The Fortune of a Day

SOME one touched Beppe’s arm, in the gray dawn, and he awoke with a start from dozing against Rosellina’s flank, and mechanically lifted his hat while glancing about for the “ fare " who had disturbed his slumbers. Then his eye fell upon Margherita, and he started again, and his heart began to thump against the shabby coat.

“ Per Bacco ! little one, — you, so early ? What do you want ? ”

“ To go down there,” answered Margherita firmly, pointing in the direction of the valley. “To see the world.”

“ Per Bacco ! ”

Beppe was too astonished to say more. He looked at the little figure before him, resting upon its crutch, and he — who knew Margherita best of all — hardly recognized her. Above the festa gown and the pale-rose-colored kerchief her face showed white with its startling determination.

“ Has some one then left you a fortune, Margherita ? ” he asked, with not unkindly irony.

“Yes; the signora who made the picture of me. She paid me last night, — twenty whole francs, — and I made up my mind then to see the world.”

Beppe was silent again in sheer astonishment. Such a thing had never happened before in all the years he had driven cabs up and down the hills. He always knew Margherita was not like the others, — ah no ; but that such an idea as this should come to even Margherita’s head was beyond belief.

“ Child,”he said roughly, “ money is fire and food next winter, and you have not too much of either, and the straw work getting worse every day.”

“ I shall be hungry and cold, anyway, when it is gone ; but if I could see once — just once — what it is like down there, I should have that to remember always.”

Beppe slipped the feed bag off Rosellina’s nose.

“ Jump in,” he said gruffly. “ Hand me the crutch; up with you.” He gathered the reins and mounted to his own seat. “ Are you ready ? ”

Margherita nodded. She sat bolt upright, with her crutch beside her, and the color blazing and fading in her cheeks.

“ Believe me,”muttered Beppe, “ that signora was no fool; there are not two pairs of eyes like those in Tuscany.”

Margherita breathed in gasps, as the carriage rolled down the winding way. She had never been beyond the Piazza. There were old men and women in the commune who had never been farther. With Margherita’s back walking was impossible, and certainly nobody else ever dreamed of deliberately paying out good money to drive anywhere; that belonged to foreigners and the signori. In the wonder of it, Beppe left the way to Rosellina, who could be trusted to know it, and turned sideways on his seat.

“Up there,—what do they say to this ? ”

“ They do not know. I slipped out very, very softly, so that no one heard.”

Beppe whistled.

“ What! you are doing it under the plate ? But whatever put it into your head, little one, to see the world ? ”

Margherita’s cheek burned redder.

“ I have heard it is so beautiful. Costanza went once to the Carnival, — and there is no one to take me, like Costanza. I did want to see ” —

Beppe coughed two or three times, and moved uneasily on the seat.

“ If I had known, Margheritina, I would have taken you. But you are such a quiet little one, who could know you had all that in your head ? ”

“ Cesare says on festas it is a paradise,”breathed Margherita softly, her dreamy eyes gazing as if she already beheld it.

This time Beppe’s cheek reddened, and he frowned.

“ Cesare ! It is that good-for-nothing, then, who puts ideas in your head. Not that I say anything against seeing the world a little.” He straightened himself and looked important. " I have seen it myself in my day. I was never one of those who think Fiesole is all the good God made. But that Cesare is too handsome to do any good. He and Costanza will make a fine pair.”

“ He danced only once with her at the fair.” Margherita spoke very low, while her slight hands gripped the crutch as if they would dent it.

“ Chè, chè ! one does not waste money on maids for nothing. I myself heard her ask him to bring her some beads from the city, and he laughed and never refused. Altro,” — he shrugged his shoulders, — “ we won’t quarrel over the lad ; leave that to the girls,” and he began to hum an air with great indifference.

