desire to cut short any further attempt of this kind. "What can they
mean by it?" she said. "There is only one heaven and one hell for us;
is it not so Amadeo? If I entered Paradise and found you not there, my
soul would turn back, and not rest till it had found yours." When she
spoke thus it seemed to me that I saw heaven open before me, and I
could not believe that any danger threatened our future happiness, or
even that any delay was possible.
The wedding was fixed for October. I had made up my mind to bear this
interval of two months with all the patience I could muster. Only one
thing made me uneasy; I had announced my betrothal to my sister, and
brother-in-law, and had not received one line in return.
I knew them too well to fear any objection on their part; only some
illness or some sorrow which they wished to keep from me could account
for this silence. So in spite of the happiness which smiled upon me, I
grew more and more uneasy. At last after three weeks of feverish
impatience, the longed for letter from my brother-in-law arrived. He
wrote that my sister Blanche had been dangerously ill after her
confinement, and that the state of her health was still so precarious
that he had not ventured to agitate her by the news of my engagement.
If it were possible, it would greatly relieve him if I could come home
for a short while.
"You must go," said Bicetta when I had silently handed her the letter.
"You must leave this to-morrow. I will try and bear your absence as
well as I can. But you must write to me when you arrive, write to me as
often as you are able. How I long to go with you. But of course that is
impossible. Give my love to Blanche; tell her that she already lives in
my heart, and give her this kiss from her sister."
She passionately threw her arms round my neck and pressed her lips to
mine. It was the first kiss she had granted me. Even when I had met her
alone, and entreated her both jestingly and earnestly not to be so
cruel, she had always remained inexorable. How often had I not felt
hurt at this reserve, but then she had only to speak a word, or to
stretch out her hand with that indescribable smile of hers, and my
doubts and displeasure vanished.
I departed with the full persuasion that I should find nothing changed
on my return. The old general took leave of me with evident distress;
he could not cease to press me in his arms. His wife shewed great
interest in the illness of my sister, and so completely deceived me
that on my way home, I reproached myself for my former injustice
towards her, and mentally begged her pardon.
Part of my luggage remained at the villa which had been my habitation
during the last weeks of my betrothal; Old Fabio and my friend Nina
faithfully ministering to my wants. I felt sure of returning in less
than a month, and hoped to bring back with me my sister and her husband
to the wedding. Nina in the meantime went up to town to keep Beatrice
company.
Everything seemed to be arranged for the best, and this short
separation to be a sacrifice to the jealous gods before I was allowed
to enjoy complete happiness.
At home I found matters better than I had imagined during the anxious
hours of my long journey. Blanche was out of danger, and it seemed as
if the pleasure of seeing me again and the joyful news I brought her,
hastened her recovery. Their accompanying me to Bologna however was
out of the question. My sister could not leave her child, and my
brother-in-law was detained by our business which had lately so much
increased that we could not both be spared. Yet they hastened my
departure, and indeed as matters stood my visit caused them more
anxiety than pleasure, for in spite of our firm resolve to write to
each other as often as we could, and though I faithfully adhered to my
promise of never missing a single post, yet not a line had reached me
from Bologna. During the first week of my stay I was inexhaustible in
finding some natural cause for her silence. But when I had remained a
fortnight at Geneva without a word either from my betrothed or any
member of her family, I was tormented with anxiety. My only comfort was
that no great misfortune could have happened to her without our
correspondent in Bologna informing me of it, but then again, how could
I know that he had not left Bologna, and should any letters have been
lost or intercepted, might not his too have been among the number?
I felt that I must start for Bologna if I did not wish to go mad. The
state of my feelings as I travelled day and night is not to be
described. As I saw my face in the glass when I stopped to arrange my
disordered toilet before entering Bologna, I started back. It was
certainly not the face of a happy bridegroom, such as I had hoped to
return.
It was early in the morning when my travelling carriage dashed along
the well known road. I called to the postillion to pull up at the
trellised gate of the villa. I jumped out with tottering knees, and
rang the bell violently. Some time elapsed before my dear old friend
Fabio appeared at the door. When he recognised me he started and
without taking time to button his old waistcoat across his naked chest,
he rushed to meet me with so disturbed a face that I called out in an
agony: "She is dead!"
