SIGN A. t IF as a rule the novels of
Oujda are of an objectionable type, it cannot be denied that she sometimes shows power, and her present story, Signa, is not without its traces. Not only does the interest of the tale never flag, but there is scarcely a page which does not contain either some fine bit of description of- animate or inanimate nature, some clever touch which shows how thoroughly she understands Italian men and women of the class she has undertaken to portray, or some scrap of prose poetry in a reminiscence of times gone by, or a peep into the art-world of the present day. Signa is a poetic, and at the same time an inexpressibly saddening story. Its writer would seem at times to have a true perception of the loveliness and truth of things spiritual, and at others she speaks of -them with a scoff and a sneer, or some light, bitter jest, as if Christian teachings were but old wives' fables, and there were no faith on earth, no God in heaven. And yet all the time she cannot disguise, nay, she brings out andheightens, the beauty of a life the guiding powers of which are duty and religion ; and notwithstanding her apparent disdain of churches, creeds, and what they would instil, no writer of fiction points out more plainly the need of human nature for higher guidance than its own. "Untiring in- telligence," she says, "may live best without a faith, but tired , poverty and labour must have one of some sort. Called by what
• Tee interminable faticcurticies which Invilidatektialf thd records of these events, and which need to be taken prominently into consideration in any estimate 'Of their ivladdi,lal worth, are -cnribrefly exemplified in SOS reception of this • Tarnous story. The writer does' no -know the name of the lady who saw the ghost (she was the Hontatrible Nlehcilet Hamilton, daughter Of Lord Glemwly). He histeit her matey Sir Martin, Instead of8ir Telegram Berasford, and to send on the day of her death "for Lady Betty. Cobb,-of whose friendship she had tong 1,411 possessed, and to ssliotn she condtidd her' itery." Ludy -Betty Cobbe tniA Beresford} was the grand-daughter of Lady Bereeford and of Lord Tirone (the ghost), and wait not born .tilt iniSny years after Lady Bereeforni death. f etStery. By --(Was. 3 vele. London : Chapman and Hall. name it May be, it is the self-same thing, the vague, sad, wistful hope of some far-off, but certain compensation."
The prineipal characters in Signa are all personifications of some attribute. Bruno is a wonderful impersonation of self sacrifice, and Lippo one of greed and hypocrisy. Gemma is the incarnation of selfishness, and Palma knows no feeling save love and duty.
Signs himself is a genius, a musician from his birth ;—Onida is fond of musicians, and describes them specially well. This one, a child without a name, is called after the town near to which he was found, in the midst of a flood, a living infant, on the breast of his dead and unknown mother. And yet the two brothers, who -when out at night seeing to the safety of their sheep discovered and saved the child, did not doubt that the corpse which they allowed to be washed away unburied was that of their sister Pippa. Only the brother who would have owned the poor lost creature, and seen her laid in the earth, and had the rites of the Church per- formed over her, is intimidated by Lippo, who suggests that it might be supposed that they had murdered her, and thus con- sents to an act which is the cause to him of life-long sorrow. In repentance for his participation in so cowardly a transaction, and to make amends also to poor dead Pippa for former unkindnesses, Bruno persuades his brother to bring up the little waif with his own large family, binding himself to give to the avaricious Lippo one-half of the yearly produce of his mountain farm. The fierce and wild, but simple and generous nature of Bruno forms an admirable contrast to the hypocritical Lippo. The latter, always gentle and soft-spoken, and knowing how to turn everything to his advantage, is, of course, the model man of the Lastra, while Bruno is misjudged on all sides. Lippo gets a great reputation for generosity by his supposed adoption of Signa, for the bargain between the brothers is kept a secret, and he contrives also to have it believed that the child is not Pippa's, but Bruno's own, and deserted by its unnatural father. Meantime the little one, beaten by Nita, the virago Lippo married for her money, and ill- treated by her children, starved, and made to work beyond his strength, has a hard time of it ; and but for his sweet, happy nature, his playfellows Gemma and Palma, and his friend Bruno, who gives him a day's pleasure now and then, would have had but a miserable existence. The picture given us by Ouida of this ragged child, with his poetical and fervent religious beliefs, is extremely beautiful ; and she is remarkably happy in making the love of music, at first but an innocent pastime, gradually develope into a passion, and merge at length into desire for fame, from which moment, when Signs cares to play merely because he hears beautiful things, and employs his art to entrance men and women, his character sensibly deteriorates, and he sacrifices not merely himself, but Bruno, to whom he owes everything, in order to secure his progress. And the warnings of Bruno, poor, ignorant, unedu- cated Bruno who while he "fears to handle his soul," yet would give his life that the boy should yet be pure when he meets his mother, are all in vain. This is Signa in his early days :—
. <, The music was in his head and in his heart ; and the millions of leaves and the glancing water seemed to be singing with hini, and he did not feel the flints under his feet or the heat of them, as he went singing out all his little soul to the river and the sky and the glad Juno sunshine, and he was quite happy, though he was of no more moment in the great human world than any one of the brown grilli in the wheat, or tufts of rosemary in the quarryside ; and he did not feel the sharp- ness of the stones underneath his feet or the scorch of them as he wont barefoot along the street, because he was always looking up at the brightness of the sky, and expecting to see it open and to see the faces of curly-headed, winged children peep out from behind the sun-rays, as they did in the old pictures in the villa chapel When he carried the bright plums to the market, not to taste even one when his mouth was parched with the dust and the sun ; to let his reed-flute lie mute while he searched for a straying kid ; to tell the truth, though it cost him a thrashing; to leave his black bread untouched on a feast morning, though he was so hungry, because he was going to confession ; to for- bear from pulling the ripe grapes as he went along the little grass paths through the vinos,—tbese were the things that were so hard, and that he tried his best to do, because in his little dim mind he saw what was just, and in his loneliness endeavoured with all his might to follow it, that he might see the faces of the angels some day."
