The Hound of Florence (18 page)

Bandini continued to pace restlessly up and down the studio. Presently he stopped in front of Ercole's capacious armchair and stood lost in thought before the charming little Madonna on the easel. At last he passed his hand caressingly over the velvet back of the chair, and shaking his head, moved away.

“This evening they will be back,” he said.

“Why?” enquired Lucas.

“They'll have to be back when we bury him, of course.” His words sounded like a reproof.

“When?” asked Lucas timidly. “Where will he be buried?”

“Don't you know?” exclaimed Bandini, with a look of surprise. “Why, up in Fiesole, in the cathedral.”

“Oh yes, of course,” exclaimed Lucas, as if the fact had momentarily slipped his memory. But the words, uttered under his breath, were inaudible.

Bandini went back to his easel and began to paint, perfunctorily, absent-mindedly. Presently he laid his palette and brushes down again, and going over to Ercole's place, sat down in the armchair, where he remained silently seated for some time.

Lucas too remained still and motionless and, with his hands in his lap, stared into space. Everything that had happened rushed in a sad, confused medley through his brain.

“Oh!” exclaimed Bandini suddenly, as though he had forgotten something. The cry brought Lucas back to earth. “Oh!” cried Bandini, rising from Ercole's armchair and clapping his hand to his brow. And going over to one of the tall carved cabinets, he unlocked it and took out a little picture. Lucas saw the gleam of the gilt frame.

“Come here, my son.”

Lucas hurried over to Bandini's side. He was holding the little picture in his hands. “This must be taken to the Archduke at the Palace. But I don't want to go there myself today. I don't want to,” he repeated with impatient emphasis. “I don't want to talk to anyone today!” Then growing calmer, he added. “But I promised to let the Archduke have this now, and I don't want him to have to wait for it. He is off in three days.”

Lucas quivered with joy. He had heard it again and this time it was certain—in three days!

“You go,” Bandini continued, “and give the picture to the Archduke or to Count Waltersburg, or someone. Tell them that I am not well—you understand!”

Lucas took the picture from his hands and started back in astonishment. It was Claudia's portrait, touched in with light rapid strokes in beautiful transparent colors, and so lifelike that she looked as though she might be listening to every word they were saying.

The shadow of a fleeting smile hovered round Bandini's lips as Lucas stood in absorbed enraptured contemplation of the picture.

“Just put a cloth round it,” he said kindly, “and be off!”

In the broad echoing corridor of the Palace, Lucas could not resist the temptation of going up to the open door and looking out into the courtyard which lay dazzling white in the sunshine before him. Across it the stable doors stood open, and the grooms were chattering together amid the stamping and snorting of the horses.

Lucas turned round and ascending the stairs, crossed two rooms and went through doors, apartments and corridors, all of which were quite familiar to him. He noticed that the servants were everywhere busy packing trunks, and preparing for the Archduke's departure. He was directed to Ugolino Corsini, whom he found at a table covered with books. Ugolino took the picture, gazed at it spellbound, and, turning his chubby face to Lucas, listened in silence while the latter explained that Bandini was indisposed and was unable to wait upon His Imperial Highness in person.

Lucas then took his leave and, as he wandered back aimlessly through the rooms, not paying any attention to where he was going, he suddenly found himself in the large empty hall, where, on the previous day, he had been made to chase the cat. He was seized with violent uneasiness. His eye fell on the door with the grill at the other end of the hall, and he ran toward it, filled with a sudden fear of seeing two familiar figures behind it, shouting wild commands at his head. Unconsciously he clasped a hand to his brow, touched the scar above his eye, which all at once had begun to sting, and then tore open the door in order to escape.

As he reached the outer vestibule, he suddenly found Master Pointner, who was just about to enter, standing in front of him. Seized with uncontrol­lable rage, he raised his fist without saying a word, and struck Master Pointner a violent blow in the face. Then he dashed past him as Pointner staggered to the wall, caught a glimpse, as he sprang toward the stairs, of the nose in his fat face bleeding, and was at the foot of the stairs before his victim could even cry out.

