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- “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.”
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