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CHAPTER XXIX. A COUNCIL OF STATE

It was a fine mellow evening of the late autumn as two men sat in a large and handsomely furnished chamber opening upon a vast garden. There was something in the dim half-light, the heavily perfumed air, rich with the odor of the orange and the lime, and the stillness, that imparted a sense of solemnity to the scene, where, indeed, few words were interchanged, and each seemed to ponder long after every syllable of the other.

We have no mysteries with our reader, and we hasten to say that one of these personages was the Chevalier Stubber, – confidential minister of the Duke of Massa; the other was our old acquaintance Billy Traynor. If there was some faint resemblance in the fortunes of these two men, who, sprung from the humblest walks of life, had elevated themselves by their talents to a more exalted station, there all likeness between them ended. Each represented, in some of the very strongest characteristics, a nationality totally unlike that of the other: the Saxon, blunt, imperious, and decided; the Celt, subtle, quick-sighted, and suspicious, distrustful of all, save his own skill in a moment of difficulty.

“But you have not told me his real name yet,” said the Chevalier, as he slowly smoked his cigar, and spoke with the half-listlessness of a careless inquirer.

“I know that, sir,” said Billy, cautiously; “I don’t see any need of it.”

“Nor your own, either,” remarked the other.

“Nor even that, sir,” responded Billy, calmly.

“It comes to this, then, my good friend,” rejoined Stubber, “that, having got yourself into trouble, and having discovered, by the aid of a countryman, that a little frankness would serve you greatly, you prefer to preserve a mystery that I could easily penetrate if I cared for it, to speaking openly and freely, as a man might with one of his own.”

“We have no mysteries, sir. We have family secrets that don’t regard any one but ourselves. My young ward, or pupil, whichever I ought to call him, has, maybe, his own reasons for leading a life of unobtrusive obscurity, and what one may term an umbrageous existence. It’s enough for me to know that, to respect it.”

“Come, come, all this is very well if you were at liberty, or if you stood on the soil of your own country; but remember where you are now, and what accusations are hanging over you. I have here beside me very grave charges indeed, – constant and familiar intercourse with leaders of the Carbonari – ”

“We don’t know one of them,” broke in Billy.

“Correspondence with others beyond the frontier,” continued the Chevalier.

“Nor that either,” interrupted Billy.

“Treasonable placards found by the police in the very hands of the accused; insolent conduct to the authorities when arrested; attempted escape: all these duly certified on oath.”

“Devil may care for that; oaths are as plenty with these blaguards as clasp-knives, and for the same purpose too. Here’s what it is, now,” said he, crossing his arms on the table, and staring steadfastly at the other: “we came here to study and work, to perfect ourselves in the art of modellin’, with good studies around us; and, more than all, a quiet, secluded little spot, with nothing to distract our attention, or take us out of a mind for daily labor. That we made a mistake, is clear enough. Like everywhere else in this fine country, there’s nothing but tyrants on one side, and assassins on the other; and meek and humble as we lived, we could n’t escape the thievin’ blaguards of spies.”

“Do you know the handwriting of this address?” said the Chevalier, showing a sealed letter directed to Sebastiano Greppi, Sculptore, Carrara.

“Maybe I do, maybe I don’t,” was the gruff reply. “Won’t you let me finish what I was savin’?”

“This letter was found in the possession of the young prisoner, and is of some consequence,” continued the other, totally inattentive to the question.

“I suppose a letter is always of consequence to him it’s meant for,” was the half-sulky reply. “Sure you ‘re not goin’ to break the seal – sure you don’t mean to read it!” exclaimed he, almost springing from his seat as he spoke.

“I don’t think I’d ask your permission for anything I think fit to do, my worthy fellow,” said the other, sternly; and then, passing across the room, he summoned a gendarme, who waited at the door, to enter.

“Take this man back to the Fortezza,” said he, calmly; and while Billy Traynor slowly followed the guard, the other seated himself leisurely at the table, lighted his candles, and perused the letter. Whether disappointed by the contents, or puzzled by the meaning, he sat long pondering with the document before him.

It was late in the night when a messenger came to say that his Highness desired to see him; and Stubber arose at once, and hastened to the Duke’s chamber.

In a room studiously plain and simple in all its furniture, and on a low, uncurtained bed, lay the Prince, half dressed, a variety of books and papers littering the table, and even the floor at his side. Maps, prints, colored drawings, – some representing views of Swiss scenery, others being portraits of opera celebrities, – were mingled with illuminated missals and richly-embossed rosaries; while police reports, petitions, rose-colored billets and bon-bons, made up a mass of confusion wonderfully typical of the illustrious individual himself.

Stubber had scarcely crossed the threshold of the room when he appeared to appreciate the exact frame of his master’s mind. It was the very essence of his tact to catch in a moment the ruling impulse which swayed for a time that strange and vacillating nature, and he had but to glance at him to divine what was passing within.