As he went out at the gate, his body swayed, his feet tripped lightly; in his clenched fist he tried to hold like a prize the blow he had just given. He laughed, gave a sigh of relief, laughed again.

Coming to a standstill on the bridge, he gazed with joyful eyes upon the city, which, cut in two at this spot by the river, lay spread out to view before his eyes, and once more he had the intoxicated feeling that the whole of life belonged to him. Wondering where to spend his time until evening, he started as a daring thought flashed through his mind, and quickly ran on.

At the door of Claudia's house he knocked loudly, afraid that delay might sap his courage. Caligula, the mulatto, opened the door, squinted at him in astonishment, and looked as though he meant to refuse him admittance. But Lucas pushed past him, and, catching sight of Peppina, called out to her. She tripped up to him with her usual mincing steps, smiled as though she knew all, and led him through a long corridor into the garden. Caligula gazed malevolently after them.

When Claudia's dark blue sparkling eyes rested enquiringly on him, searching his face, Lucas again lost confidence. The ecstasy with which Claudia's presence always filled him became more violent than ever. His presence of mind and composure failed him, and in trying to pull himself together, he exhausted himself in an effort at least to master his speech.

“So you come when you choose?” said Claudia. Astonishment and curiosity lay hid behind the haughty tone she adopted to conceal them.

“I come . . . I come . . .” stammered Lucas “. . . when I am allowed to.”

Side by side they walked on the fine, golden gravel of the narrow garden paths. Against a background of yew, which shielded them from the eyes of the world, the magnolias on their bare stems nodded their great blooms at them. The pines spread their peaceful branches silently above their heads, and at their feet the lawn was studded with beds of glowing hyacinths.

“Everybody has gone,” said Claudia, “they are all looking for that blackguard Peretti! If only they could find him! I wish he were dead! . . . I wish I had got Caligula to strangle him . . . or I wish,” she added in calm bitter tones, “Ercole da Moreno had killed him that night at table.”

Presently she turned her face to Lucas. “But it's not right for all of them to go away, and for no one to remember me. Not one of them has been near me, either yesterday or today. Even Cosimo has left me . . . you alone have come.” And again she smiled at him.

Lucas raised his arms, but she paid no heed to the gesture. “Oh my own Ercole!” she exclaimed mournfully, “My poor Ercole . . . my friend! . . . My friend!” And she bowed her head. “My friend!” she repeated in a whisper.

“Claudia . . .” said Lucas softly.

“Yes . . . you . . .” she replied gazing at him. “You are here, but not because of Ercole. What do you know of Ercole? Why have you come . . . why today? Why precisely now?”

“I love you . . .” he began, but his voice failed him and he stopped.

Claudia nodded. “You love me . . .” she said, nodding gently again and again, “you love me. . . .”

As he stood desperate before her, she suddenly seized him by the shoulder. . . . “And you have made me wait for you . . . you scorned me . . . you made me wait the whole night.”

Lucas bowed his head. “No one knows what I have suffered,” he gasped, pale as death, wringing his hands and scarcely able to breathe. “No one has any idea what I am suffering. . . . If I were as rich as the others. . . .”

“Hush!” cried Claudia gently. “If you were rich, you could never be as pale as you are now; there would never be a look of such devotion in your face, or such longing in your eyes.”

And she put her arms about his neck and kissed him.

They went indoors. Crossing the terrace from which Lucas had stolen away in despair on that moonlight night, they entered the room from which he had fled.

• • •

It was late at night when Lucas left Claudia's house, and hurried through the streets and out at the gate leading on to the road to Fiesole. As soon as he was out of the town he walked quickly, passing by other men whom in the dim light of the waning moon he could not recognize. Before he reached Badia he was overtaken by two horsemen, who shouted to him. They were Filippo Volta and Rossellino. “Jump up!” cried Filippo. Lucas sprang up behind him and thus they rode up to Fiesole.

