Chapter XLI: Jealousy and Gratitude

The princess led the marquis and Pier-Angelo aside to tell them that Ninfo was in the Piccinino's hands, and that she had been so informed by an eye-witness of his capture whom she was not at liberty to name.

More ices were brought, and the conversation was renewed. Despite Magnani's perturbation and timidity, despite Michel's excitement and preoccupation, the princess and the marquis speedily tranquillized the two young men, thanks to the judicious courtesy and the great art of being simple, which well-bred people possess when the foundation of their character corresponds with the external charm due to exquisite tact. Thus Agatha questioned Michel concerning subjects with which he was familiar, and on which he felt deeply. The young artist was overjoyed by her perfect comprehension of art, and he stored away in his memory several far-reaching definitions which she let fall, her mode of expressing herself was so simple and natural. When she spoke to him she seemed to be consulting rather than instructing him, and her glance, alight with penetrating sympathy, seemed to seek in Michel's eyes confirmation of her own opinions and ideas.

Magnani understood all that was said, and, although he seldom ventured to speak, it was easy to read on his intelligent face that none of the ideas advanced were beyond the reach of his intellect. That young man had unusual faculties which would never have been cultivated, perhaps, but for his romantic passion. From the day that he first became enamored of the princess he had constantly devoted a portion of his leisure to reading and to the study of such works of art as he had been privileged to see. He had employed his vacations--what mechanics call the _dead season_--in travelling about Sicily on foot, viewing the treasures of antiquity with which that island, so beautiful in itself, is thickly strewn. While saying to himself that he was determined to remain humble and obscure, and persuading himself that he had no desire to depart from the rough simplicity of his class, he had been impelled by an irresistible instinct to improve his mind.

The conversation having become general, was pleasant, unconstrained, and even merry, thanks to Pier-Angelo's sallies and Mila's artless remarks. But her artlessness was so touching that, far from wounding Michel's self-esteem in the princess's presence, it displayed his young sister's fifteen years to him in a new light. It is certain that he had paid too little heed to the very great change which a year had caused in the ideas of a girl of her age, when, thinking that he still had to do with a heedless and timid child, he had undertaken to blast all the hopes of her heart with a word. In every word that Mila said she manifested immense progress in respect to intelligence and decision of character, and the contrast between that development of her mind, and the inexperience, innocence and simplicity of her heart, presented a spectacle at once charming and affecting. The princess, with the delicate tact which women alone possess, caused Mila's charm to stand out in bolder relief by her replies, and neither Michel, nor Magnani, nor Pier-Angelo himself, had ever before imagined how much enjoyment might be derived from talking with that maiden.

The moon rose, silvery white, in the cloudless sky. Agatha suggested a walk in the garden. They started together; but the princess soon strolled away from the others with Magnani, whose arm she took familiarly; and for half an hour they remained so far away from their friends that they were often out of sight.

We will not divulge at this point what the princess had to say in confidence to the young mechanic during that tête-à-tête, which seemed to Michel so long and so extraordinary; indeed, we shall not divulge it at all. The reader will divine it at the proper time.

But Michel was unable to form the faintest idea of it, and he was on the rack. He ceased to listen to the marquis; he was much more inclined to tease and contradict Mila. He laughed at her costume and picked flaws in it under his breath, and almost made her cry; so that she finally whispered to him: "Michel, you always were jealous, and you are jealous at this moment."

"Jealous of what, pray?" he retorted bitterly; "of your pink dress and your pearl necklace?"

"No," she said, "but of the princess's friendship for your friend and her confidence in him. Oh! I remember how you used to sulk when we were children, if mamma kissed me more than you."

When the princess and Magnani joined them again, Agatha seemed calm and Magnani deeply moved. But his noble face was even graver than usual, and Michel noticed that his manner had undergone a remarkable change. He no longer seemed to be at all confused by Agatha's presence. When she spoke to him, the reply no longer trembled on his lips; he no longer turned his eyes away in dismay, and, instead of the terrible suffering he had previously displayed, he was calm, attentive and thoughtful. They talked a few moments longer, then the princess turned to go. The marquis offered his carriage. She declined it. "I prefer to walk back through the gardens as I came," she said; "and, as I must have an escort, although we no longer have any enemies to fear, I will take Michelangelo's arm--unless he refuses!"--she added, with a quiet smile, observing the young man's confusion.

Michel could find no words for a reply; he bowed and offered her his arm. An hour earlier he would have been beside himself with joy. Now it wounded his pride to receive in public a favor which Magnani had received privately and as it were in secret.

Pier-Angelo took his leave with his daughter, to whom Magnani did not offer his arm. So much ceremonious courtesy was not in his line. He affected to be ignorant of the rules of politeness because he detested imitation, but in reality his manners were always gentle and amiable. After a few steps he found himself so near Mila that he naturally took her round elbow in his hand to guide her through the narrow lanes of the suburb, and walked with her, supporting her thus, to her door.

