“What a question, Lorenzo! You know well nothing could give me more
pleasure than to see my father again, and Messina, the dear old palace,
and....”
Here I stopped, too much affected to continue, and fearing to awaken
remembrances that might seem like a reproach. He perceived it and was
grateful.
“Well, my lawsuit is about to be tried. Don Fabrizio desires my presence,
and I would not for anything in the world renounce the pleasure of hearing
him plead. We will start next week, then, if you are willing.”
This proposition caused me the liveliest and most unexpected pleasure. To
leave Naples! To go with him! and to a place where, more easily than
anywhere else, it seemed to me I could overcome the fatal remembrance in
his heart I had to struggle against! And from there—who could tell?—induce
him perhaps to go to some distant land; persuade him to let me follow him,
go with him to the ends of the earth, if necessary, in search of the pure
air he needed to restore him to health! All this crossed my mind in the
twinkling of an eye, and for the first time for a long while I saw a ray
of hope before me.
When I announced the projected journey to Stella with a satisfaction I
made no attempt to conceal, she looked at me with an air of surprise.
“You have entirely forgiven Lorenzo, then?” said she.
“Yes.”
“Then I conclude he has at last acknowledged his offences and begged your
pardon.”
“No.”
“No?... In that case, Ginevra, you have greatly changed.”
“Yes, a blessed change has come over me.”
“I have noticed it for some days, and if I ask what has produced it, will
you answer me sincerely?”
“Yes, without hesitation. I will tell you the plain truth.”
And without turning my eyes away from hers, which were fastened
attentively on me, I calmly continued:
“Between my violent indignation against Lorenzo, and my strong fancy for
Gilbert, I went very far astray from God, Stella. A single instant of
extraordinary grace enabled me to see this. Everything is clear to me now.
I no longer seek happiness: I possess it.”
The moment Stella heard me pronounce Gilbert’s name, which we had
invariably avoided of late, the pupils of her eyes dilated, and, as I went
on, took that intensity of color and expression which all emotion imparted
to them. But she merely replied:
“I do not wholly understand you, Ginevra, I confess, but I see you are
happy and courageous: that is sufficient.”
After a moment’s silence, I resumed:
“And will you allow me to ask you a question in my turn, Stella?”
She blushed without making any reply. I hastened to say that my question
only concerned Harry Leslie. At his name, she resumed her usual
expression, and a double smile beamed from her eyes and lips.
“Certainly, ask anything you please.”
“Well, he came yesterday with a gloomy air to announce his departure. Am I
wrong in thinking you have something to do with it?”
“No,” replied she, smiling, “not if it is true he cannot remain in Naples
without marrying me, for I have not otherwise ordered him to go away.”
Desirous of drawing her out on this point, I continued:
“But, after all, Mr. Leslie is kind, handsome, excellent, very wealthy
they say, and of a good family. You are very difficult, Stella.”
“Yes, perhaps so,” replied she with agitation and a kind of impatience.
Then she continued in a melancholy tone of anguish:
“Ginevra, never speak to me again, I beg, either of happiness or the
future. I do not know as I shall ever be any happier than I am now, but I
know I can be less so.... Oh! may what I now possess never be taken away
from me. I ask nothing more.”
She shuddered and stopped speaking, as if she could not give utterance to
her fears. It was not the first time I had seen her seized with a kind of
terror when the words future and happiness were mentioned before her. One
would have said she thought there was no happiness in reserve for her,
unless at the price of that she already possessed, and this thought came
over her like a vision of terror.
Poor Stella! Alas! how insecure the joys of earth! To be deprived of them,
or tremble lest we may be—that is to say, to possess these joys with a
poignant fear that empoisons every instant of their duration, and
increases more and more in proportion to their prolongation!...
Is it, then, really necessary for a supernatural light to open our eyes to
force us to acknowledge that this world is only a place of promise, of
which the realization is in another?
To Be Continued.
The Brooklet.
From The German Of Goethe.
O brooklet silver bright and gay!
For ever rushing on thy way,
I, lingering, ever ask thee whence
Thou comest here, where goest thou hence?
“From the dark rock’s deep breast I come,
O’er flow’rs and moss I toss and roam;
While on my bosom smiles and lies
The hovering vision of the skies.
“Ask not of me, a laughing child,
Whither or whence my foot steps wild;
Him do I trust to guide me on
Who called me from the senseless stone.”