In the middle of the cathedral which was illumined right up to the vaulted roof by candles and torches, and filled with the monotonous chants of the Franciscan friars, the black draped structure of the catafalque rose aloft, so that only the slanting sides of the coffin containing the last earthly remains of the Captain could be seen. But, at the head, Ercole's snow-white shock of hair was visible above the shell. Lucas was suddenly overcome with violent grief as, on looking up, his eyes fell upon those still, white locks.

Bandini had just entered, while Rossellino and a number of other young men, whom Lucas either did not know; or whom he had only met quite casually—artists and old army officers—had also arrived. They nodded to one another, stepped forward, formed a circle round the catafalque, and stood still and solemn in their places. Overcome with emotion, some of them were biting their lips and others breathing loud and heavily.

Behind them, in the pews on either side, Franciscan friars were kneeling, chanting their litany. The strains echoed harsh and tragic through the stone arches of the church.

Lucas took his place among his comrades, gazing up at the catafalque with his eyes fixed on the spot where the white shock of hair rose above the edge of the coffin like frozen flames.

Suddenly a tremor passed through the circle of mourners. They all seized their swords, and with one simultaneous movement, planted them point downward in front of them, and crossed their hands on their hats over the pommels. Whereupon Bandini's voice was heard:

“Pray let me live right long, O Lord!”

They all joined in.

The song rose above the litany of the friars, which instantly ceased. Spreading far and wide, the noble joy of the song soared aloft, enveloping in its vital rhythm the friend who had passed away.

And Lucas saw a tremor pass through the shock of snow-white hair above the coffin.

• • •

When Lucas entered the studio, he found Count Waltersburg talking to Bandini. “Tomorrow is our last day here,” he was saying. “We set off on our journey the day after tomorrow, just before midday. Can't you finish the picture by tomorrow?”

Clutching the back of his chair, Lucas looked across at the couple. Bandini shrugged his shoulders. “It will take me at least two or three weeks longer.”

Waltersburg tapped the floor impatiently with the point of his shoe.

“That's annoying—most annoying!”

“Besides, I don't feel in the mood to work at all,” continued Bandini slowly. “This business of the Captain—you know what I mean, my lord—is still lying heavy on my heart.”

“It's the devil!” cried Waltersburg. “What a curious crowd you have in this country! Why, a fellow has just given our Imperial master's Groom-of-the-Chamber a blow in the face. . . . Think of it, in broad daylight, and in the Palace too. Happened only two days ago.”

“Yes,” replied Bandini with a smile, “the people here need understanding, they soon flare up.”

“I beg your pardon,” said Waltersburg courteously, still looking astonished, “Pointner had never in his life set eyes on the fellow or exchanged a word with him. According to Pointner, the man glared at him mad with rage, and then, without a word, punched him violently in the face!”

“And the man himself . . . what happened to him?” enquired Bandini.

“Nothing!” cried Waltersburg, his voice shriller than ever. “He vanished as though the ground had swallowed him up. It was altogether a most unfortunate business for Pointner. A real piece of bad luck. He's lying seriously ill now and Heaven knows when he'll be on his legs again.”

“Was it such a terrific blow then?”

“No, not at all,” replied Waltersburg, pity, good-­nature and astonishment mingling in his voice. “The blow itself didn't hurt him much. As far as that is concerned, he is practically well again. But the fright was a great shock, his liver is upset and he is suffering from cold shivers.”

“Fright?” observed Bandini with a smile. “Fright in addition to all the rest?”

“That's just it,” said Waltersburg, shrugging his shoulders hopelessly, “Pointner thinks the affair with that fellow is only just a beginning. He imagines that he has secret enemies here who are determined to take his life. He is confined to bed and shivers so that his teeth chatter. It seems almost impossible that a man in his prime like Pointner could have become such a complete wreck in a single night. The doctors hold out little hope. He is completely broken up.”

Lucas slunk away. Going out by the little back door through which the monk always vanished when Claudia appeared, he slipped silent as a shadow into the garden and stole out into the street where he wandered aimlessly about. It was impossible for him to work that day; he could not remain in the studio. He felt too restless. Only for an instant did his unrepentant thoughts revert to Pointner, lying ill in bed. But, with a snap of his fingers he dismissed all recollection of him from his mind as perfectly futile.