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At this moment the conference of the two was interrupted by a knocking at the door, and Agostino Sarelli entered, pale and disordered. "How is this?" he said, hastily. "What devils' carnival is this which hath broken loose in Florence? Every good thing is gone into dens and holes, and every vile thing that can hiss and spit and sting is crawling abroad.
Sarelli, who was bending and swaying to the music of a tarantella, broke off, and letting his eyes rest on the painter, began playing Schumann's Kinderscenen. Harz leaped to his feet. "Stop that!" he cried. "It pricks you?" said Sarelli suavely; "what do you think of this?" he played again, crouching over the piano, and making the notes sound like the crying of a wounded animal.
How warm, how tender, how life-giving had been his presence always! how full of faith and prayer, how fruitful of heavenly words and thoughts had been all his ministrations! and yet it was for him and with him and his master that Agostino Sarelli was fighting, and against him the usurping head of the Christian Church. Then there was another subject for pondering during this night-ride.
"I am not too fond of other people's thoughts," he said at last; "I prefer to think my own. "And is Society never right? That poor Society!" "Society! What is Society a few men in good coats? What has it done for me?" Sarelli bit the end off a cigar. "Ah!" he said; "now we are coming to it.
Sarelli murmured: "I will load them, they are more useful loaded." Harz leaned out of the window; his head was in a whirl. 'What on earth is happening? he thought. 'He's mad or I am! Confound him! I'm not going to be killed! He turned and went towards the table. Sarelli's head was sunk on his arms, he was asleep. Harz methodically took up the pistols, and put them back into the drawer.
Sarelli lifted the kummel bottle and emptied it into his glass, with a steady hand. "You're honest and we both have devils. I forgot; I brought you in to see a picture!" He threw wide the shutters; the windows were already open, and a rush of air came in. "Ah!" he said, sniffing, "smells of the earth, nicht wahr, Herr Artist?
The hedges were brightening with a faint pinky glow; there was no sound on the long, deserted road, but that of their footsteps; suddenly a bird commenced to chirp, another answered the world seemed full of these little voices. Sarelli stopped. "That white girl," he said, speaking with rapidity. "Yes! You do well! get away! Don't let it catch you! I waited, it caught me what happened?
Ask Paul there, he's one of your moral men, or Count Sarelli." The latter said impassively: "If I cared for her I should very likely kill her if not " he shrugged his shoulders. Harz, who was watching, was reminded of his other words at dinner, "wild beasts whom I would tear to pieces."
Father Antonio, Baccio della Porta, Agostino Sarelli, the Princess Paulina, Agnes, with her grandmother, and mixed crowd of citizens and ecclesiastics who all spoke in hushed and tremulous voices, as men do in the chamber of mourners at a funeral.
I! Mario Sarelli, a low type! I love flesh better than my honour!" He remained swaying at the gate with the grin fixed on his face; then staggered up the steps, and banged the door. But before Harz had walked on, he again appeared, beckoning, in the doorway. Obeying an impulse, Harz went in. "We will make a night of it," said Sarelli; "wine, brandy, kummel? I am virtuous kummel it must be for me!"
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