The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, February 12, 1899, Page 19

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1899. William Waldorf Astor, while United 3 States Minister to Italy, was a collector of § rare [talian bric-a-brac, much of which now adorns Mr. Astor’s palace of Cliveden, near London. He has written for the Feb- ruary Pall Mall (his own magazine) the following remarkable story of one of his ltalian looking-glasses. It is nothing less than a sequel to Shakespeare’s “‘Merchant of Uenice,” of the plot of Shylock, and of the love and marriage of Portia, the misiress of Belmont Palace, and Bassanio, the poor 3 noble. ShakeSpeare’s play 1s founded on fact. + 40404040+ + O+ 4O+ 04004 4O 404 model. To this spot, a century ago, came three ladies feasting with their gallants, and being mirthful, they pledged Diana in Malvoisie, one of them calling her a uuni jade to stand thus half naked before the men, and dashed some wine In the statue’s face, which presently, while the revelers looked on startled and silent, flushed faintly beneath the glistening drops. The mark whereof it keeps to this day—sangue di Diana, cry the women; the chemical juice of the grape, think the men; flecks of metallic rust in the marble, say I In the silence of that early morning, rippled only by the twittering of birds, Portia still slept the fevered sleep ofthe heavy hearted, while for en instant her fancy, so she says, flew to the familiar scenes of Venice, and amid the imagined brilliance of its dustless air she beheld again the transcendent pinnacles of j r and carbuncle, the alabaster fretwork of {ts arches, and the sculptured fountains and mosaics of its palaces. And beyond many shining facades she saw before St. Mark’s the sunlit plazza with steps russet-stained and crusted, till upon the crisp breeze, touched with the fragrance of tiny gardens, came the rhythmed pealing of mon- astery bells that swelled to strains of music—and at its sound she instinct- {vely awoke, conscious that there {8 no more significant ill-omen than tentness; as all the worla Xnows, ne hates women, and appears to find a curious relish to his studies in their humiliation. ‘‘More than this,” he added. “I have calculated Pipistrello’s life, and find that she—or he, as iou please—will have ceased to breathe between the 17th and 18th of ugust.” “To-day i{s August 17, murmured Antonio, struck with the coincidence and glancing from one to the other. “And lastly,” continued Almodoro,. ‘“my instruments have disclosed the existence of a secret panel in Bassanio’s room, which delicacy forbade my opening.” “A secret panel in my own house that I never knew of!"_ ejaculated rol;fifi; and desiring Antonio to awalt her return, she beckoned Almodoro o follow. Bassanio’s room, which they entered, is one that has been occupied by successive owners of Belmonte, one or two of whom have left upon it traces of their individual tastes. At one side, facing two windows, is a great walnut bed with carved figures; bétween the casements is a dressing tabla with mirror and perfumes and brushes and ointments; at one side, between candles and holy water, opens an oratory niche with prie-dieu and Madonna; In the center are elaborately cushioned but uncomfortable chairs, and before them a table whereon, when I saw it, the contents of a leather writing case—parchment, ink vial, seals, wax and quills—had been emptied; there was also a tapestry screen, a richly inlaid ebony cab- inet, a lute suspended against the wall, and an ivory figure representing a girl preparing for the bath. The wise man conducted Portia directly to the niche which his treasure magnet had detected, and at sight of its contents her outstretched hand trembled, and the magician’s swarthy face flushed. But a glance showed them ! way, when, an inner sheet 1 in a curio teenth century di between the 17th closed that wt P3 R ago ax n curlosity shop In Venice I bought a silver PS A of seventeenth century workmanship, S luster as an old man’s eyes. Ay cent specimen, and to a lover of fine old € e 40,000 francs the dealer asked & tion to Danielll’'s and set about wiping it - g tarnish of many handlings. Under this ¢ eld the wooden bax in place fell B4 ‘hat seemed a discolored wadding of > ted between mirror and backing to keep S PY DS S f to the delightful task of ¢, at first recovering a word her a few entire sentences, absorbing interest of my it to light the startling Portia . . . Bas- s to point to Leonardo 1d 1521, as its prob- er will form his own 3 s through its significant. The idiom eenth century d the 1 the Doge’s offls trans sor as the me > PP PPPPPPOIPOPPPOPIOIOPIOISO an- It seemed, indeed, he horizon the phan- € ® these years with the im- @ & @ The Story. nts gazed on, in view of mountain etic 1 ling beside crumbling pation Vi T ght of that 1 where »s amid the myrtle groves and ilexes are k of an Italian garden, eam of mystical and incomparable sun- the present with other and tenderly the ins and lichen-grown st e reposeful contempla of such a retreat—the worl and Bassanio live. And I pu s ¢ after they became man Ilmodoro recited it to me, Antonio bare tru f time! With them were Jessica web of trouble which had woven it- at they had forgotten their enemy Ifsame days, sitting mad, beg- Rialto, forever counting out with housand ducats into his y palm. And 1 tidings that Antonio was speeding from . ; for their distress, Yieverthe- Jess he a hful countenance, beholding the page Pipistrello, of whom, 2 oon to be talking. Which page look a pert a ne'er-do-well baggage like Jessica, and their whisperings, perhaps surmising that a rent timber whereof to make a faithful wife. cumstance that the page and the Jewess bore » to the other, each blessed with lustrous hazel s lips and beautiful oval line of cheek and chin and e white hands, and a mass of tangled hair clustering upon th On that parti - morning the page was strolling toward the terrace n.the direction of -stnut coppice which was his favorite heartsease, and from whose seclusion one may gaze upon the Juminous horizon. Here béside a carved der overleaning red oleanders, the idle bo; would sit, and ¥ came to him on some mysterious errand. And T myself have seen at that place an anclent statue, a figure of Diana, &7 Surpaceing workmanship, probably one of the thousands brought by $ummius from Corinth, whereof Portia told me that it had been placed in the grove hard by before a Roman votive spring. Which statue being o ebrthed some centuries later from beneath a heap of rubbish, its ered with stucco, and it was converted into a tomb. And now, restored minus a foot and zan semblance, it stands looking down the dis- e of & sun-touched walk with outstretched hand, as in wistful salu- tation to the shadows that have passed it by. b Whodver approaches Belmonte from Padua sees, as he leaves the van- Nine ot poplars behind, a white speck high up against the back- 1'of yellowing chestnut boughs. This is Diana, popularly called the 1S Coneubine. since a Dominican cursed her for a wanton from the rathedral pulpit. Despite all Dominicans, she bears the loving impress of he hand that poised her, and the semblance it may be of some Greclan ¢ music heard in dreams, himself in the garments he had thrown off some hours before, opened wido his casement and leaned against the balcony. His face was haggard with \\‘ - HAVE. DISCOVERED THINGS, THE. FIRST - ©F WHICH 15 THAT PIPISTRELLO IS AWAMANY! |, G - furtive dismay—a curious transformation from the radlant lover of two weeks before. Upon the horizon stood the wind-swept Dolomites, with & peep upon the sapphire dome of Antelao, ard near by the red walls of Padua, and at his feet the glistening Brenta. In the garden below, lounging on a bench, was the page Pipistrello, fanning himself like an effeminate coxcomb with one of Jessica’s fans, glancing about with , half-closed eyes. Then Bassanlo withdrew unnoticed Into his room, and Lorenzo, whose knocking had been unheeded, heard him mut- ter, *‘Fool! fool!” Antonio, upon his arrival an hour later, was led whither Portia await- ed. He was shocked at her appearance, the suave and happy girl suddenly transformed to a pale, careworn, dangerous-looking woman. What {ll be- ginning had they made, this fair young husband and wife, the pride and jewel of Venice! She addressed him as one able to save Bassanio and her- self from an evil she was evidently at a loss to deflne, but which she in- dicated in hurriedy sentences. On their wedding night Bassanio had retired to his room and she had not seen him again till late the following day, when his agitation sur- prised her. Venetian brides are not usually shown the cold shoulder in such summary fashion. Was he ill or troubled by evil news? No, but he ad passed a bad night; and after this answer and half an hour’s careless alk, lapsed Into an extraordinary lassitude and dejection. ¥From Gratlano and Lorenzo she learned that upon going to his room he had dismissed his personal attendants, keeping only the page Pipistrello, to whom he was overheard giving orders for the morrow. But these orders proved lengthy for the page was there all night; and for hours Jessica, listening at the key- hole, caught sounds of eager talking, of striding up and down, of sobbing— until at length all was still, and in the morning the page, who had appa- slept upon a sofa in the anteroom, came out and walked away. 