Enrica laid it upon her lap and looked in my face; “It is from your
mother?” said she.
“No,” said I.
“From your sister?” said she.
“Alas, no!”
“_Il vostro fratello, dunque?_”
“_Nemmeno_”—said I, “not from a brother either.”
She handed me the letter, and took up her book; and presently she laid
the book down again; and looked at the letter, and then at me—and went
out.
She did not come in again that evening; in the morning, there was no
rose-bud on my table. And when I came at night, with a bouquet from
Pietro’s at the corner, she asked me—“who had written my letter?”
“A very dear friend,” said I.
“A lady?” continued she.
“A lady,” said I.
“Keep this bouquet for her,” said she, and put it in my hands.
“But, Enrica, she has plenty of flowers; she lives among them, and each
morning her children gather them by scores to make garlands of.”
Enrica put her fingers within my hand to take again the bouquet; and for
a moment I held both fingers and flowers.
The flowers slipped out first.
I had a friend at Rome in that time, who afterward died between Ancona
and Corinth; we were sitting one day upon a block of tufa in the middle
of the Coliseum, looking up at the shadows which the waving shrubs upon
the southern wall cast upon the ruined arcades within, and listening to
the chirping sparrows that lived upon the wreck—when he said to me
suddenly—“Paul, you love the Italian girl.”
“She is very beautiful,” said I.
“I think she is beginning to love you,” said he soberly.
“She has a very warm heart, I believe,” said I.
“Ay,” said he.
“But her feelings are those of a girl,” continued I.
“They are not,” said my friend; and he laid his hand upon my knee, and
left off drawing diagrams with his cane; “I have seen, Paul, more than
you of this southern nature. The Italian girl of fifteen is a woman; an
impassioned, sensitive, tender creature—yet still a woman; you are
loving—if you love—a full-grown heart; she is loving—if she loves—as a
ripe heart should.”
“But I do not think that either is wholly true,” said I.
“Try it,” said he, setting his cane down firmly, and looking in my face.
“How?” returned I.
“I have three weeks upon my hands,” continued he. “Go with me into the
Appenines; leave your home in the Corso, and see if you can forget in
the air of the mountains, your bright-eyed Roman girl.”
I was pondering for an answer, when he went on: “It is better so; love
as you might, that southern nature with all its passion, is not the
material to build domestic happiness upon; nor is your northern
habit—whatever you may think at your time of life, the one to cherish
always those passionate sympathies which are bred by this atmosphere,
and their scenes.”
One moment my thought ran to my little parlor, and to that fairy figure,
and to that sweet angel face; and then, like lightning it traversed
oceans, and fed upon the old ideal of home, and brought images to my eye
of lost—dead ones, who seemed to be stirring on heavenly wings, in that
soft Roman atmosphere, with greeting, and with beckoning.
—“I will go with you,” said I.
The father shrugged his shoulders, when I told him I was going to the
mountains, and wanted a guide. His wife said it would be cold upon the
hills, for the winter was not ended. Enrica said it would be warm in the
valleys, for the spring was coming. The old man drummed with his fingers
on the table, and shrugged his shoulders again, but said nothing.
My landlady said I could not ride. Cesare said it would be hard walking.
Enrica asked papa, if there would be any danger. And again the old man
shrugged his shoulders. Again I asked him, if he knew a man who would
serve us as a guide among the Appenines; and finding me determined, he
shrugged his shoulders, and said he would find one the next day.
As I passed out at evening, on my way to the Piazzo near the Monte
Citorio, where stand the carriages that go out to Tivoli, Enrica glided
up to me, and whispered—“_Ah, mi dispiace tanto—tanto, Signor!_”
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