“Yes, I solemnly promise.”
In spite of the solemnity of his words, I saw it was with difficulty he repressed a smile. But when he saw the agitation produced by the recollections thus awakened, his expression became serious. For a moment a cloud came over his face; but in proportion as I entered into the details of that last night of my mother's life—my thoughtlessness, my shock, and, finally, my despair and repentance—he became affected, and listened with so much emotion that his look inspired me with confidence, and I finished without fear the account I had begun with a trembling voice.
As has been seen, I thought myself more guilty than I should have been had there been any truth in the vague, unmerited reproaches I had endured; for the slight fault I had really committed seemed indissolubly connected with the fearful calamity that followed!... That was why I thought myself unpardonable, and why I preferred to endure the most unfounded suspicions concerning me rather than reveal the truth to any one in the world—above all, to my father. But it seemed to me I ought not, for the same reason, to conceal it from him who had so generously offered me his hand, whatever might be the result. I therefore continued, and he listened without interrupting me. When I had ended, he spoke in his turn, and what he said decided the fate of my life.
I already felt relieved by the complete revelation of a secret I had hitherto kept with an obstinacy that was perhaps a little childish. And in listening to the soft accents of his sonorous, penetrating voice, my heart was more and more comforted, and soon allowed itself to be persuaded into what it was sweet and consoling to believe—that, as he said, I exaggerated the consequence of my thoughtlessness; that if I had afflicted my mother, I had time to ask and obtain her forgiveness; that I was ignorant of her dangerous condition, and, when I became aware of it, I supposed I had been the cause; ... but all this was unreasonable.... And as to the flower.... Here he stopped, and his brow darkened for a moment. “Answer [pg 460] me frankly,” he said slowly; “if Flavio Aldini were still alive, if he were here under this window to-day, and implored you to give him that little sprig of jasmine I see in your belt....”
He had not time to finish.
“Is it possible,” I exclaimed, “you, who say you understand me, who pretend to have read my heart, can mention a name that has become so odious to me?...”
Then I continued, I imagine to his great surprise:
“You are the first to whom I have acknowledged the fault he made me commit, for I do not consider the ear of the priest to whom I confessed it as that of man. There I experienced the indulgence of heaven, and was forgiven by God as well as my mother.... But would you know what cost me the most that day? Not, certainly, my sorrow for the past; not my firm resolutions as to the future; nor even the humble acceptation of all the humiliations that have been inflicted on me.... No, what cost me the most was to promise to overcome my resentment, to subdue the bitterness awakened by the very name of Flavio, and to utter it every day in prayer for the repose of his soul!...”
I was, in speaking thus, very remote from the regions familiar to Lorenzo. While I was uttering these words, my face was lit up with an expression very different from any he had ever seen there. He gazed at me without seeming to hear what I said, and at length replied with evident emotion:
“I thank you for telling me this, though one look at you is sufficient to efface all doubt, as darkness vanishes before the approach of day.”