FROM THE ITALIAN OF NEERA.

THE AMULET.1

Translated for THE LIVING AGE by Mrs. Maurice

Perkins.

PART I.

On the death of General Maurice de Riche Fournion, a Piedmontais of good family, who had made his first campaign in the Crimea, and afterwards become famous in the wars of Italian Unity, his heirs, distant relations, divided among themselves the knickknacks in his small bachelor apartm nt. One of them received an oddly shaped portfolio, of embroidered leather, evidently coming from some Eastern bazar. This portfolio, fastened by a faded silken cord, exhaled an odor of attar of rose and fine tobacco. In one corner crossed were engraved two swords surmounted by a rose. Under the satin lining there was a manuscript, a hundred sheets of thin tough paper covered with a nervous handwriting not broad and tall after the fashion of to-day, but thin, fine, not without that innate elegance of which the letters of our great-grandmothers give us some idea.

The text was in French. In the margin there were some pencil notes in the general's heavy handwriting. A sheet was added to the manuscript as a sort of preface and explanation; a proof that he valued it, and that, if he had ever made a will, these mysterious papers would never have come to the public eye.

I remember the month, it was February, and the day-a splendid day-and the hour. It was the hour when my salon was strangely illuminated through the red silk curtains, the hour when its heavy, almost sombre furniture in this atmosphere of flame, seemed animated by a secret ardor. I was arranging a vase of flowers and my little Alexis seated on the carpet hummed softly in his plaintive voice,

I rise with the sun in the morning, And send up a prayer to God. "Alexis," I said, "be still a moment. I think I hear a step." "It is Pietro."

"I do not think it is Pietro. You know I am expecting our cousin M. de la Querciaia. You will be a good boy, won't you?"

"I like la Querciaia," answered the child, "because there are lots of little birds in the trees."

Just at this moment, Pietro raised the portière. I had never seen my cousin; first he had been at college, and then abroad. I remembered his mother, an angelic creature, who had died a year before, but as for him, I had never seen even his portrait. Nothing but his reputation for cleverness had reached me, and that only disturbed

Accustomed as I was to an ordinary existence, always alone with my child and Pietro, and Old Ursula, at a distance from any intellectual centre, and from all society, what could I find to say to this clever, well bred young man?

Happily, as I was already standing in the middle of the room, I did not find it very difficult to hold out my hand to him, and Alexis, jumping up from the floor and running to hide himself in my skirts, furnished me with a subject of conversation to begin with. I cannot say whether I thought him attractive or not at first sight, but I am very cer

tain that I did not find him commonplace, and looking at him attentively I saw that he was handsome with a beauty at once proud and gentle.

For his part, he looked at me long and closely, but without impertinence. He did not say a word about my husband. He probably knew that we lived almost entirely apart, but nevertheless he ought to have asked after him, at any rate I thought so. He asked me how I employed myself and if I read much. Read? That surprised me a little. Really as I looked round me I did not see a single book in my parlor. My husband had books in his room but they had never interested me. I told him that Alexis occupied me a good deal; I made all his clothes and worked a little in my flower garden; then I went over the household accounts with Pietro and kept the linen closet in order with Ursula.

"And is that the whole of your life?" he asked, and I felt a touch of scorn in his voice.

"I have also my poor people." "Ah!"

After this exclamation in a cold dry tone, he seemed to think he had made a bad beginning, for he hastened to say something agreeable and leaned over to caress my little boy.

"We have no neighbors, have we?" "No, we two are our only neighbors." I laughed as I said this, and he laughed too, suddenly revealing a different expression of his face and heart. Then my timidity vanished and I began to feel that he really was my kins

man.

"We are the only neighbors in the place, and the last of our family, and yet there must be others, an uncle, if I am not mistaken."

"Yes, but he made a bad marriage. His wife has behaved very badly to us. She is a jealous and ambitious woman. She comes to church on Sunday, just to annoy us and make us give up the seat."

"Ah, I pray you, take no notice of such vulgarities; it seems to me, dear cousin, that neither you nor I have any thing to do with such things."

I blushed at these words, remembering how often I had talked them over with Ursula. He had the good taste not to notice my embarrassment, and I was very grateful to him.

Then he began to speak of his travels, and as I took the opportunity to regret my solitary life, suggesting that one learned a great deal by travelling, he answered: "The only things that are necessary to know can be learned in solitude. Travel certainly adds something, but not what is most important. The most important experiences are those that take place within us."

This also surprised me; I never should have dreamed that a well-bred man could contradict a woman so flatly on his first visit.

"Are you going to stay at la Querciaia for some time?"

"I shall stay a long time. Perhaps I shall settle there altogether, if, for instance, I find the ideal woman, the wife worthy of me."

