The Last Lady of Mulberry

A Story of Italian New York By Henry Wilton Thomas

Illustrated by Emil Pollak

New York D. Appleton and Company 1900

Copyright, 1900 By HENRY WILTON THOMAS All rights reserved

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

THE LAST LADY OF MULBERRY

[Pg 1]

CHAPTER I A GODDESS SCORNED

All Armando knew of sculpture he had learned from his uncle Daniello, a mountain craftsman who never chiselled anything greater than a ten-inch Saint Peter. At night in the tavern on the craggy height, with a flask of barbera before him, the old carver would talk grandly of his doings in art, while his comrades, patient of the oft-told tale, nodded their heads in listless but loyal accord. They all knew very well that it was young Armando who did most of the carving, yet they cried “Bravo!” for old Daniello’s wine was good. And so it had been for a long time. While the lad chipped [Pg 2]all day in a little workshop perched beyond the nether cloud shadows, his uncle passed the hours in Genoa, where, by sharp wits and bland tongue, he transmuted the marble into silver.

But Armando had a soul that looked far above the gleaming tonsures of ten-inch Saint Peters. Wherefore he was unhappy. When his twentieth birthday dawned it seemed to him that his life had been a failure. One morning, after a night of much barbera and noisy gasconade, old Daniello did not wake up, and two days afterward they laid him to rest in the sloping graveyard in the gorge by the olive-oil mill.

Gloomily Armando weighed the situation, standing by the mullioned window of the room wherein he had toiled so long and ignobly. Far in the western distance he could see the ships that seemed to glide with full sails across the mountains. The serene midsummer vapours, pendulous above the Mediterranean, were visible, but the sea [Pg 3]upon which their shadows fell and lingered was hidden from his view by a thicket of silver firs. Southward the trees stood lower, and over their tops, where tired sea gulls circled, he gazed sadly toward the jumble of masonry that is Genoa.

Miles below in the sun glare the city lay this morning as Heine found it decades ago, like the bleached skeleton of some thrown-up monster of the deep. And a monster it was in the sight of the poor lad who looked down from the heights of Cardinali—but a monster that he would conquer, even as Saint George, champion of Genoa, had conquered the dragon in ages far agone. Yes, he would strike off for evermore the chains that fettered him to ten-inch Saint Peters, and mount to the white peaks of art! In the Apennine hamlet he had lived all his days, and never heard of Balzac; but he clinched his fist, and, with eyes set upon the cluster of chimney pots at the mountain’s foot, made his vow:

“In this room, O Genoa! will I bring [Pg 4]forth a marble that shall make you do me honour.”

Then he felt uplifted—as though he had burned the bridges that hung between his old ignominy and the straight path to fame and riches. The vow was still fervid and strong within him when, two days afterward, he beheld in a shop window of Genoa a photograph of Falguière’s great marble, Juno and the Peacock. Before the divine contours of Jupiter’s helpmeet the simple-hearted graver of saintly images stood enchanted. Presently, as though spoken by a keen, mysterious voice from the upper air, there pierced his consciousness the word “Replica!” Again and again was it repeated, each time with a new insistence. Ah, a copy of this in marble! Yes; with such a masterpiece he would begin his ascent to the white peaks. He bought the photograph, put it in his pocket and kept it there until he was beyond the city’s bounds and trudging up the causeway toward Cardinali. Now and then he took out the picture,[Pg 5] regarded it fondly, and, peering back at the town, asked himself if Genoa would look the same when his Juno and the Peacock should be there. Would the soft murmur

of that drowsy mass have the same note? Would the people move with the same pace, eat, sleep, and drink as they had always done? He was inclined to think they would not.

Would Genoa be the same when his Juno and Peacock should be there?

For a twelvemonth, through early tides and late shifts, he modelled and chipped: in winter, when the demoniac mistral, raging all about him, shook the workshop and snapped the boughs of the cypresses; in summer, when the ortolan and the wood-thrush cheered him with their song. And the little group of neighbours, from whom he guarded his great artistic secret, marvelled that no more Saint Peters came forth from their time-honoured birthplace.

