Part 6

"'Well now,' says the old boy, 'that's a piece of luck that don't often happen to me, because I was figuring on how we're going to get the old bull back there--he's getting mighty poor here, and our gas boat is too small. Could you take him back with you?'"

Jimmy chuckled. "What did you say?" Aline asked Walker.

"Say!" exploded the young man. "I said _no_ more forcefully than I ever said it in my life!"

LA BELLA GINA

_By_ Eleanor Mercein Kelly

ELEANOR MERCEIN KELLY

Eleanor Mercein Kelly was born in Milwaukee, Wis., on August 30, 1880, the daughter of Thomas Boyce Mercein, was graduated from the Georgetown Convent of the Visitation, Washington, in 1898, and was married to Robert Morrow Kelly, Jr., of Louisville, Ky., in 1901. Mr. Kelly died in 1926. She is the author of short stories of unusual excellence appearing in many of the magazines and of several novels of which the best known is perhaps _Kildares of Storm_. Her home is in Edgehill Road, Louisville.

"La Bella Gina," which was first published in _Harper's Magazine_ for September, 1926, is a fine example of thoroughly sophisticated and completely unobtrusive humor. In fact, there are experienced judges who will deny that it is a humorous story. In the same breath they express their admiration for the story itself; so that evidently the valuation of its humorous element, if it has one, depends upon temperament. Mrs. Kelly expressed willingness for its inclusion and I take it that this signifies that her intention, as author, was partly humorous. In a collection which presents humor open and unashamed, even on occasion a little riotous, this subtlest of stories surely finds a place as representative of the opposite extreme.

LA BELLA GINA[1]

[1] Copyright, 1926, by Eleanor Mercein Kelly.

One met the lady, as it were, by installments: first the dog Bijou, emerging from the _ascenseur_ like a jack from its box, wheezing; next the harassed little lady-secretary--or was she a duenna?--in leashed pursuit; next the maid Annette, very French and voluble, personally conducting the footsteps of greatness; last, but by no means nor in any respect least, La Bella Gina herself, leaning upon the arm of her devoted but practically invisible little cavalier, the Marchese. It was always an effective entrance; a gay wave of the hand for the gentleman at the desk, a coquettish smile for the staring lobby at large, and for us, who had come so far to be the guests of her Italy, a charming, courteous inclination of hospitality.

Then the Signor Direttore would hurry out of his office with a daily bouquet provided by the management; the concierge, so haughty with others, would abase himself backward before her; and the cortège would pass out into the street, there to be greeted by a small cheer from whatever public happened to be gathered about; flower-sellers, beggars, cameo-vendors, quarreling groups of _vetturini_, and the like. The latter would leap each to the box of his carriage, lifting a hopeful whip; but Madame Gina, wagging a forefinger sidewise in sign of friendly negation, as at a too insistent gallery, would turn her teetering footsteps in the direction of the Pincio, leaning partly upon the willing Marchese, and partly, _à la_ Tosca, upon a cane.

The secretary and Bijou would fall into line behind; or possibly, according to the whim of Bijou, they would lead the procession, at the run; and only Annette was left, gazing after them commiseratingly and shaking a well-coiffed head.

"Has it not of pathos?" she murmured to me on one occasion, observing that I too watched this daily little parade with interest.

"Pathos?" I repeated. I supposed her reference was to the diva's lameness, which had appeared to my skeptical American eye rather histrionic than pathetic; due perhaps more to the tightness of the lady's high-heeled satin boots than to any more serious infirmity.

The maid sighed. "Eh, that it should be La Gina, La Bella Gina herself, thus marching on two feet like anybody, like you or me!--trotting along the _pavé_ with no more _réclame_ than the _sale bête Bijou_" (evidently Annette shared my lack of enthusiasm for the poodle of the profession). "She who in a manner of speaking has not set heel to ground since the day of her début at San Carlo; whose carriage princes have been proud to draw, yes, and millionaires!--I who speak have seen it thus. But now, upon those exquisite feet which sculptors beg to model, she makes along rough streets the promenade, like any _Anglaise_. Daily, as you see!---- It is the imbecile doctors who have done this thing."

"In order to overcome her little lameness, perhaps?" I suggested.

