Short Fiction by Herman Melville (leveled readers txt) 📕

“Well, Bannadonna,” said the chief, “how long ere you are ready to set the clock going, so that the hour shall be sounded? Our interest in you, not less than in the work itself, makes us anxious to be assured of your success. The people, too⁠—why, they are shouting now. Say the exact hour when you will be ready.”

“Tomorrow, Excellenza, if you listen for it⁠—or should you not, all the same⁠—strange music will be heard. The stroke of one shall be the first from yonder bell,” pointing to the bell adorned with girls and garlands, “that stroke shall fall there, where the hand of Una clasps Dua’s. The stroke of one shall sever that loved clasp. Tomorrow, then, at one o’clock, as struck here, precisely here,” advancing and placing his finger upon the clasp, “the poor mechanic will be most happy once more to give you liege audience, in this his littered shop. Farewell till then, illustrious magnificoes, and hark ye for your vassal’s stroke.”

His still, Vulcanic face hiding its burning brightness like a forge, he moved with ostentatious deference towards the scuttle, as if so far to escort their exit. But the junior magistrate, a kindhearted man, troubled at what seemed to him a certain sardonical disdain, lurking beneath the foundling’s humble mien, and in Christian sympathy more distressed at it on his account than on his own, dimly surmising what might be the final fate of such a cynic solitaire, nor perhaps uninfluenced by the general strangeness of surrounding things, this good magistrate had glanced sadly, sideways from the speaker, and thereupon his foreboding eye had started at the expression of the unchanging face of the Hour Una.

“How is this, Bannadonna?” he lowly asked, “Una looks unlike her sisters.”

“In Christ’s name, Bannadonna,” impulsively broke in the chief, his attention, for the first attracted to the figure, by his associate’s remark, “Una’s face looks just like that of Deborah, the prophetess, as painted by the Florentine, Del Fonca.”

“Surely, Bannadonna,” lowly resumed the milder magistrate, “you meant the twelve should wear the same jocundly abandoned air. But see, the smile of Una seems but a fatal one. ’Tis different.”

While his mild associate was speaking, the chief glanced, inquiringly, from him to the caster, as if anxious to mark how the discrepancy would be accounted for. As the chief stood, his advanced foot was on the scuttle’s curb.

Bannadonna spoke:

“Excellenza, now that, following your keener eye, I glance upon the face of Una, I do, indeed perceive some little variance. But look all round the bell, and you will find no two faces entirely correspond. Because there is a law in art⁠—but the cold wind is rising more; these lattices are but a poor defense. Suffer me, magnificoes, to conduct you, at least, partly on your way. Those in whose well-being there is a public stake, should be heedfully attended.”

“Touching the look of Una, you were saying, Bannadonna, that there was a certain law in art,” observed the chief, as the three now descended the stone shaft, “pray, tell me, then⁠—.”

“Pardon; another time, Excellenza;⁠—the tower is damp.”

“Nay, I must rest, and hear it now. Here⁠—here is a wide landing, and through this leeward slit, no wind, but ample light. Tell us of your law; and at large.”

“Since, Excellenza, you insist, know that there is a law in art, which bars the possibility of duplicates. Some years ago, you may remember, I graved a small seal for your republic, bearing, for its chief device, the head of your own ancestor, its illustrious founder. It becoming necessary, for the customs’ use, to have innumerable impressions for bales and boxes, I graved an entire plate, containing one hundred of the seals. Now, though, indeed, my object was to have those hundred heads identical, and though, I dare say, people think them; so, yet, upon closely scanning an uncut impression from the plate, no two of those five-score faces, side by side, will be found alike. Gravity is the air of all; but, diversified in all. In some, benevolent; in some, ambiguous; in two or three, to a close scrutiny, all but incipiently malign, the variation of less than a hair’s breadth in the linear shadings round the mouth sufficing to all this. Now, Excellenza, transmute that general gravity into joyousness, and subject it to twelve of those variations I have described, and tell me, will you not have my hours here, and Una one of them? But I like⁠—.”

“Hark! is that⁠—a footfall above?”

“Mortar, Excellenza; sometimes it drops to the belfry-floor from the arch where the stonework was left undressed. I must have it seen to. As I was about to say: for one, I like this law forbidding duplicates. It evokes fine personalities. Yes, Excellenza, that strange, and⁠—to you⁠—uncertain smile, and those fore-looking eyes of Una, suit Bannadonna very well.”

“Hark!⁠—sure we left no soul above?”

“No soul, Excellenza; rest assured, no soul⁠—Again the mortar.”

“It fell not while we were there.”

“Ah, in your presence, it better knew its place, Excellenza,” blandly bowed Bannadonna.

“But, Una,” said the milder magistrate, “she seemed intently gazing on you; one would have almost sworn that she picked you out from among us three.”

“If she did, possibly, it might have been her finer apprehension, Excellenza.”

“How, Bannadonna? I do not understand you.”

“No consequence, no consequence, Excellenza⁠—but the shifted wind is blowing through the slit. Suffer me to escort you on; and then, pardon, but the toiler must to his tools.”

“It may be foolish, Signor,” said the milder magistrate, as, from the third landing, the two now went down unescorted, “but, somehow, our great mechanician moves me strangely. Why, just now, when he so superciliously replied, his walk seemed Sisera’s, God’s vain foe, in Del Fonca’s painting. And that young, sculptured Deborah, too. Ay, and that⁠—.”

“Tush, tush, Signor!” returned the chief. “A passing whim. Deborah?⁠—Where’s Jael, pray?”

“Ah,” said the other, as they now stepped upon the sod, “Ah, Signor, I see you leave your fears behind you with the