strange nature! When she is disappointed, she is capable of anything. A
month ago, when she was taken away from her mother to be shut up here,
she talked of taking poison. Whenever her aunt, who is really a great
scold, irritates her, she has nervous paroxysms which amount almost to
insanity; and last night, when I ventured to say to her that perhaps you
loved someone else, she rushed to her chamber window, crying like a
madwoman: 'Ah! if I thought so!' I threw myself upon her, I unlaced her,
I closed her windows, I didn't leave her during the night, and she cried
all night, or else fell asleep for a moment to wake with a start and run
about her room like a lunatic. Ah! Signor Lelio, she makes me very
unhappy; I love her so dearly! for, in spite of her outbreaks and her
eccentricities, she is so kind, so affectionate, so generous! Do not
drive her to frenzy, I implore you; you are an honorable man, I am sure,
I know it; everybody said so at Naples, and the signora listened with
passionate eagerness to all the stories of your kind deeds. So you won't
deceive her, and since you love the beautiful lady whom I saw at your
house----"
"Who told you that I love her, Lila? She is my sister."
"Oh! Signor Lelio! you are deceiving me! for I asked that lady if you
were her brother, and she said no. You will think that I am very
inquisitive, and that it is none of my business. No, I am not
inquisitive, Signor Lelio; but I entreat you to be a friend to my poor
mistress, to be like a brother to his sister or a father to his
daughter. Just think a moment! she is a child fresh from the convent and
hasn't any idea of the evil things that may be said about her. She says
that she doesn't care for them, but I know how she takes such things
when they come. Talk to her very gently, make her understand that you
cannot see her in secret; but promise that you will call on her at her
mother's when we return to Naples; for her mother is so good and loves
her daughter so dearly that I am sure she would invite you to her house
to give her pleasure. And then, too, perhaps the signora's madness will
subside little by little. One can often change the current of her
thoughts with amusements and distractions. I told her about the
beautiful Angora cat I saw in your salon, which rubbed against you so
while you were reading her letter that you had to kick her to drive her
away. My mistress doesn't care at all for dogs, but she loves cats. She
was taken with such a longing for yours, that you ought to give it to
her; I am sure that it would keep her busy and cheer her up for several
days."
"If my cat is all that is necessary to console your mistress for my
absence," I replied, "there is no great harm done, and the remedy is
simple enough. Be very sure, Lila, that I will act toward your mistress
as a father and a friend. Have confidence in me. But let me go to her,
for perhaps she is waiting for me."
"One word more, Signor Lelio. If you want the signora to listen to you,
don't tell her that the common people are as good as the people of
quality. She is tainted with her nobility. Don't form a bad opinion of
her on that account, for it's a family disease; all the Grimanis are
like that. But that does not prevent my young mistress from being kind
and charitable. It is simply an idea she has got in her head, which
makes her fly into a great passion when any one thwarts her. Would you
believe that she has already refused I don't know how many handsome
young men, and very rich too, because they were not well-born enough for
her. However, Signor Lelio, agree with her at first on every subject,
and you will soon persuade her of whatever you choose. Oh! if you could
only persuade her to marry a young count who proposed for her not long
ago!"
"Her cousin, Count Hector?"
"Oh, no! he is a fool, and he bores everybody to death; even his dogs
begin to yawn as soon as they see him."
As I listened to Lila's prattle, my fatherly manner having put her
completely at her ease, I led her toward the rendezvous. Not that I did
not listen to her with profound interest; all these details, trivial as
they were in appearance, were very important in my eyes; for they led me
by induction to a better knowledge of the enigmatical personage with
whom I had to deal. I must confess also, that they cooled my ardor to a
considerable extent, and that I began to look upon it as a most absurd
thing to be the hero of a romance in competition with the first
plaything that might come to hand; with my cat, Soliman, or--who could
say?--perhaps with Cousin Hector himself at the very outset. Thus Lila's
advice was identical with the advice which I gave myself and which I was
most desirous to follow.
We found the signora sitting at the foot of the statue, dressed all in
white--a costume by no means adapted to a mysterious meeting in the open
air, but for that very reason perfectly in harmony with her character.
