living soul, and which I had fully determined never to tell. It relates
to my mother, the object of all my veneration and all my love. Judge
what it must cost me to stir a memory which might tarnish her purity and
her fair fame in the sight of other eyes than mine. But I know that you
are kind-hearted, and that I can speak to you as I would speak to God,
without any fear that you will imagine evil."
She paused a moment to collect her ideas, then continued:
"I remember that I was very proud of my noble blood in my childhood. It
was, I fancy, the obsequious fawning of our servants that planted that
sentiment in my mind so early in life, and led me to despise everybody
who was not noble like myself. Among my mother's servants there was one
who did not resemble the others, and who had been able to retain, in his
humble station, the dignity that befits a man. So that he seemed to me
an insolent wretch, and my feeling for him was little short of hatred.
Still I was afraid of him, especially after a certain day when I saw him
watching me with a very grave expression, as I was running my loveliest
dolls through the heart with a long black pin.
"One night, I was awakened in my mother's bedroom, where my little bed
always stood, by the sound of a man's voice. That voice was speaking to
my mother with a gravity that was almost harsh, and she replied in a
grief-stricken, timid, almost imploring tone. In my astonishment I
thought at first that it was mamma's confessor; and as he seemed to be
scolding her according to his custom, I listened with all my ears,
without making a sound or letting them suspect that I wasn't asleep.
They had no suspicion of me. They talked without restraint. But such an
extraordinary conversation! My mother said: 'If you loved me, you would
marry me,' and the man refused to marry her! Then mamma wept and so did
the man; and I heard--ah! Lelio, I must be very fond of you to tell you
this--I heard the sound of kisses. It seemed to me as if I knew the
man's voice; but I could not believe the testimony of my ears. I longed
to look; but I didn't dare to move, because I felt that I was doing a
shameful thing in listening, and as I had even then some elevated
sentiments, I tried not to hear. But I heard in spite of my efforts. At
last the man said to my mother: '_Addio_, I leave you forever; do not
refuse me a lock of your lovely hair.'--And my mother replied: 'Cut it
yourself.'
"The care which my mother took of my curls had accustomed me to look
upon a woman's hair as something very valuable; and when I heard her
give him part of hers, I had a thrill of jealousy and grief, as if she
had parted with property which she ought not to sacrifice to anybody but
myself. I began to weep silently; but, as I had heard steps approaching
my bed, I hastily wiped my eyes and pretended to be asleep. Then some
one put aside my curtains, and I saw a man all dressed in red, whom I
did not recognize at first because I had never seen him in that costume.
I was afraid of him; but he spoke to me, and I recognized him at once;
it was--Lelio, you will forget this story, won't you?"
"It was--signora?" I cried, convulsively pressing her hand.
"It was Nello, our gondolier--Why, Lelio, what's the matter with you?
You are shivering, your hand trembles. O heaven! you blame my mother!"
"No, signora, no!" I replied in an inaudible voice; "I am listening
attentively to you. This took place at Venice, did it?"
"Did I tell you so?"
"I think you did; and it was in the Aldini palace, of course?"
"Of course, for I told you it was in my mother's bedroom. But why this
agitation, Lelio?"
"O my God! my God! and your name is Alezia Aldini!"
"Well, what are you thinking about?" said she, testily. "One would say
that you had just learned my name for the first time."
"Pardon me, signora, your family name--I always heard you called
Grimani, at Naples."
"By people who were but slightly acquainted with us, doubtless. I am the
last of the Aldinis, one of the most ancient families of the Republic,
proud beyond words, and now ruined. But my mother is rich, and Prince
Grimani, who considers my birth and fortune worthy his nephew, sometimes
treats me sternly, sometimes wheedles me to prevail on me to marry him.
When he has a kind day he calls me his dear daughter, and when strangers
ask him if I am really his daughter, he answers, alluding to his
favorite project: 'To be sure, for she will be Countess Grimani.' That
is why I was always called by a name that is not mine at Naples, where I
passed a month, and where I knew almost nobody, and why I am called by
the same name in this region, where I have been living six weeks, and
where I neither see nor know anybody."
