CHAPTER V

Marriage

The day after Ginevra was driven from her father's house she went to

ask Madame Servin for asylum and protection until the period fixed by

law for her marriage to Luigi.

Here began for her that apprenticeship to trouble which the world

strews about the path of those who do not follow its conventions.

Madame Servin received her very coldly, being much annoyed by the harm

which Ginevra's affair had inflicted on her husband, and told her, in

politely cautious words, that she must not count on her help in

future. Too proud to persist, but amazed at a selfishness hitherto

unknown to her, the girl took a room in the lodging-house that was

nearest to that of Luigi. The son of the Portas passed all his days at

the feet of his future wife; and his youthful love, the purity of his

words, dispersed the clouds from the mind of the banished daughter;

the future was so beautiful as he painted it that she ended by smiling

joyfully, though without forgetting her father's severity.

One morning the servant of the lodging house brought to Ginevra's room

a number of trunks and packages containing stuffs, linen, clothes, and

a great quantity of other articles necessary for a young wife in

setting up a home of her own. In this welcome provision she recognized

her mother's foresight, and, on examining the gifts, she found a

purse, in which the baroness had put the money belonging to her

daughter, adding to it the amount of her own savings. The purse was

accompanied by a letter, in which the mother implored the daughter to

forego the fatal marriage if it were still possible to do so. It had

cost her, she said, untold difficulty to send these few things to her

daughter; she entreated her not to think her hard if, henceforth, she

were forced to abandon her to want; she feared she could never again

assist her; but she blessed her and prayed for her happiness in this

fatal marriage, if, indeed, she persisted in making it, assuring her

that she should never cease to think of her darling child. Here the

falling tears had effaced some words of the letter.

"Oh, mother!" cried Ginevra, deeply moved.

She felt the impulse to rush home, to breathe the blessed air of her

father's house, to fling herself at his feet, to see her mother. She

was springing forward to accomplish this wish, when Luigi entered. At

the mere sight of him her filial emotion vanished; her tears were

stopped, and she no longer had the strength to abandon that loving and

unfortunate youth. To be the sole hope of a noble being, to love him

and then abandon him!--that sacrifice is the treachery of which young

hearts are incapable. Ginevra had the generosity to bury her own grief

and suffering silently in her soul.

The marriage day arrived. Ginevra had no friend with her. While she

was dressing, Luigi fetched the witnesses necessary to sign the

certificate of marriage. These witnesses were worthy persons; one, a

cavalry sergeant, was under obligations to Luigi, contracted on the

battlefield, obligations which are never obliterated from the heart of

an honest man; the other, a master-mason, was the proprietor of the

house in which the young couple had hired an apartment for their

future home. Each witness brought a friend, and all four, with Luigi,

came to escort the bride. Little accustomed to social functions, and

seeing nothing in the service they were rendering to Luigi but a

simple matter of business, they were dressed in their ordinary

clothes, without any luxury, and nothing about them denoted the usual

joy of a marriage procession.

Ginevra herself was dressed simply, as befitted her present fortunes;

and yet her beauty was so noble and so imposing that the words of

greeting died away on the lips of the witnesses, who supposed

themselves obliged to pay her some usual compliments. They bowed to

her with respect, and she returned the bow; but they did so in

silence, looking at her with admiration. This reserve cast a chill

over the whole party. Joy never bursts forth freely except among those

who are equals. Thus chance determined that all should be dull and

grave around the bridal pair; nothing reflected, outwardly, the

happiness that reigned within their hearts.

The church and the mayor's office being near by, Luigi and Ginevra,

followed by the four witnesses required by law, walked the distance,

with a simplicity that deprived of all pomp this greatest event in

social life. They saw a crowd of waiting carriages in the mayor's

court-yard; and when they reached the great hall where the civil

marriages take place, they found two other wedding-parties impatiently

awaiting the mayor's arrival.

Ginevra sat down beside Luigi at the end of a long bench; their

witnesses remained standing, for want of seats. Two brides,

elaborately dressed in white, with ribbons, laces, and pearls, and

crowned with orange-blossoms whose satiny petals nodded beneath their

veils, were surrounded by joyous families, and accompanied by their

mothers, to whom they looked up, now and then, with eyes that were

content and timid both; the faces of all the rest reflected happiness,

and seemed to be invoking blessings on the youthful pairs. Fathers,

witnesses, brothers, and sisters went and came, like a happy swarm of

insects disporting in the sun. Each seemed to be impressed with the

value of this passing moment of life, when the heart finds itself

within two hopes,--the wishes of the past, the promises of the future.