As I approached, she sat so absolutely still that she might easily have
been taken for another statue sitting at the feet of the white marble
nymph.
She made no reply to my first words. With her elbow resting on her knee
and her chin on her hand, she was so pensive, so lovely, and her
attitude so graceful and stately, draped in her white veil in the
moonlight, that I should have believed her to be wrapt in sublime
contemplation, had not her love of cats and armorial bearings recurred
to my memory.
As she seemed determined to take no notice of me, I tried to take one of
her hands; but she drew it away with superb disdain, saying in a tone
more majestic than Louis XIV. ever had at his command:
"I have been obliged to wait!"
I could not refrain from laughing at that solemn quotation; but my
merriment served only to increase her gravity.
"Do not stand on ceremony!" she said. "Laugh on; the hour and the place
are admirably suited to that!"
She uttered these words in a tone of bitter indignation, and I saw that
she was really angry. Thereupon, suddenly assuming a serious expression,
I asked her forgiveness for my unintentional offence, and told her that
I would not for anything in the world cause her one moment's
unhappiness. She looked at me with an uncertain expression, as if she
dared not believe me. But I began to speak to her with such evident
sincerity and warmth of my devotion and affection, that she soon allowed
herself to be convinced.
"So much the better!" she exclaimed, "so much the better! for, if you
did not love me, you would be very ungrateful, and I should be very
unhappy."--And as I gazed at her, utterly confounded by her words, she
continued: "O Lelio! Lelio! I have loved you ever since the evening that
I first saw you at Naples, playing Romeo, when I looked at you with that
cold and contemptuous expression which disturbed you so. Ah! you were
very eloquent and very impassioned in your singing that evening! The
moon shone upon you as it does now, but less lovely than it does now,
and Juliet was dressed in white as I am. And yet you say nothing to me,
Lelio!"
That extraordinary girl exerted a constant fascination over me which led
me on, always and everywhere, at the pleasure of her caprice. When we
were apart, my mind threw off her domination, and I could analyze freely
her words and her acts; but when I was once with her, I speedily and
unconsciously ceased to have any other will than hers. That outburst of
affection reawoke my slumbering passion. All my fine resolutions to be
prudent vanished in smoke, and I found naught but words of love on my
lips. At every instant, it is true, I felt a sharp pang of remorse; but
it made no difference--all my fatherly counsels ended in loving phrases.
A strange fatality--or rather that cowardice of the human heart which
makes us always yield to the allurement of present joys--impelled me to
say just the opposite of what my conscience directed. I gave myself the
most convincing reasons you can imagine to prove that I was not doing
wrong: it would have been useless cruelty to talk to that child in
language which would have torn her heart asunder; there was still time
enough to tell her the truth--and a thousand other things of the same
sort. One circumstance which seemed to lessen the danger actually
contributed to increase it: I mean Lila's presence. If she had not been
there, my natural uprightness would have led me to watch myself all the
more carefully, for the reason that anything would be possible in a
moment of excitement, and I probably should not have gone forward a
single step for fear of going too far. But, being sure that I had
nothing to fear from my senses, I was much less careful of my words. So
that it was not long before I reached the pitch of the most intense,
albeit the purest passion; and, spurred on by an irresistible impulse,
I seized a lock of the girl's floating hair and kissed it twice.
I felt then that it was quite time for me to go, and I walked rapidly
away, saying:
"Until to-morrow."
Throughout this scene I had forgotten the past, little by little, and
had not once thought of the future. The voice of Lila, who went with me
to the gate, roused me from my trance.
"O Signor Lelio!" she said to me, "you didn't keep your promise. You
were not my mistress's father nor her friend to-night."
"It is true," I replied gloomily; "it is true, I have done wrong. But
never mind, my child, to-morrow I will make up for it all."
The next day it was the same story, and so with the next and the next.
But I felt that I was more deeply in love every day; and the sentiment
which, on the first day, was simply an inclination to fall in love, had
become a genuine passion on the third. Lila's heart-broken air would
have told me so plainly enough, had I not discovered it first myself.
All along the road I reflected upon the future of that love-affair, and
I returned home pale and distressed. Checchina soon found out what was
the matter.
"Poor boy!" she said, "I told you that you would weep before long."
And as I opened my mouth to remonstrate, she added: "If you have not
wept yet, you soon will; and there is reason enough. Your position is a
pitiful one, and, what is worse, absurd. You love a mere girl whom your
pride forbids you to try to marry, and whom your delicate sense of honor
deters you from seducing. You do not wish to ask for her hand, in the
first place because you know that if she bestowed it on you she would
make a tremendous sacrifice, and would expose herself for your sake to
innumerable discomforts, and you are too generous to accept a happiness
which would cost her so dear; secondly, because you dread being refused,
and are too proud to run the risk of being treated with disdain. Nor do
you want to take what you have determined not to ask for, and I am very
sure that you would much prefer to go off and be a monk than to take
advantage of the ignorance of a girl who trusts you. But you must decide
on something, my poor fellow, if you don't want the end of the world to
come and find you sighing for the stars and throwing kisses to the
clouds. Let dogs bay at the moon; we artists must live at any price and
every moment. So make up your mind."
"You are right," I replied gravely. And I went to bed.
The next night I went again to the rendezvous. I found the signora
excited and in high spirits, as on the preceding night; but I was
taciturn and gloomy for some time. She joked me at first on my
_carbonaro_-like manner, and asked me laughingly if I was thinking of
dethroning the pope or reconstructing the Roman empire. Then, as I did
not reply, she gazed earnestly at me, and said, taking my hand:
"You are sad, Lelio. What is the matter?"
Thereupon I opened my heart to her, and said that my passion for her was
a misfortune to me.
"A misfortune? how so?"
"I will tell you, signora. You are the heiress of a noble and
illustrious family. You have been brought up to respect your ancestors
and to believe that antiquity and splendor of race are all that there is
in life. I am a poor devil without a past, a nobody, who have made
myself what I am. And yet I believe that one man is as good as another,
and I do not consider myself any man's inferior. Now, it is clear that
you would not marry me. Everything would forbid it, your principles,
your habits, your position in life. You, who have refused patricians
because their families were not noble enough, would be less able and
less likely than any other woman to stoop to a paltry actor like myself.
From princess to player is a long way, signora. So I cannot be your
husband. What is left for me? The prospect of a mutual passion,
wretchedly unhappy if it were never gratified, or the hope of being your
lover for a time. I cannot accept either, signora. To live together,
overflowing with a passion always intense and never allayed, to love
each other in fear and trembling, and to distrust ourselves as well as
each other, is to subject ourselves voluntarily to suffering that would
be intolerable because it would be senseless, hopeless, and aimless. Nor
would I, even if I could, possess you as a lover. My happiness would be
assailed by anxiety from too many sources to be at all complete. On the
one hand, I should always be afraid of compromising your good name; I
could not sleep with the dread of being the cause of great misery to
you, or of your utter ruin; during the day I should pass long hours
looking out for accidents which might bring misery upon you and
consequently upon me, and at night I should waste the time that we were
together in trembling at the fall of a leaf or at the cry of a bird.
Everything would be a source of alarm to me. And why should I thus toss
my life to a multitude of empty phantoms, to be consumed? for a
love-affair of which I could never foresee the duration and which would
afford no compensation for the uncertainties of to-day in a sense of
security for the morrow; for sooner or later, signora,--I must say it
frankly--you would marry. And you would marry a man of noble birth and
of great wealth like yourself. It would cost you a bitter pang, I know;
I know that you have a generous and sincere heart; you would desire most
earnestly to remain faithful to me, and your heart would rebel at the
thought of uttering a word which would put an end to all my happiness
surely, if not to my life. But the constant assaults of your family, the
very necessity of preserving your reputation, would drive you to take
that course in spite of yourself. You would struggle a long while, no
doubt, and vigorously. Your love for me would still be gentle and
tender, but less effusive; and I, witnessing your grief, as I am not the
man to accept long and painful sacrifices without returning them in
kind, should myself force you, by going away from you, to resign
yourself to that necessary marriage, preferring to consecrate my whole
future to sorrow rather than to change your destiny by a dastardly act.
That is what I wanted to say to you, signora, and you must understand
now why I am afraid that this love would prove to be a misfortune to
me."
She had listened to me with perfect tranquillity and in absolute
silence. When I ceased speaking, she did not change her attitude in any
way. But, watching her closely, I fancied that I detected an expression
of profound perplexity on her face. Thereupon I said to myself that I
had made no mistake, that she was weak and vain like all the rest of her
sex; that the only difference was that she was honest enough to
recognize the fact as soon as it was pointed out to her, and that she
would probably be honest enough to admit it. So I allowed her to retain
my esteem, but I felt that my enthusiasm vanished in an instant. I was
congratulating myself on my perspicacity and my firmness, when the
signora rose abruptly and walked away without a word. I was not prepared
for that stroke, and I was painfully surprised.
"What! without a single word?" I cried. "You leave me, perhaps forever,
without a single word of regret or consolation?"
"Farewell!" she said, turning toward me. "Regret I cannot feel; and I am
the one who need consolation. You have failed to understand me, you do
not love me."
"I do not love you?"
"But who will understand me," she added, stopping, "if you do not? Who
will love me, if you do not?"
She shook her head sadly, then folded her arms across her breast and
fixed her eyes on the ground. She was at once so lovely and so
despairing that I had a frantic longing to throw myself at her feet, and
only a vague fear of angering her prevented me from doing it on the
instant. I stood still, saying not a word, with my eyes fastened upon
her, waiting anxiously to see what she would say or do. After a few
seconds she walked slowly toward me, and, leaning against the pedestal
of the statue, said with a meditative air:
"So you thought me cowardly and vain; you thought me capable of giving
my love to a man and accepting his, without giving him at the same time
my whole life. You thought that I would stay with you so long as the
wind held fair, and that I would go away as soon as it became adverse.
How can you have thought so? For you are a steadfast, loyal man, and I
am sure that you would not start upon any serious course of action until
you had determined to go on with it to the end. Why, then, do you insist
that I cannot do what you do, and why have you not the same good opinion
of me that I have of you? Either you must have great contempt for women,
or you have allowed yourself to be sadly misled by my levity. I am often
foolish; I know that; but perhaps that may be to some extent the fault
of my age, and it does not prevent my being steadfast and loyal. On the
day that I realized that I loved you, Lelio, I determined to marry you.
That surprises you. You remember not only the thoughts that I must have
had in my position, but also my past words and acts. You think of all
the patricians I have refused to marry because they were not noble
enough. Alas! my dear friend, I am the slave of my public, just as you
sometimes complain of being of yours, and I am obliged to play my rôle
before it until I find an opportunity to escape from the stage. But I
have kept my heart free under my mask, and, since I have been able to
reason, I have determined that I would not marry except in accordance
with the dictates of my heart. But I had to have some excuse for
dismissing all those insipid and impertinent patricians to whom you
refer. I found it in the prejudices common to my suitors and my family,
and, wounding the pride of the former and flattering the pride of the
latter at the same time, I took advantage of the antiquity of my blood
to refuse the hand of men who, noble as they were, were still, I said,
not noble enough for me. In this way I succeeded in getting rid of all
my troublesome suitors without displeasing my family; for although they
called my refusals childish whims, and offered my rejected followers
apologies for my exaggerated pride of birth, they were none the less
enchanted with it in the depths of their hearts. For some little time I
enjoyed greater freedom by virtue of this conduct. But at last my
stepfather, Prince Grimani, told me that it was time to make up my mind,
and presented his nephew, Count Ettore, as the husband he had in mind
for me. This new pretender was as unattractive to me as his
predecessor--even more so perhaps; for his excessive imbecility soon led
me to despise him altogether. The prince, seeing this, and thinking that
my mother, who is a dear soul and loves me with all her heart, might aid
and abet me in my resistance to his will, determined to part me from her
in order to force me more easily to obey him. He sent me here to live
with no one but his sister and nephew. He hopes that, being compelled to
choose between ennui and my cousin Ettore, I shall end by choosing the
latter; but he is sadly mistaken. Count Ettore is unworthy of me in
every respect, and I should rather die than marry him. I have never said
so as yet, because I loved nobody, and, taking one scourge with another,
I had no more objection to that one than to others. But now I love you,
Lelio; I will tell Ettore that I will not have him; we will go away
together--to my mother; we will tell her that we love each other, and
that we wish to be married. She will give her consent, and you will
marry me. Do you agree?"
