We found an exquisite supper served on a table sparkling with porcelain, glass and plate. The two guests were presented to me with due solemnity; they were Venetians both, with attractive faces and refined manners, and, although very inferior to Leoni, they resembled him somewhat in their pronunciation and in the quality of their minds. I asked him in an undertone if they were kinsmen of his.
"Yes," he replied aloud, with a laugh, "they are my cousins."
"Of course," added one of them, who was addressed as the marquis, "we are all cousins."
The next day, instead of two guests, there were four or five different ones at each meal. In less than a week our house was inundated with intimate friends. These assiduous guests consumed many sweet hours that I might have passed alone with Leoni, but had to share with them all. But Leoni, after his long exile, seemed overjoyed to see his friends once more and to lead a gayer life. I could form no wish opposed to his, and I was happy to see him enjoying himself. To be sure, the society of those men was delightful. They were all young and refined, jovial or intelligent, amiable or entertaining. They had excellent manners, and most of them were men of talent. Every morning we had music; in the afternoon we went on the water; after dinner we went to the theatre; and, on returning home, had supper and cards. I did not enjoy looking on at this last amusement, in which enormous sums changed hands every night. Leoni had given me permission to retire after supper, and I never failed. Little by little the number of our acquaintances increased so that I was bored and fatigued by them; but I said nothing about it. Leoni still seemed enchanted by this dissipated life. All the dandies of all nations who were then in Venice met by appointment at our house to drink and gamble and sing. The best singers from the theatres came often to mingle their voices with our instruments and with Leoni's voice, which was neither less beautiful nor less skilfully managed than theirs. Despite the fascination of this society, I felt more and more the longing for repose. To be sure, we still had some pleasant hours tête-à-tête from time to time. The dandies did not come every day, but the regular habitués consisted of a dozen or more men who formed the nucleus of our dinner-parties. Leoni was so fond of them that I could not help feeling some affection for them. They were the ones who enlivened the whole table by their superiority in every respect to the others. Those men were really remarkable, and seemed in some sense reflections of Leoni. They had that sort of family resemblance, that conformity of ideas and language which had impressed me the first day. There was an indefinable air of subtlety and distinction, which was lacking even in the most distinguished of the others. Their glances were more penetrating, their replies more prompt, their self-possession more lordly, their reckless extravagance in better taste. Each one of them exerted a sort of moral authority over a portion of the new-comers. They acted as their models and guides, at first in small matters, afterward in greater ones. Leoni was the soul of the whole body, the superior chief who was the mentor of that brilliant masculine coterie, in style, tone, dissipation and extravagance.
This species of empire pleased him, and I was not surprised at it. I had seen him reign even more openly at Brussels, and I had shared his pride and his glory; but our happy life at the chalet had taught me the secret of purer, more private joys. I regretted that life, and could not refrain from saying so.
"And so do I," said he. "I regret those months of pure delight, superior to all the empty vanities of society; but God did not choose to change the succession of the seasons for us. There is no eternal happiness any more than there is perpetual spring. It is a law of nature which we cannot escape. Be sure that everything is ordered for the best in this wicked world. The strength of a man's heart is no greater than the duration of the blessings of life. Let us submit; let us bend our necks. The flowers droop, wither and are born again every year. The human heart can renew itself like a flower, when it knows its own strength and does not bloom to the bursting point. Six months of unalloyed felicity was a tremendous allowance, my dear; we should have died of too much happiness if that had continued, or else we should have abused it. Destiny bids us come down from our ethereal peaks and breathe a less pure atmosphere in cities. Let us bow to the necessity and believe that it is well for us. When the fine weather returns again, we will return to our mountains. We shall be the more eager to find there all the pleasures of which we are deprived here; we shall better appreciate the value of our peaceful privacy; and that season of love and delight, which the hardships of the winter would have spoiled for us, will come again even lovelier than last year."
"Oh, yes," said I, embracing him, "we will return to Switzerland! How good you are to want to do it and to promise me that you will! But tell me, Leoni, can we not live more simply and more by ourselves here? We see each other now only through the fumes of punch; we speak to each other only amid songs and laughter. Why have we so many friends? Are we not enough for each other?"
"Why, Juliette," he replied, "angels are children, and you are both. You do not know that love is the function of the noblest faculties of the mind, and that we must take care of those faculties as of the apple of one's eye. You do not know, little girl, what your own heart is. Dear, sensitive, confiding creature that you are, you believe that it is an inexhaustible fountain of love; but the sun itself is not eternal. You do not know that the heart becomes tired like the body, and that it must be treated with the same care. Trust to me, Juliette; let me keep the sacred fire alight in your heart. It is my interest to preserve your love, to prevent you from squandering it too rapidly. All women are like you; they are in such a hurry to love that they suddenly cease to love, and do not know why."
"Bad boy," I said, "are these the things you said to me in the evenings on the mountain? Did you urge me not to love you too much? did you think that I was capable of becoming weary of loving you?"
"No, my angel," Leoni replied, kissing my hands, "nor do I think it now. But listen to my experience: external things exert upon our most secret feelings an influence against which the strongest contend in vain. In our valley, surrounded by pure air, by natural perfumes and melodies, we might well be and were certain to be all love, all poesy, all enthusiasm: but remember that, even while we were there, I was sparing of that enthusiasm, which is so easy to lose, so impossible to find again when it is lost; remember our rainy days, when I was more or less harsh with you in forcing you to keep your mind occupied, in order to save you from reflection and the melancholy which is its inevitable consequence. Be sure that too frequent examination of oneself and others is the most dangerous of occupations. We must shake off the selfish craving which impels us to be forever searching our hearts and the hearts of those who love us, like a foolish husbandman who exhausts the soil by dint of calling on it to produce beyond its capacity. We must know how to be unemotional and frivolous at times; such periods of distraction are dangerous only to weak and indolent hearts. An ardent heart ought to seek them in order not to consume itself; it is always rich enough. A word, a glance, is sufficient to send a thrill through it in the midst of the eddying whirl which carries it away, and to bring it back more ardent and more loving to the consciousness of its passion. Here, you see, we must have excitement and variety; these great palaces are beautiful, but they are melancholy. The sea moss clings to their feet, and the limpid water in which they are reflected is often laden with vapors which fall in tears. This magnificence is severe, and these marks of nobility which please you are simply a long succession of epitaphs and tombs which we must decorate with flowers. We must fill with living beings this echoing mansion, where your footsteps would frighten you if you were alone; we must throw money from the window to this populace which has no other bed than the ice-covered parapets of the bridges, so that the spectacle of its misery may not make us sad amid our well-being. Allow yourself to be cheered by our laughter and lulled to sleep by our songs; be good and do not worry; I will undertake to arrange your life and make it pleasant to you, even if I am unable to make it intoxicating. Be my wife and my mistress at Venice; you shall be my angel and my nymph again among the glaciers of Switzerland."