



Produced by Tapio Riikonen, tapri@kolumbus.fi








A SIREN

By Thomas Adolphus Trollope



    CONTENTS

    BOOK I
    Ash Wednesday Morning
    CHAPTER
    I     The Last Night of Carnival
    II    Apollo Vindex
    III   St. Apollinare in Classe
    IV    Father Fabiano
    V     "The Hours passed, and still she came not"
    VI    Gigia's Opinion
    VII   An Attorney-at-Law in the Papal States
    VIII  Lost in the Forest
    IX    "Passa la bella Donna e par che dorma"

    BOOK II
    Four Months Before That Ash Wednesday Morning
    CHAPTER
    I     How the Good News came to Ravenna
    II    The Marchese Lamberto di Castelmare
    III   The Impresario's Report
    IV    Paolina Foscarelli
    V     Rivalry
    VI    The Beginning of Trouble
    VII   The Teaching of a Great Love
    VIII  A Change in the Situation
    IX    Uncle and Nephew
    X     The Coutessa Violante
    XI    The Cardinal's Reception, and the Marchese's Ball
    XII   The Arrival of the "Diva"

    BOOK III
    "Sirenum Pocula"
    CHAPTER
    I     "Diva Potens"
    II    An Adopted Father and an Adopted Daughter
    III   "Armed at All Points"
    IV    Throwing the Line
    V     After-thoughts
    VI    At the Circolo
    VII   Extremes Meet
    VIII  The Diva shows her Cards
    IX    One Struggle more

    BOOK IV
    The Last Days of the Carnival

    CHAPTER
    I     In the Cardinal's Chapel
    II    The Corso
    III   "La Sonnambula"
    IV    The Marchese Lamberto's Correspondence
    V     Bianca at Home
    VI    Paolina at Home
    VII   Two Interviews
    VIII  A Carnival Reception
    IX    Paolina's Return to the City

    BOOK V
    Who Did The Deed?
    CHAPTER
    I     At the City Gate
    II    Suspicion
    III   Guilty or Not Guilty?
    IV    The Marchese hears the Ill News
    V     Doubts and Possibilities
    VI    At the Circolo again
    VII   A Prison Visit
    VIII  Signor Giovacchino Fortini at Home
    IX    The Post-Mortem Examination
    X     Public Opinion
    XI    In Father Fabiano's Cell
    XII   The Case against Paolina

    BOOK VI
    Poena Pede Claudo
    CHAPTER
    I     Signor Fortini receives the Signora Steno in his Studio
    II    Was it Paolina after all?
    III   Could it have been the Aged Friar?
    IV    What Ravenna thought of it
    V     "Miserrimus"
    VI    The Trial
    VII   The Friar's Testimony
    VIII  The Truth!
    IX    Conclusion




A SIREN

By Thomas Adolphus Trollope




BOOK I

Ash Wednesday Morning




CHAPTER I

The Last Night of Carnival


It was Carnival time in the ancient and once imperial, but now
provincial and remote, city of Ravenna. It was Carnival time, and the
very acme and high-tide of that season of mirth and revel. For the
theory of Carnival observance is, that the life of it, unlike that of
most other things and beings, is intensified with a constantly crescendo
movement up to the last minutes of its existence. And there now remained
but an hour before midnight on the Tuesday preceding the first day of
Lent, Ash Wednesday--Dies Cinerum!--that sad and sober morrow which has
brought with it "sermons and soda-water" to so many generations of
revellers.

Of course Carnival, according to the Calendar and Time's hour-glass, is
over at twelve o'clock on the night of Shrove Tuesday. Generally,
however, in the pleasure-loving cities of Italy, a few hours' law are
allowed or winked at. The revellers are not supposed to become aware
that it is past midnight till about three or four in the morning.

Very generally the wind-up of the season of fun and frolic consists of
what is called a "Veglione," or "great making a night of it," which
means a masked ball at the theatre. And the great central chandelier
does not begin to descend into the body of the house, to have its lights
flapped out by the handkerchiefs of the revellers amid a last frantic
rondo, till some four hours after midnight. But in provincial Ravenna, a
Pope's city under the rule of a Cardinal Legate, there is--or was in the
days when the Pope held sway there--no Veglione. Its place was supplied,
as far as "the society" of the city was concerned, by a ball at the
"Circolo dei Nobili."

