the whole scene and sensation, so dazed and be- 
 wildered her that she almost lost the conscious- 
 ness of what she was about. And it was with 
 great difficulty that Carlo, half carrying, half 
 leading, half dragging her through the water, 
 was enabled to get her first to the garden ter- 
 race, and thence to the top of the dyke. No- 
 thing, save the great strength and vigour and tall 
 stature of the young mountaineer, would have 
 rendered the feat possible. 
 
 When he reached the terrace, pausing for a 
 moment to recover his breath, as he stood with 
 his burthen, half fainting in his arms, in the less 
 deep water of that higher level,* he shouted to 
 the people on the top of the dyke, w^ho had 
 been watching his progress, that the old servant 
 was still in the house — that the vaults were 
 burst up — and that somebody must go and
 
 SERCHIO IN ANGER. 311 
 
 fetch her away. None of those on the dyke 
 seemed disposed to undertake the task ; and 
 Carlo thought that he should have to recom- 
 mence his work under somewhat less inspiring 
 circumstances. But just at that moment a 
 young contadino came along the dyke, who 
 was at once recognised by several of the by- 
 standers as old Caterina's son. 
 
 " Ohe, Cecco ! " cried one, " here is a chance 
 of a washing for you ! There's your mother in 
 casa Bartoli, there all alone ! They fear the 
 house is coming down, and the old woman has 
 nobody to help her away." 
 
 Cecco waited for no further instructions, but 
 dashed into the water. 
 
 " You must go round to the garden front of 
 the house," cried Carlo from the terrace, as the 
 young man came down the dyke, "and there 
 you will find a rope by which you can climb 
 into the loygia. I left your mother there. Make 
 haste, for the water is still rising ! " 
 
 Then Carlo, after his few moments of pause, 
 set himself to what was perhaps the most diffi-
 
 312 THE DREAM NUMBEltS. 
 
 cult part of his task — the getting of Regina up 
 the steep side of the dyke through the rush of 
 earth and rubbish-charged water. The people 
 at the top held out to him the end of a long pole 
 — the only means of assistance that chanced to 
 be at hand. And at last, panting, and almost 
 exhausted, he reached the top, ^vith Regina, half 
 fainting, in his arms. 
 
 He would fain have made his way at once 
 through the crowd, which still remained watch- 
 ing the water careering through the breach in 
 the dyke, and speculating on the probable fate 
 of Farmer Bartoli's house, but it was absolutely 
 necessary, as well for his own sake as that of 
 Regina, to pause for a few moments. 
 
 A salvo of " hravos " and " evvivas " had 
 saluted him as he reached the top of the bank. 
 But having thus expressed their first feeling, 
 they began, as Tuscans always do, to criticise. 
 
 " What did he bring the girl out of the house 
 at all for ? She was safe enough there ! " said 
 one. 
 
 "I suppose he liked the job/' sneered another.
 
 SERCHIO IN ANGER. 313 
 
 " A very little more of the job, and he would 
 never have wanted another ; nor she, neither, I 
 reckon," said a third. 
 
 " I wonder what the farmer will say to it '? " 
 
 " Shame he was not here ! '^ 
 
 " A man can't be in two places at once ! He 
 is looking after the cattle." 
 
 "Shouldn't w^onder if he didn't thank this 
 young Caroli, at all, for taking his girl out of 
 the house that way." 
 
 " Likely enough he has saved her life ! Oh, 
 scusi Signore,'' continued the last speaker, ad- 
 dressing Carlo, " were the vaults of the cellars 
 burst up ? " 
 
 " Yes ; we heard them going off like cannon- 
 shots, as we stood on the loggia'' said Carlo. 
 
 " Then you did wisely to come away and 
 bring the signorina with you. I'll lay a bet the 
 house don't stand till morning ! " 
 
 Regina was by this time a little bit recovered, 
 and Carlo was anxious to get her, drenched to 
 the skin and shivering as she was, into some 
 shelter. He knew of no better plan than to
 
 314 THE DREAM NUMBEES. 
 
 take her to Signora Monaldi, at Sponda Lunga. 
 The distance was not great, and perhaps the 
 ^valk thither was as good treatment for Regina 
 as any that could be devised. 
 
