Short Fiction

head thrown back and one hand outstretched, the other clasped in that of a guide who was in the secret but enjoined to keep himself perfectly passive, with his thoughts directed upon the agreed goal. Cipolla moved with the bearing typical in these experiments: now groping upon a false start, now with a quick forward thrust, now pausing as though to listen and by sudden inspiration correcting his course. The roles seemed reversed, the stream of influence was moving in the contrary direction, as the artist himself pointed out, in his ceaseless flow of discourse. The suffering, receptive, performing part was now his, the will he had before imposed on others was shut out, he acted in obedience to a voiceless common will which was in the air. But he made it perfectly clear that it all came to the same thing. The capacity for self-surrender, he said, for becoming a tool, for the most unconditional and utter self-abnegation, was but the reverse side of that other power to will and to command. Commanding and obeying formed together one single principle, one indissoluble unity; he who knew how to obey knew also how to command, and conversely; the one idea was comprehended in the other, as people and leader were comprehended in one another. But that which was done, the highly exacting and exhausting performance, was in every case his, the leader’s and mover’s, in whom the will became obedience, the obedience will, whose person was the cradle and womb of both, and who thus suffered enormous hardship. Repeatedly he emphasized the fact that his lot was a hard one⁠—presumably to account for his need of stimulant and his frequent recourse to the little glass.

Thus he groped his way forward, like a blind seer, led and sustained by the mysterious common will. He drew a pin set with a stone out of its hiding-place in an Englishwoman’s shoe, carried it, halting and pressing on by turns, to another lady⁠—Signora Angiolieri⁠—and handed it to her on bended knee, with the words it had been agreed he was to utter. “I present you with this in token of my respect,” was the sentence. Their sense was obvious, but the words themselves not easy to hit upon, for the reason that they had been agreed on in French; the language complication seemed to us a little malicious, implying as it did a conflict between the audience’s natural interest in the success of the miracle, and their desire to witness the humiliation of this presumptuous man. It was a strange sight: Cipolla on his knees before the signora, wrestling, amid efforts at speech, after knowledge of the preordained words. “I must say something,” he said, “and I feel clearly what it is I must say. But I also feel that if it passed my lips it would be wrong. Be careful not to help me unintentionally!” he cried out, though very likely that was precisely what he was hoping for. “Pensez très fort,” he cried all at once, in bad French, and then burst out with the required words⁠—in Italian, indeed, but with the final substantive pronounced in the sister tongue, in which he was probably far from fluent: he said vénération instead of venerazione, with an impossible nasal. And this partial success, after the complete success before it, the finding of the pin, the presentation of it on his knees to the right person⁠—was almost more impressive than if he had got the sentence exactly right, and evoked bursts of admiring applause.

Cipolla got up from his knees and wiped the perspiration from his brow. You understand that this experiment with the pin was a single case, which I describe because it sticks in my memory. But he changed his method several times and improvised a number of variations suggested by his contact with his audience; a good deal of time thus went by. He seemed to get particular inspiration from the person of our landlady; she drew him on to the most extraordinary displays of clairvoyance. “It does not escape me, madame,” he said to her, “that there is something unusual about you, some special and honourable distinction. He who has eyes to see descries about your lovely brow an aureola⁠—if I mistake not, it once was stronger than now⁠—a slowly paling radiance⁠ ⁠… hush, not a word! Don’t help me. Beside you sits your husband⁠—yes?” He turned towards the silent Signor Angiolieri. “You are the husband of this lady, and your happiness is complete. But in the midst of this happiness memories rise⁠ ⁠… the past, signora, so it seems to me, plays an important part in your present. You knew a king⁠ ⁠… has not a king crossed your path in bygone days?”

“No,” breathed the dispenser of our midday soup, her golden-brown eyes gleaming in the noble pallor of her face.

“No? No, not a king; I meant that generally, I did not mean literally a king. Not a king, not a prince, and a prince after all, a king of a loftier realm; it was a great artist, at whose side you once⁠—you would contradict me, and yet I am not wholly wrong. Well, then! It was a woman, a great, a world-renowned woman artist, whose friendship you enjoyed in your tender years, whose sacred memory overshadows and transfigures your whole existence. Her name? Need I utter it, whose fame has long been bound up with the Fatherland’s, immortal as its own? Eleonora Duse,” he finished, softly and with much solemnity.

The little woman bowed her head, overcome. The applause was like a patriotic demonstration. Nearly everyone there knew about Signora Angiolieri’s wonderful past; they were all able to confirm the Cavaliere’s intuition⁠—not least the present guests of Casa Eleonora. But we wondered how much of the truth he had learned as the result of professional inquiries made on his arrival. Yet I see no reason at all to cast doubt, on rational grounds, upon powers which, before our