Annette snapped her fingers. "The lameness, what of that? A habitude, a gesture! At her age, Madame finds the cane _un peu distingué_. No, it is for the--how shall I say?" Expressive hands fluttered about her person, indicatively. "The conformation, hein? the embonpoint. When last season an ankle sprained itself, as you remember" (it did not occur to Annette that anyone, even tourists from the Antipodes, could be ignorant of this event), "Madame was for some time confined to the sitting and reclining postures. So, the catastrophe commenced. Diet made nothing. My God, what misfortune! The smallest _gâteau_, the merest _soupçon_ of whip-cream on the morning chocolate, and spang! off pops another hook from the brassière. Madame increased, literally, before the eye. How it was tragic!"

"But," I said consolingly, "she carries her weight extremely well, and she is no fatter than many other opera singers."

"That is true. And it is not as if she were a coloratura, what? To the deeper voice must be allowed the wider latitudes. However, it is not with the appearance one concerns oneself; assuredly, with such beauty, appearance need not be considered--other than to add a dash of rouge here, a drop of belladonna there. It is the voice, voyez-vous, the voice itself! What if La Gina were to become short of breath in the upper register? Picture to yourself if she were compelled to wheeze, like the _sale bête Bijou_?"

I admitted that this would be indeed a misfortune.

"Therefore," shrugged Annette, "she makes daily the promenade. Also, she starves--it would bring tears to the eyes to see. What fortitude! Never a bon-bon, not so much as a pot of chocolate for the _déjeuner_. Only _café noir_--picture to yourself, on an empty digestion!" (She made a face of abhorrence.) "And to what avail? Ah, Mees, I ask of you as one woman to another, to what avail?"

I gazed critically after the retreating figure of the diva, hobbling heroically on toward the Pincian Gardens, three weary blocks away. She had indeed developed, beyond repair, a sitting-figure; or as it is known to my compatriots, the middle-aged spread. And quite seasonably. While it was difficult to detect other symptoms beneath the thick liquid-white of her face, the thin geranium-red of her lips, and the varied glories of her hair, I could not but recall that her début at San Carlo must have taken place at least thirty-odd years earlier.

My eyes and Annette's met in mutual regret, and we shook our heads together. A bond of sympathy was established between us; sympathy for a fellow-woman in distress.

It led to other conversations in passing, Annette being one of those to whom breath seems given entirely for purposes of conversation. La Bella Gina (I wondered whether the song had been named for her, or she for it) was making a pilgrimage, "as usual at this time of year." They merely paused at Rome, en route from Naples.... I should not have thought the singer so devout. One did not like to ask at what shrine she intended to pay her devotions. Or was it perhaps at the tomb of some lost loved one? Annette's manner, in speaking of the pilgrimage, seemed appropriately grave and subdued.

Monsieur le Marchese, also as usual, was accompanying them on the pilgrimage, although stopping at another hotel; which I thought extremely delicate of the little gentleman. He had made many journeys in the train of Madame, it appeared; had followed her triumphs even to the Americas, and to Mexico. It was on the latter occasion that he had taken with him his two young sons, in order that they might have the advantage, the inestimable privilege of intimate association with such an artist, such a woman of the world. But yes, Annette assured me, the young noblemen had indeed appreciated the privilege, Madame being excessively fond of children, particularly of boys. She had fed them sweets all day long. There had been afterwards a letter from Madame la Marchesa herself, thanking Madame Gina for her kindness to the little noblemen.

"What! from their mother?"

But it appeared Madame la Marchesa was their grandmother.

It seemed to me an interesting and unusual relationship. I said so.

Ah, yes, agreed Annette; such fidelity through so many years deserved its reward, _n'est-ce pas?_--a better reward than La Gina had felt herself able to bestow, she being wedded to her art.

"And of a discretion _incroyable_. Picture to yourself!--never so much as an hour alone tête-à-tête with monsieur; always a third person in attendance!--myself, or Signora the secretary, or the little noblemen--

"Or the dog Bijou?" I murmured.