An old sacristan in the Lastra is the child's earliest patron. Seeing the talent within him, he teaches him what he himself knows of music, and allows him to pore over the scores of Pergolesi and of the grand old masters and make them his own. Then he finds in the shop of old Tonino a violin for sale, and after a time, chance favouring him, obtains sufficient money to purchase it. With his wooden Rtisignuolo, as he calls it, the ten year old Signa is Supremely happy, especially as Bruno, having
discovered the-ill-treatment whieh he received in Lippo's house, takes him home to live with him, and is to him a father. For if Signa is devoted-to the-Rusignuolo, Bruno is almost more devoted to Signa; and the rough, rude, passionate man schooling himself
to be gentle and patient, avoiding the fairs and dances where before he had spent money and time in foolish brawls, working early and late with his faithful oxen Tinello and Pastore, in order to secure an independence for Pippa's son, so that he need not fear to meet Pippa herself in heaven, is really a touching picture. At length a crisis arrives; Sigma is seventeen years old, and Bruno has succeeded in saving money enough to buy a little bit of land, with olive trees and corn-fields, and this he means to make over to Signa for his own, so that when he dies Pippa's boy will not be unprovided for. His thought all along has been, "How happy the boy will be !" he thinking of him as of himself, or any other contadino, and knowing little of the yearnings of the youth for other scenes, for knowledge and for fame. The moment when Bruno discovers this, when he Ends that all is as nothing to Signs compared with his art, and when, stung with disappoint- ment, he breaks the Rusignuolo, is finely described, as are all the succeeding circumstances; Signa's fierce anger, Palma's lesson of gratitude, Bruno's rage and after-remorse. But the unselfish nature of this man is not to be conquered ; he has worked seven- teen long years for Signa, and a wooden toy, as he considers it, is of more account than he ; nevertheless, the boy shall have what is best for him, and by the advice of the old sacristan he allows him to go and study in Florence, and lives upon the reports of his success which reach him from the city, for Signa writes rarely, and never comes to visit his old home.
At last one day; just when the vintage is beginning, the young musician arrives at the hill farm, and great is Bruno's joy when he tells all the neighbours that his boy has walked all the way to see him. Bruno supposes that he has regained him ; "he sees the old ways are good, and that there is no place like home," is what he thinks, even when he sees him throw his spell of enchantment over the people who had known him from babyhood, so that listening to his music, "the men are breathless, the women in tears." But at last he finds out the object of his journey, finds that not to see him, Bruno, had he come; not to look again at the familiar hills and valleys, the homesteads and vineyards, or to renew the friendships of his youth, but to get money that his
Actea" (for the boy has written an opera) might be brought out, and Sigma become known to fame. Of course Bruno sacrifices himself again, and sells his dearly-bought land that his boy may have his will, and to add bitterness to the transaction, the land is bought by the deceitful Lippo. Bruno has found a foe in Signa's music, but he dreads another enemy more ; he fears the moment when Signa shall awake to the passion of love. This moment, of course, comes, and of necessity, the writer being Ouida, the passion is gross and the object is unworthy, being none other than the child-love of his baby years, the beautiful and selfish Gemma, who had long ago wan- dered from her home in search of the luxury she so much loved, and had been supposed to be dead. This part of the story, where the boy becomes enslaved by the debased and soul- :ess creature whom he cannot for a long time believe to be the little Gemma he has secretly worshipped and mourned, is power- ful, but very unpleasing ; yet there are some fine touches even here, in the scorn which 'Bruno heaps upon the painter Istriel, whose celebrated picture of Gemma as the "Sister of the Seven Dancers" had first awakened the lower nature in Signa ; and Gemma's supreme self-worship and her utter incapacity to under- stand goodness, from the time when the white, golden-haired beauty gives her baby kisses to whichever of her boy lovers will bring her the best fruit or contribute the most to her personal comfort, until as a woman she destroys the peace and happiness of all who come within her influence, is powerfully sketched; as also the misery of Signs, when he finds how low his little playfellow has fallen, and the earnest attempts to rescue her and to awaken her to some sense of shame, which end in his own undoing. As we said before, Signa is a painful book, which yet has a trace of genius. It is to be regretted that one who can feel as Oujda does such intense sympathy with sorrow, suffering, and in- justice, and has such an intuitive perception of character and such power of describing it, should waste those powers, as she unfortunately does, upon all that is basest in that nature of ours in which the sensual and the spiritual are for ever contending.
Previous page
