Chapter IX (1)

Thereupon I flew away, always weeping; and the wind, which is the Fate of birds, bore me to a branch in Morfontaine. This time they were all in bed.--” What a marriage!” I said to myself, “What a business! No doubt it was with a good intention that the poor child made herself white; but I am none the less to be pitied, and she is none the less russet.”

The nightingale was singing again. Alone, in the bosom of the night, he was enjoying whole-heartedly his divine gift, which makes him so superior to the poets, and was uttering his thought freely to the silence that surrounded him. I could not resist the temptation of going up to him and addressing him.

“How happy you are!” I said to him. “Not only do you sing as much as you wish, and very well, too, and all the world listens to you; but you have a wife and children, your nest, your friends, a good pillow of moss, full moon, and no newspapers. Rubini and Rossini are nothing compared to you: you are as good as the one, and you anticipate the other. I too have sung, sir, and it was pitiable. I have drawn up words in serried rows like so many Prussian soldiers, I have strung stale commonplaces together, while you were in the wood. Is your secret to be discovered?”

“Yes,” the nightingale replied to me, “but it is not what you imagine. My wife bores me, I do not love her at all; I am in love with the rose; Sadi the Persian has mentioned it. I sing myself hoarse for her all night long, but she sleeps and does not hear me. Her chalice is shut at the present moment: she is nursing an old beetle in it--and to-morrow morning, when I reach my bed worn out with suffering and fatigue, then she will spread herself out to let a bee devour her heart!”

VANINA VANINI;

OR, PARTICULARS OF THE LAST LODGE OF CARBONARI DISCOVERED IN
THE PAPAL STATES

“STENDHAL” (HENRY BEYLE)

One evening in the spring of 182- all Rome was in a stir: the Duke of B----, the famous banker, was giving a ball at his new palace in the Piazza Venezia. The utmost magnificence that the arts of Italy and the luxury of Paris and London could produce had been brought together to embellish the palace. The throng was immense. The blonde, reserved beauties of noble England had solicited the honour of being present at this ball; they arrived in crowds. The handsomest women in Rome disputed the prize of beauty with them. A young girl, whom the brilliance of her eyes and her ebon hair proclaimed a Roman, entered escorted by her father; all eyes followed her. A singular pride shone in all her movements.

The strangers as they entered were visibly impressed by the magnificence of the ball. “None of the fêtes of the kings of Europe comes anywhere near this,” they said.

The kings have not a palace of Roman architecture: they are obliged to invite the great ladies of their courts; the Duke of B---- only invites pretty women. That evening he had been happy in his invitations; the men seemed dazzled. Among so many remarkable women the difficulty was to decide who was the handsomest. The choice for some time remained undecided; but at last the Princess Vanina Vanini, the young girl with the black hair and the eye of fire, was proclaimed queen of the ball. At once the strangers and the young men of Rome, abandoning all the other saloons, formed a crowd in the one where she was.

Her father, Prince Asdrubale Vanini, had wished her to dance first with two or three German sovereigns. After that she accepted the invitations of some Englishmen, very handsome and very noble; their air of solemnity wearied her. She evidently found more pleasure in tormenting young Livio Savelli, who seemed deeply in love. He was the most magnificent young man in Rome, and, what was more, he too was a prince; but, if you had given him a novel to read, he would have thrown the volume away after twenty pages, saying that it gave him a headache. That was a disadvantage in Vanina’s eyes.

About midnight a piece of news spread through the ball and produced a great stir. A young carbonaro, who had been confined in the Castle of Sant’ Angelo, had just escaped that very night by means of a disguise; and, with an excess of romantic daring, on arriving at the last ward of the prison, he had attacked the soldiers with a poniard; but he himself had been wounded; the police were tracking him through the streets by his blood, and they hoped to find him.

As this anecdote was being told, Don Livio Savelli, dazzled by the graces and the triumphs of Vanina, with whom he had just been dancing, said to her as, almost beside himself with love, he led her back to her place:

“But, really, who could please you?”

“That young carbonaro who has just escaped,” Vanina answered him; “he at least has done something more than take the trouble of being born.”

Prince Don Asdrubale came up to his daughter. He was a rich man, who for the last twenty years had not taken reckoning with his steward, who lent him his own revenues at a very high rate of interest. If you met him in the street, you would have taken him for an old actor; you would not have observed that his hands were ornamented with five or six enormous rings set with big diamonds. His two sons had become Jesuits and afterwards died insane. He had forgotten them; but he was vexed that his only daughter Vanina would not marry. She was now nineteen, and had refused the most brilliant matches. What was her reason? The same as Sulla’s for abdicating: _her contempt for the Romans_.

The day after the ball, Vanina noticed that her father, the most careless of men, who had never in his life taken the trouble to carry a key, very carefully shut the door of a little stair which led to some rooms on the third floor of the palace. The windows of these rooms looked on to a terrace adorned with orange-trees. Vanina went to pay some visits in Rome; on her return, the main entrance of the palace was blocked by the preparations for an illumination, so the carriage went in by the courts at the back. Vanina looked up, and saw to her astonishment that one of the windows of the rooms which her father had shut with such care was open. She got rid of her companion, climbed to the top of the palace, and searched about until she found a little grated window, which gave a view of the terrace ornamented with orange-trees. The open window that she had noticed was close beside her. That room must certainly be occupied; but by whom? Next day, Vanina managed to obtain the key of a little door which opened on to the terrace ornamented with orange-trees.