 " Can you walk now, dearest '? " he whispered 
 to her, pressing her hand which was in his, as 
 he spoke. 
 
 " Yes, Carlo ! I can walk, but where can I 
 go ? What can I do ? Where can I find 
 father ? How can we help poor Caterina 1 " 
 
 " Her son is gone to her ; he will bring her 
 away. The best thing will be for you to come 
 to the widow Monaldi's at Sponda Lunga. It 
 is not far. The walk will warm you a little. 
 Will you try, my heart's treasure V he whis- 
 pered in her ear. 
 
 " Oh, I am not afraid of the walk. I am 
 quite well, barring being wet, and my things so 
 heavy with water and mud. But . . . ." 
 
 " But what, dearest ? What can we do 
 better ? What is your objection 1 " 
 
 " Only that , . . " and Regina made a little 
 inarticulate grumbling sound between her closed
 
 SERCHIO IN ANGER. 315 
 
 lips accompanied by a twist of her pretty 
 shoulders, while a tinge of colour came into 
 her pale cheek . . . . " only that it is like going 
 to your house, you know ! '' 
 
 This was still said in a whisper ; and Carlo 
 answered in the same tone, speaking urgently 
 and seriously. 
 
 " Not so ! not a bit, signora ! I do not even 
 live in the house ! My quarters are in a different 
 building at the back of the house. The Signora 
 Marta will take all care of you. And you must 
 go somewhere ! " 
 
 So Eegina got up from the bank on which 
 she had sat down on scrambling up out of the 
 water, and allowed Carlo to lead her out of the 
 crowd, and along the bank towards Sponda 
 Lunga. The rain had by this time at length 
 ceased. But the night was as dark as pitch. 
 They could not see the river as they walked ; 
 but they heard it all the way roaring and 
 grumbling and splashing at their side. They 
 were weary, exhausted, not less from the 
 emotions they had gone through than from
 
 316 THE DREAM NUMBERS 
 
 bodily exertion, wet and chilled to the marrow 
 of their bones .... and yet, wonderful to 
 say, the impression remained with both of 
 them, that their walk that night was the plea- 
 santest passeggiata that either of them had ever 
 had. 
 
 While standing at the back door of the 
 widow's cottage, which was the one usually 
 opened after nightfall, Carlo before knocking at 
 it, took the cold and dripping figure of the girl 
 in his arms, and gave and received one kiss 
 from the blue cold lips, tliat made the inunda- 
 tion and its consequences appear to him to be a 
 heaven-sent blessing. 
 
 " You have saved ray life, Carlo," she whis- 
 pered in his ear ; " and it is and shall be yours, 
 and yours only."
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE DREAM. 
 
 The rain ceased an hour or two after sun- 
 down on the evening of the flood, after having 
 been incessantly falHng for more than forty 
 hours. But it was still several hours more 
 before the waters began to abate. Very large 
 quantities of rain had fallen on the Apennines, 
 and every mountain torrent still continued to 
 bring down more than the ordinary water- 
 courses could carry off to the sea. 
 
 The sun, therefore, when he arose on the 
 following morning, looking brilliantly beaming 
 out of a cloudless turquoise-coloured sky, just 
 as if nothing amiss had happened since he had 
 last shown his face, lighted up many a wide 
 waste of waters and many a scene of ruin. The
 
 318 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 valley of the Sercliio and the flat country around 
 Lucca were still covered with water. 
 
 In the hill country, and at Uzzano the case 
 was different. There things returned to their 
 ordinary appearance much more quickly. The 
 crisis of the flood had been, as will be remem- 
 bered, on the evening of the day on which Carlo 
 CaroH had left Uzzano. The next morning in 
 the httle hill town, the sky was bright, the air 
 was clear, and all the pleasanter for the rain- 
 fall, and everybody was busied with their usual 
 avocations. 
 
