The forms that Piombo saw about him seemed, to his eyes, escaped from hell; his repressed and concentrated rage knew no longer any bounds as the calm and fluted voice of the little notary uttered the words: “permit me.” By a sudden movement he sprang to a dagger that was hanging to a nail above the fireplace, and rushed toward his daughter. The younger of the two notaries and one of the witnesses threw themselves before Ginevra; but Piombo knocked them violently down, his face on fire, and his eyes casting flames more terrifying than the glitter of the dagger. When Ginevra saw him approach her she looked at him with an air of triumph, and advancing slowly, knelt down. “No, no! I cannot!” he cried, flinging away the weapon, which buried itself in the wainscot.
“Well, then! have mercy! have pity!” she said. “You hesitate to be my death, and you refuse me life! Oh! father, never have I loved you as I do at this moment; give me Luigi! I ask for your consent upon my knees: a daughter can humiliate herself before her father. My Luigi, give me my Luigi, or I die!”
The violent excitement which suffocated her stopped her words, for she had no voice; her convulsive movements showed plainly that she lay, as it were, between life and death. Bartolomeo roughly pushed her from him.
“Go,” he said. “The wife of Luigi Porta cannot be a Piombo. I have no daughter. I have not the strength to curse you, but I cast you off; you have no father. My Ginevra Piombo is buried here,” he said, in a deep voice, pressing violently on his heart. “Go, leave my house, unhappy girl,” he added, after a moment’s silence. “Go, and never come into my sight again.”
So saying, he took Ginevra by the arm to the gate of the house and silently put her out.
“Luigi!” cried Ginevra, entering the humble lodging of her lover,—“my Luigi, we have no other fortune than our love.”
“Then am I richer than the kings of the earth!” he cried.
“My father and my mother have cast me off,” she said, in deepest sadness.
“I will love you in place of them.”
“Then let us be happy,—we WILL be happy!” she cried, with a gayety in which there was something dreadful.