Best Short Stories Omnibus - Volume 3

The Story of Salome-4

I succeeded, however, in finding three of the places entered on my list. At the first I was told that the workman of whom I was in quest was working by the week somewhere over by Murano, and would not be back again till Saturday night. At the second and third, I found the men at home, supping with their wives and children at the end of the day’s work; but neither would consent to undertake my commission. One, after a whispered consultation with his son, declined reluctantly. The other told me plainly that he dared not do it, and that he did not believe I should find a stonemason in Venice who would be bolder than himself.

The Jews, he said, were rich and powerful; no longer an oppressed people; no longer to be insulted even in Venice with impunity. To cut a Christian cross upon a Jewish headstone in the Jewish Cemetery, would be “a sort of sacrilege,” and punishable, no doubt, by the law. This sounded like truth; so, finding that my rowers were by no means confident of their way, and that the canaletti were dark as the catacombs, I prevailed upon the stonemason to sell me a small mallet and a couple of chisels, and made up my mind to commit the sacrilege myself.

With this single exception, all was done next morning as I had planned to do it. My new acquaintance breakfasted with me, accompanied me to the Lido, read such portions of the burial service as seemed proper to him, and then, having business in Venice, left me to my task. It was by no means an easy one. To a skilled hand it would have been, perhaps, the work of half-an-hour; but it was my first effort, and rude as the thing was—a mere grooved attempt at a Latin cross, about two inches and a half in length, cut close down at the bottom of the stone, where it could be easily concealed by a little piling of the sand—it took me nearly four hours to complete. While I was at work, the dull grey morning grew duller and greyer; a thick sea-fog drove up from the Adriatic; and a low moaning wind came and went like the echo of a distant requiem. More than once I started, believing that she had surprised me there—fancying I saw the passing of a shadow—heard the rustling of a garment—the breathing of a sigh. But no. The mists and the moaning wind deceived me. I was alone.

When at length I got back to my hotel, it was just two o’clock. The hall-porter put a letter into my hand as I passed through. One glance at that crabbed superscription was enough. It was from Padua. I hastened to my room, tore open the envelope, and read these words:—

“Caro Signore,—The rubbing you send is neither ancient nor curious, as I fear you suppose it to be. It is a thing of yesterday. It merely records that one Salome, the only and beloved child of a certain Isaac Da Costa, died last Autumn on the eighteenth of October, aged twenty-one years, and that by the said Isaac Da Costa this monument is erected to the memory of her virtues and his grief.

“I pray you, caro signore, to receive the assurance of my sincere esteem.

“Nicolo Nicolai.”

The letter dropped from my hand. I seemed to have read without understanding it. I picked it up; went through it again, word by word; sat down; rose up; took a turn across the room; felt confused, bewildered, incredulous.

Could there, then, be two Salomes? or was there some radical and extraordinary mistake?

I hesitated; I knew not what to do. Should I go down to the Merceria, and see whether the name of Da Costa was known in the quartier? Or find out the registrar of births and deaths for the Jewish district? Or call upon the principal rabbi, and learn from him who this second Salome had been, and in what degree of relationship she stood towards the Salome whom I knew? I decided upon the last course. The chief rabbi’s address was easily obtained. He lived in an ancient house on the Giudecca, and there I found him—a grave, stately old man, with a grizzled beard reaching nearly to his waist.

I introduced myself and stated my business. I came to ask if he could give me any information respecting the late Salome da Costa who died on the 18th of October last, and was buried on the Lido.

The rabbi replied that he had no doubt he could give me any information I desired, for he had known the lady personally, and was the intimate friend of her father.

“Can you tell me,” I asked, “whether she had any dear friend or female relative of the same name—Salome?”

The rabbi shook his head.

“I think not,” he said. “I remember no other maiden of that name.”

“Pardon me, but I know there was another,” I replied. “There was a very beautiful Salome living in the Merceria when I was last in Venice, just this time last year.”

“Salome da Costa was very fair,” said the rabbi; “and she dwelt with her father in the Merceria. Since her death, he hath removed to the neighbourhood of the Rialto.”

“This Salome’s father was a dealer in Oriental goods,” I said, hastily.

“Isaac da Costa is a dealer in Oriental goods,” replied the old man very gently. “We are speaking, my son, of the same persons.”

“Impossible!”

He shook his head again.

“But she lives!” I exclaimed, becoming greatly agitated. “She lives. I have seen her. I have spoken to her. I saw her only last evening.”

“Nay,” he said, compassionately, “this is some dream. She of whom you speak is indeed no more.”

“I saw her only last evening,” I repeated.

“Where did you suppose you beheld her?”

“On the Lido.”

“On the Lido?”

“And she spoke to me. I heard her voice—heard it as distinctly as I hear my own at this moment.”

The rabbi stroked his beard thoughtfully, and looked at me. “You think you heard her voice!” he ejaculated. “That is strange. What said she?”

I was about to answer. I checked myself—a sudden thought flashed upon me—I trembled from head to foot.

“Have you—have you any reason for supposing that she died a Christian?” I faltered.

The old man started and changed colour.

“I—I—that is a strange question,” he stammered. “Why do you ask it?”

“Yes or no?” I cried wildly. “Yes or no?”

He frowned, looked down, hesitated.

“I admit,” he said, after a moment or two,—“I admit that I may have heard something tending that way. It may be that the maiden cherished some secret doubt. Yet she was no professed Christian.”

“Laid in earth without one Christian prayer; with Hebrew rites; in a Hebrew sanctuary!” I repeated to myself.

“But I marvel how you come to have heard of this,” continued the rabbi. “It was known only to her father and myself.”

“Sir,” I said solemnly, “I know now that Salome da Costa is dead; I have seen her spirit thrice, haunting the spot where. . . . ”

My voice broke. I could not utter the words.

“Last evening at sunset,” I resumed, “was the third time. Never doubting that—that I indeed beheld her in the flesh, I spoke to her. She answered me. She—she told me this.”

The rabbi covered his face with his hands, and so remained for some time, lost in meditation. “Young man,” he said at length, “your story is strange, and you bring strange evidence to bear upon it. It may be as you say; it may be that you are the dupe of some waking dream—I know not.”

He knew not; but I. . . . Ah! I knew only too well. I knew now why she had appeared to me clothed with such unearthly beauty. I understood now that look of dumb entreaty in her eyes—that tone of strange remoteness in her voice. The sweet soul could not rest amid the dust of its kinsfolk, “unhousel’d, unanointed, unanealed,” lacking even “one Christian prayer” above its grave. And now—was it all over? Should I never see her more?

Never—ah! never. How I haunted the Lido at sunset for many a month, till Spring had blossomed into Autumn, and Autumn had ripened into Summer; how I wandered back to Venice year after year at the same season, while yet any vestige of that wild hope remained alive; how my heart has never throbbed, my pulse never leaped, for love of mortal woman since that time—are details into which I need not enter here. Enough that I watched and waited; but that her gracious spirit appeared to me no more. I wait still, but I watch no longer. I know now that our place of meeting will not be here.