 The widow Barbara Caroli, however, arose 
 that day bent on an undertaking very much out 
 of the usual tenor of her life. She was medi- 
 tating nothing less than an expedition to 
 Florence. The Signora Sibilla Gralli stepped 
 over from the priest's house early ; and it was 
 evident that the projected expedition had been 
 undertaken with her privity and approbation. 
 
 " Well, Signora Barbara ! " she said as she 
 entered the house, " who is in the right now 1 
 You thought that the rain yesterday was a
 
 THE DREAM. 319 
 
 sign as the Saints did not approve your going. 
 But I knew better ! And now look at the 
 weather ! If ever you could have a morning as 
 said plainer that Heaven meant it for travelling 
 in, / don't understand anything about it. But 
 I suppose you are convinced now ! " 
 
 " Well, yes ; I suppose it is all right ! I put 
 up a candle to Saint Barbara last night, and 
 blew at it for going and not going. And not 
 going blew it out directly ! Yes ! I suppose 
 the Saints intend me to go ! " 
 
 " Why, when I tell you so ! I suppose you 
 will own I ought to know ! There is the train 
 at ten o'clock, gets to Florence at half-past 
 twelve. I suppose you will go by that "? " 
 
 " Yes, I suppose that will be best.'' 
 
 " And be sure you go straight to my brother's 
 at once ; you have got the address in writing, 
 in case you forget it, Xo. 50 on the bridge." 
 
 " Yes, I shan't forget ! " 
 
 " And, of course, you won't let another soul 
 see it ! That would spoil all, you know ! " 
 
 " Trust me for that ! "
 
 320 THE DREAM KUMBEES. 
 
 "And you \^-ill be back by this evening, I 
 suppose? " 
 
 " Oh, yes ; what should I do in Florence 1 I 
 shall be glad to be back again as soon as possible. I 
 shall be here by the five o'clock train, most likely.'* 
 
 " Well, then, a happy journey to you, and 
 good luck, Signora Barbara ! I must be going 
 back to his reverence." 
 
 Soon after this conversation, the widow Bar- 
 bara started on her walk down the mountain to 
 Pescia, to join the train. But for the due 
 understanding of the purpose of her journey, 
 and of some of the words of the widow's conver- 
 sation with her gossip La Sibilla, it will be neces- 
 sary to go back to the old Casa Trendi, in the 
 TJzzano main street, on the night of the day on 
 which Francesco Caroli had died, and on which 
 the Signora Barbara had a few hours previously 
 written to her son. 
 
 The Signora Caroli had pretty well known 
 that her husband was dying, when she wrote 
 that letter to her son. But she had not 
 imagined that the end was so near. She was
 
 THE DREAM. 321 
 
 alone in the old house with him, when he died, 
 sinking at last quite suddenly, and passing 
 away without any struggle or apparent con- 
 sciousness. Her gossip, Sibilla Gralli, had come 
 in not long afterwards, and had found her 
 friend in the act of giving way to all that 
 loud manifestation of vociferous grief to which 
 southern natures are so prone. The duties of 
 the Signora Sibilla to the Eev. Don Pasquale 
 Mommi, the arch-priest of Uzzano, her cousin 
 and employer, would not permit her to remain 
 with the widow during the night. But an old 
 woman was found to undertake this duty. 
 And the Signora Barbara was with some diffi- 
 culty after awhile persuaded to go to bed. 
 The Signora Sibilla went home to her duties at 
 the parsonage, and the dilapidated and dreary 
 old " Casa Trendi " was shut up for the night, 
 with the widow, the old watcher, and the corpse, 
 as its sole inmates. 
 
 Under such circumstances it would not 
 have been surprising, if the imagination of any 
 woman so situated had been excited, and dis- 
 
 VOL. I. Y
 
 322 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 posed to play some of those strange tricks by 
 which poor mortals are so often fooled. But 
 the Italians, though imaginative enough in some 
 respects, are very little so in this sort. And 
 imagination, being but a reproducing faculty, 
 can but represent in fresh grouping those 
 images and ideas with which the mind in its 
 more sober moments is habitually occupied. 
 Thus the nervous excitement of the Signora 
 Barbara CaroH took the form of prompting her 
 to dream of numbers — certain numbers which 
 of course were at once miderstood to be the 
 numbers which would come up out of the wheel 
 at the next drawing of the state lottery. 
 
 Yes ! there was no mistake about it ! She 
 dreamed that she saw luminously emblazoned 
 on the wall of the chamber opposite to her as 
 she lay in her bed the numbers " 19, 26, 87.'' 
 There were other numbers on the wall, but 
 they were hazy, indistinct, and illegible. The 
 figure of her departed husband was standing 
 by the spot, and was pointing earnestly to the 
 above three numbers.
 
 THE DEEAM. 323 
 
 The dreaming woman waked, and after a 
 few minutes' reflection rose from her bed, and 
 finding a fragment of charcoal in the long fire- 
 less hearth, scrawled with it on the door of the 
 room those three numbers, " 19, 26, 87." 
 
 She listened at the door of the chamber for 
 a minute ; but all was profoundly still in the 
 death chamber below. In all probabihtj the 
 old watcher was sleeping as placidly and only 
 somewhat less profoundly than the figure which 
 was taking its long repose by her side. 
 
 Signora Caroli returned to her bed ; again 
 slept, and again dreamed very unmistake- 
 ably of the same numbers. Again she saw 
 "19, 26, 87'' emblazoned in light on the 
 wall. Again the form of her dead husband 
 stood by them. But this time his action was 
 more energetic. He covered the other in- 
 distinct numbers with his hand, shaking his 
 head frowningly as he did so. Then, pointing 
 to the plainly legible three numbers, he nodded 
 violently, and tapped with his forefinger on them 
 again and again with concentrated expression. 
 
 Y 2
 
 324 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 Again the widow waked ; and again she 
 assured herself by reflection of the certainty 
 of the dream. The completeness of the warn- 
 ing, according to universally recognised opinion, 
 required, however, that the dream should be 
 repeated yet a third time. The widow slept 
 again ; and lo ! it was so. Again the de- 
 signated numbers were presented to her, this 
 time repeated again and again all over the 
 wall ! ! ! 
 
 It became very serious. A better defined 
 and less doubtful case of revelation was scarcely 
 ever known. Dreams are the means, as is well 
 known, by which the supernal powers are in 
 the habit of communicating on many subjects 
 with favoured mortals. But, as is notorious 
 throughout Italy, there is no subject upon 
 which revelations are more frequently vouch- 
 safed in this manner than the lotterj^ It 
 might seem at first sight as if such private 
 and exclusive information involved something 
 in the nature of a wrong and a fraud. But it 
 is to be remembered that the party who has
 
 THE DREAM. 325 
 
 to pay the lottery prizes is only "the govern- 
 ment." And as to where "the government" 
 gets the money to pay with, why you might 
 just as well ask where the skies get the rain 
 from which they water the earth with ! There 
 is nothing the Madonna and the Saints think so 
 much of as cash, in the behalf of their special 
 disciples and favourites. And the common 
 way in which they enrich them is by giving 
 them a hint of the winning numbers in the 
 lottery. 
 
 Often it happens, either in consequence of 
 the Saint carelessly expressing himself indis- 
 tinctly, or else from some subsequent arrange- 
 ment of the lottery drawing, made at the last 
 moment with special views by superior celestial 
 authority, the information vouchsafed turns out 
 unavailable. But there never was a finer or 
 better defined case of revelation than that of 
 the Signora Barbara. And the widow arose in 
 the morning full of meditation on the subject, to 
 the entire exclusion of all other matters. 
 
