The next day I went to M. Dalacqua for my lesson. When it was over, Barbara passed from one room to another, let a folded paper fall from her hand, and earnestly looked at me.
A servant was near.
I bent down at once and took it up before any other hand could reach it.
It was a note, enclosing another addressed to her lover. The paper for me contained only these words.
"If you think it to be a sin to deliver the enclosed to your friend, burn it. Have pity on an unfortunate girl, and be discreet."
I opened the other and read. It had been left unsealed.
"If you love me as deeply as I love you, you cannot hope to be happy without me; we cannot correspond in any other way than the one I am bold enough to adopt. I am ready to do anything to unite our lives until death. Consider and decide."
I cannot deny that I was touched.
The poor girl's distress was written in every line.
Yet I resolved to return the letter the next day, and I wrote at once to say that I could not render her the service she asked of me.
I folded both papers together and put them in my pocket.
On the following day I went to my lesson as usual, but Barbara did not appear.
I had no chance to give back the letter, so I kept it for the next day. Before I could do so, however, the young man came to my room.
His eyes were red with weeping, and his voice was broken. He spoke of his misery with so much feeling that I grew uneasy. A despair of that sort can hurry a man toward follies he will not be able to repair.
I could not withhold from him the consolation which I knew it was in my power to give.
This was my first error in this fatal business; I was the victim of my own kindness.
He read the letter again and again.
He kissed it, pressed it to his lips, embraced me, thanked me for saving his life, and then begged me to carry his answer to the girl, saying that she must need comfort as much as he did.
He assured me that his reply could not compromise me, and even gave me leave to read it.
It was long, but it said little beyond what love always says when it is still too hopeful to be wise. He promised constancy, lamented the obstacle between them, and nourished himself on vows that could not be fulfilled.
Yet I was wrong to accept the character of Mercury to the two young lovers. To refuse, I had only to recollect that Father Georgi would certainly have disapproved of my easy compliance.
The next day I found M. Dalacqua in bed, his illness having robbed him of much of his usual force. Barbara gave me my lesson in his room, and I could not help thinking that perhaps she had already won her pardon.
While her father lay there listening with half-closed eyes, I found a moment to place her lover's letter in her hand.
She took it deftly and let it slip into her pocket. Yet the colour in her cheeks would have betrayed her had her father been looking that way.
When the lesson was over, I told M. Dalacqua that I should not come the next day, since it was the feast of Saint Ursula, one of those eleven thousand princesses and martyr virgins.
That evening, at the reception of his eminence, where I appeared regularly though persons of distinction seldom deigned to speak to me, the Cardinal beckoned me over.
He was standing with the beautiful Marchioness G----, to whom Gama had been indiscreet enough to say that I thought her the handsomest woman among all his eminence's guests.
"Her grace," said the Cardinal, "wishes to know whether you are making good progress in French, which she speaks admirably."
I answered in Italian that I had learned a great deal, but that I was not yet bold enough to speak.
"You should be bold," said the marchioness, "but without showing any pretension. It is the best way to disarm criticism."
My mind having almost unwittingly lent to the words "You should be bold" a meaning which had very likely been far from the idea of the marchioness, I turned very red, and the handsome speaker, observing it, changed the conversation and dismissed me.
At seven the next morning I was at Donna Cecilia's door.
The phaeton stood ready, and beside it a vis-à-vis for two, so light and so well hung that Donna Cecilia praised it the moment she seated herself.
"I shall have my turn as we return to Rome," said Lucrezia.
I bowed to her as if in acceptance of her promise.
Lucrezia thus set suspicion at defiance in order to prevent suspicion arising.
By that single act she secured our peace, and I, no longer on guard, let my spirits rise with the morning. I ordered a splendid dinner, and we set out for the Villa Ludovisi.
We had agreed to meet again at the inn at one o'clock, since our walks might carry us in different directions.
The discreet widow took the arm of her son in law. Angelique stayed with her sister. Ursula went bounding about with her brother.
Lucrezia was left to me, and before a quarter of an hour had passed I had her all to myself.
"Did you remark," she said, "with what candour I secured for us two hours of delightful 'tete-a-tete', and a 'tete-a-tete' in a 'vis-a-vis', too! How clever Love is!"
"Yes, darling, Love has made but one of our two souls. I adore you, and if I have the courage to pass so many days without seeing you it is in order to be rewarded by the freedom of one single day like this."
"I did not think it possible," she said. "But you have managed it all very well. You know too much for your age, dearest."
"A month ago, my beloved," I answered, "I was but an ignorant child, and you are the first woman who has initiated me into the mysteries of love. Your departure will kill me, for I could not find another woman like you in all Italy."
"What! am I your first love?" she said. "Alas! you will never be cured of it. Oh! why am I not entirely your own? You are also the first true love of my heart, and you will be the last. How great will be the happiness of my successor! I should not be jealous of her, but what suffering would be mine if I thought that her heart was not like mine!"
Lucrezia saw the tears in my eyes and her own began to fall.
We sat down upon the grass, and there, with the sweetness of our grief mixed with our delight, our lips drank our tears amidst the sweetest kisses.
How sweet is the nectar of the tears shed by love, when that nectar is relished amidst the raptures of mutual ardour!
I have often tasted them -those delicious tears, and I can say knowingly that the ancient physicians were right, and that the modern are wrong.
When the first transport had somewhat spent itself, I looked about and saw that we were both in disorder. I told her we might be surprised.
"Do not fear, my best beloved," she said, "we are under the guardianship of our good angels."
We had fallen silent and were recovering ourselves by looking into each other's eyes, when Lucrezia suddenly turned her head to the right and cried out,
"Look there! idol of my heart, have I not told you so? Yes, the angels are watching over us! Ah! how he stares at us! He seems to try to give us confidence. Look at that little demon; admire him! He must certainly be your guardian spirit or mine."
I thought she was delirious.
"What are you saying, dearest? I do not understand you. What am I to admire?"
"Do you not see that beautiful serpent with the blazing skin, which lifts its head and seems to worship us?"
I looked where she pointed and saw a serpent of changing colours, about three feet long, coiled in the grass and indeed seeming to watch us.
I was not particularly pleased at the sight, but I could not show myself less courageous than she was.
"What!" said I, "are you not afraid?"
"I tell you, again, that the sight is delightful to me, and I feel certain that it is a spirit with nothing but the shape, or rather the appearance, of a serpent."
"And if the spirit came gliding along the grass and hissed at you?"
"I would hold you tighter against my bosom, and set him at defiance. In your arms Lucrezia is safe. Look! the spirit is going away. Quick, quick! He is warning us of the approach of some profane person, and tells us to seek some other retreat to renew our pleasures. Let us go."
We rose and walked slowly toward Donna Cecilia and the advocate, who were just coming out of a neighboring alley.
We did not hasten, nor did we avoid them. It might have seemed the most natural thing in the world to meet by chance.
I asked Donna Cecilia whether her daughter feared serpents.
"In spite of all her strength of mind," she answered, "she is dreadfully afraid of thunder, and she will scream with terror at the sight of the smallest snake. There are some here, but she need not be frightened, for they are not venomous."
I was speechless with astonishment, for I discovered that I had just witnessed a wonderful love miracle.
At that moment the children came up, and without ceremony we separated again.
"Tell me, wonderful being, bewitching woman, what would you have done if, instead of your pretty serpent, you had seen your husband and your mother?"
"Nothing. Do you not know that, in moments of such rapture, lovers see and feel nothing but love? Do you doubt having possessed me wholly, entirely?"
Lucrezia, in speaking thus, was not composing a poetical ode; she was not feigning fictitious sentiments; her looks, the sound of her voice, were truth itself!
"Are you certain," I enquired, "that we are not suspected?"
"My husband does not believe us to be in love with each other," she said, "or else he does not mind such trifling pleasures as youth is generally wont to indulge in. My mother is a clever woman, and perhaps she suspects the truth, but she is aware that it is no longer any concern of hers. As to my sister, she must know everything, for she cannot have forgotten the broken-down bed; but she is prudent, and besides, she has taken it into her head to pity me. She has no conception of the nature of my feelings towards you. If I had not met you, my beloved, I should probably have gone through life without realizing such feelings myself; for what I feel for my husband.... well, I have for him the obedience which my position as a wife imposes upon me."
"And yet he is most happy, and I envy him! He can clasp in his arms all your lovely person whenever he likes! There is no hateful veil to hide any of your charms from his gaze."
"Oh! where art thou, my dear serpent? Come to us, come and protect us against the surprise of the uninitiated, and this very instant I fulfil all the wishes of him I adore!"
We passed the morning in repeating that we loved each other, and in exchanging over and over again substantial proofs of our mutual passion.
By noon our passion had made us cheerful rather than idle, and we sat down to a delicious dinner.
I devoted myself to Donna Cecilia, while my little tortoiseshell snuff-box, filled with excellent snuff, made the round of the table more than once.
At one point it was in Lucrezia's hands, for she sat on my left. Her husband, seeing this, said that if I had no objection, she might give me her ring and keep the box in exchange.
Thinking that the ring was not of as much value as my box, I immediately accepted, but I found the ring of greater value.
Lucrezia would not, however, listen to anything on that subject. She put the box in her pocket, and thus compelled me to keep her ring.
Dessert was nearly over, and the talk had grown lively, when the intended husband of Angelique drew our attention to a sonnet he had composed and dedicated to me.
I thanked him, slipped it into my pocket, and promised him one in return.
This was not what he wanted.
He expected me to feel the sting of rivalry, to demand paper and pen, and to waste on Apollo the hours I preferred to give to another god whom his cold nature knew only by name.
We drank our coffee, I settled the bill, and we wandered into the winding paths of the Villa Aldobrandini.
That villa has left me sweet memories. I seemed to see my divine Lucrezia there for the first time.
Our looks were alight, our hearts beat with the same impatience, and instinct itself seemed to guide us toward a hidden refuge that Love had prepared for us in advance.
In the middle of a long avenue, under a thick canopy of leaves, we found a broad seat of grass, protected by a dense thicket.
From there we could see far across the plain and along the avenue in either direction, so that surprise was impossible.
We did not require to exchange one word at the sight of this beautiful temple so favourable to our love; our hearts spoke the same language.
Our hands were quick to do away with all obstacles, and to reveal, in the freedom of nature, those charms which clothing is made to conceal.
Two whole hours were devoted to the most delightful, loving ecstasies. At last we cried out together, in one breath of delight, "O Love, we thank thee!"
We slowly made our way back toward the carriages, still possessed by that fullness of happiness which makes the body seem lighter than it is.
Lucrezia told me that Angelique's suitor was rich, that he owned a fine villa at Tivoli, and that he would most likely invite us all to dine and spend the night there.
"I pray the god of love," she added, "to grant us a night as beautiful as this day has been."
Then, looking sad, she said, "But alas! the ecclesiastical lawsuit which has brought my husband to Rome is progressing so favourably that I am mortally afraid he will obtain judgment all too soon."
The return to the city took two hours.
We were alone in my vis-à-vis, and youth, when it is happy, never knows how to be sparing. We demanded too much of nature, and she yielded all she could.
As Rome drew near, we were forced to let the curtain fall before the end of the drama, though the actors had given themselves complete satisfaction.
I returned home tired, but sleep, which is a faithful physician at my age, restored me fully.
The next morning I took my French lesson at the usual hour.