It was early in the morning when my travelling carriage dashed along the well known road. I called to the postillion to pull up at the trellised gate of the villa. I jumped out with tottering knees, and rang the bell violently. Some time elapsed before my dear old friend Fabio appeared at the door. When he recognised me he started and without taking time to button his old waistcoat across his naked chest, he rushed to meet me with so disturbed a face that I called out in an agony: "She is dead!"
He shook his head and hastily unlocked the gate, but the fright had completely taken away his breath, so that I could only draw out word by word, a scanty unconnected explanation from him. He observed my pale face and worn out looks, and wished to spare me, instead of which he only cruelly tormented me by his dilatoriness. With many things which had been schemed in the dark, he was unacquainted, for he had only learnt the main points from Nina. I who well knew the actors never for a moment doubted who had taken the principal parts in this fiendish intrigue. Hardly had I left Bologna when that cousin from Rome appeared, and brought forward his imaginary claim to the hand of my bride.
Had he come by order, or would he have arrived of his own accord even had I not been absent I never knew. He cut a sorry figure Fabio said. A life of gambling, revels, and adventures had considerably reduced his fortune, but being the nephew of a cardinal, and of the old nobility, he was still considered a good match. Bicetta had always disliked him. He (Fabio) remembered that she had once boxed his ears for having ventured to kiss his little cousin. Upon which he had laughingly vowed to make her pay for it once she was his wife. Now the time had arrived when he hoped to realize his threat. The step-mother and all those who had most authority were on his side. They had frightened the poor old general by predicting for him all the torments of hell, if he married his only child to a heretic, till they had subdued and silenced him. But whenever he looked at Bicetta his eyes filled with tears, and he would sit for hours in his arm-chair, and sob like a child. He never spoke to his wife for he knew that she was at the bottom of it all.
"And Beatrice?" I asked, half maddened with rage and pain.
"Ah Bicetta," replied the old man, "who can understand her! At first when they urged her to renounce her heretic lover, she had answered: 'I have pledged my faith to him in the sight of God, and I will keep it though I should die for it;' so they could not persuade her. Then when her cousin had come to pay his court to her, she had calmly told him: 'Don't trouble yourself Richino it is perfectly useless; even had I never seen Amadeo I should never have loved you.' Then when he attempted to take her hand and to play the gallant to her, she drew herself up and said in the hearing of Nina: 'Miserable coward to lay hands on another's property! Go I despise you.' She would not see him after that yet she never sheds a tear though the marriage is decided on, and she has quite left off begging and entreating her father, her step-mother, or any one, even God I dare say. She no more received your letters, than you did hers which I posted myself. It seems that the officials at the post-office know what is expected of them when the nephew of a cardinal wishes to carry off the bride of a foreigner. Still it is surprising that she should have resigned herself so quickly for she cannot possibly doubt your fidelity. Nina told me that they threatened to shut her up in a convent if she did not marry her cousin, and certainly a convent is not the proper place for our Bicetta, yet I should have thought it preferable to a marriage with that man, when her whole heart belongs to you. I for my part cannot make her out, and my daughter too is in a perpetual state of amazement."
So the good old man rambled on without venturing to look at me, whilst I lay completely stunned on one of the chairs opposite the chimney. It was the same in which we had sat our hands clasped in one another's the first evening of our betrothal. I was quite incapable of thought; every feeling even of love or of hate seemed paralyzed within me and all vitality to have ceased, as the movement of a watch stops when a blow has broken the spring. After a long pause I recovered my composure sufficiently to ask when the marriage was to take place. "This afternoon," replied the old man in a timid voice. Then I started up, brought to my senses by the nearness of this fearful and decisive event. Old Fabio seized my hands, and looked anxiously into my face.
"Merciful heavens!" he exclaimed, "what are you doing. You know not how powerful they are. If you were to appear openly in the streets, who knows whether you would outlive the night."
"I will go in disguise, I will stand face to face with this scoundrel, and tell him that one of us must die. You surely have a pair of trooper's pistols in good condition. They are all I shall want. Leave me now."
"First you must shoot me with them," he said, and clung so firmly to my arm, that I saw no possibility of freeing myself from his grasp without using force. "Think of Bicetta," he continued, "what would she say to it." "You are right," I replied, and felt as if I were again deprived of all energy. "I know not what she would say, but Iwillknow, or I shall go mad. Let go my arm, and give me my hat. I will go to her; I will burst open the doors which keep her from me, and when once I have seen her then come what may."
But he would not let me go. He led me back to my chair and said, "you must surely be persuaded that no one so sincerely desires yours, and the Signorina's, and the old general's welfare as old Fabio, so you must listen to his advice, and not rush headlong to your own destruction. If you imagine that you can reach her apartment, you are greatly mistaken. The house is filled with servants on account of the wedding, and you would fare ill if you desired to see the bride with this face. Let me go to her; they cannot forbid me the entrance, although the Signora does not regard me with favourable eyes. If it should come to the worst, I can always send for my daughter; so if you will write a few lines I promise to deliver them, and they will certainly reach their destination with more safety than by the papal posts. Sit down here by this window and write a few lines and if I am not greatly mistaken in our Bicetta she will answer them. He ran to fetch me writing materials, but I was in such a wretched state that I could not even hold a pen, and the fury which raged within me drowned every thought.
"Never mind," said the old man, "there is no need to write. Is it not sufficient that she hears you have come? If she then still consents to this marriage, hundreds of letters would be of no avail."
With this he left me, but first I had to give him my word that I would not leave the house, which was now completely deserted, and that I would open the door to no one but him.
By this time day had dawned, and after bringing me some wine to strengthen me, the old man departed, and I remained alone in the death-like stillness of the house--I could not rest; I dragged myself into the garden, to the orange-tree of whose fruit she had given me, and to the pomegranate the blossoms of which had been her first love token to me. She was always before me, and the more clearly she appeared to me the less could I understand her apparent oblivion.
Though I was greatly exhausted by my night's journey, yet I could not swallow a morsel of bread nor drink the wine, but I sucked the juice of an orange, and felt so revived that I seemed to have imbibed hope and comfort with it. Then I returned to the house, ascended the stairs and slowly walked through all the apartments. In her little room all remained as she had left it; even the book which she had last read was still open on the table. I began to read from the same page where she had left off. It was an edition of the "Canzone di Petrarca" and I felt soothed and refreshed by their gentle harmony. I shoved a low chair into the balcony (it was the same on which she had sat as a child while playing with her dolls), and threw myself into it with the book in my hand. But after each verse my eyes wandered along the road in the hope of seeing a messenger appear. I had grown calmer however, and no longer dreaded the decision of my fate, yet I started wildly when the old man appeared.
"What news do you bring me," I called to him. But I knew all when I saw his sorrowful countenance, as he turned towards me, and I rushed down the stair case with, trembling knees. "Read this," he said; "perhaps you will understand what it all means."