“So then,” broke out the Prince, “here we are actually in the very midst of revolution. Marocchi has been stabbed in the Piazza of Carrara. Is it a thing to laugh at, sir?”

“The wound has only been fatal to the breast of his surtout, your Highness; and so adroitly given, besides, that it does not correspond with the incision in his waistcoat.”

“You distrust everyone and everything, Stubber; and, of course, you attribute all that is going forward to the police.”

“Of course I do, your Highness. They predict events with too much accuracy not to have a hand in their fulfilment. I knew three weeks ago when this outbreak was to occur, who was to be assassinated, – since that is the phrase for Marocchi’s mock wound, – who was to be arrested, and the exact nature of the demand the Council would make of your Royal Highness to suppress the troubles.”

“And what was that?” asked the Duke, grasping a paper in his hand as he spoke.

“An Austrian division, with a half-battery of field-artillery, a judge-advocate to try the prisoners, and a provost-marshal to shoot them.”

“And you ‘d have me believe that all these disturbances are deliberate plots of a party who desire Austrian influence in the Duchy?” cried the Duke, eagerly. “There may be really something in what you suspect. Here’s a letter I have just received from La Sabloukoff, – she ‘s always keen-sighted; and she thinks that the Court at Vienna is playing out here the game that they have not courage to attempt in Lombardy. What if this Wahnsdorf was a secret agent in the scheme, eh, Stubber?”

Stubber started with well-affected astonishment, and appeared as if astounded at the keen acuteness of the Duke’s suggestion.

“Eh!” cried his Highness, in evident delight. “That never occurred to you, Stubber? I’d wager there’s not a man in the Duchy could have hit that plot but myself.”

Stubber nodded sententiously, without a word.

“I never liked that fellow,” resumed the Duke. “I always had my suspicion about that half-reckless, wasteful manner he had. I know that I was alone in this opinion, eh, Stubber? It never struck you?”

“Never! your Highness, never!” replied Stubber, frankly.

“I can’t show you the Sabloukoff’s letter, Stubber, there are certain private details for my own eye alone; but she speaks of a young sculptor at Carrara, a certain – Let me find his name. Ah! here it is, Sebastian Greppi, a young artist of promise, for whom she bespeaks our protection. Can you make him out, and let us see him?”

Stubber bowed in silence.

“I will give him an order for something. There’s a pedestal in the flower-garden where the Psyche stood. You remember, I smashed the Psyche, because it reminded me of Camilla Monti. He shall design a figure for that place. I ‘d like a youthful Bacchus. I have a clever sketch of one somewhere; and it shall be tinted, – slightly tinted. The Greeks always colored their statues. Strange enough, too; for, do you remark, Stubber, they never represented the iris of the eye, which the Romans invariably did. And yet, if you observe closely, you’ll see that the eyelid implies the direction of the eye more accurately than in the Roman heads. I ‘m certain you never detected what I ‘m speaking of, eh, Stubber?”

Stubber candidly confessed that he had not, and listened patiently while his master descanted critically on the different styles of art, and his own especial tact and skill in discriminating between them.

“You’ll look after these police returns, then, Stubber,” said he, at last. “You’ll let these people understand that we can suffice for the administration of our own duchy. We neither want advice from Metternich, nor battalions from Radetzky. The laws here are open to every man; and if we have any claim to the gratitude of our people, it rests on our character for justice.”

While he spoke with a degree of earnestness that indicated sincerity, there was something in the expression of his eye – a half-malicious drollery in its twinkle – that made it exceedingly difficult to say whether his words were uttered in honesty of purpose, or in mere mockery and derision. Whether Stubber rightly understood their import is more than we are able to say; but it is very probable that he was, with all his shrewdness, mystified by one whose nature was a puzzle to himself.

“Let Marocchi return to Carrara. Say we have taken the matter into our own hands. Change the brigadier in command of the gendarmerie there. Tell the canonico Baldetti that we look to him and his deacons for true reports of any movement that is plotting in the town. I take no steps with regard to Wahnsdorf for the present, but let him be closely watched. And then, Stubber, send off an estafetta to Pietra Santa for the ortolans, for I think we have earned our breakfast by all this attention to state affairs.” And then, with a laugh whose accents gave not the very faintest clew to its meaning, he lay back on his pillow again.

“And these two prisoners, your Highness, what is to be done with them?”

“Whatever you please, Stubber. Give them the third-class cross of Massa, or a month’s imprisonment, at your own good pleasure. Only, no more business, – no papers to sign, no schemes to unravel; and so good night.” And the Chevalier retired at once from a presence which he well knew resented no injury so unmercifully as any invasion of his personal comfort.