Michel had started off encased in his pride as in a cuirass, mentally accusing the princess of caprice and coquetry, and firmly resolved not to allow himself to be dazzled by her advances. And yet he confessed to himself that he was entirely unable to understand the irritation that he felt. He was forced to say to himself that she was immeasurably kind, and that if she was, in fact, indebted to old Pier-Angelo, she paid her debt with all the treasures of delicacy and refinement which a woman's heart can contain.

But Michel could not forget all the problems which he had been trying for two days to solve; and the way in which the princess pressed his arm at that moment, as they walked, like a woman passionately in love or a nervous person unaccustomed to walking, was a fresh problem which the idea of a service rendered the signora by his father did not sufficiently explain.

He strode forward at first in silence, saying to himself that he would not speak first, that he would not give way to emotion, that he would not forget that Magnani's arm had probably been pressed in the same way; in a word, that he would be on his guard: for either Princess Agatha was mad, or she concealed the most insane coquetry beneath a virtuous and downcast exterior.

But all his fine plans came to naught. The shady paths that they trod, with plots of land carefully tilled and planted on each side, led through a succession of small gardens belonging to well-to-do mechanics or middle-class citizens of the town. The paths were separated from the plots only by shrubs, rose-bushes, or beds of aromatic herbs. Here and there vine-clad arbors cast a dense shadow about them. The moon's rays were oblique and uncertain. Innumerable perfumes arose from the flower-strewn fields, and the sea, behind the hills in the distance, murmured in amorous tones. Nightingales sang among the jasmines. Some human voices sang in the distance, gayly challenging the echo; but there was no one on the path which Michel and Agatha were following. The little gardens were deserted. Michel felt oppressed; his pace slackened, his arm trembled convulsively. A faint breeze blew the princess's veil near his face, and he fancied that he heard mysterious voices whispering in his ear. He dared not turn to see whether it was a woman's breath or the breath of night that caressed him so near at hand.

"My dear Michel," said the princess, in a calm tone, which brought him abruptly from the sky to the earth, "I ask your pardon, but I really must stop to take breath. I am not much accustomed to walking, and I feel very tired. Here is a bench under this arbor which invites me to sit down for five minutes, and I fancy that the owners of this little garden, if they should see me, would not accuse me of committing a crime if I take advantage of it."

Michel led her to the bench to which she pointed, and, restored to reason once more, walked a few steps away to look at a little fountain whose soft gurgling failed to divert him from his reverie.

"Yes, yes, it was a dream, or else it was my little sister Mila who gave me that kiss. She is a mocking madcap! she would have explained the great mystery of the locket to me if I had questioned her frankly and earnestly. Doubtless there is some perfectly natural cause for all this which does not occur to me. Isn't it always so with natural causes? The only one that one does not divine is always the simplest. Ah! if Mila knew what danger she is playing with, and what pain she might spare me by telling me the truth! I will press her so to-morrow that she will tell me everything!"

While Michel reflected thus, the crystal water murmured in its narrow basin, wherein quivered the spectre of the moon. The fountain was a small terra-cotta affair, of classic simplicity; an aquatic cupid grasping a huge carp from whose mouth the stream of water fell about a foot into the reservoir. The artist who had executed the figure had attempted to give it a mischievous expression, but he had succeeded only in imparting to the carp's great eyes a glare of grotesque ferocity. Michel looked at the group without seeing it, and to no purpose was the night soft and fragrant; he, passionate lover of nature that he was, absorbed by his own thoughts, denied to nature his accustomed homage on that evening.

And yet the murmur of the water acted upon his imagination without his realizing it. He remembered a similar melodious sound, the timid and melancholy murmur with which the marble Naiad filled the grotto of the Palmarosa palace as she emptied her urn into the basin; the blissful sensations of his dream passed before his mind once more, and he would fain have fallen asleep where he stood, hoping for a repetition of his hallucination.

"But what am I thinking of!" he suddenly said to himself; "am I not a most absurd novice? Did she not stop here in order to invite me to prolong an ardent tête-à-tête? I took that sudden fatigue, that fancy to sit in the first garden that we came to, for an honest explanation of the confusion she felt--was it not intended as an encouragement to my uncouth timidity?"

He eagerly approached the princess, feeling emboldened by the shadow of the arbor. The bench was so small that, unless he asked her to make room for him, he could not sit beside her. He sat down on the grass, not precisely at her feet, but near enough to be nearer still ere long.

"Well, Michel," she said to him, with an indescribable sweetness in her voice, "are you also tired, pray?"

"I am worn out," he replied, in a tone of deep emotion which made the princess start.

