第14章

"Oh!" she exclaimed, "how I should like to see you grappling with the brigands! You would say such extraordinary things to them!...

Please take my hat, and hold my umbrella for me, Monsieur Bonnard.""What a strange little mind!" I thought to myself, as I followed her."It could only have been in a moment of inexcusable thoughtlessness that Nature gave a child to such a giddy little woman!"Girgenti.Same day.

Her manners had shocked me.I left her to arrange herself in her lettica, and I made myself as comfortable as I could in my own.

These vehicles, which have no wheels, are carried by two mules--one before and one behind.This kind of litter, or chaise, is of ancient origin.I had often seen representations of similar ones in the French MSS.of the fourteenth century.I had no idea then that one of those vehicles would be at a future day placed at my own disposal.

We must never be too sure of anything.

For three hours the mules sounded their little bells, and thumped the calcined ground with their hoofs.On either hand there slowly defiled by us the barren monstrous shapes of a nature totally African.

Half-way we made a halt to allow our animals to recover breath.

Madame Trepof came to me on the road, took my arm, and drew me a little away from the party.Then, very suddenly, she said to me in a tone of voice I had never heard before:

"Do not think that I am a wicked woman.My George knows that I am a good mother."We walked side by side for a moment in silence.She looked up, and I saw that she was crying.

"Madame," I said to her, "look at this soil which has been burned and cracked by five long months of fiery heat.A little white lily has sprung up from it."And I pointed with my cane to the frail stalk, tipped by a double blossom.

"Your heart," I said, "however arid it be, bears also its white lily; and that is reason enough why I do not believe that you are what you say--a wicked woman.""Yes, yes, yes!" she cried, with the obstinacy of a child--"I am a wicked woman.But I am ashamed to appear so before you who are so good--so very, very good.""You do not know anything at all about it," I said to her.

"I know it! I know all about you, Monsieur Bonnard!" she declared, with a smile.

And she jumped back into her lettica.

Girgenti, November 30, 1859.

I awoke the following morning in the House of Gellias.Gellias was a rich citizen of ancient Agrigentum.He was equally celebrated for his generosity and for his wealth; and he endowed his native city with a great number of free inns.Gellias has been dead for thirteen hundred years; and nowadays there is no gratuitous hospitality among civilised peoples.But the name of Gellias has become that of a hotel in which, by reason of fatigue, I was able to obtain one good night's sleep.

The modern Girgenti lifts its high, narrow, solid streets, dominated by a sombre Spanish cathedral, upon the side of the acropolis of the antique Agrigentum.I can see from my windows, half-way on the hillside towards the sea, the white range of temples partially destroyed.The ruins alone have some aspect of coolness.All the rest is arid.Water and life have forsaken Agrigentine.Water--the divine Nestis of the Agrigentine Empedocles--is so necessary to animated beings that nothing can live far from the rivers and the springs.But the port of Girgenti, situated at a distance of three kilometres from the city, has a great commerce."And it is in this dismal city," I said to myself, "upon this precipitous rock, that the manuscript of Clerk Alexander is to be found!" I asked my way to the house of Signor Michel-Angelo Polizzi, and proceeded thither.

I found Signor Polizzi, dressed all in white from head to feet, busy cooking sausages in a frying-pan.At the sight of me, he let go the frying-pan, threw up his arms in the air, and uttered shrieks of enthusiasm.He was a little man whose pimply features, aquiline nose, round eyes, and projecting chin formed a very expressive physiognomy.

He called me "Excellence," said he was going to mark the day with a white stone, and made me sit down.The hall in which we were represented the union of the kitchen, reception-room, bedchamber, studio, and wine-cellar.There were charcoal furnaces visible, a bed, paintings, an easel, bottles, strings of onions, and a magnificent lustre of coloured glass pendants.I glanced at the paintings on the wall.

"The arts! the arts!" cried Signor Polizzi, throwing up his arms again to heaven--"the arts! What dignity! what consolation!

Excellence, I am a painter!"

And he showed me an unfinished Saint-Francis, which indeed could very well remain unfinished for ever without any loss to religion or to art.Next he showed me some old paintings of a better style, but apparently restored after a decidedly reckless manner.

"I repair," he said--"I repair old paintings.Oh, the Old Masters!

What genius, what soul!"

"Why, then," I said to him, "you must be a painter, an archaeologist, and a wine-merchant all in one?""At your service, Excellence," he answered."I have a zucco here at this very moment--a zucco of which every single drop is a pearl of fire.I want your Lordship to taste of it.""I esteem the wines of Sicily," I responded, "but it was not for the sake of your flagons that I came to see you , Signor Polizzi."He: "Then you have come to see me about paintings.You are an amateur.It is an immense delight for me to receive amateurs.Iam going to show you the chef-d'oeuvre of Monrealese; yes, Excellence, his chef-d'oeuvre! An Adoration of Shepherds! It is the pearl of the whole Sicilian school!"I: "Later on I will be glad to see the chef-d'oeuvre; but let us first talk about the business which brings me here."His little quick bright eyes watched my face curiously; and Iperceived, with anguish, that he had not the least suspicion of the purpose of my visit.

A cold sweat broke out over my forehead; and in the bewilderment of my anxiety I stammered out something to this effect: