when the fractured shin bone had been set by a surgeon from genoa, and carolina had passed a day and a night in sullen rebellion at fate, she asked for marianna.
“she is at the mill, dear cousin,” answered serafina.
“what mill?”
“the straw mill, where she is a plaiter.”
“let her leave it and come to me.”
“but she gains ten soldi a day. how shall we live if we give up our work?”
“i will make up the ten soldi. bid her come.”
so the next dawn did not find marianna hastening with lunch hamper down the path through the fir thicket toward the mill in [pg 115]the gorge. but armando was at the spot where he met her every morning on her way to work. and while he watched and worried under the alders, whose boles the torrent splashed, marianna stood at the bedside of aunt carolina. at daybreak she had entered the room softly, and found the woman from america awake.
“i have been waiting for you,” she said faintly. “in the night i remembered a packet that bertino gave me for some one in cardinali—a signor corrini. it is there, in the bag. take it out, and deliver it to whom it belongs.”
“signor corrini! armando!” cried the girl. “i will carry it to him at once.” she started for the door.
“armando is your amante?”
“si, aunt.” she blushed, and left the room, closing the door gently.
“and i the bearer of a message to him! o maria! what penance more? all fasts kept, aves and paternosters said faithfully, and my reward—a broken leg!”
[pg 116]
marianna lost no time in delivering the precious missive to armando, whom she found waiting in the gorge at the wonted place. without stopping to answer his anxious inquiries, she placed the fateful packet in his hands.
“from bertino,” she said.
“ah, joy!” he cried, tearing open the envelope. “what i have waited for so long! surely it is the model for my great work, for the bust that shall make me famous in america. bones of st. george!”
he had taken out the portrait of juno, and stood glaring at it.
“she has a nose,” marianna remarked.
“true,” said armando thoughtfully. “i wonder if this is american beauty.”
then he began reading the letter aloud. at the part that told him it was a portrait of the wife of the president of the united states he leaped for gladness, and marianna started away to tell all the village. armando caught her arm.
“not a word!” he said; “not a word [pg 117]until the work is done—nay, until it is delivered to her majesty la presidentessa.”
and a great secret it remained for many months, during which armando toiled by day and night, releasing from the block of marble the supposed first lady of the land. marianna saw little of him. when she ventured to look in at the shop where he worked, her visit never seemed welcome. he returned short answers to her questions, and showed petulance because of the interruption; and the dreadful truth was borne in upon her that he had given himself heart and soul to the woman who took shape from the marble. one day, when the bust was almost finished, she said timidly:
“armando, don’t you love me any more?”
“what a question! of course i do,” and he gave her a hasty kiss. then he went on chipping at juno’s snub nose.
not at all reassured, marianna went back to aunt carolina, whose convalescence had met with a serious setback; but she was out [pg 118]of bed now, and talking about returning to mulberry by the next ship.
“sit by my side, carina,” she said. “i have something to say to you. soon i shall go to america. do you know what a fine country that is? well, you shall see. aunt serafina permits it, and i will bear the expense—and it is decided that you may go with me. ah, how happy you must be to hear this! how many girls would like to go, and how few have the chance!”
“but armando!”
“the amante!” said carolina scornfully. “bah! he is nothing.”
“true enough,” sneered aunt serafina. “all cardinali knows what he is. a good-for-naught who will starve when the money that old daniello the image maker left him is eaten up.”
“he is no good-for-naught,” said the girl. “he is a sculptor.”
she could not help defending him then, but none the less that night she went to bed with serious thoughts in her head of accepting[pg 119] aunt carolina’s offer. it was the month of the finished bust, and with the sense that armando no longer cared for her was mingled a feeling of resentment, which she vaguely fancied could be expressed most potently by forsaking him—leaving him alone with the stony woman who had robbed her of his heart. of course, this would not have weighed against the love that was only wounded, had not the tone of her two aunts taken a ring of command, instead of solicitation, as the day drew nearer for carolina’s departure. thus it came to pass that on the very morning that the bust was carried down the winding road to genoa and put aboard a ship for new york, marianna said to armando:
“in three weeks i go to america.”
“you?”
“yes; with aunt carolina.”
“why?”
“she wants me, and you do not love me.”
“dio! how can you say that?”
[pg 120]
“you love her better.”
“her? santa maria! who?”
“i know.”
“speak!”
“you love the marble woman.”
he caught her in a frenzied embrace, and imprinted kisses upon her hair, her glowing cheeks, her lips, and her long, brown eyelashes.
“mia vita!” he gasped. “do you know what you will do if you talk so? you will drive me mad! i swear that i love you better than life. i would die with you, my angel of god. with every breath i love you, love you, love you!”
“o madonna, che peccato! it is too late! she has the biglietto for the ship. they say i must go now.”
“then, by the sword of the saint, i will go too!”
and go he did on the ship that carried carolina and marianna, though it was not love alone that drew him after her. in america his fame was to be erected, and for [pg 121]some time he had been thinking that it would be well for him to be on the spot, and give bertino a hand with the architecture.
the white towers of genoa were still visible when carolina came face to face in the companion way with the amante, from whom she was felicitating herself she had separated marianna forever.
“what is he doing on this ship?” she demanded of the girl.
“going to america.”
“bah! i know that. is he following you?”
“yes, signora.”
of course she tried to keep them apart, and of course failed drearily every day of the voyage. while she hunted the vessel over for them, they would be enjoying a quiet exchange of confidences in one of the secret nooks known only to lovers on shipboard. one day armando confessed to a hopeless state of pocket. it had taken well-nigh every soldo he could raise to pay his passage. [pg 122]what he should do to support himself in america was, he owned, a knotty problem, but one that could remain unsolved only until his bust should be seen, admired, and purchased by the first lady of the land. it had been shipped three weeks before; already it was in america, and, oh, glorious thought! perhaps at that very moment standing upon a costly pedestal in the white house. even if her majesty the presidentessa had not found it convenient as yet to receive it, she would do so in a fortnight at the longest. great people like that always took their time. meanwhile had he not bertino, his bosom friend and commercial representative in the american market, to stand by him? with this golden view marianna was in full accord, and his twenty years and her seventeen could see nothing to worry about in the new world.