It was not, therefore, till four o'clock in the morning, or perhaps even
a little later, that the lights would be extinguished on the night in
question at the "Circolo dei Nobili," and Carnival would, in truth, be
over, and the tired holiday-makers would go home to their beds.

A few hours more remained, and the revelry was at its height, and the
dancers danced as knowing that their minutes were numbered.

There had been a ball on the previous night at the Palazzo of the
Marchese Lamberto di Castelmare. But the scene at the Circolo was a much
more brilliant, animated, and varied one than that of the night before
at the Castelmare palace. The Marchese Lamberto was the wealthiest noble
in Ravenna, and--putting aside his friend the Cardinal Legate--was, in
many other respects, the first and foremost man of the city. He was a
bachelor of some fifty years old. And bachelors' houses and bachelors'
balls have the reputation of enjoying the privilege of a somewhat freer
and more unreserved gaiety and jollity than those of their neighbours
more heavily weighted with the cares and responsibilities of life. But
such was not the case at the Palazzo Castelmare. Presided over on such
occasions as that of the great annual Carnival ball by a widowed
sister-in-law of the Marchese, the Castelmare palace was the most
decorous and respectable house, as its master was the most decorous and
respectable man, in Ravenna.

Not that it was a dull house. The Marchese Lamberto, though a grave and
dignified personage in the eyes of the "jeunesse doree" of Ravenna, was
looked up to as one of the best loved, as well as most respected, men in
the city. And there was not a member of the "society" who would not have
been sadly hurt at not being invited to the great annual Carnival ball
at the Castelmare palace. But the same degree of laissez aller jollity
would not have been "de mise" there as was permissible at the Circolo.
The fun was not so fast and furious as it was wont to be at the club of
the nobles on the last night of Carnival.

The whole society were at the latter gathering. All the nobles of
Ravenna were the hosts, and everybody was there solely and entirely to
amuse and enjoy themselves. Host and guests, indeed, were almost
identical. There were but few persons present, and those strangers to
the town, who did not belong to their own class.

To the Marchese, on the previous night, most of the company had
contented themselves with going in "domino." At the Circolo ball a very
large proportion of the dancers were in costume. The Conte Leandro
Lombardoni,--lady-killer, Don Juan, and poet, whose fortunes and
misfortunes in these characters had made him the butt of the entire
society, and had perhaps contributed, together with his well-known
extraordinarily pronounced propensity for cramming himself with pastry,
to give him the pale, puffed, pasty face, swelling around a pair of pale
fish-like eyes, that distinguished him,--the Conte Leandro Lombardoni;
indeed, had gone to the Castelmare palace as "Apollo," in a costume
which young Ludovico Castelmare, the Marchese Lamberto's nephew, would
insist on mistaking for that of Aesop; and had now, according to a
programme perfectly well known previously throughout the city, come to
the Circolo as "Dante." The Tuscan "lucco," or long flowing gown, had at
least the advantage of concealing from the public eye much that the
Apollo costume had injudiciously exhibited.

Ludovico Castelmare had adopted the costume of a Venetian noble of the
sixteenth century; and very strikingly handsome he looked in that most
picturesque of all dresses. The Marchese Lamberto was at the ball, of
course, but not in costume. Perhaps the most striking figure in the
rooms, however, was one of those few persons who have been mentioned as
present, but not belonging to Ravenna, or to the class of its nobles.
This was a lady, well known at that day throughout Italy as Bianca
Lalli--"La Lalli," or "La Bianca," in theatrical parlance--for she was
one of the first singers of the day. Special circumstances--to be
explained at a future page--had rendered it possible for remote little
Ravenna to secure the celebrated artist for the Carnival, which was now
expiring. The Marchese Lamberto, who, among many other avocations and
occupations, all of them contributing in some way or other to the
welfare and advantage of his native city, was a great lover and
connoisseur of music, and patron of the theatre, had been mainly
instrumental in bringing La Lalli to Ravenna. The engagement had been a
most successful one. The "Diva Bianca" had sung through the Carnival,
charming all ears and hearts in Ravenna with her voice, and all eyes
with her very remarkable and fascinating beauty. And now, on this last
night of the festive season, she was the cynosure of all eyes at the
ball.

