Having finished dressing, I unlocked the door of the stuffy little cabin and called the old rag-picker. He came shuffling along with his head bent, but raising his eyes as he approached me, he threw up his hands in astonishment, exclaiming,
"Santissima Madonna! But you are a fine man—a fine man! Eh, eh! Holy Joseph! What height and breadth! A pity—a pity you are old; you must have been strong when you were young!"
Half in joke, and half to humor him in his fancy for mere muscular force, I rolled up the sleeve of my jacket to the shoulder, saying, lightly,
"Oh, as for being strong! There is plenty of strength in me still, you see."
He stared; laid his yellow fingers on my bared arm with a kind of ghoul-like interest and wonder, and felt the muscles of it with childish, almost maudlin admiration.
"Beautiful, beautiful!" he mumbled. "Like iron—just think of it! Yes, yes. You could kill anything easily. Ah! I used to be like that once. I was clever at sword-play. I could, with well-tempered steel, cut asunder a seven-times-folded piece of silk at one blow without fraying out a thread. Yes, as neatly as one cuts butter! You could do that too if you liked. It all lies in the arm—the brave arm that kills at a single stroke."
And he gazed at me intently with his small blear eyes as though anxious to know more of my character and temperament. I turned abruptly from him, and called his attention to my own discarded garments.
"See," I said, carelessly; "you can have these, though they are not of much value. And, stay, here are another three francs for some socks and shoes, which I dare say you can find to suit me."
He clasped his hands ecstatically, and poured out a torrent of thanks and praises for this additional and unexpected sum, and protesting by all the saints that he and the entire contents of his shop were at the service of so generous a stranger, he at once produced the articles I asked for. I put them on—and then stood up thoroughly equipped and ready to make my way back to my own home when I chose. But I had resolved on one thing. Seeing that I was so greatly changed, I determined not to go to the Villa Romani by daylight, lest I should startle my wife too suddenly. Women are delicate; my unexpected appearance might give her a nervous shock which perhaps would have serious results. I would wait till the sun had set, and then go up to the house by a back way I knew of, and try to get speech with one of the servants. I might even meet my friend Guido Ferrari, and he would break the joyful news of my return from death to Nina by degrees, and also prepare her for my altered looks. While these thoughts flitted rapidly through my brain, the old ragpicker stood near me with his head on one side like a meditative raven, and regarded me intently.
"Are you going far?" he asked at last, with a kind of timidity.
"Yes," I answered him, abruptly; "very far."
He laid a detaining hand on my sleeve, and his eyes glittered—with a malignant expression.
"Tell me," he muttered, eagerly, "tell me—I will keep the secret. Are you going to a woman?"
I looked down upon him, half in disdain, half in amusement.
"Yes!" I said, quietly, "I am going to a woman."
He broke into silent laughter—hideous laughter that contorted his visage and twisted his body in convulsive writhings.
I glanced at him in disgust, and shaking off his hand from my arm, I made my way to the door of the shop. He hobbled quickly after me, wiping away the moisture that his inward merriment had brought into his eyes.
"Going to a woman!" he croaked. "Ha, ha! You are not the first, nor will you be the last, that has gone so! Going to a woman! that is well—that is good! Go to her, go! You are strong, you have a brave arm! Go to her, find her out, and—kill her! Yes, yes—you will be able to do it easily—quite easily! Go and kill her."
He stood at his low door mouthing and pointing, his stunted figure and evil face reminding me of one of Heinrich Heine's dwarf devils who are depicted as piling fire on the heads of the saints. I bade him "Good day" in an indifferent tone, but he made me no answer. I walked slowly away. Looking back once I saw him still standing on the threshold of his wretched dwelling, his wicked mouth working itself into all manner of grimaces, while with his crooked fingers he made signs in the air as if he caught an invisible something and throttled it. I went on down the street and out of it into the broader thoroughfares, with his last words ringing in my ears, "go and kill her!"
CHAPTER VII.
That day seemed very long to me I wandered aimlessly about the city, seeing few faces that I knew, for the wealthier inhabitants, afraid of the cholera, had either left the place together or remained closely shut within their own houses. Everywhere I went something bore witness to the terrible ravages of the plague. At almost every corner I met a funeral procession. Once I came upon a group of men who were standing in an open door way packing a dead body into a coffin too small for it. There was something truly revolting in the way they doubled up the arms and legs and squeezed in the shoulders of the deceased man—one could hear the bones crack. I watched the brutal proceedings for a minute or so, and then I said aloud:
"You had better make sure he is quite dead."
The beccamorti looked at me in surprise; one laughed grimly and swore. "By the body of God, if I thought he were not I would twist his accursed neck for him! But the cholera never fails, he is dead for certain—see!" And he knocked the head of the corpse to and fro against the sides of the coffin with no more compunction than if it had been a block of wood. Sickened at the sight, I turned away and said no more. On reaching one of the more important thoroughfares I perceived several knots of people collected, who glanced at one another with eager yet shamed faces, and spoke in low voices. A whisper reached my ears, "The king! the king!" All heads were turned in one direction; I paused and looked also. Walking at a leisurely pace, accompanied by a few gentlemen of earnest mien and grave deportment, I saw the fearless monarch, Humbert of Italy—he whom his subjects delight to honor. He was making a round of visits to all the vilest holes and corners of the city, where the plague raged most terribly—he had not so much as a cigarette in his mouth to ward off infection. He walked with the easy and assured step of a hero; his face was somewhat sad, as though the sufferings of his people had pressed heavily upon his sympathetic heart. I bared my head reverently as he passed, his keen kind eyes lighted on me with a smile.
"A subject for a painting, yon white-haired fisherman!" I heard him say to one of his attendants. Almost I betrayed myself. I was on the point of springing forward and throwing myself at his feet to tell him my story. It seemed to me both cruel and unnatural that he, my beloved sovereign, should pass me without recognition—me, to whom he had spoken so often and so cordially. For when I visited Rome, as I was accustomed to do annually, there were few more welcome guests at the balls of the Quirinal Palace than Count Fabio Romani. I began to wonder stupidly who Fabio Romani was; the gay gallant known as such seemed no longer to have any existence—a "white-haired fisherman" usurped his place. But though I thought these things I refrained from addressing the king. Some impulse, however, led me to follow him at a respectful distance, as did also many