 In order, however, that the nature of the
 
 326 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 information thus vouchsafed to the widow, and 
 the full value of it may be rightly understood 
 and appreciated by the English reader, it is 
 necessary to explain very briefly the nature 
 and system of the Italian government lotteries. 
 Every week, sometimes in one of the principal 
 cities and sometimes in another, the lottery is 
 drawn. An upholstery -adorned scaffold is 
 prepared. Civic magistrates in their official 
 dresses are in attendance ; a band of music 
 also ; and two little boys in gorgeous attire 
 stand at either side of a machine like a re- 
 •volving butter churn. These children take 
 from this wheel one by one the scrolls 
 which have been placed in it in the presence 
 of the public, and hand them to the magis- 
 trate, who declares the result. The part of the 
 system most necessary to be explained, how- 
 ever, is this. The numbers put into the wheel 
 are ninety, and ninety only ; every number 
 from one to ninety. Five numbers only are 
 drawn from the wheel, and then the drawing 
 is over. Now upon these five events it is
 
 THE DREAM. 327 
 
 evident that a vast variety of bets may be 
 made, and combinations of chances speculated 
 on. Simplest case of all — I go to the lottery 
 office and buy a ticket bearing five numbers 
 selected at my pleasure between one and 
 ninety. And I pay any sum I please, betting- 
 such sum on the event that one of my five 
 numbers shall be one of the five numbers drawn 
 from the wheel. This is an " estratto sem- 
 pliceT Or I take five numbers and bet that 
 one of them shall be the first or the second 
 number drawn from the wheel, and so on. 
 '^Estratto semplice determinato." Or I may 
 bet that two of my numbers come up — an 
 *' ambo ;" or that three come up — a " ternor 
 It is evident, in short, that the combinations 
 possible are very numerous. But the favourite 
 form of gambling is to go for an " estratto 
 semjolice " or for a " terno!' Of course in the 
 latter case the winnings bear an enormously 
 higher proportion to the sum risked. In every 
 case, however, the prizes are so calculated that 
 the winner receives as nearly as may be fifteen
 
 828 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 per cent, less than he ought to do, if the 
 gambhng were conducted on perfectly equable 
 terms. It is to be observed also, that in this 
 system, there is no such thing as an applicant 
 not being able to have the ticket asked for 
 because it has been sold. One man may take 
 numbers one to five, and a dozen others may 
 select the same. But the government reserves 
 to itself the right of declaring all stakes 
 off at any time before the drawing, in case 
 there may have chanced such a run upon the 
 same numbers as might, in the event of such 
 numbers coming up, cause a greater loss to 
 the exchequer than the government cares to 
 face. 
 
 It was very evident that the celestial powers 
 who had so benignly condescended to reveal to 
 Signora Barbara Caroli the knowledge they 
 naturally possessed, by virtue of heing celestial 
 powers, respecting the issue of the next lottery 
 drawing — it was very evident, I say, that the 
 supernal powers intended that the widow should 
 go for a ''ternor I believe, indeed, that the
 
 THE DREAM. 329 
 
 saints rarely condescend to play for anything 
 under that. And Signora Sibilla Gralli, who 
 from her position in the priest's household was 
 necessarily a great authority upon all such sub- 
 jects, declared, when consulted on the point in 
 the morning, that it would be a gross sin not to 
 profit to the utmost by the proffered good-will 
 of heaven. 
 
 Profit to the utmost I Yes ! it was easy to 
 say profit to the utmost ! But the Saints are 
 never known to provide the means of buying a 
 ticket ! The lottery officers are inexorable in 
 requiring the stipulated amount of cash down. 
 And the supernal powers have never been 
 known, even in the best authenticated and 
 most remarkable cases of lottery revelation, to 
 take upon themselves this. part of the business. 
 The gambler must provide the price of his 
 ticket in cash by mortal and sublunary means. 
 Too often the means adopted are indeed sub- 
 lunary to the exclusion of sub-solar methods of 
 raising the wind. 
 
 Poor Signora Barbara Caroli, however, had
 
 330 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 no idea of turning into one of the moon's 
 minions, and taking a purse on the road, even 
 if the Uzzano roads had been productive of 
 such things. And how was the money for the 
 purchase of a lottery ticket on any such scale, 
 as would do honour to the heavenly revelation 
 vouchsafed to her, to be found ? She was 
 absolutely without any ready cash. The last 
 illness of her husband, and the small expenses 
 connected with his funeral, had left her abso- 
 lutely penniless. Carlo, indeed, had promised 
 to send her a supply at the end of the month. 
 But if the heavenly warning was to be put to 
 profit, the need was immediate. It was on a 
 Monday evening that Francesco Caroli died. 
 It was on that night that the important dream 
 was dreamed. It was on the Wednesday 
 evening that the deceased was buried. It 
 was on the Thursday that Carlo returned 
 to Lucca. And it was on the Friday 
 morning that Signora Caroli was about to 
 start for Florence. And the lottery was to 
 be drawn on the Saturday ; tickets being to
 
 THE DREAM. 331 
 
 be purchased up to the latest hour on the 
 Friday flight. 
 