He shook his head and hastily unlocked the gate, but the fright had
completely taken away his breath, so that I could only draw out word by
word, a scanty unconnected explanation from him. He observed my pale
face and worn out looks, and wished to spare me, instead of which he
only cruelly tormented me by his dilatoriness. With many things which
had been schemed in the dark, he was unacquainted, for he had only
learnt the main points from Nina. I who well knew the actors never for
a moment doubted who had taken the principal parts in this fiendish
intrigue. Hardly had I left Bologna when that cousin from Rome
appeared, and brought forward his imaginary claim to the hand of my
bride.
Had he come by order, or would he have arrived of his own accord even
had I not been absent I never knew. He cut a sorry figure Fabio said. A
life of gambling, revels, and adventures had considerably reduced his
fortune, but being the nephew of a cardinal, and of the old nobility,
he was still considered a good match. Bicetta had always disliked him.
He (Fabio) remembered that she had once boxed his ears for having
ventured to kiss his little cousin. Upon which he had laughingly vowed
to make her pay for it once she was his wife. Now the time had arrived
when he hoped to realize his threat. The step-mother and all those who
had most authority were on his side. They had frightened the poor old
general by predicting for him all the torments of hell, if he married
his only child to a heretic, till they had subdued and silenced him.
But whenever he looked at Bicetta his eyes filled with tears, and he
would sit for hours in his arm-chair, and sob like a child. He never
spoke to his wife for he knew that she was at the bottom of it all.
"And Beatrice?" I asked, half maddened with rage and pain.
"Ah Bicetta," replied the old man, "who can understand her! At first
when they urged her to renounce her heretic lover, she had answered: 'I
have pledged my faith to him in the sight of God, and I will keep it
though I should die for it;' so they could not persuade her. Then when
her cousin had come to pay his court to her, she had calmly told him:
'Don't trouble yourself Richino it is perfectly useless; even had I
never seen Amadeo I should never have loved you.' Then when he
attempted to take her hand and to play the gallant to her, she drew
herself up and said in the hearing of Nina: 'Miserable coward to lay
hands on another's property! Go I despise you.' She would not see him
after that yet she never sheds a tear though the marriage is decided
on, and she has quite left off begging and entreating her father, her
step-mother, or any one, even God I dare say. She no more received your
letters, than you did hers which I posted myself. It seems that the
officials at the post-office know what is expected of them when the
nephew of a cardinal wishes to carry off the bride of a foreigner.
Still it is surprising that she should have resigned herself so quickly
for she cannot possibly doubt your fidelity. Nina told me that they
threatened to shut her up in a convent if she did not marry her cousin,
and certainly a convent is not the proper place for our Bicetta, yet I
should have thought it preferable to a marriage with that man, when her
whole heart belongs to you. I for my part cannot make her out, and my
daughter too is in a perpetual state of amazement."
So the good old man rambled on without venturing to look at me, whilst
I lay completely stunned on one of the chairs opposite the chimney. It
was the same in which we had sat our hands clasped in one another's the
first evening of our betrothal. I was quite incapable of thought; every
feeling even of love or of hate seemed paralyzed within me and all
vitality to have ceased, as the movement of a watch stops when a blow
has broken the spring. After a long pause I recovered my composure
sufficiently to ask when the marriage was to take place. "This
afternoon," replied the old man in a timid voice. Then I started up,
brought to my senses by the nearness of this fearful and decisive
event. Old Fabio seized my hands, and looked anxiously into my face.
"Merciful heavens!" he exclaimed, "what are you doing. You know not how
powerful they are. If you were to appear openly in the streets, who
knows whether you would outlive the night."
"I will go in disguise, I will stand face to face with this scoundrel,
and tell him that one of us must die. You surely have a pair of
trooper's pistols in good condition. They are all I shall want. Leave
me now."
"First you must shoot me with them," he said, and clung so firmly to my
arm, that I saw no possibility of freeing myself from his grasp without
using force. "Think of Bicetta," he continued, "what would she say to
it." "You are right," I replied, and felt as if I were again deprived
of all energy. "I know not what she would say, but I _will_ know, or I
shall go mad. Let go my arm, and give me my hat. I will go to her; I
will burst open the doors which keep her from me, and when once I have
seen her then come what may."
But he would not let me go. He led me back to my chair and said, "you
must surely be persuaded that no one so sincerely desires yours, and
the Signorina's, and the old general's welfare as old Fabio, so you
must listen to his advice, and not rush headlong to your own
destruction. If you imagine that you can reach her apartment, you are
greatly mistaken. The house is filled with servants on account of the
wedding, and you would fare ill if you desired to see the bride with
this face. Let me go to her; they cannot forbid me the entrance,
although the Signora does not regard me with favourable eyes. If it
should come to the worst, I can always send for my daughter; so if you
will write a few lines I promise to deliver them, and they will
certainly reach their destination with more safety than by the papal
posts. Sit down here by this window and write a few lines and if I am
not greatly mistaken in our Bicetta she will answer them. He ran to
fetch me writing materials, but I was in such a wretched state that I
could not even hold a pen, and the fury which raged within me drowned
every thought.
"Never mind," said the old man, "there is no need to write. Is it not
sufficient that she hears you have come? If she then still consents to
this marriage, hundreds of letters would be of no avail."
With this he left me, but first I had to give him my word that I would
not leave the house, which was now completely deserted, and that I
would open the door to no one but him.
By this time day had dawned, and after bringing me some wine to
strengthen me, the old man departed, and I remained alone in the
death-like stillness of the house--I could not rest; I dragged myself
into the garden, to the orange-tree of whose fruit she had given me,
and to the pomegranate the blossoms of which had been her first love
token to me. She was always before me, and the more clearly she
appeared to me the less could I understand her apparent oblivion.
Though I was greatly exhausted by my night's journey, yet I could not
swallow a morsel of bread nor drink the wine, but I sucked the juice of
an orange, and felt so revived that I seemed to have imbibed hope and
comfort with it. Then I returned to the house, ascended the stairs and
slowly walked through all the apartments. In her little room all
remained as she had left it; even the book which she had last read was
still open on the table. I began to read from the same page where she
had left off. It was an edition of the "Canzone di Petrarca" and I felt
soothed and refreshed by their gentle harmony. I shoved a low chair
into the balcony (it was the same on which she had sat as a child while
playing with her dolls), and threw myself into it with the book in my
hand. But after each verse my eyes wandered along the road in the hope
of seeing a messenger appear. I had grown calmer however, and no longer
dreaded the decision of my fate, yet I started wildly when the old man
appeared.
"What news do you bring me," I called to him. But I knew all when I saw
his sorrowful countenance, as he turned towards me, and I rushed down
the stair case with, trembling knees. "Read this," he said; "perhaps
you will understand what it all means."
I tore the paper from his hand. On it were hastily scrawled these
words: "My own dear love, what I am going to do, had to be done; do not
try to prevent it, only trust in me. I shall never be another's. You
will understand all when we meet again, and perhaps that may be before
long. Whatever happens I am yours only for ever and ever." On the edge
of the paper was added, "Remain concealed. If you are found out, all is
lost."
Whilst I continued to stare at these few lines, the old man told me
that he had not seen her himself. Nina had been the messenger between
them; but even from her, he could not find out what he wanted to hear.
She only told him that the Signorina had not shown the least
astonishment at the news of my return. "I have long expected him," was
all she said; and while her maid was bringing in her bridal attire, she
had written the note quickly, standing at the window. Then she had
charged Nina to enjoin the greatest secrecy on her father, and to tell
him to take care of me. After that she quietly proceeded to unfasten
her hair which had to be dressed for the wedding. "She wrote these
lines," Nina added, "with the calmness of a person who is unable to
live any longer for the very agony of his pain, and writes down his
dying wish." She had always thought she knew her as well as she knew
herself, but in these last days she was a perfect mystery to her.