"Or the dog Bijou," she assented seriously, "who has, if nothing else, a nature of the most jealous.... 'While I value your attachment, my Boncelli, above pearls and rubies' (I who speak have heard her say this to monsieur, although pearls and rubies are her favorite gems) 'still, a man may not serve two masters; particularly if a woman. The competition deranges. My heart'--she said to him, just like that--'is in my larynx, _cher_ Boncelli, in my diaphragm. These are your successful rivals.'--The poor Marchese!"

"You think," I asked, "that there is no hope for him whatever?"

She shrugged. "Hope, yes--but what a sad little hope! If ever the voice fails, then only will the Marchese receive his reward. He is content to wait. What patience! Each year now we make the pilgrimage; and some day, when the test is unfavorable..." She gave a deep sigh. "Even La Bella Gina grows obviously no younger. Ah, yes, for him there is hope--_hélas_!"

The good creature seemed torn between sentiment for this model lover and for the exigent voice.

When next I passed the little gentleman, I looked at him with a new regard. He had seemed before rather a negligible quantity, in his dapper yellow gloves and high-heeled patent leathers; rather like an alert elderly crow hopping along under the wing, as it were, of a resplendent pouter-pigeon. But such faithfulness, such undiscouraged devotion to an ideal which he might well have found somewhat faded, lent him dignity; argued powers of endurance which commanded respect. He engaged sympathy, too; and it was to his matrimonial aspirations, rather than to the famous larynx, the too-exacting diaphragm, that one wished success in the forthcoming test, whatever that might be.

I was surprised to find the party at Pisa some days later, when we came to the grave old scholars' city; stopping at the Hotel of Neptune, whose unpretentious, restful atmosphere seemed a trifle primitive to appeal to the highly cultivated taste in hotels of a Madame Gina. But there they were, in full possession, Bijou, the harassed lady-secretary, and all, with the Marchese still in discreet long-distance attendance. He was the guest, so Annette informed me with some pride, of Monsieur the Archbishop of the diocese, his cousin.

There was an air of tension, of peculiar gravity about the party by this time. I fancied that the pilgrimage was wearing toward its close. Yet I could think of no particular shrine to be visited in the vicinity, nor of any famous singing master nearer than Florence to whom La Gina might be bringing the sacred voice for its test. There were no waters to be taken: on the contrary. As a resort of either health or fashion, Pisa was nil; and I could not believe the diva a mere tourist in her native land, searching for atmosphere, leaning towers, and the like.

Very early the morning after we arrived, one heard them stirring; they were always easy to hear. Apparently the promenade was about to take place. But at such an hour? Only natives were abroad, market women rattling barrows of melons and ripe purple figs over the cobblestones; goats, the milk wagons of Italy, being made vociferously to yield of their wares; watchful waiters already manning the walls of the sleeping Arno, with bamboo poles, in hope that the early worm would catch the fish at last (there can hardly be more than one fish left in that ancient and enfeebled stream). The real Pisa, that of the tourists, would slumber on for at least another hour; or endeavor to do so.

Yet Madame Gina, who never appeared in public until after the midday siesta, was unmistakably up and doing; one recognized her deep chest tones addressing Bijou, evidently about to be left behind: "Na, na, _piccolo mio!_ mother's jewel cannot accompany us to the mass, it is not for such as thee. He must remain in his little bassinet and masticate his little ball, like a good dog of my heart, while his Gina who adores him goes forth alone to the ordeal!"--here the deep chest tones faltered and broke.

"Ah, ah, you tear at my heart strings!" sobbed the voice of the lady-secretary. "See, carissima, you are not alone! Are not _we_ with you?"

"Courage, but courage," came the firm, efficient murmur of Annette. "Myself I have not a doubt but that things will go quite well, even better than last year; when, as you remember, Madame was slightly _enrhumée)."

"_Cara mia_, how you console me!--Signora, pray do not sniffle again; it is a noise I detest! Quick, my cane! Am I to wait here forever?"

I hurried to the window. Outside stood an open _carrozza_, half filled with flowers; beside it the Marchese, tugging at his mustache with nervous yellow gloves. His doglike eyes, turned upon the door, had an expression of mingled hope and apprehension. Certainly this was no mere promenade.

Suddenly I understood. The moment of the test had come!

