“There is no one,” said Sandro simply.
“I will be your Lady Venus,” she went
on breathlessly. “You shall paint me, rising
from the sea-foam.... The Genoese love the sea.”
She was still eager and defiant; her bosom rose and
fell unchecked.
“The Signorina is mocking me; it is impossible;
the Signorina knows it.”
“Eh, Madonna! is it so shameful to be
fair—Star of the Sea as your poets sing
at evening? Do you mean that I dare not do it?
Listen then, Signer Pittore; to-morrow morning at
mass-time you will come to the Villa Vespucci with
your brushes and pans and you will ask for Monna Simonetta.
Then you will see. Leave it now; it is settled.”
And she walked away with her head high and the same
superb smile on her red lips. Mockery! She
was in dead earnest; all her child’s feelings
were in hot revolt. These women who had whispered
to each other, sniggered at her dress, her white neck
and her free carriage; Giuliano who had presumed so
upon her candour— these prying, censorious
Florentines—–she would strike them
dumb with her amazing loveliness. They sang her
a goddess that she might be flattered and suffer their
company: she would show herself a goddess indeed—the
star of her shining Genoa, where men were brave and
silent and maidens frank like the sea. Yes, and
then she would withdraw herself suddenly and leave
them forlorn and dismayed.
As for Sandro, he stood where she had left him, peering
after her with a mist in his eyes. He seemed
to be looking over the hill-side, over the city glowing
afar off gold and purple in the hot air, to Mont’
Oliveto and the heights, where a line of black cypresses
stood about a low white building. At one angle
of the building was a little turret with a belvedere
of round arches. The tallest cypress just topped
the windows, There his eyes seemed to rest.
At mass-time Sandro, folded in his shabby green cloak,
stepped into the sun on the Ponte Vecchio. The
morning mists were rolling back under the heat; you
began to see the yellow line of houses stretching along
the turbid river on the far side, and frowning down
upon it with blank, mud-stained faces. Above,
through streaming air, the sky showed faintly blue,
and a campanile to the right loomed pale and
uncertain like a ghost. The sound of innumerable
bells floated over the still city. Hardly a soul
was abroad; here and there a couple of dusty peasants
were trudging in with baskets of eggs and jars of
milk and oil; a boat passed down to the fishing, and
the oar knocked sleepily in the rowlock as she cleared
the bridge. And above, on the heights of Mont’
Oliveto, the tapering forms of cypresses were faintly
outlined—straight bars of shadow—and
the level ridge of a roof ran lightly back into the
soft shroud.
