Bianca

“ Firm and graceful are the poses into which her figure is thrown as she moves and stands and stoops in the various requirements of her task. Bianca is no wondrous beauty; she has the heavy features and the sallow complexion of her race—she is but a fair sample of our Apennine contadina, only a woman with dark and fervid eyes, with masses of coarse and glossy hair; yet she has a fairness of form and a perfection of graceful strength, that we may not look to find elsewhere, as we find it at every turn amongst the North Italian peasants. ”

“ You who are born in a more temperate climate and under a cooler sky, have little idea of the violence of passion in our southern bosoms.
A few days finished my task; Bianca returned to her convent, but her image remained indelibly impressed upon my heart. It dwelt on my imagination; it became my pervading idea of beauty. It had an effect even upon my pencil; I became noted for my felicity in depicting female loveliness; it was but because I multiplied the image of Bianca. I soothed, and yet fed my fancy, by introducing her in all the productions of my master. ”

“ GUIDO: Honest Simone,
Some other night. To-night I am content
With the low music of Bianca's voice,
Who, when she speaks, charms the too amorous air,
And makes the reeling earth stand still, or fix
His cycle round her beauty.
SIMONE: You flatter her.
She has her virtues as most women have,
But beauty in a gem she may not wear. ”

“ Bianca observed, calmly. "It is much better that you should understand. In three years' time I shall have the management of my own affairs. Well, three years is not a very long time. We, Silvio and I, can afford to wait; and at the end of three years, when I am of age, I shall marry him. But I will not marry Monsieur d'Antin—my uncle."
"Bianca!" exclaimed the princess, "you are either mad, or you are a wicked girl! For the sake of a disgraceful passion for a man in an inferior position of life to your own you rebel against those whom God has placed in authority over you. ”

“ The meeting of soul and spirit is a spring of life. Bianca Maria, don't be ungrateful, don't be cruel; tell me all.'
'You are trying to kill me,' she repeated, desperately and resignedly.
'You are a fool! Do you wish me, your father, to pray to you? Well, I will; there is nothing else to be done. Children are ungrateful and wicked; they give back cruelty for our love. I pray to you, Bianca, I beg of you, as if you were my patron saint, to tell me all.'
'I will die of this, father,' she murmured, her voice choked in the pillows that helped her to curb her crying and sobs. ”

“ He does not know you, but takes you for one of my Lady Hippolita's women. Art thou not ashamed, Bianca! said the Princess: What right have we to pry into the secrets of this young man's heart? he seems virtuous and frank, and tells us he is unhappy: Are those circumstances that authorize us to make a property of him? how are we intitled to his confidence? Lord! Madam, how little you know of love! replied Bianca: Why lovers have no pleasure equal to talking of their mistress. And would you have me become a peasant's confident? ”

“ Bianca with her little snow-white vicious face, so white that it showed pale bluish lights and shadows, her eccentric emaciated elegance of body, her enormous blue eyes fringed by their thick eyelashes that were like bushes and that she plastered with black till they stuck together: Jane, magnificent young animal, strong child amazon, towering shyly above us, looking down on us with her serious wistful gaze, holding out her marvellous hands to Bianca, suspicious of nothing, wanting to be friends—Jane insists that they cared for each other—I can’t admit it. ”

“ Of course once again the unhappy Marchese was entirely routed, and the Diva was victorious. "Forgive me, Bianca,", he whispered; "I think only of you from the morning to the evening, and from the evening to the morning again. And it would be impossible for any man to love, as I love you, without a liability to jealousy. I am jealous of your love, Bianca!" ”

“ One does not like to see grown-up people cry; it is very unpleasant. She said that I did not understand; that what she had done was out of mere friendship and sympathy—for me and for Bianca. I knew she had grown attached to Bianca, Giacinta; she had told me so once before. After all, nobody who saw much of Bianca could help being fond of her. ”

