FullReads

“It is finished, my friend,” I said, interrupting him, and gazed with all my soul upon the beautiful lady. Her face was as white as Antonio’s or that of my friend, or as my own must have been. She strained her eyes at me fixedly; I saw the tears standing still in them, and I knew the moment had come.

“This Caravacioli is my half-brother,” I said.

Antonio laughed again. “Of what kind!”

Oh, he went on so easily to his betrayal, not knowing the United-Statesians and their sentiment, as I did.

“We had the same mother,” I continued, as quietly as I could. “Twenty years after this young–this somewhat young–Prince was born she divorced his father, Caravacioli, and married a poor poet, whose bust you can see on the Pincian in Rome, though he died in the cheapest hotel in Sienna when my true brother and I were children. This young Prince would have nothing to do with my mother after her second marriage and–“

“Marriage!” Antonio laughed pleasantly again. He was admirable. “This is an old tale which the hastiness of our American friend has forced us to rehearse. The marriage was never recognized by the Vatican, and there was not twenty years–“

“Antonio, it is the age which troubles you, after all!” I said, and laughed heartily, loudly, and a long time, in the most good- natured way, not to be undone as an actor.

“Twenty years,” I repeated. “But what of it? Some of the best men in the world use dyes and false–“

At this his temper went away from him suddenly and completely. I had struck the right point indeed!

“You cammorrista!” he cried, and became only himself, his hands gesturing and flying, all his pleasant manner gone. “Why should we listen one second more to such a fisherman! The very seiners of the bay who sell dried sea-horses to the tourists are better gentlemen than you. You can shrug your shoulders! I saw you in Paris, though you thought I did not! Oh, I saw you well! Ah! At the Cafe de la Paiz!”

At this I cried out suddenly. The sting and surprise of it were more than I could bear. In my shame I would even have tried to drown his voice with babblings but after this one cry I could not speak for a while. He went on triumphantly:

“This rascal, my dear ladies, who has persuaded you to ask him to dinner, this camel who claims to be my excellent brother, he, for a few francs, in Paris, shaved his head and showed it for a week to the people with an advertisement painted upon it of the worst ballet in Paris. This is the gentleman with whom you ask Caravacioli to dine!”

It was beyond my expectation, so astonishing and so cruel that I could only look at him for a moment or two. I felt as one who dreams himself falling forever. Then I stepped forward and spoke, in thickness of voice, being unable to lift my head:

“Again it is true what he says. I was that man of the painted head. I had my true brother’s little daughters to care for. They were at the convent, and I owed for them. It was also partly for myself, because I was hungry. I could find not any other way, and so–but that is all.”

I turned and went stumblingly away from them.

In my agony that she should know, I could do nothing but seek greater darkness. I felt myself beaten, dizzy with beatings. That thing which I had done in Paris discredited me. A man whose head-top had borne an advertisement of the Folie-Rouge to think he could be making a combat with the Prince Caravacioli!

Leaning over the railing in the darkest corner of the terrace, I felt my hand grasped secondarily by that good friend of mine.

“God bless you!” whispered Poor Jr.

“On my soul, I believe he’s done himself. Listen!”