“Nothing? Come, George, be honest, or let us stop.”
“No, let us go on. I sometimes feel the need of opening my heart. Well, I acknowledge that, when I met Vera de Liningen for the first time two years ago, I was struck with her beauty and still more charmed with her wit, and had I then remained in her neighborhood I might have found it difficult to give her up. In that case my fate would doubtless have been decided by this time. I should have submitted to the yoke, and not only be married, but perhaps have the honor of a position at court, clothed in some of those dignities to which the husband of a favorite maid of honor might aspire.”
“Well, my dear friend, considering that this maid of honor is rich, noble, and one of the fairest ladies at court, and that you were then somewhat dazzled, and she made no secret of her preference for you, I do not see that this result would have been a very fearful one.”
“No, I acknowledge it. If I had never left St. Petersburg, perhaps I should have found happiness there on these terms. Now, whether fortunate or unfortunate, I do not know, but, having breathed a different atmosphere, I could no longer live in that. A thousand feelings, a thousand sympathies, a thousand opinions, which I have insensibly acquired would make me regard the gilded chain of a court life as the worst of slaveries. This alone would have sufficed to check the words on my lips which Vera perhaps expected to hear, but which she knows well I never uttered. As to the conjectures of the world, what do I care for them?”
“You acknowledge, however, that that is not the only cause of the rupture?”
“No, if there has been a rupture: that motive was not indeed, or is not, the only one.”
“I really suspected it, and I could not tell you which of the two motives I deplore the most.”
“Truly, Adelardi,” said George impatiently, “I cannot help thinking your great solicitude very singular. You once told me the manner of contracting marriage in Italy made you decide to remain a bachelor, and now you are as scandalized at seeing me choose the lady of my taste with some disregard of received notions, as the Marquis Trombelli himself could be!”
Adelardi smiled.
“That is not all, and what I have to say is still stronger. I am neither pleased nor satisfied with the political régime under which it has pleased Providence to give me birth, and it is you, Adelardi, you! who are astonished at this and annoyed!—I might ask you, in my turn, why you do not return to Milan, like a loyal subject, to enjoy the paternal government under which you would be permitted to live?”