'And who,” asked Portia, “is this Pipistrello?” A youth Lorenzo had taken into his service in Venice and brought hither, and who since then would have been dismissed had he not suddenly and unaccountably trans- ferred his attendance to Bassanio. The second night was a repetition of the first, except that the talking had been briefer. Pipistrello had again slept in Bassanio’s antechamber, and on the morrow that odd husband went away alone to ramble about the flelds. Then Portia angrily sum- moned this intrusive page upon whom she had never before cast eyes, and having made him swear before a graven image, questioned him for au hour. Who was he? Why had he left Lorenzo's service? Why thrust himself unbidden upon Bassanio's? Had he aught to answer to Lorenzo's bad opinion? What business had he in her husband’s room at night? Pilpistrello presented himself with perfect self-possession, betrayed no uneasiness during a searching interrogatory, and rep plausibly to every question. His bearing was faultless, he was evidently of superior education, and the sharpest feminine sallies falled to disturb his equanim- ity. His justification, such as it was, seemed made with frankness and with that deferential tone to which all women are sensible. It began to appear so unreasonable to blame this sweet-mannered lad for his master's vagaries that Portia at length found herself listening with complaisance to the vicissitudes of a troubled life. Her own personal resources having thus failed, like a rational woman she summoned Almodoro. Of this famous mathematician I need only say that he is the subtlest of all our learned men, and that his application of a curfous theory of lines and angles to the intimate affairs of life has to my own knowledge produced astounding revelations. He brought with him to Belmonte his familiar, which is of so odd a nature that I have seen it in his pocket, in form like a scarabaeus covered with forbidden symbols; though again at Cyprus, riding with him one morning amid the sun-flecked woods, when the day came slanting over the crags, we heard a sound far awav amid the hiils, faint and remote as those imagined voices the fancy hears be- fore the waking, and turning to me with a smile, he pointed thither as who should say. Lo, it is there! So, having been instructed by letter, he presented himself in the guise of an Oriental merchant at the Villino be- side the Brenta where Lorenzo lodged. While Jessica bargained with him for his turban, a cup of carmine lip- salve and a game of cards, he noticed, standing by as they sat eating, that Pipistrello used a fork, whereas Jeasica thrust her fingers in the dish, that the page's flute, whereof we have heard so much, lay on the table: and divined from certain unfailing tokens that they shared between them some secret essential to his errand. Then after Almodoro had been twenty- four hours at Belmonte, working with demoniac activity, and unaware of Antonjo’s arrival, he sought Portla unannounced in the room to which Antonifo had been brought half an hour before. They both turned toward him in silent expectation, reading as he entered something of urgent im- port upon his usually impassive face. He did not wait to be questioned. “I have discovered three things,™ he began, with a quiet little ironical smile, “the first of which is that Pipistrello is a woman.” Antonio’s heart beat at this, and Portia listened with silent emotion to an announcement which explained so much while casting so ve a reproach upon her husband. Imodoro eyed his client with quizzical in- v 2 OLEANDER BUSH BEHIND HER MOVED that the ‘objects before them could not have heen used by the living gen- eration. They were all covered with the dust of many years. , At this same hour Baseanio, a Venetian, & scholar and a soldler, ro8® g small crystal vase containing the shriveled remnants of a flower: a 'rom his couch at the other extremity of the bullding, and, having dressed gheathless ~stiletto. crusted with stains; a silk purse of sequins; a case of vials whose contents were variously intended to restore the hair and the complexion; an empty blue bottle, such as has been known to hold a AS THOUGH SOME ONE LURKED uN- SEEN \WITHIN COVER 175 19 ° poison orq! antidote; a little box filled with love lozenges, and a packet of letters, yellow with age, and tied with a ragged satin band. Portia knew that these things must have belonged to her grandmother of blessed memory, whose room this had been sixty years ago, who in her time had been a famous beauty, who had been left a young widow under dramatic circumstances, who was very religious and had caused the oratory to be made: The packet contained twenty letters, written by various masculine hands, only one being in a woman'’s delicate chirography: this Portia