"What do you mean? you are not ill, my child?" she said, putting out her hand, which came in contact with the young man's silky hair in the darkness.

With one bound he was at her knees, his head bent, as it were fascinated beneath that hand which did not repel him, his lips pressed to the hem of that floating silk dress which could not betray his transports; uncertain, beside himself, lacking courage to declare his passion, lacking strength to resist it.

"Michel," cried the princess, letting her hand fall again upon the young madman's burning brow, "you are feverish, my child! your head is burning! Yes, yes," she added, stroking his cheeks with affectionate solicitude, "you have had too much fatigue these last few days; you have been awake two nights in succession, and although you threw yourself on your bed for a few hours this morning, I doubt if you slept much. And I have led you on to talk too much to-night. You must go home. Let us walk on; you can leave me at the gate of my park and go home at once. I intended to say something to you to-night; but I am afraid that you are going to be sick; when you are thoroughly rested, perhaps I will speak to you."

She attempted to rise; but Michel was kneeling on the edge of her dress. He held against his cheeks, he put to his lips that lovely hand which did not seek to avoid his caresses.

"No, no," cried Michel, impetuously, "let me die here. I know very well that you will drive me from your presence forever to-morrow; I know that I shall never see you again, now that you see what is taking place within me. But it is too late, and I am going mad! Oh! do not pretend to believe that I am ill because I have worked by day and been awake all night! Do not be afraid to discover the truth; it is your own fault, signora, you would have it so! Could I resist so many temptations? Spurn me, Agatha, curse me; but to-morrow, to-night, give me the kiss I dreamed of in the Naiad's grotto!"

"Ah! Michel," cried the princess, in a tone impossible to describe, "did you feel it? did you see me? do you know all? Did somebody tell you, or did you divine it? It is God's will. And you fear that I will spurn you? you fear that I will curse you? O my God! is it possible? Pray, does not what is taking place in your heart reveal to you the love with which mine is overflowing?"

As she spoke the lovely Agatha threw her arms around Michel's neck, and, drawing his head to her breast, covered it with ineffable kisses.

Michel was eighteen years old, he had a fiery heart, a restless, all-devouring temperament, vast pride, and an enterprising spirit. But his heart was as pure as his age, and his happiness found him chaste and prostrate in religious adoration. All his jealousy, all his insulting suspicions vanished. It no longer occurred to him to wonder how a person so austere in her morals, who was supposed never to have had a lover, could suddenly fall in love at first sight with a child like him, and tell him so with such absolute candor. He was conscious of nothing save the joy of being loved, an enthusiastic and unbounded gratitude, a fervent, blind adoration. From Agatha's arms he fell at her feet, and covered them with passionate, almost pious kisses.

"No, no, not at my feet, on my heart!" cried the princess; and she held him there a long while in a fervent embrace, weeping freely.

Her tears were so sincere--they had such a sacred eloquence of their own--that Michel felt a great wave of sympathy. His heart swelled and he burst into sobs; a divine joy banished all thought of earthly joy. He found that that woman aroused in him no profane desire; that he was happy and not excited in her arms; that to mingle his tears with hers, and to feel that he was loved by her, was happiness greater than all the transports of which his youth had dreamed; in a word, that he respected her even to dread, as he held her pressed against his heart, and that there never could be a thought between her and him which the angels might not read with a smile on their lips.

He felt all this, confusedly without doubt, but so deeply, and with such a thrill of triumph, that Agatha never suspected the evil impulse of fatuous conceit which had brought him to her feet a few moments before.

Thereupon Agatha, raising her lovely glistening eyes to heaven, her face pale in the moonlight, and as it were rapt in a divine ecstasy, cried, in a transport of joy: "O my God! how I thank Thee! This is the first moment of happiness that Thou hast given me; but I do not complain of having had to wait so long, for it is so great, so pure, so complete, that it effaces and redeems all the sorrows of my life!"

She was so lovely, she spoke with such sincere enthusiasm, that Michel fancied that he had before him a saint of ancient days. "O my God! my God!" he exclaimed in a voice stifled by emotion, "I, too, bless Thee! What have I done to deserve such happiness? To be loved by her! Oh! it is a dream; I dread to wake!"

"No, it is not a dream, Michel," rejoined the princess, turning her inspired glance upon him once more; "it is the only reality of my life, and it will be the one great reality of your whole life. Tell me, what other being than you I could love on this earth? Hitherto I have done nothing but suffer and languish; but now that you are here, it seems to me that I was born for the greatest human felicity. My child, my beloved, my sovereign consolation, my only love! Oh! I cannot speak any more, I do not know what to say to you; joy overwhelms and crushes me!"

"No, no, let us not talk," cried Michel. "No words can describe what I feel; and, thank heaven, I do not yet grasp the whole extent of my happiness; for, if I did, it seems to me that I should die of it!"