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

by George Sand

The time soon came when the signora seemed to be less light and the staircase harder to ascend. It was not because her weight was increasing, but because my strength failed me as soon as I took her in my arms. At first I did not understand it; then I reproached myself bitterly; but my emotion was insurmountable. That willowy and voluptuous figure which abandoned itself to me, that charming face almost touching mine, that alabaster arm around my bare and burning neck, that perfumed hair mingling with mine—it was too much for a lad of seventeen. It was impossible for her not to feel the hurried beating of my heart, and read in my eyes the disturbance that she caused in my senses. "I tire you," she would sometimes say with a languishing air. I could not reply to that sarcasm; my head would begin to whirl, and I was forced to run away as soon as I had placed her in her chair. One day it happened that Salomé was not, as usual, in her cabinet to receive her. I had some difficulty in arranging the cushions so that she could sit comfortably. My arms met around her waist. I found myself at her feet, my dizzy head resting on her knees. She ran her fingers through my hair. The sudden quivering of that hand revealed to me that of which I had had no conception. I was not the only one who was moved; I was not the only one on the point of giving way. We were no longer servant and mistress, gondolier and signora; we were a young man and a young woman who loved each other. A sudden light flashed through my mind and darted from my eyes. She hastily pushed me away, and exclaimed, in a stifled voice: "Go!" I obeyed, but as a conqueror. I was no longer the servant receiving an order, but the lover making a sacrifice.

Thereupon blind desire took possession of my whole being. I did not reflect; I felt neither fear nor scruple nor doubt. I had but one fixed idea, to be alone with Bianca. But that was more difficult than one might presume from her independent position. It seemed as if Salomé divined the danger, and had taken upon herself the task of protecting her mistress from it. She never left her, except sometimes at night when little Alezia wanted to go to bed at the hour when her mother went out in the gondola. At such times Mandola inevitably accompanied us on the lagoons. I saw plainly enough, by the signora's expression and her uneasiness, that she could not help desiring a tête-à-tête with me; but she was too weak either to seek it or to avoid it. I did not lack boldness or resolution, but not for anything under heaven would I have compromised her; and furthermore, so long as I had not actually won a victory in that delicate condition of affairs, my rôle might well be supremely ridiculous, even contemptible, in the eyes of the signora's other servants.

Luckily honest Mandola, who was not devoid of penetration, had for me an affection which never wavered. I should not be surprised, although he never gave me the right to assert it, if love had sometimes made a soft heart beat fast beneath that rough bark, when he carried the signora in his arms. It was extremely imprudent for a young woman to betray the secret of her love-affairs to two young men of our age, and almost flaunt them in our faces; and it was impossible for us to be witnesses of the good fortune of other men, for two years, without being unduly tempted. However that may be, I find it difficult to believe that Mandola would have detected so readily what was taking place in my heart, if something of the same sort had not taken place in his. One evening, as I sat at the bow of the gondola, lost in thought, my face hidden in my hands, waiting for the signora to send for us, he said to me: "Nello! Nello!!!"—nothing more, but in a tone which seemed to me to mean so much that I raised my head and looked at him with a sort of terror, as if my fate were in his hands.—He stifled something like a sigh, as he added the popular saying: "Sara quel che sara!"

"What do you mean?" I cried, rising and grasping his arm.

"Nello! Nello!" he repeated, shaking his head. At that moment they came to tell me to go up and bring the signora to the gondola; but Mandola's meaning glance followed me up the steps and moved me strangely.

That same day Mandola applied to Signora Aldini for a week's leave of absence, to go and see his sick father. Bianca seemed surprised and dismayed by the request; but she granted it at once, adding: "But who will row my gondola?"—"Nello," Mandola replied, watching me closely. "But he cannot row alone," rejoined the signora. "No matter, take me home, to-morrow we will look for a temporary substitute. Go to see your father, and take good care of him; I will pray for him."

The next day the signora sent for me, and asked me if I had made inquiries for a gondolier. I replied only by an audacious smile. The signora turned pale and said to me in a trembling voice: "You will attend to it to-morrow; I shall not go out to-day."

I realized my mistake; but the signora had shown more fear than anger, and my hope augmented my insolence. Toward evening I went and asked her if I should bring the gondola to the steps. She replied coldly: "I told you this morning that I should not go out." I did not lose courage. "The weather has changed, signora," I said, "the wind is as warm as the sirocco. It is fine weather for you to-night." She bestowed a withering glance upon me, saying: "I didn't ask you what the weather is. How long has it been your place to advise me?" The battle was on, I did not retreat. "Since you have seemed disposed to allow yourself to die," I replied vehemently. She seemed to yield to some magnetic force; for she languidly dropped her head on her hand, and in a faint voice bade me bring the gondola.

I carried her down to it. Salomé attempted to accompany her. I took it upon myself to say to her in an imperative tone that her mistress ordered her to remain with Signora Alezia. I saw the blood come and go in the signora's cheeks as I took the oar and eagerly pushed against the marble steps which seemed to flee behind us.

When I was a few rods from the palace, it seemed to me that I had conquered the world, and that my victory was assured, all inconvenient witnesses being out of the way. I rowed furiously out into the middle of the lagoons, without turning my head, without speaking a word, without stopping for breath. I had the appearance of a lover carrying off his mistress much more than of a gondolier rowing his employer. When we were quite alone, I dropped my oar and let the boat drift; but at that point all my courage abandoned me; it was impossible for me to speak to the signora, I dared not even look at her. She gave me no encouragement, and I rowed her back to the palace, mortified enough to have resumed the trade of boatman without obtaining the reward I hoped for.