St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1900-08-22
BeatriCia and the Image Vender

| Ills plaster iludSeo LOA odIe' IL SeeLueU
bitterly cold to the muffled, scurrying
crowd, but it was warm and balmy to
Pietro. Though the hands which held
out the little white image of the wing
ed victory or a bust of Beethoven were
blue and stiff and the narrow shoulders
of the thin frame were doubled togeth-
er in an attitude of cringing subjec-
ton, yet the eyes of Pietro were look
ing far beyond the brilliant shops of
Fifth avenue In his Imagination he
was wandering in the Elysian fields
with his Beatricia where the sunlight
gilded the meadows and the smile of
nature shonl everywhere.
Oh, valiant heart of Petrol For two
years now he had nodded plaster casts
and images and sold his wares on
street corners and boarded the meager
gain to be able to get back to his Bea-
tricia. On the banks of the Tiber he
had left her picking grapes with the
men and girls in the Roman vineyards,
| and he had come to seek an Ell Dorado
before he claimed her as his bride
For one long sad year of separation
she wrote to him. She upbraided him
for his slowness in winning the wealth
they had dreamed Of, she scolded him
for only lukewarm affection she
wounded his sensitive soul with re-
peated attacks on his loyalty and love-
and gradually these criticisms, emanat-
ing from the restless, passionate soul
of the young girl, tender, but selfish,
giving much, but demanding more,
crushed the ardent spirit of the young
Italian and he drew his love within
the recesses of his heart and brooded
over it, and ceased to pour out the
souls desires in the little message
which he sent occasionally across the
water.
Finally, when she believed her love
too little appreciated, she ceased alto
gether to write. Pietro had been wait
ing and watching and counting the
days for the letter which she owed.
Weeks went by, then months, and no
word came to tighten his labors and his
loneliness. The first sharp pain of dis
appointment gave way to long, dull,
ceaseless agony that filled his heart
to the brim and made it throb wildly
at times within the tender walls. "Oh,
beloved Beatricia," he would cry out
in the wakeful watches of the long
night "have you forgotten your
Pietro"
The plaster Venuses and Mercurys
and Sacred Marys stood side by side
along the shelves Of his shop, gazing
down on him from their classic gran
deur with cold, IMPLYING eyes. Some
times at night he thought that he saw
the imperious Milo shake her head dis
painfully when he cried aloud. Mer-
curry sneered, and a dimpled Cupid's
head, by PraXiteles, broke into amused
mirth. Once in his GRIEF he knelt be-
fore a Mary, which he had himself
nodded that very day, and he prayed
wildly and despairingly. and, as if in
compassion. it seemed to him that the
sacred lips of the image moved to in
tercede.
He lived alone. Others in Little
Italy" sought to know him and to draw
him out of himself. He was a hand
some youth, perhaps % years of age,
and many Of the American born young
italian girls cast amorous glances at
him. He did not even notice them. He
looked far beyond them and saw a
little dark eyed girl, with a clear,
white, transparent skin, more beautiful
than the day-a cameo with but the
merest blush of pink.
'He no gooda; he no gooda," shouted
the mob Of merrymakers, tossing back
their heads in unbridled, hooking
laughter. They would look at one an
other when he passed silently, and
then raise their eyebrows significantly
and smile with knowing, conclusive
smiles as they touched their foreheads
with finger.
Pietro scarcely knew Of their pres
ence. He used to hear their uproarious
laughter, but it did not attract him.
He had no respect for them. Many
were but provincial born, and he, why,
he, Pietro Gonzales, had been born in
Rome itself, above the shop where
Gonzales the elder had chiseled the
heads of prelates Of the Vatican from
the finely veined, dazzling white ribs
Of marble from Italy's own hills and
had been a true artist in his day and
had loved art and labored for it in the
pure JOY Of creating. Money to him
was nothing. He did not know how to
earn it well, or to keep it. Art was
everything He deemed it worth the
sacrifice of his son, whom he forced to
go to America in order to extract a for
tune from the new world
But Pietro was beginning to learn
that fortunes are slow in coming, even
in young, thriving provinces, and his
art was more than the art of chiseled
marbles or of plaster casts. His love
was his ambition. He placed it above
his art, above his duty, above life itself.
And the object had only grown to mock
him for his devotion.
Often as he sauntered along the city
streets, absorbed in thoughts of her, he
would stop with startled look and
search the face of some passerby that
reminded him wildly of his Beatricia.
He saw her often in this way, for her
image was really never absent from
II 1, T.. I,