Was it not the same with me? I who had fancied that I understood her
better than any one else, could I understand her now, though I read the
lines she had addressed to me over and over again a hundred times. Why
if she would not belong to any one but me, why did she not fly to me,
or take refuge in a convent till I had found means to liberate her. Why
did not the boldest and most adventurous scheme appear natural and easy
to her, rather than resignation to the fate which was forced on her,
and to the bearing quietly those hateful fetters which death alone
could tear asunder.
Still there was something in those simple words which sustained me,
when I was on the point of despairing, and which silenced me when I was
on the point of giving vent to a burst of indignation or despondency. I
even slept a few hours, and could swallow a few morsels which my
faithful attendant had prepared for me. Not a word passed between us;
only when the hour of the wedding approached we had a violent dispute.
I insisted on attending it, and he opposed this to the utmost. At last
when he saw that my resolution was not to be shaken, he brought some of
his clothes and helped me to muffle myself up in them, and then pulled
an old torn straw-hat, which he generally wore in the garden, over my
eyes. I will accompany you Signor Amadeo, for I fear that you will lose
all command over yourself, and that you will require some one to
restrain you. He might have proved right had not the wedding guests,
and the bridal couple entered the church before we reached it, and the
crowd been so great that they stood pressed together, spreading over
the Piazza far beyond the church portal.
I bitterly reproached the old man for having deceived me with regard to
the hour, but he vehemently asserted his innocence, and his ignorance
of the hour.
So we waited amongst the crowd, and the sound of the bells, which were
ringing loudly, lulled me into my former state of dull torpor. Suddenly
the cry arose: "Here they come!" I should have sunk down had not Fabio
supported me. I kept myself up, so to speak, by fastening my eyes to
the church door, whence she was to issue forth. When she at last
appeared I was surprised that I could bear the sight, that it even
calmed me, although her husband was walking beside her. He was just the
man I had expected to see from Fabio's description. A creature I could
have felled to the ground at one blow. A smile hovered on his worn
features which made my blood boil. He nodded with a triumphant, and
lofty air to the people around him, and stroked the fair moustache on
his thin upper lip.
She passed through the crowd without looking up, the expression of her
face was inscrutable, and her eyes were veiled by her long lashes. A
child offered her a bunch of flowers; she took it into her arms, and
kissed it, and I could even perceive a smile on her lips. Had not the
distance been so great, and Fabio watching me I should have pushed my
way through the crowd, and asked her how she dared to smile on such a
day. But the smile had vanished while I was reflecting on it.
They got into their carriage, and drove off, followed by the parents of
the bride. The old General bending under the weight of his grief, at
the side of his proud young wife. Then came all the dignitaries of the
church who frequented the house.
"The Archbishop performed the ceremony," said an old woman beside me.
"She would not marry him at first, but they say that the holy father
himself urged her to it. Nothing more has been heard about that other
one, the Lutheran."--"Aye, aye," replied another woman; "it seems that
his sister has died, that is the just penalty for refusing to abjure
his heresy."--And so their foolish talk went on around me. Fabio
dragged me away, and led me by a bye path back to the villa. I let him
do as he pleased with me; all my strength had left me. I was as
unconscious of my actions as a man in a fever, or a sleep walker.
Even now, when I reflect on the past, I cannot understand how I bore
that day. My nature, generally so impetuous, appeared to be completely
subdued by the great bodily exhaustion caused by that hurried and
sleepless journey from Geneva, and I submitted unresistingly to these
horrible events.
When I reached the villa, I staggered blindly. Fabio forced me to
swallow several glasses of strong wine in such rapid succession that I
at last sank insensible to the ground.
When I recovered my senses, night had come on, and it was some time
before I could recollect where I was, and what had occurred. The clear
sky could be seen through the high panes of the glass door, and the
faint light of the new moon fell on the portrait of Beatrice's mother,
who I fancied looked sadly down at me from her place above the chimney.
