Chapter XXIII: Introduction (6)

"I will tell you, signora. You are the heiress of a noble and illustrious family. You have been brought up to respect your ancestors and to believe that antiquity and splendor of race are all that there is in life. I am a poor devil without a past, a nobody, who have made myself what I am. And yet I believe that one man is as good as another, and I do not consider myself any man's inferior. Now, it is clear that you would not marry me. Everything would forbid it, your principles, your habits, your position in life. You, who have refused patricians because their families were not noble enough, would be less able and less likely than any other woman to stoop to a paltry actor like myself. From princess to player is a long way, signora. So I cannot be your husband. What is left for me? The prospect of a mutual passion, wretchedly unhappy if it were never gratified, or the hope of being your lover for a time. I cannot accept either, signora. To live together, overflowing with a passion always intense and never allayed, to love each other in fear and trembling, and to distrust ourselves as well as each other, is to subject ourselves voluntarily to suffering that would be intolerable because it would be senseless, hopeless, and aimless. Nor would I, even if I could, possess you as a lover. My happiness would be assailed by anxiety from too many sources to be at all complete. On the one hand, I should always be afraid of compromising your good name; I could not sleep with the dread of being the cause of great misery to you, or of your utter ruin; during the day I should pass long hours looking out for accidents which might bring misery upon you and consequently upon me, and at night I should waste the time that we were together in trembling at the fall of a leaf or at the cry of a bird. Everything would be a source of alarm to me. And why should I thus toss my life to a multitude of empty phantoms, to be consumed? for a love-affair of which I could never foresee the duration and which would afford no compensation for the uncertainties of to-day in a sense of security for the morrow; for sooner or later, signora,--I must say it frankly--you would marry. And you would marry a man of noble birth and of great wealth like yourself. It would cost you a bitter pang, I know; I know that you have a generous and sincere heart; you would desire most earnestly to remain faithful to me, and your heart would rebel at the thought of uttering a word which would put an end to all my happiness surely, if not to my life. But the constant assaults of your family, the very necessity of preserving your reputation, would drive you to take that course in spite of yourself. You would struggle a long while, no doubt, and vigorously. Your love for me would still be gentle and tender, but less effusive; and I, witnessing your grief, as I am not the man to accept long and painful sacrifices without returning them in kind, should myself force you, by going away from you, to resign yourself to that necessary marriage, preferring to consecrate my whole future to sorrow rather than to change your destiny by a dastardly act. That is what I wanted to say to you, signora, and you must understand now why I am afraid that this love would prove to be a misfortune to me."

She had listened to me with perfect tranquillity and in absolute silence. When I ceased speaking, she did not change her attitude in any way. But, watching her closely, I fancied that I detected an expression of profound perplexity on her face. Thereupon I said to myself that I had made no mistake, that she was weak and vain like all the rest of her sex; that the only difference was that she was honest enough to recognize the fact as soon as it was pointed out to her, and that she would probably be honest enough to admit it. So I allowed her to retain my esteem, but I felt that my enthusiasm vanished in an instant. I was congratulating myself on my perspicacity and my firmness, when the signora rose abruptly and walked away without a word. I was not prepared for that stroke, and I was painfully surprised.

"What! without a single word?" I cried. "You leave me, perhaps forever, without a single word of regret or consolation?"

"Farewell!" she said, turning toward me. "Regret I cannot feel; and I am the one who need consolation. You have failed to understand me, you do not love me."

"I do not love you?"

"But who will understand me," she added, stopping, "if you do not? Who will love me, if you do not?"

She shook her head sadly, then folded her arms across her breast and fixed her eyes on the ground. She was at once so lovely and so despairing that I had a frantic longing to throw myself at her feet, and only a vague fear of angering her prevented me from doing it on the instant. I stood still, saying not a word, with my eyes fastened upon her, waiting anxiously to see what she would say or do. After a few seconds she walked slowly toward me, and, leaning against the pedestal of the statue, said with a meditative air:

