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The Turquoise Cup, and, The Desert
By
Arthur Cosslett Smith
1903
I The Turquoise Cup
II The Desert
The Cardinal Archbishop sat on his shaded balcony, his well-kept handsclasped upon his breast, his feet stretched out so straight before himthat the pigeon, perched on the rail of the balcony, might have seenfully six inches of scarlet silk stocking.
The cardinal was a small man, but very neatly made. His hair was aswhite as spun glass. Perhaps he was sixty; perhaps he was seventy;perhaps he was fifty. His red biretta lay upon a near-by chair. His headbore no tonsure. The razor of the barber and the scythe of Time hadpassed him by. There was that faint tinge upon his cheeks that comes tothose who, having once had black beards, shave twice daily. His featureswere clearly cut. His skin would have been pallid had it not been olive.A rebellious lock of hair curved upon his forehead. He resembled thefirst Napoleon, before the latter became famous and fat.
The pigeon's mate came floating through the blue sky that silhouettedthe trees in the garden. She made a pretence of alighting upon thebalcony railing, sheered off, coquetted among the treetops, came backagain, retreated so far that she was merely a white speck against theblue vault, and then, true to her sex, having proved her liberty only totire of it, with a flight so swift that the eye could scarcely followher, she came back again and rested upon the farther end of the balcony,where she immediately began to preen herself and to affect an air ofnonchalance and virtue.
Her mate lazily opened one eye, which regarded her for a moment, andthen closed with a wink.
"Ah, my friends," said the cardinal, "there are days when you make meregret that I am not of the world, but this is not one of them. You havequarrelled, I perceive. When you build your nest down yonder in thecote, I envy you. When you are giving up your lives to feeding yourchildren, I envy you. I watch your flights for food for them. I say tomyself, 'I, too, would struggle to keep a child, if I had one. Commerce,invention, speculation—why could I not succeed in one of these? I havearrived in the most intricate profession of all. I am a cardinalarchbishop. Could I not have been a stockbroker?' Ah, signore andsignora," and he bowed to the pigeons, "you get nearer heaven than wepoor mortals. Have you learned nothing—have you heard no whisper—haveyou no message for me?"
"Your eminence," said a servant who came upon the balcony, a silver trayin his hand, "a visitor."
The cardinal took the card and read it aloud—"The Earl of Vauxhall."
He sat silent a moment, thinking. "I do not know him," he said atlength; "but show him up."
He put on his biretta, assumed a more erect attitude, and then turned tothe pigeons.
"Adieu," he said; "commercialism approaches in the person of anEnglishman. He comes either to buy or to sell. You have nothing incommon with him. Fly away to the Piazza, but come back tomorrow. If youdo not, I shall miss you sorely."
The curtains parted, and the servant announced, "The Earl of Vauxhall."
The cardinal rose from his chair.