Edith Wharton: Complete Works. Edith Wharton

hot polenta than a cold ortolan. Things are none too good as they are, but I never care to taste first of a new dish. And in this case I don’t fancy the cook.”

      “Ah, that’s it,” said the soft man. “It’s too much like the apothecary’s wife mixing his drugs for him. Men of Roman lineage want no women to govern them!” He puffed himself out and thrust a hand in his bosom. “Besides, gentlemen,” he added, dropping his voice and glancing cautiously about the room, “the saints are my witness I’m not superstitious—but frankly, now, I don’t much fancy this business of the Virgin’s crown.”

      “What do you mean?” asked a lean visionary-looking youth who had been drinking and listening.

      “Why, sir, I needn’t say I’m the last man in Pianura to listen to women’s tattle; but my wife had it straight from Cino the barber, whose sister is portress of the Benedictines, that, two days since, one of the nuns foretold the whole business, precisely as it happened—and what’s more, many that were in the Church this morning will tell you that they distinctly saw the blessed image raise both arms and tear the crown from her head.”

      “H’m,” said the young man flippantly, “what became of the Bambino meanwhile, I wonder?”

      The scribe shrugged his shoulders. “We all know,” said he, “that Cino the barber lies like a christened Jew; but I’m not surprised the thing was known in advance, for I make no doubt the priests pulled the wires that brought down the crown.”

      The fat man looked scandalized, and the first speaker waved the subject aside as unworthy of attention.

      “Such tales are for women and monks,” he said impatiently. “But the business has its serious side. I tell you we are being hurried to our ruin. Here’s this matter of draining the marshes at Pontesordo. Who’s to pay for that? The class that profits by it? Not by a long way. It’s we who drain the land, and the peasants are to live on it.”

      The visionary youth tossed back his hair. “But isn’t that an inspiration to you, sir?” he exclaimed. “Does not your heart dilate at the thought of uplifting the condition of your down-trodden fellows?”

      “My fellows? The peasantry my fellows?” cried the other. “I’d have you know, my young master, that I come of a long and honorable line of cloth-merchants, that have had their names on the Guild for two hundred years and over. I’ve nothing to do with the peasantry, thank God!”

      The youth had emptied another glass. “What?” he screamed. “You deny the universal kinship of man? You disown your starving brother? Proud tyrant, remember the Bastille!” He burst into tears and began to quote Alfieri.

      “Well,” said the fat man, turning a disgusted shoulder on this display of emotion, “to my mind this business of draining Pontesordo is too much like telling the Almighty what to do. If God made the land wet, what right have we to dry it? Those that begin by meddling with the Creator’s works may end by laying hands on the Creator.”

      “You’re right,” said another. “There’s no knowing where these new-fangled notions may land us. For my part, I was rather taken by them at first; but since I find that his Highness, to pay for all his good works, is cutting down his household and throwing decent people out of a job—like my own son, for instance, that was one of the under-steward’s boys at the palace—why, since then, I begin to see a little farther into the game.”

      A shabby shrewd-looking fellow in a dirty coat and snuff-stained stock had sauntered up to the table and stood listening with an amused smile.

      “Ah,” said the scribe, glancing up, “here’s a thoroughgoing reformer, who’ll be asking us all to throw up our hats for the new charter.”

      The new-comer laughed contemptuously. “I?” he said. “God forbid! The new charter’s none of my making. It’s only another dodge for getting round the populace—for appearing to give them what they would rise up and take if it were denied them any longer.”

      “Why, I thought you were hot for these reforms?” exclaimed the fat man with surprise.

      The other shrugged. “You might as well say I was in favor of having the sun rise to-morrow. It would probably rise at the same hour if I voted against it. Reform is bound to come, whether your Dukes and Princes are for it or against it; and those that grant constitutions instead of refusing them are like men who tie a string to their hats before going out in a gale. The string may hold for a while—but if it blows hard enough the hats will all come off in the end.”

      “Ay, ay; and meanwhile we furnish the string from our own pockets,” said the scribe with a chuckle.

      The shabby man grinned. “It won’t be the last thing to come out of your pockets,” said he, turning to push his way toward another table.

      The others rose and called for their reckoning; and the listener on the cask slipped out of his corner, elbowed a passage to the door and stepped forth into the square.

      It was after midnight, a thin drizzle was falling, and the crowd had scattered. The rain was beginning to extinguish the paper lanterns and the torches, and the canvas sides of the tents flapped dismally, like wet sheets on a clothes-line. The man drew his cloak closer, and avoiding the stragglers who crossed his path, turned into the first street that led to the palace. He walked fast over the slippery cobble-stones, buffeted by a rising wind and threading his way between dark walls and sleeping house-fronts till he reached the lane below the ducal gardens. He unlocked the door by which he had come forth, entered the gardens, and paused a moment on the terrace above the lane.

      Behind him rose the palace, a dark irregular bulk, with a lighted window showing here and there. Before him lay the city, an indistinguishable huddle of roofs and towers under the rainy night. He stood awhile gazing out over it; then he turned and walked toward the palace. The garden alleys were deserted, the pleached walks dark as subterranean passages, with the wet gleam of statues starting spectrally out of the blackness. The man walked rapidly, leaving the Borromini wing on his left, and skirting the outstanding mass of the older buildings. Behind the marble buttresses of the chapel he crossed the dense obscurity of a court between high walls, found a door under an archway, turned a key in the lock, and gained a spiral stairway as dark as the court. He groped his way up the stairs and paused a moment on the landing to listen. Then he opened another door, lifted a heavy hanging of tapestry, and stepped into the Duke’s closet. It stood empty, with a lamp burning low on the desk.

      The man threw off his cloak and hat, dropped into a chair beside the desk, and hid his face in his hands.

      —————

IX.

      It was the eve of the Duke’s birthday. A cabinet council had been called in the morning, and his Highness’s ministers had submitted to him the revised draft of the constitution which was to be proclaimed on the morrow.

      Throughout the conference, which was brief and formal, Odo had been conscious of a subtle change in the ministerial atmosphere. Instead of the current of resistance against which he had grown used to forcing his way, he became aware of a tacit yielding to his will. Trescorre had apparently withdrawn his opposition to the charter, and the other ministers had followed suit. To Odo’s overwrought imagination there was something ominous in the change. He had counted on the goad of opposition to fight off the fatal languor which he had learned to expect at such crises. Now that he found there was to be no struggle he understood how largely his zeal had of late depended on such factitious incentives. He felt an irrational longing to throw himself on the other side of the conflict, to tear in bits the paper awaiting his signature, and disown the policy which had dictated it. But the tide of acquiescence on which he was afloat was no stagnant back-water of indifference, but the glassy reach just above the fall of a river. The current was as swift as it was smooth, and he felt himself hurried forward to an end he could no longer escape. He took the pen which Trescorre handed him, and signed the constitution.

      The meeting over, he summoned Gamba. He felt the need