 The consultation, therefore, between the 
 widow and her confidante, during that hour 
 while Carlo had gone out, had turned mainly 
 on the financial question. But short time had 
 been given to any examination of the dream. 
 Sibilla Gralli at once pronounced it authentic 
 and of the highest value. It w^as the more 
 important and unmistakeable, that high au- 
 thority declared, from the fact of the dream 
 having come while the dead man w^as lying in 
 the house. Doubtless none other than her lost 
 husband himself was the informant. Doubtless 
 it was to his fond care for her welfare that 
 this valuable information w^as due. That the 
 departed spirit of the late Signer Caroli should 
 on passing from the body immediately become 
 aware of the numbers wdiich would be taken 
 at hazard from the wheel at Rome on the fol- 
 lowing Saturday, was too self-evident to need 
 even an instant's thought. In short, it was 
 the bounden duty of the widow to put the
 
 332 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 good information to the utmost possible profit. 
 But how to find the means of doing so ! That 
 was the question ! 
 
 The Signora Sibilla herself could give no aid 
 in this department. She abounded in counsel, 
 but was wholly devoid of cash. She at first re- 
 commended that, as a matter of course, the 
 good dream should be communicated to Carlo ; 
 and that he should be called on for aid in the 
 turning of it to account. But Signora Caroli 
 had manifested the utmost reluctance to speak 
 to her son on the subject at all. She knew that 
 he would not only ridicule and disbelieve her 
 dream entirely, but would be very strongly 
 opposed to her meddling with the lottery at all. 
 The Signora Sibilla groaned over the increasing 
 infidelity and atheism of the rising generation of 
 young men, and did not speak any more of ad- 
 mitting Signer Carlo to their counsels. 
 
 When Carlo left the two women together on 
 the second night of his visit to Uzzano — the 
 night of his father's funeral — they w^ere still 
 eagerly discussing the subject of ways and
 
 THE DREAM. 333 
 
 means. And as soon as they judged liim to have 
 gone to sleep, and the house was perfectly quiet, 
 they rose to make a thorough perquisition in 
 search of anything by the sale or pawning of 
 which the needed sum of money could be raised. 
 Now, in the large old-fashioned chamber in 
 which the late Signer Caroli and his wife had 
 slept during all the years of their married life, 
 there was in the thickness of the wall, close to 
 the husband's side of the bed, a little narrow 
 closet, with a tiny window in it, a chair and a 
 desk. Such places are by no means uncommon 
 in Italian houses, the great thickness of the 
 walls generally used having, in all probability, 
 first suggested the construction of them. Pro- 
 bably the intended object of such retreats was 
 for prayer ; and in more prayerful days they 
 were no doubt used for that purpose. Perhaps 
 Signer Caroli used the one in his house for that 
 purpose ; perhaps it served him merely as a 
 place where he might, when he wished it, be 
 alone. However it might be, it had always 
 been considered as his especial sa7iciu?n, and he
 
 334 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 had been in the habit of keeping it locked. 
 The key however was easily found ; and the 
 two women, not without a certain sense of awe 
 and of wrong-doing, penetrated into the tiny 
 chamber. 
 
 There was very little of any sort in it. An 
 old arm-chair occupying the entire width of the 
 space in such sort that when it was drawn for- 
 ward the door could not be opened ; an old slop- 
 ing writing-shelf in front, similarly occupying 
 the whole width of the recess ; an old dry ink- 
 stand on this, and a few fragments of paper 
 lying about, were all that was to be seen, .... 
 with one exception. On the wall, over the 
 writing- shelf, hung an ivory crucifix. It was 
 rather a large one, some twenty inches or two 
 feet in height. The crucified figure of the 
 Saviour was of ivory, and the cross of ebony. 
 Signora Caroli had not seen this crucifix for 
 many years ; but she at once recollected that it 
 had been one of the very few possessions of her 
 late husband at the time of their marriage, and 
 that he had always valued it very highly.
 
