IDEAL 
 
THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Robert B. Campbell 
 
THE 
 
 WANE OF AN IDEAL 
 
 A NOVEL 
 
 FROM THE ITALIAN 
 BY 
 
 CLARA BELL 
 
 REVISED AND CORRECTED IN THE UNITED STATES 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 WILLIAM S. GOTTSBERGER, PUBLISHER 
 
 II MURRAY STREET 
 
 1885 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1884 
 
 BY WILLIAM S. GOTTSBERGER 
 in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington 
 
 THIS TRANSLATION WAS MADE EXPRESSLY FOR THE PUBLISHER 
 
 of 
 
 S. (o 
 
T7T&E 
 
 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THERE was not a soul in all Fontanetto and 
 the neighborhood who did not know the " little 
 doctor." For twenty years he had been known 
 by that name, ever since he had come there as 
 the parish doctor. He was then a young man of 
 about thirty, gallant, gay, and the best of good 
 company. To distinguish him from his predeces- 
 sor, the new-comer was dubbed with the nickname 
 of " Dottorino" in some sort as a pet name, he 
 was such an engaging man, and the name had 
 clung to him ever since, in spite of years and the 
 changes in his person, which entered a crying pro- 
 test against the diminutive. 
 
 When I first knew him he may have been 
 fifty, tall, stout, and burly. His broad shoulders, 
 
 775344 
 
2 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 thick neck, powerful build, and coarse rough hair, 
 revealed a robust constitution ; but a certain 
 heaviness in his eyes, the flabbiness of his cheeks, 
 the slowness of his speech with a hesitation as if 
 he had a difficulty in grasping the thought he 
 wished to utter, and a queer squeak in his voice, 
 made him seem older than he really was. But for 
 all this he was none the less popular, and the gen- 
 try of the vicinity were always glad to have the 
 little doctor at their dinners and evening parties 
 only not by their bedside when they were ill. 
 
 The little doctor knew of but one method of 
 treatment, namely : the purgative ; and he pre- 
 scribed it for every kind and form of disease. 
 When he was sent for to see a sick person, before 
 he set out, before he even asked his symptoms, he 
 began by stating positively : " A good strong dose 
 that is what he wants !" He commonly mistook 
 the cause for the effect and with regard to that ef- 
 fect he was pleased to be highly facetious ; the 
 doctor's jokes were known far and wide. As he 
 went along he would stop at a tavern, call for 
 drink, and then say to the host : " Put it down 
 against me ; I will pay you with a visit the next 
 time you want a pill." And he would laugh, and 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 3 
 
 the host laughed too. He had not always legs 
 enough to carry him upstairs to see his patient ; 
 but what was the good of looking at him ? He 
 could quite as well prescribe for him at the door. He 
 would ask the people of the house : " What is the 
 matter with him fever ? Give him a purgative. 
 Headache ? delirious ? give him a rattling dose ; 
 that will cure him of his delirium. An overloaded 
 stomach that is the whole secret." 
 
 More than once the parish board had talked of 
 remonstrating with the Dottorino. But then the 
 gentry made much of him, and it never was al- 
 lowed ; and he himself, when it came to his ears, 
 exclaimed with his usual jollity : 
 
 " But what next ? The parish ought to thank 
 me I help to fertilize their land. It is to me that 
 they owe the juicy artichokes, the gigantic cab- 
 bages, the asparagus as thick as a cudgel that they 
 see on their tables. ..." 
 
 It was impossible to get this great baby to be 
 serious about anything. He laughed with you over 
 your aches and pains, bringing out jest upon jest, 
 till you ended by opening a bottle to the health of 
 the little doctor whose joviality put you in such 
 good spirits. Besides, in case of grave illness, the 
 
4 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 more important folks who had horses at their 
 command, could fetch the doctor in an hour from 
 Borgomanero; and the little doctor, being a 
 superior man, owed him no grudge. He let his 
 patients recover under any one in whom they be- 
 lieved when they were ill, without declining on 
 that account to eat and drink with them when 
 they got well again. 
 
 Whatever the time of day, or wherever he might 
 be, the doctor always dressed in black ; indeed, in 
 an old suit of dress clothes, much too short and 
 too tight He wore an enormous white handker- 
 chief folded into a cravat which went two or three 
 times around his throat, while the ends, tied into a 
 tight knot, made a lump on his neck, so that the 
 whole looked like a small goitre, When the Dot- 
 torino laughed this knot bobbed up and down, as 
 if it were some portion of his person, and shared 
 in his hilarity ; when he drank it rose and fell with 
 a calm chuckle, as it were, of beatitude, as 
 though it knew good wine when it tasted it ; and 
 when the doctor was drunk and his whole person 
 became limp and unsteady, that knot, too, oscil- 
 lated with a languid and piteous air. On the top 
 of this ceremonial costume he wore a chimney- 
 
THE \VANE OF AN IDEAL. 5 
 
 pot hat, too wide in the brim and too low in the 
 crown, and always a little cocked over the left ear. 
 From the first day when the little doctor set foot 
 in Fontanetto no one could remember ever having 
 seen him in any other dress. He had married and 
 had a son ; then he was left a widower ; and he 
 had appeared in the same clothes at the wedding, 
 at the christening, and at the funeral. For twenty 
 years he had walked over hill and dale, by night 
 and by day to the houses of the peasants who 
 needed his services, and always in black dress 
 clothes with a tall hat ; it was as though he had 
 been born in them and it was certain that he 
 would die in them. If the little doctor had al- 
 tered his mode of dress it would have been like a 
 revolution in the little township. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE doctor had remained unmarried with 
 his one boy. " A widower has his own value in 
 the market," he used to say, "but with a baby 
 on his hands he is an unsaleable article. A man 
 by himself is worth a good dowry, but a man and 
 a half is worth nothing." 
 
 At first he left the child in care of the woman 
 who had wet-nursed it ; it could remain with her for 
 a few years. At last, however, when the boy was 
 six, he was forced to take him home ; and can you 
 not imagine the trouble he had with him. 
 
 He was a little wildling, an untamed little 
 savage. No sooner had he got home than he 
 cried the whole of one day for his nurse, scream- 
 ing as loud as he could for his "mamma I want 
 my mamma." The Dottorino, hapless man, was 
 not a woman, that he could stay coaxing a baby ; 
 he locked him up in one of the rooms and went 
 about his business. When he returned in the 
 evening all the neighborhood had gathered round 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. f 
 
 the house with their noses pointing up to the win- 
 dows. The child had been screaming for some 
 hours, and the stairs were crowded with women 
 who were pitying it and discussing what was to be 
 done. The doctor had been drinking with his 
 patients' sick-nurses ; he was coming home in the 
 best of humors. You may fancy what his feelings 
 were at hearing those howls and at seeing these 
 inquisitive good folks putting their noses into his 
 private concerns. But he was not the man to 
 make a scene ; he pointed to the street-door as he 
 addressed the gossips : 
 
 " I am the master here, perhaps you know," 
 he said. " I will undertake to manage my own 
 child and no one need interfere. If you do 
 not know what parental authority is go and 
 learn. Now then, be off, in less than no time ! 
 Brrrrr !" 
 
 When he had gone in and shut the door upon 
 them the child began to yell more loudly than 
 ever ; his cries were shrieks of pain, and so des- 
 perately piercing that they were heard from one 
 end of the village to the other. By degrees they 
 died away, and at last ceased altogether. Then 
 the Dottorino came out, very red in the face, 
 
8 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 and his hands and his voice shook as he said to 
 , two obstinate old women whom he had not 
 been able to turn out: 
 
 " Go and see if you can bring him round, and 
 find me a girl to mind him or else. ..." 
 
 Next morning all the gossips of the village 
 came in procession to the doctor's house to offer 
 him nursery girls. He had by this time recovered 
 his temper. 
 
 " Give me," he said, " the youngest and best 
 looking." 
 
 He was a man of taste and appreciated beauty, 
 even of a rustic order. But the first damsel did 
 not value the doctor's attentions and at the end of 
 a few days she left. Then he found some who 
 were more tractable and who stayed nay, who 
 would very gladly never have left, but those he 
 himself dismissed. He had no intention of marry- 
 ing again or adding to his responsibilities. 
 
 He had learnt by experience that there is no 
 more thankless task than that of bringing up a 
 family. The one child he had was an ungrateful 
 little rascal. If he only heard his father's step he 
 would begin to tremble and try to hide. If the 
 doctor spoke he would start as if a pistol had been 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 9 
 
 fired off close to his ear, and always answered in 
 monosyllables, while the servant girls would chat 
 and laugh at his jokes. 
 
 Still the maids were constantly changing ; the 
 luckless doctor was at his wits' end to get a ser- 
 vant who would stay. On one occasion he was 
 two months without a woman in the house, and he 
 had to send the boy to school every day to get 
 him out of the way. 
 
 But " Heaven helps the light-hearted," says 
 an Italian proverb. One day he was sent for to 
 see a young girl who was ill. He found her sit- 
 ting in the sun, outside the kitchen door, and 
 trembling with fever. He ordered her the usual 
 purgative and then he asked the old woman who 
 was standing by her side : 
 
 " Is she your daughter ?" 
 
 " No, sir," replied old Lucia ; " she came to us 
 from the foundling hospital at Novara. My daugh- 
 ter-in-law lost all her babies ; so when the last one 
 was born she thought she would get a child to 
 nurse ; and then from day to day she put off tak- 
 ing her back again, and she ended by keeping her 
 altogether. When they would not pay us any 
 longer for keeping her we sent her to the silk mills, 
 
IO THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 so that she might earn something. She has been 
 at it now for six years, tying the silk ; she began 
 early." 
 
 " And do you like working at the silk mills ?" 
 the doctor asked the sick girl. 
 
 Her only reply was a wriggle of her whole 
 body ; whether it was meant for an answer or was 
 a more violent shiver it was impossible to decide. 
 
 " She talks very little," said the old woman, 
 who, on the contrary, talked a great deal. "It i 
 from having her head full of the whizzing and 
 whirling of all those bobbins and spindles even 
 day. It makes you feel stupid. I know, for 3 
 tried it for two years when I was a girl ; I always 
 had a roaring in my ears as if it was pouring in 
 torrents, and night and day I saw the spokes of 
 the wheels flying round and round before my eyes, 
 like souls in torment." 
 
 " How much a day does she get ?" asked the 
 doctor. 
 
 " Twenty centimes. She is only thirteen." 
 
 " Twenty centimes a day, exclusive of Sundays 
 and the regular holidays ; that is sixty francs a 
 year," said the doctor making a rapid calculation. 
 " If you will let her come to me for the same 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. II 
 
 money I will take her to do the odd jobs in my 
 house, and to mind my little boy. The work will 
 not break her bones." 
 
 " But she does not know how to cook," ob- 
 served Lucia. 
 
 " You will teach her what you can while she is 
 ill, and as soon as she is well you can bring her to 
 me." 
 
 "Well yes," said the old woman, still doubt- 
 ful. " But at the mills they will raise her wages 
 when she is grown up." 
 
 " She is not strong enough to go on working 
 at the mills ; you will always have her at home 
 ill, and so she will earn nothing," replied the Dot- 
 torino, rising to go. 
 
 But this last argument had convinced Lucia ; 
 she turned to the girl and said : 
 
 " Well, would you like to go and be the Signor 
 Dottore's servant? Answer, La Matta, would 
 you ?" 
 
 The girl only shrugged her shoulders, as much 
 as to say she did not care. 
 
T2 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 A MONTH after this Lucia brought the young 
 girl to the doctor's house in her holiday dress, 
 her shoes in her hand and her feet bare, with all 
 her little belongings tied up in a handkerchief 
 knotted at the corners, and installed her under her 
 new master. 
 
 In her remote youth Lucia had herself been in 
 service with a family at Novara and she had learnt 
 enough of cooking and management to put' the 
 girl in the way of discharging her duties. Her 
 pupil, to be sure, stultified by the six long years 
 she had passed in the midst of the confusion and 
 din of the mills, always stood with her mouth 
 open after listening to her instructions as if she 
 had not understood ; but when once she had fairly 
 learnt a thing she could repeat it to all eternity 
 with the minutest exactitude, exactly like a 
 machine. She brought the same painful attention 
 that she had been forced to give to her work at 
 the silk mill to bear on every little task the 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 13 
 
 unremitting watchfulness which was required to 
 join the threads, keeping one eye as it were on the 
 spool and the other on the spindle, catching the 
 thread if it broke with nimble fingers, a quick eye 
 and strained absorption of mind a tension of 
 fibre and nerve beyond her years. When once 
 she had been taught to dust the legs of a table 
 from the right hand to the left, no change of con- 
 ditions could ever have led her to do it in the op- 
 posite direction, or to leave one of the legs un- 
 touched. When the doctor beat her for he even 
 had his ugly moods and felt that he must have it 
 out with some one La Matta crouched under 
 his hand, and howled if she was hurt; but she 
 made no complaint and never asked why she was 
 punished so ; on the other hand if her master 
 praised her cookery and said : " You did that very 
 well," she would shrug her shoulders as much as 
 to say it was no concern of hers ; or reply : " I did 
 not know it." 
 
 When as a new-born babe she had found her 
 miserable home in the foundling hospital, her first 
 protectress was a sentimental nun who had be- 
 stowed on her the inappropriate name of Amata. 
 The peasant woman who had taken her out to 
 
14 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 nurse, and all the family, had simplified this to La 
 Matta the idiot and in spite of the remon- 
 strances of the good Sister and afterwards of 
 the inspector at the mills, they had persisted in 
 their blunder with the obstinacy that is character- 
 istic of peasants, so that all the neighborhood be- 
 lieved it really to be her name. One day Gio- 
 vanni, the doctor's little lad, asked her : 
 
 " Why do they call you La Matta /" 
 
 " I do not know," said the girl. 
 
 " Is it your name ?" 
 
 " No. My name is La Mata." 
 
 "But Mata is not a name." 
 
 " I do not know." 
 
 Giovanni succeeded in arriving at some ex- 
 planation from a school-fellow or from the Sister 
 who taught the village children, and on his return 
 home he went into the kitchen to repeat it in 
 triumph to the girl. But she only said : 
 
 " It is all the same ; La Mata or La Matta." 
 " But it is not La Mata at all ; your name is 
 
 Amata; L'Amata is right." 
 
 " Ah well ! I do not know," was La Matta's 
 
 conclusion, but she looked at the little fellow 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 15 
 
 \vith a long pathetic gaze and then smiled to 
 herself. 
 
 One day on his return from school Giovanni 
 found her with her face and eyes swelled with 
 crying and the streaks left by tears on her 
 cheeks. 
 
 " What is the matter ?" he asked. She put her 
 hand to her left shoulder, writhing to show that it 
 was painful. 
 
 "You have hurt yourself?" he said. 
 
 " Yes," nodded La Matta. 
 
 " Did you tumble down ?" 
 
 " No, it was when he was beating me he 
 pulled my arm." 
 
 " Who ?" 
 
 " He," she replied in a low voice, as though 
 afraid that the doctor would hear her. She never 
 called him anything but he. 
 
 " You are crying because he beat you ?" 
 
 " No, it is the pain that I am crying for." But at 
 this catechism, which showed that some one cared 
 for her, she smiled through her tears. That even- 
 ing before putting the child to bed she said : 
 
 " Look here," and unfastening the body of her 
 dress she uncovered her child's bosom and shoulder 
 
16 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 which was terribly swelled and black with bruises. 
 The two looked at each other in dismay. 
 
 " What ought to be done to it ?" asked Gio- 
 vanni. 
 
 " I do not know." And then they looked at 
 each other again. Presently Giovanni had an 
 idea. 
 
 " I will ask the school-mistress to-morrow 
 morning," he said. The girl smiled gratefully, 
 covered up her innocent nudity and took her 
 bruises to bed. 
 
 By the next morning the swelling had greatly 
 increased ; the arm was too stiff to move and the 
 poor child was in a high fever. There was nothing 
 for it but to keep her in bed and send for her fos- 
 ter-mother to nurse her. It was Lucia however 
 who came, since her daughter was at work in the 
 fields and was busy all day. When Giovanni came 
 home from school he said 
 
 "The school-mistress says you ought to put 
 arnica on your shoulder." 
 
 The girl threw off the coverlet that the remedy 
 might at once be applied ; but Giovanni was 
 obliged to say, somewhat mortified : 
 
 " I have not got any arnica." They looked at 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. I/ 
 
 each other in silence ; and the boy went on : "I 
 have not got any; and I do not know what it is." 
 And La Matta answered : 
 
 "I do not know." And she pulled the bed- 
 clothes over her again 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE incidents mentioned in the last chap- 
 ter took place when Giovanni had been at 
 school only a few months. But as time went 
 on and he made good progress, his companions 
 began to regard him with admiration, tried to keep 
 up with him, administering now and then a friendly 
 thrashing to which he replied with cuffs and 
 thumps that were apt to leave their mark on the 
 recipient He learnt all their games and before 
 long was their leader in them all. Jumping, run- 
 ning, catching and being caught, shouting with 
 all the power of his boy's lungs these delights 
 were new to Giovanni, who until now had lived 
 alone. He became so greedy of them that his 
 
18 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 games with his school-fellows were not enough for 
 him, and when he got home, the doctor was no 
 sooner out of the house, than he tried to coax La 
 Matta into playing with him. 
 
 " Quicker ! Quicker ! catch me if you can !" 
 And the girl would take the smallest steps she 
 could with her long legs, because she saw that the 
 child was enchanted to think that she could not 
 overtake him. Or he would harness her with her 
 back bent, her head down. 
 
 "You shall be my horse," he would say; then, 
 taking a run from the other end of the room, with 
 one leap he was astride. The girl, who was but a 
 lank and feeble creature, bent like a spring under 
 the sudden weight and her ribs seemed likely to 
 crack. Not unfrequently her eyes were full of 
 tears as she painfully straightened her overgrown 
 length and she exclaimed : " How heavy you are !" 
 with an admiring smile. 
 
 The Dottorino was not the man to neglect the 
 small mercies that Providence had granted him, 
 and he never sent anything away from table that 
 could pamper the appetite of his maid of all work. 
 Consequently La Matta grew and grew, but as 
 slender as a lath and so thin that it was grievous 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 19 
 
 to see her ; particularly when she had been play- 
 ing for any length of time with Giovanni ; her 
 bones seemed positively to stand out and creak 
 with leanness, and she would sometimes throw 
 herself on the edge of the hearth and declare she 
 could run and play no more. 
 
 But then the little boy would exclaim : "Then 
 I will go and play with Rachel," and the girl 
 would start up like a dying ass at a kick from its 
 master, and be the first to say : " No, come along, 
 I want another game." 
 
 Rachel was the daughter of a small proprietor 
 who in that humble neighborhood was looked upon 
 as a perfect nabob. He had purchased an old bat- 
 tered castle from the impoverished lords of the 
 soil, for something under a hundred thousand 
 francs; a sort of fortress with turrets, and an 
 outer wall, and a moat, and a draw-bridge ; and 
 there he had set up for a great man, with a 
 good cook, a newspaper, and a few friends, with 
 whom he drank and played cards, or, when the 
 weather was gloomy, discussed all the impor- 
 tant questions of the day in domestic and foreign 
 politics. 
 
 The doctor was one of the most assiduous 
 
2O THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 visitors to the lord of the castle who rejoiced in 
 the very unlordly name of Pedrotti. 
 
 " The Dottorino knows the age of every bottle 
 of wine in my cellar," the great man would say; 
 and the doctor made them grow old very rapidly, 
 without any contradiction from the owner ; in re- 
 turn for which forbearance he was always ready to 
 say : " How young our friend Pedrotti looks for a 
 man of forty !" taking from his years those he was 
 prepared to add on to his vintages. Such little 
 amenities, which ingratiate a guest with his Am- 
 phitrion, came as easily to the parish-doctor as 
 though he had lived at court for years. On polit- 
 ical questions he was never pig-headed ; whatever 
 his host's views were he was always ready to en- 
 dorse them. Then he never failed to know when 
 Pedrotti was in the humor for a hearty laugh, and 
 laid himself out to indulge him even at the sacri- 
 fice of his own dignity, and of other things besides. 
 In short, there could not be a more delightful 
 companion, and the lord of the castle, not ungrate- 
 ful, would say : 
 
 " But why do you not bring Giovanni, doc- 
 tor ? The fine gentlemen of old were free enough 
 with their coin to keep themselves amused ; and 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 21 
 
 though you amuse me for nothing, it is at any rate 
 but fair that I should give you and your son a din- 
 ner now and then." 
 
 Giovanni dined in the kitchen, and after dinner 
 he played with Rachel who was nearly of the 
 same age as himself; and when he went home 
 after dining at the castle he had fine stories for La 
 Matta of the games they had had, and elaborate 
 descriptions of the little girl's dolls and finery. 
 
 For a time La Matta had listened to all this 
 and said nothing; but she had not taken any 
 pleasure in hearing of all these fine things, and 
 one day she retorted with a smile of triumph : 
 
 " But you cannot jump upon Rachel's back 
 and make a horse of her !" 
 
 " No," said the boy, " she is too little and her 
 frock is too nice." 
 
 " I am nearly fifteen," La Matta observed with 
 a proud laugh, and she looked down on her 
 shabby skirt with a glance of intense satisfaction. 
 
 When Rachel was nine years old she was sent 
 to school at Novara and the dinners at the castle 
 lost their charm for Giovanni. In the winter 
 especially, when he could not go into the garden, 
 he generally ended by going to sleep in one cor- 
 
22 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 ner of the room and when he had to be waked 
 there was scolding, grumbling, and kicks all the 
 fuss and difficulty that usually attend the waking 
 of a lad from the bliss of his first sleep. To avoid 
 these scenes Signer Pedrotti used to send him 
 home as soon as dinner was over, then there were 
 four hours that he must spend alone with La 
 Matta. By way of passing the time he bethought 
 himself of teaching her to read. The girl was 
 quite ready to play at so quiet a game, and after 
 several lessons she had mastered the letter O. 
 Whether Giovanni wrote it or pointed it out in 
 large print, she recognized O and repeated O, O, 
 grinning with delight. But there was more diffi- 
 culty with the other letters, and the lad, soon out 
 of patience, wearied of the attempt and invented 
 other amusements. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 FOUR years slipped away ; Giovanni had 
 gone through the four classes of the elementary 
 school and all Fontanetto talked of his remarka- 
 ble aptitude. But out there in the country there 
 was no opportunity for further study. 
 
 " I cannot afford to send him to study at a 
 great school ; I will send him out to keep sheep, 
 like the sons of the patriarchs," said his father very 
 philosophically. But he did not waste his breath in 
 saying this to the country louts ; he knew too 
 much not to be well aware of the value of breath, 
 and he never spent it in vain. He said this to his 
 richer neighbors. Signer Pedrotti, the height of 
 whose ambition was a tricolor ribbon, understood 
 that a merciful providence had here given him an 
 opening for gaining credit among his neighbors as 
 a generous and liberal-minded man. So one even- 
 ing he proposed to the other magnates of the dis- 
 trict that they should subscribe in equal propor- 
 tions to bear the expense of sending " the poor 
 
24 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 boy who had displayed so much intelligence," to 
 school. Six of them agreed and a convent of Lay 
 Friars was presently heard of at Novara, where 
 the terms were only forty francs a month, and the 
 teaching very good. When all was settled the six 
 patrons sent for the little doctor and Giovanni, and 
 Signer Pedrotti, taking up his parable, shed from 
 sublime heights their united beneficence on the 
 head, so to speak, of the beneficiary. 
 
 "To be rich is not enough," he said. "To 
 spend it liberally and judiciously, that is the im- 
 portant thing. This boy will be grateful to us all 
 his life for the benefit we are about to confer on 
 him. We will make a doctor of him to cure our 
 peasant children when the Dottorino here shall 
 have eaten his last dinner and ordered his last 
 pill." 
 
 The doctor laughed heartily at the joke, and 
 when their mirth had subsided the lord of the 
 castle proceeded to unfold the scheme . . . the con- 
 vent, the forty francs a month, the four years of 
 schooling without holidays, the university educa- 
 tion which would follow, etc., etc. The doctor's 
 expressions of gratitude were such as to satisfy 
 his patrons, who remarked, to his credit, that he 
 
THE 'WANE OK AN IDEAL. 2$ 
 
 was not one of those poor but proud men who 
 give themselves the airs of expatriated princes, so 
 that you never know where to have them. 
 
 As to Giovanni, he knew several little shep- 
 herd boys who rolled down the slopes, slept on 
 the grass, scampered over hill and dale and made 
 holiday the livelong day ; and he would have pre- 
 ferred his father's original plan of sending him out 
 to mind the sheep. But he was quite ready to 
 adapt himself to the view that he was to become a 
 doctor, beginning by going to school at Novara, 
 and taking an altogether new start in life. 
 
 When the boy was gone the doctor's house 
 was as silent as the tomb, and La Matta, contrary 
 to all her former habits, took to neglecting her 
 duties and spoiling her dishes, and would have be- 
 come no more than a careless slattern if she had 
 not had an energetic master, who at the cost of 
 exciting his nerves and disturbing his bile, found 
 means of correcting her which left their marks for 
 a time and made her understand the necessity of 
 taking pains with her work. Still, when she was 
 alone she would often sit in ecstatic reverie, gazing 
 at the chests and the tables over which the child 
 had so often leaped, and she would smile to her- 
 
26 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 self as if she could see him before her. One day, 
 when by chance she raised her eyes to the baker's 
 shop and caught sight of an O in among the let- 
 ters of his sign-board, she felt as pleased as though 
 she had met with an old friend ; she repeated it 
 again and again, as if she could not tire of the 
 sound, and after that she looked at all the shop 
 signs and when she found an O would fix her 
 eyes on it quite lovingly, and then they would fill 
 with tears as if she had been gazing at the sun. 
 
 Sometimes, on a Sunday, she might go to see 
 her foster-mother, and if the doctor were dining out 
 she stayed to share the family polenta. The fos- 
 ter-mother took no notice of her ; in the open 
 season she was in the fields from dawn till sunset, 
 or carried baskets of stones down from the hills ; 
 in the winter she sat spinning in the cow-shed till 
 midnight, and always had arrears of sleep to make 
 up, which stupefied her. She made up for lost time, 
 to some extent, on Sundays, in church, where she 
 slept through the service. Old Lucia, on the con- 
 trary, who did the house work, always had some- 
 thing to teach La Matta ; on high festivals she 
 took her with her to church, and by dint of get- 
 ting her to repeat the Latin prayers she had at 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 2/ 
 
 last succeeded in making her learn them by heart. 
 The girl did not understand a word of them, nor 
 the old woman either for that matter ; but what 
 did that signify? so long as "the One above" un- 
 derstood ? And so La Matta devoutly repeated 
 her jumble of gibberish to persuade the Almighty 
 to bring Giovanni home again. Now and again 
 she would ask Lucia how much she had got laid 
 by in the savings bank, and then she went through 
 distracting calculations to find out whether she 
 had enough to buy a rocking-horse that Giovanni 
 had once coveted in a shop at Borgomanero. 
 
 After that rapid growth of late girlhood La 
 Matta grew no more; she remained at something 
 above the middle height of woman, but she never 
 grew fat. Her shoulders and hips were broad, but 
 they were bony, and she had none of that fullness 
 of curve which give grace and beauty to woman- 
 hood. She was dark, with an immense quantity 
 of coal-black hair, which by a copious application 
 of oil and pomatum she reduced to some approach 
 to smoothness. Her eyes too were black, large, 
 and deep-set, with long, thick lashes and heavy 
 eyebrows that met over the bridge of a short and 
 rather snub nose. Her high cheek-bones, powerful 
 
28 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 jaw, and thick lips which showed her large white 
 teeth, gave her the appearance of a mulatto. 
 Within the memory of old Lucia there had been 
 at Novara a negro, in the service of a family of 
 rank who displayed this exotic specimen on the 
 foot-board of their state carriage. Lucia had her 
 suspicions that this negro was responsible for La 
 Matta's existence. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 AT length Giovanni came ' home ; but he 
 was so tall, and spoke in such a big voice, that La 
 Matta no longer dared to offer him the plaything 
 he had longed for. His education in the convent 
 had made him more shy than ever ; he greeted his 
 father with no sort of effusion, and he scarcely 
 noticed the girl, just nodding to her and saying : 
 " Oh ! it is you !" 
 
 La Matta replied laughing, but with tears in 
 her eyes ; and all the time she was in the kitchen, 
 getting the dinner ready, she laughed and cried 
 together repeating an imitation of that nod of 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 2C/ 
 
 Giovanni's. She dared not address another word 
 to him, and as she heard him speaking she kept 
 saying to herself: 
 
 "Oh, Madonna Santa! Madonna Santa!" She 
 could not convince herself that that tall figure, that 
 voice and that conventual garb were those of the 
 little boy who had so often jumped on her back in 
 his romps. 
 
 Giovanni's patrons were curious to see their 
 protege, and all in turn asked him to dinner. At 
 every house he met the very same company, 
 and the same conversation repeated itself again 
 and again: "They hoped that Giovanni was duly 
 grateful for all the favors conferred upon him, since 
 without his benefactors' generosity he would be 
 to this day a peasant among paupers and sheep." 
 ..." Instead of which, here he was, a gentleman 
 among gentlemen," added Signer Pedrotti with 
 pregnant sarcasm, "for he sits with his elbows on 
 the table and has not as yet said thank you to any 
 one." 
 
 Giovanni colored, but he did not cease to be 
 taciturn and clownish, or to knit his brows as if he 
 were angry. 
 
 Signer Pedrotti was the last to give him that 
 
3O THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 solemn dinner, because he wished at the same time 
 to celebrate the return of his daughter Rachel 
 from school. When the Dottorino entered the 
 huge dining-room at the castle, the master of the 
 house was rocking himself in an American chair 
 near the glass doors that led into the garden. 
 They were open, and the sun, gliding in between 
 the leaves of the creepers of the verandah, danced 
 in chequered lights through the gloom of the in- 
 terior and sported on the walls and floor in disks 
 of every size, played in arabesques of light and 
 shade over the arabesques of the damask table- 
 cloth and drew sparks from the plate and glass 
 that were laid for dinner, while one steady ray fell 
 on Signor Pedrotti's manly breast and there ended 
 as though it had pierced him like a blade of pol- 
 ished steel. 
 
 It was a bright picture a summer scene and 
 luxurious withal ; it ought to have produced a 
 soothing effect on any one, especially after a walk 
 under a scorching August sun. But Giovanni did 
 not seem to feel it so ; he hung back as if he hoped 
 to make his escape, and a hot flame of color rose 
 to his cheeks as he uneasily gripped his hat the 
 cocked hat of the Order of Lay Friars. At a cor- 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 31 
 
 ner of the table, straight, fresh, and smiling, he saw 
 Rachel, the companion of his childish sports, over 
 whom he had been wont to domineer with all the 
 tyranny of superior strength and daring, and who 
 now quelled him by the power of her superior 
 position and beauty. She was plainly dressed in 
 the uniform of her school a cambric frock with 
 a wide pleated frill, and she had stuck a scarlet 
 verbena flower in her hair ; but her brilliant color- 
 ing and slim figure gave the simple dress a fitness 
 that looked like luxury. Her complexion had that 
 dazzling whiteness and rosiness that in a very 
 young girl are enough to make her beautiful, or at 
 any rate to make her seem so. Her hair was of a 
 rich gold color, her eyes blue, her lips scarlet ; it 
 was one of those bright-hued faces which strike 
 at first sight and by the side of which the hand- 
 somest brunette is eclipsed. 
 
 " My daughter," said Signer Pedrotti with 
 pride, and the Dottorino, after declaring that she 
 was an angel, sang with an air of gallantry : 
 
 " Set tu dal del discesa, o in del son io con 
 te?"* and Signer Pedrotti laid down his newspaper 
 to laugh the more at his ease. 
 
 * Art thou come down from Heaven, or am I in Heaven with thee? 
 
32 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 But while the doctor, pressing his hands to his 
 heart and giving himself operatic airs, repeated 
 the refrain : " Son io, son io, o in del son io, son to 
 con te" his eyes fell on his unworthy son, who had 
 shrunk, blushing deeply, in his grotesque priest's 
 uniform, as close as he could squeeze himself 
 against the door-post, as if he were trying to van- 
 ish into the wall. It is disappointing when a man 
 has been so lucky as to make himself popular 
 with all his neighbors to find his only offspring so 
 degenerate that he cannot even appreciate his 
 father's graces, much less imitate them ; and the 
 Dottorino, wounded in his paternal soul at per- 
 ceiving that Giovanni seemed mortified rather than 
 radiant at finding himself there with him, went up 
 to him and nipping him by the ear said : 
 
 " Come here, you bear, and kiss your bene- 
 factor's hand, and pay your respects to his daugh- 
 ter, your benefactress." 
 
 But Giovanni in his awkwardness had no idea 
 how to perform the ceremony required of him. 
 He turned redder than ever, till the veins on his 
 forehead stood out and his eyes felt as if they 
 would start out of his head, and he drew back, 
 without a word or scarcely a bow. The doctor 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 33 
 
 who felt that it was now his part to make com- 
 pensation to his patron for this school-boy loutish- 
 ness, gave him an indignant shove saying: " Go, 
 you young cub; I could not believe that you were 
 a son of mine." 
 
 Giovanni stumbled against the table, making a 
 great tingling and clatter; then, recovering his 
 balance, he stood stock-still, without even raising 
 his eyes ; but his hands shook and his lips quivered, 
 and he had turned as pale as if he had suddenly 
 lost every drop of blood in his body. 
 
 " Let him alone, Dottore," said Signer Pedrotti, 
 shrugging his shoulders. " He has been badly 
 brought up, but he has plenty of brains and in time 
 he will know better. We will make a great man 
 of him yet." 
 
 The other guests now began to arrive; they 
 admired Rachel, paid their compliments, talked 
 loud, discussed the news, and Signer Pedrotti re- 
 peated the doctor's neat sentiment: " Set tu dal 
 del disc e set, o in del son io, son io con te. . ." at 
 which every one laughed, and clapped and ap- 
 plauded the doctor's pretty wit ; only Giovanni 
 stood immovable by the table, awkward, uncom- 
 fortable, pushed against by one, stared at by an- 
 
34 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 other who laughed at him to his face neglected 
 and despised by all. Rachel, however, looked at 
 him with compassion, and no sooner had her father 
 and the others fairly started a conversation among 
 themselves than she went up to the lad and said : 
 
 " Would you like to go out into the garden for 
 a little while ?" 
 
 He half raised his eyes, glanced at the space 
 between himself and the verandah, and seeing that 
 it was crowded with his benefactors, he rushed 
 past them, without saying a word, without turning 
 round, out of the glass door, and only stopped 
 when he was fairly outside ; thankful to find him- 
 self out of that room. 
 
 Rachel had followed him, and, like him, was 
 somewhat discomposed by this little scene. 
 
 " All the roses are over," she said, pulling a 
 few leaves from a rose-bush near at hand. " Do 
 you see how that medlar tree is loaded with 
 fruit ?" 
 
 And as she spoke she went slowly forward 
 looking round at Giovanni as though to suggest 
 that he should accompany her. He followed her; 
 but he still felt his humiliation and could hardly 
 manage to reply that indeed there was a great 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 35 
 
 quantity of fruit. Then, hearing the dinner bell, 
 he turned to go in again, as if he were in a hurry 
 to escape. 
 
 Some of the company had their children with 
 them, and Signor Pedrotti had had a separate 
 table laid for the young people and for Giovanni. 
 Rachel, to whom her father pointed out a place 
 at the bigger table, said to the lad : 
 
 " We must ask you to be so kind as to keep 
 an eye on these young gentlemen, or who knows 
 what mischief they might not be at," and she 
 pointed to a chair that had its back to the grown- 
 up company, where he would escape inspection 
 and comment. 
 
 Giovanni felt a genuine relief at finding him- 
 self thus isolated, and he thanked her simply and 
 not in the least awkwardly ; and after the meal, 
 during which, being out of sight he was also out 
 of mind, when the whole party were bustling in 
 and out of the garden with the coffee cups, he 
 went up to Rachel and asked her whether she had 
 enjoyed her dinner. 
 
 " Very much thank you ; and you ?" 
 
 " Oh ! I was most comfortably placed," ex- 
 claimed Giovanni gratefully. " Thank you a 
 
36 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 thousand times for having put me with the little 
 ones." 
 
 There was a short silence ; then he went on 
 again : " Will you say good-night to your father 
 forme; I do not wish to disturb him." And he 
 hurried away as if he were flying from the spot. 
 
 La Matta was astonished to see him return so 
 early, for the sun was still high; and she muttered, 
 as was her habit: " He likes being at home better 
 than going to the castle." 
 
 She stood gazing for some minutes at the door 
 of the room into which Giovanni had retreated; 
 and then exclaimed with a sigh : " What a pity it 
 is that he never plays any games now !" And 
 that evening she did not go out to gossip with her 
 neighbors. 
 
 Rachel had any number of relations at Borgo- 
 manero, at Boca, at Maggiore, at Orta ; she was 
 always driving about with her father and paying 
 visits, and the Dottorino had been too deeply 
 humiliated by his son's behavior at the castle ever 
 to wish to take him there again on the few oc- 
 casions when its proprietor, in the intervals of his 
 visits, invited him to dine there. 
 
 " Never again till he has shed the garb and 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 37 
 
 the manners of a Lay Friar, will you see him here 
 with me," the doctor said to Rachel when she en- 
 quired for him. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE vacation came to an end and Gio- 
 vanni went to Turin to study at the university 
 without seeing the companion of his childhood 
 any more. But he no sooner made a friend than 
 he talked to him of her and of the delights of 
 their childish play ; and then he would describe 
 how she had grown up during the years when he 
 was at school ; expatiate on her beauty, her grand 
 air and her dignified demeanor. Still, the whole 
 truth as to their one and only meeting he never 
 had the courage to confess ; not even the fact as 
 to his luckless conventual dress ; he preferred to 
 be communicative on the subject of his dreams 
 and hopes. His ecclesiastical garments were now 
 shed and left behind with the memories of school 
 and his loutish timidity; the life of the university, 
 the adoption of a dress like everybody else, the 
 
38 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 liking of his acquaintances and the consideration 
 which his talents did not fail to gain for him, were 
 pleasing to his naturally bold spirit. Notwith- 
 standing his intense admiration for Rachel, he did 
 not fail to throw himself into all the pleasures that 
 surrounded him ; and so far as the narrow limits 
 of his purse allowed, he was ready to pay for his 
 experience of life. He was eager to rid himself of 
 his awkwardness, his simplicity, and the novice- 
 like bashfulness of which he was so much ashamed. 
 He must be handsome, smart, elegant, to present 
 himself before her ; he must learn to talk with 
 ease and ready wit, and must have passed his ex- 
 aminations in such a way as to promise well for his 
 future. 
 
 He would say to his friend : " Look at so and 
 so, who is now delegate of a college and who has 
 written this or that he is the son of a dairy- 
 woman ; and so and so, who is now a minister, 
 was a tailor's apprentice." And then he would 
 mention Rossini, Beethoven, Haydn, and above 
 all Shakespeare ; he felt that he too could rise. 
 
 "I will be a great lawyer like Brofferio.* I 
 will make fifty thousand francs a year. Crowds 
 
 * Bvofterio was then at the height of his glory. 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 39 
 
 shall come to hear me conduct a case, all Fonta- 
 netto will want to be there. ..." 
 
 But at this time he said nothing about mar- 
 riage ; life was no less than a love-poem ; Rachel 
 should learn to feel the same admiration for his 
 talents, for his triumphs of eloquence, for his 
 glory, as he felt for her beauty. He said of her with 
 ingenuous sincerity: "She is so white and fair and 
 her clothes are so sweet and seemly, her ways and 
 actions are so delightful, that it all goes to one's 
 head ; I hardly dare speak to her, it seems too 
 bold ; she is made of superior stuff to us. I blushed 
 to hear my own big voice after hearing her speak, 
 and was ashamed of my own clumsiness as I 
 watched her move so softly and gracefully. I felt 
 as though if I held her hand I should leave the 
 mark of my fingers on it; but indeed I should as 
 soon think of doing such a thing as I should of 
 shaking hands with the queen." 
 
 Or he would point out some lady passing in 
 her carriage : " There. She is like that only 
 fresher ; and like that only fairer ; and like 
 that only. . ." And the third had some defect, 
 or lacked some perfection. But he did not feel 
 that any such gulf yawned between him and these 
 
4O THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 fine ladies as parted him from Rachel. It never 
 occurred to him that he was measuring the dis- 
 tance under more favorable circumstances. 
 
 Autumn came, and with it the long vacation ; 
 and Giovanni went home to Fontanetto. When 
 the lord of the castle informed his daughter that 
 the student was in the neighborhood and that he 
 had invited him to dine on the next day, Rachel 
 exclaimed compassionately : 
 
 " Oh dear, papa, could you not have left him 
 alone ? He is so shy that he is miserable when 
 he is with other people." 
 
 "Yes, he is shy, and it becomes him," replied 
 Pedrotti. " I cannot endure a forward lad. He 
 knows his position and keeps his place. This shows 
 that he has good sense, and if he always behaves 
 so he will get on ; well, we shall see. For at any 
 rate I shall give him a place at the children's table 
 that he may take no nonsense into his head ; I 
 have asked our friends to bring their children on 
 purpose, as they did last year." 
 
 Rachel was satisfied ; sure now of having 
 secured her old friend a position where he would 
 be spared humiliation, she breathed more freely, 
 saying : 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 4! 
 
 "Nothing could be better," and she went about 
 her duties as mistress of the house. 
 
 She dressed with as much simplicity as ever ; 
 a light muslin frock with no flouncing or frilling, 
 quite independent of the prevailing fashion ; a neat 
 crimped collar, such as she had always worn at 
 school, a little white apron edged with lace, and a 
 flower in her hair. And she came down-stairs 
 smiling and received the first arrivals with many 
 blushes and some reserve but without awkward- 
 ness, and with the ease and grace that were 
 natural to her. From time to time she glanced 
 out at the court-yard, a little anxious as to Gio- 
 vanni's first appearance. . .Would there be a repe- 
 tition of the scene of last year ? She wished to 
 avert that but did not know what to do. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE doctor was late. Signor Pedrotti began 
 to glance at the clock on the chimney-piece and to 
 count the five-minutes as they passed. The com- 
 pany had already done more than allude to the 
 quarter of an hour's grace after which no one 
 could ever be expected to wait, and had taken to 
 wandering up and down the room, inspecting the 
 names laid on the napkins, glancing at the pict- 
 ures, drumming on the window panes, talking 
 spasmodically and demeaning themselves like 
 spirits in torment. A storm was evidently brew- 
 ing which would not fail to fall on the head of the 
 hapless scape-goat. Rachel foreseeing it pulled a 
 few flowers out of the large bunch that decorated 
 the centre table and put them into a smaller vase 
 which she set in the middle of the children's table; 
 in the kindliness of her soul, she thought she was 
 providing some amends for the rebuffs under 
 which the hapless victim was doomed to suffer. 
 While she was still leaning busily over the table, 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 43 
 
 she heard a pleasant voice with a clear ring in it 
 like the upper notes of a tenor, which said : 
 
 " We are very late I am afraid. I found that 
 my father did not come in, so I came on to make 
 our excuses. . ." 
 
 Rachel turned round in surprise and saw at 
 once that the little priestling of the past year had 
 developed into the handsome young man who 
 stood before her ; but Giovanni had trusted too 
 much to his presence of mind, and when he found 
 himself face to face with her he turned scarlet. 
 He did not dare hold out his hand, but paused at 
 some little distance, bowing low and trying to 
 think of something to say, some address which 
 should not be absolutely commonplace but with- 
 out success. All that suggested itself was simply 
 this: 
 
 " How do you do, Signorina ; I hope you are 
 well ?" 
 
 He had grown a great deal, and was of a very 
 good height, straight and well built. His neck 
 was long and his head small ; his hair was black, 
 thick, and curly, his eyes dark and deep-set, his 
 cheek bones were rather strongly marked and had 
 a bright patch of color below the eyes, such as an 
 
44 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 actor puts on to give brilliancy to his glance. And 
 his look was in fact fiery and eager, with a sparkle 
 that gave the lie to his bashfulness if it did not 
 entirely conceal it. His lips, again, were brightly 
 red and dewy, his teeth large and white, with a 
 most engaging smile an attractive mouth alto- 
 gether, which it was a pity to think should ever be 
 hidden under a moustache. He was, in short, a 
 remarkably handsome young fellow ; but beauty, 
 which is often a snare to a man, sat lightly on him 
 because he was perfectly unconscious of it, or at 
 least he did not regard it as ground for vanity. 
 He still thought himself far beneath Rachel, and 
 his fixed purpose was to raise himself to her level 
 by his talents, by steady work, by the hardest and 
 most difficult means and not by good looks. 
 
 " Very well, thank you, Signor Giovanni, and 
 you ?" replied Rachel, slightly dashed and blush- 
 ing as deeply as himself. But these simple words 
 gave Giovanni the keenest pleasure, because they 
 were said in a way that suggested to his mind 
 that the companion of his childhood had begun to 
 feel a little conscious in his presence that he was 
 man enough for her to blush at his address as she 
 would at that of any other man. 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 45 
 
 While these brief salutations were being ut- 
 tered the Dottorino arrived, and all the party 
 sought their places at the table. Rachel did not 
 know what to say to this elegant young gentleman 
 who was to be put to sit with the children ; and she 
 remained standing between the two tables in the 
 greatest embarrassment. But Giovanni, who had 
 not altogether got rid of his shyness, and was still 
 delighted to escape the intolerable patronage of 
 his benefactors, made an effort to reassure Rachel 
 and himself. 
 
 " I hope," he said, and his voice was slightly 
 tremulous, " that I am not to be separated from 
 my little friends. We made acquaintance last 
 year. . ." 
 
 The little ones stared with open eyes and 
 mouths ; they did not recognize this grand gen- 
 tleman. Giovanni seated himself among them 
 and proceeded to help them. He cut up the meat 
 on their plates, gave them each a piece of 
 bread, and then tried to recall himself to their re- 
 membrance. 
 
 " Once upon a time there were six little chil- 
 dren. . ." and he went on to describe their various 
 tricks, making each in his turn feel a little ashamed ; 
 
46 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 " and there was one boy much bigger than they 
 were, dressed like a priest with a long gown like 
 this, and a hat like this. . ." and he sketched a 
 caricature of himself. 
 
 The children then remembered him and there 
 was such laughing and chattering and merriment 
 that at the other table they could not hear 
 each other speak for the noise. The doctor's 
 jokes, which for thirty years had never failed 
 of success, could not raise the faintest titter. 
 And so by degrees the solemn discussion of polit- 
 ical or municipal affairs was given up, and all 
 these grave dignitaries members of the town or 
 of the Provincial Council, and secretaries of paro- 
 chial boards were sitting with their heads and ears 
 turned to the children's table, only too glad when 
 they caught a few words that supplied a clue to 
 the cause of all this mirth. Signor Pedrotti, how- 
 ever, did not take this sudden metamorphosis in 
 his protege with so good grace as his colleagues. 
 His view of things was that he should always be 
 visibly and obviously the patron, shedding the 
 condescending dew of encouragement on a youth 
 unconscious of his own value, and having all the 
 credit himself of discovering an unappreciated 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 47 
 
 genius. He expected that Giovanni should be so 
 overcome by reverence and respect as not to dare 
 speak in his presence without being first spoken to ; 
 and the lad's newly-acquired independence seemed 
 to him a lack of deference. He thought he would 
 have him under his own eye to keep him in order so 
 he said with some irony : 
 
 "Since you are so merry there come here; 
 come and make us laugh too." 
 
 Giovanni, in the strictness of his rectitude had 
 all the inexperience of eighteen, he felt the offen- 
 siveness of this speech, as though his patron had 
 said: "Come and play the fool," and had added: 
 "as your father does." 
 
 Now, to play the parasite as his father did was 
 the thing he held in the greatest horror ; he was 
 always on his guard against it, and was defiant in 
 sheer dread of being servile. However, he rose 
 to obey, but he registered a vow to himself that 
 he would not " lend himself to the mean part of a 
 buffoon." 
 
 The seat which was offered to him was, 
 as it happened, next to Rachel ; perhaps be- 
 cause it became her, as mistress of the house, 
 to make room. But the guests at the upper 
 
48 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 table were none the gayer for Giovanni's join- 
 ing their circle. He was on the defensive, and 
 became very reserved and serious, as beseemed a 
 young gentleman among his seniors. He opened 
 a conversation with his young hostess on books 
 and reading ; and being strictly classical, a purist 
 and a puritan in matters of taste, he ran down the 
 modern school, and raved about i Promessi Sposi, 
 especially enlarging on the improvements in the 
 second edition. Rachel had read Manzoni's novel 
 at school, but she had heard nothing about the 
 editions, and knew of no difference between them ; 
 so, thinking to make herself agreeable to her 
 guest, she said she had read the first and desired 
 nothing better than to make herself acquainted 
 with the second ; expressing her ardent regrets at 
 having reached the age of discretion in ignorance 
 of the correct version of i Promessi Sposi. Gio- 
 vanni eagerly offered to lend it to her, and she ac- 
 cepted with no less eager acknowledgements. 
 
 But Signor Pedrotti interposed : 
 
 "What need," said he, "could there be for a 
 second edition ?" 
 
 The literary discussion was quite out of the or- 
 dinary groove of ideas at Fontanetto, and disturbed 
 
THE WANE OF AX IDEAL. 49 
 
 the philosophy of the lord of the castle. He regarded 
 all literary folk as a useless and idle crew, he could 
 not understand how any one should spend money 
 on books, " which, even if you read them, are no 
 manner of good when once they have been read," 
 and he exclaimed in solemn tones : " Good 
 Heavens ! How can such people earn enough to 
 live on ?" adding sternly: " They would do better 
 to work for their bread." 
 
 When he came in from walking through his 
 fields and plantations he would take up the news- 
 paper for which he subscribed, and say as he un- 
 folded it : " Now let us see how geese are 
 crammed." 
 
 This was a joke of the Dottorino's that Pe- 
 drotti had appropriated some ten years since, and 
 which the doctor never failed to applaud as a bril- 
 liant flash of original wit. 
 
 When he had disposed of the Promessi Sposi 
 Signor Pedrotti turned to the lady next to him 
 and remarked with a roguish air : 
 
 " I had my table made a metre longer this 
 summer, but before I have the pleasure of receiv- 
 ing my friends again I must have the doors made 
 wider." This was a facetious allusion to the crin- 
 
5O THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 olines, and of course every one laughed at his wit ; 
 while the doctor hummed the refrain of a song 
 that was just then popular at Novara comparing 
 the clouds of skirts that were in fashion to the tail 
 of a comet, and they all laughed again. 
 
 Then they talked about the comet, which was 
 the great event of the season ; and told stories of 
 the superstitions of the peasants. It was an omen 
 of ill, of an epidemic, of a great war, or a famine 
 etc., etc. But in spite of the laughter there 
 was a shade of uneasiness on some faces sup- 
 pose the peasants were right after all ! 
 
 " Old Castalda," said Pedrotti, " told me the 
 other evening that the comet swept the court- 
 yard with its great tail ; and fell to crying : ' The 
 worse for us, whatever shall we poor mortals do ?' 
 I asked her why. ' Don't you see,' she said, ' it will 
 sweep away the harvest.' What an idea. Ha, ha, 
 ha!" 
 
 He expected a response from the doctor, and 
 seeing him intent on his conversation with his 
 neighbor he called out to him : " Do you hear, 
 Dottorino, the comet is to sweep away the har- 
 vest !" 
 
 " Indeed ! I should be glad to have all that is 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 5 I 
 
 left after the sweeping," the doctor hastened to re- 
 ply, having made the same remark at home. This 
 answer satisfied Pedrotti, who was always flattered 
 by any suggestion that others wanted or wished 
 for anything he possessed. He led the laugh, and 
 indeed, at this rate, there was no reason why they 
 should cease to laugh for the rest of the even- 
 ing. 
 
 Meanwhile the choicer souls had found them- 
 selves in perfect agreement Just opposite Gio- 
 vanni sat the wife of the secretary to the town 
 council who took no part in the general diversion. 
 She was a woman of about forty ; tall, thin and 
 fair, but so sunburnt as to look at a distance fresh 
 and rosy, thus encouraging her pretensions to ju- 
 venility. She always sat with downcast eyes ; al- 
 ways spoke with her lips pursed up, and so sour 
 an expression that she seemed to spite everybody ; 
 but as a matter of fact she was always saying kind 
 and even pretty speeches : " Rachel dear, you 
 look as fresh as a flower to-day," but in a tone 
 that might have implied : " What on earth in- 
 duced you to dress yourself such a figure?" 
 
 Then she had a mania for singing the most la- 
 mentable and time-honored songs : 
 
 4 * 
 
52 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 " Non mi cliiamate piu biondiua bella." 
 
 And here the doctor invariably whispered to 
 his next neighbor that it was many years since 
 any one had thought of such a thing. 
 
 " Chiamatemi biondina sventurata."* 
 
 This lady began a sentimental discourse on 
 music for Giovanni's benefit. 
 
 " I feel music," she began, " I feel it so deeply 
 that I suffer under it. It always makes me cry. 
 Last year, on the lake of Orta, we went out one 
 night in a boat and played and sang by moonlight. 
 A flute oh how delicious the tone of a flute is ! 
 
 " lo t'amerb finche le rondinelle!" 
 
 Giovanni, finding himself treated for the first 
 time in his life as a man, and taken into the con- 
 fidence of a lady of so much importance, thought 
 he could not do better than agree entirely with 
 her sentiments on music. He quoted vehemently 
 from an article he had read in a Milan newspaper, 
 and declaimed against Wagner a tirade to which 
 the lady listened with no more than the vaguest 
 comprehension. He talked rather loudly to give 
 
 * " Call me no longer fair and beautiful, call me henceforth, alas, 
 the hapless fair." 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 53 
 
 himself courage and also to seem quite at his ease, 
 making rather a display of his contempt for the 
 frivolous subjects that were occupying the atten- 
 tion of the rest of the company, and defiantly 
 keeping his share of the conversation on the 
 higher level of art and literature, as much as to 
 say: "This is my element; and I cannot descend 
 to your petty interests." 
 
 At last Pedrotti lost patience : 
 
 " It seems to me," he said, " that you think 
 rather too much of politics, and music, and things 
 that do not concern you. You would do better 
 to leave the fine arts to finer folks and attend a 
 little more to your studies, or all the sacrifices that 
 have been made for you will be thrown away." 
 
 Giovanni, who had colored, turned pale with 
 rage. And he was on the point of replying in- 
 dignantly, but at that instant Rachel placed a dish 
 of bonbons before him and asked him with a smile 
 to take one. 
 
 " Thanks," said he, but without attending ; .and 
 he put out a tremulous hand to pass the dish to 
 his neighbor and utter the retort he had on the 
 tip of his tongue. But Rachel insisted. 
 
 "You will not refuse me?" said she. 
 
54 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 No, he did not refuse, he took one the first 
 that came, and again put out his hand to pass the 
 dish. She, however, recommended a different 
 variety ; a chocolate bonbon. He was forced to 
 accept and to thank her. 
 
 Signor Pedrotti meanwhile had plunged into 
 another subject; he was discussing the fluctuation 
 of wealth ; to which the doctor with his unfailing 
 readiness contrasted the stability of poverty, a joke 
 which, happening to be new, produced a dazzling 
 effect. Giovanni at length saw that Rachel's ma- 
 noeuvre had been intended only to avert a war of 
 words between her father and himself; and he 
 thought it a miracle of readiness and tact. " She 
 is a perfect lady," he thought to himself, and he 
 felt more ashamed than ever of his timidity and 
 of his affected boldness. He desired above all 
 things to be a real and perfect gentleman ; but he 
 saw that he fell short of it, and he no longer dared 
 to assert his pretensions. Face to face with Rachel 
 he felt his smallness and was humiliated. He 
 would have been only too glad if he could have 
 achieved some heroic adventure to raise himself in 
 the young girl's estimation; but, in reality, he 
 scarcely dared to say half a dozen words to her, 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 55 
 
 nor did he venture to offer her his hand when he 
 took leave ; though ever since he had come in, 
 nay even before, he had been burning to do so. 
 
 Rachel herself was as gracious and kind as she 
 could be over their parting; and when she was 
 alone, just before going to rest, she sat down on 
 the edge of the bed, slightly pensive as she re- 
 membered that only the day before she had ex- 
 changed a few jesting speeches with a young law- 
 yer of the town, a man of about thirty who had 
 seemed disposed to pay her some attention ; and a 
 sudden disgust, a blind impulse of rage surged up 
 in her soul against that young man ; if he had 
 been by, she could have slapped him. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 DURING the days that followed Rachel could 
 not get the thought of Giovanni out of her head ; 
 the lad's eager speech had made a great impres- 
 sion on her. He must certainly be wonderfully 
 familiar with art and letters to be able to talk like 
 that. Her father was an old man and lived buried 
 in a village ; he was incapable of appreciating him; 
 that young fellow was really immensely clever. . . 
 
 Then as she thought of the mortifications to 
 which his patrons had subjected him, her blood 
 boiled ; she felt that their injustice and cruelty 
 were quite preposterous. The slightest allusion to 
 the allowance they made him she felt as an insult, 
 and in her eyes Giovanni was one of society's vic- 
 tims a noble victim, enduring his torture with a 
 dignity that was nothing less than sublime, curb- 
 ing his youthful ardor of indignation and smother- 
 ing his justifiable pride out of respect for his 
 seniors. She idealized him into a martyr and a 
 hero. 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 57 
 
 She had guessed, too, that he loved her, and 
 she was proud of it ; every time they happened 
 to meet she was prepared for "a declaration," and 
 when that should come she promised herself that 
 she would make up to him for all the humiliations 
 he had endured. This was a bold scheme, for 
 which she could find no precedent in the few love 
 stories she had read, nor in the confidences of her 
 school friends ; in these the young girl invariably 
 repulsed the first whispers of a lover, and only 
 responded to the second. Now, she had deter- 
 mined to answer at once : " Yes, I love you, be- 
 cause you are poor and unfortunate, and I am 
 ready to share your poverty and your misfor- 
 tunes." 
 
 And so, anticipating this " declaration," she 
 did her utmost to perform the part of a love-sick 
 maiden. She would say very frankly : " I cannot 
 bear people who are rich and ignorant. I will 
 never marry any but a man of talent. The pov- 
 erty of genius is a noble poverty ; all the greatest 
 men have been poor." 
 
 Then she was always talking of Giovanni ; not 
 that she ever felt bold enough to utter his name 
 she spoke of him as the doctor's son, and her 
 
58 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 friends would say : " You are in love with that 
 doctor's son." 
 
 Her chivalrous partisanship never led her to 
 the length of confessing this openly, but in her 
 childish quixotism she was very well content that 
 it should be guessed at. Her father contemned 
 this young fellow while she loved him ; it was an 
 indemnification. She carried this sentimentality 
 into everything she did ; she adopted a motto 
 which she wrote at the top of her note-paper, and 
 on her music, and in her books ; in short, every- 
 where : " Poor and destitute art thou, O phil- 
 osophy !" 
 
 Then she took a fancy to that imbecile in- 
 vention, the language of flowers, of which school- 
 girls are so fond, and always wore a symbolical 
 blossom in her dress ; flowers sometimes so strange 
 as to invite inquiry. For a time she always dis- 
 played a tulip, meaning a declaration of love 
 the declaration she was expecting from Giovanni ; 
 then, she appeared with a carnation pinned head 
 downwards. 
 
 " Why do you wear your pink upside down ?" 
 
 " It stands for unrequited love." 
 
 One day, when she felt very desperate, she 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 59 
 
 stuck a thistle into her dress that pricked her 
 friends when they embraced her. This was the 
 emblem of grief. She worked herself the most 
 wonderful collars, on which, instead of the usual 
 arabesques or lace patterns, she embroidered 
 pansies with a sentimental motto, or doves with 
 a note in their beaks with some illegible posy ; 
 all of which was labor lost, since the minuteness 
 of the work made the intention invisible; as to 
 Giovanni, he lived too retired a life for the gossip 
 of the girls, who understood all these whimsical- 
 ities, ever to reach his ears. 
 
 He, for his part, shut himself up with his flame, 
 smarting under his inferior position. During these 
 vacation months he spent the greater part of the 
 day in solitary wanderings across the country, 
 thinking, dreaming, building endless castles in the 
 air. He dreamed of a time when he should have 
 finished his studies and achieved something great; 
 something what precisely he did not know 
 his visions varied with the mood he was in or the 
 books he had last read. One day he would dream 
 of the triumph of some grand dramatic piece, an- 
 other of gaining some great case as a pleader ; or 
 of bringing out a book which should be applauded 
 
60 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 by all the critics, or of being unanimously elected 
 deputy, and returned as member to parliament by 
 the devotion and respect of the whole district ; 
 then he would have succeeded in carrying some 
 important measure, against all hope, by a splendid 
 display of parliamentary eloquence. Sometimes 
 again his dreams were of battle, and of heroic 
 courage ; he saw himself wounded, decorated on 
 'the field, and promoted to high rank the man 
 on whom the eyes of Italy were fixed. And when 
 he had reached the crowning glory of his dream 
 he threw himself at Rachel's feet saying : " I 
 have done all this only to make myself worthy of 
 you." 
 
 The Rachel of his visions always received him 
 kindly, tenderly, nay, with gratitude they were 
 alone in those dreams, and mastered by his pas- 
 sion, she yielded to his embrace and confessed that 
 she yes, she too, had always loved him, and that 
 she had waited because her faith in him had never 
 failed. 
 
 At length he became so entirely absorbed in 
 these imaginings that he avoided meeting any one 
 for fear of interrupting them ; he had created a 
 world of illusion in which he was exquisitely 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 6 1 
 
 happy, in that haven of bliss his shyness and lout- 
 ishness caused him no embarrassment or blushes ; 
 he saw himself as he would like to be, and he was 
 content By degrees he persuaded himself that 
 this phantom existence had its foundation in real- 
 ity ; that Rachel knew all about it since, in it, he 
 told her everything ; and he ceased to regard it 
 as a fabric of his fancy, but thought of it as a 
 secret in which she was a sharer. 
 
 One evening, as he was going up the hill, he 
 met Rachel with a party who were coming down 
 from seeing the vineyard. She felt herself color, 
 she lost the thread of the sentence she was utter- 
 ing, and was altogether so much agitated by see- 
 ing him that she dared not raise her eyes, and 
 barely greeted him with a slight bow. In point 
 of fact setting aside the circumstance of her 
 being in love with him there was no reason why 
 this young lady, the only child and heiress of the 
 richest proprietor in the district, should bow at all 
 more effusively to this impecunious student ; but 
 Giovanni had so merged their two lives in his love 
 dreams, had made himself so completely one with 
 her, that at last he had persuaded himself that 
 there was a real chain between them, and her dis- 
 
62 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 tant greeting had the effect on his nerves of a 
 drenching from head to foot with a pail of cold 
 water ; it startled him as something extraordinary 
 it was an infidelity, a desertion. He was sore 
 and unhappy ; he went over all his reasons for 
 thinking that Rachel loved him : the flowers that 
 she had placed before him with her own hands 
 when he had sat at the side-table ; the sweatmeat 
 she had pressed upon him to save him from his 
 skirmish with her father. . . . These were all ; but 
 on these slender materials, followed by her cold 
 bow, he constructed a whole romance of love and 
 faithlessness, in which he played the interesting 
 part of the victim ; and the next morning, hap- 
 pening to be Sunday, he went to church and seat- 
 ing himself at the end of Signor Pedrotti's seat, in 
 the attitude affected by disconsolate lovers, he kept 
 his eyes fixed on Rachel throughout the service 
 with a mournful and reproachful gaze, which dis- 
 turbed Rachel greatly. 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 63 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 WHEN Giovanni was about to return to college 
 he was once more bidden to dine with Signer 
 Pedrotti. The doctor was jubilant as he delivered 
 this invitation. A good dinner was always a joy- 
 ful event in his eyes. Giovanni, on the contrary, 
 was painfully excited, and indulged in the wildest 
 schemes and visions which deprived him of sleep. 
 Thus, the next day, when the time came to 
 make his appearance at his patron's house he 
 was quite exhausted by having lain awake all 
 night with his thoughts, in a fevered alternation of 
 lovers' day-dreams indignation, reproaches, re- 
 conciliation over which he had shed torrents of 
 hot tears in the confidence of his pillow. This 
 time he was very certain that he must utter the 
 secret which was tormenting him ; he thought 
 that after all he had suffered it would be easier 
 to speak than to be silent. 
 
 " Why did she bow so coldly ? How have I 
 offended her ? Has she forgotten that she placed 
 
64 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 those flowers for me on the side- table ? Can she 
 think that I could fail to understand what she 
 meant by those flowers ? They were a confession, 
 a promise. . ." And he felt as though he were 
 actually pouring all this out to Rachel herself who 
 could not did not, wonder after all that had 
 passed between them. 
 
 But, as often occurs with castle-builders, all 
 his visions vanished at the first touch of reality. 
 He no sooner saw the table laid, the customary 
 guests, the regular force of children, Rachel's face 
 with its polite smile, than he knew he had dreamed 
 dreams, and that there was nothing between him 
 and the young girl that was not perfectly common- 
 place. The discovery mortified him ; he was dis- 
 couraged, dejected, and took no pains to seem at 
 his ease as he had on the previous occasion. See- 
 ing him sit with his eyes cast down, silent, and 
 eating nothing, Signor Pedrotti felt that he could 
 forgive his protege and he had no objection to re- 
 sume the role of patron, to give him some en- 
 couragement, and to predict a brilliant future for 
 the lad. 
 
 "You must become a great man and justify 
 the confidence I have shown in you. I shall 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 6$ 
 
 have the glory of having discovered a hidden 
 jewel. . . ." 
 
 When the lord of the castle pitched his ad- 
 dress in this key Giovanni did in fact feel much 
 encouraged, not only with regard to his career in 
 life, but in his hopes of love for Rachel. 
 
 " If he has confidence in me. . ." thought he 
 and the bitterness, the insolence, the mortification 
 under which he had smarted vanished from his 
 memory. 
 
 The Dottorino, always eager to amuse his host, 
 played the jester as usual, and by the end of din- 
 ner the company had become so jolly that the 
 presence of a young girl was inconvenient ; indeed, 
 that of a lad whose experience of life was as yet 
 an unknown quantity to them, rather paralyzed 
 the merriment of the older men. The whole party 
 went to take their coffee under the verandah, and 
 Pedrotti said to the two young people : 
 
 "Just go and see that the little ones do not 
 get into mischief and climb up the terrace 
 bank." 
 
 The lovers went as they were bidden, without 
 looking at each other. The way from the verandah 
 to the terrace was along a straight path over- 
 
66 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 arched with creepers ; they were still under the 
 eye of their elders ; but above all they were in- 
 tensely conscious of each other's presence. 
 
 The dinner had been a long business, and in 
 autumn the days are short ; it was growing dusk, 
 the terrace at the bottom of the garden looked out 
 over the plain, and the sun which was rapidly set- 
 ting, had already sunk behind the hills at the back 
 of the castle. The children, disturbed at their play, 
 ran up a side path and continued their game a lit- 
 tle way off and the two young people stood lean- 
 ing over the parapet of the terrace. The fields 
 were deserted and silent ; hardly a cricket or a 
 cicala was to be heard prolonging its shrill chirp 
 after the noisy concert of its hushed companions, or a 
 frog croaking from time to time in the pond, with 
 the chattering of the children in the upper path. 
 The waters of the Sissone, at some little distance, 
 made a sound like a saw. The balustrade was 
 overgrown by a Virginia creeper and the leaves, 
 though they had not yet fallen, had turned bright 
 red. It struck Giovanni that it was just here that 
 he had dreamed of making his confession and 
 clasping Rachel to his heart in an ecstasy of 
 love. 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 6/ 
 
 He looked at her so strange to him, so dig- 
 nified and so handsome, and his vision seemed 
 nothing less than preposterous. He was ashamed 
 at the mere remembrance of it, and he wanted to 
 make some commonplace remark for fear that 
 Rachel should guess his madness; but he did not 
 know what to say. Under the verandah they could 
 see the tiny lightning of the fusees, and then they 
 died out and the steady sparks of the men's cigars 
 burnt, like fiery eyes that watched them from afar. 
 A loud laugh reached their ears, and all that 
 Giovanni could find to say in an agitated tone 
 was: 
 
 " How they are laughing !" 
 
 Rachel made no reply but "yes," and she 
 smiled at her companion, as though to qualify the 
 abruptness of the monosyllable. As their eyes 
 met Giovanni remembered how he had looked at 
 her in church, and the same feelings came over 
 him, but minus the courage to speak which had 
 then fired his spirit. Rachel too had blushed 
 crimson, and she bent forward to gaze at the view 
 and hide her glowing color. Giovanni perceived 
 that she was experiencing some new sensation 
 now that she was alone with him ; he looked at 
 
68 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 her and trembled. Rachel's blushes and agitation 
 were caused by him they were for him and 
 they should not elude him as his dreams had done. 
 Still, he could find nothing to say, indeed he was 
 not sure that he could command his voice to 
 speak. Those starry cigars disturbed him, and 
 every now and then one of the little ones would 
 rush at him and throw its arms round his knee: 
 and hide behind his legs, while the pursuer skip- 
 ped round him shouting with glee. All this dis- 
 concerted him and jarred upon him, and mean- 
 while his heart was beating wildly, his throbbing 
 pulses deafened him, and he felt his senses failing 
 him as if he were fainting. He took one step 
 towards Rachel as though to exclaim : ' I love 
 you," but a sudden gush of tears welled up in his 
 heart ; he did not speak but bent his face over the 
 marble parapet, sobbing as if he were broken- 
 hearted. 
 
 Rachel looked round. " Giovanni ! oh what 
 is the matter ?" she asked, but her voice too was 
 choked with tears. 
 
 That instant all his doubts were solved. Gio- 
 vanni drew himself up with flashing eyes and 
 flaming cheeks : " The matter is that I am a 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 69 
 
 fool a madman. . ." he began with a passionate 
 impulse. 
 
 Two of the children came tearing down upon 
 them, laughing and shrieking, and drove them 
 against the balustra.de; and all the glittering 
 cigars danced before his eyes. 
 
 "That that. . ." he went on in a low voice, 
 and he came to a full stop. 
 
 There they stood, side by side, with their 
 heads bent ; but he held out his hand to her for 
 the first time to say good-night, and Rachel gave 
 him hers. They were both as cold as ice and 
 both trembling. Giovanni grasped her fingers 
 with a desperate grip ; then, in a voice as thick 
 and tremulous as that of a drunkard, he said : 
 
 " I cannot tell you what is the matter," and he 
 fled, almost running, till he was within reach of 
 those cigars which seemed ready to consume 
 him. 
 
 Later in the evening, when he was away from 
 the young girl, walking home along the dark 
 lanes with his father who stumbled and tottered 
 in his gait, Giovanni was seized with a sort of fury 
 against himself, calling himself an idiot, and shed- 
 ding tears of rage to think that he should have let 
 
7O THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 such an opportunity slip without saying all that 
 weighed on his heart ; and now it would be a whole 
 year before he could see Rachel again. And Rachel, 
 at the same hour, had locked herself into her 
 room, dissolved in tears, and crying for pardon to 
 the young man for having failed to find some kind 
 word of consolation, for having stood there like u 
 simpleton or a woman devoid alike of heart and 
 sense. They loved each other and they knew it, 
 and what more can two souls want in this world 
 to make them happy and they were both 
 miserable. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 MANY a time when he was away in Turin Gio- 
 vanni felt a passionate desire to write to Rachel. 
 But he knew that she could not receive a letter by 
 post without the risk, or indeed the certainty, of 
 discovery. The post-office official of Fontanetto 
 was the baker, who also dealt in groceries and 
 hardware ; his wife and daughter took the greatest 
 interest in all the letters that came and went ; they 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 7. 
 
 knew the handwriting and correspondents of all 
 the gentry in the neighborhood, and it was quite 
 beyond all hoping that a letter from Turin, ad- 
 dressed to Signorina Pedrotti, should pass through 
 their hands without giving rise to gossip and en- 
 quiry, even before it reached the castle. All the 
 same he could not resist the impulse to express 
 on paper the fever that was devouring his heart : 
 " I love you, Rachel; with all the ardor of a first 
 passion ; I love you, and my love is hopeless. 
 Tell me that you love me say only once that 
 you love me. . ." And he found a comfort in hear- 
 ing his own voice as he read the vehement appeal 
 aloud, again and again. Sometimes, instead of 
 writing, he would read some appropriate epistles 
 from la Nouvelle Heloise, or les Confessions d'nn 
 Enfant du Siecle or Jacopo Ortis, and he could 
 have believed that he had written them himself 
 and was in all the misery that they expressed, so 
 utterly melancholy was he under the influence of 
 his suppressed passion. Then he would read the 
 answers of the hapless ladies to whom they were 
 addressed, and pity Rachel as if the letters were 
 hers and insuperable obstacles stood between her 
 and her lover. 
 
72 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 The autumn holidays however brought him a 
 less romantic vein of ideas. It was an eventful 
 year in Fontanetto ; a grand festival was to be 
 held, in honor of the transfer thither of the sacred 
 body of St. Alexander. All the authorities and 
 all the squireens had their houses filled with guests 
 Avho sat round their hospitable boards by dozens, 
 while superfluous covers were laid for unexpected 
 visitors. Strangers poured in from every town 
 within reach, even from Novara. At the castle 
 were two ladies, a mother and daughter, from 
 Milan, and with them a Swiss. The Swiss lady 
 was the governess, but Signer Pedrotti did not like 
 that this should be known and he introduced her 
 to every one with an important air, as if she were 
 some great personage who had come all the way 
 from Zurich, and rushed to Fontanetto, to do 
 honor to the bones of St. Alexander, and the 
 savory meats prepared in the castle kitchen. 
 
 The festival lasted three days ; but it kept the 
 whole country side in excitement all through the 
 month of August and even longer. 
 
 There is greater individual freedom at a din- 
 ner of fifty people than at one of ten, no doubt. 
 Giovanni and Rachel soon found themselves prac- 
 
THE WANE OF AX IDEAL. 73 
 
 tically tete-a-tete in the midst of the noisy crowd. 
 The surroundings however were not sufficiently 
 poetical to encourage the lad to give utterance to 
 the expressions of devotion that he had composed 
 the previous evening; he was forced to fall back 
 on something less high flown : 
 
 " Do you know I wanted to write to you from 
 Turin indeed I did write several times." 
 
 " Good Heavens ! but no letters ever reached 
 me !" exclaimed Rachel, terrified at the notion of 
 those effusions in the hands of heaven knows 
 who. 
 
 "Do not be uneasy," Giovanni hastened to 
 add. " I wrote, but I did not send the letters." 
 
 " Then why did you write them ?" 
 
 " Because I felt that I must I had so much 
 to say to you." Then after a short pause he went 
 on, lowering his voice : " And you did you 
 never feel so ?" 
 
 " You ask too much," said Rachel with a blush 
 a blush which meant yes, that she too had 
 written, that she was a little ashamed of it, but 
 that she longed to give him those suppressed 
 documents and to read his. 
 
 Giovanni had to a great extent conquered his 
 
74 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 schoolboy bashfulness ; he dared to look his 
 pretty neighbor straight in the eyes, and he did 
 not blush ; she, on her part, ventured to glance at 
 him from time to time, and the oftener when they 
 happened to be at some little distance apart ; and 
 they said all sorts of tender things with their mel- 
 ancholy gaze ; words could not have been more 
 eloquent, they understood each other now; in 
 their mute dialogue each said to the other: " If 
 only we were alone !" 
 
 Every evening Rachel went to walk or sit on 
 the terrace at the bottom of the garden and Gio- 
 vanni would pass up and down the road on the 
 further side of the moat with his eyes fixed on her ; 
 while she gazed after him as long as he was in 
 sight ; and he would turn round at every step, 
 linger to look back, and at last, at the bend in the 
 road, when he had passed and repassed till it was 
 quite dark and they could hardly see each other, he 
 would take off his hat very slowly, so as to pro- 
 long the bow to which she responded with a slight 
 sign of recognition. The possibilities of that twi- 
 light meeting formed the subject of their wakine 
 dreams all day. After the first time, they had each, 
 without any agreement, returned at the same hour, 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 75 
 
 she to the terrace, and he to the road below ; and 
 the same performance always was repeated he 
 walked up and down, they gazed and bowed at 
 parting; but it was an exquisite joy, and they 
 were both wretched when by some accident one 
 or the other failed to keep the unspoken tryst. 
 The day after such an absence the defaulter put 
 on every demonstration of guilt and penitence and 
 the other, who had been punctual, gave signs of 
 indignation. In short, by dint of glances which, 
 however, at such a distance had no more expres- 
 sion than a stare they succeeded in agitating 
 each other in turns, in feeling rapture or misery, 
 and in stirring up that tempest of emotions which 
 makes young hearts beat wildly and leaves them 
 passive victims of admiration, love, and longing. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE feast of St. Alexander was over; and was 
 even ceasing to be the sole theme of conversation ; 
 every one who happened to have a plot of vines 
 on the sunny slope of the hill was beginning to 
 think of the vintage. The Dottorino did not own 
 a single leaf or stem in all the vegetable kingdom; 
 the carnation that bloomed on the window ledge 
 in a broken bowl was La Matta's property, and 
 the bowl even had been only hypothetically his, 
 since he had never paid for it. But the doctor was 
 no less the soul of the vintage than he was of the 
 dinner-table. 
 
 " You may trust me to eat none of your 
 grapes," he said. " The fox who only discovered 
 that those grapes were sour that were out of reach 
 was not half so acute as I am. He did not know 
 that even those in the basket are always sour. 
 Graves are never ripe enough for me till they have 
 been through the wine-vat." And of course the 
 proprietors did not fail to produce a bottle of the 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 77 
 
 ripe grape and taste it with him ; they knew too 
 well its happy effects on the doctor's jolly soul 
 to withhold this encouragement. 
 
 One day Giovanni and his father happened to 
 meet on the high-road and the doctor proposed 
 that his son should accompany him to Signer 
 Pedrotti's vineyard where they were about to pull 
 the white grapes, spending the day there. Rachel 
 would not go out on the terrace that evening then. 
 Giovanni felt a sudden deference to the paternal 
 desire. . . He only turned round and walked by 
 his side till they reached the vineyard, it is true, 
 then they parted and took different paths, the old 
 man making at once by the shortest way to the 
 lodge in the grounds. All the rank and fashion 
 of Fontanetto were present and Giovanni could 
 catch fragments of conversations through the vines. 
 
 " They are as sweet as honey," said the secre- 
 tary's grim-visaged wife in the tone in which she 
 might have said : " They are poison." 
 
 " I always want the bunches that are out of 
 reach," said a young shrill voice. 
 
 " Then there is one that will make your mouth 
 water," remarked Rachel, stooping down and 
 thrusting one arm as far as she could stretch 
 
78 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 through the branches that trailed over the ground, 
 while she supported herself with the other on the 
 burnt chalky earth. But the bunch was far, far in 
 quite on the further side of the vine-row and she 
 could not gather it. She felt something hot touch 
 her hand and some one grasped it for an instant ; 
 when she drew it back she saw that she held a 
 carnation. 
 
 " What is the matter ? What made you cry 
 out ?" asked her companion. 
 
 " I scratched myself among the branches," re- 
 plied Rachel who had recognized the burning lips 
 and the carnation as those of Giovanni. 
 
 Then, as she moved on, looking for the best 
 bunches of grapes, she gradually increased her 
 pace till, stooping once more, she disappeared un- 
 der the trailing boughs of the vines and was lost 
 among them. There was nothing to hinder her ; 
 in a vineyard everyone goes where he pleases. 
 She had acted without any distinct plan ; she only 
 knew that Giovanni was there and her heart 
 prompted her to escape from the crowd. In a 
 moment he had caught sight of her pretty head 
 through the vines, crowned with leaves like a 
 young Bacchus. He gazed at her with eager and 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 79 
 
 melancholy eyes, and his fixed gaze attracted her 
 irresistibly. With her head bent, her cheeks scar- 
 let and with a slow reluctant step, she walked tow- 
 ards him as though in a mesmeric trance ; he 
 bowed low and lifting the branches that were in 
 her way made an arch under which she passed in 
 silence. The boughs fell again, and the pair stood 
 face to face ; pale now, tremulous and palpitating, 
 alone in the alley between the vine rows, where 
 the grapes had all been plucked. Giovanni took 
 her hand and said : 
 
 " I am going the day after to-morrow then, 
 for a year, we shall not meet again." 
 
 Rachel bent her head but she said nothing. 
 Giovanni's tall figure was very close to hers, and 
 his face, bending above her head, tingled with a 
 vehement longing to clasp her in his arms ; his 
 warm breath fanned the tendrils of her wreath 
 and she felt it on her ear and throat. Rachel 
 sighed deeply, as if she had some great trouble on 
 her mind. He too sighed ; and then, as though 
 to give some relief to the oppression that weighed 
 on them both, he drew her arm through his own 
 as if she were his wife, but without leaving go of 
 her hand. 
 
bO THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 "You are mine always mine?" he asked in 
 a whisper. 
 
 "Yes, yes," replied Rachel with another sigh, 
 and then she added : " We will be like a brother 
 and sister." 
 
 It was a phrase she had picked up from some 
 novel. To Giovanni it was the most delicious 
 evidence of childlike innocence ; a strain of 
 heavenly poetry. He felt that he ought to go 
 down on his knees to her for that speech, and he 
 promised her that he would indeed always love 
 her so. At that moment he really believed him- 
 self capable of such sublime heights. After this 
 they found no more to say ; they walked on in 
 silence both very grave and both much troubled 
 in soul ; pressing each other's hands to gain cour- 
 age, and as serious and mute as though they had 
 performed some solemn rite. When they reached 
 the end of the alley they separated. They had 
 clung closely together until then, but now, at the 
 moment when he bent down to kiss her, Giovanni 
 was suddenly conscious of the open sky, and the 
 wide world around them, he drew her aside under 
 a cherry tree from which the despoiled branches 
 of a vine hung in festoons. There, under the 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 8 1 
 
 green vault, hidden from the world and the all- 
 seeing sky, he spread his arms with a beseeching 
 gesture ; he wanted Rachel to nestle in them of 
 her own free will. She flew to his heart, and he 
 clasped her with a vehemence that gave the lie to 
 their fraternal projects ; but their souls were inno- 
 cent; and the Cherubim and Seraphim, the 
 Thrones and Dominions nay the eleven thou- 
 sand virgins themselves, might have looked down 
 on that passionate and desperate embrace without 
 a blush. 
 
 When the doctor and his son came home from 
 the vineyard La Matta was diligently watering and 
 weeding her carnation. She had counted its 
 flowers again and again ; and she was sure that 
 one was missing. That morning Giovanni had 
 gone out for his walk with a carnation in his but- 
 ton-hole and La Matta was singing and laughing 
 with all her heart and watered her plant with 
 more satisfaction than ever, and counted its flowers 
 once more. When Giovanni came in the .girl 
 went out to meet him with a broad smile on her 
 face ; but the next instant she had ceased to smile 
 and went back to her kitchen the carnation was 
 gone. 
 
82 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 Later in the evening the Dottorino was stand- 
 ing at his front door ; all the party who had re- 
 mained to dine up at Pedrotti's vineyard were 
 coming home down the hill and when they 
 reached the doctor's house they paused to say good 
 evening. La Matta was at the window again, but 
 she was not singing now. She looked down on the 
 Signorina Pedrotti, and seeing how tall and hand- 
 some she was, and how well dressed, she reflected 
 with stupid satisfaction : " She cannot play with 
 Giovanni now-a-days." 
 
 At this moment Giovanni himself stepped 
 out on the balcony of his room, calling out : 
 "Good evening." "Good evening," answered 
 one and another, and then, after the rest, Rachel's 
 voice, clear, but somewhat tremulous, said : 
 " Good evening," and she glanced up at Giovanni 
 and smelt at a carnation. 
 
 Next morning, when Giovanni went to the 
 window to gather another carnation, he found 
 nothing, not even the cracked bowl. La Matta 
 never would understand his enquiries nor tell him 
 what had become of the carnation plant. She only 
 shrugged her shoulders and said : " I do not 
 know." But, in fact, Giovanni hardly dared 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 83 
 
 to question her very closely, La Matta was 
 so excessively cross during those few days. 
 She eat nothing and her eyes were always red 
 with crying. Some one was ill, perhaps, at her 
 foster-mother's. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 YEARS went by. Giovanni proved indeed that 
 his talents were exceptional ; he studied indefatiga- 
 bly, spoke well, wrote, elegantly, and was not a bad 
 poet. As he grew older and learnt more, his love 
 too throve and grew, and was a serious motive in 
 his life. As the lad became a man and knew 
 more of the world, his judgment ripened, and his 
 passion, while it was less romantic, was deeper 
 and truer. The fraternal relations he had accepted 
 in a moment of youthful aberration now made 
 him smile. He had returned to Fontanetto every 
 autumn, but now that he was a man and, indeed, 
 for that very reason he never found himself 
 alone with Rachel. Nevertheless they felt them- 
 selves bound to each other just as much as though 
 they had been betrothed. Their eyes, which 
 never failed to meet as though an electric current 
 flashed between them, their hands, which clasped 
 and clung so eagerly, held them as securely as a 
 pledge in words could have done. They had long 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 8$ 
 
 memories of their patient and romantic love and 
 it had all been like this speechless. 
 
 Even Signer Pedrotti was effusive about Gio- 
 vanni and appeared to be very fond of him ; in- 
 deed, when his college life was over and Giovanni 
 came home loaded with laurels, he was so affec- 
 tionate to him that the lad grew quite confident. 
 It was evident that there was nothing he would 
 like better than to call him his son. Now it was 
 the eve of Giovanni's departure for Milan where 
 he was about to enter on his career as a lawyer. 
 He had eaten his last dinner at the castle and 
 matters were just where they had so long been ; 
 but Signor Pedrotti had that evening been particu- 
 larly friendly to his protege; he had embraced 
 him repeatedly, speaking of him as : " our young 
 avvocato." 
 
 " You are now launched on a splendid career," 
 he had said. " You are not to disappoint me you 
 know. Remember that I have promised myself 
 that I shall see you a great man. I have put my 
 faith in you, and now that you have won your 
 laurels it lies with you to do me credit." 
 
 Then he had embraced him once more and 
 added : " Who knows whether we may not see 
 
86 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 you deputy some day and have to apply to you 
 for all that concerns the welfare of our part of the 
 country ? Who knows I say if only you are 
 determined . . . Where there's a will there's a 
 way." 
 
 All this was said with an air of thorough good 
 faith, but his real motive was rather to remind 
 Giovanni of the share he had had in planting that 
 crop of laurels and to patronize the young man, 
 than genuine admiration. 
 
 Giovanni however took it all for gospel. " I 
 put my faith in you where there's a will there's 
 a way." He had the will to win Rachel ; and if 
 her father had faith in his talents, why should 
 there not be a way too ? And Rachel herself per- 
 haps thought the same for she smiled as she saw 
 her father so affectionate in his demeanor towards 
 her lover. Presently, as Rachel handed him his 
 coffee cup, Giovanni whispered : " I must speak 
 to you before I leave." 
 
 " Speak," she said standing for a moment as if 
 to hand him the sugar. 
 
 "No, no; alone!" She did not seem at all 
 angry, but looked at him doubtfully, as much as 
 to say it was impossible. 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 87 
 
 " It is dark," she murmured, " we cannot go 
 out in the garden." 
 
 " No, not now, but to-morrow if you will go 
 out on the terrace I will cross the river by the 
 bridge where the water is low and under the 
 wall. . ." 
 
 He could think of no way of raising himself to 
 a level that would make him worthy of Signer 
 Pedrotti's daughter but by quitting his home and 
 her, and working long and bravely in one of the 
 great cities of Italy ; but he dreaded lest, during 
 his absence, while he was only laying the founda- 
 tions of their future, another suitor a rich pro- 
 prietor perhaps should come to ask Rachel's hand 
 and carry her off. This thought chilled his soul 
 and damped his courage. He felt that he must 
 drag it out of his heart like a thorn. He there- 
 fore made up his mind first to claim a solemn 
 promise from Rachel, and then prefer his suit to 
 her father and carry her pledge with him as a 
 talisman. 
 
 The next day Rachel had a headache and pre- 
 ferred sitting in the air quietly on the terrace 
 while her father went with some friends up to the 
 vineyard, where the leaves were now all fallen and 
 
88 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 the vines no longer offered any retreat for lovers ; 
 where the must was already fermenting in the 
 vats, and the masters found nothing to do but 
 to play a game of besique in the deserted lodge 
 with all the windows shut. Giovanni made his 
 way across the little bridge and under the terrace 
 wall where he was half hidden by the brambles 
 that grew over the bank. Rachel leaned over the 
 parapet, looking as pale and worn as though she 
 really had a bad headache. It was the same quiet 
 hour, the air was as damp and still, the autumn 
 shadows as softly gloomy, as on a similar occasion 
 three years before ; but in those three years their 
 spirits had developed and ripened ; Giovanni was 
 a lawyer and two and twenty. There was no hesi- 
 tation now, no seeking for words and phrases; 
 they spoke with the ready flow of love and mutual 
 confidence. They could not even reach to take 
 hands, but he looked up at her with ardent eyes, 
 and he said to her in his 'enchanting voice: 
 
 " Listen, Rachel ; I want you to give up loving 
 me as a brother. We are no longer two simple 
 children ; you know you must feel that such 
 love as that is not what I want of you." 
 
 "No, yes, I know," sighed Rachel, bashful and 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 89 
 
 blushing, but utterly sincere. He gazed into her 
 eyes, putting into that gaze all the passion that he 
 would fain have put into a kiss if only he could 
 have reached her ; then he went on : 
 
 " Will you allow me to ask your father to 
 promise you to me before I go ?" 
 
 " Oh yes, yes !" whispered Rachel tenderly. 
 Giovanni went on as if he were talking to himself 
 rather than to her, perfectly happy at receiving 
 this consent which so fully assured him of her 
 love : 
 
 " I hope, my darling, that you may never have 
 reason to repent of your words. You will see that 
 this is not a mere boyish fancy on my part. I am 
 confident that I shall make myself a name and a 
 position worthy of you. You cannot know no 
 one can think, what strength and courage your 
 love has given me. If I ever do anything worth 
 doing I shall owe it all to you, for it was the 
 thought of you that spurred me to a noble ambi- 
 tion ; to hard work and high aims ; and to win you 
 I hope and intend to conquer a place in the world, 
 and earn wealth." 
 
 He spoke humbly but with such a ring of pas- 
 sion in his voice that Rachel's heart thrilled as she 
 
9O THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 listened. She answered only with those ardent 
 eyes of hers and he went on : 
 
 " Do you think that I should ever have worked, 
 that I should at this moment have taken my de- 
 gree, if it had not been for you ? I have the seeds 
 of every evil passion in my soul, and at Turin 
 there are temptations enough to debase any man. 
 If I had not fed on that one desire that has ab- 
 sorbed all my being I should have taken life lightly 
 enough, have wasted all my best years, have dis- 
 gusted your father and the others, and have come 
 back here to mind sheep, as my father used to say ; 
 or have sunk to the level of those degraded creat- 
 ures who swarm in great cities, alternating between 
 misery and vice. It is you who have saved me 
 and spurred me to good issues and you still must 
 be my guardian spirit, standing as the prize and 
 goal of all my efforts, as the reward, the hope, the 
 delight and the repose of my life." 
 
 He threw up his hands as if beseeching her to 
 clasp them across the space that divided them ; 
 she leaned over and stretched down, but they 
 could not join. A terrible discouragement came 
 over her lover as he saw how fatally they were 
 parted. 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 91 
 
 " And if after all," he exclaimed, " your father 
 refuses me ?" 
 
 " For pity's sake do not think of such a thing!" 
 she cried. " It would be dreadful." 
 
 " But if he did, tell me, what would you do ?" 
 
 " I should die," she whispered. 
 
 "No, no, that is mere romance," answered 
 Giovanni impatiently. " Besides I will not have 
 you die ; you must live and be mine at all costs. 
 You will say that you will." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Even if your father forbids it." 
 
 "That would be impossible." 
 
 " Why ?" 
 
 " Why . . . because ... I do not know ; but I 
 could not disobey my father. I have always done 
 as he wished, and he has always been so kind to 
 me. . ." Then as if to drive away such dismal 
 thoughts she added : " But we will not think of 
 anything so miserable. He is so affectionate to 
 you ; and to-day he said he had put his faith in 
 you. What makes you fancy he can refuse you ?" 
 
 "To be sure," replied Giovanni, "we will not 
 forecast evil." Then making an ineffectual attempt 
 to scale the wall he asked her : " You love me ?" 
 
92 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 She held her fingers to her lips and shed the kiss 
 upon him, as it were, not smiling but gravely, with 
 the deep emotion with which we seal some solemn 
 act. 
 
 Giovanni pulled himself so far up the wall as 
 to reach the tip of her toes that peeped through 
 the spaces between the balustrades, and with his 
 free hand he clasped her foot and kissed the 
 fingers that had touched it. 
 
 The plain below floated in a sea of mist ; even 
 the white line of the high-road was scarcely visi- 
 ble on the other side of the moat ; but through 
 the fog, backwards and forwards, they could dis- 
 tinguish a figure which stood still from time to 
 time opposite Rachel, looking first at her and then 
 down into the water. 
 
 " Good-bye," murmured Rachel, " I must be 
 going. Some one is watching us." 
 
 " Oh never mind her ; it is La Matta." 
 
93 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 GIOVANNI spent the night in arranging every- 
 thing for his departure. He was not going back- 
 to the college so he was to have an allowance no 
 longer from his patrons. He was going to the 
 office of a famous lawyer in Milan, where he would 
 first learn his business and then take work in the 
 courts ; he had no fears for the future ; his life at 
 school and at college had been a succession of 
 triumphs ; the position of Berti, the great man 
 under whom he was about to enter life, would 
 smooth his way; and love was jubilant in his 
 heart. 
 
 The doctor came in late that evening; he had 
 been drinking with one and another and was in 
 capital spirits. As he passed by the kitchen door 
 he fancied that he saw, sitting on the hearthstone 
 where the fire was out, a crouching creature rocking 
 itself and wailing. " It must be the cat," thought 
 the doctor, whose sense of proportion was some- 
 what obscured, and he went his way. But it was 
 
94 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 not the cat; the crouching figure on the hearth 
 never stirred till morning. 
 
 Giovanni sang a love song as he dressed ; his 
 fine tenor notes had never sounded clearer or richer. 
 He was still singing as he went down-stairs and 
 out into the road ; in the silence of the early day 
 the solitary voice was heard till it died away in the 
 distance. He wandered along the foot-paths that 
 zigzagged up the hills, still singing, spouting 
 poetry, building castles in the air interrupting 
 himself, beginning again from the foundations 
 anxious and impatient. Finally, at ten o'clock, he 
 went to the castle and asked to speak to the mas- 
 ter. But the mere sight of the servant who showed 
 him in quelled his confidence. He crossed the 
 deserted dining-room, and the great dusty side- 
 boards, the piles of china, the cupboards full of 
 plate, depressed him deeply. What a gulf, good 
 heaven ! between all this splendor and his destitu- 
 tion ! Then they went through a large drawing- 
 room with the blinds down and the shutters 
 closed ; and the huge sofas in the holland covers 
 with their obese and puffy cushions, looked to his 
 fancy in the dim light like a party of corpulent 
 county magnates gravely waiting till he should 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 95 
 
 have preferred his petition to discuss it among 
 themselves. At length he reached Signor Pedrotti's 
 study, which looked cold and stern in its naked- 
 ness. There were a few chairs and a writing-table ; 
 but on each side of this table stood a set of 
 shelves with an endless array of deed boxes, and 
 on each box was written in large Roman type the 
 name of an estate. Signor Pedrotti was writing 
 in a ledger; he looked up for a moment and 
 said : 
 
 " Ah, you are off then ? Wait a moment till I 
 have finished this note." 
 
 Giovanni's courage had entirely oozed out ; 
 he felt his heart beating now that the time had 
 come for facing the great question. He stood 
 mechanically reading the names of the deed 
 boxes: // Gentilino, la Peveraccia, Sant' Antonio 
 al Fosso . . . They were but small properties, still 
 they were properties ; he knew them all well, but 
 he knew nothing of their value ; he counted the 
 boxes there were fourteen and they were to 
 him as fourteen enemies standing there to convict 
 him of his indigence. Signor Pedrotti closed his 
 ledger and looked up, saying, as he turned to Gio- 
 vanni : 
 
96 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 " Then you are off, my boy v> 
 
 "Yes to start on my career," replied Gio- 
 vanni. 
 
 " And you have come to take leave ?" asked 
 the elder, for the sake of saying something. 
 
 "Yes. . ." 
 
 " Have you been to say good-bye to the Count 
 Valle, and to the vicar ?" 
 
 " No, I came first to you." 
 
 "That is well, thank you. Will you stay to 
 breakfast? Then you can say good-bye to 
 Rachel." 
 
 Giovanni /elt himself turn cold. His hands 
 were like ice, and damp with chill dews, and his 
 heart leaped so violently that his breath came 
 short and his voice shook. Still, his patron's 
 friendly tone was encouraging, and fully resolved 
 to speak, he said : 
 
 " No, thank you. I came in fact to speak to 
 you . . . about a matter of great importance . . . 
 to me. . ." 
 
 ''Speak out; if I can do anything," answered 
 his host with a patronizing air. Then, seeing that 
 he was timid, he added : " Do not be afraid ; your 
 future is secured ; you have excellent capabilities 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 97 
 
 and you are beginning under a capital man. 
 Work, keep up your courage, and you will see ; 
 you know that I have always believed in you. 
 The world is for the young, my dear boy." 
 
 " Yes but the old that is to say those who 
 are a little older must help them a little." 
 
 " They have helped you as it seems to me," 
 said Pedrotti, taking umbrage at the luckless 
 epithet old, and at the idea that Giovanni did not 
 duly appreciate his past favors and was about to 
 ask for more. 
 
 " Yes, and whatever I am I owe to you," said 
 Giovanni, more and more nervously. " But you 
 know we all have our dreams and aspirations I 
 want to achieve something further." 
 
 " That is very right. Ambition is what makes 
 great men and great deeds," said Pedrotti senten- 
 tiously, quoting from his newspaper. 
 
 " Indeed, it makes me very happy to hear 
 you say so ; for I have an ambition a great 
 ambition," stammered Giovanni, who could no 
 longer control his beating heart or his quavering 
 voice. 
 
 "Well and good, and may I be informed of 
 what this great ambition is ?" 'asked the lord of 
 
 7 
 
98 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 the castle very graciously. " Do you want to sit 
 in parliament ?" 
 
 "No I want to marry your daughter," 
 whispered Giovanni almost inaudibly. 
 
 Signer Pedrotti sat bolt upright ; he fixed a 
 stony eye on the young man and for a few minutes 
 was absolutely speechless. Then he repeated, as 
 though he was not sure that he had heard : 
 
 " Marry my daughter !" 
 
 Giovanni bowed as a guilty culprit might, and 
 proffered his best argument from the very bottom 
 of his heart : 
 
 " I love her so. . ." 
 
 "You. do me too much honor," said Signer 
 Pedrotti sarcastically. 
 
 " And she loves me," said Giovanni, in whom 
 indignation had almost revived his courage. 
 
 " I am delighted to hear it but do you know 
 what my daughter's fortune will be ?" 
 
 " I have not asked her and I would marry her 
 if she had no more than I have myself." 
 
 " Oh, very good, then we will discuss the sub- 
 ject another time." And the worthy gentleman 
 rose as much as \o put an end to the interview. 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 99 
 
 But Giovanni had recovered his presence of mind 
 under this discourteous refusal and he persisted. 
 
 " I shall be quite satisfied if you will promise 
 not to make her marry any one else, and promise 
 me that I may win her when I have made a name 
 and a fortune." 
 
 " Oh, I cannot discount bills that do not fall 
 due for so long," said Pedrotti with a shrug and 
 moving towards the door. 
 
 " Did you not say that you had faith in me ?" 
 asked Giovanni in reproachful accents. 
 
 "We have had enough of this!" exclaimed 
 Pedrotti, stamping with rage. " I have listened 
 to you too long already. Do you suppose that 
 because you have won that sprig of bays that we 
 have paid for you are a made man ? My daughter 
 is not for you neither now nor at any time ; get 
 that well into your head. I mean her to marry 
 some one worthy of her and of me." 
 
 " But I might become worthy of her," urged 
 Giovanni quivering with indignation. 
 
 " Merciful Heaven !" interrupted the elder, 
 flinging his words in Giovanni's face like a blow. 
 "Merciful Heaven ! the Dottorino's son worthy of 
 my daughter ! Never ! Be off with you, and 
 
 7* 
 
100 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 never let me see you anywhere near my house 
 again. Good God !" 
 
 And he shut the door himself on the unhappy 
 lover with a slam that was more eloquent than 
 words. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 GIOVANNI almost flew across the fields, home ; 
 his face was flushed and his nerves all jarring with 
 rage. He rushed up into his own room, and 
 slammed his door with a vehement bang, as 
 though he, in his turn, were slamming it in the 
 face of the rich man who had scorned him. Then 
 he sat down to write to Rachel : 
 
 " Your father is a wretch, a heartless wretch ;" 
 and he went on to relate in hot wrath, all the in- 
 terview with the lord of the castle, with no end of 
 " I said to him," " and then he replied." However, 
 when he had written a few sentences, and paused 
 to recollect the exact order of the dialogue, it 
 struck him that he was putting himself in the 
 wrong by thus abusing the father in writing to the 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. IOI 
 
 daughter; he felt that it was beneath him, and 
 began again, uttering what in fact lay nearer to his 
 heart. 
 
 " We were far too hopeful yesterday evening ; 
 we shut our eyes to the possibility of evil, and the 
 evil has fallen upon us and found us unprepared. 
 Your father has refused the promise I entreated 
 of him, and has shut me out of his house for- 
 ever. 
 
 " I am deeply hurt ; if, nevertheless, I may fix 
 my hopes on you I shall not be crushed. I shall 
 feel quite capable of proving that talents are a 
 match for wealth. But you said one dreadful 
 thing yesterday you said that you could not re- 
 sist your father's will. Will you obey him then ? 
 Will you reject me, to marry some rich man, some 
 landowner, or fund-holder ? J have no heart to 
 think of it. I hope for I ask I claim your 
 promise to be mine and to wait for me. It is a 
 bold request, and the promise on your part will be 
 no light matter ; think of it seriously. Much and 
 desperately as I love you, I could not bear to 
 cheat you of your pledge under an illusion. The day 
 of fulfilment must be a distant one, you will have 
 to wait for years ; but I feel that I have the energy 
 
102 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 and capacity to make a brilliant position. Still, I 
 must have something more than a name and a 
 good income before I can again face your father 
 after all he has said to me ; I must have funded 
 capital to lay in the other scale, and balance that 
 detested fortune that he is to give you ; and such 
 a capital is slow in accumulating. 
 
 " It must be long, perhaps very long, before I 
 can claim the fulfilment of that tender promise ; 
 and meanwhile we must live apart and no one will 
 ever mention my name even, in your hearing. 
 Your father will urge the claims of other suitors 
 dearer to his fancy, and you will have to reject 
 them not without a struggle, while he will guess 
 the reason of your refusal, and there may be scenes 
 of strife that will embitter your life. It is much, 
 too much, to ask of a weak woman's heart ; and 
 even as I ask this utmost favor in the name of 
 love of our love I hardly dare hope that you 
 will grant it. 
 
 " Still, if you feel that you are strong enough 
 for such a sacrifice write one word, simply 'yes,' 
 and slip it into the volume of 1 Promessi Sposi 
 that I lent you and which I will desire La Matta 
 to fetch, as an excuse for sending her to your 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 103 
 
 house, where I should have the door shut upon 
 me. 
 
 " Oh Rachel ! if I should find that line in your 
 writing I will bless you from the bottom of my 
 soul ; and it will give me such courage, such 
 energy, that I shall feel myself master of the 
 world. I will spend every hour, every minute of 
 my life in toil, in the hope of making you some 
 return for your disinterested sacrifice, and when I 
 have won you I will devote my leisure to worship- 
 ping you. 
 
 " But in truth I dare not hope it. You are a 
 woman, and young. Your father loves you truly, 
 and it becomes you to obey him. It is your duty, 
 and I know it, my darling. The little book will 
 come back to me without bringing me any such 
 joy. But I shall still feel that you love me, that 
 you are suffering grieving, but resigned, and 
 that you have abandoned me to my fate. It will 
 be a terrible blow and will leave a deep wound 
 but indeed I love you so that I shall forgive 
 you." 
 
 When he had sealed this letter he went in 
 search of La Matta. He found her in the kitchen, 
 huddled on the hearth and rocking herself dolefully. 
 
IO4 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 He roused her and said, very distinctly, that she 
 might not misunderstand him : 
 
 " Go up to the castle, and say that I have sent 
 you to ask for a book that I lent to the sig- 
 norina." 
 
 La Matta sat stolidly sulky, with her head 
 down, as if she did not intend to stir. 
 
 " Do you understand ?" asked Giovanni. 
 
 She gave a wriggle : " I do not know," she 
 muttered. 
 
 But Giovanni was in no mood to be patient, 
 and he went on in an angry tone : 
 
 " But it is absolutely necessary that you should 
 do this errand. Repeat what I say : ' Signer Gio- 
 vanni has sent me. . ." 
 
 La Matta looked him hard in the face; she 
 saw that he was pale, agitated and trembling; and 
 she repeated her lesson with all the attention of 
 which she was capable. When she had said it Gio- 
 vanni went on, giving her his letter : 
 
 " When you are shown in to the signorina and 
 there is no one by to see, give her this letter ; but 
 mind that no one sees it." 
 
 La Matta took the letter doubtfully, and set 
 out slowly and unwillingly. 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. IO$ 
 
 " Make haste !" Giovanni cried after her, " for 
 Heaven's sake hurry !" 
 
 For a minute or two she mended her pace ; 
 but no sooner had she turned the corner than she 
 stopped, took the letter out of her pocket, turned 
 it over and examined it closely, trying to read the 
 address but the only letter she could recognize was 
 the O, so she pocketed it again with a sigh and slowly 
 made her way to the house. Giovanni meanwhile 
 was counting the minutes, and fuming with impa- 
 tience ; at length, utterly incapable of controlling 
 himself, he set out to meet the girl as she returned. 
 He saw her loitering on her way back along the 
 edge of the castle moat, with her head sunk and a 
 heavy step. She no sooner caught sight of him 
 than she turned round as if she wanted to escape; 
 but he overtook her, and seized the book. 
 
 " No, no, I will carry it," said the girl. But 
 Giovanni would not yield. She put out her hand 
 to snatch it back ; she was trembling and seemed 
 frightened. 
 
 " Why should you carry it ?" she said. " It is 
 my place to carry it." 
 
 Giovanni however kept possession of it, and 
 ran home clutching the volume with both hands. 
 
106 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 When he reached his room he anxiously opened 
 it it contained nothing he shook it nothing 
 fell out. Pale, gasping, and with trembling hands, 
 he turned over all the leaves one by one he 
 found nothing. 
 
 " I knew it !" he groaned. " She told me that 
 she could not resist her father." And then he 
 added : 
 
 " She too ! Well she will see ! . . ." 
 
 He went out and hastily paid his calls ; taking 
 leave of his patrons, with abrupt audacity, talking 
 excitedly of his future prospects and certain suc- 
 cess. There was a defiance in his manner which 
 to these worthy folks seemed very strange. 
 
 " So much the better, my boy, go on and 
 prosper," they said. " If you make a fortune so 
 much the better for you. I only hope you 
 may." 
 
 But when his back was turned they shook their 
 heads : " What has come over him ? He seems 
 as if he had been drinking." 
 
 Giovanni went home in a carriage he had hired 
 to carry him to the railway station at Borgo- 
 manero. On going into his room to fetch his 
 luggage he discovered La Matta, who was once 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. IO/ 
 
 more examining the volume she had brought back 
 from the castle. 
 
 " Let that alone," he exclaimed angrily ; and 
 snatching it out of her hand he flung the precious 
 second edition of / Promessi Sposi on to the top 
 shelf of the bookcase. Then he took a hasty 
 leave of his father, got into the vehicle and was 
 gone. 
 
 " She too ! Well she will see !" he muttered 
 once more as the crazy conveyance carried him 
 past the castle moat. Either Rachel had been 
 convinced by her father's vulgar arguments, or she 
 had submitted, though unconvinced, to the weight 
 of his authority. In either case she did not love him 
 with such passion as he had hoped ; she had not per- 
 fect faith in him. His soul was filled with bitterness 
 at the thought, but his courage was not quenched ; 
 on the contrary, it spurred him to work harder than 
 ever to conquer a position in society that he might 
 be able to say to her : " You see, you were wrong 
 to distrust me." 
 
 He had thought that he needed her promise to 
 keep up his resolution, but now the very lack of 
 that promise gave force to his will because it made 
 him fear that success would come too late. He 
 
IO8 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 must make haste to be rich and famous as soon as 
 possible, while Rachel was still young, and before 
 anyone else should marry her. 
 
 The idea seethed in his blood like a fever. To 
 his heated fancy the long future and the flying 
 present were but one ; he felt as though he must 
 always run, fly, hasten, never lose an instant ; as 
 though he were starting on a race with some im- 
 aginary rival. The jog-trot of the sorry beast that 
 dragged him to Borgomanero made him writhe 
 with impatience; when he had started in the 
 train the engine seemed as slow as the horse. He 
 could not sit still ; he opened and shut the window, 
 looked at his watch, and at the time-table, 
 counted the stations, calculated the minutes the 
 train was late, and when they reached Novara 
 complained to the porter that they were ninety - 
 five seconds behind time. Those two minutes 
 were lost out of his future. 
 
IO9 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE early days of Giovanni's residence at 
 Milan were like a pail of cold water on his ardor. 
 Signer Pedrotti, in recommending the poor boy 
 to the avvocato Berti a month before, had writ- 
 ten : 
 
 " Remember that he has nothing but what he 
 may be able to earn in your office ; kindly try to 
 find him as cheap a lodging as possible, with such 
 board as is within the means of an indigent lad as 
 he is." 
 
 The lawyer paid him a salary of fifty francs a 
 month, and he had taken a room quite close to the 
 office from a maker of wooden clogs and lasts. It 
 was not a room properly speaking ; indeed, only 
 two years since it had been part of the shop. 
 Then the last-maker had married and he had cut 
 his shop in two horizontally, setting up the con- 
 jugal couch in the upper room thus obtained. 
 Then the wife, who was of an economical turn, 
 
110 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 had thought it possible to divide off a portion of 
 this mezzanine apartment and make two of it. 
 Thus, out of a single shop, they had ended by 
 making a shop and two bedrooms. The first cabin, 
 however, was only a sort of open loft into which 
 you put your head through a large hole in the 
 floor as you mounted the spiral stairs that led up 
 to it. This had not prevented the owners from 
 putting up a bed against one wall, and a rickety 
 table against the other, which, with two chairs, 
 constituted a furnished apartment that they let at 
 twelve francs a month. Notwithstanding the 
 paucity of furniture the room was not empty. The 
 walls and ceiling were lined with huge bunches of 
 lasts and sabots, tied together by the heels so that 
 they stuck out in every direction like the spines 
 on a burr. All round the arch of the shop window 
 which gave light to the upper floor, on each side 
 of the stairs, and from the opening into the loft, 
 hung these feet innumerable, of all shapes and 
 sizes ; you had to mount carefully for fear of hurt- 
 ing your head and take every precaution with a 
 lighted candle. 
 
 This was the lodging assigned to Giovanni ; 
 but he was not fastidious. " It is cheap," he said, 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. I I I 
 
 <l and at that price I can hardly expect to get any 
 better. . ." and the mistress of the establishment, 
 encouraged by his easy resignation, ventured to 
 say : " If you like to arrange to take your share 
 of our soup. . ." 
 
 "What are you thinking of?" interrupted her 
 husband. 
 
 " Never you mind, I say it as much for his ad- 
 vantage as ours. It will not cost him much and 
 after all, if he does not like it. . ." 
 
 Giovanni agreed at thirty centesimi a day, 
 which was to include a share in a bottle of wine ; 
 but he soon discovered that for his young appetite 
 this meal was no more than a luncheon ; leaving 
 him in fact very ready for the next; so he had 
 found an eating-house where he could dine at 
 thirty francs a month. Thus his monthly salary 
 was fully disposed of indeed one franc more, and 
 to supply that one and the cost of washing, lights, 
 relaxation, clothes, boots and everything else that 
 he might want, the young lawyer must earn some- 
 thing. His master would give him law-deeds to 
 copy and notes of cases to arrange ; and now and 
 then he had some clause of an English or German 
 book to translate. By these means Giovanni 
 
112 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 managed to eke out his monthly allowance, but 
 Berti kept him busy in the office all day ; he had 
 only the early morning and the evening for the 
 work that was to bring him this small extra pay, 
 and little as he slept the twenty-four hours of the 
 day were never too many for him. 
 
 His room had neither chimney nor stove ; the 
 ill-joined flooring admitted all the cold air from 
 the shop where the door was incessantly opening 
 and shutting, and the walls sweated with damp. 
 The last- maker said that it was best so as there was 
 the less danger that his stock would catch fire. But 
 this reflection did not save Giovanni from having 
 his limbs stiff and his hands numb with cold during 
 the long winter evenings that he spent there in 
 solitude, writing by the light of a petroleum lamp. 
 This lamp was the cause of endless squabbles 
 with his landlord. No sooner had his big, round 
 head with its fringe of hair, but bald in the mid- 
 dle, like that of St. Joseph made its appearance 
 above the floor, rising as he came up the stairs, 
 then a series of loud sniffs were audible following 
 up the scent, then a succession of grunts and, at 
 last, while his heavy tread shook the beams, he 
 could be heard muttering: "That confounded 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 113 
 
 petroleum. And with such a lot of wood about! 
 dear me ! dear me !" 
 
 Giovanni would go on writing, but the grum- 
 bling was continued on the other side of the par- 
 tition, between his hosts, who, by reason of the 
 thinness of the wall had no secrets from their 
 lodger. But they were not bad folks, and the 
 young law student went his own way and let them 
 talk. Sometimes when the cold was most intense, 
 as he heard this worthy couple tucking themselves 
 into their bed of maize husks, and calling up fear- 
 ful visions of conflagrations, he felt an insane de- 
 sire to build up a pile of lasts and sabots and 
 chips, and set fire to them and warm himself at 
 the blaze. But then he would think of Rachel 
 and say to himself: "Some day she will know 
 what I have endured for her sake." And he took 
 a pride in these discomforts and he felt himself a 
 hero. 
 
 Thus in the secrecy of his own room he could 
 glory in his poverty. But out of it he often suf- 
 fered keen humiliation. On his first arrival in the 
 office the other clerks had given him to understand 
 that it was the custom to do honor to a new-comer 
 by giving him a dinner and that he would be ex- 
 
114 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 pected to give them a dinner in return. Giovanni 
 had let the subject drop ; but the senior clerk, who 
 knew what the circumstances of a poor student 
 were likely to be, had added to encourage him : 
 11 These are not the banquets of Lucullus you 
 know. Dinners at five francs a head." 
 
 Still, there were four of them, and twenty 
 francs was a sum quite beyond Giovanni's 
 resources. For some little time nothing more was 
 said, and he thought to himself, at once comforted 
 and mortified, "they understand how it is." They 
 had understood very well, and about three weeks 
 after the eldest of the party said to Giovanni, in 
 the name of the others who were both present : 
 
 " I say, we have agreed to invite you to come 
 and dine with us to-morrow to celebrate your 
 joining us ; it is only the usual thing, if you will 
 give us the pleasure. . ." 
 
 Giovanni felt very uncomfortable and turned 
 very red ; he felt that he ought to have thanked 
 them and have said at once that he hoped on such 
 a day to have the pleasure of seeing them to dine 
 with him. Dut then he remembered how few his 
 coins were and that he had no credit, and the im- 
 possibility of the situation choked the words in 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 11$ 
 
 his throat. Then the senior clerk, who was a good- 
 hearted fellow, added : 
 
 " You are not expected to return it you know. 
 No ceremony. . ." 
 
 It was a blow, and Giovanni felt it. That even- 
 ing his poverty was a real grievance ; he could 
 have fought with fate as he went into the shop. 
 The shavings that crunched under his step irritated 
 him beyond bearing; he kicked them out of his 
 way and made straight for the stairs, paying no 
 heed to the festoons of lasts and clogs that hung 
 in every direction. The first clump of lasts that 
 hit him in the side he struck out at violently. 
 
 " Look out there !" the man called up from the 
 shop. 
 
 But Giovanni was at the end of his patience. 
 He gave himself an angry shake and stalked up 
 the narrow stairs in a rage, pushing aside every 
 impediment with his fists. As he reached the 
 top he hit his head against an enormous bunch of 
 sabots which fell off the nail, rolling and clattering 
 with as much noise as a cart-load of stones and 
 gravel. The last- maker and his wife started to 
 their feet exclaiming loudly, and all the evening 
 there came up from the shop, with the noise of the 
 
Il6 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 plane and the adze, the angry vituperations of the 
 scandalized couple. Late at night, when Giovanni 
 who could not fix his mind on his work, had re- 
 tired to meditate on his mortification in bed, he 
 saw them go through his room to their own, car- 
 rying the clump of wooden shoes like a wounded 
 sufferer whom common pity required them to 
 place in safer quarters out of the way of a dan- 
 gerous foe, at whom they cast indignant glances. 
 From that time his life was increasingly comfort- 
 less ; no one in the house ever spoke a word to 
 him. He eat his breakfast in silence while the 
 last-maker's wife bustled about the shop sweeping 
 and dusting, and her husband every now and then 
 would observe satirically : 
 
 " Take care you do not sweep the chips under 
 the young gentleman's feet ; and wait to dust till 
 he is out of the way, you might make him dusty." 
 And in the evening, when Giovanni was going 
 upstairs, the man would march up in front of him 
 with his arms outspread, pushing aside the 
 bunches of wooden shoes in a mockery of polite- 
 ness. 
 
 At the office, on the other hand, he never felt 
 easy on account of that dinner that he had not 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 1 1/ 
 
 been able to return. It stood like a shadow 
 between him and the other clerks, and checked 
 their equality of intimacy. There were a whole 
 series of subjects that he felt he dared not approach 
 lest they should suggest the topic that always 
 made him blush. They could not discuss dining- 
 houses, nor dinners, nor invitations ; and if one of 
 his comrades only said to another : " Shall we 
 dine together to-day ?" he felt it as an ironical 
 hint and was nettled by it. 
 
 It happened one day that the other clerks had 
 arranged to dine in a party in honor of the birth- 
 day of one of them and they discussed it in an 
 undertone that he might not hear them ; but this, 
 which they meant kindly, he felt as an insult, and 
 he determined to return the banquet he had ac- 
 cepted at any cost. He gave up wine at his daily 
 dinner, and worked later at night, and at the end 
 of two months found himself rich enough to give 
 the all-important invitation on the strength of 
 twenty-five francs that he had scraped together 
 and hoarded up, sou by sou. He had calculated 
 that he could not be sure of spending less, with 
 the fee to the waiter, coffee, cigars, and other cer- 
 tain expenses, not to mention the dreadful un- 
 
Il8 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 foreseen extras. They were twenty-five drops of 
 his heart's blood. But as he came out of the eat- 
 ing-house followed by his three companions, his 
 head a little heavy, from a glass of wine more than 
 usual, and his purse the lighter by those five and 
 twenty francs, he felt that he had recovered caste, 
 and as his thoughts turned to Rachel he reflected : 
 " I must be able to tell her that even in my hardest 
 straits I never stooped to meanness. ' ' And the sense 
 of having deserved her good opinion did more to 
 make up to him for the privations he had suffered 
 than the vain satisfaction of having returned the 
 dinner. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THERE were particular seasons when Giovanni's 
 poverty brought him many bitter stings. One of 
 these was the carnival, and particularly the last 
 week of that festive season. Then his fellow-clerks 
 would chatter and whisper all day of the amuse- 
 ments of the evening ; fitful snatches of talk with 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. II 9 
 
 allusions and suggestions that Giovanni had diffi- 
 culty in piecing out 
 
 " Which did you admire most last evening, the 
 dark girl or that fair one ? She was a real beauty. 
 What a color ! and what a dress ! She puts some 
 money on her back !" 
 
 Giovanni would scribble as fast as he could, 
 making his pen scratch and squeak that he might 
 not hear ; but the words would get mixed up with 
 the legal phraseology that he copied on to the 
 paper, and filled his brain with dreams, wishes, 
 and intense curiosity. His one idea was to get 
 out and forget these fancies ; but then, when he 
 was out of doors, it was worse ; the streets were 
 crowded with a gay and noisy rabble ; everybody 
 in the town seemed to have money to spend, the 
 poorest workmen were free with their cash and 
 giving themselves a good time. The city was like 
 an ants' nest of peddlers and itinerant sellers of 
 prints, caricatures, paper flowers, cockades, medals, 
 and all the grotesque absurdities of the carnival. 
 But they did not offer their wares to Giovanni, 
 they only grinned at him ironically, as much as to 
 say: "He's no good he's cleaned out." The 
 eating-shops displayed their most tempting wares 
 
I2O THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 fat geese, and fair and corpulent capons exposed 
 their portly persons by the side of melancholy 
 cray-fish which now and then moved a claw in a 
 languid dying effort. The sausages assumed 
 gigantic proportions, and the windows were full of 
 rich cheeses, truffles, shining fish, and bottles of 
 rare vintages, proving how surely the vendors 
 could reckon on the gluttony or the generosity of 
 holiday customers. From every tavern and eating- 
 house proceeded a constant clatter of plates, and 
 a tuneless jingle of glasses and spoons ; while from 
 the kitchen below rose the steamy odors of roast 
 and boiled irresistibly suggesting to Giovanni vis- 
 ions of a warm room and of a neatly laid table, 
 brightly lighted and secure from draughts, where 
 he should be snugly shut in to enjoy a good din- 
 ner with a choice and gleeful party. On these 
 days his own food almost turned his stomach ; he 
 eat it with an ill will, troubled with dainty fancies, 
 and in the evening he could not settle to his 
 work. 
 
 His spirit was embittered ; the pay he got for 
 his work bore no proportion to the sum he would 
 have needed to gratify his desires ; and what then 
 was the use of working at all ! Then he would go 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 121 
 
 out and mix in the crowd or stand at the doors of 
 the theatres where the people waited in a line to 
 make their way in. All these folks hundreds 
 and thousands of his fellow-citizens had, besides 
 the actual necessaries of life, some superfluous 
 coin to spare for amusement. He alone had not; 
 and he wandered about thinly clad, in the cold 
 and mist, dreaming fondly of the stifling heat and 
 atmosphere of a play-house. He stood watching 
 the masks who sprang out of the hired carriages 
 and vanished into the great theatre la Scala 
 figures of women, wrapped in white wadded cloaks 
 that made them look like huge bundles; pink or 
 sky-blue, or cherry-colored silk ancles and satin 
 boots supported the unwieldy looking masses with 
 pattering steps ; impatient when the crowd delayed 
 them in their rush, eager to fling themselves into 
 that vortex of gaiety, dancing and folly. Or he saw 
 the grand ladies who got out of old family coaches in 
 full evening dress, with long skirts of velvet or satin, 
 and who were only going to look on with dignified 
 propriety from their boxes ; and these, as they 
 swept by him, would leave a strong fragrance in 
 the air. The men who accompanied them were 
 shrouded in overcoats down to their heels and but- 
 
122 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 toned to the chin, but their lavender gloves and 
 gibbus hats betrayed the hidden splendors of a 
 dress-coat, with white tie, and snowy shirt-front. 
 Giovanni pictured them to himself when they got 
 inside, shedding their chrysalis-cases like huge 
 black butterflies ; in his fancy they were radiant 
 and handsome, and bitter melancholy gnawed at 
 his heart. He shivered in his thin cloak that did 
 not keep out the frost, and hurried off with his 
 teeth chattering, to a squalid coffee-shop where he 
 would drink a glass of hot punch to warm himself, 
 thaw for a few minutes in the thick atmosphere 
 reeking with spirits, and tobacco smoke alto- 
 gether unwholesome and suffocating and then 
 go home to bed that he might not see others revel- 
 ling in the pleasures that were denied to him. 
 
 But even in his wretched loft he could hear the 
 shouts of the maskers, the rumble of the carriages, 
 dulled by the snow or made louder by the sharp 
 ring of the frozen ground. The festivities pur- 
 sued him even in his bed ; and as he lay curled up 
 to keep himself warm, with his head under the 
 scanty coverlet to shelter himself from the pierc- 
 ing draughts that whistled in at every crack, he 
 pictured in his mind all those unknown joys of 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 123 
 
 life, a thousand times more delightful than the 
 reality. He saw palaces like those of the Arabian 
 Nights, gorgeous with impossible splendors; 
 women of ideal beauty ; a radiant display of white 
 shoulders, rich stuffs, magnificent jewels, and all the 
 intoxications of love. And when he was weary of 
 the secret struggle and ungratified imaginings, the 
 final days of madness came, when from morning 
 till night, the carriages full of maskers drove about 
 the streets to the sound of bands of music, when 
 the shops were shut, and their signs were hung 
 with white cloth to protect them against the pelt- 
 ing of sugar-plums. Then there was no work 
 done. In the roadway and on the balconies every 
 one was idle, and every one was shouting. Com- 
 fits filled the air, poured out in sacksful, in hun- 
 dreds of pounds weight, as merrily and carelessly 
 as though they cost nothing; flowers were flung 
 about, oranges, bonbons for the mere sake of 
 throwing away something, the sheer delight of 
 spending broadcast. It was as if the whole popu- 
 lation, over- burdened with unexpected and super- 
 fluous wealth, were in a hurry to be rid of it and 
 were revelling in the waste of this plethora of 
 riches. The bands played triumphant marches, 
 
124 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 every voice was raised in one mighty and deafen- 
 ing shout. Lords and laborers, men and women, 
 all went crazy together; danced in the market- 
 places, lighted bonfires, wore masks, and demeaned 
 themselves like wild creatures. Giovanni felt that 
 he alone could have no part in this festival of joy 
 and plenty; he alone was cold and hungry; and 
 it filled him with such wrath and bitterness that 
 in the midst of this universal madness of mirth, 
 he was well nigh mad with melancholy. 
 
 Another season of misery was midsummer 
 the intolerable midsummer of Milan. Born and 
 bred in the country, loving its pure air, its green 
 hills, its cool shelter under the shade of spreading 
 trees, the very first spring-tide made him home- 
 sick ; and as the summer Avent on this craving for 
 fresh air became almost an illness. Every one 
 went away to the baths, to the hills, to the sea, to 
 the lakes ; and Giovanni met no one in the streets 
 of Milan but a few hard- worked and weary beings 
 like himself men of business, merchants whose 
 families were away, and who joined them every 
 Saturday, or employes who were only waiting to 
 get their month's leave to make some long excur- 
 sion. He alone had no one to go to on a holi- 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 125 
 
 day, and expected no leave, but must go on work- 
 ing, working, every day to earn the next day's 
 bread. His room was unbearable, the heat was 
 intense to a degree that made it painful to breathe ; 
 the sweat poured down his face as he sat writing 
 and fell in drops on the paper ; his body felt on 
 fire ; he was always thirsty and swallowed glass 
 after glass of lukewarm water that he loathed, that 
 made him feel sick, and that threw him into vio- 
 lent perspirations and weakened and depressed 
 him. 
 
 In the evening he took long walks in search 
 of fresh air ; but on the high-roads, scorched by 
 the day's sun, his feet sank up to the ancles in 
 dust, and raised such a cloud that it choked him 
 and powdered him from head to foot ; if he went 
 to walk in the suburbs he ran through the whole 
 gamut of horrible smells. After facing the sicken- 
 ing odors of a tanner's yard he met the sour fumes 
 of a dyer's that made him choke ; further on the 
 fetid smell of steeping flax came up from a spin- 
 ning shed, and even the market-gardens reeked 
 with manures and loams. Everything that could 
 spoil and decompose under the tropical heat ex- 
 haled its own peculiar stench ; the butchers' shops, 
 
126 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 the slaughter-houses, the dairies, the cheese stores, 
 the gutters, the canal, the heaps of sweepings 
 outside the houses each and all stank and con- 
 tributed to poison the air with a taint of rotten- 
 ness and filth that made his gorge rise. 
 
 The few men of the better class who remained 
 in the town went about with their ties undone, 
 fanning themselves with their hats ; the workmen 
 wore only their trousers and shirts with the sleeves 
 turned up, and the open collars showing their 
 hairy chests ; the door-keepers came out to sit in 
 the streets in the dusk, in the least permissible 
 amount of clothing and with bare feet in their 
 wooden shoes. On Sundays every one escaped, 
 going out by dozens to the taverns and gardens 
 within easy reach, to sit under the dreary little 
 arbors in a back plot that make believe to be 
 country. 'There they got bad food and worse 
 drink, and panted with the heat and dust; and 
 then crowded into omnibuses to return to the 
 town, puffing and perspiring, suffocating in an at- 
 mosphere of steam, smoke, and tipsiness. On one 
 occasion only Giovanni had made such an ex- 
 pedition and it had given him an attack of 
 fever. 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. I2/ 
 
 Exhausted and jarred in every nerve he was more 
 wretched than ever in the atmosphere to which 
 his country lungs could not by any means adapt 
 themselves ; he had fevered visions of wide fields, 
 of clear waters, of trees and shade, and of burn- 
 ing noons on the silent heights and in the pure air 
 of the hills. He dreamed of a little white house 
 with green shutters in a wide and lonely plain ; 
 dreamed of it, gloated over it, with the passion of 
 a lover ; and whenever he saw a coach loaded with 
 luggage on its way to the station to the coun- 
 try, where the world was green and the air was 
 clear, he felt a wild desire to hang on to it like a 
 s'treet boy. It left him sadder, more out of heart ; 
 and he cursed the fate that held him shut up and 
 pining miserably in a town where he had hoped to 
 find fortune and fame and all that could make life 
 sweet. 
 
 The first time that his master put the conduct 
 of a case into his hands Giovanni thought that he 
 had attained the goal of his ambition. It was a 
 civil action between two small proprietors as to a 
 party- wall ; a squabble about a childish difference 
 and entirely devoid of interest. But the young 
 advocate threw himself into it heart and soul ; he 
 
128 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 investigated the history of the two parties and of 
 their respective properties, going back beyond the 
 memory of man. He brought an infinity of zeal 
 to bear upon it, made voluminous notes, studied 
 the question with a thoroughness and perspicacity 
 that were, literally enough, " worthy of a better 
 cause." In the evenings, instead of plodding on 
 at his usual work of translating or copying, he 
 went over the whole business again and again. He 
 prepared the speech he intended to make, improv- 
 ing it, and adding particulars. Then he wanted to 
 try how it would sound, and to rehearse his ges- 
 tures, so rising to his feet, serious but not solemn, 
 he bowed to an imaginary crowd and began with 
 great simplicity and dignity to harangue the lasts 
 and sabots that hung round the room. By degrees 
 he grew more animated ; he could fancy that 
 among all those wooden feet he saw Rachel's 
 bright face, smiling at him to encourage him ; his 
 words came fluently and in elegant periods, as he 
 pictured her among the audience; he added fire, he 
 raised his voice, till at length the startled last- 
 maker put out his night-capped head to ask if the 
 house were on fire. 
 
 When at length he went to bed, tired and ex- 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 129 
 
 cited, he felt the spirit of a great advocate burn- 
 ing within him, and indulged in intoxicating 
 dreams of a success that should make his reputa- 
 tion, thinking of the impression that this dazzling 
 triumph would be sure to produce at Fontanetto. 
 He could see his patrons all bowing down to him, 
 Pedrotti holding out his hands in apologetic sup- 
 plication, and all the gossips of the hamlet coming 
 out of their shops and exclaiming : 
 
 " It is the Dottorino's son Mazza, the great 
 lawyer ! What an honor for the place ! and now 
 he is going to marry the daughter of Signer Pe- 
 drotti of the castle !" And his mind wandered off 
 into thoughts of his love he and Rachel were 
 starting in a coach for their wedding journey he 
 jumped in after her and shut the door. . . . 
 
 And in fact, when the case came on Giovanni 
 spoke with all the skill of an experienced pleader. 
 A senior who happened to be present shook him 
 warmly by the hand and his client paid him hand- 
 somely. But, unluckily, outside the court no one 
 cared a straw for the case of the party-wall ; the 
 newspapers of course did not mention it, and 
 within three days this great event in our hero's 
 life was totally forgotten and had left no trace, no 
 
 9 
 
130 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 alteration whatever in the young clerk's life or 
 prospects, beyond a small handful of coins in his 
 purse. At first he found it hard to believe this. 
 When he entered the shop and bid the worthy 
 man good evening he felt that he was condescend- 
 ing and thought to himself: " If only he could know 
 what I am !" and in the morning, as he sat 
 eating his broth in a corner near the fire, he 
 could not help remembering an old peasant woman 
 who had an earthenware plate which she used to 
 show to everybody, saying : 
 
 "Do you see that? Out of that plate Carlo 
 Alberto eat two eggs. He eat for all the world 
 like you or me. And afterwards I was told it 
 was the King. Madonna Santa !" 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 BUT the days and months went by. More than 
 a year had gone and the last-maker had not yet 
 begun to wonder that Giovanni eat just like other 
 people. Indeed, the good woman was apt to hint 
 without any reticence that he eat a good deal 
 more than some people. At the same time he 
 had enlarged the circle of his acquaintance ; other 
 cases of an unimportant kind had been intrusted 
 to him, and he had become friendly with some of 
 his clients. His fellow-clerks had listened to his 
 speeches, had enthusiastically admired his talents 
 and had offered to introduce him to signer so and 
 so, or the cavaliere such an one persons of influ- 
 ence. Giovanni had been only too glad to accept. 
 But what endless trouble and vexation those visits 
 cost him ! He had to procure gloves and ties ; he 
 could not do without a shiny hat and a well- 
 starched shirt front ; then he had to get new shoes 
 when, but for this, the pair he had would have 
 lasted another month. Indeed, for one call he 
 
 9* 
 
132 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 had to pay on a certain commendatore, he was 
 under the necessity of borrowing a pocket-hand- 
 kerchief of his landlady, because his own were all 
 too shabby. It was quite new and rather thick, 
 and it made his coat bulge out as if he had a roll 
 in his pocket ; and when he had occasion to use 
 it it came out in creases and corners like paper, 
 and crackled as much. And after all this worry, 
 the outcome of these introductions rarely led to 
 any result. The individual to whom some zeal- 
 ous friend presented him with an enthusiastic 
 enumeration of his merits, his distinction at college, 
 his talents, his industry, his general ill-luck, etc., 
 etc., would bow and reply : 
 
 "Bravo! Bravo! I am delighted. . ." 
 " If at any time you can use your influence. . .'* 
 the friend would hint ; and to this direct appeal 
 the man in power real or fancied would 
 vaguely respond : " Oh ! certainly, by all means. 
 I will bear it in mind. . ." and Giovanni never 
 heard of him again, unless the friend who had in- 
 troduced him happened to remind him that he really 
 ought to call again at a house where he had been 
 so well received. In specially favorable cases he 
 was consulted as to some old-standing law-suit, or 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 133 
 
 was employed in some petty case or some dis- 
 creditable affair. But he always threw himself into 
 it with zeal ; he was commonly paid rather less 
 than a stranger, in consideration of his intimacy, 
 or the introduction, or what not and there the 
 matter ended. At last he began to feel disappoint- 
 ment weighing on him heavily. He put so much 
 thought and so much energy into the little he had 
 to do, that it was inevitable that he should himself 
 think highly of his work. He knew that he had 
 done his very best, and he said to himself: " If, 
 with so much hard work, I have failed to make 
 myself known, there is an end of it. I never shall 
 succeed." 
 
 And then he would contemplate the possibili- 
 ties of a long life of sacrifice and toil, availing 
 simply to maintain himself in dreary sufficiency ; 
 he thought of Rachel who, never hearing his name 
 mentioned, would at last marry some one else ; 
 and he pictured her in all the magnificence of a 
 rich woman, while he must continue to grind his 
 heart out merely to have bread to eat while life 
 lasted. 
 
 One day of extreme depression it occurred to 
 him : " Women are said to be all-powerful. I 
 
134 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 wonder if I could find one to take me up." And 
 he got himself introduced to the lady of a great 
 promoter of railway speculations. She was a 
 woman of an original and independent character, 
 who had not thought the blessing of the church 
 at all necessary on her union with the wealthy 
 banker. Giovanni was young and handsome and 
 found favor in her eyes. She promised him the 
 banker for a client, assuring him that he was a 
 most litigious man who did not care what he spent 
 but must secure a clever lawyer, and would cer- 
 tainly give the preference to one of her recom- 
 mendation. But Giovanni must come often to the 
 house, so that the great man might see him and 
 take a fancy to him, and then. . . promises with- 
 out end ; none of which did the lady think of 
 keeping but those made by her black eyes and 
 which depended solely on herself. But by the 
 end of a week Giovanni was so thoroughly dis- 
 gusted that he vowed never to set foot in the 
 house again. 
 
 This brief interlude had not had the slightest 
 effect on his feelings towards Rachel. Indeed, 
 when it struck him to think of her as weeping and 
 despairing, in the compunction of his remorseful 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 135 
 
 soul he felt that he loved her more than ever for 
 the grief he had caused her ; and when he was 
 alone he went down on his knees to the maiden 
 image he had conjured up, and besought her par- 
 don and lost himself in protestations, and vows 
 and bitter tears. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 AFTER this experience he went through a long 
 period of deep dejection ; he was not even excited 
 when he had a case put into his hands. All his 
 illusions were sere and leafless, as it were, and he 
 knew full well that these petty causes would never 
 enable him to add one cell to the hive. However, 
 he got a good many, and by degrees he lost the 
 habit of wearing patched shoes, and threadbare 
 coats, and he quitted his loft at the last-maker's. 
 But with the misery of his young days the illu- 
 sions too had vanished, the dreams of future great- 
 ness ; and he had fallen into the prosaic truism of 
 dreary mediocrity. 
 
136 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 " I have mistaken my vocation," he would 
 think to himself. " The law is not my road to 
 riches." And he felt utterly mortified by the re- 
 flection that three years had gone by and he was 
 not yet in a position to present himself at the cas- 
 tle of Fontanneto without raising a smile of con- 
 tempt for his miserable earnings of three hundred 
 francs a month. Then he became possessed by 
 the strange idea of going back to his old penu- 
 rious way of living, so as to put by a certain sum 
 and speculate in stocks. He knew of some co- 
 lossal fortunes having been made in this way, and 
 he said to himself: " Who knows ?" During those 
 first years of extreme poverty he had found out 
 the art of living on the least possible pittance, and 
 now, fired by his desire to win Rachel before she 
 was snatched away from him, he found no diffi- 
 culty in renouncing his new and comparatively 
 luxurious way of living ; he did it with enthusiasm, 
 rejoicing in his self-inflicted privations, and he 
 gloated like a miser over each crown that he added 
 to his savings. At the end of a year he had ac- 
 cumulated about one thousand five hundred francs, 
 when one day he received a letter from his father, 
 who wrote as follows : 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 137 
 
 " I am overwhelmed with debts and infirmities, 
 and now that I am no longer able to amuse these 
 gentlemen by my jokes and stories they have 
 ceased to give me dinners. I have no great faith 
 in the generosity of human nature, and still less in 
 the ties of blood ; still I hope that to save your 
 father from beggary which would be a discredit to 
 you, you will contrive to provide for his declining 
 years. I never set up for being a loving parent, 
 but at any rate for twelve years of your life I kept 
 you in more or less decency, and it is hardly likely 
 that you will have me on your hands for so 
 long. . ." 
 
 Giovanni could not help a shudder as he read 
 this letter ; he felt as if an abyss had opened at 
 his feet. He had made for himself a slender foot- 
 hold and this brought the certainty that it would 
 henceforth forever fail him. Whatever he might 
 earn for the future it could never be more than 
 enough for himself and his father, and if he now 
 parted with the sum he had laid by, he could 
 never hope to replace it. At the same time it did 
 not for an instant occur to him to evade the duty. 
 It was long since Giovanni had wept, but he shed 
 bitter tears over this letter. His father had eaten 
 
138 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 and drunken and made merry, while he had been 
 toiling at this petty earning and saving, to enable 
 him to win the girl he loved ; and now his father 
 could claim the fruits of his labor and self-denial, 
 and say to him : " Give up your hopes of your 
 own free will, or I will snatch them from you by 
 the exhibition of my indigence." 
 
 His whole soul rebelled at this injustice and 
 quaked at the burden thus laid upon him ; and 
 when he presently enclosed his savings in a regis- 
 tered letter he felt none of the satisfaction of hav- 
 ing done a good action ; nor, indeed, any pity for 
 the doctor, but only a void in his heart and an 
 utter despair of the future, with an incurable bit- 
 terness of regret for the hopes he was burying. 
 As he angrily set his seal in the melted wax, he 
 muttered : " There is a curse on it !" 
 
 It was a curse, a fatality, which pursued him 
 as it had pursued so many others, and which con- 
 demned him to live unknown, wasting his talents, 
 his learning and all his superior qualities. 
 
 From that time, completely disheartened by this 
 fatal blow, he abandoned himself to his fate and 
 hoped no longer. He would remember his dreams 
 of good fortune and think of Rachel as of a fair 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 139 
 
 but shattered vision. He closed his mind with 
 positive terror to the thought that he might one 
 day meet her as the wife of another. All he asked 
 was never to see her again. He felt that he could 
 not face her without a sense of failure and disgrace. 
 He had not kept his boastful promises ; he had 
 been too presumptuous and his failure proved him 
 to have been ignorant as well. At the bottom of 
 his heart, to be sure, he did not believe this ; but, 
 after all, no man is allowed to go out on the house 
 tops and cry out : " Wait, only wait till I am a 
 great man. Let me do this or that, and you will 
 see !" We cannot do without the aid of circum- 
 stances ; all we ourselves can do is to take advan- 
 tage of them. But circumstances had done nothing 
 to help Giovanni. 
 
140 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 ONE day Signer Berti sent for Giovanni and 
 communicated to him the particulars of a case 
 of murder. A tavern-keeper had stabbed a 
 gentleman's servant; it was a vulgar row, there 
 was no opening for a brilliant defence, and the 
 great lawyer was content to hand it over to 
 his young deputy. Giovanni set to work to 
 study the case with the dillettante interest that he 
 always brought to his work ; but it was impossible 
 to deny the guilt of the accused. Not only was 
 it perfectly clear from the evidence, but the mur- 
 derer himself confessed it. Besides this he was a 
 most impracticable client ; when Giovanni first saw 
 him he was painfully impressed by this. The man 
 sat in the darkest corner of his cell, with his 
 elbows on his knees and his jaws resting on his 
 clenched fists which pushed up his cheeks till his 
 eyes were almost closed. He was about sixty 
 years of age, but he looked much older, for he was 
 bald and his beard was white. He had a cold, 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 14! 
 
 hard stare, and the deeply wrinkled features of a 
 violent nature. The young lawyer's presence 
 seemed to confirm him in his tenacity ; he showed 
 not the smallest interest in his visit, and when 
 Giovanni explained that it was his duty to defend 
 him, he shrugged his shoulders and replied : 
 
 " I killed the man, I do not deny it ; I need no 
 defence." 
 
 However Giovanni might cross-question him 
 he could get nothing more out of him. This ex- 
 traordinary indifference seemed very unnatural to 
 the young pleader. He turned to the gaoler. 
 
 "What does the prisoner say about his trial ?" 
 
 " He says nothing, for he never speaks a 
 word." 
 
 " What does he do all day ?" 
 
 " He sits in that corner, just as you see him. 
 Sometimes he reads or scribbles on the wall with 
 a pencil." 
 
 Giovanni asked to see the book he read. It 
 was a ragged and dirty Bible which opened of its 
 own accord at the place where the parable is told 
 of the rich man who, having a hundred sheep, 
 robbed a poor man of his one ewe lamb. On the 
 wall too were mottoes in abuse of the rich, some 
 
142 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 quoted from the scriptures or from popular songs; 
 while others were evidently of his own invention. 
 On a door post he had scribbled : " In the heart 
 of the rich a serpent dwells." Above his bed: 
 " The devil puts his demons into the white skin of 
 the rich to torment the poor." And below this he 
 had written : " If you are noble and have money 
 to spend make the most of your thieves' luck in 
 this world, for in the next you will serve for coals 
 to warm the poor withal." On one side was a list 
 of the names which the French revolution had 
 made famous even in Italy : Marat, Robespierre, 
 Danton. Above all, in large letters, he had 
 scrawled : " Evviva !" (Hurrah !) and at the bot- 
 tom : " Everlasting glory !" 
 
 Giovanni turned to the prisoner and said : 
 
 " You are a socialist then ?" 
 
 The man did not seem to understand and made 
 no reply. 
 
 "You do not approve of the world as it is ?" 
 the young lawyer went on, " and you would like 
 to alter it ?" 
 
 The old man vehemently clutched at the pit- 
 cher that stood beside him and flung it over, heed- 
 less of the water that poured over the tiled floor. 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 143 
 
 " Ah ! you would like to upset it ?" Giovanni 
 asked. 
 
 " Ah !" sighed the old man ; then crouching 
 till his shoulders were up to his ears, he groaned 
 more deeply. " But what then, what good 
 would it do ?" 
 
 " Then some rich man has done you an in- 
 jury ?" asked Giovanni. The prisoner drew him- 
 self up indignantly, almost threateningly ex- 
 claiming : 
 
 "No one has done me any wrong; do you 
 hear? 1 am poor, but I am respected. I have 
 killed a man. Well what then ? But there is 
 nothing against my character." 
 
 Giovanni could make nothing of him, for the 
 man he had stabbed was a poor servant who had 
 gone into the tavern to drink, and the old man, 
 the instant he saw him, without picking any quar- 
 rel, had rushed upon him shrieking : 
 
 "Thief! villain! slave to the rich, I will give 
 it you I will teach you !" And he had stabbed 
 him in the throat with a knife that he had seized 
 off the counter. There were five witnesses to the 
 fact who happened to be in the shop, and the man 
 himself made no denial or excuse. 
 
144 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 Giovanni, at his wits' end, demanded a medical 
 examination. He could discover no plea for his 
 client ; but his fixed idea evidently was a detesta- 
 tion of the upper classes ; this might be a mania 
 or an old grudge. In the first case a medical ex- 
 amination would procure him justice ; in the 
 second he might be able to find out his secret and 
 perhaps to save him yet ; and meanwhile he had 
 gained time. 
 
 Giovanni did not let the grass grow under his 
 feet. This violent and unexpected assassination 
 must have been planned, and if it were premedi- 
 tated it must have had a motive. Now the only 
 motive that the accused would confess to was his 
 hatred of the rich ; he had killed the man because 
 he was the servant of a rich master. But a few 
 enquiries sufficed to prove that many of his cus- 
 tomers were gentlemen's servants, and that 
 though the man had been apt to treat them 
 roughly he had never insulted or provoked them. 
 Thus it was this particular servant that he had 
 hated ; and in the reason for that hatred there 
 might be an excuse, or at any rate an extenuation 
 of the crime. The accused, however, persisted in 
 declaring that he had not been acquainted with 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 145 
 
 his victim ; that he had never seen him till that 
 day. To detect the real motive that had prompted 
 him to the crime it was necessary to investigate 
 his past history; but the criminal had moved 
 about so constantly within the last few years that 
 his present landlord knew him but slightly, and 
 knew nothing of his previous life. Giovanni 
 worked back on the traces to his former lodgings; 
 from Porta Romano, he went to San Celso. There 
 his client had lived for six months ; but his busi- 
 ness had at that time been in another street until 
 he moved about six months since when he had 
 taken the house, a tavern at the Porta Romana. 
 Finally, by dint of running from door to door, in 
 a blind alley near the Porta Ticinese, where the 
 man had lived many years before, Giovanni dis- 
 covered that at that time he had had a daughter. 
 They had quitted the premises suddenly, without 
 waiting for the end of the quarter, but they had 
 left no debts, and the rent had been paid up. Now 
 what had become of the daughter? Giovanni went 
 to the prison and asked the criminal. 
 
 " My daughter is dead," said the old man, 
 " and you will allow me to request that you will 
 not go prying into my private affairs." The old 
 
146 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 man had turned very red, and seemed so excited 
 that Giovanni was convinced he had laid his finger 
 on an old sore. The murdered man was no doubt 
 the seducer of the girl. The medical enquiry re- 
 sulted in a report that the accused was in the full 
 possession of his faculties. In a few days the trial 
 would be reopened. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 MEANWHILE the newspapers, in stating that 
 the prisoner had been remanded pending a medical 
 enquiry claimed on his behalf by his counsel, had 
 of course reported the reasons for this demand ; 
 which were Galbusera's invectives against the up- 
 per classes, and the ravings that he had scrawled 
 over the walls of his prison. And this was quite 
 enough to rouse public curiosity on the subject 
 which till then had not excited any interest. This 
 curiosity was greatly increased when it suddenly 
 was rumored that the further course of the trial 
 would gravely implicate the representative of a 
 noble Milanese family, who was notorious not 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 147 
 
 merely for the historic name he bore but for his 
 ostentatious wealth, his love-affairs, and his ex- 
 travagant whims, which had not unfrequently af- 
 forded matter for public comment. As always 
 happens, the newspapers vied with each other as 
 to who should have the earliest and fullest particu- 
 lars of the scandal now in the wind ; and the name 
 of Giovanni Mazza, the young lawyer, was in every 
 mouth, coupled with that of the gentleman who had 
 been summoned to give evidence for the defense. 
 It became known that the discovery of the secret 
 motive for the crime was due to the indefatigable 
 energy and acumen of the avvocato Mazza and 
 popular imagination once excited, invented a per- 
 fect romance about the young man who had, un- 
 aided, worked up and completed the case for his 
 client, and by his personal courage and zeal had 
 defeated the influence which certain persons in 
 high places had attempted to exert in order to 
 suppress the facts. The story which the news- 
 papers now printed and which the trial confirmed 
 was briefly as follows. About twelve years before 
 the commission of the crime Galbusera was keep- 
 ing the wine shop near the Porta Ticinese ; he was 
 at that time a widower with a daughter of fifteen 
 
148 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 who was apprenticed to a dressmaker. A coach- 
 man named Teodoro Donadio was in the habit of 
 frequenting the tavern very regularly every even- 
 ing and before long it was evident that he was 
 paying his addresses to the young girl. Galbusera 
 interfered, saying that the women of his family 
 had always been well-conducted, that this child 
 was the pride of his life. If he wanted to marry 
 her he had better say so, and give them the op- 
 portunity of knowing something about him ; 
 otherwise he would not allow the girl to compro- 
 mise herself by listening to his gallantries. Dona- 
 dio had asked a short time to make up his mind 
 and a few days later he had come back accom- 
 panied by a tobacconist who lived in the same 
 street, who was charged with the commission of 
 asking the hand of Maddalena Galbusera for his 
 friend. Donadio added that he was in service in 
 a highly respectable house, that his wages were 
 sufficient to maintain a family and that his master 
 would make no difficulties in the way of his mar- 
 rying. Galbusera, however, desired the tobaccon- 
 ist to request an interview with the Marchese 
 Trestelle, Donadio's master, to make enquiries as 
 to the coachman's character and to find out 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 149 
 
 whether there really was no danger of his losing 
 his place in consequence of his marriage. The 
 tobacconist had not been able to see the mar- 
 quis; but he had seen his secretary who had 
 made a note of his enquiries and on the fol- 
 lowing day he had himself fetched the answer ; the 
 master spoke highly of Donadio and made no ob- 
 jection to the marriage. The wedding was fixed 
 to take place at Michaelmas because at that time 
 the marquis would be able to lodge the couple in 
 the attic of one of his houses. There would be 
 five months to wait but that would not be too long 
 to prepare the modest outfit, and Maddalena was 
 so young that her father was glad to postpone it 
 till she should have passed her sixteenth birth- 
 day. 
 
 When everything was thus settled Donadio 
 had taken to going every evening to fetch his 
 sweetheart home from her work, and not unfre- 
 quently he would meet her in the morning and 
 walk with her to the seamstress'. He spent less 
 and less time in his father-in-law's shop, and ended 
 by never sitting there at all, since he saw Mad- 
 dalena out of doors and preferred having her to 
 himself to meeting her in the presence of the 
 
150 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 neighbors. When she went in the girl would say: 
 " He came to fetch me, and brought me to the 
 door." 
 
 At last, however, when they had been be- 
 trothed about four months, for a whole fortnight 
 Donadio failed to appear at all ; Maddalena was 
 melancholy and her father saw that she was con- 
 stantly in tears. There must have been some 
 quarrel. He questioned the girl who at first 
 denied that she was in any trouble, but on being 
 pressed had confessed everything. 
 
 Not long after Donadio had begun to fetch her 
 from the dressmaker's, as they were on their way 
 home, they had met the marquis in one of the least 
 frequented streets of the city. There was in fact no 
 one to be seen, and the gentleman had conde- 
 scended to ask the coachman if this was his sweet- 
 heart and to pay her some compliments. Then he 
 had met them again, more than once, and the 
 servant would stand aside and leave his master to 
 chat with the young girl ; the marquis was much 
 handsomer and gentler and better mannered than 
 the coachman, and the little needlewoman had lis- 
 tened only too readily to his fine speeches. Mar- 
 quises and counts had married humble girls before 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 151 
 
 now, and at fifteen nothing seems impossible. Be- 
 sides, the nobleman promised . . . only on account 
 of his high rank he could not make it known till 
 the last moment . . . they must let the world be- 
 lieve that the coachman was her lover . . . And 
 the marquis would drive out early in the day and 
 wait outside the city gates ; thither Donadio 
 would conduct her and then she spent the day with 
 his master. 
 
 But about a month before Michaelmas master 
 and man had vanished. The girl had gone back 
 to her work and her mistress had treated her but 
 coolly after her long spell of idleness, while her 
 companions gossiped and taunted her about her 
 grand acquaintance which they had not failed to 
 find out. Seeing days and months slip by with- 
 out any sign of the marquis the poor child had 
 broken down, and had confided her woes to her 
 mistress who had told her that a fortnight since 
 the Marchese Trestelle had married the daughter 
 of a rich Genoese banker, and after a short wed- 
 ding tour, had settled at Genoa near his bride's 
 family. As to Donadio, whether he was with his 
 master or no, he had left Milan. 
 
 On hearing his daughter's confession Galbusera 
 
152 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 had at once left the neighborhood, without wait- 
 ing till the end of the term, to hide his own and 
 his child's disgrace. The dressmaker to whom 
 Maddalena had also confessed her misery, recom- 
 mended an old nurse living at Monza, where the 
 poor child would be taken care of and remain un- 
 known. Two months later she had died there, after 
 the premature birth of her infant. 
 
 For ten years Galbusera had chewed the cud 
 of his wrath, grief and shame ; avoiding every face 
 he knew, changing his residence whenever he sus- 
 pected that he had been recognized, and thrilling 
 at the thought of some day meeting the marquis or 
 Donadio. Then, one day, Donadio had gone into 
 the shop and he had stabbed him. 
 
 It would be impossible to describe the excite- 
 ment produced in Milan by the revelation of these 
 facts ; indeed not only in Milan ; all Italy talked 
 of this trial. It took place at a time when politics 
 happened to be devoid of interest and the papers 
 flung themselves greedily on this exciting drama 
 of crime. Party spirit, of course, and as usual, 
 inflamed their partisanship. The republican and 
 social papers spoke of the assassin as a hero, and 
 lauded him to the skies nay even the mottoes 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 153 
 
 he had scribbled on the wall and the grammarless 
 notes that he spent his time in writing from his 
 cell. The conservative organs, on the contrary, 
 did more than insinuate that the intrigue at- 
 tributed to the Marchese Trestelle was a device 
 adopted to extract money from him, and to throw 
 discredit on the class to which he belonged. 
 
 To Giovanni the certainty of having the eyes 
 of the country fixed upon him was a powerful in- 
 centive and at the end of the first day of the trial 
 he was himself astonished at the fervor of his elo- 
 quence and the cogency of his arguments. The 
 examination of the Marchese Trestelle of which 
 the result was telegraphed the same evening to all 
 the important newspapers throughout Italy was 
 a triumph for the young lawyer ; with admirable 
 skill he contrived to extract from the witness a full 
 admission of the truth, and so happy was he in his 
 address, sarcastic and indignant by turns, that he 
 subdued the haughtiness of his witness most effec- 
 tually, and heaped on him all the scornful con- 
 demnation that he had so righteously deserved. 
 The summing up with which he closed his defence 
 surpassed the expectations of the audience, and 
 was long quoted and remembered as a tri- 
 
154 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 umph of forensic skill. It was not so much 
 a defence, argued out on legal grounds, as art 
 elaborate psychological study, in which the crim- 
 inal and his victim, the seducer and the young girl, 
 were drawn as typical personages, and the whole 
 subject was treated from a lofty stand-point. The 
 case, which at first had been no more than a mere 
 vulgar scandal was transfigured in his hands and 
 assumed a totally new aspect ; it was a tragedy 
 fraught with solemn lessons. 
 
 When Giovanni sat down exhausted with 
 excitement, the presiding judge found it im- 
 possible to check the applause of the audience. 
 Everyone present lawyers, magistrates, critics, 
 were agreed that a great genius here stood revealed. 
 Fortune favored him ; the verdict was not, it is 
 true, an acquittal ; but the premeditation was 
 ignored, the provocation estimated as almost irre- 
 sistible and the penalty made as light as the law 
 would allow. 
 
155 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE press gave the new legal star a dinner and 
 his contemporaries in the profession did the same; 
 and as he sat at these banquets he remembered 
 with a smile that dinner at five francs a head 
 which he had given to his fellow- clerks, and all 
 the humiliation and sacrifices it had cost him. 
 
 Once more the hopes that he had buried rose 
 from the grave and stood before him, more en- 
 chanting than ever because this fame had come to 
 him suddenly, in a day as it were, when it had 
 seemed to have deserted him forever. Henceforth 
 his position was assured ; the future smiled upon 
 him and money would not fail to flow in. When- 
 ever he read an article in a paper sounding his 
 praises he thought to himself : "Rachel will see 
 this, her father will even read it," and his fancy 
 looked back on the dreary autumn day when he 
 had said as he drove past the castle : " And she 
 too; well she shall see." And now now she 
 would see what he had been able to do. " It has 
 
156 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 cost me dear, but I have succeeded," he said to 
 himself; and he was proud of his fortitude and of 
 the privations he had endured. He was happy to 
 feel how young he was and how much of his life 
 lay before him. 
 
 Dating from the success of the Galbusera trial 
 a new life of incessant business and bustle began 
 for the young lawyer, in which the twenty-four 
 hours of the day were not long enough for 
 all he had to do in them. Clients flocked to 
 him and he was appointed referee in election 
 matters by his political party. He was invited 
 to contribute to various legal periodicals, and 
 wrote some articles on a scheme for certain 
 reforms which were discussed in all the leading 
 papers. His talents and his theories, which till 
 now had been ignored, were fully revealed and 
 in a short time his name was universally famous. 
 
 During the five years that he had spent in 
 Berti's office his principal had never proposed to 
 introduce him to his wife. He had seen her come 
 into her husband's rooms several times, with a 
 great rustle of silk skirts, leaving in her wake a 
 strong perfume of violets which had given the 
 young clerk a high idea of her elegance. She had 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 157 
 
 glanced at him now and again through the meshes 
 of her lace veil, but had never spoken to him. 
 But the day after the famous trial of Galbusera 
 his master said to him: 
 
 " My wife desires to make your acquaintance. 
 Come to-morrow evening to take tea with us, and 
 I will introduce you to her." 
 
 He and Berti had never been intimate ; the 
 senior had always spoken to him with the familiar- 
 ity of a leader to his subaltern, his inferior, and 
 not that of a friend. And Giovanni had seen 
 enough of the world to understand the meaning 
 of this change ; he smiled at the idea that so 
 clever a man, who had known him well for five 
 years, should have waited to appreciate him at his 
 true worth until public opinion had set its seal 
 upon his merits. His introduction into the house 
 of so distinguished a man and his presentation to 
 the lady who, as he judged, must be double his 
 own age, gave him something to think about. 
 Signora Berti was in fact past forty ; but she had 
 no children and was a handsome woman ; she took 
 the greatest care of her beauty too, dressed ele- 
 gantly and went to the theatre and to balls in low 
 dresses, with short sleeves and with flowers in her 
 
158 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 hair ; she danced, flirted with men younger than 
 herself, liked their attentions and let them know 
 that she did. Giovanni did not fail to understand 
 from her airs and glances and style of dress that 
 the lady still maintained her pretensions to youth- 
 fulness and he found some difficulty in reconciling 
 these pretensions with her undoubted age, and 
 with her dignity as the wife of his principal two 
 things which kept him at bay. When he arrived 
 at Berti's house the lawyer received him as a com- 
 rade ; he went forward to meet him with both 
 hands out, took him confidentially by the arm, 
 and as he led him through the length of two 
 rooms to introduce him to his wife, he said: 
 " Here we are friends. We are not principal 
 and deputy ; those I receive in my own house 
 are my equals ..." And stopping to press his 
 hand once more he added: "and my col- 
 leagues." 
 
 Then he went on to say that the Galbusera 
 case had placed Mazza among the most distin- 
 guished advocates of Milan and discussed and 
 criticised his method of defense, comparing it with 
 his own, analyzing his arguments and admiring 
 his ingenuity. Giovanni was deeply touched, and 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 159 
 
 warmly returned the friendly grasp of the man 
 whom he had hitherto thought of only as a super- 
 ficial rhetorician but whom he now began to see 
 in a new light. The stirring appeals for which 
 Berti had for so many years been famous were not 
 mere studied effects ; he was really a man of feeling. 
 In spite of his fifty years he had a poetic fancy, 
 passionate emotions, and a romantic nature. It 
 was a real effort to him to keep up his dignity be- 
 fore the youths in his office, for he loved young 
 people and liked to join in their amusements ; he 
 had all the eagerness and venturesome spirit of 
 youth. When he first heard Giovanni's style of 
 defense, devoid of those declamatory effects by 
 which he could draw tears from his audience and 
 melt even the jury, he had found it cold : " He 
 has no blood in his veins," he had thought. ' " He 
 does not know how to move his hearers ; he will 
 never do anything to save a client." But when 
 he had heard the young advocate plead the cause 
 of Galbusera and achieve such success by the 
 mere statement of facts, he was deeply impressed 
 and had felt a genuine pleasure in his subaltern's 
 triumph. Though he himself was a born rhetori- 
 cian and could do no less than remain so, he 
 
160 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 could appreciate the merit of a more realistic 
 method of argument. 
 
 The lady's cordiality was less genuine. Still, 
 she was really pleased at having in her drawing- 
 room the young lawyer who was just then the 
 most talked-of man in Milan ; but her satisfaction 
 arose from vanity and not from sympathy with 
 him. She, like her husband, had youthful instincts; 
 but in him they were the outcome of an enthusiastic 
 and generous nature whose illusions age can 
 never altogether dispel ; in her they were only 
 vanity and coquetry. During the whole evening 
 she devoted her attention almost exclusively to the 
 illustrious visitor ; she introduced him to everyone 
 and when the ladies invited him to their evenings 
 " at home " she answered for him : " Yes I will 
 bring him with me on Tuesday, or on Sunday. I 
 intend to introduce him everywhere as my hus- 
 band's pupil." 
 
 Then she would add with a laugh, as if she 
 were saying something supremely absurd : " I 
 shall play mother to him." And Giovanni would 
 be constrained to say that she was too young and 
 handsome and that such a mother inspired feelings 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. l6l 
 
 that were anything rather than reverent . . . very 
 different. . . 
 
 However, sometimes under her protection and 
 sometimes alone, Giovanni made the round of 
 Milan society. His handsome face and unaffected 
 good manners, his dignified reserve, pleasant ease 
 and above all his genuine wit made him a favorite 
 with all. Men consulted him on grave political or 
 social matters and thought highly of his judgment 
 The young married ladies lamented his inability 
 to dance, declaring that at his age it was unpar- 
 donable, and inviting him to try a polka or a 
 quadrille under pretence of teaching him, but in 
 reality because they liked to walk round a room 
 arm in arm with him, to talk to him, to hear his 
 compliments which were always fresher than the 
 stereotype formulas to which they were accustomed 
 However, Giovanni did learn to dance a little, and 
 during the next carnival indulged in that exercise 
 though in moderation, and became one of the most 
 fashionable young men of the Milan beau monde. 
 
 But the establishment of an office of his own 
 with suitable lodgings, his more elegant style of 
 dress, his dinners in a better supplied and more 
 fashionably frequented eating-house, all proved 
 
162 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 costly. He still had his old horror of being a 
 parasite like his father and of its ever being said to 
 him : " You live on others, as the Dottorino did 
 before you." Good Heavens! To escape this 
 he lavished flowers, artistic trifles and boxes at the 
 theatres on the families who invited him to their 
 dinners and soirees, and all this ran away with his 
 money. His earnings barely sufficed to meet his 
 expenses and to supply his father's demands ; and 
 in the midst of his triumphs he was still far very 
 far from Signor Pedrotti's ideal of a rich hus- 
 band for his daughter. But this thought was no 
 longer so much in the foreground of his mind ; 
 the memory of Rachel, though it was still one of 
 his fondest thoughts when he thought of her, 
 haunted him with less insistency than of old. To 
 marry her was still his ruling purpose, a compact, 
 as it were, with himself, a decree of destiny ; but 
 he no longer felt any impatient ardor to attain that 
 end nay, other ardors and different yearnings 
 had taken possession of his soul. 
 
1 63 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 SINCE Giovanni had been released from the 
 wearisome necessity of providing every day for 
 the next day's needs, since he had gained the 
 leisure of an easier existence and saw himself sur- 
 rounded by luxury and beauty, his vigorous and 
 unspoiled youth had waked up to the thirst for 
 pleasure which was strong in proportion to the 
 length of its enforced torpor. He felt all the fasci- 
 nations of the hundred women who smiled upon 
 him and gave him their hand ; he gazed with a 
 sort of intoxication at their white shoulders and 
 saw them again in his dreams. The brief flirtations 
 with the sempstress or the milliner who had smiled 
 from time to time on the poor clerk, without oc- 
 cupying either his heart or his fancy, had no 
 longer any charms for him. His nature was poetical 
 and a love of all that was fair and refined was in- 
 stinctive with him. He liked well-born and well- 
 bred women, witty and well dressed ; he liked to 
 breathe the same air, to lounge at their feet on 
 
164 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 thick carpets, to sit by their side on velvet sofas, 
 to inhale the fragrance of their hair and their 
 gloves. He panted for his share of happiness, for 
 some stormy romance ; he felt that he was living 
 in an atmosphere from which it might be evolved, 
 and his vehement imagination loved to picture it 
 as full of emotion and ecstasy. 
 
 One evening at a ball, when he had hidden 
 himself, as he thought, behind two camellia shrubs, 
 to indulge for a time in these visions of possible 
 bliss, he saw a beautiful arm invitingly extended 
 and a sweetly regretful voice said plaintively : 
 
 " For pity's sake come and dance this quadrille; 
 I was obliged to go way to fasten up my hair and 
 I have lost my partner." 
 
 He started up in astonishment, gazing at that 
 arm, those shoulders, that throat, all that expanse 
 of warm white the rose-tipped creaminess of a 
 blonde beauty which came upon him like the 
 realization of his dreams. He obeyed the appeal 
 in stricken silence and got through the figures of 
 the dance he knew not how; never taking his 
 eyes off his partner. He felt suffocating. 
 
 He had met this lady on various occasions, 
 indeed he knew her and had been at her house, 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 165 
 
 and he had seen that she was handsome ; but he 
 had never before felt the smallest emotion from her 
 beauty. They had been capital friends on the 
 terms of good fellowship which a woman of the 
 world knows so well how to establish with a man 
 she gets on with and in speaking of her Giovanni 
 had often said: "I like her because she never 
 wants me to court her. I can talk to her as I 
 should to a man." 
 
 But now in this moment of intoxication he felt 
 as if her beauty had been created for him ; that 
 this fair revelation was a sort of outcome of his 
 imaginings ; that he had evoked it and it had ap- 
 peared at his bidding. He could not say any- 
 thing and looked anxious and disturbed. 
 
 " What ails you Avvocato ?" asked the coun- 
 tess. 
 
 " Oh ! you are too beautiful !" sighed Giovanni 
 in the low helpless tones of a man carried away by 
 his passion. 
 
 The lady stood stupefied ; it was as though she 
 had had a sudden blow. She felt in an instant that 
 she ought to have resented this address and re- 
 proved her audacious companion, or turn her fair 
 shoulders on him and leave him to repent of his 
 
166 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 boldness ; but then she felt no resentment. In fact 
 she had had a blow an electric shock ; the sul- 
 try oppression that troubled Giovanni fell upon 
 her too. They finished the quadrille in silence and 
 agitation that emotional silence which is more 
 eloquent and more explicit than any words ; their 
 hands trembled as they clasped, lingered, and 
 parted slowly, and their eyes met and could not 
 fall, like magnetized needles ; their hearts throbbed 
 under the weight of an obscure melancholy, an 
 inexplicable dread ; and she could have wept pas- 
 sionate tears. 
 
 The Contessa Gemma Castellani di Monte 
 was an ambitious and a sceptical woman. From 
 her youth up she had always had an ungoverned 
 love of splendor and as she grew older this pas- 
 sion had increased till it had mastered her whole 
 soul. As a girl at school she had always 
 made friends with the richest and grandest of her 
 companions, scorning those whose mothers were 
 not elegantly dressed, or who came without a car- 
 riage and servants in livery. As she grew up her 
 one dream was a rich husband and a title, and this 
 desire so filled her heart that it was incapable of 
 any other sentiment. She laughed at love. If she 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 167 
 
 heard of a married couple so devoted that they 
 withdrew from society the better to enjoy each 
 other's company, she laughed them to scorn : 
 " Everyone to their taste !" was all she had to say 
 to them ; and all she asked with regard to the 
 married pair was the amount of their income and 
 of the wife's settlement ; whether she dressed well, 
 if they received much company or went out much, 
 if they had a good carriage and how many horses 
 they kept. In the innermost depths of her heart 
 her fondest desire was to ride on horseback in a 
 long flowing habit ; but she was one of a numerous 
 family and her father, who was a banker, could not 
 give her more than a hundred thousand francs 
 without doing injury to his business. Her mother 
 had explained to her very clearly that with so 
 modest a dowry she must not give herself too 
 many airs, or she would scare any possible suitor ; 
 and handsome Gemma, to whom no fate seemed 
 more horrible than that of remaining an old maid, 
 had kept her ambitions as to a riding-horse to her- 
 self, fully intending, however, to impress them on 
 her husband as soon as she had secured him. But 
 she counted largely on her beauty and was quite 
 resolved not to sacrifice her ambitious dreams to 
 
168 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 any of the young stock-brokers who offered her 
 their hearts and a share of their slender fortunes 
 lawyers and small land-owners. 
 
 One day, when she was visiting at the house of 
 one of her grand acquaintance, a gentleman was 
 introduced to her, a retired general ; with a title, 
 about thirty hairs on the whole of his head,' and 
 sixty years on his shoulders. Some well-informed 
 person let out also that he was a millionaire and 
 the fair Gemma soon confided to the mistress of 
 the house: "That no young man that she had seen 
 had ever impressed her so favorably as this noble 
 looking man with his intellectual brow. And after 
 all he was not old she did not believe that he 
 was more than fifty : certainly he did not look it ; 
 and at fifty a man is in the prime of life. She, to 
 be sure, was hardly nineteen, but she was sure that 
 if he were to ask her to marry him she would 
 make no difficulties; a husband was the better for 
 having had a long experience of life, and a safer 
 guide for a young wife. She, for her part, could 
 not understand how a woman could entrust her 
 future fate and happiness in the hands of a thought- 
 less youth. . ." 
 
 She knew what she was doing and to whom 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 169 
 
 she was speaking, did the fair Gemma. Her con- 
 fidante did not fail to repeat her speech to the 
 millionaire general ; then she reported to the 
 young lady the count's appreciation and gratitude 
 how glad he should be to win so handsome and 
 so reasonable a wife ; but at his age he could not 
 venture he should fear to seem ridiculous. . . 
 
 " Of course, I know that he never thought of 
 such a thing !" said Gemma. " But I have thought 
 of it ; though I have never hoped for such good 
 fortune. Papa, I know, has some rich banker in his 
 eye, some younger man and I shall marry him 
 no doubt: but if this respectable gentleman had 
 offered himself I should have accepted him with 
 greater confidence. . ." 
 
 The go-between friend again took care to re- 
 peat the girl's encouraging sentiments, and at the 
 end of a couple of months the banker's daughter 
 became a countess and the mistress of a fine for- 
 tune; and one of the bridegroom's gifts was a 
 saddle-horse. 
 
 The first seven years of her married life flew 
 with giddy swiftness ; the Countess Gemma rushed 
 about with delirious hurry from pleasure to 
 pleasure ; dress, amusements of every kind, sump- 
 
170 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 tuous entertainments at home, on which she spent 
 in an evening the income of a twelve-month, and 
 gay excursions into the country had turned her 
 brain. She was very soon accustomed to her title, 
 but still she liked to hear it ; she was never tired of 
 compliments to her beauty, and her elegance, and 
 admiration, however extravagant, never satiated 
 her. At first her husband, taking her at her word 
 as to his mission to guide his young wife, had tried 
 to keep this wild excitability in check; but the 
 only result had been endless squabbling which had 
 enhanced the countess's appreciation of the 
 pleasures she could only win by a pitched battle ; 
 and at length the general had resigned himself to 
 his lot of being his wife's guardian in the literal 
 sense of escorting her wherever she chose to seek 
 satisfaction for her vanity or love of amusement. 
 In the summer, at Baden or at Vichy, in the gay 
 world of Paris or of London, the old officer never 
 failed to introduce and attend his handsome young 
 wife. 
 
 Fifty thousand francs a year are hardly an am- 
 ple income on which to live in this style ; they 
 got into debt. They held on as long as they could, 
 but at last they were obliged to sacrifice almost 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 171 
 
 everything to their creditors and reduce their mode 
 of life in some proportion to the narrow income 
 that was left to them. The countess gave up the 
 aristocratic society in which she moved ; not for 
 worlds would she have cut a less splendid figure 
 than before ; and she condescended to shine in a 
 humbler circle, in which she could still make some 
 show with a carriage with only one horse, and 
 without any saddle-horses. And thus it happened 
 that Giovanni had met her in the houses of Sig- 
 nora Berti and her acquaintances. 
 
 Flirtations more or less serious had always held 
 a place in the countess's programme of amuse- 
 ments. But passion had never touched her heart. 
 Her haughtiness and her love of luxury had al- 
 ways kept would-be lovers in check ; and she, on 
 her part, loved herself too dearly, and was too 
 much absorbed in making herself talked of as the 
 most elegant woman in Milan ever to have leisure 
 of mind or heart for falling in love. Safe in her 
 beauty and her youth, she needed no arts to win 
 admiration ; and this absence of coquetry with 
 the haughtiness she derived from her high 
 opinion of herself, had gained her a reputation 
 for honesty and had in fact proved her safe- 
 
1/2 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 guard ; she was supposed to be as unassailable as 
 a fortress. 
 
 Nothing short of the excitement, the ecstasy, 
 the madness, in which Giovanni had spoken that 
 evening, under the influence of his wild struggle 
 with his fervid youth and unsatisfied cravings, 
 could have emboldened him to utter to a woman 
 whose position was so unimpeachable those four 
 words as hot and as startling as a kiss " you 
 are too beautiful." 
 
 The countess was but eight and twenty, and of 
 love she knew nothing but the half parental af- 
 fection of her husband of near seventy. The pas- 
 sion that was latent in her soul flamed up at the 
 spark of Giovanni's glance, at the breath of his 
 voice, and she no more thought of resisting their 
 fascination than she had ever thought of resisting 
 any of her other desires. Her egoism was in it- 
 self a passion ; she could refuse herself nothing. 
 That night when she went home, alone in her 
 room she wept tears of rapture and of rage as she 
 recalled the clasp of Giovanni's hand and the deep 
 glow of his dark eyes. When and where could 
 they meet again ? A wide horizon of new de- 
 lights opened before her, and an unexplored world. 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 173 
 
 Above the vanity of feeling that she was beautiful 
 and admired, soared more vehement pride of feel- 
 ing that she was loved the pride of loving in 
 return. 
 
 Giovanni was captivated by this woman. He 
 sought her, followed her, wrapped her in a halo of 
 passion ; and when the fading image of Rachel 
 rose before his fancy no longer like a vision from 
 heaven, but like a statue receding from his view 
 he would say to soothe his conscience : "A love 
 like this, a passing fever for a married woman, is 
 like a flower plucked by the way. It makes no 
 real difference." 
 
 Still, not for worlds would he have renounced 
 the idea of plucking the flower. He went wher- 
 ever he was sure to meet the countess ; and always 
 kept near enough to gaze at her handsome person. 
 He would seize the opportunities offered by a 
 quadrille to touch her hand, and there was in that 
 grasp an electric current which made their fingers 
 thrill and clasp so tightly that it was anguish to 
 tear them apart, and once parted they quivered to 
 meet again. Giovanni was not a great dancer ; 
 but one evening, finding himself close to the coun- 
 tess as a polka was beginning, he silently bowed 
 
1/4 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 and offered her his hand. She took it ; he clasped 
 her to his heart as though he would carry her off, 
 as if he could absorb her into his being, breathed 
 on her hair caressed her with his gaze, and as he 
 led her back to her seat, held her hand with a 
 pressure which conveyed an epitome of all the 
 tender and eager devotion which he had kept in 
 subjection during that dance. But he said nothing. 
 He was happy enough in the mere sense of pas- 
 sion that fired his whole being. He felt that she 
 loved him ; and that consciousness was enough to 
 intoxicate him ; there was something pathetic to 
 him in these speechless joys ; he lingered over 
 them and was in no hurry to shorten them by an 
 explanation. He knew that the explanation must 
 come, and dreamed of it as a crowning joy ; but 
 he wanted it to come from her, letting her go on 
 from one sweet phase to the next, and dreading 
 lest, if he hastened to an end, he might lose that 
 fragrance of sentiment, or one of the wordless and 
 playful details of their passion which made it so 
 exquisite. 
 
 Still, he foresaw the end. How, when, where? 
 He knew not ; but he was sure of it and that was 
 enough. 
 
175 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 ONE day Giovanni had a note from Signora 
 Berti, begging him to go to see her because she 
 wished particularly to introduce him privately to a 
 friend of hers. He found her in her drawing-room 
 with the wife of Signer Ipsilonne, a banker who was 
 seriously compromised in an action that was to be 
 tried with regard to certain forgeries. A most un- 
 fortunate resemblance between his writing and that 
 of one of the persons implicated, had led to his 
 being indicted ; and of two experts employed by 
 the court, one swore that he recognized the ban- 
 ker's writing, while the other only doubted and 
 dared not deny his guilt. In fact he was innocent ; 
 his heart-broken wife had begged to be introduced 
 to Giovanni, in the hope that he would conduct 
 his defence with as much zeal and skill as he had 
 displayed in defending the tavern-keeper. 
 
 It was a case of great importance and interest 
 which promised to secure him a fresh triumph, and 
 
1 76 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 he threw himself heart and soul into the cause of 
 an honest man so fatally implicated in a crime of 
 which he was guiltless. He at once put his time, 
 his brains and his best will at the service of his 
 new client. He smothered his passion, and without 
 wasting time in taking leave of the countess, he 
 rushed off to Naples, to Rome, to Turin, to com- 
 pare documents, and bring proofs and witnesses in 
 favor of the banker ; returning only the day be- 
 fore the trial was to begin. He arrived at Milan 
 by the last train in the evening, after an absence 
 of more than a week. On his table he found a 
 telegraphic message from the parish priest of Fon- 
 tanetto which had been lying there for some 
 days. 
 
 " I grieve to tell you of the death of your 
 father, Doctor Mazza. Found dead in bed this 
 morning. Sanitary regulations require the funeral 
 within twenty-four hours. Telegraph your or- 
 ders." 
 
 Six days ago the funeral was by this time 
 over and forgotten ; it was not long since Gio- 
 vanni had sent his father a small sum of money, 
 and there was the furniture in the house. It 
 seemed to him that on the whole any instructions 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 177 
 
 from him were now unnecessary and still more his 
 presence at Fontanetto. This was, in fact, quite 
 out of the question with the business of the next 
 day's trial on his hands. 
 
 Well, he had done his duty at a great cost to 
 himself, and helped his father in his need ; but he 
 could not be a devoted son. The Dottorino's 
 parasitical and intemperate habits, his brutality 
 at home, and the final degradation of delirium 
 tremens, to which, as he knew, his father had suc- 
 cumbed, did not invite him to rush about the 
 country to reap the harvest of contempt that was 
 very certainly the sole inheritance the poor wretch 
 had left behind him. He knew that at such a 
 moment he should meet with no consideration; 
 the memory of that ignoble life and squalid death 
 were still too green. On the other hand he did not 
 flatter himself that he, in his own person, could pro- 
 duce any very favorable impression at Fontanetto ; 
 and he did not think he was rich enough to renew 
 his claims on Rachel ; but the truth was that now 
 the moment had arrived that, five years ago had 
 seemed so remote, he thought it was too soon to 
 think of marrying. So he replied by telegraph 
 that the news had reached him too late and that 
 
1/8 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 he had consequently been prevented attending the 
 funeral, but that he had every confidence in the 
 priest, who would no doubt have seen that all was 
 decently conducted. 
 
 Giovanni reflected with deep dejection on the 
 life of crapulous dissipation that his father had led 
 for the last thirty years, on his miserable end, 
 on his whole worthless existence, at once mean 
 and graceless ; he was moved to genuine com- 
 passion. The doctor had had talents and power; he 
 might beyond a doubt have made some mark 
 and he came to nothing. He, Giovanni, was his 
 son ; he had perhaps inherited the germs of his 
 father's nature ; base passions, such as had ruined 
 his father, lurked perhaps in his heart, only wait- 
 ing for a moment of weakness or inertia to en- 
 mesh him and conquer him. He was terrified at 
 the thought ; it revived his devotion to work, his 
 ambition of glory, his longing to earn an honora- 
 ble independence; and he spent the night in 
 studying the great case and preparing his de- 
 fence. 
 
 The trial lasted a week and was a succession 
 of triumphs for the young advocate. This secured 
 his fame ; every word he spoke now carried 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 179 
 
 weight and was repeated as authoritative and re- 
 ported in the papers. The mere fact that he was 
 to speak filled the court with an audience, and a 
 crowd of reporters and critics ; his sayings were 
 talked over and commented on, his dicta were 
 quoted as if they were law by the multitude, and 
 found due consideration even among persons in 
 authority. Every evening his table was covered 
 with visiting-cards and letters of congratulation, 
 and admiration and friendships were his to com- 
 mand. Still, he could not rid himself of the pain- 
 ful impression left on him by his father's death. 
 When he went home he felt as though he should 
 see him lying dead, decrepit before his time, hav- 
 ing drunk himself into his grave. He tried not 
 to think of him, but he could not help it. 
 
 Day after day, he saw the countess on the re- 
 served seats in the court, whither she came regu- 
 larly to hear him. She was dazzlingly beautiful 
 and splendidly dressed, and attracted all eyes ; 
 bnt she looked at no one but the young pleader. 
 She was always very early ; when he came in she 
 was always there to receive him. She fixed her 
 eyes on him her eyes of a metallic turquoise 
 blue, and never moved, just catching his glance as 
 
180 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 he turned his head, and answering with a respon- 
 sive flash that went straight to his heart. While 
 making his defence he addressed himself for the 
 most part to her ; he was eager and agitated, and 
 felt the need of a friend's presence. She was al- 
 ways in the same place and the same attitude, her 
 eye riveted on him as if it were held by a mag- 
 netic force. Then her violet orbs were dimmed and 
 clouded ; there were tears in them ; but she did 
 not cover her eyes with her handkerchief or her 
 hand ; she felt the slow tears roll down her cheeks, 
 and they trembled on her chin falling like large 
 beads on her grey silk dress where they spread in 
 lead-colored circles. Giovanni was greatly touched 
 by this gaze and these tears, by this spell-bound 
 beauty, and this overpowering love which defied 
 all the proprieties to confess itself to him. In 
 the saddened mood of those days he loved the 
 countess with the tender attachment of a betrothed 
 lover. He no longer suffered from the frenzied 
 passion of a month before ; he no longer felt that 
 mad desire to hold her in his arms and clutch her 
 to his heart, and kiss or eat that rose-tinted snow. 
 No, he would have been happiest sitting by her 
 side in mystical rapture, and could have wept on 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. l8l 
 
 her bosom. Every day he made up his mind to 
 go to see her ; but he always put it off. This post- 
 ponement had a charm in the very intensity of his 
 craving to be with her ; and he never ceased to 
 think of her. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 THE Dottorino had sunk into a state of such 
 complete imbecility that he had glided out of 
 drunkenness into death probably without knowing 
 it, and certainly without either crying out for help 
 or making any attempt to help himself. La Matta 
 had found him cold in his bed, and had run off to 
 call the priest who had sent her to fetch the post- 
 master that he might at once go to Borgomanero 
 and dispatch the telegraphic message. 
 
 " It is to Signor Giovanni," La Matta had said 
 to the man ; she was in such a state of excitement 
 at the idea of seeing Giovanni again that she had 
 no thoughts for the tragedy that had happened in 
 the house. She stood at the door of the baker's 
 
1 82 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 shop muttering to herself quite softly, as if she 
 were afraid of waking some one : 
 
 "The master is dead. He died drunk." And 
 she looked quite astonished, for it seemed to her 
 that she was hearing instead of telling the news. 
 And when the people in the shop had a little got 
 over their surprise, she went on, grinning with de- 
 light, as if years had already gone by since the 
 sudden news had burst upon them and there were 
 no connection between that catastrophe and the 
 joyful consequences: " Signer Giovanni is the 
 master now; I shall have to do for him." 
 
 In the evening the priest, seeing that Giovanni 
 neither came nor telegraphed, said that the body 
 must be buried. La Matta was petrified. She 
 gazed at the dead man, whose mouth was a little 
 on one side as if he were mocking her as he lay 
 in his coffin, and she realized that he was leaving 
 her. Then she thought of the unknown remote- 
 ness of her young master and she began to cry, 
 wailing piteously : " Oh, however shall I find him ? 
 What shall I do ?" 
 
 It had always been the poor soul's ideal of life 
 that she should serve Giovanni, and live with him. 
 In the devotion of her slave-like affection she had 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 183 
 
 never dreamed of anything but to serve him ; but 
 that she had longed for with an intensity that had 
 made it the only aim and end of life to her on earth ; 
 and even when, in church, she vaguely dreamed 
 of the joys of paradise she still thought of Gio- 
 vanni above her and herself at his feet in a state 
 of beatitude to which she would never have as- 
 pired in this sphere, but which seemed to her the 
 perfection of bliss in heaven. For the present 
 she indulged in less celestial delights. She would 
 sit for hours wrapped in visions of dinners she 
 would prepare for Giovanni ; she knew that he 
 was fond of Risotto* and she pictured the whole 
 process of cooking a superlative Risotto ; she 
 added mushrooms, and even truffles ; and she 
 laughed to herself with glee as she fancied him 
 eating it and saying : " What a good Risotto !" 
 
 She got the priest's and the chemist's cooks to 
 teach her a number of elaborate concoctions on 
 which to feed her dreams of devotion. 
 
 But where was he this master to whom she 
 was ready to give her heart's blood ? Where was 
 she to find him ? Suppose she was to lose herself 
 
 * A dish of rice with grated cheese, and tomato, or gravy with 
 saffron. 
 
184 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 on the way ? And even the dead master was leav- 
 ing her she had not loved him but she had taken 
 good care of him because he was her Giovanni's 
 father, and because she had an ill-defined sense of 
 that old drunkard being in some way a tie between 
 her and the absent lad. 
 
 The dead man was buried, and when La Matta 
 came home from standing by his grave, her face 
 all swollen by long and desperate weeping, she 
 found the priest, who had got back before her, in 
 the house displaying the furniture and other pos- 
 sessions of the deceased to his creditors. The 
 doctor had spent all the money sent him by his 
 son at the tavern, the inn parlor and the tobac- 
 conist's, and he had left debts at almost every 
 shop in the place, besides owing arrears of rent. 
 
 " The debts amount to four hundred francs in 
 all," said the priest. " And then there is the 
 funeral, and the church dues ... it is no use to 
 count on the son, for he has not even answered 
 nor come; but by selling the furniture we shall 
 realize a small sum which may perhaps pay every- 
 thing." 
 
 La Matta, who had stood listening open- 
 mouthed, turned pale and began to tremble. 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 185 
 
 What ! sell the furniture ! That furniture among 
 which she had dreamed of ending her days with 
 Giovanni ! His bed the table on which she had 
 so fondly hoped to lay his dinner. Those books 
 he had always prized so much ! She stood in 
 silence, absorbed in elaborate calculations, paying 
 no further heed to what the others were saying 
 about a friendly sale, and legal expenses, and 
 things that she did not understand. Then going 
 away she ran to open her money-box and taking 
 out her savings-bank book she carried it to the 
 priest, laughing with delight, though her eyes were 
 still full of tears. 
 
 " What do you want to do with it ?" asked the 
 priest. 
 
 "To buy the furniture. ..." said the poor 
 soul. 
 
 " As a loan to your master's son ?" 
 
 " It is his," said La Matta with magnanimous 
 conviction, "and he is the master." 
 
 " But what will you do with the furniture ?" 
 
 " Take it to the master. But you must tell me 
 where he is." 
 
 The good man was perplexed ; he did not wish 
 to take advantage of the poor servant's ignorant 
 
1 86 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 generosity ; on the other hand he knew that the 
 furniture could not fetch more than a hundred 
 francs or so. The five hundred francs that La 
 Matta had to offer were enough to pay all the 
 creditors and the parish dues as well. He thought 
 the matter over for a long time, for his mind was 
 not a rapid one ; but he came to a conclusion at 
 last. 
 
 " Well, you shall buy the furniture as a com- 
 mission from the avvocato, and you shall lend 
 him the rest of your savings to pay his father's 
 debts. I will see that you have enough left to pay 
 for your journey and the carriage of the things ; 
 and then you can go to Milan with them and tell 
 him how matters stand and he will make it good to 
 you. You can tell him that if he does not take 
 your word for it he can write to me, and I will be 
 your witness that you have lent him five hundred 
 francs. ..." 
 
 Of all this La Matta did not understand a 
 word ; she was wholly absorbed in the idea of go- 
 ing to Milan to find Giovanni, and taking him his 
 furniture which he would be so delighted to have. 
 As to where Milan might be, or how she was to 
 get there, she thought no more about it. The 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. l8/ 
 
 priest would tell her the way. She was going to 
 " do for " Giovanni, to cook his dinner, to brush 
 his clothes, to make his bed. How she would 
 shake up the maize in the mattress so as to make 
 it thick and comfortable. He did not know how 
 elastic a bed could be made. She kept saying to 
 the neighbors : 
 
 " He will want for nothing now poor boy. I am 
 going to look after him." And she said it with the 
 profoundest pity, with a feeling of his long destitu- 
 tion, as though, since he had been away from her, 
 no one could have done him those services and he 
 had remained in utter abandonment, waiting till 
 she should come. She was transfigured by happi- 
 ness. She took leave of everybody saying: "You 
 will see me no more." 
 
 But she uttered the words of eternal farewell 
 with a chuckle of satisfaction ; she could never 
 cease laughing and the smile on her face had be- 
 come a spasmodic grin and convulsion of joy. 
 She spent several days and even nights in clean- 
 ing, wrapping and packing, always with her 
 thoughts vaguely wandering round the visions 
 she had so long indulged of the dishes she should 
 cook for Giovanni, of his shoes tucked under her 
 
1 88 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 arm and polished ! polished till they were as 
 bright as a looking-glass and her shoulders ached 
 for the rest of the day. 
 
 Her departure from Fontanetto in the cart, and 
 even the railway which she saw for the first time 
 at Novara did not disturb her absorbed imagin- 
 ings. She watched the porters with dismay as 
 they carried off her precious goods to the luggage 
 vans, far away from the third-class carriage into 
 which the guard who looked at her ticket desired 
 her to mount, and she ran off towards the goods 
 vans to travel in one of them with her cherished 
 charge. It took a volume of explanations to make 
 her understand and return to her place. She looked 
 suspiciously at the scrap of card which was .to en- 
 title her to recover her property at Milan and held 
 it tightly clutched though she had no faith in its 
 efficacy. 
 
 The guard said persuasively : " You will see 
 how fast you go and how soon you get there. 
 Jump in." But she would not give way. 
 
 " Are you sure," she said, " that they will 
 give them back to me when I get to Milan." 
 
 She hardly noticed the swiftness of the pace ; 
 it could not possibly be rapid enough for her de- 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 189 
 
 sires. When she got out at Milan she flew at the 
 first porter she saw, and cared for nothing but the 
 restitution of her furniture. The man who carried 
 the bales, seeing this species of savage, asked her: 
 " Is it the first time you have been in Milan ?" 
 
 La Matta anxiously put out her hand to pro- 
 tect a rickety chest of drawers that he was lifting 
 and made no reply. 
 
 " You will see what a fine large place it is," the 
 man went on ; "a bigger place than your town. 
 Where have you come from ?" 
 
 " Mind you do not break it ; set it down very 
 gently," cried La Matta, entirely absorbed in her 
 anxieties for the chest of drawers. 
 
 She marched through the streets behind two 
 trucks drawn by the porters, never taking her eyes 
 off her property and thinking of nothing else. In 
 the square in front of the cathedral the conversa- 
 tional porter turned round to enjoy her astonish- 
 ment. But La Matta was not thinking of the 
 cathedral. All she thought of was that she was 
 going to see Giovanni, to stand before him, to take 
 him by surprise ; and her heart beat wildly with 
 an unaccountable dread. Then she thought of his 
 delight at seeing his furniture. 
 
190 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 " All those blessings, those beautiful tilings 
 that they were going to sell !" 
 
 The porter called out to her : " Look up, I say 
 look up ; it is finer than San Gaudenzio at 
 Novara." 
 
 La Matta looked up ; she beheld a huge white 
 mass with an image of the virgin at the top. She 
 crossed herself, and then she walked on again with 
 her eyes on the trucks. 
 
 "What idiots these country louts are," growled 
 the man ; and he gave the truck a heavy jolt by 
 way of revenge. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 LA MATTA had a note, given her by the priest, 
 with Giovanni's address ; Via del Capuccio. She 
 would not give it up to the porter but showed it 
 anxiously to two or three passers-by asking: 
 " Where is it ? Which way do I go ?" And she had 
 pretended to direct the men as to the road. Of 
 course it was they, in reality, who guided her, and 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 191 
 
 they drew up at the door which, as she could not 
 read, she would not have known otherwise. Gio- 
 vanni was not at home. His clerk opened the door 
 and stood in dismay at seeing the peasant-woman 
 followed by two men loaded with old furniture. 
 
 The young lawyer had but three rooms : his 
 office, a sitting-room, and his bedroom. The clerk 
 hesitated to allow the rooms to be crowded up 
 with this lumber, but La Matta stared at him with 
 an air of steady defiance saying : 
 
 " This is his furniture, and I am his servant." 
 
 The porters, on the other hand, were growling 
 that they could not stand there to all eternity with 
 those loads on their heads. He was forced to let 
 them put down their burdens one, two, three 
 till the trucks were unloaded. There was a crate 
 on the writing-table, and the old empty book-case, 
 set up in front of the wardrobe in the bedroom, 
 hid the looking-glass ; the packing case that held 
 the books filled up the bay of the window, and 
 the rooms were filled with halt and lame chairs, 
 mattresses rolled into bales, and sideboards. 
 
 La Matta contemplated the furniture of the 
 modest lodgings, lost in admiration ; she thought 
 it splendid. "Still, it is not his own," she thought. 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 She had a confused remembrance of having heard, 
 when Giovanni first went to college, that he would 
 not need to take a bed or other furniture, because 
 he would live in furnished rooms. 
 
 "They are much better than his," she owned 
 to herself, as she examined the iron bedstead, and 
 the arm-chair covered with cheap worsted damask, 
 " but they are too handsome, they are too much 
 to think about. He cannot take a run and leap 
 over that little table, all polished as it is ; he would 
 leave the mark of his feet on it. . . ." 
 
 And perfectly consoled by her recollections of 
 Giovanni's games as a boy, she smiled affection- 
 ately at the old table that encumbered the pas- 
 sage. 
 
 " He will feel more at home with the things he 
 knows so well. ..." And she fancied his greet- 
 ing them as old friends ; he would look at them 
 one by one, and laugh with glee over the recol- 
 lections they would bring to his mind, and almost 
 caress them ; and tell her how glad he was to have 
 them again, and how well she had done to bring 
 them to him, and what a pity it would have been 
 to sell them, and rub his hands and jump for 
 pleasure and say : 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 193 
 
 " Now I shall feel at home, and we shall be so 
 comfortable !" 
 
 She was excited in picturing to herself the 
 handsome lad that she had parted from five years 
 since ; and she fancied him as all the happier for 
 the gift that she had brought him. 
 
 Then she studied his clothes, which hung from 
 a row of pegs, turning them round and over and 
 furtively slipping her hand into the sleeve of a 
 coat ; then she smiled and exclaimed aloud : 
 
 " Why it is silk !" 
 
 Near the bed stood an arm-chair, and on the 
 rug was a slipper, sole uppermost. She picked it 
 up, found the fellow under the bed and placed 
 them side by side. She patted and stroked the 
 dirty chair-back, passing her hand lightly over the 
 seat ; her heart was full, and yielding to an irre- 
 sistible impulse, after glancing round her as though 
 she feared to be detected in the act, she sat down 
 on the edge the very edge, of the chair in which 
 he was wont to sit. A sort of intoxication came 
 over her ; she trembled from head to foot ; and at 
 last she gave herself up to a silent and soothing 
 fit of tears. 
 
 Presently the bell rang; La Matta started to 
 13 
 
194 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 her feet and rushed to the door. It was he of 
 course, come home, and she was there his ser- 
 vant, to receive him, to wait upon him. How glad 
 he would be to find her there ! Her heart was 
 bursting with tender delight. She glanced at the 
 old bed in the corner of the room and then at the 
 door, and her eyes sparkled like fire ; perhaps she 
 was thinking that she might look at him asleep 
 through the key-hole, as she used to do at Fon- 
 tanetto. 
 
 She heard the clerk open the door and then a 
 sweet deep voice, as full as church music, ex- 
 claimed in tones of the utmost astonishment : 
 
 " What is all this ?" 
 
 " A peasant woman is come ... a servant of 
 yours," replied the clerk. 
 
 La Matta had gone through a spasm of agita- 
 tion at the sound of that voice ; she gulped down 
 a sob that seemed like to choke her and rushed 
 into the sitting-room crying: 
 
 " It is I, Signer Giovanni, it is La Matta !" And 
 stooping with her clasped hands between her 
 knees she stood looking at him, rocking herself 
 backwards and forwards and laughing till the tears 
 ran down her cheeks. 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 195 
 
 " Oh, it is you, my poor girl ! And how are 
 you ?" said Giovanni heartily. 
 
 La Matta could only answer by laughing again; 
 the lump in her throat prevented her speaking. 
 
 " I am very glad to see you," added the young 
 man, clapping her on the shoulder. "Very glad." 
 And this time the choking found relief in a sob, 
 and the poor woman hid her face in the corners of 
 the shawl that she wore over her head and knotted 
 under her chin. "There, there," said Giovanni 
 kindly," do not agitate yourself. Sit down ; rest 
 yourself. We will talk by-and-bye." And he 
 went into his bedroom. 
 
 But he soon came out again, stood for a 
 moment in the door-way to make sure that she 
 had got over her first emotions and then said : 
 
 " Well, and how did you manage to bring all 
 these things ?" 
 
 " They are yours," replied La Matta, and her 
 face beamed with delight at being able to give him 
 this splendid assurance. 
 
 " And you have made the journey here on 
 purpose to bring them ?" asked Giovanni, without 
 any of that rapture which La Matta had expected. 
 13* 
 
196 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 " It was very good of you, and I am very much 
 obliged." 
 
 La Matta repeated : " They are your own." 
 
 " And are there no debts to pay ?" 
 
 " No ; everything is paid." 
 
 Giovanni had sent enough money to his father 
 to believe very readily that the deceased doctor 
 had left no debts, and perhaps enough to discharge 
 the funeral expenses. He made a tour of the 
 room, looking at the crate on the writing-table, 
 and two bed-posts against a bureau ; absently 
 moving an old salt-box that was standing on the 
 clerk's desk ; then he turned again to La Matta 
 and repeated his thanks. 
 
 " You are really too good ; you need not have 
 taken the trouble to come all this way for the sake 
 of this rubbish. It might have been sold down 
 there or you might have kept it all." 
 
 " Oh ! but they are yours," the poor soul said 
 for the third time, with a tightening pain at her 
 heart. 
 
 " What of that ?" said Giovanni ; " I would 
 have given them to you with pleasure in return 
 for your care of the poor old man." 
 
 La Matta felt as if the blood were freezing in 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 1 97 
 
 her veins ; this was not the welcome she had ex- 
 pected ; she felt as if she were being turned out of 
 doors, and quailed at the thought of finding her- 
 self alone in the world. Giovanni, seeing her 
 stand abashed and speechless, fancied he under- 
 stood, and went on : 
 
 " But I daresay you did not know where to 
 to put all the things ; of course you could not 
 take them with you to a new place. Where are 
 you going now ?" And he asked with genuine in- 
 terest : " Have you found a situation ?" 
 
 This was like a pistol-shot in the hapless 
 woman's heart. He did not want her then ! It 
 had never occurred to him to keep her with him ! 
 The shock was so great that she sank on to a chair 
 and began to cry and wail : 
 
 " Oh me ! oh me ! oh, I am a miserable 
 woman !" Giovanni sat down by her and tried to 
 comfort her. 
 
 " Do not distress yourself so much. If you 
 have not got a place I will try to find you one ; 
 meanwhile you can stay here a few days and I 
 will give you money enough to live with your fos- 
 ter mother till you find a comfortable situation. You 
 are not alone in the world you know. I owe much 
 
198 "THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 to you and am most willing to acknowledge it. . ." 
 He walked up and down the room, a good deal 
 bored by her presence there ; then looking at the 
 clock and seeing that it was nearly six, he went 
 on : " But you must be hungry. I always dine at 
 a restaurant and have nothing here to offer you. I 
 will send my clerk with you to an inn near this 
 where you can get some dinner and a bed. You 
 can stop there two or three days till I see what is 
 to be done. They are very good people, and the 
 children will take you about to see the sights. 
 
 La Matta did not stir. She had pulled her 
 kerchief down over her forehead and sat mute 
 with her head bent. 
 
 " Will you come ? or what do you mean to 
 do ?" asked Giovanni a little out of patience. She 
 felt that she must make some answer ; with a great 
 effort she stammered out : " I do not know." 
 
 He was accustomed to this declaration of 
 ignorance from the poor simple creature ; but at 
 this instant, seeing her refuse to eat or sleep 
 when she was so much in need of food and rest, 
 it struck him that she must lack money, so, open- 
 ing the drawer of his table, he took out a hundred- 
 franc note and put it into her hand saying : 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 199 
 
 "There, take that. It is for you and I will pay all 
 your expenses at the inn, and your journey when 
 you want to go home. And if at any time you 
 want help you have only to get some one to write 
 to me, for you have always been thoroughly good 
 and faithful, and I will never lose sight of you." 
 
 This was like pronouncing her sentence. He 
 did not mean to keep her with him it was all 
 over ; there was no hope now ! The one dream 
 of her wretched life was vanishing and her slave- 
 like devotion was rejected ! In this utter ruin of 
 her hopes it seemed to La Matta that the world 
 was crumbling into dust and that she was left 
 standing alone in the midst of a desert. An 
 image formed itself in her mind of the miller's 
 donkey, which spent its life in trotting round a 
 post to turn the mill, and when it was old and 
 could trot no more was taken to Borgomanero and 
 sold for a few francs. She, thought she, was like 
 that donkey. 
 
 She dragged herself up and tottered down the 
 stairs; Giovanni followed her. He was really 
 grieved for the poor creature. He himself con- 
 ducted her to a humble inn where, in former days, 
 he had been wont to eat his modest dinner at a 
 
20O THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 franc a day, and he recommended her to the spe- 
 cial care of the hostess. Then, taking her hand 
 with as much respect as if she had been a lady : 
 
 "You are tired, poor girl," he said. "Now 
 eat a good -dinner and drink a half a bottle of 
 good wine, and then go to bed. Good-bye ; do 
 not be out of heart. Come and see me again be- 
 fore you go ; and if you ever want me, remember 
 to let me know." 
 
 And he went away disturbed and deeply 
 moved. La Matta's appearance on the scene had 
 revived in his mind many vague and distant images 
 of the past ; among them his romantic first love, 
 now smothered by the passion that was consuming 
 him. That love was to be the love of the future, 
 of the coming time of peace, rest, and ease. Now 
 now his soul was tempest-tossed. During 
 these last few days the countess had magnetized 
 him, subjugated him, with her long, fixed gaze ; 
 those eyes had at times pierced his heart to the 
 point of making his voice shake and sobs rise in 
 his throat ; they had told him again and again, 
 with their limpid blue, that she loved him and was 
 wholly his. He was conquered and he knew it ; 
 he could no longer live away from her ; he had 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 2OI 
 
 tried every note of the prelude to their mutual 
 declaration and was in that state of mind which is 
 rapture or death. But there was no obstacle 
 they might speak and not die. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 NEXT morning he had had his father's old fur- 
 niture cleared out of his office ; he desired the 
 clerk to see that it was stowed in the cellar, and 
 to unpack the books. 
 
 He felt something in the air; he wished his 
 lodgings had been handsomer. He did not dare 
 imagine that the countess would come there ; but 
 he expected her to give some sign ; he was sure 
 that they would meet ; he must go to her and tell 
 her that he loved her. But still he hoped that she 
 would write first. He sat down at his desk ; but 
 he was feverishly impatient. Every time the bell 
 rang he looked eagerly at the door ; and if there 
 was any delay he called out to the clerk : " Well, 
 what is it ?" 
 
202 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 Once the man said : 
 
 "It is the chamber-maid from the inn." 
 
 "Very good, pay her bill." 
 
 But in a minute the clerk came back and said 
 that the woman wanted to speak to him. Gio- 
 vanni nodded that she might come in and looked 
 up to invite her speak. She shook her head and 
 said solemnly: 
 
 " Poor soul, she was like a mad creature." 
 
 " Like a mad creature ! Why ?" 
 
 " I do not know. She would not say a word. 
 She crouched away in a corner of the parlor and 
 there she stayed all the evening with her eyes 
 fixed as if she had seen a ghost. She howled like 
 a mad dog, and tore her forehead with her 
 nails." 
 
 " But what ailed her ?" asked Giovanni. 
 
 " Lord knows ! I asked her all -manner of 
 questions and so did the mis'es. She did not an- 
 swer a word but shoved her away and shrieked 
 louder than ever. It was as much as we could do 
 to get her to move when it was time to shut up ; 
 and we heard her sobbing and groaning all night. 
 This morning the mis'es found her still squatting 
 on the floor; she had never been to bed. She 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 2O3 
 
 said she wanted to go home and we were only too 
 glad. We had to put her into the omnibus and 
 take her to the station for the first train to Novara. 
 She did not even know how to take her ticket ; 
 we took it for her." 
 
 Giovanni was puzzled ; he had listened rather 
 vaguely, still he took an interest in the poor soul ; 
 he said in an undertone : 
 
 " What on earth could have ailed her ? But 
 I know that the hill country folks cannot bear to 
 be away from their native place ; and this poor 
 woman had never been a mile away in her life. 
 She was bewildered and frightened. . ." 
 
 Before the chamber-maid had fairly gone the 
 bell rang again and a note was brought in to Gio- 
 vanni. It was from the countess. He started up 
 and took it into his own hand to read ; he thought 
 no more of La Matta. 
 
 The Countess Gemma, whose one idea was to 
 indulge her fancies at any cost, had given herself 
 up to her passion without an hour's hesitation. 
 Nay, she had encouraged it by the dreams of a 
 heated imagination; still she always dreamed of a 
 morrow each day she had said to herself: "To- 
 morrow," picturing the moment when Giovanni 
 
204 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 should on his part confess his love " to-morrow," 
 and again " to-morrow." 
 
 But as the days went on in slow monotony and 
 brought no crisis in her romance she felt her heart 
 tighten with apprehension : " If I should never 
 see him again ! If he did not love me after all ! 
 If that evening he only yielded to a transient im- 
 pulse, and has forgotten it as a man forgets a 
 drunken fit !" 
 
 She felt that she had missed something that 
 was strangely precious to her, that was necessary 
 to her very existence. She wanted above all things 
 that that passion that intoxication that de- 
 lirium should survive or be revived in Giovanni ; 
 and she had set to work to seek him in the houses 
 he most frequented, at theatres and balls, dressing 
 herself in the most bewitching way she could 
 think of if only she might renew the bliss of that 
 moment which seemed to have eluded her for- 
 ever. This pursuit left her weary and nervous ; 
 she would fall into agonies of tears or fits of rage 
 scolding her maid, tearing her muslins and laces, 
 or writing desperate letters which she destroyed as 
 soon as they were written. 
 
 At last she heard that he was engaged in a 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 205 
 
 case of great importance, and had rushed to secure 
 the most prominent place on the reserved benches ; 
 she had made a display of her feelings when he 
 spoke and had gloried in this madness which was 
 new to her frivolous nature and supplied the miss- 
 ing note of romance in her life. All through the 
 trial she had watched the young lawyer with 
 those metallic blue eyes, and exercised all the 
 powers of her will to command his response. She 
 had seen him color and turn pale, thrill and trem- 
 ble under her gaze, and once more she had 
 triumphed in the belief that he loved her. Still 
 the days went by and Giovanni did not come. 
 
 On returning from the court on the last day of 
 the trial, burning with enthusiasm and admiration 
 for the young hero of the appealing voice, who 
 had drawn tears and applause from all present, the 
 countess had lost all womanly reserve and dignity. 
 She had written with feverish haste : 
 
 " Why do you not come to me ? Do you not 
 know that I love you ?" 
 
 This note fired Giovanni's blood, and after the 
 hard work and patient care he had given to this 
 case he rushed madly into the treacherous delights 
 that offered themselves for his acceptance. 
 
206 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 It was about eleven in the forenoon. He flew 
 to the countess unmindful of the hour, of eti- 
 quette, of everything. He was shown into the 
 dining-room where the count and his wife were at 
 breakfast. Giovanni stood stupidly like a man who 
 is suddenly aroused from a beautiful dream. He 
 felt it impossible that this lady who sat eating 
 a beef-steak and talking small gossip with that el- 
 derly husband should be the heroine of romance 
 who had written to him : " I love you." 
 
 In an instant all his intoxicating visions had 
 vanished ; he felt as though he must have been 
 acting in delirium, as if nothing was real ; that he 
 had never been other to this lady than he was at 
 this minute in her husband's presence. The very 
 atmosphere, full of the smell of food this con- 
 jugal tete-a-tete the napkin-rings, each with its 
 owner's name on it the table linen, all marked 
 with their joint initials the thousand small, com- 
 mon possessions that constituted a visible tie 
 between them all these things were outside and 
 beside protestations of passion, and they suffocated 
 him. For a moment he fancied that her note had 
 been a ruse to make him pay a call that had long 
 been due, or perhaps to turn the tables on him for 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 2O/ 
 
 that moment of aberration when he had breathed 
 the words : " You are too fair !" 
 
 He had to join them at breakfast, scarcely 
 capable of understanding the questions they put 
 to him as to the details of the trial, but answering 
 at considerable length, as though he were trying 
 to justify his intrusion at such an hour by affecting 
 to have called on purpose to give the general this 
 information. He was excessively embarrassed at 
 finding himself there, and could not imagine how 
 he was to get away again ; looking at the coun- 
 tess, and seeing her perfectly cool, smiling and 
 content, he could not believe that she was under 
 tlie dominion of any violent emotion. He, and he 
 alone was a fool ! At last the count rose from the 
 table, shook hands with his visitor and asked his 
 wife's permission to withdraw to smoke a cigar 
 with the air of a man who is accustomed to yield 
 to his wife. 
 
 " Gemma cannot endure the smell of tobacco 
 in the house," he explained and he went. 
 
 The very air of the room seemed to have 
 grown rarer as he left it ; all the prose of the 
 situation had gone with him. The countess, who 
 was opposite the door which he had gone out, 
 
208 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 seemed transfigured ; her turquoise eyes sparkled 
 with a flash as keen as points of steel, and she 
 trembled visibly. 
 
 Giovanni rose and went towards her but he 
 did not speak. The commonplace of politeness 
 was no longer possible between them. They un- 
 derstood each other too well, and clasped hands 
 without a word. Giovanni drew her to him, and 
 the countess, bowing her head on his breast, burst 
 into a convulsive fit of weeping. 
 
 From that day the Countess Gemma and Gio- 
 vanni were inseparable. Wherever she went he 
 was certain to appear, and at her own dinners and 
 evening parties the young lawyer was as inevita- 
 bly to be met as if he were one of the family. It 
 was difficult to be there before him, or to stay 
 later. The countess, on her part, never failed to 
 be present in court when Giovanni was engaged 
 in a case ; she was always well informed as to 
 every trial in which he was concerned, and was as 
 triumphant when he was successful as if it were a 
 personal matter. Her first love, that had found 
 her at thirty, had taken entire possession of her 
 with an imperious violence that would brook no 
 check nor bridle ; she seemed to take a pride in 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 209 
 
 her dishonor as much as to say to all the world : 
 "This man is my property." 
 
 They were as often together as they could con- 
 trive to be, and even in the midst of acquaintance 
 could snatch a moment to exchange a word, to 
 touch hands as he gave her a cup of tea or to 
 look over a line in the newspaper together. He 
 gave no more time than was absolutely necessary 
 to his work and she to her household and toilet 
 and the exigencies of society. If business re- 
 quired Giovanni's absence from Milan the countess 
 would leave town when he did, and not reappear 
 in the world till he returned ; she had a friend or 
 a relation to visit in the country but she did not 
 care whether any one believed it. 
 
 There was no end to their follies. They as- 
 cended Monte Rosa together, dressed in costumes 
 of the same grey tweed, with ties of the same 
 color, boots by the same maker, hats alike of felt, 
 with an eagle's feather and a white scarf tied 
 round them. On their alpenstocks, under the 
 name of the place and the date of their expedi- 
 tion, they cut their initials intertwined, and at 
 every inn they wrote their names side by side like 
 a newly-married couple with a sentimental motto. 
 
210 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 On another occasion they went to Monte 
 Carlo, where they lost every franc they had with 
 them, and remained in pawn at the hotel till Gio- 
 vanni had telegraphed to Milan and received 
 money enough to release them. 
 
 The general was perhaps ignorant of his wife's 
 escapades ; or perhaps he knew of them and was 
 resigned to fate. However that may have been, 
 they were no secret from the rest of the world. It 
 was one of those scandals that society chose to 
 wink at till it had become accustomed to it ; and 
 at length the guilty lovers, having exhausted 
 their round of folly, got used to it too and 
 their affection assumed an almost matrimonial 
 placidity. It was by this time too firmly established 
 and too widely known for any film of romance; 
 it had no halo of mystery, no anxious terrors of 
 discovery. It had made itself a groove and ran 
 smoothly on, fed on little subterfuges and pleas- 
 antries rather than on sentiment; and on these 
 terms it had become permanent. 
 
 Gemma, however, under the guise of a flirta- 
 tion still cherished the passion which had come 
 upon her with the fever of a first love, while Gio- 
 vanni, after yielding to the storm, had found it no 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 211 
 
 more than a sweet habit which was rest after his 
 work and not too exciting, while it brought him 
 none of the torments of jealousy and left his mind 
 at ease. And he was grateful and devoted. From 
 time to time he still remembered his old ambition 
 to grow rich enough to force from old Pedrotti 
 his consent to his marrying Rachel. And 
 now he was rich, he was earning fifty thousand 
 francs a year. But how long it had taken him to 
 reach this point ! It was lucky most lucky that 
 the young girl had not pledged herself to wait for 
 him. By this time she was married, no doubt, and 
 the mother of a family. Sometimes, when he had 
 had a particularly hard or worrying day, he would 
 sigh and think that he would have liked to be the 
 father of a family, that he was growing old in 
 solitude, and that by-and-bye he would have no 
 one to love him and care for him . . . but then he 
 met the countess, spent a pleasant hour or two 
 with her, and forgot his forebodings. 
 
 14* 
 
212 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 YEARS went by, during which Giovanni's 
 fortune, fame, and social position constantly im- 
 proved. He was no longer young ; he was five 
 and thirty, and a man of high consideration ; he 
 was at the head of one of the largest lawyers' of- 
 fices in Milan ; he had a splendid set of apart- 
 ments, was decorated with the cross of St. 
 Maurice and St. Lazarus, and was certain of his 
 seat at the next election. The countess was still 
 handsome, and with the constancy which is pecu- 
 liar to women, she was still in love. So long as 
 Giovanni was attentive to her and docile to her 
 wishes she still could be happy in a calm affection 
 which brought her nothing but pleasure and 
 amusement. 
 
 But a time came at last when, with Giovanni, 
 the little formalities of love-making fell into 
 desuetude. By degrees unconsciously indeed 
 Giovanni ceased to appear devoted and let her see 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 213 
 
 too plainly that he was taking a more business- 
 like view of the situation. 
 
 " This," he said, " is the private and personal 
 side of my life; it must not interfere with my 
 public career. I have other duties : my office, my 
 business, money-matters and politics. I must read 
 the papers and go to my clubs. When I am free 
 I ask nothing better than to be with you ; but I 
 cannot spend the day in dancing attendance on 
 you " 
 
 Gemma had cherished her romance; her 
 dreams were still of an exclusive and eternal pas- 
 sion and she could not resign herself to this change 
 in Giovanni. She tried to find a cause for it, wrote 
 him long pages of lamentation, and when they 
 met she spent the few hours he had to spare, in 
 scenes of recrimination and jealousy. But Gio- 
 vanni had not really changed at all. He, who had 
 never ceased to love her in a man's way and had 
 even affected a certain effusiveness as their intimacy 
 had increased, could not see what she had to com- 
 plain of and thought her unjust and exacting. 
 
 " At our age," he said, " we cannot give our- 
 selves up to the follies of two young lovers." 
 
 This speech had seemed peculiarly cruel to the 
 
214 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 countess. He thought her old then ! She was 
 in despair. " There is an end of it then ! That is 
 why he no longer cares for me." And she was 
 half wild with jealousy whenever he spoke to a 
 woman younger than herself. 
 
 On more than one occasion she caused him the 
 greatest embarrassment by interfering between 
 him and an imaginary rival. One evening, when 
 he was on the point of leading to the piano the 
 young wife of one of his friends, who was about 
 to sing, the countess declared that she felt ill and 
 must go home at once for she was fainting, and 
 she asked Giovanni to accompany her so that he 
 was obliged to leave before the lady had sung her 
 song. Giovanni complied, but with extreme an- 
 noyance ; and when they were in the carriage he 
 complained of the ridiculous figure she made him 
 cut by making such a scene. An angry discussion 
 resulted which lasted till they reached home, and 
 was followed by a long fit of sulks, and an ex- 
 change of penitent and beseeching letters on the 
 part of the countess for distant answers from Gio- 
 vanni, ending in a superficial reconciliation. 
 
 And so time still went on between peace and 
 war ; with occasional gleams of happiness to re- 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 21$ 
 
 mind them of the past and make them believe 
 that it could return, and then a revulsion of feel- 
 ing, fresh differences, gloomy coldness over some 
 trifle because Giovanni had bowed to some 
 other woman, or for some personal slight real or 
 fancied. 
 
 One winter it happened that a lady, a public 
 singer, having a quarrel with the manager of one 
 of the theatres, went to consult Signer Mazza, the 
 great lawyer, and put her cause into his hands. 
 Giovanni had of course frequent need of seeing her, 
 to hear her statements and make enquiries. The 
 singer was a handsome woman and the gossips did 
 not fail to take advantage of so good an oppor- 
 tunity. The countess was fairly beside herself 
 with jealousy ; she tried to insist on Giovanni's 
 giving up the case, imploring him to do so as a 
 proof of his regard for her ; but Giovanni would 
 not give way. In fact he was weary of this false 
 scheme of life, and day by day felt less inclined to 
 yield. The countess had but a melancholy car- 
 nival ; she felt herself eclipsed ; and she saw with 
 anguish that the more she tried to retain her ad- 
 mirer the less hold she had on him, and she vented 
 her ill-humor in petty aggravations which embit- 
 
2l6 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 tered them both. She would leave the theatre in 
 the middle of the play if Giovanni bowed to his 
 client in the opposite box. 
 
 Then Lent came ; there was no more play- 
 going, and she had fewer opportunities of watching 
 Giovanni ; but whenever he was not by her side 
 or she failed to find him at the house of some 
 common acquaintance she took it for granted that 
 he was in attendance on the singer and no argu- 
 ment could persuade her to the contrary. Gio- 
 vanni was at length quite out of patience and 
 ceased to trouble himself about her vagaries. Her 
 next step was to institute a perfect persecution of 
 the singer. She got spiteful paragraphs inserted 
 in a theatrical newspaper, and even went the 
 length of writing her anonymous letters, in which 
 she accused her of feigning an imaginary lawsuit 
 in order to establish relations with a certain rich 
 and celebrated pleader. 
 
 Giovanni, to whom the lady showed these let- 
 ters, took it very ill ; he was annoyed at the ab- 
 surd position in which the countess had planted 
 him, and in his wrath he reproached her with 
 much acrimony for so mean an action. This was 
 the crisis. The countess, possessed by her own 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 senseless jealousy, could conceive of no way of 
 recapturing Giovanni but by making him equally 
 jealous. She appeared in society escorted by a 
 young fellow who had for a long time been her 
 humble admirer, and pretended to have put him 
 on a confidential footing of the greatest intimacy. 
 Giovanni saw and was deeply disgusted ; but he 
 was not jealous ; he did not reproach the fickle 
 fair one for her faithlessness and wrote no des- 
 pairing remonstrances. His heart had grown cold 
 and so far as she was concerned it remained so. 
 
 The countess was desperate out of revenge, or 
 disgust, or vanity, or all three, she resolved on a 
 step so mad that perhaps her only motive was the 
 opportunity it afforded her for writing the follow- 
 ing letter : 
 
 " I thought more highly of you than you have 
 ever deserved and you were never worthy of my 
 love. So long as you needed my countenance to 
 make your way in the world you pretended to be 
 devoted to me ; now you have made a position, and 
 you throw me over like an ungrateful wretch. But 
 you need not fancy that I shall spend the rest of 
 my days in tears of regret ; you are not worth it. 
 Some one else still thinks me charming enough to 
 
218 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 devote his life to me, as you never did, and to 
 defy the opinion of the world which is your idol. 
 Make yourself happy with your new conquest 
 while I try to forget in the affections of a gener- 
 ous man one who never was generous. . ." 
 
 By the time this coarse abuse reached Gio- 
 vanni's hands all Milan was talking of the coun- 
 tess's flight with her young lover. Giovanni was 
 disgusted and outraged ; every illusion of his fancy 
 was dispelled and his faith in the dignity of 
 humanity was shaken. There had never, it is true, 
 been the slightest tinge of the ideal in his passion 
 for this woman. He had succumbed to the fas- 
 cinations of her beauty and elegance ; he had 
 come to know her at the most critical period of 
 his manhood, after years of hardship, and when 
 his fancy and his feelings were keenly impression- 
 able from the long patience of a mortified love. 
 He had followed the bent of his youth, and found 
 himself happy or unhappy without ever troubling 
 himself to form an opinion as to her moral quali- 
 ities, her mind or her character. He knew he 
 could never marry her and had been satisfied to 
 see that she was handsome, brilliant and admired. 
 She was a mistress who did him credit and kept 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 219 
 
 him in a good humor, but he had never imagined her 
 to be superior to the other women he might meet. 
 At the same time his pride would have prevented 
 his ever dreaming that the woman he had loved 
 could fall so low ; so when he had it brought 
 home to him he was forced to think ill of all her 
 sex, unless he could believe that she was in fact 
 the worst ; and though, as he had ceased to love 
 her, he could feel no personal regrets his life was 
 the darker and more desolate for her defection. 
 She had carried away with her the fondest of his 
 illusions and it was that that he mourned. 
 
 He thought to console himself by really mak- 
 ing love to the actress ; but that lady was too 
 much accustomed to being made love to, to value 
 his attentions and as he grew explicit she explained 
 on her part that she had "a real attachment." 
 
 The inference was obvious if she had not 
 had this "real attachment" his wealth and posi- 
 tion would have been sufficient temptation, though 
 she would not have affected to care for him. This 
 was a fresh shock to Giovanni. At his age life 
 
220 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 had no new experiences to offer. He had ex- 
 hausted all the poetical illusions of his youth, then 
 he had seen their folly, had viewed the world from a 
 more practical stand-point, had regarded all his 
 purer sentiments and higher aspirations as childish 
 dreams, and had learnt to throw himself exclusively 
 into the joys and pleasures of life. And now, 
 when he was beginning to see the folly of this 
 view also, he began to think that his earlier errors 
 were on the whole preferable. He recalled with 
 regret the honest enthusiasm that he had formerly 
 felt for the causes he had to defend, the zeal and 
 devotion he had been wont to bring to his work, 
 the nights he had sat through longing for more 
 employment, and the excitement of his investiga- 
 tions. Now, cases poured into his office, but they 
 brought him no pleasure ; he looked them through 
 calmly with the indifference of experience, he de- 
 fended his clients without eagerness, without pas- 
 sion, sometimes even without feeling the slightest 
 care for their fate. 
 
 He had started in life in extreme poverty but 
 with a great love in his heart ; and the goal he 
 had set before his eyes was wealth and distinction, 
 but still for the sake of that love. Now, wealth 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 221 
 
 and distinction were his but the love he had 
 lost on the way. 
 
 If indeed, he had flown to claim Rachel as soon 
 as he had achieved a respectable position, he 
 might perhaps have been in time to win her ; but 
 at that time the charms of a city life beckoned 
 him another way ; the serene idyl of that inno- 
 cent affection and the calm joys of a married life 
 could not have satisfied him ; it would have been 
 disturbed by the unfed fires of his youthful pas- 
 sions and the delusive aspirations of his unsatis- 
 fied ignorance. His inexperience had craved ad- 
 venture well, he had tried it, had his fill of it ; 
 and it had left him satiated and cheated, dissatis- 
 fied with himself, distrustful of others, alone and 
 hopeless, his heart dry and dead. 
 
 These were the saddest days of his life. As he 
 sat in his pretty chambers, or the still more ele- 
 gant drawing-rooms where he was always welcome, 
 he thought with regret of the last-maker's loft 
 with its ill-joined partitions. As he rose to speak 
 in court, the centre of a crowd of admirers re- 
 porters and short-hand-writers who hung on his 
 lips and as he listened to their praises, he re- 
 membered his first address, delivered to the 
 
222 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 wooden shoes that festooned his room ; and he 
 would willingly have gone back to that time, poor 
 and unknown as he had been, if he could thus 
 have recovered his lost hope and faith in the suc- 
 cess which, now that he had won it, had no 
 value. 
 
 His sins and errors had not been abnormal, 
 though he had followed the bent of his inclina- 
 tions ; why should he blame himself any one 
 else in his place would have done the same. But 
 his real grief was that this should ever have been 
 the bent of his inclination ; too late he saw that 
 his first path had been the right one, and he 
 would gladly have returned to it but it was too 
 late. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 GIOVANNI had an invitation to a ball for the 
 Tuesday of Easter week, and by sheer force of habit 
 he went. He had so completely accustomed him- 
 self to fashionable life, and was by nature so thor- 
 oughly refined and gentlemanly, and so much a 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 223 
 
 man of the world, that he was quite in his element 
 in the fine houses and the society of ladies, of men 
 of mark, of ambassadors, great artists, and men of 
 rank and culture. He had for some time given 
 up dancing, he had never gambled and in fact was 
 not in any way amused ; still, he felt himself in his 
 element. That evening he was even duller than 
 usual and had stood talking politics for some time 
 with an old senator. In the midst of a discussion 
 on the duty on flour, which happened to be the 
 question of the day, his interlocutor smiled at some 
 one in the distance, and a young man came for- 
 ward to speak to him. 
 
 "Let me introduce Count V. . . one of our most 
 promising diplomatists," said the old gentleman of 
 a young man of about five and twenty who made 
 his bow to Giovanni. Giovanni murmured some 
 of the usual phrases: "He was much pleased to 
 make his acquaintance." 
 
 " But our acquaintance is of old standing/' 
 said the young man. "We have known each 
 other these sixteen years, if I mistake not." 
 
 Giovanni looked at him curiously, but did not 
 recognize him. 
 
 " I was then no more than eight," the young 
 
224 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 fellow went on with a smile, " and when I was 
 invited out to dinner I was put to sit at a side 
 table. . ." 
 
 Then Giovanni recollected the name and recog- 
 nized him as one of his little friends at the castle 
 of Fontanetto. 
 
 The whole scene with its rural freshness, its 
 sun and shade, the upper table with the ponderous 
 country wits, the fair young girl, all rose up in his 
 mind as he had seen them on that distant day 
 and he exclaimed, as he grasped his new friend's 
 hand with sincere effusion : " How glad I am to 
 see you ! Very glad indeed !" 
 
 And it was quite true. This resurrection of 
 the past was a keen delight. His miserable em- 
 barrassment, his indignant resentment of the pom- 
 pous airs of his patrons, the terror of debasing 
 himself that had made him defiant, all had van- 
 ished with the occasion that had given rise to them 
 with his youth that could never return. That 
 picture of quiet peace rose before him in the ten- 
 der light shed upon it by his thirty years experi- 
 ence, through the mists of a long period of change 
 and disappointment. He did not see himself there 
 as a boy and in his priestly costume, shy and 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 225 
 
 loutish as he had then been ; but as he was now, 
 respected, well-to-do, and longing for nothing so 
 much as rest. He felt a sudden renewal of love 
 for the patriarchal life of his native province, for 
 its green hills,, for the great castle garden, and the 
 ivy-clad walls that shut it in all seemed grand 
 and picturesque, and he thought there could be 
 nothing more delightful than to retire there and 
 rest in peace. 
 
 He took possession of the young diplomatist 
 and for the rest of the evening he kept him by his 
 side, questioning him about Fontanetto and the 
 people he had left there. His new friend had a 
 large estate in the neighborhood which he went 
 to see every year, so he was well informed. 
 
 Signer Pedrotti had died of gout some years 
 since, and Rachel was still living alone in that 
 huge castle. Neither before nor since her father's 
 death would she ever hear a word about marrying. 
 Signor Ichese of Maggiora, now one of the most 
 distinguished architects of Rome, had paid his 
 addresses to her ; and the son of another great 
 landowner had proposed to her, a man whose 
 estates included almost all Fontanetto, and Cav- 
 aglio, and Ghemme, and who was so rich that he 
 
 is 
 
226 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 was known as the Rothschild of Italy. After that 
 a famous violin-maker had come to settle in the 
 neighborhood ; he was the son of Tognina the 
 dairy-woman, and had amassed an enormous for- 
 tune in America ; and he had offered her his hand 
 and his heart and his millions and his violins into 
 the bargain ; but the signorina had refused them 
 all. Some said that she cherished a secret passion, 
 while some said that she had a religious mania. 
 Giovanni, in his present frame of mind, accepted 
 the former solution : Rachel cherished an old flame, 
 and indeed why should he not conclude that she 
 had been waiting for him ? When he left Fon- 
 tanetto he was certain that she loved him. At 
 first she had been reduced to submission by her 
 father's authority and had not dared to write to 
 him or make any promises in contravention of the 
 old man's orders. But time had brought her 
 strength to resist ; and after refusing one offer of 
 marriage she had understood that this was always 
 open to her and that she could remain faithful 
 to her old love without rebelling openly against 
 her father. She was sure of Giovanni and trusted 
 her lover, and had waited unmarried for his 
 return. 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 22; 
 
 That evening Giovanni, going home early from 
 the ball, carried back with him to his sumptuous 
 chambers all the poetry of his youth. He went 
 up-stairs singing the old ballad that the secretary's 
 wife used to sing ; that he had forgotten for so 
 many years, and that had come back to him with 
 all the other memories of his country home : 
 
 " Non mi chiamate piu biondina bella, 
 Chiamatemi biondina sventurata. . ." 
 
 He entered his rooms with a firm step and his 
 head held high, with a bright smile on his face, as 
 if he were returning from his first love-meeting. 
 His ideas, so far, were altogether vague, but he 
 had a general sense of the pleasures of such 
 memories ; a vision of green meadows, of utter 
 solitude, and restful peace, in which he abandoned 
 himself to the raptures of an idyllic dream and he 
 smiled round at the vacant rooms as much as to 
 say : " I have found my scrap of paradise ; I can 
 afford to laugh at the world." He seated himself 
 in the arm-chair by the bed and began slowly to 
 undress, his mind preoccupied by this new sense 
 of comfort. He cast a loving eye on the few 
 remnants of his father's furniture that he had not 
 15 
 
228 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 sent into the basement allowing each to bring back 
 to his mind some incident, some person, some 
 scene of his past. And in their resurrection from 
 their long oblivion all these memories were bereft 
 of the bitternes's that had formerly tainted them. 
 They rose again beautified, like the butterfly 
 which leaves behind it the dingy slimy case of the 
 grub. Giovanni was content to dwell on these 
 touching reminiscences. 
 
 When he got into his dressing-gown he took 
 up the book he was just then reading ; it was an 
 account of some famous English trials. But this 
 evening the decisions of the London lawyers had 
 no interest for him. He started up and went to 
 the book-case, and there, standing on tip-toe with 
 his lamp held as high as he could reach, he began 
 to hunt through the top shelf, where he .kept 
 works of general literature which were not his 
 usual study. His eye fell on a small volume 
 bound in red morocco which he at once seized as 
 if he had lighted on a lost treasure, and he went 
 back to his seat leaving the book-case open. It 
 was the second edition of i Promessi Sposi which 
 he had lent so many years before to Rachel. It 
 was the book which he had sent to ask for at the 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 22Q 
 
 moment when he was quitting home forever, in the 
 hope of rinding between its leaves that note he 
 had so humbly sued for, and which, coming back 
 to him without a word, had brought him instead 
 a crushing disappointment. If only she had given 
 him that promise he would have come to Milan 
 bound by a pledge of honor and he would have 
 thought of nothing but keeping that word at any 
 cost. The instant he could have done so without 
 fear of a rebuff he would have flown to claim his 
 betrothed, and his life would have taken a totally 
 different bent ; by this time he would have been 
 married for years and at the head of a family, and 
 have known nothing of that wretched interlude 
 with the countess. 
 
 All this flashed through his mind as he turned 
 over the leaves of the book in which he had scrib- 
 bled some marginal notes, marks of admiration or 
 exclamation, all of which brought some associa- 
 tion to his mind. Suddenly, as he turned a page, 
 he found a letter rather dirty and crumpled, but 
 still sealed in its envelope. He shivered his 
 heart beat violently and he shuddered from head 
 to foot as if he had seen a ghost. It was Rachel's 
 writing ! Here was the letter he had prayed for 
 
230 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 so many years ago ; here was the promise that 
 would have changed the whole course of his life. 
 And then he had not been able to find it. 
 
 He opened it in the greatest agitation, his 
 hands shook and his mind was confused. Was he 
 not even now living again in that distant past and 
 awaiting in agonizing suspense the sentence that 
 was to decide his future ? The note was brief: 
 
 " I cannot set myself in opposition to my 
 father to marry you. Forgive me for being so 
 weak I am his child but I will never marry 
 any one but you. I swear it." 
 
 Giovanni sat bewildered and stupefied. He 
 was perfectly positive that this note had not been 
 in the book when La Matta had brought it back 
 to him. 
 
 " Oh ! that stupid creature," he groaned, " she 
 took it out in order to pick out the Os in the ad- 
 dress and put it back when it was too late !" And 
 he remembered with frightful accuracy a thousand 
 circumstances that had escaped his notice at the 
 time La Matta's sudden attempt to avoid him 
 when he went to meet her in his impatience ; her 
 embarrassment and objection to allow him to 
 carry the book when he had snatched it from her, 
 
THE WANE OF AX IDEAL. 231 
 
 and finally, his having found her in his room when 
 he went up, for the last time, to fetch down his 
 trunks. All was clear to him now in the light he 
 had acquired in the course of his long legal prac- 
 tice. He said to himself: " It was then that she 
 replaced the letter in the book !" And he lost 
 himself in reflecting on what trifles our fate de- 
 pends and in wondering what might have been his 
 lot if, as a mere child, he had not taken it into his 
 head to teach a maid of all work her alphabet. 
 
 A whole romance a la Dickens passed before 
 his fancy, of innocent love and conjugal joys, of 
 home life and domestic peace, which might have 
 been his but for this trivial incident, and it was 
 like a smile from heaven. He lingered with par- 
 ticular pleasure on certain details of sweet tran- 
 quillity and certain scenes of tender joys, devoid 
 of all struggle, all disgrace, all terrors ; and they 
 seemed to him all the more lovely by contrast 
 with the stormy existence that had in fact been 
 his and the base passions that had nauseated him. 
 As he dwelt on these thoughts mere regret faded 
 from his mind ; love, faith, and happiness filled it 
 entirely. Had he not learnt this very evening that 
 Rachel had refused every offer of marriage ? Well 
 
232 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 then. It was of course, as he was glad to think, 
 that she had kept her pledge for his sake ; she had 
 waited for him. 
 
 And he was free, and loved her better now 
 than he had ever done before. What did it mat- 
 ter that her letter had failed to reach him ? That 
 he had not known for so long the extent of her 
 generous constancy ? The position was the same 
 as it had always been postponed for a few years, 
 but in no respect altered. Rachel was kind, and 
 sweet, and intelligent, and she was true, incapable 
 of falsehood. He need never fear a mean or dis- 
 loyal thought in her. 
 
 He sat up half the night thinking of her. She 
 could no longer be quite young ; she must be of 
 about the same age as the countess or rather less; 
 and the countess was still charming, still young- 
 looking, and had some years before her. Rachel, 
 like her, was fair; but her features were more 
 regular ; he felt certain of finding her handsomer 
 than ever now that she had developed into woman- 
 hood. He pictured her to himself a little taller 
 and fuller than at eighteen, with that cordial ease 
 and breadth of manner which are gained by con- 
 tact with the world. Even as a girl she had had 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 233 
 
 much natural grace, good taste, elegant manners 
 and great intelligence . . . she must be a fascinat- 
 ing woman. And she was an orphan ; she would 
 be alone to receive him and do the honors of her 
 castle . . . long since no doubt she had ceased to 
 look for him ; how surprised she would be to see 
 him once more ! It must be a twilight scene ; the 
 dramatis pcrsonae a well-dressed woman and a 
 man of fashion. He, he thought, would arrive on 
 horseback, raising a cloud of dust, and his lady- 
 love would be watching on a tower like the wife of 
 Marbrouk, "pour voir s'il reviendra." 
 
 In the midst of these rosy visions he fell asleep 
 and dreamed still of love and poetry. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 GIOVANNI rose early next morning, all impa- 
 tience to be off to Fontanetto, to find himself once 
 more in that realm of romance and youthful delight 
 and pure devotion, to give that delightful surprise 
 to the good and faithful woman who had waited for 
 
234 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 him so long. But it took several hours to arrange 
 his business and to give the necessary instructions 
 to his clerks so that they might carry on his af- 
 fairs during his absence ; he could not get away 
 till the afternoon. How long would he be away ? 
 He did not know, he would not decide. He was 
 going to find such happiness that he wanted to 
 feel at liberty to give himself up to it without 
 measure or stint of time, and without troubling 
 himself with business. 
 
 When he reached Novara he had to wait about 
 an hour for the first train to Borgomanero. He 
 remembered how splendid he had once thought 
 the cafe of the station. The spring was the fash- 
 ionable season at Novara ; the little town was 
 talked of at Fontanetto as a realm of bliss. The 
 visitors who came from thence would talk of the 
 luxurious fittings of this refreshment room, the 
 gilt cornices and mirrors, the sofas covered with 
 velvet, the white marble tables and the magnifi- 
 cent buffet loaded with every luxury ; and they 
 would give rapturous descriptions of the elegance 
 of the ladies who in summer afternoons sat out in 
 the gardens, to hear a band play and sip ices. But 
 now, as Giovanni went into the stuffy little saloon 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 235 
 
 he felt half suffocated ; it had never been cleaned 
 or decorated since the day when it was opened. 
 The velvet seats were faded and had lost their pile 
 till they were as bald as an old man ; the gilt cor- 
 nices tarnished and rubbed in spite of their 
 shrouds of yellow gauze ; on the mirrors thousands 
 of generations of flies had left their traces, and 
 you saw your face in them all covered with black 
 spots ; the marble of the tables was scrawled over 
 with vulgar outlines or mottoes. It was a wreck; 
 indeed it was not long after enlarged and refur- 
 nished to make it a little more comfortable. 
 
 Behind the counter stood a damsel to whom 
 two swains of mature years, and of hybrid race 
 between the fashionable dandy and the country 
 bumpkin, were paying compliments that she took 
 as her natural perquisites. She was very upright 
 and stiff with a waist so tightly laced that she 
 seemed hardly able to breathe, and her head, 
 decorated with an elaborate structure of hair, very 
 smooth and shining, presided over the counter 
 between two pyramids of biscuit-tins that served 
 to decorate the marble slab. Outside, an organ 
 now struck up a polka, and the damsel of the 
 counter, with that passion for dancing that charac- 
 
236 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 terizes the provincial Italian, ran to fetch another 
 girl out of the kitchen and went forth to dance 
 under the portico of the station, deserting her ad- 
 mirers and laughing saucily with her companion 
 at the rather bold remarks they made on her per- 
 sonal appearance. 
 
 Presently some of the natives appeared on the 
 scene ; the young girls walking first in light dresses 
 and hats in the most extravagant fashion ; papa 
 and mamma bring up the rear. There were a few 
 youthful brides in the most gorgeous attire and 
 dazzling jewelry, displaying the latest modes with 
 even greater extravagance than their unmarried 
 sisters. Finally a limited number of dandies who 
 waved a hand at the smart lady of the counter 
 but dared not lift their hats for fear of being iden- 
 tified by the duennas. 
 
 This to be sure was not the elite of Novara 
 society ; the rank and file rather ; but it was the 
 company of which Fontanetto talked, speaking 
 of Novara as in some village in Brittany they 
 might talk of Paris. Giovanni looked on at this 
 provincial scene of dissipation and smiled at his 
 youthful impressions of its splendor ; then he fell 
 into a commonplace vein of reflections : " In pro- 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 237 
 
 portion as we gain in rapture and attain to ease 
 and luxury and all the pleasures of wealth, life 
 becomes in fact more difficult, because we feel it 
 painful to be for a time in a less refined atmos- 
 phere than that we are accustomed to ; everything 
 looks mean, ridiculous or vulgar, whether rightly 
 or wrongly, and thus we are content . . . At this 
 moment, what the better am I for being rich ? I 
 have a sense of being ill at ease under circum- 
 stances in which formerly I would have been am- 
 ply satisfied. . ." 
 
 By this time the train was starting and so the 
 sermon was happily interrupted. Giovanni took 
 a coupe that he might be alone, he stretched his 
 legs on the seat and fixing his eyes on the verdur- 
 ous landscape that unrolled itself before the oppo- 
 site window he gave himself up to thoughts of 
 Rachel, of his visit, of their meeting. He recol- 
 lected perfectly the handsome plan of the house ; 
 the vast rooms, with their lofty ceilings and cor- 
 nices with bas-reliefs and ponderous fittings. 
 Rachel who had received an elegant education had 
 no doubt taken care to keep up its antique char- 
 acter. 
 
 But she herself was modern and had probably 
 
238 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 made herself some more fitting nook or bower. 
 He pictured her to himself in a pretty boudoir 
 with light furniture low cosy sofas, rocking- 
 chairs, turkish cushions, inlaid tables, a piano- 
 forte, a work-table loaded with trifles and flowers, 
 a few antique hangings gracefully draped over the 
 wall, little terra-cotta statuettes, china jars on 
 brackets, a tiger's skin, and a writing-table 
 with a thousand little instruments of artistic form 
 and workmanship a bronze inkstand, paper- 
 knife, letter-weight, pen-rack all the costly toys 
 which certify to their owner's taste Books too, 
 the modern works that an intelligent woman or- 
 ders of her bookseller the day they appear. And 
 flowers everywhere ; on the tables, on the brackets, 
 in the decorative jardinieres in the windows, wher- 
 ever they could find standing room. And in the 
 midst of all this simple and tasteful elegance he 
 saw Rachel, dressed in a black or dark dress cut 
 with the exquisite skill of some famous modiste ; 
 one of those dresses that display the figure with- 
 out tightening it, that are an adornment without 
 gaudiness, that leave every limb free to move. 
 With such a fortune as hers she could have no 
 difficulty in procuring all the refinements of town 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 239 
 
 life ; living in this remote retreat she would have 
 escaped the pretentiousness, the narrowness and 
 the absurdities of provincial fine-ladyism. 
 
 He himself knew a woman who had been liv- 
 ing for some years in a country-house of her own, 
 and she was one of the most charming women of 
 his acquaintance. She was always to be found in 
 a conservatory which she had arranged as her sit- 
 ting-room. A large window formed one wall of 
 this boudoir, affording a wide view of the open 
 country with the rocky cliffs of the lake of Lecco 
 on the horizon. The other sides of the room were 
 built over with rock-work and overgrown with 
 ferns, lycopodium, ivy, and other evergreen 
 creepers ; producing the effect of a natural grotto 
 which, by being warmed and shut in, was com- 
 fortable even during the winter. Next to this 
 bower was the drawing-room and there this lady 
 lived in elegant retirement, among her flowers, 
 with music and books, rarely admitting a few 
 favored intimates, writing letters full of spirit and 
 wit and spending her evenings with a small circle 
 of friends, or not unfrequently one only, who were 
 well content to come out from Milan expressly to 
 see her. She was happy without theatres or en- 
 
240 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 tertainments of any kind. Her conversation was 
 always high in tone and taste, because it had no 
 taint of personality. All the time that she saved 
 from visiting and shopping she was free to devote 
 to reading, music, and drawing, and her isolation 
 gave her a certain independence of the prejudices 
 and conventionalities of society which made her 
 superior to the ordinary run of women. 
 
 Thus it was that Giovanni pictured Rachel ; 
 and he thought to himself that, though he must 
 take her with him to Milan which he could not 
 leave on account of his business he would not 
 allow her to make acquaintance with any but the 
 choicest of womankind, whose education was re- 
 fined and whose reputation was immaculate. And 
 as he called to mind this and that great lady who was 
 always ready to welcome him in her circle, he liked 
 to think that his wife might figure in that sphere 
 of the elect and be their equal or even their 
 superior. 
 
241 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 AT Borgomanero he took a carriage to drive 
 to Fontanetto. It was Sunday and he reached the 
 village during vespers. The street was deserted ; 
 the castle loomed in the distance with its gloomy 
 walls and dark moat. It was the only object in 
 scene which impressed him with the solemnity 
 that he had attributed to it ; it was a lordly dwel- 
 ling fit for its fair mistress. All the windows were 
 wide open to admit the sweet spring air, but no 
 one was to be seen at them ; not a soul was stir- 
 ring; it seemed deserted. When Giovanni got 
 out of the vehicle, chill and pale with excitement, 
 and knocked at the gate the gardener who came 
 to open it told him that the signorina was at 
 vespers. 
 
 Giovanni dismissed the carriage and walked 
 down towards the church. The sun had set but 
 the sky was clear with the soft calm light of a 
 spring evening. The country was freshly green 
 with the tender youth of April and the air was 
 
 16 
 
242 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 soft and fragrant. And yet Giovanni felt himself 
 in some way foreign to this silent spot, with all 
 the doors closed as if it were the abode of the 
 dead. He told himself again and again that it was 
 an hour when every soul was at church, and that 
 before and after the service those houses were in- 
 habited and the streets alive with people. As he 
 got near the church he heard the shrill notes of 
 the singers: " Tantnm Ergo." They would ere 
 long be coming out, and he walked up and down 
 waiting. It was certainly strange to see this 
 fashionable apparition lingering in the rustic vil- 
 lage sanctuary. Everything about him betrayed 
 long habits of wealth and luxury ; in his haste to 
 be off he had not thought of getting himself up in 
 a travelling-suit, and his town costume, black, 
 shining, and tightly fitting, with polished shoes, 
 colored silk socks, and a pair of kid gloves, were 
 out of keeping in this sylvan scene. The church 
 was crowded and the doors were ajar; a good 
 many worshippers who had not come in time to 
 find room within were kneeling on the grass out- 
 side. No sooner had the women caught sight of 
 this handsome visitor than they began to nudge 
 each other with their elbows, to giggle, to stare at 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 243 
 
 him over their shoulders; then, whispering and 
 smiling, they entirely forgot to sing. The men 
 meanwhile, noticing all these manoeuvres looked 
 round open-mouthed in the midst of a long-drawn 
 note, and fixed their gaze on the stranger, pouring 
 out their petitions in his direction as though he 
 were the Almighty of whom they were imploring 
 a good harvest, in his own language, the Latin of 
 which they did not understand a word. Then 
 there was a silence. The voice of the priest was 
 heard within uttering the Oremus ; they all bowed 
 their heads in speechless prayer. A faint scent and 
 a dense mist of incense were diffused and then, 
 after another pause of profound stillness, the bari- 
 tone chant was heard again without any organ or 
 choir: " The Lord be praised !" and all responded: 
 "The Lord be praised !" 
 
 For a few minutes after the harsh mechanical 
 patter of voices in common supplication was to be 
 heard like the croaking of a flock of crows. Then 
 the peasants came slowly and sleepily out, all 
 talking of the fine gentleman from Novara who 
 had arrived during the service and had not knelt 
 down nor even crossed himself: 
 
 " It was a perfect Gomorrah was that place, a 
 
 16 * 
 
244 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 den of corruption and a disgrace to the country ! 
 It was not for nothing that never a year passed 
 without storms or dearth, and that the harvests 
 were so bad and the grapes failed. The land- 
 owners had no religion left, and the Lord was fain 
 to punish them, and then the poor peasants had 
 nothing to eat ; the righteous must suffer for the 
 sins of the wicked. . ." 
 
 The women did not look so far into a mill- 
 stone ; they were more frivolous in their com- 
 ments. 
 
 " Did you see how shiny his shoes were ? and 
 his socks were made of silk ! His handkerchief is 
 worked like a lady's, and as he went by me it 
 smelt quite sweet," and they giggled in a shame- 
 faced way. The children did not trouble them- 
 selves with so many reflections ; they stood round 
 him in a circle, with their noses in the air, and 
 their hands behind their backs, as if he had come 
 there for their express and sole amusement. The 
 little crowd grew every instant and the new-comers 
 pushed and elbowed to get front places, and when 
 the first arrivals elbowed back again and insisted 
 on their rights: "Make room for me; do you want 
 to keep the sight all to yourself?" 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 245 
 
 The last to come out were the ladies, the 
 wives of the village dignitaries ; the apothecary's 
 wife, a little dark woman who had always been 
 curiously deficient in hair and teeth, and was so 
 much the color of parchment that time had been 
 unable to do her any great damage ; the secretary's 
 wife, who could no longer be called fair, whether 
 hapless or no, because she was quite grey; but 
 who walked as upright as ever, with her head erect 
 and her pinched features, as she talked to some 
 young girls in the most sentimental manner two 
 girls who had grown and altered too much for 
 Giovanni to know who they were. 
 
 Last of all came Rachel. She wore a black 
 silk dress and a black lace shawl over her head. 
 Her brilliant complexion had become rather too 
 highly colored ; her figure, which was tall and well 
 made, had lost its grace and slenderness ; her hair, 
 which was still fair and yellow, was smoothly 
 drawn back from her temples and twisted into a 
 knot behind ; a plait round her head came low on 
 her forehead, framing in her face after the fashion 
 of some of Raphael's Madonnas. But this, like 
 them, was antique in style. She was not dressed 
 like the majority of provincial fine ladies, in the 
 
246 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 fashion of the past year, nor yet in the very latest 
 fashion copied from a colored fashion plate with 
 original additions and exaggerations. Her dress 
 consisted simply of a tight bodice and a skirt with 
 no flounces or trimmings ; and her shawl, which 
 was of fine Chantilly lace, was thrown over her 
 head and shoulders and knotted in front in the 
 fashion of the costume worn by Genoese women. 
 This attire, which made no pretentions to elegance 
 and was in fact quite devoid of it, was not in the 
 least ridiculous ; its utter simplicity did not attract 
 attention, and in this rural place it was more ap- 
 propriate than town-made frills and furbelows. 
 But it made her look old. 
 
 A vision passed before Giovanni's eyes of the 
 figure that this matronly maiden would make 
 dressed like a rich lady in the midst of the flutter- 
 ing brilliant and gracious women of Milan society; 
 it struck him that she would be nothing less than 
 ridiculous and he examined her with a feeling of 
 dissatisfaction. At this moment Rachel turned 
 her eyes upon him those large calm eyes and 
 her placid face, and the shade of contempt in his 
 expression did not escape her. She recognized 
 him instantly; but she too gained a painful im- 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 247 
 
 pression from his youthful figure and his air of 
 fashion and expenditure ; she felt that they were 
 parted by a wide gulf. She colored to the roots of 
 her hair, turned her head, and went on her way 
 without glancing at him again, as if she had not 
 known him. 
 
 Living in such complete isolation, she had not 
 learnt to hide her feelings under the assumption of 
 gay cordiality, or smile and bow to the man 
 whose mere presence had set her heart throbbing; 
 to offer him her hand with cool ease and talk to 
 him of anything and everything except their rela- 
 tions to each other. Her first impulse on seeing 
 Giovanni was to fly to meet him with her arms 
 outspread, and shed on his breast that torrent of 
 tears which in her joy and surprise had welled up 
 to her throat and was choking her. But her 
 natural shyness, which years of solitude had in- 
 creased, paralyzed her. 
 
 All these emotions had rushed over her in an 
 instant as she saw and recognized Giovanni ; but 
 in the next she felt the shock of disappointment 
 that the sight of her had produced in him and she 
 fell from the height of bliss to the depths of morti- 
 fied discomfiture. 
 
248 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 Giovanni followed her with a fixed gaze ; she 
 walked slowly, with a firm and measured step; 
 she was tall and large, and there was something 
 heavy and matronly in her gait as well as in her 
 appearance. As a figure in this grand landscape 
 of plain and mountain this dignified simplicity and 
 shy stateliness were suitable and harmonious ; a 
 painter might have taken this Rachel as a model 
 for the daughter of Laban, or a sculptor have 
 idealized her for a Juno. Giovanni, too, could ad- 
 mire her, but as he would have admired some 
 peasant matron. The idea he had formed of his 
 future wife was something quite different. 
 
 His immediate impulse was to rush back to 
 Borgomanero and take the next train to Milan 
 without ever going to see Rachel to fly in 
 short. 
 
 But his heart was soft towards her. He re- 
 membered the fair young girl whom he had left 
 twelve years since with a bright future before her ; 
 with youth, grace and intelligence, all that might 
 have made her one of the most attractive women 
 of her age. She was rich ; she might have mar- 
 ried to live in a capital and lead a brilliant life ; 
 and instead of this she had shut herself up in her 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 249 
 
 old castle, had spent the best years of her life in 
 loneliness, letting the natural spirits of her youth 
 evaporate, neglecting the charms of her person, 
 and yielding dully to the grave and sober influ- 
 ences that time had shed over her, loyally re- 
 nouncing every ambition, every art that might 
 render her attractive since she had no care to at- 
 tract those who were within her ken, and the 
 only man whom she would have cared to please 
 was far away. All this she had done for him. 
 
 He recalled the evening by the terrace wall 
 when he had asked her : " Will you be mine ?" 
 And the blushing girl had replied in words of love; 
 and he, scratching his hands and tearing his clothes, 
 had dragged himself up to reach her foot and 
 kissed his hand for having touched it. Since that 
 day what privations and sufferings he had known! 
 He had toiled for years and they both had endured 
 long waiting for the moment that had at last ar- 
 rived. And now, when it was present, he would 
 have willingly given all the fame and wealth he 
 had so laboriously acquired to feel for one instant 
 the perfect joy he had then known in touching 
 and kissing that foot ! 
 
 But it was dead dead for ever. Time had 
 
250 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 killed it. The mere sight of Rachel had sufficed 
 to convince him that the habit of years had trans- 
 formed her into a country dame. She was still 
 Rachel but she was no longer his ideal ; and his 
 heart beat no faster as he saw her once more. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 GIOVANNI walked round the church-yard to 
 give the people time to disperse ; but the children 
 pursued him, clattering on the stones with their 
 wooden shoes. He took refuge in a path that ran 
 along the bank of the river and beneath a wall, so 
 narrow that there was only room for one person 
 at a time; and the little rustics, less persevering 
 than the natives of suburban villages, seeing that 
 the gentleman wanted to be rid of them, stood a 
 few minutes to stare after him and then dispersed. 
 
 Giovanni knew this spot, and he wandered up 
 and down for some time on the bank where he 
 had so often loitered in order not to be disturbed 
 in his day-dreams. At last he slowly made his 
 way up to the castle. He could no longer picture 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 251 
 
 to himself the conservatory boudoir, the rocking- 
 chairs, the artistic trifles and the elegant and fra- 
 grant nest in which he had dreamed of seeing the 
 fair recluse of his imaginings. He was depressed 
 and saddened. The dusk was deepening into 
 darkness; the hills and plain were sinking into 
 monochrome and from the meadows rose a thin 
 mist which looked like a lake. The natives had 
 gone indoors to supper; the cicala was silent; 
 now and again a cricket chirped and broke the 
 solemn silence. 
 
 Giovanni looked up at the castle and saw 
 Rachel standing outside the gate- way leaning over 
 the bridge and gazing down into the moat "She 
 is waiting for me," he thought. 
 
 But Rachel was in fact so lost in thought that 
 she had not perceived him. It was not till he was 
 at quite a short distance that she became aware of 
 his approach, and then, instead of going forward 
 to meet him, she went hastily in, as if to fly from 
 him. This excess of bashfulness utterly discon- 
 certed the town-bred lawyer. The blush that had 
 dyed her face when she had recognized him in the 
 church-yard, and her lingering to meditate on the 
 bridge proved that his presence had stirred her 
 
2$2 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 deeply ; and yet she avoided him with sheepish 
 timidity. He shook his head in uneasy doubt and 
 sighed as he entered the gate. 
 
 In the court-yard he met a maid who showed 
 him into the great drawing-room. This room, 
 which had impressed him so strongly on the oc- 
 casion of his last visit to Signer Pedrotti, now 
 struck him as nothing less than grotesque. The 
 heavy stuffed chairs were out of date without 
 being venerable, and their old-fashioned but 
 modern make, with padded backs, was out of 
 keeping with the mediaeval mouldings and door- 
 ways. Over the old chimney-piece towered a 
 huge bronze clock, picked out with gold, and 
 flanked by monumental candelabra, all three duti- 
 fully covered from the dust by glass shades. By 
 the side of the old-fashioned grand pianoforte, 
 music, no less antiquated, was neatly arranged on 
 a shelf. There were no elegant trifles, no books, no 
 flowers, no plants, no newspapers, no photographs, 
 nor engravings, nor any of the pretty and tasteful 
 things that a cultivated woman likes to have about 
 her. Instead of the aromatic scent of burning 
 pine-cones, or the perfume of fresh violets, there 
 was the stuffy smell of a room that is but rarely 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 253 
 
 used. It was the unaired and neglected drawing- 
 room of a house where no company ever comes. 
 
 The solitude in which Rachel lived was not 
 that of Giovanni's cultivated acquaintance, broken 
 now and again by the intrusion of some choice 
 spirits a tea-drinking with a small and privileged 
 circle, who could keep up the habit of social inter- 
 course and the vigor of wit and sense, with that 
 grain of womanly vanity which lends salt and 
 savor to a gifted nature. This was real solitude, 
 oblivion, utter detachment from the world in which 
 he lived and which had become to him an element 
 as indispensable as the air he breathed. 
 
 Rachel came in, blushing deeply and with an 
 embarrassed manner. She only said : 
 
 " Oh ! Signer Giovanni ; how are you ?" and 
 then she seated herself on a sofa. 
 
 For an instant Giovanni himself had a spasm 
 of awkwardness in the presence of this shy and 
 wordless woman. But still, without exactly know- 
 ing why, this cold reception set him more at his 
 ease than a warmer demonstration would have 
 done. He took courage, and offering her his hand, 
 in which she put hers for a moment but hastily 
 withdrew it, he said : 
 
254 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 " I have been long in coming, Rachel." She 
 colored more deeply than ever. Then he had 
 come for her ? He remembered his promise ? It 
 was not all at an end ? She could hardly believe 
 it ! After all these years, in which she had accus- 
 tomed herself to feel that she was forgotten, and 
 to believe that she should never marry . . . The 
 happy surprise gripped so suddenly at her heart 
 that she almost lost her breath and she could 
 make no reply. Giovanni, puzzled by her silence, 
 went on : 
 
 " You do not reproach me for my long 
 delay ?" 
 
 " Better late than never," said Rachel, for the 
 sake of saying something, though the sense of 
 the proverb as applied to herself did not strike 
 her. 
 
 Her brain and heart were too full of new and 
 vital impressions that had come on her like a 
 whirlwind. " Then that dream of her youth was 
 not dead ; she had fancied that she was too old 
 for love, and she found that love was still within 
 her reach ; it was a sort of resurrection ! But was 
 it possible that this handsome man with his cold 
 proud face was the Giovanni of old ? and felt as he 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 255 
 
 had then ? No. Then he would have been agitated 
 at meeting her, his eyes would have looked into 
 hers and filled with tears, or have flashed with the 
 lightning of passion. The eyes that met hers now 
 were not those of a lover ; that cool, easy manner, 
 those tranquil tones, that keen, searching gaze 
 which examined her as though counting the hairs 
 on her head and seeking for a wrinkle in her 
 brow, had no alliance with love. This handsome 
 city gentleman did not love her ! But why then 
 had he come ?" 
 
 Why ? He himself supplied the answer to the 
 question she had uttered. 
 
 " Very true ; better late than never," he re- 
 peated. And then, after a pause a short pause 
 during which Rachel had made her rapid reflec- 
 tions, he went on : " Then you do not think that 
 it is too late ?" 
 
 Too late ! This then was the explanation of 
 his coldness. He had felt it to be his duty to return 
 to her, but having returned, having met her again, 
 he had seen and felt that twelve years had passed 
 over the girl he remembered. Twelve years of 
 seclusion, spent among boors, and in rustic occu- 
 pations ; and those twelve years had aged her and 
 
256 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 left her unpolished, they had destroyed the ideal 
 being of whom he had dreamed a graceful and 
 cultivated being and turned her into an honest 
 country land-owner. Yes, it was too late ! She 
 had lost her youth and charm, but she had kept 
 good sense enough to make her aware of it. 
 
 " It is true," thought she. " I am too old for 
 love-making, and I am too provincial for him ; he 
 is ready to marry me but only out of a sense of 
 loyalty." 
 
 An acute and crushing pain clutched at her 
 heart. The suspicion that she had felt when they 
 first met that she had made an unfavorable im- 
 pression on him became a certainty. Her soul 
 died within her as she sat there, bolt upright and 
 motionless on the sofa, with her hands folded in 
 her lap, and her eyes fixed on her hands. 
 
 Giovanni felt that he must speak again ; but 
 he did not know what to say. He had come with 
 the express purpose of asking Rachel to marry 
 him and now he was afraid of committing himself. 
 However, there was no escape ; their present re- 
 lations as much as their old pledge made it inevi- 
 table. He must speak, cost what it might, and 
 trust to fate. 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 257 
 
 " Better late than never," he said again. "We 
 still have time to keep our old promises. . ." 
 
 " Good Heavens, no !" cried she, choking with 
 tears at his calmness which mortified her bitterly. 
 " Do not let us speak of the past !" 
 
 " Why not?" asked Giovanni, in the soothing 
 tone which we use when we feel that we have 
 much to forgive. 
 
 "Because it is too late to think of some 
 things. . ." 
 
 He looked regretfully at her and replied 
 politely : 
 
 " Nay, how can you think so ? You are still 
 young. . ." But his eyes were on her as he 
 spoke with a compassionate expression as much as 
 to say : 
 
 " But you are right; it is a pity. . ." 
 " No," she repeated, "we have followed differ- 
 ent roads. . ." She began firmly, but as she 
 spoke her eyes filled with tears and her voice 
 broke. If she had said a word more of what she 
 meant to say : " Our promises were childish folly," 
 she must have burst into weeping, for the mere 
 thought of saying anything so stern had swelled 
 17 
 
258 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 her breast with a sob and she was obliged to be 
 silent to check it. 
 
 Giovanni, seeing her so much disturbed, rose 
 to go, saying : 
 
 " You will think better of it, Rachel. I have 
 taken you by surprise. I will come back when 
 you are calmer. . ." 
 
 Of course he would come back; he could 
 not cut the matter short in this way. 
 
 In all Fontanetto there was not an inn where 
 a gentleman of any pretensions could spend a 
 night. There was nothing left for it but to return 
 to Borgomanero on foot 
 
 " I will stay there a day or two," he said, " so 
 as to give you time. . ." 
 
 It was a long walk; a straight road gleaming 
 white in the broad cold moonlight. During this 
 walk of more than an hour he thought over all 
 they had said to each other. Yes, it was too true ; 
 those twelve years had done the work of twenty 
 on Rachel. There was not a trace left of the 
 slight, fresh-tinted graceful girl of the past. It 
 would not be flattering to his vanity to introduce 
 this mature bride to the fashionable world of 
 Milan ; he would be laughed at they would say 
 
THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 259 
 
 that he had married for money for Rachel was 
 rich. 
 
 So long as he had dreamed of that fair young 
 girl he had never thought of the possible com- 
 ments of the gossips on her wealth ; but now he 
 wanted to excuse himself for his own recalcitrancy. 
 He reflected, to be sure, that those twelve years 
 had passed over his head also, but then every one 
 knows that a man does not age as a woman does ; 
 and he knew many a man of six and thirty who 
 had married girls of eighteen or twenty and who 
 were not thought ridiculous. 
 
 But it was not age alone that he cared about ; 
 he was superior to such trifling considerations. He 
 considered rather the position he held in the 
 world ; he was a distinguished man, about to be 
 elected deputy to parliament; what he wanted 
 was a wife who knew the ways of the world, used 
 to town life, who could receive and make a figure 
 in society, and do him credit in his own house. . . 
 
 Rachel, as he had found her, rustic, shy, old- 
 fashioned, could not fill the place. She had her- 
 self acknowledged it and shown her good sense. 
 It would be indelicate in him to reopen the argu- 
 ment and renew a scene which had evidently been 
 17 * 
 
260 THE WANE OF AN IDEAL. 
 
 painful to her. " Her woman's pride had been 
 hurt, for it must always touch a woman's vanity 
 to realize her age and the ravages of time on her 
 charms." 
 
 It was a sad a very sad thing that his ideal 
 should thus have vanished out of his life. He 
 thought of it all night ; he thought of it next day 
 in the railway carriage, when, all things considered, 
 he had made up his mind to return to Milan with- 
 out seeing Rachel again. He thought of it again 
 when he got to Milan often and always. But 
 always of that ideal as he had remembered it and 
 worshipped it so many years ago young, sweet, 
 and lovely . . . Perhaps he may yet meet with it 
 in real life, for the mature mistress of the castle of 
 Fontanetto is no longer that ideal. 
 
 And Rachel ? She no sooner was left alone 
 than she flung herself down, hiding her face on the 
 faded pillows of the old sofa, and broke into a long 
 and desperate fit of weeping. 
 
 She knew at once that Giovanni would not 
 come back. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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 thing to plebeian intruders. The heroine, Zinka, who is 
 admitted as an honorary member to this exclusive circle, 
 is a charming character, innocently girlish, suspecting 
 neither slight nor evil. She suffers in discovering the 
 innate worthlessness of Sempaly, who plays fast and 
 loose with her affections, but her healthy nature out- 
 grows her grief without embitterment. There are other 
 characters more lightly sketched in, but with equally 
 firm touch, among whom General von Klinger, the 
 'pessimist idealist,' is particularly good. The biting 
 sketch of the Wolnitzskys, though evidently realistic, is 
 less intelligible to the foreign reader, to whom the 
 peculiarities of the 'pigeon gentry' are unknown." The 
 American, Phila. 
 
 " We have in this book a keen analysis of the society 
 of Modern Rome. Foibles are exposed ; worth is hon- 
 ored; true greatness of soul is shown to be better than 
 the accident of birth. The volume is admirably written, 
 abounding in brilliant scenes, and strong characters." 
 The Morning Star, Denser, 
 William S. Gottsberger, Publisher, New York. 
 
THE ELEVENTH COMMANDMENT. A Romance 
 by Anton Giulio Barrili, from the Italian by Clara 
 Bell, in one vol. Paper, 50 cts. Cloth, 90 cts. 
 
 " If Italian literature includes any more such unique and 
 charming stories as this one, it is to be hoped that translators will 
 not fail to discover them to the American public. The ' Eleventh 
 Commandment' deals with a variety of topics the social intrigues 
 necessary to bring about preferment in political life, a communal 
 order, an adventurous unconventional heiress, and her acquiescent, 
 good-natured uncle, and most cleverly are the various elements 
 combined, the whole forming an excellent and diverting little story. 
 The advent of a modern Eve in the masculine paradise (?) estab- 
 lished at the Convent of San Bruno is fraught with weighty con- 
 sequences, not only to the individual members of the brotherhood, 
 but to the well-being of the community itself. The narrative of 
 M'lle Adela's adventures is blithely told, and the moral deducible 
 therefrom for men is that, on occasion, flight is the surest method 
 of combating temptation." Art Interchange, Nnu York. 
 
 "Very entertaining is the story of ' The Eleventh Command- 
 ment,' ingeniously conceived and very cleverly executed." The 
 Critic, New York. 
 
 A WHIMSICAL WOOING. By Anton Giulio 
 
 Barrili, from the Italian by Clara Bell, in one vol. Paper, 
 25 cts. Cloth, 50 cts. 
 
 "If 'The Eleventh Commandment,' the previous work of 
 Barrili, was a good three-act play, ' A Whimsical Wooing ' is a 
 sparkling comedietta. It is one situation, a single catastrophe, yet, 
 like a bit of impressionist painting of the finer sort, it reveals in a 
 flash all the possibilities of the scene. The hero, Roberto Fenoglio, 
 a man of wealth, position, and accomplishments, finds himself at 
 the end of his resources for entertainment or interest. Hopelessly 
 bored, he abandons himself to the drift of chance, and finds him- 
 self, in no longer space of time than from midnight to daylight 
 where and how, the reader will thank us for not forestalling his 
 pleasure in finding out for himself." The Nation, New York. 
 
 "A Wliimsical Wooing' is the richly-expressive title under 
 which ' Clara Bell ' introduces a cleverly-narrated episode by 
 Anton Giulio Barrili to American readers. It is a sketch of Italian 
 life, at once rich and strong, but nevertheless discreet in sentiment 
 and graceful in diction. It is the old story of the fallacy of trust- 
 ing to a proxy in love matters." Boston Post. 
 
 William S. Gottsberger, Publisher, New York. 
 
THIS AMAZON. AH Art-Novel, by Carl Vosmaer, 
 
 from the Dutch by E. J. Irving, with frontispiece by Alma 
 Tadema, R. A., and preface by Georg Ebers. In one vol. 
 Paper, 40 cts. Cloth, 75 cts. 
 
 " Among the poets who never overstep the limits of probability 
 and yet aspire to realize the ideal, in whose works we breathe a 
 purer air, who have power to enthral and exalt the reader's soul, 
 to stimulate and enrich his mind, we must number the Nether- 
 lander Vosmaer. 
 
 "The Novel 'Amazon,' which attracted great and just attention 
 in the author's fatherland, has been translated into our tongue at 
 my special request. In Vosmaer we find no appalling incident, 
 no monstrous or morbid psychology, neither is the worst side of 
 human nature portrayed in glaring colors. The reader is afforded 
 ample opportunity of delighting himself with delicate pictures of 
 the inner life and spiritual conflicts of healthy-minded men and 
 women. In this book a profound student of ancient as well as 
 modern art conducts us from Paestum to Naples, thence to Rome, 
 making us participators in the highest and greatest the Eternal 
 City can offer to the soul of man. 
 
 "Vosmaer is a poet by the grace of God, as he has proved by 
 poems both grave and gay; by his translation of the Iliad into 
 Dutch hexameters, and by his lovely epos ' Nanno,' His numer- 
 ous essays on sesthetics, and more especially his famous ' Life of 
 Rembrandt,' have secured him an honorable place among the art- 
 historians of our day. As Deputy Recorder of the High Court 
 of Justice he has, during the best years of his life (he was born 
 March 20, 1826), enjoyed extensive opportunities of acquiring a 
 thorough insight into the social life of the present, and the laby- 
 rinths of the human soul. That 'The Amazon,' perhaps the ma- 
 turest work of this author, should like Vosmaer's other writings 
 be totally unknown outside Holland, is owing solely to the circum- 
 stance that most of his works are written in his mother-tongue, and 
 are therefore accessible only to a very small circle of readers. 
 
 " It is a painful thing for a poet to have to write in a language 
 restricted to a small area ; and it is the bounden duty of the lover 
 of literature to bring what is excellent in the literature of other 
 lands within the reach of his own countrymen. Among these 
 excellent works Vosmaer's 'Amazon' must unquestionably be 
 reckoned. It introduces us to those whom we cannot fail to 
 consider an acquisition to our circle of acquaintances. It permits 
 us to be present at conversations which and not least when they 
 provoke dissent stimulate our minds to reflection. No one who 
 listens to them can depart without having gained something; for 
 Vosmaer's novel is rich in subtle observations and shrewd re- 
 marks, in profound thoughts and beautifully-conceived situations." 
 Extract from Gcorg Ebers 1 Preface to the German Edition. 
 
FKIDOLIS'S MYSTICAL MAKRIAGE.-A Study 
 of an Original, founded on Reminiscences of a Friend, by 
 Adolf Wilbraildt, from the German by Clara Bell. One 
 vol. Paper, 50 cts. Cloth, 90 cts. 
 
 " One of the most entertaining of the recent translations of 
 German fiction is ' Fridolin's Mystical Marriage,' by Adolf Wil- 
 brandt. The author calls it 'a study of an original, founded on 
 reminiscences of a friend,' and one may easily believe that the 
 whimsical, fascinating, brilliant heir must have been drawn more 
 largely from life than fancy. He is a professor of art, who re- 
 mains single up to his fortieth year because he is, he explains to a 
 friend ' secretly married. ' ' When you consider all the men of 
 your acquaintance,' he says, 'does it strike you that every man is 
 thoroughly manly and every woman thoroughly womanly? Or, 
 on the contrary, do you not find singular deviations and excep- 
 tions to the normal type ? If we place all the men on earth in a 
 series, sorting them by the shades of difference in their natural 
 dispositions, from the North Pole, so to speak, of stalwart manli- 
 ness to the South Pole of perfect womanhood, and if you then cast 
 a piercing glance into their souls, you would perceive . . . beings 
 with masculine intellect and womanly feelings, or womanly gifts 
 and masculine character.' The idea is very cleverly worked out 
 that in these divided souls marriage is possible only between the 
 two natures, and that whenever one of the unfortunates given this 
 mixed nature, cannot contract an outward alliance. How the 
 events of the story overthrow this ingenious theory need not be 
 told here, but the reader will find entertainment in discovery for 
 himself." Courier, Boston, 
 
 "A quaint, dry and highly diverting humor pervades the book, 
 and the characters are sketched with great force and are admira- 
 bly contrasted. The unceasing animation of the narrative, the 
 crispness of the conversations, and the constant movement of the 
 plot hold the interest of the reader in pleasant attention through- 
 out. It provides very bright and unfatiguing reading for a dull 
 summer day." Gazette, Boston. 
 
 "The scenes which are colored by the art atmosphere of the 
 studio of Fridolin, a professor of art and the principal character, 
 are full of pure humor, through the action and situations that the 
 theory brings about. But no point anywhere for effective humor 
 is neglected. It runs through the story, or comedy, from begin- 
 ning to end, appearing in every available spot. And the charac- 
 terization is evenly strong. It is an uncommonly clever work in 
 its line, and will be deliciously enjoyed by the best readers." 
 Globe, Boston. 
 
A GRAVEYARD FLOWER. By Wilhelmiiie 
 
 VOn Hilleni, from the German by Clara Bell, in one 
 vol, Paper, 40 cts. Cloth, 75 cts. 
 
 " The pathos of this story is of a type too delicate 
 to be depressing. The tale is almost a poem, so fine is 
 its imagery, so far removed from the commonplace. 
 The character of Marie is merely suggested, and yet 
 she has a most distinct and penetrating individuality. 
 It is a fine piece of work to place, without parade or 
 apparent intention, at the feet of this ideal woman, three 
 loves so widely different from each other. There is 
 clever conception in the impulse that makes Marie turn 
 from the selfish, tempestuous love of the Count, and 
 the generous, holy passion of Anselmo, to the narrower 
 but nearer love of Walther, who had perhaps fewer 
 possibilities in his nature than either of the other two. 
 The quality of the story is something we can only de- 
 scribe by one word spirituelle. It has in it strong 
 suggestions of genius coupled with a rare poetic feel- 
 ing, which comes perhaps more frequently from Ger- 
 many than from anywhere else. The death of Marie 
 and the sculpture of her image by Anselmo, is a passage 
 of great power. The tragic end of the book does not 
 come with the gloom of an unforeseen calamity ; it 
 leaves with it merely a feeling of tender sadness, for it 
 is only the fulfilment of our daily expectations. It is in 
 fact the only end which the tone of the story would 
 render fitting or natural." Godey's Lady's Book. 
 
 William S. Gottsberger, Publisher, A r ew York. 
 
CLYTIA. A Romance of the Sixteenth Century, by 
 George Taylor, from the German by Mary J. Safford, 
 in one vol. Paper, 50 cts. Cloth, 90 cts. 
 
 " If report may be trusted ' George Taylor,' though 
 writing in German, is an Englishman by race, and not 
 merely by the assumption of a pseudonym. The state- 
 ment is countenanced by the general physiognomy of 
 his novels, which manifest the artistic qualities in which 
 German fiction, when extending beyond the limits of a 
 short story, is usually deficient. ' Antinous ' was a re- 
 markable book ; ' Clytia ' displays the same talent, and 
 is, for obvious reasons, much better adapted for general 
 circulation. Notwithstanding its classical title, it is a 
 romance of the post -Lutheran Reformation in the sec- 
 ond half of the sixteenth century. The scene is laid 
 in the Palatinate; the hero, Paul Laurenzano, is, like 
 John Inglesant, the pupil, but, unlike John Inglesant, 
 the proselyte and emissary, of the Jesuits, who send him 
 to do mischief in the disguise of a Protestant clergy- 
 man. He becomes confessor to a sisterhood of re- 
 formed nuns, as yet imperfectly detached from the old 
 religion, and forms the purpose of reconverting them. 
 During the process, however, he falls in love with one 
 of their number, the beautiful Clytia, the original, Mr. 
 Taylor will have it, of the lovely bust in whose genuine- 
 ness he will not let us believe. Clytia, as is but reason- 
 able, is a match for Loyola ; the man in Laurenzano 
 overpowers the priest, and, after much agitation of 
 various kinds, the story concludes with his marriage. It 
 is an excellent novel from every point of view, and, like 
 ' Antinous ' gives evidence of superior culture and 
 thoughtfulness." The London Saturday Review. 
 
 William S. Gottsberger, Publisher, New York. 
 
ELJANE. A Novel, by Mine. Augustus Craven, from 
 the French by Lady Georgiana Fullerton, in one vol. Paper, 
 50 cts. Cloth, 90 cts. 
 
 "It is not only pure, but is, we believe, a trustworthy de- 
 scription of the dignified French life of which it is a picture. 
 ' Eliane ' is one of the very best novels we have read for one or 
 two seasons past." The American Literary Churchman, Balti- 
 more. 
 
 " 'Eliane' is interesting not only because it is such a record 
 of the best kind of French life and manners as could only have 
 been written by a person thoroughly at home in the subject, but 
 also because of the delicate drawing of character which it con- 
 tains." London Sat. Review. 
 
 ANTINOUS. A Romance of Ancient Rome, by George 
 Taylor, from the German by Mary J. Safford, in one vol. 
 Paper, 50 cts. Cloth, 90 cts. 
 
 " ' Antinous,' a Romance of Ancient Rome, from the German 
 of George Taylor, by Mary J. Safford, is one of those faithful re- 
 productions of ancient manners, customs, and scenery which Ger- 
 man authors are so fond of writing, and in which they are so 
 wonderfully successful. The story deals with the old age of the 
 Emperor Hadrian and with his favorite Antinous. The recital is 
 full of power, and is extraordinary in its vividly realistic drawing 
 of character. Though a minutely close study of historical detail, 
 it is spirited in the telling and of absorbing interest in the plot 
 and descriptions. The era and the personages stand out with 
 stereoscopic clearness. Nothing could be finer than the portrait 
 of the melancholy Hadrian and its beautifully-contrasted fellow 
 picture, the sorrowful Antinous. The book is one that appeals to 
 every cultivated taste, and overflows with interest of the most re- 
 fined description." Saturday Evening Gazette, Boston. 
 
 RANTHORPE. A Novel, by George Henry L,ewes, 
 
 in one vol. Paper, 40 cts. Cloth, 75 cts. 
 
 "There is a good deal of wisdom in it that is not without its 
 use." Popular Science Monthly. 
 
 "'Ranthorpe' is a reprint of a novel written in 1842, by 
 George Henry Lewes, the well-known husband of George Eliot. 
 It belongs to the psychological class, and is keenly introspective 
 throughout. The style is well adapted to the work, displaying the 
 versatility of a mind whose natural bent was towards metaphysics 
 and the exact sciences." Montreal Star. 
 
 William S. Gottsberger, Publisher, New York. 
 
ERNESTINE. A Novel, by Wilhelmiiie yon Hill- 
 em, from the German by S. Baring-Gould, in two vols. 
 Paper, 80 cts. Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 " 'Ernestine' is a work of positive genius. An English critic 
 has likened the conception of the heroine in her childhood to 
 George Eliot's Maggie Tulliver, and truly there is a certain resem- 
 blance ; but there is in the piece a much stronger suggestion of 
 George Eliot's calm mastery of the secret springs of human 
 action, and George Eliot's gift of laying bare the life of a human 
 soul, than of likeness between particular characters or situations 
 here and those with which we are familiar in George Eliot's 
 works." New York Evening Post. 
 
 THE HOUR WILL COME. A Tale of an Alpine 
 Cloister, by Wilhelmiiie von Hillern, from the Ger- 
 man by Clara Bell, in one vol. Paper, 40 cts. Cloth, 75 cts. 
 
 "'The Hour Will Come' 1 is the title of a translation by 
 Clara Bell from the German original of Wilhelmine von Hillern, 
 author of that beautiful romance ' Geier-Wally.' 'The Hour 
 Will Come' is hardly less interesting, its plot being one of the 
 strongest and most pathetic that could well be imagined. The time 
 is the Middle Ages, and Frau von Hillern has achieved a remark- 
 able success in reproducing the rudeness, the picturesqueness and 
 the sombre coloring of those days. Those who take up 'The 
 Hour Will Come' will not care to lay it down again until they 
 have read it through." Baltimore Gazette. 
 
 HIGHER THAN THE CHURCH. An Art Legend 
 of Ancient Times, by Willielmiue VOR Hillern, from 
 the German by Mary J. Safford, in one vol. Paper, 25 cts. 
 Cloth, 50 cts. 
 
 " Mary J. Safford translates acceptably a very charming short 
 story from the German of Wilhelmine von Hillern. If it was not 
 told by the sacristan of Breisach, it deserves to have been. It has 
 the full flavor of old German and English love tales, such as have 
 been crystallized in the old ballads. The Emperor, the gifted 
 boy, his struggles with the stupidity of his townsmen, his ap- 
 parently hopeless love above him ; these form the old delightful 
 scene, set in a Dureresque border. There are touches here and 
 there which refer to the present. The sixteenth century tale has 
 a political moral that will appeal to Germans who believe that 
 Alsatia, once German in heart as well as in tongue, ought to be 
 held by force to the Fatherland till she forgets her beloved 
 France." N. Y. Times. 
 
 William S. Gottsberger, Publisher^ New York. 
 
GLORIA. A NOVEL, by B. Perez Gald6s, from the 
 Spanish by Clara Bell, in two vols. Paper, $1.00, Cloth, $1.75 
 
 "B. Perez Galdos is like a whirlwind, resistless as he sweeps 
 everything before him, while beneath, the waters of passion foam 
 and heave and are stirred to their depths. Some chapters of this 
 novel are absolutely agonizing in their intensity of passion, and 
 the surge and rush of words bears the reader along breathless and 
 terrified, till he finds himself almost ready to cry out. In others, 
 the storm is lulled and the plash of waves is as musical as the 
 author's native tongue. In others still, he drones through the 
 lazy summer day, and the reader goes to sleep. However, the 
 story as a whole is stormy, and the end tragic ; yet we are lost in 
 wonder at the man who can so charm us. 
 
 "It is throughout a terrible impeachment of religious intoler- 
 ance. If it had been written for a people possessing the temper 
 of Englishmen or of Americans we should say that it must mark 
 an epoch in the political and religious history of the country. Even 
 written as it is by a Spaniard, and for Spaniards, allowing as we 
 must for Spanish impulsiveness and grandiloquence, which says a 
 great deal to express a very little, we cannot but believe that the 
 work is deeply significant. It is written by a young man and one 
 who is rapidly rising in power and influence ; and when he speaks 
 it is with a vehement earnestness which thrills one with the con- 
 viction that Spain is awaking. 'Fresh air,' cries he, of Spain, 
 ' open air, free exercise under every wind that blows above or be- 
 low ; freedom to be dragged and buffeted, helped or hindered, by 
 all the forces that are abroad. Let her tear off her mendicant's 
 hood, her grave-clothes and winding-sheet, and stand forth in the 
 bracing storms of the century. Spain is like a man who is ill from 
 sheer apprehension, and cannot stir for blisters, plasters, bandages 
 and wraps. Away with all this paraphernalia, and the body will 
 recover its tone and vigor. ' Again : ' Rebel, rebel, your intelli- 
 gence is your strength. Rise, assert yourself; purge your eyes of 
 the dust which darkens them, and look at truth face to face.' 
 Strange language this for Spain of the Inquisition, for bigoted, 
 unprogressive, Catholic Spain. The author goes to the root of 
 Spanish decadence ; he fearlessly exposes her degradation and de- 
 clares its cause. All students of Spanish history will find here 
 much that is interesting besides the story." The Yale Literary 
 Magazine. 
 
 William S. Gottsberger, Publisher, New York. 
 
TRAFALGAR. -A Tale, by B. Perez Galdtfs, from 
 the Spanish by Clara Bell, in one vol. Paper. 50 cents. 
 Cloth, 90 cents. 
 
 " This is the third story by Gald6s in this series, and 
 it is not inferior to those which have preceded it, 
 although it differs from them in many particulars, as 
 it does from most European stories with which we are 
 acquainted, its interest rather depending upon the action 
 with which it deals than upon the actors therein. To 
 subordinate men to events is a new practice in art, and if 
 Galdos had not succeeded we should have said that 
 success therein was impossible. He has succeeded 
 doubly, first as a historian, and then as a novelist, for 
 while the main interest of his story centres in the 
 great sea-fight which it depicts the greatest in which 
 the might of England has figured since her destruction 
 of the Grand Armada there is no lack of interest in 
 the characters of his story, who are sharply individual- 
 ized, and painted in strong colors. Don Alonso and his 
 wife Dona Francisca a simple-minded but heroic old 
 sea-captain, and a sharp-minded, shrewish lady, with a 
 tongue of her own, fairly stand out on the canvas. 
 Never before have the danger and the doom of battle 
 been handled with such force as in this spirited and 
 picturesque tale. It is thoroughly characteristic of the 
 writer and of his nationality." The Mail and Express t 
 New York. 
 
 William S. Gottsberger^ Publisher, New York. 
 
MARIANELA. By B. Perez Galclds, from the Spanish 
 by Clara Bell, in one vol. Paper, 50 cts. Cloth, 90 cts. 
 
 " Galdos is not a novelist, in the sense that now attaches to 
 that much-abused word, but a romancer, pure and simple, as 
 much so as Hawthorne was, though his intentions are less spir- 
 itual, and his methods more material. Marianela is the story 
 of a poor, neglected outcast of a girl, an orphan who is tolerated 
 by a family of miners, as if she were a dog or a cat ; who is 
 fed when the humor takes them and there is any food that can 
 be spared, and who is looked down upon by everybody; and a 
 boy Pablo, who is older than she, the son of a well-to-do landed 
 proprietor, whose misfortune it is (the boy's, we mean) that' 
 he was born blind. His deprivation of sight is almost supplied 
 by the eyes of Marianela, who waits upon him, and goes with 
 him in his daily wanderings about the mining country of Socartes, 
 until he knows the whole country by heart and can when need 
 is find his way everywhere alone. As beautiful as she is homely, 
 he forms an ideal of her looks, based upon her devotion to 
 him, colored by his sensitive, spiritual nature, and he loves her, 
 or what he imagines she is, and she returns his love with fear 
 and trembling, for ignorant as she is she knows that she is not 
 what he believes her to be. They love as two children might, 
 naturally, fervently, entirely. The world contains no woman so 
 beautiful as she, and he will marry her. The idyl of this young 
 love is prettily told, with simplicity, freshness, and something 
 which, if not poetry, is yet poetic. While the course of true love 
 is running smooth with them (for it does sometimes in spite of 
 Shakespeare) there appears upon the scene a brother of the chief 
 engineer of the Socartes mines who is an oculist, and he, after a 
 careful examination of the blind eyes of Pablo, undertakes to per- 
 form an operation upon them which he thinks may enable the lad 
 to see. About this time there also comes upon the scene a brother 
 of Pablo's father, accompanied by his daughter, who is very beau- 
 tiful. The operation is successful, and Pablo is made to see. He 
 is enchanted with the loveliness of his cousin, and disenchanted of 
 his ideal of Marianela, who dies heart-broken at the fate which 
 she knew would be hers if he was permitted to see her as she was. 
 This is the story of Marianela, which would have grown into a 
 poetic romance under the creative mind and shaping hand of 
 Hawthorne, and which, as conceived and managed by Galdos, is 
 a realistic one of considerable grace and pathos. It possesses the 
 charm of directness and simplicity of narrative, is written with 
 great picturesqueness, and is colored throughout with impressions 
 of Spanish country life." The Mail and Express, New York, 
 Thursday, April 12, 1883. 
 
 William S. Gottsberger, Publisher, New York. 
 
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