The following day, for some reason or other I did not explain to myself, I
gave unusual attention to my toilet. I generally read while my waiting‐
maid was arranging my hair according to her own fancy, but that day I
turned more than once towards the mirror. I observed with pleasure the
golden lustre of my hair in the morning sunlight, and suggested myself the
addition of a bow of ribbon of the same color as my belt. After I was
dressed I gave, before leaving my room, a scrutinizing look in a large
glass where I could see myself from head to foot. It seemed to me I was
becomingly attired, and I felt pleased.
My satisfaction was confirmed by an exclamation that escaped Lorenzo as
soon as he caught sight of me. He was already seated at the breakfast‐
table, which stood at one end of the room.
“You are charming this morning, Ginevra!” said he, smiling. He then grew
thoughtful. After remaining silent a few moments, he resumed, perhaps to
divert my mind from another thought he supposed it occupied with:
“I was sorry to leave you alone so long yesterday. How did you while away
the time during the long afternoon?”
If he had asked this question the evening before at the imaginary
_tête‐à‐tête_ I had planned, what a minute, animated account should I have
given him! How readily the thoughts which then occupied my mind would have
sprung to my lips! He regarded me as a child, but I was no longer one; and
beholding me all at once in the new aspect of an energetic, courageous
woman, capable of aiding him with a firm hand in ascending to higher
regions, he would have been surprised and touched; the passing gleam that
sometimes manifested itself in his eyes would perhaps have been less
transient this time, and I should have succeeded in kindling a flame of
which this light was a mere emblem!... Lorenzo, if you had only been
willing! If you had only listened to me then, entered into my feelings,
and read my heart, what a life ours might have been!... Ah! happiness and
goodness are more closely allied in this world than is usually supposed.
If virtue sometimes does not escape misfortune, it is sure there is no
happiness without it! But the impetus by which I hoped to attain my aim at
a single bound had been suddenly checked, and I no longer remembered now
what I longed to say the evening before, or the motive I then had in view.
I therefore answered my husband’s question with the utmost coolness
without interrupting my breakfast:
“I went to S. Roch’s. It rained in torrents, and, finding the Comtesse de
Kergy and her daughter at the door without any carriage, I took them
home.”
“I am glad you did. There is no family more respected, and Kergy is one of
the most intelligent of travellers.”
“Yes, so I should suppose. I have heard him speak of his travels. There
was a meeting at the Hôtel de Kergy yesterday at four o’clock, which I was
invited to attend, and he made an address.”
“And spoke very ably, I have no doubt. I have heard him, and can judge.”
“You have heard him?”
“Yes, a fortnight ago.... Though scarcely acquainted, we are the founders
and chief supporters of a review devoted to art and scientific subjects,
the acting committee of which summoned a meeting of its members to draw up
some resolution, and at this meeting he spoke.”
“He is very eloquent, is he not?”
“Very eloquent indeed, but, on the whole, visionary.”
“Visionary?”
“Yes, visionary, and sometimes incomprehensible even. He soars to such
vague heights that no one can follow him. But in spite of this, he is a
fellow of great talent, and has a noble nature, I should think.”
Lorenzo rose while speaking, and drew a memorandum‐book from his pocket:
“I will write down the address of the Hôtel de Kergy, that I may not
forget to leave my card.”
“Mme. de Kergy and her daughter,” said I, “are coming to see me to‐day
about four o’clock.”
He was silent a moment, and then said:
“And till that time?”
“Till then,” I replied, turning red, “I shall be at home and alone.”
“Very well,” rejoined he, taking up a newspaper, while I silently went to
a seat near the open window.
I compared the conversation which had just taken place with the one I
imagined the evening before. I remembered the effect of the very name of
her whose visit I was now expecting, and I felt inclined to both laugh and
cry. In a word, I was nervous and agitated, and doubtless manifested my
uneasiness and irritation more than I wished.
Lorenzo raised his eyes, and looked at me a moment.
“What are you thinking of, Ginevra?”
“Are you quite sure,” said I abruptly, “that this Donna Faustina is not a
_jettatrice_?”
He rose and somewhat impatiently threw his paper on the table. But quickly
overcoming himself, he said calmly:
“Do you find any evidence in what I related last evening that she ever
brought ill‐luck to any one?”
“If it is not she,” I exclaimed quickly, “I hope, at least, you do not
think....”
I was about to add, “that it is I,” but I stopped on seeing the cloud that
came over his face.
“Come, Ginevra,” said he, “you are really too childish! You are joking,
doubtless, but no one knows better than you how to point a jest. But you
shall tell me yourself what you think of the Marquise de Villanera after
seeing her. As for me, I am going away. It is not necessary to have a
third party when she comes. I will go meanwhile to see Kergy. But,” added
he, as he was leaving the room, “as you have consented to receive her,
remember I depend on your doing so politely.”
He went away, leaving me in a frame of mind by no means serene. I felt
angry with him, and at the same time dissatisfied with myself. Everything
went contrary to what I had hoped, and I awaited my visitor with a mixture
of anguish and ill‐humor.
