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. ADVERTISEMENTS OUR OWN SET. A Novel, by Ossip Schubin, from the German by Clara Bell, in one vol. Paper cover, 50 cts. Cloth binding, 90 cts. " This is a really captivating little novel, lighter and more dainty in touch than is usual in German fiction, and showing a good deal of character painting. The scene of the story is laid in Rome, but the story con- cerns only the group of high-born Austrian diplomats resident there who form ' Ou* Own Set,' making intru- sion into their aristocratic circle a difficult and dangerous 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. snYo' KTi ->'U University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. T7T6E The id- IX KX/IMERN REG :.'.-. I ---- -- . ' A 000545214 9 h7 T7T6E