As she watched them, Ginevra's heart swelled within her; she pressed

Luigi's arm, and gave him a look. A tear rolled from the eyes of the

young Corsican; never did he so well understand the joys that his

Ginevra was sacrificing to him. That precious tear caused her to

forget all else but him,--even the abandonment in which she sat there.

Love poured down its treasures of light upon their hearts; they saw

nought else but themselves in the midst of the joyous tumult; they

were there alone, in that crowd, as they were destined to be,

henceforth, in life. Their witnesses, indifferent to what was

happening, conversed quietly on their own affairs.

"Oats are very dear," said the sergeant to the mason.

"But they have not gone up like lime, relatively speaking," replied

the contractor.

Then they walked round the hall.

"How one loses time here," said the mason, replacing a thick silver

watch in his fob.

Luigi and Ginevra, sitting pressed to one another, seemed like one

person. A poet would have admired their two heads, inspired by the

same sentiment, colored in the same tones, silent and saddened in

presence of that humming happiness sparkling in diamonds, gay with

flowers,--a gayety in which there was something fleeting. The joy of

those noisy and splendid groups was visible; that of Ginevra and Luigi

was buried in their bosom. On one side the tumult of common pleasure,

on the other, the delicate silence of happy souls,--earth and heaven!

But Ginevra was not wholly free from the weaknesses of women.

Superstitious as an Italian, she saw an omen in this contrast, and in

her heart there lay a sense of terror, as invincible as her love.

Suddenly the office servant, in the town livery, opened a folding-

door. Silence reigned, and his voice was heard, like the yapping of a

dog, calling Monsieur Luigi da Porta and Mademoiselle Ginevra di

Piombo. This caused some embarrassment to the young pair. The

celebrity of the bride's name attracted attention, and the spectators

seemed to wonder that the wedding was not more sumptuous. Ginevra

rose, took Luigi's arm, and advanced firmly, followed by the

witnesses. A murmur of surprise, which went on increasing, and a

general whispering reminded Ginevra that all present were wondering at

the absence of her parents; her father's wrath seemed present to her.

"Call in the families," said the mayor to the clerk whose business it

was to read aloud the certificates.

"The father and mother protest," replied the clerk, phlegmatically.

"On both sides?" inquired the mayor.

"The groom is an orphan."

"Where are the witnesses?"

"Here," said the clerk, pointing to the four men, who stood with arms

folded, like so many statues.

"But if the parents protest--" began the mayor.

"The respectful summons has been duly served," replied the clerk,

rising, to lay before the mayor the papers annexed to the marriage

certificate.

This bureaucratic decision had something blighting about it; in a few

words it contained the whole story. The hatred of the Portas and the

Piombos and their terrible passions were inscribed on this page of the

civil law as the annals of a people (contained, it may be, in one word

only,--Napoleon, Robespierre) are engraved on a tombstone. Ginevra

trembled. Like the dove on the face of the waters, having no place to

rest its feet but the ark, so Ginevra could take refuge only in the

eyes of Luigi from the cold and dreary waste around her.

The mayor assumed a stern, disapproving air, and his clerk looked up

at the couple with malicious curiosity. No marriage was ever so little

festal. Like other human beings when deprived of their accessories, it

became a simple act in itself, great only in thought.

After a few questions, to which the bride and bridegroom responded,

and a few words mumbled by the mayor, and after signing the registers,

with their witnesses, duly, Luigi and Ginevra were made one. Then the

wedded pair walked back through two lines of joyous relations who did

not belong to them, and whose only interest in their marriage was the

delay caused to their own wedding by this gloomy bridal. When, at

last, Ginevra found herself in the mayor's court-yard, under the open

sky, a sigh escaped her breast.

"Can a lifetime of devotion and love suffice to prove my gratitude for

your courage and tenderness, my Ginevra?" said Luigi.

At these words, said with tears of joy, the bride forgot her

sufferings; for she had indeed suffered in presenting herself before

the public to obtain a happiness her parents refused to sanction.