"So you thought me cowardly and vain; you thought me capable of giving my love to a man and accepting his, without giving him at the same time my whole life. You thought that I would stay with you so long as the wind held fair, and that I would go away as soon as it became adverse. How can you have thought so? For you are a steadfast, loyal man, and I am sure that you would not start upon any serious course of action until you had determined to go on with it to the end. Why, then, do you insist that I cannot do what you do, and why have you not the same good opinion of me that I have of you? Either you must have great contempt for women, or you have allowed yourself to be sadly misled by my levity. I am often foolish; I know that; but perhaps that may be to some extent the fault of my age, and it does not prevent my being steadfast and loyal. On the day that I realized that I loved you, Lelio, I determined to marry you. That surprises you. You remember not only the thoughts that I must have had in my position, but also my past words and acts. You think of all the patricians I have refused to marry because they were not noble enough. Alas! my dear friend, I am the slave of my public, just as you sometimes complain of being of yours, and I am obliged to play my rôle before it until I find an opportunity to escape from the stage. But I have kept my heart free under my mask, and, since I have been able to reason, I have determined that I would not marry except in accordance with the dictates of my heart. But I had to have some excuse for dismissing all those insipid and impertinent patricians to whom you refer. I found it in the prejudices common to my suitors and my family, and, wounding the pride of the former and flattering the pride of the latter at the same time, I took advantage of the antiquity of my blood to refuse the hand of men who, noble as they were, were still, I said, not noble enough for me. In this way I succeeded in getting rid of all my troublesome suitors without displeasing my family; for although they called my refusals childish whims, and offered my rejected followers apologies for my exaggerated pride of birth, they were none the less enchanted with it in the depths of their hearts. For some little time I enjoyed greater freedom by virtue of this conduct. But at last my stepfather, Prince Grimani, told me that it was time to make up my mind, and presented his nephew, Count Ettore, as the husband he had in mind for me. This new pretender was as unattractive to me as his predecessor--even more so perhaps; for his excessive imbecility soon led me to despise him altogether. The prince, seeing this, and thinking that my mother, who is a dear soul and loves me with all her heart, might aid and abet me in my resistance to his will, determined to part me from her in order to force me more easily to obey him. He sent me here to live with no one but his sister and nephew. He hopes that, being compelled to choose between ennui and my cousin Ettore, I shall end by choosing the latter; but he is sadly mistaken. Count Ettore is unworthy of me in every respect, and I should rather die than marry him. I have never said so as yet, because I loved nobody, and, taking one scourge with another, I had no more objection to that one than to others. But now I love you, Lelio; I will tell Ettore that I will not have him; we will go away together--to my mother; we will tell her that we love each other, and that we wish to be married. She will give her consent, and you will marry me. Do you agree?"

I had listened to the signora, from her very first word, with profound amazement, which did not cease when she had finished. Such nobleness of heart, such fearlessness of thought, such masculine audacity blended with such delicacy of feeling--all these united in so young a girl, brought up amid the most arrogant of the old aristocrats--aroused the warmest admiration in my own mind, and my surprise gave place to enthusiasm. I was on the point of giving way to my transports and of throwing myself at her feet to tell her that I was happy and proud to be loved by a woman like her, that I was burning with the most ardent passion for her, and that I was ready to do whatever she choose. But reflection checked me in time, and I thought of all the drawbacks, all the dangers of the step she proposed to risk. It was very probable that she would be refused and severely rebuked, and then what would be her plight, after running away from her aunt's house and openly taking a journey of eight leagues with me? And so, instead of yielding to the tumultuous impulses of my heart, I forced myself to be calm, and, after a few seconds of silence, I tranquilly inquired:

"But your family?"

"There is but one person in the world whose authority over me I acknowledge, and whose anger I fear to incur: that is my mother; and, as I have told you, my mother is as kind as an angel, and loves me beyond everything. Her heart will consent."

"O dear child!" I cried, taking her hands and pressing them against my heart; "God knows that what you propose to do is the goal of all my desires! I am fighting against myself when I try to hold you back. Every objection that I urge means the loss of one more hope of happiness for myself, and my heart suffers cruelly from all the doubts suggested by my reason. But to my mind, you, my beloved angel, and your future, your reputation, your happiness, are to be considered first of all. I should much rather renounce all hope than have you suffer because of me. So do not be alarmed at all my scruples; do not see in them an indication of calmness or indifference, but the proof of an unbounded affection. You say that you know your mother will consent because you know that she is kind. But you are very young, my child; with all your strength of mind, you do not know what abnormal alliances are often found between the most contrary sentiments. I believe all that you tell me of your mother, but can you be sure that her pride will not resist her love for you? It may be that she will think that she is performing a sacred duty by preventing your union with an actor."

"You may be half right," she replied. "Not that I am afraid of my mother's pride. Although she has married two princes, she belongs to the middle class by birth, and has never forgotten her own origin so far that she would consider it a crime for me to love a plebeian. But Prince Grimani's influence, a certain weakness which makes her always coincide with the opinions of those about her, and perhaps, to represent things in the worst possible light, the longing to obtain forgiveness for her own humble birth in the social circle in which she now lives, would prevent her from giving a ready consent to our marriage. So that there is but one thing to do; that is to be married first and then tell her of it. When our union is sanctified by the Church, my mother will never have the heart to turn against me. It may be that she will suffer a little, less on account of my disobedience, although her new family will hold her entirely responsible for it, than on account of what she will consider a lack of confidence on my part; but she will very soon be appeased, you may be sure, and, from love for me, will open her arms to you as to a son."

"Thanks for your generous offers, my dear signora; but I have my honor to preserve, no less than the proudest patrician. If I should marry you without your parent's consent, after abducting you, people would not fail to accuse me of the basest and most dastardly projects. And your mother! suppose that after we were married she should refuse to forgive us, all her indignation would fall upon me."

"I understand then that, before marrying, you desire to have my mother's consent at least?"

"Yes, signora."

"And if you were sure of obtaining it, you would hesitate no longer?"

"Alas! why tempt me? What answer can I make, being sure of the contrary?"

"Then----"

She paused abruptly, in evident uncertainty, and dropped her head on her breast. When she raised it, she was slightly pale and tears were glistening in her eyes. I was about to ask her the cause of them, but she did not give me time.

"Lila," she said in an imperative tone, "go!"

The girl obeyed regretfully, and stopped far enough away to be out of hearing, but not so far that she could not see us. Her mistress waited until she had gone, before breaking the silence. Then she took my hand with a most serious air, and began:

"I am going to tell you something which I have never told before to a living soul, and which I had fully determined never to tell. It relates to my mother, the object of all my veneration and all my love. Judge what it must cost me to stir a memory which might tarnish her purity and her fair fame in the sight of other eyes than mine. But I know that you are kind-hearted, and that I can speak to you as I would speak to God, without any fear that you will imagine evil."

She paused a moment to collect her ideas, then continued:

"I remember that I was very proud of my noble blood in my childhood. It was, I fancy, the obsequious fawning of our servants that planted that sentiment in my mind so early in life, and led me to despise everybody who was not noble like myself. Among my mother's servants there was one who did not resemble the others, and who had been able to retain, in his humble station, the dignity that befits a man. So that he seemed to me an insolent wretch, and my feeling for him was little short of hatred. Still I was afraid of him, especially after a certain day when I saw him watching me with a very grave expression, as I was running my loveliest dolls through the heart with a long black pin.

"One night, I was awakened in my mother's bedroom, where my little bed always stood, by the sound of a man's voice. That voice was speaking to my mother with a gravity that was almost harsh, and she replied in a grief-stricken, timid, almost imploring tone. In my astonishment I thought at first that it was mamma's confessor; and as he seemed to be scolding her according to his custom, I listened with all my ears, without making a sound or letting them suspect that I wasn't asleep. They had no suspicion of me. They talked without restraint. But such an extraordinary conversation! My mother said: 'If you loved me, you would marry me,' and the man refused to marry her! Then mamma wept and so did the man; and I heard--ah! Lelio, I must be very fond of you to tell you this--I heard the sound of kisses. It seemed to me as if I knew the man's voice; but I could not believe the testimony of my ears. I longed to look; but I didn't dare to move, because I felt that I was doing a shameful thing in listening, and as I had even then some elevated sentiments, I tried not to hear. But I heard in spite of my efforts. At last the man said to my mother: '_Addio_, I leave you forever; do not refuse me a lock of your lovely hair.'--And my mother replied: 'Cut it yourself.'

"The care which my mother took of my curls had accustomed me to look upon a woman's hair as something very valuable; and when I heard her give him part of hers, I had a thrill of jealousy and grief, as if she had parted with property which she ought not to sacrifice to anybody but myself. I began to weep silently; but, as I had heard steps approaching my bed, I hastily wiped my eyes and pretended to be asleep. Then some one put aside my curtains, and I saw a man all dressed in red, whom I did not recognize at first because I had never seen him in that costume. I was afraid of him; but he spoke to me, and I recognized him at once; it was--Lelio, you will forget this story, won't you?"

"It was--signora?" I cried, convulsively pressing her hand.

"It was Nello, our gondolier--Why, Lelio, what's the matter with you? You are shivering, your hand trembles. O heaven! you blame my mother!"

"No, signora, no!" I replied in an inaudible voice; "I am listening attentively to you. This took place at Venice, did it?"

"Did I tell you so?"

"I think you did; and it was in the Aldini palace, of course?"

"Of course, for I told you it was in my mother's bedroom. But why this agitation, Lelio?"

"O my God! my God! and your name is Alezia Aldini!"

"Well, what are you thinking about?" said she, testily. "One would say that you had just learned my name for the first time."

"Pardon me, signora, your family name--I always heard you called Grimani, at Naples."

"By people who were but slightly acquainted with us, doubtless. I am the last of the Aldinis, one of the most ancient families of the Republic, proud beyond words, and now ruined. But my mother is rich, and Prince Grimani, who considers my birth and fortune worthy his nephew, sometimes treats me sternly, sometimes wheedles me to prevail on me to marry him. When he has a kind day he calls me his dear daughter, and when strangers ask him if I am really his daughter, he answers, alluding to his favorite project: 'To be sure, for she will be Countess Grimani.' That is why I was always called by a name that is not mine at Naples, where I passed a month, and where I knew almost nobody, and why I am called by the same name in this region, where I have been living six weeks, and where I neither see nor know anybody."

"Signora," said I, making a mighty effort to break the painful silence into which I had relapsed, "will you please explain to me what relation this story can possibly bear to our love, and how, by the aid of the secret you possess, you can extort from your mother a consent which she would be otherwise disinclined to grant?"

"What do you say, Lelio? Do you believe me capable of such detestable scheming? If you would listen to me instead of passing your hands over your forehead with that bewildered air,--my friend, my dear Lelio, what new sorrow, what fresh scruple has assailed you in the last few seconds?"

"Dear signora, I beg you to go on."

"Very well! Understand that I have never forgotten that incident: that it has caused all the sorrows and all the joys of my life. I realized that I must never question my mother on the subject nor mention it to anyone. You are the first person to whom I have ever told it, not excepting my dear nurse Salomé, or my foster sister Lila, to whom I tell everything. My pride suffered from my mother's error, which seemed to rebound upon me. However, I adored her just the same. Perhaps, indeed, I loved her all the more, the more I felt that she was weak and exposed to the secret maledictions of my relatives on my father's side. But my hatred for the common people increased in the same proportion as my love for her.

"My sentiments remained unchanged until I was fourteen years old, and my mother had apparently ceased to pay any heed to them. In the bottom of her heart she was pained by my contempt for the lower classes, and one day she made up her mind to reproach me timidly on that subject. I made no reply, which must have surprised her, for I was in the habit of arguing obstinately with everybody and on every subject. But I felt that there was a mountain between my mother and myself, and that we could not argue impartially on either side. Seeing that I listened to her reproaches with extraordinary resignation, she took me on her knees, and, fondling me with unutterable affection, talked to me about my father in the most unexceptionable terms; but she told me many things that I did not know. I had always retained a sort of enthusiastic respect, entirely without foundation, for that father of mine, whom I had hardly known. When I learned that he had married my poor mother solely for her fortune, and that, after marrying her, he had looked down on her because of her obscure birth and inferior education, there was a great reaction in my heart, and I soon hated him as intensely as I had loved him. My mother said many other things which seemed very strange to me and impressed me deeply, concerning the misfortune of marrying purely for convenience; and I fancied that I could see that she was not much happier with her new husband than she had been with him of whom she was speaking to me.

"This conversation made a profound impression on me, and I began to reflect upon the necessity of making marriage a matter of business, and upon the humiliation of being courted because of a name or a dowry. I resolved not to marry, and some time afterward, as I was talking with my mother again, I made known my determination to her, thinking that she would approve of it. She smiled and said that the time was not far away when my heart would feel the need of a different love from hers. I assured her of the contrary; but by slow degrees I came to realize that I had spoken rashly; for I was assailed by the most intolerable ennui when we laid aside our pleasant and secluded life at Venice, to travel about and mingle in the brilliant society of other cities. Then, as I was very tall and very far advanced for my years, it seemed as if I had hardly ceased to be a child before they were already talking to me about choosing a husband and about an establishment; and every day I overheard discussions as to the merits and drawbacks of some new suitor. I had not as yet felt the repugnance and terror which men without heart or mind inspire in well-born women. I was hard to suit. Having lived always with such a dear mother and been idolized by her, what a paragon of a man I must have met in order not to regret most bitterly her gentle yoke and her loving protection! My pride, already so irritable in itself, became more and more sensitive every day at the appearance of the vain, stilted, empty-headed creatures who presumed to pay court to me. I clung to the virtues of noble birth, because I had imagined up to that time that illustrious families were superior to others in courage, merit, courtesy and liberality. I had not seen the nobility except in the portrait gallery of the Aldini Palace. There my ancestors appeared before me in all their glory, with all their great feats of arms or pious deeds recorded on oaken bas-reliefs. This one had ransomed three hundred slaves from barbarian pirates and bestowed true religion and freedom upon them; that one had sacrificed all his property in war for the salvation of his country; a third had shed all his blood for her on some glorious field. So that my admiration for them was justifiable, and I felt that the blood in my veins was no less warm and generous than theirs. But how shockingly the descendants of other patricians seemed to me to have degenerated! They retained none of the qualities of their race except insufferable incompetency and sickening presumption. I asked myself what had become of the nobility; I found it only on armorial bearings and on the doorways of palaces. I determined to become a nun, and I urged my mother so persistently to allow me to enter a convent, that she consented. She wept bitterly when she left me there. Prince Grimani approved of my whim; for since he had unearthed, in some corner of Lombardy, a sort of nephew who might become rich at my expense, and bear magnificently, thanks to my dowry, the imperishable name of Grimani, his only thought was to make me obedient to his wishes, and he flattered himself that religion would make my character more pliable. What fervent piety, what a thirst for martyrdom one must have in order to accept Hector! They took me away from the convent three months ago; the fact is that I was dying with ennui there, and the rigid discipline to which I had to submit was beyond my strength. And then I was so happy to return to my mother and she to have me with her! But six weeks of convent life had wrought a great change in my ideas. I had come to understand Jesus, to whom I had always prayed with my lips alone. In my hours of solitude, in church, in the earnest outpouring of my heart in prayer, I had learned that the son of Mary was the friend of the hard-working poor, and that he had justly scorned the grandeurs of this world. And how shall I tell you? at the same time that I opened my heart to new sympathies, the thing that in my childhood I used mentally to call my mother's shame presented itself to me under very different colors, and I thought of it only with deep emotion. What took place within me? I cannot say; but I said to myself: 'If I should do as mamma did, if I should fall in love with a man of a different station in life from my own, the whole world would throw stones at me, all except mamma.' She would take me in her arms, and hiding my blushes in her bosom she would say: 'Obey your heart, so that you may be happier than I was after breaking mine.'--You are touched, Lelio! O heaven! it was a tear that just fell on my hand. You are beaten, my dear! You see that I am neither mad, nor wicked; now you will say _yes_, and you will come and take me to-morrow. Swear it!"