They rode in semi-silence down the historic way, winding between the walls of stately villas and gardens, over which fragmentary marbles peered, — nymphs and goddesses and gods. Beppe knew little of these stone pages of history, but Margherita knew nothing. Seventeen years comprised all her past, and the future stretched before her exactly like unto it, — a future of interminable strawplaiting in the doorway of the same little house beyond high Fiesole, with the same struggle summer and winter to keep food in the mouth, shoes on the feet, and a drop of oil in the lamp, to plait more straw by. But this day was hers.

They were already at the foot of the hill, following the slender ribbon of the Mugnone. All at once Beppe drew up his reins and halted Rosellina.

“ Listen ! Do you hear that, Margherita ? ”

A sound of many mingled sounds, as strange as the voice of the sea to inland ears, thrilled through Margherita’s veins.

“ That is the world.” He straightened his shabby hat, and, flourishing his whip, started Rosellina into an ungainly canter. Margherita had a dizzy vision of many houses, carriages, horses, and people, as the cab clattered through the barrier; Beppe holding up both hands, palms open, in expressive assurance to the guards that there was not a soldo’s worth of cheese or red wine in the carriage, trying to escape honest taxes.

Proud yet fearful, Margherita looked up at the rows of frowning palaces.

“ If Costanza could see me now ! ” she thought.

“ These are the houses of the signori,” said Beppe, —“ people who lie abed till noon, eat off of silver, and would as soon swallow a gold piece as I a fig, and never feel it. Ma chè, I will show you something better.”

He touched up Rosellina, and she whirled them through echoing spaces, till Beppe reined her suddenly upon her haunches, after the manner of his Florentine brethren of the cab.

“ There ! ”

Margherita could only sigh with happiness, her eyes climbing from the mass of rose and white and fair-colored marbles of the vast cathedral to where a hundred doves circled about the fairer tower, which has no rival in the whole round world.

“ Get out and go in, Margherita,” said Beppe. “ It is the good God’s, and he is always at home. A little prayer never does any harm.”

He lifted her out, and watched her go up the great steps, his weatherbeaten face softening strangely, as the old Florentine fortress palaces do under the late sunglow. When the heavy leathern door curtain fell behind the young girl, he crossed himself.

“ There is no more religion anywhere,” he said to himself, “but for such as her the saints ought to do something still.” Then he beckoned loftily to the vender of corn-filled cornucopias, standing at the foot of the tower. He handed the man a soldo in exchange for one of the yellow papers, not without grumbling that a centesimo would be liberal for such foolishness as the cornucopia contained ; whereupon the vender held up both hands, and bade Beppe reflect upon the price of grain, the iniquity of the taxes, and the size of the standing army, solely maintained by his own disinterested efforts in the sale of cornucopias. Beppe’s response was an eloquent shrug — a Tuscan shrug, differing in form and substance from a Roman or Neapolitan kindred token — ere he turned his attention to the large door by which Margherita should emerge.

“ Santa Maria ! ” murmured he, when she appeared at last at the top of the marble steps. " If that signora could see her now !

“ I made also a prayer for you, Beppe,” said the young girl, her eyes still full of splendor and dreams.

“ Thank you. Margherita,” stammered he ; “ they will hear you, if anybody.” He thrust the cornucopia into her hand, and turned to Rosellina to hide his emotion. “ Who knows,” he thought, — “ after all, who knows ? ”

“ Per Bacco ! ” ejaculated a voice behind him. “ That is the prettiest face in all Florence. What a pity ” —

Beppe wheeled. Two signori, pausing in their promenade, were gazing where Margherita, brilliant and laughing with delight, stood with her arms full of doves, and a hundred glancing wings, eager bills, and bright eyes flashing about her.

“ Altro,” said the second gentleman, “ with a face like that, what does the rest matter ? All the saints, what eyes ! ”

Some one else turned at the words, — a slender lad, wearing his shabby cap debonairly. There was an exclamation : “ Santa Maria ! it is the little Margherita! ”

“Cesare!” The yellow cornucopia with all its grain fell at her feet; a whirl of doves rose startled through the air, and Margherita stood paling and flushing alternately, her wide eyes shining on the newcomer.

