The Piccinino, Volume 2 (of 2); The last of Aldinis

by George Sand

"A misfortune? how so?"

"I will tell you, signora. You are the heiress of a noble and illustrious family. You have been brought up to respect your ancestors and to believe that antiquity and splendor of race are all that there is in life. I am a poor devil without a past, a nobody, who have made myself what I am. And yet I believe that one man is as good as another, and I do not consider myself any man's inferior. Now, it is clear that you would not marry me. Everything would forbid it, your principles, your habits, your position in life. You, who have refused patricians because their families were not noble enough, would be less able and less likely than any other woman to stoop to a paltry actor like myself. From princess to player is a long way, signora. So I cannot be your husband. What is left for me? The prospect of a mutual passion, wretchedly unhappy if it were never gratified, or the hope of being your lover for a time. I cannot accept either, signora. To live together, overflowing with a passion always intense and never allayed, to love each other in fear and trembling, and to distrust ourselves as well as each other, is to subject ourselves voluntarily to suffering that would be intolerable because it would be senseless, hopeless, and aimless. Nor would I, even if I could, possess you as a lover. My happiness would be assailed by anxiety from too many sources to be at all complete. On the one hand, I should always be afraid of compromising your good name; I could not sleep with the dread of being the cause of great misery to you, or of your utter ruin; during the day I should pass long hours looking out for accidents which might bring misery upon you and consequently upon me, and at night I should waste the time that we were together in trembling at the fall of a leaf or at the cry of a bird. Everything would be a source of alarm to me. And why should I thus toss my life to a multitude of empty phantoms, to be consumed? for a love-affair of which I could never foresee the duration and which would afford no compensation for the uncertainties of to-day in a sense of security for the morrow; for sooner or later, signora,—I must say it frankly—you would marry. And you would marry a man of noble birth and of great wealth like yourself. It would cost you a bitter pang, I know; I know that you have a generous and sincere heart; you would desire most earnestly to remain faithful to me, and your heart would rebel at the thought of uttering a word which would put an end to all my happiness surely, if not to my life. But the constant assaults of your family, the very necessity of preserving your reputation, would drive you to take that course in spite of yourself. You would struggle a long while, no doubt, and vigorously. Your love for me would still be gentle and tender, but less effusive; and I, witnessing your grief, as I am not the man to accept long and painful sacrifices without returning them in kind, should myself force you, by going away from you, to resign yourself to that necessary marriage, preferring to consecrate my whole future to sorrow rather than to change your destiny by a dastardly act. That is what I wanted to say to you, signora, and you must understand now why I am afraid that this love would prove to be a misfortune to me."

She had listened to me with perfect tranquillity and in absolute silence. When I ceased speaking, she did not change her attitude in any way. But, watching her closely, I fancied that I detected an expression of profound perplexity on her face. Thereupon I said to myself that I had made no mistake, that she was weak and vain like all the rest of her sex; that the only difference was that she was honest enough to recognize the fact as soon as it was pointed out to her, and that she would probably be honest enough to admit it. So I allowed her to retain my esteem, but I felt that my enthusiasm vanished in an instant. I was congratulating myself on my perspicacity and my firmness, when the signora rose abruptly and walked away without a word. I was not prepared for that stroke, and I was painfully surprised.

"What! without a single word?" I cried. "You leave me, perhaps forever, without a single word of regret or consolation?"

"Farewell!" she said, turning toward me. "Regret I cannot feel; and I am the one who need consolation. You have failed to understand me, you do not love me."

"I do not love you?"

"But who will understand me," she added, stopping, "if you do not? Who will love me, if you do not?"

She shook her head sadly, then folded her arms across her breast and fixed her eyes on the ground. She was at once so lovely and so despairing that I had a frantic longing to throw myself at her feet, and only a vague fear of angering her prevented me from doing it on the instant. I stood still, saying not a word, with my eyes fastened upon her, waiting anxiously to see what she would say or do. After a few seconds she walked slowly toward me, and, leaning against the pedestal of the statue, said with a meditative air:

"So you thought me cowardly and vain; you thought me capable of giving my love to a man and accepting his, without giving him at the same time my whole life. You thought that I would stay with you so long as the wind held fair, and that I would go away as soon as it became adverse. How can you have thought so? For you are a steadfast, loyal man, and I am sure that you would not start upon any serious course of action until you had determined to go on with it to the end. Why, then, do you insist that I cannot do what you do, and why have you not the same good opinion of me that I have of you? Either you must have great contempt for women, or you have allowed yourself to be sadly misled by my levity. I am often foolish; I know that; but perhaps that may be to some extent the fault of my age, and it does not prevent my being steadfast and loyal. On the day that I realized that I loved you, Lelio, I determined to marry you. That surprises you. You remember not only the thoughts that I must have had in my position, but also my past words and acts. You think of all the patricians I have refused to marry because they were not noble enough. Alas! my dear friend, I am the slave of my public, just as you sometimes complain of being of yours, and I am obliged to play my rôle before it until I find an opportunity to escape from the stage. But I have kept my heart free under my mask, and, since I have been able to reason, I have determined that I would not marry except in accordance with the dictates of my heart. But I had to have some excuse for dismissing all those insipid and impertinent patricians to whom you refer. I found it in the prejudices common to my suitors and my family, and, wounding the pride of the former and flattering the pride of the latter at the same time, I took advantage of the antiquity of my blood to refuse the hand of men who, noble as they were, were still, I said, not noble enough for me. In this way I succeeded in getting rid of all my troublesome suitors without displeasing my family; for although they called my refusals childish whims, and offered my rejected followers apologies for my exaggerated pride of birth, they were none the less enchanted with it in the depths of their hearts. For some little time I enjoyed greater freedom by virtue of this conduct. But at last my stepfather, Prince Grimani, told me that it was time to make up my mind, and presented his nephew, Count Ettore, as the husband he had in mind for me. This new pretender was as unattractive to me as his predecessor—even more so perhaps; for his excessive imbecility soon led me to despise him altogether. The prince, seeing this, and thinking that my mother, who is a dear soul and loves me with all her heart, might aid and abet me in my resistance to his will, determined to part me from her in order to force me more easily to obey him. He sent me here to live with no one but his sister and nephew. He hopes that, being compelled to choose between ennui and my cousin Ettore, I shall end by choosing the latter; but he is sadly mistaken. Count Ettore is unworthy of me in every respect, and I should rather die than marry him. I have never said so as yet, because I loved nobody, and, taking one scourge with another, I had no more objection to that one than to others. But now I love you, Lelio; I will tell Ettore that I will not have him; we will go away together—to my mother; we will tell her that we love each other, and that we wish to be married. She will give her consent, and you will marry me. Do you agree?"

I had listened to the signora, from her very first word, with profound amazement, which did not cease when she had finished. Such nobleness of heart, such fearlessness of thought, such masculine audacity blended with such delicacy of feeling—all these united in so young a girl, brought up amid the most arrogant of the old aristocrats—aroused the warmest admiration in my own mind, and my surprise gave place to enthusiasm. I was on the point of giving way to my transports and of throwing myself at her feet to tell her that I was happy and proud to be loved by a woman like her, that I was burning with the most ardent passion for her, and that I was ready to do whatever she choose. But reflection checked me in time, and I thought of all the drawbacks, all the dangers of the step she proposed to risk. It was very probable that she would be refused and severely rebuked, and then what would be her plight, after running away from her aunt's house and openly taking a journey of eight leagues with me? And so, instead of yielding to the tumultuous impulses of my heart, I forced myself to be calm, and, after a few seconds of silence, I tranquilly inquired: