CHAPTER III

AN INTERLUDE

Meantime, the atmosphere of this secular court was not distasteful to

Francesco. The love of poetry and the arts which had made Naples in

the twelfth century the literary centre of Europe, still lingered; and

he found pleasant intercourse on lines along which he had long been

lonely.

Of Ilaria he saw little. She carried herself with a strange, new

dignity and seemed to avoid him even more sedulously than he had

planned to avoid her. He heard her spoken of as among the chief

beauties of the court. The Regent, it was said, had shown her marks of

especial favor, the more noteworthy as the Frangipani were on the side

of the empire, fighting against Clement and Charles of Anjou. But his

only opportunity of seeing her was at the court functions, which it

was his duty to attend. To men of Francesco's temperament the absent

has a more constraining force than the present; the dream-Ilaria, with

her wavering smile, had borne, it would seem, more intimate relations

to his life than the woman he watched from afar. But his restlessness

increased with the certainty that Ilaria avoided him; a circumstance

their meeting had not led him to fear.

Thus a week dragged on.

The African wind, which carries with it clouds of hot sand from the

depths of the Sahara, was raging in the upper regions of the air. On

earth there was still absolute calm. The leaves of the palm and the

branches of the mimosa hung motionless; the sea alone was agitated.

Huge, formless ridges swelled up here and there, dashing themselves

against the shore. The west was shrouded in dense gloom, and the sun,

in the metallic, cloudless haze, was seen dimly, as through a smoked

opal.

The Castello of Astura in the distant plains of Torre del Greco shone

white against the black smoke that rose from Vesuvius as from some

mighty furnace, spreading out in the shape of a long cloud from

Castellamaré to Posilippo. For weeks the mountain had displayed a

sinister activity, and at night the red fires were visible far away,

over land and sea, like the glow of some great subterranean furnace.

The peaceful altar of the gods had been transformed into the terrible

torch of the Eumenides.

There were dire forebodings of coming disaster in the air and in the

winds. At Torre del Greco penitential processions made the rounds of

the sun-baked streets, with lighted candles, subdued chanting and loud

sobbing. In Resina and Portici dull terror reigned. And the glare of

the August sun had become almost insufferable, as it fell full over

the waters to the pencilled line of the southern horizon, where a long

circle divided the misty, shimmering dove-color of the Tyrrhene Sea

from the hazy skies.

Then, like the knell of doom, the tidings of the fatal battle of

Tagliacozzo were wafted to Naples. Conradino's army had been utterly

routed. Charles of Anjou was the victor of the day.

The fate of the Swabian youth and that of his companions was still a

matter of surmise. They had fled from the battle-field. No one knew

the direction of their flight.

And for days Francesco went about as one dazed. The Neapolitans

laughed his exhortations to scorn, and seemed to invite the interdict

rather than to submit to the Vulture of Provence.

He was ruminating over the situation, wishing for some inspiration,

wishing for Ilaria, and noting idly how the soft siesta lights played

upon the sea, when Francesco perceived a little pleasure barque

skirting the coast, and heading apparently for his favorite

spot,--where he had met Ilaria on coming to Naples. As the breeze

impelled it nearer, music floated over the waters. A few moments, and

he descried within the boat three of the most charming of the younger

women of the court, with their attendant cavaliers. He eyed the little

boat longingly, as it approached like some swift sprite of the sea. It

was at hand now, moored to the tiny wharf, and one of the women called

out gaily:

"Messer Eremito, we have found your cell!"

"And like many hermits," laughed Stefano Maconi, "he appears to

welcome the intrusion."

"To be welcomed by Messer Francesco," suggested another, "we should be

on the barque which Charon is rowing across the Styx."

Francesco found his tongue at last.

"Beauty should always have precedence over departed souls," he said

with a smile. "Is it your pleasure to land and to enliven this

solitude?"

"No, but to lure you out upon the waters," said the woman who had

spoken.

Francesco, carried away by the spirit of the moment, ran down the

marble steps of the terrace and leaped lightly into the boat.

"Violetta made a wager that you would not come,--Petronella that you

would," said a third. "As for myself--I was neutral. But my fears were

with Violetta."

As the sun sank lower, the wind dropped, and the men bent singing to

their oars.

"We were playing a game, Messeré," said the Countess Violetta. "We are

trying to decide who is the fairest lady of this court, exclusive, of

course,--of us three. If we can agree, we shall plan a surprise for

that most lovely one!"