Bianca had, as it so happened, also chosen a Venetian costume of the
same period as that of Ludovico--about the middle of the sixteenth
century. In truth, it was mere chance that had led to this similarity.
And neither of them, as it happened, had mentioned to the other the
dress they intended to wear. Bianca, in fact, used as she was to wear
costumes of all sorts, and to outshine all beauties near her in all or
any of them, had thought nothing about her dress, till the evening
before; and then had consulted the Marchese Lamberto on the subject: but
had been so much occupied with him during nearly the whole of that
evening at his ball, that she had not said a word about it to any one
else.

It could not but seem, however, to everybody that the Marchese Ludovico
and La Lalli had agreed together to represent a pair belonging to the
most gorgeous and picturesque days of Venetian history. And a most
magnificently handsome pair they made. Bianca's dress, or at least the
general appearance and effect of it, will readily be imagined by those
acquainted with the full-length portraits of Titian or Tintoretto. A
more strictly "proper" costume no lady could wish to wear. And the
jeunesse doree of Ravenna, who had thought it likely that the Diva would
appear as some light-skirted Flora, or high-kirtled Diana, were
altogether disappointed.

But there was much joking and raillery about the evident and notable
pair-ship of Ludovico and Bianca; and it came to pass that, almost
without any special intention on their own part, they were thrown much
together, and danced together frequently. And this, under the
circumstances, was still more the case than it would have otherwise
been, in consequence of the Marchese Lamberto not dancing. It was a long
time since he had done so. There were many men dancing less fitted than
he, as far as appearance and capability, and even as far as years went,
to join in such amusements. Nevertheless, all Ravenna would have been
almost as much surprised to see the Marchese Lamberto dressed in mumming
costume, and making one among Carnival revellers, as to see the Cardinal
himself doing the same things. He had made for himself a social
position, and a life so much apart from any such levities, that his
participation in them would have seemed a monstrosity.

It may be doubted, however, whether on this occasion, at least, the
dignified Marchese was satisfied with the position he had thus made for
himself. It would have been too absurd and remarkable for La Bianca to
have abstained from dancing and attached herself to him in the
ball-room, instead of consorting with the younger folks. Of course that
was entirely out of the question. But none the less for that was the
evening a time of cruel suffering and martyrdom to the Marchese. Of
course he believed that the adoption of so singularly similar a costume
by Bianca and his nephew was the result of pre-arranged agreement. And
the thought, and all that his embittered fancy built upon the thought,
were making everything around him, and all the prospect of his life
before him, utterly intolerable to him.

Ludovico and Bianca had been dancing together for the third time--a
waltz fast and furious, which they had kept up almost incessantly till
the music had ceased. Heated and breathless, he led her out of the
ball-room to get some refreshment. There was a large supper-room which,
on the cessation of the waltz, immediately became crowded by other
couples bent on a similar errand. But there had also been established a
little subsidiary buffet in a small cabinet at the furthest end of the
suite of rooms, for the purpose of drawing off some of the crowd from
the main supper-room. And thither Ludovico led Bianca, thinking to avoid
the crush of people rushing in to the larger room.

The young Marchese--the "Marchesino," as he was often called, to
distinguish him from his uncle, the Marchese Lamberto--was one of the
small committee of the Circolo, who had had the management of all the
arrangements for the ball; and was, accordingly, well aware of the
whereabouts of this little "succursale" to the supper-room. But it is
probable that the existence of it was unknown to the great majority of
the company. At all events, so it happened, that when Ludovico and
Bianca reached it, it was wholly untenanted, save by Dante, in his long
red gown, solitarily occupied in cramming himself with pastry.

"What, Dante in exile!" cried Ludovico. "Pray, Sir Poet, which bolgia
was set apart for those who are lost by the 'peccato della gola?' or is
a bilious fit in the more immediate future bolgia fearful enough?"

"It is not so bad a bolgia as that appointed some other sins," said the
Conte Leandro, with mouth stuffed with cake, as he moved out of room.

"What an animal it is!" said Ludovico, laughing, as he gave Bianca a
glass of champagne, and filled another for himself.

"Take some of this woodcock pie, Signora Bianca? You must be starved by
this time; and I can recommend it."

"How so? You have not tasted it yourself yet."