I felt a kind of uneasiness analogous to that experienced when there is
thunder in the air. I tried to apply myself to something, but, finding
this impossible, I ended by returning to the window, where, book in hand,
I rose from time to time to see what was going on in the street or the
garden of the Tuileries.
At length, about two o’clock, I saw a small _coupé_ coming around the
corner from the Rue St. Florentin. I had seen an endless number pass while
I stood there, but I watched this one without a shadow of doubt as to the
direction it would take. It was but a moment, indeed, before I saw it stop
at the door of the hotel. We were not, to be sure, the only occupants, but
it never occurred to me that the person in the carriage would ask for any
one but myself. I returned to the drawing‐room, therefore, and had taken
the seat I usually occupied when I received callers, when the Marquise de
Villanera was announced in a loud voice.
I rose to meet her. There was a moment’s silence, doubtless caused by an
equal degree of curiosity on both sides. It was only for an instant that
passed like a flash, but nevertheless each of us had scanned the other
from head to foot.
At the first glance she did not seem young. I was not twenty years old
myself then, and I judged as one is apt to at that age. In reality, she
was not thirty. She was tall and fine‐looking. Her form was noble and
graceful, her features delicate and regular, her hair and eyebrows black
as jet, her complexion absolutely devoid of color, and her eyes of a
lively blue. This somewhat too bright a color gave a cold, hard look to
her eyes, but their expression changed as soon as she began to speak, and
became sweet, caressing, beseeching, irresistible. She was dressed in
black, apparently with extreme simplicity, but in reality with extreme
care.
I had not time to wonder how I should break this silence. It was she who
spoke first, and her very first words removed the timidity and
embarrassment that rendered this interview still more painful. What she
said I am really unable to remember, and I cannot comprehend now the
effect of her words; but I know they wrought a complete transformation in
the feelings I experienced the evening before at the very mention of her
name!
Women often wonder in vain what the charm is by which other women succeed
in pleasing, and, as Bossuet says, in “drawing after them captive souls.”
In their eyes, at least, this charm is inexplicable. But this is not
always the case; for there are some women who, while they reserve for one
the absolute ascendency of their empire, like to feel able to exert it
over every one. Such was Donna Faustina. However deep the strange, secret
warning of my heart might be, it was beyond my power to resist her. While
she was talking I felt my prejudices vanish like snow before the sun, and
it could not possibly have been otherwise, perhaps; at least without a
penetration I was not endowed with, a distrust I was wholly incapable of,
and an experience I did not then possess.
Did she really feel a kind of attraction towards me that rendered her
sincere at this first interview? I prefer to think so. Yes, I prefer not
to believe that deceit and perfidy could disguise themselves to such a
degree under an appearance of cordiality, simplicity, artlessness, and
sincerity. I prefer to hope it was not wholly by consummate art she won my
confidence while seeming to repose unlimited confidence in me.
She very soon learned all she wished concerning me, and in return gave me
her whole history; and however singular this sudden frankness on the part
of a stranger ought to have appeared to me—and, indeed, was—the grace of
her manner and the charm of her language prevented any doubt or criticism
from crossing my mind. Young, without position or fortune, she had married
a man three times as old as herself, with whom she lived in strict
retirement. Her meeting with Lorenzo (but how this happened she did not
explain) had been the only ray of joy in her life. She did not hide from
me either the grief his departure caused her or the extent of her
disappointment when she vainly awaited his return after she was left free.
But all these feelings, she said, belonged to the past. Nothing remained
but a friendship which she could not give up. The death of the aged
Marquis de Villanera had of course left her free again, but it had also
taken away her only protector. She felt alone in the world now, and begged
me, in the midst of my happiness, to consider her loneliness and take pity
on her.
While thus speaking she fixed upon me her large, blue eyes bathed in
tears. And as I listened to her, tears also streamed down my cheeks. I
almost reproached myself for being happy. Lorenzo’s inconstancy weighed on
my heart like remorse, and all that was generous in my nature responded to
her appeal. Consequently, before our interview was over I embraced her,
calling her my dear Faustina, and she clasped me in her arms, calling me
for the twentieth time “her lovely, darling Ginevra.”
My _naïveté_ may seem astonishing. I was, indeed, _naïve_ at that time,
and it would have been surprising had I not been. People of more
penetration than I would have been blinded. Lorenzo himself was at that
time. When he found us together at his return, and comprehended the result
of our interview from the very first words he heard, he turned towards me
with eyes lit up with tenderness and gratitude.
His first, and probably his only, feeling at meeting again the woman to
whom he thought he had been ungrateful and almost disloyal, had been a
kind of humiliation. To get rid of this feeling, he had sought some means
of repairing this wrong, and, thanks to my docility to him and my
generosity towards her, he persuaded himself he had found a way.
In the state of affairs at that moment I had the advantage. I gained that
day a new, but, alas! the last, triumph over my rival!