He on his part remained staring at her, repeating to himself the words of the signori, “ The prettiest face in Florence ! ” How had he ever helped noticing, in fact, how pretty she was ? The prettiest girl in the Piazza, by all odds.

“ May Cesare come too ? ” Margherita interrogated Beppe timidly.

“ It costs no more,” answered Beppe dryly.

Cesare waited for no further invitation. He was consumed with curiosity to know how Margherita came to be there, — a miracle whose magnitude he was abundantly able to estimate. Moreover, a ride in a carriage is not to be sneezed at, at anytime; and finally, Margherita was certainly very, very pretty, with all that color in her cheeks and her eyes like lamps.

“Tell me, Margherita mia,” he began at once, “ what miracle brought you here ? — for believe me, I should have looked to see Our Lady herself as soon.”

“ It was the signora’s money. What you said is all true, Cesare, — it is a paradise.” She looked at him so that he felt himself all amazed and dizzy again.

“ Diavolo, little one, but you have courage ! ” he said aloud. To himself he kept thinking : “ Who would ever have believed Margherita had it in her ? She has twice the spirit of that big Costanza, who would never venture in a whole year of festas ; and if her back is not so straight as some, better a crooked back than a wooden head,” — which meant that big Costanza, again. “ If you think this a paradise, Margherita,” he said, “you should see it to-night. It is the day of the Statuo, and there will be illuminations.”

Margherita scarcely heard him. The long, narrow streets of unimaginable splendors, shop windows glittering with undreamed - of luxuries, stately buildings, richly dressed people, passed before her eyes like the phantasmagoria of a dream; a soundless tumult in her heart shut out the very sound of words. She had been a dreamer all her life ; she was dizzy now with the coming true of all her dreams together, — oh, more than all her dreams !

Beppe, however, driving in silence, his old eyes gazing straight ahead, heard every word that fell from the lad’s lips : all the chatter of events, the little city anecdotes, the bits of town-gathered wit and wisdom which the boy had picked up in those days of absence deplored of the home commune, and which he now set forth brightly for Margherita’s entertainment, deferentially for Beppe’s. Nor was that deference lost upon the grizzled cabman, who had his own ideas of manners and modesty. He kept an unrevealing dumbness, quite unlike Margherita’s, which was of a kind to cheapen every form of response. All up and down the narrow streets he drove them grimly : past the open market, by the vanities of gold and millinery, out to the Caseine, where at last Rosellina took a tranquil place in the line of liveried turnouts comprising the high life of Florence. And oh, comedy of the human heart! to Margherita it seemed a million times less wonderful to be riding among dukes and princes of blood royal than to be riding beside Cesare, his shabby jacket brushing her faded gown, his supple brown hands and laughing eyes talking as ceaselessly as his merry tongue, and all for her, to her, for her pleasure and delight. Scarcely did she note when they left the stream of grand dukes, princelets, and petty countesses, to flash from out a maze of darkening streets upon a bridge. Beneath that bridge something went by in a golden glitter under the low sun, and the bridge was a-glitter, also, with the silver and gold of jewelers’ booths.

“ The Arno ! ” said Cesare proudly. " They say this bridge was here — who knows how long ago ? My father and my grandfather saw it.”

More beautiful to Margherita than the river or the bridge seemed the treasure of gold and silver trinkets, such as her eyes had never seen. Cesare’s eyes followed her wistfully admiring glance, and his hand stole once or twice to his pocket, to be withdrawn again with an odd look of embarrassment.

“ The palace of the king ! " Beppe was saying the next minute, and there in fact was the great mass of the Pitti frowning down upon them. Guards in scarlet stood before its awful doors.