I opened my eyes very wide, but said nothing, and he added with the smile which made all his words charming, as if a sudden brightness shone upon them,

"Do you think I am very proud? One should be proud; it is the greatest of the virtues."

"I have always heard the very contrary. It is humility that is a virtue." "A mistake, a mistake."

He saw that he had shocked me, and immediately continued, "You will agree that we ought to realize capabilities, especially when it concerns such a thing as the choice of a companion for our whole lives. Does humility seem a fine thing when it induces us to accept an unworthy inferior being, who will give us children for whom we shall have to blush?"

I looked anxiously at my little Alexis, who was so pretty and so good. The child saw my look of tenderness and apprehension, and held out his arms to me, and I pressed him to my heart, strangely agitated.

"He is a charming little fellow," he said, putting his hand on Alexis' head, "but see, cousin, how your eyes shine

with maternal pride; are you not afraid of committing a sin?"

I felt like laughing and crying at once. I felt my throat swell and my blood tingled.

"Besides," he murmured, shaking his head as if he were answering an unseen questioner, "It is natural that it should be so."

yours. My dear cousin, your ideas are horribly old fashioned. It seems impossible that in such a charming little head there should be such a museum of antiquities."

"What! Goodness, devotion, fidelity, kindness"

"Sweetness, patience, and one might add half-a-dozen more of your virtues!

"Simple, yes, but not silly."

Why was it that this answer, which certainly did not contain anything in the least complimentary, which, in fact, was barely civil, should have filled me with a strange delight? Perhaps I had been waiting for him to come and tell me I was not silly!

At any rate I answered, "Simple people probably do not please you much." "You are right, not much." "Thank you."

"You need not say that; I wished to show you the perils of simplicity. Did you suppose I would not seize every opportunity to teach the little that I know, to people who interest me?"

"But," I answered quickly, "I decline to inspire you with the slightest interest in me."

"That does not depend on your permission."

"Why?"

"Because sympathy is entirely free; it is in your power to close your doors on me, you can give me your formal orders on the subject; but you cannot prevent me from thinking about you, and doing all I can for your happiness." "You seem to be an original."

"As you please; you see I do not quarrel easily. That is a good way to keep one's friends."

"As for me, if I were going to have a friend, I should like him to be, above all things, good, affectionate, devoted, and amiable too, willing to bear with my faults. Is not that the most valuable thing in friendship, mutual forbearance?"

"I am very sorry to be obliged to contradict you again. You will tell me that it is my fault, but all the same I shall continue to believe that it is

those the qualities of your maid, what is her name, let us say Brigida, and of that excellent Pietro who opened the door for me, and who remembers to have seen me when I was a little boy?"

"Ursula and Pietro," I said, a little wounded at the touch of irony that seemed to strike at my old affections, "are certainly the best people that I know."

"Did I ever say anything to the contrary? Please remember that it is I who have just adorned them with this crown of virtue. Is not that so, yes or no?"

"And what then?"

"Then let us return to the subject. Do you desire your friends to have the same qualities as your servants?"

"Good qualities can belong to anybody, without distinction."

"Bear with me, and answer my question categorically. Do you desire your friends to have the good qualities of Ursula and Pietro?" "Why not?"

"It is, yes, then?" "Well, yes."

"Well no, no, no! Observe that I agree perfectly that devotion, goodness, tolerance are indispensable in the relation between masters and servants, and that masters should appreciate their servants, but I ask a great deal more from a sentiment which unites two equals, who have no motive of money or sordid personal interest. What would become of the high ideals of friendship if it were limited to a gentle tolerance, or a benevolent amiability? I know very well that that is the way the world looks at it. Even you are contented with that view. A little gossip, a walk, a breakfast taken in company, the choice of

the same tailor, a preference for the same music, according to you, all that is friendship! I want a great deal more than that, a great deal more. What should I do with a friend who could neither make me better, nor uplift me? Think, we must give to a friend something of our own souls, we must open that spotless sanctuary to him, and let him repose on our heart. Friendship is the half of love, and sometimes all of it; a great thing!"

ing verses, and my master said that that child had a great deal of talent." "How is it that I do not remember him?"

"Madame was a great deal too young. Madame must have seen him, but could not recall it. Besides he was in the house very little; with the permission of my master he passed his time in the acacia wood."

My cousin's visit left an impression which, in the silence and solitude of the following days, grew rather stronger than fainter. He had excited in my mind a confusion of entirely new ideas;

Before I could answer he interrupted, "I warn you I am not very indulgent, only tolerably good, gentle by fits and starts, and that I don't care much for constancy."

sense, something which had slept, which had seemed to be dead, which perhaps would have been dead, but for his powerful evocation.

