One grievance he had, and one joy--his daughter Maryska, nineteen upon
her last birthday, and still a child. Maryska like her father (and
another celebrity who has had a statue raised to him) never grew up. She
was the youngest woman of nineteen in the whole wide world, and when
father and daughter went for "a rag" together, it was wonderful that
anything at all was left in the Cantina--as he had named the house.
Such days they passed! Louis, prone in the sun with a cigarette in his
mouth; Maryska, flitting about the scene like a schoolgirl at play! They
went hand in hand everywhere like sworn friends in an academy for young
ladies. What money they earned would be sometimes in his pocket,
sometimes in hers. They quarrelled babyishly--the man shedding tears
more often than the girl. Yet he would have put his knife into the heart
of any who did her injury, with as little thought as he would have
killed a stray dog at his door. There had been one such tragedy at
Zara--the body was found in the harbour some days afterwards.
Maryska was a cosmopolitan. She had starved in New York, in London, in
Paris, in Berlin. Now she starved in Ragusa--except upon those splendid
occasions when a cheque came from England. Then the Austrian banker
would be fetched out of bed or café to cash it. They were rare days, for
Louis would knock down the bottles like ninepins, and never turn a hair
whatever their number. Maryska drank just as much as she could, and then
fell asleep. He used to shout and swear because she would not wake up to
draw another cork for him.
Latterly, it had been the devil to pay at the Cantina. Louis had lived
in prospective upon six disorderly nymphs--all décolleté--who were to
have proclaimed the merits, _urbi et orbi_, of a new suspender for
ladies of fashion. These drawings were quite wonderful. The prior of the
monastery who no doubt, may have imagined that they were part of a
scheme for a stained glass window, thought very highly of them. The
Austrian officers begged for copies of the paper. The governor laughed
and had a fit of coughing. He wanted to know where the models came from.
Louis would not tell him that, except to say that they were memories of
Paris and New York. He rarely drew the beautiful dark face of
Maryska--but there is a portrait of her in the church of St. John the
Divine in London, and many would swear it is a madonna of an old master.
Louis painted it for the priest, who used to tell him he was a
scoundrel. It was so very true.
Well, the pictures were drawn and dispatched to London; and then a
dreadful thing happened. The firm, which understood the female mysteries
so well, treated the financial verities with a contempt which quickly
ended in Carey Street. No cheque came to that hole in the wall at
Ragusa. Squat-legged and patient, Louis smoked his cigarette and
listened to Maryska's wholly unmelodious music. There was bread in the
house, but no wine. Well, wine would come presently.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account