"And are you now from her house?" she asked.
Angioletto shook his head. "That was a very long time ago," said he;
"two years at least. I am eighteen, you must know. When I left the
Marchioness she gave me a handsome present. It sufficed to take me to
Perugia--to the University there; it afforded me two years' study in the
liberal arts, and my outfit for this present venture into the bargain."
"And do you know what you will do at Ferrara, Angioletto?"
"Yes, quite well."
"What will you do?"
"I will marry you, Bellaroba," the boy replied, as he turned suddenly,
put his arms about her and took a long kiss.
Bellaroba, in a bath of love, made him free of her lips. For a while the
mule had to do his pacing alone.
"Oh, Angioletto, Angioletto," whispered the girl, with a hidden face, "I
have never been happy like this before."
"You will never be unhappy again, dearest, for I shall be with you."
For the time there was no more talk, since the broken murmurs of their
joy and wonder cannot be so described. The billing of two doves on an
elm was not more artless than their converse on the mule's back.
The girl brought prose in again, as became a daughter of Venice. What
had led Angioletto to Ferrara?
"The Blessed Virgin," he promptly replied, and she sighed a happy
acquiescence in so pious a retort.
"But what else?"
For answer Angioletto drew a silk-bound letter from his breast. "This
epistle," he said, "promises me employment and fame almost as certainly
as you promise me bliss. It is from a Cardinal of my acquaintance to a
noble lady of Ferrara, by name Lionella, daughter of Duke Borso himself,
and wife to one Messer Guarino Guarini, a very great lord. The lady is
patroness of all poets and minstrels. Consider our fortunes made, my
joy."
"They must be made since you believe it, Angioletto," said Bellaroba
with faith. "I have never seen any one like you, so beautiful and so
wise at once."
The compliment provoked kisses. Angioletto embraced her again; again
conversation became ejaculatory, and again the mule tripped over the
reins. He learned before the day was out to allow for this new hindrance
to his way; he tripped no more. The lovers continued their rapt
intercourse all that May-day journey through the rice-fields, until at
Rovigo (half hidden in a mist of green) they halted for the night.