AFTER THE MARRIAGE
“We took leave of the old minister, who shook hands warmly with us at
parting, repeating his benediction.
“We returned to the hotel, where Anglesea paid the bill and reclaimed
our bags.
“Then we went to the station, where we had to wait some little time for
the London train.
“It came up about nine o’clock. We entered it and were off to London.
The daylight journey was even more pleasant than our festive night ride.
I, who had been so confined all my life, could see the beautiful and
varied scenery—the lakes and mountains of Northumberland; the moors and
forests of Yorkshire; the castles, country seats, hamlets and farmhouses
along the way. And to me all this was novel and delightful.
“We reached London at nightfall. And there we parted with Anglesea, who
returned to Brighton to rejoin his friends the Middlemoors.
“As we were really very tired with our twenty-four hours of travel,
without sleep, we went to the Norfolk Hotel for the night.
“The next day we spent in seeing some of the sights of London, which I
had never seen, and which, of course, filled me with wonder and
interest—indeed, all my life since I had left Weirdwaste was marvelously
changed and enlarged, even as if I were born in a new world.
“The next morning we took the tidal train from London Bridge and went
down to Dover to meet the Calais boat.
“‘We will spend a month in Paris, my soul,’ said Luigi to me, as we
entered the train—‘a full month, no less, my life.’
“‘But have you not to go immediately to Italy?’ I inquired.
“‘Oh, no; I am recalled—that is, I am permitted to return, not commanded
to do so,’ he explained.
“‘Oh, then I misunderstood you.’
“‘Yes,’ he said.
“‘And your estates, dear Luigi. Are they restored to you?’ I next
inquired, without one mercenary thought in my heart.
“‘Yes,’ he replied, with a curious smile. ‘Such as they are, my love and
life, they are restored to me.’
“‘What do you mean?’ I questioned.
“‘That they were not worth keeping from me, my own. Yet, fear not. I am
not without resources. We shall spend a gay month in Paris.’
“And so we did.
“We reached that city the next morning and took apartments at the
‘Splendide.’
“If to my rustic mind Brighton had been a delight Paris was now a
rapture.
“‘Is there,’ I asked of Luigi, after only one day’s experience of the
city—‘is there another place in all this world so heavenly as Paris?’
“He looked at me a few seconds in silence, and then replied, with more
knowledge than his years could have promised:
“‘No, my soul! There is no place on this planet so celestial, or so
infernal, as is this city.’
“I stared at him in dismay.
“‘Never fear, my love. You shall never see or hear the infernos of the
city.’
“That day I took time to write to my father. I had not an hour’s leisure
during our mad journeys to do so before.
“I told him all the circumstances and all the experiences of outer and
inner life that had driven me to take my fate in my own hands and go
away with Luigi Saviola to be married. And I gave him all the details of
the journey and the ceremony. And I ended by imploring him to forgive us
both and to receive us on a visit.
“After that act of duty, I plunged with Luigi into all the gayeties of
gay Paris, and saw no signs of the ‘infernos.’ Music, the drama, balls,
excursions, these filled up our days, for a month of mad rapture.
“Then, about the middle of December, we went down to Marseilles, and
took a steamer to Naples, where we arrived in health, spirits and
safety.
“I had often questioned Luigi about his family, but he told me he had
none to speak of. He was an only child; his father and mother were among
the angels in heaven. His uncle was a priest and missionary in Brazil.
His two aunts were nuns—one in a Benedictine convent in France, the
other in an Augustine sisterhood in Spain.
“I had questioned him about his home.
“He had described to me a half ruined and wholly uninhabitable castle
situated among the forest-covered mountains of the wild Abruzzo.
“But oh! how I longed to go there! All my love of the historic, the
romantic, the picturesque was engaged in that longing!
“On our landing at Naples I proposed to go.
“But he told me that at this season of the year the roads were so very
bad as to render the journey impracticable.
“He took me to the ‘Vittoria,’ where we rested for a few days.
“Here again I wrote to my father, telling him of my first letter, which
I feared had never reached him, and repeating at length the story of my
marriage, and the plea for his pardon.
“I waited weeks for an answer before I gave up hope.
“Naples did not offer many sources of amusement, but we availed
ourselves of all that was to be obtained.
“It was during our sojourn in this city that I gradually learned—what I
was very unwilling to believe and very deeply distressed to know—namely,
the nature of those resources of which Luigi had spoken to me; they were
the gaming tables, at which he was almost always a successful player. My
hero, and martyr, and patriot was a gambler!
“It was a great grief, and I never really recovered from it.
“He won large sums of money, and lavished gifts upon me which gave me no
pleasure.
“About the middle of February we went to Rome for the carnival, for Lent
was rather late this year.
“And, after the week of orgies, we still remained in the ‘Eternal City’
until the end of March, that I might see all its glories, and, ah me!
not a few of its shames.
“In April we went to Venice—the city of a hundred isles. I thought I had
seen the most marvelous and enchanting things in the world, but here
again wonder upon wonder burst upon my amazed soul.
“Why should I go on writing all this like the index of a guidebook?
“You and I have gone over Europe together. You know me, and may judge
what it was to me the first time.
“Let me be brief now.
“Luigi, wherever we went, pursued his profession, and was never without
‘revenues.’ I looked in vain for any sign of heroism, self-devotion or
patriotism in him.
“Sometimes in the cities we passed through, in the public gardens, or
the parlors of hotels, I heard questions discussed which stirred my
blood—questions of the rights of man in all its ramifications—questions
that made my heart beat in sympathy.
“They never moved him.
“And I wondered. Once I asked him if he really had lost all interest in
the welfare of the world.
“He shrugged his shoulders, and replied that he never had felt any.
“On another occasion, when I spoke of the elevation of mankind, he
answered:
“‘We are young. We are fair. We are healthy. We are happy. Let us enjoy
ourselves, and let mankind go to Hades.’
“My dark-eyed Luigi was neither hero nor martyr; neither patriot nor
humanitarian. He was only a beautiful and joyous youth, bent on making
the merriest of every hour of life at cost of anybody else, except of
himself and me.
“Oh, how I was disappointed in him! A broken idol is a very sad event in
the life of a romantic dreamer, I fancy.
“I began to try to remember how I had ever got the idea that he was a
patriot and a political refugee, and the rest of it. And I recollected
that it was from Anglesea and from Madame de la Champe.
“He—Luigi—had never pretended to be anything but my lover. And he was my
lover still. He continued to be my lover to the last of his short, young
life.
“I must pass on now to the tragedy of our marriage.”