 | III. People I have met, or, Pictures of society and people of mark, drawn under a thin veil of fiction |  |
3. III.
The conversation between the Russian Secretary and the
Prince Poniatowski ended at last in a graceful bow from the
former to his horse's neck; and the quicker rattling of the small
hoofs on the ground, as the fine creature felt the movement in the
saddle and prepared to bound away, drew all eyes once more
upon the handsomest and most idolized gallant of Florence. The
narrow lane of carriages, commencing with the showy calêche of
the Marchesa del Marmore, and closed up by the plain chariot of
the Lady Geraldine, was still open; and, with a glance at the
latter which snfficiently indicated his destination, Count Basil
raised his spurred heel, and, with a smile of delight and the
quickness of a barb in the desert, galloped toward the opening.
In the same instant the Marchesa del Marmore gave a convulsive
spring forward, and, in obedience to an imperative order, her
coachman violently drew rein and laid the back and forward
wheels of the ealéche directly across his path. Met in full career
by this sudden obstacle, the horse of the Russian reared high in
adjacent carriages, the silken bridle was slacked, and with a low
bow to the foiled and beautiful Marchesa as he shot past, he
brushed the hammer-cloths of the two scarce separated carriages,
and, at the same instant, stood at the chariot window of the
Lady Geraldine, as calm and respectful as if he had never known
danger or emotion.
A hundred eyes had seen the expression of his face as he leaped
past the unhappy woman, and the drama, of which that look was
the key, was understood in Florence. The Lady Geraldine alone,
seated far back in her chariot, was unconscious of the risk run for
the smile with which she greeted its hero; and unconscious, as
well, of the poignant jealousy and open mortification she had
innocently assisted to inflict, she stretched her fair and transparent
hand from the carriage, and stroked the glossy neek of his
horse, and while the Marchesa del Marmore drove past with a
look of inexpressible anguish and hate, and the dispersing nobles
and dames took their way to the city gates, Count Basil leaned
close to the ear of that loveliest of breathing creatures, and forgot,
as she forgot in listening to the bewildering music of his voice,
that the stars had risen, or that the night was closing around
them.
The Cascine had long been silent when the chariot of the Lady
Geraldine took its way to the town, and, with the reins loose upon
his horse's neck, Count Basil followed at a slower pace, lost in
the revery of a tumultuous passion. The sparkling and unobstructed
stars broke through the leafy roof of the avenue whose
silence was disturbed by those fine and light-stepping hoofs, and
the challenge of the Duke's forester, going his rounds ere the
gates closed, had its own deep-throated echo for its answer.
roll of wheels passing the paved arch of the Ponte Seraglio, came
faintly down the river upon the moist wind, the pointed cypresses
of the convent of Bello Sguardo laid their slender fingers against
the lowest stars in the southern horizon, and, with his feet pressed,
carelessly, far through his stirrups, and his head dropped on his
bosom, the softened diplomate turned instinctively to the left in
the last diverging point of the green alleys, and his horse's ears
were already pricked at the tread, before the gate, of the watchful
and idle doganieri.
Close under the city walls on this side Florence, the traveller
will remember that the trees are more thickly serried, and the
stone seats, for the comfort and pleasure of those who would step
forth from the hot streets for an hour of fresh air and rest, are
mossy with the depth of the perpetual shade. In the midst of
this dark avenue, the unguided animal beneath the careless and
forgetful rider suddenly stood still, and the next moment starting
aside, a female sprang high against his neck, and Count Basil,
ere awake from his revery, felt the glance of a dagger-blade
across his bosom.
With the slender wrist that had given the blow firmly arrested
in his left hand, the Count Basil slowly dismounted, and, after a
steadfast look, by the dim light, into the face of the lovely assassin,
he pressed her fingers respectfully, and with well counterfeited
emotion, to his lips.
“Twice since the Ave-Maria!” he said, in a tone of reproachful
tenderness, “and against a life that is your own!”
He could see, even in that faint light, the stern compression of
those haughty lips, and the flash of the darkest eyes of the Val
d'Arno. But leading her gently to a seat, he sat beside her, and,
he once more deluded her soul!
“We meet to-morrow,” she said, as, after a burst of irrepressible
tears, she disengaged herself from his neck, and looked
toward the end of the avenue, where Count Basil had already
heard the pawing of her impatient horses.
“To morrow!” he answered; but, mia carissima!” he continued,
opening his breast to stanch the blood of his wound, “you
owe me a concession after this rude evidence of your love.”
She looked into his face as if answer was superfluous.
“Drive to my palazzo at noon, and remain with me till the
Ave-Maria.
For but half a moment the impassioned Italian hesitated.
Though the step he demanded of her was apparently without
motive or reason—though it was one that sacrificed, to a whim,
her station, her fortune, and her friends—she hesitated but to
question her reason if the wretched price of this sacrifice would
be paid—if the love, to which she fled from this world and heaven,
was her own. In other countries, the crime of infidelity is
punished: in Italy it is the appearance only that is criminal. In
proportion as the sin is overlooked, the violation of the outward
proprieties of life is severely visited; and, while a lover is stipulated
for in the marriage-contract, an open visit to that lover's
house is an offence which brands the perpetrator with irremediable
shame. The Marchesa del Marmore well knew, that, in going
forth from the ancestral palace of her husband on a visit to Count
Basil, she took leave of it for ever. The equipage that would
bear her to him would never return for her; the protection, the
fortune, the noble relations, the troops of friends, would all drop
from her. In the pride of her youth and beauty—from the highest
she would descend, by a single step, to be a beggar for life and
love from the mercy of the heart she fled to!
“I will come,” she said, in a firm voice, looking close into his
face, as if she would read in his dim features the prophetic answer
of his soul.
The Count Basil strained her to his bosom, and, starting back,
as if with the pain of his wound, he pleaded the necessity of a surgeon,
and bade her a hasty good-night. And, while she gained
her own carriage in secrecy, he rode round to the other gate,
which opens upon the Borg'ognisanti, and, dismounting at the
Café Colonna, where the artists were at this hour usually assembled,
he sought out his fellow-traveller, Giannino Speranza, who
had sketched the Marchesa upon the lagoon, and made an appointment
with him for the morrow.
| III. People I have met, or, Pictures of society and people of mark, drawn under a thin veil of fiction | |