Only two persons in Cardinali besides Armando had knowledge of the momentous affair that was going forward. One was Bertino, a fair-haired youth of the sculptor’s [Pg 6]age, who busied his hands by day plaiting Lombardian straw into hats, and his head by night dreaming of America and showering cornucopias of gold. He was Armando’s bosom friend. The other confidant was Bertino’s foster sister Marianna, somewhat demure for a mountain lass, and subject to thinking spells. Beauty she had, notably on feast days, when she walked to church with a large-rayed comb in her braided chestnut waterfall, a gorgeous striped apron, and clattering half-sabots, freshly scraped and polished to a shine. She, too, plaited straw, and with it wove many love thoughts and sighs for Armando.

At last the stately goddess and her long-tailed companion stood triumphant in all the candour of marble not wholly spotless. The hour of unveiling it to the astonished gaze of Bertino and Marianna was the happiest that the ruler of Armando’s fate permitted him for many a day thereafter. The bitterness and crushing disillusion came on the day that he loaded the carved treasure on [Pg 7]the donkey cart of Sebastiano the carrier, and followed Juno and the Peacock down the mountain pass to the haven of his sweet anticipation.

“He has been saving up his Saint Peters,” said Michele the Cobbler to a group of mystified neighbours as the cart passed his shop. “See, he has a box full of them. I wonder how many saints one can cut out in a year. Ah, well, it was not thus that his uncle Daniello did, nor his father before him. Shall I tell you what I think, my friends? Well, I think that boy is going wrong.”

“Ah, si,” was the unanimous voice.

“May your success be great, Armando mine!” said Bertino when they parted at the first curve of the pass. “Perhaps against your return I shall have famous news from America. Who knows? Good fortune be with you. Addio.”

“The saints be with you to a safe return,” said Marianna. “Addio, and good fortune.”

[Pg 8]

“Addio, carissimi amici.”

Sebastiano the carrier lifted the block from the wheel and the donkey moved on. Armando walked behind, keeping a watchful eye on the thing in the cart, which was in every shade of the term a reduced replica of Falguière’s inspiration.

“You must be very careful, Sebastiano,” said he. “Never in your life have you had such a valuable load on your cart.”

“Bah!” growled the driver. “Valuable! How many have you there? Are they all the same size? Do you mean to say that I never had a load as valuable as a boxful of Saint Peters? Oh, bello! Only last week did I haul a barrel of fine barolo to the Inn of the Fat Calf. Ah, my dear, that is a wine. Wee-ah! wee-ah!—Go on, you lazy one. That donkey is too careful.”

They reached their destination in Genoa without mishap. When the art dealer who had consented to look at it had bestowed on Armando’s work of a year a momentary survey,[Pg 9] he turned to the sculptor, who stood hat in hand, and regarded him earnestly.

“Who told you to do this, dear young man?” he asked, removing his eyeglasses.

“Nobody, signore. It was my own idea.”

The merchant turned to Juno with a new interest.

“Not so bad as it might have been,” he shrugged, moving aside to view the figures in profile. “What is your name? Signor Corrini. Well—but, my dear young man, it will be a long time, perhaps years, before you are able to do work of this kind. Naturally, I could not permit it to remain in my place. What else have you done? Something smaller, I suppose.”

Armando strove hard to keep them back, but the sobs choked him.

While the merchant stood by, offering words meant to comfort, but which added to his anguish, he replaced the marble in the box and nailed the lid before rousing Sebastiano from his siesta in the cart.

“It all comes of keeping the saints too [Pg 10]long,” grumbled the carrier, as he helped lift Juno and the Peacock back into the cart. “Never did your uncle Daniello have any thrown on his hands—not he. Ah, there was a man of affairs!”

The donkey tugged at the chain traces, moved the wheels a spoke or two, then stopped and looked around at the driver, wagging his grizzled ears in mute but eloquent disapproval of hauling a load skyward. But after duly weighing the matter, assisted by several clean-cut hints from a rawhide lash, he set off at his own crablike pace.

The first turning of the highway attained, Armando paused and gazed on the city below, his heart aflood with bitterness. Far to the westward the sun, in variant crimson tones, lay hidden under the sea, like the last, loftiest dome of some sinking Atlantis. In every white hamlet of the slopes the Angelus was ringing. Night birds from Africa wheeled around the towering snares set for them by the owners of the olive terraces and villas, whose yellow walls in long stretches [Pg 11]bordered the steep route. With his little group of living and inanimate companions Armando trudged along, his head bowed, silent as the marble in the cart. The gloaming quiet was unbroken, save for the gluck of the wheels and the distant chant of the belfries.