I tore the paper from his hand. On it were hastily scrawled these words: "My own dear love, what I am going to do, had to be done; do not try to prevent it, only trust in me. I shall never be another's. You will understand all when we meet again, and perhaps that may be before long. Whatever happens I am yours only for ever and ever." On the edge of the paper was added, "Remain concealed. If you are found out, all is lost."
Whilst I continued to stare at these few lines, the old man told me that he had not seen her himself. Nina had been the messenger between them; but even from her, he could not find out what he wanted to hear. She only told him that the Signorina had not shown the least astonishment at the news of my return. "I have long expected him," was all she said; and while her maid was bringing in her bridal attire, she had written the note quickly, standing at the window. Then she had charged Nina to enjoin the greatest secrecy on her father, and to tell him to take care of me. After that she quietly proceeded to unfasten her hair which had to be dressed for the wedding. "She wrote these lines," Nina added, "with the calmness of a person who is unable to live any longer for the very agony of his pain, and writes down his dying wish." She had always thought she knew her as well as she knew herself, but in these last days she was a perfect mystery to her.
Was it not the same with me? I who had fancied that I understood her better than any one else, could I understand her now, though I read the lines she had addressed to me over and over again a hundred times. Why if she would not belong to any one but me, why did she not fly to me, or take refuge in a convent till I had found means to liberate her. Why did not the boldest and most adventurous scheme appear natural and easy to her, rather than resignation to the fate which was forced on her, and to the bearing quietly those hateful fetters which death alone could tear asunder.
Still there was something in those simple words which sustained me, when I was on the point of despairing, and which silenced me when I was on the point of giving vent to a burst of indignation or despondency. I even slept a few hours, and could swallow a few morsels which my faithful attendant had prepared for me. Not a word passed between us; only when the hour of the wedding approached we had a violent dispute. I insisted on attending it, and he opposed this to the utmost. At last when he saw that my resolution was not to be shaken, he brought some of his clothes and helped me to muffle myself up in them, and then pulled an old torn straw-hat, which he generally wore in the garden, over my eyes. I will accompany you Signor Amadeo, for I fear that you will lose all command over yourself, and that you will require some one to restrain you. He might have proved right had not the wedding guests, and the bridal couple entered the church before we reached it, and the crowd been so great that they stood pressed together, spreading over the Piazza far beyond the church portal.
I bitterly reproached the old man for having deceived me with regard to the hour, but he vehemently asserted his innocence, and his ignorance of the hour.
So we waited amongst the crowd, and the sound of the bells, which were ringing loudly, lulled me into my former state of dull torpor. Suddenly the cry arose: "Here they come!" I should have sunk down had not Fabio supported me. I kept myself up, so to speak, by fastening my eyes to the church door, whence she was to issue forth. When she at last appeared I was surprised that I could bear the sight, that it even calmed me, although her husband was walking beside her. He was just the man I had expected to see from Fabio's description. A creature I could have felled to the ground at one blow. A smile hovered on his worn features which made my blood boil. He nodded with a triumphant, and lofty air to the people around him, and stroked the fair moustache on his thin upper lip.
She passed through the crowd without looking up, the expression of her face was inscrutable, and her eyes were veiled by her long lashes. A child offered her a bunch of flowers; she took it into her arms, and kissed it, and I could even perceive a smile on her lips. Had not the distance been so great, and Fabio watching me I should have pushed my way through the crowd, and asked her how she dared to smile on such a day. But the smile had vanished while I was reflecting on it.
They got into their carriage, and drove off, followed by the parents of the bride. The old General bending under the weight of his grief, at the side of his proud young wife. Then came all the dignitaries of the church who frequented the house.
"The Archbishop performed the ceremony," said an old woman beside me. "She would not marry him at first, but they say that the holy father himself urged her to it. Nothing more has been heard about that other one, the Lutheran."--"Aye, aye," replied another woman; "it seems that his sister has died, that is the just penalty for refusing to abjure his heresy."--And so their foolish talk went on around me. Fabio dragged me away, and led me by a bye path back to the villa. I let him do as he pleased with me; all my strength had left me. I was as unconscious of my actions as a man in a fever, or a sleep walker.
Even now, when I reflect on the past, I cannot understand how I bore that day. My nature, generally so impetuous, appeared to be completely subdued by the great bodily exhaustion caused by that hurried and sleepless journey from Geneva, and I submitted unresistingly to these horrible events.
When I reached the villa, I staggered blindly. Fabio forced me to swallow several glasses of strong wine in such rapid succession that I at last sank insensible to the ground.
When I recovered my senses, night had come on, and it was some time before I could recollect where I was, and what had occurred. The clear sky could be seen through the high panes of the glass door, and the faint light of the new moon fell on the portrait of Beatrice's mother, who I fancied looked sadly down at me from her place above the chimney. Then only everything came back to my memory; then I remembered how terrible was the significance of this night, and what future these hours foreboded. Then a fearful agony overwhelmed me, and I was brought to the verge of madness. I cried out aloud and the unearthly sound of my voice as it echoed through the desolate house terrified me. I threw myself down on the cold stone floor of the hall, and there I lay writhing, pressing my face against the ground, and tearing my hair as if bodily pain could stifle the despair which raged within me. Every thought which sprung up in me, I willfully thrust back into the general whirlpool which darkened and confused my mind. I would feel nothing, think of nothing, but the terrible certainty that my heart's treasure was now in another's possession; I could not cease from piercing my heart with this thought, as though it were a poisoned dagger that would make it bleed to death. At last worn out with this self destructive frenzy I lay motionless in the dust. The cold stones of the floor cooled my burning brow, and my tears ceased to flow. After some time, I roused myself sufficiently to regain my tottering feet, and to crawl into the garden. At the fountain underneath the evergreen oaks I washed the tears and the dust from my face, and took a deep draught of the tepid water, which nevertheless cooled my blood.
I now considered what remained for me to do, but could not come to any resolution. One thing, however, I determined on. I would write to her the next day, and implore her to end this dreadful uncertainty; to rend asunder the last tie which bound me to her. Then I remembered the words of her note, but of what avail were they now to me? Now that I had seen her come out of the church, and that day, and part of the night had passed without bringing me any comfort.
When I heard the clock strike midnight, and the moon disappeared I could no longer bear the awful stillness of the garden, and I returned to the hall. I lighted a candle and placed it on the mantlepiece; then I drew a chair near it, took a small volume of Dante from my pocket, and was soon deeply engaged in perusing the most gloomy and despairing canto of his "Inferno."
I had remained thus about an hour, when suddenly I thought I heard the key turned in the lock of the garden gate. My hair stood on end. I fancied in the first moment of terror that my poor darling had destroyed herself, and that her restless spirit now sought me to suck my heart's blood; but the next moment I had shaken off these senseless ideas, and regained my composure. I arose and listened attentively in the stillness of the night.
The garden gate was opened. I heard steps on the gravel walk--some one sought for the handle of the hall door; it opened and a youth in a black cloak and hat appeared on the threshold. Suddenly the hat fell back from the brow, and I recognized Beatrice. With a cry of joy we rushed into each other's arms, and clung to one another as though we could never be torn asunder nor our lips ever parted.
At last she disengaged herself from my embrace, and her tearful eyes turned on me with a sad mute gaze. "How pale thou art!" she said; "and this is all my doing. But now it is all at an end. I have kept my word. Here I am your own wife, and never another's, though I should suffer for it in this world, and in the next. Oh! Amadeo, why is this world so full of wicked people; why do they sully the purest, and revile the most sacred feelings! Why do they force us to lie, and to perjure ourselves in the very sight of God. We must sayyes, with our lips, while our hearts sayno. They have brought me to this, that I can only choose between two sins: either to deliver myself up to a man whom I despise, or to slink like a thief in the night to one who in the eyes of the world can never be mine. But God metes with another measure than these cruel and selfish people; is it not so, Amadeo? He cannot bid me break my faith to you. He never meant our destruction. I imprisoned in a convent, and you alone in the world, without love, or joy. He has destined you for me, and me for you, and now I am yours for ever. That other one dared not touch me. When we were left alone together, I said to him: 'If you ever try to approach me, to-day or at any other time, you will have been my murderer, for I have vowed before God not to survive the hour in which you dare to claim your right on me. I told you this before our marriage and you still insisted on its accomplishment. You then carried the point, now it is my turn.'
"So I left him, and shut myself up in my room till I knew that every one in the house was asleep. Nina then brought me this disguise, and now I am here, Amadeo! The happiness of being yours would be too great if I had not to strive and suffer for it."
She clung to my neck and hid her glowing face on my breast. All the ardour and passion which she had repressed with maidenly pride, and had not even betrayed by a look, now burst forth in a sudden flame, and threatened to set my whirling brain on fire.
When we had at last recovered our power of thought, and speech, she told me what had occurred after my departure; the intrigues of her step-mother, the helpless efforts of her father to defend himself, and his child, against the ascendency of the clergy; her useless attempts to disarm and confound her enemy by the most unshaken sincerity. At last, when she perceived that they would mercilessly separate her from her father, and shut her up in a distant convent, from whence no letter from her could reach me, she suddenly determined on apparent submission to every thing for the sake of saving herself and me. "And, in fact, they only desired an outward victory. What do they care whether my soul is lost or not," she continued. "Did they ever blame the woman who bears my poor father's name for indulging all her passions freely? They are all of them the slaves of appearances, and they cannot bear to look truth in the face, for it would put them to confusion. Oh! Amadeo, how often did I form the resolution to fly to you, and then declare openly that I am your wife, and shall be so to eternity. But you do not know how powerful they are. Even if we started this very moment, and travelled day and night they would overtake us, and that would be certain death to you. Then my poor dear father also, he would not survive the separation, and such a one, from me. But do not grieve my love, we are now united and those who know our secret are faithful. Pardon me, for not telling you of my coming in my note of this morning, but I knew not for certain whether I should be able to accomplish my plan, or whether that wretch might not strike me to the ground on my refusal to acknowledge him as my master. And if I then had staid away, should you not have suffered greater tortures than in this uncertainty? You knew that I had pledged myself to you, and that I would keep my word; that I would be faithful to you, and never belong to any man but you.--I will return to you every night. The porter who is an honest fellow, hates his present master, but would have died for you."
She noticed that in spite of my happiness; my wife sitting on my knee, that I was silent and thoughtful. "Why are you so sad?" she asked.
"That we must obtain by fraud what is ours by right," I replied. "That we must hide in darkness, and mystery as if we committed a crime in keeping our vows!"
"Do not think of that," she said, and passed her hand across my forehead. "The future is unknown to us; we are only certain of the present hour, and of our own hearts. Why should we not thank God for it. He surely knows that it is best so. Come now; I am not going to sit here as your lady love with my hands folded, and leave it to others to minister to you. You must be half famished, and I too am hungry. I have tasted nothing since last night. I remember perfectly where Fabio keeps his provisions. I will go and prepare a wedding feast which will be more joyful than the last one was, where I saw that every drop of wine was turned to gall for my poor father."
She rose, and hastened to the cellar, and larder. In the meantime I pushed a small table into the middle of the room, and lighted up all the bits of candle which remained in the dusty chandeliers. When she returned with the plates and glasses, she stopped on the threshold with a joyful exclamation. Then she laid the table and filled the glasses with her own hands from the heavy wicker bottle. "Come," she said, "let us drink to our future happiness, if your sister were but here I should desire no other wedding banquet." After drinking this toast, she waited on me, helping me to the cold meat and olives, persuading me to eat, and doing the honours like a good little housewife. To please her I swallowed some morsels though I felt no hunger. She too would hardly take anything till I began to feed her like a child holding the choicest morsels to her lips, then she laughingly opened them and complied with my request.
"Now I have had enough," she said, rising. "I must provide a better couch for you than these cushions on the floor. Fabio never thinks about such things. An old soldier like him hardly perceives whether he is lying on the bare ground or on a feather-bed. To be sure the wisest thing for you will be to take possession of my little room upstairs, instead of remaining here where any body can look in, and betray you." She took my arm and conducted me thither after we had put out all the lights. As we passed Fabio's closet, I stopped to listen if he moved. "Don't mind him," she whispered; "he knows that I am here. A short while ago, when I fetched the wine, I met him coming from the garden, where he had plucked the fruit for our wedding feast. He was nearly beside himself with joy on seeing me; he wept, and kissed my hands. Now he does not appear, for fear of disturbing us."
The day had not dawned when she reminded me that we must part. I insisted on accompanying her back to town, and when she saw the disguise in which I had ventured out the day before, she consented. She pulled her broad brimmed hat over her eyes and I wrapped her up in her large cloak. We then left the house, and proceeded in the direction of the town. We met not a soul--no lights burned either in the houses or in the streets--the morning star sparkled alone in the pale azure of the sky. A cool breeze came from the North. We hardly spoke a word during our walk. My heart was oppressed, and she too when the moment of separation approached, seemed to feel, for the first time, how unnatural was our position. When we reached the house, she clasped me in her arms with tears in her eyes and held me so for a while before giving the appointed signal to the porter. "Expect me to-morrow," she whispered, and disengaging herself from my neck she glided through the half open door, and I was once more alone in the darkness.
A bitter feeling came over me. So I had to resign her again, my own, my bride, who had vowed to belong to no one but me; to leave her at the threshold of a stranger's house, whose door was for ever closed to me. Here I had to stand at the entrance, and if the master of the house appeared, should have to hide in a corner, as a thief from the bailiff. What would be the end of it? Would a life of so full of bye ways and mysteries be endurable. Can that be called happiness which can only be obtained at the price of daily torment, and anxiety?
Before I reached the villa I had firmly resolved to put an end to this insufferable position. From that moment I felt easy at heart, and as I walked along the deserted road, could fully rejoice in the unalloyed happiness which had been granted me, and I considered in its minutest details how the plan which was to unite us for ever was to be accomplished.