She stealthily approached the window, which was still open. A sun-shutter helped to cover it. Inside the room was a bed and some one in the bed. Her first impulse was to withdraw; but she caught sight of a woman’s dress thrown on a chair. Looking more closely at the person in the bed, she saw that she was fair and apparently very young. She had no more doubt about its being a woman. The dress thrown down on the chair was stained with blood; there was blood on the woman’s shoes, too, laid on a table. The stranger moved; Vanina perceived that she was wounded. A large cloth, spotted with blood, covered her breast; the cloth was only kept on with ribbons; it was no surgeon’s hand that had fixed it so. Vanina noticed that every day, about four o’clock, her father shut himself up in his room, then went to see the stranger; he soon came downstairs again, and took the carriage to visit the Countess Vitteleschi. Immediately he had gone, Vanina climbed up to the little terrace from which she could see the stranger. Her feelings were actively excited in favour of this most unfortunate young woman; she tried to guess at her adventure. The blood-stained dress thrown on a chair seemed to have been pierced with dagger-thrusts. Vanina could count the rents. One day she saw the stranger more distinctly: her blue eyes were gazing towards heaven; she seemed to be praying. Soon tears filled her lovely eyes; the young princess could scarcely refrain from speaking to her. The next day Vanina summoned up courage to hide herself in the little terrace before her father arrived. She saw Don Asdrubale go into the stranger’s room; he carried a little basket containing provisions. The prince seemed to be disturbed and did not say much. He spoke so low that, although the sash of the window was open, Vanina could not make out what he said. He went away immediately.

“The poor woman must have some very terrible enemies,” said Vanina to herself, “that my father, who is usually so careless, dares not trust anybody, and takes the trouble of climbing a hundred and twenty steps every day.”

One evening when Vanina softly advanced her head in the direction of the stranger’s window, she met her eyes, and all was discovered. Vanina fell on her knees, and exclaimed:

“I love you; I am at your service!”

The stranger signed to her to come in.

“I owe you many apologies!” exclaimed Vanina. “How offensive my foolish curiosity must seem to you! I swear secrecy, and, if you insist on it, I shall never return.”

“Who would not be happy to see you?” said the stranger. “Do you live in this palace?”

“Of course,” replied Vanina; “but I see you do not know me; I am Vanina, Don Asdrubale’s daughter.”

The stranger looked at her in astonishment, blushed deeply, and then added:

“Permit me to hope that you will come and see me every day; but I should like the prince not to know of your visits.”

Vanina’s heart beat fast; the stranger’s manners seemed to her full of distinction. This poor young woman had no doubt offended some powerful person. Had she, perhaps, in a moment of jealousy, killed her lover? Vanina could not conceive of a commonplace reason for her misfortune. The stranger told her that she had received a wound in the shoulder, which had penetrated to her chest and was causing her much suffering. She often found her mouth full of blood.

“Yet you have no surgeon?” exclaimed Vanina.

“You are aware,” said the stranger, “that at Rome the surgeons have to give the police an exact report of all the wounds that they treat. The prince condescends to bind up my wounds with his own hands, in the cloth which you see.”

With the most perfect grace, the stranger avoided any bemoaning over her accident; Vanina loved her to madness. One thing, however, astonished the young princess greatly, namely that, in the middle of a conversation which was certainly serious enough, the stranger had great difficulty in suppressing a sudden desire to laugh.

“I should be happy,” said Vanina, “to know your name.”

“They call me Clementine.”

“Well, dear Clementine, to-morrow at five o’clock I’ll come and see you.”

Next day, Vanina found her new friend very ill.

“I want to get a surgeon to you,” said Vanina, embracing her.

“I would rather die,” said the stranger. “Why should I wish to compromise my benefactors?”

“The surgeon to Monsignore Savelli-Catanzara, the governor of Rome, is the son of one of our servants,” Vanina replied eagerly; “he is devoted to us, and, in his position, is afraid of no one. My father does not do justice to his fidelity; I am going to send for him.”

“I don’t want any surgeon,” the stranger exclaimed, with a sharpness which surprised Vanina. “Come and see me; and, if God must call me to Himself, I shall die happy in your arms.”

Next day, the stranger was still worse.

“If you love me,” said Vanina, as she left her, “you’ll see a surgeon.”

“If he comes, my happiness is gone.”

“I’m going to send for one,” replied Vanina.

Without a word, the stranger detained her and took her hand, which she covered with kisses. There was a long silence; the stranger’s eyes were full of tears. At last she let go Vanina’s hand, and, with the air with which she might have gone to her death, said to her:

“I have a confession to make to you. The day before yesterday I told you a lie when I said I was Clementine; I am an unfortunate carbonaro----.”

Vanina, astonished, pushed back her chair and stood up at once.

“I am aware,” continued the carbonaro, “that this confession will cause me to lose the only good thing that attaches me to life; but it is unworthy of me to deceive you. I am called Pietro Missirilli; I am nineteen years old; my father is a poor surgeon at Sant’ Angelo in Vado, for my part I am a carbonaro. Our lodge was surprised; I was brought, in chains, from Romagna to Rome. Buried in a dungeon lighted night and day by a lamp, I passed thirteen months there. A charitable soul conceived the idea of rescuing me. They dressed me in women’s clothes. As I was coming out of prison and was passing the warders at the last door, one of them cursed the carbonari; I gave him a slap. I assure you that this was not a piece of vain bravado, but simply thoughtlessness. Pursued through the streets of Rome at night after this imprudence, wounded with bayonets, fast losing my strength, I rushed up the stairs of a mansion, the door of which was open; I heard the soldiers coming up after me; I sprang into the garden; I fell down only a few paces from a woman who was walking there.”

“The Countess Vitteleschi, my father’s friend!” said Vanina.

“What! Has she told you?” exclaimed Missirilli. “In any case, the lady, whose name must never be uttered, saved my life. As the soldiers came into her house to seize me, your father took me out of it in his carriage. I feel very ill; for some days this bayonet-wound in my shoulder has prevented me from breathing. I am going to die, in despair, too, because I shall not see you again.”

Vanina had listened with impatience; she went out hastily: Missirilli could discover no pity in her fine eyes; only the expression of a haughty character which had been wounded.

At night, a surgeon appeared; he was alone. Missirilli was in despair; he feared that he would never see Vanina again. He questioned the surgeon, who bled him and gave him no answer. The succeeding days, the same silence. Pietro’s eyes never left the terrace-window by which Vanina had been accustomed to enter; he was very unhappy. Once, about midnight, he thought he saw some one in the shadow on the terrace: was it Vanina?

Vanina came every night to press her cheek against the young carbonaro’s window-panes.

“If I speak to him,” she said to herself, “I am lost! No, I must not see him again!”

Having taken this resolution, she recalled, in spite of herself, the fondness which she had conceived for the young man when she so foolishly took him for a woman. And now, after so sweet an intimacy, she must forget him! In her more reasonable moments, Vanina was terrified at the change which had taken place in her thoughts. Since Missirilli had named himself, all the things she had been accustomed to think about were as if covered with a veil, and seemed very far away.

A week had not passed before Vanina, pale and trembling, entered the young carbonaro’s room with the surgeon. She came to tell him that the prince must be made to promise to let a servant take his place. She did not remain ten seconds; but some days afterwards she came back again with the surgeon, out of humanity. One night, though Missirilli was much better and Vanina had no longer the excuse of fearing for his life, she ventured to come alone. Nothing could exceed Missirilli’s happiness at seeing her, but he thought to conceal his love; above all, he did not wish to forget the dignity of a man. Vanina, who had come to his room covered with blushes and afraid she would have to listen to words of love, was disconcerted by the noble and devoted, but far from tender, friendliness with which he received her. She went away without his trying to detain her.

Some days after, when she returned, the same conduct, the same assurances of respectful devotion and eternal gratitude. So far from having to put a curb on the young carbonaro’s transports, Vanina asked herself if she alone was in love. This young girl, till then so proud, bitterly felt the extent of her folly. She affected gaiety, even coldness, came less often, but could not bring herself to cease seeing the young invalid.

Missirilli, burning with love, but remembering his obscure birth and his duty towards himself, had vowed never to descend to talking of love unless Vanina remained a week without seeing him. The young princess’s pride disputed every foot of the way.

“Well,” she said to herself at last, “if I see him, it is on my own account, it is for my amusement, and I will never avow the interest with which he inspires me.”

She paid long visits to Missirilli, who talked with her as he might have done if twenty people had been present. One night, after having spent the whole day in detesting him and promising herself to be even colder and severer than usual to him, she told him that she loved him. Soon she had nothing left to refuse him.

Though her folly was great, it must be owned that Vanina was perfectly happy. Missirilli had no more thought of what he considered due to his dignity as a man; he loved as they love for the first time at nineteen and in Italy. He had all the scruples of passionate love, even to the extent of acknowledging to the proud young princess the policy which he had employed to make her fall in love with him. He was astonished at the excess of his happiness. Four months passed only too quickly. One day the surgeon gave the invalid his liberty. “But what am I to do?” thought Missirilli. “Am I to remain in hiding under the roof of one of the handsomest women in Rome? And the vile tyrants who kept me thirteen months in prison without letting me see the light of day will think they have broken my spirit! Italy, thou art unfortunate indeed, if thy children abandon thee for so little!”

Vanina never doubted that Pietro’s greatest happiness would be to remain attached to her for ever; he seemed only too happy; but a saying of General Bonaparte rankled in the young man’s soul and influenced all his conduct towards women. In 1796, when General Bonaparte was leaving Brescia, the magistrates, who accompanied him to the gate of the town, said to him that the Brescians loved liberty more than all other Italians.

“Yes,” he answered, “they love to talk about it to their mistresses.”

Missirilli said to Vanina with some constraint:

“As soon as it is night, I must go out.”

“Take good care to be in the palace again before daybreak; I’ll wait for you.”

“At daybreak I’ll be several miles from Rome.”

“Indeed,” said Vanina coldly, “and where are you going to?”

“To Romagna, to take my revenge.”

“Seeing that I am rich,” Vanina said with the calmest air imaginable, “I hope that you will accept some arms and some money from me.”

Missirilli looked at her for a moment without moving a muscle; then, throwing himself into her arms:

“Soul of my soul, you make me forget everything else, even my duty. But, the nobler your heart is, the better you should understand me.”

Vanina wept copiously, and it was settled that he should not leave Rome for another two days yet.

“Pietro,” she said to him next day, “you have often told me that a well-known man, a Roman prince for example, who had command of plenty of money, could render great service to the cause of liberty, if ever Austria should be involved in any great war at a distance from us.”

“Undoubtedly,” said Pietro in astonishment.

“Well then, you have courage; all you lack is position: I am going to offer you my hand and two hundred thousand livres a year. I undertake to get my father’s consent.”

Pietro threw himself at her feet; Vanina was radiant with joy.

“I love you passionately,” he said; “but I am a poor servant of my country; and, the unhappier Italy is, the more faithful I must be to her. To obtain Don Asdrubale’s consent, I should have to play a sorry part for many years. Vanina, I refuse you.”

Missirilli was in a hurry to commit himself by this speech. His courage threatened to fail him.

“My misfortune,” he exclaimed, “is that I love you more than life, that to leave Rome is the worst of tortures for me. Ah! why is Italy not delivered from the barbarians? With what pleasure I should embark along with you to go and live in America!”

Vanina remained as if frozen. This refusal of her hand had astonished her pride; but soon she cast herself into Missirilli’s arms.

“You never seemed so dear to me as now,” she exclaimed; “yes, my little country surgeon, I am yours for ever. You are a great man, like our ancient Romans.”

All ideas of the future, all the gloomy suggestions of good sense disappeared; there was a moment of perfect love. When they were able to talk sensibly, Vanina said:

“I shall be in Romagna almost as soon as you. I’ll get sent to the baths at Poretta. I will stop at our castle at San Nicolo, near Forli----”

“There I’ll spend my life with you!” exclaimed Missirilli.

“My part in future is to dare everything,” Vanina resumed with a sigh. “I shall ruin myself for you, but what matter----. Could you love a woman who has lost her honour?”

“Are you not my wife?” said Missirilli, “and a wife always adored? I shall know how to love you and protect you.”

Vanina had to go and pay visits. Scarcely had she left Missirilli when he began to think his conduct barbarous.

“What is our _country_, after all?” he said to himself. “It is not a being to whom we owe any gratitude for any benefit, and who might be unhappy and curse us if we failed to be grateful. _Country_ and _liberty_ are like my cloak, a thing that is useful to me, that I must buy, no doubt, if I have not inherited it from my father; but after all I love country and liberty because these two things are useful to me. If I can do nothing with them, if they are no more use to me than a cloak in August, what is the good of buying them, at an enormous price too? Vanina is so beautiful! She has such a remarkable mind! People will seek to please her; she will forget me. What woman ever had only one lover? Those Roman princes, whom I despise as citizens, have such an advantage over me! They must be very lovable! Ah, if I go away, she will forget me, and I shall lose her for ever!”

In the middle of the night Vanina came to see him; he told her of the indecision in which he had been plunged, and the examination to which, because he loved her, he had subjected the great word _country_. Vanina was very happy.

“If he had to choose definitely between his country and me,” she said to herself, “the choice would fall on me.”

The clock of the neighbouring church struck three; the moment of their last farewells arrived. Pietro tore himself from the arms of his beloved. He was already descending the little stair, when Vanina, restraining her tears, said to him with a smile:

“If you had been tended by some poor countrywoman, would you not do something out of gratitude? Would you not try to repay her? The future is uncertain; you are going to travel amidst enemies; give me three days out of gratitude, as if I were a poor woman, and in repayment of my trouble.”

Missirilli remained. At last he quitted Rome. Thanks to a passport bought from a foreign embassy, he reached his home. There was great rejoicing; they had given him up for dead. His friends wished to celebrate his safe return by killing one or two carabineers, as the police in the Papal states are called.

“Do not let us kill an Italian that knows the use of arms, unless we are forced to,” said Missirilli; “our country is not an island, like happy England: we need soldiers to resist the intervention of the kings of Europe.”

Shortly afterwards, Missirilli, hard pressed by the carabineers, killed two of them with the pistols that Vanina had given him. A price was set on his head.

Vanina did not make her appearance in Romagna: Missirilli thought he was forgotten. His vanity was hurt; he began to dwell on the difference of rank which separated him from his mistress. In a moment of softening and regret for his past happiness, he took the notion of returning to Rome to see what Vanina was doing. This mad thought was on the point of prevailing over what he believed to be his duty, when one evening the bell of a mountain-church sounded the angelus in a strange fashion, as if the ringer were preoccupied. It was the signal for the meeting of the lodge of carbonari to which Missirilli had been affiliated on his arrival in Romagna. That same night, they all met in a certain hermitage in the woods. The two hermits, stupefied with opium, had no suspicion of the use that was being made of their little dwelling. Missirilli, who arrived very downcast, learned that the head of the lodge had been arrested, and that he, a young man of barely twenty, was to be elected head of a lodge which included men over fifty, who had been engaged in the conspiracies since Murat’s expedition of 1815. Pietro felt his heart beat at receiving this unexpected honour. As soon as he was alone, he resolved to think no more of the young Roman lady who had forgotten him, and to consecrate all his thoughts to _delivering Italy from the barbarians_.[18]

Two days later, Missirilli saw in the list of arrivals and departures sent to him as head of the lodge that the Princess Vanina had just arrived at her castle of San Nicolo. To read this name caused more trouble than pleasure to his soul. In vain he thought to make sure of his fidelity to his country by restraining himself from hastening that very night to the castle of San Nicolo; the thought of Vanina whom he was neglecting prevented his fulfilling his duties in a reasonable fashion. He saw her the next day; she loved him as she had done at Rome. Her father, who wished to marry her, had hindered her departure. She brought two thousand sequins with her. This unexpected assistance helped wonderfully to establish Missirilli in his new dignity. Thanks to them they got daggers made in Corfu, they gained over the confidential secretary of the legate charged with pursuing the carbonari, and also obtained the list of parish priests who served as spies to the government.

It was at this period that one, not the most unreasonable, of the conspiracies that have been attempted in unhappy Italy was finally organized. I shall not enter into details that would be out of place here. I shall content myself with saying that, if the enterprise had been crowned with success, Missirilli would have been able to claim a great share of the glory. According to it several thousand insurgents would have risen at a given signal, and awaited under arms the arrival of their superior heads. The decisive moment was at hand, when, as always happens, the conspiracy was paralysed by the arrests of the leaders.

Vanina had not long arrived in Romagna when she fancied she could see that love of country would make her lover forget all other love. The young Roman’s pride was chafed. She tried in vain to reason with herself; black disappointment took possession of her; she found herself cursing liberty. One day when she had come to Forli to see Missirilli, she was no longer mistress of her grief, which, so far, her pride had always been able to master.

“Really,” she said to him, “you love me like a husband; that’s not what I want.”

Her tears soon began to flow; but they were tears of shame at having descended to reproaches. Missirilli responded to her tears like one preoccupied. All at once it occurred to Vanina to leave him and return to Rome. She found a cruel joy in punishing herself for the weakness which had just made her speak. After some moments’ silence, her mind was made up; she decided that she was unworthy of Missirilli if she did not leave him. She rejoiced in the prospect of his sad surprise when he sought for her at his side, and did not find her. Soon the thought that she had been unable to win the love of the man for whose sake she had committed so many follies revived all her tenderness. She thereupon broke the silence, and did everything in the world to elicit a word of love from him. He said many very tender things to her, with an air of abstraction; but it was with quite a much profounder accent that, talking of his political enterprises, he exclaimed mournfully:

“_Ah, if this affair does not succeed, if the government discovers it this time, I’ll give it up!_”

Vanina remained motionless. For an hour and more she had had the feeling that she was seeing her lover for the last time. His words flashed a fatal ray into her mind. She said to herself:

“The carbonari have already got several thousand sequins from me. There can be no doubt about my devotion to the conspiracy.”

Vanina at last roused herself from her reverie, to say to Pietro:

“Will you come and spend twenty-four hours with me at the castle of San Nicolo? Your gathering this evening does not require your presence. To-morrow morning, at San Nicolo, we can walk about; that will calm your agitation and give you all the coolness that you need at such an important juncture.”

Pietro consented.

Vanina left him to make preparations for the journey, locking, as usual, the little room in which she hid him.

She hastened to a former waiting-woman of hers, who had left her to get married and set up a small business at Forli. On arriving at this woman’s, she hurriedly wrote on the margin of a book of hours, which she found in her room, an exact indication of the place where the lodge of carbonari was to meet that same night. She concluded her denunciation with these words: “This lodge consists of nineteen members; here are their names and addresses.” After writing this list, very exact, except that Missirilli’s name was omitted, she said to the woman, whom she could depend on:

“Take this book to the Cardinal Legate; let him read what is written and give you back the book. Here are ten sequins; if ever the legate pronounces your name, your death is assured; but you will save my life if you get the legate to read the page I have just written.”

Everything succeeded perfectly. The legate’s fears prevented him from behaving like a great lord. He let the woman of the people who asked to speak with him appear in his presence masked, but on condition that she had her hands tied. In this state the shopwoman was brought into the presence of the great person, whom she found entrenched behind an immense table covered with a green cloth.

The legate read the page of the book of hours, holding it well away from him, for fear of some subtle poison. He gave it back to the shopwoman, and did not have her followed. In less than forty minutes after leaving her lover, Vanina, who had seen her former waiting-woman’s return, appeared once more to Missirilli, convinced that thenceforth he was entirely hers. She told him that there was an extraordinary commotion in the town; patrols of carabineers were to be seen in streets where they never used to go.

“If you’ll take my advice,” she added, “we’ll start for San Nicolo at once.”

Missirilli consented to do so. They walked to the young princess’s carriage, which, with her companion, a discreet and well-paid confidante, was waiting for her half a league outside the town.

On arriving at the castle of San Nicolo, Vanina, who was uneasy about the strange step that she had taken, redoubled her tenderness to her lover. But it seemed to her that in talking love to him she was acting a part. The night before, when she played the traitor, she had forgotten about remorse. As she clasped her lover in her arms, she said to herself:

“There is a word that might be uttered in his hearing, and, once it was pronounced, he would have a horror of me at once and for ever.”

In the middle of the night, one of Vanina’s servants came abruptly into her room. This man was a carbonaro, though she did not suspect it. So, then, Missirilli had secrets from her, even about details like that. She shuddered. The man had come to warn Missirilli that during the night the houses of nineteen carbonari at Forli had been searched, and they themselves arrested the moment they returned from the lodge. Although taken by surprise, nine had escaped. The carabineers had been able to take ten of them to prison in the citadel. On entering it, one of them had thrown himself down the well, which is very deep, and had killed himself.

Vanina was covered with confusion; fortunately Pietro did not observe it: he could have read her crime in her eyes.... “At this very moment,” the servant added, “the garrison of Forli is forming a cordon in all the streets. Each soldier is within speaking distance of his neighbour. The inhabitants cannot cross from one side of the street to the other except where an officer is stationed.”

After the man had gone, Pietro was pensive, but only for an instant.

“There is nothing that can be done for the moment,” he said at last.

Vanina was like to die; she trembled beneath her lover’s glance.

“Whatever is wrong with you?” he said at last.

Then he began to think about something else, and ceased to look at her. About the middle of the day, she ventured to say to him:

“That’s another lodge discovered; I should think you’ll keep quiet for some time now.”

“_Very quiet_,” Missirilli answered, with a smile that made her shudder.

She went to make a necessary visit to the village priest of San Nicolo, perhaps a spy of the Jesuits. On returning for dinner at seven o’clock, she found the little room where her lover was hidden deserted. Beside herself, she ran all through the house seeking for him; he was not there. In despair she returned to the little room; only then did she catch sight of a note; she read:

“_I am going to surrender myself to the legate; I despair of our cause; Heaven is against us. Who has betrayed us? Apparently the wretch who threw himself into the well. Since my life is useless to poor Italy, I do not wish that my comrades, seeing that I alone have not been arrested, should imagine that I have sold them. Adieu; if you love me, think on how to avenge me. Ruin, annihilate, the infamous wretch that has betrayed us, even though he be my father._”

Vanina fell into a chair, half-fainting and plunged in the most cruel unhappiness. She was unable to utter a word; her eyes were dry and burning.

At last she flung herself on her knees.

“Great God! accept my vow,” she exclaimed; “yes, I will punish the infamous wretch who has been a traitor; but Pietro must first be restored to liberty.”

An hour later she was on her way to Rome. Her father had long been urging her to return. During her absence, he had arranged her marriage with Prince Livio Savelli. Vanina had scarcely arrived when he mentioned it to her, trembling. To his great astonishment, she consented at the first word. That same evening, at Countess Vitteleschi’s house, her father presented Don Livio almost officially to her; she talked a great deal with him. He was a most elegant young man, and kept the finest possible horses; but, though he was admitted to be clever, his character was supposed to be so light that he was not an object of suspicion to the government. Vanina thought that by first turning his head she would make a convenient agent of him. Since he was nephew to Monsignore Savelli-Catanzara, governor of Rome and minister of police, she supposed that the spies would not presume to follow him.

After having treated the amiable Don Livio exceedingly well for some days, Vanina announced to him that he would never be her husband; he was, according to her, empty-headed.

“If you were not a child,” she told him, “your uncle’s clerks would have no secrets from you. For example, what has been decided about the carbonari who were discovered recently at Forli?”

Two days later Don Livio came to tell her that all the carbonari taken at Forli had made their escape. She fastened her great black eyes upon him with the bitter smile of most profound contempt, and did not deign to speak to him all that evening. The next day but one Don Livio came to acknowledge to her with a blush that he had been deceived the first time.

“But,” he said, “I have got the key to my uncle’s study; I have seen from the papers that I found there that a Congregation (or Commission) composed of some of the leading cardinals and prelates is meeting in the strictest secrecy and discussing whether these carbonari should be tried at Ravenna or at Rome. The nine carbonari taken at Forli and their head, one Missirilli, who has been foolish enough to surrender himself, are at the present moment confined in the castle of San Leo.[19]

At the word “foolish,” Vanina pinched the prince with all her might.

“I want,” she said, “to see the official papers myself, and go into your uncle’s study with you; you have most likely read them wrong.”

At these words Don Livio shuddered; Vanina was demanding a thing almost impossible; but the young woman’s strange genius redoubled his love. A day or two later Vanina, disguised as a man and wearing a pretty little coat of the Savelli livery, was able to spend half an hour amidst the police minister’s most secret papers. She felt a thrill of the keenest delight when she discovered the daily report on “Pietro Missirilli, prisoner awaiting trial.” Her hands trembled as she held the paper. As she read that name she was on the point of being overcome. When they went out from the governor of Rome’s palace Vanina permitted Don Livio to embrace her.

“You are coming well out of the tests to which I am submitting you,” she said.

After a speech like that the young prince would have set fire to the Vatican to please Vanina. That evening there was a ball at the French ambassador’s; she danced a great deal, and almost always with Don Livio. He was intoxicated with happiness; she must not allow him to reflect.

