Chapter 4

"Francesco has not stopped one minute since the wedding. He has been talking to the fish-people,--to everybody on the side street, saying that Loretta was his old shoes that he left at his door, and the fool Vittorio found them and put them on--that sort of talk."

"And Vittorio believes it?"

"He did not at first,--but twice Francesco came to see Loretta with messages from her mother, and went sneaking off when Vittorio came up in his boat, and then that night some one would tell him--'that fellow meets Loretta every day;' that he was her old lover. These people on the Giudecca do not like the San Giuseppe people, and there is always jealousy. If Vittorio had married any one from his own quarter it would have been different. You don't know these people, Signore,--how devilish they can be and how stupid."

"That was why he threw the ring in her face?"

"No and yes. Yesterday was Sunday, and some people came to see her from San Giuseppe, and they began to talk. I was not there; I did not get there until it was all over, but my wife heard it. They were all in the garden, and one word led to another, and he taunted her with seeing Francesco, and she laughed, and that made him furious; and then he said he had heard her mother was a nobody; and then some one spoke up and said that was true--fools all. And then Loretta, she drew herself up straight and asked who it was had said so, and a woman's voice came--'Francesco,--he told me--' and then Vittorio cried--'And you meet him here. Don't deny it! And you love him, too!--' and then the fool sprang at her and caught her hand and tore the ring from her finger and spat on it and threw it on the ground. He is now at his father's house."

"And she said nothing, Luigi?" The story seemed like some horrible dream.

"No, nor shed a tear. All she did was to keep repeating--'Francesco! Francesco! Francesco!' I got there at daylight this morning and have been there ever since. I told her I was coming for you. She was sitting in a chair when I went in,--bolt up; she had not been in her bed. She seems like one in a trance--looked at me and held out her hand. I tried to talk to her and tell her it was all a lie, but she only answered--'Ask Francesco,--it is all Francesco,--ask Francesco.' Hurry, Signore,--we will miss her if we go to her house. We will go at once to our canal and wait for her. They have heard nothing down there at San Giuseppe, and you can talk to her without being interrupted, and then I'll get hold of Vittorio. This way, Signore."

I had hardly reached the water landing of my canal ten minutes later when I caught sight of her, coming directly toward me, head up, her lips tight-set, her black shawl curving and floating with every movement of her body--(nothing so wonderfully graceful and nothing so expressive of the wearer's moods as these black shawls of the Venetians). She wore her gala dress--the one in which she was married--white muslin with ribbons of scarlet, her wonderful hair in a heap above her forehead, her long gold earrings glinting in the sunshine. All the lovelight had died out of her eyes. In its place were two deep hollows rimmed about by dark lines, from out which flashed two points of cold steel light.

I sprang from my gondola and held out my hand:

"Sit down, Loretta, and let me talk to you."

She stopped, looked at me in a dazed sort of way, as if she was trying to focus my face so as to recall me to her memory, and said in a determined way:

"No, let me pass. It's too late for all that, Signore. I am--"

"But wait until you hear me."

"I will hear nothing until I find Francesco."

"You must not go near him. Get into the gondola and let Luigi and me take you home."

A dry laugh rose to her lips. "Home! There is no home any more. See! My ring is gone! Francesco is the one I want--now---NOW! He knows I am coming,--I sent him word. Don't hold me, Signore,--don't touch me!"

She was gone before I could stop her, her long, striding walk increasing almost to a run, her black shawl swaying about her limbs as she hurried toward her old home at the end of the quay. Luigi started after her, but I called him back. Nothing could be done until her fury, or her agony, had spent itself. These volcanoes are often short-lived. We looked after her until she had reached the door and had flung herself across the threshold. Then I sent Luigi for my easel and began work.

The events that have made the greatest impression upon me all my life have been those which have dropped out of the sky,--the unexpected, the incomprehensible,--the unnecessary--the fool things--the damnably idiotic things.