I tried to speak, but I could not find a word; I was shuddering from head to foot. I felt as if I were about to faint. With her eyes fixed upon me she anxiously awaited my reply. For my own part, I was completely crushed. At the very first words of her story, I had been struck by its strange resemblance to my own; but when she came to those incidents which it was impossible for me not to recognize, I was completely bewildered and dazzled, as if the lightning had struck close beside me. A thousand conflicting and sinister thoughts took possession of my brain. I saw images of crime and despair fluttering about before me like ghosts. Deeply moved by the memory of what had been, appalled at the thought of what might be, I imagined myself the mother's lover and the daughter's husband at the same time. Alezia, that child whom I had seen in her cradle, stood before me, talking in the same breath of her love and her mother's.

A world of recollections crowded into my mind, and little Alezia appeared there as the object, even then, of a timid and unjoyful affection. I recalled her pride, her hatred of me, and the words she had said to me one day when she saw her father's ring on my finger. "Who can say," I thought, "that she has renounced her prejudices forever? It may be that if she should learn at this moment that I am Nello, her former servant, she would blush for loving me."

"Signora," I said to her, "you used, you say, to be fond of piercing the hearts of your dolls with a long pin. Why did you do that?"

"What do you care? why does that detail impress you particularly?"

"Because my heart aches, and your pins naturally came to my mind."

"I will tell you why it was, to show you that it was not a mere barbarous whim," she replied. "I used to hear it said, when a man did a cowardly thing, 'that's what it is to have no blood in the heart;' and I took that metaphorical expression literally. So when I scolded my dolls, I would say to them: 'you are cowards, and I am going to look and see if you have any blood in your hearts.'"

"You despise cowards bitterly, don't you, signora?" I asked, wondering what her opinion of me would be some day if I should give way at that moment to her romantic passion. Once more I fell into a melancholy reverie.

"What is the matter, in heaven's name?" said Alezia.

Her voice recalled me to myself. I looked at her with streaming eyes. She was weeping too, but on account of my hesitation. I understood it at once, and I said, taking her hands with a paternal gesture:

"O my child! do not accuse me! Do not doubt my poor heart! If you only knew how I am suffering!"

And I walked rapidly away, as if by leaving her I could escape my unhappiness. On reaching home I became calmer. I went over in my mind the whole extraordinary succession of events; I worked out all their details, and thus banished from my own mind the flavor of mystery which had paralyzed me at first with superstitious terror. It was all strange, but natural, even to the Christian name, that name Alezia, which I had always longed to know and had never dared to ask.

