“Poor child! how have you breathed so long the air of this dismal house without dying of it? You, made to reign in the world, to inhabit the palace of a prince, to live in the midst of fetes, to feel the joys which love bestows, to see the world at your feet, to efface all other beauty by your own which can have no rival—you, to live here, solitary, with those two shopkeepers!”
Adroit question! He wished to know if Juana had a lover.
“True,” she replied. “But who can have told you my secret thoughts? For the last few months I have nearly died of sadness. Yes, I would rather die than stay longer in this house. Look at that embroidery; there is not a stitch there which I did not set with dreadful thoughts. How many times I have thought of escaping to fling myself into the sea! Why? I don’t know why,—little childish troubles, but very keen, though they are so silly. Often I have kissed my mother at night as one would kiss a mother for the last time, saying in my heart: ‘To-morrow I will kill myself.’ But I do not die. Suicides go to hell, you know, and I am so afraid of hell that I resign myself to live, to get up in the morning and go to bed at night, and work the same hours, and do the same things. I am not so weary of it, but I suffer—And yet, my father and mother adore me. Oh! I am bad, I am bad; I say so to my confessor.”
“Do you always live here alone, without amusement, without pleasures?”
“Oh! I have not always been like this. Till I was fifteen the festivals of the church, the chants, the music gave me pleasure. I was happy, feeling myself like the angels without sin and able to communicate every week—I loved God then. But for the last three years, from day to day, all things have changed. First, I wanted flowers here—and I have them, lovely flowers! Then I wanted—but I want nothing now,” she added, after a pause, smiling at Montefiore. “Have you not said that you would love me always?”
“Yes, my Juana,” cried Montefiore, softly, taking her round the waist and pressing her to his heart, “yes. But let me speak to you as you speak to God. Are you not as beautiful as Mary in heaven? Listen. I swear to you,” he continued, kissing her hair, “I swear to take that forehead for my altar, to make you my idol, to lay at your feet all the luxuries of the world. For you, my palace at Milan; for you my horses, my jewels, the diamonds of my ancient family; for you, each day, fresh jewels, a thousand pleasures, and all the joys of earth!”
“Yes,” she said reflectively, “I would like that; but I feel within my soul that I would like better than all the world my husband. Mio caro sposo!” she said, as if it were impossible to give in any other language the infinite tenderness, the loving elegance with which the Italian tongue and accent clothe those delightful words. Besides, Italian was Juana’s maternal language.
“I should find,” she continued, with a glance at Montefiore in which shone the purity of the cherubim, “I should find in him my dear religion, him and God—God and him. Is he to be you?” she said. “Yes, surely it will be you,” she cried, after a pause. “Come, and see the picture my father brought me from Italy.”
She took a candle, made a sign to Montefiore, and showed him at the foot of her bed a Saint Michael overthrowing the demon.
“Look!” she said, “has he not your eyes? When I saw you from my window in the street, our meeting seemed to me a sign from heaven. Every day during my morning meditation, while waiting for my mother to call me to prayer, I have so gazed at that picture, that angel, that I have ended by thinking him my husband—oh! heavens, I speak to you as though you were myself. I must seem crazy to you; but if you only knew how a poor captive wants to tell the thoughts that choke her! When alone, I talk to my flowers, to my tapestry; they can understand me better, I think, than my father and mother, who are so grave.”