“Ye are beautiful, ye heavens!” murmured Camilla Donati, as she gazed
from a casement of an apartment in her mother’s palace upon the gorgeous
starlight of an April evening; “but what hope do you bring to me? _He_
who was wont to make even darkness seem light, even he, is another’s,
and ye shine in mockery of my anguish—your brightness makes my gloom
the darker!”
It was, indeed, a beautiful evening; but he must have been an anchorite
who would not have turned from the balmy air and richly studded sky, to
gaze upon the graceful form and heavenly countenance of the fair being
who apostrophized the stars.
Her age would have been that of a mere girl’s in any clime save those in
which nature seems precocious; but her figure was that of a woman’s, in
the zenith of her loveliness. Eighteen summers had scarcely passed over
Camilla Donati, and, to contemplate her appearance, the thought would
suggest itself that each succeeding year had outvied the efforts of the
one that had preceded it, in a struggle to make her beauty faultless.
Her complexion was exquisitely fair. The natural color in her cheeks, as
she sat in pensive thought, had disappeared, but still a roseate shade
remained, and that, perhaps, shone in more perfect contrast with the
transparent skin on which it rested. Pygmalion, when he worshiped the
effort of his own art, could not have beheld more chastely beautiful
features than she possessed. An ample forehead, shaded by clustering
curls, terminated where the penciled brows overlooked lids, fringed with
long silken lashes, which contained within their orbits a pair of
lustrous, soul-speaking eyes. A nose of Grecian outline, and a
mouth—formed from the model of Cupid’s bow—with lips of clear
vermilion, seemed to speak an “alarum to love.” When we add to this
description a chin of unsurpassed contour, and a neck of swan-like
symmetry, we may form some idea of Camilla Donati’s features.
The dress she wore, though it shrouded, it did not conceal the
proportions of her figure. The full, swelling bust and the slender waist
could be discerned; nor were her robes so sweeping but that a fairy foot
might have been discovered peeping from beneath them. A glittering veil
had been thrown carelessly over her luxuriant auburn curls, but this she
had put back with her delicate hand, and, as her cheek rested on that
dimpled hand, she seemed too bright a thing to be profaned by the touch
of sorrow; grief should have found a less transcendent temple in which
to spread its sombre mantle.
“What is left me now,” she whispered to herself, as if pursuing a train
of thought, “but to die, or, within the gloomy walls of a cloister, to
endeavor to forget this world by offering myself up a sacrifice to
heaven.”
“Not so, my child,” an unexpected voice observed, as a stately female
stepped from the shade, and seated herself beside Camilla; “Heaven needs
not such a sacrifice at thy hands, or at mine.”
“My mother!” exclaimed the lair girl, “I knew not thou wert present,”
and bending her head to the parental bosom, she gave vent to her
feelings in stifled sobs.
“Fie, Camilla!” the mother said, as she passed her hand affectionately
over the glossy ringlets, “this is unworthy of thy race. Thou art a
Donati, my child, and should have more iron in thy nature than to bend,
like a willow-wand, before every storm; besides, all is not lost yet;
Buondlemonte may still be thy husband.”
“Never!” replied Camilla; “I would not have it so now. Within three days
he weds Francesca Amedi.”
“Not if I can prevent it!” exclaimed the elder lady. “He shall not sully
his nobleness, or add to the o’ergrown pride of that arrogant house by
mating with the haughty Francesca. This night—this hour—he hies hither
to harken to my counsels; and if I have power to move him, he leaves not
this palace till he is thy plighted husband.”
Camilla knelt at her mother’s feet, and clasping her hands, she turned
her tearful eyes to that mother’s face.
“In mercy, spare me!” she said; “I would not wed an unwilling lord—I
would not do a wrong even to a member of the house of Amedi.”
“Thou art a foolish child,” her mother replied; “thou shalt neither wed
a reluctant lord, nor do a wrong to living soul. If wrong there be in
aught I counsel, it rests with me, and I fear not to brave the
consequences.”
Camilla was about to speak, but her mother interrupted her.
“I tell thee, timid flutterer,” she said, “Buondlemonte loves thee. I
know him, even as if he were my own child—he loves thee, and thee
alone. An ancient compact, wrung from the weakness of his father, is all
that binds him to Francesca Amedi. Between them there is no shadow of
affection. Her swollen pride is not akin to tenderness, and he could not
love a being whose nature, like hers, is fierce, revengeful and
fiend-like.”
Again Camilla was about to interpose, but her mother stopped her.
“Hear me out,” she said. “Buondlemonte’s interest and inclination, as
well as ours, require that he should abandon all thoughts of that unholy
union, and take thee to wife. In all, save hypocritical appearances, the
Amedi are his enemies—enemies in religion, enemies in disposition. He
is frank, open, generous and noble; and they are cold, selfish, subtle
and malignant. His faith is pure, and, like us, he sustains the cause of
our holy church; while they are Ghibellines—little better than
schismatics—and in their hearts detest all who think not with them. If
’twere not a virtue to humble the pride of this presumptuous family, it
would at least be a charity to preserve the peace of the noble youth, by
disconcerting so ill-assorted a match.”
Once more Camilla attempted to be heard, but again she was interrupted.
“I will hear no reply,” her mother said: “I cannot be moved by arguments
from the course I intend to pursue. Thou knowest me tender and
indulgent, but at the same time resolute and determined. Thy happiness
and his demand the policy I adopt; let me not hear thee therefore murmur
against it. I go now,” she observed, rising from her seat, “to meet him
I would make thy husband: bide thou here till my return.”
As she concluded she left the apartment.
Camilla, at the thought of meeting Buondlemonte, and the circumstances,
instinctively drew her veil over her burning cheeks.
“It is not I, Francesca,” she murmured, “who plots against thy peace; it
is not I, Buondlemonte, who seeks to make thee swerve from thy knightly
faith!”
For the space of half an hour Camilla Donati remained in a state of
timorous apprehension and painful thought; at the expiration of that
period, however, the door of the apartment she occupied again opened,
and her mother re-entered. This time she was not alone—Buondlemonte was
with her. His handsome countenance was flushed with excitement; the
color mantled in his cheeks, and an unusual lustre danced in his bright
eyes.
No sooner did his gaze rest on the maiden’s form than he rushed forward,
and, bending his knee before her, took her unresisting hand and pressed
it again and again to his lips.
“Dearest Camilla!” he exclaimed, in a whispered voice, “even thus have I
dreamed of thee in my wanderings! even thus have I knelt before thee,
and, unrebuked by a reproachful look, pressed thy gentle hand.”
The elder lady approached her daughter, and raising the veil which
concealed her beautiful features she addressed Buondlemonte.
“This,” she said, as Buondlemonte’s ravished sight wandered from the
flushing cheeks to the closed lids and trembling lips, “this is the
bride I had reserved for thee. From childhood she has loved thee, and
loves thee still.”
Buondlemonte’s enraptured exclamations prevented Camilla’s piteous
appeal to her mother from being heard.
“From childhood she has been the star I have worshiped,” he replied, and
rising to a seat beside her, his arm encircled her delicate waist. “None
other,” he exclaimed with enthusiasm, as his eyes devoured the unfolding
beauties which momentarily developed themselves, “none other shall claim
the bride who has been reserved for me. If she will accept the homage of
a heart that is all her own, my wedded wife she shall be before two suns
have gilded the eastern sky.”
The burning blushes were on Camilla’s cheeks, and the tears gushed from
her eyes, but her breath came quick and her heart throbbed strangely.
“Speak, dearest Camilla!” Buondlemonte whispered; “let me know from thy
own lips that my passion is not unrequited—say that thou lovest me!”
“Oh, Buondlemonte!” Camilla articulated, in a low voice, “think of
Francesca—think of her family.”
“To wed her would be a union on which nor heaven nor earth could smile,”
he replied. “Dearest Camilla, Francesca loves me not, and I do not love
her; her family are my aversion—there is no kindred, no sympathy
between us. This night, if thou dost love me still, this night I will
revoke the ill-advised bond that linked my destiny with Francesca
Amedi’s, and to-morrow’s night shall see us happily wedded.”
Small blame was it to Camilla that she yielded to the entreaties, nay,
the commands of her mother, and the moving solicitations of her lover.
Her heart, too, was an advocate against herself. For some time she
resisted the persuasive music which was poured into her ear, but at
length she breathed in whispered accents the words that united her fate
to Buondlemonte’s.
The rest of the evening, to the lovers, passed like the brief existence
of a moment; yet its lapse had afforded an eternity of happiness. It had
given birth to a world of pleasant recollections.
Ere he slept that night, Buondlemonte dispatched his friend Guiseppo
Leoni to Jacopa Amedi, to inform him of the step he had taken.
Disclaiming all intention to offend, he pleaded his early passion in
palliation of his apparent fickleness, and alleged that the
uncongeniality between Francesca and himself could be prolific of naught
but discord and unhappiness.