The Last Lady of Mulberry: A Story of Italian New York
9781465675231
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
All Armando knew of sculpture he had learned from his uncle Daniello, a mountain craftsman who never chiselled anything greater than a ten-inch Saint Peter. At night in the tavern on the craggy height, with a flask of barbera before him, the old carver would talk grandly of his doings in art, while his comrades, patient of the oft-told tale, nodded their heads in listless but loyal accord. They all knew very well that it was young Armando who did most of the carving, yet they cried “Bravo!” for old Daniello’s wine was good. And so it had been for a long time. While the lad chipped all day in a little workshop perched beyond the nether cloud shadows, his uncle passed the hours in Genoa, where, by sharp wits and bland tongue, he transmuted the marble into silver. But Armando had a soul that looked far above the gleaming tonsures of ten-inch Saint Peters. Wherefore he was unhappy. When his twentieth birthday dawned it seemed to him that his life had been a failure. One morning, after a night of much barbera and noisy gasconade, old Daniello did not wake up, and two days afterward they laid him to rest in the sloping graveyard in the gorge by the olive-oil mill. Gloomily Armando weighed the situation, standing by the mullioned window of the room wherein he had toiled so long and ignobly. Far in the western distance he could see the ships that seemed to glide with full sails across the mountains. The serene midsummer vapours, pendulous above the Mediterranean, were visible, but the sea upon which their shadows fell and lingered was hidden from his view by a thicket of silver firs. Southward the trees stood lower, and over their tops, where tired sea gulls circled, he gazed sadly toward the jumble of masonry that is Genoa. Miles below in the sun glare the city lay this morning as Heine found it decades ago, like the bleached skeleton of some thrown-up monster of the deep. And a monster it was in the sight of the poor lad who looked down from the heights of Cardinali—but a monster that he would conquer, even as Saint George, champion of Genoa, had conquered the dragon in ages far agone. Yes, he would strike off for evermore the chains that fettered him to ten-inch Saint Peters, and mount to the white peaks of art! In the Apennine hamlet he had lived all his days, and never heard of Balzac; but he clinched his fist, and, with eyes set upon the cluster of chimney pots at the mountain’s foot, made his vow: “In this room, O Genoa! will I bring forth a marble that shall make you do me honour.” Then he felt uplifted—as though he had burned the bridges that hung between his old ignominy and the straight path to fame and riches. The vow was still fervid and strong within him when, two days afterward, he beheld in a shop window of Genoa a photograph of Falguière’s great marble, Juno and the Peacock. Before the divine contours of Jupiter’s helpmeet the simple-hearted graver of saintly images stood enchanted. Presently, as though spoken by a keen, mysterious voice from the upper air, there pierced his consciousness the word “Replica!” Again and again was it repeated, each time with a new insistence. Ah, a copy of this in marble! Yes; with such a masterpiece he would begin his ascent to the white peaks. He bought the photograph, put it in his pocket and kept it there until he was beyond the city’s bounds and trudging up the causeway toward Cardinali. Now and then he took out the picture, regarded it fondly, and, peering back at the town, asked himself if Genoa would look the same when his Juno and the Peacock should be there. Would the soft murmur of that drowsy mass have the same note? Would the people move with the same pace, eat, sleep, and drink as they had always done? He was inclined to think they would not.
