DGRAZIE 
 
 K
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 SANTA BARBARA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 MRS. MADGE BUTTERWORTH
 
 7 - 
 
 
 ' f
 
 TALES FROM FOREIGN LANDS. 
 
 UNIFORM IN STYLE AND PRICE. 
 
 
 I. 
 
 Memories : A Story of German Love. Translated from 
 the German of MAX MULI.EK, by GEO. P. UPTON. 161110, 
 *73 pages, gilt top. 
 
 II. 
 
 Graziella : A Story of Italian Love. Translated from 
 the French of A. DE LAMARTINE, by JAMES B. RUNNION, 
 i6mo, 235 pages, gilt top. 
 
 III. 
 
 Marie: A Story of Russian Love. From the Russian 
 of ALEXANDER PUSHKIN, by MARIE H. DB ZIELINSKA. 
 i6mo, 210 pages, gilt top. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Madeleine: A Story of French Love. Translated from 
 the French of JULES SANDEAU, by FRANCIS CHARLOT. 
 i6mo, 244 pages, gilt top. 
 
 V. 
 
 Marianela : A Story of Spanish Love. Translated from 
 the Spanish of B. PEREZ GALDOS, by HELEN W. LESTER. 
 161110, 243 pages, gilt top. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Cousin Phillis: A Story of English Love. By MRS. 
 GASKELL. i6mo, 222 pages, gilt top.
 
 GRAZIELLA 
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE, 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH 
 
 OF 
 
 A, DE LAMARTINE, 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES B. RUNNION, 
 
 CHICAGO: 
 A. C. McCLURG & COMPANY. 
 
 1894.
 
 COPYRIGHT. 
 JANSEN, McCLURG & CO., 
 
 A.D., 1875.
 
 TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.
 
 TRANSLATOR'S NOTE. 
 
 r I "'HE story of Graziella is a leaf torn from the 
 -*- personal memoires of the famous French 
 historian, poet and orator who wrote it, bright- 
 ened by his smiles and moistened with his tears. 
 Had it not been for Graziella, " Les Confidences " 
 of Lamartine might never have been published. 
 Many years after this Italian romance of his 
 youth as late as 1843 Lamartine went into 
 retreat on the island of Ischia to write his " His- 
 tory of the Girondists." He was in sight of the 
 isle of Procida where Graziella had lived and he 
 had loved, and his hours of recreation were 
 passed under the shade of a lemon tree, writing 
 out the recollections of this charming episode. 
 It was while he was thus engaged one day, that his 
 friend, Eugene Pelletan, surprised him with a
 
 8 TRANSLATOR'S NOTE. 
 
 visit. Pelletan was curious to know what La- 
 martine was doing, and the latter, on the impulse, 
 read him a few pages from his journal. Pelletan 
 was much moved at the recital, and, when he 
 returned to Paris, told a publisher of that city 
 he might make his fortune if he could secure 
 these recollections of Lamartine's youth. The 
 following Autumn, when Lamartine had returned 
 home, he received a letter from the publisher 
 offering him any price he would name for his 
 journal. Though the improvident author was 
 then in embarrassed circumstances, he declined 
 the offer. Some years before, he had purchased 
 the estate at Milly on borrowed money, that he 
 might die in the old homestead. He was now 
 forced to part with a portion of it. A week after 
 the first offer for the Recollections, came another 
 letter from Paris importuning their publication. 
 The second letter was received at the moment a 
 notary was drawing the deed for the sale of the 
 Milly estate ; Lamartine was in a humor to ac- 
 cept any alternative rather than part with the
 
 TRANSLATOR'S NOTE. 
 
 house hallowed by so many sacred associations. 
 He seized the deed from the table, tore it in 
 fragments, and wrote to the Paris publisher: "I 
 accept." 
 
 Omitting a brief sojourn in Rome, this little 
 volume includes all of Lamartine's first visit to 
 Italy from the time he left his home at Milly, 
 a hamlet nestling in the valley of the Saone, on 
 the road from Macon to the old abbey of Cluny, 
 where Abelard died. He was traveling with a 
 relative who was called to Leghorn on business, 
 and it was intended that he should return home 
 from there ; but his strong desire to see Rome 
 and Naples induced him to write to his father 
 for permission to visit those cities. He was then 
 but eighteen years old. Having written, he re- 
 solved to preclude disobedience by going without 
 waiting for a reply. " If the refusal comes," he 
 said, "it will come too late. I shall be repri- 
 manded, but I shall be forgiven ; I shall return, 
 but I shall have seen." His impressions of 
 Rome were vivid and his descriptions singularly
 
 JO 
 
 TRANSLATOR'S NOTE. 
 
 picturesque, but as they are not pertinent to the 
 story of Graziella they are omitted, thus offering 
 alone what he has himself called " that mournful 
 and fascinating presentiment of love." 
 
 J. B. R. 
 CHICAGO, OCT. 29, 1875.
 
 GRAZIELLA.
 
 1 GRAZIELLA. 
 
 PART FIRST. 
 
 I. 
 
 I ARRIVED at Naples on the first of April. 
 A few days later I was joined by a young 
 man of about my own age, to whom I had at- 
 tached myself at college with the friendship of a 
 brother. His name was Aymond de Virieu. 
 His life and mine were so peculiarly associated 
 from his birth to his death, that one forms a part 
 of the other, and I speak of him almost every- 
 where I have occasion to speak of myself. 
 
 At Naples I led nearly the same contemplative 
 life as in Rome at the house of the old painter 
 
 of the Piazza di Spagna. Only, instead of pass- 
 's
 
 14 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 ing my days in wandering among the relics of 
 antiquity, I passed them in wandering along the 
 shore, or upon the waves of the Gulf of Naples. 
 In the evening I returned to the old convent, 
 where, thanks to the hospitality of my mother's 
 relative, I occupied a little cell touching the 
 roof, the balcony of which, decorated with flower- 
 pots and creeping vines, looked out upon the 
 sea, upon Mount Vesuvius, Castellamare and 
 Sorrento. 
 
 When the morning horizon was clear, I could 
 see the white house that belonged to Tasso 
 glistening in the distance, like a swan's nest 
 hanging from the height of a rocky cliff, perpen- 
 dicularly cut by the waves of the sea. This 
 sight ravished me. The light of that house 
 penetrated to the very depths of my soul. It 
 was like a ray of glory that shone from afar 
 upon my youth and my darkness. I revived in 
 my mind that heroic episode in the life of the 
 great man, when, coming from prison, persecuted 
 by the envy of the little and the calumny of
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 15 
 
 the great, mocked even unto his genius his 
 only fortune he returned to Sorrento to seek 
 rest, kindness, or even pity ; and when, disguised 
 as a beggar, he presented himself to his sister 
 to touch her heart and see if she, at least, 
 would recognize the man whom she had once 
 loved so much. 
 
 " She recognizes him at once," says his bio- 
 grapher, "in spite of his sickly pallor, his 
 whitened beard, and his ragged mantle. She 
 throws herself into his arms with more tender- 
 ness and sympathy than if she had recognized 
 her brother in the glittering dress of a courtier 
 of Ferrara. Her voice is long stifled with sobs ; 
 she presses her brother to her heart. She 
 washes his feet, and has a feast prepared for 
 him. But neither the one nor the other could 
 eat of a single dish that was served, so full of 
 tears were their hearts; and they passed the 
 day in weeping, saying nothing, looking out 
 upon the sea, and recalling the happy hours of 
 their childhood."
 
 1 6 GRAZ1ELLA: 
 
 II. 
 
 It was in the beginning of the Summer, 
 at a time when the Gulf of Naples, lined by 
 its hills, its white houses, and its rocks, em- 
 broidered with creeping vines, and encircling a 
 sea bluer than the heavens above, resembles a 
 great vase of vert antique whitened with foam, 
 whose brim and handles are festooned with ivy- 
 leaves and branches. It was the season when 
 the fishermen of Posilippo, who hang their cabins 
 over the rocks and stretch their nets out upon 
 the sandy beach, push off from the shore during 
 the night in perfect confidence, and go out two 
 or three leagues into the sea to fish, as far as 
 the promontories of Capri, Procida, Ischia, and 
 the Gulf of Gaeta. 
 
 Some carry with them torches made of resin., 
 which they light in order to deceive the fish. 
 The fish comes to the top of the water, believing 
 it to be the break of day. A child, crouched 
 upon the prow of the boat, inclines the burning
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 17 
 
 torch toward the water, while the fisherman, 
 whose eye penetrates to the very bottom of the 
 gulf, searches for his prey and catches it in the 
 net. These lights, red as the fire of a furnace, 
 are reflected in long, undulating waves on the 
 surface of the sea, like the last faint glimmerings 
 of the moon. The undulation follows the 
 movement of the billows and prolongs the glare 
 from wave to wave, reflected from one to the 
 other. 
 
 III. 
 
 My friend and I passed whole hours at a time, 
 seated on the shoals or among the damp ruins 
 of Queen Jeanne's palace, in watching these 
 picturesque lights and in envying the erratic 
 and careless life of these poor fishermen. 
 
 A few months' residence in Naples and con- 
 stant association with the common people, whom 
 we met in our daily excursions to the country 
 and upon the sea, enabled us to familiarize our- 
 selves with their emphatic yet sweet-sounding
 
 1 8 GRAZIELLA: 
 
 language, in which look and gesture take as 
 prominent a part as the word itself. Naturally 
 inclined to be philosophers, and tired of the vain 
 vicissitudes of life before knowing what they 
 were, we often regarded with envious feelings 
 those happy lazzaroni, with whom the beach and 
 the quays of Naples were crowded ; who whiled 
 away the day under the shade of their little 
 barks on the sand, listening to the improvised 
 verses of the wandering minstrels, and dancing 
 the tarentella in the evening with the young girls 
 of their station under some arbor along the sea- 
 shore. We understood their customs, their hab- 
 its and their character much better than those 
 of fine society, in which, indeed, we never min- 
 gled. This life suited us, and quieted that fever- 
 ish action of the soul, which occupies the imagN 
 nation of young men uselessly before the hour 
 their destiny calls upon them to think or act. 
 
 My friend was twenty years old ; I was only 
 eighteen ; so we were both of ar age when 
 dreams are confused with realities. We resolved
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN- LOVE. 19 
 
 to form a closer acquaintance with these fisher- 
 men, and, in their company, embark for a few 
 days on the same life. To pass these mild, 
 brilliant nights under the sail, in the rocking 
 cradle of the billows and under a canopy of 
 stars, seemed to us one of the most mysterious 
 luxuries of nature, which it was essential for us 
 to penetrate, if for no other reason than to relate 
 our experience. 
 
 Free, and obliged to render account to no one 
 of our actions or of our absence, we put into 
 execution on the following morning that which 
 we had planned in the evening. In walking 
 over the beach of Margellina, which extends out 
 under the tomb of Virgil at the foot of Mount 
 Posilippo, and where the fishermen of Naples 
 draw their boats on the sand to repair their nets, 
 we encountered an old fellow who was still 
 robust. He was putting away his fishing tackle 
 in a long boat, painted in glittering colors, and 
 adorned at the stern with a little carved image 
 of St. Francis. A boy, about twelve years of
 
 20 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 age, his only oarsman, came up at this moment, 
 bringing with him two loaves of bread, a cheese 
 with a hard skin and as bright as the pebbles 
 that covered the shore, some figs, and an earthen 
 jug filled with water. 
 
 The appearance of the old man and child 
 attracted us. We engaged in conversation. The 
 fisherman began to laugh when we proposed 
 that he should take us to sea with him, and 
 that we should act as oarsmen. 
 
 "Your hands are scarcely hard enough to 
 handle the oar," said he; "those white fingers 
 were made to clasp the pen, and not wood. It 
 would be a shame to harden them at sea." 
 
 "We are young," answered my friend, "and 
 we wish to try all callings before finally choos- 
 ing one. Yours pleases us, for it requires one 
 to be upon the sea and under the sky." 
 
 "You are right," said the old boatman. "It 
 is a trade that makes the heart contented and 
 the soul confident in the protection of the saints. 
 The fisherman is under the immediate charge of
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 21 
 
 heaven. Man knows not whence comes the 
 wind or the wave. The file and the plane are 
 in the hand of the workman, riches and favor 
 are in the hand of the king, but the boat is in 
 the hand of God." 
 
 This holy philosophy of the barcarole con- 
 firmed our intention of embarking with him. 
 After a long refusal he consented to it. We 
 agreed that each of us should give him two car- 
 lines a day to pay him for our apprenticeship 
 and food. 
 
 Having settled upon the terms, he sent his 
 boy back to Margellina to procure a new supply 
 of bread, wine, dry cheese and fruits. Toward 
 the close of the day we assisted him in putting 
 the boat afloat, and then pushed off into the 
 open sea. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The first night was charming. The sea was 
 as calm as one of the little lakes set down 
 among the mountains of Switzerland. The fur-
 
 22 GRAZIELLA: 
 
 ther we sailed from the coast the more numer- 
 ous were the long tongues of fire that issued out 
 of the windows of the palaces, and shot from the 
 quays of Naples, and were at last absorbed by 
 the dark line of the horizon. The lighthouses 
 alone indicated the shore. But they paled 
 before the column of fire springing from the 
 crater of Mount Vesuvius. While the fisher- 
 man threw out and drew in his net, and the boy, 
 half sleeping, permitted his torch to vacillate 
 from side to side, we gave a slight impulse to 
 ihe movement of the boat from time to time, 
 and listened with delight to the harmonious 
 sound of the water dripping from our oars into 
 the sea, like pearls into a great basin of silver. 
 We had long since doubled the point of 
 Posilippo, crossed the gulf of Pozzuoli and that 
 of Bai'a, and passed through the channel of the 
 gulf of Gaeta between the Cape Miseno and the 
 Isle of Procida. We were in the open sea when 
 sleep overtook us. We laid ourselves down on 
 the seat beside the child.
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 23 
 
 The fisherman had stretched over us, we found 
 on awaking, the heavy sail that lay in the bot- 
 tom of the boat. We had fallen asleep between 
 two billows, cradled by a sea that scarcely moved 
 the mast. Day had broken before we awoke. 
 
 A bright sun decorated the sea with ribbons of 
 fire and shone upon the white houses on a coast 
 unknown to us. A light breeze, that came from 
 the shore, agitated the sail above us and drove 
 us gently from rock to rock, from one projection 
 to another. It was the perpendicular and ragged 
 coast of the island of Ischia, which I was destined 
 afterwards to learn and to love. Seeing this 
 island for the first time, it seemed to me as 
 though it were swimming in light, rising from the 
 sea, losing itself in the blue sky, born like 
 the dream of a poet in the light sleep of a sum- 
 mer night. 
 
 V. 
 
 The island of Ischia, which divides the Gulf 
 of Gaeta from the Gulf of Naples, and which is 
 separated from the island of Procida only by a
 
 24 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 narrow channel, is but a perpendicular peak, the 
 white summit, battered by thunder-storms, plung- 
 ing its sharp teeth into the sky. Its steep ascents, 
 cut into by glens, ravines and torrent-beds, are 
 covered from the top to the bottom with horse- 
 chestnut trees of a dark green color. Its table- 
 land, nearest to the sea, and inclining over the 
 waves, is filled with thatched houses, rural cot- 
 tages and little villages, half concealed within 
 the grape-vines that surround them. Each of 
 these villages has its " marine," for so they call 
 the harbor with its fleet of boats belonging to the 
 fishermen of the island, among which we found 
 a few masts that carry the lateen sail. The 
 mast-heads touch the trees and vines of the 
 coast. 
 
 There is not one of these houses, -hanging 
 from a declivity of the mountain, hidden at the 
 bottom of a ravine, perched on a table-rock, pro- 
 jecting on one of the peaks, leaning against a 
 great horse-chestnut tree, shaded by a grove of 
 pines, surrounded by arbors and festooned with
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 25 
 
 hanging grapes, that might not be the ideal 
 home of a poet or a lover. 
 
 Our eyes did not weary with gazing on this 
 scene. The coast abounded in fish. The fisher- 
 man made a good night of it. We ran ashore in 
 one of the little coves to get water from a neigh- 
 boring spring, and to rest ourselves on the rocks. 
 We returned to Naples by the light of the setting 
 sun, reclining upon the benches of the boat. A 
 square sail fixed across a small mast at the prow 
 the boy holding the rope was sufficient to 
 carry us beyond the promontories of Procida and 
 Cape Miseno, and to make the sea foam under 
 the sharp speed of our bark. 
 
 The old fisherman and his boy, with our assist- 
 ance, drew the boat on the sand and carried the 
 baskets filled with fish into the cellar of a little 
 house, where they lived, under the rocks of Mar- 
 gellina. 
 
 VI. 
 
 For several days we gayly resumed our newly- 
 chosen vocation. We explored in turn all parts
 
 26 GRAZIELLA 
 
 of the Gulf of Naples. We visited the Island of 
 Capri, where superstition still drives away the 
 shade of Tiberius ; Cumae and its temples, buried 
 under the thick foliage of bay-trees and wild fig- 
 trees ; Bai'a and its deserted places that seem to 
 have grown old and gray like the Romans whose 
 youth and pleasures they formerly witnessed; 
 Portici and Pompeii, smiling under the lava and 
 ashes of Vesuvius ; Castellamare, with its great 
 black forests of laurel and wild chestnut trees, 
 which, reflecting themselves in the sea, give the 
 ever- murmuring waves a tint of dark green. 
 The old boatman had acquaintances everywhere 
 among the families of fishermen like himself, by 
 whom we were received with generous hospitality 
 when the sea was so heavy as to prevent us from 
 returning to Naples. 
 
 During two whole months we never once put 
 our feet into an inn. We lived in the open air 
 with the people, and led the frugal life of the 
 people. We had made ourselves their compan- 
 ions in order to be in closer communion with
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN- LOVE, 27 
 
 nature. We almost wore their dress. We spoke 
 their language, and the simplicity of their habits 
 seemed to imbue our spirits with the innocence 
 of their thoughts. 
 
 But this change in our condition did not cost 
 us much sacrifice, after all. Both of us having 
 been brought up in the country during the storms 
 of the revolution that had driven our families 
 from their homes, we had in childhood led much 
 the life of the peasant. My friend had been in 
 the mountains of Gresivaudan, with a nurse who 
 took him from his mother's arms, when the latter 
 went to prison. I had lived among the hills of 
 Macon, in a little farm-house, where my father and 
 mother had gathered together their threatened 
 brood. There are no other differences between 
 the shepherd or laborer of our mountains and 
 the fisherman of the Gulf of Naples than those of 
 location, language and calling. The furrow or the 
 wave inspires with the same thoughts the man who 
 tills the ground and the man who toils upon the 
 sea. Nature speaks the same language to all those
 
 28 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 who receive nourishment from her bosom, whether 
 it be on the mountain or on the ocean. 
 
 We experienced all this. In company with 
 the simplest kind of men, we did not find our- 
 selves out of place. The same instincts form a 
 relationship between men. The very monotony 
 of this life pleased us while it quieted us. We 
 looked forward with sorrow to the end of Sum- 
 mer and the approach of Autumn and Winter, 
 when we should be obliged to return to our 
 native country. Our people, already uneasy 
 about our welfare, began to recall us. We put 
 off as far as possible all thought of going away, 
 and delighted in picturing to ourselves that this 
 life would have no end. 
 
 VII. 
 
 But September soon came with its rain-storms 
 and thunder-storms. The sea lost its placid ap- 
 pearance. Our calling was a more laborious one 
 and sometimes a more dangerous one. The 
 winds were higher and the waves foamed, often
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 29 
 
 washing over us in their tumult. We had bought 
 us, on the quay, a couple of cloaks made of a 
 coarse brown stuff, such as the sailors and lazza- 
 roni of Naples throw over their shoulders during 
 Winter. The large sleeves of these cloaks hang 
 down, exposing the bare arms. The hood, al- 
 lowed to flutter at the back or drawn down over 
 the forehead, according to the weather, protects 
 the head of the mariner from the rain and cold, 
 or admits the breeze and the rays of the sun to 
 play among his hair. 
 
 One day we left Margellina with a sea the 
 surface of which was as smooth as oil and dis- 
 turbed by no breath of the wind, to go to the 
 coast of Cumae, whither the fish are driven by 
 the currents at this season of the year. But the 
 dense mist of the morning warned us that we 
 might expect a heavy wind before evening. We 
 hoped, however, to avoid it by doubling the Cape 
 Miseno before the dull and sleeping sea should 
 be awakened. 
 
 There was an abundance of fish. We could
 
 30 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 not resist the temptation of throwing out the 
 nets a few times more. The wind surprised us. 
 It came from Epomeo, an immense mountain that 
 towers above Ischia, and with the noise and im- 
 petuosity of the mountain itself rolling into the 
 sea. First it smoothed out all the liquid surface 
 that surrounded us as the iron harrow goes over 
 the ground and levels the furrows. Then the 
 wave, recovering from the attack, angrily aroused 
 itself, and in a few minutes had attained such a 
 height that, on either side, it concealed from our 
 view the main coast and the islands. 
 
 We were about equally distant from the main 
 shore and the island of Ischia, and nearly in the 
 middle of the channel that divides Cape Miseno 
 from the Greek island of Procida. There was 
 but one course left for us to take : to row man- 
 fully into the channel, and, if we succeeded in 
 getting through it, to throw ourselves at the left 
 into the gulf of Bai'a, and in this way find shelter 
 in its quieter waters. 
 
 The old fisherman did not hesitate a moment.
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 31 
 
 From the top of an immense wave, where the 
 balance of the boat held us an instant in a whirl- 
 pool of foam, he threw a hasty glance around 
 as a man lost in a forest might climb to the top 
 of a tree to seek his way ; then, seizing the rudder, 
 he cried out : 
 
 "To your oars, children! We must reach the 
 cape before the wind can. If it gets ahead of 
 us we are lost." 
 
 We obeyed as the body obeys its instincts. 
 
 With our eyes fixed upon his eyes in order the 
 more rapidly to catch the directions given, we 
 bent upon our oars ; now painfully clambering 
 up the side of a swelling wave, now precipitated 
 with the foam of a falling wave, we endeavored 
 to avoid the shock by opposing the resistance of 
 our oars in the water. Eight or ten of these 
 great waves, growing larger and larger, threw us 
 into the narrowest part of the channel. But the 
 wind had outstripped us, as the pilot had feared, 
 and rushing between the cape and the extreme 
 point of the island, it had acquired such force
 
 32 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 that it lifted the sea with the deep rumbling noise 
 of a furious lava, and the waves, not rinding 
 room enough to fly before the storm that drove 
 them, heaped themselves upon each other, fell 
 back again, rushed and scattered like a mad sea; 
 vainly seeking escape in the channel, they dashed 
 against the sharp rocks of the cape, and there 
 towered above in a grand column of foam, the 
 spray from which was thrown far enough to pour 
 down upon us. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 To attempt to make this passage with a boat 
 as frail as ours, which one of those foaming 
 waves might have filled and engulfed, would 
 have been foolhardy. The fisherman gave a 
 look, which I shall never forget, at the cape, 
 lighted up by one of these columns of glistening 
 foam ; then, piously making the sign of the cross, 
 he said to us : 
 
 "To pass it is impossible; to return into the 
 open sea would be still more so. There is but
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 33 
 
 one thing left for us to do: we must make a land- 
 ing at Procida or perish." 
 
 Novices as we were in the practices of the sea, 
 we perceived at once the difficulties that we 
 would encounter in attempting to make this 
 landing during a storm. In directing us toward 
 the cape, the wind took our boat in the rear and 
 drove us before it. We went with the sea which 
 was flying with us, and rose and fell with the 
 waves that carried us. In this way there was at 
 least not so much probability of our being buried 
 in the abysses which the waves hollowed out. 
 But in order to reach the coast of Procida, where 
 we could see the evening lights shining at our 
 right, it was necessary to take the waves obliquely 
 and, as it were, glide through the valleys made 
 by them, presenting the sides of our boat to the 
 billows and its thin boards to the wind. Neces- 
 sity, however, gave us no time to hesitate. The 
 fisherman, making us a sign to lift the oars, took 
 advantage of the interval between the falling of 
 one wave and the rising of another to turn the 
 3
 
 34 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 boat about. We took our course to Procida and 
 wandered along like a bit of sea -weed tossed 
 from one wave to another wave, or which one 
 billow snatches from another billow. 
 
 IX. 
 
 We made but slow work of it. The shades of 
 night were falling. The spray, the foam, the 
 clouds that the winds turned into irregular 
 showers, only served to increase the gloom. The 
 old man had ordered the boy to light one of his 
 torches, partly for the purpose of giving him some 
 light by which to direct his movements in the 
 depth of the sea, and partly to inform the sailors 
 of Procida that a boat was in danger and to call 
 upon them not for assistance, which would 
 have been impossible but for their prayers. 
 
 It was a sublime and terrible thing to see this 
 poor boy, clinging with one hand to the light 
 mast that ran up from the bow of the boat, and 
 with the other lifting the torch of red fire far 
 above his head, the flame and the smoke brushed
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 35 
 
 back by the wind until they scorched his hands 
 and hair. This fluttering light, now appearing at 
 the top of a great wave and again disappearing 
 in its depth, now about to go out and then regain- 
 ing all its brilliancy, was symbolic of the four 
 human souls that struggled between life and 
 death during the anguish of that awful night. 
 
 X. 
 
 Three hours, each minute of which had the 
 duration of the thought that measured it, passed 
 in this way. The moon rose, and, as usual, the 
 wind rose more furiously with it. If we had 
 carried an inch of canvas we would have cap- 
 sized twenty times before this. Although the 
 low sides of the boat exposed but little surface to 
 the hurricane, there were moments when it 
 seemed as though the wind would tear our keel 
 from out the water, and when it drove the bark 
 around and about as it would a dry leaf that had 
 fallen from a tree. 
 
 A great deal of water poured in upon us. We
 
 36 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 could not bail it out as fast as it came in. There 
 were times when we could feel the planks sink 
 down under us like a coffin that is lowered into 
 the grave. The weight of the water rendered the 
 boat more unmanageable, and might at any time 
 have kept it too long in lifting itself out of the 
 space between two waves. A single moment 
 of such delay and we would have been lost. 
 