“My father is sometimes strange,” Vanina said to him one day. “This morning he dismissed two of his servants, who came to tell me their sorrows. One of them has asked a place with your uncle, the governor of Rome; the other, who has been an artilleryman with the French, would like to be employed in the castle of Sant’ Angelo.”

“I’ll take them both into my service,” said the young prince briskly.

“Is that what I asked you?” Vanina replied proudly. “I repeated those poor fellows’ petitions word for word; they ought to get what they asked, and not something else.”

There was nothing more difficult. Monsignore Catanzara was anything but an imprudent man, and only admitted servants into his house who were well known to him. In the midst of a life apparently full of all manner of pleasures, Vanina, tormented by remorse, was very unhappy. The slowness of events was killing her. Her father’s man of business had procured money for her. Ought she to flee from her father’s house and go to Romagna, and attempt to get her lover out of prison? Senseless as this notion was she was on the point of carrying it into execution when chance took pity on her.

Don Livio said to her:

“The ten carbonari of Missirilli’s lodge are going to be transferred to Rome on the understanding that they are to be executed in Romagna after they have been condemned. That is what my uncle has got the Pope to sanction this evening. You and I are the only persons in Rome who know this secret. Are you satisfied!”

“You are becoming a man,” Vanina replied; “make me a present of your portrait.”

The day before Missirilli was due to arrive at Rome Vanina found a pretext for going to Città-Castellana. The prison of that town is where the carbonari spend the night when they are transferred from Romagna to Rome. She saw Missirilli in the morning as he came out of prison. He was chained by himself to a cart; he seemed to her to be pale, but by no means downhearted. An old woman threw a bunch of violets to him; Missirilli smiled her his thanks.

Vanina had seen her lover; all her thoughts seemed renewed; she had fresh courage. A long time ago she had procured a good preferment to the Abbate Cari, the chaplain of the castle of Sant’ Angelo, in which her lover was to be confined; she had made this good priest her confessor. At Rome it is no small thing to be confessor of a princess who is niece to the governor.

The trial of the Forli carbonari did not last long. In revenge for their arrival in Rome, which it had been unable to prevent, the extreme party so contrived that the commission which was to try them was composed of the most ambitious prelates. This commission was presided over by the minister of police.

The law against carbonari is clear; those from Forli could cherish no hope; none the less they defended their lives by every possible subterfuge. Not only did their judges condemn them to death, but several declared for atrocious tortures, that their hands should be cut off, and such like. The minister of police, whose fortune was made (for no one leaves that position except to take a red hat), had no use for cut-off hands: when he referred the sentence to the Pope he had the punishment of all the condemned men commuted to several years’ imprisonment. Pietro Missirilli alone was excepted. The minister regarded that young man as a dangerous fanatic, and besides he had already been condemned to death as guilty of the murder of the two carabineers already mentioned. Vanina knew about the sentence and its commutation a few minutes after the minister had returned from his audience of the Pope.

Next day Monsignore Catanzara returned to his palace about midnight and found no sign of his valet in his room; the minister, astonished, rang several times; at last an old, imbecile servant appeared: the minister, out of all patience, decided to undress unaided. He locked his door; it was very warm; he took his gown and threw it in a heap on a chair. The gown, thrown too hard, went over the chair and struck the muslin curtain at the window, and showed the form of a man. The minister quickly rushed to his bed and seized a pistol. As he was returning to the window a very young man, in his livery, came towards him pistol in hand. At this sight the minister raised his pistol and took aim; he was about to fire; the young man said to him, laughing:

“What, Monsignore, do you not recognize Vanina Vanini?”

“What is the meaning of this unseemly pleasantry?” the Minister retorted angrily.

“Let us discuss things coolly,” said the young woman. “To begin with, your pistol is not loaded.”

The Minister, astonished, satisfied himself that such was the case; after which he drew a dagger from his vest-pocket.[20]

Vanina said to him, with a charming little air of authority:

“Let us be seated, Monsignore.”

And she calmly took her place on a sofa.

“Are you alone, though?” the Minister said.

“Absolutely alone, I swear!” exclaimed Vanina.

The Minister was careful to verify this: he went round the room and looked everywhere; after which he sat down on a chair three paces from Vanina.

“What interest should I have,” said Vanina in a gentle and reasonable tone, “in attempting the life of a moderate man, who would probably be succeeded by some weak, hot-headed person that would be capable of undoing himself and others besides.”

“What do you want, pray, madam?” the minister said somewhat testily. “This scene is not to my taste, and must cease.”

“What I am about to add,” Vanina replied haughtily, suddenly forgetting her gracious air, “concerns you more than me. There is a desire that the life of the carbonaro Missirilli should be spared: if he is executed, you will not survive him a week. I have no interest in all this; the folly which you deplore I did to amuse myself in the first place, and next, to oblige a lady who is one of my friends. I wished,” Vanina continued, resuming her affability, “I wished to render a service to an accomplished man, who soon will be my uncle, and, from all appearance, should carry the fortunes of his house to a great pitch.”