I do not know whether another man in my place could have continued to love the young Signora Aldini. Strictly speaking, I might have done it without criminality; for you will remember that I had not ceased to be a chaste and obedient lover of her mother. But my conscience rebelled at the thought of that incest of the mind. I loved La Grimani with her unknown baptismal name, I loved her with all my heart and all my senses; but in truth I did not love in that way little Alezia, Signorina Aldini, Bianca's daughter, for it seemed to me that I was her father. The memory of Bianca's charms and fascinating qualities had remained pure and undimmed throughout my life; it had followed me everywhere like a providence. It had made me generous to women and brave against myself. Although I had since fallen in with many false and selfish beauties, I always had the certainty that there are those who are sincere and generous. Bianca had made no sacrifice to me, because I had refused to accept any; but if I had accepted it, if I had yielded to her enthusiasm, she would have sacrificed everything to me, friends, family, fortune, honor, religion, and perhaps her daughter too! What a sacred debt I owed to her! Had I paid it in full by my refusal, by my departure? No; for she was a woman, that is to say, weak and submissive, exposed to the implacable decrees and the bitter insults of irony. And she would have braved it all, she who was so timid, so gentle, so like a child in a thousand ways. She would have done a sublime thing; and I, had I accepted, should have done a dastardly thing. So that I had done nothing more than fulfil a duty to myself, whereas she had exposed herself to the risk of martyrdom for my sake. Poor Bianca, my first, perhaps my only love! how lovely she had always remained in my memory! "Why, in heaven's name," I said to myself, "am I afraid that she has grown old and withered? Ought I not to be indifferent to that? Should I still love her? no, probably not; but, whether ugly or lovely, could I see her to-day without danger?" And at that thought my heart beat so violently that I realized how impossible it was for me to be her daughter's husband or lover.

And then too, to take advantage of the past--if it were only by a silent assent to Alezia's wishes,--in order to obtain the hand of Bianca's daughter, would have been a dishonorable act. Weak as I knew Bianca to be, I knew that she would consider herself bound to give us her consent; but I knew also that her old husband, her family, and, above all, her confessor, would overwhelm her with their reproaches. She had been able to make up her mind to marry a second time, a marriage of convenience. Therefore, she was at heart a woman of the world, a slave of social prejudices, and her love for me was simply a sublime episode, the memory of which was to her a cause of shame and despair, whereas it was my glory and my joy. "No, poor Bianca!" I thought, "no, I have not paid my debt to you. You must have suffered terribly, perhaps trembled with apprehension, at the idea that a servant might be peddling the secret of your weakness from house to house. It is time that you should sleep in peace, that you should cease to blush for the only happy days of your youth, and that you should be able to say, poor woman, on learning of Nello's everlasting silence, everlasting devotion, everlasting love, that there was a time in your fettered, disappointed life, when you knew love and inspired it."

I paced my room excitedly; day was beginning to break. In the lives of men who sleep but little, that is the decisive hour which puts an end to the hesitations conceived and nourished in the darkness, and which changes plans into resolutions. I felt a thrill of enthusiastic joy and legitimate pride at the thought that Lelio the actor had not fallen below Nello the gondolier. Sometimes, in my romantic democratic ideas, I had flushed with shame because I had left the thatched roof where I might have perpetuated a hardy, laborious, and frugal race; I had reproached myself, as for a crime, for having disdained the humble trade of my fathers to seek the bitter joys of luxurious living, the vain incense of glory, the false advantages and trivial labors of art. But by performing, in the tinsel of the actor, the same acts of unselfishness and true pride that I had performed in the rough jacket of the gondolier, I ennobled my life twice over, and raised myself above all false social grandeurs. My conscience, my dignity, seemed to me the conscience and dignity of the common people; by debasing myself I should have debased the common people. "_Carbonari_! _carbonari_!" I exclaimed, "I will be worthy to be one of you." The cult of deliverance is a new cult; liberalism is a religion which should ennoble its followers, and, like Christianity in its early days, make the slave a free man, the free man a saint or a martyr.

I wrote the following letter to Princess Grimani:

"SIGNORA:

"The signorina has been exposed to great danger. Why did you, a loving and fearless mother, consent to send her away from you? Is she not at an age when any accident may decide a woman's future--a glance or a breath? Is not this the time when you should watch over her every instant, night and day alike, fathom her troubles, however slight, and count the pulsations of her heart? For you, signora, who are so gentle and so condescending in small things, but in great crises can always find in your heart so much vigor and resolution, the moment has come when you should display the courage of the lioness, who will not allow her little ones to be taken from her. Come, signora, come; take your daughter back, and do not let her quit you again. Why do you leave her in strange hands, subjected to injudicious guidance, which irritates her and would drive her into serious errors, if she were not your daughter--if it were possible for the seeds of virtue and of dignity planted in her breast by you to become the plaything of the first breeze that blows! Open your eyes; see how your child's legitimate and sacred inclinations are being thwarted, until you are in danger of seeing her resist wise counsels, and contract a habit of independence which it will be impossible to overcome. Do not permit a husband whom she detests to be forced upon her, and look to it that her aversion for him does not spur her on to make a rash and even more deplorable choice. Assure her liberty. Let her only chains be her anxiety concerning your enlightened love, lest, distrusting your energy in her behalf, she seek dangerous succor in her imagination. In heaven's name, come!

"And if you wish to know, signora, by what right I address this appeal to you, I will tell you that I have seen your daughter without knowing her name; that I have been on the verge of falling in love with her; that I have followed her, watched her, sought her acquaintance; and that she is not so well guarded that I could not have spoken to her and exerted--in vain, I doubt not--all the wiles by which an ordinary woman is seduced. Thank God! your daughter has not even been exposed to my rash advances. I learned in time that she was the daughter of the woman whom I venerate and respect above all the world, and from that moment her place of abode became a sacred spot to me. If I do not leave the neighborhood instantly, it is that I may be ready to reply to your most searching questions, if, distrusting my honor, you bid me appear before you and render an account of my conduct.

"Accept, signora, the humble respects of your devoted slave,

"NELLO."

I sealed this letter, wondering how I could forward it to its address with the greatest possible speed, and with no danger of its falling into strange hands. I dared not carry it myself, fearing that Alezia, in her irritation at learning of my departure, would do something foolish or desperate. Moreover, it was quite true that I wished to be able to open my heart completely to her mother when the time should come for me to confide everything to her; for I foresaw that Alezia would conceal from her no detail of our little romance, of which I had no right to tell the whole story except by her order. I feared, too, that the girl's enthusiasm would so prevail over her mother's weakness with the moving description of her passion, that the mother would eventually give a consent which I did not propose to accept. Both needed the help of my calm and immovable determination, and it might well be that when they were face to face I should stand in need of the strength they both would lack.

I had reached this point in my reflections when there came a knock at my door, and a man entered and approached me respectfully. As he had taken pains to take off his livery, I did not at first recognize him as the servant who had looked at me so closely on the day of the church episode; but as we now had plenty of time to scrutinize each other, we both involuntarily uttered an exclamation of surprise.

"It is really you!" he said. "I was not mistaken; you are really Nello?"

"Mandola, my old friend!" I cried, and I opened my arms. He hesitated an instant, then embraced me most heartily, weeping for joy.

"I recognized you, but I wanted to make sure; and so, at the first moment I have had at my disposal, here I am. How does it happen that you are called Signor Lelio hereabouts, unless you are the famous singer who is so much talked about at Naples, and whom I have never been to see? for I always go to sleep at the theatre, you know, and as for music, I have never been able to understand it. So the signora never makes me go up to her box till the end of the play."

"The signora! oh! tell me about the signora, my old comrade."

"I was talking about Signora Alezia, for Signora Bianca never goes to the theatre now. She has taken a Piedmontese confessor, and she has been entirely wrapped up in religion since her second marriage. Poor, dear signora, I am afraid that this husband hardly makes up to her for the other. Ah! Nello, Nello, why didn't you----"

"Hush, Mandola; not a word about that. There are some memories which ought not to come to our lips any more than the dead should return to life. Only tell me where your mistress is at this moment, and how I can send her a letter secretly and without delay."

"Is it something of importance to you?"

"It is much more important to her."

"In that case, give it to me; I will travel by post at full speed, and deliver it to her at Bologna, where she is now. Didn't you know it?"

"No, indeed. So much the better. You can be with her this evening, can't you?"

"Yes, by Bacchus! Poor mistress! how surprised she will be to hear from you! for you see, Nello, you see, Signor"----

"Call me Nello when we are alone, and Lelio before other people, until the old Chioggia affair is forgotten altogether."

"Oh! I know. Poor Massatone! But that is beginning to die out."

"What were you saying about Signora Bianca? That is what I am anxious to know."

"I was saying that she will turn very red and then very pale when I hand her your letter and whisper: 'This is from Nello! The signora remembers Nello, who used to sing so well!'--Then she will say to me in a serious tone, for she is no longer bright and cheerful as she used to be, poor signora: 'Very well, Mandola, go to the pantry.' And then she will call me back and say in a sweet tone, for she is just as kind-hearted as ever: 'Poor Mandola, you must be very tired!--Give him some of the best wine, Salomé!'"

"Salomé!" I cried; "is she married too?"

"Oh! she'll never marry. She is just the same, no older nor younger; never smiling, never shedding a tear, adoring the signora as always, and forever resisting her; very fond of the signora and always scolding her; kind-hearted at bottom, but not amiable. Has Signora Alezia recognized you?"

"No, indeed."

"I can believe it; I had much difficulty in recognizing you myself. People change so much! You used to be so small and so slender!"

"Oh! not too slender, if I remember aright."

"And I," continued Mandola with comical distress, "I was so active and graceful and quick and merry! Ah! how fast one grows old!"

