Francesco Domenico Guerrazzi

“ Yes, an infamous love burns within me; a love to make even the angels weep. O holy Mary, do not look into my soul! All the saints in Paradise, even thou, immaculate Virgin! would'st blush for shame to behold my secret heart.
"And yet this passion burns so secretly, that no one, looking on my pale face, could say: 'Behold an adulteress!' Who among the living can tell whether guilt or grief consumes me? As a sepulchral lamp burns, lighting up human skeletons without diffusing its rays abroad, so my love lives within my soul, shining upon the miserable relics of my contaminated virtue. ”

“ I am determined to kill myself and to kill"——
"Holy Mother of God, Lelio, have pity on your mother; think of your own mother who is expecting you."
"My mother! Yes, cruel woman, you feel pity for my mother. You have taken a son from her, and give her back a corpse. I know neither mother, father, nor myself, none; you alone are my life, my blood. Isabella, have mercy on Lelio; I am in your hands. Do you wish me to be a hero? I will be one. A murderer? I will. Do you ask me to throw myself down from the balcony which I scaled with such difficulty, to come to you? ”

“ Should I, with a soul borne down by grief, dare to fly from the sad prison of the body? Should I, unsummoned, give wings to my life, and take shelter under the cloak of God's pardon? Will the arms of God open to receive or to repulse me? And am I not indeed wholly wicked? O God, dost thou not penetrate into our hearts, and see how sin has corroded them? In this bitter contest I defend that part 18 of me which will turn to dust; the other, which has immortal life, is forever lost. Whether I remain or fly, whether I give up or resist, Isabella, thou art lost—lost forever! ”

“ Cecchino, pale with rage, pushed Mary with so much force from him that she fell against the bed, and upon the child.
Overcome by surprise, anger, fear, and by the turn of affairs, she could not utter a word: but her anger soon gave place to pity. Her heart was almost broken by so many conflicting emotions: she glided from the bed, and knelt down, crossing her hands humbly, before her angry husband. But he, becoming more enraged at this act, muttered:
"No ... you must die ... we must all die ... there is no pity ... I want none for myself ... ”

“ I can so do that your names shall be recalled with pride by your relatives; I can so do that the hand of the most noble knight of Christendom shall be stretched towards yours without esteeming it dishonored...."—And those poor men cried with one voice:—"Alas! our Lord, have mercy upon us! Give us at least the chance of dying in battle."—"Be it so," replied Marcantonio, "I give you your liberty: do not move from your posts: I return on deck: when you hear the sound of a trumpet, be ready, and at the second blast, bend to your oars with the greatest strength that nature has given you. ”

“ Reaching her room, Isabella put down the lamp near the cradle of an infant. Marvellously beautiful was the workmanship of the cradle, all inlaid with gold; no less so the velvet counterpane embroidered with beautiful golden leaves, and the silken and gold draperies trimmed with lace of priceless value. Whoever has seen, in the gallery of the Pitti Palace, the portrait of the child Leopoldo dei Medici, who was afterwards a cardinal, may easily form an idea of how this child was adorned; but the most marvellous sight of all was the child itself, which was incredibly beautiful. ”

“ Lelio, trance-like, followed her, as if unconscious of what he had done. Isabella quickly approached a table, and took a little silver bell resolutely in her hand; then paused suddenly, as if "at war 'twixt will and will not;" already a milder thought seemed to bloom amid this storm of passion, although anger predominated; as we sometimes see the fury of the winds striving with the fury of the waves; but when the wind is calmed, and the glorious light of the sun again shining forth, the roaring of the angry and turbulent billows still continues. ”

“ To the country, say I, to the country; we cannot breathe at ease in these prisons which they call cities; an oppression weighs upon the breast and vexes the heart. Let us see if there we can still be melancholy. I wish to see you merry; I will make you all cheerful, or I am not Paolo Giordano Orsini, Duke of Bracciano. Listen, Isabella; I have determined to pay a visit to his Highness your brother; Virginio shall go with me; and having, as is proper, rendered my due respects to him, I shall immediately take leave, and we can go, without delaying any longer in town, to our beautiful Cerreto. ”

“ See, I will not be angry with you, but if this is not enough, think of my eternal salvation."
"And if I should kill myself with my own hands; if I should be lost through you, do you think that your soul could be saved if it were the cause of my losing mine?"
"I have sinned, and I bear the penalty of my sin, and what you now inflict upon me is no less bitter. You see me humbled before you. Where is my pride? Behold I am a contrite sinner at the feet of my servant. Leave me the virtue of repentance. Our souls, by penitence, can become as pure as baptism makes them." ”

“ As to Don Pietro, hardened to every kind of vice, forgetful not only of princely dignity, but even of what belonged to a man, Isabella could place as little reliance upon him. Alas! in so much sorrow, she found herself alone! No one could aid her with counsel or help. Bitter thoughts now took possession of her, and these thoughts left their trace in a furrow upon her brow and a wound in her heart, such as God alone could heal, or death steep in oblivion.
Lelio, opening the door of the saloon, announced:
"The illustrious knight, Lionardo Salviati, desires to see your Ladyship." ”

“ Oh, how much better would it have been for me to have won for myself either renown or an honorable death——"
"What? In guarding my honor, Troilo, can you possibly have drawn dishonor upon yourself?"
"No; but I think it would have been more desirable to have been at the Curzolares."
"Learn, Troilo, that in every station where a man conducts himself as an honorable knight, he may win honor. Come, now, to oblige me, try him."
And Troilo did try; but his arm trembled so that he could hardly hold his sword; he kept merely upon the defensive, and soon, as if wearied, lowered his weapon. ”

“ Catherine dei Medici, a woman with baby kings in her arms, with power weaker than theirs, indeed without power, did much more for France than they; events did not allow her to be milder, nor was she more cruel than the manners of her times, and I should like to be told if Louis XI., if Richelieu, if Francis, if Henry, if Guise, if Coligny himself were any better than she. And, nevertheless, the memory of Catherine dei Medici is held in perpetual infamy in France; not a generation but curses her in passing, and imprecates heavily upon her head the marble of the tomb and the vengeance of God! ”

“ The voice of the Eternal, like unto the roaring of a thousand oceans in the storm, will return to peal throughout the endless solitude of darkness and abyss. Of so immense a variety of created things there will not remain an echo, nor a memory, nor even a shadow;—as the eye seeks, and finds not the drop fallen into the sea; as the eye seeks, and finds not the star which falls from the firmament in summer nights; so time will be hurled into the depth of eternity;—this terrible mother will smother her child pressed in her arms, and will bury him in her bosom. ”

“ When the jealous husband heard this, he felt as if struck by a dagger in the middle of his heart.
Titta finally arrived (since all, living or dead, must come to some end) at the Duke's palace: he pulled the bell-rope four or five times, but no one answered. "It is evident," he said to himself, "that the husband is away, and is not expected home; and if husbands take a notion to arrive suddenly, they must pay the penalty of their rudeness: but I, not being a husband, will not wait, but put a remedy to it at once." ”

“ Lelio, my son, be calm; I, with deep blushes, understand the depth of your love; even after death, I will preserve a memory of you; you love more than men usually do; but listen to the prayer of one fallen into a gulf of misery; listen as if your mother was speaking; have pity upon me, hear the prayer a dying woman makes you from her inmost heart, for I know that I have not long to live, nor does the knowledge grieve me. ”

“ Let us then adorn the brows of our heroes with poppies, let sleep be the Epic of our age, yawning its history. Greater life awaits us in the grave than on this earth, at least during the period of putrefaction. No one can give us reasonable reproof: we are for the age, the age for us: the niche and the saint harmonize wonderfully. Why wear ourselves out in procuring a fame we hate? Why attend to studies which make us doubt an existence, which we with all kinds of violence try to steep in oblivion? ”

“ The man who has seen too much, like Delia contemplating the sun, has become blind with too much light; his heart has turned to ashes, he is not exalted by anything, has faith in nothing; virtue and crime, morality and vice, sound the same to him, they are like sweet fruits in one country, and poisonous ones in another, the fault of the earth or the climate: the soul is to him a breath which ceases with death, home the place where he shelters his head from the storm: God a name. ”

“ There have been, and perhaps there still are, men who love their country more than themselves; but an acute observer will easily understand that sacrificing one's life (compared to which, everything else seems but of little value) is generally induced by a great love of praise and an uncontrollable thirst for fame; and that in truth they love renown better than life. The soul should be neither a Menade nor a Bacchante through the fields of knowledge; science has its fatal orgies, more than dissipation; the waters do not always flow clear, fresh, and sweet from its urn ”

“ And this sad day of reckoning had come and passed for Isabella and Troilo, and by this time who knows how often they had summed it up! The truth of this history obliges us to confess that the lady had found herself at a great disadvantage, which fact contributed in no small degree to alienate the lovers. Indeed Isabella possessed an ardent love for true art, and for the pleasures of science; an apt and happy talent, and a very great enthusiasm; great kindness of disposition, sympathetic feelings, noble manners, lady-like elegance, and a courtesy truly regal. The sentiment of love remains. ”