First we heard a cry that caused Luigi to drop canvas and easel, and sent us both flying down the quay toward the rookery. It came from Loretta's mother;--she was out on the sidewalk tearing her hair; calling on God; uttering shriek after shriek. The quay and bridge were a mass of people--some looking with staring eyes, the children hugging their mothers' skirts. Two brawny fishermen were clearing the way to the door. Luigi and I sprang in behind them, and entered the house.

On the stone floor of the room lay the body of Francesco, his head stretched back, one hand clutching the bosom of his shirt. Against the wall stood Loretta; not a quiver on her lips; ghastly white; calm,--the least excited person in the room.

"And you killed him!" I cried.

"Yes,--he thought I came to kiss him--I did, WITH THIS!" and she tossed a knife on the table.

The days that followed were gray days for Luigi and me. All the light and loveliness were gone from my canal.

They took Loretta to the prison next the Bridge of Sighs and locked her up in one of the mouldy cells below the water line--dark, dismal pockets where, in the old days, men died of terror.

Vittorio, Luigi, and I met there the next morning. I knew the chief officer, and he had promised me an interview. Vittorio was crying,--rubbing his knuckles in his eyes,--utterly broken up and exhausted. He and Luigi had spent the night together. An hour before, the two had stood at Francesco's bedside in the hospital of San Paulo. Francesco was still alive, and with Father Garola bending over him had repeated his confession to them both. He was madly in love with her, he moaned, and had spread the report hoping that Vittorio would cast her off, and, having no other place to go, Loretta would come back to him. At this Vittorio broke into a rage and would have strangled the dying man had not the attendant interfered. All this I learned from Luigi as we waited for the official.

"This is a frightful ending to a happy life--" I began when the officer appeared. "Let them talk to each other for just a few moments. It can do no harm."

The official shook his head. "It is against orders, Signore, I cannot. He can see her when she is brought up for examination."

"They will both have lost their senses by that time," I pleaded. "Can't you think of some way? I have known her from a child. Perhaps an order from headquarters might be of some use." We were standing, at the time, in a long corridor ending in a door protected by an iron grating. This led to the underground cells.

The chief fastened his eyes on me for an instant, turned abruptly, called to an attendant, gave an order in a low voice and, with the words to Vittorio--"You are not to speak to her, remember," motioned the sobbing man toward the grating. Luigi and I followed.

She came slowly out of the shadows, first the drawn face peering ahead, as if wondering why she had been sent for, then the white crumpled dress, and then the dark eyes searching the gloom of the corridor. Vittorio had caught sight of her and was clinging to the grating, his body shaking, his tears blinding him.

The girl gave a half-smothered cry, darted forward and covered Vittorio's hands with her own. Some whispered word must have followed, for the old light broke over her face and she would have cried out for joy had not Luigi cautioned her. For a moment the two stood with fingers intertwined, their bowed foreheads kept apart by the cold grating. Then the boy, straining his face between the bars, as if to reach her lips, loosened one hand, took something from his pocket and slipped it over her finger.

It was her wedding ring.

IV

Summer has faded, the gold of autumn has turned to brown, and the raw, cold winds of winter have whirled the dead leaves over rookeries, quay, and garden. The boats rock at their tethers and now and then a sea gull darts through the canal and sweeps on to the lagoon. In the narrow opening fronting the broad waters lawless waves quarrel and clash, forcing their way among the frightened ripples of San Giuseppe, ashy gray under the lowering sky.

All these months a girl has clung to an iron grating or has lain on a pallet in one corner of her cell. Once in a while she presses her lips to a ring on her left hand, her face lighting up. Sometimes she breaks out into a song, continuing until the keeper checks her.

Then spring comes.

And with it the painter from over the sea.

All the way from Milan as far as Verona, and beyond, there have been nothing but blossoms,--masses of blossoms,--oleander, peach, and almond.

When the train reaches Mestre and the cool salt air fans his cheek, he can no longer keep his seat, so eager is he to catch the first glimpse of his beloved city,--now a string of pearls on the bosom of the lagoon.