 The old man, with tears in his eyes and with- 
 out the power of speaking, made us a sign to 
 throw everything into the sea that encumbered 
 the bottom of the boat. The vessels of fresh 
 water, the baskets of fish, the two large sails, the 
 iron anchor, the ropes, even the heavier clothes 
 and our two cloaks of thick wool, dripping with 
 water, all were thrown overboard. The poor 
 sailor looked for a moment to see his whole for- 
 tune submerged ; the boat lifted itself again and 
 ran lightly on the crest of a wave, like a charger 
 relieved of his burden. 
 
 Imperceptibly we gained a milder sea, pro- 
 tected somewhat by the western point of Procida.
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 37 
 
 The wind went down a little; the flame of the 
 torch was more steady; the moon opened a great 
 blue vista in the sky; the waves, stretching out 
 and leveling, ceased to foam above our heads. 
 Gradually the waves became shorter and milder, 
 almost as in a quiet bay, and the black shade of 
 the promontory of Procida cut the horizon just 
 before us. We were in the waters nearly op- 
 posite the center of the island. 
 
 XL 
 
 The sea was still too high to attempt a landing 
 at this point, where there was a port. There 
 only remained the sides of the islands and the 
 quicksands of the shore. 
 
 "There is no longer any occasion for fear, 
 children," said the old fisherman, as he recog- 
 nized the land by the light of the torch ; " the 
 Madonna has saved us. We will reach the 
 shore in safety, and sleep to-night in my house." 
 
 We believed that the man had lost his senses, 
 for we knew oi no other house belonging to him
 
 38 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 than the little cellar at Margellina, and to return 
 to that before the night was over, we would have 
 been obliged to enter the channel again, double 
 the cape, and confront the roaring sea from 
 which we had just escaped. 
 
 But he smiled at our astonishment, and, guess- 
 ing our thoughts from our eyes, he continued : 
 
 " Do not fear, I tell you ; we shall arrive at 
 my house to-night, and not another wave shall 
 moisten your clothes." 
 
 He then explained to us that he came from 
 Procida ; that he still owned, on this side of the 
 island, the cabin and garden left by his father, 
 and that, at this very moment, his aged wife, 
 with her grand-daughter, a sister of Beppino's, 
 who was our ship boy, and two other grand- 
 children, were at his house to dry figs and 
 gather grapes which they sold in Naples. 
 
 "Only a few more strokes of the oar," he 
 added, " and we shall drink spring water which 
 is clearer than the wine of Ischia." 
 
 These words infused new courage into our
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 39 
 
 hearts. We rowed another league or so, the 
 entire length of the straight and foaming coast 
 of Procida. From time to time the boy would 
 raise and shake his torch, which threw a somber 
 light upon the rocks and showed us everywhere 
 a wall of stone that was not to be scaled. 
 Finally, on turning a point of granite that pro- 
 jected out into the sea like a bulwark, we saw 
 the cliff bowed and hollowed out, somewhat like 
 a breach in a fortification. One movement of 
 the rudder served to direct the boat toward the 
 shore. Three final strokes threw our harassed 
 boat between two rocks, where the foam bub- 
 bled on the shallow bottom. 
 
 XII. 
 
 The prow of the boat in striking against the 
 rock gave a dry and hollow sound like the crash 
 of a board that falls accidentally and breaks. 
 We jumped into the water; we fastened the 
 boat as well as we could with the rope that was
 
 40 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 left, and then followed the old man and the 
 child who took the lead. 
 
 We climbed a sort of a narrow stairway that 
 led up the side of the cliff, a succession of 
 uneven steps slippery with the spray from the 
 sea which had been dug out with a chisel. 
 The ascent up this steep stairway had been 
 greatly facilitated by some artificial steps, made 
 by long poles, the points of which had been 
 forced into the apertures of the rock, and these 
 frail supports covered by planks torn from old 
 boats, or by heaps of branches from the chestnut 
 trees, still ornamented with their dead leaves. 
 
 After having ascended slowly four or five 
 hundred steps in this way, we found ourselves 
 in a kind of inclosure, suspended on high, and 
 surrounded by a parapet of stones. At the end 
 of this court-yard there were two gloomy arch- 
 ways that seemed to lead into a cave. Above 
 these great arches were two arcades, low and 
 rounded, with a terrace for a roof, the edges of 
 which were decorated with flower pots of rose-
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 41 
 
 mary. Under the arcades a rustic walk could be 
 seen, in which hanging masses of mai's glistened 
 in the light of the moon like golden ornaments. 
 A door made of planks rudely dovetailed 
 opened upon this walk. At the right, an 
 inclined plane of ground, upon which a little 
 house was situated, gradually came up to the 
 same level. A great fig-tree and some tortuous 
 vine stalks were bending over the angle of the 
 house, confusing their leaves and fruits at the 
 entrance of the walk, festooned and creeping 
 over the wall that supported the arcades above. 
 Their branches half formed bars to the two low 
 windows that looked out upon this little garden 
 walk; and if there had been no window, the 
 low, square and solid house might have been 
 mistaken for one of the light gray rocks, pecu- 
 liar to the coast, or for one of those blocks of 
 petrified lava (entwined in the branches of the 
 chestnut, the ivy and the vine), out of which 
 the grape cultivators of Castellamare and Sor- 
 rento hew caves, close them with a door, and
 
 42 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 there preserve the wine by the side of the stock 
 that first bore it. 
 
 Out of breath from the long and steep ascent 
 we had made, and from the weight of the oars 
 which we carried on our shoulders, the old man, 
 my companion and I stopped in this court-yard 
 for a moment in order to rest. But the boy, 
 tossing his oar upon a pile of brushwood, ran 
 lightly up the stairway, and, with his torch still 
 lighted and in his hand, began knocking at one 
 of the windows and calling in glee for his grand- 
 mother and sister. 
 
 "Mother! Sister! Madre ! Sorrellina! Gae- 
 tano ! Graziella ! " he shouted. " Wake up ; 
 open the door ; it's father ; it's me ; and we 
 have strangers with us." 
 
 We soon heard a voice, not more than half- 
 awake, yet clear and soft, utter some excla- 
 mations of surprise from within the house. Then 
 the window was partly opened, pushed up by an 
 arm naked and white, that reached out from a 
 flowing sleeve, and we saw by the light of the
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVEj 43 
 
 torch which the boy, balancing himself on tip- 
 toe, raised toward the window, the lovely face 
 of a young girl appear between the shutters 
 which were thrown widely open. 
 
 Awakened from a fast sleep by the unexpect- 
 ed sound of her brother's voice, Graziella did 
 not think, nor had the time, to arrange her 
 dress. She had hurried to the window in bare 
 feet and just as she had arisen from the bed. 
 Her long black hair, half of which fell down 
 over one of her cheeks, the other half curled 
 around her neck, was swept from one side of her 
 shoulder to the other by the wind, which still 
 blew harshly, and it kept hitting the shutter and 
 lashing her face like the wing of a raven driven 
 by the storm. 
 
 The young girl rubbed her eyes with the 
 back of her hands, raising her elbows and 
 expanding her shoulders, with the first natural 
 gesture of a child on awaking that wishes to 
 drive away sleep. Her night-robe, fastened 
 lightly around her neck, revealed only the out-
 
 44 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 lines of a high and delicate waist, the youthful 
 rounding of which was scarcely perceptible 
 under the covering. Her eyes, large and oval 
 in form, were of that undecided color between 
 deep black and the blue of the sea, which tones 
 down the natural radiance by a certain softness 
 of expression and unites in the woman's eye the 
 gentleness of her soul and the force of her 
 passion in about equal proportions, a celestial 
 color which the eyes of the Asiatic and Italian 
 women borrow from the brilliant light of their 
 fiery days and from the serene blue of their 
 heaven, their sea, and their night. Her cheeks 
 were full, round, plump, of a natural pale com- 
 plexion, but a little browned by the climate ; not 
 of the unnatural pallor of the North, but of that 
 pure whiteness of the South, which resembles 
 the color of marble exposed for centuries to the 
 air and sea. Her mouth, the lips of which 
 were half-opened and very full, and heavier 
 than those of our women, had the characteristic 
 lines of frankness and goodness. Her teeth,
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 45 
 
 small but shining, sparkled in the fluttering light 
 of the torch like the shells of pearl glistening at 
 the bottom of a wave under the rays of the sun. 
 
 While she was talking to her little brother 
 half of her words were carried to us by the wind, 
 and, though somewhat sharply accentuated, they 
 sounded like sweet music to our ears. Her 
 features, as changeable as the flittering torch 
 that lighted them up, rapidly passed from sur- 
 prise to alarm, from alarm to joy, from sympathy 
 to laughter. Then she saw us standing behind 
 the trunk of the great fig-tree, and retired in 
 confusion from the window. Her hand abandon- 
 ed the shutter that now began to beat freely 
 against the wall. She only took the time to 
 awaken her grandmother and half-dress herself 
 when she came to open the door for us under 
 the arcades, and tenderly kissed her grandfather 
 and her brother. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 The old grandmother soon made her appear- 
 ance, holding in her hand a lamp of red earth-
 
 46 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 enware, which cast its light upon her thin, pale 
 face and her hair, that was as white as the 
 skeins of wool which were tossed over the table 
 at the side of the spinning-wheel. She kissed 
 her husband's hand, and the boy on the fore- 
 head. The recital of what had occurred, which 
 has taken up so many of these pages, required 
 only a few words and gestures between the 
 different members of this poor family. We did 
 not hear the whole of it. We stood apart from 
 them that we might not stop the natural out- 
 pourings of their hearts. They were poor; we 
 were strangers ; and we owed them a certain 
 respect. The only way we had of showing it 
 was by taking the place nearest the door and 
 keeping perfectly still. 
 
 Graziella looked at us in surprise from time 
 to time, as if she were in a dream. When the 
 father had finished his story, the grandmother 
 fell on her knees by the fireside; Graziella, 
 stepping up to the terrace above, brought in a 
 branch of rosemary and some orange-blossoms
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE 47 
 
 like large white stars. She took a chair, ar- 
 ranged her flowers into a bouquet, fastening 
 them with the long pins that she drew from her 
 hair, and placed them before a little plaster image 
 o. the Virgin, which stood above the door, and 
 before which a lamp was burning. We under- 
 stood that this was an offering of thanks to her 
 divine protectress for having saved her brother 
 and grandfather, and we shared her expression 
 of gratitude. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 The inside of the house was as bare and, in 
 almost every way as like to the outside, as both 
 inside and outside were like the immense rocks 
 that surrounded it. The walls were entirely 
 without plaster and only covered with a thin 
 coat of whitewash. The lizards, aroused by the 
 light, shone in the crevices of the rocks and 
 crept under the fern leaves that served as the 
 children's bed. Nests of swallows, whose little 
 black heads peeped out, and whose restless eyes
 
 48 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 twinkled in surprise, hung down from the beams, 
 still covered with bark, which formed the roof. 
 Graziella and her grandmother slept in the 
 second room on a curious bedstead, covered 
 with a piece of coarse linen. A few baskets of 
 fruits and a mule's pack-saddle lay on the 
 shelf. 
 
 The fisherman turned toward us with a look 
 of shame as he indicated by a sweep of his arm 
 the poverty of his home ; then he led us up to 
 the terrace, the place of honor both in the Orient 
 and in the south of Italy. With the assistance 
 of Graziella and the child Beppo, he made us a 
 sort of shed by placing one end of our oars upon 
 the wall surrounding the terrace and the other 
 end upon the ground, then covering these with a 
 dozen or more branches from a horse-chestnut 
 tree, recently cut on the side of the mountain. 
 Under this shelter he spread a lot of fern-leaves ; 
 he then brought us two pieces of bread, some 
 fresh water and figs, and wished that we might 
 sleep well.
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 49 
 
 The physical fatigue and the emotions of the 
 day threw us into a sudden and deep sleep. 
 When we awoke the swallows were chirping 
 around our bed and picking from the ground the 
 crumbs of our supper; and the sun, already 
 high in the heaven, heated the fagots of leaves 
 over our heads as if they had been in a furnace. 
 
 We lay a long time stretched upon our fern 
 leaves, lost in that peculiar state of a half-sleep, 
 in which the mental faculties perceive and think 
 before the senses give one the courage to get up 
 or move. We exchanged a few inarticulate words 
 that were interrupted by long pauses and were 
 lost in our dreams. The experiences of the pre- 
 vious day, the boat rolling under our feet, the 
 angry sea, the inapproachable rocks of the coast, 
 the face of Graziella looking out between the 
 two shutters and in the light of the torch, all 
 these visions flitted before us confusedly and 
 without connection or appreciation. 
 
 We were attracted from this drowsiness by the 
 sobs and complaints of the old grandmother, who 
 4
 
 50 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 was talking to her husband inside of the house. 
 The chimney, which ran through the terrace, 
 brought us the sound of the voices, so that we 
 could hear some words of the conversation. The 
 poor woman was lamenting the loss of her jars, 
 of the anchor, of the ropes that were almost new, 
 and, above all, of the beautiful sails woven by 
 her own hands from her own hemp, all of which 
 we had been cruel enough to throw into the sea 
 to save our own lives. 
 
 " What business had you," she asked of the 
 old man, who was frightened into silence, " to 
 take these two strangers, these two Frenchmen, 
 with you ? Don't you know that they are pagans 
 (pagani,) and that they always bring misfortune 
 with their wickedness ? The saints have punished 
 you for it. They have stripped us of our riches, 
 and you may still thank them that they have not 
 taken away our souls." 
 
 The poor man did not know what to say. But 
 Graziella, with the authority and impatience of a 
 spoiled child, to whom the grandmother always
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 51 
 
 gives way, protested against these reproaches as 
 unjust, and taking the part of the old man, said 
 to her grandmother : 
 
 " Who tells you that these strangers are pagans ? 
 Are pagans ever so compassionate for the trials 
 of poor people as these gentlemen have shown 
 themselves ? Do pagans make the sign of the 
 cross like ourselves before the statues of the 
 saints ? Now, let me tell you that, yesterday 
 evening, when you had fallen on your knees to 
 return thanks to God, and when I had adorned 
 the image of the Madonna with flowers, I saw 
 them bow their heads as if they were praying, 
 make the sign of the cross upon their breasts, 
 and I even saw a tear glisten in the eye of the 
 younger and fall upon his hand." 
 
 " A tear, indeed ! " the old woman sharply ex- 
 claimed. " It was nothing but a drop of sea 
 water that fell from his hair." 
 
 " I tell you that it was a tear," said Graziella, 
 angrily. " The wind that was blowing so fiercely 
 had plenty of time to dry his hair from the time
 
 52 GRAZIELLA: 
 
 he left the beach until he had climbed to the top 
 of the cliff. But the wind can not dry the heart, 
 and I tell you again that there was water in his 
 eye." 
 
 We understood that we had an all-powerful 
 friend in that house, for the grandmother 
 did not answer, nor did she complain any 
 more. 
 
 XV. 
 
 We hastened to descend into the house in 
 order to thank the poor family for the hospitality 
 we had received at their hands. We found the 
 fisherman, his wife, Beppo, Graziella, and even 
 the little children preparing to go down to the 
 sea-shore to visit the abandoned boat, and to see 
 if it was sufficiently well fastened to withstand 
 the storm which was still raging. We went down 
 with them, our heads hanging, timid as guests 
 who have brought misfortune into a family, and 
 who are not sure qf the feelings entertained foi 
 them.
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 53 
 
 The fisherman and his wife walked several 
 paces in front of us all ; Graziella, holding one 
 of her little brothers by the hand and carrying 
 the other in her arms, came after ; we followed 
 silently in the rear. At the last turning of the 
 steps, one could see the shoals that had hitherto 
 been concealed by a rock which intervened, and 
 we heard a cry of pain from both the fisherman 
 and his wife as they came to this point. We 
 saw them lift their naked arms toward heaven, 
 wring their hands as if in convulsions of despair, 
 strike their foreheads, and tear out bunches of 
 their white hairs, which the wind tossed among 
 the rocks. 
 
 Graziella and the children soon mingled their 
 lamentations with the others. Jumping down 
 the last step of the stairway, they all rushed 
 toward the sea, and advanced into the very 
 foam made by the immense waves driven into 
 the shore, and there threw themselves down 
 upon the beach, some on their knees and the 
 others flat on their faces. The old woman lay
 
 54 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 with her face concealed in her hands and her 
 head in the wet sand. 
 
 We looked upon this scene of despair from the 
 height of the last rock of the stairway, without 
 having the courage to advance or the decision 
 to retrace our footsteps. The boat had been 
 securely fastened, but there being no anchor to 
 hold the back part of it steady, it had been 
 tossed about by the waves during the night, and 
 torn to pieces on the sharp points of the pro- 
 jecting rocks, which should have protected it. 
 Half of the poor bark was still held by the rope 
 with which we had fastened it. It was beating 
 itself against the cliff with a dismal sound, like 
 the last, hoarse, desperate groanings of a dying 
 man. 
 
 The other parts of the hull the stern, the 
 mast, the painted seats, and the sides were 
 scattered here and there on the beach, like the 
 limbs of a corpse torn asunder by wolves after a 
 fight. When we arrived at the edge of the 
 water, the old fisherman was running from one
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 55 
 
 to the other of these remnants. He lifted them 
 up successively, stared at them with a tearless 
 eye, and let them fall to walk further on. Gra- 
 ziella was weeping, seated on the ground, her 
 head buried in her apron. The half naked 
 children ran into the shallow water, crying after 
 the floating boards and endeavoring to turn 
 their course toward the shore. 
 
 As to the old woman, she did not cease sob- 
 bing for a moment, nor talking while she sobbed. 
 We could only catch confused words or discon- 
 nected sentences that rent the air and pierced 
 our hearts. 
 
 " Oh, cruel sea ! deaf sea ! worse than the 
 demons of hell ! without heart and without 
 honor!" she cried, with that wonderful fluency 
 of injured persons, while she shook her clenched 
 fist at the waves. " Why did you not take us, 
 all of us, since you have taken that with which 
 we earned our bread ? There ! There ! There ! 
 You shall take me in pieces, if you will not take 
 me all at once."
 
 5 6 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 While speaking these words she raised herself 
 upon her knees, and tearing off pieces of her 
 dress and pulling handfuls of hair out of her 
 head, she threw them vehemently into the sea. 
 She threatened the sea with her closed hand, 
 and kicked at the foam as it came up on the 
 beach ; then, passing alternately from anger to 
 grief, and from terrible convulsions to resigna- 
 tion, she again sat down in the sand, leaned her 
 head upon her hands, and, weeping all the 
 while, looked around on the loose planks which 
 were beating up against the rocks. 
 
 " Poor boat ! " she cried, as if it had been the 
 remains of some dear friend recently taken from 
 life and love ; " is this the end that awaited 
 thee ? Did we not owe it to thy faithful services 
 to perish with thee perish together as we have 
 lived together ? Here in pieces, in shreds, in 
 dust, but crying to us, all the night long, on the 
 rock, where we should have rushed to save thee. 1 
 What canst thou think of us ? Thou hast served 
 us well, and we have betrayed, abandoned, and
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN' LOVE. 57 
 
 lost thee. Lost so near our house, and within 
 the reach of thy master's voice ! Thrown up 
 upon the beach, like the remains of a faithful 
 dog that the wave returns to the feet of the 
 master who has drowned it." 
 
 Then the tears choked her utterance, and she 
 began to go over the enumeration of all the good 
 qualities of the boat, of all the money it had 
 cost, of all the recollections which she cherished 
 for the floating remnants. 
 
 " Was it for this that we had thee refitted and 
 repainted after the last fishing ? Was it for this 
 that my poor boy, before he died and left three 
 children without father or mother, built thee 
 with so much care and love, and almost entirely 
 with his own hands ? When I used to come 
 and take the baskets of fish out of the hold, 1 
 could always recognize the marks of his hatchet 
 in the wood, and I kissed the places in memory 
 of him. Now it is only the shark that kisses 
 them. During the long winter evenings he him- 
 self had carved the little image of St. Francis
 
 58 GRAZ1ELLA : 
 
 out of wood with his knife, and afterwards placed 
 it at the prow to protect the boat from the storm. 
 Oh, pitiless Saint! how has he shown his grati- 
 tude ? What has he done with my son, with his 
 wife, and the boat left to earn a living for his 
 poor children ? How has he protected himself 
 and where is his own image, now the plaything 
 of the waves ? " 
 
 " Mother! mother ! " cried one of the children, 
 picking from the beach between two rocks a piece 
 of the boat, cast up by a wave, "here is the 
 Saint ! " 
 
 The poor woman forgot all her anger and all 
 her blasphemy, jumped toward the child and 
 into the water, took the piece of board carved by 
 her son, and, bathing it in tears, carried it to her 
 lips. Then she sat down and nothing more was 
 heard from her. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 We assisted Beppo and the old man in picking 
 up, one by one, the pieces of the boat that were 
 distributed along the beach. We drew the main
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 59 
 
 part of it further in upon the shore. We made 
 a pile of these remnants, as some of the planks 
 and iron fastenings might still be of use to these 
 poor people ; we rolled large stones over the 
 whole, so that if the sea should get higher, the 
 waves might not again scatter them. Then we 
 began to retrace our steps toward the house, 
 walking sadly and far behind the family. Both 
 the want of a boat and the state of the sea pre- 
 cluded a departure for the present. 
 
 After having partaken, in silence and with 
 downcast eyes, of a bit of bread and some goat's 
 milk, which Graziella brought to us under the 
 shade of the fig-tree near the fountain, we left 
 the house to its mourning and betook ourselves 
 to walking about under the vine-arbor and the 
 olive-trees that grew upon the high table-land 
 of the island. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 My friend and I scarcely spoke to each other, 
 but we both had the same thought, and by a 
 common instinct we sought the pathways that
 
 60 GRAZ1ELLA : 
 
 led to the eastern point of the island and would 
 bring us to the village of Procida, near by. 
 Some herdsmen and young girls in Grecian cos- 
 tume whom we met, and most of whom carried 
 jugs of oil on their heads, directed us into the 
 right way when we had strayed from it. We 
 arrived at the village after an hour's walk. 
 
 " This has been a sad affair," said my friend 
 to me. 
 
 " We must make it a joyful one for these good 
 people," I answered. 
 
 " I have thought of the same thing," said he ; 
 and he rattled his purse, which still contained a 
 goodly number of golden sequins. 
 
 " So have I, but I have only five or six sequins 
 with me. I shared equally in the catastrophe, 
 and I should also make half of the reparation." 
 
 " For the present I am the richer of the two," 
 replied my friend. " I have an account with a 
 banker in Naples. I will advance what is 
 necessary, and we will arrange our accounts in 
 France."
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 6l 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 In talking the matter over, we slowly de- 
 scended the steep streets of Procida. It was 
 not long before we arrived at the " marine," as 
 the harbors in the Archipelago and on the coast 
 of Italy are called. The beach was covered 
 with boats of Ischia, Procida and Naples, which 
 had been overtaken by the tempest of the even- 
 ing before and obliged to seek safety in these 
 waters. Sailors and fishermen were sleeping in 
 the sun, lulled by the monotonous roar of the 
 waves, and scattered about in groups laughing 
 and talking. From our dress, and particularly 
 from the shape of the caps which we wore, they 
 took us to be sailors from Tuscany or Genoa, left 
 at Procida by one of the brigs that carry oil or 
 the wine of Ischia. 
 
 We walked up and down the beach, searching 
 with our eyes for a substantial and well-rigged 
 bark, that could be easily handled by two men, 
 and as nearly as possible of the same size and
 
 62 GRAZTELLA : 
 
 shape as the one which we had lost. We had no 
 trouble finding one. It belonged to a rich fish- 
 erman of the island, who was the fortunate pos- 
 sessor of many others. This one had only seen 
 a few months of service. We went immediately 
 to see the owner, whose house was pointed out 
 to us by the children in the street. 
 
 We found the man to be cheerful, pleasant and 
 good-hearted. He was visibly affected by the 
 account of the disaster which we gave him and 
 of the desolation of his poor fellow-countryman 
 of Procida. He did not abate a single piastre in 
 the price which he had fixed upon the boat, but, 
 on the other hand, he did not charge more for it ( 
 than it was really worth, and, the trade con- 
 cluded, my friend paid him thirty-two golden 
 sequins on the spot. For this sum the boat and 
 new rigging, which included sails, jars, ropes and 
 anchor, were made over to us. 
 
 We then made the equipment complete by pur- 
 chasing from a junk-dealer two woolen cloaks, 
 one for the old man and the other for the boy ;
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 03 
 
 to this we added nets of different kinds and 
 sizes, baskets for fish, and some household uten- 
 sils for the use of the women. We also agreed 
 with the dealer in boats that we would pay him 
 three sequins extra on the morrow, if he would 
 have the boat taken that same day to a certain 
 point of the island which we designated. As the 
 storm had abated considerably, and as the high 
 land of the island protected the sea from the 
 wind to a great extent, he agreed to this propo- 
 sition, and we took our departure to walk back 
 to Andrea's little house. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 We walked slowly, sitting down at times under 
 the trees, under the shade of every grape-arbor, 
 chatting, dreaming, dickering with all the young 
 Procidane for the baskets of figs, medlars and 
 raisins, which they carried, and giving the hours 
 time to slip by. When, from the height of a 
 promontory, we saw our boat gliding noiselessly 
 into shore, we hastened our steps in order to
 
 64 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 arrive at the house at the same time as the 
 rowers. 
 
 We could hear neither footstep nor voice within 
 the little house or among the vines that sur- 
 rounded it. Two beautiful doves with large, 
 splendid plumage and white wings striped with 
 black, picked at the grain of mai's on the wall of 
 the terrace, and this was the only sign of life 
 that seemed to animate the place. We ascended 
 to the terrace without noise, where we found the 
 whole family lost in sleep. All, except the 
 children, whose pretty heads were lying side by 
 side in the arms of Graziella, slept in that atti- 
 tude of weariness produced by sorrow. 
 
 The old mother's head was laid upon her 
 knees, and her heavy breathing came out like 
 sobs. The grandfather was stretched out on his 
 back, his arms folded, in the glaring sun. The 
 swallows just grazed his white hair as they flew 
 by him. The flies literally covered his forehead, 
 dripping with sweat. Two hollow furrows run- 
 ning down to his mouth showed that the strength
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 65 
 
 of the man had given away and that he had fallen 
 asleep while weeping. 
 