"Signora," said I, making a mighty effort to break the painful silence
into which I had relapsed, "will you please explain to me what relation
this story can possibly bear to our love, and how, by the aid of the
secret you possess, you can extort from your mother a consent which she
would be otherwise disinclined to grant?"
"What do you say, Lelio? Do you believe me capable of such detestable
scheming? If you would listen to me instead of passing your hands over
your forehead with that bewildered air,--my friend, my dear Lelio, what
new sorrow, what fresh scruple has assailed you in the last few
seconds?"
"Dear signora, I beg you to go on."
"Very well! Understand that I have never forgotten that incident: that
it has caused all the sorrows and all the joys of my life. I realized
that I must never question my mother on the subject nor mention it to
anyone. You are the first person to whom I have ever told it, not
excepting my dear nurse Salomé, or my foster sister Lila, to whom I
tell everything. My pride suffered from my mother's error, which seemed
to rebound upon me. However, I adored her just the same. Perhaps,
indeed, I loved her all the more, the more I felt that she was weak and
exposed to the secret maledictions of my relatives on my father's side.
But my hatred for the common people increased in the same proportion as
my love for her.
"My sentiments remained unchanged until I was fourteen years old, and my
mother had apparently ceased to pay any heed to them. In the bottom of
her heart she was pained by my contempt for the lower classes, and one
day she made up her mind to reproach me timidly on that subject. I made
no reply, which must have surprised her, for I was in the habit of
arguing obstinately with everybody and on every subject. But I felt that
there was a mountain between my mother and myself, and that we could not
argue impartially on either side. Seeing that I listened to her
reproaches with extraordinary resignation, she took me on her knees,
and, fondling me with unutterable affection, talked to me about my
father in the most unexceptionable terms; but she told me many things
that I did not know. I had always retained a sort of enthusiastic
respect, entirely without foundation, for that father of mine, whom I
had hardly known. When I learned that he had married my poor mother
solely for her fortune, and that, after marrying her, he had looked down
on her because of her obscure birth and inferior education, there was a
great reaction in my heart, and I soon hated him as intensely as I had
loved him. My mother said many other things which seemed very strange to
me and impressed me deeply, concerning the misfortune of marrying purely
for convenience; and I fancied that I could see that she was not much
happier with her new husband than she had been with him of whom she was
speaking to me.
"This conversation made a profound impression on me, and I began to
reflect upon the necessity of making marriage a matter of business, and
upon the humiliation of being courted because of a name or a dowry. I
resolved not to marry, and some time afterward, as I was talking with my
mother again, I made known my determination to her, thinking that she
would approve of it. She smiled and said that the time was not far away
when my heart would feel the need of a different love from hers. I
assured her of the contrary; but by slow degrees I came to realize that
I had spoken rashly; for I was assailed by the most intolerable ennui
when we laid aside our pleasant and secluded life at Venice, to travel
about and mingle in the brilliant society of other cities. Then, as I
was very tall and very far advanced for my years, it seemed as if I had
hardly ceased to be a child before they were already talking to me about
choosing a husband and about an establishment; and every day I overheard
discussions as to the merits and drawbacks of some new suitor. I had not
as yet felt the repugnance and terror which men without heart or mind
inspire in well-born women. I was hard to suit. Having lived always with
such a dear mother and been idolized by her, what a paragon of a man I
must have met in order not to regret most bitterly her gentle yoke and
her loving protection! My pride, already so irritable in itself, became
more and more sensitive every day at the appearance of the vain,
stilted, empty-headed creatures who presumed to pay court to me. I clung
to the virtues of noble birth, because I had imagined up to that time
that illustrious families were superior to others in courage, merit,
courtesy and liberality. I had not seen the nobility except in the
portrait gallery of the Aldini Palace. There my ancestors appeared
before me in all their glory, with all their great feats of arms or
pious deeds recorded on oaken bas-reliefs. This one had ransomed three
hundred slaves from barbarian pirates and bestowed true religion and
freedom upon them; that one had sacrificed all his property in war for
the salvation of his country; a third had shed all his blood for her on
some glorious field. So that my admiration for them was justifiable, and
I felt that the blood in my veins was no less warm and generous than
theirs. But how shockingly the descendants of other patricians seemed to
me to have degenerated! They retained none of the qualities of their
race except insufferable incompetency and sickening presumption. I asked
myself what had become of the nobility; I found it only on armorial
bearings and on the doorways of palaces. I determined to become a nun,
and I urged my mother so persistently to allow me to enter a convent,
that she consented. She wept bitterly when she left me there. Prince
Grimani approved of my whim; for since he had unearthed, in some corner
of Lombardy, a sort of nephew who might become rich at my expense, and
bear magnificently, thanks to my dowry, the imperishable name of
Grimani, his only thought was to make me obedient to his wishes, and he
flattered himself that religion would make my character more pliable.
What fervent piety, what a thirst for martyrdom one must have in order
to accept Hector! They took me away from the convent three months ago;
the fact is that I was dying with ennui there, and the rigid discipline
to which I had to submit was beyond my strength. And then I was so happy
to return to my mother and she to have me with her! But six weeks of
convent life had wrought a great change in my ideas. I had come to
understand Jesus, to whom I had always prayed with my lips alone. In my
hours of solitude, in church, in the earnest outpouring of my heart in
prayer, I had learned that the son of Mary was the friend of the
hard-working poor, and that he had justly scorned the grandeurs of this
world. And how shall I tell you? at the same time that I opened my heart
to new sympathies, the thing that in my childhood I used mentally to
call my mother's shame presented itself to me under very different
colors, and I thought of it only with deep emotion. What took place
within me? I cannot say; but I said to myself: 'If I should do as mamma
did, if I should fall in love with a man of a different station in life
from my own, the whole world would throw stones at me, all except
mamma.' She would take me in her arms, and hiding my blushes in her
bosom she would say: 'Obey your heart, so that you may be happier than I
was after breaking mine.'--You are touched, Lelio! O heaven! it was a
tear that just fell on my hand. You are beaten, my dear! You see that I
am neither mad, nor wicked; now you will say _yes_, and you will come
and take me to-morrow. Swear it!"
I tried to speak, but I could not find a word; I was shuddering from
head to foot. I felt as if I were about to faint. With her eyes fixed
upon me she anxiously awaited my reply. For my own part, I was
completely crushed. At the very first words of her story, I had been
struck by its strange resemblance to my own; but when she came to those
incidents which it was impossible for me not to recognize, I was
completely bewildered and dazzled, as if the lightning had struck close
beside me. A thousand conflicting and sinister thoughts took possession
of my brain. I saw images of crime and despair fluttering about before
me like ghosts. Deeply moved by the memory of what had been, appalled at
the thought of what might be, I imagined myself the mother's lover and
the daughter's husband at the same time. Alezia, that child whom I had
seen in her cradle, stood before me, talking in the same breath of her
love and her mother's.
A world of recollections crowded into my mind, and little Alezia
appeared there as the object, even then, of a timid and unjoyful
affection. I recalled her pride, her hatred of me, and the words she had
said to me one day when she saw her father's ring on my finger. "Who can
say," I thought, "that she has renounced her prejudices forever? It may
be that if she should learn at this moment that I am Nello, her former
servant, she would blush for loving me."
"Signora," I said to her, "you used, you say, to be fond of piercing the
hearts of your dolls with a long pin. Why did you do that?"
"What do you care? why does that detail impress you particularly?"
"Because my heart aches, and your pins naturally came to my mind."
"I will tell you why it was, to show you that it was not a mere
barbarous whim," she replied. "I used to hear it said, when a man did a
cowardly thing, 'that's what it is to have no blood in the heart;' and I
took that metaphorical expression literally. So when I scolded my dolls,
I would say to them: 'you are cowards, and I am going to look and see if
you have any blood in your hearts.'"
"You despise cowards bitterly, don't you, signora?" I asked, wondering
what her opinion of me would be some day if I should give way at that
moment to her romantic passion. Once more I fell into a melancholy
reverie.
"What is the matter, in heaven's name?" said Alezia.
Her voice recalled me to myself. I looked at her with streaming eyes.
She was weeping too, but on account of my hesitation. I understood it at
once, and I said, taking her hands with a paternal gesture:
"O my child! do not accuse me! Do not doubt my poor heart! If you only
knew how I am suffering!"
And I walked rapidly away, as if by leaving her I could escape my
unhappiness. On reaching home I became calmer. I went over in my mind
the whole extraordinary succession of events; I worked out all their
details, and thus banished from my own mind the flavor of mystery which
had paralyzed me at first with superstitious terror. It was all strange,
but natural, even to the Christian name, that name Alezia, which I had
always longed to know and had never dared to ask.
I do not know whether another man in my place could have continued to
love the young Signora Aldini. Strictly speaking, I might have done it
without criminality; for you will remember that I had not ceased to be a
chaste and obedient lover of her mother. But my conscience rebelled at
the thought of that incest of the mind. I loved La Grimani with her
unknown baptismal name, I loved her with all my heart and all my senses;
but in truth I did not love in that way little Alezia, Signorina Aldini,
Bianca's daughter, for it seemed to me that I was her father. The memory
of Bianca's charms and fascinating qualities had remained pure and
undimmed throughout my life; it had followed me everywhere like a
providence. It had made me generous to women and brave against myself.
Although I had since fallen in with many false and selfish beauties, I
always had the certainty that there are those who are sincere and
generous. Bianca had made no sacrifice to me, because I had refused to
accept any; but if I had accepted it, if I had yielded to her
enthusiasm, she would have sacrificed everything to me, friends, family,
fortune, honor, religion, and perhaps her daughter too! What a sacred
debt I owed to her! Had I paid it in full by my refusal, by my
departure? No; for she was a woman, that is to say, weak and submissive,
exposed to the implacable decrees and the bitter insults of irony. And
she would have braved it all, she who was so timid, so gentle, so like a
child in a thousand ways. She would have done a sublime thing; and I,
had I accepted, should have done a dastardly thing. So that I had done
nothing more than fulfil a duty to myself, whereas she had exposed
herself to the risk of martyrdom for my sake. Poor Bianca, my first,
perhaps my only love! how lovely she had always remained in my memory!
"Why, in heaven's name," I said to myself, "am I afraid that she has
grown old and withered? Ought I not to be indifferent to that? Should I
still love her? no, probably not; but, whether ugly or lovely, could I
see her to-day without danger?" And at that thought my heart beat so
violently that I realized how impossible it was for me to be her
daughter's husband or lover.
And then too, to take advantage of the past--if it were only by a silent
assent to Alezia's wishes,--in order to obtain the hand of Bianca's
daughter, would have been a dishonorable act. Weak as I knew Bianca to
be, I knew that she would consider herself bound to give us her consent;
but I knew also that her old husband, her family, and, above all, her
confessor, would overwhelm her with their reproaches. She had been able
to make up her mind to marry a second time, a marriage of convenience.
Therefore, she was at heart a woman of the world, a slave of social
prejudices, and her love for me was simply a sublime episode, the memory
of which was to her a cause of shame and despair, whereas it was my
glory and my joy. "No, poor Bianca!" I thought, "no, I have not paid my
debt to you. You must have suffered terribly, perhaps trembled with
apprehension, at the idea that a servant might be peddling the secret of
your weakness from house to house. It is time that you should sleep in
peace, that you should cease to blush for the only happy days of your
youth, and that you should be able to say, poor woman, on learning of
Nello's everlasting silence, everlasting devotion, everlasting love,
that there was a time in your fettered, disappointed life, when you knew
love and inspired it."
