The Valley of Decision. Edith Wharton

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СКАЧАТЬ the canonesses' litter jogged along, an odd figure advanced toward Odo, who had obtained leave to do the last mile of the journey on foot. This was a plump abate in tattered ecclesiastical dress, his shoes white as a miller's and the perspiration streaking his face as he laboured along in the dust. He accosted Odo in a soft shrill voice, begging leave to walk beside the young cavaliere, whom he had more than once had the honour of seeing at Pianura; and, in reply to the boy's surprised glance, added, with a swelling of the chest and an absurd gesture of self-introduction, "But perhaps the cavaliere is not too young to have heard of the illustrious Cantapresto, late primo soprano of the ducal theatre of Pianura?"

      Odo being obliged to avow his ignorance, the fat creature mopped his brow and continued with a gasp—"Ah, your excellency, what is fame? From glory to obscurity is no farther than from one milestone to another! Not eight years ago, cavaliere, I was followed through the streets of Pianura by a greater crowd than the Duke ever drew after him! But what then? The voice goes—it lasts no longer than the bloom of a flower—and with it goes everything: fortune, credit, consideration, friends and parasites! Not eight years ago, sir—would you believe me?—I was supping nightly in private with the Bishop, who had nearly quarrelled with his late Highness for carrying me off by force one evening to his casino; I was heaped with dignities and favours; all the poets in the town composed sonnets in my honour; the Marquess of Trescorre fought a duel about me with the Bishop's nephew, Don Serafino; I attended his lordship to Rome; I spent the villeggiatura at his villa, where I sat at play with the highest nobles in the land; yet when my voice went, cavaliere, it was on my knees I had to beg of my heartless patron the paltry favour of the minor orders!" Tears were running down the abate's cheeks, and he paused to wipe them with a corner of tattered bands.

      Though Odo had been bred in an abhorrence of the theatre, the strange creature's aspect so pricked his compassion that he asked him what he was now engaged in; at which Cantapresto piteously cried, "Alas, what am I not engaged in, if the occasion offers? For whatever a man's habit, he will not wear it long if it cover an empty belly; and he that respects his calling must find food enough to continue in it. But as for me, sir, I have put a hand to every trade, from composing scenarios for the ducal company of Pianura, to writing satirical sonnets for noblemen that desire to pass for wits. I've a pretty taste, too, in compiling almanacks, and when nothing else served I have played the public scrivener at the street corner; nay, sir, necessity has even driven me to hold the candle in one or two transactions I would not more actively have mixed in; and it was to efface the remembrance of one of these—for my conscience is still over-nice for my condition—that I set out on this laborious pilgrimage."

      Much of this was unintelligible to Odo; but he was moved by any mention of Pianura, and in the abate's first pause he risked the question—"Do you know the hump-backed boy Brutus?"

      His companion stared and pursed his soft lips.

      "Brutus?" says he. "Brutus? Is he about the Duke's person?"

      "He lives in the palace," said Odo doubtfully.

      The fat ecclesiastic clapped a hand to his thigh.

      "Can it be your excellency has in mind the foundling boy Carlo Gamba? Does the jackanapes call himself Brutus now? He was always full of his classical allusions! Why, sir, I think I know him very well; he is even rumoured to be a brother of Don Lelio Trescorre's, and I believe the Duke has lately given him to the Marquess of Cerveno, for I saw him not long since in the Marquess's livery at Pontesordo."

      "Pontesordo?" cried Odo. "It was there I lived."

      "Did you indeed, cavaliere? But I think you will have been at the Duke's manor of that name; and it was the hunting-lodge on the edge of the chase that I had in mind. The Marquess uses it, I believe, as a kind of casino; though not without risk of a distemper. Indeed, there is much wonder at his frequenting it, and 'tis said he does so against the Duke's wishes."

      The name of Pontesordo had set Odo's memories humming like a hive of bees, and without heeding his companion's allusions he asked—"And did you see the Momola?"

      The other looked his perplexity.

      "She's an Innocent too," Odo hastened to explain. "She is Filomena's servant at the farm."

      The abate at this, standing still in the road, screwed up his eyelids and protruded a relishing lip. "Eh, eh," said he, "the girl from the farm, you say?" And he gave a chuckle. "You've an eye, cavaliere, you've an eye," he cried, his soft body shaking with enjoyment; but before Odo could make a guess at his meaning their conversation was interrupted by a sharp call from the litter. The abate at once disappeared in the crowd, and a moment later the litter had debouched on the grassy quadrangle before the outer gates of the monastery. This space was set in beech-woods, amid which gleamed the white-pillared chapels of the Way of the Cross; and the devouter pilgrims, dispersed beneath the trees, were ascending from one chapel to another, preparatory to entering the church.

      The quadrangle itself was crowded with people, and the sellers of votive offerings, in their booths roofed with acacia-boughs, were driving a noisy trade in scapulars and Agnus Deis, images of the Black Virgin of Oropa, silver hearts and crosses, and phials of Jordan water warranted to effect the immediate conversion of Jews and heretics. In one corner a Carmelite missionary had set up his portable pulpit, and, crucifix in hand, was exhorting the crowd; in another, an improvisatore intoned canticles to the miraculous Virgin; a barefoot friar sat selling indulgences at the monastery gate, and pedlars with trays of rosaries and religious prints pushed their way among the pilgrims. Young women of less pious aspect solicited the attention of the better-dressed travellers, and jugglers, mountebanks and quacks of every description hung on the outskirts of the square. The sight speedily turned Odo's thought from his late companion, and the litter coming to a halt he was leaning forward to observe the antics of a tumbler who had spread his carpet beneath the trees, when the abate's face suddenly rose to the surface of the throng and his hand thrust a crumpled paper between the curtains of the litter. Odo was quick-witted enough to capture this missive without attracting the notice of his grand-aunts, and stealing a glance at it, he read—"Cavaliere, I starve. When the illustrious ladies descend, for Christ's sake beg a scudo of them for the unhappy Cantapresto."

      By this the litter had disengaged itself and was moving toward the outer gates. Odo, aware of the disfavour with which the theatre was viewed at Donnaz, and unable to guess how far the soprano's present habit would be held to palliate the scandal of his former connection, was perplexed how to communicate his petition to the canonesses. A moment later, however, the question solved itself; for as the aunts descended at the door of the rector's lodging, the porter, running to meet them, stumbled on a black mass under the arcade, and raised the cry that here was a man dropped dead. A crowd gathering, some one called out that it was an ecclesiastic had fallen; whereat the great-aunts were hurrying forward when Odo whispered the eldest, Donna Livia, that the sick man was indeed an abate from Pianura. Donna Livia immediately bid her servants lift him into the porter's lodge, where, with the administering of spirits, the poor soprano presently revived and cast a drowning glance about the chamber.

      "Eight years ago, illustrious ladies," he gurgled, "I had nearly died one night of a surfeit of ortolans; and now it is of a surfeit of emptiness that I am perishing."

      The ladies at this, with exclamations of pity, called on the lay-brothers for broth and cordials, and bidding the porter enquire more particularly into the history of the unhappy ecclesiastic, hastened away with Odo to the rector's parlour.

      Next morning betimes all were afoot for the procession, which the canonesses were to witness from the monastery windows. The apothecary had brought word that the abate, whose seizure was indeed the result of hunger, was still too weak to rise; and Donna Livia, eager to open her devotions with an act of pity, pressed a sequin in the man's hand, and bid him spare no care for the sufferer's comfort.

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