He made a sign that he understood me, and closed the door of the carriage, which soon took me home. Ottavia, who alone sat up for me, was alarmed at seeing me return in such a condition. I repeated the account I had given Mario, and had no difficulty in convincing her I was ill. The change in my face was sufficient to prove it; but what was this paleness, great God! in comparison with the change that had come over my life within the hour that had scarcely elapsed?
XXVIII.
This time the thunderbolt had really fallen on my head! Many times had I heard it rumbling afar off, and once I thought myself fatally injured; but after a few stormy days, calmness was restored, the blue sky became visible, and the sun once more diffused the light and warmth of renewed confidence and happiness. The desire of being happy seconded my effort to become so. And, as I have remarked, the liveliness, buoyancy, and love of pleasure natural to the young, as well as the beauty of Naples and the influence of its climate, all tended to surround me with an atmosphere at once enervating and intoxicating. But now, in an instant, without any warning, all my hopes were crushed, annihilated, for ever at an end!
“Should Lorenzo become treacherous, unfaithful, and untrue to his word, could I continue to love him? What would become of me in such a case?” Such were the questions I once asked myself, and they were the sincere cry of my heart.
Now all this was realized. A person more treacherous, more deceitful, more untrue than he it seemed impossible to find. Everything now became clear. The words I heard, so plainly interpreted by the instinct they awakened and that had already warned me so strangely, enabled me to comprehend everything. Whether there was any good reason or not for his frequent absence, it was evident he had always met her. It was therefore from these interviews he had derived the cheerfulness and good-humor that apparently made him enjoy so much the comfort and splendor he afterwards came to participate in with me. Once—who can tell for what reason?—he had delayed going. It was then, probably, she came herself to meet him, not foreseeing, or he either, it would be before my very eyes!...
Even at the present time it would perhaps agitate me and disturb [pg 307] the tranquillity of my soul, should I dwell too long on the thoughts which then overwhelmed me, and from which I derived the conviction that I no longer loved Lorenzo. But I suffered from the deadly chill his treachery had struck to my heart. I would rather have experienced the torment of jealousy than the chill of indifference. To suffer from that would still have been life. To suffer as I did was like being paralyzed, petrified, dead.
Women more generous, more courageous, and more devoted than I, had, I was aware, won back such inconstant hearts, and found happiness once more in the sweetest of victories; but their example occurred to me without producing any impression. I was not in a condition to be influenced by it. My aimless life had resulted in the almost complete prostration of my strength of volition. In this condition I could neither suffer with courage, nor act with wisdom, nor resist temptation with any energy of will....
O my God! it is with my face prostrate in the dust I desire to write the pages that are to follow. It is not without hesitation I continue my account. But the remembrance of thy mercy prevails over everything, and effaces the very recollection of the faults and follies that serve to make it manifest! Like our divine poet wandering in the mazes of that gloomy forest which is the image of life, I, in my turn, attempt
“To discourse of what there good befell;
All else will I relate discovered there.”[82]