“ They say there are wonders to be seen in there, — rooms and rooms full of nothing but pictures, for one thing. I brought the signora often to see them. Who knows, Margherita? — perhaps yours is there now.”

“ I went in once,” said Cesare. “ But the signora’s picture was not there then, — nothing half so pretty. I saw them all,—faded old ones, for the most part, not half so beautiful as those one sees in the windows on the Lung’ Arno. What is beautiful is the garden yonder, — the Boboli ; Margherita ought to step in a moment, Beppe, — beautiful long walks and statues and fountains and seats.”

“ Go on in, child,” was Beppe’s response. “ You don’t mind going alone for five minutes ? If Cesare here will hold Rosellina, I ’ll just stretch my own legs a little.”

“ Willingly,” replied Cesare politely, though with some secret wonder, seeing that Rosellina was known to stand faster than the very stones by the hour together. Beppe, however, handed him the reins, and made a great fuss stamping about on the pavement, while the slender figure, so swift in spite of its crutch, was disappearing under the arch of the garden. Then he resumed his seat with a brief “ Grazie,” but did not offer to relieve Cesare of the reins ; instead, he slowly proceeded to light a long ten-centesimi cigar.

“ There is one who has a heart,’ he said gruffly, between puffs, nodding vaguely backwards, “ and a head as well. One who would do what she has done today can think for herself and others too. There is n’t another in all Fiesole who would have the courage.”

“You are right, Beppe,” answered Cesare, with warmth. “ My mother always says she has the best heart and the quickest fingers at the straw work of any girl in Fiesole.”

“ Your mother is a woman of sense ; all Fiesole knows that. As for this one, — he who gets a wife with a heart and a face like that has not much to be pitied for.”

“ In fact, Margherita is very pretty ”—

“ Pretty ! Up there they know nothing, — that fat Costanza passes for pretty ; but in the city one sees the difference. You heard the signori, and all the world stares at the child. The truth is she is thrown away up there; she was made for the city. Altro, if I were younger myself ” —

“ Chè,” protested Cesare, but rather faintly, “ you are young enough yet, Beppe.”

“ No, no ; I am too old to change even for Margherita. What would you ? ” He shrugged deprecatingly. “To give up driving after twenty years of it, and settle down in a little shop ? ” Cesare looked up with a start, but Beppe paid no heed. “ Not but that a little shop, with butter, eggs, and good fresh milk to sell, and the folk coming to buy and say a word over the counter, and maybe later on a little farm of one’s own, with a cow or two and chickens, just beyond Fiesole, to supply the shop, — that is n’t so bad ; with the city to walk about in, in the evenings. Yes, yes, if I were younger, that is what I would do with the handful of francs I’ve laid by. With a face like Margherita’s behind the counter buyers would be plenty; and the child has so much gentleness; as for being quick at figures,—altro! Yes, yes, if I were younger ! But after driving cabs for twenty years one’s habits are formed.” He shrugged again.

“ In fact,” said Cesare faintly, “ it would be a sacrifice.”

“ A sacrifice ! ” Beppe puffed till he was completely enveloped in smoke, out of which his voice came muffled. “ There are some things one can’t do. But I 've been thinking, lately,” he added, “ there is all that money doing no good instead of making more money as it ought, and here is Margherita working her hands off at the straw work, which gets worse every day, and I without a chick or child of my own. If only she had a good husband to look after things a little, it would be a good thing for her and for me too ; I could put those francs to use, and not wake up every time a pebble rattles, for fear of thieves. After all, I have seen the child grow up, as if she were my own, and I wish her as well, — or nearly. Even the priest says she is a pearl. He who marries her would not need to be afraid of paradise ; she will take care of him here, and his soul after. If he were good to her, that is ” — He paused ominously.

“ Who could be anything but good to Margherita ? ”

“ Some devil,” replied Beppe grimly.