"Why should others come between us?" she said with an artlessness of

feeling that delighted Luigi.

A sense of accomplished happiness now made the step of the young pair

lighter; they saw neither heaven, nor earth, nor houses; they flew, as

it were, on wings to the church. When they reached a dark little

chapel in one corner of the building, and stood before a plain

undecorated altar, an old priest married them. There, as in the

mayor's office, two other marriages were taking place, still pursuing

them with pomp. The church, filled with friends and relations, echoed

with the roll of carriages, and the hum of beadles, sextons, and

priests. Altars were resplendent with sacramental luxury; the wreaths

of orange-flowers that crowned the figures of the Virgin were fresh.

Flowers, incense, gleaming tapers, velvet cushions embroidered with

gold, were everywhere. When the time came to hold above the heads of

Luigi and Ginevra the symbol of eternal union,--that yoke of satin,

white, soft, brilliant, light for some, lead for most,--the priest

looked about him in vain for the acolytes whose place it was to

perform that joyous function. Two of the witnesses fulfilled it for

them. The priest addressed a hasty homily to the pair on the perils of

life, on the duties they must, some day, inculcate upon their

children,--throwing in, at this point, an indirect reproach to Ginevra

on the absence of her parents; then, after uniting them before God, as

the mayor had united them before the law, he left the now married

couple.

"God bless them!" said Vergniaud, the sergeant, to the mason, when

they reached the church porch. "No two creatures were ever more fitted

for one another. The parents of the girl are foolish. I don't know a

braver soldier than Colonel Luigi. If the whole army had behaved like

him, 'l'autre' would be here still."

This blessing of the old soldier, the only one bestowed upon their

marriage-day, shed a balm on Ginevra's heart.

They parted with hearty shakings of hand; Luigi thanked his landlord.

"Adieu, 'mon brave,'" he said to the sergeant. "I thank you."

"I am now and ever at your service, colonel,--soul, body, horses, and

carriages; all that is mine is yours."

"How he loves you!" said Ginevra.

Luigi now hurried his bride to the house they were to occupy. Their

modest apartment was soon reached; and there, when the door closed

upon them, Luigi took his wife in his arms, exclaiming,--

"Oh, my Ginevra! for now you are mine, here is our true wedding.

Here," he added, "all things will smile upon us."

Together they went through the three rooms contained in their lodging.

The room first entered served as salon and dining-room in one; on the

right was a bedchamber, on the left a large study which Luigi had

arranged for his wife; in it she found easels, color-boxes, lay-

figures, casts, pictures, portfolios,--in short, the paraphernalia of

an artist.

"So here I am to work!" she said, with an expression of childlike

happiness.

She looked long at the hangings and the furniture, turning again and

again to thank Luigi, for there was something that approached

magnificence in the little retreat. A bookcase contained her favorite

books; a piano filled an angle of the room. She sat down upon a divan,

drew Luigi to her side, and said, in a caressing voice, her hand in

his,--

"You have good taste."

"Those words make me happy," he replied.

"But let me see all," said Ginevra, to whom Luigi had made a mystery

of the adornment of the rooms.

They entered the nuptial chamber, fresh and white as a virgin.

"Oh! come away," said Luigi, smiling.

"But I wish to see all."

And the imperious Ginevra looked at each piece of furniture with the

minute care of an antiquary examining a coin; she touched the silken

hangings, and went over every article with the artless satisfaction of

a bride in the treasures of her wedding outfit.

"We begin by ruining ourselves," she said, in a half-joyous, half-

anxious tone.

"True! for all my back pay is there," replied Luigi. "I have mortgaged

it to a worthy fellow named Gigonnet."

"Why did you do so?" she said, in a tone of reproach, through which

could be heard her inward satisfaction. "Do you believe I should be

less happy in a garret? But," she added, "it is all charming, and--it

is ours!"

Luigi looked at her with such enthusiasm that she lowered her eyes.

"Now let us see the rest," she cried.

Above these three rooms, under the roof, was a study for Luigi, a

kitchen, and a servant's-room. Ginevra was much pleased with her

little domain, although the view from the windows was limited by the

high wall of a neighboring house, and the court-yard, from which their

light was derived, was gloomy. But the two lovers were so happy in

heart, hope so adorned their future, that they chose to see nothing

but what was charming in their hidden nest. They were there in that

vast house, lost in the immensity of Paris, like two pearls in their

shell in the depths of ocean; to all others it might have seemed a

prison; to them it was paradise.

