The Red Lily, vol 2 | Page 5

ordinary clothes, comes into one's house?"
He added that when he was closeted in his room he could not look at
the door without feeling his hair stand on end. But Madame Marmet
saw the doors of her rooms open without fear. She knew the name of
every one who came to see her--charming persons.
Choulette looked at her sadly, and said, shaking his head: "Madame
Marmet, those whom you call by their terrestrial names have other
names which you do not know, and which are their real names."

Madame Martin asked Choulette if he thought that misfortune needed
to cross the threshold in order to enter one's life.
"Misfortune is ingenious and subtle. It comes by the window, it goes
through walls. It does not always show itself, but it is always there. The
poor doors are innocent of the coming of that unwelcome visitor."
Choulette warned Madame Martin severely that she should not call
misfortune an unwelcome visitor.
"Misfortune is our greatest master and our best friend. Misfortune
teaches us the meaning of life. Madame, when you suffer, you know
what you must know; you believe what you must believe; you do what
you must do; you are what you must be. And you shall have joy, which
pleasure expels. True joy is timid, and does not find pleasure among a
multitude."
Prince Albertinelli said that Miss Bell and her French friends did not
need to be unfortunate in order to be perfect, and that the doctrine of
perfection reached by suffering was a barbarous cruelty, held in horror
under the beautiful sky of Italy. When the conversation languished, he
prudently sought again at the piano the phrases of the graceful and
banal Sicilian air, fearing to slip into an air of Trovatore, which was
written in the same manner.
Vivian Bell questioned the monsters she had created, and complained
of their absurd replies.
"At this moment," she said, "I should like to hear speak only figures on
tapestries which should say tender things, ancient and precious as
themselves."
And the handsome Prince, carried away by the flood of melody, sang.
His voice displayed itself like a peacock's plumage, and died in spasms
of "ohs" and "ahs."
The good Madame Marmet, her eyes fixed on the door, said:

"I think that Monsieur Dechartre is coming."
He came in, animated, with joy on his usually grave face.
Miss Bell welcomed him with birdlike cries.
"Monsieur Dechartre, we were impatient to see you. Monsieur
Choulette was talking evil of doors--yes, of doors of houses; and he
was saying also that misfortune is a very obliging old gentleman. You
have lost all these beautiful things. You have made us wait very long,
Monsieur Dechartre. Why?"
He apologized; he had taken only the time to go to his hotel and change
his dress. He had not even gone to bow to his old friend the bronze San
Marco, so imposing in his niche on the San Michele wall. He praised
the poetess and saluted the Countess Martin with joy hardly concealed.
"Before quitting Paris I went to your house, where I was told you had
gone to wait for spring at Fiesole, with Miss Bell. I then had the hope
of finding you in this country, which I love now more than ever."
She asked him whether he had gone to Venice, and whether he had
seen again at Ravenna the empresses wearing aureolas, and the
phantoms that had formerly dazzled him.
No, he had not stopped anywhere.
She said nothing. Her eyes remained fixed on the corner of the wall, on
the St. Paulin bell.
He said to her:
"You are looking at the Nolette."
Vivian Bell laid aside her papers and her pencils.
"You shall soon see a marvel, Monsieur Dechartre. I have found the
queen of small bells. I found it at Rimini, in an old building in ruins,
which is used as a warehouse. I bought it and packed it myself. I am

waiting for it. You shall see. It bears a Christ on a cross, between the
Virgin and Saint John, the date of 1400, and the arms of
Malatesta--Monsieur Dechartre, you are not listening enough. Listen to
me attentively. In 1400 Lorenzo Ghiberti, fleeing from war and the
plague, took refuge at Rimini, at Paola Malatesta's house. It was he that
modelled the figures of my bell. And you shall see here, next week,
Ghiberti's work."
The servant announced that dinner was served.
Miss Bell apologized for serving to them Italian dishes. Her cook was a
poet of Fiesole.
At table, before the fiascani enveloped with corn straw, they talked of
the fifteenth century, which they loved. Prince Albertinelli praised the
artists of that epoch for their universality, for the fervent love they gave
to their art, and for