Little Novels of Italy | Page 6

and, to do him justice, he had had his share of adventure in that
sort at an early age. He had learned more out of Ovid than from the
Fathers of Divinity, you may believe. Very popular he was in
whatsoever convent he harboured, as a preacher famous all over
Lombardy and the March,--in Bergamo, in Brescia, even as far as
Mantua he had been heard of. The superior at Verona did his best to
spoil him by endearment, flattery, and indulgence; but this was difficult,
since he had been spoilt already.
He passed down the Via Stella morning and evening for a week.
Morning and evening his eyes encountered Vanna's. The third evening
he smiled at her, the fourth morning he saluted her; the fifth evening he
stopped and slipped in a gentle word; the first evening of the second
week he stopped again, and that night, La Testolina being by, there was
quite a little conversation.
La Testolina had black eyes, a trim figure, and a way of wriggling
which showed these to advantage. Fra Battista's fame and the
possibility of mischief set her flashing; she led the talk and found him
apt: it was not difficult to aim every word that it should go through and

leave a dart in Vanna's timid breast. The girl was so artless, you could
see her quiver, or feel her, at every shot. For instance, was his sanctity
very much fatigued by yesterday's sermon? Eh, la bella predica! What
invocations of the saints, what heart-groping, what reachings after the
better parts of women! It was some comfort to know that a woman had
a better part at all--by the Saviour! for their handling by men gave no
hint of it. Let Fra Beato--ah, pardon, Fra Battista she should have
said--send some such arrows into men's hides! See them, for the
gross-feeding, surly, spend-all, take-all knaves that they were! One or
two she might name if she had a mind--ah! one or two in this very city
of Verona, in this very Street of the Star, who--But there! Vanna must
go and hear the Frate's next sermon, she must indeed. And if she could
take her old curm-- Pshutt! What was she saying? How she ran on! She
did indeed. Fra Battista, leaning against the lintel, kept his eyelids on
the droop, seemed to find his toes of interest. But now and again he
would look delicately up, and so sure as he did the brown eyes and the
grey seemed to swim towards each other, to melt in a point, swirl in an
eddy of the feelings, in which Vanna found herself drowning and found
such death sweet. La Testolina still ran on, but now in a monologue.
Fra Battista looked and longed, and Vanna looked again and thrilled. It
grew quite dark; nothing of each other could they see and little know,
until the friar put out his foot and found Vanna's. A tremor, beginning
at her heart, ran down to her toes; Battista felt the flutter of it and was
assured.
When he left her that night he kissed her cold hand, then La Testolina's,
which he found by no means cold, and moved off leisurely towards the
Piazza dell' Erbe. Neither woman spoke for a while: La Testolina was
picking at her apron, Vanna sat quietly in the dark holding her heart.
She was still in a tremble, so ridiculously moved that when her friend
kissed her she burst out crying. La Testolina went nodding away; and
the end of the episode may be predicted. Not at one but at many
sermons of the tall Carmelite did Vanna sit rapt; not for one but for
every dusk did he stoop to kiss her hand. All Verona saw her
devotion,--all Verona, that is, but one old Veronese. The essence of
comedy being that the spectators shall chuckle at actors in a fog, here
was a comedy indeed.

III
THE SEED OF DISCORD
When Vanna announced her condition the neighbours looked slyly at
each other; when her condition announced Vanna, they chattered; the
gossip sank to whispering behind the hand as time went on, and ceased
altogether when the baby was born. That was a signal for heads to
shake. Some pitied the father, many defended the mother: it did not
depend upon your sex; sides were taken freely and voices were shrill
when neither was by. Down by the river especially, upon that bleached
board below the bridge, ci and si whistled like the wind in the chimneys,
and the hands of testimony were as the aspen leaves when storms are in.
Some took one side, some another; but when, in due season, it was seen
what inordinate pride Baldassare had in the black-eyed bambino there
was no question of sides.