"My vote," said Messer Romano Vivaldi, "is for Madonna Ghisola. The

dusk of her hair is as soft as that of the thickest smoke of Vesuvius,

and, as in the smoke, there are red reflections in it!"

"Beware of the volcano," laughed Petronella. "A merry beauty for me,"

she improvised, speaking half verse, half prose like the others.

"Rose-white as asphodel blossom, and fragrant as the cyclamen of the

hills. What say you to the Contessa Leonora? Who can hear her laugh

without remembering what some one has said: 'Laughter is the radiance

of the soul?'"

"To my mind," said one of the cavaliers, who had not yet spoken, "the

Countess Ilaria Frangipani is the fairest woman of the court."

The eyes of Stefano Maconi flashed emphatic assent.

"She is too sad," objected Violetta, who was the youngest of the

party.

"So was the sea beneath the clouds of dawn," said the cavalier. "It

sighed of sorrows without end. The clouds melted, and the gray waters

brightened to turquoise, but whether under clouds or sun, the sea is a

mystery."

"She has the grace of the swaying wave," assented Petronella.

"And its light in her eyes," added Camilla.

"The lady is fair," acknowledged Messer Romano, "but too

unapproachable for me!"

Startled, Francesco saw, or fancied he saw, a complacent smile flit

across the countenance of Stefano Maconi.

"What thinks Messer Francesco of her beauty?" asked

Violetta. "I believe that each new age sees men and women fairer than

the last."

"I think, that cannot be," said the Countess Petronella, naively. "Was

never woman so fair as Madama Elena of Troy, and she lived before the

coming of our Saviour."

"I agree with Madonna Violetta," said Francesco dreamily. "Gazing at

Madonna Ilaria I think there is come into the world something strange

and new, revealed to us to our joy and our undoing!"

The sun had set. The boatmen were singing together.

"Non senti mai Achillé,

Per Pulisena bella,

Le cocenti favillé

Quant' io senti per quella.

"Udendo sua favella

Angelica é venozza,

Parlar si amorosa

In su la fresca erbetta."

"The beauty of this coast," said Francesco, speaking low, "is as the

beauty of woman. It transcends all I have imagined, yet is it ever

alien. I have felt it in Rome, but not so strongly. In Umbria, in

Tuscany all is more pure, more distant, yet more clear. The eye is

drawn afar to where earth meets sky; here it seeks to draw all to

itself. It is a beauty unhallowed: The triumph of the Pagan World!"

"Is there a city in Italy more Catholic than Naples?" protested

Violetta, while the others joined in a chorus of protestation.

"Where in Europe shall you find more priests?" asked Stefano Maconi,

shrugging his shoulders. "Where shall you find more churches?"

Francesco had been musing. Now the spirit of contradiction was upon

him.

"Even in your churches," he said suddenly, turning to Camilla, "I find

something strange. They are sumptuous indeed; yet there steals over me

a fearsome feeling, as if the worship were given not to the Deity that

is, but to deities long dead,--or worse than dead!"

A slight shudder ran over one or two of the hearers; the boatmen were

singing softly.

The stars were out, the boat was nearing the shore. And still the

boatmen were singing, as the moon shed her spectral light over the

crooning, murmuring waves.

"We are all agreed, are we not, that the Countess Ilaria Frangipani is

the fairest?" asked Camilla, as they prepared to land.

"Allow me," said Stefano Maconi, "to be responsible for the proposed

surprise. It shall, with your pleasure, take the form of a Festa in

the groves of Circé!"

"It will be fair weather to-morrow!" said Violetta. "We shall all be

there!"

After they had departed Francesco passed swiftly to and fro along the

terrace.

Strange feelings were at work within him. Love, hatred, jealousy were

contending for the mastery. He hated the oily cavalier with the

smooth, pleasant temper; he hated the man who dared aspire to Ilaria's

love. To Raniero he gave not even a thought. He had never felt jealous

of the Frangipani. But now Ilaria's name was on the wind! The sea

shouted it; the flowers exhaled it. It floated on the night-air; the

moon and the stars seemed to whisper it. Ilaria! Ilaria! He was once

more abandoned to the older gods!

"I shall not be there!" he murmured to himself, thinking of the Festa.

Yet, when the morning came, he was among the first to arrive.