CHAPTER XXX. THE LIFE THEY LED AT MASSA

It was with no small astonishment young Massy heard that he and his faithful follower were not alone restored to liberty, but that an order of his Highness had assigned them a residence in a portion of the palace, and a promise of future employment.

“This smacks of Turkish rather than of European rule,” said the youth. “In prison yesterday, – in a palace to-day. My own fortunes are wayward enough, Heaven knows, not to require any additional ingredient of uncertainty. What think you, Traynor?”

“I’m thinkin’,” said Billy, gravely, “that as the bastes of the field are guided by their instincts to objects that suit their natures, so man ought, by his reason, to be able to pilot himself in difficulties, – choosin’ this, avoidin’ that; seein’ by the eye of prophecy where a road would lead him, and makin’ of what seem the accidents of life, steppin’-stones to fortune.”

“In what way does your theory apply here?” cried the other. “How am I to guess whither this current may carry me?”

“At all events, there’s no use wastin’ your strength by swimmin’ against it,” rejoined Billy.

“To be the slave of some despot’s whim, – the tool of a caprice that may elevate me to-day, and to-morrow sentence me to the gallows. The object I have set before myself in life is to be independent. Is this, then, the road to it?”

“You ‘re tryin’ to be what no man ever was, or will be, to the world’s end, then,” said Billy. “Sure it’s the very nature and essence of our life here below that we are dependent one on the other for kindness, for affection, for material help in time of difficulty, for counsel in time of doubt. The rich man and the poor one have their mutual dependencies; and if it was n’t so, cowld-hearted and selfish as the world is, it would be five hundred times worse.”

“You mistake my meaning,” said Massy, sternly, “as you often do, to read me a lesson on a text of your own. When I spoke of independence, I meant freedom from the serfdom of another’s charity. I would that my life here, at least, should be of my own procuring.”

“I get mine from you,” said Traynor, calmly, “and never felt myself a slave on that account.”

“Forgive me, my dear, kind friend. I could hate myself if I gave you a moment’s pain. This temper of mine does not improve by time.”

“There’s one way to conquer it. Don’t be broodin’ on what’s within. Don’t be magnifyin’ your evil fortunes to your own heart till you come to think the world all little, and yourself all great. Go out to your daily labor, whatever it be, with a stout spirit to do your best, and a thankful, grateful heart that you are able to do it. Never let it out of your mind that if there’s many a one your inferior, winnin’ his way up to fame and fortune before you, there’s just as many better than you toilin’ away unseen and unnoticed, wearin’ out genius in a garret, and carryin’ off a Godlike intellect to an obscure grave!”

“You talk to me as though my crying sin were an overweening vanity,” said the youth, half angrily.

“Well, it’s one of them,” said Billy; and the blunt frankness of the avowal threw the boy into a fit of laughing.

“You certainly do not intend to spoil me, Billy,” said he, still laughing.

“Why would I do what so many is ready to do for nothing? What does the crowd that praise the work of a young man of genius care where they ‘re leading him to? It’s like people callin’ out to a strong swimmer, ‘Go out farther and farther, – out to the open say, where the waves is rollin’ big, and the billows is roughest; that’s worthy of you, in your strong might and your stout limbs. Lave the still water and the shallows to the weak and the puny. Your course is on the mountain wave, over the bottomless ocean.’ It’s little they think if he’s ever to get back again. ‘T is their boast and their pride that they said, ‘Go on;’ and when his cold corpse comes washed to shore, all they have is a word of derision and scorn for one who ventured beyond his powers.”

“How you cool down one’s ardor; with what pleasure you check every impulse that nerves one’s heart for high daring!” said the youth, bitterly. “These eternal warnings – these never-ending forebodings of failure – are sorry stimulants to energy.”

“Is n’t it better for you to have all your reverses at the hands of a crayture as humble as me?” said Billy, while the tears glistened in his eyes. “What good am I, except for this?”

In a moment the boy’s arms were around him, while he cried out, —

“There, forgive me once more, and let me try if I cannot amend a temper that any but yourself had grown weary of correcting. I’ll work – I’ll labor – I’ll submit – I’ll accept the daily rubs of life, as others take them, and you shall be satisfied with me. We shall go back to all our old pursuits, my dear Billy. I’ll join all your ecstasies over Æschylus, and believe as much as I can of Herodotus, to please you. You shall lead me to all the wonders of the stars, and dazzle me with the brightness of visions that my intellect is lost in; and in revenge I only ask that you should sit with me in the studio, and read to me some of those songs of Horace that move the heart like old wine. Shall I own to you what it is which sways me thus uncertainly, – jarring every chord of my existence, making life a sea of stormy conflict? Shall I tell you?”

He grasped the other’s hand with both his own as he spoke, and, while his lips quivered in strong emotion, went on: —

“It is this, then. I cannot forget, do all that I will, I cannot root out of my heart what I once believed myself to be. You know what I mean. Well, there it is still, like the sense of a wrong or foul injustice, as though I had been robbed and cheated of what never was mine! This contrast between the life my earliest hopes had pictured, and that which I am destined to, never leaves me. All your teachings – and I have seen how devotedly you have addressed yourself to this lesson – have not eradicated from my nature the proud instincts that guided my childhood. Often and often have you warmed my blood by thoughts of a triumph to be achieved by me hereafter, – how men should recognize me as a genius, and elevate me to honors and rewards; and yet would I barter such success, ten thousand times told, for an hour of that high station that comes by birth alone, independent of all effort, – the heirloom of deeds chronicled centuries back, whose actors have been dust for ages. That is real pride,” cried he, enthusiastically, “and has no alloy of the petty vanity that mingles with the sense of a personal triumph.”

Traynor hung his head heavily as the youth spoke, and a gloomy melancholy settled on his features; the sad conviction came home to him of all his counsels being fruitless, all his teachings in vain; and as the boy sat wrapped in a wild, dreamy revery of ancestral greatness, the humble peasant brooded darkly over the troubles such a temperament might evoke.

“It is agreed, then,” cried Massy, suddenly, “that we are to accept of this great man’s bounty, live under his roof, and eat his bread. Well, I accede, – as well his as another’s. Have you seen the home they destine for us?”

“Yes, it’s a real paradise, and in a garden that would beat Adam’s now,” exclaimed Traynor; “for there’s marble fountains, and statues, and temples, and grottos in it; and it’s as big as a prairie, and as wild as a wilderness. And, better than all, there’s a little pathway leads to a private stair that goes up into the library of the palace, – a spot nobody ever enters, and where you may study the whole day long without hearin’ a footstep. All the books is there that ever was written, and manuscripts without end besides; and the Minister says I’m to have my own kay, and go in and out whenever I plaze. ‘And if there’s anything wantin’,’ says be, ‘just order it on a slip of paper and send it to me, and you ‘ll have it at once.’ When I asked if I ought to spake to the librarian himself, he only laughed, and said, ‘That’s me; but I’m never there. Take my word for it, Doctor, you ‘ll have the place to yourself.’”

He spoke truly. Billy Traynor had it, indeed, to himself. There, the gray dawn of morning, and the last shadows of evening, ever found him, seated in one of those deep, cell-like recesses of the windows; the table, the seats, the very floor littered with volumes which, revelling in the luxury of wealth, he had accumulated around him. His greedy avidity for knowledge knew no bounds. The miser’s thirst for gold was weak in comparison with that intense craving that seized upon him. Historians, critics, satirists, poets, dramatists, metaphysicians, never came amiss to a mind bent on acquiring. The life he led was like the realization of a glorious dream, – the calm repose, the perfect stillness of the spot, the boundless stores that lay about him; the growing sense of power, as day by day his intellect expanded; new vistas opened themselves before him, and new and unproved sources of pleasure sprang up in his nature. The never-ending variety gave a zest, too, to his labors that averted all weariness; and at last he divided his time ingeniously, alternating grave and difficult subjects with lighter topics, – making, as he said himself, “Aristophanes digest Plato.”

And what of young Massy all this while? His life was a dream, too, but of another and very different kind. Visions of a glorious future alternated with sad and depressing thoughts; high darings, and hopeless views of what lay before him, came and went, and went and came again. The Duke, who had just taken his departure for some watering-place in Germany, gave him an order for certain statues, the models for which were to be ready by his return, – at least, in that sketchy state of which clay is even more susceptible than canvas. The young artist chafed and fretted under the restraint of an assigned task. It was gall to his haughty nature to be told that his genius should accept dictation, and his fancy be fettered by the suggestions of another. If he tried to combat this rebellious spirit, and addressed himself steadily to labor, he found that his imagination grew sluggish, and his mind uncreative. The sense of servitude oppressed him; and though he essayed to subdue himself to the condition of an humble artist, the old pride still rankled in his heart, and spirited him to a haughty resistance. His days thus passed over in vain attempts to work, or still more unprofitable lethargy. He lounged through the deserted garden, or lay, half-dreamily, in the long, deep grass, listening to the cicala, or watching the emerald-backed lizards as they lay basking in the sun. He drank in all the soft voluptuous influences of a climate which steeps the senses in a luxurious stupor, making the commonest existence a toil, but giving to mere indolence all the zest of a rich enjoyment. Sometimes he wandered into the library, and noiselessly drew nigh the spot where Billy sat deeply busied in his books. He would gaze silently, half curiously, at the poor fellow, and then steal noiselessly away, pondering on the blessings of that poor peasant’s nature, and wondering what in his own organization had denied him the calm happiness of this humble man’s life.