The Devourers. Annie Vivanti

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СКАЧАТЬ much confused. "Only she says she cannot write a poetry about things that are not broken and dead."

      The old grandfather, who now rarely spoke, raised his head, and said mournfully, "Broken and dead—broken and dead," and went on repeating the words all through lunch, until he was coaxed and scolded into silence.

      There was much excitement over Nancy's poem that afternoon. It was read aloud by Edith, and then by Valeria, and then by Fräulein, and then again by Edith. Valeria improvised a translation of it into Italian for Zio Giacomo and Nino; and then it was read aloud once more by Edith. Everybody laughed and wept; and then Valeria kissed everybody. Nancy was a genius! They had always known it. Zio Giacomo said that it was in his brother's family; whereupon Mrs. Avory said, "Indeed?" and raised her eyebrows and felt hurt. But how—said Valeria—had it come into Nancy's head to write a poem? And what if she were never to be able to write another? Such things had happened. Could she try again and write something else? Just now! Oh, anything!… Saying how she wrote this poem, for instance!

      So little Nancy, all flushed and wild and charming, extemporized in Fräulein's note-book:

      "This morning in the orchard

      I chased the fluttering birds:

      The winging, singing things I caught—

      Were words!

      "This morning in the garden

      Where the red creeper climbs,

      The vagrant, fragrant things I plucked—

      Were rhymes!

      "This morning in the...."

      Nancy looked up and bit her lip. "This morning—in the what?"

      "In the garden," suggested Valeria.

      "I have already said that," frowned Nancy.

      Zio Giacomo suggested "kitchen," and was told to keep quiet. Edith said "woodlands," and that was adopted. Then Nancy found out that she wanted something quite different, and could they give her a rhyme for "verse"?

      "Curse," said Nino.

      "Disburse," said Fräulein.

      "Oh, that is not poetic, but rather the reverse!" cried Nancy.

      "Terse," said Edith.

      "Purse," said Nino.

      "Hearse," said the old grandfather gloomily.

      Nancy laughed. "We go from bad to worse," she exclaimed, dimpling and blushing. "Wait a minute."

      "And if I cage the birdlings...."

      "What birdlings?" said Fräulein.

      "Why, the words that I caught in the orchard," said Nancy hurriedly.

      Everybody looked vague. "Why do you want to cage them?" asked Fräulein, who had a tidy mind.

      "Because," said Nancy excitedly, making her reasons while she spoke, "words must not be allowed to fly about anyhow as they like—they must be caught, and shut in lines; they must be caged by the—by the–"

      "The rhythm," suggested Edith.

      "What is that?" said Nancy.

      "The measure, the time, as in music."

      "Yes, that's it!" said Nancy.

      "And if the flowers I nurse...."

      "The flowers are the rhymes, of course," explained Nancy, flourishing her pencil triumphantly.

      "And if the flowers I nurse,

      The rambling, scrambling things I write—

      Are verse!"

      "Beautiful! wonderful!" cried everybody; and Uncle Giacomo and Nino clapped their hands a long time, as if they were at the theatre.

      When they left off, Mrs. Avory said: "I do not quite like those last lines. They are not clear. But, of course, they are quite good enough for poetry!" she added. And everyone agreed. Mrs. Avory said she thought they ought to have somebody, some poet, down from London at once to teach the child seriously. And Fräulein went into long details about publishers in Berlin, and how careful one must be if one prints a volume of poems not to let them cheat you.

      From that day onward the spirit of Nancy's inspiration ruled the house. Everybody was silent when she came into the room, lest her ideas should be disturbed; meals must wait until Nancy had finished thinking. When Nancy frowned and passed her hand across her forehead in a little quick gesture she often used, Edith would quietly shut the windows and the doors, so that nothing should disturb the little poetess, and no butterfly-thought of hers should fly away. Valeria hovered round, usually followed by Nino; and Fräulein, in the library, read long chapters of Dante to Zio Giacomo, whether he slept or not, in order, as she put it in her diary: "(a) To practise my Italian; (b) to keep in the house the atmosphere of the Spirit of Poetry."

      But the grandfather, who could not understand the silence and the irregular meals, thought that somebody had died, and wandered drearily about, opening doors to see if he could find out who it was. And he frequently made Mrs. Avory turn sick and chilly by asking her suddenly, when she sat at her work, "Who is dead in the house?"

      VII

      Meanwhile Nunziata Villari in Milan was flustering the maid Marietta over the packing of her trunks, and getting ready to leave for her twelve performances in England.

      Nino had written to her twice a day during the first week of his absence; every two days during the second week; only once in the third week; and in this, the fourth week, not at all. "Some stupid English girl has turned his nose of putty from me," mused La Villari, and scolded Marietta for what she had packed, and for what she had not packed, and for how she had packed it. But La Villari was mistaken. No stupid English girl had turned Nino's nose of putty from her. Edith, who might have done so had she willed, had chosen to stab his nascent passion with the hairpins that fixed the North-German coiffure at its most unbecoming angle half-way up her head. She had left him to himself, and gone off primrosing with Nancy, whose love—the blind, far-seeing love of a child—depended not on a tendril of hair, or the tint of a cheek, or the glance of an eye.

      Nino, standing alone, looking vaguely round for adoration, met Valeria's deep eyes fixed on him; and, suddenly remembering that this little cousin of his had been destined to his arms since both their childhood, he let his heart respond to her timid call. As she bent her head over a letter to her cousin Adèle, Nino watched her with narrowing eyes. Had Fate not sent Tom Avory, the tall and leisurely Englishman, bronzed and fair, sauntering into her life and his years ago, painting pictures, quoting poets, rowing her and Zio Giacomo about the lake, this dark, graceful head, thought Nino would have found its resting-place against his own breast; the little dimpled hand, the slender shoulders—all would belong to him. Had he not always loved her? He asked himself the question in all sincerity, quite forgetting his brief and violent fancy for Cousin Adèle, and his longer and more violent passion for Nunziata Villari. True, he would never have noticed Adèle had she not sighed at him first. And he would certainly never have loved La Villari had she not looked at him first. But now—Adèle was nowhere; and La Villari was in Milan packing her trunks; and here was Valeria, with her dark head and her dimples.

      "Valerietta!" he said; and she raised her eyes. "It is May-day. Come out into the fields."

      So Valeria put away her letter, and went to look for СКАЧАТЬ