It was thus she led me back to a great but evident truth. I comprehended it in spite of the different feelings I had experienced, and trusted time would give me an opportunity [pg 647] of winning back my husband's heart, which was even sorer than mine had ever been. My eyes were often filled with tears, in spite of myself, as I saw the alteration in his face, his anxious look, his brow furrowed before the time, and all the sad indications by which a soul that is tarnished betrays the reaction which has such an injurious effect on physical beauty itself. But the time was gone by when it seemed possible to form some project, and achieve it in a day. I had learned the value of the words patience and silence.
I rose now every morning as soon as it was light, and went with Ottavia to the church of a neighboring convent to seek strength for the day and, so to speak, draw fresh joy from the inexhaustible fountain. I afterwards carried myself the alms which, in my pride and indolence, I had hitherto been contented to distribute by her hands. This was the only outward change in my way of life, and it was one that nobody perceived. But it was not quite the same with the change that had unconsciously taken place in my language, manners, and even in the expression of my face, and though Lorenzo seldom had an opportunity of noticing me, I soon fancied he had recovered a certain ease of manner towards me. Until now, he had been, not only wounded in his pride and passion, but especially humiliated in my presence; and it must be acknowledged that the coldness and disdain that constituted the mute form of my reproach were not calculated to conciliate him. The freezing haughtiness of his air in return, which seemed to add outrage to perjury, increased my exasperation to the utmost, and irritated me more than his actual offences did at the time I gave myself up with desperation to the thought of Gilbert, as a kind of intoxication which made me at once forget my grief and my anger. Now I no longer sought to escape from the one, and the other was wholly extinguished. This new state of my soul produced an outward calmness and serenity I had never possessed before.
Lorenzo's quick, penetrating eye soon detected the change without being able to imagine the cause. One day, after looking attentively at me for a moment, a sad, thoughtful expression came over his face, and I thought there was something like affection and respect in his look.
This did not prevent him, however, from spending the evening away from home, and I anxiously followed him in spirit as usual, not daring to utter a word to detain him, and still less venture to question him. A whole week passed in this way, in the vague hope of finding some means of influencing him, but nothing of the kind happened. All at once, one morning, by some extraordinary accident we happened to be alone a moment together, and after causing me some anxiety by the gloomy expression on his face, he gave me a great but pleasant surprise by saying:
“What would you say, Ginevra, if I proposed your taking a journey to Sicily with me?”
I uttered an exclamation of joy.
“What a question, Lorenzo! You know well nothing could give me more pleasure than to see my father again, and Messina, the dear old palace, and....”
Here I stopped, too much affected to continue, and fearing to awaken remembrances that might seem like a reproach. He perceived it and was grateful.
“Well, my lawsuit is about to be tried. Don Fabrizio desires my presence, and I would not for anything in the world renounce the pleasure of hearing him plead. We will start next week, then, if you are willing.”
This proposition caused me the liveliest and most unexpected pleasure. To leave Naples! To go with him! and to a place where, more easily than anywhere else, it seemed to me I could overcome the fatal remembrance in his heart I had to struggle against! And from there—who could tell?—induce him perhaps to go to some distant land; persuade him to let me follow him, go with him to the ends of the earth, if necessary, in search of the pure air he needed to restore him to health! All this crossed my mind in the twinkling of an eye, and for the first time for a long while I saw a ray of hope before me.