 THE DREAM. 335 
 
 The two women stopped short and looked at 
 each other for a moment with speaking eyes, 
 but with silent tongues. 
 
 " It was his before we married ! " said Signora 
 Barbara at last, putting out her hand to take 
 the crucifix from its place on the wall. " It 
 is ever so long since I saw it. I know he 
 always valued it ! I suppose," she added, 
 after a pause, and looking cautiously and en- 
 quiringly into the face of the Signora Sibilla, 
 " I suppose that it is of no value to speak of" 
 
 The Signora Sibilla put out her hand 
 eagerly to take the crucifix, and examined it 
 attentively. 
 
 " I do not know," she said ; " I am not sure ; 
 I am not capace in such matters. But my notion 
 is that this crucifix is w^orth money. And any- 
 w^ay I know where to find one who would know, 
 and would tell one in a minute." 
 
 " You don't say so ! " said Signora Caroli, 
 looking frightened at the suggestion that pre- 
 sented itself to her mind. " You don't say so ! 
 But I should not Hke, you know, . . I shouldn't
 
 336 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 feel comfortable like to ask anybody. Why, 
 who, now, could I ask 1 " 
 
 *' Oh, somebody that will think nothing about 
 it ; somebody that never heard of 3^ou, and that 
 you never hes^-rd of; somebody far away from 
 here ! ^' 
 
 " Santa Madonna, Sibilla ! Who can you 
 mean 1 " said the proprietress of the object in 
 question, looking on it with greedy eyes. 
 
 " Well ! I will tell you what I mean, Barbara. 
 It's my brother, — my own brother.'' 
 
 " I never heard that you had a brother, 
 Signora Sibilla ! " 
 
 "Well, I have. He is a jeweller and dealer in 
 antiquities on the jewellers' bridge at Florence. 
 He would know in a minute what this is worth. 
 He is a good man, and would tell you true. 
 And if it is worth anything he would most 
 likely buy it himself I have seen much money 
 — ever so much — given for such things some- 
 times. And, I can't tell, but it looks to me as 
 if this was like one of them carvings of the old 
 time that is thought so much of"
 
 THE DREAM. 337 
 
 " You don't say so I " repeated the other, 
 gazing at her friend open-eyed. " But, Sibilla, 
 I should be afraid 1 " 
 
 " Afraid ! Signora Barbara ! What of, in the 
 name of Heaven 1 " 
 
 " Why . . . ." and the Signora CaroU looked 
 up and down, and right and left, and finally 
 dropped her eyes on the floor, — -"Why, afraid of 
 selling liis crucifix and he not in his grave yet ! 
 I am afraid it would be a sin ! '^ 
 
 " I should think I ought to know most about 
 that ! " returned the Signora Sibilla, severely, 
 " and I liviug with his reverence the arch-priest 
 now these fifteen years ! I think I ought to 
 know something about sins I Sin ! Why it is 
 flying in the face of Heaven not to profit by the 
 warning as you have had ! Don^t you think 
 that your blessed husband meant you to raise 
 the money for the numbers, and he a coming 
 from his grave to show 'em to you. I'll tell you 
 what would be a sin, Signora Barbara. It would 
 be a sin to let his good-will and Heaven's provi- 
 dence go for nothing ! If it was for any other 
 
 VOL. I. Z
 
 338 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 purpose, I don't say ! But when he, as told you 
 these numbers, is a lying in the house, and guid- 
 ing you at this minute to this blessed crucifix, 
 as you knew nothing about, I do say that your 
 duty is clear enough." 
 
 " But what would you have me do then, 
 Signora Sibilla ? " said the widow, timidly, 
 but yet evidently encouraged by her friend's 
 words. 
 
