to my last day of bliss.
You would have supposed that she could hardly have misunderstood the state of my affairs, had I said or done nothing. So quick-witted was she, it is inconceivable. But as time went on, and success with it, I quite got out of the way of concealment, and spoke of myself openly as her slave. She used to laugh at me, pretend to think me an absurd boy; and now and then threatened (and that half in jest) to tell her husband. I know very well that she never did. The padron, we used to call him to each other, having taken the name from old Nonna. It was one of our little foolish jokes to pretend the house an inn, he the landlord, and ourselves travellers met there by hazard. We had a many familiar, private sayings and nicknames of the sort, secret cues to look across the table when he was there, and smile at each other--as when he railed (as he was fond of doing) at Tuscan ways and speech, at the usage of Siena, her own country, or when (after his meal) he made a noise, sucking his teeth. Sweetly pleasant, dangerous days--were they as lovely to her as to me? How can I tell? There was no doubt but she knew me thoroughly. The little pleasant encroachments of mine, stolen upon her unawares, were now never checked--I am speaking of the end of my first year, when I could hold her hand unreproved, and kiss it as often as I pleased. I took and kept, and exhibited to her without embarrassment, little trifles of hers--a hair-ribbon, a garter, a little trodden Venice slipper; if she asked for them back, it only provoked me to keep them closer to my heart. She saw no harm in these foolish, sweet things: she felt herself to be my senior; by comparison with her position, mine was that of a child. To the very end she maintained the fiction that she was my foster-mother, responsible to my parents for my advancement in education and morals. Assuredly she taught me her tongue and kept me out of gross iniquity; but equally certain is it that I learned more than Italian.
I learned, however, to be very fluent in that, for, inspired by love of Aurelia, I attacked it with extraordinary passion. All Italy, and above all Tuscany, took sacred air from her; there grew to be an aureole about everything which owned kinship with her. I was a severe ritualist, as every lover is: it became a blasphemy in me to think of Aurelia in any form of words but those of her own honey tongue. And that was of the purest in the land. She had very little Venetian at any time, and kept what she had for her husband and household management. To me she employed her native speech, not the harsh staccato of Florence, a stringent compound of the throat and the teeth, but the silken caressing liquids of Siena, the speech of women to their lovers, of St. Catherine to her Spouse. So I became expert in Tuscan, and after the same fashion in Tuscany also. She was deeply and burningly proud of that land of art and letters; she knew something of its history, something (if not much) of its monuments. Such as it was it sufficed me. Inspired by her, I began the study of literature, and if at first I read disingenuously, I went on to read with profit. The "Vita Nova" of Dante enabled me, perhaps, to touch upon topics with her which I could not have dared to do without its moving text; but it won me to the heart of the great poet. I walked the dire circles of Hell, I scaled the Mount of Purgatory, I flew from ring to ring of the Heaven of pure light. Aurelia was my Beatrice; but the great Florentine and his lady were necessarily of the party. And then I began, as men will, to take the lead. Aurelia had exhausted her little store when she had named Giotto and Dante: I took her further afield. We read the Commentaries of Villani, Malavolti's History of Siena, the Triumphs of Petrarch, his Sonnets (fatal pap for young lovers), the Prince of Machiavelli, the Epics of Pulci and Bojardo, and Ariosto's dangerously honeyed pages. Here Aurelia was content to follow me, and I found teaching her to be as sweet in the mouth as learning of her had been. I took enormous pains and consumed half the night in preparation for the morrow's work. I abridged Guicciardini's intolerable History, I hacked sense out of Michael Angelo's granite verses, weeded Lorenzo of disgustfulness, Politian of pedantry. The last thing we read together was the Aminta of Tasso; the last thing I had of her was the "Little Flowers of St. Francis," a favourite book of her devotion. My Saint, she called St. Francis of Assisi--as in one sense no doubt he was; but, "Aurelia," I had replied, kissing both her hands, "you know very well who is my saint. I should have been named Aurelius." She had said, "It is a good name, Aurelio. There are many who have it in my country." "You shall call me nothing else, "said I then; but she shook her head, and hung it down as she whispered softly, "I like best Francesco," and then, so low as to be hardly audible, "Checho," the Sienese diminutive for my name of Francis. Old Nonna came in to hound me from the room. That night--it was my last but one--Aurelia came to the door with me, and let me kiss her two hands again.
I have come to the hour of my destruction--the 16th of June, 1722. The smouldering fires which had laboured in my breast for nine months burst into a flame which overwhelmed both Aurelia and me. I committed an unpardonable sin, I endeavoured to repair it with an act of well-nigh incredible temerity. What occurred on that night is, in fact, the origin of these Memoirs and their sole justification. The dawn of that momentous day found her a loving and honoured wife; and its close left her, innocent as she was, under the worst suspicion which can fall upon a good woman. It found me a hopeful gentleman of means and prospects; and I went out of it into the dark, a houseless wanderer, to consort with profligates, thieves and murderers.
CHAPTER IV
FATAL AVOWAL
I shall not deny that the overnight's tenderness may have wrought in me the dangerous ecstasy which was to prove so cruel a requital of it; for it is of the nature of love to be inflamed by the least hint of a neighbouring, answering fire. I believe that I could have been for ever Aurelia's mute, adoring, unasking slave, but for the fact that she had sighed, and whispered me "Checho," and twice suffered me to kiss her hands. Fatal benevolence that lifted suddenly the meek! Fatal wealth bestowed that made the pauper purse-proud! I had passed the night in a transport of triumphant joy; throughout the day succeeding it I felt my wings. "Nunc," I could exclaim with Propertius.
"Nunc mihi summa licet sidera contingere plantis." And that exalted strain, which was my perdition, alas, was hers also!
That which followed was a very hot still night, with thunder in the Euganean hills; and Aurelia may have been lax or languid, or in my miserable person some of the summer's fire may have throbbed. It was late, near nine o'clock; already old Nonna had given three warnings of the hour, and was only delaying the last while she stirred the ingredients of the doctor's minestrone over the fire. The knowledge that she must come in, and I go out, shortly, at any moment, fretted my quick senses to fever. I looked for ever at Aurelia with a wildly beating heart; she, on her side, was aware of my agitation, and breathed the shorter for the knowledge. She sat by the open window mending a pair of stays; at her side was her work table, upon that her three-wicked lamp. I leaned over a chair exactly in front of her, watching every slight tremor or movement, just as a dog watches a morsel which he longs for but is forbidden to touch. Thrice a dog that I was! I felt like a dog that night.
We had read little and spoken less; the airless night forbade it; for the last half hour no words had passed between us but a faint, "Ah, go now, go now, Checho," from her, and from me my prayer of "Not yet, not yet--let me stay with you." Aurelia was tired, and now and again put down her work with a sigh, to gaze out of the window into the soft deeps of the night, gemmed as it was with fireflies and wavering moths. How prone is youth to fatuous conceits! I imagined that she suffered with me; I identified her pains with mine; I thought that she loved me and had not the heart to bid me begone. That new wicked feeling of triumph, that new exultation in manly strength, that delirium, that poisonous frenzy, came flooding over me. Some gesture of hers more than commonly eloquent may have set me on fire; I may have seen her tremble, I may have guessed a tear. More insensate folly than mine can be lent by youth on less security than this. For there sat I quivering with love, and there before me, unlaced, in loose attire, in all the luxury of lassitude, breathed and sighed the loveliest of women. I cannot explain what I dare not extenuate: dowering her with my own madness, I forgot her honour, my own, the world, and God. I leaned forward towards her, took her languid hand, and, holding it in my own, said quietly--very quietly, "I love you--you are my soul."
She laughed gently, then sighed. "You must not say so to me, even if it is true," she said. I repeated the words, "I love you--you are my soul," and she was silent.
I said, after a pause, during which I could hear the furious beating of my heart, "I am at my prayers, in my church, before my altar.