In the garden of the villa I found the old man at work. I apprized him of my scheme, and though he thought the execution of it would be more difficult than I expected, he willingly agreed to do all I asked of him, and this was no slight sacrifice at his age, the more so that he would have to part with his daughter. But where Bicetta's happiness was concerned, he had no will of his own.
We both spent the day in preparations. More than once, while taking our measures, I had occasion to admire the circumspection, and the foresight of the old soldier. During the afternoon I slept, and at ten o'clock at night, I was stationed at the gate of the town through which she had to come. We had not settled that I was to meet her, so when I stepped out of my lurking place, she started back but instantly recognizing me as I pushed back my hat she gave me her still trembling hand, from underneath her cloak. So we walked along gazing at each other in silence, for we met several tardy wayfarers who were returning to the town, and feared to awaken their suspicion should they hear a soft woman's voice underneath that broad brimmed hat only when we had reached the villa, and its comfortable hall where lights were burning, and a rustic meal had been prepared for us by Fabio, she again talked freely. She told me how she had passed the day, how long and dreary it had appeared to her. Richino had treated her with a rigid coldness, hoping to mortify her by it, and to force her to make some advances, but before the world, her parents and their numberless visitors, he had assumed the manners of a happy young husband. In the evening however, he had bowed to her without a word, and had withdrawn to his apartment. "This cannot last," I suddenly said, after a long silence; "It is as unworthy of you, as it is of me. We must put an end to it. Your decision alone is wanting. Mine is already formed."
"Amadeo!" she exclaimed, and her eyes turned towards me with a wondering look. "What can you mean? Separation! Oh death rather than that!"
"No," I replied, "fear not; I do not demand what is impossible to me as well as to you. Leave thee my wife, my second self, truly that would be death! But our present existence, is it not worse than death? A life which must in time, kill the soul's freedom and dignity, and will sooner or later cause our ruin. But even if it did succeed, which is most improbable, if I could remain here concealed year after year, in what a wretched state should I not drag through the weary days; idle and solitary cut off from all society but yours; condemned to an aimless, useless life, consumed by the torture of an obscure, and worthless existence. But even if, in more favourable circumstances, I could openly come to your horse as your declared lover I would not do it; I could not brook this state of ambiguity and falsehood. I must be able to acknowledge my feelings, and openly take possession of what is mine. Do you now understand me my darling?"
She nodded, and her eyes were pensively fixed on the ground.--"I know how painful it will be for you," I continued, and took her cold and lifeless hand in mine, "You feel that you must leave your father, perhaps for ever, if he cannot summon courage enough to follow us; You must leave your country, and all that is dear to you, and has taken root in your heart from childhood upwards. You can no longer kneel in the church on the same spot where your mother once prayed--You dread the strange country all the more, that you will have to enter it as a fugitive, and not with the rejoicings and honours due to a bride. You imagine that you would not dare to lift up your eyes to those who love you. Is it not so Beatrice?"
She again nodded; then she looked up to me and said, "I will bear all if it can make you happy."
"My own love," I resumed clasping her in my arms; "You have full confidence in me, have you not? You believe that I have carefully considered what I owe to you, and to myself, and that I would not shrink from any sacrifice so long as my honour is not concerned, and that it does not lower me in your eyes. There is but one way of escape possible from all the snares and fetters which our enemies have thrown around us. You said truly that flight with the swiftest horses would not save us: no, we must set about it with more caution, if we do not wish to be overtaken. I have spoken to Fabio, he knows all the ways to Ancona as thoroughly as he knows this garden. He will be our guide. We shall travel on foot, dressed as peasants and only at night, once there, we shall embark for Venice. Fabio too leaves all that is dear and valuable to him, only for our sakes, in order that he may assist us to recover our freedom and happiness. Are you courageous enough Beatrice? Do you feel strong enough to undertake this journey at your husband's side?"
"I will follow you all over the world," she said, and pressed my hand; "You shall have no cause to complain; I can do all you expect of me."
I embraced her with great emotion. "Come, then, I said; let us take some food to strengthen us for the journey."
"To-night Amadeo? I implore you with all my heart, ask anything of me, but that I should leave this without once more seeing my poor father, without the sacred memorials of my mother which I keep at home. I promise you that nothing shall alter my resolution, not a tear shall betray me, when I kiss my father for the last time. I feel that without that, without bidding him at least a mute farewell I should find no rest, and the longing for home would kill me. As yet, we risk nothing. No one knows that you are here, no one sees me coming, or going. I shall not even acquaint Nina with our plan. To-morrow evening when I leave my home, it shall be for ever; that I promise you. Grant me only these few hours, and then, I shall be as entirely yours, as if I had fallen from heaven into your arms, and had no other home than your heart." She looked at me with an imploring expression which I could not resist, although I felt uneasy at the slightest delay. I gave way to her entreaties, and her gaiety then returned, and soon banished every care from my mind. We supped together; Fabio waited on us, and not a word more was said of our project. I then sent Fabio to his bed, and brought in the dessert myself, and a bottle of sweet wine which she liked to drink only a thimble full of, at a time, but even a few drops of it sufficed to give her pale cheeks a rosy tint. Who could have seen us, joyous as we were together, and have believed that we had obtained these brief hours of happiness by stealth, and were enjoying them clandestinely.
She then drew me into the garden. "Let me bid farewell to all my friends, to the pomegranate, the orange trees, the fountain. To-morrow there will not be time for it." We walked arm in arm into the garden. She drank once more from the marble fountain, put a few oranges in her pocket, and plucked a spray from the pomegranate. "These must go with me," she observed, "in your home in the north, these things do not grow. I shall soon learn to do without them. And this shuttlecock,"---she picked it up as she saw it lying forgotten in the grass, "I will not leave behind. Our children," she whispered, and drew close to me, "shall play with it, and you will tell them how you exchanged your heart for one of these feathery balls."
We had now reached the place where I had once looked over the wall. There underneath the spreading branches of the trees, the sward had remained fresh, and soft, and the air was pure, and free from dust. "Let us pass the remainder of the night here," I said, "I will bring some cushions from the house." I returned and brought a few, and also a cloak for Beatrice. She wrapped herself up in it and soon slept calmly, but it was long before I could find repose. I listened to her gentle breathing, and gazed at her sweet face, with the closed eyes up-turned to the grey sky. She murmured some indistinct words in a dream. I could not understand them, but their soft tone still lingers in my ear.
At last I too slept; I know not for how many hours. When I awoke, the day had not yet dawned, but she was gone. A sudden fear seized me, why had she left me? I jumped up to ascertain whether Fabio, at least, had accompanied her. Hardly had I taken a few steps, when I heard the bell at the garden gate pulled violently. In that moment a fearful foreboding came over me, and forgetting all prudence, I dashed across the garden, and round the house towards the gate. Nevertheless old Fabio had reached it before me, and when I turned the corner, I saw him trying to lift up a dark figure which had sunk down at the entrance of the garden.