I paced my room excitedly; day was beginning to break. In the lives of
men who sleep but little, that is the decisive hour which puts an end to
the hesitations conceived and nourished in the darkness, and which
changes plans into resolutions. I felt a thrill of enthusiastic joy and
legitimate pride at the thought that Lelio the actor had not fallen
below Nello the gondolier. Sometimes, in my romantic democratic ideas, I
had flushed with shame because I had left the thatched roof where I
might have perpetuated a hardy, laborious, and frugal race; I had
reproached myself, as for a crime, for having disdained the humble trade
of my fathers to seek the bitter joys of luxurious living, the vain
incense of glory, the false advantages and trivial labors of art. But by
performing, in the tinsel of the actor, the same acts of unselfishness
and true pride that I had performed in the rough jacket of the
gondolier, I ennobled my life twice over, and raised myself above all
false social grandeurs. My conscience, my dignity, seemed to me the
conscience and dignity of the common people; by debasing myself I should
have debased the common people. "_Carbonari_! _carbonari_!" I exclaimed,
"I will be worthy to be one of you." The cult of deliverance is a new
cult; liberalism is a religion which should ennoble its followers, and,
like Christianity in its early days, make the slave a free man, the free
man a saint or a martyr.
I wrote the following letter to Princess Grimani:
"SIGNORA:
"The signorina has been exposed to great danger. Why did you, a loving
and fearless mother, consent to send her away from you? Is she not at an
age when any accident may decide a woman's future--a glance or a breath?
Is not this the time when you should watch over her every instant, night
and day alike, fathom her troubles, however slight, and count the
pulsations of her heart? For you, signora, who are so gentle and so
condescending in small things, but in great crises can always find in
your heart so much vigor and resolution, the moment has come when you
should display the courage of the lioness, who will not allow her little
ones to be taken from her. Come, signora, come; take your daughter back,
and do not let her quit you again. Why do you leave her in strange
hands, subjected to injudicious guidance, which irritates her and would
drive her into serious errors, if she were not your daughter--if it were
possible for the seeds of virtue and of dignity planted in her breast by
you to become the plaything of the first breeze that blows! Open your
eyes; see how your child's legitimate and sacred inclinations are being
thwarted, until you are in danger of seeing her resist wise counsels,
and contract a habit of independence which it will be impossible to
overcome. Do not permit a husband whom she detests to be forced upon
her, and look to it that her aversion for him does not spur her on to
make a rash and even more deplorable choice. Assure her liberty. Let her
only chains be her anxiety concerning your enlightened love, lest,
distrusting your energy in her behalf, she seek dangerous succor in her
imagination. In heaven's name, come!
"And if you wish to know, signora, by what right I address this appeal
to you, I will tell you that I have seen your daughter without knowing
her name; that I have been on the verge of falling in love with her;
that I have followed her, watched her, sought her acquaintance; and that
she is not so well guarded that I could not have spoken to her and
exerted--in vain, I doubt not--all the wiles by which an ordinary woman
is seduced. Thank God! your daughter has not even been exposed to my
rash advances. I learned in time that she was the daughter of the woman
whom I venerate and respect above all the world, and from that moment
her place of abode became a sacred spot to me. If I do not leave the
neighborhood instantly, it is that I may be ready to reply to your most
searching questions, if, distrusting my honor, you bid me appear before
you and render an account of my conduct.
"Accept, signora, the humble respects of your devoted slave,
"NELLO."
I sealed this letter, wondering how I could forward it to its address
with the greatest possible speed, and with no danger of its falling into
strange hands. I dared not carry it myself, fearing that Alezia, in her
irritation at learning of my departure, would do something foolish or
desperate. Moreover, it was quite true that I wished to be able to open
my heart completely to her mother when the time should come for me to
confide everything to her; for I foresaw that Alezia would conceal from
her no detail of our little romance, of which I had no right to tell the
whole story except by her order. I feared, too, that the girl's
enthusiasm would so prevail over her mother's weakness with the moving
description of her passion, that the mother would eventually give a
consent which I did not propose to accept. Both needed the help of my
calm and immovable determination, and it might well be that when they
were face to face I should stand in need of the strength they both would
lack.
I had reached this point in my reflections when there came a knock at my
door, and a man entered and approached me respectfully. As he had taken
pains to take off his livery, I did not at first recognize him as the
servant who had looked at me so closely on the day of the church
episode; but as we now had plenty of time to scrutinize each other, we
both involuntarily uttered an exclamation of surprise.
"It is really you!" he said. "I was not mistaken; you are really Nello?"
"Mandola, my old friend!" I cried, and I opened my arms. He hesitated an
instant, then embraced me most heartily, weeping for joy.