Chapter XXI: Introduction (4)

"Bring the game-pie that I saw in the pantry this morning," said the signora; and two minutes later the servant reappeared with an enormous pie, which he majestically placed on the piano at a sign from his mistress. A large salver, covered with dishes and all the accessories necessary for the refreshment of civilized beings, appeared as if by magic on the other side of the instrument, and the signora, with a strong but light touch, broke through the rampart of appetizing crust and made a large breach in the fortress.

"_This is a conquest in which our lords and masters the French shall have no share," she said, taking possession of a partridge which she placed on a Japanese plate; and she went with it to the other end of the room, where she squatted upon a velvet hassock with gold tassels, and proceeded to devour it._]

"This is a conquest in which our lords and masters the French shall have no share," she said, taking possession of a partridge which she placed on a Japanese plate; and she went with it to the other end of the room, where she squatted upon a velvet hassock with gold tassels, and proceeded to devour it.

I gazed at her in amazement, uncertain whether she was mad or was trying to mystify me.

"You are not eating?" she said, without moving.

"Your ladyship has not ordered me to do so," I replied.

"Oh! don't stand on ceremony," said she, continuing to eat with great zest.

The pie had such an alluring look and such a delicious odor that I listened to the philosophical arguments of common sense. I placed another partridge on another Japanese plate, which I rested on the keyboard of the piano, and began to eat with as much gusto as the signora.

"If this is not the castle of the Sleeping Beauty," I thought, "and if this cruel fairy is not the only living being in it, we shall soon see an uncle or a father or an aunt or a governess, or somebody who is supposed, in the eyes of honest folk, to serve as chaperon to this untamed creature. In case of any such apparition, I should like to know just how far this eccentric fashion of breakfasting on a piano, tête-à-tête with the young lady of the house, will be considered seemly. It matters little after all; I must find out just where these extravagant whims are likely to carry me, and if there is a woman's spite behind them, I will have my turn if I have to wait ten years."

As I reflected thus I watched my fair hostess over the piano. She was eating with superhuman appetite, and seemed to be in no wise possessed by the idiotic mania which young ladies have of eating only in secret, and pressing their lips together at table with a sentimental air, as if they were of a nature superior to ours. Lord Byron had not yet introduced the fashion of lack of appetite among the fair sex. So that my capricious signora abandoned herself with all her heart to the enjoyment of feasting, and in a few moments she returned to me and took a fillet of hare and a pheasant's wing from the dismantled pie. She looked at me without a smile, and said sententiously: "This east wind gives me an appetite."

"It seems that your ladyship is blessed with an excellent digestive apparatus," I observed.

"If one had not a good stomach at fifteen," she replied, "it would be as well to throw up the sponge."

"Fifteen!" I cried, looking at her closely and dropping my fork.

"Fifteen years and two months," she replied, returning to her hassock with her freshly-filled plate; "my mother is not yet thirty-two, and she married again last year. Tell me, isn't it strange that a mother should marry before her daughter? To be sure, if my darling little mother had chosen to wait for me to be married, she would have had to wait a long while. Who would ever marry a girl who, although she is beautiful, is _stupid_ beyond anything one can imagine?"

There was so much merriment and good-humor in the serious air with which she made fun of me; she was such a pretty _loustig_, that tall girl with the black eyes and the long curls falling over a neck as white as alabaster; her manner of sitting on her cushion was so graceful yet so chaste in its perfect naturalness, that all my suspicion and all my evil designs vanished. I had determined to empty the decanter of wine in order to put my scruples to sleep. I pushed the decanter away, and, having satisfied my appetite, rested my elbow on the piano and began to study her anew, and under a new aspect. That revelation as to her age had thrown all my ideas into confusion. When I have desired to form an opinion concerning a person, especially one of the fair sex, I have always considered it a matter of the utmost importance to ascertain that person's age as nearly as possible. Subtlety increases so rapidly in women that six months more or less often make the difference between the innocence which is deviltry and the deviltry which is innocence. Until then I had imagined that La Grimani was at least twenty years old. She was so tall and strong and dark, and there was so much self-assurance in her glance, in her bearing, in her every movement, that everybody made the same mistake at first sight. But on examining her more closely I realized my error. Her shoulders were broad and powerful, but her breast was still undeveloped. Although her whole attitude was womanly there were certain little ways and certain expressions of the face which revealed the child. Nothing more was needed than that hearty appetite, that total absence of coquetry, and the audacious impropriety of the tête-à-tête she had arranged to have with me, to make it clear to my eyes that I had to do, not as I had supposed at first, with a proud and crafty woman of the world, but with a mischievous boarding-school girl, and I thrust aside with horror the idea of abusing her imprudence.

