A Foregone Conclusion

A Foregone Conclusion

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Title: A Foregone Conclusion
Author: W. D. Howells
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A FOREGONE CONCLUSION
BY
W. D. HOWELLS
_Fifteenth Edition._

A FOREGONE CONCLUSION

I.
As Don Ippolito passed down the long narrow calle or footway leading
from the Campo San Stefano to the Grand Canal in Venice, he peered
anxiously about him: now turning for a backward look up the calle,
where there was no living thing in sight but a cat on a garden gate; now
running a quick eye along the palace walls that rose vast on either hand
and notched the slender strip of blue sky visible overhead with the lines
of their jutting balconies, chimneys, and cornices; and now glancing
toward the canal, where he could see the noiseless black boats meeting
and passing. There was no sound in the calle save his own footfalls and
the harsh scream of a parrot that hung in the sunshine in one of the
loftiest windows; but the note of a peasant crying pots of pinks and
roses in the campo came softened to Don Ippolito's sense, and he heard
the gondoliers as they hoarsely jested together and gossiped, with the
canal between them, at the next gondola station.
The first tenderness of spring was in the air though down in that calle
there was yet enough of the wintry rawness to chill the tip of Don
Ippolito's sensitive nose, which he rubbed for comfort with a
handkerchief of dark blue calico, and polished for ornament with a

handkerchief of white linen. He restored each to a different pocket in
the sides of the ecclesiastical talare, or gown, reaching almost to his
ankles, and then clutched the pocket in which he had replaced the linen
handkerchief, as if to make sure that something he prized was safe
within. He paused abruptly, and, looking at the doors he had passed,
went back a few paces and stood before one over which hung, slightly
tilted forward, an oval sign painted with the effigy of an eagle, a bundle
of arrows, and certain thunderbolts, and bearing the legend,
CONSULATE OF THE UNITED STATES, in neat characters. Don
Ippolito gave a quick sigh, hesitated a moment, and then seized the
bell-pull and jerked it so sharply that it seemed to thrust out, like a part
of the mechanism, the head of an old serving-woman at the window
above him.
"Who is there?" demanded this head.
"Friends," answered Don Ippolito in a rich, sad voice.
"And what do you command?" further asked the old woman.
Don Ippolito paused, apparently searching for his voice, before he
inquired, "Is it here that the Consul of America lives?"
"Precisely."
"Is he perhaps at home?"
"I don't know. I will go ask him."
"Do me that pleasure, dear," said Don Ippolito, and remained knotting
his fingers before the closed door. Presently the old woman returned,
and looking out long enough to say, "The consul is at home," drew
some inner bolt by a wire running to the lock, that let the door start
open; then, waiting to hear Don Ippolito close it again, she called out
from her height, "Favor me above." He climbed the dim stairway to the
point where she stood, and followed her to a door, which she flung
open into an apartment so brightly lit by a window looking on the
sunny canal, that he blinked as he entered. "Signor Console," said the
old woman, "behold the gentleman who desired to see