Cecilia: A Story of Modern Rome

by F. Marion Crawford

She knew that what she felt for him was affection, and she was quite willing to believe that it was love. He certainly had no rival with her at that time, and if she hesitated, it was because the thought of marriage itself was repugnant to her.

In the secondary life of her imagination she was bound by the most solemn vows, and under the most terrible penalties, to preserve herself intact from the touch of man. In the dream, it was sacrilege for a man to love her, and meant death to love him in return. She knew that it was a dream, but she loved to believe that all the dream was true, and she was too much accustomed to the thought not to be influenced by it.

There are great actors who become so used to a favourite part that they go on acting it in real life, and have sometimes gone mad in the end, it is said, believing themselves really to be the heroes or tyrants they have represented. Only great second-rate actors "learn" their parts and attain to a sort of perfection in them by mechanical means. The really great first-rate artists make themselves a secondary existence by self-suggestion, and really have two selves, one that thinks and acts like Othello, or Hamlet, or Louis the Eleventh, the other that goes through life with the opinions, convictions, and principles of Sir Henry Irving, of Tommaso Salvini, or of Madame Sarah Bernhardt.

In a higher degree, because she had never learned but one part, and that one proceeded in some way out of her own intelligence, Cecilia was in the same state of dual consciousness, and if her waking life was influenced by her imaginary existence in dreams, her dreams were probably affected also by her waking life.

"Thou shalt so act, as to be worthy of happiness," said her favourite philosopher. She could undoubtedly marry Guido, in spite of her imaginary vows, if she chose to shake off the shadowy bond by an act of everyday will. Would that be acting so as to deserve to be happy? What is happiness? The belief that one is happy; nothing else. As Guido's wife, should she believe that she was happy? Yes, if there were happiness to be found in marriage. But she was happy already without it, and would always be so, she was sure. Therefore she would be risking a certainty for a possibility. "Who leaves the old and takes new, knows what he leaves, not what he may find"; so says the old Italian proverb. And again, she had heard a friend of her step-father's say with a laugh that hope seems cheap food, but is always paid for by those who live on it.

To act so as to be worthy of happiness, meant to act in such a way that the reason for each action might be a law for the happiness of all. That was the Categorical Imperative, and Cecilia believed in it.

Then, if she married Guido, she ought to be sure that all young girls in her position would marry under the circumstances, and that the majority of them would be happy. With a return of practical sense from the regions of philosophy, she asked herself how she should feel if Guido married some one else, one of the many young girls who were among her friends. Should she be jealous?

At the mere thought she felt a little dull sinking that was anticipated disappointment. Yes, she liked him enough, she was fond enough of him to miss him terribly if he were taken away from her. This was undoubtedly love, she thought. She could not be happy without that companionship, though she wished that it might continue all her life, without the necessity of being married to him.

Of all the other men she had met during the last month, the only one whom she instinctively understood was Lamberti, but that was different. It was the understanding of a fear that was sometimes almost abject; it was the certainty that if he only would, he could lead her anywhere, make her do anything, direct her as he directed his own hand. When she had met him in the house of the Vestals, she had been sure that if she stood a moment longer where he had come upon her, he would take her in his arms and kiss her, and she would not resist. It was of no use to argue about it, to tell herself that she would have been safe on a desert island with Guido's trusted friend; the conviction was strong. At the Villa Madama, he had made her say what he pleased, go with him where he chose, tell him her secret. It was too horrible for words. She had asked him to come to see her at an hour when there would be no visitors, and she knew that she had meant to see him alone, in spite of her mother, and even by stealth if need were. When he was out of her sight, his influence was gone with him, and she thanked heaven that he had not come, and that he apparently took care never to be alone with her for a moment now. He had only to look at her in a certain way, and she must obey him; if he ever touched her hand she would be his slave, powerless to resist him.

Sometimes she could not help looking at him, but then he never turned his eyes towards her, and she was thankful when she could turn hers away. When he was not present, she hoped that she might never see his face again, except in dreams, for there he was not the same. There, but for that one passionate kiss that told all, he was tender, and gentle, and true, and he listened to her, and in the end he lived as she wished him to live. But he had come back to life with the same face, another man—one whom she feared as she feared nothing in the world, and few things beyond it, for he was born her master, and was strong, and had ruthless eyes. Even Guido could not save her from him, she was sure.