“Speak without any fear, Lorenzo. I have courage enough to hear it all.”
But when he replied, it was my turn to grow pale; I uttered a cry of anguish, and fell at his feet, overcome with horror and grief.
My father was no more! At the very hour when he was arranging the final documents for his cause, on the very spot where he so long kept me at his side, he had fallen dead. No one was with him. At the sound of his fall the old servant, who always remained in the next room, hurried to his assistance, but in vain. Nothing could recall him to life!
This blow was terrible—terrible in itself and in its effect on my hopes. In the first place, it put an immediate stop to all my new plans. Lorenzo felt it more necessary than ever to go to Sicily, but now absolutely refused to take me with him. He did not seem to understand how I could desire to go. In his eyes, the sole motive for such a journey no longer existed. I should now only expose myself to the most harrowing grief, which it was his duty to spare me. I did not dare insist on going, for fear of irritating him at a moment when the very pity I inspired might increase the dawn of returning affection I thought I discovered. Besides, I had but little time for reflection. Only a few hours intervened between the arrival of this fatal news and Lorenzo's departure, which left me alone, abandoned to my grief and the bitterness of a disappointment I had not anticipated in the least, mingled with the remembrance of Lorenzo's inexplicable farewell!
It was evident he attributed my tears solely to filial emotion. I had seen him go away so many times without shedding any, that he had no reason to suppose his departure this time caused them to flow almost as much as the calamity that had befallen me. He even seemed surprised that I should insist on accompanying him to the boat and remaining with him till the last minute.
He had no idea how I longed to be permitted to forgive him on my knees; how I wished to implore permission to aid him in breaking the fearful bonds that fettered his noble faculties; to tear off, so to speak, the mask that seemed to change the very expression of his face! Oh! how I longed to save him. How I longed to bring this soul, so closely linked with mine, to itself! The strong desire I once felt, that had been extinguished by jealousy, frivolity, and temptation, now sprang up again with a new force that was never to be destroyed. I was ready for any sacrifice in order to have it realized—yes, even for that of knowing my sacrifice for ever ignored! Not that I did not aspire to win his heart once more! It belonged to me by the same divine right that had given mine to him. I wished to [pg 770] claim it, and I felt that this desire, however ardent it might be, by no means diminished the divine flame within that now kindled all my desires—those of earth as well as those of heaven!
He did not, alas! have any suspicion of all this. And yet, when I raised my eyes in bidding him farewell, he perhaps saw the look of affection and sorrowful regret I was unable to repress; for he looked at me an instant with an expression which made me suddenly thrill with hope! One would have almost said an electric spark enabled our souls to comprehend each other without the aid of words. But this moment was as fleeting as that spark—more transitory than the quickest flash that leaves the night as dark as before!
His face became graver than ever; his brow more gloomy and anxious, as if some terrible thought had been awakened. He continued to gaze at me, as he put up the little straw hat I wore, and, pushing back my hair with the caressing air of protection once so familiar, he kissed my forehead and cheek, and, pressing me a moment against his heart, he uttered these strange words: “Whatever happens, I wish you to be happy, Ginevra. Promise me you will!...”
I had been at home a long time, and seen the last trace of smoke from the steamboat disappear between Capri and the coast beyond Sorrento, without having resolution enough to leave that side of the terrace which commanded the most distant view of the sea. I remained with my eyes fastened on the horizon, looking at the waves, agitated by the mournful sirocco, whose dull, sad moans afar off add so much to the gloom felt at Naples when the bright sun and blue sky are obscured. Elsewhere bad weather is nothing surprising, but at Naples it always astonishes and creates anxiety, as if it were abnormal, as the sudden gravity of a smiling face affects and alarms us more than that of one naturally austere.
I remained, therefore, in my seat, dwelling on my recent hopes, my sudden disappointment and its distressing cause, on Lorenzo's departure without me, his look, his mysterious words, and his affectionate manner as he bade me farewell.