 This sight touched our hjearts, but the thought 
 of the happiness that we were about to bring 
 these poor people consoled us. We awakened 
 them, and as we did so, we threw at the feet of 
 Graziella and her little brothers, the fresh bread, 
 the cheese, the salt meat, the grapes, the oranges 
 and the figs with which we had supplied our- 
 selves during the walk. The young girl and the 
 children did not dare to get up under this rain 
 of abundance which showered down as from the 
 heavens upon them. The father thanked us for 
 his family. The grandmother regarded the scene 
 with a dry, dull eye, and yet the expression of 
 her face was one of anger rather than of indif- 
 ference. 
 
 " Come, Andrea," said my friend to the old 
 man; "a man should not weep twice for that 
 which he can acquire again with work and 
 courage. There are still planks in the trees of 
 the forest and sails in the growing hemp. There 
 5
 
 66 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 is nothing but a man's life worn out by grief that 
 can not be regained. One day of tears con- 
 sumes more force than a year of work. Come 
 down with us and bring your wife and children. 
 We are your sailors and we will assist you in 
 bringing up here this very evening what is left 
 of our wreck. You shall make fences of it, beds, 
 tables, furniture of ail sorts, and one day, in your 
 old age, it will bring joy to your heart to sleep 
 tranquilly among the very planks that once 
 cradled you upon the ocean." 
 
 "They may at least serve to make us our 
 coffins," grumbled the old woman. 
 
 XX. 
 
 They all got up, however, and followed us as 
 we slowly descended the steps to the shore, but 
 we perceived that the sight of the sea and the 
 sound of the surge were painful to them. 
 
 I shall not attempt to describe the surprise 
 and joy of these poor people as from the last 
 rocks of the stairway they saw the beautiful new
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN 1 LOVE. 67 
 
 boat glittering in the sun, and drawn up on the 
 sand and along side of what was left of the old 
 one, and when my friend said to them : 
 
 "It is yours." 
 
 They all fell on their knees as if overcome by 
 the same joy, each one on the particular step 
 that had been reached, to thank God before they 
 could find words to thank us. But their happi- 
 ness was all the thanks we wanted. 
 
 They arose at the call of my friend and ran 
 swiftly toward the boat. They went around it 
 at first shyly and at a distance, as if they feared 
 that it was a magic boat which might vanish if 
 they touched it. Then they approached nearer 
 to it , then laid their hands on it, and afterwards 
 carried the hands that had touched it to their 
 foreheads and their lips. Finally they cried out 
 in exclamations of admiration and joy, and, join- 
 ing hands, from the old woman down to the 
 smallest child, they danced around it.
 
 68 GRAZIELLA 
 
 XXI. 
 
 Beppo was the first to step into the boat. 
 Leaning over from the little deck at the prow, 
 he drew from the hold, one by one, all the parts 
 of the rigging which we had provided and 
 stowed away there : the anchor, the ropes, the 
 four-handled jars, the handsome new sails, the 
 baskets, and the cloaks with wide sleeves ; he 
 struck the anchor and made it ring; he raised 
 the oars above his head ; he unrolled the sails ; 
 he felt the texture of the cloth of the cloaks; he 
 showed all these rich possessions to his grand- 
 father, his grandmother, his sister, with exclam- 
 ations and gestures of uncontrollable joy. The 
 old man, his wife, Graziella, all wept as they 
 looked first at the boat and then at us. 
 
 The sailors who had brought the boat from 
 the town had concealed themselves behind the 
 rocks, and they wept too. Everybody blessed 
 us. Graziella, with her eyes fixed upon the 
 ground and much more serious than the rest in
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 69 
 
 her gratitude, approached her grandmother, and 
 I heard her whisper, as she pointed her finger 
 towards us : 
 
 " You said that they were pagans, but I told 
 you that they might rather be angels. Now, 
 which of us was right? " 
 
 The old woman threw herself at our feet and 
 pleaded for pardon that she had suspected us. 
 From that time she loved us almost as dearly as 
 she did her granddaughter or Beppo. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Having paid the sailors from Procida the 
 three sequins as agreed upon, we told them that 
 they might go. Each of us took from the hold 
 some one article of the rigging, which we carried 
 to the house instead of the remnants, all the 
 wealth of this happy family. In the evening 
 after supper and when the lamp had been light- 
 ed, Beppo took from the head of his grand- 
 mother's bed the battered piece of wood from 
 which his father had carved the rude image of
 
 70 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 St. Francis ; he took a saw and cut into it, then 
 planed it down with his knife and finally re- 
 polished and repainted it. He proposed on the 
 following morning to fix it on the inside of the 
 prow, in order that the new boat might have 
 something of the old about it. 
 
 It was in this way that the people of antiquity, 
 when they had raised a temple on the site of 
 one which had been torn down, always took 
 care to introduce into the new building some of 
 the materials, or at least a column, of the old 
 one, in order to preserve something of the old 
 and sacred in the modern, and in order that the 
 souvenir, crude and worn, should have its wor- 
 ship and its influence over the heart, even 
 among the master-pieces of the new sanctuary. 
 
 Man is everywhere the same. Human nature 
 has always the same instincts, which it exercises 
 in the Parthenon, in St. Peter's of Rome, or in a 
 poor fisherman's boat on the shoals of Procida.
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 7* 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 This night was perhaps the happiest of all the 
 nights that Providence had destined for this 
 little house, from the time it sprang up from 
 the rocks until the moment it should crumble 
 into the dust. We slept amid the gusts of wind 
 through the olive-trees, the sound of the waves 
 on the coast, and the rays of the moon peeping 
 over the terrace. On awaking in the morning, 
 the sky was as smooth as a polished crystal, the 
 sea dark and striped with foam, as if sweating 
 from swiftness and fatigue; but the wind roared 
 more furiously than ever. The white spray from 
 the waves at the point of Cape Miseno rose 
 higher than on the previous evening. It bathed 
 the coast of Cumae in an ebb and flow of lumi- 
 nous fog, which never ceased to rise and fall 
 alternately. There was not a sail to be seen in 
 the Gulf of Gaeta or that of Baia. The 
 sea-swallows whipped the waves with their 
 white wings the only birds that find their
 
 72 GRAZIELLA: 
 
 element in the storm, and that shriek with joy 
 during shipwrecks, like the cursed inhabitants 
 of the Bay of the Dead, who await their prey in 
 the ships lost at sea. 
 
 We found, without, however, saying anything 
 about it to each other, a secret pleasure in being 
 thus imprisoned by the bad weather in the 
 house and vineyard belonging to the old fisher- 
 man. It gave us the time to have a full taste 
 of the novelty which our situation afforded, and 
 to enjoy the happiness of this poor family, to 
 which we had become attached like children. 
 
 The wind and heavy sea kept us there nine 
 whole days. We had wished, and I more than 
 my friend, that the storm would never cease, 
 and that some uncontrollable and fatal necessity 
 would keep us for years where we found our- 
 selves such happy captives. The days rolled 
 by insensibly, one like another. Nothing can 
 prove better how little is essential to happiness 
 when the heart is young and enjoys every thing. 
 In the same way the simplest food sustains and
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 73 
 
 renews the life of the body when it is seasoned 
 by a good appetite, and when the physical 
 organs are fresh and healthy. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 To awake at the cry of the sea-swallows that 
 flitted about our roof of leaves which covered 
 the terrace where we slept; to listen to the 
 childish voice of Graziella, who sang softly in 
 the vineyard from fear of disturbing the sleep of 
 the strangers ; to run quickly down to the sea- 
 shore, plunge into the waves and swim about a 
 few minutes in a little basin, in which the fine 
 sand glittered through the transparency of the 
 deep waters, and where the surge and foam did 
 not penetrate ; to return to the house slowly in 
 order that our hair and shoulders, dripping from 
 the bath, might dry in the sun's rays ; to break- 
 fast among the vines on a piece of bread and 
 cheese which the young girl brought to us and 
 shared with us ; to drink the fresh, clear water 
 of the spring, which she carried in a little,
 
 74 GXAZIELLA: 
 
 oblong earthen jar, blushingly holding it on her 
 arm as our lips sought its edge ; afterwards, to 
 help the family in the thousand little things 
 necessary to do about a country house and gar- 
 den ; to repair the face of the walled fence that 
 surrounded the vineyard and supported the ter- 
 races ; to pick up the great stones which had 
 rolled, during the winter months, from the 
 height of the walls down upon the young vines, 
 and encroached upon the little space left 
 between the stocks for cultivation ; to carry into 
 the cellar those great yellow gourds, each one of 
 which was a load for a man, and then to cut 
 their vines, that cover the ground with their 
 large leaves and trip up the foot of the walker 
 in their network ; to run between each row of 
 stocks and under the arbors a little ditch in the 
 dry ground, that the rains might gather and 
 keep the earth supplied with water for a longer 
 time ; to dig, for the same use, little wells or 
 funnels at the foot of the fig and lemon trees ; 
 these were our occupations of the morning, until
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 75 
 
 the hour when the rays of the sun darted 
 straight down upon the roof, upon the garden, 
 upon the yard, and forced us to seek the shade 
 of the arbors, where the transparency of the 
 leaves tinged the fluttering shadows with a rich, 
 warm and golden color
 
 PART SECOND. 
 
 I. 
 
 RAZIELLA would then return into the 
 house to sit down by her grandmother and 
 sew, or to prepare the meal which we took in the 
 middle of the day. As to the old fisherman and 
 Beppo, they would pass whole days at the water's 
 edge in completing the rigging of the boat, in 
 putting on such finishing touches as their love for 
 their new property inspired, and in testing their 
 nets under the protection of the rocks. They 
 always brought us, for our mid-day meal, crabs or 
 salt water eels, the skins of which glowed more 
 than molten lead. These the old g'randmother 
 would fry in olive oil. The oil itself was pre- 
 served, according to the custom of the country, 
 at the bottom of a little well dug out of a rock 
 
 77
 
 78 GRAZ1ELLA: 
 
 near the house, and covered with a great stone, 
 to which an iron ring was attached. Some 
 cucumbers, cut into slices and fried, and some 
 fresh shell-fish, very much like muscles, which 
 are called frutti di mare (sea-fruit), made up our 
 frugal dinner, the principal and most nourishing 
 meal of the day. Muscatel grapes, in long yel- 
 low bunches, gathered in the morning by Graz- 
 iella, still left on their stocks and covered with 
 their leaves, were served on basket plates braided 
 in wicker, and formed the dessert. A sprig or 
 two of green, raw fennel, mixed with pepper, 
 whose anise-like odor perfumes the lips and 
 lightens the heart, took the place of liqueurs 
 and coffee, after the custom of the sailors and 
 peasants of Naples. 
 
 After dinner, my friend and I would seek out 
 some cool and shaded place, high up on the 
 cliff, where we could have a view of the sea and 
 the coast of Bai'a; there we passed the hottest 
 hours of the day in looking, reading and dream- 
 ing, until four or five o'clock in the afternoon.
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 79 
 
 II. 
 
 We had saved from the waves only three 
 books, and saved these because they happened 
 not to be in the valise which we were obliged to 
 throw into the sea. One was a little Italian 
 work by Hugo Foscolo, entitled " The Letters of 
 Jacopo Ortis," a kind of " Werther," partly polit- 
 ical and partly romantic, in which the love of 
 his country's liberty is mingled in the heart of a 
 young Italian with his love for a pretty Venetian 
 girl. This double enthusiasm, nourished by the 
 double fire of the lover and the patriot, inflames 
 the soul of Ortis with a burning fever, and too 
 powerful to be resisted by the sensitive and 
 weakly man, it at last drives him to a suicide's 
 grave. The book, an almost literal but highly 
 colored and luminous copy of Goethe's "Wer- 
 ther," was at that time in the hands' of all the 
 young men who, like us, nourished in their sculs 
 the two dreams of every man fitted to dream of 
 great things LOVE and LIBERTY.
 
 8o GRAZIELLA : 
 
 III. 
 
 The police of B-onaparte and Murat had pro- 
 scribed both the author and the book. The 
 author found an asylum in the hearts of Italian 
 patriots and the liberal thinkers of all Europe. 
 The book had its sanctuary in the breasts of 
 young men like us ; we concealed it there that 
 we might breathe in its precepts. 
 
 Of the other two volumes that we had saved, 
 one was Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's " Paul and 
 Virginia," that manual of ingenuous love; a 
 book that reminds one of a page in the world's 
 infancy, torn from the history of the human 
 heart, preserved in all its purity, and wet with 
 tears contagious for all eyes of sixteen years. 
 
 The other was a volume of Tacitus, the pages 
 soiled with debauch, shame and blood, but in 
 which the stoic virtue puts its impress upon the 
 apparent impassibility of history, to incite those 
 who can understand it to a hatred of oppression, 
 to the power of great devotions, and to an ambi- 
 tion for a martyr's death.
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 8l 
 
 It happened that these three books corres- 
 ponded exactly to the three sentiments which, at 
 that time, as if by presentiment, were foremost 
 in our young spirits, love; enthusiasm for the 
 liberation of Italy and France; ambition for politi- 
 cal action and the commotion of grand events, 
 the likeness of which was presented by Tacitus, 
 and for which he steeped our young souls in the 
 blood of his pencil and in the fire of ancient 
 heroism. We read aloud, turn by turn, now 
 stopping to admire, then to weep, then to dream. 
 We broke in upon these readings with long 
 pauses and an exchange of exclamations, which 
 were the spontaneous outbursts of our hearts, 
 carried away by the wind along with our 
 
 dreams. 
 
 IV. 
 
 In fancy we placed ourselves in the fictitious 
 or actual situations which the poet or historian 
 reproduced for us. We formed in our own minds 
 an ideal of the lover or the patriot, of private 
 life or of public life, of happiness or of virtue. 
 6
 
 82 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 We found a secret pleasure in associating with 
 ourselves those great circumstances and wonder- 
 ful events; those revolutionary times in which 
 the obscurest of men are revealed to the multi- 
 tude by genius, and called, as if by name, to. 
 battle against tyranny and to save nations ; then, 
 victims to the ingratitude and instability of 
 nations, to meet death on the scaffold, in the face 
 of the age that forgets them, but also in the 
 face of a posterity that shall avenge them. 
 
 There was no rdle, however heroic it might be, 
 that would not have found our souls equal to the 
 situation. We were prepared for every thing, 
 and if fortune should not one day destine us to 
 these great trials which we already anticipated 
 in imagination, we revenged ourselves in advance 
 by despising fortune. We cherished in our 
 hearts the consolation of heroic minds that, if 
 our life remained useless, common and obscure, 
 it was fortune that failed to meet our ambition, 
 and not our ambition that failed to meet fort- 
 une.
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 83 
 
 V. 
 
 When the sun had gone down we took long 
 walks all over the island. We traversed it in 
 every direction. We went into the town, where 
 we bought bread and the vegetables which were 
 wanting in Andrea's garden. Sometimes we 
 brought back with us a little tobacco the sailor's 
 opium, that animates him on the water and con- 
 soles him on land. We returned when night 
 had fallen, our pockets and hands full of our 
 modest offerings. In the evening the whole 
 family would assemble on the roof, which in 
 Naples is called the "astrico," in order to pass 
 away the hours before bed-time. There is noth- 
 ing so picturesque in all the beautiful nights 
 of this climate as the scene of the astrico in the 
 moonlight. 
 
 In the country, the low, square house looks 
 like an antique pedestal, supporting living groups 
 and animated statues. All the inhabitants of 
 the house ascend to the roof and move about or
 
 84 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 sit down in different positions; the rays of the 
 moon or the light of the lamp brings out the 
 various profiles and stamps them upon the blue 
 surface of the firmament. One sees the old 
 mother sewing; the father smoking his earthen 
 pipe with its reed stem ; the young boys leaning 
 on their elbows over the edge and singing in 
 long, dragging notes the peculiar airs of the 
 sailors and rustics, the prolonged sound of which 
 vibrates like the lament of a bark tortured by 
 the waves, or the sharp hum of the grasshopper 
 in the sun; the young girls with their short 
 dresses, their bare feet, their green and open 
 sacks laced with silken or golden thread, and 
 their long black hair falling over their shoulders 
 and covered with a handkerchief which they 
 fasten about their necks in great bow-knots, in 
 order to protect their hair from the dust. 
 
 These girls dance on the roofs alone or in 
 pairs ; one holds a guitar and the other raises 
 above her head the tambourine with its minis ture 
 cymbals. These two instruments, the one soft
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 85 
 
 and plaintive, the other loud and one- toned 
 harmonize wonderfully well in giving an artless 
 expression to the two alternating refrains of the 
 human heart joy and sorrow. They may be 
 heard during the summer nights from nearly every 
 roof on the islands, or in the country surrounding 
 Naples, and even on the boats. This aerial con- 
 cert, that reaches the ear from every side, from 
 the sea to the mountains, sounds like the buzzing 
 of a new insect born of the heat and humming 
 under the beautiful sky above. This poor insect 
 is no other than man, who, for a few days, cele- 
 brates in song his youth and love before God, and 
 then is hushed forever. I have never been able 
 to hear these expanding tones from the astrico 
 without stopping to listen further, and, as I 
 listened, to feel my pent-up heart ready to burst 
 from either an inward joy or a sadness which I 
 could not control. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Such were the attitudes, the music and the 
 voices on the terrace of Andrea's roof. Grazi-
 
 86 GRAZ1ELLA : 
 
 ella played the guitar, and Beppino, making his 
 childish fingers beat time on the tambourine that 
 not many years before had served to lull him 
 to sleep in his cradle, accompanied his sister. 
 Although the instruments were gay ones, and 
 the actions of the players those of joy, the melo- 
 dies themselves were sad. The tones, delicate 
 and rare, went to the heart and there touched 
 the sleeping chords. Such is music everywhere 
 when it is not a senseless play upon the ear, but 
 the harmonious wail of passions which come 
 from the soul through the voice. Every accent 
 is a sigh, and every note brings a tear with its 
 sound. It is impossible to strike hard upon the 
 heart without bringing out tears, so full of sad- 
 ness is human nature at the core, and so easily 
 does that which affects it force the dregs to our 
 lips and the mist to our eyes. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Even when the young girl, at our urgent 
 request, modestly arose to dance the tarentdla to
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 87 
 
 the sound of the tambourine, played by her 
 brother, and when, carried away by the whirling 
 motion of this national dance, she waltzed about, 
 holding her arms up gracefully, imitating with 
 her fingers the clacking of the castanets, her 
 quick steps sounding like the pattering of rain 
 on the terrace ; yes, even then, there was in her 
 bearing, in her attitudes, in the very frenzy of 
 this delirium of action, something sad and serious, 
 as if all joy were nothing more than a momentary 
 oblivion, and as if it were necessary that youth 
 and beauty should be lost in infatuation and 
 drunk with motion in order to attain the light of 
 happiness. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 More often we would hold serious conversa- 
 tions with our friends. We would induce them 
 to tell us all about their former life, the tradi- 
 tions and recollections of their family. Each 
 family has its history and even its romance foi 
 one who knows how to give it form and expres-
 
 88 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 sion. This one had had its nobility, its fortune, 
 and its influence in the past. 
 
 Andrea's grandfather was a Greek merchant 
 living on the island of Egina. Persecuted on 
 account of his religion by the Pacha of Athens, 
 he had one night embarked his wife, sons, daugh- 
 ters and fortune in one of the ships which he 
 owned in commerce. He took refuge in Procida, 
 whose inhabitants were also Greeks, and 
 some of whom he had known in business rela- 
 tions. Here he purchased a large property, of 
 which the only remnant was the little farm where 
 we were staying, and the family name engraved 
 upon some tomb-stones in the village church- 
 yard. His daughters had died in the convent of 
 the island, where they had taken the veil. His 
 sons had lost his entire fortune in storms at sea, 
 which had shipwrecked their vessels. The family 
 had fallen into decay. It had gone so far that 
 the aristocratic and high-sounding Grecian name 
 was changed for the obscure one by which the 
 fisherman of Procida was then known.
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 89 
 
 " When a house falls," said Andrea to us, "men 
 demolish it even to the last stone. Of all that 
 my ancestors possessed under heaven, there is 
 only left to me my two oars, the boat you have 
 restored to me, this cabin, the garden that does 
 not yield a support to my family, and the grace 
 of God." 
 
 IX. 
 
 The grandmother and daughter then asked us 
 to talk of ourselves ; tell them who we were ; 
 where we came from, in what country we were 
 born, and what our parents did for a living; 
 whether, indeed, we had a father, mother, broth- 
 ers, sisters, a house, fig-trees and a vine-yard; 
 why we had left all these things so young to 
 come and row upon the sea, to read, to write, to 
 dream during the day and sleep at night upon 
 the ground of the Gulf of Naples. We had told 
 our story in vain ; they could not be made to 
 understand that it was only to look at the heavens 
 and the sea, to breathe out our soul in the sun- 
 light, to gratify the longing of our youth, to
 
 90 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 gather impressions, sentiments, ideas that we 
 might afterwards put in verses, like those which 
 they saw in our books, or like those that the 
 improvisatori of Naples recited of a Sunday 
 evening to the sailors on the quay or at Mar- 
 gellina. 
 
 " You are making fun of me," said Graziella, 
 as she burst out into laughter. "You poets! 
 Why, your hair does not stand on end, nor are 
 your eyes haggard, like those of the men whom 
 they call poets at 'la marine.' You poets! Why, 
 you do not even know how to strike a single 
 note on the guitar. With what, pray, will you 
 accompany the songs that you compose?" 
 
 Then she shook her head at us, and made 
 pretty faces with her lips, and got half vexed, 
 because we would not tell her the truth. 
 
 X. 
 
 Once in a while a dark suspicion would enter 
 Graziella's mind, and she would look at us with 
 doubt or a shade of fear reflected in her eyes.
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 91 
 
 But this did not last long, for we could hear her 
 say softly to her grandmother : 
 
 " No, it is not possible. They are not fu- 
 gitives from their country, driven away for bad 
 deeds. They are too young and too good to be 
 familiar with evil." 
 
 Then we amused ourselves by reciting to her 
 dark deeds of blood, of which we declared our- 
 selves to be the perpetrators. The contrast of 
 our smooth, calm foreheads, our quiet, undis- 
 turbed eyes, our smiling lips and our open 
 hearts, with these imaginary crimes, made her 
 and her brother laugh and soon dissipated all 
 thoughts of distrust. 
 
 XL 
 
 Graziella often questioned us about the con- 
 tents of the books from which we read every 
 day. She thought that they contained prayers ; 
 for she had never seen books except at church 
 in the hands of the pious who knew how to read 
 and could follow the holy words of the priest.
 
 92 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 She thought us very pious since we spent whole 
 days in murmuring over these mysterious words; 
 only she was surprised that we did not become 
 priests or monks in some seminary of Naples or 
 in one of the monasteries of the islands. In 
 order to enlighten her, we tried on two or three 
 occasions to read to her, by translating into the 
 homely language of the country as we went 
 along, some passages from Foscolo and some 
 beautiful fragments from our Tacitus. We 
 believed that these patriotic sighs of the 
 exiled Italian and the grand tragedies of im- 
 perial Rome would make a strong impression 
 upon our simple hearers ; for the populace 
 possess a love of country in their instincts, 
 a heroism in their sentiment, and something 
 dramatic in their glance. That which they 
 retain above all is the recollection of great 
 disasters and heroic deaths. But we soon per- 
 ceived that the eloquence and the situations 
 which exercised so potent an influence over us 
 had no effect on these simple souls. The senti-
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 93 
 
 ment of political liberty the ambition of men of 
 leisure does not descend to the level of the 
 masses. 
 
 These poor fishermen could not see why Ortis 
 should be driven to despair and kill himself 
 when he was enjoying all the luxuries of life : 
 roaming about with nothing to do but to gaze at 
 the sun, to love his sweetheart, and to pray to 
 God on the green banks of the Brenta. 
 
 "Why torment himself," they would say, 
 "with ideas that do not reach the heart? What 
 matters it to him whether the Austrians or the 
 French rule at Milan ? He is a fool to make 
 himself so much trouble, and about such things." 
 
 And they would listen no further. 
 
 XII. 
 
 They were still less inclined to listen to the 
 works of Tacitus. An empire or a republic ; 
 men who cut each other's throats, some that 
 they might rule and others that they might not 
 live to see themselves slaves ; crime for a
 
 94 . GRAZIELLA: 
 
 throne, virtue for glory, death for posterity; all 
 fell coldly upon these people. The storms of 
 history burst too high above their heads for 
 them to be affected by their raging. To them it 
 was like the thunder that rolls beyond the 
 mountains, which they did not notice, because 
 it did not touch the peaks, much less disturb 
 the fisherman's sail or the farmer's house. 
 
 Tacitus is only popular among politicians and 
 philosophers. He is the Plato of History. His 
 nature is too refined and sensitive for the vulgar 
 mind. To comprehend it the reader must have 
 lived among the tumults of the public square 
 and the intrigues of the palace. Take away 
 liberty, ambition, and glory from these scenes; 
 and what is left ? These are the three great 
 actors in his dramas. But these three passions 
 are unknown to the masses because they are 
 passions of the soul, and the masses feel only 
 the passions of the heart. We remarked this 
 from the coldness and surprise that these frag- 
 ments spread about us.
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE, 95 
 
 We concluded one evening that we would 
 read to them from " Paul and Virginia." I 
 undertook the task of translating as I read, for 
 I had pored over the book so much that I knew 
 it nearly by heart ; besides, having familiarized 
 myself with the Italian language during my 
 more extended stay in the country, I found the 
 expressions without any difficulty, and they 
 rolled from my lips like my mother tongue. 
 Hardly had this reading begun when a change 
 came over the faces of our little audience, indif- 
 ference being replaced by an expression of inter- 
 est and attention a certain indication of the 
 emotion of the heart. We had at last touched 
 the chord that vibrates the same in the souls of 
 all men, of all times, and of all conditions the 
 sympathetic chord, the universal chord, the 
 chord whose touch resounds the eternal truth of 
 art : Nature, the love of God. 
 XIII. 
 
 I had only read a few pages before the old 
 folks, the young girl and the child had changed
 
 g6 GRAZ1ELLA : 
 
 their positions. The fisherman, his elbow upon 
 his knee and his ear inclined toward me, had for- 
 gotten to inhale the smoke of his pipe. The old 
 grandmother sitting opposite to me, held her 
 two hands folded under her chin, after the man- 
 ner of the poor women who listen to the word 
 of God as they are crouched upon the hard floor 
 of the church. Beppo had come down from the 
 terrace wall where he had been sitting a short 
 time before, and had placed his guitar noise- 
 lessly on the floor. He laid his hand upon the 
 strings, that the wind might not agitate them as 
 it blew over. Graziella, who generally stood at 
 some distance, involuntarily drew nearer to me, 
 as if she had been attracted by some invisible 
 magnet concealed in the book. 
 
