XI

At this word Francesca could not repress a faint smile, which gave her

face the most bewildering expression, something subtle, like what the

great Leonardo has so well depicted in the /Gioconda/. This smile made

Rodolphe pause. "Ah yes!" he went on, "you must suffer much from the

destitution to which exile has brought you. Oh, if you would make me

happy above all men, and consecrate my love, you would treat me as a

friend. Ought I not to be your friend?--My poor mother has left sixty

thousand francs of savings; take half."

Francesca looked steadily at him. This piercing gaze went to the

bottom of Rodolphe's soul.

"We want nothing; my work amply supplies our luxuries," she replied in

a grave voice.

"And can I endure that a Francesca should work?" cried he. "One day

you will return to your country and find all you left there." Again

the Italian girl looked at Rodolphe. "And you will then repay me what

you may have condescended to borrow," he added, with an expression

full of delicate feeling.

"Let us drop the subject," said she, with incomparable dignity of

gesture, expression, and attitude. "Make a splendid fortune, be one of

the remarkable men of your country; that is my desire. Fame is a

drawbridge which may serve to cross a deep gulf. Be ambitious if you

must. I believe you have great and powerful talents, but use them

rather for the happiness of mankind than to deserve me; you will be

all the greater in my eyes."

In the course of this conversation, which lasted two hours, Rodolphe

discovered that Francesca was an enthusiast for Liberal ideas, and for

that worship of liberty which had led to the three revolutions in

Naples, Piemont, and Spain. On leaving, he was shown to the door by

Gina, the so-called mute. At eleven o'clock no one was astir in the

village, there was no fear of listeners; Rodolphe took Gina into a

corner, and asked her in a low voice and bad Italian, "Who are your

master and mistress, child? Tell me, I will give you this fine new

gold piece."

"Monsieur," said the girl, taking the coin, "my master is the famous

bookseller Lamparini of Milan, one of the leaders of the revolution,

and the conspirator of all others whom Austria would most like to have

in the Spielberg."

"A bookseller's wife! Ah, so much the better," thought he; "we are on

an equal footing.--And what is her family?" he added, "for she looks

like a queen."

"All Italian women do," replied Gina proudly. "Her father's name is

Colonna."

Emboldened by Francesca's modest rank, Rodolphe had an awning fitted

to his boat and cushions in the stern. When this was done, the lover

came to propose to Francesca to come out on the lake. The Italian

accepted, no doubt to carry out her part of a young English Miss in

the eyes of the villagers, but she brought Gina with her. Francesca

Colonna's lightest actions betrayed a superior education and the

highest social rank. By the way in which she took her place at the end

of the boat Rodolphe felt himself in some sort cut off from her, and,

in the face of a look of pride worthy of an aristocrat, the

familiarity he had intended fell dead. By a glance Francesca made

herself a princess, with all the prerogatives she might have enjoyed

in the Middle Ages. She seemed to have read the thoughts of this

vassal who was so audacious as to constitute himself her protector.

Already, in the furniture of the room where Francesca had received

him, in her dress, and in the various trifles she made use of,

Rodolphe had detected indications of a superior character and a fine

fortune. All these observations now recurred to his mind; he became

thoughtful after having been trampled on, as it were, by Francesca's

dignity. Gina, her half-grown-up /confidante/, also seemed to have a

mocking expression as she gave a covert or a side glance at Rodolphe.

This obvious disagreement between the Italian lady's rank and her

manners was a fresh puzzle to Rodolphe, who suspected some further

trick like Gina's assumed dumbness.

"Where would you go, Signora Lamporani?" he asked.

"Towards Lucerne," replied Francesca in French.

"Good!" said Rodolphe to himself, "she is not startled by hearing me

speak her name; she had, no doubt, foreseen that I should ask Gina--

she is so cunning.--What is your quarrel with me?" he went on, going

at last to sit down by her side, and asking her by a gesture to give

him her hand, which she withdrew. "You are cold and ceremonious; what,

in colloquial language, we should call /short/."