un- folded and found to be a memorandum written by her grandmother on Her sixteenth birthday, setting forth sixteen good resolves—with an ‘indorse- ment made thirt ars later, to the effect that every one of these purposes had been thwarted. Quite apart lay the miniature of a child whose face was unfamiliar to Portia, although it bore a marked family resemblance. Whose child, she wondered, could it have been? B “It is like opening a grave,” whispered Portia to the mathematician at her side; then closing the panel, which adjusted itself with a sharp snad, she murmured, “Let us leave those musty secrets to themselves and pass to the matter more immediately concerning us.” Thus challenged, Almodoro pointed to an amber set of chessmen drawn up In battle array upon their board, and remarked: ‘““The supreme activi- ties of life bear an analogy to the pure forces of that exercise. In each are found the refinements of abstract thought, the graceful subtleties of finesse, the decisive attributes of power. A pungent lesson of each is to show the fool's blunder punished and the masterstroke rewarded. In chess the results derived from position correspord with like consequences produced in life by the intelligent grouping of circumstances. The: climax “whether on the chesshoard or in a situation such as yours—is deter- mined by some dominating condition that governs all the others. If, for example, we can bring a pawn to the eighth square and exchange it for & queen: or if in a struggle for life or reputation we can make a thrust at the heart—" “A thrust at the heart!” interrupted Portla, turning upon him with keen, bright eyes. “Yes, and since you summoned me here not merely to theorize I have—" “Hush!" : Portia and Almodoro were so long gone that Antonio was not sorry when a servant approached to say his master had just learned of his ar- rival and wished to ses him in the Marble Gallery; so thither Antonic went, smiling at this bridegroom who would rot even traverse that quar- ter of the house his wife occuplied. z Bassanio’s morning reverie had brought him to an imperative resoive, which he lost no time in communicating. Motioning Antonio to a seat, he. began almost without the prelude of a salutation. “How strange a fate gave Portla to me and ruined her life, when the same chance might as readily have bestowed her upon any one of a dozen other suitors!” Then, with a passionate gesture unusual to his gentle calm, he added, ‘“Married—yet not married!—there is the story.” £ “Not married?” echoed the other, gazing earnestly into Bassanlo's eyes and comprehending how ominous an apparition confronted his friend in the person of Pipistrello. ‘‘Married and vet not married!” What then had become of Bassanio’s adoration of Portla? And Antonio tells me he felt more than ever before the truth of our trite saying that one love swallows another as fish devour their like in the sea. Then. if only for the g‘nke of rousing Bassanio to reason, he plied him with question upon question. - Portia’s husband lald his hand upon Antonio’s, and speaking with the deliberation of one brought to bay by such a stern emergency as may : confront any man in a lifetime, answered: . “Two years ago I met the lady known to you as Pipistrello. She was betrothed to another, and—censure me as you may—she and I left Venice together. Upon my soul we did so with the intention of being immedi- ately married. She was taken from me by her family and I was made to belleve her dead—a false funeral, a lying priest and doctor—until a week ago, when on my wedding night she came to my room in.the disguise of a page. You who love me can understand the anguish in which I have lived since that hour.” “Verily,” assented Antonio, sinking back overpowered upon his divan, “two loves under one roof are . . . shall v y?. But now,«if vou will be your rational self, the remedy is simple.. .Your. first duty is to your wife, and remembering what you and I owe to Portia and the stately future that awaits you with her, it is impossible to Hesitate,” “It is true,” assented Bassanio grav sent Pipistrellé to Jessica, to whom, as a woman will, she “It would be far better to send her this ver: “T mean to take her there this very day myself. «Madman! As if Portfa had not already enoush to forgive.” “T have summoned you and have waited all these davs, that. you, who own the gift of silver speech, might break this story to her in your fairest words.” “She will have me flung out of the house at the fifst mention that'a husband can thus forsake his wife.” “She suffers the cruelest wrong—one need but loek in her face to read to Venice.” it; nevertheless the wrong is one the church has often I suaded. to soften, for the ceremony of our marriage can readily be There is one argument, you know one, that never fa de. world over. As for me, du to-day @ childhood, with the same authori me t with an irresistible attrac- tion that perhaps is new: and when an cvil alternative has a man by the: throat it is a direct gift of mercy if he is still able to distinguish the right.”” T I who fill these pages never beheld this so-called Pipistrello: but .like others, now that all is over, I wonder if indeed her brief life was spent with us in Venice and what it may have been. The interest she has.at- tracted is due to the prominence of Bassanio and Portia and Antonio and to their curfous entanglement with Shylock. But to old ‘man -it- will: be forgiven if im-each brave and beautiful Venetian gi flected type of Venice. And musing upon Pipistrello’s ber in happier days, habited in maidenly of St. Mark's golden arches, wh n; fancy her on the festa of the be an admirer’s passion: I see her brought to bay I I cannot but believe that such valiant hearts ar Their hasty talk had gone no farth majordomo. He looked strangely d violent alarm had come from Lore a physician, Almodoro was being everyw J Irad. sud- denly been taken dangerously ill. They rushed %0 the wise man's room, where he lay asleep on a Turk camp couch, taking his habitual morn- ing siesta, from which he awoke as ligi a startied being told what had happened he became curiously uneas gomething from a traveling wallet which he kept careful followed them. They found Jessica in convulsions, and Lorenzo letter which bade him give a certain basket of pea pretended page was away in the woods with her flu LOT with Bassanio. and in the interval that greedy hussy had ten two' of the peaches. The astrologer instantly poured something down Jessica’s throat, after which she became better, whereupon he decampd without waiting for explanations. He seemeed preoccupied and irritable, and left the Villino abruptly, striding away none knew wh v E no more. Three hours later Gratiano, who is a v Pipistrello, habited in the garb of a page, coming with a ess renzo, was set upon in the grove by two fellows. and had he not luckily been wearing a service baldric, which carried both rapler and main- gauche, would without doubt have lost his life. He came staggering in with a sword-thrust through the ribs, still grasping the blades with which. he had wounded both assaflants. Pipistrello. who in the midst of these various excitements spent the day al fresco. did not return, as it was ex- pected she would do. Can it be that the braves were In wait for her, and were misled by Gratiano’s attire? However strange the coincidence of these two seemingly random attempts. let me sav that, intimately as T have known Almodoro, I have never detected him blundering thus in what he puts his hand to. Tt was the languorous afternoon of this selfsame day, and drawing to- ward that moment when twillght—which is for them who keep their souls in peace—approaches: a_ brilliant day, mellowing the Paduan woods and Veronese gardens and Venetian lagoons with an aureole. Far away stretched the plain, and in the foreground rose the dim walls and cypr: silhouettes and clustering belfries of Padua, and above thenr the cathe- dral dome, its painted panes glowing blood-red against the western sk And now the declining sun, plercing-the forest and cresting the Alp: tonched the distant Adriatic—spreading thus upon the sea that impe able Libro d’oro whereon Venice writes the story of her fame. Beside tt balustrade, and beneath the crimson oleander, sat Pipistrello, unconscious of the dangers she had escaped. and breathing into her flute, says the lis- teninz Antonio, such rich and vibrant tones as woke the auick responsive trilling of a bird. I marveled when they told me Pipistrello had the heart to 1dle thus and loll at ease, seeing the strait herself was in and the dis- tress her presence brought. Yet here again you may find as many shadés, to any opinlon as there are colors in the sea. Almodoro. who 'lays the course of all things by intellectual beacons of his own, disdainful of tie jandmarks and dog-ears whereby ordindry people grope their way, affirms that this was no unnatural-thing for a heart attuned to sadness, saying “Who can gaze at sunset upon the mute pathos of a vanishing world and doubt that beyond this land cof dreams there floats an undiscovered EL Derado?’ Wherefore Antonlo came that way himself knows not, further than that it was the same hazard that had already impelled so many strange circumstances. And her back being toward him, he paused. an instant, marveling at her instrument and with what deft fingess she in- Madonna; -1 breathes. and E taking locked at gncé olding a crumpled rello. The Continued on Page Twenty-two.