“ The people I loved were too important to me and the people I hated—but I can see now that Bianca wasn’t as interesting or as important as she seemed. She was only a vain and selfish woman after all. But she was for twenty years my obsession.
I must talk about Bianca. It was really in order to talk about Bianca that I asked you to come, for I am not yet rid of her. She haunts me here in this innocent old house. Enigmatic in death as she was in life, her personality persists, [Pg 174] exquisite and depraved and relentless. ”

“ Bianca waited without impatience the coming of the Marchese. She was a study for an artist as she lay perfectly still on her sofa, turning the minutes of expectation to profit by arranging in her mind her plan of attack in the coming battle ”

“ The charms of her face and figure were rendered still more striking by the richness of her attire, and the splendid jewels which sparkled in her hair, on her bosom, and her delicate arms. Much has been said about the witchery of unadorned beauty; but the appearance of Bianca d'Alfieri, arrayed in the splendour of full dress, and adorned with all that wealth and Italian taste could furnish to enhance her natural loveliness, was truly magnificent. ”

“ Just let yourself go, humor the motion of the donkey, and in a little while you will sit like—like Bianca there. Look at that child! All she wants is an infant in her arms!”
They had passed the narrow and stony loops of the path out of the town, and reached the mountain-side, and, as the Signora spoke, Bianca, leading the procession, went round a turn before them and came back higher up. She sat in the saddle as easily as if in a chair, upright, her hands folded in her lap, and her fair face uplifted as she gazed at the great pile of the monastery on the peak above them. ”

“ Then followed secret meetings such as marked Bianca's first unhappy wooing in Venice—hours of rapture for the Tuscan Duke, of flattered submission by the runaway bride; and within a few weeks we find Bianca installed in a palace of her own with Francesco's guards and equipage ever at its door, while his newly made bride, Giovanna, Archduchess of Austria, kept her lonely vigil in the apartments which so seldom saw her husband.
Francesco, indeed, had no eyes or thought for any but the lovely woman who had so completely enslaved him. ”

“ I saw, to-day, at the Corso—by no means intending to look at all at your carriage after it had passed mine—I saw my poor flowers thrown away by you, while you were throwing a bouquet to my nephew and receiving from him something thrown in return. Bianca, is that the conduct of a woman who has the very same morning accepted the hand of another man? Bianca, I warn you to beware; you do not know what such a love as mine, if it should discover itself to be betrayed, might be capable of. ”

“ But the ridiculous side of this ignoble farce lies in too close proximity to its tragic developments, to suffer that a smile should for more than a passing moment replace the horror and reprobation which are the standing moods of mind for the study of Medicean annals. Bianca's triumph was complete for the moment. But on how many chances might the continuance of it hang? How many of the most worthless beings had it in their power to hurl her, with a word, from the height of her success! ”

“ Katherine instantly took off her cap, and threw it down. "Lord!" said Hortensio's wife, "may I never have a cause to sigh till I am brought to such a silly pass!" And Bianca, she too said, "Fie, what foolish duty call you this!" On this Bianca's husband said to her, "I wish your duty were as foolish too! The wisdom of your duty, fair Bianca, has cost me an hundred crowns since dinner-time." "The more fool you," said Bianca, "for laying on my duty." "Katherine," said Petruchio, "I charge you tell these headstrong women what duty they owe their lords and husbands." ”

“ Madam,” said Bianca, “all men use their wives so, when they are weary of them.”
“And yet you congratulated me but now,” said Matilda, “when you fancied my father intended to dispose of me!”
“I would have you a great Lady,” replied Bianca, “come what will. I do not wish to see you moped in a convent, as you would be if you had your will, and if my Lady, your mother, who knows that a bad husband is better than no husband at all, did not hinder you.—Bless me! what noise is that! St. Nicholas forgive me! ”

“ Bianca condescended to say in English, looking critically at my grey merino gown, with its banded bodice, and at my hair braided simply round my head.
"No; but one is engaged."
"And have you any brothers?"
"No; not one."
"And I have not one sister, and two brothers, signorina," cried Bianca, apparently much struck by the contrast. "It is my brother Andrea who is so anxious for me to learn and to read books, although I am past eighteen. He writes about it to my father, and my father always does what Andrea tells him." ”

“ You may judge what a fight for life it was; I did not kill him outright, but I wounded him dangerously.
"That adventure broke my luck. I have never found another Bianca; I have known great pleasures; but among the most celebrated women at the court of Louis XV. I never found my beloved Venetian's charm, her love, her great qualities.
"The Provveditore called his servants, the palace was surrounded and entered; I fought for my life that I might die beneath Bianca's eyes; Bianca helped me to kill the Provveditore. ”

“ I think you will be pleased with Bianca. I was surprised when I came to act it at finding how terribly it affected me, for I am not naturally at all jealous, and in this play, while feigning to be so, it seemed to me that it must be really the most horrible suffering conceivable; I am almost sorry that I can imagine it well enough to represent it well.
You say that we love intellect, but I do not agree with you; I do not think intellect excites love. I do not even think that it increases our love for those we do love, though it adds admiration to our affection. ”

“ BEA. Nay, do not weep!—Come, you must go to bed. You are tired tonight. We rode too far today. [She draws Bianca's head down to her shoulder.] Oh, you are tired, tired, you are very tired. You must be rocked to sleep, and tucked in bed, And have your eyelids kissed to make you dream Of fairies! Come, dear, come. BIA. Oh, I do love you, Rose-Red! You are so sweet! Oh, I do love you So much!—so much! I never loved anyone The way that I love you! There is nobody In all the world so wonderful as you! [She throws her arms about Beatrice and clings to her.] ”

“ Sometimes Bianca felt a pang when she saw her father pass his hand on his eldest daughter’s shoulder; or, but this was very rarely, for M. Garcia was not a demonstrative man, kiss her on the cheek. “After all, he loves Inez best,” Bianca would think awake in her bed; “and is not that right? Inez wants to be looked after; she is so loving; no wonder he loves her best. I should not be jealous; I am strong; I can take care of myself.” During Inez’s illness no mother could have been a better nurse than young Bianca was. ”

“ Lorenzo! What have they To talk about, save things they might much better Leave undiscussed?—you know what I mean,—lovers, And marriage, and all that—if that is all! One never knows—it is impossible To hear what they are saying; they either speak In whispers, or burst out in fits of laughter At some incredible nonsense. There is nothing So silly as young girls at just that age.— At just Bianca's age, that is to say. As for the other,—as for Beatrice, She's older than Bianca, and I'll not have her Putting ideas into my daughter's head! ”

“ For these men Bianca Stella had danced in vain, for—it remains symbolically true—only the pure in heart can see God. To see Bianca Stella truly was to realise that it is not desire but a sacred awe which nakedness inspires, an intoxication of the spirit rather than of the senses, no flame of lust but rather a purifying and exalting fire. To feel otherwise has merely been the unhappy privilege of men intoxicated by the stifling and unwholesome air of modern artificiality. ”

“ Bianca looked at me searchingly. She was a simple little thing as a rule, but this ridiculous story I had manufactured of brigands in the heart of Verona was too much even for her confiding nature, and she made a gesture of disbelief.
"It is not true! it is not true!" she cried vehemently. "Why do you deceive me, Signor?"
"I am not deceiving you."
"An enemy! a false letter! a deserted palace! held captive! Oh, I cannot believe it. If it is true, why did you not rescue him?" ”

“ I do not understand business matters very well, but naturally, so long as Bianca is a minor and unmarried, I must be better off than I shall be afterwards. A great deal will depend upon Bianca's husband. That is what Monsieur l'Abbé always says to me—that we must not be in a hurry to marry Bianca. She must not marry a man who simply wants her titles and money to use them for his own purposes."
"Monsieur l'Abbé is perfectly right," said Baron d'Antin, with a dry little laugh.
The princess glanced at him. "You do not like him," she said. ”

“ Perhaps it was the gradual consciousness that she was debarred from associating with any one of her own age which had made Bianca think wistfully that it would be pleasant to make the acquaintance of the attractive-looking girl whom she passed occasionally on the staircase, and who had come to live under the same roof as herself. She could not but notice that the older she became the more she seemed to be cut off from the society of others of her years. ”