The first few days of their union were given to love. The effort to

turn at once to work was too difficult; they could not resist the

charm of their own passion. Luigi lay for hours at the feet of his

wife, admiring the color of her hair, the moulding of her forehead,

the enchanting socket of her eyes, the purity and whiteness of the two

arches beneath which the eyes themselves turned slowly, expressing the

happiness of a satisfied love. Ginevra caressed the hair of her Luigi,

never weary of gazing at what she called his "belta folgorante," and

the delicacy of his features. She was constantly charmed by the

nobility of his manners, as she herself attracted him by the grace of

hers.

They played together, like children, with nothings,--nothings that

brought them ever back to their love,--ceasing their play only to fall

into a revery of the "far niente." An air sung by Ginevra reproduced

to their souls the enchanting lights and shadows of their passion.

Together, uniting their steps as they did their souls, they roamed

about the country, finding everywhere their love,--in the flowers, in

the sky, in the glowing tints of the setting sun; they read it in even

the capricious vapors which met and struggled in the ether. Each day

resembled in nothing its predecessors; their love increased, and still

increased, because it was a true love. They had tested each other in

what seemed only a short time; and, instinctively, they recognized

that their souls were of a kind whose inexhaustible riches promised

for the future unceasing joys.

Theirs was love in all its artlessness, with its interminable

conversations, unfinished speeches, long silences, oriental reposes,

and oriental ardor. Luigi and Ginevra comprehended love. Love is like

the ocean: seen superficially, or in haste, it is called monotonous by

common souls, whereas some privileged beings can pass their lives in

admiring it, and in finding, ceaselessly, the varying phenomena that

enchant them.

Soon, however, prudence and foresight drew the young couple from their

Eden; it was necessary to work to live. Ginevra, who possessed a

special talent for imitating old paintings, took up the business of

copying, and soon found many customers among the picture-dealers.

Luigi, on his side, sought long and actively for occupation, but it

was hard for a young officer whose talents had been restricted to the

study of strategy to find anything to do in Paris.

At last, weary of vain efforts, his soul filled with despair at seeing

the whole burden of their subsistence falling on Ginevra, it occurred

to him to make use of his handwriting, which was excellent. With a

persistency of which he saw an example in his wife, he went round

among the layers and notaries of Paris, asking for papers to copy. The

frankness of his manners and his situation interested many in his

favor; he soon obtained enough work to be obliged to find young men to

assist him; and this employment became, little by little, a regular

business. The profits of his office and the sale of Ginevra's pictures

gave the young couple a competence of which they were justly proud,

for it was the fruit of their industry.

This, to the busy pair, was the happiest period of their lives. The

days flowed rapidly by, filled with occupation and the joys of their

love. At night, after working all day, they met with delight in

Ginevra's studio. Music refreshed their weariness. No expression of

regret or melancholy obscured the happy features of the young wife,

and never did she utter a complaint. She appeared to her Luigi with a

smile upon her lips and her eyes beaming. Each cherished a ruling

thought which would have made them take pleasure in a labor still more

severe; Ginevra said in her heart that she worked for Luigi, and Luigi

the same for Ginevra.

Sometimes, in the absence of her husband, the thought of the perfect

happiness she might have had if this life of love could have been

lived in the presence of her father and mother overcame the young

wife; and then, as she felt the full power of remorse, she dropped

into melancholy; mournful pictures passed like shadows across her

imagination; she saw her old father alone, or her mother weeping in

secret lest the inexorable Piombo should perceive her tears. The two

white, solemn heads rose suddenly before her, and the thought came

that never again should she see them except in memory. This thought

pursued her like a presentiment.

She celebrated the anniversary of her marriage by giving her husband a

portrait he had long desired,--that of his Ginevra, painted by

herself. Never had the young artist done so remarkable a work. Aside

from the resemblance, the glow of her beauty, the purity of her

feelings, the happiness of love were there depicted by a sort of

magic. This masterpiece of her art and her joy was a votive offering

to their wedded felicity.

Another year of ease and comfort went by. The history of their life

may be given in three words: THEY WERE HAPPY. No event happened to

them of sufficient importance to be recorded.