 '' Do ! Why take the crucifix in your hand, 
 wrap it up carefiilly, and as soon as ever Signer 
 Carlo is gone to-morrow morning, go with it to 
 Florence, and show it to Stefano Gralli on the 
 Ponte Vecchio." 
 
 " Go to Florence ! " said the widow, in amaze- 
 ment. 
 
 " Yes, go to Florence 1 What else 1 AVhy 
 not 1 " 
 
 " But the expense ! Any way the crucifix 
 can not be worth much more than what it would 
 cost me to get to Florence and back again," 
 objected the widow, timidly. 
 
 " C/ie ! not worth more ! If that is what I
 
 THE DREAM. 339 
 
 take it to be, you will get more than a couple of 
 hundred francs for it ! " 
 
 " A couple of hundred francs ! " said the 
 widow, in tones hardly above her breath ; " a 
 couple of hundred francs ! Sibilla, it seems as if 
 I was stealing it ! '' 
 
 " How can you talk in such a way, Barbara 
 Caroli ! Stealing, indeed ; and it is / who tell 
 you to do it ! Why, is it not yours, I should 
 like to know '? Whose should it be 1 Stealing, 
 ind^d ! " 
 
 " Well but, Signora Sibilla, if you think I 
 ought to take it — and for certain you ought to 
 know — how can I go to a man I never saw, and 
 say to him, ' Please to buy this crucifix/ He 
 will ask me, of course, who I am, and where I 
 got if? And then what shall I say '? " 
 
 *' Oh, never you mind about that ! I shall 
 give you a letter, and you will hand it to Signer 
 Gralli, and that will explain all about it. There 
 will be no questions asked, except to show him 
 the article I shall tell him of And then he will 
 tell you what it is worth, and will buy it if he
 
 340 THE DREAM NUMBEES. 
 
 can. If it is what I think it is, I have no doubt 
 that he will buy it." 
 
 The Signora Caroli was still not quite con- 
 vinced. There was something that grated 
 unpleasantly against her feelings in thus sell- 
 ing her husband's hoarded treasure the instant 
 the breath was out of his body. The fact 
 was, too, that the proposed transaction did 
 really come somewhat nearei- to stealing than 
 either of the women imagined. Legally the 
 widow had no light to make aw^ay with any of 
 the property of her husband^ without the con- 
 sent and co-operation of her son. But neither 
 of the w^omen were law^yers enough to know 
 this. However the crucifix was carefully and 
 reverently replaced on its hook in the wall;, and 
 the widow said she would think about the ad- 
 vice that had been given her. 
 
 She did think, and the more she thought the 
 more irresistible was the temptation of getting 
 money enough for such a venture in the lottery, 
 on the three super naturally indicated numbers, 
 as would beyond all possibihty of doubt bring a
 
 THE DREAAI. 3il 
 
 prize which would suffice to smooth the way for 
 Carlo's marriage, and make her comfortable. 
 There was also much more talk between the 
 two women — incessant talk, indeed, at every 
 moment they could find unencumbered by the 
 presence of Carlo. 
 
 And the result was that it was finally 
 determined that the Signora Carol i should 
 start for Florence on the Friday morning. 
 8he would arrive there abundantly early 
 enough to get her business transacted, so as 
 to have plenty of time for the purchase of a 
 ticket that night, if all went well according to 
 their hopes. 
 
 This, then, w^as the purpose of the Signora 
 Caroli's sudden and half secret journey to 
 Florence — half secret inasmuch as she had 
 uttered no word to her son of her intention. 
 
 She started on her w^alk down the hill with 
 the precious crucifix neatly packed in a napkin 
 in such a manner as to carefully conceal the 
 shape and nature of the contents of the parcel, 
 with a letter from the Signora Sibilla to her
 
 342 THE DREAM NUMBERS. 
 
 brother Stefano Gralli, on the Ponte Vecchio, 
 and with a paper in her bosom on which the 
 three fortunate numbers were written, in case 
 the deeply-engraved copy of them inside her 
 bosom should not prove sufficient to ensure the 
 remembrance of them. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 BRADBURY, EVANS, AND CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.