I was married. My past life was at an end. A new and untried life had begun. What had it in reserve for me? What lay in the future, seemingly so brilliant, but in reality so dark? I could not tell, and at this moment I felt a vague terror rather than joyful anticipations. For the second time that evening Livia's voice seemed to resound in my ears, and this time to echo the words my mother had written. I seemed to make them some promise I hardly comprehended myself, and I murmured the words: “Rather die!...”
Lorenzo's voice recalled me to myself. His eyes, which had never lost sight of me, immediately perceived my absence, and he was now at my side. He was alarmed at first at the sight of my tears, my disordered hair, and the coronet lying on the stone bench beside me, but was reassured when I looked up with an appealing expression, and understood me without giving me the trouble to speak.
“Poor Ginevra!” he softly said in a caressing tone of protection which he so well knew how to assume. “Yes, you are right. This display is foolish, this crowd is odious, and has been too much for your strength. And how absurd,” he continued, “to hide this golden hair, and burden so young and fair a brow with heavy jewels! You did not need them, my Ginevra. You were certainly charming with the coronet on, but much more so as you are.... Ah! do not shake your head. You must allow me to say what I please now. You no longer have the right to impose silence on me, and I am no longer bound to obey you....”
So saying, he led me slowly back to the house, but, instead of returning to the rooms still crowded with company, he took me another way leading to a boudoir of a circular form, which was ornamented with particular care. The gilding, the mirrors, and the paintings did not seem to have suffered from the effects of time like the rest of the house. Nothing was wanting that could give this little room a comfortable and sumptuous aspect. The soft light of a lamp suspended from the ceiling was diffused throughout the room, and perfect silence reigned.
“This is your room, Ginevra,” said Lorenzo, carelessly throwing on one of the tables the circlet of diamonds he held in his hands. “Here you can quietly repose undisturbed by the crowd. There is absolutely nothing to disturb you here; the music itself can scarcely be heard. I will leave you, my Ginevra, to explain your absence and endure till the end of the evening the fearful task it pleases them to impose on us, but from which, at least, they must allow me to deliver you.”
XI.
The following day, as the breeze declined, I was standing beside Lorenzo on the deck of the ship that was bearing us away. I had left behind me all I had hitherto known and loved, and my eyes were yet tearful from my last farewells. I stood looking at the receding shores of Sicily, and the magnificent amphitheatre of Messina rising up before us, which presents so imposing an appearance when seen from the sea. We soon passed between the two famous whirlpools which often afford a comparison for those among us voyageurs over the sea of life who escape one only to fall into the other—a comparison figuratively very apt, though in reality it is quite doubtful if in our day any navigator ever falls either into Scylla or Charybdis.
When nothing more was to be seen, and night came on with its serene and starry heavens, revealing only the outline like a silvery vapor which marked the coast of Italy, I consented at last to leave the place where I had been standing motionless, and took a seat under an awning Lorenzo had had put up for me on deck. During the hour of calm repose I enjoyed there—my first and almost only hour of perfect happiness!—I was inspired with renewed hope and confidence while listening to the penetrating accents of the husband whose idol I was, as he depicted the future in language whose magic charm seemed to open a whole life of pleasure before me. After a few days' rest at Naples, we were to take a delightful journey through Italy and France. We should behold all the places and objects I had so often seen in imagination, and whose names were so familiar to my memory. The interest I was capable of feeling in every subject, the curiosity so natural to the young, and the undeveloped sense of the beautiful which Lorenzo knew so well how to draw out and gratify, the taste for art with which he was gifted—all these chords, as yet nearly untried, seemed to vibrate within me as I listened to him. I was like a docile instrument from which a skilful hand knows how to draw forth sounds hitherto unsuspected. As in certain compositions of the great masters, the same musical idea is persistently reproduced in the most varied modulations, so on all subjects and on all occasions he found means to lead my heart back to the certain conviction of being loved—loved as much as in my most ambitious dreams I had ever imagined it would be sweet to be loved. At that moment the vow so “fearful” seemed easy to keep; and if Livia's words had occurred to me then, they would doubtless have excited a smile!...
One false note, however, or at least a doubtful one, disturbed for an instant the harmony that seemed to reign between us.