"No; but I am going to do so. And my recommendation is based on my
knowledge of the qualities of our woodcocks. They are the finest in the
world. The marshes in the neighbourhood of the Pineta breed them in
immense quantities."

"Oh, I have heard so much of the Pineta. They say it is so lovely."

"The most beautiful forest in the world. And this is just the time when
it is in its greatest beauty,--the early spring, when the wild flowers
are all beginning to blossom, and the birds are all singing. There is
nothing like our Pineta!"

"I should so like to see it. It does seem really a shame to leave
Ravenna without ever having seen the Pineta."

"Oh, you must not dream of doing so. You must make a little excursion
one of these fine spring days. It is just the time for it. Some morning,
the earlier the better. But I dare say your habits are not very
matutinal, Signora?"

"Well, not very, for the most part. But I would willingly make them
matutinal for such a purpose at any time. How far is it?"

"Oh, a mere nothing--at the city gates almost a couple of miles,
perhaps. You may go out by the Porta Nuova, at the end of the Corso, and
so to that part of the forest which lies to the southward of the city;
or by the northern road, which very soon enters the wood on that side.
Perhaps the finest part of the Pineta is that to the southwards. Of all
places in the world it is the spot for a colazione al fresco."

"I should so like it. I have heard of the Pineta di Ravenna all my
life."

"What do you say to going this very morning?" said Ludovico, after
thinking for a minute. "There is no time like the present. It will be a
charming finish to our Carnival--new and original, too! Do you feel as
if you had go enough left for it?"

"Oh, as for that," said Bianca, laughing with lips and eyes, "I am up to
anything. I should like it of all things. But--"

"Ah! what a terrible word that 'but' is. But what?" said Ludovico, who
had no sooner conceived the idea than he became eager to put it into
execution. "But what?"

"But--a great many things. Unhappily, there is no word comes oftener
into one's life than that odious 'but.' But who is to go with me? I
cannot go all alone by myself?"

"Oh, that's no but at all. Of course, Signora, I did not propose such an
expedition to you without proposing to myself the honour of accompanying
you," said Ludovico with a profound bow.

"What a scappata! I should like it of all things. But--there it comes
again! 'But' the second; will not the good people say all sorts of
ill-natured and absurd things?"

"Not a bit of it--in my case, Signora. Everybody knows that we have been
very good friends; and that I have not been coxcomb enough to have ever
hoped to be aught more to you, having been protected, as they all know,
from such danger in the only way in which a man could possibly be
protected from it," said Ludovico, bowing again.

"Dear me! What way is that? It might be so useful to know. Would it be
equally applicable to a lady, I wonder?" said Bianca, looking at him
half laughingly, half-poutingly, with her head on one side. "Oh yes!
perfectly applicable in all cases, Signora. It is only to have no heart
to lose, having lost it already," returned he.

"Oh, come! This is a confidence dans les regles! And in return for it,
Signor Ludovico, do you know--speaking in all seriousness--that--if we
really do put this wild scheme into execution--I have a confidence to
give you, and may take that opportunity of making it--a confidence, not
which may or may not be made, like yours, but which I ought to make to
you, the necessity of making which furnishes, to say the truth, a very
plausible reason for our projected tete-a-tete."

"Davvero, Signora! Better and better; I shall be charmed to receive such
a mark of your friendship," said Ludovico, thinking and caring little on
what subject it might be that the Diva purposed speaking to him: "and
then, the fact is," he continued, "that to-morrow morning will be the
best morning for the purpose of all the days of the year. For we shall
be quite sure that every soul here will be in bed and asleep. On the
first morning in Lent one is tolerably safe not to fall in with early
risers. Our little trip, you may be very sure, will never be heard of by
anybody, unless we choose to tell of it ourselves."

"And I am sure that I do not see why we should not," said Bianca.

"I see no reason against telling all the town, for my part," rejoined
Ludovico; "afterwards though--you understand; and not beforehand, or our
little escapade would be spoilt by some blockhead or other insisting on
joining us. Our friend Leandro there, for instance; think of it!"

"The idea is a nightmare! No; we will not say a word till afterwards.
'Tis the most charming notion for a finale to a Carnival that ever was
conceived. I make you my compliments on it, Signor Ludovico."

"So, then, all the 'buts' have been butted and rebutted?" said he.