"Beatrice!" I cried and rushed to the spot. When I reached it, she just opened her eyes again, and supported by Fabio, she turned towards me with a look of intense anguish and despair, but directly she tried to smile again. "It is nothing Amadeo," she gasped out with a great effort, her hand pressed to her heart. "Do not be alarmed, I do not feel much pain. Are you vexed that I left, without awaking you? You slept so quietly, and I thought there was no danger. How could he have discovered that you were concealed here? Yes to be sure, I forgot to tell you what Richino said to me yesterday at table; he spoke in French to prevent the people from understanding him: 'Do you believe in ghosts, Madame? If such things exist, they are welcome to roam about, but if living creatures take it into their heads to play therevenants, upon my honour, I will take good care that they are soon turned into real phantoms.'
"I fancied that these were only idle words. Alas, Amadeo, now I cannot travel with you; you will have to go alone, and in this very hour. Those two who were on the watch outside the garden gate, certainly expected you to pass. They called to me when I was ten paces distant from the gate, and asked for my name. I gave no answer, so they did what had been ordered them. They did not succeed however; see I can still walk and even speak. Leave me here and do not be uneasy on my account. I shall not die. When I hear that you are in safety then I will follow you. Go my darling husband--before the break of day--Give me your hand--kiss me."
Her voice grew faint; her knees could no longer support her. We carried her, insensible, into the hall, and laid her on a low couch. When we pushed back her cloak, and opened her coat, the blood streamed over our hands. I bent over her; she heaved a deep sigh, looked at me once again, and sunk back to rise no more.
Let me pass over that morning in silence.
When the sun shone through the glass door, it found me still kneeling beside her couch, and gazing on her pale face. Old Fabio crouched in a corner, and sobbed.
Suddenly we heard her name called from without. Nina rushed in, and with a loud cry, threw herself on the corpse. By her demeanour it seemed as if she had been struck a deadly blow. Then in the midst of her convulsive sorrow, she roused herself, and turning me she said, "You must escape; I hastened hither to caution you and Beatrice. A short while ago Richino entered her bedroom and sought her. I know now for what reason; it was to tell her that the man she loved was dead. He hardly expected it to end as it has done. When he perceived that she was not in her room, he turned pale as death, and went away. But believe me, he will come to seek her here, and if he finds those dreadful marks on the path--listen! I hear footsteps approaching--they are his. Fly! they forebode death to you." I replied not, but rose and stood by the couch of my dead wife.
The door opened and he entered ...
Whatever he had meant to say, the sight before him turned him to stone. He staggered back, and clung to the door post for support. His cadaverous face was distorted by helpless horror. I saw that he struggled in vain for breath.
"What do you seek here?" I said at last. "You hoped to find me lying covered with blood; your servants did your bidding promptly, but unfortunately they mistook the person. So you are disappointed of your malignant pleasure. You could not crown your deed by awakening this unhappy woman, of whose heart not a particle was yours, with the tidings that her lover was dead, and would never return. What hinders me," I continued, approaching him, and clenching my hands with rage, and maddening pain. "What hinders me from crushing you beneath my feet, and casting you out of the house, so that you should no longer pollute with your breath this sacred dwelling of the dead. If you had loved her, miserable scoundrel, if you could extenuate your deed by a human passion--but you would have taken possession of her, you would have abased this noble soul to your own level, only for the sake of gratifying your low desires, and because you were incited by others. Go, I say, hide your face in eternal darkness. Assassin! I swear that if you dare to stretch out your hand towards the dead, or cast your eyes on her once again, I will tear you to pieces with my own hands! Away with you!"--
In the midst of this outburst of my fury, I was silenced by the expression of his face, on which an expression of intense pain appeared. It seemed as if the ground reeled underneath him, as if it were going to burst asunder and devour him. He did not look at any one; he tried to raise his head, but sank down on the threshold completely overcome and remained so for several minutes. I had to avert a sort of pity, which I should have deemed a crime. When I had regained sufficient composure to say a few last words to him, I saw him totter like a drunken man towards the gate, and leave the garden.
I then allowed Nina to take off Beatrice's man's clothes, and to dress her in the same white gown in which I had first seen her. There she lay smiling peacefully amongst the flowers which her faithful attendant had brought from the garden and the conservatory, and so she remained during the day. Nina had just concluded this last act of friendship, when we heard a carriage approach the gate. Her father sat in it, pale, and with an insane smile hovering on his withered lips. Fabio, with scalding tears, assisted him to leave the carriage, and led him into the hall. When he saw his child surrounded by the apparel of death he dropped silently on his knees, and pressed his forehead on her folded hands. When at last we tried to raise him, we found that a paralysis of the heart had compassionately united him to his darling.
In the following night we buried them both. No one was present but Fabio, and Nina. Don Vigilio pronounced the benediction on the dead. He told me afterwards that Richino had appointed it so, and had given orders that all my requests were to be complied with as if I were master of the house. He had received no visitors, and after a violent scene with his mother-in-law, had on the same day left Bologna for Rome.
The widow of the General entered a convent for the time of her mourning. I for my part when the earth had closed over the two coffins, took horse, and before the day had dawned was on my way to Florence.
A year after, I read in the papers that the widow of the General had married the young count, her faithful admirer. But though I often returned to Bologna to visit the grave of my wife I never saw either of them again.
In the deep bay window of an otherwise brilliantly lighted saloon, a single candle, supported by the arms of a winged figure in chased silver, shed its faint lustre.
This soft shade was increased by broad-leaved plants, the last blossoms of the season, and by a slender palm-tree whose delicate branches arched gracefully above the entrance of this dusky bower. Two chairs stood beside each other in the background, inviting to repose, out only one of them was occupied.
The slender figure of a young woman reclined in it, her head supported by her arm. Those who suspected her of retiring from the gay company to this verdant hiding-place in order to attract attention or cause a search to be made for her wronged her. She thought not of the effect produced by the delicate half shade of the palm-tree on her pure white brow, nor of the soft moonshine-like reflex of the candlelight on the shining waves of her dark hair. Neither did she take advantage of the solitude around her, whilst a girlish voice was heard singing to the piano at the further end of the room, to indulge in those reveries which in the summer time of life so often take their abode underneath the closed eyelids. In a word, she slumbered. The music to which she had at first dreamily listened, had at last lulled her to sleep like a tired child. She did not even awake when the song being ended, the old gentlemen around applauded encouragingly, the piano stool was pushed back, and the hum of the interrupted conversation again sounded through the saloon with renewed vivacity.
No one came to disturb her; she was a stranger in this society, and besides there was a certain expression of grave reserve in her countenance which did not encourage new acquaintances.
It was her fate to be considered proud. She knew it, but the little effort she made to dispel this error arose more from indifference than contempt. A familiar voice which addressed her by her name at last aroused her. She opened her eyes in some confusion and saw the master of the house standing before her, and by his side a stranger whose forehead reached up to the branches of the palm-tree.
"Allow me to interrupt your meditation. Madam," said the host with a smile. "I here present to you my friend, and cousin Valentine, who only returned to Germany a few weeks ago, and a few hours since became my guest. We must now try to retain him, and who could undertake this task with more success than our fair country women."
He had long left them and, still they remained opposite each other without a word of greeting. His eyes were fixed on the red rose which adorned her hair, and only a slight movement among the palm leaves betrayed that the blood rushed vehemently through his veins.
The lady's face was raised towards him with an earnest expression, as if she were trying to solve a problem. Was the veil which sleep had thrown over her eyes, not yet removed? Was this meeting only the vision of a dream. But no, could a dream have the power of changing, as time had done, the well known features before her; of thinning the curly hair, and of drawing those lines above the eye-brows which she had noticed at the first glance?
The longer he delayed in addressing her, the deeper grew the blush that suffused her cheek. Several times her lips parted as if to speak, but still she remained silent, and fixed her eyes on the ground. Her fan slid on the carpet. He did not pick it up.
At last he said, "Madam Eugenie, permit me to call you so, for I have just arrived here and have omitted to ask our host for your husband's name; how strangely we meet in this life. I am truly astonished at my want of presentiment which never foretold me by a sign from heaven or from earth that I should find you here."
"A special motive caused me to undertake this journey," she hastily said. "I intend to put my son to school and I am told that there is one here in which he will be well taken care of. I arrived to-day after having spent a sleepless night in the carriage, and I must confess to you that just as you came up, weak human nature, against all good breeding, was on the point of making up for lost time. I tell you this because the cool, and absent way in which I received you must have seemed strange to so old a friend."
She stretched out her hand to him. "I thank you," he replied, and his face brightened, "for having remembered my small claim on your friendship. Pray continue to treat me on the old footing, and resume your repose, which I unfortunately disturbed. I will take care that no one enters the bower: I can keep watch behind this palm-tree."
She laughed. "No, I did not mean that. I am only too tired to converse with perfect strangers. Come, sit down by me, if you will be satisfied with my good intentions, and tell me how the past, and the present have fared with you."
"You will best be able to judge for yourself how it has fared with me when I confide to you my situation at the present moment. My friend has only invited me here for the sake of marrying me. He regards it as a duty. What do you say to that? In what a sad state must not that man be whose friends consider it their duty to render him harmless?"
"You alarm me," she replied with a smile. "When I first knew you, you were, if not actually harmless, at least far from causing so much mischief that you had to be laid in chains for the sake of the public safety."
"You are deriding me, Madam. Ah that talent of yours, how well I know it. This time however your darts did not touch me. My charitable cousin fears not for others, but for my own safety. He believes that if I continue to reside alone in the old castle which I have bought; abandoned to my own crotchets, only occupied in catching hares and helping the peasants in their agricultural affairs, which I do not myself understand, that I should sooner or later lose the little sense which he kindly presumes is left to me. You see he wishes to treat me homeopathically, dispersing one folly by another. Perhaps he is right. Those who have proved themselves incapable of regulating their lives properly, should be grateful, should they not, to their friends for taking the trouble off their hands, and quietly follow their advice; but I fancy sometimes that their kind intentions have come too late for me."
"Too late? I must combat that assertion. Fourteen years have passed since we last met, and if you did not then make yourself younger than you were, you can hardly now have reached the prime of life."
"Make myself younger! Good heavens! to do just the contrary would then have conduced more to my interests. But of what are you reminding me Eugénie?"
"Is your betrothed young, handsome amiable?" she quickly resumed; "I would not ask these questions which imply a doubt, if you had not told me that you had authorized your friend to dispose of your heart, and in these matters friends are not always to be relied on."
"You greatly wrong our most amiable host," he said laughingly; "Not only are these cardinal virtues not wanting, but all three of them are three times combined."
"Three times?"
"I mean in three different samples, as I have been told; so it will be difficult to choose."
"And each of the three young ladies is desperately in love with you? Then a twofold catastrophe is inevitable."
"Up to this hour none of my destined brides know of my existence. Their father----"
"So they are sisters?"
"Yes. A fair, an auburn, and a dark haired one. You see there is no possibility of escape; Every taste is provided for. Early to-morrow the merciless disposer of my heart, and hand takes me in his carriage, and delivers me over to my destiny. They live in L---- not quite four hours drive from this. Horse dealing is to be the pretext. The father who is the doctor of that small town, has a thorough-bred grey Arab in his stables."
"You go forth as Saul the son of Kish. I hope you may return like him with a kingdom."
"If you but knew," he said pensively, "how little I covet that dignity: is not a king fettered by his duties? To-day I am still free, so I take the liberty of sitting down beside you, and of talking with you of that happy time when I too was held captive, but by enchanting fetters."
She remained silent while he threw himself into the second arm-chair, and turned it so that he could see nothing of the company in the saloon; but only the plants before him, and the charming face of the young woman, lighted up by the solitary candle. Meanwhile the mistress of the house had sat down to the piano, and began to play a waltz; and soon the light branches of the palm-tree trembled in the whirlwind caused by the passing couples. Eugénie silently watched the gay scene before her. With her left hand she played with a gold chain, and in the right, held carelessly a large bouquet on her lap.
Valentine stedfastly gazed at her; when she observed it, she took up the nosegay and buried her face in it. "You think it somewhat indiscreet on my part," he said, "that I sit before you, as though I were admiring a fine painting; but is it not pardonable if I gaze with astonishment on that soft bloom which remains as fresh as though hardly a day had passed since our last meeting. If I banished from my mind the thought that fourteen years have gone over my head, and that I may be a married man to-morrow, I might easily delude myself into the belief that I am sitting in the conservatory of your parent's house, and have just laid aside the book in which I had been reading aloud to you, who were meanwhile watching the gnats dancing on the pond, or the falling of the leaves. In reality however, only youth can give us those hours of enraptured extasy, that entire blending of the soul with the soul of nature, when we are freed from the fetters of our own individuality only to be united, like a plant, all the more closely with the elements. When I walked home, still entranced, after one of those evenings, I felt as if I were carried along the poplar alley, as a feather is borne by the breeze. In later years we often call that feeling sentimentality, but even now I cannot laugh at it."
"If I smiled at it in those days, I now feel as if I ought to apologize for it. We girls are taught by our education to watch over our sentiments, and to be cautious in our enthusiasms. Now I may confess to you that I often only wished for Cora to disturb our reading hour by her barking, or for Frederick to summon us to tea, because I could no longer restrain my tears."
"You always had the firmer character of the two. The cement which has consolidated my nature has only grown hard in the bracing atmosphere of a stirring, and active life. But the names you have just uttered, what remembrances they bring back to me! My friend, and my enemy, Frederick, and Cora. That dear old Frederick. I know that he heartily pitied me, a feeling which is said to be rare between rivals. You cannot be ignorant of the feelings with which you inspired him. He worshipped you as devotedly as a gardener, a servant, can worship his young mistress. He looked on his case as still more hopeless than mine, though with regard to our social position, his was by far the more settled of the two. The quiet sympathy of hopelessness united us. Often when he had come to fetch us from the conservatory and you were skipping before us after your dog, and overtaking it, would catch it up in your arms, and kiss it, he would turn to me with jealous wrath, and say: 'Now, can you understand. Master Valentine, what pleasure our young lady can find in hugging that stupid brute?' With an indignant shake of his head; the hair of which he always arranged carefully, since he served at table, and could offer you the dishes. If you confess the truth, you will own that you only fondled that ugly creature for the sake of driving us distracted."
