The Complete Short Stories of Wilkie Collins. Уилки Коллинз

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      “What do you mean?”

      “This — that my present project is to try if I can’t make my fortune by sitting as a model for Minerva in the studio of the best sculptor in Pisa.”

      “And who is he! (Unwind me a yard or two of that black lace.)”

      “The master-sculptor, Luca Lomi — an old family, once noble, but down in the world now. The master is obliged to make statues to get a living for his daughter and himself.”

      “More of the lace — double it over the bosom of the dress. And how is sitting to this needy sculptor to make your fortune?”

      “Wait a minute. There are other sculptors besides him in the studio. There is, first, his brother, the priest — Father Rocco, who passes all his spare time with the master. He is a good sculptor in his way — has cast statues and made a font for his church — a holy man, who devotes all his work in the studio to the cause of piety.”

      “Ah, bah! we should think him a droll priest in France. (More pins.) You don’t expect him to put money in your pocket, surely?”

      “Wait, I say again. There is a third sculptor in the studio — actually a nobleman! His name is Fabio d’Ascoli. He is rich, young, handsome, an only child, and little better than a fool. Fancy his working at sculpture, as if he had his bread to get by it — and thinking that an amusement! Imagine a man belonging to one of the best families in Pisa mad enough to want to make a reputation as an artist! Wait! wait! the best is to come. His father and mother are dead — he has no near relations in the world to exercise authority over him — he is a bachelor, and his fortune is all at his own disposal; going a-begging, my friend; absolutely going a-begging for want of a clever woman to hold out her hand and take it from him.”

      “Yes, yes — now I understand. The goddess Minerva is a clever woman, and she will hold out her hand and take his fortune from him with the utmost docility.”

      “The first thing is to get him to offer it. I must tell you that I am not going to sit to him, but to his master, Luca Lomi, who is doing the statue of Minerva. The face is modeled from his daughter; and now he wants somebody to sit for the bust and arms. Maddalena Lomi and I are as nearly as possible the same height, I hear — the difference between us being that I have a good figure and she has a bad one. I have offered to sit, through a friend who is employed in the studio. If the master accepts, I am sure of an introduction to our rich young gentleman; and then leave it to my good looks, my various accomplishments, and my ready tongue, to do the rest.”

      “Stop! I won’t have the lace doubled, on second thoughts. I’ll have it single, and running all round the dress in curves — so. Well, and who is this friend of yours employed in the studio? A fourth sculptor?”

      “No, no; the strangest, simplest little creature — ”

      Just then a faint tap was audible at the door of the room.

      Brigida laid her finger on her lips, and called impatiently to the person outside to come in.

      The door opened gently, and a young girl, poorly but very neatly dressed, entered the room. She was rather thin and under the average height; but her head and figure were in perfect proportion. Her hair was of that gorgeous auburn colour, her eyes of that deep violet-blue, which the portraits of Giorgione and Titian have made famous as the type of Venetian beauty. Her features possessed the definiteness and regularity, the “good modeling” (to use an artist’s term), which is the rarest of all womanly charms, in Italy as elsewhere. The one serious defect of her face was its paleness. Her cheeks, wanting nothing in form, wanted everything in colour. That look of health, which is the essential crowning-point of beauty, was the one attraction which her face did not possess.

      She came into the room with a sad and weary expression in her eyes, which changed, however, the moment she observed the magnificently-dressed French forewoman, into a look of astonishment, and almost of awe. Her manner became shy and embarrassed; and after an instant of hesitation, she turned back silently to the door.

      “Stop, stop, Nanina,” said Brigida, in Italian. “Don’t be afraid of that lady. She is our new forewoman; and she has it in her power to do all sorts of kind things for you. Look up, and tell us what you want You were sixteen last birthday, Nanina, and you behave like a baby of two years old!”

      “I only came to know if there was any work for me to-day,” said the girl, in a very sweet voice, that trembled a little as she tried to face the fashionable French forewoman again.

      “No work, child, that is easy enough for you to do,” said Brigida. “Are you going to the studio to-day?”

      Some of the colour that Nanina’s cheeks wanted began to steal over them as she answered “Yes.”

      “Don’t forget my message, darling. And if Master Luca Lomi asks where I live, answer that you are ready to deliver a letter to me; but that you are forbidden to enter into any particulars at first about who I am, or where I live.”

      “Why am I forbidden?” inquired Nanina, innocently.

      “Don’t ask questions, baby! Do as you are told. Bring me back a nice note or message tomorrow from the studio, and I will intercede with this lady to get you some work. You are a foolish child to want it, when you might make more money here and at Florence, by sitting to painters and sculptors; though what they can see to paint or model in you I never could understand.”

      “I like working at home better than going abroad to sit,” said Nanina, looking very much abashed as she faltered out the answer, and escaping from the room with a terrified farewell obeisance, which was an eccentric compound of a start, a bow, and a courtesy.

      “That awkward child would be pretty,” said Mademoiselle Virginie, making rapid progress with the cutting-out of her dress, “if she knew how to give herself a complexion, and had a presentable gown on her back. Who is she?”

      “The friend who is to get me into Master Luca Lomi’s studio,” replied Brigida, laughing. “Rather a curious ally for me to take up with, isn’t she?”

      “Where did you meet with her?”

      “Here, to be sure; she hangs about this place for any plain work she can get to do, and takes it home to the oddest little room in a street near the Campo Santo. I had the curiosity to follow her one day, and knocked at her door soon after she had gone in, as if I was a visitor. She answered my knock in a great flurry and fright, as you may imagine. I made myself agreeable, affected immense interest in her affairs, and so got into her room. Such a place! A mere corner of it curtained off to make a bedroom. One chair, one stool, one saucepan on the fire. Before the hearth the most grotesquely hideous unshaven poodle-dog you ever saw; and on the stool a fair little girl plaiting dinner-mats. Such was the household — furniture and all included. ‘Where is your father?’ I asked. ‘He ran away and left us years ago,’ answers my awkward little friend who has just left the room, speaking in that simple way of hers, with all the composure in the world. ‘And your mother?’ — ’Dead.’ She went up to the little mat-plaiting girl as she gave that answer, and began playing with her long flaxen hair. ‘Your sister, I suppose,’ said I. ‘What is her name?’ — ’They call me La Biondella,’ says the child, looking up from her mat (La Biondella, Virginie, means The Fair). ‘And why do you let that great, shaggy, ill-looking brute lie before your fireplace?’ I asked. ‘Oh!’ cried the little mat-plaiter, ‘that is our dear old dog, Scarammuccia. He takes care of the house СКАЧАТЬ