"Well, I suppose so,"--by the help of a strong desire to yield to the
temptation of so pleasant a scheme, the way 'buts' generally are
answered. "But we cannot go on the expedition as we are, I suppose?"
said she.

"I don't see why not. I dare say the old pines have seen similar figures
beneath them before now. But you would not be comfortable without
changing your dress, and the mornings are still sharp. This is how it
must be. I will slip away before long, and make all preparation
necessary. I will get a bagarino and a pony--not from the Castelmare
stables, you understand, but from a man I know and can trust--and I will
come with it to the door of your lodging at six o'clock. You will stay
at the ball till the end. Everybody will go by four o'clock, or soon
after. That will give you plenty of time to change your dress. By six
o'clock every soul in Ravenna will be fast asleep. We shall drive to a
little farm-house I know on the border of the forest, leave our bagarino
there, and have our stroll under the trees just as long and as far as is
agreeable to you. Won't that do?"

"Perfect! I shall enjoy it amazingly. I will be sure to be ready when
you come at six o'clock."

"I will be there at six or thereabouts. Now we will go back to the
ball-room; but don't dance till you have not a leg left to stand on. We
must have a good long stroll in the Pineta."

"Lascia fare a me! I dare say I shan't dance another dance--unless,
indeed, we have one more turn together before you go. Is there time?"

"Oh yes, for that plenty of time. If you are not afraid of tiring
yourself, one more last dance by all means."

So giving her his arm, the Marchesino led his beautiful and fascinating
companion back to the ballroom, where the music was again making the
most of the time with another waltz.




CHAPTER II

Apollo Vindex


The Conte Leandro Lombardoni had not passed a pleasant Carnival.
Reconciled, as he had recently professed himself to be--after some one
of the frequent misfortunes that happened to his intercourse with
them--with the fair sex, he had begun his Carnival by attempting to make
his merit acceptable in the eyes of La Lalli; and had failed to obtain
any recognition from her, even as a poet, to say nothing of his
pretensions as a Don Juan. To a certain limited degree, it had been
forced upon his perception, that he had been making an ass of himself;
and the appreciation of that fact by the other young men among whom he
lived had been indicated with that coarse brutality, as the poet said to
himself, which was the outcome of minds not "softened by the study of
the ingenuous arts," as his own was. He had been consistently snubbed
and flouted, he and his poetry, and his love-making, and his carefully
prepared Carnival costumes.

The result was, that at the ball on that last night of the Carnival, the
Conte Leandro was not in charity with all men, and, indeed, hardly with
any man. He was feeling very sore, and would fain have avenged his pain
by making any one else feel equally sore, if he had it in his power to
do so.

He was especially angry with Ludovico di Castelmare. Had he not chaffed
him unmercifully about the verses he had sent to La Bianca? Was it not,
to all appearance, due to him that the Diva had never condescended to
cast a glance on either him or his poetry? Had he not called him Aesop,
when it was plain to all the world that he represented Apollo? And now
this night, again, he had taken the opportunity of turning him into
ridicule in the presence of La Bianca; and he and she had spoken of the
possibility of their being troubled with his company as of a nightmare.
For the painful fact was that their uncomplimentary expressions had been
heard by the poet; who, when he had left Ludovico and Bianca in the
little supper-room together, had retreated no further than just to the
other side of a curtain, which hung, Italian fashion, by the side of the
open door. Finding that there was nobody there--for the little buffet
was at the end of the entire suite of rooms, and all those who were not
either in the ball-room, or in the card-room, were at that moment in the
principal supper-room--it had seemed well to the Conte Leandro, in his
dudgeon and spite against all the world, to ensconce himself quietly
behind the curtain, and hear what use Ludovico and Bianca would make of
their tete-a-tete.

The first advantage he obtained was to hear himself spoken of as a
nightmare; and that naturally: prompted him to prick up his ears to hear
more. But when he had thus learned the whole secret of the projected
expedition, it struck him, as well worth considering, whether there
might not be found in this the means of making his tormentor pay him for
some of the annoyances he had suffered at his hands.

So! the Marchese Ludovico, who ought to be paying his addresses to the
Contessa Violante in the sight of all Ravenna--the Contessa Violante
Marliani was great niece of the Cardinal Legate, between whom and the
Marchese Ludovico their respective families had projected an
alliance