I hurried into some clothes and followed--not a difficult thing to do since everybody in the street had been seized with the same idea. Market barrows, milch goats, and fishermen, all of us hastened along together in the direction of the Duomo. At its doors I recognized the flower-filled carriage, empty, surrounded by interested spectators.

"Have we then a wedding?" they asked one another. "A first communion?"

"No, no!" replied somebody. "Did you not recognize her? La Gina, La Gina again, in person!"

The great doors of the Cathedral were not yet open, but I managed an entrance by means of a tip and a lesser door, of green baize; in some such manner, perhaps, as sinners may enter Paradise. My cavalcade was there, having a mass all its own, near that ancient swinging lamp whose constant motion gave Galileo the idea of the pendulum. Level rays of a new-risen sun, through prismatic glass, touched to pure glory the rich interior: the black-and-white striped marble of the walls, the mellowed sculptures, the old, dim saints and madonnas who are forever young, the burnished silver splendor of the altar. They knelt in a row at its rail; Gina and the other two women with black veils over their hair, the Marchese beside them, yellow gloves and a large plaid handkerchief neatly disposed in the high top hat at his feet, and beside him the driver of their carriage, in a black Fascist blouse; all of them receiving the Communion together at the hands of a sleepy priest. I lingered a moment, to register the picture in my memory.

Suddenly they rose and filed out past me, in the direction of the Baptistry. Annette and the secretary walked with bent heads, as if in prayer; but behind them Gina moved rather splendidly, with lifted face and a fine, exalted smile on her lips, a victim going forth to some self-appointed sacrifice. She had forgotten her cane, I saw it leaning against the altar rail; nor did she avail herself of the arm of the Marchese, who followed at her elbow.

I waited outside, for at last I knew what was occurring: La Bella Gina, like many another singer before her, had come to try out an aging voice by the test of the Baptistry's famous echo.

"Good luck!--Oh, good luck!" I whispered under my breath; not this time to the Marchese, waiting like a neat little crow for its pickings, but to the gallant old artist, facing perhaps the end of her career.

What sounds came out to us there in the young dewy morning; what trills and birdlike scales, invocations, fragments of arias--sometimes a trifle off the key, but how impassioned! Great, golden, contralto organ tones, soft whisperings of pure attenuated melody, all multiplied, repeated, continued on and on by the incomparable echo. It seemed to me, and to those who listened with me, a glorious exhibition of what the human voice could do. We smiled at one another happily.

"It goes well, eh?" asked my neighbors of one another and of me. Everybody seemed to realize what was happening. At times they could not resist applause.

"_Ancora, madonna mia!_" they shouted. "_Brava la Gina! La Gina bella, bellissima!_" In their humble persons, all Tuscany was at her feet.

Suddenly there fell a silence. Nobody moved or whispered. The door of the Baptistry was opening.

The singer came out alone, still with that calm, uplifted smile; but in her eyes as she gazed at us, those too expressive eyes of her race, was the look of a dying Mimi, of a terrified Carmen at bay. Behind her the others wept, even the Marchese, who blew his nose with candor.

Seeing the unexpected audience, she bowed quite charmingly; she had at all times and everywhere a most gracious stage presence. Then her tragic gaze encountered mine.

"So, my dear! thou?" she remarked familiarly, although we had never before exchanged a syllable; perhaps it was my sympathy she recognized. "Well, it is over! The years have conquered. I am done! The voice of Gina"--she made us a little cheery gesture of despair--"is no more."

"Ah, ah! you break my heart!" sobbed the lady-secretary.

The priest, the verger, others about her were quick with disclaiming protest. The coachman vociferated praise. Annette called upon her God with tears to witness that never in life had she, she who spoke, heard a high F attacked with greater purity.

"And what," shrilled Gina, turning upon them with sudden viciousness, "what do you know about it? Hein? I ask you! Always you lie to me, you flatter, you deceive! _Sapristi_! I trust none of you! Only the echoes do not lie, flatter, deceive, they being straight from Heaven. In the upper register I sharped--do you hear? I sharped! What have you to say to that? And the _sostenuto_--my God, there was no _sostenuto_! Add to these that in the middle register one had a huskiness--ah, bah! It is I who hear! Myself who am the judge, myself whom I trust! Not you--and you--and you!"