I remained for a long while absorbed in this scrutiny, forgetting to reply to the significant challenge I had received. She looked at me earnestly, and I no longer thought of avoiding her glance, but of analyzing it. She had the loveliest eyes in the world, flush with her face, and very wide open; their glance was always sharp and direct, and grasped its object instantly. It was imperious but not overbearing, a very rare thing in a woman. It was the revelation and the expression of a fearless, proud, and sincere mind. It questioned all things with an air of authority, and seemed to say: "Conceal nothing from me: for I have nothing to conceal from anybody."

When she saw that I did not shrink from her gaze, she was startled but not frightened; and, rising abruptly, she invited the explanation which I desired to propose.

"Signor Lelio," she said, "if you have finished your breakfast, you will kindly tell me why you came here."

"I will obey you, signora," I replied, picking up her plate and glass, which she had left on the floor, and carrying them back to the piano; "but I beg your ladyship to tell me whether the piano-tuner shall answer you sitting at the instrument, or whether the actor Lelio shall stand before you, hat in hand, ready to retire after he has had the honor to talk with you."

"Signor Lelio will kindly sit in this chair," she said, pointing to one on the right hand of the fire-place, "and I in this," she added, taking her seat on the left side, facing me and about ten feet away.

"Signora," I said, as I sat down, "in order to obey you I must go back a little. About two months ago I was playing in _Romeo and Juliet_ at San Carlo. There was in one of the proscenium boxes----"

"I can refresh your memory," interposed La Grimani. "There was in one of the proscenium boxes on the right of the stage a young woman whom you considered beautiful; but on looking at her more closely, it seemed to you that her face was so devoid of expression that you shouted to one of the ladies on the stage, loud enough to be overheard by the young woman in question----"

"In heaven's name! signora," I interrupted, "do not repeat the words that escaped from me in my delirium, and let me tell you that I am subject to attacks of nervous irritation which make me almost insane. When I am in that condition everything offends me, everything causes me intense suffering----"

"I do not ask why it was your pleasure to announce so concisely your judgment of the young woman in the box; I simply ask you for the rest of the story."

"In order to be perfectly truthful and coherent, I must insist upon the prologue. Under the influence of a first attack of fever, the beginning of a serious illness from which I have hardly recovered, I fancied that I could read profound contempt and frigid irony on the incomparably lovely face of the young lady in the proscenium box. I was annoyed at first, then seriously disturbed, and at last completely upset, so that I lost my head and yielded to a brutal impulse in order to put an end to the fatal spell which benumbed all my faculties and paralyzed me at the most powerful and most important part of my rôle. Your ladyship must forgive me for an act of madness; I believe in magnetism, especially on those days when I am ill and when my brain is as weak as my legs. I fancied that the young lady in the box had an injurious influence over me; and during the cruel disease which took full possession of me on the day following my offence, I will confess that she often appeared in my delirium; but always haughty, always threatening, and promising me that I should pay dearly for the blasphemy that fell from my lips. Such, signora, is the first part of my story."

I made ready my shield to ward off a volley of epigrams by way of comment on this strange tale, which, although true, was most improbable, I must confess. But the young Grimani, gazing at me with a gentleness which I had no idea could be found in conjunction with her type of beauty, said to me, leaning a little heavily on the arm of her chair:

"Your face does in truth show signs of great suffering, Signor Lelio; and if I must confess the whole truth, when I recognized you yesterday, I said to myself that I must have observed you very carelessly on the stage; for you seemed to me then ten years younger; but to-day you seem no older than you did on the stage; but still I think that you look ill, and I am very, very sorry that I caused you any irritation."

I involuntarily moved my chair nearer to hers; whereupon she at once resumed her mocking and capricious tone.

"Let us pass to the second part of your story, Signor Lelio," she said, playing with her fan, "and be kind enough to tell me why, instead of avoiding the person the sight of whom is so hateful and prejudicial to you, you have come as far as this in pursuit of her."

"At this point the author finds himself in an embarrassing position," I replied, pushing back my chair, which moved very easily at the slightest turn in the conversation. "Shall I tell you that chance alone led me here? If I do, will your ladyship believe it? and if I say that it was not chance, will your ladyship tolerate such impertinence?"

"It matters very little to me," she rejoined, "whether it is chance, or magnetic attraction, as you will say, perhaps, that brings you to this neighborhood; I simply desire to know by what chance you became a piano-tuner?"

"The chance of inspiration, signora; a pretext to obtain admission to this house was all that I wanted."

"But why did you wish to be admitted to this house?"

"I will answer frankly if your ladyship will deign first to tell me what chance induced you to admit me, although you recognized me at the first glance?"

"The chance of caprice, Signor Lelio. I was bored to death here, alone with my cousin, or with a pious old aunt whom I hardly know; and while one is hunting and the other at church, I thought that I might venture to enliven by a mad freak the ghastly solitude in which I am left to pine away."

Once more my chair of its own motion approached hers, but I hesitated to take her hand. At that moment she seemed to me decidedly forward. There are some girls who are born women, and who are corrupt before they have lost their innocence.