The minister cast aside his vexed air: Vanina’s beauty no doubt contributed to this rapid change. Monsignore Catanzara’s taste for pretty women was well known in Rome, and in her disguise of a footman of the house of Savelli, with well-fitting silk stockings, a red vest, her little sky-blue coat laced with silver, and the pistol in her hand, Vanina was ravishing.

“My future niece,” said the minister, almost laughing, “you are committing a great folly, and it will not be your last.”

“I hope that so discreet a person as you will keep my secret, especially from Don Livio; and, to make sure of your promise, my dear uncle, if you grant me the life of my friend’s protégé, I’ll give you a kiss.”

Thus continuing the conversation in that half-jocular tone in which Roman ladies know how to discuss the most important affairs, Vanina contrived to give this interview, which she had begun pistol in hand, the air of a visit paid by the young princess Savelli to her uncle the governor of Rome.

Soon Monsignore Catanzara, although rejecting with scorn the notion of being influenced by fear, went so far as to explain to his niece all the difficulties that he would encounter in saving Missirilli’s life. As he discussed them, the minister walked up and down the room with Vanina; he took up a carafe of lemonade that was on the chimney-piece, and poured some into a crystal glass. When he was on the point of putting it to his lips, Vanina secured it, and, after holding it some time, let it fall into the garden, as if by carelessness. A moment later, the minister took a chocolate pastille out of a sweetmeat-box. Vanina snatched it from him, and said, laughing as she did so:

“Do take care; everything in the house is poisoned, for they intended your death. It is I who have obtained the respite of my future uncle, so as not to enter the family of Savelli absolutely empty-handed.”

Monsignore Catanzara, greatly astonished, thanked his niece, and gave her great hopes of Missirilli’s life.

“Our bargain is settled,” exclaimed Vanina, “and in proof of it, here is your reward,” she said, embracing him.

The minister took his reward.

“I must own, my dear Vanina,” he added, “that I am not fond of blood. Besides, I am still young, though I perhaps look very old to you; and I may live to see the day when blood shed now will leave a stain.”

Two o’clock was striking when Monsignore Catanzara escorted Vanina to the private gate of his garden.

The day after next, when the minister appeared before the Pope, not a little anxious about the course that he had to pursue, His Holiness said to him:

“Before we go any further, I have a favour to ask you. There is one of those carbonari from Forli, who is still under sentence of death; the thought keeps me from sleeping: the man must be saved.”

The minister, seeing that the Pope had made up his mind, made many objections, and ended by writing a decree, or _motu proprio_, which the Pope signed, contrary to custom.

It had occurred to Vanina that she might perhaps obtain her lover’s pardon, but that they would try to poison him. The previous evening, Missirilli had received some small parcels of ship-biscuit from Abbate Cari, her confessor, with a warning not to touch the food provided by the State.

Vanina, having afterwards learned that the Forli carbonari were to be transferred to the castle of San Leo, wished to try to see Missirilli at Città-Castellana on his way; she arrived in that town twenty-four hours in advance of the prisoners; there she found Abbate Cari, who had preceded her by some days. He had got the jailor’s leave for Missirilli to hear Mass at midnight in the prison chapel. He had obtained even more: if Missirilli would allow his arms and legs to be fastened with a chain, the jailor would withdraw to the door of the chapel, so that he could always see the prisoner, for whom he was responsible, but could not hear what he said.

The day which was to decide Vanina’s destiny dawned at last. Early in the morning she shut herself up in the prison chapel. Who could tell the thoughts which agitated her during that long day? Did Missirilli love her sufficiently to pardon her? She had denounced his lodge, but she had saved his life. When reason regained command of that tortured soul, Vanina hoped that he would consent to leave Italy in her company; if she had sinned, it was through excess of love. As four o’clock struck, she heard the tread of the carabineers’ horses on the pavement in the distance. Each tread seemed to ring in her heart. Soon she made out the rumbling of the carts which conveyed the prisoners. They halted in the little square in front of the prison; she saw two carabineers lift out Missirilli, who was alone on a cart and so heavily loaded with irons that he could not move. “At least he is alive,” she said to herself with tears in her eyes; “they have not poisoned him.” The evening was cruel; the altar-lamp, which was hung high up, and which the jailor stinted of oil, was the only light in the gloomy chapel. Vanina’s eyes wandered over the tombs of some great lords of the Middle Ages who had died in the neighbouring prison. Their statues looked ferocious.

All sounds had long ago ceased; Vanina was absorbed in her black thoughts. Shortly after midnight struck, she thought she heard a slight noise like the flutter of a bat. She tried to walk, and fell half-fainting on the altar-rail. At the same instant, two phantoms stood beside her, without her having heard them come. They were the jailor and Missirilli, so loaded with chains that he was almost swathed in them. The jailor opened a lantern, which he placed on the altar-rail, beside Vanina, in such a position that he could see his prisoner clearly. Then he withdrew into the background, near the door. Scarcely had the jailor removed, when Vanina flung herself on Missirilli’s neck. As she clasped him in her arms, she felt nothing but his cold, sharp chains. “Who put these chains on him?” she thought. She felt no pleasure in embracing her lover. To this pain succeeded another more piercing: she believed, for a moment, that Missirilli knew of her crime, his reception of her was so chilly.