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Page 45
The martyred Harriet exclaimed, "I'm not clever,
Philip. I don't go in for it, as you know. But I know
what's rude. And I know what's wrong."
"Meaning--?"
"You!" she shouted, bouncing on the cushions of the
legno and startling all the fleas. "What's the good of
cleverness if a man's murdered a woman?"
"Harriet, I am hot. To whom do you refer?"
"He. Her. If you don't look out he'll murder you. I
wish he would."
"Tut tut, tutlet! You'd find a corpse extraordinarily
inconvenient." Then he tried to be less aggravating. "I
heartily dislike the fellow, but we know he didn't murder
her. In that letter, though she said a lot, she never said
he was physically cruel."
"He has murdered her. The things he did--things one
can't even mention--"
"Things which one must mention if one's to talk at all.
And things which one must keep in their proper place.
Because he was unfaithful to his wife, it doesn't follow
that in every way he's absolutely vile." He looked at the
city. It seemed to approve his remark.
"It's the supreme test. The man who is unchivalrous to
a woman--"
"Oh, stow it! Take it to the Back Kitchen. It's no
more a supreme test than anything else. The Italians never
were chivalrous from the first. If you condemn him for
that, you'll condemn the whole lot."
"I condemn the whole lot."
"And the French as well?"
"And the French as well."
"Things aren't so jolly easy," said Philip, more to
himself than to her.
But for Harriet things were easy, though not jolly, and
she turned upon her brother yet again. "What about the
baby, pray? You've said a lot of smart things and whittled
away morality and religion and I don't know what; but what
about the baby? You think me a fool, but I've been noticing
you all today, and you haven't mentioned the baby once. You
haven't thought about it, even. You don't care. Philip! I
shall not speak to you. You are intolerable."
She kept her promise, and never opened her lips all the
rest of the way. But her eyes glowed with anger and
resolution. For she was a straight, brave woman, as well as
a peevish one.
Philip acknowledged her reproof to be true. He did not
care about the baby one straw. Nevertheless, he meant to do
his duty, and he was fairly confident of success. If Gino
would have sold his wife for a thousand lire, for how much
less would he not sell his child? It was just a commercial
transaction. Why should it interfere with other things?
His eyes were fixed on the towers again, just as they had
been fixed when he drove with Miss Abbott. But this time
his thoughts were pleasanter, for he had no such grave
business on his mind. It was in the spirit of the
cultivated tourist that he approached his destination.
One of the towers, rough as any other, was topped by a
cross--the tower of the Collegiate Church of Santa Deodata.
She was a holy maiden of the Dark Ages, the city's patron
saint, and sweetness and barbarity mingle strangely in her
story. So holy was she that all her life she lay upon her
back in the house of her mother, refusing to eat, refusing
to play, refusing to work. The devil, envious of such
sanctity, tempted her in various ways. He dangled grapes
above her, he showed her fascinating toys, he pushed soft
pillows beneath her aching head. When all proved vain he
tripped up the mother and flung her downstairs before her
very eyes. But so holy was the saint that she never picked
her mother up, but lay upon her back through all, and thus
assured her throne in Paradise. She was only fifteen when
she died, which shows how much is within the reach of any
school-girl. Those who think her life was unpractical need
only think of the victories upon Poggibonsi, San Gemignano,
Volterra, Siena itself--all gained through the invocation of
her name; they need only look at the church which rose over
her grave. The grand schemes for a marble facade were never
carried out, and it is brown unfinished stone until this
day. But for the inside Giotto was summoned to decorate the
walls of the nave. Giotto came--that is to say, he did not
come, German research having decisively proved--but at all
events the nave is covered with frescoes, and so are two
chapels in the left transept, and the arch into the choir,
and there are scraps in the choir itself. There the
decoration stopped, till in the full spring of the
Renaissance a great painter came to pay a few weeks' visit
to his friend the Lord of Monteriano. In the intervals
between the banquets and the discussions on Latin etymology
and the dancing, he would stroll over to the church, and
there in the fifth chapel to the right he has painted two
frescoes of the death and burial of Santa Deodata. That is
why Baedeker gives the place a star.
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