"She is a child, beyond doubt," I thought, "but a child who is tired of being one, and I should be a great fool not to reply to allurements resorted to so coolly and boldly. Faith! I am sorry for the cousin! Why does he care more for hunting than for his kinswoman?"

But the signora paid no heed to the agitation that had laid hold of me. "Now the farce is at an end," she continued; "we have eaten my cousin's game and I have talked with an actor. I have fooled my aunt and my future spouse. Last week my cousin was furious because I praised you with what he considered too great warmth. Now, when he mentions you to me, and when my aunt says that the actors are all excommunicated in France, I will look at the floor with a modest and beatific expression, and laugh in my sleeve to think that I know Signor Lelio, and that I breakfasted with him, in this very room, without anyone's suspecting it. But now, Signor Lelio, you must tell me why you chose to obtain admission to this house by playing a false rôle?"

"Forgive me, signora--you just now said something which touched me deeply. You said, did you not, that you praised me last week with _great warmth_?"

"Oh! I only did it to make my cousin angry. I am not naturally enthusiastic."

When she flaunted me, it revived my zest for the adventure, and emboldened me.

"Since you are so frank with me, signora," I rejoined, "I will be equally frank with your ladyship. I sought admission to this house with the intention of atoning for my crime and humbly imploring the forgiveness of the divine beauty I blasphemed."

As I spoke, I slipped from my chair, and knelt at La Grimani's feet, and was very near taking possession of her lovely hands. She did not seem greatly moved by my action; but I saw that, to conceal a slight embarrassment, she pretended to be examining the Chinese mandarins whose gowns of purple and gold gleamed resplendent on her fan.

"Really, signor," she said, without looking at me, "you are very good to think that you owe me an apology. In the first place, if I have a stupid look, you are not at all to blame for noticing it; in the second place, if I have not, it is a matter of absolute indifference to me whether or not you are persuaded that I have."

"I swear by all the gods, and particularly by Apollo, that I said what I did only because I was angry or mad, or it may be because of a very different sentiment, which was then but just born and was already sowing confusion in my mind. I saw that you considered me detestable, and that you were not inclined to be at all indulgent to me; could I tranquilly resign myself to lose the only approbation which it would have been sweet and glorious for me to obtain? In a word, signora, I am here; I discovered your abode, and though I barely knew your name, I sought you, pursued you, and reached you in spite of distance and obstacles. I am here at your feet. Do you think that I would have surmounted such difficulties if I had not been tortured by remorse, not because of you, who justly disdain to consider the effect of your charms on a poor player like myself; but because of God, whose fairest work I insulted and undervalued?"

While I was speaking, I ventured to take one of her hands; but she suddenly sprang to her feet, saying:

"Rise, signor, rise! here is my cousin coming back from hunting."

Indeed, I had barely time to run to the piano and open it before Signor Ettore Grimani, in hunting costume and gun in hand, entered the room and deposited his well-filled game-bag at his cousin's feet.

"Oh! don't come so near me," said the signora; "you are horribly dirty, and all those bleeding creatures make me sick. Oh! Hector, go away, I beg, and take all these nasty great dogs with you; they smell of mud and soil the floor."

The cousin was fain to be content with that outburst of gratitude, and to go to his room and perfume himself at his leisure. But he had no sooner gone out than a sort of duenna appeared and informed the signora that her aunt had returned and wished to see her.

"I will go," La Grimani replied; "and do you, signor," she said, turning to me, "take this key away with you, as it is broken, and glue it firmly. You must bring it back to-morrow, and finish replacing the missing strings. I can count on you, signor? You will be sure to come?"

"Yes, signora, you may rely upon it," I replied; and I took my leave, carrying away the wrong key, which was not broken.

I was on hand promptly on the following day. But do not think, my friends, that I was in love with that young person; the utmost that can be said is that she attracted me. She was extremely lovely; but I saw her beauty with the eyes of the body, I did not feel it through the eyes of the soul; if, from time to time, I was on the point of falling in love with that childish petulance, my doubts soon returned, and I said to myself that a girl who lied so coolly to her cousin and her governess might well have lied to me; that, perhaps, she was twenty years old or more, as I had thought at first; and that it was quite likely that she had indulged in some previous escapades for which she had been secluded in that dull villa, with no other society than a pious old woman whose duty it was to scold her, and an excellent young cousin predestined to take upon his back, in his guilelessness, all her errors, past, present and to come.

I found her in the salon with the dear cousin and three or four hunting dogs, who came very near devouring me. The signora, who was nothing if not capricious, honored those noble beasts with very different treatment from that of the day before, and although they were hardly less dirty and disagreeable, she obligingly allowed them to lie, one by one, or all in a heap, on a large sofa of red velvet with gold fringe. From time to time she sat down in the midst of them, petting some and playfully teasing others.

Before long, I concluded that this revulsion of feeling toward the dogs was a bit of affectionate coquetry addressed to her cousin; for the fair-haired Signor Ettore seemed greatly flattered by it, and I don't know which he loved best, his cousin or his dogs.

She was bewilderingly vivacious, and she seemed to be keyed up to such a high pitch, the glances that she bestowed upon me in the mirror were so keen-edged, that I longed for the cousin's departure. And he did leave the room before long. The signora gave him an errand to do. She had to ask him several times, but he finally obeyed an imperious glance, accompanied by a: "Don't you propose to go?" uttered in a tone which he seemed altogether incapable of defying.

He had no sooner disappeared than I turned away from the piano and rose, looking in the signora's eyes to see whether I should go to her or wait for her to come to me. She, too, was standing, and seemed to be trying to read in my face what I was likely to do. But she gave me little encouragement, and as I fancied that her lips were partly open to give me a harsh lesson if I should be unlucky enough to lose my wits in that perilous engagement, I began to feel somewhat disturbed inwardly. I do not know why it was that that exchange of glances, at once alluring and distrustful, that effervescence of our whole being which kept us both as motionless as statues, that alternation of audacity and fear which paralyzed me at what was perhaps the decisive moment of my adventure, and even La Grimani's black velvet gown, and the bright sunlight which shone into the room through the dark curtains and expired in a fantastic blending of light and shadow at our feet--the hour, the burning atmosphere, and the restrained beating of my heart--all combined to bring vividly to my mind an analogous scene of my youth: Signora Bianca Aldini, in the shadow of her gondola, enchaining with a magnetic glance one of my feet on the shore of the Lido, the other on the boat. I felt the same mental bewilderment, the same inward agitation, the same desire, ready to give place to the same wrath. "Can it be," I thought, "that it was self-esteem that made me desire Bianca then, or is it love that makes me desire La Grimani to-day?"

It was not possible for me to rush forth into the fields, singing recklessly, as I had on that former occasion leaped ashore on the Lido, to revenge myself for a bit of innocent coquetry. There was no other course for me to adopt than to resume my seat, no other way for me to revenge myself than to begin again on the major fifth: _A-mi-la-E-si-mi_.

I must admit that that method of venting my spite could not afford me a signal triumph. An imperceptible smile fluttered about the corners of the signora's mouth when I bent my legs to sit down, and it seemed to me that I could read these pleasant words on her face: "Lelio you are a child."--But, when I abruptly rose again, ready to hurl the piano across the room and fly to her feet, I plainly read these terrible words in her black eye: "Signor, you are a madman."

"Signora Aldini," I reflected, "was twenty-two years old, I was fifteen or sixteen; now I am more than twenty-two. That Bianca should govern me absolutely was natural enough, but it is not natural that I should be made a fool of by this girl. So I must be cool."

I calmly resumed my seat, saying:

"Excuse me, signora, if I look at the clock. I cannot stay long, and this piano seems to be in sufficiently good condition for me to go about my business."

"In good condition!" she replied with unmistakable irritation. "You have put it in such good condition that I am afraid I can never play on it as long as I live. I am very angry about it. You undertook to tune it; you must do it, Signor Lelio, for your own reputation."

"Signora," I replied, "I care no more about tuning this piano than you do about playing on it. I obeyed your command to return, in order not to compromise you by putting an end to this pretence too suddenly. But your ladyship must understand that the jest cannot be prolonged forever; that by the third day it ceases to be amusing except to you, and that on the fourth it would be a little dangerous to me. I am neither so wealthy nor so renowned that I can afford to waste time. Will not your ladyship allow me to retire in a few moments; then a genuine tuner will come this afternoon and finish my work, saying that I am ill and have sent him in my place. I can find a substitute who will be grateful to me for providing him with a new customer, all without betraying our little secret, and without making myself known."

The signora did not say a word in reply; but she turned as pale as death, and again I felt that I was beaten. The cousin returned. I could not restrain a gesture of annoyance. The signora noticed it, and again she triumphed; and again, seeing that I did not propose to go, she amused herself by playing upon my inward agitation.

She became very rosy and animated once more. She plied her cousin with cajoleries which were so close to the line between affection and irony that soon neither he nor I knew what to think. Then she suddenly turned her back on him, and, coming to my side, requested me, in a low tone and with a mysterious air, to keep the piano a quarter of a tone below the pitch, because she had a contralto voice. Whom was she trying to impose upon--her cousin or myself--by telling me that great secret as if it were a matter of such importance? I was on the point of going up to Hector and shaking hands with him, for we seemed to me to cut an equally foolish and laughable figure. But I saw that the excellent youth attached more importance to the matter than I did, and he cast a sidelong glance at me with such a profound and crafty expression, that I had much difficulty in refraining from laughter. I answered La Grimani, under my breath and with a still more confidential air:

"I have anticipated your wishes, signora, and the piano is just in tune with the orchestra at San Carlo, where they lowered the pitch last season because of my cold."