"Do not speak ill of the dead," rejoined Eugénie. "Cora sleeps the sleep of death, not far from the pond where the bench stands underneath the elm-tree; do you remember it?"
"How could I have forgotten it? Was it not on that bench that I fastened your skates, when we started on that skating expedition with your cousin Lucy. How is your cousin getting on?"
"She is now a fine lady, with a large family. If she only knew that I have met you here! Not more than a month ago we were talking of you. She has a kind remembrance of you, and has not forgotten that bright winter's afternoon, when we first initiated you in the art of skating, and she maintains that you squeezed her hand on that occasion with more ardour than your later behaviour warranted. Since then a shade of fickleness darkens the otherwise favourable recollection she has of you."
"Good heavens!" he exclaimed laughing; "so the most harmless cannot escape suspicion. To be sure I was not wholly guiltless, but as it so often happens I must suffer for another sin than that which I really committed. When you both held my hands to guide my first steps on the slippery plain, I longed to express more to you by the firm pressure of my hand than the mere desire not to fall. But you were always inaccessible to any intelligence of that kind. You will now bear me witness that I need not reproach myself with regard to little Lucy. Ah! I still remember it all as if it had been yesterday! I still feel the glow which rushed through my veins, in spite of the cold December wind; the enrapturing touch of your hand, which seemed to linger with me for weeks after. Do not be displeased," he continued, "at my speaking so freely of all this. We are no longer the same and can now talk of these things as though they had occurred to some one else. Is it not an innocent pleasure if I now tell you what so often hung on my lips in those days, and was always repressed by that unlucky timidity of mine. We now meet as good comrades do after having settled a debt."
"And which of us is the creditor?" she asked. "Both of us," he replied. "Do you not think that I too have some right to that title? If you but knew what trouble you have caused me; how long your image stood between me, and every enjoyment of life. But you must have guessed it. When I used to watch for you on your way to your drawing lesson, when my heart beat at the sight of your checked cloak, and grey hat--and when I passed you with all the equanimity I could muster, happy in having been allowed to salute you, did the unfortunate fate of the poor lad who so humbly bowed to you never smite your conscience?"
"You are greatly mistaken my dear friend," she said, with a charming look of merriment. "I blushed whenever I met any one in that attire which I fancied gave me the appearance of a scarecrow. The cloak had long passed out of fashion, but my mother thought it good enough for the drawing lesson. How many tears of mortified vanity have I not dried with a corner of that detested garment."
He laughed. "You see how widely our natures differ. Fate did wisely in separating us. I for my part on my travels through the world vainly sought for a similar cloak which seemed to me to be the essence of all that is beautiful. In France I once remarked at some distance the same kind of checked stuff. I rushed after it, but found to my disappointment that the wearer in no way resembled the lady of my thoughts. Since that time I am inclined to believe that it was the wearer and not the garment which haunted the dreams of my youth."
During this conversation the music had continued and the air in the apartment became hot and oppressive. The young woman agitated her fan, and inhaled with parted lips the refreshing breeze from it. She reminded her friend of a remark he had once read in a French book on the affinity existing between certain blue eyes, and certain glittering teeth. He told her so. "You see," he continued, "how freely I take advantage of the privilege of friendship, telling you every thought which crosses my mind, I make up for my long silence, and you will not take it amiss. Truly it seems that Providence intends to make me a good husband and father as on the eve of the important step I am about to take it relieves my mind from all anxiety regarding it. If I had not met you, I should never, even in the midst of every domestic felicity, have been able to rid myself of the fear that some day or other you would appear, and turn my head as you did years ago. Now that you know my intentions and that we have placed our friendship on a warm, and steady footing, I can start on to-morrow's expedition in search of a wife, with an easy heart."
They had both risen, and now admired the flowers. "How beautiful this candelabra is," she remarked. "Fortuna subjected by man, and made to give him light."
"I believe it to represent the goddess of victory. The ball on which fortune glides from us, is wanting here, but Victory remains faithful to the daring."
"In that case Victory by serving you on the eve of your expedition, foretells you good luck."
"I see you doubt my courage Madam. Certainly you above all others have a right to do so. But this time I hope to manage my affairs better than I did fourteen years ago. I intend to challenge my fortune, be it good, or bad, and force an answer from it. If she smiles on me, I promise you that to you first, I shall be the herald of my heroic achievement. But enough of myself as a topic; as yet you have told me nothing of your own life, and how the years have passed with you. I could not muster courage to make enquiries about you. After I heard that you were married, I studiously avoided every place where tidings of you could reach me. I am even unacquainted with the name of your husband. Will you introduce me to him. He probably has accompanied you here?"
"I lost my husband seven years ago."
He started--"My son is all that is left to me," she resumed, "and I must now part with him. He has become quite unruly from staying with my mother in the country, and even if I could find a tutor who knew how to manage him, I should be sorry to see him pass the merry time of youth without any companions of his own age."
"I long to see him," he hastily said, without lifting his eyes from the flowers in her hand. "So he has lost his father; poor child! When he has grown up you must send him on a visit to me. I will take him out hunting, give him my horses to ride, and if he should fall in love with my daughter, why in that case the beginning and the end would once more be united, although in a different manner from what I blind mortal, once dreamt. Would you consent to the match Eugénie?" and he stretched out his hand to her.
"With all due regard to the future father-in-law of my son," she replied gaily. "I should wish first to see the young lady herself, especially as you cannot even answer for her mother."
"Of course you must approve of the mother; I should never think of marrying her, if she had the misfortune to displease you! The wisest course would be!"--
The conversation was here interrupted by a young man, who hesitatingly approached the embrasure of the window, with the intention of inviting the lady to dance. She declined, alleging the fatigue of her night journey as an excuse, and then she left the bower, and mingled with the rest of the company. Valentine who had remained standing by the palm-tree, watched her figure amongst the others, and now and then he fancied he heard her voice. It appeared to him as if he had forgotten some question of importance, and he tried to recall it to his mind. At last he remembered that he ought to have enquired for her mother. He went in search of her to repair his neglect but he could not find her either in the saloon or in the adjoining rooms. She had disappeared.
It was on the second day after this meeting; a dense morning fog still filled the street but the air above was clear, and promised a sunny day, that in one of the rooms of the hotel, Eugénie sat at a writing-table, an unfinished letter lying before her. Her folded hands rested on the paper, and her thoughts strayed far away from the contents of those lines.
Now and then when a step was heard in the passage, she started up, and listened, but they always passed the door, and she remained alone.