Then only everything came back to my memory; then I remembered how
terrible was the significance of this night, and what future these
hours foreboded. Then a fearful agony overwhelmed me, and I was brought
to the verge of madness. I cried out aloud and the unearthly sound of
my voice as it echoed through the desolate house terrified me. I threw
myself down on the cold stone floor of the hall, and there I lay
writhing, pressing my face against the ground, and tearing my hair as
if bodily pain could stifle the despair which raged within me. Every
thought which sprung up in me, I willfully thrust back into the general
whirlpool which darkened and confused my mind. I would feel nothing,
think of nothing, but the terrible certainty that my heart's treasure
was now in another's possession; I could not cease from piercing my
heart with this thought, as though it were a poisoned dagger that would
make it bleed to death. At last worn out with this self destructive
frenzy I lay motionless in the dust. The cold stones of the floor
cooled my burning brow, and my tears ceased to flow. After some time, I
roused myself sufficiently to regain my tottering feet, and to crawl
into the garden. At the fountain underneath the evergreen oaks I washed
the tears and the dust from my face, and took a deep draught of the
tepid water, which nevertheless cooled my blood.
I now considered what remained for me to do, but could not come to any
resolution. One thing, however, I determined on. I would write to her
the next day, and implore her to end this dreadful uncertainty; to rend
asunder the last tie which bound me to her. Then I remembered the words
of her note, but of what avail were they now to me? Now that I had seen
her come out of the church, and that day, and part of the night had
passed without bringing me any comfort.
When I heard the clock strike midnight, and the moon disappeared I
could no longer bear the awful stillness of the garden, and I returned
to the hall. I lighted a candle and placed it on the mantlepiece; then
I drew a chair near it, took a small volume of Dante from my pocket,
and was soon deeply engaged in perusing the most gloomy and despairing
canto of his "Inferno."
I had remained thus about an hour, when suddenly I thought I heard the
key turned in the lock of the garden gate. My hair stood on end. I
fancied in the first moment of terror that my poor darling had
destroyed herself, and that her restless spirit now sought me to suck
my heart's blood; but the next moment I had shaken off these senseless
ideas, and regained my composure. I arose and listened attentively in
the stillness of the night.
The garden gate was opened. I heard steps on the gravel walk--some one
sought for the handle of the hall door; it opened and a youth in a
black cloak and hat appeared on the threshold. Suddenly the hat fell
back from the brow, and I recognized Beatrice. With a cry of joy we
rushed into each other's arms, and clung to one another as though we
could never be torn asunder nor our lips ever parted.
At last she disengaged herself from my embrace, and her tearful eyes
turned on me with a sad mute gaze. "How pale thou art!" she said; "and
this is all my doing. But now it is all at an end. I have kept my word.
Here I am your own wife, and never another's, though I should suffer
for it in this world, and in the next. Oh! Amadeo, why is this world so
full of wicked people; why do they sully the purest, and revile the
most sacred feelings! Why do they force us to lie, and to perjure
ourselves in the very sight of God. We must say _yes_, with our lips,
while our hearts say _no_. They have brought me to this, that I can
only choose between two sins: either to deliver myself up to a man whom
I despise, or to slink like a thief in the night to one who in the eyes
of the world can never be mine. But God metes with another measure than
these cruel and selfish people; is it not so, Amadeo? He cannot bid me
break my faith to you. He never meant our destruction. I imprisoned in
a convent, and you alone in the world, without love, or joy. He has
destined you for me, and me for you, and now I am yours for ever. That
other one dared not touch me. When we were left alone together, I said
to him: 'If you ever try to approach me, to-day or at any other time,
you will have been my murderer, for I have vowed before God not to
survive the hour in which you dare to claim your right on me. I told
you this before our marriage and you still insisted on its
accomplishment. You then carried the point, now it is my turn.'
"So I left him, and shut myself up in my room till I knew that every
one in the house was asleep. Nina then brought me this disguise, and
now I am here, Amadeo! The happiness of being yours would be too great
if I had not to strive and suffer for it."
She clung to my neck and hid her glowing face on my breast. All the
ardour and passion which she had repressed with maidenly pride, and had
not even betrayed by a look, now burst forth in a sudden flame, and
threatened to set my whirling brain on fire.