"'Here on my knees,' he began, 'will I tell a tale that shall freeze your blood, and make you turn from me in scorn, or hatred. You will not betray me?'
"I assured him I would not.
"'I am the last of a noble Florentine house, which bears the names of sovereigns upon its registers. My father was a cold, stern man, proud of his high descent, and arrogant with those beneath him. My mother was the daughter of a Venetian noble, bright and beautiful as a diamond, and insensible to all the softer warmths of women as is that precious gem. I was their only child, and all the love their hearts were capable of feeling was bestowed upon me; all my desires were gratified ere expressed; obsequious menials stood about my path eager to obey my slightest nod; velvet received my infant footsteps, and the atmosphere around me was one of mellow music.
"'I grew up to manhood a pampered child of fortune,
happy only in the midnight orgie or early morning revel, and the most polished profligate of my native city; yet my father regarded me with feelings of pride, and my mother looked upon her son as one well worthy to inherit the flaunting fortunes of his house. Although my father was ever kind to me he was subject to occasional fits of violence, when he would beat the servants, and render it necessary for his friends to confine him. It was said that he had seized a gipsey woman who had been caught in the act of stealing, causing her to be burned alive, and that while the flames were torturing the poor wretch, she had denounced her executioner with the bitterest execrations, and declared that he and his offspring should feel the curse of madness. The prophecy so worked upon my father's mind as to occasion periodical attacks of insanity, at which seasons he would rave fearfully, and, as I said before, render temporary confinement necessary. I cannot say that the knowledge of this fact had any effect upon me then, for I was gay and thoughtless; but, alas! it has since proved my bane, and poisoned every cup that has touched my lips.
"'Onward I flew, in a whirl of wildest dissipation, until my twenty-first birth day, when my father ordered me to meet him in the library at a certain hour. Not daring to disobey him, although I anticipated some cutting rebuke for my late headlong course, I waited upon him at the appointed time, and was relieved when he asked me in a kind tone to take a seat near him.
"'"Dominique," he said, "you have now reached
an age when you must give up childish follies, and be a man. You are my only son, and my titles and fortune must one day be yours. It is my hope that you may support them with honor; but, in order to do this you must take a decided step at once—you must marry."
"'Although arrived at that period of life when woman usually becomes the principal object of man's hope and ambition, I was totally indifferent to them, and ridiculed those of my friends who had married, or, as I termed it, become slaves for life. But I knew my father's temper too well to thwart him, and appeared to acquiesce in his designs for my future benefit. He informed me that the lady whom he had selected to be my bride, was of a noble family, and would be at our villa in a few days, when he wished me to render myself as agreeable as possible, and at once commence my wooing.
"'I left him with a feeling of despair at being so soon obliged to give up my gay companions and become suppliant to one whom I had never before seen, and belonging to a sex that I held in contempt.