"It is true," she replied with a smile. "I am wrong. It is not good

manners; it is vulgar. In French you would call it inartistic. It is

better to be frank than to harbor cold or hostile feelings towards a

friend, and you have already proved yourself my friend. Perhaps I have

gone too far with you. You must take me to be a very ordinary woman."

--Rodolphe made many signs of denial.--"Yes," said the bookseller's

wife, going on without noticing this pantomime, which, however, she

plainly saw. "I have detected that, and naturally I have reconsidered

my conduct. Well! I will put an end to everything by a few words of

deep truth. Understand this, Rodolphe: I feel in myself the strength

to stifle a feeling if it were not in harmony with my ideas or

anticipation of what true love is. I could love--as we can love in

Italy, but I know my duty. No intoxication can make me forget it.

Married without my consent to that poor old man, I might take

advantage of the liberty he so generously gives me; but three years of

married life imply acceptance of its laws. Hence the most vehement

passion would never make me utter, even involuntarily, a wish to find

myself free.

"Emilio knows my character. He knows that without my heart, which is

my own, and which I might give away, I should never allow anyone to

take my hand. That is why I have just refused it to you. I desire to

be loved and waited for with fidelity, nobleness, ardor, while all I

can give is infinite tenderness of which the expression may not

overstep the boundary of the heart, the permitted neutral ground. All

this being thoroughly understood--Oh!" she went on with a girlish

gesture, "I will be as coquettish, as gay, as glad, as a child which

knows nothing of the dangers of familiarity."

This plain and frank declaration was made in a tone, an accent, and

supported by a look which gave it the deepest stamp of truth.

"A Princess Colonna could not have spoken better," said Rodolphe,

smiling.

"Is that," she answered with some haughtiness, "a reflection on the

humbleness of my birth? Must your love flaunt a coat-of-arms? At Milan

the noblest names are written over shop-doors: Sforza, Canova,

Visconti, Trivulzio, Ursini; there are Archintos apothecaries; but,

believe me, though I keep a shop, I have the feelings of a duchess."

"A reflection? Nay, madame, I meant it for praise."

"By a comparison?" she said archly.

"Ah, once for all," said he, "not to torture me if my words should ill

express my feelings, understand that my love is perfect; it carries

with it absolute obedience and respect."

She bowed as a woman satisfied, and said, "Then monsieur accepts the

treaty?"

"Yes," said he. "I can understand that in a rich and powerful feminine

nature the faculty of loving ought not to be wasted, and that you, out

of delicacy, wished to restrain it. Ah! Francesca, at my age

tenderness requited, and by so sublime, so royally beautiful a

creature as you are--why, it is the fulfilment of all my wishes. To

love you as you desire to be loved--is not that enough to make a young

man guard himself against every evil folly? Is it not to concentrate

all his powers in a noble passion, of which in the future he may be

proud, and which can leave none but lovely memories? If you could but

know with what hues you have clothed the chain of Pilatus, the Rigi,

and this superb lake--"

"I want to know," said she, with the Italian artlessness which has

always a touch of artfulness.

"Well, this hour will shine on all my life like a diamond on a queen's

brow."

Francesca's only reply was to lay her hand on Rodolphe's.

"Oh dearest! for ever dearest!--Tell me, have you never loved?"

"Never."

"And you allow me to love you nobly, looking to heaven for the utmost

fulfilment?" he asked.

She gently bent her head. Two large tears rolled down Rodolphe's

cheeks.

"Why! what is the matter?" she cried, abandoning her imperial manner.

"I have now no mother whom I can tell of my happiness; she left this

earth without seeing what would have mitigated her agony--"

"What?" said she.

"Her tenderness replaced by an equal tenderness----"

"/Povero mio/!" exclaimed the Italian, much touched. "Believe me," she

went on after a pause, "it is a very sweet thing, and to a woman, a

strong element of fidelity to know that she is all in all on earth to

the man she loves; to find him lonely, with no family, with nothing in

his heart but his love--in short, to have him wholly to herself."