She snapped her fingers furiously under the nose of each of her attendants in turn, including the priest.

But the storm passed as suddenly as it had arisen. She turned upon the Marchese a rainbow smile; rather a wry attempt, but arch, and kind, and singularly sweet. I recalled how she had fed his young sons with sugarplums.

"For you, my friend," she murmured (and the smile took us all into their confidence) "this is perhaps not altogether an occasion of tragedy, eh?"

He tried visibly to utter a suitable disclaimer, to find some tactful protestation of regret, but it was useless; sudden happiness shone out from the man like a radiance. He could only bow over the hand held out to him and salute it reverently. The audience cheered.

Then, tucking her arm beneath his, he led his capture proudly away toward the flower-filled _carrozza_. It was a noble exit.

That evening we were aware of unusual activities afoot in the Hotel of Neptune. Waiters scurried about, under a good deal of personal direction; through a half-closed door into the grand salon, which is used as a rule only for wedding parties or masked balls, we caught glimpses of a table laid as for a banquet. I presently encountered Annette, also scurrying, but able as always to pause for a brief exchange of courtesies.

"My God, was it not pathetic?" she demanded of me, referring to the morning's experience. "And to-night, she celebrates defeat with a fête. What a gesture!"

I agreed with Annette. It was a gesture. "But she will have at least the pleased support of the Marchese," I commented smilingly.

The maid smiled back at me, as one woman to another. "Ah, yes, that! And also of Monsieur the Archbishop, who comes to the _festa_ in person, since he is of the family Boncelli.--Ah, Mees, if I could but show to you what a necklace Madame has received! Of pearls and rubies, _par exemple_, as big as my two eyes!" She made them very big indeed, to do justice to the princely offering. "And even I"--she touched complacently a brooch at her throat--"have not been neglected. It is the reward, one sees, of a sympathetic nature."

"How charming of him!" I exclaimed, delighted with such sentimental forethought on the part of the Marchese. He must have had the gift about him in readiness, since simple old Pisa would hardly be able to provide at such short notice a necklace of pearls and rubies as large as Annette's eyes.

"He has been carrying it _en poche_," she assured me, "for twenty years! Touching, _n'est-ce pas_? And it is now quite _démodé_. But we shall have the gems reset."

"So the engagement is to be announced already?" I asked. "The nuptials will soon follow?"

Annette looked puzzled. "Pardon?"

"Their marriage," I explained. "I thought possibly the Archbishop cousin might-- Surely," I interrupted myself, puzzled in turn by her expression, "you told me that when her voice failed your mistress had promised to marry the Marchese?"

"Ah!" Annette gave a nod of comprehension. "That, no; it is a misunderstanding. What, in such case, would monsieur do with the wife he already has, the mother of the young noblemen? And Madame Gina, too--can you conceive that one of her rich nature should content herself all these years with combing the tresses of Saint Catherine?" She laughed a little, pleasantly. "Eh, no, it was not of marriage that I spoke," she said with a tender sigh, "but of love. Assuredly the poor Marchese deserves at last his happiness.... Yet at what cost to the world, what cost! The voice of Gina, that voice of velvet edged with little silver bells, never to be heard again, never again! Unless," she added pensively as she hurried away, "upon the concert stage of America, perhaps--who knows?"

CLASSICS IN SLANG: ROBINSON CRUSOE

_By_ H. C. Witwer

H. C. WITWER

Harry Charles Witwer was born in Athens, Pa., on March 11, 1890. He attended St. Joseph's College, Philadelphia, and his pre-literary career included: Errand boy in butcher shop, bellhop, managing prize fighters, and plain and fancy reporting on newspapers in Florida, Elizabeth, N.J., Newark, N.J., Atlanta, Ga., and New York (_American_ and _Sun_). In 1917 he was a war correspondent and the following year his popular stories in slang first achieved book publication (_From Baseball to Boches_). He has had approximately a book a year ever since, of which _The Leather Pushers_ was one of the most successful and _Bill Grimm's Progress_ is the most recent. Besides something like 400 magazine stories--over 100 of them for a single magazine--he is the author of at least 125 motion pictures, a couple of comic strips and one or two plays.