I began to laugh when I saw how men delude themselves concerning their youthful graces as they advance in years. Mandola was very much the same Lombard giant that I remembered; he still walked sideways like a vessel beating to windward, and the constant balancing of the gondola as he rowed at the stern had caused him to contract the habit of standing on one leg at a time. You would have said that he was always suspicious of the level ground and was waiting for a wave to come to change his position. I had much difficulty in shortening our interview; he took great delight in it, and I derived a sort of sorrowful pleasure from hearing of that home where my heart had been thrown open to poesy, art, love and honor. I could not restrain a secret thrill of joy, overflowing with emotion and gratitude, when the honest Lombard told me of Bianca's long continued melancholy after my departure, her impaired health, her secret tears, her languor, her distaste for life. Then she had recovered her animation. A new love had touched her heart. A very charming man, of decidedly ill-repute, a sort of aristocratic adventurer, had sought her hand in marriage; she had been within an ace of believing in him. Being warned in time, she had shuddered at the dangers to which her peace of mind and dignity were exposed by her isolation; above all she had shuddered for her daughter, and she had fallen back upon religion.

"But her marriage to Prince Grimani?" I said inquiringly.

"Oh! that was the confessor's work."

"Well, there is such a thing as fatality, no one can escape it. Off with you, Mandola; here is some money, and here is the letter. Don't lose an instant, and don't return to the Grimani villa until you have spoken to me; for I have some important suggestions to make to you."

He left me. I threw myself on my bed and was just falling asleep when I heard the rapid footsteps of a horse in the garden upon which my window looked. I wondered whether it was Mandola returning because he had forgotten a part of his instructions. I overcame my fatigue and went to the window. But, instead of Mandola, I saw a woman in a riding habit, with her head covered with a thick black crêpe mantle which fell over her shoulders and concealed her whole figure as well as her face. She was riding a superb horse, steaming with sweat; and, leaping to the ground before her groom had found time to assist her, she talked in a very low tone to old Cattina, who had hurried to meet her, impelled by curiosity much more than by zeal. I trembled as I thought who it might be, who it must be; and, cursing the imprudence of such a proceeding, I hastily dressed. When I was ready, as Cattina did not come to notify me, I rushed out into the hall, fearing that the reckless visitor might remain on the stoop exposed to some inquisitive eye. But I found Cattina at the foot of the steps, returning to her work after showing the stranger into the house.

"Where is that lady?" I inquired eagerly.

"That lady!" repeated the old woman, "what lady, my _blessed_ Signor Lelio?"

"What trick are you trying to play on me, you old fool? Didn't I see a lady dressed in black come in, and didn't she ask to speak to me?"

"No, as I believe in baptism, Signor Lelio. The lady asked for Signora Checchina, and didn't mention your name. She put this half-sequin in my hand and bade me keep her presence a secret _from the other people in the house_. That's just what she said."

"Did you see the lady, Cattina?"

"I saw her dress and her veil, and a great lock of black hair that had got loose and fell on a beautiful hand, and two great eyes that shone behind the lace like two lamps behind a curtain."

"Where did you put her?"

"In Signora Checchina's small salon, while the signora is dressing to receive her."

"Very well, Cattina; keep your mouth shut, since she bade you."

I was uncertain whether it was Alezia who had come to confide in Checchina. If so, it was my duty to prevent her, at any price, from remaining in that house, where every instant of her stay might contribute to the ruin of her reputation; but if it were not she, what right had I to go and question a person who, doubtless, had some very serious motive for concealing her actions in this way? I had been unable from my window to judge of the height of that veiled woman, because our respective positions were such that I could see only the top of her head. I had scrutinized the groom as he led the horses to a clump of trees which his mistress pointed out to him. I had never seen his face before; but that was no reason why he might not belong to the Grimani establishment, for I certainly had not seen all the servants. I disliked extremely to question him and try to bribe him. I determined to go to Checchina; I knew what a length of time she required to make the simplest toilet. She could not have joined her visitor as yet, and I could reach her bedroom without passing through the small salon. I knew the secret passage which connected Nasi's apartments with his mistress's, the villa of Cafaggiolo being a genuine _petite maison_, built according to the French style of the 18th century.

I found Checchina half-dressed, and making ready with queenly indifference for this early morning audience.

"What does this mean?" she cried, as I entered by way of her alcove.

"Just a word, Checchina," I said in her ear. "Send away your maid."

"Make haste," she said when we were alone, "for there is someone waiting for me."

"I know it, and that is what I came to speak to you about. Do you know this woman who has requested an interview with you?"

"How do I know? She refused to tell my maid her name, and at that I sent word to her that I was not in the habit of receiving people whom I did not know, at seven o'clock in the morning; but she wouldn't be refused, and she begged Teresa so earnestly--indeed it is probable that she gave her money in order to enlist her in her interest--that the girl came and bothered me to death, and I backed down; but not without the greatest reluctance to get up so early, for I read of the loves of Angélique and Médor far into the night."

"Listen, Checchina; I think that this woman is--the one you know about."

"Oh! do you think so? In that case, go and join her. I understand why she asked for me, and why you came here by the secret passage. I will be close-mouthed, and delighted to go to sleep again, and you will be the happiest of men."