Thereupon, the signora took her cousin's arm with a theatrical gesture, and hurriedly led him into the garden. As they walked back and forth in front of the house, and I could see their shadows on the curtain, I took my stand behind the curtain and listened to their conversation.

"That is exactly what I wanted to say to you, my dear cousin," the signora was saying. "This man has a strange, terrifying face; he has no idea what a piano is, and he will never finish tuning it. You will see! He is a mere adventurer, mark my words. We must keep our eyes on him, and do you hold your watch in your hand when he comes near you. I would take my oath that when I leaned over the piano, unsuspectingly, to tell him to lower the pitch, he put out his hand to steal my gold chain."

"Nonsense! you are joking, cousin! It is impossible that a thief should be so bold. That isn't what I want to say to you at all, and you pretend not to understand me."

"I pretend, Hector? You accuse me of pretending? I pretend! Come, tell me if you really think you are worth the trouble it would give me to make up a falsehood?"

"This severity is quite useless, cousin. It seems at all events that I am worth the trouble of seeking an opportunity to make humiliating speeches to me."

"But what are you talking about, I would ask, cousin? And why do you say that this man----"

"I say that this man is not a piano-tuner, that he is not tuning your piano, that he never tuned a piano in his life. I say that he never takes his eye off you, that he watches your every movement, that he breathes in every word you speak. I say that he must have seen you somewhere, at Naples or Florence, at the theatre or driving, and that he fell in love with you."

"And gained admittance here, _in disguise_, to see me, and perhaps to seduce me, the scoundrel, the villain!"

Having said thus much with great vehemence, the signora threw herself back on a bench, laughing uproariously. As I saw the cousin stalking toward the door of the salon, apparently in a furious passion, I returned to my post, and, arming myself with my tuning hammer, resolved to strike him down with it if he should attempt to insult me; for I had already set him down as one of the men who arrange matters so as to avoid fighting, and who call their servants when one challenges them within hearing of the antechamber.

"He will fall dead before he pulls that bell-rope," I thought, as I grasped the hammer and cast a rapid glance about me. But my adventure did not long retain this dramatic aspect. I saw the signora and her cousin, arm-in-arm once more, walking on the terrace, and pausing from time to time at the half-open glass door to look at me, she with a mocking, he with an embarrassed air. I no longer knew what they were saying to each other, and my wrath rose higher and higher in my throat.

Suddenly a pretty soubrette joined them on the terrace. The signora spoke to her with much animation, now laughing, now assuming an imperious tone. The soubrette seemed to hesitate; the cousin seemed to be urging the signora to do nothing extravagant. At last the maid came to me in some confusion, and said, blushing to the roots of her hair:

"Signor, the signora bids me say to you, in so many words, that you are an insolent person, and that you would do much better to tune the piano than to stare at her as you are doing. Pardon me, signor. I am very sure that it is a jest."

"And I take it as such," I replied; "but say to the signora that I present my profound respects to her, and that I beg her not to think me insolent enough to stare at her. I was not so much as thinking of her, and if I must tell you the truth, it was you, my lovely maid, whom I saw out in the field, and who engrossed me so that I forgot to go on with my work."

"I, signor," said the soubrette, blushing more hotly than ever, and hanging her head in her embarrassment. "How could I engross the signor?"

"Because you are a hundred times prettier than your mistress," I said, putting my arm about her and giving her a kiss before she had time to suspect my purpose.

She was a pretty village girl, the signora's foster sister. She too was dark and tall and slender, but timid in her manner, and as artless and gentle in her bearing as her young mistress was cunning and determined. She was thrown into such confusion by being embraced so unceremoniously before the signora, who had come to the door of the salon, followed by her idiotic cousin, that she fled, hiding her face in her blue apron with silver border. The signora, who was equally surprised to find that I took her impertinence so philosophically, stepped back, and the cousin, who had seen nothing, repeated several times the question: "What is it? What's the matter?"

The poor girl would not pause in her flight to reply, and the signora laughed a forced laugh which I pretended not to notice.

A few moments later she reappeared alone. Her face wore an expression which was meant to be severe, but was really confused and distressed.

"It is lucky for us both, signor," she said in a voice that trembled slightly, "that my cousin is simple-minded and gullible; for you must know that he is of a jealous and quarrelsome disposition."

"Really, signora?" I replied, gravely.

"Do not laugh at me, signor," she retorted angrily. "One may be easily deceived when one loves; but the name of Grimani stands for personal courage."

"I do not doubt it, signora," I replied in the same tone.

"I beg you, therefore, signor," she continued, still speaking with involuntary vehemence, "not to come here again; for all this jesting might end badly."

"That is as you please, signora," I replied, as imperturbably as before.

"It is evident, however, signor, that you find it very amusing; for you do not seem disposed to put an end to it."