They were yet a long way from the outermost cot of Cardinali when a resounding shout brought the donkey to a standstill and startled Sebastiano into a “Per Bacco!”

It was the voice of Bertino. He was rounding a curve in the road, brandishing a piece of folded paper, and clattering toward them as fast as he could in his heavy wooden shoes. His radiant face proclaimed that something had happened to fill him with gladness. A few paces behind came Marianna, but in her eyes there was no token of joy. She had beheld the loaded cart.

“Long live my uncle!” cried Bertino, grasping Armando’s hand. “The letter has come, and I’m off for America. Think of it, Armando mio, I, Bertino Manconi, going [Pg 12]to America! It is no longer a dream. I am to go—go, do you understand? The money is here, and nothing can stop me. But come, you do not seem happy to hear of my great good fortune. I know, dear friend, you are sorry to lose me. Bah! one can not live in the mountains all his life, and perhaps you too will be there some day—some day when your Juno is sold. To-night all my friends shall drink a glass of spumante to my voyage—yes, the real spumante of Asti. At the Inn of the Fat Calf will I say addio, for I set sail to-morrow. Tell me, now, do you not count me a lucky devil?”

“You are lucky,” said Armando sadly. “I wish I could go. My own country does not want me.”

Marianna walked at the tail of the cart. While her brother was talking she had lifted the box in the hope that it might, after all, be only the empty one that he was bringing back; but the weight of it told her the truth she had read in Armando’s face.

[Pg 13]

“The beast!” she said, “to refuse such a fine thing as that. What did——”

Armando signalled silence, and pointed to Sebastiano, who walked ahead. By this time Bertino understood, and he too exclaimed:

“The beast!”

“Who’s a beast?” asked the muleteer.

“That art merchant, whoever he is. Bah! What would you have? In this country a fellow has no chance. What a fool one is to stay here!”

“No, no; the country is good,” said Sebastiano, shaking his head and jerking a thumb toward Armando. “But what can you expect when one keeps his Saint Peters a whole year?”

The others exchanged knowing glances and followed on in silence. The rest of the way it was plain to all who saw Bertino pass that he was thinking very hard, and with the product of this mental exertion he was fairly bursting by the time they reached Armando’s home, for he had not dared to speak in presence[Pg 14] of the carrier. When Juno and the Peacock had been restored to their birthplace he began:

“Now, listen to me, amici, for I have an idea. I am going to America. Is not that so?”

“Yes; you are going to America. Well?”

“Patience. You know that as the assistant of my uncle in his great shop in New York I shall be rather a bigger man than I am here. Who knows what I may become?”

“Ah, si; who knows?” said Marianna.

“Listen. Now, let us have a thought together. Here is Armando. He is a fine sculptor. We know that. The proof is here.” He tapped the big box. “But in Genoa they are too stupid and too poor to buy his magnificent work. Now, in America people are neither stupid nor poor. Why can he not make a fortune in America?”

“I can’t go to America,” said Armando.

“No; he can’t go to America,” chimed in Marianna. “What a foolish idea!”

[Pg 15]

“Excuse me. Who wants him to go to America? He stays in Cardinali and makes statues. I go to New York and sell them. Now, my dears, do you see which way the swallow is flying?”

“But——”

“But——”

“But nothing. Do you think that I, who sail for America to-morrow, do not know what I am about? Listen. What do you suppose I was doing on the way up? Well, I was thinking. I have thought it all out. I ask you this, Armando: Juno and the Peacock you made from a photograph? Very well; can you not make other things from photographs? From New York I shall send you the picture of some great American; some one as great as—as great as——”

“Crespi,” suggested Armando, now interested in the project.

“Crespi? No, no. Some one greater, like—like——”

“D’Annunzio,” Armando ventured again.

[Pg 16]

“Bah! Who is he? I mean some one very great, like——”

“I know!” cried Marianna. “Like the Pope!”

“No, no,” persisted Bertino. “It must be some man as big as Garibaldi. That’s it. But not a dead Garibaldi. He must be alive, so that I may sell him the bust that you will make of him. What would you do with a man like that, for example?”