 Leaning against the terrace wall, at the foot 
 of which I had stretched myself, she came nearer 
 and nearer to me, supporting her whole body 
 with her left hand upon the ground, in the atti- 
 tude of the Wounded Gladiator. She looked with 
 great open eyes now at the book ; now at my
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 97 
 
 lips whence came the words that interested her; 
 now at the space between the book and my lips, 
 as if searching for the invisible spirit that com- 
 municated them. I heard her irregular breath- 
 ing, hushed or hurried in response to the devel- 
 opments of the drama, like the tired breathing 
 of some one clambering up a mountain's side 
 and stopping from time to time for rest. Before 
 I had arrived at the middle of the story the poor 
 child had forgotten her almost wild reserve with 
 me. I felt her warm breath on my hands. Her 
 hair touched my forehead. Two or three burn- 
 ing tears trickled down her cheeks and blotted 
 the page close to my fingers. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 With the exception of the low and monoto- 
 nous sound of my voice which translated liter- 
 ally to the fisherman's family this poem of the 
 heart, and of the heavy, distant, dismal sound 
 of the waves beating up against the shore under 
 our feet, there was not a noise to be heard. 
 7
 
 98 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 And this moaning of the sea was in keeping 
 with the reading. It was like the presentient 
 catastrophe of the story, that came rumbling 
 through the air from the beginning and during 
 the course of the recital. The more the story 
 developed, the more attractive it seemed to be 
 to our simple-minded listeners. When I hesi- 
 tated, perhaps to find the Italian synonym for 
 the French word, Graziella, who for some time 
 had been protecting the lamp from the wind 
 with her apron, would hold it down so near to 
 the book, in her impatience, that it would almost 
 burn the leaves, as if she thought that the light 
 of the flame would bring intellectual perception 
 into my eyes, and cause the words to spring 
 more lightly to my lips. Smiling, I put away 
 the lamp softly with my hand without taking my 
 eyes from the book, and I felt my fingers warm 
 with her tears. 
 
 XV. 
 
 When I came to that part of the book where 
 Virginia, recalled to France by her aunt, feels as
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 99 
 
 though her very being was rent asunder, and 
 forces herself to console Paul under the banana 
 trees, speaking to him of a return, and pointing 
 out the sea that is to carry her away, I closed 
 the volume and postponed further reading till 
 the morrow. 
 
 This was a blow at the very hearts of the poor 
 people. Graziella fell on her knees before me, 
 then before my friend, to beg of us to finish the 
 story. But she pleaded in vain. We wished to 
 prolong the interest for her, and the delight in 
 watching it for ourselves. Then she snatched 
 the book from my hands ; she opened it as if 
 she would, by the very force of her will, deci- 
 pher the characters before her. She talked to 
 it ; she kissed it ; she returned it with a respect- 
 ful air to its place on my knees, while she 
 joined her hands and looked up in my face 
 pitifully. 
 
 Her features, usually so serene and smiling, 
 but a little severe in their impassibility, had 
 suddenly taken from the passion and sympa-
 
 100 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 thetic tenderness of the recital something of the 
 animation, the confusion and the pathos of the 
 story. It seemed as though a sudden revolution 
 had metamorphosed this beautiful piece of marble 
 into humanity and tears. The young girl felt 
 her soul, that had slept until this time, revealing 
 itself to her in the soul of Virginia. She seemed 
 to have grown six years older in this one half- 
 hour. The stormy shades of passion had 
 marbled her forehead, cheeks, and the bluish 
 white of her eyes. She was like a calm and 
 placid sheet of water, in which the sun, the 
 shade and the wind come to wrestle for possession 
 unexpectedly and for the first time. We could 
 scarcely take our eyes from her as she sat in this 
 position. She, who, up to this time, had only 
 afforded us pastime, now inspired us with respect. 
 But it was still in vain that she conjured us to 
 continue ; we did not wish to use all our in- 
 fluence over her at one time, and the sight of 
 those dear tears of hers was too pleasant a one 
 for us to exhaust the source in a single day. She
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. IOI 
 
 retired at last poutingly, and put out her light in 
 anger. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 The next morning when I found her under the 
 arbor and wished to talk with her, she turned 
 away, as if she were trying to hide her tears, and 
 refused to answer me. I could see by the dark 
 border that encircled her eyes, by the dull, dead 
 pallor of her cheeks, and by the slight and grace- 
 ful quivering at the corners of her mouth, that 
 she had not slept and that her heart was still 
 heavy with the imaginary sorrows of the evening 
 before. Wonderful power of a book, that can 
 work upon the feelings of an untutored child and 
 an ignorant family with all the force of a reality, 
 and the reading of which is an event in the life 
 of the heart! 
 
 The reason of it is that, just as I translated 
 the poem, so the poem translated nature, and that 
 the events, so simple in themselves, the cradle 
 of these two children at the feet of two poor 
 mothers, their innocent loves, their cruel sep-
 
 102 GRAZ1ELLA : 
 
 aration, the return thwarted by death, the wreck, 
 and the two graves under the banana-trees that 
 closed over one heart, are things which all the 
 world can feel and understand, from the palace 
 to the fisherman's cabin. V Poets search after 
 genius afar off, when it is to be found in the 
 heart, and when a few simple chords, piously and 
 happily touched on the instrument attuned by 
 the Deity itself, are enough to make a whole 
 century weep, to become as popular as love, as 
 sympathetic as sentiment. The sublime tires, 
 the beautiful may deceive, the pathetic alone is 
 infallible in art. He who knows how to touch 
 the heart knows all. There is more true genius 
 in one tear than in all the museums and all the 
 libraries of the universe. Man is like a tree 
 which is shaken that its fruit may drop to the 
 ground: you can never move the man that the 
 tears do not fall. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 All that day the house seemed as sad as if 
 some sorrowful event had occurred within the
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 103 
 
 humble family circle. The several members 
 assembled at the table, but almost without speak- 
 ing to each other; they separated and met again 
 without a smile. We could see that Graziella 
 had no heart in her work in the garden or on the 
 roof. She looked up often to see if the sun were 
 not setting, and of this whole day it was apparent 
 that she only awaited the evening. 
 
 When the evening had come, and we had 
 taken our customary places upon the astrico, I 
 reopened the book and finished the reading amid 
 tears and sobs. Father, mother, children, my 
 friend, myself, all took part in the general 
 emotion. The sad and serious sound of my 
 voice harmonized, without my knowing it, with 
 the sadness of the story and the seriousness of 
 the words. They seemed, at the end of the 
 reading, to come from a distance and fall from 
 above into the soul, with the hollow sound of an 
 empty bosom in which the heart beats no longer, 
 and which partakes of the things of this earth 
 only in sorrow, religion or reminiscence.
 
 104 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 It was simply impossible for us to go through 
 the empty forms of conversation after this read- 
 ing. Graziella remained quiet and without a 
 movement in the attitude in which she had lis- 
 tened, as though she were listening still. Silence 
 the applause of real and durable impressions 
 was broken by no one; each respected in the 
 other the thoughts he felt to be the same as his 
 own. The lamp, gradually burning down, at last 
 went out imperceptibly, and no one raised a 
 hand to relight it. The family arose and retired 
 without noise. My friend and I were left alone, 
 astonished at the omnipotence of truth, sim- 
 plicity and sentiment over all men, all ages and 
 all countries. 
 
 Perhaps another emotion was stirring at the 
 bottom of our hearts. The ravishing image of 
 Graziella, transfigured by her tears, introduced 
 to sorrow by love, was associated in our dreams 
 with the heavenly creation of Virginia. These
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 105 
 
 two names and these two young girls, all con- 
 fused in wandering visions, charmed and sad- 
 dened our restless sleep till morning. 
 
 During the evening of that day and the two 
 following evenings we had to re-read the same 
 story twice to the young girl. We would have 
 read it a hundred times, if she had not tired of 
 asking for it. It is the characteristic of the 
 Southern imagination, profound and dreamy as 
 it is, that it seeks no change in poetry or in 
 music. For these people, music and poetry are 
 only themes which they elaborate into their own 
 feelings. They feed upon the same verses and 
 the same airs for centuries and never tire of 
 them. Nature itself the sublimity of music 
 and poetry what has she but two or three 
 words and two or three notes, always the same, 
 with which she saddens or fascinates men from 
 the very first sigh to the very last ? 
 XIX. 
 
 At the rising of the sun on the ninth day of 
 our stay, the wind, which was equinoctial, began
 
 io6 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 to fall, and in a very few hours the sea became 
 again the sea of Summer. The very mountains 
 of the coast of Naples, as well as the waters and 
 the sky, seemed to float in a clearer and bluer 
 fluid than during the warmest weather, as if the 
 sea, the firmament and the mountains had 
 already felt the first chill of Winter, which crys- 
 talizes the air and makes it sparkle like the 
 frozen water of the glaciers. The fig-leaves had 
 browned, the vine-leaves were yellow, and they 
 began to fall and fly around the yard. The 
 grapes had been gathered. The figs, dried in 
 the sunlight on the astrico, were laid in layers in 
 great baskets, plaited from sea-weeds by the wo- 
 men. The boat was all ready to venture out 
 into the sea and the old fisherman to take his 
 family to Margellina. 
 
 The house and roof were thoroughly swept 
 and scoured. The spring was covered with a 
 large stone, that the dry leaves and the winter 
 rains might not spoil the purity of its waters. 
 The oil was taken out of the little well in the
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 107 
 
 rock, then put into jars and carried down to the 
 shore by the children, by fixing sticks into the 
 handles. Mattresses and the bed-covering were 
 done up into large packages and bound with 
 cords. The lamp under the image of the fire- 
 side saint was lighted for the last time. There 
 was a final prayer before the Madonna, in which 
 the house, the fig-trees and the vineyard were 
 confided to her care for several months. Then 
 the door was closed. The key was hidden under 
 the edge of a rock covered with ivy, that the fish- 
 erman might know where to find it, if he returned 
 during the Winter to visit the house. Afterwards 
 we went to the shore, helping the poor family to 
 carry and stow away the oil, the bread and fruits.
 
 PART THIRD. 
 
 I. 
 
 UR return to Naples by the Gulf of Baia and 
 along the crags and declivities of Posilippo, 
 was a perfect festival for the young girl, for the 
 children, for my friend and myself, and a triumph 
 for old Andrea. We went into Margellina at 
 nightfall and singing. The old friends and neigh- 
 bors of the fisherman did not tire of admiring 
 his new boat. They helped unload it and pull 
 it up on the beach. As we had forbidden him to 
 say to whom he owed it, they paid little attention 
 to us. 
 
 After having secured the boat and carried 
 the baskets of raisins and figs above Andrea's 
 cellar and near the threshold of the three low 
 
 rooms where the old grandmother, the children 
 109
 
 HO GRAZIELLA : 
 
 and Graziella lived, we retired unobserved. Not 
 without an oppression of the heart, we traversed 
 the noisy tumult of the populous streets of 
 Naples and entered our lodgings. 
 
 II. 
 
 We proposed, after a few day's rest in Naples 
 to resume the same life with the fisherman^ 
 whenever the sea would permit it. We had be- 
 come so accustomed to simplicity in our dress 
 and to being in the uncovered boat during the 
 last three months, that the bed, the furniture in 
 our rooms and the conventional dress of the 
 town seemed to us an irksome and fastidious 
 luxury. But we hoped that we had resumed 
 them for a few days only. In the morning, how- 
 ever, we went to the post-office to get our back 
 letters and my friend found one from his mother. 
 She recalled her son to France, at once, to assist 
 at his sister's wedding. His brother-in-law was 
 to come as far as Rome to meet him. From the 
 date of the letter, it was probable that he had
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. Ill 
 
 already arrived there. There was no time to 
 lose; he must set out. 
 
 I, too, ought to have gone with him. I do 
 not know what charm of isolation and adventure 
 kept me. The mariner's life, the fisherman's 
 cabin, the image of Graziella, all had something 
 to do with it, but every thing was confused. 
 The unrestrained freedom, a certain pride in 
 being my own master three hundred leagues 
 from home, a passion for the mysterious and for 
 the undiscovered the ethereal perspective of 
 young imaginations counted for more. 
 
 My friend and I parted in manly tenderness. 
 He promised that he would rejoin me just as 
 soon as he had done his duty as a son and a 
 brother. He loaned me fifty louis to fill the 
 vacuum that six months had made in my purse, 
 and he departed. 
 
 III. 
 
 This departure, the absence of this friend who 
 was to me what an elder brother is to a mere 
 child, left me in a loneliness that seemed to
 
 112 GRAZIELLA: 
 
 increase with every hour, and in which I felt 
 myself sinking as into an abyss. All my 
 thoughts, all my sensations, all my words, which 
 formerly vanished as soon as communicated to 
 him, now remained in my soul, there mouldered, 
 saddened, and fell back upon my heart with a 
 weight that I could not again throw off. The 
 turmoil in which nothing interested me ; the 
 crowd in which I was known to no cne; the 
 little room in which nothing congenial met my 
 glance ; the inn-life in which you are constantly 
 elbowing strangers, in which you sit at a silent 
 table, next to ever-changing and indifferent 
 faces ; the books that you have read a hundred 
 times and whose immovable characters always 
 reproduce the same ideas in the same phrases 
 and in the same places ; all this, which had 
 seemed so delightful to me in Rome and in 
 Naples before our excursions and nomadic and 
 erratic life of the Summer, now seemed to me a 
 slow death. My heart was drowned in melan- 
 choly.
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 113 
 
 For the first few days I felt this sadness I 
 rambled through the streets, went from one 
 theater to another, and from one book to an- 
 other, without being able to throw it off. At 
 last I fell ill of the disease called homesickness. 
 My head became heavy and my limbs refused to 
 carry me. I was pale and haggard. I no 
 longer ate. Silence saddened me ; noise pained 
 me. I passed the nights without sleep and lay 
 upon my bed during the day, having neither the 
 desire nor the strength to get up. The old 
 relative of my mother's, the only one who could 
 have taken any interest in me, had gone to 
 spend some months about thirty leagues from 
 Naples in Abruzzo for the purpose of establish- 
 ing a factory there. 
 
 I sent for a physician. He came, looked at 
 me, felt my pulse and told me I was not sick. 
 The truth is that I had no disease for which 
 medicine affords a remedy ; my disease was one 
 of the soul and of the imagination. The 
 
 physician went away, and I saw no more of him. 
 8
 
 114 GRAZIELLA: 
 
 IV. 
 
 Yet I was so sick on the following day that I 
 began to think of some one whom I could call 
 in for help and pity if I became so ill as not to 
 be able to go out. The poor family at Margel- 
 lina naturally came into my mind, for I was still 
 living as one of its members in reminiscence. I 
 sent a child who served me to seek Andrea, and to 
 say to him that the younger of the two strangers 
 was sick, and wished to see him. 
 
 When the child had carried his message, 
 Andrea had gone to sea with Beppino; the 
 grandmother was on the quay at Chiai'a, occu- 
 pied in selling her fish. Graziella was alone in 
 the house with her little brothers. She barely 
 took the time to confide the children to the care 
 of one of the neighbors and to put on her best 
 dress, and then followed the child, who showed 
 her the street, the old convent, and ascended 
 the stairway before her. 
 
 I heard a slight knocking at my door, which
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 115 
 
 opened immediately after, as if pushed by some 
 invisible hand. I saw Graziella. When she 
 saw me, she uttered a cry of pity, and sprang 
 forward toward my bed ; then, suddenly stop- 
 ping and drawing back, she joined her hands 
 over her apron, and gracefully inclined her head 
 on her left shoulder in an attitude of sympathy. 
 
 "How pale he is'" she said, half to herself; 
 " how great a change these few days have made 
 in his appearance! And where is the other?" 
 she asked, as she turned to find the usual com- 
 panion of my room. 
 
 " He is gone," I said ; " and I am alone and 
 unknown in Naples." 
 
 " Gone ! " she exclaimed. " Gone ! leaving 
 you alone and sick ? Did he not love you, then ? 
 Ah! If I had been in his place I would not have 
 left you ; and yet I am not your brother, and, 
 indeed, have known you only since the first day 
 of the storm."
 
 Il6 GRAZIELLA: 
 
 V. 
 
 I explained to her that I was not ill when my 
 friend left me. 
 
 " But how is it," she asked quickly, in a tone 
 that was half tender and half reproachful, " that 
 you did not think you had other friends at Mar- 
 gellina ? Ah ! I see," she added, as she looked 
 down sadly at her sleeves and the folds of her 
 dress ; " it is because we are poor people, and 
 you were ashamed to have us come into this 
 beautiful house. Never mind," and she brushed 
 away the tears, which had been falling on my 
 forehead ever since she had stood by me ; " even 
 if we had been scorned, we should have come 
 all the same." 
 
 " Poor Graziella," I answered with a smile ; 
 " God grant that I may never live to see the day 
 when I shall be ashamed of those who love me." 
 
 VI. 
 
 She took a chair, sat down at the foot of the 
 bed, and we talked a while.
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 117 
 
 The sound of her voice; the serenity of her 
 eyes ; the calm and trusting freedom of her bear- 
 ing; the innocence of her face; the irregular 
 and plaintive accent peculiar to these women of 
 the islands, which recalls, as in the East, the 
 submissive tone of the slave amid the very 
 breathings of love ; the recollection of the delight- 
 ful days passed with her in the cabin and the 
 sunshine ; the sun of Procida, which seemed to 
 shine again in my dreary room from her brow, 
 form and feet ; all these things, as I looked at 
 her face and listened to her voice, so lifted me 
 from my languor and suffering, that I thought 
 myself suddenly cured. It seemed to me that I 
 could get up and walk as soon as she should 
 leave me. Yet I felt myself so well for her 
 presence that I prolonged the conversation as 
 much as possible. I detained her under a thou- 
 sand pretexts, from fear that she would go too 
 soon and carry off with her the happiness she 
 had brought me. 
 
 She waited on me a part of the day, without
 
 n8 GRAZIELLA: 
 
 fear, without affected reserve, without false mod- 
 esty, as a sister who waits on a brother, never 
 thinking him to be a man. She went out and 
 bought me some oranges. She bit into the peel 
 of one of them with her beautiful white teeth, 
 that she might squeeze the juice into my glass as 
 she pressed it between her fingers. She took 
 from her neck a little silver medal, hanging to a 
 black cord, and concealed in her bosom. This 
 she fastened with a pin to my white bed-curtain. 
 She assured me that I would soon be cured by 
 the virtue of this holy image. Then, as twilight 
 began to appear, she left me, but not without 
 returning twenty times from the door to the bed 
 to see whether I did not wish something more, 
 and to beg me to pray devoutly to the image 
 before I went to sleep. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Whether it was the virtue of the image and the 
 prayers she undoubtedly addressed to it; whether 
 it was owing to the soothing influence of the spirit
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 119 
 
 of gentleness and interest that I had in Grazi- 
 ella's face, or to the delightful diversion that her 
 presence and conversation had brought to my 
 weak and nervous condition, it is equally certain 
 that she had no sooner left the room than I fell 
 into a sound and peaceful sleep. 
 
 On awaking the next morning, and seeing 
 the orange peel strewn about the floor of my 
 room, Graziella's chair still turned toward my 
 bed, as if she had but just left it, shortly to return, 
 the little medal attached to the curtain by its 
 black silk cord, and all those evidences of a 
 woman's care and attention, of which I had been 
 deprived for so long a time, it seemed to me, 
 while I was yet scarcely awake, that my mother 
 or one of my sisters had been in my room the 
 evening before. It was only when I had opened 
 my eyes widely, and recalled my wandering 
 senses, that Graziella's face appeared to me as I 
 had seen it the evening before. 
 
 The sun was so bright, rest had so strength- 
 ened my limbs, the solitude of my chamber
 
 120 GRAZIELLA: 
 
 weighed so heavily on my heart, the longing to 
 listen again to the sound of a well known voice 
 urged me so strongly, that I got up at once, 
 feeble and trembling as I still was. I ate the 
 oranges that were left, went down into the street, 
 called a corricolo that was standing on the corner, 
 and, as if by instinct, directed the driver to take 
 me to the Margellina quarter. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 When I had arrived in front of Andrea's little 
 low house, I ascended the stairway that led up 
 to the platform above the basement, and upon 
 which the rooms occupied by the family opened. 
 I found assembled on the astrico Graziella, her 
 grandmother, the old fisherman, Beppino and 
 the children. As I met them they were on the 
 point of going out, dressed in their best clothes, 
 to make me a visit. Each carried, in a basket, 
 in a handkerchief or in the hand, some present 
 that these poor people thought would be most 
 acceptable to me or best for me to have. One
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 12 1 
 
 had a flask of the golden white wine of Ischia, 
 closed, in place of a cork, by a stopper formed 
 of rosemary and aromatic herbs that perfumed 
 the bottle ; another had dry figs ; another had 
 medlars, and the little children oranges. The 
 heart of Graziella had passed over to all the rest 
 of the family. 
 
 IX. 
 
 An exclamation of surprise came from them 
 as they saw me appear before them, still pale 
 and weak, but erect and smiling. In her joy, 
 Graziella let the oranges which she held in her 
 apron fall to the ground, and, clapping her 
 hands together, she ran toward me. 
 
 " I told you," she cried, " that the image 
 would cure you if it could rest but one night on 
 your bed. Did I deceive you ? " 
 
 I took the medal from my breast, where I 
 had placed it before coming out, and handed it 
 to her. 
 
 " Kiss it first," she said to me. 
 
 I did kiss it and perhaps the tips of the
 
 122 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 fingers which she had reached out to take it 
 from me. 
 
 " I will return it to you if you fall sick again," 
 she added, as she put the cord around her neck 
 and let the medal glide into her bosom ; " it will 
 serve for two." 
 
 We sat down on the terrace in the morning 
 sunlight. They all seemed as happy as if they 
 had recovered a brother or a child who had 
 been absent on a long voyage. Time, which is 
 essential to the formation of intimacies among 
 the higher classes, is not necessary to friendship 
 among the lower classes. Hearts are opened in 
 confidence and joined together at once, for there 
 is no suspicion of interest lurking under the 
 feelings. Eight days will seal a closer friend- 
 ship among the people of nature than will ten 
 years among the people of society. This family 
 and I were already relatives. 
 
 We told each other what had happened of 
 good or bad since we had parted. Their poor 
 house had struck a vein of good fortune. The
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 123 
 
 boat was blessed. The nets were lucky. The 
 fish had never been so plenty. The grand- 
 mother alone was not equal to the sale of the 
 fish to the people who passed before her door ; 
 Beppino, proud and strong, was as good as a 
 sailor of twenty years, although he was no more 
 than twelve. Graziella was learning a trade far 
 above the humble calling of the family. Her 
 wages, already large for the work of a young 
 girl, and increasing constantly with her ability, 
 would suffice to clothe her little brothers and to 
 accumulate for her a very respectable dowry, 
 when she should be " of an age and inclination 
 for love making." 
 
 Her relatives told me these things. She was 
 learning the art of working coral. The manu- 
 facture and trade in coral formed at that time 
 the principal revenue of the industry of the 
 towns along the coast of Italy. An uncle of 
 Graziella, brother to the mother she had lost, 
 was the superintendent of one of the largest 
 coral factories in Naples. Already rich for his
 
 124 GRAZIELLA . 
 
 station in life, and having charge of a large 
 number of workmen and workwomen, he found 
 their services insufficient to meet the demand 
 that came from all parts of Europe for this lux- 
 ury. It was for this reason that he had thought 
 of his niece, and a few days before, he had come 
 to enroll her name among his workwomen. He 
 had brought her the coral and the tools, and 
 had given her the first lessons in the very sim- 
 ple art. 
 
 The other women worked in common at the 
 factory, but Graziella, owing to the constant and 
 unavoidable absence of her grandmother and 
 grandfather, was the only guardian of the child- 
 ren, and so did her work at home. Her uncle, 
 who could not absent himself often from his 
 business, was accustomed to send to the young 
 girl his eldest son, Graziella's cousin and a 
 young man of about twenty years, who was 
 quiet, steady and reserved, a good workman but 
 very simple-minded, ungainly and somewhat 
 deformed in his person. He came in the even-
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 125 
 
 ing, when the factory had been closed, to exam- 
 ine his cousin's work, to perfect her in the 
 proper use of the tools, and also to give her the 
 first lessons in reading, writing and arithmetic. 
 
 " Let us hope," said the old lady to me softly 
 while Graziella turned her head aside, " that 
 this will result to the advantage of both of them, 
 and that the master will become the servant of 
 his bride." 
 
 I saw that the grandmother had a good deal 
 of pride and ambition in regard to her daugh- 
 ter's future. But Graziella did not suspect it. 
 
 X. 
 
 The young girl took me by the hand and led 
 me into her room that I might admire the coral 
 work which she had already turned and polished. 
 The specimens were neatly arranged on cotton 
 in little pasteboard boxes on the foot of the bed. 
 She wished to fashion a piece in my presence. 
 I turned the wheel of her machine with my foot, 
 opposite her, as she presented the red coral-
 
 126 GRAZIELLA: 
 
 branch to the circular knife, which cut into it with 
 a grating sound. Then she rounded off the pieces 
 by holding them in the ends of her fingers 
 against the grind-stone. 
 
 The rose-colored dust covered her hands, and, 
 flying into her face from time to time, powdered 
 her lips and cheeks as with a light paint, that 
 made her eyes appear all the bluer and more 
 brilliant. Then she laughingly wiped off her 
 face and shook her black hair, so the dust covered 
 me in turn. 
 
 "This is just the work for a child of the sea 
 like me, isn't it ? " she asked. " We owe every- 
 thing to the sea, from my grandfather's boat and 
 the bread we eat to these ear-rings and orna- 
 ments, with which I shall perhaps adorn my- 
 self some day, when I shall have polished and 
 fashioned enough for those who are richer and 
 handsomer than I am." 
 
 The morning passed in this way gossiping, 
 laughing and working without the thought ever 
 entering my head that I must go away. At noon
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 127 
 
 I partook of the family meal. The bright sun, 
 the fresh air, the contentment of soul, the frugal 
 meal, which consisted simply of bread, a piece 
 of fried fish and some preserved fruits from the 
 cellar, had given me strength and appetite. 
 After dinner I assisted the old man in mending 
 the meshes of a net he had stretched out upon 
 the astrico. 
 