Luigi has the painter's hand before his feet can touch the platform.

"Good news, Signore!" he laughs, patting my shoulder. "She is free!"

"Loretta!"

"Yes,--she and Vittorio are back in their garden. Borodini told the whole story to the good Queen Mother when she came at Easter, and the king pardoned her."

"Pardoned her! And Francesco dead!"

"Dead! No such good luck, Signore,--that brute of a crab-fisher got well!"

A COAT OF RED LEAD

I

My offices are on the top floor of a high building overlooking the East River and the harbor beyond--not one of those skyscrapers punctured with windows all of the same size, looking from a distance like huge waffles set up on end--note the water-line of New York the next time you cross the ferry and see if you don't find the waffles--but an old-fashioned sort of a high building of twenty years ago--old as the Pyramids now, with a friendly janitor who comes to me when I send for him instead of my going to his "Office" when he sends for me; friendly elevator boys who poke their heads from out their iron cages and wait five seconds until I reach them, and an obliging landlord who lets me use his telephone.

Mawkum, my chief draftsman--when you have only one it is best to label him "Chief" to your clients; they think the others are off building bridges for foreign governments, or lunching at Delmonico's with railroad presidents--my chief draftsman, I say, occupies the room opening into mine. His outlook is a brick wall decorated with windows, behind which can be seen various clerks poring over huge ledgers, a section of the roof topped with a chimney, and in the blue perspective the square, squat tower of the Produce Exchange in which hangs a clock. Both of these connecting rooms open on the same corridor, a convenient arrangement when clients wish to escape without being seen, or for the concealing of bidders who are getting plans and specifications for the same tenders, especially when two of them happen to turn up at the same moment.

Mawkum manages this, and with such adroitness that I have often seen clients, under the impression that the drafting-room was full, sit patiently in my office and take their turn while he quietly munches his sandwich behind closed panels--an illusion sustained by a loud "Good-morning" from my chief addressed to the circumambient air, followed by the slamming of the corridor door. When I remonstrate with Mawkum, insisting that such subterfuges are beneath the dignity of the office, he contends that they help business, and in proof quotes the old story of the unknown dentist who compelled a suffering prince to call the next day at noon, claiming that his list was full, when neither man, woman nor child had been in his chair for over a week--fame and fortune being his ever after.

When Mawkum gets tired of inspecting the brick wall and the industrious clerks and the face of the clock, he strolls leisurely into my room, plants himself at my window--this occurs during one of those calms that so often come to an office between contracts--and spends hours in contemplating the view.

To me the stretch of sky and water, with its dividing band of roof, tower and wharf, stretching from the loop of steel--that spider-web of the mighty--to the straight line of the sea, is a never-ending delight. In the early morning its broken outline is softened by a veil of silver mist embroidered with puffs of steam; at midday the glare of light flashing from the river's surface makes silhouettes of the ferry-shuttles threading back and forth weaving the city's life; at twilight the background of purple is bathed in the glory of the sunset, while at night myriads of fireflies swarm and settle, tracing in pencillings of fire the plan of the distant town.

Mawkum, being commercially disposed, sees none of these things; his gaze is fixed on the panting tugs towing chains of canal boats; on the great floats loaded with cars and the stately steamers slowing down opposite their docks. Today he develops an especial interest.

"That's the Tampico in from Caracas and the Coast," he says, leaning across my desk, his fat hand resting on my letter file. "She's loaded pretty deep. Hides and tallow, I guess. 'Bout time we heard from that Moccador Lighthouse, isn't it? Lawton's last letter said we could look for his friend in a month--about due now. Wish he'd come." And he yawned wearily.

Mawkum's yawn indicated the state of his mind. He had spent the previous three weeks in elaborating the plans and specifications for a caisson to be used under a bridge pier--our client assuring him that he had, to use his own words, "a dead sure thing on the award." When the bids were opened, Mawkum congratulated him on his foresight and offered to attend the funeral in a body, the client's bid being some thirty per cent too high. Little episodes like this add a touch of gayety to the hours spent in the top of the high building.

Mawkum's yawn over--it is generally in three sections, but can sometimes be curtailed--I interrupted hurriedly with:

"What sort of a structure is it?" I knew, but I wanted some other employment for his mouth.

"First order, screw pile, about a hundred and twenty feet high, stuck on a coral reef at the mouth of the harbor. 'Bout like our Fowey Rocks, off the Florida coast. She's backing in." His eyes were still on the Tampico, the floes of North River ice hemming her in on all sides. "Passengers'll be off in an hour. Wonder how they like our climate--little chilly for pajamas."

Here Mawkum strolled into his room and began overhauling the contents of a rack of drawings piled one on top of the other like cordwood, labelled: "Screw Pile Structures."

The next morning there came a timid knock at Mawkum's door--the knock of a child with matches to sell, or of one of those dear sisters who collect for the poor. At a second summons, a little louder than the first, the chief, with an impatient air, slid from the high stool facing his drawing board, and threw wide the door.

I craned my head and discovered a small, ivory-tinted individual in a Panama hat, duck trousers and patent-leather shoes. Wrapped about his shrivelled frame, one red-lined end tossed gallantly over his shoulder, was an enormous Spanish capa. This hid every part of his body from his chin to the knees of his cotton ducks. From where I sat he looked like a conspirator in the play, or the assassin who lies in wait up the dark alley. Once inside he wrinkled his shoulders with the shivering movement of a horse dislocating a fly, dropped the red-lined end of the capa, removed his Panama and began a series of genuflections which showed me at once that he had been born among a people who imbibed courtesy with their mother's, or their cocoanut's, milk.

"I am look' for the Grandioso Engineer," said the visitor. "I am Senor Garlicho--" Then a shade of uncertainty crossed his face: Mawkum was still staring at him. "It is a mistake then, perhaps? I have a letter from Senor Law-TON. Is it not to the great designer of lighthouse which I speak?" This came with more bows--one almost to the floor.

The mention of Lawton's name brought Mawkum to his senses. He placed his fat hand on his vest, crooked his back, and without the slightest allusion to the fact that the original and only Grandioso occupied the adjoining room, motioned the visitor to a seat and opened the letter.

I thought now it was about time I should assert my rights. Pushing back my chair, I walked rapidly through my own and Mawkum's room and held out my hand.

"Ah, Senor, I am delighted to meet you," I broke out in Spanish. (Here I had Mawkum--he did not understand a word.) "We have been expecting you; our mutual friend, Mr. Lawton, has given me notice of your coming--and how is the Senor and his family?" And in a few minutes we three were seated at my desk with Mawkum unrolling plans, making sketches on a pad, figuring the cost of this and that and the other thing; I translating for Mawkum such statements as I thought he ought to know, thus restoring the discipline and dignity of the office--it never being wise to have more than one head to a concern.

This partial victory was made complete when his ivory-tinted Excellency loosened his waistcoat, dived into his inside pocket and, producing a package of letters tied with a string, the envelopes emblazoned with the arms and seal of the Republic of Moccador, asked if we might be alone. I immediately answered, both in Spanish and English, that I had no secrets from Senor Mawkum, but this did not prove satisfactory and so Mawkum, with a wink to me, withdrew.