On Sunday, at church, Ursula, who always went with me, pointed out my

"Thank you for the permission."

He bowed very ceremoniously, and was on the point of leaving, when Alexis stumbling on the carpet, fell and struck his forehead. The cries of the child made him come back, perhaps also my exclamations of distress and the vehement kisses and caresses I lavished on him to comfort him.

"What is the matter?" he asked in his quiet voice, giving a rapid glance at the little boy. "Why do you cry?" he said, "a man should never cry."

The child stopped short and looked at him with his great eyes still wet with tears. He smiled, and said, turning to me, "Do not agitate yourself too much, my cousin, if you wish to remain strong."

The next moment Alexis and I, drawing aside the red silk curtains, saw him disappear along the road. Then Pietro who came in to announce dinner, said to me: "What a man he has grown!" "You knew him, Pietro?"

"Oh! very well. When he was a little fellow he used to come to the house. He had a strange liking for the little acacia wood at the end of the garden. He would stay there whole hours writ

"See what airs she puts on, the great fool!"

But I answered, enlightened by a loftier vision, "Don't let us think about her, Ursula."

On coming out of church, I thought I had never seen the sun so brilliant, nor the groups of cottages along the road so picturesque, and-though this was doubtless the effect of my imagination,-much too early the sap seemed to be swelling the branches of the almond trees in the orchards.

"Ursula," I said, with an outburst from the bottom of my heart, "Is not life beautiful?"

"Madame, life is neither beautiful nor ugly; it is just life."

I should have liked Ursula to continue her remarks and to develop her thought, but she confined herself to saying, as she whisked the dust off her new shoes with her pockethandkerchief, "How dusty it is!"

When I was at home again, the day did not seem so splendid. Perhaps the sun had gone under a cloud; the red curtains of my room did not glow with that soft flame-color which gave it the aspect of a temple prepared for mys

I was in the habit of playing with Alexis, or chattering with Pietro and Ursula, until the season when the rose trees were pruned and one began to think of fresh seed, but this afternoon seemed interminable.

"Pietro," I said every now and then, "I think some one is ringing at the gate. Go and see."

Pietro would go and come back, "There is no one there, Madame."

I told Alexis a long story; the story of the prince who was turned into a beast and must stay so, until a beautiful young girl should fall in love with him.

"That was impossible," said Alexis. "Why was it impossible? Suppose that the young girl knew that underneath the beast there was a prince?"

But Alexis was not interested in this problem, which to-day, possessed a beauty which I had never discovered before. What misery for a noble being oppressed by such an inhuman fate! And what a joy in its deliverance! And how he must have loved the girl who had loved him so much! Before dinner Ursula came in great distress, to tell me that the pear sweetmeat had moulded. I remembered that on such occasions I had always shared Ursula's annoyance, but now I seemed to care nothing about it. I even tried to persuade Ursula that this was of no consequence.

"And what shall we give the little one to eat with his bread this evening?"

Ursula went on lamenting and turning the sweetmeat pot about in her hands.

"Don't you think we could give him a little honey, Ursula, and if we have no honey don't you think some butter would do?"

"God bless you, Madame! To-day everything seems good and right to Madame."

In truth I felt as if a spring were bubbling up in me, a spring of youth and life. From my heart it rushed through my veins, it spread under my

my head; I detected myself listening for gay, mysterious voices in the air, like a choir of enchanting hours which stepped along before me; I was in such communion with an invisible world, that at times I felt as if flowers were blossoming in my hands and in my hair.

One day being at the window, I saw my cousin pass by. He raised his hat and bowed very amiably, and the next day he came to pay me a visit. "You have put it off a long time," said I.

"I wanted to see you again, to be sure I was not intruding upon you; that is the reason I walked up and down before the house several times yesterday. Your house is forty paces long in front, and thirty-two on the side. Perhaps the Palace of the Sleeping Beauty in the Wood was not so large."

His language was natural and he spoke of the gravest things as well as of the most insignificant, with the same simplicity, the same decided and persuasive accent. He glanced all round the room, and asked, "Where is the little fellow?"

Alexis crawled out from under a fauteuil with a Polichinelle in his hand and his face streaked with molasses. "What a curious face he has."

"Ursula says he looks like me, but Pietro thinks he looks like his father." "Another proof of the perspicacity of your advisers."

As I washed Alexis' face I was thinking that when he was born, nis father was in Paris as usual; that to my ardent entreaties he only responded that his affairs,-Mon Dieu and what affairs!-kept him there: that he had never seen his son but once, and that it had been two months since we had had news of him.

"You look sad." "Solitude is sad."

"How is that, when you have Ursula and Pietro?"

O how ill-natured that was! Yes, it was ill-natured and showed a want of heart. I took up my embroidery and