"If I amuse myself, signora, it is by way of being obedient, as we all amuse ourselves in Italy under the reign of Napoleon the Great. I wished to retire an hour ago, and it was you who forbade it."

"I forbade it? Do you dare to say that I forbade it?"

"I intended to say, signora, that you did not think of it; for I expected that you would give me some sort of a plausible pretext for taking my leave in the midst of my task; and, for my own part, it was impossible for me to imagine such a pretext. It would be so entirely unnatural in the present condition of the piano, and I am so firmly resolved to do nothing that can possibly compromise you, that I will return to-morrow."

"You will do nothing of the kind."

"I beg your ladyship's pardon, I will return to-morrow."

"For what purpose, signor? And by what right?"

"I will return to gratify Signor Ettore's curiosity, for he is very much puzzled to know who I am; and I will return because you have yourself given me the right to face the man with whom you were pleased to make merry at my expense."

"Is that a threat, Signor Lelio?" she asked, concealing her fright beneath the cloak of pride.

"No, signora. A man who does not falter before another man is not of the threatening sort."

"But my cousin said nothing to you, signor; I did all this jesting against his will."

"But he is jealous and quarrelsome. Moreover, he is brave. Now, I am not jealous, signora, I have neither the right nor the desire to be. But I am quarrelsome, and it may be too that, although my name is not Grimani, I am a brave man; what do you know about it?"

"Oh! I have no doubt of it, Lelio!" she cried, in a tone that made me quiver from head to foot, it was so entirely different from what I had been hearing for two or three days.

I looked at her in amazement; she lowered her eyes with an air at once modest and proud. Once again I was disarmed.

"Signora," I said, "I will do whatever you choose, as you choose, and nothing that you do not choose."

She hesitated a moment.

"You cannot come again as a piano-tuner," said she; "if you do, you will compromise me, for my cousin will certainly tell my aunt that he suspects you of being a libertine in search of adventures; and, when my aunt hears it, she will tell my mother. And let me tell you Signor Lelio, that there is only one person in the world for whom I care in the least, and that is my mother; that there is only one thing in the world that I dread, and that is my mother's displeasure. And yet she brought me up very badly, as you see; she spoiled me shockingly; but she is so dear, so sweet, so loving, so sad--She loves me so dearly--if you only knew!"

A great tear glistened in the signora's black eye; she tried for some time to hold it back, but at last it fell on her hand. Deeply moved, assailed and overthrown by the formidable little god with whom one cannot afford to trifle, I put my lips to that lovely hand and greedily drank that sweet tear, a subtle poison which kindled a flame in my bosom. I heard the cousin returning, and, rising hurriedly, I said:

"_Addio_, signora, I will obey you blindly, I swear upon my honor; if your cousin insults me, I will swallow his insults; I will play a coward's part rather than cause you to shed a second tear."

With that I bowed to the ground and left the room. The cousin did not seem to me so bellicose as she had depicted him; for he saluted me first when I passed him. I walked slowly from the house, depressed beyond words; for I was in love, and I must not return. On becoming sincere, my love became generous.

I turned several times to catch a glimpse of the signora's velvet dress, but she had disappeared. As I was passing through the gate of the park, I saw her in a narrow path which followed the wall on the inside. She had run, in order to reach that point as soon as I did, and when I spied her she strove to assume a slow and pensive gait; but she was all out of breath and her lovely black hair was disarranged by the branches she had hurriedly thrust aside as she ran through the underbrush. I started to join her, but she made a sign to indicate that somebody was following her. I tried to pass through the gate, but I could not make up my mind to do it. Thereupon, she waved her hand to bid me farewell, accompanying the gesture with an unutterable glance and smile. At that moment she was more beautiful than I had ever seen her.

I placed one hand on my heart, the other on my forehead, and hurried away, mad with joy and love. I had seen the branches moving just behind the signora; but, there as elsewhere, the cousin arrived too late. I had disappeared.

I found in my room a letter from Checchina. "I had started to join you," she wrote, "and to rest a while from the fatigues of the stage in the pleasant shade of Cafaggiolo. I was upset at San Giovanni; I have nothing worse than a few bruises, but my carriage is broken. The bungling workmen in this village say they must have three days to repair it. Take your calèche and come and fetch me, unless you wish me to die of ennui in this muleteers' tavern."

I set out an hour later and reached San Giovanni at daybreak.

"How does it happen that you are alone?" I asked, trying to escape from her long arms and her sisterly embraces, which had become unendurable to me since my illness, because of the perfumes with which she saturated herself beyond all reason, whether because she fancied that she was imitating the great ladies, or because she loved passionately anything that appeals to the senses.

"I have had a row with Nasi," she said; "I have left him, and I don't want to hear any more about him!"

"It can't be very serious," I replied, "as you are on your way to take up your quarters in his house."

"On the contrary, it is very serious; for I have forbidden him to follow me."

"And apparently you intended to deprive him of the means of doing so, when you took his carriage to run away in, and broke it on the road."

