“Come, Ginevra,” said he, “you are really too childish! You are joking, doubtless, but no one knows better than you how to point a jest. But you shall tell me yourself what you think of the Marquise de Villanera after seeing her. As for me, I am going away. It is not necessary to have a third party when she comes. I will go meanwhile to see Kergy. But,” added he, as he was leaving the room, “as you have consented to receive her, remember I depend on your doing so politely.”
He went away, leaving me in a frame of mind by no means serene. I felt angry with him, and at the same time dissatisfied with myself. Everything went contrary to what I had hoped, and I awaited my visitor with a mixture of anguish and ill-humor.
I felt a kind of uneasiness analogous to that experienced when there is thunder in the air. I tried to apply myself to something, but, finding this impossible, I ended by returning to the window, where, book in hand, I rose from time to time to see what was going on in the street or the garden of the Tuileries.
At length, about two o'clock, I saw a small coupé coming around the corner from the Rue St. Florentin. I had seen an endless number pass while I stood there, but I watched this one without a shadow of doubt as to the direction it would take. It was but a moment, indeed, before I saw it stop at the door of the hotel. We were not, to be sure, the only occupants, but it never occurred to me that the person in the carriage would ask for any one but myself. I returned to the drawing-room, therefore, and had taken the seat I usually occupied when I received callers, when the Marquise de Villanera was announced in a loud voice.
I rose to meet her. There was a moment's silence, doubtless caused by an equal degree of curiosity on both sides. It was only for an instant that passed like a flash, but nevertheless each of us had scanned the other from head to foot.
At the first glance she did not seem young. I was not twenty years old myself then, and I judged as one is apt to at that age. In reality, she was not thirty. She was tall and fine-looking. Her form was noble and graceful, her features delicate and regular, her hair and eyebrows black as jet, her complexion absolutely devoid of color, and her eyes of a lively blue. This somewhat too bright a color gave a cold, hard look to her eyes, but their expression changed as soon as she began to speak, and became sweet, caressing, beseeching, irresistible. She was dressed in black, apparently with extreme simplicity, but in reality with extreme care.
I had not time to wonder how I should break this silence. It was she who spoke first, and her very first words removed the timidity and embarrassment that rendered this interview still more painful. What she said I am really unable to remember, and I cannot comprehend now the effect of her words; but I know they wrought a complete transformation in the feelings I experienced the evening before at the very mention of her name!
Women often wonder in vain what the charm is by which other women succeed in pleasing, and, as Bossuet says, in “drawing after them captive souls.” In their eyes, at least, this charm is inexplicable. But this is not always the case; for there are some women who, while they reserve for one the absolute ascendency of their empire, like to feel able to exert it over every one. Such was Donna Faustina. However deep the strange, secret warning of my heart might be, it was beyond my power to resist her. While she was talking I felt my prejudices vanish like snow before the sun, and it could not possibly have been otherwise, perhaps; at least without a penetration I was not endowed with, a distrust I was wholly incapable of, and an experience I did not then possess.
Did she really feel a kind of attraction towards me that rendered [pg 031] her sincere at this first interview? I prefer to think so. Yes, I prefer not to believe that deceit and perfidy could disguise themselves to such a degree under an appearance of cordiality, simplicity, artlessness, and sincerity. I prefer to hope it was not wholly by consummate art she won my confidence while seeming to repose unlimited confidence in me.
She very soon learned all she wished concerning me, and in return gave me her whole history; and however singular this sudden frankness on the part of a stranger ought to have appeared to me—and, indeed, was—the grace of her manner and the charm of her language prevented any doubt or criticism from crossing my mind. Young, without position or fortune, she had married a man three times as old as herself, with whom she lived in strict retirement. Her meeting with Lorenzo (but how this happened she did not explain) had been the only ray of joy in her life. She did not hide from me either the grief his departure caused her or the extent of her disappointment when she vainly awaited his return after she was left free. But all these feelings, she said, belonged to the past. Nothing remained but a friendship which she could not give up. The death of the aged Marquis de Villanera had of course left her free again, but it had also taken away her only protector. She felt alone in the world now, and begged me, in the midst of my happiness, to consider her loneliness and take pity on her.