There was a pause, Beppe puffing fiercely. Then Cesare spoke : —

“ Beppe.” His voice was almost timid, but his handsome eyes looked frankly into those turned keenly on him. He drew a small package diffidently from his pocket, and displayed the contents. “ All that you have said there is very true, and — I’ve been thinking — I should like to give these to Margherita. She has n’t any — I happened to buy these ” — He broke off, with a look of mingled embarrassment and humor. “ What do you say ? ”

“ I ? ” returned Beppe bluntly. “ I say, not everything finds its way to the pocket it was bought for. Why should n’t you give it to the child ? ”

“ It is n’t good enough for her,” said Cesare regretfully, contemplating the gift. “ For another it would not matter, but for Margherita ” —

“ She will think it good enough,” interposed Beppe gruffly. “ Here she comes now.” He busied himself tucking the worn robe about him, and left to Cesare the task of assisting the young girl.

“ The nightingales were singing in there,” said Margherita, whose words were few, but whose eyes spoke volumes.

“ Ay, they do sing well,” assented Beppe, “ those little things. It goes to my heart to eat them. Only a soldo apiece you give for them, whole strings of them, and such little things, — a mouthful, and all that music gone down your throat.”

“Poor things!” responded Cesare sympathetically. “But one must say that they are good eating, with olives and a leaf of bay on each side of their little bodies, and a scrap of toast outside ; a mouthful of their little heads, and two of their bodies. Speaking of mouthfuls, Beppe, — if we drove to a restaurant ? Margherita here has eaten nothing but a crust since daybreak, and Rosellina will like a bite as well as we. I know a friend who keeps a place ” —

“ You have a head on your shoulders, Cesare.” Beppe nodded approvingly.

“ As for me, I have an appetite of beasts ; no nightingales for me, but a good risotto or macaroni.”

It was on the way to the restaurant that Cesare laid the little package in Margherita’s lap ; saying with the air of a young prince bestowing a coronet,

“ Ecco, Margherita, a nothing-at-all, but it will keep you from forgetting the day you saw the world.”

Margherita clasped the string of golden glass beads dumbly ; she did not break out into loud ecstasy, as Costanza would have done, but Cesare was not disappointed for that.

“ Grazie, grazie, Cesare, — so much, so much!” she murmured at last. It was prettier than any girl’s in Fiesole. What would Costanza say, — Costanza, who had asked him to bring her such a necklace ?

Beppe, looking sedately elsewhere, smiled the first smile of that day. “ That settles the big Costanza. One does not spend soldi on maids for nothing,” he thought, with grim satisfaction

Meanwhile Cesare was protesting gayly : " It is nothing, Margherita, nothing ; put it on, and it will be better.” And as they were passing through the dim Way of the Red Gate, it was not to be wondered at that in the dusk he made a strangely awkward piece of work of it, and was very long fastening the clasp at the back of her neck. To tell the truth, he felt a sudden overwhelming desire to put a kiss just under the necklace where all the soft curls met. Never had he known such a desire before and resisted it, but a timidity wholly new seized him, and, with a muttered excuse, he withdrew his hands from the beads, and sat with cheeks more burning than Margherita’s, biting his lips.

“ She is n’t like the others,” he thought, with mingled pleasure and pain.

At the restaurant he recovered all his easy grace, and did the honors of the place with an air which dazzled Margherita, to whom this glimpse of high life was a little disconcerting. She ate her risotto and sipped her glass of thin red wine almost dumbly. Cesare, however, was in spirits for all three, and filled his companions’ glasses with the manner of a lord of the feast. Rosellina, meanwhile, resumed her breakfast precisely at the point where she had left off. Though a female, Rosellina was a philosopher.

“ Put up your money, little one,” said Cesare, with a proprietary air, when Margherita timidly brought out the handkerchief in which her fortune was tied. “ I have a few soldi myself.” He laughed to hide some embarrassment, for to say truth he had forgotten about the beads, and his pocket was nearly empty. He went to arrange the matter with his friend, but Beppe followed.

“ See here, Cesare,” he interposed, touching him on the arm, “ I pay for this. Santa Maria, man, you spent half a lira at least on those beads, and it’s only the tourists who are made of money. A franc and a half, is it? Well, no one can say we have n’t lived like signori today.” he slipped the money into the lad’s hand.

“ Thank you, Beppe,” said Cesare gratefully. “ The truth is, I forgot about the beads, and half a lira does make a hole in one’s pocket; not that I would begrudge Margherita a whole lira, if I had it,”—for by this time Cesare had quite forgotten for whom the beads were originally bought.

And now the illumination was getting itself in train. Streets and palaces blossomed, as the three rode through, with clusters of colored globes, — the red, white, and green of Italy. In the dark space of the Piazza Signoria the Tower of the Old Palace blossomed, also. The mighty mass began to glow all over, as if the light came from within the stone itself; and there it stood, a gigantic, luminous fire palace against the stars, and from its top the tricolor floated. A murmur of rapture rose from the gathered thousands. Margherita touched Beppe’s arm.

“ Why do they light it ? Is it for some saint ? ”

“No, child ; it is for Italy,” responded Beppe. “It is too long to tell you.” The fact was he did not know very well himself.

The great stone building continued to glow, and all the clocks of the city struck out together.

“ Nine o’clock, and all that hill to climb ! ” exclaimed Beppe, taking up his reins. “ Do we say ‘ Happy night ’ here, Cesare, or will you come too ? My Rosellina will carry you like a feather.”

The fire palace faded before Margherita’s eyes.

“ I come too,” replied Cesare quickly ; “ that is, unless it displeases Margherita ? ”

She gave him one fleeting glance, and he stepped into the carriage. “ It is stupid down here,” he explained, with affected carelessness, “ and my mother frets if I am too long away.”

“ One should know when one has eaten enough,” was Beppe’s dry comment.

Margherita said nothing at all. She leaned back against the shabby cushions, and Florence and the world floated away from her ; the lights of the barrier faded, the dusk fell about them like a curtain, and they were out ou the wide sweet hillside under the stars.

Rosellina climbed slowly ; she had kept so many holidays. Beppe turned to look at the small face, so white against the sky.

“ Well, little one,” he said, with an odd tremble in his voice, “you can say that you have seen the world.”

There was no answer, and after a second glance Beppe turned abruptly round upon his seat, and, keeping his face straight ahead, began to whistle industriously, though softly.

The fireflies twinkled all about them, and the perfume of roses swept down against their faces from the villa gardens under whose walls they passed. Far up a nightingale began his throbbing song. Cesare moved a little nearer.

“You must be tired, Margherita,” he said gently. “ See, rest here.” With that new awkwardness he put out an arm and drew her nearer; she did not resist, and her head fell softly on his shoulder. Her eyes burned brighter than the fireflies in the dark. A great tremor seized them, and held them both mute, constrained, breathless. In the ilexes the nightingale sang on, of love, of summer, of Italy, and suddenly Margherita felt upon her own the burning yet gentle lips of her lover.

Beppe never once turned his head. He gave softly back the “ Happy night ” which softly came to him as Cesare slipped from the carriage into the shadows at the border of the village ; but he did not turn his head. How many summers had not the fireflies twinkled and the nightingales been singing, then as now !

Beyond the Piazza, with a second murmured “ Happy night ” Margherita too slipped noiselessly away, first pressing something into Beppe’s hand. The dim doorway of a squalid house swallowed her up, but not the child who had fled from it that morning. For to have seen the world is a great thing.

There is, however, a greater. Cesare dreaming on his narrow bed, Margherita dreaming awake on hers, with Cesare’s beads fast clasped, and Beppe grimly counting out a roll of twenty francs before he added them to his stocking’s hoard, in their varying degrees, had consciousness of this.

Grace Ellery Channing.