"It's his own fault, for I had to keep urging the postilions. Why has he adopted the bad habit of following me? I would have liked to be killed by the accident, and have him arrive in time to see me die, and to learn what it is to thwart a woman like me."

"That is to say, a mad woman. But you will not have the pleasure of dying for revenge, in the first place, because you are not hurt, and secondly, because he has not run after you."

"Oh! he probably passed through here last night without suspecting that I was here, and you must have met him on your way. We will go and join him at Cafaggiolo."

"He is just crazy enough for that."

"If I were perfectly sure of it, I would like to remain here in hiding a week, just to worry him and make him think that I have gone to France, as I threatened to do."

"As you please, my dear: I salute you and leave my carriage at your service. For my own part, I have little liking for this region and this inn."

"If you were not a dolt, you would avenge me, Lelio!"

"Thanks! I have not been insulted; nor you either, I fancy."

"Oh! I have been mortally insulted, Lelio!"

"I suppose he refused to give you twenty thousand francs' worth of white gloves, and insisted on giving you diamonds worth fifty thousand instead; something like that, no doubt?"

"No, no, Lelio; he wants to marry!"

"Provided that he doesn't want to marry you, that is a most pardonable desire."

"And the most horrible part of it is that he had an idea that he could induce me to consent to his marriage and still retain my good graces. After such an insult, would you believe that he had the audacity to offer me a million, on condition that I would allow him to marry, and that I would remain faithful to him!"

"A million! the devil! that is at least the fortieth million I have known of you refusing, my poor Checchina. The millions you have spurned would be enough to keep the whole royal family!"

"You are always joking, Lelio. The day will come when you will see that, if I had chosen, I might have been a queen like some other women. Are Napoleon's sisters any more beautiful than I am? Have they more talent, more wit, more spirit? Ah! how well I could manage a kingdom!"

"Almost as well as you could keep books by double entry in a business house. Upon my word! you have put on your wrapper wrong side before, and you are wiping tears from your lovely eyes with one of your silk stockings. Put aside these ambitious dreams for a moment, dress yourself, and let us be off."

As we returned to the villa at Cafaggiolo, by dint of allowing my travelling companion to give a free rein to her heroic declamations, her digressions and her boasting, I succeeded, not without difficulty, in finding out that honest Nasi had been fascinated at a ball by a lovely young person, and had asked her hand in marriage; that he had gone to Checchina to inform her of his determination; that, as she had adopted the expedient of fainting and going into convulsions, he had been so dismayed by the violence of her despair, that he had begged her to consent to a middle course and to remain his mistress in spite of his marriage. Thereupon Checchina, seeing that he was weakening, had haughtily refused to share her lover's heart and purse. She had ordered post-horses, and had signed, or pretended to sign, an engagement with the Opera at Paris. The easy-going Nasi had been unable to endure the thought of giving up a woman whom he was not sure that he had ceased to adore, for a woman whom he was not sure that he had begun to adore. He had begged the singer's forgiveness; he had retracted his offer of marriage, and had ceased his attentions to the illustrious beauty, whose name Checchina did not know. Checchina had allowed herself to be prevailed upon; but she had learned indirectly, on the day following this great sacrifice, that Nasi was entitled to no great credit therefor, inasmuch as, between the scene of frenzied despair and the reconciliation, his offer of marriage had been rejected, and he had been cast aside in favor of a happy rival. Checchina, wounded to the quick, had left Naples, leaving a withering letter for the count, in which she declared that she would never see him again; and, taking the road to France--for all roads lead to Paris as well as to Rome--she hastened to Cafaggiolo to wait until her lover should come in pursuit of her, and place his body across her path to prevent her from proceeding farther with a vengeance of which she was beginning to be a little weary.

All this was not mere vulgar and avaricious scheming on Checchina's part. She loved opulence, it is true, and could not do without it; but she had such implicit faith in her destiny, and was naturally so audacious, that she constantly risked the good fortune of one day for that of the morrow. She passed the Rubicon every morning, confident of finding on the other bank a more flourishing realm than the one she left behind. Thus there was nothing base and low-minded in this feminine trickery, because there was in it no element of fear. She did not play at grief; she made neither false promises nor hypocritical prayers. In her moments of vexation she had genuine paroxysms of nervous excitement. Why were her lovers so credulous as to mistake the vehemence of her anger for the result of profound grief resisted by pride? Is it not our own fault when we are duped by our own vanity?

Moreover, even if Checchina did play a bit at tragedy in her boudoir, in order to preserve her empire, she had an ample excuse in the absolute sincerity of her conduct. I have never known a woman more fearlessly frank, more faithful to lovers who were faithful to her, more reckless in her admissions when she revenged herself in kind, more incapable of recovering her power by means of a falsehood. To be sure her love was not strong enough for that, and no man seemed to her to be worth the trouble of putting constraint upon herself and of humiliating herself in her own eyes by prolonged dissembling. I have often thought that women are very foolish to demand so much frankness when we are so far from appreciating the merit of fidelity, I have often learned by my own experience that one must have more passion to carry out a falsehood, than courage to tell the truth. It is so easy to be sincere with persons one does not love! It is so pleasant to be sincere with those whom one has ceased to love!

This simple reflection will explain why it was impossible for me to love Checchina for long, and also why it was impossible for me not to esteem her always, despite her insolent outbreaks and her immeasurable ambition. I soon found out that she was a detestable mistress and an excellent friend; and then, too, there was a sort of poetic charm in that adventuress-like energy, in that disregard for wealth inspired by the very love of wealth, in that incredible conceit, always crowned by even more incredible success. She was forever comparing herself favorably to Napoleon's sisters, and making herself out the equal of Napoleon himself. That was amusing and not too ridiculous. In her own sphere she was as bold and as fortunate as the great conqueror. She never had for lovers any but young, handsome, rich and honorable men; and I do not believe that a single one of them ever complained of her after leaving or losing her; for in reality she had a great and noble heart. She could always atone for a thousand foolish and mischievous exploits by one decisive display of strength of character and kindness of heart. In a word, she was brave, both morally and physically, and people of that temperament are always good for something, wherever they may be and whatever they may do.

"My poor child," I said to her as we drove along, "you will be nicely caught if Nasi takes you at your word and lets you start for France."

"There's no danger of that," she said with a smile, forgetting that she had just told me that she would not for anything in the world allow herself to be softened by his submission.

"But suppose that does happen, what will you do? You have nothing in the world, and you are not in the habit of keeping the gifts of your lovers when you part. That is what makes me esteem you a little bit, despite all your faults. Come, tell me, what is going to become of you?"

"I shall be very sorry," she replied; "yes, really, Lelio, I shall regret it; for Nasi is an excellent fellow, he has a big heart. I will bet that I shall weep for--I don't know how long! But after all, one either has a destiny or one hasn't. If it is God's will that I go to France, it would seem to be because I am likely to have no more luck in Italy. If I am parted from that dear, affectionate lover of mine, I have no doubt that it is because a more devoted and more courageous man is waiting yonder for me, to marry me, and prove to the world that love is superior to all prejudices. Mark my words, Lelio, I shall be a princess, perhaps a queen. An old fortune-teller of Malamocco predicted it in my horoscope when I was only four years old, and I have always believed it: a proof that it must be so!"

"A conclusive proof," I rejoined, "an unanswerable argument! Queen of Barataria, I salute you!"

"What is Barataria? Is it Cimarosa's new opera?"

"No, it is the name of the star that presides over your destiny."

We arrived at Cafaggiolo and did not find Nasi there.

"Your star is waning, fortune is abandoning you," I said to the girl from Chioggia.

She bit her lips and replied at once, with a smile:

"There is always a mist on the lagoons before sunrise. In any event we must keep up our strength and so be prepared for the blows of destiny."

As she spoke, she took her seat at the table and ate almost the whole of a pope's eye stuffed with truffles; after which she slept twelve hours without a break, passed three hours at her toilet, and sparkled with wit and nonsense until evening. Nasi did not appear.

For my own part, amid the merriment and animation which that excellent girl had brought into my solitude, I was absorbed by the memory of my adventure at the Grimani villa, and tortured by the longing to see my fair patrician once more. But how was I to do it? I cudgelled my brain to no purpose to invent some means which would not compromise her. When I left her I had sworn to do nothing imprudent. As I reviewed in my mind my impressions of those last moments, when she had appeared in such an artless and touching aspect, I felt that I could not act inconsiderately with respect to her without forfeiting my own esteem. I dared not make inquiries concerning her friends, still less concerning her domestic arrangements. I had refrained from making acquaintances in the neighborhood, and now I almost regretted that I had done so; for I might have learned by accident what I dared not ask directly. The servant who waited upon me was a Neapolitan who had come with me, and, like myself, had never been in that region before. The gardener was stupid and deaf. An old care-taker, in charge of the villa since Nasi's childhood, might perhaps have enlightened me; but I was afraid to question her, for she was inquisitive and loquacious. She was much disturbed to know where I went; and, during the three days that I had failed to bring her any game or to give an account of my rambles, she was so wrought up that I trembled lest she should discover my romance. The bare mention of a name might put her on the track. So I was very careful not to pronounce it. I did not wish to go to Florence; I was too well known there; if I showed my face there, I was certain to be overwhelmed with visits. The unhealthy and misanthropical frame of mind which had caused me to seek the solitude of Cafaggiolo, had led me likewise to conceal my name and profession from the very servants in the house as well as from the neighbors. It was necessary now for me to guard my _incognito_ more closely than ever; for I supposed that the count would soon arrive, and that his fancy for marriage would lead him to desire to bury in mystery Checchina's presence in his house.