 Graziella, whose foot we heard tramping regu- 
 larly upon her machine; the noise of her grand- 
 mother's spinning wheel ; and the voices of the 
 children who were playing with oranges on the 
 doorstep, formed a melodious accompaniment to 
 our work. Graziella came out from time to time 
 to shake her hair over the balcony, when we 
 would exchange a look, a friendly word or a 
 smile. I felt that I was happy, without knowing 
 why, happy to the very soul. I could have 
 wished to be one of the aloe-plants twining about 
 the garden fence, or a lizard that sunned itself 
 near us on the terrace and lived with this poor 
 family in the crevices of the wall.
 
 128 GRAZIELLA: 
 
 XL 
 
 But my soul and my face grew dark with the 
 day. I became sad with thinking that I should 
 be obliged to return to my lodgings. Graziella 
 was the first to notice it. She whispered a few 
 words in her grandmother's ear, and then the old 
 lady said to me as if I had been her own son: 
 
 " Why do you leave us ? We got along very 
 well together in Procida, and are we not the 
 same in Naples ? You look like a bird that has 
 lost its mother and goes about crying from nest 
 to nest. Come and live with us if you find our 
 lodgings good enough for a gentleman like your- 
 self? The house has only three rooms, it is true, 
 but Beppino sleeps in the boat. The children's 
 room will do for Graziella too, if she might work 
 during the day in the room which you would 
 occupy. Take hers, then, and await here the 
 return of your friend. It is too bad to think that 
 a young man, as good and sad as you are, should 
 be alone in the streets of Naples." 
 
 The old fisherman, Beppino, even the little
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 129 
 
 children, who already loved the stranger, joined 
 in with the grandmother's idea. All insisted 
 earnestly that I should accept her offer. Graz- 
 iella alone was silent, but she awaited with an 
 anxiety plain to be seen, although she attempted 
 to conceal it with a little dissemblance, my 
 answer to her relatives' entreaties. She stamped 
 her little foot with a nervous and involuntary 
 movement at all the discreet reasons I gave for 
 not accepting. 
 
 At last 1 lifted my eyes to hers. I saw them 
 moister and more brilliant than usual, and 
 noticed that she rubbed and crushed between her 
 fingers branches of a sweet - basil plant that 
 grew in one of the flower-pots on the balcony. 
 I understood this movement better than long 
 speeches. I accepted the community of life that 
 was offered me. Graziella clapped her hands 
 gleefully and rushed out into her room without 
 looking back, as if she proposed to take me at 
 my word and did not wish to give me time to 
 Detract it. 
 9
 
 130 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 \ 
 
 * 
 
 XII. 
 
 Graziella called Beppino. In a moment she 
 and her brothers were carrying into the children's 
 room her bed, her scant furniture, her little look- 
 ing-glass with its frame of painted wood, the 
 brass lamp, the two or three images of the Virgin 
 that had been hanging upon the wall, fastened 
 there with pins, the table and the little machine 
 at which she worked her coral. They brought 
 water from the well, and with the palm of their 
 hands scoured the floor; they swept the coral 
 dust carefully from the wood-work and the wall ; 
 they placed upon the window-sill two pots of the 
 most beautiful and fragrant balsam and migno- 
 nette that they could find on the astrico. They 
 could not have been more particular in cleaning 
 and arranging a bridal-chamber if Beppino were 
 to have brought home his wife that very even- 
 ing. I laughingly helped them in this pastime. 
 
 When all was done, I took Beppino and his 
 grandfather with me to buy and bring to the
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN- LOVE. 131 
 
 house such little furniture as it was necessary 
 for me to have. I bought a little iron bedstead 
 complete, a plain wooden table, two rush-bottom 
 chairs, a little brazen fire-pan, in which, accord- 
 ing to custom, to burn olive-stones of a winter's 
 evening to warm the room ; my trunk, which I 
 sent for, contained all the rest of my possessions. 
 I did not wish to lose a single night of this 
 happy life that carried me back to my own family. 
 That same evening I slept in my new lodgings. 
 I did not awake till I heard the joyous cry of the 
 swallows, that had entered my room through a 
 broken window-pane, and Graziella's voice sing- 
 ing in the room next to me, accompanying her 
 song with the monotonous movement of her 
 machine. 
 
 I opened the window which looked out upon 
 the little gardens belonging to the fishermen and 
 washerwomen, and encased in the rocks of Mount 
 Posilippo and in the Piazza della Margellina. 
 
 Great rocks of brown sandstone had rolled
 
 132 GRAZIELLA: 
 
 down from Mount Posilippo into these gardens 
 and very near the house. Large fig-trees, that 
 were growing so near the rocks as to be half 
 crushed by them, seized these rocks with their 
 white tortuous arms and covered them with thick, 
 motionless leaves. From this side of the house 
 I could see only the gardens of these poor people ; 
 some wells, over which stood large wheels, which 
 were turned by asses, for the purpose of water- 
 ing the gutters that ran between the rows of 
 fennel, turnips and cabbages; women drying 
 linen on ropes that were stretched from one 
 lemon-tree to another; little children in their 
 shirts, that were crying or playing on the terraces 
 of the three or four little white houses scattered 
 through the gardens. This prospect, so con- 
 tracted, common and bare, of the suburbs of a 
 large city, was a delightful one to me in com- 
 parison with the high houses, dark streets and 
 noisy crowd of the quarters I had just left. I 
 breathed pure air instead of the dust, the fire 
 and the smoke of the human atmosphere which
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 133 
 
 I had just left. I heard the braying of the asses, 
 the crowing of the cock, the rustling of the 
 leaves, the roaring of the sea, instead of the rum- 
 bling of wagons, sharp cries of the people selling 
 their wares, and the incessant thunder of all 
 the rasping noises in the streets of a large city, 
 which afford no relaxation to the ear and no 
 quiet to the mind. 
 
 I could not tear myself from my bed for enjoy- 
 ing the sun, the sounds of the country, the flying 
 of the birds and a repose of the soul that was 
 scarcely ruffled ; and then, looking at the naked- 
 ness of the walls, the emptiness of the room and 
 the meagerness of the furniture, I rejoiced to 
 think that this poor household at least loved me, 
 and that carpets, elegant hangings and silk cur- 
 tains were not worth that little affection. All the 
 gold in the world can not buy a single heart- 
 beat nor a single glance of tenderness from the 
 eyes of those who are indifferent to you. 
 
 These thoughts rocked me softly in my cradle 
 of half-sleep ; I felt myself reborn to health and
 
 134 GRAZIELLA: 
 
 peace. Beppino came into the room several 
 times to see if I needed anything. He brought 
 to my bed bread and grapes, which I ate, throw- 
 ing the crumbs and the little stones to the swal- 
 lows. It was nearly noon. The full rays of the 
 sun entered through the window, when I arose, 
 with the peculiarly mild temperature of the 
 Autumn. I agreed with the fisherman and his 
 wife upon a small price which I was to pay them 
 monthly for the rent of my room, and to add 
 something toward defraying the general expense 
 of the household. It was very little, indeed, but 
 these good people thought it a great deal too much. 
 It was easy to see that, far from desiring to make 
 anything from my stay with them, they were sorry 
 that their poverty and their necessarily modest 
 way of living did not permit them to offer me a 
 hospitality of which they would have been 
 prouder if it had cost me nothing. They added 
 to what they usually bought every morning two 
 little loaves of bread, a piece of fish boiled or 
 fried for dinner, milk or dried fruits for supper,
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 135 
 
 oil for my lamp and some charcoal for the colder 
 days ; this was all. 
 
 A few copper grani, a small coin in use among 
 the people of Naples, sufficed to pay my daily 
 expenses. I have never better understood how 
 independent happiness is of luxury, and how 
 much more of it one can buy with a single cop- 
 per penny than with a purse of gold, when one 
 knows just where God has hidden it. 
 XIV. 
 
 I lived in this way during the last months of 
 Autumn and the first months of Winter. The 
 beauty and quiet of these months in Naples 
 make one confound them with those that pre- 
 cede them. Nothing disturbed the monotonous 
 tranquility of our life. The old man and his 
 grandson did not go out into the open sea any 
 more, on account of the frequent storms of this 
 season of the year. They continued to fish along 
 the coast, and the fish they caught, which the 
 grandmother sold at the " marine," was sufficient 
 for their life without wants.
 
 136 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 Graziella perfected herself in her art ; she 
 grew rapidly and developed beautifully in the 
 more quiet, sedentary life which she lived since 
 she had been working coral. The pay, which her 
 uncle brought her every Sunday, was enough, 
 not only to keep her brothers better and more 
 neatly clothed than formerly and send them to 
 school, but to give, besides, to her grandmother 
 and herself many of those rich and elegant 
 articles of dress peculiar to the women of their 
 island : handkerchiefs of red silk to hang down 
 behind the head and over the shoulders in a tri- 
 angular shape ; shoes without heels, that covered 
 only the toes of the feet and were embroidered 
 with silver cord; silk sacks striped in black and 
 green. These sacks are laced at the seams and 
 fall open on the hips ; they expose to view the 
 form of the waist and the mould of the neck orna- 
 mented with chains. They wore, besides, carved 
 ear rings, in which pearls were interwoven with 
 gold threads. The poor women of the Grecian 
 islands wear these ornaments. No distress ever
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 137 
 
 forces them to give them up. In climates where 
 the sentiment of beauty is more lively than under 
 our sky, and where life is nothing but love, these 
 ornaments are not luxuries in the eyes of the 
 women : they are the first and almost the only 
 necessity. 
 
 XV. 
 
 When on the Sabbath and fete days Graziella 
 thus attired would come out from her room upon 
 the terrace, with a flower or two of rose-laurel 
 or pomegranate on the side of her head and 
 hidden in her black hair ; when, listening to the 
 sound of the bells in the neighboring chapel, 
 she walked up and down before my window, as 
 proud as a pea- fowl that suns itself on the roof, 
 when she languidly trailed her little feet, impris- 
 oned in spangled slippers, looking at them as she 
 did so, and then raised her head with an habit- 
 ually graceful turn of the neck that caused the 
 silk handkerchief and her hair to toss about over 
 her shoulders; and when she saw that I was 
 looking at her, she would blush as if ashamed of
 
 138 GRAZIELLA: 
 
 being so handsome. It was in such moments as 
 these that the new brilliancy of her beauty struck 
 me so forcibly that I imagined I saw her for the 
 first time, and my customary, familiar manner 
 would change into a sort of reserve and bashful- 
 ness. 
 
 But she tried so little to be dazzling and her 
 natural instinct for ornaments was so devoid of 
 vanity and coquetry, that just as soon as she 
 returned from the holy ceremonies of the day, 
 she hastened to take off her rich apparel, and in 
 its place to put on the simple jacket of coarse 
 green cloth and her dress of red and black 
 striped calico, and to slip on her feet her other 
 slippers with a wooden heel, which could be 
 heard upon the terrace all the rest of the day 
 like the echoing slippers of the female slaves in 
 the Orient. 
 
 When her young friends did not call for her 
 or her cousin accompany her to church, I would 
 often go with her myself and wait on the church- 
 steps until the service was over. When she came
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 139 
 
 out, I heard with a sort of personal pride, as if 
 she had been my sister or my sweetheart, the 
 murmurs of admiration which her graceful figure 
 excited among her companions and among the 
 young sailors of the quays of Margellina. But 
 she heard nothing of all this and, seeing no one 
 but me in the crowd, smiled upon me from the 
 very highest step, made her last sign of the cross, 
 her fingers dripping with the holy water, and, 
 with her eyes drooping modestly, came to the 
 the bottom of the stairway where I stood waiting 
 for her. 
 
 Almost every festival, I took Graziella in this 
 way, night and morning, to church service, the 
 pious and the only recreation which she knew 
 and loved. I took care on such occasions to 
 make my dress as nearly as possible like that of 
 the young sailors of the island, that no one might 
 be astonished at my presence and that I might 
 be taken for the brother or relative of the young 
 girl whom I accompanied. 
 
 On other days she never went out. As to
 
 140 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 myself, I had resumed gradually my former stu- 
 dious life and solitary habits, relieved only by 
 my pleasant friendship with Graziella and my 
 cordial relations with the family. I read the 
 historians and poets of all languages. Some- 
 times I wrote; I tried, now in Italian now in 
 French, to pour out in prose or verse the first 
 passions of the soul, which seem to weigh on the 
 heart until words have lightened it by giving 
 them expression. 
 
 It would seem as though language is the only 
 predestination of man, and that he is created to 
 bring it forth as his fruit. Man frets until he has 
 given external expression to that which works 
 within. Written language is like a mirror which 
 it is necessary to have in order that man may 
 know himself and be sure that he exists. So 
 long as he does not see himself in his works he 
 is not sure that he lives. The soul, like the body, 
 has its ripe age. 
 
 I was just at that time of life when the soul 
 has need to nourish and multiply itself in words.
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 141 
 
 But, as is always the case, I felt the desire 
 before I possessed the power of expression. I 
 had no sooner written than I was dissatisfied 
 with my work, and threw it away in disgust. 
 How often have the wind and the waves of the 
 sea of Naples carried away and engulfed the 
 shreds of thoughts and sentiments of the night 
 before, torn up in the morning, and flying far 
 away from me without a single regret? 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Sometimes Graziella, seeing me shut up in my 
 room and silent longer than usual, would steal 
 in softly to tear me away from my reading or 
 other occupation. She would advance noise- 
 lessly behind my chair ; raise herself on tip-toe 
 to look over my shoulder, without understanding 
 a word of what I read or what I wrote ; then, 
 with a quick and sudden movement, she would 
 snatch the book or the pen out of my fingers as 
 she ran away. I would follow her to the terrace 
 half inclined for the moment to be angry ; she
 
 I4 2 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 would laugh. Then I would forgive her, and 
 she would scold me as if she had been my 
 mother. 
 
 " What has this book to say to your eyes that 
 it keeps you so long to-day?" she would ask 
 with an impatience that was half real and half 
 playful. " Will these black lines on this ugly 
 old paper never get through talking to you ? 
 Do you not already know enough stories to tell 
 one over every Sunday and every evening of 
 the year, like that which made me cry so much 
 at Procida? And to whom do you write all 
 night long those letters which the next morning 
 you throw to the wind and the sea ? Do you 
 not know that you are making yourself sick, and 
 that you are all pale and nervous reading or 
 writing so long ? Is it not better to talk with 
 me, who can look into your eyes, than with the 
 dead, or with ghosts, who can not hear you ? 
 Lord ! If I had as much spirit as those sheets 
 of paper ! I would talk to you the whole day, I 
 would tell you every thing that you wanted to
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 143 
 
 know, and you would not be obliged to wear out 
 your eyes and burn out all the oil in your 
 lamp." 
 
 Then she would hide my book and pens, bring 
 me my coat and sailor's hood, and make me go 
 out to walk. I would obey her under protest 
 and love.
 
 I 
 
 PART FOURTH. 
 
 I. 
 
 USED to take long walks through the town, 
 on the quays and into the country ; but 
 these lonely walks were not as sad as during the 
 first days of my return to Naples. I enjoyed to 
 the full the delightful sights of the city, on the 
 sea-shore, and of the heavens and the waters. 
 That heavy feeling of isolation did not over- 
 whelm me as formerly, but concentrated the 
 force of my thoughts and soul in deep medita- 
 tion. I knew that kind eyes and friendly 
 thoughts followed me whether in a crowd or a 
 deserted place, and that hearts, full of my pres- 
 ence, awaited my return. 
 
 I was no longer like the lost bird crying 
 around strange nests, to use the expression of 
 10 '
 
 146 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 the old grandmother ; I was like a bird that 
 flies far from the branch which holds it, yet 
 always knows its way back. The whole tide of 
 my affection for my absent friend had been 
 turned upon Graziella. This sentiment, how- 
 ever, was something more lively, acute and 
 affectionate than that which attached me to my 
 friend. It seemed to me as though one was the 
 consequence of habit and circumstance, but that 
 the other was born of me and that I had attained 
 it of my own choice. 
 
 It was not love ; I felt neither the palpita- 
 tions, the jealousy nor the absent-mindedness 
 of passion ; there was a delicious repose of the 
 heart instead of a fever of the soul and senses. 
 I thought neither of loving otherwise nor of 
 being loved more. I did not know whether she 
 was a companion, a friend, a sister, or in what 
 relation she stood to me; I knew only that I 
 was happy with her, and that she was happy 
 with me. 
 
 I wished for nothing more, nothing else. I
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 147 
 
 was not of an age to analyze what I experienced 
 and thus afford myself an abstract and useless 
 definition of my happiness. It was enough for 
 me to feel quiet, affectionate and happy without 
 knowing how or why. Living and thinking 
 together cemented every day more and more 
 strongly the harmless and gentle intimacy that 
 had been formed between us, and she was as 
 pure in her confidence as I was undisturbed in 
 my indifference. 
 
 II. 
 
 During the three months that I was of the 
 same family, living under the same roof, and, as 
 it were, making a part of her very thought, Gra- 
 ziella became so accustomed to looking upon 
 me as inseparable from her that she did not 
 herself know, perhaps, how large a place I held 
 in her heart. In my presence she showed none 
 of the shame, reserve and fear that interpose in 
 the relations between a young girl and a young 
 man, and which often cause love to be born of 
 the very precautions which are intended to keep
 
 148 GRAZ1ELLA : 
 
 it away. She never dreamed, nor did I, scarcely, 
 that the natural graces of the child, developed 
 with all the splendor of an early maturity, made 
 her artless beauty a power for her, an admira- 
 tion for all, and a danger for me. She took no 
 pains to conceal it or adorn it in my eyes ; she 
 no more thought of it than a sister thinks 
 whether she is pretty or homely in the eyes of 
 a brother. She did not cover her bare feet with 
 her shoes any more frequently when she dressed 
 her little brothers in the morning on the terrace, 
 under the sun, or when she helped her grand- 
 mother sweep the fallen leaves from the roof. 
 She came into my bedroom, the door of which 
 was always open, at any hour, and sat down on 
 a chair at the foot of the bed as innocently as 
 Beppino did the same thing. 
 
 On rainy days and in bad weather I would 
 pass whole hours in her room, just next to mine, 
 where she slept with the children and worked 
 at her coral. I assisted her, laughing and chat- 
 ting, with her work, which she taught me.
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 149 
 
 With less art but more strength than she pos- 
 sessed, I succeeded better in trimming the 
 pieces. In this way we accomplished double 
 the work and in one day she earned the pay 
 of two. 
 
 But in the evening, when the children and the 
 family had retired, it was she who became the 
 scholar and I the teacher. I taught her to read 
 and write, and made her spell the words in my 
 books, or write them as I held and directed her 
 hand. It was impossible for her cousin to come 
 every day and, when he did not, I took his 
 place. Whether it was because this young man, 
 humpbacked and deformed, did not inspire his 
 cousin with sufficient regard and respect, not- 
 withstanding the kindness, patience and serious- 
 ness of his manner, or because there was too 
 much to attract her attention from the lesson 
 when he gave it, it is certain that she made 
 more progress with me than with him. 
 
 With him, half of the evening set apart for 
 study was passed in playing, mimicking and
 
 150 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 laughing at the pedagogue. The poor young 
 man was too much taken up with his pupil and 
 too timid in her presence ever to scold her. He 
 did everything she wished him to do in order 
 that the pretty forehead of the young girl should 
 not contract into a frown or her ripe lips form 
 into a pout. Very often was the hour that 
 should have been devoted to reading passed in 
 paring coral, in reeling skeins of wool on the 
 grandmother's distaff, or in mending some of 
 Beppo's torn nets. It was all the same to him, 
 if, when he went away, Graziella smiled upon 
 him pleasantly and said " addio" \.Q him in a 
 tone of voice that might have meant " au revoir." 
 
 III. 
 
 But when I was the teacher, the lesson was 
 serious. It often extended away into the night 
 until our eyes were heavy with sleep. I could 
 see in her drooping head and stretched neck, in 
 the attentive immobility of her attitude and 
 features, that the poor girl made every effort to
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 151 
 
 succeed. She leaned her elbow on my shoulder 
 to read out of the book in which my finger traced 
 the line and indicated the word to be pro- 
 nounced. When she wrote I held her fingers in 
 my hand to half-guide the pen. 
 
 If she made an error, I scolded her severely; 
 she would not answer, and if she ever became 
 impatient it was only at herself. I saw her 
 sometimes just ready to cry ; then I would speak 
 more softly and encourage her to begin again. 
 But if she had read or written well, it could be 
 seen that she looked for her reward in my ap- 
 plause. She would turn around to me, blushing, 
 with pride and joy depicted on her forehead and 
 in her eyes, prouder of the pleasure that she 
 gave me than of the little triumph of her own 
 success. 
 
 I always rewarded her by reading a few pages 
 of "Paul and Virginia," which was still her 
 favorite, or some of those beautiful stanzas of 
 Tasso's in which he describes the rustic life of 
 the shepherds with whom Herminia lived, or
 
 152 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 where he sings the laments or despair of the 
 two lovers. The music of these verses made 
 her weep and dream long after I had ceased to 
 read. Poetry has no echo so loud and long as in 
 the heart of youth in which love is just spring- 
 ing into life. It is like the presentiment of all 
 the passions. Later it is their souvenir and 
 their dirge. It brings tears in both extremes 
 of life : to the young, tears of hope ; to the old, 
 tears of regret. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The delightful intimacy of these long, quiet 
 evenings, in the light of the lamp and by the 
 genial warmth of the olives that burned in the 
 pan at our feet, brought no other thoughts nor 
 familiarities between us than those of children. 
 We were guarded, I by my almost cold indiffer- 
 ence, she by her frankness and purity. We 
 separated as tranquilly as we had met, and a 
 moment after these long interviews, we fell 
 asleep under the same roof, within a few feet of 
 each other, like two children who have been
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 153 
 
 playing together in the evening, who dream of 
 nothing else than their simple amusements. 
 These peaceful sentiments which ignore while 
 they nourish themselves, might have lasted for 
 years, had not a circumstance transpired that 
 changed every thing and revealed to us the 
 nature of a friendship that had sufficed to make 
 us so very happy. 
 
 V. 
 
 Cecco, for such was the name of Graziella's 
 cousin, continued coming to the house more 
 assiduously from day to day, and to pass the 
 winter evenings with the family of the marinaro. 
 Although the young girl showed him no mark of 
 preference, and, indeed, often made him the butt 
 of ridicule, he was so soft, so patient and so 
 humble in her presence that she could not help 
 being touched by his kindness, and sometimes 
 smiled upon him graciously. This was all he 
 asked. His was one of the weak but loving 
 hearts, which, feeling itself disinherited by nature 
 of qualities that inspire affection, was content to
 
 154 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 love without return, and he made himself a volun- 
 tary slave to the service if not to the happiness 
 of her to whom he had given that heart. Such 
 natures are not always the most noble but often 
 the most touching instances of affection. You 
 may pity them, but you must admire them. To 
 love for the sake of being loved is human, but 
 to love for the sake of loving is angelic. 
 
 VI. 
 
 And, under the homeliest of features, there was 
 something angelic in the love of poor Cecco. 
 Far from experiencing any humiliation or jealousy 
 from the familiarity or preference which Graziella 
 showed me before his very eyes, he loved me be- 
 cause she did. He did not demand the first or the 
 only place in the affection of his cousin, but the 
 second or the last: any place was enough for 
 him. To give her a moment's pleasure, to earn 
 one look of gratitude, or a gesture, or a gracious 
 word, he would have searched for me in the re- 
 motest corner of France and brought me back to
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 155 
 
 her who preferred me to him. I believe he would 
 have hated me if I had caused her the slightest 
 pain. 
 
 His pride as well as his love was in her. 
 Perhaps inwardly cold, prudent, reflective and 
 calculating, such as God and his own infirmity 
 had made him, he reckoned intuitively that my 
 power over his cousin's feelings could not last 
 always; that something or other would inevitably 
 happen to separate us; that I was a stranger 
 from a distant country, of birth and fortune 
 evidently incompatible with the station of a poor 
 Procida fisherman's daughter; that some day the 
 intimacy between his cousin and me would be 
 broken off as it had been formed ; that then she 
 would be left to him alone, abandoned, desolate ; 
 that this very despair would soften her heart and 
 give it to him bruised but entire. This part of 
 consoler and friend was the only one to which 
 he could make any pretension, but his father 
 had another thought for him.
 
 156 GRAZIELLA: 
 
 VII. 
 
 The father, knowing Cecco's affection for his 
 niece, came to see her from time to time. Moved 
 by her beauty and virtue; astonished at the 
 rapid progress she had made in her art, in read- 
 ing and writing ; thinking, besides, that Cecco's 
 natural deformity did not permit of his inspiring 
 other sentiments than those of agreement and 
 domesticity, he had resolved to marry his son to 
 his niece. His fortune made, and large enough 
 for a workman, permitted him to regard his offer 
 as a favor which neither Andrea, his wife nor the 
 young girl would even think of refusing. Whether 
 he had told his intentions to Cecco, or concealed 
 them in order to surprise his son with his happi- 
 ness, he resolved to speak to the family. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 On Christmas Eve I came in later than usual 
 to take my place at the family table. I saw signs 
 of coolness and trouble in the evidently con-
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 157 
 
 strained features of Andrea and his wife. Lift- 
 ing my eyes to Graziella, I saw that she had 
 been weeping. Content and joy were so generally 
 to be seen in her face that this unusual expres- 
 sion of sadness covered her like a veil. One 
 would have said that the shadow of her thoughts 
 and heart was spread over her features. I re- 
 mained silent and motionless, not daring to 
 question these poor people, nor to talk to Graz- 
 iella, from fear that the sound of my voice would 
 bring on an outburst, which she seemed scarcely 
 able to restrain. 
 
 Contrary to her custom, she did not look at 
 me at all. She carried pieces of bread to her 
 mouth with a listless hand, and made believe 
 eat it for appearance' sake; but she could not, 
 she threw the bread under the table. After the 
 silent meal was finished, she made a pretext for 
 leaving the room to put the children in bed ; she 
 took them into their bedroom, and then, without 
 saying good-night to her relatives or to me, she 
 left us alone.
 
 158 GRAZIELLA: 
 
 When she had gone out I asked the father 
 and mother what cause there was for their own 
 seriousness and the sadness of their daughter. 
 Then they told me that Cecco's father had been 
 to the house during the day, that he had asked 
 their granddaughter in marriage for his son; 
 that it was great happiness and great good for- 
 tune for the family; that Cecco would have 
 property; that Graziella, who was so good, would 
 take her two little brothers with her and rear 
 them as if they were her own children ; that now 
 their old days would be assured to them against 
 misery; that they had consented with gratitude 
 to the marriage and then spoken to Graziella 
 about it; that she, from timidity and maidenly 
 modesty, had not answered them at all ; that her 
 silence and tears only came from her surprise 
 and emotion, which would soon pass away like a 
 bee over a flower ; and that it had been agreed 
 between Cecco's father and themselves that the 
 engagement should be celebrated immediately 
 after the Christmas holidays.
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 159 
 
 IX. 
 
 They talked long after I had ceased to hear 
 a word. I had never rendered myself any 
 account of my attachment for Graziella. I did 
 not know how I loved her, whether it was pure 
 companionship, friendship, love, habit, or all of 
 these sentiments combined, that made up my 
 affection for her. But the idea of seeing these 
 sweet relations of life and love that had been 
 formed and cemented between us, almost with- 
 out our knowledge, suddenly changed ; the 
 thought that she was to be taken from me all at 
 once and given to another; that from being my 
 companion and my sister she was to become a 
 stranger and indifferent to me; that she would 
 no longer be near me ; that I should see her no 
 more after a few hours or a few days; that I 
 should never again hear her voice call me ; that 
 I could no longer read in her eyes that ray of 
 caressing light and tenderness always shed 
 upon me, that softly illumined my heart and
 
 160 GRAZIELLA: 
 
 reminded me of my mother and sisters ; the void 
 and empty night in which I pictured to myself 
 the following day when her husband should take 
 her to another home; this room in which she 
 would sleep no more, my own which she would 
 enter no more, this table at which she would sit 
 no more ; that terrace upon which I should no 
 longer hear the pattering of her naked feet, or 
 the sound of her voice in the morning calling me 
 from sleep ; the church to which I should take 
 her no more of a Sunday ; the boat in which her 
 place would be empty and where I could talk 
 only to the wind' and sea ; the happy associations 
 of our past life, which rushed into my mind only 
 again to suddenly vanish and leave me in an 
 abyss of solitude and nothingness; all this 
 made me feel for the first time what the society 
 of this young girl really was to me. All this 
 showed me too vividly that the love, friendship, 
 or whatever the sentiment was that attached me 
 to her, was stronger than I had believed, and 
 that the unknown fascination of my wild Nea-
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. l6l 
 
 politan life was neither the sea nor the boat, nor 
 the humble room in the humble house, nor the 
 fisherman, nor his wife, nor Beppo, nor the 
 children : it was a single being, and this being 
 vanished, all else would vanish with her. My 
 life without her presence was nothing. I felt it. 
 The confession of that moment, which I had 
 never before made to myself, gave me such a 
 blow that my heart shook under it, and I experi- 
 enced something of the /nfinite of love in the 
 infinite of sadness in which my heart was sud- 
 denly submerged. 
 
 X. 
 
 I sought my room in silence. I threw myself 
 upon the bed without undressing. I tried to 
 read, to write, to think, to distract myself with 
 some hard mental work that could overcome my 
 agitation. But it was all in vain. The inward 
 excitement was so great that I could have but 
 one thought, and the very prostration of my 
 strength would not bring me sleep. Never had 
 the likeness of Graziella appeared so ravishing 
 ii
 
 1 62 GRAZIELLA: 
 
 to me, and haunted me so persistently. I had 
 been accustomed to enjoy it as something seen 
 every day, the sweetness of which is only felt 
 after it has been lost. Her beauty, indeed, had 
 been nothing to me before that hour; I had 
 confounded the impression that it had made on 
 me with the effect of the friendship which I felt 
 for her, and which her face expressed for me. I 
 did not know that there was a particle of admir- 
 ation in my attachment ; I never dreamed that 
 there was the slightest passion in her tenderness. 
 
 And now I could scarcely account for it all, 
 even in the tedious wanderings of my heart 
 during the wakefulness of that night. All was 
 as confused in my grief as in- my feelings. I 
 was like a man senseless from some sudden blow, 
 who knows not whence comes his suffering, but 
 knows only that he suffers. 
 
 I left my bed before a sound was heard in the 
 house. I can not tell what instinct prompted 
 me to absent myself from the house for some 
 time, as if my presence would be an invasion of
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 163 
 
 the family sanctuary at a time when fate so 
 cruelly agitated it before a stranger. 
 
 As I went out I came upon Beppo and told 
 him that I should be gone for several days. 
 Then I walked listlessly in whichever direction 
 my steps took me. I followed the long quays of 
 Naples, the coast of Resina and Portici, the 
 base of Mount Vesuvius. I took guides for 
 Torre del Greco ; I slept that night on a rock at 
 the door of the hermitage of San Salvatore, at 
 the confines of inhabited nature, where the 
 region of fire begins. As the volcano had been 
 in commotion for some time past, and at every 
 upheaval threw out clouds of ashes and stones, 
 which we could hear during the night rolling 
 down into the ravine of lava at the foot of the 
 hermitage, my guides refused to accompany me 
 any further. 
 
 I ascended alone; I clambered painfully up 
 the last peak, burying my hands and feet in the 
 thick and burning ashes that gave way under the 
 weight of my body. The volcano roared and
 
 1 64 GRAZIELLA: 
 
 thundered at intervals. Burning stones, still red 
 with fire, rained down around and about me, 
 extinguishing themselves in the ashes. But 
 nothing stopped me. I reached the very edge 
 of the crater and there sat down. I saw the 
 sun rise over the gulf, the country and the 
 splendid city of Naples. I was cold and insensi- 
 ble to this sight which so many travelers come 
 thousands of miles to admire. In this immensity 
 of light, sea, coast, and houses glistening in the 
 sun, I sought only a little white spot among the 
 dark green trees at the other end of the hill of 
 Posilippo, where I thought I could distinguish 
 Andrea's cabin. 
 
 Man contemplates and grasps at space in vain ; 
 all nature furnishes him but two or three little 
 spots at which his soul aims. Take away from 
 life the heart that loves you, and what is left ? 
 It is the same in nature. Blot out the place and 
 the house which your thoughts are seeking or 
 which your reminiscences people, and there is only 
 a noisy nothingness, in which the look penetrates
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 165 
 
 to find neither end nor repose. Is it surprising 
 then, that the sublime scenes of nature should 
 be regarded so differently by travelers? It is 
 because every one carries with him a different 
 point of view. A cloud over the soul conceals 
 and discolors the earth more than a cloud over 
 the sky. The spectacle is in the spectator. I 
 found it so. 
 
 XI. 
 
 I looked at every thing; I saw nothing. In 
 vain, like a madman, did I descend, by holding 
 to the sharp points of petrified lava, to the very 
 mouth of the crater. In vain did I leap over the 
 deep crevices, from which the smoke and furious 
 flames came up, suffocating and burning me. In 
 vain did I regard the great fields of sulphur and 
 crystalized salt that looked like glaciers colored 
 by these fiery breaths. I remained as indifferent 
 to the grandeur as I was to fear. My soul was 
 elsewhere; in vain did I try to recall it. 
 
 That evening I returned to the hermitage. I 
 dismissed my guides and walked back across the
 
 1 66 GRAZIELLA: 
 
 vineyards to Pompeii. I passed the entire day 
 in roaming about the deserted streets of this en- 
 gulfed city. This tomb, opened after being 
 closed two thousand years, and returning its 
 streets, its monuments and its arts to the light 
 of the sun, found me as insensible as Ve- 
 suvius. The soul of all these ashes had been 
 swept away by the breath of God centuries be- 
 fore, so that it no longer appealed to my heart. 
 I trod on this dust of men, in the streets of what 
 had been their city, with as much indifference as 
 upon the heaps of empty shells cast by the sea 
 upon its shores. Time is a great ocean, which, 
 like the other ocean, overflows with our remains. 
 We can not weep over everything. Every man 
 has his own sorrows, every century its own pity, 
 and this is enough. 
 
 Leaving Pompeii I plunged in among the 
 woody mountain -passes of Castellamare and 
 Sorrento. There I lived for several days, going 
 from one village to another and getting the herds- 
 men to show me the most renowned places in
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 167 
 
 their mountains. I was taken for a painter in 
 search of studies, because from time to time I 
 made notes in a little book of drawings that my 
 friend had left behind him. But I was only an 
 erratic soul, wandering here and there in the 
 country to exhaust time. All failed me. It was 
 myself that was wanting. 
 
 I could go on no longer in this way. When 
 the Christmas holidays had passed and the first 
 day of the year also that day of which men 
 have made a festival as if to seduce and appease 
 Time with pleasures and garlands, like a severe 
 guest whom it is desirable to conciliate I 
 resolved to hasten back to Naples. I reached 
 the city during the night hesitatingly, divided 
 between my impatience to see Graziella and the 
 fear of learning that I should not see her again. 
 I stopped twenty times ; I seated myself on the 
 sides of the boats as I neared Margellina. 
 
 A few steps from the house I met Beppo. 
 With a cry of joy he threw his arms about my 
 neck as though he had been a younger brother.
 
 1 68 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 He led me toward his boat, and told me all 
 that had happened while I had been away. 
 
 Every thing was changed in the house ; Graz- 
 iella had done nothing but weep since my 
 departure. She did not come to the table for 
 her meals. She did not work at her coral. She 
 passed every day shut up in her room without 
 answering when she was called, and the nights 
 she walked up and down on the terrace. It was 
 reported in the neighborhood that she was mad ; 
 that she was innamorata. But Beppo knew that 
 this was not true. 
 
 All the trouble, the child said, came because 
 they wished her to marry Cecco and she did not 
 want to do it. Beppino had seen it all and 
 understood it' all. Cecco's father came every 
 day to demand an answer from the grandfather 
 and grandmother. They never ceased torment- 
 ing poor Graziella to give her consent. But she 
 would not allow them to speak of it even, and 
 said that she would rather run away to Geneva. 
 This is an expression among the Catholic people
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 169 
 
 of Naples analogous to, " I would rather turn 
 apostate." It is a threat worse than that of sui- 
 cide; it is the eternal suicide of the soul. 
 Andrea and his wife, who adored Graziella, 
 despaired between her resistance and the fear 
 that they should lose this excellent chance of 
 establishing her for life. They conjured her by 
 their gray hairs ; they talked to her of their old 
 age, of their poverty, and of the future of the 
 two little ones. Then Graziella would soften. 
 She would receive poor Cecco a little better 
 for he still came and sat humbly during the 
 evening at his cousin's door, playing with the 
 children. He would bid her " Good day," and 
 " Good bye," through the door, but she would 
 rarely answer him with a single word. Then he 
 would go away dissatisfied, but resigned, to 
 come again the next day just the same. 
 
 " My sister is wrong," said Beppino; "Cecco 
 loves her so much, and he is so good. She 
 would be happy with him. Finally, this even- 
 ing," he went on to say, " she succumbed to the
 
 1 70 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 prayers of her grandfather and grandmother and 
 to Cecco's tears. She opened her door a little 
 way and held out her hand to him; he put 
 a ring on one of her fingers and she promised to 
 complete the engagement to-morrow. But who 
 knows that to-morrow she will not have some 
 new caprice? She, who used to be so light 
 hearted and happy! My God! how she has 
 changed ! You would not know her ! " 
 
 XII. 
 
 Beppino went to sleep in the boat. Informed 
 as I was by him of all that had transpired, I 
 went into the house. 
 
 Andrea and his wife were sitting alone on the 
 astrico. They were very glad to see me again, 
 and reproached me tenderly for having remained 
 away so long. They went all over their trials 
 and hopes in regard to Graziella. 
 
 "If you had been here," said Andrea, "you 
 whom she loves so much and to whom she 
 never says 'no,' you would have helped us
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 171 
 
 greatly. How glad we are to see you again! 
 To-morrow the betrothal takes place ; you will 
 be present, and your presence has always 
 brought us good fortune." 
 
 I felt a cold shiver run over my whole body 
 at the words of these poor people. Something 
 told me that their ill-luck came from me. I 
 burned and I trembled to see Graziella again. 
 I talked loud to her relatives, and passed up 
 and down before her door like one who wished 
 to be heard but would not call. She was deaf 
 and dumb to all, and would not appear. I 
 retired to my room and went to bed. There 
 was a calm in my agitated soul which is produced 
 by the cessation of doubt and by certainty 
 whatever it may be, even of evil. I fell upon 
 the bed like a dead weight, and without moving. 
 The weariness of mind and body brought on 
 quickly a confused series of dreams, which was 
 followed by the oblivion of sleep.
 
 172 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 XIII. 
 
 At two or three different times during the 
 night I was half awakened. It was one of those 
 stormy winter nights more rare in the warm 
 climates of the sea coast, but darker and more 
 terrible than anywhere else. The lightning 
 flashed uninterruptedly through the window 
 blinds and shone upon the wall of my room like 
 the winkings of a great eye of fire. The wind 
 howled like packs of famished dogs. The dull 
 strokes of the heavy sea, dashing up against the 
 beach of Margellina, resounded along the shore 
 as if they were tossing up immense rocks. 
 
 My door rattled and trembled from the force 
 of the wind. Two or three times it seemed to 
 me as if it opened and shut again, when I could 
 hear stifled cries and human sobs in the plain- 
 tive wailing of the storm. At one time I thought 
 I heard the sound of words and my own name 
 pronounced by a voice of distress, calling upon 
 me for help. I lifted myself on my elbow, but
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 173 
 
 heard nothing more, and believing that the storm 
 and the fever of my dreams had deceived me, I 
 fell back again into sleep. 
 
 In the morning the storm had given away to a 
 clearer sun. I was awakened by real groanings 
 and cries of despair that came from the poor 
 fisherman and his wife who were lamenting at 
 the threshold of Graziella's room. The poor 
 child had gone away during the night. She had 
 got up and kissed the children, at the same time 
 imposing silence upon them. She had left on 
 her bed all her best dresses, her ear-rings, her 
 ornaments and the little money she possessed. 
 
 The father was holding in his hand a piece of 
 paper, blotted with tears, which he had found 
 pinned to the bed. There were but five or six 
 lines, which, in despair, he implored me to read 
 to him. I took the paper, and it contained only 
 the following words written by a hand trembling 
 with excess of fever, and which I could scarcely 
 read : 
 
 " I have promised too much a voice tells me
 
 174 GRAZIELLA: 
 
 that it is more than I can fulfill. I kiss your 
 feet. Forgive me. I prefer to become a nun. 
 Console Cecco and the Monsieur. . . I 
 shall pray to God for him and the little ones. 
 Give them all I have. Return the ring to 
 Cecco." 
 
 At the reading of these lines, the whole family 
 again burst into tears. The little children, still 
 half-naked and waiting for their sister who had 
 left them forever, mingled their cries with the 
 moanings of the old people and ran through the 
 whole house calling Graziella. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 The note fell from my hands. In stooping to 
 pick it up, I saw just under my door a pome- 
 granate flower, which only the Sunday before I 
 had admired as it was fastened in the young 
 girl's hair, and the little devotional medal which 
 she always carried in her breast and which a few 
 months before she had hung upon my curtain as 
 I lay sick. I could no longer doubt that my door
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 175 
 
 had, indeed, been opened and shut during the 
 night ; that the words and suppressed sobs that I 
 thought to hear and then had taken for the wind 
 were the parting sobs of the poor child. A dry 
 place just outside the entrance to my room, in 
 the midst of the traces of rain over the rest of 
 the terrace, showed that the young girl had stayed 
 there during the storm, that she had passed her 
 last hour in weeping and lamenting, crouched or 
 kneeling on this stone. I picked up the pome- 
 granate flower and the medal and hid them in 
 my breast. 
 
 The poor people in the depth of their despair 
 were touched at seeing me weep with them. I 
 did all I could to console them. They promised 
 that if they ever found their daughter, they 
 would never again speak to her of Cecco. Cecco 
 himself, whom Beppo had brought to the house, 
 was the first to sacrifice himself to the peace of 
 the family and the return of his cousin. Alt 
 wretched as he was, I could see that he was half- 
 happy to know that his name was tenderly men-
 
 176 GRAZIELLA: 
 
 tioned in the note that Graziella left, and that he 
 found a sort of consolation in the parting words 
 that caused him his wretchedness. 
 
 " She thought of me at any rate," he said, as 
 he wiped his eyes. 
 
 It was then agreed between us that we would 
 not take a minute's rest until we had found some 
 traces of the fugitive. 
 
 The father and Cecco went out at once to in- 
 quire at the numerous convents in the city. Beppo 
 and the grandmother ran around among Graz- 
 iella's young friends, to whom they suspected 
 she had confided her thoughts and flight. I, a 
 stranger, took upon myself the task of visiting 
 the quays, the landings in Naples and the gates 
 of the city, to question the guards, the ship-cap- 
 tains, the sailors, and to find out whether any of 
 them had seen a young Procidana going out of 
 the city or taking a boat that morning. 
 
 The morning was passed in futile searchings. 
 Silent and sad, we all returned to the house to 
 tell each other of what we had done and agree
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 177 
 
 upon some plans for the future. No one except 
 the children, had the power to carry a morsel 
 of bread to their lips. Andrea and his wife, 
 thoroughly discouraged, sat down at the door 
 of Graziella's room. 
 
 Beppino and Cecco went out again to wander 
 around, without hope, in the streets and among 
 the churches, which are opened in the evening 
 for the litany and benediction. 
 
 XV. 
 
 I went out alone, and after them, and by mere 
 chance I sadly took the way that led to the grotto 
 of Posilippo. I crossed the grotto; I went to 
 the border of the sea that bathes the little island 
 of Nisida. 
 
 From the shore my eyes wandered toward 
 Procida, which shone in the distance like a 
 tortoise-shell on the blue waves. My thoughts 
 naturally reverted to that island and to the happy 
 days I had passed there with Graziella. An in- 
 spiration guided me. I remembered that the 
 12
 
 178 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 young girl had a friend there of about her own 
 age, the daughter of a poor peasant who lived in 
 one of the neighboring huts ; that this young 
 girl always wore a peculiar dress which differed 
 from that of her companions ; that, one day, 
 when I questioned her as to the reason of this 
 difference in dress, she told me that she belonged 
 to a religious order, although she lived freely 
 with her parents, and that hers was a sort of 
 intermediate state between the cloister and home- 
 life. She pointed out to me the church of her 
 convent. There were many other orders of the 
 same kind on the island as also in Ischia and in 
 the villages of the country surrounding Naples. 
 
 The thought came across me immediately that 
 Graziella, wishing to devote herself to God, would 
 perhaps go and confide in this friend and ask her 
 to open the gates of her convent. Before I had 
 given myself any time for reflection, I was strid- 
 ing with great steps along the route to Pozzuoli, 
 the town nearest to Procida where I could take 
 a boat.
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 179 
 
 I arrived at Pozzuoli in less than an hour. I 
 ran to the port; I paid a couple of boatmen 
 double their price to induce them to take me to 
 Procida, notwithstanding the high sea and the 
 falling night. They launched their boat. I 
 seized a pair of oars with them. We had some 
 difficulty in doubling Cape Miseno, but two hours 
 afterwards I stepped on the island, and, alone, 
 out of breath with fatigue, and trembling, sur- 
 rounded by darkness and the winter winds, I 
 climbed the steps of the long stairway leading to 
 Andrea's cabin. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 " If Graziella is on the island," I said to my- 
 self, " she will have gone there first, with the 
 natural instinct with which the bird seeks its nest 
 or the child the home of its father. If she has 
 been there and is there no longer, there will be 
 some traces of her having passed through it. 
 These traces perhaps will lead me to where she 
 is. But if I find neither her nor any traces of
 
 i8o GRAZ1ELLA: 
 
 her, all hope is lost. Then the doors of some living 
 sepulchre have closed forever on her youth." 
 
 Troubled by this terrible thought, I reached 
 the very last step. I knew the cleft in the rock 
 in which the old mother, in leaving, had hidden 
 the key of the house. I pushed aside the ivy 
 and plunged in my hand. My fingers felt around 
 for the key, all drawn up from fear that they 
 would touch the cold iron which would deprive 
 me of all hope. 
 
 The key was not there. Suppressing an outcry 
 of joy, I entered the yard with hushed steps. 
 The door and the shutters were closed, but a 
 dim light escaped through the openings of the 
 blinds, and, floating about on the fig-leaves, be- 
 trayed a lighted lamp inside. Who could have 
 found the key, opened the door and lighted the 
 lamp except this child of the house? I no 
 longer doubted that Graziella was a few feet from 
 me, and I fell on my knees at the bottom of the 
 stairway leading into the house to thank the 
 angel that had brought me to her.
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 181 
 
 XVII. 
 
 No sound came from the house. I leaned my 
 ear against the door-sill ; I thought I could hear 
 a feeble noise of breathing and sobbing come 
 from within the second room. I shook the door 
 softly as it might have been shaken on its hinges 
 by the force of the wind, in order to call Graz- 
 iella's attention gradually, and that no sudden 
 and unexpected sound of a human voice might 
 frighten her and perhaps kill her by calling. 
 The breathing was hushed. Then I called Graz- 
 iella softly, with the calmest and tenderest tone 
 that I could find in my heart. A feeble cry came 
 from the depths of the house in answer. 
 
 I called again, conjuring her to open to her 
 friend her brother who came alone during the 
 night and in the tempest, guided by his good 
 angel, to find her and rescue her from her despair, 
 to bring her the forgiveness of her family, his 
 own, and to take her back to her duty, to her 
 happiness, to her poor grandmother and to her 
 dear little children.
 
 1 82 GRAZIELLA: 
 
 " My God ! it is he ! it is my name ! It is 
 his voice! " she cried. 
 
 I called again, more tenderly, " Graziellina," 
 a name of endearment which I often used when 
 we were laughing and chatting together. 
 
 " It is indeed he," she said again. " I am not 
 deceived ; my God ! it is he ! " 
 
 Then I heard her raise herself upon the dry 
 leaves that rustled under every movement, make 
 one step toward the door and fall back again, 
 overcome by weakness or emotion, and unable 
 to advance any further. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 I hesitated no longer. I leaned my shoulder 
 against the old door and pushed it with all the 
 force that my impatience and uneasiness gave 
 me ; the lock yielded with but little resistance 
 and I was thrown forward into the house. 
 
 The little lamp, which Graziella had lighted 
 before the Madonna, afforded but a feeble light. 
 I ran into the next room, whence I had heard
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 183 
 
 the voice and fall, and where I believed that she 
 had fainted. But she had not; her weakness 
 had betrayed her effort; she had fallen back on 
 the heap of dry heather which served as her 
 bed, and there she lay, her hands joined together 
 as she looked at me. Her eyes, sparkling with 
 fever, widely opened with surprise and languid 
 with love, burned fixedly like two stars, whose 
 beams fall from heaven and which seem to look 
 down directly at you. 
 
 Her head, which she tried to raise, fell back 
 upon the leaves from weakness, and was so 
 thrown over that it seemed as though her ne'ck 
 were broken. She was pale as death, except 
 that her cheek-bones were tinged with the color 
 of fresh roses. Her beautiful skin was spotted 
 with tears in which the dust had settled. Her 
 black dress was confused with the brown color 
 of the leaves spread over the ground upon which 
 she was lying. Her naked feet, white as marble, 
 reached beyond the leaves and lay upon the 
 stone. Cold chills ran through all her limbs
 
 184 CRAZIELLA: 
 
 and made her teeth chatter like castanets in the 
 hands of a child. The red handkerchief that 
 usually held up the long black tresses of her 
 beautiful hair was unfastened and drawn like a 
 half-veil over her forehead and down to her 
 eyebrows. I could see that she had used it to 
 cover her face and tears, as if in the anticipated 
 immobility of a shroud, and that she had only 
 lifted it when she heard my voice, and raised 
 herself to come and open the door. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 I threw myself down at her side and on my 
 knees; I took both her icy hands in mine; I 
 carried them to my lips to warm them with my 
 breath, and tears fell down from my eyes upon 
 them. I understood from the nervous pressure 
 of her fingers that she felt this rain from the 
 heart and that she was grateful for it. I took 
 off my sailor's cloak, threw it over her bare feet, 
 and wrapped them in its woolen folds. 
 
 She submitted to all this, following me only
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 185 
 
 with her eyes, that had an expression of happy 
 delirium, but without being able to help me by 
 a movement, as an infant allows itself to be 
 bundled together and put in its cradle. I then 
 got up and threw some dry branches on the fire- 
 place in the front room, in order to warm the 
 air; I lighted them from the flame of the lamp 
 and then returned to sit down on the floor by 
 the bed of leaves. 
 
 " How well I feel ! " she said to me, speaking 
 very softly in a sweet, even, monotonous tone, 
 as if her breast had lost at once all vibration 
 and accent, and had retained only a single tone 
 of voice. " I tried in vain to conceal it from 
 myself. I tried in vain to conceal it from you. 
 I can die willingly, but I can love no other than 
 you. They wished me to take a husband 
 you are already the husband of my soul. I will 
 give myself to no other on earth, for I have 
 given myself to you in secret. You on earth, 
 and God in Heaven ! Such was the vow I made 
 when I first discovered that my heart was sick
 
 1 86 GRAZIELLA: 
 
 for you. I know that I am nothing but a poor 
 girl, unworthy to touch your feet even in 
 thought; and I have never asked you to love 
 me. I shall never ask whether you love me. 
 But I love you, I love you, I love you ! " 
 
 And her whole soul seemed fixed on these 
 three words. 
 
 "And now despise me, laugh at me, trample 
 me under your feet ; mock me, if you will, as 
 you would a mad woman who imagines herself 
 a queen in her rags and tatters. Give me over 
 to the ridicule of the world, and I will say to it : 
 ' Yes, I love him, and if you had been in my 
 place you would have loved him as I have. 
 You would have died or you would have loved 
 him.'" 
 
 XX. 
 
 I had held my eyes downcast, not daring to 
 raise them to hers for fear that my glance would 
 say too much or too little for such delirium. At 
 these words, however, I raised my forehead
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 187 
 
 from her hands and stammered out a few inco- 
 herent sentences. 
 
 But she put her finger on my lips. 
 
 " Let me tell you all," she continued; " I am* 
 contented now. I no longer doubt. God has 
 explained himself. Listen : Yesterday, when I 
 fled from the house, after having passed the 
 whole night in struggles and weeping at your 
 door, and when I arrived here through all the 
 storm, I came believing I should never see you 
 again, and was like a dead woman walking into 
 her own grave. I was to enter the convent to- 
 morrow at daybreak. It was night when I 
 arrived on the island, and when I went to knock 
 at the gates of the convent, it was too late and 
 they were closed against me. I was refused 
 admittance. I came here to pass the night and 
 to kiss the walls of my father's house before 
 entering the house of God and the tomb of my 
 heart. I wrote a note, which I sent to a friend 
 by a child, asking her to come here for me in 
 the" morning. I took the key. I lighted the
 
 1 88 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 little lamp before the Madonna. I knelt down 
 and made a vow, a last vow, a vow of hope in 
 my very despair, for you will know, if you ever 
 love, that there remains always a last spark at 
 the bottom of the soul, even when one believes 
 all is extinguished. 
 
 " ' Holy Protectress,' I said to her, ' send me 
 some sign of my vocation to assure me that 
 love is not deceiving me, and that I really 
 give to God a life that ought to belong to him 
 alone. 
 
 " ' My last night among the living is already 
 begun. No one knows where I pass it. To- 
 morrow, perhaps, they will come here for me. 
 when I shall have gone. If my friend for whom 
 I have sent comes first, let it be a sign that I 
 must accomplish my design, and I will go with 
 her forever to the convent. 
 
 " ' But if he comes before her he, guided by 
 my good angel, comes to find me and take me 
 back from the confines of my other life, oh ! then 
 let that be a sign that you do not want me, and
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 189 
 
 that I shall return with him to love him all the 
 rest of my days. 
 
 " ' And let it be he that shall come,' I added. 
 ' Do this one miracle more, if it is your wish and 
 that of God's. To obtain this favor I will make 
 you a gift, the only one that I, who have noth- 
 ing, can make. Here is my hair, my poor, long 
 hair, which he loves, and which he used to undo 
 so often in sport to see it toss about in the wind 
 on my shoulders. Take it! I give it to you. I 
 will cut it off myself to prove to you I do not 
 keep back any, and that my hair now shall be 
 submitted to the shears that will cut it in the 
 morning, if I am destined to separate myself 
 from the world.' " 
 
 At these words she lifted with her left hand 
 the silk handkerchief that covered her head, and 
 with the other taking the long shorn locks of 
 hair that had lain at her side on the bed of 
 leaves, she unrolled it and showed it to me. 
 
 " The Madonna has done the miracle ! " she 
 exclaimed in louder accents of joy. " She has
 
 GRAZIELLA: 
 
 sent you ; I will go with you where you will. 
 My hair belongs to her; my life is yours." 
 
 I threw myself upon the beautiful black 
 tresses of hair which felt in my hands like a 
 dead branch cut from a tree. I covered them 
 with mute kisses, I pressed them to my heart, I 
 bathed them in tears as if they had been a part 
 of her whom I was burying dead in the ground. 
 Then turning my eyes upon her, I saw her 
 charming head, which she raised, despoiled yet 
 adorned and embellished by the sacrifice, radi- 
 ating with happiness and love amid the black 
 and uneven locks of hair that had been torn 
 rather than cut by the shears. She appeared to 
 me like a mutilated statue of Youth, whose grace 
 and beauty had been enhanced by the very rav- 
 ages of time, adding pity to admiration. This 
 profanation of herself, this suicide of her beauty 
 for love of me, sent a shock to my heart which 
 stunned my whole being, and I fell with my 
 head at her feet. I surmised what it was to 
 love, and I took this presentiment for love itself.
 
 A STOKY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 191 
 
 XXI. 
 
 Alas ! it was not love in all its fullness, it was 
 only the shadow of love in me ; but I was still 
 too young and too ingenuous not to deceive my- 
 self by it. I thought that I adored her as so 
 much innocence, beauty and love deserved to 
 be adored by a lover. I told her so in that sin- 
 cere tone which emotion produces, and with that 
 pent-up passion brought on by solitude, night, 
 despair and tears. She believed it because she 
 needed to believe it to live, and because she 
 had passion enough in her own soul to cover up 
 the insufficiency of a thousand other hearts. 
 
 The whole night passed in this confident, but 
 ever artless and pure, communion of two beings 
 who innocently reveal to each other their love, 
 and wish the night and silence were eternal that 
 nothing might come between their lips and 
 hearts. Her piety and my timid reserve, the 
 very affection of our souls, kept all danger dis- 
 tant from us. The veil of our tears was upon
 
 192 GRAZIELLA: 
 
 us. There is nothing so far removed from sen- 
 suality as true affection. To abuse such an 
 intimacy would have been to profane two souls. 
 I held both her hands in mine and I felt the 
 warmth of life returning to them. I brought 
 fresh water in the palm of my hand for her to 
 drink, and to bathe her temples and cheeks. I 
 kept up the fire by throwing on some more 
 branches ; then I returned and sat down on a 
 stone near the myrtle branches on which her 
 head rested, to listen again and again to the 
 sweet confessions of her love: how it had sprung 
 into life without her knowing it, in the form of a 
 sister's pure and sweet friendship ; how she was 
 at first alarmed by it and afterwards re-assured ; 
 by what sign she finally knew that she loved me; 
 how many secret marks of preference she had 
 given me of which I had never thought ; at what 
 time she believed that she had betrayed her love 
 to me ; when, again, she thought that I returned 
 it ; the hours, the gestures, the smiles, the half- 
 spoken words that were recalled, the involuntary
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN- LOVE. 193 
 
 revelations and clouds of our features during the 
 last six months. Her memory retained every- 
 thing, as the mountain grass of the South which 
 has caught fire in the Summer retains the im- 
 print in all places where the flames have passed. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 To these confessions she added the mysterious 
 superstitions of love, which give a meaning and 
 a value to the most insignificant circumstances. 
 One by one she raised before me, so to speak, all 
 the veils that covered her soul. She showed her- 
 self as to God, in all the nakedness of her candor, 
 childhood and trust. There is but one moment 
 in life when the soul empties itself into another 
 soul, with the never-ceasing murmur of the lips 
 which are not equal to the loving outpourings of 
 the heart, and which finish only by stammering 
 inarticulate and confused sounds like the kisses 
 of a babe that is falling asleep. 
 
 I did not cease to listen, to tremble and to feel 
 the chills run through me alternately. Although
 
 194 GRAZIELLA: 
 
 my heart was yet too young and too light, neither 
 ripe enough nor fertile enough to produce of it- 
 self such burning and divine emotions, yet these 
 emotions, falling from another heart into mine, 
 made an impression so novel and so delicious 
 that in feeling them I believed that I experienced 
 them myself. Fatal error ! I was the mirror and 
 she was the fire. In reflecting that fire, I be- 
 lieved I produced it. No matter. This radiance 
 reflected from one to the other seemed to belong 
 to us both, and to enfold us in the same atmos- 
 phere of love. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 It was in this way that the long winter night 
 passed. But that night, for Graziella and for 
 me, had only the duration of the first sigh of 
 love. It seemed to us, when day appeared, that 
 it came to break in upon a sentence that was 
 scarcely begun. 
 
 Yet the sun was already high in the heavens 
 before its rays entered the closed blinds and
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 195 
 
 paled the light of the lamp. At the very 
 moment I opened the door, I saw the whole 
 of the old fisherman's family running up the 
 stairway. 
 
 The young nun of Procida, Graziella's friend, 
 to whom she had sent the message of the even- 
 ing before, confiding her intention of entering the 
 convent on the morrow, suspected that the cause 
 was some despair of the heart, and had sent, 
 during the night, one of her brothers to Naples 
 to inform the family of Graziella's resolution. 
 Knowing where to find their child, they came in 
 haste, all joyous and repentant, to stop her at the 
 very confines of despair, and bring her back 
 with them free and forgiven. 
 
 The grandmother fell on her knees near the 
 bed, and held out in her arms the two little 
 children, whom they had brought to soften Graz- 
 iella's heart, covering her with their bodies as if 
 with a shield against her reproaches. The 
 children, weeping and screaming, jumped into 
 their sister's arms. In raising herself to caress
 
 196 GRAZIELLA: 
 
 them and to kiss her grandmother, Graziella 
 dropped the handkerchief from her head and ex- 
 posed her head shorn of its hair. They all shud- 
 dered at the sight of this outrage on her beauty, 
 the meaning of which they understood too well, 
 and burst out again into sobs which filled the 
 house. The nun, who had just come in, brought 
 them all consolation. She picked up the tresses 
 that had been cut from Graziella's head, touched 
 them to the image of the Madonna, then 
 wrapped them carefully in a white silk handker- 
 chief, and threw them into the grandmother's lap. 
 "Keep them," said she, " to show her from 
 time to time, in her happiness or in her sorrow, 
 and to remind her when she belongs to him whom 
 she loves, that the first fruits of her heart should 
 always be given to God, as these first offerings 
 of her beauty were given to him." 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 That afternoon we all went back to Naples to- 
 gether. The zeal which I had shown in finding
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 197 
 
 and saving Graziella in this case only served to 
 increase the affection which the old fisherman 
 and his wife entertained for me. Neither of them 
 suspected the nature of my interest in her, or 
 of her attachment for me. They believed that 
 all her repugnance for Cecco arose from his de- 
 formity. They hoped to overcome this repug- 
 nance by time and reason. They promised Graz- 
 iella that they would not press her to the mar- 
 riage. Cecco himself besought his father not to 
 speak of it again, and in his humility of looks 
 and bearing he begged his cousin's pardon 
 that he had been the cause of all her trouble. 
 And peace once more came into the humble 
 house. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 There was now nothing to cast a single shadow 
 over Graziella's face or our happiness, unless it 
 was the thought that this happiness must sooner 
 or later be broken off by my return to my native 
 country. When any one mentioned the name of
 
 198 GRAZIELLA: 
 
 France, the poor girl turned as pale as if she 
 had seen the ghost of death. 
 
 One day, when I went into my room, I found 
 my city clothes torn into pieces and scattered 
 about the floor. 
 
 " O forgive me!" cried Graziella, as she fell on 
 her knees at my feet, and turned her troubled 
 face up to mine. " I did it all, but do not scold 
 me. Every thing that reminds me that some day 
 you are going to throw off your sailor's dress gives 
 me too much pain ! It seems to me as though 
 you are tearing out your heart of to-day to make 
 place for another when you put on the clothes 
 that you used to wear." 
 
 With the exception of such little outbursts as 
 these, which flashed from the warmth of her 
 affection and which were quieted by our tears, 
 three months passed in an imaginary bliss which 
 the slightest touch of reality would have dissi- 
 pated. Our Eden rested upon a cloud. 
 
 And this was the way I learned to love 
 from the tear of a child's eye.
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 199 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 How happy were we together when we could 
 forget entirely that there was any other world 
 outside of us, any other world but that little 
 house at the declivity of Mount Posilippo; that 
 terrace in the sun ; that little room in which we 
 worked and played together half the day ; that 
 boat lying in its bed of sand on the beach, and 
 that beautiful sea, whose soft and melodious 
 breezes brought to us the freshness and music 
 of its waters. 
 
 But, alas ! there were moments when we were 
 conscious that the world did not stop there, and 
 that, one day, it would raise itself and find us no 
 longer together under the rays of the same sun 
 or moon. 
 
 I am wrong in accusing my heart so much for 
 its dryness by comparing it with what it has felt 
 since. In reality, I began to love Graziella a 
 thousand times better than I admitted to myself. 
 If I did not love her so much, why should the
 
 200 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 traces, which have remained in my soul during 
 my whole life, be so deep and doleful, and why 
 should I cherish her memory so dearly and 
 regretfully ? Her likeness would not be so con- 
 stantly before me, in all its beauty, if this had 
 not been love. My heart was still of sand, yet 
 this sea-flower grew upon it for more than one 
 season, like those wonderful lilies that live and 
 prosper on the beach of Ischia. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 And what eye so void of light, what heart so 
 still-born as not to have loved her ? Her beauty 
 seemed to develop with her love from night to 
 morning. She did not grow much larger, but 
 her natural grace became more refined grace 
 of the child yesterday, to-day the grace of the wo- 
 man. Her slight form was changed into a some- 
 what rounder and sweeter one of adolescence. 
 Her pretty bare feet no longer stole softly over the 
 trodden ground, but were dragged along with that 
 indolence and languor which the weight of love's
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 20 1 
 
 first thoughts seems to impress upon a woman's 
 whole being. 
 
 Her hair grew thick and strong with the vigor 
 of sea -plants under the warm waves of spring- 
 time. I often amused myself by measuring its 
 growth in stretching the locks, rolled around my 
 fingers, over the laced waist of her green sack. 
 At the same time that her skin whitened, it be- 
 came tinted with the color of the rose-powder 
 from the coral which always covered the ends of 
 her fingers. Her eyes grew larger and fuller 
 from day to day, as if to embrace a new horizon 
 that had suddenly appeared before her. It was 
 that wonder of life Galatea feeling her first 
 palpitation under the marble. She assumed un- 
 consciously before me a reserve and a modesty 
 in her looks, actions and bearing which she had 
 never shown toward me before. And I noticed 
 it, and I myself was all silent and trembling 
 when near her. One would have said that we 
 were two criminals, while we were but iwo happy 
 children.
 
 202 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 Yet for some time back a deep melancholy was 
 hidden or revealed itself under all this happi- 
 ness. We did not know why it was so, but fate 
 knew it. It was the feeling of the short time 
 left for us to be together. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 It often happened that Graziella, instead of 
 going gladly to her work, after having dressed 
 and combed her little brothers, would remain 
 seated at the foot of the wall which supported 
 the terrace, in the shade of the great leaves of 
 a fig-tree that reached from the ground to the 
 very top of the wall. There she would sit 
 motionless, with a vacant stare in her eyes, for 
 whole hours at a time. When her grandmother 
 would ask her if she were sick, she would 
 answer that she was not sick, but that she was 
 already tired out before beginning her work. At 
 such a time she did not like to be questioned. 
 She turned her face from every one except me, 
 and she would look at me a long time without
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 203 
 
 saying a word. At times her lips moved as if 
 she had been speaking, but she muttered words 
 that no one heard. I could see rapid changes of 
 color, from white to red, and from red to white 
 again, suffuse her cheeks and make the skin 
 appear like a placid, sleeping sheet of water 
 ruffled by the first breath of the morning wind. 
 But when I sat down by her side and took her 
 hand in mine, and gently drew the feathers of 
 my quill-pen or a sprig of rosemary over her 
 closed eye-lids, she would forget everything and 
 begin to laugh and talk with me as of old. But 
 she seemed sad after playing and laughing. 
 
 I sometimes said to her : 
 
 " Graziella, what is it that you look at for so 
 many hours together over there, so far out in the 
 sea ? Can you see anything there that we can 
 not see ? " 
 
 " I see France beyond those mountains of ice," 
 she would answer me. 
 
 "And what do you find so fascinating in 
 France ? " I asked again.
 
 204 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 " I see some one that resembles you ; some 
 one that walks, and walks, and walks on a long 
 white road that has no end. He walks always, 
 always straight ahead, and never turning round. 
 I wait for hours, hoping always that he may turn 
 to retrace his steps, but he never does, he never 
 does." 
 
 And then she would hide her face in her apron, 
 and all the endearing names I could call her 
 would not induce her to raise her head. 
 
 I would then go sadly into my own room. I 
 would try to read in order to divert my thoughts, 
 but I always saw Graziella's beautiful face be- 
 tween my eyes and the page before me. It seemed 
 as though the words took a voice, and sobbed like 
 our two hearts. It often ended in my weeping 
 all alone ; but I was ashamed of my low spirits, 
 and never told Graziella that I had wept. I was 
 wrong. One such tear of mine would have 
 brought so much joy to her heart !
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 205 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 I remember well the scene that gave her more 
 heart-pain than all the rest ; from which, indeed, 
 she never recovered fully. 
 
 Sometime before this she had formed an inti- 
 macy with two or three young girls of about her 
 own age. These young girls lived in one of the 
 little houses in the adjoining gardens. They 
 ironed or repaired the clothes of some young 
 French girls who were attending a boarding 
 school in the neighborhood. The king Murat 
 had founded this institution at Naples for the 
 daughters of his ministers and generals. These 
 young Procidane often talked with Graziella as 
 she looked over the terrace wall while they 
 worked below. They showed her the beautiful 
 lace, the beautiful silks, the beautiful hats, the 
 beautiful shoes, the beautiful ribbons and the 
 beautiful shawls which they brought from the 
 convent or carried back to the young ladies. 
 There were incessant outcries of surprise and 
 admiration.
 
 206 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 At times these sewing girls would come for 
 Graziella to take her to mass or to hear the music 
 at vespers in the little chapel at Posilippo. At 
 twilight I would go to meet them, when I heard 
 the bells giving warning of the priest's benedic- 
 tion. As we returned we would loiter and play 
 on the beach, following the traces left by the 
 retreating wave, and running before the surge 
 as it came toward our feet with the white cap of 
 foam. 
 
 How handsome Graziella was at such a time \ 
 Fearing to wet her shining slippers, spangled 
 with gold, she would run toward me with out- 
 stretched arms, as if to take refuge in my heart 
 against the amorous wave that sought to clasp 
 her, or at least to kiss her little feet. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 I noticed for some time that there was some- 
 thing in Graziella's thoughts which she conceal- 
 ed from me. She had secret interviews with her 
 young friends, the sewing girls. It was like a
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 207 
 
 little conspiracy into the secrets of which I was 
 not admitted. 
 
 One evening I was reading in my room by the 
 feeble light of my little earthen lamp. My door 
 which led out upon the terrace was open to 
 admit the breeze from the sea. I heard a 
 confused noise; long whisperings of young girls; 
 suppressed laughter; impatient exclamations; 
 repeated sounds of voices interrupted by long 
 intervals of silence, which came from the room 
 where Graziella and the children slept. At first 
 I paid but little attention to it. 
 
 Yet the very efforts that were made to hush 
 the whisperings and the mystery indicated by 
 such efforts finally excited my curiosity. I laid 
 down my book; I took my earthen lamp in my 
 left hand, and with my right hand protected the 
 flame from the wind that it might not be ex- 
 tinguished. I crossed the terrace with hushed 
 steps, gliding along the flagstones. I leaned my 
 ear against Graziella's door. I heard the noise 
 of feet coming and going in the room, the
 
 208 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 rustling of silks folding and unfolding, the 
 sharp click of thimbles, needles and scissors, 
 of women adjusting ribbons and pinning capes, 
 and the renewed buzzing and murmuring of 
 voices, such sounds as I had often heard at 
 home when my sisters were dressing for a ball. 
 
 I knew that there was no festival nor cele- 
 bration at Posilippo on the following day. 
 Graziella had never dreamed of enhancing her 
 beauty by the arts of the toilette. Indeed there 
 was not even a looking-glass in her room. She 
 never looked at herself except in the clear water 
 of the well, or rather she never looked at herself 
 except in my eyes. 
 
 My curiosity could no longer resist this mys- 
 tery. I pushed the door with my knee. It 
 yielded. I appeared, my lamp in my hand, 
 upon the threshold. 
 
 The young sewing-girls cried and flew away, 
 like frightened birds, or as if they had been dis- 
 covered in the commission of some criminal act, 
 to the furtherest corners of the room. They still
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 209 
 
 held in their hands the different articles that 
 convicted them, one the thread, another the 
 scissors, this one flowers and that one ribbons. 
 But Graziella, standing in the middle of the 
 room upon a little wooden stool, and as if 
 turned into stone by an unexpected apparition, 
 could not escape. Her cheeks were red as a 
 pomegranate. She lowered her eyes, she could 
 not look at me, she could hardly breathe. 
 Every one was silent, waiting to hear what I 
 would say. But I said nothing; I was overcome 
 with surprise and stood in mute contemplation 
 of the scene before me. 
 
 Graziella had taken off her garments of heavy 
 wool ; the sack laced behind after the fashion of 
 Procida, and open in front, that the maiden may 
 breathe freely and that the mother may give the 
 child its nourishment; her slippers with the 
 golden spangles and wooden heels, which usually 
 encased her naked feet ; the long pins with their 
 large brass heads, around which her hair was 
 rolled, as a sail is wrapped about a yard ; and 
 14
 
 210 GRAZIELLA: 
 
 her ear-rings, as big as bracelets, which were 
 thrown upon the bed with her dress. 
 
 In place of this picturesque Grecian costume, 
 which is becoming to poverty as well as riches, 
 and which gives, in the skirt falling just below 
 the knee, in the sloping of the corsage and in 
 the flowing sleeves, a freedom to all the mem- 
 bers of the body, Graziella's young friends, at 
 her own request, had dressed her in the garments 
 and ornaments of a French girl of about her 
 size who was living at the convent. She had 
 on a dress of watered silk, a rose-colored belt, 
 a white neckerchief, artificial flowers in her hair, 
 blue satin slippers and silk stockings that ex- 
 posed a flesh color on her well-rounded ankles. 
 
 She stood in this costume in which I had 
 surprised her, as confused as if she had been 
 surprised in nakedness by a man. I looked at 
 her without being able to take my eyes from 
 her, but without expressing by word, action or 
 smile the feeling which I experienced at seeing 
 her in this disguise. There was a tear in my
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 21 1 
 
 heart. I had understood instantly and too well 
 the young girl's thought. Ashamed of the dif- 
 ference between her condition in life and mine, 
 she had desired to find out whether a nearer 
 approach to the fashions of my country in dress 
 would, in my eyes, bring about a nearer approach 
 of our destinies. She had prepared the experi- 
 ment without my knowledge and with the assist- 
 ance of her friends, hoping to appear suddenly 
 before me handsomer and nearer to me than 
 she thought herself to be in her simple island 
 dress. But she had deceived herself. She 
 began to perceive it in my silence. Her face 
 took an expression of desperate impatience and 
 she nearly burst into tears at my discovery of 
 her hidden purpose, her deception, her crime. 
 
 She was still very beautiful, and her intention 
 should have enhanced her beauty a thousand 
 times in my eyes. But that beauty was almost 
 like a torture. She resembled one of Correggio's 
 young virgins nailed to the martyr's stake, twist- 
 ing about in the cords that bound them to avoid
 
 212 GRAZIELLA: 
 
 the looks that defiled their chastity. Alas! it 
 was a martyrdom for poor Graziella too; but 
 not as one might have thought at seeing her, a 
 martyrdom of vanity it was the martyrdom of 
 her love. 
 
 The clothes of the young French school girl, 
 cut undoubtedly for the lank waist and thin 
 arms and shoulders of a girl of thirteen or four- 
 teen years who had been shut up in the house 
 all her life, were much too small for the well 
 developed form and rounded shoulders, strongly 
 riveted upon the body, of this charming daugh- 
 ter of the sun and sea. The dress had burst 
 out in several places, at the shoulders, at the 
 bosom, around the waist, like the bark of a 
 sycamore that is torn from the branches of the 
 tree by the force of its spring sap. The sewing 
 girls had tried to pin the dress and the cape 
 here and there, but nature had torn the stuff at 
 every movement. In several spots I could see 
 the girl's bare neck through the holes in the 
 silk, and her bare arms under the patches. The
 
 A STOKY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 213 
 
 coarse stuff of her undergarment bulged out 
 through the cape and dress, and its rude texture 
 contrasted strangely with the elegance of the 
 silk. The arms, ill at ease in the short, tight 
 sleeves, came out like the butterfly from its 
 chrysalis as it swells and bursts. Her feet, 
 usually naked, and accustomed to large Grecian 
 shoes, stretched the satin slippers which seemed 
 to imprison them with their tightly drawn 
 strings, giving them the appearance of sandals 
 on her limbs. Her hair, badly dressed and 
 badly kept in its place with its confusion of lace 
 and false flowers, raised of itself this whole 
 structure of coiffure, and, while it failed to dis- 
 figure her lovely face, it gave her an expression 
 of boldness in the ornaments and of modest 
 reserve in her features that formed the strangest 
 but most delightful contrast. 
 
 Her attitude was as embarrassed as her fea- 
 tures ; she did not dare to move from fear of 
 dropping the flowers from her head, or of disar- 
 ranging her dress. She could not walk, for her
 
 214 GRAZIELLA: 
 
 slippers were so tight as to make her steps 
 charmingly awkward. One would have said 
 that she was the artless Eve of this sea of sun, 
 caught in the trap of her first coquetry. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 The whole room was hushed for a moment. 
 Then, more pained than rejoiced at this profa- 
 nation of nature, I went toward Graziella with 
 an expression half mocking and half reproach- 
 ful, making believe that I could scarcely recog- 
 nize her in this elaborate costume. 
 
 "What!" I exclaimed. " Is it you, Graziella? 
 and who in the world would ever have known 
 the lovely Procidana in this Parisian doll? 
 Come now," I went on, a little more sharply, 
 " are you not ashamed to have disfigured in this 
 way that which God has made so beautiful in a 
 natural dress ? You will try in vain, Graziella. 
 You will never be anything but the daughter of 
 the waves, adorned by rays from your own splen- 
 did heaven. You must resign yourself to it, and
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 215 
 
 you should thank God for it. This plumage of 
 the caged bird will never be adapted to the sea- 
 swallow." 
 
 These words pierced her to the heart. She 
 did not understand that I felt a passionate pref- 
 erence, almost an adoration, for this sea-swallow. 
 She thought that all her efforts to appear more 
 beautiful for my sake and deceive my eyes in 
 regard to her humble station had been thrown 
 away. Suddenly she burst out into tears, and, 
 sitting down on the bed, she hid her face in her 
 hands and begged in a pouting tone that her 
 young friends would come and take off the hate- 
 ful ornaments. 
 
 " I knew," said she, sighing and sobbing, " that 
 I was nothing but a poor Procidana, but I be- 
 lieved that, if I changed my dress, you would not 
 be ashamed of me some day if I should follow 
 you into your native country. I see now that I 
 must always remain as I am, and die as I was 
 born. But you should not have reproached me 
 with it."
 
 216 GRAZIELLA: 
 
 With these words, she tore off in contempt the 
 flowers, the lace cap and the cape, and threw 
 them in anger upon the floor, where she trampled 
 them under her feet, muttering some such words 
 of reproach as her grandmother had spoken to 
 the planks of the wrecked boat. Then jumping 
 toward me, she blew out the light of the lamp I 
 was holding so that I might not see her any longer 
 in the dress which had displeased me. 
 
 I felt that I had been wrong in speaking so 
 sharply to her, and that the mockery was serious. 
 I begged for pardon. I told her that I had 
 scolded her only because I found her a thousand 
 times more charming in the costume of Procida 
 than that of France. It was true, but the blow 
 had been struck. She would not hear me ; she 
 would do nothing but sob. 
 
 I went out ; her friends took off the dress and 
 I saw no more of her till the next morning. She 
 had resumed her island costume, but her eyes 
 were red with tears that my mocking had cost 
 her through the entire night.
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 217 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 About the same time Graziella began to dis- 
 trust the letters which I received from France, 
 suspecting, and rightly, that they called me home. 
 She would not destroy them, for she was too 
 honest, and indeed incapable of such a deception, 
 if her life depended on it, but she sometimes 
 kept them from me for nine days at a time, fasten- 
 ing them with her little gilded hairpins behind the 
 image of the Madonna that hung on the wall by 
 the side of her bed. She thought that the Holy 
 Virgin, touched by the offerings of our love, 
 would in some miraculous way change the con- 
 tents of the letters and translate the orders to 
 return into permission to remain with her. Not 
 one of these devoted little deceptions escaped 
 my notice and all of them rendered her dearer 
 to me than ever. But the hour was approaching. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 One evening in the latter part of May there 
 was a violent knocking at the door. All of the
 
 2i8 GRAZIELLA: 
 
 family were asleep and I went to open it. It 
 was my friend V . 
 
 "I have come for you," he said. "Here is a 
 letter from your mother. You will not resist it. 
 I have ordered the horses for midnight. It is now 
 eleven o'clock. Let us go now or you will never 
 leave this place. You are killing your mother. 
 You know how your family holds her responsible 
 for all your faults. She has sacrificed herself so 
 often for you; sacrifice yourself a moment for 
 her. I swear to you that I will come back with 
 you to this place and spend the winter, another 
 long year. But you must make an appearance 
 in your family and a sign of obedience to your 
 mother's commands." 
 
 I felt that I was lost. 
 
 " Wait for me here," I said to him. 
 
 I went back into my room and hastily threw 
 my clothes into the valise. I wrote to Graziella 
 all that the affection of a heart of eighteen years 
 could express ; all that my reason could dictate 
 to a son devoted to his mother. I swore to her,
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 219 
 
 as indeed I swore to myself, that before four 
 months passed I would be by her side, nevei 
 again to leave her. I confided the uncertainty 
 of our future destiny to Providence and to love. 
 I left my purse which might assist the family 
 during my absence. The letter closed, I ap- 
 proached her room with hushed steps. I got 
 down on my knees at the threshold of her door, 
 I kissed the stone and wood. I slipped the 
 letter into her room under the door, I stifled a 
 sob that nearly choked me. 
 
 My friend passed his arm through mine, lifted 
 me and dragged me away. At this moment, Graz- 
 iella, alarmed no doubt by the unaccustomed 
 noise, opened the door. The moon lighted up 
 the terrace. The poor girl recognized my friend. 
 She saw my valise which a servant was carrying 
 away. She reached out her arms, cried out in 
 terror, and fell senseless to the ground. 
 
 We rushed to her. We carried her, still un- 
 conscious, to her bed. The whole family ran 
 into the room. Water was thrown upon her face
 
 220 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 and she was called by all the names that had 
 been dearest to her. She only came to herself 
 at my voice. 
 
 " You see," said my friend to me, " she lives. 
 The blow has been given. A longer parting 
 would only bring on a more terrible rebound." 
 
 He took the young girl's two cold arms from 
 around my neck and dragged me out of the house. 
 An hour later we were rolling in silence and the 
 night along the road to Rome. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 I had left Graziella several addresses in the 
 letter I had written her. I received her'first letter 
 at Milan. It told me that she was well bodily, 
 but sick at heart ; but that she believed in my 
 promise and confidently awaited my return in 
 November. 
 
 When I arrived at Lyons I found a second 
 letter, that was written still more resignedly and 
 trustfully. There were also enclosed some 
 leaves of the carnation pink that grew in an
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 221 
 
 earthen flower-pot on the terrace walk near my 
 room, and from which she took a flower every 
 Sunday to put in her hair. Did she send me 
 these leaves that I might have something which 
 she had touched ? Or was it a gentle reproach 
 disguised under this sign, and sent to remind me 
 that she had sacrificed her hair for me? 
 
 She told me that she had had the fever; that 
 her heart gave her pain, but that she was getting 
 better from day to day ; that she had been sent, 
 for a change of air, and that she might recover 
 perfectly, to a cousin of hers, Cecco's sister, 
 whose house was at Vomero, a high and health- 
 ful hill looking over Naples. 
 
 Then it was more than three months that I 
 did not receive another letter. I thought of 
 Graziella every day. I was to return to Italy in 
 the beginning of the Winter. Her sad and lovely 
 likeness haunted me like a regret and sometimes 
 like a tender reproach. I was at that ungrateful 
 age when the spirit of levity and fashion makes 
 a young man ashamed of the best sentiments of
 
 222 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 his soul, a cruel age when the grandest gifts of 
 God pure love, innocent affections fall in 
 the dust and are carried away in their bloom by 
 the wind of the world. The false and ironic 
 pride of my friends often struggled hard against 
 the latent but living love in the depths of my 
 heart. I could not have avowed, without blush- 
 ing and exposing myself to ridicule, the name 
 and condition of the object of my regret and 
 sadness. Graziella was not forgotten but she 
 was lost from sight in that life of mine. This 
 love which fascinated my heart humiliated my 
 vanity. Her memory, which I cherished in my 
 solitude, followed me into society like a remorse. 
 How I blush now that I blushed then ! A single 
 ray of joy or a single drop of water from her 
 chaste eyes was worth more than all the glances, 
 smiles and allurements to which I was ready to 
 sacrifice her memory. Ah ! The young man is 
 incapable of love. He knows the value of noth- 
 ing. He can not appreciate true happiness until 
 after he has lost it. There is more wild sap,
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 223 
 
 more fluttering shade in the young plants of the 
 forest; there is more fire in the old heart of the 
 oak. 
 
 True love is the ripe fruit of the lifetime. At 
 eighteen years one does not know it ; one only 
 imagines it. As in the vegetable nature, when 
 the fruit comes, the leaves fall, so perhaps it 
 is in human nature. I have often thought it 
 since I have been able to count the gray hairs in 
 my head. Oh, how I have blamed myself for 
 not appreciating the worth of that lovely flower ! 
 I was nothing but vanity, and vanity is more silly 
 and more cruel than vice, for it makes happiness 
 blush. 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 On one of the first nights of November, as I 
 returned home from a ball, a letter was given 
 me, along with a package, brought to the house 
 by a traveler from Naples, while changing horses 
 in Macon. The traveler, who was a stranger to 
 me, said in his letter that he had been charged 
 with this little commission by one of his friends,
 
 224 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 the director of a coral factory in Naples, and he 
 took the first opportunity of delivering it; but 
 that, the news which he brought being sad and 
 dismal, he would not ask to see me; he wished, 
 however, that I would acknowledge its receipt 
 at Paris. 
 
 Trembling, I opened the bundle. It enclosed 
 under the first wrapper Graziella's last letter, 
 which contained but these words : 
 
 " The doctor tells me that I shall die before 
 three days. I wish to say farewell to you before 
 I lose all my strength. Oh, if you were here, 
 I should live ! But it is God's will, and I will 
 talk with you soon and ever after from the 
 heaven above. Love my soul, for it will be 
 with you throughout life. I leave you the hair 
 cut for you one night. Consecrate it to God 
 in a chapel of your own country, that some- 
 thing of me may be near you." 
 XXXVI. 
 
 I remained crushed, the letter in my hand, 
 until morning. It was only then that I had the
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 225 
 
 strength to open the second paper. All her 
 beautiful hair was there, as she had shown it to 
 me on the memorable night in the island cabin. 
 It was still entangled with some of the leaves 
 which had clung to it that night. I did what she 
 had ordered. The shadow of her death was from 
 that day cast over my face and my youth. 
 
 Twelve years later I returned to Naples. I 
 looked for traces of her, but there were none to 
 be found, either at Margellina or at Procida. 
 The little house on the cliff of the island had fallen 
 into ruins. There remained nothing of it but a 
 heap of gray stones, which covered a cellar for the 
 goatherds and their goats during the rains. Time 
 quickly blots out all material traces, but it never 
 blots out the traces of a first love in the heart it 
 has visited. 
 
 Poor Graziella ! Many, many days have gone 
 by since then. I have loved and been beloved. 
 Other rays of beauty and affection have lighted 
 up my dark way. Other souls have been opened 
 to me and revealed in the hearts of women the
 
 226 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 most mysterious treasures of beauty, holiness 
 and purity which God ever placed upon this earth 
 to make us feel, comprehend, and desire the 
 blessings of heaven. But nothing has effaced 
 thy first impression upon my heart. The longer 
 I live the nearer I approach thee in thought. 
 Thy memory is like those fires of thy father's 
 boat, which in the distance are separated from 
 their smoke, and which shine the more brilliant 
 as they recede. I know not where sleep thy 
 mortal remains, nor if any one in thy own country 
 still weeps over thy grave ; but thy real sepul- 
 chre is in my heart. It is there that thou art 
 gathered and cherished entire. Thy name is 
 never heard in vain. I love the language in 
 which it is pronounced. At the bottom of my 
 heart there is a tear that is ever dropping, drop- 
 ping, and secretly falls on thy memory to keep it 
 fresh ; to embalm it within me. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 One day, in the year 1830, having gone into 
 a church in Paris, I saw them bring a coffin,
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 22 J 
 
 covered with a white cloth and containing 
 the remains of a young girl. This coffin re- 
 minded me of Graziella. I glided into the shade 
 of one of the columns. I dreamed of Procida 
 and I wept a long time. 
 
 My tears dried up, but the clouds that came 
 across my thoughts during this sad funeral ser- 
 vice, will never vanish. I returned to my room 
 in silence. I unfolded the reminiscences that 
 are retraced in this long note, and I wrote at one 
 sitting, weeping the while, the verses entitled, 
 " The First Regret." It is the echo of a heart- 
 beat, toned down by the distance of twenty years, 
 that caused the first spring to gush forth; but 
 one may still discover the trembling of a fibre, 
 wounded then, never to be fully cured. 
 
 Here are the verses the balm of a wound, the 
 dew of a heart, the perfume of a sepulchral 
 flower. The name of Graziella alone is wanting. 
 I would insert it in a verse if there were here be- 
 low a crystal pure enough to hold this tear, this 
 souvenir, this name.
 
 228 GRAZIELLA: 
 
 THE FIRST REGRET. 
 
 Near the sounding shore of Sorrento's sea, 
 Where the blue waves roll to the orange tree, 
 In a narrow way by the blossoming hedge, 
 Stands a little stone by the water's edge, 
 A tomb it scarce can be ! 
 
 Yet a wall-flower there a name conceals, 
 
 A name that no echoes ever resound, 
 And a parting branch to the eye reveals 
 
 The age and date of the lost and found ; 
 And the stranger will say, with a tear in his eye, 
 " She was only sixteen It was early to die." 
 
 But why drag my soul to scenes that are o'er ? 
 
 Let the waves murmur, the weary winds sigh, 
 Come back, sad thoughts, to the present hour, 
 
 I would not weep, but dream for aye. 
 
 " She was only sixteen," and that sweet age 
 Never smiled upon lovelier heritage ; 
 And never before to human sight 
 Reflected the water an eye more bright ;
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 229 
 
 Now her image is with me, fair to my eye 
 
 As a thought on the mind where nothing can die. 
 
 And she lives as when, with her liquid eyes, 
 
 She gazed my soul into paradise ; 
 
 And when the light breeze through her dark hair 
 
 strayed, 
 
 And the sail's cool shade with her fair cheek played ; 
 When she listened to hear the fisherman's song 
 Which the balmy sea wind wafted along ; 
 And pointing to the waning moon forlorn 
 A night-flower surprised by the coming morn 
 And to th' silvery waves, she would say to me : 
 " What means this glitter upon the sea? 
 These fields of azure and flames on high, 
 These sands of gold where the waves all die, 
 These hill-tops that tremble against the sky, 
 These heights where the silent forests lie, 
 These crested waves and the lights on shore ? 
 They have ravished my senses never before. 
 Never before have I dreamed as to-night : 
 Is't a star in my soul that is shedding this light ? 
 Say, son of the morning, are these nights, so grand, 
 Like those without me in thy native land ? " 
 On her mother's knee she reclined her head, 
 For her mother was near when this was said.
 
 230 GRAZ1ELLA : 
 
 But why drag my soul to scenes that are o'er? 
 
 Let the waves murmur, the weary winds sigh ! 
 Come back, sad thoughts, to the present hour, 
 I would not weep, but dream for aye. 
 
 How frank was her mouth and her eye how bright ! 
 
 Heaven steeped her soul in its dreamy light ; 
 
 The Lake of Nemi, unstirred by the wind, 
 
 Was less transparent than was her mind. 
 
 When the thoughts of her soul to her lips would rise, 
 
 Her lids never closed on her downcast eyes, 
 
 Nor veiled her beauty and gentle grace, 
 
 Nor the glow of innocence on her face ; 
 
 All was joy to her, and a youthful smile 
 
 Sat happily over her mouth the while, 
 
 Like a rainbow in a brilliant sky 
 
 That blooms and then is doomed to die. 
 
 Over her face no shadow lay, 
 
 No cloud of darkness dimmed its ray ; 
 
 Her step, so wayward and careless alway, 
 
 Like a wave that cradles the sleeping day, 
 
 Was happy and free ; and the silvery roll 
 
 Of her voice was the echo of her soul, 
 
 And this song of the soul, where all was song, 
 
 Gladdened the air as it floated along.
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 231 
 
 But why drag my soul to scenes that are o'er ? 
 
 Let the waves murmur, the weary winds sigh ! 
 Come back, sad thoughts, to the present hour, 
 I would not weep, but dream for aye. 
 
 As the eye first catches the morning beams, 
 My image was first in her heart of dreams. 
 / From that day on, about and above, 
 The world was a universe of love. 
 She mingled her beautiful being with mine, 
 And I to her soul was the sacred shrine 
 Of th' enchanted world to which she had given 
 _A11 the joy of earth and the hope of Heaven. 
 She gave no thought to time or space, 
 The present was her resting place ; 
 With me her life was without a past, 
 With me no future its shadow cast ; 
 To nature she gave herself entire, 
 That did smile on us and the prayer inspire 
 At the altar, to which bright flowers she brought, 
 Not in tears but gladly sought. 
 She led me to this holy altar, 
 And like a child did I tremble and falter, 
 While she whispered low : " Come pray with me, 
 I can not reach Heaven itself without thee."
 
 232 GRAZIELLA: 
 
 But why drag my soul to scenes that are o'er? 
 
 Let the waves murmur, the weary winds sigh ! 
 Come back, sad thoughts, to the present hour, 
 I would not weep, but dream for aye. 
 
 From a living source comes this water transparent, 
 So like a rounded lake having no current ; 
 Blue and serene, and shaded all day 
 From the wind's blighting breath and the sun's scorch- 
 ing ray ; 
 
 A white swan swimming on the placid bay, 
 Hiding its neck where the ripples play, 
 Adorns the mirror without dimming its light, 
 Rocking itself with the stars of the night. 
 But beating the wave with wings so white, 
 To other waters it takes its flight ; 
 Then the Heavens are lost in the ruffled wave, 
 Dimmed by the motion its plumage gave, 
 As if the vulture, foe of the bird, 
 With traces of death the surface had blurred ; 
 And the brilliant blue of the enchanted lake 
 Is lost in the hue the sanded waters take. 
 
 So trembled her soul when I went away : 
 Its light died out and the flickering ray
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE 233 
 
 Fled back to Heaven no more to shine. 
 She awaited not return of mine, 
 She languished not in the doubt of hope, 
 Sought not with her cruel fate to cope : 
 She drained at a draught her cup of woe, 
 She drowned her heart in the first tear's flow ; 
 And, like the bird, less pure and light, 
 That folds its head under its wing at night, 
 She wrapped herself in mute despair 
 And fell asleep ere the night was there. 
 
 But why drag my soul to scenes that are o'er? 
 
 Let the waves murmur, the weary winds sigh 
 Come back, sad thoughts, to the present hour, 
 I would not weep, but dream for aye- 
 
 These fifteen years has she been asleep, 
 
 And over her grave no mourners weep, 
 
 And oblivion, second shroud of the dead, 
 
 Has covered the way to her lowly bed. 
 
 No one visits this slab of gray, 
 
 None ever dream there, none ever pray ; 
 
 But following the flood of days gone by 
 
 I summon the past with a heavy sigh, 
 
 And fond memories swelling my heart of cares, 
 
 I weep in a heaven of fallen stars ;
 
 234 GRAZIELLA : 
 
 But she was the first and fairest of all, 
 And her light illumines my bosom's pall. 
 
 But why drag my soul to scenes that are o'er? 
 
 Let the waves murmur, the weary winds sigh ! 
 Come back, sad thoughts, to the present hour, 
 I would not weep, but dream for aye. 
 
 A thorny bush, all blasted and seared, 
 Is the only monument nature has reared ; 
 Scorched by the sun and riven by the wind, 
 Like a funeral regret fixed in the mind, 
 It lives in a rock by no shade brightened, 
 Its withered leaves by the road-dust whitened ; 
 It grows near the ground, and the broken stocks 
 Are nibbled close by the goatherd's flocks. 
 A bird of sweet and sorrowful tones 
 Sits on a bending branch and moans. 
 In springtime a flower may bloom a day, 
 But like a snowflake it is swept away 
 Blasted before its fragrance is spread, 
 Like life ere the heart by love is led ; 
 Oh, tell me, flower, in this, thy day of doom, 
 Is there no world where all again will bloom ?
 
 A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE. 235 
 
 Now go, weary soul, to scenes that are past, 
 
 And come back, sad memories, help me to sigh ! 
 And thoughts, ye may follow my soul at last, 
 I would not dream, but weep for aye. 
 
 In these written tears alone have I expiated 
 the hardness and ingratitude of my heart of 
 eighteen years. I can never read over these 
 verses without adoring that youthful image 
 which the transparent and plaintive waves of 
 the Gulf of Naples will ever bring to me, nor 
 without hating myself. But souls above forgive. 
 Hers has forgiven me. Forgive me, too, reader, 
 for I have wept. 
 
 THE END.
 
 'T'HE STANDARD OPERAS. Their 
 * Plots, their Music, and their Composers. By 
 GEORGE P. UPTON, author of " Woman in Music," 
 etc., etc. 
 
 izmo, flexible cloth, yellow edges ...... $1.50 
 
 The same, axtra silt, gilt edges i-oo 
 
 " Mr. Upton has performed a service that can hardly be too 
 highly appreciated, in collecting the plots, music, and the com- 
 posers of the standard operas, to the number of sixty-four, and 
 bringing them together in one perfectly arranged volume. ... 
 His work is one simply invaluable to the general reading pub- 
 lic. Technicalities are avoided, the aim being to give to musi- 
 cally uneducated lovers of the opera a clear understanding of the 
 works they hear. It is description, not criticism, and calculated 
 to greatly increase the intelligent enjoyment of music." Boston 
 Traveller. 
 
 " Among the multitude of handbooks which are published 
 every year, and are described by easy-going writers of book- 
 notices as supplying a long-felt want, we know of none which 
 so completely carries out the intention of the writer as ' The 
 Standard Operas,' by Mr. George P. Upton, whose object is to 
 present to his readers a comprehensive sketch of each of the 
 operas contained in the modern repertory. ... There are 
 thousands of music-loving people who will be glad to have the 
 kind of knowledge which Mr. Upton has collected for their 
 benefit, and has cast in a clear and compact form." R . H. 
 Stoddard, in " Evening Mail and Express " (New York). 
 
 " The summaries of the plots are so clear, logical, and well 
 written, that one can read them with real pleasure, which cannot 
 be said of the ordinary operatic synopses. But the most im- 
 portant circumstance is that Mr. Upton's book is fully abreast 
 of the times." Tkt Nation (New York). 
 
 Sold by all booksellers, or mailed, post-paid, on rtceijt 
 qf price, By 
 
 A. C. McCLURG & CO., PUBLISHERS, 
 
 Com. WABASH AVE. AND MADISON ST., CWCAOC.
 
 THE STANDARD ORATORIOS. 
 Their Stories, their Music, and their Composers. A 
 Handbook. By GEORGE P. UPTON. i2mo, 335 pages, 
 yellow edges, price, #1.50; extra gilt, gilt edges, $2.00. 
 
 In half calf, gilt top .... $3.25 
 In half morocco, gilt edges . 3.75 
 In tree calf, gilt edges . . . 5.50 
 
 Music lovers are under a new obligation to Mr. Upton for this 
 companion to his "Standard Operas," two books which de- 
 serve to be placed on the same shelf with Grove's and Riemann's 
 musical dictionaries. The Nation, New York. 
 
 Mr. George P. Upton has followed in the lines that he laid 
 down in his " Standard Operas," and has produced an admira- 
 ble handwork, which answers every purpose that such a volume 
 is designed to answer, and which is certain to be popular now 
 and for years to come. The Mail and Express, New York- 
 
 Like the valuable art hand-books of Mrs. Jamison, these 
 volumes contain a world of interesting information, indispensable 
 to critics and art amateurs. The volume under review is ele- 
 gantly and succinctly written, and the subjects are handled in a 
 thoroughly comprehensive manner. Public Opinion, Wash- 
 ington- 
 
 The book is a masterpiece of skilful handling, charming the 
 reader with its pure English style, and keeping his attention 
 always awake in an arrangement of matter which makes each 
 succeeding page and chapter fresh in interest and always full 
 of instruction, while always entertaining. The Standard, 
 Chicago. 
 
 The author of this book has done a real service to the vast 
 number of people who, while they are lovers of music, have 
 neither the leisure nor inclination to become deeply versed in its 
 literature. . . . The information conveyed is of just the sort that 
 the average of cultivated people will welcome as an aid to com- 
 prehending and talking about this species of musical composi- 
 tion. Church Magazine, Philadelphia. 
 
 Sold by all booksellers, or mailed on receipt of price, by 
 
 A. C. McCLURG & CO., PUBLISHERS, 
 
 COR. WABASH AVH. AND MADISON ST., CHICAGO.
 
 STANDARD CANTATAS. Their 
 
 * Stories, their Music, and their Composers. A Hand- 
 book. By GEORGE P. UPTON. i2mo, 367 pages, yellow 
 edges, price, 1.50 ; extra gilt, gilt edges, $2.00. 
 
 In half calf, gilt top .... $3.25 
 In half morocco, gilt edges . 3.75 
 In tree calf, gilt edges . . . 5.50 
 
 The " Standard Cantatas " forms the third volume in the unV* 
 form series which already includes the now well known " Stan- 
 dard Operas" and the " Standard Oratorios." This latest work 
 deals with a class of musical compositions, midway between the 
 opera and the oratorio, which is growing rapidly in favor both 
 with composers and audiences. 
 
 As in the two former works, the subject is treated, so far as 
 possible, in an untechnical manner, so that it may satisfy the 
 needs of musically uneducated music lovers, and add to their en- 
 joyment by a plain statement of the story of the cantata and a 
 popular analysis of its music, with brief pertinent selections from 
 its poetical text. 
 
 The book includes a comprehensive essay on the origin of the 
 cantata, and its development from rude beginnings ; biographical 
 sketches of the composers ; carefully prepared descriptions of 
 the plots and the music ; and an appendix containing the names 
 and dates of composition of all the best known cantatas from the 
 earliest times. 
 
 This series of works on popular music has steadily grown in 
 favor since the appearance of the first volume on the Operas. 
 When the series is completed, as it will be next year by a volume 
 on the Standard Symphonies, it will be, as the New York 
 " Nation ' has said, indispensable to every musical library. 
 
 Sold by all booksellers, or mailed on receipt of price, by 
 A. C. McCLURG & CO., PUBLISHERS, 
 
 COR. WAR\SH AVB. AND MADISON ST., CHICAGO.
 
 HTHE STANDARD SYMPHONIES. 
 
 * Their History, their Music, and their Composers. 
 A Handbook. By GEORGE P. UPTON. 12010, 321 pages, 
 yellow edges, price #1.50; extra gilt, gilt edges, $2.00. 
 
 In half calf, gilt top . ... $3 25 
 In half morocco, gilt edges . 3.75 
 In tree calf, gilt edges . . . 5.50 
 
 The usefulness of this handbook cannot be doubted. Its 
 pages are packed full of these fascinating renderings. The 
 accounts of each composer are succinct and yet sufficient. The 
 author has done a genuine service to the world of music lovers. 
 The comprehension of orchestral work of the highest character 
 is aided efficiently by this volume. The mechanical execution 
 of the volume is in harmony with its subject. No worthier 
 volume can be found to put into the hands of an amateur or a 
 friend of music. Public Opinion, Washington. 
 
 None who have seen the previous books of Mr. Upton will 
 need assurance that this is as indispensable as the others to one 
 who would listen intelligently to that better class of music which 
 musicians congratulate themselves Americans are learning to 
 appreciatively enjoy. Home Journal, New York. 
 
 There has never been, in this country at least, so thorough an 
 attempt to collate the facts of programme music. ... As a 
 definite helper in some cases and as a refresher in others we 
 believe Mr. Upton's book to have a lasting value. . . . The 
 book, in brier, shows enthusiastic and honorable educational 
 purpose, good taste, and sound scholarship. The American, 
 Philadelphia. 
 
 Upton's books should be read and studied by all who desire to 
 acquaint themselves with the facts and accomplishments in these 
 interesting forms of musical composition. The Voice, New 
 York. 
 
 It is written in a style that cannot fail to stimulate the reader, 
 if also a student of music, to strive to find for himself the under- 
 lying meanings of the compositions of the great composers. 
 It contains, besides, a vast amount of information about the 
 symphony, its evolution and structure, with sketches of the com- 
 posers, and a detailed technical description of a few symphonic 
 models. It meets a recognized want of all concert goers. 
 Tke Chautauquan. 
 
 Sold by all booksellers, or mailed on receipt of price, by 
 A. C. McCLURG & CO., PUBLISHERS, 
 
 COR. WABASH AVH. AND MADISON ST., CHICAGO.
 
 I. -
 
 .2 7~. 
 
 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 Santa Barbara 
 
 THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW. 
 

 
 A 000793918 4