Mawkum gone, the little man--it is inconceivable how small and withered he was; how yellow, how spidery in many of his motions, especially with his fingers stained with cigarettes, how punctilious, how polite, how soft and insinuating his voice, and how treacherous his smile--a smile that smiled all alone by itself, while the cunning, glittering eyes recorded an entirely different brain suggestion--Mawkum gone, I say, the little man examined the door to see that it was tight shut, glanced furtively about the room, resumed his seat, slowly opened the largest and most flaringly decorated envelope and produced a document signed with a name and titles that covered half the page. Then he began to talk at the rate of fifty words to the second; like the rattle of a ticker in a panic: of Alvarez, the saviour of his country--his friend!--his partner; of the future of Moccador under his wise and beneficent influence, the Lighthouse being one of the first improvements; of its being given to him to erect because of his loyalty to the cause, and to the part he had taken in overturning that despot, the Tyrant Paramba, who had ruled the republic with a rod of iron. Now it was all over--Paramba was living in the swamps, hunted like a dog. When he was caught--and they expected it every day--he would be brought to the capital, San Juan, in chains--yes, Senor, in chains--and put to work on the roads, so that everybody could spit upon him--traitor! Beast, that he was! And there would be other lighthouses--the whole coast was to be as light as day. Senor Law-TON had said he could speak with perfect confidence--he was doing so, trusting to the honor of the Grandiose--the most distinguished--etc., etc. And now--this in a summing-up voice with a slower movement, about twenty words to the second--would the Grandioso go in as a partner in these ventures? The income he could assure me would be so fixed that the light dues alone would pay for the structure in two years--think of it, Senor, in two years--perhaps less!--and forever after we could both sit down and receive a small fortune, I by the Tampico in drafts signed by his Excellency, and he in his own hacienda surrounded by the patriots who honored him and the wife and children he adored.

At mention of the partnership a vague, cloudy expression crossed my face; my companion caught it, and continued:

Or (again the voice slowed down) I would be paid for the structure on its erection by me on the reef.

Again my eyes wandered, and again he took the cue:

Or--if that was not satisfactory--he would be willing to pay for the ironwork alone as soon as it arrived in the harbor of San Juan.

My Spanish is more like an old uniform that is rubbed up for a parade and then put away in camphor. Much of his talk was therefore lost on me; but the last sentences were as clear as if they had dropped from the lips of my old teacher, Senor Morales.

Half-rising from my chair, I placed my hand over my shirt-front and thanked his Excellency for his confidence--really one of the greatest compliments that had ever been paid me in all my professional career. To be at once the partner of two such distinguished caballeros as General Alvarez, the saviour of his country, and my distinguished guest, was an honor that few men could resist, but--BUT--here I picked up a lead pencil and a pad--BUT--the only way I could permit myself to rob him of his just desserts would be--here I traced a few lines on the pad--would be--my voice now became impressive--to receive one-third when it was erected in the yard in Brooklyn, and the balance on delivery of the bills of lading to his agent; payments to be made by his distinguished Excellency's bankers in New York.

If the modification of terms in any way disappointed the gentleman from San Juan, my closest observation of his smile and glance failed to detect it. He merely quivered his shoulders--a sort of plural shrug--rolled his cigarette tighter between his thumb and forefinger, remarked that the memoranda were entirely satisfactory, and folding the paper slid it carefully into his pocket; then with a series of salaams that reminded me of a Mohammedan spreading a prayer rug, and an "A Dios, Senor," the ivory-tinted individual withdrew.

A week later Mawkum, carrying a tin case addressed to his sun-dried Excellency, passed up the gangplank of the Tampico; this he placed in that gentleman's hands. Inside its soldered top were the plans and specifications of a First Order Light, to be made of iron, to be properly packed, and to have three coats of red lead before shipment--together with a cross-section of foundation to be placed on the reef known as "La Garra de Lobo"--The Claw of the Wolf--outside the harbor of San Juan--all at the risk of his Supreme Excellency, Senor Tomas Correntes Garlicho, of the Republic of Moccador, South America--the price of the ironwork to hold good for three months.

On his return to the office Mawkum took up his position once more at my window, waited until the Tampico, the case and his Excellency were well on their way to Sandy Hook and started in on other work. The next day the incident, like so many similar ventures--his racks were full of just such estimates--was forgotten. If any of the bread thus cast upon the waters came back, the chief would be glad, and so would the Grandioso; if not, we were both willing to cut a fresh slice to keep it company.

II