Why did all her thoughts revert to the past, to that particular walk in the garden where the sunflowers and china asters grew, and the small fruit-trees threw long shadows across the cabbage beds. The sun was shining through the high hedge but the air did not resound with the song of birds. To-morrow when the day waned, she would be far away from this homely spot, and when she returned, the fruit-trees would be bare, and snow would cover the ground. The young student who walked by her side and was digging holes in the gravel with the point of her parasol, was fully aware of this. He had seen the travelling carriage in the courtyard, and watched Frederick fastening the valise on the box. When people start on a journey, who can tell if they will return, or at least return the same as they went, Is it not expedient then to exchange one's last bequests, especially if each is disposed to bequeath body and soul to the other.
If he had but known how highly he ought to value her condescension in leading the way to this remote and solitary corner of the garden. As she walked along, she upbraided herself with having thus far made advances to him. But she would not take a step further, now it was his turn to forward matters, and if he did not, she would never forgive herself for having done so much to loosen his tongue. For it had a high opinion of the dignity of its sex, this young head of seventeen, and if the unfortunate youth by her side, had choked with mute respect, she would not have spoken a word to help him. Was not this walk sufficiently secluded, and the sun at their backs; was it not the only time she had ever walked with him in the kitchen garden, and above all, had he not seen the travelling carriage in the yard.
On no account, however, was he to perceive that she had contrived all this for his sake. She talked eagerly of the approaching journey, expressed her pleasure at seeing her cousins again, and laughingly described every one of them.
They had reached the end of the walk, and had looked over the hedge, but he became more and more laconic. At last he quite ceased talking and she too became silent. Feelings of passion and mortification rose in her breast, and nearly choked her. Then she suddenly turned towards him, and colouring deeply said: "Let us now go back; and give me my parasol. I shall want it on my journey, and you will break it to pieces. I must hasten home, as I still have many things to pack. Do you know that I quite shudder when I think of how much my intellectual refinement will retrograde during my absence. I shall hardly remember the English kings in Shakespear's works, which you have taken so much trouble to impress on my mind. It is a pity, but what can I do? My cousins are not such pedants as you are. If I return--but who can tell whether my aunt will not keep me through the winter. Well, it may be a long time before we can resume our studies and if I pass my examination badly, this long absence must plead for me."
More than a year passed before they met again--When the morning arrived, the travelling carriage was ready to start and the ladies sitting in it, he approached the door of it and offered a bouquet. The mother accepted it with many thanks. Eugénie nodded gaily to him, and gave him her gloved hand. He did not see her pale face, and swollen eyes behind her thick veil. He closed the door and bowed. As the carriage drove away, Frederic turned once more towards Valentine, and across his honest face there passed an expression of pity for his less fortunate rival.
This had been in autumn. When they returned in the middle of winter, Valentine had left the town; he was occupied at a small court of justice in the country. Only in the following summer he once again rang the well known bell at the garden gate. On being told that the house was full of visitors, cousins, and others who were strangers to him, he charged the servant with a message that he would return another time; but a cold bow from her mother whom he met in the streets next day, showed him that he should not find all as he had hoped; so he never returned.
Was his absence regretted? Who could solve the enigma on Eugénie's pale face, when three years later, she married the man her mother had chosen for her. But now when her thoughts wandered back from the letter before her to those days of old, the words of a pensive song resounded in her heart: "There was a time when happiness was mine to give and take etc."----
The clattering of swift hoofs was now heard in the street, and she flew to the window. A horseman on a beautiful grey Arab galloped through the thick fog which closed behind him. Clouds of steam arose from the reeking nostrils of the horse.
With an agitated glow in her eyes, she watched the proud and manly bearing of the rider, and the ease with which he managed his restless horse.
What a difference between this chivalrous firmness, and the soft pensive manner of his youth. Still she had recognized at their first meeting, that his heart had lost none of its fresh bloom; it was developed not changed. Had he this time divested himself of his former timidity, and spoken the binding words? She shuddered at the thought.
Rapid steps were now heard ascending the stairs. Her habitual self-command did not forsake her, and when Valentine entered the room, her face was calm in spite of the quick beating of her heart. She met him with a smile, and offered him her hand. "Good morning," she said: "so you have kindly kept your promise! The triumphant prancing of your horse has already apprised me that you return crowned with success."
"Eugénie," he replied, "you must highly value my visit of to-day, for I have made it in spite of my conviction that you will have a good laugh at my expense. My only acquisition by yesterday's expedition is this horse which I paid for in ready money, and this apple which I stole." And he laid a fine wax-like apple on the table. "I do not hold the booty obtained by your campaign so very despicable. I understand nothing about horses, but as you doubtless obtained the apple from the hands of your chosen one"----
"If I had but reached that point," he resumed despondingly; "the rest would be easy enough. You are greatly mistaken, however, if you are inwardly accusing me of having been again wanting in courage. It was the superfluity of it which in this case hindered my success. Upon my word, I would, without the slightest hesitation, have made a declaration to each of the three young ladies, one after the other."
"What a pretty disaster you would have caused." "I never expected anything of you but an ironical pity. Still--you may judge from this how thoroughly perplexed I am--I turn to you for help."
"You expect more of me than with the best intentions I can give you."
"Ah, but you can help me Eugénie. Now listen and I will give you an account of it all. My friend, and I spent a whole day in their company."
"That is either a very long, or a very short time as you take it."
"You are right. The time is long enough to fall in love with all three sisters, and much too short to decide which of them is to be preferred. The only way would be to take the whole batch from the nest."
"Are the nestlings so unfledged that they would submit to that?"
"To tell the truth I never thought of that. The chief thing for me is to get so enraptured with one of the sisters, that she should banish the other two from my mind. But at my age it is difficult to grow enthusiastic."
"Then all three are equally irresistible?"
"Quite so, all of them made to be kissed, and each of them a different style of beauty; so that when one sees them together one feels that one could never be satisfied with only one of them."
"Your account is given in too vague and extravagant terms. I wish to have it in proper order, and with every detail. First then comes the fair, then the auburn, then the dark one; or how do they follow in age?"
"I don't know."
"Well, then we will arrange them according to size, and begin with the smallest. Is it the auburn haired young lady?"
"I really cannot tell."
"You seem to have employed your time badly, or was it the triple fascination which had such power over your feelings from the first, that your senses left you?"
"Certainly I cannot excuse myself on that score," he replied laughing. "I do not remember a more disagreeable sensation than I had yesterday on my way to L---- A visit to the dentist is a pleasure trip compared to it. Several times I was on the point of jumping out of the carriage, but then I reflected that my cousin's horses would soon have overtaken me, and then I should have been delivered over ignominiously into the hands of my evil destiny. For on this point, my friend, who is in every other respect so yielding, knows no mercy. So I plucked up courage, and thinking over all the evil that had ever befallen me in the course of my life I tried to find comfort by repeating that in fact it all amounted very much to the same thing. At last we arrived. I had stipulated from the beginning that my cousin should not say a word of my real purpose, either to the father, or to the young ladies. The doctor was not at home when we first arrived, so we only found the sisters of fate in the neatest of dresses, fresh and charming like three rose buds on one stalk. Yes in truth they equalled the three graces, and their manners too were far from being provincial. I could not tire of looking at them."