“Well,” said Armando, pausing and looking up at the ceiling, as though weighing the matter carefully, “I should make a very fine bust of such a man.”

“Bravo!” cried Bertino. “With a piece of your best work for a sample, how long should I be getting orders for more? Not many days, I promise. And the Americans have gold. What say you, my friend? Is it not a grand idea?”

“Si, si; a grand idea.”

In truth it loomed before Armando as the chance of his life. Now as ardent as the other, he agreed to begin work upon a [Pg 17]bust in marble so soon as he should receive from America a photograph of the chosen subject. When finished he would send it to New York, there to be put on exhibition and offered for sale.

That afternoon the Saale steamed from Genoa Bay with Bertino a steerage passenger. Some time after the ship had swung from her quay Armando and Marianna looked from the studio window over the cypress fringe toward the gap in the mountains that shows the sails of ships but conceals the Mediterranean’s waves. Presently a black bar of smoke moving lazily across the aperture told them that he was on his way.

Near the window a block of Carrara marble glistened pure and white in the sunlight. Armando wondered what manner of being he should release from it—a President, a money king, or a great American beauty?

[Pg 18]

CHAPTER II CASA DI BELLO

The banked fire of America’s Sabbath gave its quiet to Bowling Green the day that Bertino landed in New York. It was not the New York he had seen so often from the heights of Cardinali. The cloud-piercing houses had always loomed in his dream pictures, but no returned exile had ever told him that they filled the soul with this nameless dread. He longed to be in Mulberry, which all travellers agreed was the next best thing to being in Italy. With a goatskin box under one arm, a tawny cotton umbrella pressed by the other, and his left hand clutching the knotted ends of a kerchief holding more luggage, he set out from the Barge Office. In the band of his narrow-brimmed[Pg 19] black soft hat—the precious adornment of festal days—stood a gray turkey feather, and about his bare neck in sailor noose was tied a cravat of satin, green as the myrtle of his native steeps. As he strode up Broadway, past old Trinity and Wall Street, the heavy fall of his hobnailed boots started the echoes of the New World’s financial centre.

A flock of fellow-pilgrims clattered by at high speed in care of a guide, who charged five cents a head for piloting them safely to the Italian colony. The hatless women, burdened with babies and heavy sacks, struggled bravely to keep up with the men, who carried the umbrellas. Bertino fell in behind, and soon they turned the corner of Franklin Street. Here they got their first glimpse of Mulberry, which lay clearly visible in the distance at the foot of a hill whose summit is Broadway. Beneath the Bridge of Sighs, which spans the street at the Tombs Prison, forming an arching frame for the picture, they could see the pleasant lawn of Paradise [Pg 20]Park. It was a bright afternoon, and the broad patch of greensward gleamed like a great emerald down there in the sunlight, and the low-roofed houses all around, with the sun’s fire in their window panes, had a homelike countenance. This was not the image their minds had wrought of Mulberry, where travellers said the people were herded in pens that knew not the light of day. How strange that no one had ever told them it

was so cheerful and bello! But when they reached the heart of the quarter they had no more thrills from the contemplation of natural beauty. Here the air throbbed with the staccato cadence of south Italian patois. The signs over the shops were no longer gibberish, and Bertino blessed the day that he, Armando, and Marianna had paid the mountain pedagogue three liras to teach them words of ordinary size.

Bertino’s arrival at Paradise Park.

Mulberry was in its accustomed Sunday manner. Nearly all the shops were closed, and their faces, so smiling on week days in scarlet wreaths of dried peppers, clusters of [Pg 21]varnished buffalo cheeses and festoons of Bologna salame, now frowned in shabby black or dark-brown shutters. Madre Chiara’s bower, evergreen on working days with chicory and dandelion salad and Savoy cabbage, had vanished with its owner. No gossip-hungry women, with primed ears, bent about the basket of the garlic seller on China Hill, for she was out with everybody to-day in her best clothes. The crippled beggar at the hydrant was not missing, but he shivered in the May sunshine because Sara the Frier of Pepper Pods was not there with her pail of fire. Another important brazier was in Sunday retirement—that of old Cantolini the Gondolier, and in consequence there floated on the air no suave odour of cooking pine cones, whose seed the Napolitani of the Basso Porto so love to munch.