I had listened to the signora, from her very first word, with profound
amazement, which did not cease when she had finished. Such nobleness of
heart, such fearlessness of thought, such masculine audacity blended
with such delicacy of feeling--all these united in so young a girl,
brought up amid the most arrogant of the old aristocrats--aroused the
warmest admiration in my own mind, and my surprise gave place to
enthusiasm. I was on the point of giving way to my transports and of
throwing myself at her feet to tell her that I was happy and proud to be
loved by a woman like her, that I was burning with the most ardent
passion for her, and that I was ready to do whatever she choose. But
reflection checked me in time, and I thought of all the drawbacks, all
the dangers of the step she proposed to risk. It was very probable that
she would be refused and severely rebuked, and then what would be her
plight, after running away from her aunt's house and openly taking a
journey of eight leagues with me? And so, instead of yielding to the
tumultuous impulses of my heart, I forced myself to be calm, and, after
a few seconds of silence, I tranquilly inquired:
"But your family?"
"There is but one person in the world whose authority over me I
acknowledge, and whose anger I fear to incur: that is my mother; and, as
I have told you, my mother is as kind as an angel, and loves me beyond
everything. Her heart will consent."
"O dear child!" I cried, taking her hands and pressing them against my
heart; "God knows that what you propose to do is the goal of all my
desires! I am fighting against myself when I try to hold you back. Every
objection that I urge means the loss of one more hope of happiness for
myself, and my heart suffers cruelly from all the doubts suggested by my
reason. But to my mind, you, my beloved angel, and your future, your
reputation, your happiness, are to be considered first of all. I should
much rather renounce all hope than have you suffer because of me. So do
not be alarmed at all my scruples; do not see in them an indication of
calmness or indifference, but the proof of an unbounded affection. You
say that you know your mother will consent because you know that she is
kind. But you are very young, my child; with all your strength of mind,
you do not know what abnormal alliances are often found between the most
contrary sentiments. I believe all that you tell me of your mother, but
can you be sure that her pride will not resist her love for you? It may
be that she will think that she is performing a sacred duty by
preventing your union with an actor."
"You may be half right," she replied. "Not that I am afraid of my
mother's pride. Although she has married two princes, she belongs to the
middle class by birth, and has never forgotten her own origin so far
that she would consider it a crime for me to love a plebeian. But Prince
Grimani's influence, a certain weakness which makes her always coincide
with the opinions of those about her, and perhaps, to represent things
in the worst possible light, the longing to obtain forgiveness for her
own humble birth in the social circle in which she now lives, would
prevent her from giving a ready consent to our marriage. So that there
is but one thing to do; that is to be married first and then tell her of
it. When our union is sanctified by the Church, my mother will never
have the heart to turn against me. It may be that she will suffer a
little, less on account of my disobedience, although her new family will
hold her entirely responsible for it, than on account of what she will
consider a lack of confidence on my part; but she will very soon be
appeased, you may be sure, and, from love for me, will open her arms to
you as to a son."
"Thanks for your generous offers, my dear signora; but I have my honor
to preserve, no less than the proudest patrician. If I should marry you
without your parent's consent, after abducting you, people would not
fail to accuse me of the basest and most dastardly projects. And your
mother! suppose that after we were married she should refuse to forgive
us, all her indignation would fall upon me."
"I understand then that, before marrying, you desire to have my mother's
consent at least?"
"Yes, signora."
"And if you were sure of obtaining it, you would hesitate no longer?"
"Alas! why tempt me? What answer can I make, being sure of the
contrary?"
"Then----"
She paused abruptly, in evident uncertainty, and dropped her head on her
breast. When she raised it, she was slightly pale and tears were
glistening in her eyes. I was about to ask her the cause of them, but
she did not give me time.
"Lila," she said in an imperative tone, "go!"
The girl obeyed regretfully, and stopped far enough away to be out of
hearing, but not so far that she could not see us. Her mistress waited
until she had gone, before breaking the silence. Then she took my hand
with a most serious air, and began: