Thomas Adolphus Trollope

“ That is one way for a girl to tell a man that she cannot love him. That don't bind her, I suppose, always to hate all the men she ever sees."
"But I told him, Lisa,"—and here the little panting groans became out-and-out sobs, and the difficulty with the handkerchief became so complicated that the fingers began to twitch and jerk at it in impatient desperation,—"I told him that I did not hate him!"
"Giulia! you told him that you hated all other men, and did not hate him. Oh, Giulia! ”

“ Like to live at Bella Luce! She, the poor, portionless, destitute orphan! No doubt!—said old Paolo Vanni. And oh, what agony it had been to hear and see his sneer, as he spoke the words! Would nobody else say and think the same? If she were to suffer dear, honest Beppo to love her, would not the world also sneer, and say, that she liked to live at Bella Luce,—especially as its mistress? And could she endure that? Would not men tell each other, that the worst day’s work old Paolo Vanni ever did, was when he brought the orphan girl home to be received into his family? ”

“ There were plenty who would like to live always at Bella Luce. Was there not Lisa Bartoldi, a city lady, as fair and dainty as snow, and as rich as a Jew, ready to give him all the love of her heart! Oh! no fear of his pining!
And then she told herself that it was a lie—a wicked lie to say so! She knew that Beppo would never love Lisa Bartoldi. She knew that he would not console himself. She knew that none other than she could console him. She knew that he could love no other! And yet she must be mute, and say no word. She must be hard—hard as marble! cold, indifferent, gay as ever! ”

“ Beppo’s eyes glared with rage and indignation; and assuredly his whole appearance was very little like that of one meeting an old friend, to say nothing of an old love, with pleasure.
Giulia, too, was to a certain degree moved, and to a certain degree embarrassed by the presence of the corporal at her skirts and in her conscience. But when was ever a woman embarrassed under circumstances of the kind, let their difficulty be what it may, as a man is embarrassed.
Giulia’s blood rushed to her face and neck, but she did not lose for an instant either her faculty of speech or her presence of mind ”

“ If cousin Giulia had been out of the question, really Beppo might have done worse than make up to Lisa Bartoldi, the rich Fano attorney’s only daughter; as his father, and Don Evandro, and Lisa’s father, old Sandro Bartoldi, wished him to do.
“Ay, if cousin Giulia were out of the question! as she would have been if Paolo Vanni had never taken her to live at Bella Luce.”
“See what comes of doing a charitable action, and sacrificing one’s own interest to one’s goodness of heart! It’s always the way!” ”

“ Yes, I dare say, she was in love with the broad acres of Bella Luce. Ah, it was a bad day for the Vannis when that sly baggage came into the house;—and she without a smock to her back. Why, if it had not been for her wiles and lures, Beppo might have had old Sandro Bartoldi’s daughter; and what a match that would have been!
And then the women would smile, and cast their eyes down, and say that a woman could always bring a man to her lure—if she chose to do so! Only it is not every woman, nor many women, thank Heaven! ”

“ I’ll have no love,” said Giulia, now sobbing beyond her power to conceal it. “No love—no love—” he said amid her sobs, while a little nervous movement of her foot on the grass and the convulsive wreathing together of her fingers as she held them in front of her bosom, showed the extremity of her agitation; “no love—” she repeated,—“save yours,” was upon her tongue. She had all but said it. She felt as if she would have given worlds to say it; but she choked it down, and said instead, “Oh, Beppo, how can you make me so miserable?” ”

“ Beppo was there alone. The other young men from his commune had come up together; but he had felt too miserable and down-hearted to come with them. Yet there was little in their comradeship, that would have jarred upon his melancholy mood. The lads of the French rural district, though abhorring the conscription to the full as much as these Romagnoles could do will go to the fatal urn, singing and laughing, hiding the death in their hearts from every eye, and from their own consciousness as far as noise and bluster, and “Dutch courage,” will enable them to do so. ”

“ Were I a father, I would rather see my son in his coffin than see him taken by the accursed conscription.”
The father and mother and the two sons listened to this outburst with awe and terror. And the old farmer began to fear that he should certainly be expected to turn out his hoards, in order to buy his son off destruction, temporal and eternal.
“It is a very bad business,” said the old man, scratching his head; “I don’t see what is to be done in it—not I! Suppose our Beppo should be drawn, your reverence; what can a poor man like me do?” ”

“ But of all the appurtenances and appendages which the English farmer possesses, and the Italian farmer does not possess, that of which the Englishman would least tolerate the absence, and the presence of which would be least cared for by the Italian, would be a garden. On that charmingly sheltered hill-side in front of the house, on that magnificent terrace on either side of it, situations that seem calculated to inspire the idea of creating a little paradise, if it had never occurred to any man before, no inhabitant of Bella Luce has ever dreamed of creating anything of the kind. ”

“ Corporal Tenda was a model corporal of Bersaglieri, small, light-made, wiry, active, with a shrewd, good-tempered, bright, sunburnt face, a frank, bold blue eye, and a bush of short, crisp, curly brown hair;—a dangerous man for a rival in the good graces of a high-mettled girl, though not comparable either in face or in person to the handsome, stalwart, classical-featured Romagnole. But if his limbs were nimbler than those of the Herculean-proportioned Beppo, his wit was far more so. A ready wit is not generally the distinguishing characteristic of the Piedmontese ”

“ I should not much fancy having Signor Beppo Vanni for a rival myself, corporal!”
“Oh, as for that,” said the little corporal, drawing himself up, “it’s not always the big hulking fellows that the girls like best—not at all! And besides, Master Beppo did not go the right way to make any girl fancy him. He was as savage as a bear, and seemed more inclined to blow her up, the poor little darling! by way of making love, than anything else. Now Giulia is not the girl to stand that sort of thing. She is as good as gold. But she won’t stand preaching from her cousin Beppo, if I know her.” ”

“ Was it not for the defence of his native land, for service on Italian ground that he was needed? Such considerations were urged on the young men of Romagna in vain. Native land! Their native land was Romagna,—the flank of the Apennine, the banks of the Metauro, the shore of the Adriatic, the fat soil and fertile fields which make their district the granary of Italy. To their imagination Piedmont was as much a foreign country as France, or as China! A country the ways and manners, and, above all, the language of which were utterly and distastefully different from their own. ”