What could she hope for in yielding to such a passion? Remorse, despair, and madness! But of these the young damsel thought not then. Ha! I was then graceful and well looking, and we both were young and ardently in love. My eyes at one time, my tremulous tones at another, had informed her of the mighty secret which preyed upon my heart; and which my lips dared not reveal until the rapturous moment when I perceived the mutual flame that struggled in her bosom. Then, but not till then, did I pour forth a rhapsody expressive of my love; when yielding to its burning impulses, all the long-concealed ardour of my heart burst at once upon her ear. Love lent a light to my eyes, a grace and gesture to my figure, and imparted new eloquence to my tongue: I was no longer myself; no more the cold, cautious friar, but the impetuous Italian lover. The monk was forgotten in the man; my vows in the delight of the moment; and the lovely Paula sank upon my shoulder overcome with love and terror. O, hour of joy! when I first pressed my trembling lip to that soft and beautiful cheek. Long years of penance and of prayer—of dreary repining, of soul-crushing humiliation and sorrow—were all repaid by the bliss of that embrace: which I have never forgotten. No! not all the years that have passed since then; not all the dark villanies I have planned and perpetrated: and they are many; not all the dangers I have dared: and they are countless as the hairs of your head; not all the toils and miseries of a life can efface it from my memory. I was happy then: I who, perhaps, have never been so since. * * * * *
A footstep aroused us, and the blushing girl shrank from me as the little boy Rosario came gamboling towards the arbour with a chaplet for her hair. I cast a fierce glance of hatred upon him. Even Paula was piqued, and refused to receive the flowers; upon which the child wept, and pulling my cassock, prayed me to lecture his sister for being so coy.
"Scold her, Father Lancelloti!" said he, rubbing his glittering eyes with his plump little hands; "for she will neither kiss me nor receive my roses to put among her pretty hair, as she used to love to do."
"Give me the flowers, child," said I; "shall I kiss sister Paula for you, Rosario?"
"O, yes, yes," cried the little boy, "or sister Paula will kiss you, and then me."
Our lips met, and the agitated and infatuated Paula embraced the child, who laughed and clapped his hands with innocent glee; and yet he knew not at what. At that moment the long sword of the captain jarred on the gravel walk, and his heavy tread rang beneath the trellis of the garden. Aware that, as a priest, I had wronged him in the declaration made to his daughter, and that I had committed a deadly sin before God, I shrank from meeting him; and, leaping over the garden-wall, returned to the monastery, where, not without sensations of triumph, I recounted my conquest to Petronio and the hunchback.
Three days I visited her as usual, and rejoiced in the success of my amour; for I loved her tenderly and dearly. My air was so sanctified that the most jealous guardian would not have suspected me; then how much less the good Batello, who, by his profession, had been accustomed to intercourse with men of the strictest honour, and suspected no man of duplicity, because his own brave heart was guileless.
My rose-bud of love was just beginning to bloom, when matters were doomed to have a terrible crisis.
One bright forenoon, when Rosario had finished his task, I was about to return to Friuli, and merely bowed to Paula, because her father was present.
"Brother Lancelloti," said he, grasping my cope, "hast heard the news? The senate is about to declare war against the Turks, and the capeletti are to be doubled. Brave news for an old soldier, eh! I may be a colonello, with Rosario for captain! Come hither, thou chubby rogue—wouldst like to be a captain?"