BELLA DONNA
FIFTH EDITION
Bella Donna
A NOVEL
By ROBERT HICHENS
Author of "The Call of The Blood," "The FruitfulVine," "A Spirit in Prison."
A. L. BURT COMPANY
Publishers New York
Copyright, 1908By J. B. Lippincott Company
Published October, 1908.
BELLA DONNA
I
Doctor Meyer Isaacson had got on as only a modern Jew whose home isLondon can get on, with a rapidity that was alarming. He seemed to havearrived as a bullet arrives in a body. He was not in the heart ofsuccess, and lo! he was in the heart of success. And no one had markedhis journey. Suddenly every one was speaking of him—was talking of thecures he had made, was advising every one else to go to him. For somemysterious reason his name—a name not easily to be forgotten once ithad been heard—began to pervade the conversations that were held in thesmart drawing-rooms of London. Women who were well, but had not seenhim, abruptly became sufficiently unwell to need a consultation. "Wheredoes he live? In Harley Street, I suppose?" was a constant question.
But he did not live in Harley Street. He was not the man to lose himselfin an avenue of brass plates of fellow practitioners. "Cleveland Square,St. James's," was the startling reply; and his house was detached, ifyou please, and marvellously furnished.
The winged legend flew that he was rich, and that he had gone intopractice as a doctor merely because he was intellectually interested indisease. His gift for diagnosis was so remarkable that he was morallyforced to exercise it. And he had a greedy passion for studyinghumanity. And who has such opportunities for the study of humanity asthe doctor and the priest? Patients who had been to him spokeenthusiastically of his observant eyes. His personality always made agreat impression. "There's no one just like him," was a frequent commentupon Doctor Meyer Isaacson. And that phrase is a high compliment uponthe lips of London, the city of parrots and of monkeys.
His age was debated, and so was his origin. Most people thought he was"about forty"; a very safe age, young enough to allow of almostunlimited expectation, old enough to make results achieved not quiteunnatural, though possibly startling. Yes, he must be "about forty." Andhis origin? "Meyer" suggested Germany. As to "Isaacson," it allowed theardent imagination free play over denationalized Israel. Someone saidthat he "looked as if he came from the East," to which a cynic madeanswer, "The East End." There was, perhaps, a hint of both in the Doctorof Cleveland Square. Certain it is that in the course of a walk downBrick Lane, or the adjacent thoroughfares, one will encounter men of histype; men of middle height, of slight build, with thick, close-growinghair strongly curling, boldly curving lips, large nostrils, prominentcheek-bones, dark eyes almost fiercely shining; men who are startlinglyun-English. Doctor Meyer Isaacson was like these men. Yet he possessedsomething which set him apart from them. He looked intenselyvital—almost unnaturally vital—when he was surrounded by Englishpeople, but he did not look fierce and hungry. One could conceive of himdoing something bizarre, but one could not conceive of